PRO TIP - If you dont do heroics or flashpoints or pvp while leveling, do all bonus objectives and bonus series while leveling. #SWTOR

— Asros (@Asros) January 12, 2012

Its not a tip so much as a rule, because leveling is modular, if you skip grouping, you have to do all solo content.

— Asros (@Asros) January 12, 2012

Or as I told someone earlier - don’t be Blender. Our guildmate ended up at 49 with half a level to go, with absolutely no source of XP outside of space missions, flashpoints, PVP, or dailies - all because he chose to skip almost all bonus series and probably a lot of bonus quests, as well.

The hills are alive, with the sound of–no, no, stop that, NO SINGING

Over on the Inquisitor’s Roadhouse, Anexxia asks: “why the rush to 50?” Well, let me tell you who’s not rushing. There’s a story here.

Oh, how I love looking at Alderaan. I’m pretty well ready to go, though. It starts with Kyzur, a rotund miraluka Jedi Sage with a problem where his head clips through hoods. It took me 30-odd levels to realize I’d made a huge mistake. (Pardon the pun.) I just wasn’t having fun with the Sage playstyle at all. I loved the story, but evidently I am still primarily a melee player. Yet I still wanted to get my legacy. (Silly things are important to me.) So between levels 30 and 32, I tackled the first three quest hubs on Alderaan, then said “oh screw this” and did my story quest there, my end of act 1, picked my legacy out, and left Kyzur Epsilon Barsen’thor to take a well-earned rest on the Republic fleet.

Enter Jentra. Rolling out the door from day 1 as the action-oriented Shadow to Kyzur’s “let’s talk it out” Sage, I remembered why the Shadow/Assassin playstyle was the first one I played in beta. Fluid, fast, stealthy, loved it. I blew through Tython and Coruscant, slogged through Taris - which I am happy to say takes nowhere near as long the second time, mostly because you know where everything is - and was rolling through Nar Shaddaa’s first quest set when friend and NSTK guildmate Xindrola caught up to me. Somehow. Despite spending way too long on Taris. (Xin’s argument is that he was saving for a speeder because he’d blown a bunch of cash on investigation and armstech; upon being told that Nar Shaddaa was not the spread-out hot mess that is Taris, he hopped planet immediately.) I helped him catch up to me in the Kintan Kings quarter, then we duo’d the rest of Nar Shaddaa. All of it. To give you an idea how grossly overleveled we were at this point, we were able to immediately accept the Nar Shaddaa Bonus Series. (Level 28, I believe, is the minimum for that.)

We actually tried it at first, but it was slow going. “C’mon,” I said, “let’s just go to Tatooine.” And so we did. Everything fell before the combined might of a Shadow, a Commando, M1-4X, and Tharan Cedrax. Alderaan as well, which is where we left off last night - we still have the Glarus Valley quests, but he’s now completed his end of Act 1 and I’m doing mine tonight (again). But it was slow going at times. Xin’s still a bit new to MMOs (he played a little WoW, and I think someone talked him into FFXI because they were sadistic), so keeping him oriented in the right direction can be a challenge - I’m eager to kill Sand People for their rifles, while he’s busy trolling the wildlife by punting it into canyons with Concussion Charge, for instance. He still lives with family, so he (understandably) gets called away from the computer for minutes at a time - pretty frequently sometimes. Getting lost also happens occasionally. I want a leash sometimes.

We’re also still grossly overleveled. When we got to Alderaan, I was one level ahead, and every quest outside of my story content was grey. All of them. 5 XP apiece. Woohoo? (Even now, still at the last quest hub of Alderaan, I’m level 36. I’m pretty sure I’m at the high end of the level range for Balmorra.)

But on the upside, it’s a lot less boring than doing the same content again would be by myself. I get to see two stories for the price of one - 90% of the trooper stuff is available to me in Spectator Mode, and likewise for consular stuff for him. We have two crafters’ worth of crew skills available to us (granted, Armstech is really only useful for Tharan, but he is our healer). We can usually roll Heroic 4s with a combination of smart CC and, in one case, me kiting a boss around LIKE A BOSS.

And Social points? I am rolling in Social points. I’m 200 or so away from Social III. My Social points abruptly jumped during Tatooine; I was barely in Social I when I got there, but was at Social II and then some by the time we left - even before the bonus series.

