Things start ramping up to Game Update 1.3 in this week’s DevTracker highlights. Designer Austin Peckenpaugh shows how percentages work in player damage formulas. Senior Community Coordinator David Bass requests feedback on the Bounty Hunter’s buff mechanics. Systems Designer David Hunt talks about the role of crafters for augment slots and quick-fire answers questions on just how augment slots will become available to players in Game Update 1.3. Associate Online Community Manager Joveth Gonzalez says more information is coming on Game Update 1.3 in some upcoming developer blogs. Hit the jump to see all the highlights.

When chatting in our guild channel last night, the subject of the Quesh Consular class quest came up, specifically the part where Consulars have to save the Revival Specialists. One of our guildmates had been tackling it this week, and we all agreed that it was very tough. This was one of the hardest quests to try to solo, and the first substantial–even overwhelming–challenge for this class. The argument can be made that the enemy mobs are probably tuned too high for both the planet and the stated level. There are a lot of elite and strong enemies in each of the groups, so many, in fact, that when I first stepped into the instance, I thought I’d walked into a Heroic quest area. I promptly got my butt smoked and handed back to me on a blackened Sith platter.

A poison planet filled with Sith. Perfect for a Jedi Consular!

What’s the best way to tackle this quest successfully?

Bring friends. Level 50 friends are even better.  Even if you’re a confirmed solo player, having another person in the instance will change your chance of survival from ‘generally crappy’ to ‘pretty darn good’.  It will certainly make the quest substantially less frustrating.

What if you’re dying to do this on your own, aren’t in a guild or can’t find another person to join you? Here are a few tips to put into your survival kit.

First, make sure you’re at least the same level as the quest recommends, if not a few levels higher. Go back and do the Balmorra bonus quests that you might have ignored. The rewards for that quest series will give you some very helpful items.  Then, double check both your and your companion’s gear. You both need to have the best available for your level to take the beatings that these Sith hand out. Make sure you have the highest level medpacs you can use, especially the packs that heal both you and your companion. Using stims, adrenals, and relic powers can give you the extra edge that can mean the difference between surviving with a few hit points or face-planting.

Do not take on the entire mob at one time.  You can do this on Tython. You can’t do it in this quest.  Make sure you use your stun and force lift skills early and often. Sages should use Force Lift and Shadows should use Mind Maze on the Sorcerors. Sages should use Force Armor on themselves and their companions as often as the cooldown allows. Use Force Wave to knock back enemies if needed. Make sure to use the Mind Snap interrupt as soon as the Sorcerer starts casting those ugly lightning skills, and don’t stand in the purple ‘circles of death’ they cast.

If you are playing a Sage, consider taking Tharan or Zenith with you instead of Qyzen.  I know that as a Sage, particularly as a Seer Sage, I took Qyzen with me the majority of the time.  However, Zenith’s ranged dps, and particularly Tharan’s ‘dancing Holiday’ interrupt skill, do wonders for surviving this encounter.  Activate Tharan’s Med Watch stance, Zenith’s Sniper Mode, and deactivate Qyzen’s area-of-effect skills. If Qyzen uses an AoE skill, it will break the Mind Maze or Force Lift prematurely, and you need the Sorcerer out of commission the full minute.

Don’t forget to use the nanite revivalist consoles on the walls.  This will give you a temporary damage reduction buff. Note that this is damage ‘reduction’, and not damage ‘proofing’, no matter how much we all would like that.  Stand next to the console to be able to activate it as soon as the buff wears off.

If health gets too low, Shadows can use Force Cloak to enter stealth and move to a safe spot to heal, although the enemies will also heal in that time.  You can always resort to your finest ‘Brave Sir Robin’ impression and run out of the instance, too.

When entering the instance, you’ll come down a short hallway into a large room full of mobs. Don’t rush in or you’ll aggro the two groups nearest to the hallway. Stay to one side of the hallway or the other as you enter in order to take on just one group at a time. Pick off the weakest enemies first, then the Juggernauts, and finally, the Sorcerers.

And bring friends.

If you have favorite tips for surviving this particularly tough encounter, share them here. As always, the the Jedi Consular Weekly column can be found here (clicky), and you can send comments or questions to me on Twitter @JaeOnasi, too.

