Stuff to do solo at endgame? Haven't played since 2014.

[I Push Buttons]

I am installing this game right now, I haven't played in years. I want to get as much gear and what not as possible, but I don't want to raid or any of that (because I have no real long term commitment to this game, so I am not looking to join a group and steal drops from them only to potentially quit shortly after). What kind of gear can one hope to acquire solo?

I read about the Galactic Command stuff and the crates you get, but everyone seems to hate it and says its rewards are garbage. I also read about some kind of change coming for it on the 24th that supposedly makes it better? But I don't really understand the change, are they saying it will give better rewards in conjunction with raiding, or better rewards in general?

I also read about "veteran mode" for replaying the story... Does this give gear rewards or what?

Can you still buy the best mods and stuff from people on the GTN? Is there still currency to buy gear with?

I am just looking to jump back in, play through everything, and grind for a little while to max out my gear (as far as I can anyways solo).

Thanks

[quras]

I am installing this game right now, I haven't played in years. I want to get as much gear and what not as possible, but I don't want to raid or any of that (because I have no real long term commitment to this game, so I am not looking to join a group and steal drops from them only to potentially quit shortly after). What kind of gear can one hope to acquire solo?

I read about the Galactic Command stuff and the crates you get, but everyone seems to hate it and says its rewards are garbage.

You can get access to any gear by doing anything this time around. No need to raid at all. You will get CXP (command experience at level 70) faster in groups but raiding is not very efficient right now. A 4 man group doing uprisings (new watered down 4 man flash points done in 20 mins) is some of the best CXP for your time in game. Every day there is a bonus that move around the Galactic command board so even when it lands on solo planet heroics, those are good to do. Same with PVP or flash points. OPS still being on the lower end for the time right now even with the bonus.

At 70 as you level up galactic command, you get a crate that once opened given some random gear, random orange shells, random schematic for crafting and something random from these (Jawa Scraps, Companion gifts, pet, mount, or a reputation item). RNG does indeed suck for the gamer but you can get to those crates doing nothing but solo content.

AT 70, you get no gear from anything you do except the RNG crates. No gear from bosses in OPS or flash points or uprisings. PVE and PVP gear is now the same. No separation of stats. It's all about the RNG crates and that grind.

I also read about some kind of change coming for it on the 24th that supposedly makes it better? But I don't really understand the change, are they saying it will give better rewards in conjunction with raiding, or better rewards in general?

For the solo player, nothing changes. You will grind the content for crates and pray to RNGeesus that you get lucky. No amount of time put in game nor harder difficulty will help your chances at better gear. You can craft things but none are mod-able.

The change coming is for PVP and OPS. PVP will drop unassembled pieces. OPS bosses have an RNG chance to drop an unassemble gear token. The difference between the two is that the unassembled pieces from PVP take a number we dont know yet of them to make one unassembled gear token. One whole gear token might drop from OPS bosses or it may not. Only consolation in OPS is that the last boss does have a 100% drop rate for unassembled gear tokens. Problem is the slot that it might be for is RNG. More RNG trying to fix their extremely bad RNG.

BUT were not done yet. As to make sure you must keep grinding the content for galactic command crates. You will also need command tokens. A new drop coming in RNG crates. You will always get one but what bw made sure to not tell anyone is how many do you need per unassembled gear token to get the specific item you want? Most expect bw to make the cost of command tokens to be rather high as to make sure you still have to grind old content for RNG crates.

It kinds looks like this:
PVP - Unassembled gear piece (NEED "X" to make unassembled gear token) - No idea how many.
PVE - RNG chance at complete unassembled gear token from all bosses expect last which is 100% drop but RNG slot.

Combine unassembled gear token with NEW command tokens (one per RNG crate - 100% drop but no clue how many it will take) - 1 specific gear piece decided by which gear token you have. If gear token is belt, you get a belt with set bonus on it.

It's also tiered for difficulty as well. Harder difficulty gets better unassembled gear token if it drop at all.


