I’m hanging out on the fleet and I see…
Kids, don’t try this at home.
Cat Bauer Gets A Makeover
I noticed in 1.2 that there are now TWO Cat Bauer – I mean Aric Jorgan – customization kits at the security key vendor.1 The first one was the same old “bad hair” but the other (Customization 4, I believe) was a new blue-black panther.
This one definitely has a better chance at BSOCK.
- Note, there is also another Qyzen customization kit. It turns him RED. ↩
Customer Service is Better and Faster
Remember how I had a bad experience with customer service being slow and unresponsive – and after I QQ’ed here (and MMO Melting Pot linked it) the issue was fixed almost immediately – but the fixing at that particular time was totally not in response to the blog post, just a happy coincidence…
I got over my initial QQ and decided to keep sending in bug reports. I’m doing my part to make the game better, dammit. In the last few weeks, every bug report I’ve sent in has been answered in minutes. I mean, under 5 minutes, and the response was relevant to the bug in question (not all form). You know, like they read the thing!
Now, there are 2 possible explanations for this:
1. They are ramping up customer service and making it better and faster.
2. I’m on a list of QQ’ers who must be dealt with immediately.
#2 is my husband’s theory. I choose to believe #1, because #2 is damn creepy.
Have you had a good or bad experience with customer service lately?
Princess, You Are UGLY When You’re Angry
Yay, I got Dark 1. I look badass.
Hey look, Dark side corruption now shows on character select screen. Dark. Dangerous. Rawr
Hey, now I got Dark 2! Awesome.
Ok… um… not awesome. Disgusting? You’d better believe I loaded up on light side diplomacy missions until I was back to Dark 1.
What can I say? The sickly look doesn’t jibe with my view of the “seductively evil” minion of the dark side. You know, now that I think about it, when I see sithie female NPC’s in-game they don’t have much (if any) dark side corruption – even some of the girl sith lords are blemish-free. Especially that girl sithie who tried to seduce my girl smuggler… the dialogue was awfully suggestive considering I didn’t get any flirt options after it.
I’m keeping Dark 1, and that’s about it. I will need to save the occasional orphan to make this work. Also, diplomacy is a great way to “fine tune” alignment.
Cyborg and Zabrak Character Creation Post 1.2
Got to do some toon creation last night. I have a lvl 50 (republic) Zabrak and a lvl 50 cyborg.
Cyborg
As expected, if you unlock cyborg, you get access to all the cybernetics in game. The slider starts with the agent ones and works its way through to the trooper ones. In the end there are 60+ options, but there might be some duplicates.
However, character creation is a bit tough without slider labels:
Hopefully that got fixed last night in the patch.
Zabrak
As you know, Zabraks can already be all the classes in both factions. However, Republic Zabrak and Empire Zabrak are considered two different species for character creation purposes. Getting to 50 with a republic zabrak unlocks “Empire Zabrak” for republic toons and “republic zabrak” for empire toons.
So you can’t mix and match the options (for example, the empire red skin tones with a republic tattoo). I was kinda disappointed that I couldn’t get the badass tattoos of the empire side without those gross red-ringed eyes.
Reverse Engineering, Fashion, and Set Bonuses After 1.2
Disclaimer: I could be wrong some (a lot of) things here, the “answers” are clear as mud and I didn’t try to test everything. In the interest of getting you an article while it’s still relevant, I’m taking my best guesses. I’m editing as I find out new things…
In 1.2 you can pull the armoring out of your set gear (as you can currently do with the mod and enhancement). However, the tier bonuses for the rakata/columi/tion gear stays on the actual piece and does not follow the armoring (says the devs, anyway, I haven’t personally tried this). Future gear will have the set bonus tied to the armoring, but for now, we’re stuck choosing between “stripping the mods” and keeping the bonus.
Reverse Engineering For Oranges
Now, I could not write this before I had actually tested it in 1.2. Why is that? Because the devs in the same QA, practically in the same paragraph, made contradictory statements about reverse engineering and oranges.
Many of the new end game items (and end game items going forward) can be reverse engineered to learn schematics based on the original item… Reverse engineering an item with mods leads to empty orange equivalents of the end game items. This can be done after the mods are extracted and used in a different item!
Yay right? Then…
Because we do not want players to gamble with reverse engineering custom appearances (orange items) which are often unique quest rewards, the schematics for these items are obtained via mission discoveries for various gathering skills and are set to Bind on Equip to encourage active trading.
Lolwut?
I also found this thread, which supposedly clears things up.
We have added a number of orange appearance schematics to the system through mission discoveries.
From the dev comments it seems:
- You will NOT be able to get an orange recipe from reverse engineering an item, orange or otherwise. (Some speculate that it might be possible on “end game items”, see ambiguous Quote #1.)
- Edit: More info. RE-ing orange recipes indeed will be viable for new end-game items (added in 1.2). See the QA quoted at the end of this Test Center post.
- They are adding new orange recipes for us via missions.
