tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5922857679980740630.post1015224105307743293..comments2024-03-27T10:35:46.596+01:00Comments on Ravalation: Three months of Galactic Command from the perspective of an endgame raiderRavanelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03447777640056476366noreply@blogger.comBlogger18125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5922857679980740630.post-1096387011733030002017-03-18T13:04:01.304+01:002017-03-18T13:04:01.304+01:00That's a very good point. The real 'thrill...That's a very good point. The real 'thrill of the hunt' comes from being rewarded for doing something meaningful, not from randomly having luck. There are experiments with lab rats that insist on the opposite. But human sociology is more complicated than that of lab rats. For one, lab rats don't talk to each other about how crappy the new food supply is.Ravanelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03447777640056476366noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5922857679980740630.post-74519478594151346832017-03-18T12:52:30.985+01:002017-03-18T12:52:30.985+01:00Haha, yes, I think nobody believes the argument fo...Haha, yes, I think nobody believes the argument for simplicity anymore, especially after all the extra things that have been added to the system. Still, I rather have this weird complicated maze than galactic command in its vanilla form.<br /><br />One of the complaints I've had about galactic command is exactly what you voice here. SWTOR introduced its popular legacy system in the past that allows you to unlock benefits for your whole legacy and even send bound gear over to your alts (through legacy gear). In that light it's even stranger that a new system was introduced that rewards playing a single character more. It goes against the base of the game.Ravanelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03447777640056476366noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5922857679980740630.post-38886003013361663472017-03-16T14:01:45.219+01:002017-03-16T14:01:45.219+01:00I like the lively too. My inner ear doesn't. ...I like the lively too. My inner ear doesn't. Hehe. If I could turn it off I probably would've continued picking at the game if just for my cathar with the big gun. <br /><br />I didn't get the courage to group at all in the game. I wasn't sure I wanted to join a guild either since my husband didn't play. So, yeah I was in the target audience and still hated it. Didn't help that I kept getting rifles and pistols that I couldn't even use! If the command rank would've been account wide I think that wiuld've helped because so much in the game is account based. I love account based after playing GW2 for the last few years.<br /><br />I found the data crystal system much easier to understand. Their idea of simple is a bit off mark. cfcallierhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15521080251095181782noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5922857679980740630.post-15884036341455049212017-03-15T12:54:21.720+01:002017-03-15T12:54:21.720+01:00Believe me, what you wrote about CXP thusfar are h...Believe me, what you wrote about CXP thusfar are happy fairy tales compared to what I felt initially. I did feel like I might be letting people down by not writing about it, but I felt so negatively that it would just make me depressed writing it down. I decided that at the end of the day blogging is a hobby, not something worth being harmful to myself.Ravanelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03447777640056476366noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5922857679980740630.post-21876050947119354682017-03-15T11:28:04.714+01:002017-03-15T11:28:04.714+01:00So sorry to hear the cutscenes make you motion sic...So sorry to hear the cutscenes make you motion sick. There's so much more motion in the Knights expansions compared to the original class stories. For me that makes it more lively, but I can definitely see it's a problem in your case. <br /><br />It's funny, though, that a system that's designed for basically your playstyle (do correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think you raid much etc?) is hated by those very people (which it would actually improve getting gear for). Shows how painfully the developers have missed the mark when it comes to how players like to be rewarded.Ravanelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03447777640056476366noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5922857679980740630.post-29268707242107991392017-03-14T18:19:34.735+01:002017-03-14T18:19:34.735+01:00"On paper it had looked acceptable to me. But..."On paper it had looked acceptable to me. But we don't play games because we rationally decide we like them; we play games because we feel like playing them and because they make us have fun. In other words, it's pure emotion."<br /><br />If I could tattoo one thing on the inside of the eyelids at BW:A - this would be it. Galactic Command is all maths, no emotion; all about the population, nothing about the individual.