They wanted to give a chance at specific gear instead of so much reliance on RNG but you cannot fix the problems of RNG by adding in more RNG and thats what bw has done and their RNG is really bad in those crates. It might not be as bad for a new or returning gamer like yourself but if you played at all for gear in 4.0, the gear for the first 90 levels of galactic command is garbage and 90 levels is a lot to level through. If there was a positive side to that at all it's that you can disintegrate the opened crate gear before you add it to your inventory for some extra CXP but it's so little it doesn't do much.

It's a much more convoluted system than the crystal gear system they got rid of as they claimed it was to hard to understand. This new one is easier bw claimed. Truth is thats pretty much PR BS from bioware. Crystal gear system was much easier.

I also read about "veteran mode" for replaying the story... Does this give gear rewards or what?

No rewards at all. Only CXP to get to that next RNG crate and your choices don't matter at all as they are locked in from the first time you play through. You can repeat the new chapters on that harder difficulty (Still cannot redo the much better class stories from launch though) You can see the other choices outcome but for your toon nothing changes from the first time you did it. Either way though, choices still don't make any real difference.

Can you still buy the best mods and stuff from people on the GTN? Is there still currency to buy gear with?

You can buy some armorings, mods and enhancements from the GTN. There not BIS or anything but there better than the first 90 levels of GC.

Before 70 you can still use tokens to buy armorings, mods and enchancements but not at 70. It's all about the CXP grind and galactic command. No gear really drops off anything. Just RNG crates you grind for.

No more crystal gear or choosing a specific slot of gear to fill in a gap can be obtained as that system was wiped out. As I said, bw claimed it was to hard to understand and the new one is so much easier. Most call BS on that.

I am just looking to jump back in, play through everything, and grind for a little while to max out my gear (as far as I can anyways solo).

Thanks

You can just jump back in, play it solo and grind and get a RANDOM chance at ALL gear (even set gear and BIS) at 70 only but NOT in a short grind. After about the first 10-15 CXP levels, it slows you way down in how many points you need to get to the next level.

Tier 1: Command Rank 1-90. Rating 230
Tier 2: Command Rank 91 – 180. Rating 234/236
Tier 3: Command Rank 181-300. Rating 240/242.

The grind bw added this round is massive. Unlike anything swtor has ever seen before. For gamers that have been here. It really does suck because we mainly have 2+ year old content with little new worth doing. New gamers the grind of 2+ year old content wont be as bad.

Here is a different write up if you want to check it out. Dulfy does a good job.
http://dulfy.net/2016/11/29/swtor-ga...command-guide/

[WoWGoneBad]

Great run down Quras, but the only thing I will add is that the Galactic Command system is for SUBSCRIPTION ONLY. So OP if you do decide to go F2P just keep in mind that once you do anything you do at 70 as F2P will NOT get you CXP points

[quras]

Great run down Quras, but the only thing I will add is that the Galactic Command system is for SUBSCRIPTION ONLY. So OP if you do decide to go F2P just keep in mind that once you do anything you do at 70 as F2P will NOT get you CXP points

Great addition. Glad you caught that as it's very important and a major change to swtor.

If you are not a sub, bw pretty much gave you the finger this round. Last expansion and all those players that were F2P and Preferred but still played a lot by buying weekly passes to content. bw slammed that door in their face and removed all that.

After all these years bw went with the sub only option and those other options to play end game swtor have been locked out. A very strange turn around from last expansion.

[I Push Buttons]

You can get access to any gear by doing anything this time around. No need to raid at all. You will get CXP (command experience at level 70) faster in groups but raiding is not very efficient right now. A 4 man group doing uprisings (new watered down 4 man flash points done in 20 mins) is some of the best CXP for your time in game. Every day there is a bonus that move around the Galactic command board so even when it lands on solo planet heroics, those are good to do. Same with PVP or flash points. OPS still being on the lower end for the time right now even with the bonus.

At 70 as you level up galactic command, you get a crate that once opened given some random gear, random orange shells, random schematic for crafting and something random from these (Jawa Scraps, Companion gifts, pet, mount, or a reputation item). RNG does indeed suck for the gamer but you can get to those crates doing nothing but solo content.

