In this new weekly article series, I’ll be delivering my thoughts on Star Wars: The Old Republic from BioWare Austin. It may be news, tips, or just random musings. Hopefully, this will encourage more people to give it another try.
Return to The Old Republic
When Star Wars: The Old Republic first launched, there were numerous sites that offered insight, hints, and strategies for getting the most out of your time and to get you levelled up the quickest. As time has passed, one of the things I am most able to sell to people as to why they should give SWTOR a try if they never have before, or to return to it if they’ve let their subscriptions lapse, is the story. Right now, with the launch of Game Update 4.0 back in the fall of 2015, this is the best time to return or start fresh. For some people, though, there are still some hurdles when you want to play the game for just the story.
SWTOR offers two things to get people to try it out: 1) It’s free and 2) it’s your own personal Star Wars epic. At the outset, we all had to pay. At the time, it was expected and people didn’t really think anything of it, aside from having to choose between spending our fifteen bucks a month on this one or the other popular MMORPG. Now, freemium is becoming the new way of things, and not just with MMOs. Today, we have a choice whether or not to pay to play this game. Those of us that played at the outset and have subsequently tried the free or “preferred” mode have found the free versions to be simply too lacking to enjoy. It’s still somewhat enjoyable, but it’s clearly not the THE way to play.
For me, having your own personal Star Wars epic is really too much fun to stay away from forever. There are plenty of other games that I look back fondly on, but this is one that I keep coming back to and I keep resubbing, not just playing free-to-play (F2P). As with any MMO, however, there are some chores that need to be accomplished even when you would think you’d just be rushing to get to the big nasty superweapon before the enemy does. The necessity of these chores takes away some of the story-first emphasis they are looking for.
In order to maximize the enjoyment of this game, especially with the new story leveling system, I have a few suggestions for those just starting or those returning:
1) Manage your Companions (Skills). It used to be that each of your companions had certain strengths when it came to either crafting items in a certain category or gathering certain types of materials. These days, each of your companions isn’t particularly great at any certain single crafting/gathering skill. Instead, their efficiency and effectiveness is based on your influence with them. The more you influence a companion, the better they’ll perform, both in combat and with crafting.
2) Manage your Companions (Combat). Another big change to Companions is that their specs (damage, heal, tank) are not set in stone. In fact, every companion can have their spec changed to suit your needs. For me, my main tank companion was also my best armor crafter. If Tano Vik was already out crafting armor or gathering Underworld Metal, I was out my tank. Now, anyone can tank and anyone can do armor crafting/underworld gathering.
3) As you are going through the Class missions, you should be getting at least green gear as quest rewards to see you through. One of the things that was done away with in patch 4.0 (Knights of the Fallen Empire, Oct 27), is the need to gear-out your companions. You can still give them gear, but it will just be cosmetic. This definitely eliminates one problem: for rewards, deciding between gear for you and gear for them. This is a double-edged sword, though, because crafting for companions really helped speed up your craft skill levelling. Now, though, you can keep constantly having items crafted, but then turn around and either sell them or reverse engineer them.
4) As you’re trying to keep your gear level-appropriate, don’t neglect the Commendations vendor at the fleet. They may only offer some of the lesser armor parts (bracers, belts, gloves, etc), but every bit helps. Plus, the mods vender for Commendations will be able to keep your orange armor and weapons up to level. My current non-max/nearly-max character is my Smuggler and she has worn the Nico Okarr jacket since almost level one and I keep managing to upgrade it with mods purchased with commendations.
5) Where can you get orange items? There are actually a few easy ways to acquire oranges. Just as with many other MMOs, gear comes in colors that denote their quality. Gray is garbage, white is baseline, green is good, blue is better, purple is great, and orange is completely driven by mods. An orange piece will have horrible stats until you apply mods. Most of the costume items (slave dancer, flight suit that looks like Luke’s, etc) are oranges, so you can keep your favorite outfit and have it be relevant further on into the game. The Cartel Market is a great place to pick up orange items. You can buy them with Cartel Coins you get simply for playing. Another place to pick up oranges is in Flashpoints. Depending on your level, you may only need one other person to run a Flashpoint if all you want is to finish it and get some items. The last place to get oranges easily is by making them, which leads me to….
6) Keep up your crafting. This isn’t like in other MMOs where you basically make a choice to spend your precious time mining and then blacksmithing. Rather, you make your crew do all the work! As soon as you have crew to send out, or even sooner, go see the crafting trainers to see what you can choose from. Even as early as having just chosen your class, you should think about what needs your character will have through the game. Do they wear heavy armor? Might consider Armormech. Instead of armor, do they wear robes? You could go Synthweaving. Do you want guns? Lots of guns? Then Armstech might work best for you. Once you pick, do some digging online to find what gathering skills best compliment your chosen crafting skill. Also, don’t worry if you don’t like the ones you chose. You can always dump them and get new ones and you haven’t really missed out on any leveling time.
7) If you are short on credits, rather than trying to grind out side missions on planets, you could spend time playing some of the space missions. I don’t mean Starfighter PvP, although that is a lot of fun. Rather, do the space missions that were included in the game at the outset. You can farm them very quickly once you start to get a mission’s beats down. You only run into an issue with these missions once you start getting into their higher levels. Then you have to upgrade your ship the same way you’d upgrade your own armor. Early on, though, you shouldn’t have any trouble raking in some easy money here.
8) Going back to Flashpoints, once you hit higher levels, running through lower level ones like Esseles or Black Talon should score you plenty of fairly good gear that you have no need for. Instead, you can sell it at any vendor or put it up on the auction house if you strike it rich with some unique purple or orange drop. Obviously, the vendor is the quickest means of getting needed cash.
9) If you’ve played before and you want to get close to a subscription experience without paying the recurring fifteen dollars a month, consider spending a few real-world dollars in the Cartel Market in the Unlockables section. These will take off some of the handcuffs the free players suffer from. Also, this will make you a Preferred status player which further enhances the experience for you.
10) Finally, play with your friends. This may sound obvious, but if you’re playing by yourself you’re not getting the most for your money. That doesn’t just refer to the fun of playing with other people, but also for money and XP accrual. Other players of any class can assist you with your Class story missions and help get you through tough spots you might find yourself in due to under-leveled gear. Even if you can’t convince your friend(s) to pay for a subscription, a free player helps every bit as much.
Again, I hope just keeping SWTOR in the minds of our Star Wars fans encourages them to check it out. I’ll be returning to this article series weekly (hopefully), and I’ll include more of my personal thoughts about the state of the game, especially with the monthly releases that began with Chapter X of Knights of the Fallen Empire just earlier this month.