New big SWTOR dlc patch

[idarkphoenixi]

Wondering if anyone else hates this as much as me.

The "Hutt Cartel" DLC is out, along with a rise in the level cap. So as might be expected, there's some big changes to the game.
Namely: All the work you previously put into the game was for nothing.

A lot of abilities have been deleted, which seems a bit odd to do now of all times but that's not what ticks me off.
What gets me is that the "elder game commendations" which is what you spend weeks acquiring bit by bit to get the best gear possible have all now been morphed into one generic "classic" commendation. Oh and they don't collectively add your various amounts of elder game commendations together, those are all deleted. Have fun! Those weeks you spent building up was all for nothing!

You might say I'm a little sore at that. Needless to say the in-game community didn't help. I expressed some disappointment at having all that work deleted and the general response was to shut the fuck up and leave if I don't like it. Well, I probably will.

I know what they're trying to do. Obviously, you're supposed to buy the DLC to get the new best gear. I had no intention of doing that but I was at least going to continue building on what I had like normal. Except now my gear is kind of useless. When you can get the best stuff possible for your level cap (what would previously have taken possibly several months) in a couple of weeks, what's the point of continuing?
Seems like a really shoehorned way of forcing people into the new DLC though and I'm curious how this affects the population numbers.

WoW had the same problem but I think they handled it much better.

 

[loc978]

...I'm just annoyed at all these MMO mechanics getting in the way of me playing through more of my KotOR 3 experience...

Off-topic, I just noticed this is my five-thousandth post. I don't have the Hunter S. Thompson title anymore. I miss it already.

 

[EHKOS]

...I'm just annoyed at all these MMO mechanics getting in the way of me playing through more of my KotOR 3 experience...

^This

I was having a good time until I arrived on Hoth at level 34. Because I don't like hanging out with people I couldn't do heroics and all that so I was seriously underleveled. Then when it went F2P I only had five health drone things. I had such a cool red cape too. I still have the files on my hard drive just in case some modders/hackers work out a way to make the entire experience offline so I could take my time.

 

[LostCrusader]

I just started playing again about a month ago, so I haven't been affected too much. I am annoyed that they changed the skill trees significantly, although I haven't had a chance to really look through the new trees. I doubt that I will do much in the game other than finishing my story though, so the DLC will likely get ignored.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

Wondering if anyone else hates this as much as me.

The "Hutt Cartel" DLC is out, along with a rise in the level cap. So as might be expected, there's some big changes to the game.
Namely: All the work you previously put into the game was for nothing.

A lot of abilities have been deleted, which seems a bit odd to do now of all times but that's not what ticks me off.
What gets me is that the "elder game commendations" which is what you spend weeks acquiring bit by bit to get the best gear possible have all now been morphed into one generic "classic" commendation. Oh and they don't collectively add your various amounts of elder game commendations together, those are all deleted. Have fun! Those weeks you spent building up was all for nothing!

You might say I'm a little sore at that. Needless to say the in-game community didn't help. I expressed some disappointment at having all that work deleted and the general response was to shut the fuck up and leave if I don't like it. Well, I probably will.

I know what they're trying to do. Obviously, you're supposed to buy the DLC to get the new best gear. I had no intention of doing that but I was at least going to continue building on what I had like normal. Except now my gear is kind of useless. When you can get the best stuff possible for your level cap (what would previously have taken possibly several months) in a couple of weeks, what's the point of continuing?
Seems like a really shoehorned way of forcing people into the new DLC though and I'm curious how this affects the population numbers.

WoW had the same problem but I think they handled it much better.

This is par for the course with MMOs in general mate, and theme-park MMOs specifically. WoW has done this with every expansion and was one of the reasons I stopped playing some years back. The rise in level cap, as you point out, brings with it higher level gear and the need to reacquire it. That's the WoW version of extending the end-game sadly.

It was quite marked for me in WoW, as I played my druid up to 70, but didn't spend a lot of time there before the cap was raised to 80 with the Lich King expansion. That one I did spend time with and got some pretty good stuff (though I never raided or did arenas, where the best PvE and PvP gear originate respectively). The tokens thing to me was annoying, unnecessarily complex and time consuming. Anyway, it occured then that a change in level cap would erase all that time spent, and sure enough the next expansion added 5 new levels and did just that. It was so marked, that from what i understand from my friends, the first green-quality items picked up in the new zones/quests were way better than the best purple from WotLK (making everything obsolete immediately).

