I'm curious what everyone has to say about the expansion

Makeb looks very nice. The spacing of mission points are not too stretched out (you know I am pointing at you tatooine). The Story is all right.

As for changes in the build, new skill and gears, it will take longer to see how it goes for now loving the AOE heal and single cast 20% armor debuff

People are up in arms because they did away with the need for PVP 50 gear and are acting like the sky has fallen.

 

It seems like what they did is made Bolster now affect all players pre 54 with expertise so there will now be no need to grind pvp gear until 55. I guess they just didn't explain it in the release for people to understand.

People are up in arms because they did away with the need for PVP 50 gear and are acting like the sky has fallen.

 

It seems like what they did is made Bolster now affect all players pre 54 with expertise so there will now be no need to grind pvp gear until 55. I guess they just didn't explain it in the release for people to understand.

 

Ah I see what they are doing. That's fine with me as long as at level 55 ranked doesn't consist of 8 nudist

So far the changes look good, only did the first section of Makeb and ran my usual dailies and have already dinged 53 in about 3 1/2 hours this morning so I am guessing the 5 levels will take about 7 hours total.

 

The part of Makeb I have seen looks pretty enough looks like Alderaan has been transported to Northern Arizona. So far not seen any major bugs (just the usual partying up with someone who has done a quest can bug out the clickys for you).

 

Only played on my sorc so other than Polarity Shift (which appears to be both useful in PVE and PVP) and the new bubble (seems very situational at best and probably will be more useful in PVP) I cannot comment on the other skills. A guildie playing an operative used the roll ability which looks fun in PVP.

 

All in all a good solid mini expansion.....

It seems like what they did is made Bolster now affect all players pre 54 with expertise so there will now be no need to grind pvp gear until 55. I guess they just didn't explain it in the release for people to understand.

 

I think the issue is that everyone's better off with no gear rather than gear. I think people would take everyone being in the same place gearwise fairly well. Being worse off wearing EWH rather than empty shells is just dumb.

 

And if it's anything like the PTS, TTK is absolutely ridiculously short. But I haven't played it on live, so I guess I should reserve judgment.

I love it so far. Have gotten to 55, and I can't wait to do flashpoints and try the new operation.

Makeb is a beautiful planet, and I like the storyline, although I do feel like it could've been more difficult.

 

I'm also thrilled to play with the new side quests! Seeker droids~!

If Megan has to PvP with no boots on I'm all for the changes.

If Megan has to PvP with no boots on I'm all for the changes.

 

I ... what?

 

Also, completed all the HM 55 flashpoints with Ryd, Radzkie, and Achilleus. They were great fun and dropped nice mats and gear. It was a nice challenge, and something that I've looked forward to for a while. I can't wait to go back and do those again. They may be a bit hard for a pug group (especially Cad's last boss. @_@), but it really was nice to have to work to kill the bosses. (although, there seemed to be no enrage timers. o_o )

 

now, I think it's time for sleep.

Edited April 9, 2013 by SweetMegan

They buffed Focus again, with uptime. So I'd say 2.0 was a huge success.

yeah rage is quite rediculous now.. it's less boring to play in general as well

I'm enjoying it. DPS'ing as a Guardian is insanely fun and is a nice change of pace from being a tank spec. I've heard some say that Makeb is "easier" then they expected, but I wonder if that's just because at some point Makeb will become free and we'll get more level 55 daily areas that are like Section X (in terms of difficulty). Also, quite a few of us are better geared than your average PvE'er. (If you have BH or Campaign gear, or higher, you're better geared then your average PvE'er).

 

PvP has been fun, but they really should have done a level 50 to 54 bracket. I've done a few matches in my PvE gear and it's crazy fun, but unfair to lowbies.

 

Overall though, so far, so good.

I'm struggling to hit my usual numbers. I really miss that 5k blade storm and cheap blade rush in zen. I think the potential is there, it's just going to require more attention to my own buffs/debuffs, better focus management, and practice.

 

As for the planet Makeb, it's been pretty fun thusfar. It seems a lot of detail went into it.

Edited April 10, 2013 by LaVall

I smell a sawbones nerf coming.

Not many positive things on this. Maked looks great, that's about it, everything els is terrible.

 

1. The Bolster - I didnt personally have a problem with this but just how in the world can they let that slip through testing? They even stated, in an article that it was fixed. It really makes me question their abiltity to do things right.

 

2. The mission log - I have the crucial stuff; Daily/weekly ops/FP/WB + HK (one mission) + PvP + Vehicle (new char so still working on that). That's it, I'm not carrying around random missions and my log is still full whenever I'm trying to do some dailies. How hard can it be to expand it to 50 entries?????

 

3. Makeb - A stated, it looks good. That said, it's terribly boring to play. Combine the frustration of constantly having to drive around stuff on Belsavis and Corellia with a new mob every 5ft. The instances seemed to cap on 50 people and that is not many considering how many "islands" there are. I think I saw a total of 5 people outside the center, all ganking imps. This means that you basically have to clear everything on your own and there's particulary one zone where you cant move without getting jumped by an elite or group of 20.

