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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

Lit TOR: The Least Possible Commitment

Discussion in 'Literature' started by CooperTFN, Jan 1, 2013.

  1. CooperTFN

    CooperTFN TFN EU Staff Emeritus star 7 VIP

    Registered:
    Jul 8, 1999
    That's how I ended most of my conversations in KOTOR, thank you very much. I wonder if that's why Bastila never fell for me? [face_thinking]

    So if I'm hearing this right, it's harder to get through the story because you can only get so powerful, but nothing is utterly blocked off, as in "you must be level XX or higher to accept this mission"?

    I should've just titled this thread "explain MMOs to Cooper, please".
     
  2. The Loyal Imperial

    The Loyal Imperial Manager Emeritus star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Nov 19, 2007
    You earn experience by completing quests and killing enemies. You earn three-quarters of what subscribers earn as a FTP player. Experience increases your character's level. New quests open up as you increase your character's level, from 1 to 50.
     
  3. GrandAdmiralJello

    GrandAdmiralJello Comms Admin ❉ Moderator Communitatis Litterarumque star 10 Staff Member Administrator

    Registered:
    Nov 28, 2000
    Three quarters at most, that is. Subscribers can get double rested XP, which is a bonus unavailable to F2P.
     
  4. CooperTFN

    CooperTFN TFN EU Staff Emeritus star 7 VIP

    Registered:
    Jul 8, 1999
    So you can level as high as you want, it's just a lot harder. And the lower your level, the harder the game is generally.
     
  5. Darth_Kevin

    Darth_Kevin Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Aug 30, 2001
    If you just want to play through once, you can probably do it in a month just playing several nights per week for a few hours. I suggest just signing up and paying for one month. It might take you an extra couple weeks to play through the whole thing with the F2P handicaps.

    In general, if you just want the story, the easiest way to get through everything would be to always be ahead on experience and levels the whole way through. I'd suggest the following:
    • If you're a subscriber, always log off from a cantina or other rest area to build up the XP bonus for resting
    • Occasionally play space missions on your ship for experience and credits
    • Occasionally group up to do side quests (Flashpoints on the space station, Heroic missions on the planets)
    • Occasionally join the queue for P2P arenas. You get credits and experience win or lose.
    Also, if you want story, you definitely want to do two particular Flashpoints on the space station. On the Republic side, they involve Revan. Forget the names of the missions, but they are not located on the main space station, but on another ship at the fleet.
     
  6. Mechalich

    Mechalich Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Feb 2, 2010
    Those flashpoints (Taral V, Maelstorm Prison, Boarding Party, and The Foundry, which occur in the 30s level wise, involve Revan on both sides - the Republic portion happens chronologically prior to the Imperial portion (such temporal manipulation happens in a few other areas, such as on Balmorra and Taris).

    Additionally the culmination of the overall TOR storyline, revealed to date, takes place in the final two flashpoints that occur only at lvl 50 on Ilum (Battle of Ilum and False Emperor), involving Malgus. These require endgame gear to complete, so FTP is effectively frozen out. There are several other endgame flashpoints as well for story - Directive 7 (droid revolution plot), and Kaon Under Siege + Lost Island (Rakghoul plot, though Lost Island is a royal pain in the Force).

    Technically the bonus XP only applies to what is gained killing enemies, not via questing, and questing is the primary XP source. Even so, with judicious management bonus xp amounts to hundreds of thousands out of the roughly 8 million total necessary to reach lvl 50.
     
  7. GrandAdmiralJello

    GrandAdmiralJello Comms Admin ❉ Moderator Communitatis Litterarumque star 10 Staff Member Administrator

    Registered:
    Nov 28, 2000
    Ah. I hadn't realized that it was so little. I knew that it applied only to enemies but I thought it had a larger overall role.

    Can flash points -- at least early ones -- be soloed? I've stopped playing my consular in favor of a knight but my consular is in the forties.

    Coop, be warned that the consular hat and robes only really look good with female characters. I believe the technical term for male consulars is "derpy". So if that's an issue, then you may want to avoid the consular. Alternatively, you may want to play a male knight because the female knight armor is a bit stripperific.

    I can post pics of the consular hats later. I quite like them.