Still, I wouldn’t characterize myself as being in a rush to 50. Pretty much the exact opposite. I am, however, in a rush to see something I haven’t seen before - I’ve been here before, and now I’m back again. Luckily, I’m on the verge of doing just that: every quest left on Alderaan is one I haven’t seen, as is every planet after Act I.

A male twi’lek smuggler.

Using /getdown.

You’re welcome.

Shiny New Art

On Twitter, DiscoPriest - artist of the Disciplinary Action and new Space Cadets comics - announced an art giveaway, in which she’d redo your SWTOR character in the style of a Space Cadets character. Sadly I did not get in on the contest (don’t ask me why!) but I still wanted one, mostly after seeing Asros and Fynralyl sporting theirs on Twitter and the guild forums, so I did it the old-fashioned way - I commissioned one. It was well, well worth it! I opted to get one done of my new Jedi Shadow (more on that in a sec), Jentra. Here’s the before… (click any of the pics below to enlarge)

And here she is after becoming a total Space Cadet:

So cool! Thanks again, DP - love ‘em. If you’d like to get one of your very own, here’s the easiest way to do so - the cost is $20.

• Take a screenshot of your character at the SWTOR login screen. (You can use the same screenshot button that works in-game - for me, that’s Print Screen.)

• Optional: take a full-body screenshot in-game. I apologize to Disco for the shoddy quality of my in-game pic (controlling the camera over a remote connection is nigh impossible!) but she did extremely well all the same.

• Send the pics, along with a short email requesting a Space Cadet-style avatar, to the artist.

• She’ll take care of you from there!

Shiny New Character

As you can guess from the fact that I didn’t get Kyzur cadet-ized, I’ve switched away from playing him. The Sage playstyle is okay, but it just wasn’t clicking with me. Unfortunately, it took me about 20 levels to figure that out. At that point, I was so close to unlocking my Legacy that I figured I may as well just go ahead and do it - and that’s what I did.

(A side note here about my Legacy. For no apparent reason, my original choice of Legacy names (Cygma, as in Sigma, as in Kaiser Sigma) was not allowed by the Legacy system for no apparent reason - and neither was any other spelling of it. I wonder if it can’t be five characters long? Seems kind of arbitrarily short. So I went with a backup - Epsilon. It took a little bit to grow on me, but I got used to it. About 75% of the way to Legacy Level 2, to boot.)

Jentra, my shiny new Shadow, just got to Taris. Yes, that means I’m now one of those people with multiples of the same class - but the Shadow and Sage play so differently they may as well be different classes. Just to ensure it’s not a total repeat, Jentra’s making different choices than Kyzur did in many places, even if it’s just seemingly inconsequential dialogue. As a result, she’s developed a definite anti-Imperial leaning, and is less likely to be your staunch, stuffy, upright Jedi. If Kyzur represents the Jedi Order’s guiding voice, Jentra is its striking arm.

FOR GREAT JUSTICE.

A Lesson on Lizard-men

So I’d complained on Twitter that, starting at around Tatooine but definitely noticeable on Alderaan, Qyzen Fess seemed a lot… squishier. I also had a much easier time pulling threat from him if I was spec’d for DPS. Getting some upgrades on Tatooine seemed to help his survival and threat somewhat, but I still had to bubble the green dude every time I got a chance. When I got Jentra, I was happy to have Qyzen again at a low level, where he’s very, very tanky.

Then I noticed something: a little green icon in his buff bar, for Trandoshan Regeneration, his “tank stance.” And then I realized that I hadn’t seen that icon when I was playing as Kyzur since, oh, sometime on Taris. Later on, after several groups, I resummoned Qyzen - sure enough, Trandoshan Regeneration had turned itself off for no apparent reason.

Learn from my mistakes: always make sure your tank is actually in tank stance!

I’m out of town for Christmas, so don’t expect too much out of me - in game or out! As for progress, I’m level 31 and somewhere on Alderaan…and fairly sure I’d rather be a Shadow.

So I rolled one of those, too. I’m just waiting until I unlock my Legacy with Kyzur, so I can maximize my Legacy XP.

Happy Holidays, and may the Force be with you!