AT 70, you get no gear from anything you do except the RNG crates. No gear from bosses in OPS or flash points or uprisings. PVE and PVP gear is now the same. No separation of stats. It's all about the RNG crates and that grind.



For the solo player, nothing changes. You will grind the content for crates and pray to RNGeesus that you get lucky. No amount of time put in game nor harder difficulty will help your chances at better gear. You can craft things but none are mod-able.

The change coming is for PVP and OPS. PVP will drop unassembled pieces. OPS bosses have an RNG chance to drop an unassemble gear token. The difference between the two is that the unassembled pieces from PVP take a number we dont know yet of them to make one unassembled gear token. One whole gear token might drop from OPS bosses or it may not. Only consolation in OPS is that the last boss does have a 100% drop rate for unassembled gear tokens. Problem is the slot that it might be for is RNG. More RNG trying to fix their extremely bad RNG.

BUT were not done yet. As to make sure you must keep grinding the content for galactic command crates. You will also need command tokens. A new drop coming in RNG crates. You will always get one but what bw made sure to not tell anyone is how many do you need per unassembled gear token to get the specific item you want? Most expect bw to make the cost of command tokens to be rather high as to make sure you still have to grind old content for RNG crates.

It kinds looks like this:
PVP - Unassembled gear piece (NEED "X" to make unassembled gear token) - No idea how many.
PVE - RNG chance at complete unassembled gear token from all bosses expect last which is 100% drop but RNG slot.

Combine unassembled gear token with NEW command tokens (one per RNG crate - 100% drop but no clue how many it will take) - 1 specific gear piece decided by which gear token you have. If gear token is belt, you get a belt with set bonus on it.

It's also tiered for difficulty as well. Harder difficulty gets better unassembled gear token if it drop at all.


They wanted to give a chance at specific gear instead of so much reliance on RNG but you cannot fix the problems of RNG by adding in more RNG and thats what bw has done and their RNG is really bad in those crates. It might not be as bad for a new or returning gamer like yourself but if you played at all for gear in 4.0, the gear for the first 90 levels of galactic command is garbage and 90 levels is a lot to level through. If there was a positive side to that at all it's that you can disintegrate the opened crate gear before you add it to your inventory for some extra CXP but it's so little it doesn't do much.

It's a much more convoluted system than the crystal gear system they got rid of as they claimed it was to hard to understand. This new one is easier bw claimed. Truth is thats pretty much PR BS from bioware. Crystal gear system was much easier.



No rewards at all. Only CXP to get to that next RNG crate and your choices don't matter at all as they are locked in from the first time you play through. You can repeat the new chapters on that harder difficulty (Still cannot redo the much better class stories from launch though) You can see the other choices outcome but for your toon nothing changes from the first time you did it. Either way though, choices still don't make any real difference.



You can buy some armorings, mods and enhancements from the GTN. There not BIS or anything but there better than the first 90 levels of GC.

Before 70 you can still use tokens to buy armorings, mods and enchancements but not at 70. It's all about the CXP grind and galactic command. No gear really drops off anything. Just RNG crates you grind for.

No more crystal gear or choosing a specific slot of gear to fill in a gap can be obtained as that system was wiped out. As I said, bw claimed it was to hard to understand and the new one is so much easier. Most call BS on that.



You can just jump back in, play it solo and grind and get a RANDOM chance at ALL gear (even set gear and BIS) at 70 only but NOT in a short grind. After about the first 10-15 CXP levels, it slows you way down in how many points you need to get to the next level.

Tier 1: Command Rank 1-90. Rating 230
Tier 2: Command Rank 91 – 180. Rating 234/236
Tier 3: Command Rank 181-300. Rating 240/242.

The grind bw added this round is massive. Unlike anything swtor has ever seen before. For gamers that have been here. It really does suck because we mainly have 2+ year old content with little new worth doing. New gamers the grind of 2+ year old content wont be as bad.

Here is a different write up if you want to check it out. Dulfy does a good job.
http://dulfy.net/2016/11/29/swtor-ga...command-guide/

WoW that sounds pretty terrible... This whole time I assumed the command crates thing was just an extra thing on the side, but there is no loot from anything other than those crates?