    Misa ab iPhono meo.
     
  8. The Loyal Imperial

    The Loyal Imperial Manager Emeritus star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Nov 19, 2007
    The first one can, I know. The rest, I doubt. Several, definitely not.
    You understand.
     
  9. Nobody145

    Nobody145 Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Feb 9, 2007
    Some of the Consular hats are ok, others... less so. Sith gear is even more... flashy, although some of it is arguably cooler-looking (in-game, one JK companion even snarks that its like all the fashion designers have joined the darkside). There is an option to hide your character's head gear... but its not available to F2P. You can buy the option in the Cartel Market (and there's no way to get Cartel Coins in game, only with real money I think), its just somewhat annoying with some masks (not Consular but some Agent/smuggler gear is like that) covering your character's face in cutscenes. Not that the animation is super-good or anything, but I don't much care for that echo effect they add.

    Rested XP does help somewhat, it at least speeds things along a bit, but the rewards from quests are still the largest amount. Also depends on how high or low level you are compared to the current enemies. Being several levels below the recommended level for a planet means... 1000xp from Strong or Elite enemies or something like that, so it helps somewhat, but the quests are still the biggest chunk of XP. It just gets really boring repeating the planetary quests for the fourth time (have 4 Republic characters) in some cases.

    Not sure what you mean by solo flashpoints. At low levels you're not going to have all that much gear, so something like the Esseles and Black Talon are probably impossible alone, or even with just two people, guess it depends. You can go back and do them when you're higher leveled, just not much experience reward then. Don't think even the higher level flashpoints are able to be run solo, unless you're wearing really good raid gear or can sneak through or something (don't know that much about group content).

    You do need to level up eventually, unfortunately, to get past the story bosses... and if you're under-leveled, you are in trouble. The stealth classes (Shadow, Scoundrel, Assassin and Operative) can help you to avoid fighting through every mob on the way to the story sites, but you need to level up eventually, so the experience helps. Unless you can find someone high level willing to help you win all the boss battles, they can join you, otherwise levelling up takes a while, a long while especially above level... 35, I'd say. Unless you have a lot of rested XP, you usually have to do just about every single non-Heroic mission on a planet to stay near the recommended level. You can still get by, especially if you're a healer, but not sure how much harder it would be for F2P since they can't equip some of the better gear. Oh yeah, I think F2P has to revive at the medcenters, and can't just revive where they died, which is... inconvenient.

    Also I think there are really 3 tiers of players- subscribers who get everything, F2P who are missing a lot, and preferred (former subscribers or those who have bought at least one thing off the Cartel Market) who aren't missing quite as much as F2P. Not entirely sure about the details, its probably listed somewhere on the main site.
     
  10. Darth_Kevin

    Darth_Kevin Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Aug 30, 2001
    I could have sworn early in 2012 the rested XP bonus also applied to quest XP.
     
  11. instantdeath

    instantdeath Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Jul 22, 2010
    That's the source of my dilemma in choosing whether I want to play a male or female consular when the time comes. The clothing is a lot better with the female characters, but I personally much prefer the male voice actor. Do I want to look dignified, or sound dignified more? [face_hypnotized]
     
  12. CooperTFN

    CooperTFN TFN EU Staff Emeritus star 7 VIP

    Registered:
    Jul 8, 1999
    This thread is exhausting. :p

    Okay, one more question. People are talking about "soloing" flashpoints, but I thought there were NPC companions built into the plot the same way they are in KOTOR. It's one thing to go into a flashpoint without other human beings, but I was under the impression I would be able to control a group of NPCs a la KOTOR when necessary.
     
  13. instantdeath

    instantdeath Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Jul 22, 2010
    Essentially, every class has access to five companions that you acquire over the course of your story, all specializing in a particular role: healing, melee damage dealing, ranged damage dealing, ranged tank, melee tank (a tank being a person that sucks up all the damage and enemies attention while other people put the smack down on). However, it's not quite like KOTOR, in that you can have two companions with you. They still want to encourage cooperation (BOO!), so you can only have one out at any time, but unlike KOTOR, you can switch at literally anytime outside of combat.

