SWTOR Quick Start Videos: first one released

BioWare have started to push out some tutorial videos to further flesh out their help / support offering. The first one is a brief look at logging in for the first time and creating your character. Being the cynical, world-weary SWTOR veteran I am, I initially thought this would be a pretty tedious video even for someone starting out with the game.

I’m here to say I actually learnt to things from the video – you can preview your character’s voice before choosing it, and you can lock individual facial elements before randomising others. I obviously rushed through the character creation screen!

Have a look for yourself:

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SWTOR Patch 1.1.2 details released

Patch 1.1.2 for SWTOR is now up on the public test server, and there’s a bunch of fixes in there as expected. The key ones for a lot of people are further improvements to ability delays and general system responsiveness. There’s also a bunch of class fixes / changes so read on for the full kahuna:
Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ – 1.1.2 Patch Notes

Classes and Combat
General

  • Improved response time for ability activation requests in low-framerate situations.
  • Implemented further improvements to ability responsiveness and client-side anticipation of ability executions.
  • The activation bar now appears at the correct time (when the activation of an ability begins) and disappears when activation is complete.
  • If Sprint was active when a player died, it now remains active when the player is revived.
  • Abilities on cooldown are now more easily distinguished from abilities that can be used.

Jedi Knight

Sentinel

  • Pacify: This ability can no longer be used on Operation Boss enemies.

Watchman

  • Plasma Blades: Now increases damage dealt by burn effects by 5% per point.
  • Searing Saber: Now correctly modifies the critical damage dealt by burn effects.
  • Changes to Searing Saber and Plasma Blades result in an overall increase in Damage Per Second.

Sith Warrior

Marauder

  • Obfuscate: This ability can no longer be used on Operation Boss enemies.

Annihilation

  • Hemorrhage: Now increases damage dealt by bleed effects by 5% per point.
  • Bleedout: Now correctly modifies critical damage dealt by bleed effects.
  • Changes to Hemorrhage and Bleedout result in an overall increase in Damage Per Second.

Jedi Consular

General

  • Unity: Now properly provides damage reduction when used.

Shadow

  • All Techniques now cost 100 Force.
  • Force Technique’s Force Breach now also deals damage when applied. Overall damage dealt by this ability has not changed.

Kinetic Combat

  • Technique Mastery: No longer increases the duration of Force Technique’s Breach effect. It now increases the damage dealt by Force Technique.
  • Particle Acceleration: This skill now also triggers from Spinning Strike. It now triggers from damage dealt (rather than ability use) such that each hit of Spinning Strike, Double Strike, and Whirling blow have an individual chance to yield the Particle Acceleration buff. The chance to trigger has been reduced to 30% per hit, and it now properly increases the critical damage dealt by Project when a Force Potency charge is consumed.
  • Harnessed Shadows: Stacks of Harnessed Shadows now last 30 seconds. Using Slow Time now yields a stack of Harnessed Shadows.

Infiltration

  • Circling Shadows: Now requires the purchase of the Shadow Technique skill. Shadow Technique must be active in order to trigger the Circling Shadows buff. This skill now also triggers from Spinning Strike.

Balance (Shared Tree)

  • Force Focus: Now additionally lowers the cooldown of Force Breach while Force Technique is active.
  • Force Strike: Now triggers from activating melee attacks that hit a target affected by Force Technique’s Breach effect. This effect now triggers more easily but cannot trigger as frequently.
  • Force in Balance: Heals the caster for 1% of maximum health for each target struck. This healing effect can no longer crit and no longer consumes Force Potency charges.
  • Psychic Absorption: Now doubles the amount of healing generated by Force in Balance and Focused Insight.

Sith Inquisitor

Assassin

  • All Saber Charges now cost 100 Force.
  • Lightning Charge’s Discharge now also deals damage when applied. Overall damage dealt by this ability has not changed.

Darkness

  • Charge Mastery: No longer increases the duration of Lightning Charge’s Discharge effect. It now increases the damage dealt by Lightning Charge.
  • Energize: This skill now also triggers from Assassinate. It now triggers from damage dealt (rather than ability use) such that each hit of Assassinate, Thrash, and Lacerate have an individual chance to yield the Energize buff. The chance to trigger has been reduced to 30% per hit.
  • Harnessed Darkness: Stacks of Harnessed Darkness now last 30 seconds. Using Wither now yields a stack of Harnessed Darkness.

Deception

  • Induction: Now requires the Surging Charge skill to be purchased and requires that Surging Charge is active in order to trigger the Induction buff. This skill now also triggers from Assassinate.