1. I’d done a ton of reading about the game itself (aside from playing in the beta), but that didn’t mean everyone else had. A lesson of perspective. There were lots of inquiries in-guild about Advanced Classes, Crew Skills, and so on, many of which could be resolved if you knew where to look - but if you didn’t, you could easily be lost. That’s why I’ve been trying to write what seems to me like absurdly basic things on our forums (and encouraging others to do the same); what seems basic to me may be news to someone else. Resources like Anexxia’s SWTOR FAQ are extremely helpful.

2. The Esseles isn’t indicative of other Flashpoints - at all. In retrospect, The Esseles (and, presumably, the Black Talon) are rather strange as far as Flashpoints go, even compared to the very next one available to you. It’s much longer, the fights are much easier, and roles are much less necessary. It’s the difference between night and day; I hope it doesn’t catch people by surprise.

3. Money is simultaneously scarce and yet abundant. Mission Skills can be spendy - but if you can craft the nice things, even now - while prices are unsettled - people will usually buy them. Skills start costing 2k and 3k apiece in the 20s, but you can easily get 30k credits without even trying on a planet like Taris just from questing. I’m not worried about having the credits to buy speeder training next level - but I am glad that I’ve got the STAP available to save me 8000 credits.

4. There are benefits to leveling as a healer, even in a game without a “dungeon finder” feature. Two of the three classes on the Republic side that can level as a healer start with a tank companion. Same goes for the Imps. Leveling as a healer, and learning how to heal, usually means you’re going to be able to solo Heroic 2+ quests while still performing like normal in regular quests. This is also how you’ll learn that yes, Virginia, those healing threat reduction talents are really necessary. (Heroic 4+ is probably a bit out of your reach. Your tank-companion still takes a little too much damage, while not dealing enough of their own.)

5. It seems much easier to end up over-leveled than under-leveled these days. To end up underleveled in the summer betas, you didn’t really even have to try that hard. In the live game, I’m actually wondering exactly how much you’d have to skip out on to end up underleveled. As for me, I’m significantly over-leveled, at least for a while - running the Esseles four times in two days, diligent completion of all available space missions at any given time, completion of every quest on Taris (no matter how much I hated running around Taris), and more has led me to end up on Nar Shaddaa at the high end of its level range - and I’m about to level up again. And I haven’t even done any PvP!

6. The mod system can yield some real flexibility - even in Flashpoints - and make sure nothing goes to waste. An anecdote: in my second Esseles run, the third boss (the first robot-thing on the Imperial ship) dropped a double-bladed lightsaber. I sighed a little - all the stats and such were perfect, a fantastic upgrade for me, except I’m a sage… then I realized every item in that lightsaber was a mod, and my own saber was also moddable. Since there wasn’t a Shadow to take the saber from, I felt no qualms about taking that double-bladed lightsaber, looting it for all its delicious mods, and slapping them into my single-bladed saber for sagecraft!

Also: there’s a fully moddable suit of sand people lookalike armor on Tatooine. You know what to do.

7. Some of the 3D models could use a little help still… but I’m confident BioWare will find some way to make it look good. The most prominent one, at least for me, deals with full-face miraluka headcovers and, presumably, body type 4 males. I’m unable to wear anything with a hood because the headcover pokes through it - it didn’t bother me until I noticed it (it looked vaguely like patches), but now it bugs me to death, so I’m wearing and modding non-hooded garments. It’s also kind of strange with head items - basically they’re applied to the face, but they’re applied underneath the headcover, so they clip through it. And then there’s the old “twitchy lekku” issue that seems to affect a lot of twi’lek NPCs…

8. You can still get into the Collector’s Edition/Digital Deluxe VIP lounge, even if you didn’t buy one of those editions. It’ll just cost you a million credits to do so. And it won’t give you access to the CE vendor, reportedly. But hey, it’s your million credits.

This is actually a copy of a post from our guild forums. Lots of people asking this, and I think it’s not quite the question they actually want to ask.

My default answer to this is, as always, play what you want to play. If you base your game on other people’s needs, you’ll burn out. I’ve seen it from roleplaying on a MUSH all the way up through every MMO ever. Play what you want to play - let the role thing balance itself out.