 

Then there's the lag. God! 50 people per instance, ping is 35 ms and you still have 1 second spikes more or less every minute. It's like playing with a GCD that lasts 3 seconds.

 

Random mob aggro, a lot of that. I would sometimes get jumped by the entire area, including mobs that came from 100 yards away.

 

Same boring missions...and some of them go on for what feels like forever. It doesnt help that the map is totally off at times so you have to ask for direction in chat.

 

4. PvP balance - Well there's balance in the sense that everyone can kill you in 2 GCD'es now. Might aswellgive everyone the Golden Gun because that's what it feels like at times. There's no room for strategy or skill.

 

5. Comms caps - There's already an indirect cap (time and missions that grant a certain commendation) so what's the point of a weekly cap? Putting a weekly cap on classic comms is, in lack of a better term, retarded. It will take weeks to get fully geared since you can only earn enough to buy 2-3 items per week. It takes a day to go from lvl 50-55 so who is going to spend weeks on lvl 50 gear? i wanted to gear my companions, is that really something that has to wait? And the planetary cap is way too low. They're basically throwing those comms at us (they really do as ow-drops on makeb, I must have gotten 200 but I cant pick them up) so why is the cap 150?

 

6. Vendor locations - Make no sense at all. Spread out over the fleet and planets.

 

6. EC, KP and EV in the same queue - You heard it here first, no sane people will queue for an operation pre-55, in fear of having to spend 2-3 hours explaining things to three people who have never been there (EC) before and seemingly are immune to a walkthrough and do the exact opposite anyway. And who the hell wants to explain stuff to people every time? Isnt it enough that the damn puzzle on KP sometimes take 20 mins extra to go through. I still don't get how I always manage to end up in a group where no one has been there before or been on the buttons O_o. That's what every boss on EC will be like, mixed up with people running ahead and aggroing. People will drop like flies and then you have to wait another 15 minutes for a replacement. I'm not 100 % sure about this but I assume that it's just like any other SM OP in the sense that you have to acually beat it too.

 

Let me just share some of the highlights from earlier today:

* One guy instantly initiating kick. He wasnt satisfied with the other person's gear. That a nice way to get everyone pissed.

* I asked if everyone had been there before. No one replies. I take that as a silent yes. WRONG! People are even standing in the red cricles on z&t and no one jumped up on the tank on my side.

*Guy who had been complaining about everything the entire time dropped. Had to wait for replacement.

*Some dude needed on everything.

*Dude aggroed everything between the cave and tanks. He even managed to aggro the birds at the same ttime O_o

 

I would like to complain about how both pvp and pve are dead at 55 atm but I'm not dumber than I realize that it's because only a few have maxed out. That said, it doesnt take a rocket scientist to figure out that it will be a challenge to get a warzone or FP going until enough people have reached 55 so it wouldnt have hurt if they had widened the level range for atleast warzones the first two weeks.

Edited April 10, 2013 by MidichIorian

It's been a blast so far. Am not sure if it's a good or bad thing that I got to lv 55 so quickly though. Edited April 10, 2013 by Radzkie

Let me just share some of the highlights from earlier today:

* One guy instantly initiating kick. He wasnt satisfied with the other person's gear. That a nice way to get everyone pissed.

* I asked if everyone had been there before. No one replies. I take that as a silent yes. WRONG! People are even standing in the red cricles on z&t and no one jumped up on the tank on my side.

*Guy who had been complaining about everything the entire time dropped. Had to wait for replacement.

*Some dude needed on everything.

*Dude aggroed everything between the cave and tanks. He even managed to aggro the birds at the same ttime O_o

 

To be fair, none of that has anything to do with the xpac. You use group-finder as intended when you want to run an op in ScaryMode, not StoryMode.

Carnage is even easier now than it was before. I'm still getting over 5k crits and you should be hitting higher if you're past 50. Rage management isn't even an issue as many are making it out to be. They made this spec easier than rage, which a monkey could play effectively. If you're struggling to put up numbers with combat in its current form, maybe you never had it to begin with.

Not sure about the crit nerfs and boosting power to compensate. In my 63 PVE set my sorc when fully buffed, clicky and adrenal is hitting 1150+ bonus healing and on crit can hit 9.7k easily on himself.

 

Looks like it will take a little bit of theorycrafting on my part to find the sweet spot between crit and power.

 

Still trying to get my head around the comms and the new stims (at least I maxed out Biotech/Bioanalysis/Diplomacy )

 

Still plodding through Makeb but going to take my time now that I am 55 (levelled mainly through dailies, FPs). I may start queing for level 55 FPs starting tomorrow (6AM PST early bird dailies for me) if anyone want to join me, pst N'abi

 

One pet peeve is the fact that they moved the daily transports from the shuttle door to another kiosk nearby, took me a day to figure that one out lol.

Lightning is very glass cannon with a min maxed crit % Surge it will likely drop someone before they know your on them end game but it still feels squishy. Chain Lightning was hitting over 6k you need to plant a little more to get off big numbers but if you are allowed to youcut things down.

