Bounty Hunting with Agent Shintar

12x XP is truly wasted on me. Others keep going on about how great it is, and how they wish Bioware would just do away with side quests altogether (/shudder), and yet my Imperial Agent alt on the Progenitor is still only on Alderaan nearly three months after I created her. I do love the story, but I just don't feel compelled to progress it the way others seem to. Maybe having seen all the different class stories by now plays into it, though I know of others who also have and still rush every new alt to the end of the class story as quickly as possible. I'm just happy to slowly putter around, explore and simply enjoy being a part of the world.

Not long ago I ran a random flashpoint to finally get up to Social 1, so I'd be able to complete the quest that introduces you to social points. (Being able to buy the required item from the vendor requires Social 1.) I queued as healer and got a pop instantly, just for my game to hang up on the loading screen. Fortunately my group didn't seem to be too distressed by having to wait for me to restart the game.

We got Mandalorian Raiders and it was a smooth run, though I was a bit shocked by how well we did even though people didn't seem to know proper boss tactics. On the last boss the dps spawned multiple sets of turrets, but somehow we muddled through. I don't think this content will need much nerfing to be able to qualify as role-neutral in KotFE.

Might not be a good idea to stand in that spot, mate...

Another thing I've been doing is Bounty Contract Week whenever it's up. I've found that hunting down a henchman takes about twenty to thirty minutes and therefore fits perfectly into that "play just a little bit before work" time slot that I've got at the moment. I've also been kind of surprised by how much I've been enjoying it. Of course it helps that I get a lot more rewards out of it on the Progenitor, this being a new legacy (so I get XP, reputation and achievements that I wouldn't get on the Red Eclipse anymore). But I'm also coming to appreciate how different this event feels with the single drawn-out daily mission that tries to tell you a story without actually revealing any of the relevant details, as opposed to offering "just another daily hub" like other events. On release I found that odd, but I've got used to it by now.

I've also been finding even the henchman fights surprisingly challenging! More than once the difficulty I had with overcoming them inspired me to upgrade my gear. I even failed a couple of times.

Plus, poking shady characters is fun. Their locations make little sense sometimes, which amuses me all the more. Nothing like seeing someone stand in a pile of his own corpses in the Dromund Kaas cantina, or talking to the shadies on Alderaan, who for some reason all decided to hang out outside of town in fields of snow (and are showing the appropriate "I'm so cold, this place sucks" animations to match).

The only thing I'm unsure about right now are the kingpin missions. Back when the event first came out, I ground through all of them with my pet tank in the first week, but I think since then Bioware changed it so you can only do one a week. I'm not sure how to best go about actually completing one though. I don't have guaranteed help on this server, and finding someone to group up with in my level range would require some luck. It would be even more annoying if I had already picked a mission and it then turned out to be the "wrong" one... I think I'll just keep saving up the completed contract currency for now.