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Dynamic Encounters PTS Feedback


JackieKo

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  • Dev Post

Hi everyone!

Please answer the following questions about Dynamic Encounters. Feel free to also leave overall general feedback. 

Reiterating from the original PTS post, if you are streaming or recording your gameplay while on PTS, we would love to check out the VODs. Seeing players experience the content in real time is incredibly helpful, so feel free to post them here or DM them to me.

Additionally, players will be getting a very early look into 7.6 content at this stage. To set expectations, know that the content that will be released at this time is still a work in progress and not polished. You will run into unfinished work: placeholder art for interactables and NPCs or UI elements, encounters that are functional but have few "polish" touches like special enemy abilities, and even potentially bugs with encounters that prevent them from being completed. That doesn't mean you shouldn't report issues you see--please do!--but it does mean that you will see many improvements to these encounters as we continue development. We're looking forward to your feedback on the system itself and on individual encounters!

  • Was it easy to locate Dynamic Encounters?
  • Were you able to spend your play session going from Encounter to Encounter with little or no downtime?
  • Was there enough variety in Encounter objectives?
  • Did it take a reasonable amount of time to complete Encounters?
  • Did the travel time between Encounters feel reasonable?
  • Was it clear what you needed to do in Encounters?
  • Did you generally understand what your character was being asked to do and why?
  • What was your favorite Encounter and why?
  • What was your least favorite Encounter and why?
  • Please mention any bugs you encountered.

If you are reporting a bug, please clearly state that and if necessary, include steps that would allow us to reproduce said bug.
Please provide any additional comments you have about the system.

Thanks! 
 

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There was 3 of us and we did Imperial Attack! (above) and finished it 100% and fought the walker together, it was fun. It seemed to complete together. Not grouped.

Then we ran to wompfestation. It had a percentage too but my friend (not grouped) was killing stuff while I stood around, and my percentage did not change, and he compelted his while mine was unifinished.

image.png.b2c2fdd95c5092b80a42e352dabee1d5.png

As a new player I'm generally confused on whether progress us shared or not.

 

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In addition, I completed Womfestation by myself. I'm not sure if that make it unavailable for everyone in the world now, or if I can yell at my other friend who is on Corellia and tell them to come to Tatooine because Womfestation is still available for the next twelve minutes, even though I can't see it on my quest tracker anymore.

EDIT: my friend from corellia can see it, but I had no way to know this without yelling at them to come. lol.

image.png.fc1622ab373988fbc4a86e1dfcad5748.png

Edited by LadyAdmiral
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Currently at one on Hoth. Percentage didn't start to go up until after I defeated a walker. Got to 100% and it asked me to defeat a walker, then had to wait several minutes for it to spawn again. It completed for me then. Moving on to other ones.

 

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image.png.c85d3b9b0b6fee2eccdd75696f8659d3.png

Same kind of general confusion here. I saw my friends going around and clicking blue things (not grouped) and it made them unclickable.

But, my percentage did not go up, when watched them click, it only went up when *I* clicked. So I had to wait for them to respawn again.

It was especially confusing because the objects disappear entirely when clicked, so I was running around and saw "nothing" for the quest there because it had been cleaned out by other players.

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I use the old style map and hitting ESC no longer closes the map.

It would be nice to be able to see the timers of all the Dynamic Encounter missions on the world map (in mission tracker area maybe) similar to what you see on the Galaxy map when you zoom into a planet and it has the list of all the current active encounters with the time remaining.

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Ok. Like that not all of them are fighting. Just carried 5 taun fauns up a hill.

Just had one where 2 of us attacked a thing, but only the person who attacked first had it count for them.

Hidden chain lieutenant is not spawning on hidden chain invasion on hoth.

Under Fire! - says to assist the imperial squad... with what? there's nothing here.

