5.0: And So, We Say Farewell

At long last, after almost a whopping 35 months, 5.0's time in the spotlight is coming to a close. I don't think anyone quite suspected what we'd be in for when Knights of the Eternal Throne launched way back on November 29th 2016; it's been an incredibly convoluted ride with its fair share of ups-and-downs and several substantial new features, retreads, and updates.

For the past two years, I've been creating posts looking back at how 5.0 had changed over the course of a year. The first time I did this it was because Eternal Throne had managed to provide a little bit of almost everything within its first year, being the first expansion since 2.0 to do so while simultaneously reaching the 365-day mark. It then just became inevitable that when it became clear that 5.0 would reach the 730-day mark that I would create another post doing the same and comparing how both years had been.

This may be considered as the third post in that particular sequence, but in looking over 5.0 I'm not going to list each and every aspect and analyse what changed. Not only would it result in an absolute shedload of retread - the only 'new' things since the last post were Ossus, Guild Heraldry, Dantooine, some brief missions for the Alliance, and new rewards for Nightlife - but it would also result in just far too much text for anyone to deal with. Both of the previous posts in the sequence were two of the longest posts I'd ever written, yet both were surpassed by my analysis of Ossus back in January!

Text overload.

Instead, I'm going to take this opportunity to look back at 5.0 and list my favourite and least favourite things to have come from it. So, with the servers currently offline for maintenance and Onslaught launching in just a few hours, permit me to indulge myself once again.

A Farewell to Galactic Command

Assuming all goes well, Onslaught will be arriving on our digital doorsteps tomorrow and with it ends the controversial system known as Galactic Command. While we're seeing a similar system, Renown, take its place the two are functionally quite different.

Command started life as the way to get gear before eventually turning into a more-or-less supplementary system. Renown is purely a supplementary system as gear is designed to come thicker and faster from other sources from the get-go. Command had various tiers which controlled what type of gear you'd be getting, while Renown only relies on your characters' gear rating to determine what gear it drops. Command had a large part of its 'income' come from CXP packs whilst Renown won't rely on these even half as much.

Finally, Command had a 'goal', a final tier that became easier to reach as time went on while Renown has no 'final' tier. While there is an Achievement for hitting Renown Rank 999, this is not something which is meant to be easy to accomplish.

It is this number that I shall be looking at today. Ever since hitting Command Rank (hereafter "CR") 300 on my first character, I decided to keep a running tally of the number of crates, and therefore ranks, that I would be acquiring from that point forth.

I can't exactly remember the reasons why I started this, but I've convinced myself that it's because I wanted to see how far I would get before CR 400 showed up. It never did, of course, but still I kept going with it. The end result is that, with nine characters above CR 300, I have a rough estimate for how much I have poured into this system across the past two years and eleven months.

1. Miorahna - Jedi Guardian - CR 2,774
2. Cal Pheiya - Gunslinger - CR 2,605
3. Pippera - Sniper - CR 910
4. Phirella - Powertech - CR 611
5. Vhiallia - Jedi Sage - CR 523
6. Vahnora - Sith Sorcerer - CR 498
7. Ferok'ia - Sith Juggernaut - CR 435
8. Jehnira - Vanguard - CR 353
9. Vihala Relles - Jedi Sage - CR 324

Because of the nature of Command, these numbers aren't at all indicative of the amount of times these characters have actually been used throughout 5.0. Notably, my Powertech is fourth on the list because she is the one who I funnelled various CXP packs to when I decided to start acquiring 248 Hunter / Trooper gear. While she did see a fair bit of use, I don't think she would have advanced much beyond CR 200 in her natural play-time. 

To further illustrate this point, my second Sage Vihala has only been in-existence since mid-August yet she had almost managed to catch up to Jehnira, a character who has been in existence now for just over two years. Both characters gained CXP largely from doing their class stories and any quests they could find along the way, but Jehn still has the advantage due to doing ever so slightly more stuff after the fact while Vi still has got a few things left to catch up on. If either character had relied on CXP packs alongside this, they would likely both be closer to where Fero and Vahnie are. 

Additionally, this list does only include characters who reached CR 300. There are two characters who got to 70 who would still have earned their own Command crates, but the only one of those who would likely have got into double-figures wouldn't have got all too far (I want to say he got to about CR 40). 

Still, I find it quite amusing that my Guardian ended up being highest of all, given that she was actually the second character to hit CR 300. Due to the above factors I genuinely can't begin to estimate whether she saw more use than Cal, but I know the two are the most-played of all nine characters.

I'm looking forward to not needing to keep this list going throughout Onslaught. Even if one of my characters does manage to hit RR 999, it won't be for a while. Every character will conveniently have their Renown number increasing up until that point, so that's a large part of my work already done. 

Although, if they do decide to reset Renown Ranks sporadically as they've hinted at in the past, that may require a bit of list-making... 

I'll cross that bridge when it comes.

