The Glade 4.0

Here is a breakdown of some of the changes coming to Star Wars: The Old Republic when Knights of the Fallen Empire launches (early release on Oct20, non-subscribers get access on Oct27)

http://vulkk.com/swtor-4-0-kotfe-dev-st ... -overview/

Basically, they are adding more post class mission story (starting at level 60). They are simplifying (or dumbing down) the game, in order to re-prioritize development resources on story content. One central mainstat (Master) will replace the class specific stats (Aim, Willpower, Strength and Cunning). Companions will undergo significant changes as well.. Post level 60, some will be gone (either dead or just leaving), to be replaced by others. No more stat gear for companions (it's cosmetic only), and any companion can be Tank, DPS, or Heal. Note that as I understand it, companions will remained unchanged in the 1-50 class mission planetary leveling).

You will have the ability to roll a level 60 right off the bat, and go through a tutorial as part of the first (of 12) chapter. Non subscribers will be able to purchase a level 60 character token from the cartel market.

Of course you can use any of your existing characters to play the new content as well (presumably you would have to be level 60, although class story isn't necessary, you won't be able to go back to those missions once you start KoTFE.

For those who havn't been following the story post the 1-50 class missions, the empire and republic have been forced into an uneasy coalition to do battle with the Revanites. This new story content picks up where the Shadow of Revan story left off, with Revan defeated, and whole again, the empire and republic are now focusing their attention on The Viciate (Emperor).

Warning that if you watch the twitchcon feeds, it will give some significant story spoilers regarding the demise of a significant central character who dies early in the first chapter of the new content. "Will you kneel?"...

IF they kill Doc they will never get a single dime from me.

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Raell Kromwell

LOL, Doc? That's not one of the companions I hear people being passionate about keeping very often.

I didn't think they are changing anything in the existing 1-50 game. They just aren't going to do any more companion dialog for the existing companions.

Companions going forward (in the 60+ game) could be potentially anyone (Darth Marr for example), and they are all pretty much identical in terms of combat skills.

Here is an overview to the combat changes.

http://www.swtor.com/blog/combat-changes-fallen-empire

Level Sync (scaling players abilities down for lower planets) is probably the biggest thing on this list.

"Companions now all have 3 roles you can choose from on the fly, DPS/Healer/Tank, and different ability sets based on that role."

FINALGODDAMNLY!

I hate, loathe, and despise that I have to haul around that traitorous companion (which I would have absolutely executed had that been an option) simply because he's the only healer I have that isn't an ewok. I've always much preferred to level with Jaesa.

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Les Zombis et les Loups-Garous!

There still isn't much detail about what transpires with your current companions after you start the KotFE story. It's pretty clear your existing companions will have a limited role, and you will be provided NPC companions that fit with the story. At least that is what I derived from the little bit of gameplay footage I've seen.

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Doc changed the game for me. I was ready to quit, give it all up. He made world of difference.

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Raell Kromwell

Well, it's patch day (tonight actually).

Game Update 4.0, and early access to Knights of the Fallen Empire go live tonight/tomorrow.

http://reddit.com/r/swtor has a pretty good summary of all of the changes with KotFE and Game Update 4.0.

https://www.reddit.com/r/swtor/comments ... mpire_and/

BTW Raell,

You don't have to worry about Doc. You may or may not lose him (temporarily), but all of the legacy companions are still in the game post level 60.



Here is a link to the full patch notes
http://www.swtor.com/patchnotes/1020201 ... rly-access

Here is the new loading screen art (spoilered for size)

Here is a summary of the new "Alliance" system. Fundamental changes to the way companions work.

It's too late to be of much value to me (I doubt I'll be leveling any more characters), but it's a good change (in my opinion).

http://www.swtor.com/info/news/blog/20151020-0

Actually looking forward to a TOR expansion...

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Wow, I finally got to play some of the new content, and while there are certainly some bugs with Alliance system, I am totally blown away by the production quality of the cutscenes. They've really upped their game here.

This is an actual cut scene from the expansion (somewhat spoilerish).

The Jedi in the white robes is the player, the rest are all members of your alliance of NPCs. Some of whom are already usable companions.. some potential recruits.

This video is the first 20 minutes or so of gameplay from the perspective of a light side Jedi Knight.

It's obviously a huge spoiler.. especially for Knights.

Urgh. Part of me wants to go do more story with my Shadow. And maybe make some progress with my Bounty Hunter and Knight, now that I can focus on class story.

But that would require two things:
a) Installing Origin on this lovely clean Windows install that I did a couple weeks ago.
b) Remembering how to play.

Decisions, decisions.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

you dont need origin.. you can download the client directly from swtor.com

Also, if you subscribe for a month, you can get a free level 60 character and jump right into KotFE.
Edit: Double check this. I'm not 100% sure how this benefit works. The expansion officially launches on Monday. You may have to have subscribed by a certain date.

