I tend to spend lots of time with my strongholds and the guildship ,i find it relaxing when not in the moode for pve or pvp.

Yavin stronghold however ,is not relaxing.

First thing i noticed,is the stairs infront of the entrance.THEY ARE NOT ALLIGNED.Seriously?Yes its a temple with rumbles ,but what happened to the stairs ,lost their alignment after an earthquake?You have a symetric first building ,with the stairs going towards the left side of the entrance .I aint in ocd mode ,but nice work devs.

The second issue,and the most important ,the positioning of the hooks.We get lots of huge areas with minimal amount of hooks.Just look outside after the the outer bridge.We have like 20 large hooks on the marble plattform ,and then 5 maybe 10 hooks on all the outside area.Wasted space and wasted opportunity to create something nice.The hidden cave ,a very large area ,again with almost no hooks.Guess thats why they didnt want to show it during live streaming ,since it had no hooks .

Third problem,lots of people are finding the "rooms" too small.Add to the fact there are only 4 rooms and the big hall at the entrance ,thais leaves us no space.And since we have almost no hooks at the rest of the outside enviroment...

All this make it really frustrating and confines our options,badly.

Edited July 24, 2015 by xvlasis

I was really excited about this Stronghold and it looks great...but I agree with you, it's a total mess and I am close already to giving up on it.

 

First thing is painfully obvious: A stronghold should have a place directly near the entry point for utilities. Y4 doesn't have this and any of the rooms we do have are not suited for this type of set up either to be honest.

 

Secondly, the hooks are not well done at all. Whoever decided where the hooks were placed and which ones, has absolutely no sense of decorating Strongholds. Aside from the general gripe that goes for all SH's that their alignment is always off making symmetry near impossible, the placement of a lot of centerpiece hooks is completely wasted, especially the ones inside the buildings. Funnily the main room you enter in first could handle a centerpiece hook but doesn't have it. The lower room has a block of 4 big ones that have useless alternative layouts for that room.

 

The balconies are nice as such but hooks there are also not very useful. The area above the main room where you can look down also suffers from a poor layout and well, I can go on. By the way, also thanks for all those hooks on those high slanted walls inside the buildings that are absolutely pointless as you can't really put anything on there that makes sense either. And it goes on really. Sorry BW, I love strongholds in general but the hook layout in this one is a complete and utter disaster to me.

 

Thanks also for the second starship hook in the back with virtually no hooks around it make something more of the area and also that little tower with just enough space to stand in with little green hooks that also make that tower pretty much pointless.

 

Oh and big area in the middle with tons of hooks with 3 centerpiece hooks right next to each other...no idea what to do with that yet either. Oh and nice cave with virtually no hooks in it. Can't do much there either.

 

And one more thing. A lot of the decorations that are out (and I have a lot of em) just are not really useable in this stronghold. The colour scheme of the stronghold really doesn't mix well with a lot of stuff, especially environmental items. Most trees and bushes are totally out of tone.

 

All in all the Y4 stronghold is a beatiful place but it's an utterly poor stronghold as far as functionality and decorating are concerned.

 

I really am disapointed with it and wish I hadn't bought it at the moment. I mean I even deactivated my other strongholds temporarily just so I would have the full force of my collection of decorations available and still have not been able to fill one room satisfactorily. It really is a big let down for me and wish you could do something about this.

Edited July 25, 2015 by Tsillah

I found the first room on the left side with the small waterfall to be the utility-room with all the cargo bays (personal, guild and legacy). And I added a lot of NPC's, so it's kind of crowded, lol.

 

But I agree that they should have worked a bit more on the layout, and added a lot more usable hooks. What I found to be the most poor setup is where you change the layout from a large hook, you only get a small hook setup, not several small ones confined to the same area. In other word, if you change from a large hook, you might end up with ONE smaller hook. Which is useless.

A lot of it could have been done better, but you can make something work. Overcoming the design challenges to make a space work is part of the fun for me.

 

However, my biggest problem is the odd limitations. ESPECIALLY NPC limits- this is driving me nuts... I have room for 4 armies of personnel but can only place a tiny (unspecified and I haven't backtracked to count each one yet) number of NPCs.