- Edit: the new orange PvP recipes cover all the slots. They require 70 Valor to wear. I do not know if these new recipes will be for the same slots that we can currently craft oranges (head, chest, legs) or if it is expanded to all the slots. I’m going to assume the former for purposes of writing this article, but I might be wrong. I have seen only a handful of new recipes and they appear to be PvP, limited to people with 70 valor/honor/something.
How Do We Get Oranges For All The Things?
This is what I understand:
- Orange recipes that you you have learned from dropped recipes (AFAIK, chest, head, legs) can be crafted after 1.2 with a chance to proc an augment slot.
- You can still get orange head, chest, legs from a drop, vendor, or legacy vendor but they will not have an augment slot).
- It is possible that you can RE “end game items” (whatever that means) to get additional orange schematics for these slots. (Edit – yes, see above)
- You can get bracers and belt, previously really hard to get in orange, from a legacy vendor. You can get gloves and boots from drop, vendor, or legacy vendor. These will not have augment slots.
- It is possible that there are new orange schematics, obtained from mission skills, that let you learn crafted orange items for these slots (with a chance to proc an augment slot). Again, I’m presuming here that the new dropped orange schematics will be restricted to head, chest, and legs as they are currently.EDIT: See, I told you I was wrong. The new orange schematics for the new war hero armor allow you to craft ALL the slots as orange shells. However, you must have 70 valor to wear them. That might take a while.
- It is possible that you can RE “end game items” (whatever that means) to get orange schematics for these slots.
How good is your set bonus? Or, more accurately, is your set bonus better than having 3 (or possibly more?) augment slots?
With 1.2, you can get augment slots in crafted moddable orange items (which is currently head, chest, legs). If you strip the mods out of the columi gear and plop em into crafted oranges, then you have the same stats as before, minus 4 piece set bonus, plus augment slots. You can keep your 2 piece set bonus by keeping your set gloves and boots, since those slots cannot be crafted oranges and cannot have an augment EDIT: Except the PvP recipes which, again, you need 70 valor to wear, or possibly RE oranges from “end game items”. (I am assuming, I have not seen all the new recipes).
Now, some set bonuses are pretty damn good. Like that extra 50 force for consulars, nom nom nom. Y’all have to live with your bananahands for a while. But those of you with a fucking useless bonus like mine can opt to ditch the bonus in favor of extra stats.
Do You Have Money?
You will have to pay for a few things:
- The gear with the augment slots (presumably this will take a crafter many tries)
- The augments (which might be terribly pricey right after the patch)
- Stripping the mods out of really good gear (HOLY FUCK)
As you probably gathered, stripping the mods out of the gear is going to cost an arm and a leg, while the other parts of the plan probably won’t be that bad. Many of the oranges that are pretty are also low level, so making a bunch of copies of those won’t be a big deal.
Make Sure You Like How It Looks
Now, for the love of pete, figure out which items you like BEFORE you start moving around those mods. It’s better to model the empty outfit (before mods have been removed from anything) and say “this isn’t for me” and continue the search… rather than put the mods in, equip it, and scream. That’s right, the preview window is not to be trusted with that much money.
See how it looks with and without the “Match to chest” option. Most of the time, it’s pretty obvious how the pants are going to turn out based on the chest, however, there are a few weirdnesses. Usually it still looks GOOD, but just unexpected.
- I have a set with a white jacket and the pants are also white, matching. I put on different pants, and did “match to chest.” The pants turned black, which looked awesome, but it wasn’t the same as the original set look.
- I crafted pants where I really like the cut, but they have baby-poop-brown side panels. I “matched to chest” and… nothing. They stayed exactly the same (hideous) color. Apparently, this “matches” a gray shirt? Yeah. No.
- My gross white-crotch-pants could not be saved even by this. Wearing the shirt and pants in the screenshot, I clicked “match to chest.” It turned the white crotch PINK and left the rest of the pants alone. I would have taken a screenshot, but I was too busy throwing up in my mouth.
Model it. Match it. Go in the sun. You’re going to be wearing it for a while. You’d better like it.
I Hate Tharan Cedrax
I thought I hated C2-N2’s constant blathering. I thought I hated Risha’s self-absorbed posturing. But Tharan Cedrax is the worst.
Things I Hate About Tharan:
- Holiday. Ok, that’s not technically Tharan, but she’s still even more annoying than he is, if that’s even possible. She’s also voiced by the Risha actor, so that explains a lot.
- Faux-British. I can’t explain how he manages to drift his annoying accent toward the british, but he does. When given a present, it’s “marvelous.” His missions go “swimmingly.” Shut. Up.
- Complaining. Oh dear god, the whining. “I’m a pacifist.” Well that’s nice. You didn’t have to join my fucking crew. I really asked you not to. “Am I going to get a grant for this?” when sent on a crew skill mission. You’ll harvest that green goo and you’ll goddamn like it.
- Flirting. Look, dude… you have a holowhore, that doesn’t make you more attractive to women. His innuendo is about as subtle as “The Todd” or “Ur mom” jokes.
