As I have expressed before, I'm not a big fan of Mandalorian-themed stories at the moment. They are rather over-exposed, being prominent in no fewer than four television shows across the past decade and having a sizable presence in The Old Republic.
All that is fine if you are a huge fan of the culture, and the sort of exposure they're getting would, I imagine, be idyllic if you've always been a huge Mandalorian fan. I, however, am not.
Alas, with Mandalorians now becoming a prominent force in the main storyline of The Old Republic, this is one instance where I cannot just put said content to the side and focus on the stuff that does interest me more. Patch 7.2 continues the storyline started technically back in 6.0 before 6.2 really got going with it; the growing rift between Shae Vizla - Mandalore the Avenger - and several clans who are disgruntled with her leadership and uniting under one banner.
Last time we saw them, these clans had united behind she of the inconsistent voice and armour colour, Heta Kol, and they attacked The Spirit of Vengeance II - Shae's flagship - in both a show of force and in a successful attempt to steal the banner of Clan Cadera. After that, they disappeared to parts unknown. Well, now we've found said parts unknown, and it's time to take the fight to them.
Along the way, courtesy of the Digging Deeper story update with 7.1, we're also being treated to more story about the Kateen siblings. Sa'har's brother, Ri'kan, being in-league with Heta Kol was a twist that really caught me in particular off-guard, and it succeeded in giving me something of an anchor point to be interested in where that element was going.
Then there's also the new PvP season, something which I have not yet had any personal experience of, and some new and exciting indications for SWTOR's future.
All-in-all, while 2022 might not have started well for SWTOR, it's certainly trying its damnedest to end it on a bang. What are my thoughts on all that we got this patch? Read on and find out!
~~~
The Good
Ruhnuk: The Main Story
Ruhnuk's main story is short, but it packs one heck of a punch. The cinematics in the latter half are absolutely gorgeous, and even as someone who doesn't particularly care for either Shae or Heta the fight between the two was truly a spectacle to behold. The setting, the music, just how the crowd pounded their chests and feet to create a drumroll effect... so much good there.
We also learned a lot about Ri'kan Kateen, which is very welcome. When we first saw him, he looked like he might have been a prisoner of the Mandalorians, but then he just waltzed up to Heta herself with no trouble, indicating that he was far more than just a guest. Indeed, it's revealed after the main bulk of the story that he's actually a member of her inner circle, albeit one who's a bit rough around the edges. A powerful bruiser, but seemingly not much of a decent tactician.
It's also because of him that the Ordo brothers lost their sister, Layla. It's going to be interesting to see how their grudge potentially affects the story going forward, as you can guarantee that Sa'har would want to see her brother saved when the time inevitably comes for her to see that what he's doing isn't right at all.
The most interesting thing that happens with the Kateen siblings' dynamic is right at the end. Ri'kan is obviously all too happy to use his sister and Nul's holocron to further his own ends, but his reaction to Heta taking her away from him to discuss the finer specifics, just leaving him with the instruction to ensure that nobody disturbs them, reveals something far more.
It seems that Ri'kan still holds a grudge against Sa'har for being deemed "more special" than he was by Denolm Orr. To see Heta do exactly the same thing must be awakening all sorts of resentment towards his sister, and it must hurt to feel that his coveted position is at risk because - once again - his sister just happened to steal the limelight, albeit through no real fault of her own. Considering that Ri'kan has failed Heta at least once and has been shown to be quite rough in combat, one has to wonder if Heta views him as a liability now that war is approaching fast. She needs weapons, not soldiers like him who don't always come through.
It's definitely going to be interesting seeing how the Kateen siblings' dynamic evolves as the story progresses.
Other moments in the story are interesting as well. During the duel between Shae and Heta, you can allow the leader of the Dar'manda following the rogue Mando, Bask Sunn, to keep using a sonic disruptor on Shae and ensure that she loses the fight in return for the Dar'manda supporting you instead. This does actually lead to Shae losing the duel, thus shaking the faith of other clans, and I am intrigued to see what this choice may result in.