The way they did it was to simply make a new "tier" where the numbers were balanced within the scope of a higher bracket. eg. Instead of say, Agility ranging from 50 (in shitty green level 80 gear) to 100 at best for a hardcore raider, it would go from 120-170 instead. All numbers, stats, weapon damages, armour ratings, mana pools, health bars, spell/ability costs etc shift accordingly to maintain the same balance between classes, builds and gear quality.

WoW never handled it better than SWTOR from the way you describe it. They sound like identical methods to be honest. I personally don't like the changes in level cap as a way to extend end-game, but it seems to be the de facto method of doing so, so what do I know? Removing already earned tokens seems unnecessary (unless perhaps they're the same tokens used to purchase the new gear? But you mentioned that wasn't the case already), though SWTOR wouldn't be the first game to do something like that. I believe Secret World did something similar when they made changes to PvP (shitty changes that broke it even more than it already was), removing all accumulated PvP tokens (called "Marks"), as their values, purpose and "drop rate" were all changed, so removing all unspent ones was the only way to "level the field".

When you say abilities have been deleted, could you be more specific? Have you seen any of the new content? I'm still subbed to SWTOR but haven't played in months (and sadly my awesome guild disbanded as we all logged in less and less). My IE Agent healer was in full Rakata with some of the newer gear on top. What's PvP like now? Is Hutball still decided by which team has the most Sorcerers?

 

[idarkphoenixi]

When you say abilities have been deleted, could you be more specific? Have you seen any of the new content? I'm still subbed to SWTOR but haven't played in months (and sadly my awesome guild disbanded as we all logged in less and less). My IE Agent healer was in full Rakata with some of the newer gear on top. What's PvP like now? Is Hutball still decided by which team has the most Sorcerers?

All the moves that are triggered on a stunned weak/standard enemy are gone and I think some others. I just thought it was a little odd to do that years after the game came out. Can't really speak to pvp though but judging from what I hear, the general consensus seems to be that good healers are the most important thing (when are they not).

I get that obviously if the lvl cap is raised along comes more powerful gear but by removing black hole/rakata/daily ect commendations it means that unless you buy into the new dlc and spend more months trying to get THOSE items it becomes a little pointless. Kind of sucks seeing as SWTOR was the game to bring me out of my gaming slump.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

All the moves that are triggered on a stunned weak/standard enemy are gone and I think some others. I just thought it was a little odd to do that years after the game came out. Can't really speak to pvp though but judging from what I hear, the general consensus seems to be that good healers are the most important thing (when are they not).

Hmmm, I remember having some sort of stabby-stabby on stunned enemies for bonus damage, but if it's the same across the board it doesn't matter. It means players need to learn a new rotation and that everyone across the board likely does slightly less DPS. Not a game breaker, not a game changer. Can't picture the benefit to it, but as long as it's across the board it makes no difference.

I found my Agent healer, with his stealth and HoTs was great in PvP, though he sadly lacked any form of mobility or real CC. But what annoyed me was how the rules of the match went out the window with sorcerers. They were (presumably still are) so utterly dominant on that map because of their ally pull ability.

I get that obviously if the lvl cap is raised along comes more powerful gear but by removing black hole/rakata/daily ect commendations it means that unless you buy into the new dlc and spend more months trying to get THOSE items it becomes a little pointless. Kind of sucks seeing as SWTOR was the game to bring me out of my gaming slump.

I think the idea here is that the (majority of the) playerbase will feel the opposite to you. Months more playtime ahead, fresh new planets and operations, higher level gear and new looks to earn...I think we're in the minority that find it annoying rather than exciting.

After levelling two characters to 50 (and most of the way on a third) and having done all operations on all difficulties multiple times, mastered the dungeons, then the server merging that meant I had to rename some characters, lost some friends in the move...my interest faded. There's only so many times one can do the dailies on Belsavis and Ilum and not get bored (although with stealth that number is far higher I imagine!)

What's the deal with Ilum (PvP side) now BTW? Is it still a barren wasteland? I was there on the day they changed Ilum, so funny. We camped inside the Republic base, so many players we were getting like 3 FPS. Republic players would die within a second of respawning, and couldn't choose anywhere else to respawn nor use their teleport ability. Ah good times, good times.

What server are you on anyway?