Image source: MMOgamerchick.wordpress.com

Video: Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Patience gents. We'll let you in soon…

With the reported drop in Star Wars: The Old Republic subscribers, and the relatively low number of developer comments on the official forums, the player base is once again wondering what’s going on with the BioWare Devs, and of course, Game Update 1.3.

A forum thread started by Lord Karsk titled: Hello Anyone Home Hellooooo *Knocks on BioWares Door* has received a response from BioWare’s Joveth Gonzalez. As the forum post title suggests, there are many players who think that even the BioWare developers have given up on TOR. Here is the original post complete with smiley face:

BIOWARE why dont you talk to your paying playerbase ??
Devtracker is almost dead week after week.You want the community to make threads
on what’s coming 1.3 but you tell us little to nothing.

You have the biggest Crisis in a video game since SOE killed SWG.
Give you playerbase that is left some hope and stop ignore your community !

While I do agree the Dev Tracker has been slow lately, I don’t think it’s time to jump to the conclusion that BioWare has given up and is no longer listening to their players. On the other hand, BioWare’s approach to releasing information about new content hasn’t changed, which is essentially Joveth’s response to this post:

Hey folks,

I just wanted to clear up some things and let you know that we are listening and that more information regarding Game Update 1.3 will be coming soon. We’re in internal testing on the major features right now, and we’re getting closer every day to deploying Game Update 1.3 to the Public Test Server – but we can’t guarantee there won’t still be hurdles. We’re also working on several new developer blogs about Game Update 1.3 that we know you want to hear more about (including one about character transfer details). We know that you’re looking for specific details, but we want to avoid releasing any information that is incomplete. Rest assured that we are absolutely listening and are working to bring you the information you want.

We appreciate your discussions here on the forums and we’ll try our best to step in wherever we can (and we’re always here reading, gathering your concerns, and passing them on internally), but there will be times when we really can’t say anything. As a result, you’re going to be hearing a lot of “soon” and “we’re working on it” because that’s as specific as we can get right now. When we can get more specific, we will. If we’re quiet, it doesn’t mean we’re not listening and it certainly doesn’t mean we’re not working to bring you more information – our goal is to always bring you accurate information as soon as we can.

Thanks for your patience as our developers continue to work diligently on maintaining the quality of Game Update 1.3 and releasing it to you soon.

I understand that the desire for new content is high, and after the ranked warzone delay and new bugs that came with Update 1.2, BioWare is obviously working hard to bring us what we want. Of course, the most impatient of us will have a hard time hearing “soon” over and over again, but what else are they going to say if what they plan to release doesn’t have a solid release date? What say you, TORWarriors?

Pic Source

In an interview with Inquisitor’s Roadhouse, BioWare Designers David Hunt and Patrick Malott talk about Crew Skill changes coming in update 1.3 of Star Wars: The Old Republic. The discussion gives us some of the most detailed information yet regarding changes to the Augment system, the costs associated with adding Augment Slots to armor, how different levels of armor work within the system, and the possible impact the changes will have on the economy. 

Inquisitor’s Roadhouse
Q: What kind of pricing are we looking at?

A: There are two costs to add an augment slot: credits and an Augmentation Kit. The current cost progression starts at 4,500 credits and ends at 50,000 credits, while the kits come in the same MKs that match the types of slots you can add to an item.

Kits are acquired through three crew skills: Armstech, Armormech and Synthweaving. There is no difference in the kits they make, and they can find the recipes on the trainer. In order to create a kit, you need 10 Augmentation Slot Components of the appropriate MK. You receive one component whenever you Reverse Engineer a piece of crafted gear. Note that this is a non-random addition on top of the other returns you already get from RE, meaning that every 10 consumed items will reliably give you the components for one kit.

Be sure to head over to Inquisitor’s Roadhouse to check out the full interview.

HoloNet Links #46

It has been pretty hectic in the gaming world lately. Several games have either released or have been running beta testing. Star Wars: The Old Republic is no exception. Beginning today, Thursday, May 17th at 12am CDT and lasting till Monday, May 21st at 2am CDT Bioware is having a Weekend Pass to try the game. This time around players can play through till level 15. That means you will be able to see the starting planets as well as each faction’s capital planet. Bioware is also saving any characters you create to the account you use, so if you decide to purchase a subscription you won’t have to start over. For more information be sure to check out the official news article. Nothing beats free gaming!