 

"Personnel" and "NPC" are on a different counter at least, but anything considered interactable is on the extremely limited NPC counter. This really needs to get fixed.

I was really excited about this Stronghold and it looks great...but I agree with you, it's a total mess and I am close already to giving up on it.

 

First thing is painfully obvious: A stronghold should have a place directly near the entry point for utilities. Y4 doesn't have this and any of the rooms we do have are not suited for this type of set up either to be honest.

 

Secondly, the hooks are not well done at all. Whoever decided where the hooks were placed and which ones, has absolutely no sense of decorating Strongholds[/b]. Aside from the general gripe that goes for all SH's that their alignment is always off making symmetry near impossible, the placement of a lot of centerpiece hooks is completely wasted, especially the ones inside the buildings. Funnily the main room you enter in first could handle a centerpiece hook but doesn't have it. The lower room has a block of 4 big ones that have useless alternative layouts for that room.

 

The balconies are nice as such but hooks there are also not very useful. The area above the main room where you can look down also suffers from a poor layout and well, I can go on. By the way, also thanks for all those hooks on those high slanted walls inside the buildings that are absolutely pointless as you can't really put anything on there that makes sense either. And it goes on really. Sorry BW, I love strongholds in general but the hook layout in this one is a complete and utter disaster to me.

 

Thanks also for the second starship hook in the back with virtually no hooks around it make something more of the area and also that little tower with just enough space to stand in with little green hooks that also make that tower pretty much pointless.

 

Oh and big area in the middle with tons of hooks with 3 centerpiece hooks right next to each other...no idea what to do with that yet either. Oh and nice cave with virtually no hooks in it. Can't do much there either.

 

And one more thing. A lot of the decorations that are out (and I have a lot of em) just are not really useable in this stronghold. The colour scheme of the stronghold really doesn't mix well with a lot of stuff, especially environmental items. Most trees and bushes are totally out of tone.

 

All in all the Y4 stronghold is a beatiful place but it's an utterly poor stronghold as far as functionality and decorating are concerned.

 

I really am disapointed with it and wish I hadn't bought it at the moment. I mean I even deactivated my other strongholds temporarily just so I would have the full force of my collection of decorations available and still have not been able to fill one room satisfactorily. It really is a big let down for me and wish you could do something about this.

 

I am thinking that old neckbeard that did the Yavin live feed with Eric worked on the yavin SH. Time for him to retire...

A lot of it could have been done better, but you can make something work. Overcoming the design challenges to make a space work is part of the fun for me.

 

For me as well, it's just that in the Y4 Stronghold I just can't make it work somehow. I've been all over the place tried different rooms, areas, buildings. I tried various things but not a single area or room worked for me. I've never had it that bad before.

 

And it all comes down to the rooms being oddly shaped and or hooks not being in the right places or the right size to put things in there that work well together.

 

I've been to various Y4 strongholds of other people and not a single one I've visited so far had a room in it where I went...yeh that's cool. Nothing. I really don't get what they were thinking with their hook placement. It's so bad I am actually thinking of retiring it in favour of coruscant again. At the moment it feels like a complete waste of my money/credits.

For me as well, it's just that in the Y4 Stronghold I just can't make it work somehow. I've been all over the place tried different rooms, areas, buildings. I tried various things but not a single area or room worked for me. I've never had it that bad before.

 

And it all comes down to the rooms being oddly shaped and or hooks not being in the right places or the right size to put things in there that work well together.

 

I've been to various Y4 strongholds of other people and not a single one I've visited so far had a room in it where I went...yeh that's cool. Nothing. I really don't get what they were thinking with their hook placement. It's so bad I am actually thinking of retiring it in favour of coruscant again. At the moment it feels like a complete waste of my money/credits.

 

Yeah, im really struggling as well.

Unlike the 4 existing SH's this is so heavily themed it provides much more of a challenge for people looking to enhance and go along with said theme.

Aside the points you raised, lighting or lack of is also an issue for me, its ok if you like the dark atmosphere, but not having a choice is a real bummer for me. Nowhere other than the main temple foyer has any place to put lights in. it wouldn't be so bad if the wall lights actually threw some light instead of only being a decoration, you could get some really nice effects in some of the rooms if they did.