Now, on the other hand, it’s possible that some of you asking “what Advanced Class should I pick?” are really asking “what’s the difference between my Advanced Classes?” That I can answer. (If you have experience with WoW, this link might help you decide, too.)

Jedi Knight

The Jedi Guardian advanced class wields one lightsaber and carries a force generator or shield generator. The Jedi Guardian is capable of tanking or damage-dealing.

The Jedi Sentinel advanced class wields two lightsabers. The Sentinel’s only role is damage-dealing, and you have a few options of how to do that - slow and steady, with damage over time, or with fast acrobatic weapon strikes.

Jedi Consular

The Jedi Shadow advanced class wields a double-bladed light saber and carries a force focus, force generator, or shield generator. The Shadow is capable of either tanking or damage-dealing; in the former role, it relies on damage mitigation, in the latter, it plays a lot like a traditional rogue class, although the Balance tree combines melee and ranged for a sort of ‘battlemage’ playstyle.

The Jedi Sage, near and dear to my heart, is a completely ranged playstyle - that lightsaber is basically for show (and deflecting ranged attacks sometimes), and your offhand item is a force focus. The Jedi Sage can heal, or it can do damage with its damage-over-time abilities and telekinetic attacks.

Trooper

The Vanguard advanced class wields blaster rifles and a power generator or shield generator. The Vanguard class is capable of buffing up its shields and tanking, or getting in close for a unique melee/range mix playstyle of damage-dealing. (You get to knife people. How fun is that?)

The Commando advanced class wields those big freakin’ assault cannons you’ve probably seen many of them carrying, and also a power generator - I think. The Commando is capable of dealing damage - big surprise! - but they can also focus on healing. You literally get to shoot people back to good health.

Smuggler

The Gunslinger advanced class wields two blasters, and - much like the other dual-wielding AC, the Jedi Sentinel - the Gunslinger is there to deal damage from cover, and lots of it. The Gunslinger can specialize into better guns or better bombs, but one way or another, you’re dealing damage.

The Scoundrel advanced class wields a blaster pistol and uses a scattergun or shotgun as their “offhand” weapon, though you only see it during special attacks. The Scoundrel has two totally different playstyles - you can be a healer, and heal people from range, or you can deal damage - and the Scoundrel, unlike the Gunslinger, gets up close and dirty, shooting people in the back at point blank range with the Scattergun.

The Empire

Lest you think I forgot about you, here’s a quick Republic-to-Empire class and AC primer.

• Jedi Knight -> Sith Warrior

  • Jedi Guardian -> Sith Juggernaut

  • Jedi Sentinel -> Sith Marauder

• Jedi Consular -> Sith Inquisitor

  • Jedi Sage -> Sith Sorcerer

  • Jedi Shadow -> Sith Assassin (Balance -> Madness)

• Trooper -> Bounty Hunter

  • Vanguard -> Powertech (blaster rifle -> single blaster pistol)

  • Commando -> Mercenary (assault cannon + generator -> two blaster pistols)

• Smuggler -> Imperial Agent

  • Gunslinger -> Sniper (two blaster pistols -> sniper rifle + power generator)

  • Scoundrel -> Operative (scattergun/shotgun -> knife)

If you’re on Juyo, say hi to Kyzur!

“When I’m in the field, whatever I say goes. Understand?”

Whatever you say, short stack.

First off, go read this post by Associate Lead Designer Emmanuel Lusinchi about the modding system. It’s absolute gold for a high-level overview of how the modding system used to work, and how it works now. Having experienced it both ways, I’m definitely not misty-eyed over the days of yore (by which I mean “as recently as this summer”). There are definitely some parts I want to pull out and comment on, though, so here goes.

To start with, we’ve introduced a new color and item type: the Custom items. Those are shown with an orange border and are fully moddable. This change is purely cosmetic. What we have done is take all fully moddable Prototype items (blue) and simply changed their icon color. This helps us create a better and more unique identity for fully moddable gear.

This is a really recent change, and I like it. When I logged out of the Thanksgiving weekend beta, I had two modded items - a modded lightsaber (whose color crystal, amusingly, was actually orange-colored) and an armor I’d picked up from a quest reward and promptly slapped it with a purple-quality mod that had dropped from a random enemy. When I logged in for the final beta weekend, those two items were now Custom quality instead of Prototype (blue) - and let me tell you, those orange items really pop. It might take some getting used to for players from other games where orange = legendary (not to name any names), but it’s definitely nice to be able to pick out moddable items at a glance.