5.0: Another Year Later

So here we are. The 5.0 patch cycle has now started its third and hopefully final year of life. This is the only expansion in SWtOR's nigh-seven-year history to have completed two full years, and it's certainly been an interesting ride.

As some of you may recall exactly one year ago I published an article looking over 5.0's then-present history. As I described, the first year of 5.0 resulted in nearly every single game activity or function receiving something new. Has the second year managed to accomplish a similar feat or does it feel severely lacking in comparison?

Let's find out!

The Road to Somewhere [September 2018 Edition]

So another surprise Roadmap has come and with it comes some interesting stuff to analyse.

We've known about 5.9.3 for some time courtesy of an interview done by Bad Feeling Podcast with Eric Musco and two PvP Developers, David Demaree and Brett Hoffman, and the section of the Roadmap dedicated to it is understandably short and sweet; all that's coming in this update is the new Huttball Arena on Vandin.

The subsequent big Patch, 5.10, has got a lot more stuff included, however.

300 #8

It's been an interesting week for yours truly. I've finished my first term at my new university, lost a tolerated feline friend, and by the end of today I'll have seen The Last Jedi and, most importantly, have met my family's prospective new kittens who'll be joining us on the 27th of December.

That's not what people reading about a SWtOR fan blog care about, though, although considering that this series is very much a personal indulgence, there's not much reason for anyone to care about this post either...

But yeah. Those of you who have seen the regular "300 #x" posts will have seen this coming eventually, but yesterday I finally managed to get my final character, Phirella the Powertech, up to Command Rank 300. I'd saved up enough packs over the past few weeks to get her from CR34 to CR254 on the first day of the double-CXP event, meaning that she climbed two hundred and twenty ranks from CXP Packs alone.

I love the amount of CXP you can get nowadays.

Being free of the necessary grind, I now don't really know exactly what to do. I've started funnelling most of the CXP Packs I get now towards my Sage, since of the remaining two pairs of classes I've yet to get geared up (having a Gunslinger/Sniper and Guardian/Juggernaut in full 248 including the new Augments) Sage/Sorcerer is easily the one I understand and care for more, whereas I've developed a sort of apathy for any Trooper/Hunter classes and so have no interest or desire to get them geared up any further than where they are currently.

So, yay. All 8 characters at CR300. I can relax again.

5.0: One Year Later

A year ago today, the Knights of the Eternal Throne expansion launched, bringing with it nine new Chapters of Story Content, five new mini-Flashpoint experiences known as Uprisings, Veteran Chapter Difficulty for all Chapters of both Fallen Empire and Eternal Throne, and the controversial system known as Galactic Command.

A year down the line, what's changed, been introduced, or remained stagnant?

300 #7

One of the things 5.6 is bringing with it next week is another Double-Rewards week. In spite - or because - of this, I was determined to get another Character to 300 beforehand, for reasons best described as "eh, screw it".

My Juggernaut, Ferok'ia, had climbed to Command Rank 271 from CR71 during the last 2xCXP Week courtesy of an absolute shedload of Command Packs, so she was rather frustratingly close to attaining the big 300. I ran her through Oricon, CZ-198, Black Hole, and Section X on Thursday - the only Daily Zones she'd unlocked until yesterday - and got her to CR 284.

Yesterday, I decided to indulge in a little experiment which I'd been somewhat-intrigued about since creating an Instant-65. Since Instant-65s are granted decisions based on their faction (Imperials get Dark-Side/'unwise' actions while Pubs get the Light Side/'advised' actions) since they have nothing else to go on, I was curious to see whether the current level of a character's Alignment and the associated Alignment they were fighting for made any difference to the allocated decisions if that same character skipped straight to Eternal Throne.

Since Ferok'ia is just one of my seven Light-Siders and was thus theoretically different from the 'stock' Imperial Instant-65, it made sense to me to use her for this purpose (and again, "eh, screw it"), and of course it meant that all remaining Daily Zones were unlocked for her as well. The bottom-line is that no matter whether you're playing a Light-Sided Sith or a Dark Jedi, your Faction is the only thing that matters for the allocated choices. You may play the most kind-hearted Bounty Hunter imaginable but should you decide to skip Fallen Empire for convenience you're suddenly scum remembered for letting countless people die on Zakuul.

The other thing which factored into my decision to skip straight to Throne was the ability to more-or-less instantly complete the Alliance Alerts, and none of the associated activities were more important in this moment in time than the Eternal Championship.

Y'know, the thing introduced in 4.3 last year with Bowdaar's Alert? Despite the fact that it has been out for well over a year-and-a-half by this point, I still needed two Achievements for it (and thus the entirety of the Fallen Empire Achievements); Eternal Warrior and Eternal Legend. The former - unsurprisingly - is rewarded for completing the Championship with a Warrior, while the latter is rewarded for completing it with all Classes.