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Quote
  • Was it easy to locate Dynamic Encounters?
    • Yes
  • Were you able to spend your play session going from Encounter to Encounter with little or no downtime?
    • Yes, except when other players had "stolen" the objectives so there was none for me to click or kill
  • Was there enough variety in Encounter objectives?
    • So far yes though I only tried like 5 or 6? Some had a big boss, some were normal enemies, some were non combat, it was pretty varied I was surprised. pleasantly. 
  • Did it take a reasonable amount of time to complete Encounters?
    • Yes, not too long except when I got stuck (see above)
  • Did the travel time between Encounters feel reasonable?
    • Yes I actually just stayed on my speeder and walked rather than took a taxi/quicktravel like I normally would because they were close
  • Was it clear what you needed to do in Encounters?
    • For the most part yes, except some seemed bugged (see reports above)
  • Did you generally understand what your character was being asked to do and why?
    • For the most part yes, except some seemed bugged (see reports above)
  • What was your favorite Encounter and why?
    • Gamorreans being yeeted into sarlacc pit lol
    • the thing about the tauntaun puppet above made me laugh really hard I wish I'd done that one
  • What was your least favorite Encounter and why?
    • Just any where I got stuck.
  • Please mention any bugs you encountered.
    • See reports above.

In general, they seem to be working as expected which is cool.

I did have some initial confusion about whether progress is shared or not. But in the end the quests were so fast it didn't matter too much.

My biggest question going forward is "what will the rewards be?" Tech Frags are pretty good. But not unique. And as a low level character, I only got XP. As a long-time player I don't care too much about xp but this might be fun to do while levelling. It's always kind of nice to have a currency I can spend on decorations I can't get any other way because I can earn multiple copies (for example the Feast quest I will now never run aout of things to spend my tokens on because I can buy lamps or garden hangars.)

My other less important question, is how will this work in a group. Waiting for future testing rounds to see this

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  • Was it easy to locate Dynamic Encounters?
    • Yup. Good icons and design.
  • Were you able to spend your play session going from Encounter to Encounter with little or no downtime?
    • Absolutely. Long travel between to find them on the map overlay (I no longer use the minimap), but yes.
  • Was there enough variety in Encounter objectives?
    • For now yes. Expecting more in the future.
  • Did it take a reasonable amount of time to complete Encounters?
    • Yup. Not too long, but also not too quick.
  • Did the travel time between Encounters feel reasonable?
    • As above, nope. But then again they're on the two least populated planets with huge gaps of nothing between locations.
  • Was it clear what you needed to do in Encounters?
    • Very clear. Well worded.
  • Did you generally understand what your character was being asked to do and why?
    • Indeed I did.
  • What was your favorite Encounter and why?
    • Has to be between the Sarlaac yeets and the Sand Worm. Both fun for different reasons.
  • What was your least favorite Encounter and why?
    • Probably the wind farm one on Tatooine. Just running between glowies for a few minutes.
  • Please mention any bugs you encountered.
    • Just the regular PTS issues (no legacy until naming it, inventory locked at 30 slots, servers were just starting up, etc.)
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  • Was it easy to locate Dynamic Encounters? Yes, very clear on the map and once you reached the area the encounter was triggered.  A few took a little running around before triggering but overall pretty smooth. 
  • Were you able to spend your play session going from Encounter to Encounter with little or no downtime? I was able to complete 16 encounters on Tatooine before no respawns.  After about a 10 minute wait all encounters started repopping.
  • Was there enough variety in Encounter objectives?  Yes, overall mostly combat based.  Might be nice to have a couple puzzles or something similar worked in. 
  • Did it take a reasonable amount of time to complete Encounters? Yes
  • Did the travel time between Encounters feel reasonable?  Yes, pretty good distance between encounters. 
  • Was it clear what you needed to do in Encounters?  For the most part.  Some you had to run around a bit for the mission objectives to trigger. 
  • Did you generally understand what your character was being asked to do and why? yes
  • What was your favorite Encounter and why?  I liked the Gamorean encounter, also the one that included defeating a walker. 
  • What was your least favorite Encounter and why?  Don't really have one.  Some were just a little harder to complete depending on population at the point.  Too many players in one area. 
  • Please mention any bugs you encountered.  The only bug was some encounters don't trigger as you enter the area.  But after moving around a bit and returning to the mark it triggered.  UPDATE:  i did experience bugs when killing one of the walkers on Republic Attack.  No matter how many times I killed the walker the mission did not progress.  Also, on Hidden Chain Invasion on Tatooine the Hidden Chain Lieutenant would not spawn.  The beacon to summon was not active either.  
Edited by darthxenix
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So for context, I just finished the two Republic achievements, so I've completed 50 at the moment.