Madness (Shared Tree)

  • Crackling Charge: Now additionally lowers the cooldown of Discharge while Lightning Charge is active.
  • Raze: Now triggers from activating melee attacks that hit a target affected by Lightning Charge’s Discharge effect. This effect now triggers more easily but cannot trigger as frequently.
  • Death Field: Heals the caster for 1% of maximum health for each target struck. This healing effect can no longer crit and no longer consumes Recklessness charges.
  • Devour: Now doubles the amount of healing generated by Death Field and Parasitism.

Smuggler

Gunslinger

Sharpshooter

  • Diversion: This ability can no longer be used on Operation Boss enemies.

Imperial Agent

Sniper

Marksmanship

  • Diversion: This ability can no longer be used on Operation Boss enemies.

Bounty Hunter

Powertech

Advanced Prototype

  • Hydraulic Overrides: Visual and sound effects are now easier to recognize.

Trooper

General

  • Troopers can now access their ship after leaving and returning to Corellia within 30 minutes.

Vanguard

Tactics

  • Hold the Line: Visual and sound effects are now easier to recognize.

Companion Characters
General

  • Companion Characters no longer occasionally appear unclothed when summoned.

Companions

Doc

  • Crazy Talk (mission): Male characters can now complete the conversation related to this mission.

Crew Skills
Crafting Skills

  • Crafting skills no longer inform the player that no missions are defined for the Crew Skill.

Biochem

  • Energized and Exotech stims and adrenals no longer require Biochem to use.
  • Energized and Exotech stims and adrenals are no longer bound, allowing them to be traded or sold to other players.
  • Rakata reusable stims and adrenals have been reduced in power, providing buffs equal to Energized stims and adrenals.
  • The Exotech Med Unit schematic obtained from the Eternity Vault Operation now functions properly and can be learned.

Gathering Skills

  • Slightly lowered the amount of resources gathered from harvested droids and creatures.

Flashpoints and Operations
General

  • Players are now able to obtain destined loot from chests when Master Looter is enabled and they are not the Master Looter.

Flashpoints

The False Emperor

  • Jindo Krey’s ship no longer occasionally enters a state that prevents it from taking damage.

Kaon Under Siege

  • Infected Mercenaries can no longer permanently stun players.

Operations

Eternity Vault

  • Soa no longer resets if he uses Mind Trap on the main tank.

Karagga’s Palace

  • The chest that is awarded for defeating Karagga on Nightmare Mode no longer appears partially inside a wall and now properly spawns.
  • Foreman Crusher’s Perforating Rend now correctly applies itself to targets caught within the conical attack.
  • Jarg & Sorno: The Carbonizer Probe no longer disappears if all of the players who attacked it died before the Carbonizer Probe was destroyed.
  • Karagga no longer appears above portions of the walls during the fight.

Items
General

  • Rakata weapons are now correctly rating 140 and are fitted with mark 25 modifications. These items were previously less powerful than intended.
  • Battlemaster Bags now contain more Champion Commendations.

Vendors

  • It is no longer possible to purchase items while holding down the Shift, Alt, or Ctrl keys.

Legacy
General

  • The Legacy Experience required to advance to Legacy Levels beyond 20 has been increased.

Missions and NPCs
General

  • Commendation rewards for Hard Mode Flashpoint daily and weekly missions and Operation weekly missions have been increased.

Missions

Imperial

  • General Faraire: Khourlet’s Elite Guards no longer hide behind a door, preventing progression in this mission.
  • Last Stand: Players are now able to complete this mission as long as the Voss Scholars are inside the prison cell.
  • The Big Show: Using Force Cloak, dying, or leaving the phase while on the step “Defeat the Screaming Blade Cultists” can no longer cause the necessary NPCs to disappear and prevent mission progress.

Republic

  • Leave Nothing Behind: The Frozen Biomass Container now remains lootable if the loot window is closed.
  • Most Wanted: A mission item can no longer be rolled on if it is looted while the player is in a group.
  • Need to Impress: Players can now speak to Ambassador Jannik if they have already completed the mission Gormak Country.
  • The Lightspring: The toughness of Vaverone Zare and Nariel Pridence has been decreased. This mission can no longer be failed.
  • The Shadow Fist: Mission progress for players who are on this mission has been reset to the first step. Players can no longer become locked out of the stealth generator room.

Bug Fixes

  • Bonus Series missions on Tatooine can now be abandoned.

PvP
World PvP

Ilum

  • Particle Cannons can no longer be permanently disabled.
  • Players now receive notification when they kill a target that is not worth Valor due to being killed too recently.

Space Combat
General

  • The speed of enemy Ion Cannons has been reduced to improve balance in high-level Space Combat Missions.

UI
General

  • The reverse engineering button no longer occasionally disappears after a crafting skill is initially learned.

Miscellaneous Bug Fixes

  • Loading screens no longer appear in low resolution if the player selects the low-resolution texture option in preferences.
  • Facial animations no longer fail to play correctly in some instances.
  • During brief teleports, the splash screen does not appear incorrectly over loading screens.
  • Players will no longer experience limited audio, black portraits, or the inability to initiation conversations when they reconnect after being disconnected.

