31/07/2015

It's Like a Warzone in Here

I've got a lot to catch up on from the last three weeks; we've seen PvP changes, a new Stronghold and even a new playable Species, and each of these things are worth commenting on. I also have a little something extra to follow up on courtesy of Zernebog which should be complete soon.

3.3 brought in the first arguably fundamental changes to SWtOR's "staple MMO components" of this year: we'll of course be seeing fundamental changes to Operations in Knights of the Fallen Empire but before this, a similar "re-defining" change has occurred to PvP.

By "re-defining", I mean that with the changes it is simply easier to get "properly introduced" to and geared-up for PvP, which hopefully will result in the diminishing of PvE-geared players and increasing the general quality of PvP combat. Balance is, of course, another issue - as is people simply not understanding the potentials of their classes - but that's something I won't, and realistically can't, tackle in this post.

09/07/2015

Operational Completion: The "Best" Operations

I sadly don't have as much time to dedicate to the third phase as I would have liked, as I'm going to be on a "hiatus" of sorts until the 28th of July, but today I'm finishing this phase by looking over the absolute best of the Operations. This list will not include "single-boss" instances, but is instead looking at complete Operations.

Because I've already of course looked at the most fun and tedious individual encounters, I'm going to look at these Operations with all fights factored in, so there may be one or two Operations featuring whose bosses were not a part of either list. The listed fights will be presented in an extremely summarised form; having to go into full detail on twenty-six fights is going to result in a very long and boring post, although that is of course my speciality.

Indeed, "fun" and "tedious" won't factor in to any of these decisions; the ones here are the ones which, all things considered, still hold up to this day as being the cream of the crop, especially seeing as it has only just been announced that every single Operation will be Level 65 in Knights of the Fallen Empire.

I may do a roundup of my opinions on that post tomorrow if I have time, for now, though...

06/07/2015

Operational Frustrations: The Most Tedious Operation Boss Encounters

As fun as some Operation fights may be, there are those which are annoyingly tedious. Whilst a considerable portion of these are just a means to the end of accessing the final boss and finally finishing the respective Operation, some of these final encounters are also fairly tedious.

The criteria which factor into this list are pretty much the same as they were for the "most fun" encounters, just applied as the inverse; the personalities, nature of the boss fight, and exactly what happens therein will all be taken into account in this post. Additionally, whereas the last post was fairly "timeless", this post will sadly adhere to "current affairs". This is due to the fact that with the increased number of Levels, some boss fights are nowhere near as tedious as they used to be, and we have seen new fights emerge all the while.

Continuing on from last Friday's post, these are my picks for the top 5 most tedious Operation Bosses in SWTOR.

03/07/2015

Operational Confrontations: The Most Fun Operation Boss Encounters

I've been wanting to do a post looking over the Operations as the third phase of "SWTOR Analysis" for quite some time. What was stopping me until now was the fact that I hadn't yet seen all of the Operations fights in every available difficulty; I wouldn't be able to give a "proper" opinion on the fights without knowing their full potential. I'm not making that mistake again.

Whilst I have yet to kill the Nightmare Dread Council and Hard Coratanni and Revan, I have now at least been involved in each and every single Operations fight in the game in every current difficulty. Thus, I feel it's time to begin the Third Phase of "SWTOR Analysis" by looking at the Operations in the game, which encounters are the most fun or most annoying, and then looking over which Operations in full are the "best"; if the Difficulty factors in for any of these criteria, I will specify thus.

For the single boss encounters, what contributes to the "fun factor" isn't just their mechanics but their personalities, too. A fight can be rather boring in terms of mechanics but if the boss or bosses are fun to listen to, that can make quite a bit of difference.

Without further ado, the five - legitimately five this time, no Honourable Mentions - most fun Operations Encounters.