    So, Flashpoints are the games equivalent to dungeons. It is entirely possible to solo most of the Flashpoints, but if you want to do that, you must be of a significantly higher level than what's recommended, since the level recommendations are targeted at groups. The maximum group amount is four people, and your companions count as a group member. So, if you were to find one guy who wants to run a flashpoint with you, you could both have a companion out, and you would have a group of four "people". Obviously, your companion will be nowhere near as powerful as an actual player, but they are great help, and invaluable when you're by yourself.

    The level 50 flashpoints, however, will definitely require a group of some kind in order to get through it. Personally, I wish there was an "easy mode" of every flashpoint, so you could see the scenario without having to find a group.
     
  14. Nobody145

    Nobody145 Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Feb 9, 2007
    You have companions, each class has five that join you over the course of the game, but you can only have one with you at a time, though you can swap between them at any time. They also sometimes change conversations (they offer their own opinion or if they're related to the subject of the conversation). They're basically support, each class has one healer, several tanks, several damage-dealing ones. Just like KotOR or Mass Effect, you can change their gear out too, but between yourself and your companion, that's at least... 20 pieces to manage? And that's not even going into which stat to focus on (each of the four classes have a main stat, your companion usually falls into one of those four categories).

    Basically for most of the game its you and one support character, and you will really need their help, especially for boss fights. But even with that support character healing you (or doing something else), the group content is still pretty hard if not impossible with normal gear. For flashpoints, if its labeled as level 10 and you go in there with your companion at level 10... you will be slaughtered. If you go in there at level 20, most shots will bounce off you. Of course, at level 50 that's the limit, but by then that's going into endgame post-class story content, so probably not that relevant to this thread, although the Malgus stuff is restricted to those level 50 flashpoints.
     
  15. Cobranaconda

    Cobranaconda Jedi Grand Master star 7

    Registered:
    Mar 3, 2004
    I was pretty much in the same boat, when it went F2P I downloaded it and got it. Did Sith Inquisitor/Assassin as I like that kind of thing, and got screwed over by the whole thing. I ended up dying roughly 80 times before I was off Korriban, just because of the ridiculous prices assigned to medpacs on F2P, the fact that cooldowns on medpacs mean you can only use one once per battle, the fact that your gear degrades in quality every time you die (and costs loads to fix on F2P) and the fact that I couldn't level as fast as the quests were. Not long after getting to Dromund Kaas I just gave up and bought a 6 month subscription, because annoyingly the story was actually pretty good.

    Since then I started a new character as JK/Marauder and I'm finding it a great deal easier, though whether that's because I'm getting the benefits of rested XP and non-F2P prices or just because my play style suits tanking more than ranged DPS, I don't know.

    But yea, be prepared to suffer a lot in early levels.

    Also, I've not done any flashpoints, only grouped a few times with some F2P friends who pretty much hate it (and once when one bloke randomly added me to his group), and intentionally chose the least populated RP/PvE server in existence (an Australian one, I believe) so I didn't have to actually come into contact with any other players. Chances of me doing any PvP are practically zero.

    I don't get it though. This could have been the best RPG ever, with 8 different class stories and quests and everything. Why make it an MMO where you have to deal with all this annoying crap and laggy servers?
     
  16. Gorefiend

    Gorefiend Chosen One star 5

    Registered:
    Oct 23, 2004
    [​IMG]

    As other have hinted Coop, the most fun the game gets if you actually play it together with a friend and you just do all the quests together, because you will be powerful enough to do just about everything and grinding through the hordes of creatures that keep blocking your way to the mission points becomes a lot easier if you are 2 people and each have a NPC helper out. Other than the class quests and Flashpoints (even those are not really worth playing more than once or twice to see the different outcomes) there is also not that much fun to be had, as normal missions are just kill and fetch quests.
     
  17. Arawn_Fenn

    Arawn_Fenn Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Jul 2, 2004
    All the cool kids were doing it.
     
  18. Mechalich

    Mechalich Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Feb 2, 2010
    Not necessarily true, actually. With sufficient presence a companion can actually be more powerful than an actual player, at least in the early game. If you get the five conversation legacy unlocks and the human species unlock (netting +150 presence) you companion will destroy things for the first 20 or so levels.