SWTOR Patch 1.1.1 details released

The fixes keep on coming thick and fast, with Patch 1.1.1 hitting the public test server. The promised ability delay fix is included plus a bunch of other stuff, so have a browse through!
Star Wars: The Old Republic – 1.1.1 Patch Notes

Classes and Combat
General

  • Fixed a bug that could cause the Global Cooldown to appear as if it has been cancelled when it is actually still in effect, resulting in a feeling of unresponsiveness to input.
  • Corrected an issue that could cause an ability icon to appear usable but be unresponsive to clicks or keypresses for several seconds.
  • Players revived by other players, including by in-combat revival abilities, now revive with 25% of maximum health.

Jedi Knight

Guardian

  • Freezing Force: Now correctly lasts 9 seconds (up from 6 seconds).

Jedi Consular

Sage

  • Mental Alacrity: Now correctly costs no Force to activate.
  • Salvation: No longer heals targets twice on application. It now correctly heals all affected targets once when applied.

Smuggler

Scoundrel

  • Flechette Round: Now provides 30% armor penetration while active.
  • K.O.: This ability now knocks the target down for 1.5 seconds.
  • Shoot First: The damage output of this ability has been decreased by approximately 20% to control burst damage and because it was enabling significantly faster than intended kills in PvP.

Imperial Agent

Operative

  • Acid Blade: Now provides 30% armor penetration while active.
  • Jarring Strike: This ability now knocks the target down for 1.5 seconds.
  • Hidden Strike: The damage output of this ability has been decreased by approximately 20% to control burst damage and because it was enabling significantly faster than intended kills in PvP.

Bounty Hunter

Mercenary

  • Sweeping Blasters can now be made free with Thermal Sensor Override.

Powertech

  • Oil Slick now correctly costs no heat to activate.

Flashpoints and Operations

Flashpoints

Directive 7

  • Bulwark’s Area of Effect cone abilities now properly fire in the direction Bulwark is facing.
  • Some of Bulwark’s abilities were incorrectly susceptible to interruption. Bulwark is now immune to interrupts.

The False Emperor

  • Fixed a conversation that could cause the cinematic with Arkis Wode to function incorrectly.

The Foundry

  • Fixed an issue that could prevent the final fight in this Flashpoint from beginning after the cinematic.
  • The final boss can no longer become stuck in an invulnerable state; there was still a small window where this could occur.

The Red Reaper

  • Lord Kherus now grants less experience.
  • Some of Lord Kherus’s abilities have had their damage values adjusted to be more in line with the level of the Flashpoint.
  • Players now enter into melee range with Lord Kherus in order to stop him from throwing crates.

Operations

Eternity Vault

  • Players no longer randomly die in this Operation after being in Gharj’s lava.

Karagga’s Palace

  • Foreman Crusher’s enrage now includes a movement speed increase, allowing him to catch players who attempt to run.
  • Fixed an issue that prevented the Materials Disposal Unit’s main control station from becoming useable again after the Operation Group is defeated by the G4-B3 Heavy Fabricator on 16-man Hard Mode.
  • Fixed an issue that prevented the G4-B3 Heavy Fabricator from deploying the correct number of Proximity Pulse Mines and Security Stun Drones during combat.
  • Karagga no longer snaps up above portions of the walls during combat.

Bug Fixes

General

  • Fixed an issue that prevented some players in Operations Groups from receiving credit for the missions “[WEEKLY] Deadly Operations,” “[WEEKLY] Galactic Operations,” and “Journey to the Belsavis Depths.” The entire Operations Group now receives credit when the objective is completed.

Items
Bug Fixes

  • Comparative tooltips for researched items no longer have their stats reversed.

Missions and NPCs
Missions

Imperial

  • Number One with a Bullet: Corrected an issue that prevented Bounty Hunters from leaving The Founder.
  • The Eagle’s Nest: The Assassin’s Fortress mission is now correctly a prerequisite for this mission.
  • The Mandalorian Killer: Thendys Noori no longer continues to heal Kellian Jarro after she has surrendered.

Republic

  • Death Spiral: Fixed an issue that prevented Jedi Knights who completed the Commander Rayfel encounter from using the shuttle back to Belsavis Orbital Station.

PvP
Warzones

  • Fixed an issue that could prevent players from receiving mission rewards for completing Warzones.

Space Combat
General

  • Added two daily mission commendations to the high-level space dailies Operation Ascendant Pride (Imperial) and Operation New Eclipse (Republic).

UI
General

  • Attempting to loot an item in a group when the Master Looter is off-planet now generates an error message.

Bug Fixes

  • The leader of an Operations Group will no longer receive an incorrect message informing them that their companion has been dismissed.

