Dark vs. Light: Looking Back

It's been two months since the Dark vs. Light Event was officially announced and the groans about the sheer amount of grind began. Hard to believe, really.

Yesterday, I managed to complete the last requirement needed for total event completion, which was levelling my eighth Event Character, a Jedi Knight. I figured that it would be fitting to complete this entire thing on the class which I have created the least characters on.

Now that I have completed this Event, I figured it would be nice to look back over it as a whole and just give my views on the goings-on which either myself, guildies, or just random strangers have been getting up to as part of this Event.

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I must say, I do really like how it's made some people really active. Queues for Flashpoints, PvP, and GSF are popping relatively frequently on The Red Eclipse, which is nice to see. Even in the guild I'm in we've got people taking part who I wouldn't have imagined even giving this Event a look-in, something which I testify to the relatively easy path to completing Eternal tier.

Speaking of the guild, me and another guildie were pretty much neck-and-neck on the closing stretch yesterday, with me only needing to get 18 Levels and him needing to get 10 and the final points for Dark V. Considering that I was eight levels behind him to begin with, I am impressed that I was able to catch up to him to the extent that I finished only 70 minutes or so behind him. Nothing wrong with a good bit of healthy competition, I always say!

One thing which I think a lot of people have realised pretty quickly is that several people just used this Event as an excuse to make throwaway characters. Some, like "Shooty Man", are the sort of throwaway name you'd come to expect from a game like this anyway, but then you have "Consular Dvl", "Event Character", and "TBD" (to-be-deleted), and you just have to shake your head with exasperation.

Bonus points for the last one for the player in question creating follow-ups called "Tbd Mktwo" and "Tbd Rip".

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This last week, since I only had the levelling to go from Thursday onward, I've been using the Event primarily for one purpose; getting some more species unlocked. Prior to this week, I had Human, Sith, and Twi'lek unlocked for genuinely playing a representative character to Level 50, and Chiss and Cyborg due to two instant-60s. I initiated this plan too late with the remaining factions to unlock Mirialan, but I do now have Rattataki, Zabrak, and Miraluka unlocked.

Not that species choice really does anything, but it's nice to see those species illuminated at long last.

I was really pleased to discover that they've actually fixed the turn-in rewards for the multi-stage bonus missions. Whilst the second and third stages (if applicable) are still grayed out and only grant 10 XP maximum, the turn-in is once again granting many XP points, which is absolutely glorious to see. It certainly makes Coruscant an absolute bliss to level through, as you'll now get enough XP per zone to constitute very nearly two levels if you do everything.

For the most part, I stuck with my comfort zones, only creating classes with which I was 100% familiar. The sole exception came in the form of my Event Trooper, Iyaniar, who was created as a Vanguard. I had been wanting to give Vanguard one last serious attempt for some time, and this was the perfect opportunity to do so.

It transpires that this wouldn't be the only time I would step outside of my comfort zone. Yani found herself being respecced to Tank in order to facilitate Hard Mode Czerka Meltdown and Depths of Manaan (never again), whilst new-Sorc and new-Merc (Lezahnos and Vhirella, respectively) found themselves field-respeccing to Heals for Tactical Korriban and Czerka Meltdown, respectively.

It wouldn't surprise anyone to learn that the Level 48 Vhirella had a much easier time in this capacity than the Level 23 Lezahnos!

If you've been following this blog for some time, the name "Vhirella" should be familiar to you. This is because she is pretty much a carbon-copy (the only difference is the scarring) of created-annoyingly-too-soon Mercenary Phirella, who I wrote about in this article. I liked Phi's design too much to abandon her for the sake of an Event Alt, and she will actually go on to get to 50 and later 65 herself whilst her erstwhile replacement will be deleted.

As for whether or not a significant number of the new characters will be staying, I don't know. Yani and Fexiros, the first two Republic characters levelled for the Event and two of the only three Event characters to hit 65, will probably be staying due to Fex being my alt-Gunslinger for raiding purposes and my desire to finally see the Aric romance keeping Yani around.

Everyone else, though? No clue. I'm quite fond of new-Warrior Ferok'ia's design but as she was based off a character who is actually deceased in another character-of-mine's personal story then that will require some restructuring if I decide to keep her around. Otherwise, I see no reason to keep any of the others around, since I like their predecessors a lot more than I do them.