I kind of don't even want to try and play anymore :'(

[Deleted]

It kinds looks like this:
PVP - Unassembled gear piece (NEED "X" to make unassembled gear token) - No idea how many.
PVE - RNG chance at complete unassembled gear token from all bosses expect last which is 100% drop but RNG slot.

[Katchii]

WoW that sounds pretty terrible... This whole time I assumed the command crates thing was just an extra thing on the side, but there is no loot from anything other than those crates?

I kind of don't even want to try and play anymore :'(

Depends on why you want to play. IMO it's still very much worth the money to experience the stories you haven't experienced yet, as the gear you need to experience that can all be acquired off the GTN or from the Heroics as you level up.

If all you want is to gear up at 70...yeah, the system they have now is absolutely garbage.

I personally just played through the new story, which is honestly pretty decent. Once I hit max level and finished the story I just started making new characters on my favorite classes and am playing through the class stories again to experience the newer mission flow. It's really nice and easy to play just for the story. Leveling up is not a grind at all and you can keep on level (or slightly over leveled) by just doing your class story, 1-2 side missions here and there and a few Heroics now and then. You can level higher if you want by doing more Heroics and side missions, but it's no longer necessary like it was before and as a subscriber you get 100% xp from everything along with xp bonus items that give +25% so if during your subscription you should have absolutely zero issue staying on level by simply playing through the class story...which in most cases are fantastic.

My personal favorite is Sith Warrior because the story is awesome, the voice actors are great and the Rage Juggernaut game play is some of the most fun I've ever had just simply playing a class.

[WoWGoneBad]

WoW that sounds pretty terrible... This whole time I assumed the command crates thing was just an extra thing on the side, but there is no loot from anything other than those crates?

I kind of don't even want to try and play anymore :'(

I will be honest it is an ASSHAT SHITSTAIN move by BW but even I decided to sub up for 2 months just to see the content and see how far in the GC I could get. While the GC system is total SHITTURD way of gearing, the boxes do drop schemes for gear and some of the purples can be REed to learn those schemes( i think i did that on two).

All my crafters have the 228 mods, Enhancements, Armorings, Stims/Meds/ Adrenals and augs... so Even if I decide to go F2P my gear will not totally suck.

I have been testing the Veteran Stories and Veteran Uprisings/FPs and Star Fortresses. While a bit of a challenge, they are completely doable, but with no reward for F2P I am not sure I will play much longer after the sub lapses. There is the GTN and Credit boosts but...... the IDIOTS taht sub the game put them at SHITASS prices over the 350k that a F2P can get access to without the Credit boosts which they overprice to begin with lol.

In the end, Stay subbed for about 2 months to get the fullfeel and then uninstall and forget untilthe next xpac.

[Deleted]

WoW that sounds pretty terrible... This whole time I assumed the command crates thing was just an extra thing on the side, but there is no loot from anything other than those crates?

Sadly this is true. They copied the WoW path and completely removed a perfectly working gearing system from the game, only to replace it with a system that's utterly shit and worthless garbage.

In all my years in Swtor I've never seen a patch/xpack where practically ALL gameplay-related changes, apart from the new story chapters, are so completely idiotic. They didn't even bother to fix the bugs and problems with the group finder (like being unable to leave the queue to invite a replacement).

I heard they are reverting some of that though, and returning gear drops from ops bosses some time in January. Not sure if it will be as good as the old one though.

- - - Updated - - -

It just really comes down to what you're wanting out of the game, but if you're uninterested in difficult group content then the gear contained in the crates is really pretty irrelevant for you.

The shittest thing with a pure RNG-based system is that if you keep having shit luck (and you will) and don't get the gear drops you need, you will be left unable to even do that difficult group content. If you weren't lucky enough to sport full 220/224 set bonuses before the "expansion", you are pretty much shafted.

I don't know why game devs everywhere seem to be in love with RNG these days.

[quras]

Sadly this is true. They copied the WoW path and completely removed a perfectly working gearing system from the game, only to replace it with a system that's utterly shit and worthless garbage.