I have a friend that has his virtually empty and said its awesome as it is, he added a few relics here and there for rp purposes and absolutely loves it, and note that this guy has enough deco to fill it 3 times over.. It just reinforces what I feel about how heavily themed it is.

I agree the Yavin SH is poorly designed with a totally haphazard layout? No input was requested from the player base for whoever was responsible for slapping this project together? After looking at several player Yavin SH's It's quickly apparent what a waste of time and effort it would be to DECORATE this monstrosity.

 

The secret cave should have led to the top of the hill with an open area overlooking the entire SH with a large area to decorate as an assembly area. Everything else is just way too spread out and not very useful or functional as you spend most of the time just running back and forth. The most glaring defect is not having hooks to put guild bank, legacy storage, GTN and other utility items near the landing dock. This SH was not well thought out in terms of player usability and functionality for personal and guild SH's ! This is really sad as I was looking forward to getting this SH and decorating it? Agree with all other posters that Bioware/EA totally missed the mark on this SH!

 

However, after seeing the Yavin SH and how many players have decorated theirs, I agree with all other posters on how badly this SH was designed and implemented. I HAVE NO DESIRE WHATSOEVER to WASTE 2,500 cc or 2.5 million credits to unlock this SH.

 

Maybe next time Bioware/EA will actually listen to the player base and implement ideas and layouts (what players actually want) that appeal to those who play SWTOR.

Edited July 27, 2015 by DarkForcePowers

I like the Yavin stronghold however I can not find a natural party room in it. I have spent many hours trying to find the correct spot but no luck yet. Perhaps I can be more creative, I am so used to Nar Shadaa

I love the Yavin stronghold. My boyfriend and I are working on a Mandalorian style and as we still have 3 more rooms to unlock. I especially like the hidden cave. Going to use it for a garden area. With us having the Makeb centerpiece that might be good to use as a place when you can sit an enjoy the garden. Edited July 27, 2015 by ScarletBlaze

I love the Yavin stronghold. My boyfriend and I are working on a Mandalorian style and as we still have 3 more rooms to unlock. I especially like the hidden cave. Going to use it for a garden area. With us having the Makeb centerpiece that might be good to use as a place when you can sit an enjoy the garden.

 

How dare you say something positive!!

 

I love this stronghold...it completely surpassed my expectations

 

Well done BW

How dare you say something positive!!

 

I love this stronghold...it completely surpassed my expectations

 

Well done BW

 

It's like I said, it's a beautiful place, but I really wish they also put a bit more thought into the hook placements. The other Strongholds weren't perfect for sure but it was a lot less frustrating to decorate them because there were just more and better hooks on a lot of the places.

Looks OK empty but all the ones I've visited on the public listings people have tried to deco look like trash, I saw a few balconies that looked pretty good, the rest of the place including the 'hidden cave' are too big, too jumbled up, and the layout of the place is horrendous and bad hooks and bugs on top of that?

 

This map would have made a uninspired FP, it makes for a truly bogus stronghold.

How dare you say something positive!!

 

I love this stronghold...it completely surpassed my expectations

 

Well done BW

 

Thanks. Though honesty I am not one to say negative things for the most part. I usually can find positive even in the negative, just the way I was raised.

 

We love it too and it will take a while to get it the way we want but I have no doubt our stronghold will be awesome, at least for us.

 

I'm actually looking forward to having a garden that is truly outside.

All thats been said so far is something to be duly noted. I was really disappointed with the poor layout design for both stairways where several medium hooks rather than too many small hooks could have easily been envisioned on each wall . This also can be said for the hook layouts in areas such as the current 2 large hooks outside on each side of the main pyramid where there should be in my opinion the option to convert them into centerpieces as well as only having medium narrow hooks against the walls in other rooms and not of larger layouts. There was so much effort put into adding design and texture to this gorgeous stronghold that it seems much of the considerable creativity that the players bring to make SH's more alive has been left out or at least overlooked.

I agree that the hooks in the Yavin 4 stronghold could have been better. I suppose that they didn't have as much time as for the other strongholds and therefore could not polish it that much / test it to find the ideal hook placements. Or they spent so much time on the atmosphere and the secrets that they put in less work on the actual decorating part.

 

My personal experience is as follows:

Of course, I placed all the utility decorations near the entrance and it looks a little odd to have a GTN terminal high on a pedestal but it's the only place to put it.