They will start you off with a tutorial and a few skills, and work you up quickly through the skill tree. They have made companions much more powerful, and gameplay is not so challenging...

A lot has changed. If you decide to pick up your story, id suggest making a new character and leveling the first few planets, to get used to the new allaince system.

You can also solo Flashpoints once per day, even at the level they become available. Similar to how it worked for high level FPs in the last expansion.

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Les Zombis et les Loups-Garous!

Yes, all except one (Colocoid War games?) has a solo mode, although getting the solo mode is a tad confusing. I believe you have to go to the entrance of the flashpoint and talk to an NPC. You can't queue in the traditional way, or use the terminals on the planets.

Also, for anyone considering doing the new story content, you might want to carve out a large chunk of time. Its nine chapters and it will take you 6 to 8 hours, assuming you don't spacebar through the cinematics ( this would be a crime).

The content flows together, and there is really no good time to take a break. And whatever you do, dont stop playing in the middle of a chapter. You'll have to start over when you come beck to it later.

Hrm.

Well, I dove back in a bit today, and took my level 50 Shadow to Voss to beat on some easy stuff while I remembered what things combo with what and tried to get back into the whole rotation thing.

Getting there. The freedom to make anybody a healing companion is quite liberating and really eased the transition back, though I think next session I find time for, I'll shift them back out to damage so I can really nail down the fine tuning of how to keep my defenses up properly without it all just getting washed out in the heal spam.

Thanks for the warning on the chapter bit. I'll have to get moving on the old expansion before I get there, though; I never did get around to re-learning my stuff the *last* time I dragged the game out when it went free to play and expanded... back then, I settled for dicking around with my alts in their 20's because the re-learning curve was shallower with simpler rotations.

How permanent are the points you spend in the specialization tree thingie? It looked like not much had changed in what the Shadow trees *give* you, and I hadn't done some kooky hybrid there, so no big adjustment to be made, but I didn't remember where the real money abilities were for my particular playstyle, so I held off on spending the 4 or 5 points I've got, I guess. Are they generally tiered in power? It looked like there were a handful open at first, and then spending the first couple would open up new ones... are the new ones flat-out more powerful, typically, or just expanding the options horizontally at a similar overall power level?

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Field respec is free of you have the legacy unlock. I' be had that for so long I don't know if it's free for subscribers, or what. There should be a talent respec guy on fleet, and I'm sure the cost isn't much.

If you were on Harbinger, I'd throw some money at you, and some collectable armor pieces from the cartel market. I'd got banks full of extra stuff.

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There is a "Skill Mentor" on the fleet that will let you respec. It is free for Subscribers. Not sure what it costs for F2P.

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"I Live, I Love, I Slay, and I Am Content."
- Conan the Barbarian

Is this worth resubbing for? (I won't play F2P.)

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
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I've been a subscriber since launch, so take this with a grain of salt. But I would say that yes, the current content is worth subbing for.

The changes to companions in 4.0 is HUGE. Every companion can fill all 3 roles, now. And any gear they equip is completely cosmetic.

Speaking of cosmetic gear, the Outfit Designer is something that I've been wanting since the game launched. You no longer have to worry about how your gear changes your character's appearance. You have a tab on your character screen for "stat gear" and up to 10 other tabs for "cosmetic gear." So you can always control how your character looks. You can have the same look on your character from level 1 to 65, if you want.

A few patches, ago, they made all speeder/taxi nodes & Quick Travel nodes unlock for you as soon as you enter a new map area. This combined with significantly reduced cooldown on Quick Travel (mine is instant, with the right legacy perks) makes traveling and questing much easier now.

The storyline on KOTFE is pretty good, so far. And the new cinematics are much improved over the cutscenes from Vanilla.

Plus, as a sub, you get other perks, like increased XP gain, and complimentary Cartel Coins to spend in the Cartel Market, or for upgrading your bank/legacy bank slots. Having a Legacy bank, Regular Bank, Guild Vault, Mailbox, and GTN kiosk all available in my stronghold, without even having to move my character more than a couple of steps in either direction is a very nice bonus, as well.

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"I Live, I Love, I Slay, and I Am Content."
- Conan the Barbarian

Yeah, I still had a sub when they added the outfit designer. I've played a long time. I wasn't playing for several months though, and the CC I used to use to sub with expired this summer and I didn't resub because I wasn't playing.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Some things to understand about this new content...

It's level 60-65 content, and takes place in the story arc AFTER the last expansion (Shadows of Revan - Forged Alliances -> Manaan -> Rakata Prime -> Rishi -> Yavin IV -> Ziost). While a small panet in terms of game play, the story on Ziost plays a huge role in the early part of the new Knights of the Fallen Empire. I'd recommend playing that content before you jump into the new stuff.