That it is. We had a perfectly good working gearing system in 4.0 that bw trashed for a RNg based shitty gearing system that is more akin to an online casino than actually playing SWTOR that you were playing for years just prior.

Hell, bw should have kept the old system for gearing and just added GC in as as alternative for those that don't raid and do harder content. They would still get that chance at gear but it would take longer. Raiders and those joining in group content like SM OPS could still get gear a bit faster for doing that content as well as harder content.

What bw created for 5.0 is a POS and relies on RNG to entice you to stick around longer because like a casino, it's based on you losing a lot but winning just once every so often to give some false sense of hope. It's a cluster "F" of design on bws end.

I heard they are reverting some of that though, and returning gear drops from ops bosses some time in January. Not sure if it will be as good as the old one though.

They are not really reverting anything back to 4.0 and that way of gearing.

I mentioned it above but the only chance coming to gearing is this:

PVP - Unassembled gear pieces are dropped (You need so many "pieces" to make unassembled gear token) - No idea how many.
PVE - RNG chance at completed unassembled gear token from all bosses. Meaning it may or many not drop anything or it may drop 5 unassembled belts but what you can bet on is the drop chance is really low. Only saving grace is the last boss has a 100% drop rate but it's still RNG on the slot.

4.0 was a damn near perfect gearing system and if gear distribution rates were too high, that could have been handled instead of scrapping the entire thing. GC and the ability for any gamer to do any content could have been adjusted into that setup without scrapping 4.0 gearing altogether.

What bw wanted was RNG gearing and a way to hide the massive grind of old content and little new that was worth doing but it didn't work as far as I can tell. swtor gearing and end game content is just to shitty once you reach max level and you can't let that slide because it's so bad.

The shittest thing with a pure RNG-based system is that if you keep having shit luck (and you will) and don't get the gear drops you need, you will be left unable to even do that difficult group content. If you weren't lucky enough to sport full 220/224 set bonuses before the "expansion", you are pretty much shafted.

I don't know why game devs everywhere seem to be in love with RNG these days.

This is also true. Their slot machine handle pull in an attempt to gear yourself at end game sucks. Like all casinos, it's designed against you so that you lose with just enough flavor in other things to mask that you really are not getting good gear for your time and effort.

Just because I got to max level doesn't mean that the drive for better gear goes away and I should somehow suddenly be OK with mediocre second rate gear. Knowing that no matter what content I do or how hard the difficulity of the content I do and con complete, I get mainly garbage from this new system. SUre, I get a few more CXP points but so far all that means is that I got more garbage sooner. (and truth be told, OPS and raiding is one of the worse ways to get CXP right not so the incentive to do that content is lessened even more).

BW has made some really bad decisions for 5.0 and GC with RNG gearing at end game is just two of them. Add in that this system is just terrible for any alt play and it just gets worse. It's crazy that for years bw encouraged you to play alts and see their story but now have created an end game gearing system that has a grind so massive, playing alts is a detriment and the only way it isn't seen as a negative is to care nothing about gear and crafting come max level.

It's just a terrible time in SWTOR right now and their changes coming in 5.1 at the end of January is nothing but a half ass step in the right direction because you can bet they make sure to keep it tied into GC as I mentioned above in command token costs as well as their piss poor attempt to fix extremely bad RNG with more RNG.

[Witchblade77]

bear in mind, that uprisings are ALSO NOT available without subscription.

[Edge-]

bear in mind, that uprisings are ALSO NOT available without subscription.

Wait...really? I thought it was only the Command system that they gated behind the subscription...

[Witchblade77]

Wait...really? I thought it was only the Command system that they gated behind the subscription...

nope. they pretty much gated what passes for the entire end game. since weekly cartel passes no longer exist in a game, non subscribers get very limited acess to flashpoints and pvp (neither of which drop loot anymore), cannot acess operations at all.. or.. uprisings. http://dulfy.net/2016/10/27/swtor-up...estream-notes/

[Edge-]

nope. they pretty much gated what passes for the entire end game. since weekly cartel passes no longer exist in a game, non subscribers get very limited acess to flashpoints and pvp (neither of which drop loot anymore), cannot acess operations at all.. or.. uprisings. http://dulfy.net/2016/10/27/swtor-up...estream-notes/

Flashpoints never had a limit though, no? PvP still has the weekly 5 WZ limit (that BW talked about removing around 4 years ago but has done nothing about), but that was it. Ranked PvP/OP's are entirely locked out for free players now, as you say.