And after being unsure for a while, I decided that the only way to add a personal touch to the atmosphere is to go completely anti-atmosphere. I'm not a big nature fan, I rather want a technical stronghold.

I converted the main hall into a huge cantina with blinking lights and slot machines. The centerpiece hook on top of the temple is filled by the huge Life Day tree with smaller trees next to it. And the lower balcony is filled with power generators for the casino, as well as Office Dividers around it to block out the environment.

The bridge is a big showdown between my forces against some native Massassi. In the back, I placed the Voss centerpiece, faced by two Revan Statue centerpieces on each side. And the far starship hook is taken by the Monolith, IMO the best place for it.

And even more fitting is the stronghold label. The German translation "Konsumtempel" is way nicer than the English name "Trade Emporium"; in German it means "Temple of Consumption" which of course fits perfectly to a Yavin temple.

 

Even though I haven't finished decorating it, I was disappointed by the lack of hook options. I don't expect them to do any major changes to the hooks, except maybe adding one more hook to the entrance for utilities, so I'll just stick with what we have and it should be doable.

While I certainly like all the secrets and rocket boost panels, for the future I'd rather like to have a more plain stronghold like Coruscant with blank rooms where we can create the atmosphere ourselves and not a lush stronghold like Yavin. Though before they even start working on another stronghold, I hope they fix the engine so it can handle more than four strongholds, that's a major issue for me.

 

I am thinking that old neckbeard that did the Yavin live feed with Eric worked on the yavin SH. Time for him to retire...

Comments like yours are exactly why the devs are hestitant to talk with the players openly. Criticism on a stronghold is fine but don't get personal.

Edited July 28, 2015 by Jerba

I agree that the hook placements makes me scratch my head in places. It's odd that the bridge to the temple grounds has so many options for centerpieces, most of which would highly obscure the way, whereas the roofs around the main temple where you don't frequently walk, have very little. It seems backwards, and there is a lot of asymmetry throughout the stronghold.

 

That said, I enjoy the challenge and it's one of the things in the long run that will help set strongholds apart. At first I was stumped as to what to do about moving my office from Tatooine, but was inspired by the idea of something like the "bat cave" in the first waterfall room. So I went to and was quite pleased with the results when done. It's both practical and aesthetically pleasing to me.

 

Bat Cave #1

Bat Cave #2

I love the stronghold and love the challenge of finding the right place to put things. I will agree that it was rather stupid to not put a centerpiece hook right in the middle of the temple but to put one in the tiny room to the right where any centerpiece you put there just fills up the entire room and you can't really even look up to see the top of it. Honestly, who's brainless idea was that? I also felt the cave should have had a lot more hooks then it does. Those two tunnels are long and not one hook in them. But overall, I love what I've done with the place and intend to have an open house soon to invite my server to come and visit.

The Yavin Stronghold is a Temple ruin, obviously it will be "a mess" and things not being aligned correctly. This is the best Stronghold they released thus far. I completely love every aspect of it. From the entrance all the way to the Forgotten Cavern. It took me a week to fully decorate it to 100%. It looks amazing to say the least.

I'll start out with the positive: I love the way it looks overall. The tunnel is pretty cool, waterfalls, etc.

 

There are BIG issues with this stronghold and I'll just list them:

1) The hooks are a disaster.

 

a) I am a bit OCD about symmetry and this place makes me want to pull my hair out.

b) The centerpiece hooks in the rooms are a huge bummer. I can hardly customize rooms at all! I would rather have 5 large regular hooks that can be customized into the typical different layouts (like the other strongholds). Changing a centerpiece hook into a large hook with 8 medium hooks around it? What am I supposed to do with that??? CP hook that changes into 4 large hooks? I can put a glob of 4 large things in the center of a room and that's it. Absolutely terrible. They spent so much time making a beautiful place that it seems they slapped in some crazy hooks and gave up.

c) I NEED more lighting in this place! The open skylights are neat but the amount of lighting is terrible. Can we please have some ceiling hooks?

 

2) Please take out the movie when loading into the stronghold. it's neat but unnecessary after you've seen it once.

 

3) Please individualize the rooms so that we don't pick up the ENTIRE lot of decos when we need to redo one room.