So, that's done. Eternal Legend at long last, meaning that finally my Fallen Empire Achievements sit at 100% Completion. And I never 'need' to do the Eternal Championship again, so huzzah.

Anyway. This was followed up by runs of Ziost and Yavin IV and Ferok'ia hit 300.

So, just the one Class left; the Bounty Hunter. Since I don't yet have a lot of experience with playing Powertech, particularly in group content, and she's still going through her Class Story (and to be fair she's done a lot here, being CR33 only from all Missions through Nar Shaddaa and Tatooine), I imagine that the main things I'll be using to get Phirella to 300 will be the CXP Packs. I likely won't have enough to get her above CR100 this week, so it'll take something of a while before I finally have all eight Classes at 300.

300 #6

In my last immediate post I wrote about how I was returning my primary Imperial focus to Pippera, my abandoned-since-5.0-for-some-reason Sniper.

So as you've probably guessed already, she's now my sixth Command Rank 300 character. Considering that she started on approximately the 19th of October at Command Rank 40, gaining 260 Ranks in just under two weeks isn't bad going at all. I had hoped that she'd hit 300 prior to the next double CXP week on November 8th, since this now frees up all of the stashed CXP packs (of which I have several cargo bays' worth full) for my Juggernaut, and this has been accomplished well before that deadline.

Focusing on Pip for CXP also enabled me to make use of a brand-new capability in SWtOR; the capability to transfer Ship Requisition grants across to another character (or get more 'free' Requisition for the same character), provided that the character making the purchase has enough Fleet Commendations to do so. Since primary-GSF character Calph had over 900 Commendations, this meant that Pip gained two each of the Minor (120) and Major (350) Ship Requisition grants, which give a character 1,200 Requisition per ship and 4,000 Requisition per ship respectively.

So now, after almost four years since its early access period, I finally have an Imperial character who is actively partaking in GSF. It's nice to see how the other side flies, particularly as oftentimes when using Calph's ships on the Republic side I've been stomped into the dirt by very good Imperial GSF teams. As this is the way of the world, now that I'm flying the ship-flag for the Empire, I'm coming across a lot more good Republic teams.

Ah, well. It's nice to finally begin work on getting those Ship Mastery achievements up slowly but surely on the Empire side, and of course now that I have a better idea of what components work 'best' with each ship thanks to experimenting with Calph's, I'm not wasting nearly as much Requisition as I was prone to do beforehand.

So. Two classes remain; Warrior and Hunter. Looking forward to finally getting this done.

A Return to Sniping

When it comes to Alts, I have a distinct system in-mind. If I enjoy them and believe that they're able to hold their own in harder Group Content, they're going to get some gear and love. It's why my two designated Mains on both Factions are Gunslinger/Sniper and Guardian/Juggernaut; as much as I love Balance for Sage, I don't think it's at all viable for content like Operations, and whilst it does have good damage output I currently don't know Vanguard DPS well enough to even want to risk taking it into anything of the sort for the moment.

For Galactic Command this makes things very simple. The designated Mains are the only ones who'll be working towards getting the full endgame gear (not that the Imperial equivalents actually need it; I just want to have characters on both Factions with full endgame gear at the same time for once, is all), and everybody else will just be staying at Command Rank 300 with their gear frozen in a state of permanence until the next expansion. Currently this system has proved somewhat successful, with both Calph and Miora on the Republic side already having done the hard work and being in full 248 while their Imperial equivalents have only a small amount of catching-up to do thanks to certain spare items which they had earned.

Since the announcement that items from all Crates earned up to 5.6 will have items within that can be disintegrated into Unassembled Components, I've taken this one step further. I will be keeping the four 'background' Alts exactly where they are with their current gear - no longer upgrading as they progress as had been done previously - and everything they get will simply become Components. In the case of the Vanguard and Sorc, this means that there's 353 Crates of Components between them (199 for the Vanguard, 154 for the Sorc). This also carries over in some form to the Mains; any gear they get that they can't upgrade to something which they themselves can use will be similarly disintegrated.

This has a twofold benefit; first, it allows the Imperial Mains to quickly get 248 rating versions of their peripherals (assuming they get at least one Legendary version of each from their Crates when they eventually become eligible to receive them) and second, should Tier V be released next year with Master Mode Gods then I will hopefully have enough Components stored up by then to negate the grind completely for at least one of the Mains, with Calph as the highest priority, and just buy as much 254 (gear rating only assumed based on the gap of 6 seen between the other ranks [230 > 236 > 242 > 248], so there is a chance that I'm completely incorrect) gear as possible.

I like being prepared even if that which I am preparing for never comes.

But anyway, that was just background noise.

Over the past few months, my Sniper Pippera had been very much left behind. My Juggernaut received the bulk of the Imperial attention gear-wise since she was actually doing something regularly (in this case her Class Story) whilst Pip was doing absolutely nothing but sitting on her backside in the Tatooine Stronghold and occasionally being required to Craft something. To summarise, while she could benefit from Calph's Master Mode-quality armour, everything else was left at either 224 or 220.