• Item modding can now be done anywhere at anytime. No workbench required.

This has been the case for a while, actually, but it’s nice to see it confirmed as a part of the system continuing forward. Item workbenches are still scattered around, but even on the last night of beta players were confusedly wondering on General chatter what the point of the item workbenches was, so I imagine these will either just become background flavor, or go the way of the dodo.

• Crafters can now reverse engineer mods and create blue and purple mods.

Hooray for more uses for reverse engineering! It really is a fun system, I think, although maybe frustrating when you can’t get that one recipe you want - armor reverse engineering tends to be a little more random than mod or medicine reverse engineering, for example - or need rare crafting materials that your companions just can’t seem to get from their mission skills.

• Mods can now be extracted from a Custom item. This is the single most important change and has many, many consequences. However, we feel that being able to slot a mod and then extract it back truly opens up the system and makes it a lot more fun, easy and safe to experiment with. I’m not 100% happy about how the system interface and GUI works today (it is still a bit clunky) but at least it is functional.

Also fantastic. It means that unlike, say, gemming in WoW, you don’t have to worry about the permanency issue - just drag the mod out (or, now, right-click it) to remove it. This system already works pretty nicely. Remember when I mentioned that orange lightsaber crystal? I actually removed the blue crystal from my own lightsaber and installed it in my companion’s, since it was better than her green one. I then sold her green one for a little cash.

• Partially moddable premium (green) items were removed as they essentially lied to the players: an item missing a mod slot would never be able to match a high end non-moddable item. Instead, to compensate for the loss of diversity, orange versions of all green armors was created and given to the crafters. So, yes, if you see a green armor you really like, you still can have that appearance until end level. It does take a bit of work - you either need to become a crafter yourself, befriend one or trawl the GTN.

(Note: recipes for those orange appearances are discovered through Underworld Trading missions.This allows us to have a truly large number of those recipes without overwhelming the crafting trainer inventory. As a side effect, this opens up class quest green armor appearances from other classes as well as long as you fulfill the armor requirements.)

This has a couple implications. First, Underworld Trading is now sort of vaguely relevant to all crafts - but I think it’s much more likely that you’ll either see these patterns spread out to other mission skills, or you’ll see them on the GTN instead. Works out nicely for the skills that already pair nicely with UT, though…

Secondly, this brought back something cool that you could do early on in the beta. Back when we were primarily playing Empire (because we didn’t want to spoil the Republic storyline for ourselves), I saw a Sith Warrior running around in what was, by all appearances, a full set of Bounty Hunter armor. I inspected him, and found that he’d gone the full crafting route - basically he found a full set of moddable Bounty Hunter armor and replaced all the Aim/Endurance mods with Strength/Endurance ones, making a set of armor that looked like a Bounty Hunter but was suited for a Sith Warrior.

With the return of cross-class orange appearance armor, this is a thing you can do again. So for all you Troopers who aren’t huge fans of the “Stormtrooper-esque” motif? Brush up on those crafting skills (or make friends with crafters) and get ready to look like a Jedi Guardian instead. Are you a Jedi Sentinel who’s jealous of the Gunslinger’s awesome hat? Maybe you can craft your own awesome hat, and be some sort of… cowboy… Jedi… look, I don’t know, I’m just saying what’s possible.

• Some crafting recipes that allowed the creation of moddable armors and weapons have been replaced with non-moddable versions. Why the nerf? Because those recipes were no longer properly balanced once we allowed mod extraction. It became far cheaper and faster to create an item for the sole purpose of extracting every mods out of it than creating mods in the first place. This also allowed nearly every crafter to create every type of mods, which wasn’t very balanced either. Instead, the crafter can now make a non-moddable item for those players that enjoy that and, thanks to newly introduced recipes, a moddable (but empty slotted) version of the item.

Good to know. Plays well with a core theme of SWTOR: choice. It sounds like whether you prefer your armor moddable or just standard loot, you’ll be able to at least take a stab at going at it your way.