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?
29/11/2017
25/11/2017
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.
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.
03/11/2017
Personalised Companion Lists I'd Create for my Characters
One thing I like doing in my spare time is finding as many ways as possible to try and diversify my characters, an act which is becoming increasingly harder now that the story has us all coming to the same basic point.
Regardless of your choices, everyone always goes to the same place, meets the same people, yadda-yadda, boring. It is the hope of many people that when the Alliance finally dies we can go back to our different factions, something which has been hinted at as a possible option (although as it's 'possible' this may imply that continuing the Alliance is itself a possible choice).
In the absence of anything more 'serious', I content myself by thinking of 'ideal' Companion teams which I'd like to construct from the available Companions if ever the choice emerges to reduce the number of characters in our over-substantive Companion lists. I am not imagining for a second that this would become an option, but it's nice to dream.
Now that talk is turning to more original Companions returning, starting with Raina Temple in 5.6, this thinking is in my mind more prevalent than it ever was, so because nobody asked for it, here are my choices for personalised Companion lists. The lists I have come up with only include those characters who could be given to use as part of the Story; Cartel Companions, Reward Companions, etc. don't count because having gone to the effort of acquiring these Companions it is unlikely that people will choose to get rid of them.
These are in no way indicative of who I think fits best with all characters as a base; my choices for my Hunter are not what I'm saying all Hunters should aim to have by their sides. Accounting for the sheer amount of options which may become illogical due to personality clashes or even disagreement with philosophies and choices is impossible. Similarly, I am of the opinion that some characters should remain Class-specific, and I'll get to those when I get to those.
For example, all of my Imperial and Republic characters will be aligning with their original faction and not have anybody change sides; thus, all of the characters who would ordinarily despise the Empire would have no problem joining up with, say, my Jedi Knight. This would be very different from somebody whose Knight defected, thus potentially drawing the ire of staunch Republic patriots and freedom fighters.
Anyway, I've prattled on long enough. On with the list.
Regardless of your choices, everyone always goes to the same place, meets the same people, yadda-yadda, boring. It is the hope of many people that when the Alliance finally dies we can go back to our different factions, something which has been hinted at as a possible option (although as it's 'possible' this may imply that continuing the Alliance is itself a possible choice).
In the absence of anything more 'serious', I content myself by thinking of 'ideal' Companion teams which I'd like to construct from the available Companions if ever the choice emerges to reduce the number of characters in our over-substantive Companion lists. I am not imagining for a second that this would become an option, but it's nice to dream.
Now that talk is turning to more original Companions returning, starting with Raina Temple in 5.6, this thinking is in my mind more prevalent than it ever was, so because nobody asked for it, here are my choices for personalised Companion lists. The lists I have come up with only include those characters who could be given to use as part of the Story; Cartel Companions, Reward Companions, etc. don't count because having gone to the effort of acquiring these Companions it is unlikely that people will choose to get rid of them.
These are in no way indicative of who I think fits best with all characters as a base; my choices for my Hunter are not what I'm saying all Hunters should aim to have by their sides. Accounting for the sheer amount of options which may become illogical due to personality clashes or even disagreement with philosophies and choices is impossible. Similarly, I am of the opinion that some characters should remain Class-specific, and I'll get to those when I get to those.
For example, all of my Imperial and Republic characters will be aligning with their original faction and not have anybody change sides; thus, all of the characters who would ordinarily despise the Empire would have no problem joining up with, say, my Jedi Knight. This would be very different from somebody whose Knight defected, thus potentially drawing the ire of staunch Republic patriots and freedom fighters.
Anyway, I've prattled on long enough. On with the list.
01/11/2017
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.
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.
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