Disciplines

So as everyone who has been keeping an eye on 3.0 will know, the Skill Trees will be completely redone. So redone, in fact, that they will be removed - is that really 'redoing'? - and replaced with the "Disciplines". This is the more linear system that seemingly automatically updates whenever you reach a certain level. The only thing we will need to actively commit with these are "Utility Points", and most of these add minor Quality of Life changes to some specs and classes whilst others are vital for another.

Over the last month, BioWare has been providing us very kindly with Livestreams of each of the changes. I'd thoroughly suggest watching those to see the animations, but if you wanted a more "hands-on" approach in order to have time to analyse exactly what is happening to your beloved Sentinel, Sniper, or Sage - to name a few - there happens to be a Discipline Calculator on Dulfy's website which you can peruse to your heart's content.

Whilst the rest of this entry will delve into changes coming with Disciplines, I will only be scratching the surface and talking about the new abilities, so if you want to see where exactly the changes fit in as a whole, the Calculator will provide a much more detailed result than I could ever achieve.

Of Commendations and Conversion Rates

So yesterday I mentioned very briefly conversion rates for commendations. As BioWare mentioned some weeks back, all Planetary, Classic, Elite and Ultimate Commendations would be converted to Basic; Planetary and Classic would both thusly disappear from the game completely whilst we'd then have to re-earn all the Elites and Ultimates. Today, BioWare revealed exactly what these rates would be.

So onto the rates.

• Classic: 2:1 Basic - accidentally transcribed this incorrectly as '3:1'


• Basic: 1:1 Basic


• Elite: 1:2 Basic


• Planetary 1:3 Basic


• Ultimate 1:3 Basic

So, say, you have all commendations capped to the max, you should be expecting to see 3,500 Basic Commendations, right?

Wrong.

BioWare have additionally stated that when the Conversion was applied, we would only have an "overflow" of 1,000 additional Basic Comms. This would mean that you could only have a maximum of 2,000 Basic Comms, regardless of how many Commendations you had that could be duly converted.

I must admit, I really do like this system. They're showing restraint with the maximum limits, thus stopping people from going particularly overboard, whilst at the same time accounting for the various levels and limits of each of the other types. For example, if we could have a limit of 200 Planetary Comms, we might see them at the same rate of Elites as opposed to Ultimates.

So now we have an additional question to answer: just what these Basic Commendations will allow us to buy. Personally, I'm very happy to wait and find out.

One week to go until 3.0!

So 3.0 launches in just over one week. Soon most of us will be able to see just what BioWare are so proud of, make use of the Discipline System, and get into a new sense of vigour with actually "fresh" PvE content that isn't just Dread Fortress and Dread Palace.

Indeed, it's been the preparations for 3.0 that have, ashamedly, kept me from finding worthwhile things to actually report about here; I've done absolutely nothing in-game save for farming the Oricon and Ilum missions, day-after-day for the past 6 weeks (!), for their Commendations across the two characters that I feel I'll be using most come 3.0. This is in order to get the most from the as-of-yet-unannounced conversion rates for Basic Commendations. Even if all I'll be using them for is replacing Dread Forged mods, barrels, and enhancements with the Dread Master equivalents*, at least it will still be something to write home about.

I do promise to be more active following the launch of 3.0. I've yet to do a blog post showing off my Tatooine Stronghold.

Now that's a thought...

Anyway.