 

Like I said, it's a beautiful place and this is the first time I've been compelled to complain about anything in the game. I spent a lot of time acquiring the credits to get this place and I think it sorely needs some changes.

 

edit: after reading my post I realize I sound insanely grumpy and ungrateful. This is not my intention. i guess i'm just frustrated that I can't decorate it nearly as well as i could my little DK apartment, but I spent a lot more for it. Please please please do something about the hooks?

Edited July 29, 2015 by ArianaOphelia

See everyone thinking the same. Think the room with the waterfall inside it could have been so much cooler but the hook problem ruins it for me. Dunno just feels all a bit more filler than the tatooine one. IMHO the tatooine one is still the greatest apartment ever. I really just use the top balcony floor but it's so cool looking out over the sandcrawlers in the distance. Love it.

I like the Yavin stronghold however I can not find a natural party room in it. I have spent many hours trying to find the correct spot but no luck yet. Perhaps I can be more creative, I am so used to Nar Shadaa

 

I used the basement for that purpose. While it's obviously not going to be as flashy as a NS minicasino because of the darkish Y4 theme, it's one of the few rooms where the hook layout is semi-conducive to having a cantina of sorts (having a lounge outside over the waterfall doesn't hurt either).

 

I do wish that there were more large hooks. As it is there are only two rooms (main foyer and basement) with sufficient large hooks to truly decorate the way I want. I had to forego having a workshop entirely--the cave might have been a good place to have one if it had more hooks--and just barely got away with having a medcenter in one of the sanctuaries (the one without the centerpiece hook in it).

 

Darrien's Vacation Retreat on BC if you want to have a look at what I've done with it. Of course, he's a Sith Warrior so the darkness is appropriate for him.

Edited July 31, 2015 by AdrianDmitruk

I'm fairly certain that the AWESOME ARTISTS that delivered such a BREATHTAKING scenery want to kill whoever ruined their hard work with the haphazard hooks.

 

Especially in the whole open range outside... poverty hooks! The cave? I could spend my gaming time just strolling around there. I wanted to make it a secret shrine to Revan, complete with its ancient Star Map... only... there's like two centerpieces and three medium hooks on the floor, three medium walls, and... end of story! :eek: What the hell? You can't even put vines or moss in there! Not one single hook in front of the hauntingly beautiful giant jedi head!

 

Same for the basement, I would so have crowded the ceiling with vines... descent into darkness. Haunted house style... cave of visions as for Luke on Dagobah... this one, with the big round head, symbolizes the dark side for me, the netherworld. While the one above it has daylight and crystal-clear pure water pouring in from the heavens and creating life... see where I'm going...

 

By the way I went through a lot of trouble reuniting a party of companions to become holos of Revan's companions: Mission Vao with Bowdaar, Bastila, HK-47, Canderous Ordo, Carth, T3-M4... brought to you by Vette, Bowdaar, Pierce, Kira etc and a little makeup.

I'm glad I resisted my urge to spend my last coin on super expensive "official" suits for them before testing it: IT DOESN'T WORK! They all reverted to their default skins as on GSH day one. There, Carth, sport your dreadlocks. Nice imperial uniform, Canderous. Oh you have a beard now?

 

Also what's with the main square bloated with centerpieces? Are we supposed to stack 9 Grand Statues there? Or dish out the same ruin corners 9 times? I could really use some of those big hooks a few feet from there, on the grass... by the second starship hook, especially. But no. There's... the Fury, and a swoop bike.

 

So long story short: PLEASE ADD NEW HOOKS. Don't add more hook allowance, just inject more interactable terrain.

 

BECAUSE THIS STRONGHOLD IS A MARVEL!!!!

 

Thank you

 

And hats off to the graphic artists, YOU ROCK!

Edited August 6, 2015 by BenduKundalini

Be nice when you change floor style to large it adds the small tiles has well so u can put units/personal decorate down, instead of just a blank large floor tile.

Nice idea but one problem, when they add more hooks it may mess up the decorations in the stronghold and this stronghold doesn't have a room reset it has a reset that resets the whole stronghold. You may not mind it resetting your decorations or messing them up, but there are those like me that have finished their Yavin stronghold and do not want it messed up or reset.