The news that my Guild would finally be returning to doing a couple of one-off Ops on the Imperial side finally caused me to pull my finger out and fix Pip some decent gear for a change. She now has her own 246 Crafted Earpiece, Implants, and Relics.

As for her weapons, that solution presented itself very nicely. You may (but most likely will not) recall that in a previous post talking about Tier IV in its very early days I mentioned that I had upgraded two 242 Mainhands into 248 ones for Calph only to then receive a third from a Crate that very same day. This is something which continued to repeat itself not once but twice; she now has five GEMINI MK-5 Mainhand Blaster shells in her Cargo Bay.

Since 5.0 did away with the whole "Barrels/Hilts/Generator Armourings being bound to specific slots", that meant it was possible to gift two of these three spare weapons in their entirety to Pip, meaning that before she's even left Tier I she has a total gear rating of 247 and now only needs her Earpiece, Implants, and Relics at 248.

It wasn't just her gear needing work, either; I decided to give into my recent "make everyone look distinct" overdrive once again and give her a slight makeover. I had noticed that even though I had finally been making headway with giving everyone their own different hairstyle (basically, four characters used the Jaxo-style prior to the release of the "goth mop", Shae-cut, Lana-bob, and Senya-bun enabling me to diversify things while still adhering to my policy of simplicity over elaborateness) there was still a fair amount of repetition; five of my characters were female body-type-ones while one of these and a further three individuals used the Bright Blue eye colour.

Whilst Bright Blue is a beautiful eye colour, I decided that it was time to change things up. The only one of my characters to possess the colour now is Guardian Miorahna, while Calph has changed to having the greenish-blue option since it's closest to my own and Ziodus has been completely retired so doesn't count.

Since Pip was the only one of those who was both BT1 and utilised Bright Blue eyes, she upgraded to once again be body-type-two and now has dark green eyes. Despite initially trying to keep both her original Jaxo-cut and hair colour, I've been trialling new looks for her, resulting in her eventually becoming a Chiss. It'll take some time to get used to, but I think it works alright.

Since restarting my focus on Pip, she has become the sixth-highest in terms of Command Rank once again, having just surpassed Ferok'ia's Rank of 71 yesterday afternoon. Those two seem to be having a tug-of-war between themselves, since at the time of my previous post, Pip was ahead of Ferok'ia only to be surpassed since I decided rather impulsively to focus on the better-geared one rather than take things slowly and rationally, which has led to things being where they are currently.