  • Was it easy to locate Dynamic Encounters?

Yes very easy to find.

  • Were you able to spend your play session going from Encounter to Encounter with little or no downtime?

Yes. I do feel like Tatooine might be in need of a few more active encounters at a time though as I was able to completely exhaust the map. This didn't cause me downtime though as the last one I completed was my 25th one.

  • Was there enough variety in Encounter objectives?

Hoth, absolutely. Tatooine...it is close. I enjoyed the stupid ones on Hoth like taking Taun Fawns up a sheet of ice so they can slide. While Tatooine did have some of those, it felt a little more combat focused. I wouldn't say the mix is wrong, but it is right on the edge of it.

  • Did it take a reasonable amount of time to complete Encounters?

I would say yes for the non-combat ones. For the combat ones, some of them felt like they were dragging. These might have been ones that were meant as group effort, but I can't always tell whether they are meant to be or not. Respawn timers for some things like unique enemies or interactable objects felt a little long due to the number of people going after some of them at the same time. I remember there is  mission to destroy spice on the SE part of the Dune Sea. Had four people running around in circles waiting from the spice to respawn. For unique enemy bosses, might make sense to add an interactable to spawn them in case someone from the other faction was fighting it the moment you showed up.

  • Did the travel time between Encounters feel reasonable?

Yes.

  • Was it clear what you needed to do in Encounters?

Generally yes. The only one that I'm still sort of confused on is the treasure hunting one where you have to buy items. I assume the intent is to guess the right one with a 20% chance, but sometime when I used an item no snow pile formed, and I don't know if that means the item glitched, the pile formed and I don't see it, or if it is how it is supposed to work.

  • Did you generally understand what your character was being asked to do and why?

Yes for every mission that have VO. There were some that just didn't have any, but I assume that falls under the unfinished assets part.

I should note that some of the VOs were alien speech, which would be a problem on Live since I don't have NPC chatter on on my Live setup. Also normally have my chat minimized. XD

  • What was your favorite Encounter and why?

Helping Taun Fawns get to slide because that was adorable. Second place goes to ice fishing. Third place goes to the lava suit. Reall just put all of the silly non-combat ones at the top of the list.

  • What was your least favorite Encounter and why?

That is a tough one. I don't know if I had a single specific one that I disliked more than any other. I would say that the class of "kill 40+ mobs" was my least favorite with none of the ones in that class particularly standing out. The one where everyone in the area shares progress are fine, but I know there were some of those that didn't share progress.

  • Please mention any bugs you encountered.

On Hoth I had one of the three Brother quests active on Pub side. When I went to the location, there two copies of one of the three Brothers as both an enemy and a green NPC. I think what happened here is that a different Brother quest was active Imp side? I'm not 100% sure, but I fought the guy who was there initially, then the guy that I needed to kill respawned (as he was dead when I arrived), I killed the first guy, and then the fight took so long that the first guy respawned while I was fighting the guy I needed. Whole thing was a mess. They should either be moved to different locations or have logic that prevents them from triggering at the same time even from different factions.

Also on Hoth, I was following active dynamic encounters, and ended up in the Imp starting area. I had two active Dynamic Encounters there, and both of them had me fighting Pubs (even got the achievement for killing 50 Pubs on Hoth from the two encounters). I don't think I was supposed to be able to get those. XD

I'm not sure if progress sharing with everyone in an area is working on any of the Hoth quests. I did both Imperial Attack (on the Pub starting zone) and the Hidden Chain quest with other people in the area, and I didn't notice anything going up. I actually I was remembering the introduction video wrong and that just wasn't a thing till I came across it on Tatooine pretty quickly.