Miscellaneous Bug Fixes

  • Special items related to different editions of the game have been re
  • sent if they were deleted by the mail system prior to being claimed.

Ability delay issues: fix on the way

Georg Zoeller, Principal Lead Combat Designer for SWTOR at BioWare, has posted an update addressing the issue of ability delay i.e. bashing one’s keys but not seeing one’s toon do anything. According to Georg, a fix for at least some of the issues will be hitting the public test server next update:

Hi everyone; I wanted to give you all an update on the ability delay situation.

Thanks to constructive feedback from the community, including some great videos, we were able to identify an issue that could cause abilities on global cooldown to appear available to the player, resulting in unresponsive/ignored player input. A fix for the issue is currently scheduled to go to the public test server with our next update.

Additionally, we have located an issue that would cause player input for certain instant abilities to fail in frantic combat situations, resulting in unpredictable and frustrating gameplay issues for the affected player. A fix for the issue is currently scheduled to go to the public test server with our next update.

Finally, our engineers have identified an issue introducing a significant delay between player input and ability execution in certain game situations, most notably (but not limited to) fast paced PvP. The magnitude of the delay varies with a number of factors, including processor hardware, but can, especially on dual core CPUs, result in a very perceivable reduction in game responsiveness. We are in the later stages of testing a fix for the problem and hope to be able to roll it out to the servers very soon.

We’re still investigating a number of additional issues, along with some usability and quality of life improvements for responsiveness regarding player input, but the above mentioned developments should provide a very measurable improvement in combat responsiveness.

Thanks again for your patience and support and we hope to see you on the public test server to help us validate these improvements before pushing them to the live servers.

In the meantime, think of the pointless key bashing as exercise that sets you up to fight any rampaging Rakghouls in real life. Well that’s my rationale and I’m sticking to it!

UPDATED: Server downtime this postponed: bring on Rise of the Rakghouls

UPDATE: due to glitches with the 1.1 update, the downtime has been pushed out a ‘few days’. Thanks for the heads-up Ben!

The usual server downtime is on Tuesday evening, but it’s an extended one due to the 1.1 update being put live. Here’s the announcement and the time-zone conversions after that.

Scheduled Maintenance

Date: Tuesday, January 17th, 2012

Time: 2AM CST (12AM PST/3AM EST/8AM GMT/9AM CET) to 10AM CST (8AM PST/11AM EST/4PM GMT/5PM CET)

All game servers and SWTOR.com will be offline during this period. This maintenance is expected to take no more than eight hours.

So that means no access for Australians between 7pm Tuesday 17th January through to 3am Wednesday 18th January.

For New Zealanders, you’re locked out between 9pm Tuesday 17th and 5am Wednesday 18th.

In the meantime, be sure to have a listen to our latest podcast dissecting the patch, or have a read through the patch notes.

SWTOR: Rise of the Rakghouls announced

One month. That’s all it’s been since those with early game access on Day 1 started playing. It’s not a long time by any standards, but as shown with the two large patches already announced or implemented, Bioware aren’t backward in coming forward with updates.

That’s all chicken feed compared to the announcement that game update 1.1, called Rise of the Rakghouls, will be going live after next Tuesday’s maintenance downtime. The full patch notes are given below, but the bug ticket items are:

- a new level 50 Flashpoint called Kaon Under Siege
- the promised expansion to the Karagga’s Palace Operation, with four new bosses
- significant PvP changes with Ilum

We have some pics of Kaon Under Siege for you as well:

If you want a taste of Kaon Under Siege in action, have a look at this:

[Read more...]

End-game gear: changes on the horizon

Boy George - Sith(ish) Style

Emmanuel Lusinchi, SWTOR’s Technical Design Director, has provided some hope for those unhappy with the current state of end-game gear and item modifications:

The current situation with end game gear and item modifications isn’t final and, in fact, many community members like yourself have correctly guessed at what our plans to correct the current design are.

Since this is a fairly important issue to many players, let me disclose more details about what is currently in the work regarding purple items and mods:

- All partially moddable purple items will be made fully moddable again, allowing the removal of the armoring, hilt and barrel.

- The set bonus of end gear purples (PVP and PVE) will be transferable to custom items.

- Some item modifications will be restricted to a certain item type. For example, some item modifications will only fit on helmets, while other will only fit on chests, etc.

As usual, the caveats about unfinished work apply, but this should give you and the community a very good idea of our intentions. We are serious about making custom gear an entirely valid alternative to end game gear and we support the players’ ability to customize their appearance all the way to (and including) end game.

Being a certifiable fashion disaster myself, I’m not qualified to comment on how good/bad the gear looks, but it’s good to know increased customisation is on the way. Would love to hear from those already donning their end-game gear: what do you love/hate about it currently?

[Pic via Cheezburger.com]