Holy crap, I hadn't even noticed that Uprisings were also locked behind the sub. There's literally no reason to continue playing once your sub runs out.

An expansion that already killed my interest in playing the game got even worse...

[Katchii]

Flashpoints never had a limit though, no? PvP still has the weekly 5 WZ limit (that BW talked about removing around 4 years ago but has done nothing about), but that was it. Ranked PvP/OP's are entirely locked out for free players now, as you say.

Holy crap, I hadn't even noticed that Uprisings were also locked behind the sub. There's literally no reason to continue playing once your sub runs out.

An expansion that already killed my interest in playing the game got even worse...

You could always run Flashpoints to your hearts content, but you had a limited number of times you could get loot per week from the group Flashpoints. The pass eliminated that loot cap for the week. Now those passes don't exist since you can't get gear from anything anyway so they serve no purpose.

[Witchblade77]

to above, yes, true, it was loot of the last boss that was limited, but.. liek you said, since loot is not there anymore - the point is somewhat moot.. well. except for the whole bosses dropping flashpoint galactic command boosts (or whatever they are called - consumables that give you set amount of GC experience), which non subscribers don't get either so....yeah.

P.S. bioware has since took back the whole removing the limits thing. I'm honestly too lazy to go searching right now, but I think i remember them saying on the forums that removing limits on normal warzones is not happening.

[Edge-]

Oh yeah, totally forgot about that! I only ever really ran 1-2 per day, and primarily for the daily bonus.

And yeah, between no loot and no CXP, the only reason to run FP's now is...uh...cosmetics!

I'm just waiting for their livestreams now, mainly so I can read the recaps. The last one was an utter joke, so I'm curious to see if they'll remotely improve them or if it will be more of a clown show. Especially after the latest WildStar livestream, which was surprisingly informative and positive for once in the games lifetime. I'd be stoked if BW somehow managed to follow suit and actually indicate that they play the game they develop and read feedback from their community.

[ItachiZaku]

WoW that sounds pretty terrible... This whole time I assumed the command crates thing was just an extra thing on the side, but there is no loot from anything other than those crates?

I kind of don't even want to try and play anymore :'(

Welp, guess I won't be patching when I get home. I'd installed and been playing SW Heroes on my phone and it was getting me into the SW mindset, since I'm unsubbed with WoW, figured it might be a nice time to get back into SWTOR. Whole lot of NOPE in this thread. Add in that if I did want to play, i'd have to lose Nadia... psh.

[Katchii]

Welp, guess I won't be patching when I get home. I'd installed and been playing SW Heroes on my phone and it was getting me into the SW mindset, since I'm unsubbed with WoW, figured it might be a nice time to get back into SWTOR. Whole lot of NOPE in this thread. Add in that if I did want to play, i'd have to lose Nadia... psh.

I'd still recommend subbing for the expansions, as the story isn't bad and it provides an excuse to keep playing your Star Wars character. If you have little or no interest in end-game activities in SW:ToR the CXP and it's related crate BS doesn't even impact you as you can still buy gear from the GTN that is perfectly acceptable or even over geared for the story quests. Additionally, you can still use your old companions, you just have to use some weird terminal to access them, and they aren't returned in the story so they have no dialogue. Since I re-subbed I completed the story, but now I'm going back and starting new characters to experience the revamped skills and leveling process and see my favorite stories again. It's totally worth $14.99, IMO.

[Edge-]

Additionally, you can still use your old companions, you just have to use some weird terminal to access them, and they aren't returned in the story so they have no dialogue.

IIRC this only works for characters you've killed in the KotFE/ET storyline. I don't believe you can get back all the companions that are still missing, despite BioWare saying for the past year+ that they want to : /