There is one mission on Hoth (I think Hidden Chain?) where you can call in reinforcements. This is does not help. When the NPC reinforcements did too much damage to an enemy then I noticed that I wasn't getting credit. So it looked to me like I was actually making things longer by calling them in.

Non-Bug Thoughts

I'm not a fan of the percentage completion on a lot of the quests. Even less of a fan of how the quests just randomly switched between them. I liked percentage when it was a shared quest since I won't in theory need to get all of the kills. But I know the percentages were used in some quests that are solely soloable, and they made it hard to judge how much I had left to do since the percentage for each kill changed between each mission. So 80% could mean 2 kills left or 12.

Also might make sense to add a tag to Dynamic Event names to indicate when a mission shares progress with people in an area. Probably not [Shared], but I'm sure there is something that can be used.

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  • Was it easy to locate Dynamic Encounters?

    Very easy
     
  • Were you able to spend your play session going from Encounter to Encounter with little or no downtime?

    Yep
     
  • Was there enough variety in Encounter objectives?

    Yes
     
  • Did it take a reasonable amount of time to complete Encounters?

    Yes
     
  • Did the travel time between Encounters feel reasonable?

    Yes
     
  • Was it clear what you needed to do in Encounters?

    Not all the time, there was no marker for Bad Exchange 2 on Tatooine Imp side for example

     
  • Did you generally understand what your character was being asked to do and why?

    No. Sometimes it's self explanatory, others it is not. 

    Example: Maintaining Order, Imp Side. Intimidate Outlaws objective. Killing them doesn't increment the counter

     
  • What was your favorite Encounter and why?

    Sarlacc Snacktime - Absolutely hilarious blasting the Gamorreans into the Sarlacc Pit
     
  • What was your least favorite Encounter and why?

    See the bugged section
     
  • Please mention any bugs you encountered.

    Many missions I tried were either incompletable, or bugged.

    Republic Attack! on Tatooine Imp Side is bugged - kills count, but once reaching 100% it just doesn't finish. The optional objective for picking up grenades remains even after picking them up

    Bad Exchange 2 on Tatooine Imp Side is completable, but slightly bugged. Some crates do not scan. I think what's occurring is the crates need to be in a different section to each other, two scannable crates next to each other won't count

    Maintaining Order, Tatooine Imp Side. Intimidate Outlaws objective. Killing them doesn't increment the counter, and the intimidate bar doesn't show up when they are nearby. 

    Hidden Chain Invasion, Imp Side Tatooine - Plain didn't work, nothing was counting for counter. No Hidden Chain Lieutenants spawned


    Militant Jawa - Works fine, Imp Side Tat

    Gamorrean Snacktime - Works fine Imp Side Tat


    Scavengers Tale 3 Imp Side Tat - if tagged by other side and killed, doesn't seem to respawn, and quest remains active

    Brooding Season Imp Side Tat - Works fine Imp Side Tat, except there is far too many eggs to destroy. 20 eggs with a 3 second kick to all? 

    Encounters with a single boss on Hoth are not working with shared tagging, if you join in to help someone, even the same faction, you do not get credit. 

    Very minor one, but carrying the Tauntauns up the hill on Hoth for their slide has an awkward animation that looks like it'd get you in trouble with PETA or the RSPCA
Edited by EHKodiak
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  • Was it easy to locate Dynamic Encounters?
    Yes
  • Were you able to spend your play session going from Encounter to Encounter with little or no downtime?
    Yes in Hoth, in tattooine they did feel pretty spread and not as many at least on imp side of the map. But in hoth it was a smooth ride.
     
  • Was there enough variety in Encounter objectives?
    Yes very much so, was impressed by that.
     
  • Did it take a reasonable amount of time to complete Encounters?
    Yeah, some took longer than others, the mouse droid in hoth for example did took long as it resets if your droid dies and was tricky to progress in one spot.
     
  • Did the travel time between Encounters feel reasonable?
    Yes in Hoth, Tattooine just has less active.
     
  • Was it clear what you needed to do in Encounters?
    Most of them yes. The mouse Hoth droid one was a bit hard to figure out as we could not tell the spot it was on. A radar for the mouse droid on that one would be handy.
     