Over-impulsiveness is an especially-aggravating trait of mine these days. I really need to get that fixed.

~~~

I'm pleased to have finally got over my apparent-aversion to devoting attention to Pippera. I don't quite know why exactly I was so determined to just abandon her (especially as her Republic equivalent is my full-time Main), but hopefully it shouldn't happen again.

300s #4 and #5

Since the last time I provided an update on my Legacy, two more Characters have joined the 300-crowd: my Sorcerer Vahnora and my Vanguard Jehnira.

When the new changes to the Commanding Legacy Perk were announced the week prior to 5.5’s launch, I decided to break my vow of inactivity and farm those Dailies. I’m very pleased that they’re back to normal now, though, and I am doing them again with the same enthusiasm I had from before that annoying bug.

Anyway.

I decided to focus on Vahn for this, because unlike Jehn she had immediate access to all Daily zones. Jehn is still partway through the Shadow of Revan storyline and has yet to touch Oricon or of course Ziost, so while she was fifty-one Command Ranks higher I felt I had to start with Vahn just because of this convenience. For some additional context, I started this farming endeavour two hours before the Weekly reset on Tuesday, and had managed to complete all Daily areas save for Section X before the new week began.

To cut a long story short, Vahn hit 300 last Sunday and I believed that I was a-okay to receive that lovely new 75% extra CXP since she was my fourth CR300 character.

Cue Tuesday; It’s revealed that you need one of each mirror Class (Consular/Inquisitor, Knight/Warrior, Smuggler/Agent, Trooper/Hunter) to receive the full boost, something which the Roadmap aggravatingly miscommunicated. Since Vhiallia and Vahnora are a Sage and Sorc respectively, that meant that instead of four characters I technically only had three at CR300.

So, Jehnira needed to step up to the plate. I had always been saving up CXP Packs for this week; I was just hoping to be able to squeeze the highest amount of CXP outta them before I used them, but alas it wasn’t to be. Still, she managed to get from CR101 to CR233 just by popping several cargo bays’ worth of Packs at the first opportunity, and after running nine Flashpoints over the past two days (including two selarate bouts of three FPs yesterday), she hit CR300 yesterday, finally fulfilling that pesky requirement and meaning that I had a representative from each Republic base class at 300.

So, who now? I have no exact idea, and I have three candidates to choose from.

I’m currently taking my new Powertech Phirella (the third) through her Class story, with her having gone from Level 1 - Level 70 in eleven hours on Friday, so she’s currently the most active character of the three.

There’s my Juggernaut, Ferok’ia, who - should anything happen with my Guild group-content wise Impside, has access to the highest-quality gear in general (borrowing my Guardian’s 248 Armour and Offhand and having Crafted 246 peripherals and her own individual 248 Mainhand), so she’s the best candidate to keep constantly doing stuff with of the three.

Then there’s my Sniper Pippera, who has the highest CR of all my non-300s (CR40) yet presently has the worst personal gear (peripherals, Mainhand, and Offhand) of all my characters, so she needs the most ‘help’ of the three. Then again, with the way I’m handling Crates at the moment - storing them with intent to disintegrate the Armour/Weapons inside into sweet, sweet Unassembled Components when 5.6 hits on November 28th - I don’t think she’s going to get that help she needs for some time.

I think I’m going to play it safe and go with the Juggernaut, since she can ‘carry herself’ through the Tiers without my feeling guilty about Disintegrating stuff she gets, since the Legendary Tier III version of each of her Peripherals would be the earliest ‘viable’ replacements for her Crafted 246 stuff.

5.5: The Cosmetic Touch-Up Patch

There seems to be a common trend in several of the 5.5 changes. Outside of Class Balance changes and the GSF changes in particular, the majority of the changes made relate to cosmetic changes. The Cartel Market and Inventory got a visual update, more Companion Customisations were made available, and of course the server list got its new truncated look a few weeks too early.

Just in general, there's a lot of changes to talk about with 5.5, so let's get started.

We're on the Road to Somewhere [October 2017 Edition]

So earlier today we got the new Roadmap covering 5.5 to 5.6.1 and (slightly) beyond. We got some interesting stuff revealed, so let's dive right in, shall we?

300 #3

So yesterday I finally got my Sage up to Command Rank 300. She's been in the high 290s for almost two weeks now, and yesterday I earned and used enough Flashpoint CXP Tokens that completing a very long-overdue Social Points mission took her over the edge.

Because I know some people will find this delay rather odd, I am very much aware of the Daily Zone bug, which would definitely have enabled me to hit 300 far sooner had I indulged in doing them. Despite the fact that Daily Zones are my own choice manner of solo-grinding CXP, I'm staying away from them while this bug is in-effect as a matter of principle. Whilst I'm pleased that people are finally realising how good they can be for CXP I absolutely despise that, rather than under the Zones' own merit, it takes a bug for this to occur. Sigh.

But then, such is the way of life in an MMO, I suppose. Hopefully, it'll get fixed properly next week as they intend. My hope is that people still keep doing the zones even without this nuisance bug, but I sadly have my doubts. Regardless, I'll be launching back into them with gusto when they're back to the way they used to be.

Still, if increased exposure gets Section X's Alignment Bug fixed then that's okay. That's the only thing which really needs fixing of the 'standard' Daily set, although I'd love for them to increase the CXP given by the Weekly for Makeb and particularly GSI to the same standard as the other Daily Zones. Currently they're both only giving the base amount of 75 which all other Daily and Heroic Missions are giving rather than 750. That's approximately nine whole missions' worth of CXP right there lost in both places thanks to this annoying oversight.

So anyway.

Now that my Sage is 300, this leaves me wondering where I'm going to go next. Unlike my Gunslinger and my Guardian, Sage Vhiallia is going absolutely nowhere beyond this point. As fun as my choice spec of Balance is, I don't think it's a particularly viable spec for anything 'serious' at the moment due to how it works (e.g. timings of DPS-crucial abilities such as Force in Balance make it very hard to be consistent on certain fights). Meanwhile, Telekinetics falls too much on the 'tedious' side for me. I'm sure it's a decent-enough spec, I just don't find it very enjoyable, which is definitely my main factor in deciding whether or not I like a spec.