Also, your existing characters are going to undergo a pretty large change upon starting the KoTFE story. It's irreversible. Almost everything about companions change (you lose some, gain quite a few, their gearing changes, everything). Pretty much everything you own is going to be replaced early on in the KoTFE story.

If you like the current look of your character, the outfit designer is your friend. It's the only way your going to keep that look while you are looting superior green and blue items.

If you are a fan of the old planet vendor armor sets (the stuff you used to buy with planetary comms way back in the day), you'll be disappointed to know ALL of those venders, and that gear are gone.

Some of the sets are now craftable as greens, and many others have shown up as legacy armor pieces you get as rewards for doing the Alliance Recruitment missions. So you may still come across nice looking armor sets, but it's a completely different way to find them.

Your companions are going to be far more powerful than they were before. The new Alliance system has ranks up to 50. Just to understand the scale of that, if you had maxed your affection with a given companion at 10,000 under the old system, that equates to rank 10 in the new system. Companion gifting is a huge part of the game now. In fact, it's the new 'grind' (gear is far more easy to come up with).

No one really nows how the Alliance system will look down the road, as new story content is added, but after going through the KotFE story, I had something like 12 or 14 companions. The idea of trying to max Influence across that many companions, across all 16 of my alts....

daunting...

The reality is, unless you have zero life, you are not going to be able to max all of your companions influence. And you surely won't need to.

My suggestion would be to pick out two or three, and use them as much as possible. Every time you turn in a mission, or have a conversation with an NPC, you gain influence with the current companion. Even if they don't like your choice, you still gain influence. Of course you gain more if they 'Approve', or better yet 'Greatly Approve', but even if they 'Disapprove', you still gain influence, unlike the old affection system, where you could actually have negative affection (I'm looking at you Scourge!).

About your original companions:


If you are lucky enough to have access to a new level 60 character (either as a subscriber, or buying one with cartel coins or credits), there are a few things you should know.

When you create the level 60, the new character will immediately start the KotFE story content. You can press ESC to stop the conversation, and then come back to it later, but if you are so inclined, the character is will enough equipped, and by default, spec'd into the easiest DPS spec possible. You can change this by clicking 'Advanced' during the character creation if you want to play a different spec, but we warned. If you want to play a Tank, you can choose that spec, but you will NOT get tank gear.

Some people were upset because their raid needed a tank, so they rolled a new level 60 character, made it a tank, and assumed they could jump right into their Operation, only to find the character had no shield or tank stats.

You start with ZERO credits, and so no way to travel to an opposite faction Stronghold. You will loot about 1.5 million credits along the course of the chapters, so it's not an issue, but don't expect to have any money when you start the game on the new level 60.

The "free" level 60 comes with some very nice looking legacy bound armor. You can share it with other characters in your legacy, but it is NOT moddable, and requires level 60. You can augment it if you choose, but you can't otherwise upgrade it. The value of this is, that if you love the look, you can use it in an outfit designer slot, or even put it on a companion (they still have visible armor, even though the stats don't affect them any more).

There are some limitations with these new characters.

They cannot go back and do the class or planetary story arcs, or have the companion conversations that come as part of the level 1-50 stories , and will not have the achievements for having done any of those things.

The last thing to mention about the free level 60 character is that the creation script has a strange bug. In some cases, after going through the creation and watching the opening cinematic, instead of a level 60 in cool looking legacy bound armor, you'll end up with a level 1 on fleet with newbie gear. It's not a problem, as you can just delete the character, and re-create it.

In fact, as long as you don't reach level 61, you can delete and recreate the character as many times as you like. Some folks have used their initial level 60 character allocation to acquire all 8 sets of legacy gear. I'm not sure if this was intended, of if anyone at bioware cares. It's not exactly game breaking stuff, and it cant be sold for credits.

It hasn't been a perfectly smooth launch, but considering the scale of the changes being made, i'd say over all it's been pretty good.

I absolutely love the new story, and the production quality is leaps and bounds better than the original stories.

BTW, Taly, if you have already done the Shadows of Revan stuff, and you just want to see the new story, you'll probably be fine with "Preferred" status. Especially if you already have some of the QoL Legacy Unlocks.

If you haven't done the Forged Alliances -> Manaan -> Rakata Prime -> Rishi -> Yavin IV -> Ziost story yet, I'd say it would be worth subscription money to play through those, and then play KoTFE.

Here is a wiki on the /r/swtor reddit page that talks about the differences between F2P, Preferred and Subscriber
https://www.reddit.com/r/swtor/wiki/f2p

There are a bunch of other good FAQs' there as well.

I'd suggest staying away from the general posts there if you don't want to see story spoilers though.