  • Did you generally understand what your character was being asked to do and why?
    Yes
     
  • What was your favorite Encounter and why?
    The tauntaun ones in hoth, so simple and yet so cute. It took me by surprise.  The mines one was just funny how many times I just stepped on them, also on hoth.
     
  • What was your least favorite Encounter and why?
    The fishing one in hoth, as is more based on chance, one of my friends was very unlucky haha.
     
  • Please mention any bugs you encountered.
    Republic Attacks on Imperial side was not working on Tattooine, the mission was not showing percentage progress, it would only say the optional grenades to pick up but not show the progress, on hoth side however it worked fine and is fun.  Bad Exchange 1 on tatooine imp side was also bugged at least in co-op with a friend. My friend grabbed the droid and manage to scan, on my side however it progressed like I got the scanning  droid but would not let me scan Shady Individuals, only my friend could but I could not pick up the droid either as my mission was working as if I had one. There is another one on tatooine imp side that I forgot its name but it was around town also, and think you had to provoke some people and the pop up to activate would activate away from the npc, when close to npc the pop up action would disappear. In general I had great runs on all the hoth dynamic encounter on imperial side. However, imperial side tattooine I had a lot of bugs there. Will report back how my pub runs turn out.


     
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  • Was it easy to locate Dynamic Encounters?
    Yes
  • Were you able to spend your play session going from Encounter to Encounter with little or no downtime?
    Yes
  • Was there enough variety in Encounter objectives?
    Leaning towards no. Most of the encounters are kill x mobs and pick up / activate y items, with some exceptions.
  • Did it take a reasonable amount of time to complete Encounters?
    Mostly yes. A few encounters have very few enemies (e.g. Genosians in northern Tatooine) while others have too many enemies to kill. Also the big Czerka droid in the middle of the Dune desert seem to have some mechanic that makes it have a lot damage reduction that wasn't immediately clear how to disable its shield or it wasn't working, though the droid was still killable, albeit more slowly.
  • Did the travel time between Encounters feel reasonable?
    For Hoth, yes. For Tatooine leaning towards no in some cases (farthest encounters from spawns, e.g. south-western Dune desert, north-western Jundland/Anchorhead)
  • Was it clear what you needed to do in Encounters?
    Definitely. However the system text that describes the initial objectives should display longer or be a user setting to change how long it should be displayed. 

    Also, some Encounters count progress in percentages while others are x/y mobs. Stick to one.
  • Did you generally understand what your character was being asked to do and why?
    Yes, generally. However, the area where the Encounter is active isn't clear.
    Specific encounters with less than satisfying hints to the player what needs to be done:
    - (Dune south west Encounter to pick up droid parts for jawas and fix droids): "The rubble contains usable parts" is printed in red text, coming off as a warning instead of mission progress. The droids that are meant to be broken, but their models don't indicate them being broken. Also I think these are the only ones where you need to actually click the friendly NPC to have the temporary ability bar show, wheras almost every other instance of temporary ability is distance based. 
  • What was your favorite Encounter and why?
    Big Czerka droid (mentioned above with damage reduction/shield) in middle of Dune desert and Sarlacc Snacktime. While not a fan of Seeker Droid missions, the ice fishing on Hoth was at least something different and nice for a change.
  • What was your least favorite Encounter and why?
    Right now it's any Encounter where there are lots of weak groups to kill where AoE spam finishes the mission quickly.
  • Please mention any bugs you encountered.
    For clarity's sake, I've written mission names under which planet and faction I played them. Some of these mission bugs may be present on opposing faction / same mission cross-faction, but I'm writing where I experienced them.

    Tatooine Imperial / General
    - "Hidden Chain Invasion": Lieutenant doesn't spawn
    - "Republic Attack!" (South-west of Outpost Rennar": Defeat Republic Walker doesn't complete objective when killed
    - "Sarlacc Snacktime": the temporary ability's effects on mobs seems to suffer from some quite large desync issues when they are moving and getting hit by the ability. While it's easy to adapt, my feeling was that the aim was off.