<br /><br />As one of those unwashed puggers, I could say I'm in favor of it; but in the end, it took a baroque gearing system and made it more baroque and less predictable. I wish they had taken the effort to fix the gear-by-vendor interfaces (revamp the vendor interfaces to make things clearer for the people who are not steeped in the language of MMOs) and make set-bonus gear available for solo-accessible currency. Instead we got a system that even I'm currently mostly ignoring. It's an unmitigated debacle.Ian Argenthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03704336044732061128noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5922857679980740630.post-89925767526930119182017-03-11T21:17:19.083+01:002017-03-11T21:17:19.083+01:00Yeah, the crafted 228 and 230 stuff is really quit...Yeah, the crafted 228 and 230 stuff is really quite good to start out with! I did the same. And you can get even better schematics from the command crates, if you're lucky. That's something I do like about this expansion, that crafting is useful again, even in the long run. :) Ravanelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03447777640056476366noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5922857679980740630.post-30511649830950856412017-03-11T20:44:04.459+01:002017-03-11T20:44:04.459+01:00I can see how it must have been cathartic to write...I can see how it must have been cathartic to write this. To be honest I was amazed that you barely said anything about CXP before, even though it surely must have been affecting you a lot! Though I can understand the urge to avoid writing negative things, even if I'm not quite so restrained myself. :PShintarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16758343475446510635noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5922857679980740630.post-87123374347777656662017-03-11T20:13:58.690+01:002017-03-11T20:13:58.690+01:00Yes, I'm more of a casual player these days. I...Yes, I'm more of a casual player these days. I was glad to find that my crafters could make better gear for at least some characters before they got the better stuff. That's good enough for what I do.Roland Clarkehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03302133565980901397noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5922857679980740630.post-31519197655459005632017-03-11T17:22:58.060+01:002017-03-11T17:22:58.060+01:00I only played SWTOR for a few months but I did enj...I only played SWTOR for a few months but I did enjoy the game for that time. I wanted to continue but without being able to turn off camera shake (which is rampant in the new story and makes me incredibly motion sick) and the CXP and how grindy it was as a solo player and lack of feeling rewarded for my time... I gave up. The camera shake was the bigger deciding factor but the CXP helped make it easier.<br /><br />It saddens me though because I absolutely loved playing​ my combat medic. He was great fun.<br /><br />I am glad they are making changes to their horrible system though.cfcallierhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15521080251095181782noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5922857679980740630.post-81333906284295679762017-03-11T13:18:40.622+01:002017-03-11T13:18:40.622+01:00Yes, I would *love* for SWTOR to get open world ta...Yes, I would *love* for SWTOR to get open world tagging, like GW2 and now also WoW and (to some extent) LOTRO have. It stimulates cooperative gameplay instead of competitive gameplay, and for me that's what MMOs are about. I wrote a lot about that in this blog post: http://ravalation.blogspot.com/2015/03/exploring-in-guild-wars-part-1.html<br /><br />I'm a stubborn person and I'm not altering my play style (much) to grind efficiently. That's probably why I'm not rank 300 on my sage yet, but I just like playing different classes! It's challenging to be able to play multiple classes well, and I love being able to play all roles in groups. So currently I'm doing FPs (and occasionally raids) on sage, slinger and shadow; my three main characters. <br /><br />As for April, that's when we get the new raid boss and can actually get a use for the new gear, so I'm definitely going to play then. But I can totally understand people that don't raid (much) being CXP fatigued by then.Ravanelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03447777640056476366noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5922857679980740630.post-24326263424940079012017-03-11T13:03:00.969+01:002017-03-11T13:03:00.969+01:00Sorry to hear your guild isn't very active at ...Sorry to hear your guild isn't very active at the moment, and that your health is cutting your game time. I'm hoping it'll be a bit better soon.<br /><br />And one positive point for you as a non endgame raider is that you don't have to worry about having the best of the best gear - after all, you don't directly need it for the content you want to do. But you will still get nice stuff from simply playing. This system was designed for your playstyle. :)Ravanelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03447777640056476366noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5922857679980740630.post-8149521769446659002017-03-11T12:56:32.824+01:002017-03-11T12:56:32.824+01:00Yeah, definitely a lot of grind due to RNGsus! Tha...Yeah, definitely a lot of grind due to RNGsus! Thanks for illustrating that! I'm a bit worried what this system means for a guild like mine in which people simply refuse to grind. I would hate for doing the hardest content becoming something that only people with a lot of time on their hands can participate in, rather than people that play the most skillfully, like in LOTRO. We'll just have to wait and see what the future holds.