It's also wonderful to see Torian Cadera get his own moments in this storyline, considering that he can be killed in previous story content. BioWare has always struggled with giving determinant characters a decent spot in the limelight, including back in the Mass Effect series, and while Torian only really has one moment to truly call 'his own' (standing before the flag of his clan, now destroyed), it's still great to see him feature quite heavily.
Akaavi Spar also gets her own spot in the limelight, including briefly becoming a companion in the final main story mission if Torian is dead, and it's great to see her again. Heck, both Torian and Akaavi are the first base-game companion characters to feature on a loading screen since T7-O1! How cool is that?!
The one main disappointment I have about the main story is that we see nothing of Tyrus Brokenblade and Durn Wynnward, the other previously-identified members of Heta's inner circle. They feature briefly in 7.1, but they're completely absent here, not even getting a cameo aboard Heta's flagship. I imagine we'll be seeing at least one of them be a major force in the next story update focusing on the civil war, but it would have been nice to hear their thoughts on how things have gone or been going following Ruhnuk.
All-in-all, I've been very happy with the main story of Ruhnuk. While I can't claim to have been fully behind everything that happened, it was certainly much more interesting than I believed it would be, largely due to Ri'kan and Sa'har. I'm so pleased that we were able to actually have something of a decent conversation with the latter, even if it would always have amounted to nothing both because of Shae's interventions and Sa'har's own goals preventing her from leaving Heta's forces behind for now.
Looking forward to seeing how her story evolves!
~
Technical Developments
While I myself am not colour-blind, I have been hoping that SWTOR would eventually introduce a colour-blind mode in some form for quite a few years now. It's becoming more of an industry-standard, so this was just one in a few ways that SWTOR has been dating itself quite horribly. Fortunately, along with another large UI overhaul, 7.2 has introduced a colour-blind mode at last.
I can't speak for its effectiveness, of course, but I hope that it makes a world of difference for those who need it.
In more universal news, Keith Kanneg posted the other day that SWTOR was not only moving some of its hosting capabilities to the cloud, but that the client itself is finally being updated to 64-bit! I'm not much of a technical guru, so I don't quite understand the full differences between 32-bit and 64-bit, but even I can see that the more time goes on, the greater the likelihood that 32-bit support will just be phased out entirely. SWTOR moving away from 32-bit increases its theoretical longevity by quite some margin as a result.
Performance on the PTS version of the 64-bit client seems pretty solid, and I am hopeful that with both of these changes SWTOR will be a fair bit more stable. Time shall tell!
~~~
The Eeehhhhhs
Ruhnuk: The Epilogue
For the most part, the main story of Ruhnuk avoids all of the things I tend to take issue with when it comes to Mandalorians; a tendency to fixate on being "true" Mandalorians, using Mando'A phrases, and characters just being insufferable pricks because they're Mandalorians and that's just how they are.
Cue the epilogue content.
We're tasked with helping Shae's cousin, Lane Vizla, clear out the remnants of Heta's army, particularly clan Ha'rangir. Claiming to descend from one of Mandalore's gods, this clan is basically the pinnacle of arrogance when it comes to Mandalorians. Indeed, it's suggested that the reason that they follow Heta is because she indulges their claims (even if just for her own gain) while Shae doesn't. Their leaders, Kur and Arla, are both exceedingly annoying and it feels so good to give them a good putdown.
This is also the first time that basilisk droids feature in SWTOR's story. These droids have a long history in the Legends timeline, and as a result tend to be fairly popular among the Mandalorian fanbases. There were more than a few requests for a basilisk mount before patch 6.1.2 delivered one to the masses on the Cartel Market.
These are essentially the equivalent of critically-endangered animals. The creators attempted to destroy their own planet when the Mandalorians attacked, succeeding only in devolving themselves to a primal state, and the knowledge to build them is thus not widely known. Kur's plan to strip down the few machines he has found and build an army of apex basilisks is the equivalent of a rich despot buying up as many Sumatran tigers as he can, forcing them to live in various cages so that they'll fight, and keeping the survivors as his loyal pets because they're the strongest of the lot.