    Tatooine Republic:
    - "Tread Lightly": Mines do almost no damage, can be run over without defusing them as opposed to imp side. Heavy desync issues when explosion occurs.
    - (Advertise the gig to residents)(Anchorhead): If aborting the channel and channeling again, the cantina song isn't heard
    - (Unknown, Anchorhead, area just around Anchorhead speeder): Supposed to give out food, medical supplies or water, but no indication on where to get those items or who to give it to. Also nothing indicating it actually is an Encounter.


    Hoth Imperial / General
    - (Don't remember name and wasn't taking notes last night): Equivalent of Hidden Chain Lieutenant on Tatooine didn't spawn, guessing same issue as with Tatooine one.
    - "Ice fishing": If you fish in one of the 'circles' and run to another circle while waiting for the Ice Fishing Droid to finish, the model of the 'circle' you're standing at will respawn rather than the one you fished from. Also, if you press outside the window to <Take all> Volcanic Frost Lurker or too long time passes, the mission item isn't granted (I would expect a fished up fish to be mine and auto-add to inventory if I press outside the window to take it or the window timeouts. While on that subject, the seeker droid/Ice Fishing Droid's ability doesn't respect auto-loot so you have to manually press <Take all>.)
    - The "Sketchy Treasure Finder" items' temporary abilities won't disappear after completing the mission, requiring you do destroy or sell the items or use them up to get rid of the temporary skill bar.

    Hoth Republic:
    - "Sensing Trouble": The introductory voice line "Our long-range sensor towers just de-synced. Might be nothing, but a quick scan would be appreciated!" is repeated after finishing the mission.
    - "Defeat Whitemaw Pirate Forces and Mark Stolen Medical Supplies for Extraction": Upon entering this area, I already had mission progress (perhaps due to having started it previously but not finishing within timer limits), however the main issue was that I was granted mission progress from other players even though we weren't in a group (nice thing, but probably not intended). When reaching 100% for both objectives, the Encounter seem to have restarted and I wasn't granted any mission reward / the Encounter didn't finish, just reset. 
    - "Defeat Skels and Repair Beacons": At least the beacon at approximately -3555, 387, possible other beacons, may have Skels spawned before the beacon itself spawns. When this happens, the Skels may place themselves under the placement of the to-be-spawned beacon, making it impossible to damage the skels by at least AoE damage until the beacon has spawned. Not sure if this is related to people leaving previous fight causing the Skels to evade and reset to a bad position or if the Skels at this beacon spawns independently of clicking on the beacon.
    - "Wamp Womp": This mission also had half-cleared mission objectives when I joined it, leaving me with only the objective to kill the elite wampa boss. Upon killing it (pretty sure another player had tagged it right before me), the mission progress was reset to 0% for all three objectives and no mission reward was granted. Upon finishing the objectives anew I was granted the mission reward.
    - "Unnecessary repairs": Gane Klisson's voice line "Uh, help? The substation's in meltdown mode! I didn't do it! Anyone out there?" may trigger even though the encounter isn't active by entering the area. It also seems to trigger twice near the edge, coming from the north. 
    - "Pirate Problem": The encounter isn't visible on local map (but is visible on world map) until you enter the Encounter area. Also, the mission progress seems shared between players in the same area, upon entering I immediately gained progress from other players not in my group and was able to finish the mission by throwing the last grenade to 100% progress. 
  • Other things:
    - It would be really nice if some kind of ad hoc local grouping was made for people in the same encounter, or that all encounters consequently allow tagging of mobs and count towards progression even though they have been tagged by other players/other faction.
    - Depending on previous point, some encounters would benefit from "This Encounter starts in 5 minutes" rather than first come, first served. This is especially true for Encounters that are mini-bosses/champion mobs, which I presume will have a lot higher respawn time when this goes live.
    - Encounters can be empty and when they are, there isn't any indication when they will next spawn. If there are encounters left, you can see how many seconds/minutes until they disappear and new one starts, but my feeling on Tatooine is that the encounters aren't spawning at the same rate as Hoth, or they're being depleted in a way I didn't notice last night while doing Hoth as imperial.
Edited by Mahriman
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