<br /><br />PS I hope you did get the note that there's no use storing up crates for 5.2 if you're after their content? Eric has confirmed (contrary to what he said before) that what's in the crates is already decided when you get them, not when you open them. But I guess in your particular case it's still useful to hold onto them for the disintegration rank ups when 5.2 hits.Ravanelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03447777640056476366noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5922857679980740630.post-84963893271480768512017-03-11T12:39:29.025+01:002017-03-11T12:39:29.025+01:00Thank you! Writing this piece felt like therapy. ;...Thank you! Writing this piece felt like therapy. ;)<br /><br />I think guild size definitely helps. And for us, there's the fact that the majority of players started out in LOTRO and are traumatized with its current endgame gear grind (to different extents). The only reason we're not doing LOTRO's excellent Pelennor raid on tier 2 (read: master mode) right now is because people are just too frustrated by LOTRO's awkward power creep and gearing model. It takes forever, and then there is the flower picking (*shudders*). So I think my guildies are particularly sensitive to news about more grind. We've already seen things go to hell.<br /><br />And yes, that tweet!! The amount of likes are definitely scary, but you should keep in mind that it's the path of least resistance. In social media, the option that needs the least time and is the most anonymous always is most popular (e.g. FB likes vs replies). So tweets always get more hearts than retweets and responses. In this regard, the amount of responses on this particular tweet is actually really remarkable! Almost as many people as hearted the tweet, took the effort to write a reply underneath. It would be interesting to see what would've happened if Twitter was 'fair' (stimulating both positive and negative feedback equally). Imagine there would've been a broken heart button. From people's behaviour in social media as I just analysed here, I would definitely expect more broken hearts than hearts for this tweet.Ravanelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03447777640056476366noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5922857679980740630.post-15061640288867307432017-03-10T02:55:09.189+01:002017-03-10T02:55:09.189+01:00Unlike Roland I may end up taking a break in April...Unlike Roland I may end up taking a break in April. I'm grinding, grinding, grinding all through March to take advantage of the event. I've had to alter my play style to grind efficiently though. My natural play style of bumming around on alts isn't "supported" by the game anymore.<br /><br />I'd like to see the Dev's think about positive changes they could make to the game instead of a loot grind. Mox and Jason mentioned some mob and node tapping changes in WoW, and my reaction is "I want that!" Those changes would make 5.2's daily area so much better than anything that came before it. Things like that would get me excited for April and beyond.<br /><br />Or if there's some kind of law that says you must talk about loot, announce that CXP level is going legacy wide! :)The Nicksternoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5922857679980740630.post-29610461814121394192017-03-09T21:06:33.872+01:002017-03-09T21:06:33.872+01:00I don't go into SWTOr as much as I did and my ...I don't go into SWTOr as much as I did and my lvl 70s have got little good gear. Seems that my guild isn't on much at all. In my case it might be that another game - Defiance - is having some fun events for those that like collecting new weapons. So in my case I will be giving SWTOR another go in April. (Health has cut my game time too.)Roland Clarkehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03302133565980901397noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5922857679980740630.post-89456640682230473972017-03-09T16:31:38.838+01:002017-03-09T16:31:38.838+01:00Even as someone who is full 242-rating I have to s...Even as someone who is full 242-rating I have to say that a lot of this does ring so very true. It took me 300 ranks at Tier III (180 - 498) before I finally received my final piece on Valentines' Day. <br /><br />Even then, there were four pieces which I needed to upgrade from 230 to 236 to 242 because I didn't even receive a 236 equivalent of them. If it weren't for those Unassembled Components I think I'd still be opening those damned Crates (of which I now have 62 stored up since I stopped opening them at CR 515) and hoping...<br /><br />So, yeah, if you want an extreme example to demonstrate the amount of time it takes to get gear via GC; over 300 ranks and still needed to buy stuff that never dropped otherwise. This system certainly knows how to make you feel demotivated.<br /><br />Still, this experience has given me a fair amount of perspective. I may be 'beyond the grind' for now but I still keep a very watchful eye on proceedings, and I of course hope that the changes to RNG and what-not in 5.2 make the system far more bearable. Certainly the refined Ops-drop changes are very nice and I look forward to seeing people get geared up more efficiently this way.Calphyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15809660484854758097noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5922857679980740630.post-21684848818311050302017-03-09T12:26:23.113+01:002017-03-09T12:26:23.113+01:00Love this post! And yes, I suffer from CXP fatigue...Love this post! And yes, I suffer from CXP fatigue as well. It's not as bad as it used to be, but can we move on already? Heh.<br /><br />I think my guild managed to weather the worst of it better than most because we have a sufficiently large number of people who are a) super ambitious and wanted to get back into progressing asap, no matter what (crafting their own gear or buying it from the GTN) or b) love their routine playing with friends and weren't as bothered by the gear thing (I would consider myself part of the second group). Still, we had people simply disappear too.<br /><br />I love Rav's "nope" face in the top screenshot. :D<br /><br />And oh god, that Tweet about the extra Command ranks was so tone-deaf it was actually funny. Still got 169 likes though?Shintarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16758343475446510635noreply@blogger.com