For me, the most painful endeavour was undoubtedly Galactic Starfighter. For context, I'm actually a Starfighter veteran, and have just under 600 matches under my belt. Regardless, for a new character, Starfighter always has been and still remains an absolute nightmare for a new character to get into. Normal PvP, Flashpoints, and Operations can be accessed relatively easily by new characters if another has a good number of Commendations to gift them, but Starfighter, a game mode which, more than any other, benefits characters which have been actively involved for a long time, has no such luxury.

Needless to say that one of my friends who used to play a fully-kitted-out Gunship back in the day made their dislike of doing it all on a new character very well-publicised.

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Of course, the final element in this entire Event is the Reward system. Having completed Legendary tier, I am of course eligible for both mounts, both armour sets, the Companion, and the Pet, but that's what everybody who completes these tiers will get anyway.

Of course, every tier has its own number of Bound Dark vs. Light Packs, of course coming in quantities of 5, 10, 10, 15, 15, and 30 for each successive tier. I could have sworn that I had posted some spoils in a previous post, but I'm probably thinking of a since-deleted blog post in which I would have talked a bit about the Gunslinger and Sniper in detail.

I had a fair bit of fortune, as well as - of course - the inevitable disappointments. It's the same with every aspect of gambling with these packs, but because these were free I do at least have that to be thankful for.

Of course, everyone knows of the silver armour nonsense you can get from these packs, so I'll gloss over those. The gold/rare spoils have been:

• 1x Black Nebula Heavy Blaster
• 2x Cathar Honour Swords (!)
• 2x Ceremonial Mystic's Lower Body Armour
• 1x Exiled Master's Lower Body Armour
• 1x Exiled Master's Upper Body Armour
• 1x Satele Shan's Supplementary Body Armour
• 1x Sith Recluse Lower Body Armour
• 1x Sith Recluse Supplementary Body Armour
• 1x White-Black Hawkeye Crystal
• 1x XoXaan's Upper Body Armour

To give some context, both of the Honour Swords, the White-Black Crystal, and the Satele Shan Supplementary box came from the first twenty-five packs, whilst one of the Ceremonial Mystic boxes and the Sith Recluse boxes came from the subsequent thirty, and the Black Nebula, second Ceremonial Mystic box, Exiled Master boxes, and XoXaan box came from the final thirty.

With the sole exception of the Satele box, because all it contains is the belt, I'd say that I undoubtedly got the best loot at the start of the Event, although I'd happily take the XoXaan Upper Body Armour since the rest of it shouldn't be that hard to find on the GTN, even if it will be expensive. Certainly, getting two Cathar Honour Swords is something which I would only have dreamed of previously, although it is aggravating that they were bound solely to that one character at the time. 

I also received some decent Decorations, with the 'best' one being a Naga Sadow statue. Being an owner of the majority of Decorations in the game as it is, there isn't much in this regard that would have been new. 

I am curious to know what rare stuff other people in the blogging sphere are getting, though. Certainly I know that people in my guild have also seen their fair share of luck, with one person snagging a black/black dye from their first fifteen crates, and another snagging four White-Black Crystals, although they lack the currently 'advised' Eviscerating variety.

RNG be damned. 

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This Event has been very interesting, both to be a part of and to witness. Whilst I am of course in a fairly favourable position compared to some people, I still think that it's one hell of a grind to do on entirely new characters, and I do wish that there had been some leeway in this regard. But, hey, it's not as if we're not used to BioWare introducing grinding of old content to tide people over before something new and exciting comes out.

The most worrying thing with this Event is that it's meant to be our 'captivator' until Eternal Throne. Being a constant subscriber, I am of course eligible for the HK Chapter, so I've got something new coming up soon to look forward to. However, there will of course be people who are not eligible for it who also won't be taking part in this Event, so they're going to have been left waiting for many weeks by the time that something new does come out which they'll be able to access.

I don't have that much of a problem with the Event plugging the gap, but it's a gap which not everybody will be able to fill. I'll be curious to see whether there will be any tangible 'results' coming from this in the long-term.