A project to save the Lars Farm, a SWTOR fashion site & more after the Jump…

• Bioware announces winner of Darth Malgus statue
  

Bioware had recently held a contest for a life-size Darth Malgus statue. Earlier this week they announced the winner of this very cool prize. Huge congrats to the winner of the Sideshow Collectibles statue…sadly it was not me. However never fear, if I know Bioware they are probably planning another contest at this very moment and if not…come on Bioware do it for your fans (If you happen to have another statue you can send it to me…heck who am I kidding I would be happy with a free SWTOR sticker)

• Devs acknowledge a few bugs they are addressing

Amber Green and Joveth Gonzalez have posted this week about a few bugs spotted by the community that the Devs are working to fix. One is about a search issue with the Galactic Trade Network, another one deals with the Imperial Agent storyline quest – Star Chamber, and the other post talks about the issue of the companion, Ashara and how certain head pieces are causing her head to disappear…that would be a bit unnerving in cut-scenes let alone running around the fleet with the headless companion. For more information be sure to check the links and also take time to read the forum. Oh and if you see a bug, report it. We can help improve the game by letting the development team know of an issue.

Star Wars Community News & Events

• Corellian Run Radio’s Weekly Nav Coordinates

This week the podcast was hosted by Carla and Maer. They talked about new things coming in Patch 1.3 and they also discussed their thoughts on whether or not every patch should go to the Public Test Servers or not. Deirdre was with her family after the loss of her grandfather. We extend our thoughts and prayers to her and her entire family during this time. Our community might disagree on things about the game, but it is nice to know how we all tend to pull together and support each in times of need and sorrow.

05/04 Operation: Information – Pre-Op Checklist by Ghoztt

05/07 Guild Checkpoint featuring Skyhound Adepts by Jason Taylor

05/08 My Two Credits: Server Mergers by Maer

05/09 Episode 56: To PST or Not to PST… – podcast

• A site for your SWTOR Fashion needs
  

Many of you know Dulfy and her site dulfy.net. She has teamed up with Zoopercat from askmrrobot.com to start a whole new site. The site is called TOR-Fashion. It is going to be the place to check out how various orange Moddable armors looks like before buying or setting out to work Flashpoint etc for drops. They already have many images of several armor sets for Empire and Republic alike. The site will display any of these known Moddable orange armors sets that they can find. The creators of the site are also asking for people to submit your screenshots of your orange armor sets to add to the site’s fashion portfolio. I believe this site will be very popular, especially after Patch 1.3 hits and all the light social armors can also be medium and heavy. Be sure you head over there and checkout all the many different armor sets already posted.

Just a few examples from TOR-Fashion

• Star Wars video

This week I’m changing it up a bit, instead of a music video I have come across a video on Youtube, thanks to Chris from The Sarlacc Pit podcast and the link, about a project to save a certain farm from a galaxy far, far away. I am referring to the Owen Lars farm from the original Star Wars movie. The farm location is in the country of Tunisia. In the short clip you can see how badly the farm is looking after years of neglect. Now to the “normal” person on the street they would shake their head in disbelief at the thought of people trying to restore a movie location in the middle of a desert, but to the real believers and dreamers (like me and hopefully you too)…this is something worth saving if only to glimpse at just one sun setting low on the horizon at sunset and dreaming of far off adventures in that galaxy far, far away.

If you would like to help the project through a donation, you can visit the official save the Lars Homestead site and read more of the complete details of the project and how it all got started. You can also follow the project as it goes forward on their Facebook page.

That is it for this week’s HoloNet Links. Is there a particular link, story, video, or topic related to SWTOR you would like us to highlight? Maybe you or someone you know deserves to be highlighted in our SWTOR Community Spotlight if so please email us at corellianrun@gmail.com or you can leave your links and suggestions in the comments below, or in the Facebook group. See you all next week.

Greetings TORWarriors, and welcome to another exciting edition of Think Tank. Today, I’m thinking about Group Finder. Group Finder is a tool that will help you, wait for it… find groups. BioWare recently gave out some details on the system during the Official Star Wars: The Old Republic Podcast. It is one of, if not the most anticipated new features currently slated for Patch 1.3.  In fact, Group Finder will fundamentally change the game. The changes will be felt mostly at end game, but they will filter down to the leveling experience as well. I hope BioWare has thoroughly thought through the issues and has solutions in mind. Let me elucidate on a couple.