Once all is said and done, you can either kill Kur - sacrificing the few droids he has left since the idiot decided to strap bombs to them - or let him escape and save the droids. One always survives in either instance, being deemed "small" by Lane, and we're allowed to keep it once it gets patched up a bit. I'm guessing that this thing will be a companion, because BW probably won't be able to resist giving the diehard Mandalorian fanatics a chance to fight alongside a basilisk for the first time ever.
This epilogue feels like the writers compensating for a lack of 'traditional' Mandalorian storytelling in the main story and just shunting as much of it as they can think of into one quest-chain. It's easily the least-interesting part of the whole storyline as far as I'm concerned, and I'm pleased we didn't get more of that during the main story.
~
The New Map
With 7.2, BioWare continued with the UI revamp that they began with 7.0, this time focusing on the map. Now, I had been foreseeing a revamp to this ever since whichever patch brought in the new galaxy map; the GSF icon had been shunted up to make room for the map icon, and it was clear that it was never designed to be anywhere other than resting on the curve of the minimap. There was a noticeable hole, as the inverse curvature of the old GSF icon was now exposed.
So I'd kinda been hoping they'd do something new to fix that, and with 7.2 they've delivered a new minimap and customisable interface bars. I like the latter, but was a bit surprised that the signal indicator was turned "off" by default. Easy thing to fix.
The new minimap has the ability to expand into a pop-up overlay, displaying the local map of whichever area you're in without anything like a mission tracker, instance-switcher, or anything else that the original map possessed. The original map is still there, but by default it is tucked away behind the new keybinding of ALT+M.
I don't mind them introducing a new overlay, and I do quite like the concept, but I'm not a fan of them changing the keybinds by default - especially as this also affects the GSF map which is at the moment irrevocably tied to ALT-M. Not even changing the keybinds around so that M once again opens up the original map helps, but BW has acknowledged this as an oversight so they will be introducing a separate keybind for the GSF map in future.
I'm also not too fond of how the overlay is just your local map. There isn't any option to expand it to show the world map, so if you're using the overlay to navigate your way around, say, a new planet with confusing tunnels and the like, you can't use it to click through the tunnel map layouts to find out where this exit or that exit comes out.
Fortunately, the old map does still exist, and I just switched the keybinds of the two. I don't mind the overlay, but it can never replace the original for sheer functionality.
~~~
The Bad
Ruhnuk: The Daily Zone
First impressions are very important, and I have to say that the first impression Ruhnuk as a daily zone left on me was rough. This has to have been the roughest first impression that a daily zone has left on me in years - not even Iokath seemed as bad as this one!
Okay, so, to break it down. Ruhnuk is already quite confusing with its layout, but in places it's also swarming with mobs of varying difficulty. There are a couple of daily missions which require you to visit some of these locations at least twice during a standard run, whether it be running through a tunnel to click on a console to then have to return to it to transmit data after clicking more consoles, or running back to an earlier part of that same tunnel to continue a mission's objective before running back up to higher ground to, again, transmit data.
Then there's the fun of one daily in the quarry asking you to go back to the waterworks when you might have already done the dailies that were in the waterworks beforehand.
Yeah, it's... it's not a fun one to do. Even once you formulate a rough structure (I always made sure the waterworks were the final destination, for example), you cannot avoid making repeat visits to one of the areas.
The mobs are also fairly brutal at times. I don't know whose idea it was to give three of the four gold mobs and one of the silver mobs knockbacks, but I loathe them for it. Getting a pull with two of those mobs together isn't fun in the slightest. Oh, and I've also found about six times now that sometimes I would engage in combat with one group of mobs and a nearby one would decide to join in as well, just out of the blue.
Fine if they're all standards / weaks... not if they're golds and silvers. Uggggh.
The relic quests really do help with this; the jet pack opens up shortcuts, allowing you to skip a large part of the running to and fro for the transmitting of data, but they're also incredibly tedious to do the first time through. Oh, and they don't work that well when in groups, so I hear.