So, anyway, the next character. I'm still in the midst of deciding whether or not the Vanguard Experiment was a success (there was supposed to be a post on this today, but then this happened instead so that'll probably go up tomorrow), so I don't particularly want to commit to either of my Troopers at the moment. Meanwhile, over on Empire Side I've got my Sorc, Sniper, and Juggernaut waiting to be levelled to match their Republic counterparts, but of course any focus on these might be wasted if I decide to focus on my Vanguard full-time if I deem her a success. The Merc gets the short end of the stick due to the above factors and also due to my not wanting to focus on a Class whose mirror has been deemed 'unworthy' of carrying on.

Additionally, it is worth noting that unlike on Republic side my Imperial characters will only have the traded-off CXP Packs and Daily Zones to level with, since it is unlikely that they'll ever get involved with Flashpoints or Operations themselves. Basically, they're going to take a while to be levelled no matter what.

So... yeah. A few things to consider. I was always going to come to a crossroads when Vhi hit 300, but now it's even more complicated than I was previously envisaging. Still, it's nice to have another character at 300.

Tier IV: Rewarding Stability

I'd been trying to write a post detailing my plans for Tier IV for quite some time, but because I always found myself drifting more towards the "I'd advise everyone to..." angle I decided to delay it until after 5.2 because then I'd be able to completely avoid the annoying advice-giving. Even I find my own advice aggravating at times.

So, yes, 5.2 brought with it Tier IV. We've known that this was coming for just about two months now, and since my main character Calph has been in full 242-rating Gear for just about as long I've had plenty of time to prepare.

I decided to stop opening Crates at the equivalent of Command Rank 511, with the aim of saving as many of them up as possible and disintegrating the contents. I didn't originally have a goal set in mind, but since the amount of Crates I'd earned poured over into a second Cargo Bay my goal to attain at least 160 - two Cargo Bays' worth of Crates - came into being. I did manage to attain this goal, and by Wednesday that 12th of April I had acquired 177 Tier III Crates.

I was also saving up any and every Operation, Uprising, and Flashpoint CXP Pack, and I'm fairly sure I don't need to justify this decision. Again by the 12th of April I had managed to acquire 209 CXP Packs, or more specificially:

• 9 Rare, 10 Rare Bonus, 7 Super Rare, and 7 Super Rare Bonus Flashpoint CXP Packs, totalling 33.
• 5 Uncommon, and 4 Rare Uprising CXP Packs (I didn't do as many Uprisings as I would have liked during this time), totalling 9.
• 54 Common, 23 Uncommon Bonus, 45 Uncommon, 9 Uncommon Bonus, 32 Rare, and 4 Rare Bonus Operation Packs, totalling 167.

So come Wednesday the 19th of April, when I returned from holiday, I had a lot of things to open. Since the Light Side was fortuitously on Light IV when I logged on around 15:00 on that day, I didn't have too long to wait, but I started opening some Tier III Crates and Disintegrating the contents. I had earned only one Tier IV Crate when Light Side won, so I promptly opened up every CXP Pack I possessed.

The end result is that I managed to attain one-hundred-and-four Tier IV Command Crates from this Pack-popping (what an unpleasant phrase...). However, I decided to hold off from opening any until I had completely demolished my remaining Tier III Crates because I wanted to open all the Tier IV stuff in one go. Basically after everything was Disintegrated - including stuff from the Tier IV Crates - I had managed to earn a total of 19 additional Command Crates through Disintegrations alone. 

So, 123 Command Crates, and hopefully a shedload of items to wade through. I lost track of how many Prototype 244s I received, but this didn't matter since I didn't keep a single one of them. This is simply because they share the exact same stats as 242 gear (the mods are unoptimised so are useless anyway unless you're a Tank), so they are completely worthless to me. They're still an upgrade to anyone 240 and below, but the implication prior to 5.2 that they were an upgrade to 242 in their entirety has been completely disproved.

Even in spite of the silly 244 items I got quite lucky with my 'winnings'. From these 123 Command Crates I managed to receive:

• 1x 246 Belt
• 1x 246 Bracers
• 1x 246 Quick Savant Implant
• 1x 246 Serendipitous Assault Relic
• 1x 246 Boots
• 1x 246 Greaves
• 2x 246 Offhand Blaster
• 1x 246 Mainhand Blaster
• 1x 248 Quick Savant Implant
• 1x 248 Focused Retribution Relic
• 1x 248 Gloves
• 1x 248 Mainhand Blaster

Because I also had 1,000 Unassembled Components stored up on Calph, I decided to purchase the Adept Earpiece, second Quick Savant Implant, Serendipitous Assault Relic, and another Blaster, spending 972 Components in the process. 

So as a result of the various spare items I received (and decided to Claim; I received about three pairs of Artifact 246 Gloves which all got Disintegrated) every single one of my Mods and Enhancements are 246 or better. I have since managed to acquire a third 248 Blaster from a recent Command Crate, so the spare Mod and Enhancement from this have been useful for upgrades as well. Aggravatingly, I also received a now-useless 248 Serendipitous Assault Relic from another Crate, but that's unfortunately the nature of RNG gearing. 

There was, however, one moment of monumental slip-up. I received a 248 Adept Implant in one of these Crates, something which sits at odds with how my gear is currently set-up (as you've already read, I use an Adept Earpiece alongside two Quick Savant Implants). I decided to keep it around and wait to see if I received a QS Earpiece or Implant before deciding its final fate, but unfortunately I cocked up and instead of Claiming it as I eventually wanted to do, I accidentally Disintegrated it.

This is the first instance I have ever had in the brief history of Galactic Command of Disintegrating an item which I wanted to Claim. Unlike a lot of people who have made this mistake, my most frequent slip-up has been Claiming a host of items which I wanted to Disintegrate (a mistake I also made several times on Wednesday), so it's nice to finally suffer this accident myself since that completely eradicates my especially-annoying superiority complex in this regard.

That said, I'm thankful that this Implant wasn't something which I wasn't dubious about Claiming, but it's still rather aggravating when all is said and done.