Queues

"I hear the Healer line is shorter"

The interface was described as simple, yet robust with a myriad of options. You queue up just like you would for a Warzone today, only instead of Warzone, you queue up for a Flashpoint, or Operation. Queuing for Operations is such a big subject, we’ll tackle it separately in a just a moment.  The interface will ask you to select the roles you are willing to fill based on your class. Guardians/Warriors, Vanguards/PowerTechs, and Shaodws/Assassians will all have the two choices of DPS or Tank. SWTOR does not have a dual spec system, so one of several things will happen:

~ Players will queue up for the role of the spec they are currently in
~ Players will clear their spec, and queue. Once inside they will fill out their talent points. This could get expensive.
~ Players will queue up for all the roles they can fill and just dps in Tank spec or Tank in DPS spec.

This doesn’t just apply to tanks. Everyone except for Gunslinger/Snipers, and Sentinels/Marauders will have two choices. The player base will quickly figure out what roles are in demand, and by extension have short wait times, and what roles are over populated leading to long wait times. In other games with a Group Finder type feature, Tanks typically are in demand, having near instant queues, while DPS are over populated and have queues in excess of 30 minutes. If this ends up being the case in SWTOR, expect Gunslinger/Snipers, and Sentinels/Marauders to scream for the ability to tank or heal. The varying queue times should give you another reason to build your offset as quickly as you can. The flexibility to fill either role will give you the option of picking the role that has the shorter queue times.

Daily Heroic

"What would you do for a Klondike bar?"

Another important point from the Podcast was the Group Finder is being designed to encourage players to complete one random Flashpoint per day. The reward wasn’t specified, but for it to work, I firmly believe it has to be commendations for gear. Which commendation depends on what group of players they want to entice to run Group Finder. As a general rule, player stop running content when they can no longer benefit from the gear it rewards. To get the maximum number of players queuing up for Group Finder, the reward would need to be Black Hole commendations. This ensures anyone who isn’t fully decked out in Black Hole gear has a reason to run the Daily Random Flashpoint. This puts some very well geared player into the queue. An overgeared tank can make up for a undergeared healer and vice versa. With some smart group finder algorithims, these players become the grease that makes Group Finder run more smoothly.

However, I think Rakata commendations would be a good compromise. Sure, anyone who is full Rakata might skip out, but it would provide a bridge from Columni to Rakata outside of Hard Mode Operations.

I hope BioWare has taken into consideration the vast range of difficulties of their Hard Mode operations. Players in general, but especially the overgeared players who are only running the Flashpoint for the daily reward, want fast, pain-free runs. Players will queue for the Random and drop group immediately upon seeing they got Esseles/Black Talon, Lost Island, or any of the harder ones. If there is no penalty for dropping group, you could see high demand positions (with their short queue times) drop group anytime they don’t get a Taral V or something similar. BioWare needs a solution for this when 1.3 ships, not in 1.4.

Operations

Taking THIS guy in a PuG? You are braver than I thought

The major news to me was that Group Finder will also let you queue for Story Mode Operations. I think this is wonderful news, and will be a boon to anyone who is stranded on a lower population server, or anyone who can’t find an Operation group with a convenient schedule. This is so big, it deserves its own topic.

Oh look, I gave it one.

Operations have bigger loot, which means bigger drama and players doing odd things. I would encourage BioWare to look at other MMOs with an Operation/Raid Finder type of feature and start designing solutions for the problems those systems have uncovered. Don’t wait for the player base to prove to you that yes, indeed, they are pretty much the same people behind the keyboards who play other MMOs, and the same problems those systems have will manifest themselves in Group Finder.

The two big issues to look at are loot and difficulty. There are mechanics in SWTOR Operations that even in Story Mode can’t really be over geared. I can’t speak to Black Hole, or the latter part of Karagga’s Palace, but even thinking through Eternity Vault shows the issue. Remember that Group Finder groups are PuGs (pick up groups). These groups are essentially groups of strangers. They don’t know each other, and don’t trust each. Moreover, they aren’t using a third party voice communication system like TeamSpeak or Vent. Now try imagining a group like this doing something like Ancient Pylons, or Soa. I know its story mode, but players are going to struggle to solve the puzzle before the timer expires, and no amount of gear is going to save you if you get stuck in the middle when Soa blows up the platform and you fall to your death.