It's something of a shame, as Ruhnuk itself has a lot of potential. The main world boss, Kithrawl, is a decent fight, and I like the hidden boss Tiroxe (whose presence and achievement feel like a culmination of eleven years' worth of puns about Trapjaw and Dash'roode), and some of the dailies are okay... but it's also by far one of the most tedious zones to do in-full.
I definitely won't be returning to it for casual runs unless I really need to.
I do like that the boss of the Strongest Links heroic, Rubassa, is the same Rubassa who appeared in the recent short story starring Shae Vizla, "Snare". You don't really think about NPC bosses having their own character or story for the most part, so it's fun to see one appear elsewhere for a change.
~~~
I have avoided touching on the PvP season in any of these sections because of my lack of exposure to it. I don't want to say if I think it's good, bad, or eeehhhhh with no real grounds for it other than my feelings. That said, I will just offer my thoughts on it in general without committing it anywhere in particular.
I've been keeping an eye on the PvP revamp in general, and I do like a fair bit of what BW has done, but I also feel no real attachment to the idea of a second seasonal thing. Galactic Seasons is mostly fine because at least that's generic and focuses on a lot of things even in a single week, but a seasonal thing based on one singular activity is quite a daunting prospect.
Especially given that to maximise gains of the new PvP seasons token in this first season, you'd have to do both the arena and warzone weeklies 25 times each. It's a massive undertaking, and I wish everyone doing Galactic Seasons on multiple servers alongside a full-on PvP season focus the very best of luck with keeping their sanity intact.
It's the sort of thing which I am wary about joining in on, because while I'm fine with just sitting down for a week and grinding the ever-living crap out of a daily zone like Ruhnuk to ensure that that's it, done-and-dusted, I can move on quickly, a season encourages a far more long-term focus even if you're not maximising your token gains.
And that's why I'm just keeping away from it for now. 7.2 has successfully reconnected me with SWTOR in a way I wouldn't have thought possible back with 7.1. Heck, even in the week leading up to its launch I was genuinely questioning how invested I really was with the upcoming update. It might be a temporary thing, but I'm not knocking it - I'm pleased that it was more interesting than I feared.
But at the same time, I also know that it's in moments like these, when you're riding that high, that "just seeing what it's like" can lead to full-on investment and, worse, addiction. Now that I'm done with Ruhnuk apart from turning in the mountain of rep trophies I have saved up, I'm happy to just take more of a backseat, see how things go between now and the new year, and maybe then I'll reassess where I stand about things.
I don't want to jump into something like the PvP season "too early" if I am to get involved with it. I'm trying to be careful to not do too much at the moment, but I'm hoping that if things do settle down then maybe I'll be able to focus quite casually on PvP again.
Time shall tell!
~~~
On the whole, I really like the parts of 7.2 that I have experienced. As mentioned above, it's reawakened a joy I haven't felt towards SWTOR for a long time, which I attribute to the Kateen siblings' story more than anything. I'm genuinely really interested to see where those two end up and how things progress - especially as now the Mandalorian storyline is done for now, we'll be returning to Malgus and the ever-increasing likelihood that he'll break out of prison...
The negatives I have with it, for the most part, are just personal taste. I have expressed before how refreshing I found characters like Rass Ordo among the Mandalorians, and I was pleased that the main bulk of 7.2 featured very little of the tedious (to me) parts. Of course, they were there eventually anyway, but only in an epilogue so it doesn't take too much away from the more interesting parts.
The daily zone of Ruhnuk is easily the worst bit of the whole patch at the moment. It's something of a shame, as most of the recent daily zones had been successes as far as I was concerned; it has been a long time since anything has fallen as far in my evaluations of these areas as Republic Section X...
The news of further technical developments are also really interesting, and I am excited to see them come to fruition. Certainly, the 64-bit client is going to be a very popular move, and I hope it means that the game has given itself a few more years of life than it might otherwise have had.
The future certainly looks more promising now than it did at the start of this year!
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