~~~

Tier IV has been rather interesting to tussle with, even though it's still barely a week old. The drop-rate being fixed for an unspecified amount of time (it is worth noting that a mount in the Decorations which states its Source as being a "Tier V Command Crate", so it remains to be seen how this is integrated and how it affects Tier IV and Rank 300) is both a blessing and a curse, since it means that you always know you have the same chance to get gear as you'll ever have, but at the cost of knowing that your chances to get better gear can never increase.

Or at least not for the time being. We still don't know whether Tier V will ever become a reality, and whether or not they'll begin adding Ranks to Tier IV to prepare for its potential arrival. If it does happen, it will probably be similar to Tier IV as it is now, whereby the Rank where it 'starts' is the only Rank it can be. 

Let's only hope that Tier VI doesn't enter into proceedings any time soon...

Complex Simplicity

As many people are aware by now, BioWare's goal with introducing Galactic Command as the main means of acquiring gear and utterly removing Commendations was to vastly simplify the 'endgame state'.

With the changes which have come to Galactic Command in 5.1 and those which are going to come in 5.1.1 and 5.1.2, it has become all too apparent that they are now doing the inverse and are taking the system to an even more complicated - not to mention tedious - level than ever before.

Those Galactic Command Changes

Another friggin' Galactic Command post!

As mentioned in yesterday's post, BioWare were due to announce upcoming changes to Galactic Command in 5.1 in the evening stream.

The stream has of course come and gone, so what are the changes like?

In a nutshell: eerily similar to past proceedings.

Basically, how things will work is this:

• Operations Bosses will once again drop Unassembled Gear Pieces
• Unassembled Gear will scale with Ops difficulty; Story Mode drops Tier I, Veteran Mode drops Tier II, and Master Mode will drop Tier III
• PvP - not including StarFighter - will grant a new 'currency' type called Unassembled Components, which can then be used to 'buy' a Tier I Unassembled Token of any variety, the turn-in for which is required to upgrade to Tier II and so on and so forth for Tier III
• Combining either item with new (Bind-on-Legacy) Command Tokens - which will be guaranteed drops from each Command Pack - will enable you to purchase the gear from vendors

It's interesting to see them do almost a complete heel-turn on this. Outside of the little details, this is exactly how things used to work, and in many ways it's wonderful to see them realise that their darling system was flawed.

So, that's the facts. What are my interpretations of the above?

Firstly, this does not mean that Galactic Command is becoming worthless. You'd still need to get the Ranks to acquire the Command Tokens (that they are guaranteed drops is wonderful), so it's not as if you could go into an Operation, pick up an Unassembled Gear Piece, and hey presto, there's your gear anymore. The grind will still be present, it's just going to be largely insignificant compared to what it is now.

Secondly, Command Tokens are not only guaranteed drops in the future, but they're going to be rewarded retroactively as well. For some players this might not mean a lot depending on how much each piece costs Token-wise. For others, however, this will mean that they could be relatively 'wealthy' and able to make the most out of their winnings in Operations. The good news is that 5.1 isn't out until the 24th of January, so this is plenty of time for even relatively prolific players to get to Tier II, if not at least a quarter-of-the-way through. 

Thirdly, this change is especially fantastic because (theoretically, more details in a moment) once again we can now gear returning and new players relatively easily. Sure, there's no Highlighted Mode, but Rating 236 gear is designed for Master Mode, so gearing them up through Hard Modes isn't exactly going to be a waste of time.

As an addendum to the previous point, this will only go so far. BioWare's apparent hard-on for RNG has ensured that it will still be in existence; only the last boss has a guaranteed set piece drop, and we don't know which bosses drop what yet, if indeed this piece itself is 'set', which it may not be. Every other boss only has a chance to drop a completely random difficulty-relevant Unassembled piece. It's like NiM in the early 4.0 days all over again but even more annoying since this affects all difficulty modes.

So close and yet still so far, BioWare, but at least you've tried! 

Funnily enough, this particular aspect is particularly out-of-place considering that people who raid and do PvP (I predict we'll see an even bigger influx of these players based on this) will essentially be able to completely negate this RNG by steadily earning the specific pieces themselves. Sure, it's slower, but at the end of the day these players should eventually be able to pick-and-choose what they need rather than rely purely on RNG.

At the same time, maybe this is yet another attempt to convince people to be more involved with the wider game; certainly, if it wasn't planned, it's going to have this effect anyway because, as has been proved spectacularly by certain individuals since 5.0, players enjoy finding as many ways around the grind as possible.