But assuming these groups do somehow down a boss or two, the issue of loot comes up. BioWare simply must recognize that a simple Need/Greed system will fail miserably in this setting. Players will Need on gear for offsets, companions, and my personal favorite, Vendor spec. It’s going to happen. Again, BioWare needs a solution for this when the system is implemented, and they might already have one.  Early on in Beta, the BioWare team discussed a way for looting in Operations to work. When the boss dies, each player gets a bag. In that bag is either a piece of loot for that player’s class or an commendation. What is in your bag is yours. It can’t be traded given to anyone else. I implore the developers to implement this system or something like it for Group Finder Operations.

Cross-server

To me, this is the least interesting discussion about Group Finder. Some compromise between queue time and the pool of players used to fill the group will be made. Start with players from the same server, but as queue times lengthen, extend the search to other servers. What the exact parameters are is up to BioWare to experiment with.

Your Turn

Is the SW:TOR player base all that different from other MMO players?  Are you excited about Group Finder?  What issues are you worried will crop up?  Leave us a comment, below, and let us know – we want to hear from you!

[Pic 1, 2]

Hello TORWarriors and welcome to the morning edition of today.  Today is a great day because Jeff and I have made a joint decision to introduce our little padawan to LEGO’s by taking him to LegoLand.

I loved (and still love) LEGO’s as a kid and was fortunate enough to have parents that encouraged me to play with all kinds of toys and not just “girl” toys  (Barbie=YUCK!).  So I had an impressive set of LEGO’s that my parents were always stepping on in the wee hours of the night.  I also loved Star Wars, so it pleases me to no end that LEGO has their series of Star Wars related sets (wish I had those as a kid) to help make you feel like you’re a LEGO Star Wars master builder!

One thing they don’t have though is anything related to Star Wars: The Old Republic, which is fine, because they have fans of SWTOR, like GlenBricker, who build the most amazing things.

The ship is to scale with the “trophy fig” (which can be seen in the second picture now on top of the ship). I would like to see ALL the Old Republic ships created at this scale, with perhaps some printed trophy figs to add a little flare.

The largest challenge with this design was trying to mimic the slopping & curved front element. I like to think I pulled it off pretty well. There was also the exposed “engine” element which I have replicated with large gear elements. This MOC uses an extensive amount of snotting. It has Studs going along every axis, positive and negative as well as some at 45%

I designed this as a “thank you” to some of my friends who develop the game and really wanted to see the ships they created come out of the game.

GelnBricker's Corellian Defender. Isn't it a beauty? I'm so jealous.

What the Corellian Defender looks like in game.

GlenBricker's LEGO Corellian Defender, rear view.

You can keep up with GlenBricker and his creations here.  In the meantime, go and find some LEGO’s and build something stellar, send us a pic and we’ll post it (remember to keep it Star Warsy).  Cheers!!!

It should not be a surprise to everyone that a vast amount of changes accompanied Game Update 1.2: Legacy patch when BioWare deployed it back in April. With it now a little over a month after its release, we want to get a sense of what the community at large thinks of the current state of crafting. Was the revamp to Crew Skills everything you wanted it to be? Where do you want to see it go? What do you think of the announced augment changes proposed for 1.3? No matter your opinion on the matter, we want to hear it in the comments section after the jump. Keep the opinions constructive and do not flame your peers. We will moderate accordingly. 

Next week’s podcast will feature a few of the comments as well as a discussion around the area that received the most remarks.

With the release of the 1.2 Legacy patch, all of the PvP commendations you spent hours collecting BioWare swept aside. In their place, a new commendation system has been introduced. Of the old system, only Warzone Commendations remain. Mercenary, Centurion, Champion and Battlemaster Commendations have all been phased out. Furthermore, a new type, Ranked Warzone Commendation, was introduced. Follow us past the jump for a full breakdown of everything you need to know concerning the changes.

In the course of some studies this evening, I stumbled across a fascinating little research abstract. It’s about a research study looking at a group of Star Wars RP’ers who use a region in Second Life called Hutt Space. The full research article is still a month or two off publication, but here’s the abstract: [...]