 

Madness puts up the most numbers I was pulling near 700k in norvair and was heals for the first 10 minutes of the game. Death Field is hitting for 5k up to 5 targets.

 

Corruption is heal % seems up and with the tweaks it's very mobile and has a lot of nice goodies to sustain your force if your aware of it .

 

I think the problem right now is you have a bunch of people running around with 1800 expertise so they are all hitting hard that will likely change at 55 as not everyone will have full expertise gear however I did notice that our WH gear has the same expertise as the 55 gear the 55 just has inflated stats.

 

The problem with this is our stats are not being bolstered as much becuase out expertise due to the change in gear is already high so it's lowering our base stats and those will less gear are being bolstered more to the level of a 54.

 

 

So right now the only people who are making out are the people in non pvp gear. Once that is fixed those of us with expertise gear will hit very hard and those without will be fodder. As there is no lower end pvp gear to buy if they don't have it already they will remain fodder until 55.

 

This will likely not make the pre 54 bracket fun for some but eventually players with that gear will level out of the lower bracket and that will not be an issue down the road.

Well I got through Makeb and am starting on some of the other aspects of the patch/expansion. So far here are my thoughts and opinions.

 

1. PvP and Bolster

 

So yeah, the bolster system. I understand why it is there and the idea of leveling the playing field is a good one. That said I felt like PvP in the 30-54 was a mess. My hard-earned PvP gear seemed more a disadvantage as people with lvl 40 gear had more health, hit as hard or harder. Sniper felt weak, my Sin was worse. That in addition to the known issues with removing items for higher stats when bolster takes effect left me quite disappointed. Luckily it is not a bracket I will be in for long.

 

D- (for 30-54 w/bolster)

 

55 ought to be better, though I haven't gotten into it yet.

 

2. Makeb

 

Quite pretty really and I enjoyed the pacing of it. Though it felt very linear I kind of enjoyed that. Also each Mesa gave something new visually to enjoy. The story is good, on part with Agent (imho). The story feels a bit thin sometimes, especially when the missions often take quite a while to finish with their multiple steps and bonuses.

 

It was nice that the endgame gear I had got me through all of it, though I could feel things slow down toward the end as things took a while to kill and hit pretty hard. This was something I expected so not really a complaint.

 

The heroics were pretty good, the 4 man, Observer (I think), was particularly well done.

 

The final mission though... Well go ahead and click the spoiler if you have done it...

 

 

 

 

Overall I really enjoyed Makeb.

 

A+

 

Seeker Droids

 

I think that the devs were unhappy with the speed that people blazed through their earlier daily areas. These missions are very spread out and quite time consuming to complete, with most of that time spent traveling and looking around. I think that they had an interesting idea here but it borders on tedious for me. I think if they consolidated the dailies a bit more, maybe to fewer planets I would not have felt as bored/frustrated with it. 4 planets with missions all of the map just made me shake my head.

 

C-

 

Macrobinoculars

 

Haven't done much with these. Got through the first missions and thought they were alright. I have a suspicion that the may end up being like the seeker droid missions. Hoping not, but yeah, not excited about getting further into them.

 

Incomplete

 

 

 

Overall this was a good mini-expansion. I still have things to do and there are ops and hms to look forward to. That they couldn't save us from boring dailies is something no MMO has really accomplished. We do need expanded mission logs. 25 is no where near enough anymore.

Edited April 10, 2013 by CKHelseth

You know what I'm mad about? The fact that I destroyed all my pve gear in a fit of greedy haze.

 

Other than that... I'm not so patiently waiting until the 14th.

Edited April 10, 2013 by Jaddis

I am happy I get to be able to get to 50.9999999% on the experience bar.

 

I'm not happy that I have to listen to everyone else having fun in the expansion cause I was broke after xmas and stupidly didn't buy the expansion in time to play with everyone else cause I have never had to deal with this problem in all my gosh dang years of gaming i mean all the other games i have played let you do early access as long as you preordered the expansion at any time period but anyways back to the many years of gaming which is totally embarrassing to admit to because they are too many and i'm too old for this stuff anyways supposedly but i think everyone should have a little kid in them no matter how old they get and because of that i am making my guild listen to my whine cry and whimper in agony for the next four days and how COULD YOU BIOWARE how could you do this to me how could you offer the expansion months in advance with barely any info given right at christmas and want me to fork over ten little measly dollars i didn't have at the time cause i went over budget on my poor helpless children at christmas for toys and stuffs and gosh dang it i know i can't blame you but i still want to and next time can't you just offer a bunch of really awesome fluff to people for ordering months in advance instead of making half the population sit there listening to all their guildmates and friends play cause really it's a terrible downer and leaves a horrible taste in the mouths of those that can't for whatever reason order that far in advance and i was aiming for the longest ranting run on sentence ever but to be honest i really don't care anymore

 

^ and breathe Edited April 10, 2013 by bsbrad

^ and breathe

 

*breaths deeply and then starts sobbing all over N'abi*

 

It's *chokes* not *chokes more* fair