- Condescending. OK, I could chop your fucking head off with my lightsaber, don’t take that tone with me, young man. Your science isn’t that complex, especially since you make Holiday do most of the work. I’m the Pretentious legacy, not you.
So, in the spirit of haet, I decided to punish him with a companion customization kit.
The Snark Side Is Recruiting
Hi guys! I talk about our awesome guild all the flippin time and y’all are impressed, I know. Anyway, we are recruiting a little right now – “a little” because we’re small so we don’t need more than 2 more people.
We are primarily a raiding guild (ops, totally ops)
- doing current 8-person content
- progression minded (without being hardcore)
- raiding on a schedule that accommodates normal people who have lives (we raid 2x a week for 3 hours at a time)
We are looking for:
- One tank
- One healer
- No werewolves
Even if you’re not interested, you should check out the site because (1) I designed it (2) we say funny shit in guild chat, and (3) underpants!
It’s Hard Being (A Little Bit) Evil
So, until now, I played my characters in a way that felt “natural” for them. This included killing the occasional asshole or breaking the jedi code, but it also included taking the high road to impress my companions (whom I wanted to BSOCK). This landed my two lvl 50 characters somewhere around Light II or III. Which means I’ve only seen the content through the lenses of a mostly-goody-goody.
My consular is planned to be evil. I’m not doing that well at it. When I did an “audit”, I had 900 light side points and 400 dark side points. CRAP. It just doesn’t feel LOGICAL to be an ass… as my story progresses, I’m basically led on rails through doing the bidding of the Jedi Council, and it’s really hard in my mind to reconcile that my character is EVIL yet continues to do the bidding of the Jedi Council.
And some of the dark side/light side choices are just plain stupid. On the Tattooine quest chain, there’s this dude who has been trying to kill you for the entire planet. At the final confrontation the choices are (1) Ur going to jail (light side) or (2) Sure I’ll take your bribe (dark side). Hold on a sec. I hate this guy (and hate is very darksidey)! I don’t want to cooperate with him, ever! I want to kill him in the FACE. In that case, I’d just have to take the light side “hit” because cooperating with him is just unacceptable.
So we see a corollary to the “asshole rule” here:
Thou Shalt Not Suffer An Asshole To Live – but if killing him isn’t an option, for fuck’s sake, don’t cooperate with him!
Since seeing that I was on path to be light again, I focused really hard on being a rat bastard and I’m officially Dark 1. I get to the asshole response and I grit my teeth and just DO it. I admit, I’m cringing as my toon callously asks a wounded officer “Want me to put you out of your misery?” But hey, I’m never gonna see the evil side of the stories if I don’t be (at least a little bit) evil, right?
Fortunately, this time, my companion is Qyzen whom I’m not trying to BSOCK, and I don’t really care if he gives me the -1 of shame. Or the -30 of shame. Because he’s a fucking lizard. I bought him some weapons. Pretty, shinies, Qyzen. Go sit under your heat lamp. Strangely, he doesn’t disapprove of many of the dark side choices… and approves of some of them. It sure beats trying to be evil around Kira, T7, or Corso, the goody-goodies.
If being a total jerk all the time fails, there’s always diplomacy to keep me at Dark 1 – evil out to the 10th decimal place, yo.
In Space, Nobody Can Hear You Scream That You Need Heals
From talking with a fellow healer, it has become clear that SOME DPS did not get the following memo:
To:DPS
From: Your Healers
RE: FireDO NOT STAND IN THE FUCKING FIRE, KTHX
Ahem. Now, if you’re still having trouble after reading the above informative memo, there are a few things that you can (SHOULD) do.
1. Zoom Your Camera Out
I know your flips and twirls look awesome. They won’t look awesome when you’re dead because you couldn’t see the fire on the floor. Zoom out. Way out.
2. Look and Listen For the Clues
I am the worst about playing with my sound off – however, without addons, you don’t get a ton of warning, so listen up!
- Sometimes there is a big red warning across the screen when the boss is about to activate a special ability.
- Sometimes the boss will SAY something (also will be in your chat log). Learn what each verbal clue means.
Watch and Listen for these. Don’t depend on someone else to call them out.
3. Don’t Walk Backwards
You back up slower than you run forward. Always run forward out of crap, even if you’re running in the wrong direction.1 Usually, you can swing back around to the proper position.
4. Drop Everything and Run
Do not finish that channel or cast. I don’t care if it’s on an eleventybillion hour cooldown, when you need to run, you fucking run.
5. Use Cooldowns, But Not As A Substitute To GTFO
Using cooldowns is good. You still have to get the hell out of the fire, fast. Use them when you’re running out of the fire. Don’t pop your cooldown and say “don’t worry guys, I’m mitigating the… OW IT BURNS.”
6. Excuses Will Not Save You
You didn’t have lag. The dog didn’t pee on your keyboard. Just suck it up and do better next time.
This post is dedicated to Veela. No, not the one from the Revan novel.
- Advanced lesson – mouse turn so you’re in the right direction, fool! ↩