23/02/2017

Instant 65 Adventures

Nothing like three weeks of completely letting this blog slide into brief inactivity again.

In between bouts of frequently-recurring illnesses and a busy few weeks, I won't deny that blogging has fallen by the wayside somewhat. I'm almost thankful that technological difficulties (long story short; nVidia ShadowPlay is recording everything but my microphone input at a super-quiet level and my attempts to fix it have so far proved ineffective) have rendered the Wednesday Warzones series inoperable for the moment, since maintaining this is impossible at-present.

It also doesn't help that, right now, things are just 'more of the same'. I could be reporting on the Command system now the 350% boost has been implemented, but I've harped on about Galactic Command for too long and inevitably I'd turn to criticising the lack of RNG fixes again. Similarly, talking about PvP and Operations would also likely see a return to prior criticisms that, whilst the changes are decent, there is a lot more which can and should be done.

However, there is one thing which is new for me to talk about; the instant-65 experience.

As everyone should be aware, you can create instant-60 and instant-65 characters and take them through the respective storylines. I'm fairly sure most people have created a quick instant-60 character during 4.0, mostly to partake in a get-alts-geared-quick scheme through the Priority Ops. Instant-65s are at a noticeable disadvantage in this regard, since it does take a greater amount of commitment to get them levelled and kept around due to the Command System.

Regardless, the above concerns didn't stop me having a series of questions regarding these newer instant characters. They would, of course, have skipped the entire Fallen Empire story, so how would the game allocate your choices? Moreover, whilst the cast of main characters would be guaranteed, would the 65s have any access to the Alliance system?

04/02/2017

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.