    Money ultimately, but money does influence how content is produced. There are certain economies of scale at work with MMO development that do benefit the story. Notably, the diversity of companions. There are 43 companions in the game (5 for each class + 2 ship droids + HK-51), all of whom are fully voiced and have their own in-depth stories, several of whom play significant roles in the stories of the class characters. A traditional RPG wouldn't have that many characters of consequence.

    Basically making TOR an MMO allowed them to budget for more content than any single-player game would possess. There's more story to TOR than to, say, Skyrim. The MMO structure also means you have to spend more time playing through the game to see all of the story. I can't imagine a single player RPG that would be based aroudn a storytelling structure that was viable for 8 play-throughs, having two distinct paths is unusual enough.

    Not that TOR is perfect obviously, it has many flaws in both its single-player and MMO facets (though it is incomparably better than when it launched regarding the later, it took six months to implement the group finder).

    I would add, TOR is my first and so far only MMO experience. I initially shied away from the co-op elements to the extreme as well, but I've come to play them more and more. There's two reasons. First, after you become good at the game the leveling process for new characters becomes very sloggy and not very challenging at all (especially if you craft-supplement), so the late-game content is the most fun in that way. Second, it really isn't that hard to group up. TOR is extremely role-dependent. Aside from the operations most group instances don't require any active communication with other group members at all (at least, assuming you learn the boss fights for flashpoints) so long as everyone holds to their role.
     
  19. CooperTFN

    CooperTFN TFN EU Staff Emeritus star 7 VIP

    Registered:
    Jul 8, 1999
  20. instantdeath

    instantdeath Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Jul 22, 2010
    Definitely true early in the game, but for the one class I've beaten, Jedi Knight, I found my companions to begin to lag behind in the later levels, even if they remained invaluable (I made sure to get the affection level for all of them to maximum, and keep them geared). I was particularly disappointed in Lord Scourge; I know it's a gameplay necessity, but man, for the Emperor's right hand man, he was quite weak :confused:
     
  21. Ghost

    Ghost Chosen One star 8

    Registered:
    Oct 13, 2003
    Did you ever play Pokemon?

    You know how it's completely impossible for your level 10 Pikachu to stand a chance against a level 40 Charizard?

    It's like that in TOR. While I think you can still travel to other planets regardless of level, you're restricted to what you can do based on your level.

    For example, I'm a Jedi Consular. As you complete all the quests on Tython (the planet you start on), you'll grow from level 1 to level 10. The next planet is Coruscant, where your enemies and quests are from level 10-15 I think (just started TOR and Free To Play a month ago, it's only the second MMO I've ever played).

    It's almost impossible for you to complete a quest that's more than a couple levels about your character's level, because it will probably deal with fighting enemies at the same level as the quest level.

    If you want to complete the whole story, you're going to have to work up to level 50. But that should be easy, since that's how the game was built. Just like how your Pokemon should naturally be around level 50 or higher by the time you finally got to the Elite Four.
     
  22. CooperTFN

    CooperTFN TFN EU Staff Emeritus star 7 VIP

    Registered:
    Jul 8, 1999
    Your analogy is lost on me. :p

    But I think I'm getting it.
     
  23. Gorefiend

    Gorefiend Chosen One star 5

    Registered:
    Oct 23, 2004
    Thing is, TOR cost some 200+$ million you could actually have made 8 quality normal PC games for that price (even insanely high budget games like the Call of Duty series only cost some 40 Million to make) and properly made more money whilst telling a better story and having actually more fun games, especially if they could just make use of the same engine for them.
     
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  24. darthcaedus1138

    darthcaedus1138 Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Oct 13, 2007
    I'm playing a Light Side Imperial Agent, and it's awesome. I'd definitely recommend the IA storyline, if you're in it for the story. I've also tried Jedi Knight and Sith Warrior, and far and away I'd say Agent takes the cake. But I haven't gotten very far with those last two classes, and I'm almost finished with the IA storyline (I'm level 42 or something).
     
  25. CooperTFN

    CooperTFN TFN EU Staff Emeritus star 7 VIP

    Registered:
    Jul 8, 1999
    I don't even get how "light-side Imperial agent" would work - "Damn it, Carl, I told you to execute that guy!