Finally, Command Tokens have an as-of-yet unspecific 'extra' bonus to ensure that players who neither raid nor do PvP will be able to use them for something 'cool'. We don't yet know what these extra items will be, but it's safe to bet that they're probably going to be cosmetics such as an armour look, pets, and Decorations. Regardless, compared to being able to buy actual gear with them the purpose of these for true 'Casuals' is wholly insignificant compared to their full potential. 

~~~

As I say, it's absolutely fascinating to see them pull a complete heel-turn on this, and so quickly to boot. Based on the feedback it was getting since launch, one can see that it was basically inevitable, which again raises the question of why they thought it was a good idea in the first place. 

Ultimately, what this goes to show even further is that BioWare are still trying to figure out 'their' own things to include in this game, which is admirable, but in this case it has severely backfired.

This all said, I am looking forward to this change being implemented. Whether it will truly serve as more than a simple bandage in-practice remains to be seen, but at-present the potential for the system to be 'rescued' is there, but the damage has of course already been done. It's certainly a change for the better in many a Raider and PvPers' eye, but for the Solo player whose time had seemingly finally come, this change could be painful to endure.

Personal Experience with Galactic Command

I've got a lot of things to talk about for 5.0. Uprisings, Veteran Chapters, and the Eternal Throne story are all worth spending a fair amount of time on.

For today's post, however, it's yet another Galactic Command post because for all that I've been talking about it, I haven't really been talking about my personal relationship with the system.

We know that BioWare are going to change the system in 5.1 (their Stream later this evening will herald further details), so it could well be that this will be the only post of this sort.

If you know how I play this game (for those who don't: I tend to only stick to one character for activities and rarely play alts unless for a specific reason), then you may not be surprised to learn that I am already Tier II on my main Calph and have been since Tuesday. I haven't gone out of my way to earn CXP or anything; this has just come from doing everything that I would normally do on this character. Additionally, this has been done without a single CXP Booster from the Cartel Market.

I do have to admit, though, that I don't particularly enjoy being as high as I am, especially as I am unfortunately leading the charge in my guild. Whilst I don't mind this making me look like a "no-lifer", the feeling that being Tier II whilst everyone else is Tier I is in some eyes an 'I'm superior and you're inferior' implicator isn't pleasant. It really doesn't help that whilst I want to do my best to help as many people as possible with the grind the system won't allow this to be done without in some way advancing my own Command Rank and making the gulf even larger. 

I am not, and nor would I ever do so, criticising my fellows for levelling up the system too slowly. This is purely self-criticism for, if anything, playing the system too quickly, since I have never enjoyed leaving people behind. Indeed, I am extremely tempted to avoid upgrading any of my 230 items to 234 until at least three other people in the guild are Tier II just so I can stay on a roughly-similar level to those who haven't bought 234/240 Mods and Enhancements early to 'cheat' the system.

Moral high-grounds may be unnecessary in this day and age, but I'll be damned if I let greed get the better of me.

Anyway, from saying I don't enjoy boasting to unfortunately writing as if I am. I didn't keep tabs on how many pieces of green and blue gear I received, but I did try my best to keep an eye on all the purple pieces. Long story short, Calph unboxed nine purple Eternal Commander MK-3 pieces which she could actually use, missing out on an Adept Earpiece, the Bracers, the Gloves, and her Mainhand and Offhand.

The Bracers were actually the only set piece from three boxes earned by Pippera the Sniper, who hit 70 during her version of Eternal Throne's story. Being a completionist by nature, I decided to craft and eventually begrudgingly buy the missing 230 armouring, barrels, and enhancement I still needed (Earpiece notwithstanding because non-optimisation is awful) when it became clear that I just wasn't going to get lucky with earning the actual pieces.

As for duplicates and pieces I couldn't have used, I received an extra Helmet, an extra Belt, two extra Focused Retribution Relics, a Devastating Vengeance Relic, an Initiative Earpiece, an Adept Implant, and a Quick Savant Earpiece.

So at the end of it all, seventeen crates from Calph's ninety yielded set pieces, with nine of these being useful. That's really not a good return rate, even when the 'small fact' that only 14 crates need to yield something useful as a minimum is considered.

I'm looking forward to seeing how they're going to change this system. At the moment it isn't pleasant to deal with in the slightest, and I'm saying that as someone who undoubtedly got a relatively lucky spin at the wheel.

Galactic Command: BioWare's "Long-Game"

So let's talk in more detail about Galactic Command.

Since it was announced, virtually everyone knew that it would be controversial as all hell. It's uprooted one of the most consistent procedures of acquiring endgame gear and replaced it with a system which is based entirely on RNG and grind all wrapped up in one package.

As tedious as it is right now, it could have been a lot worse: initially the system was going to be tied to our Advanced Class with no consideration for our Disciplines, so a Commando Healer could get DPS gear whilst a Shadow DPS could get Tank gear. Thankfully they fixed that quite shortly after the system was announced.

But that's a hypothetical "in the past" situation. What about in the now?