Bring Back Kuat Drive Yards!

The other week I stayed up late to join some of my guildies on the APAC server for a little activity called "doing flashpoints that aren't in the group finder". This meant running Colicoid War Game and Kuat Drive Yards.

I hadn't done Colicoid War Game in literal years, and I'd forgotten how quick and fun it was. I kind of found myself longing for reasons to visit it more often, but it's been out of the group finder for so long now (it was removed with the launch of Fallen Empire) that I don't expect it to ever make a return to the mainstream at this point. And for as much as I do love it, I also can't deny that it is indeed very different from pretty much every other flashpoint, which doesn't make it very accessible to the average pug. At least it gives normal veteran flashpoint loot now if you do decide to run it manually - I recall at least one occasion in the past when I completed it with some guildies and we discovered that it gave no loot at the time, which was shortly after it had been taken out of the group finder.

Thinking about Kuat's removal from the queue was a bit strange though. It was, after all, designed with the group finder in mind - in fact, the story mission still tells you to queue for the flashpoint via the group finder, even though that's no longer possible. (Fortunately it also progresses when you enter normally.) In fact, there was a period between its introduction and the release of Shadow of Revan when running KDY was all the rage for fast levelling. I had guildies who would do nothing else during double XP and I honestly found it kind of obnoxious at the time. I was glad when this behaviour fell out of favour after the levelling changes that came with Fallen Empire. However, Kuat stayed in the veteran queue for years to come... until it was taken out with 7.0, that is.

I've tried to find out what could've been the reason for this but haven't been able to find a conclusive and satisfying answer. One poster suggested that people would drop from it because it was too long, which instantly struck me as absurd, considering that we also have flashpoints like the Esseles, the Foundry and Directive 7 in the queue.

Another suggestion I saw was that it was too difficult, something that at least seemed to be corroborated by the fact that our little guild group had to discover that you need to be level 55 nowadays to be allowed to enter. (This sucked because one member of the group was 53 - which should have been more than good enough to do the flashpoint - and was forcefully excluded.) The minimum level used to be 15! Remembering that also seemed to make the idea of KDY ever having been too difficult kind of ridiculous, but then I recalled the time I made this video... the last boss in KDY (any of them) could definitely be a bit challenging depending on your group setup if everyone was low level. Still, even if it was maybe too hard for a group of level 15s, if they already raised the minimum level required to enter, I don't get why the devs couldn't have left it in the group finder in that form.

The only other idea I had was that it might be related to the fact that only the last boss in Kuat drops any gear, which definitely makes it kind of unrewarding compared to any other flashpoint. Surely that's not something that's impossible to overcome though? There's a bonus boss in every wing; if they added gear drops to those, you could get three per run in total, which is closer to other instances. Or maybe they could add some of those loot boxes that drop from the sky in other flashpoints after the completion of each wing? Heck, even if all of that is too complicated to implement, I still don't feel like "it gives less loot" is a reason to completely remove an instance from the group finder. I'd still rather have it there, with the risk of some people dropping group if they get it, than just being unable to easily find a group for it entirely. People already avoid certain other flashpoints for other reasons too.

Unlike Colicoid War Game, Kuat is not a stand-alone story that doesn't really tie into anything else. Aside from its lore connection to Galactic Starfighter, it introduces several characters that become more important later: Admiral Aygo for the Republic and Zasha Ranken and Lord Krovos for the Empire. Seeing the cut scenes with them should be accessible! And that's without even getting into the fact that it has a reputation track with rewards tied to it that can't be advanced anywhere else. I guess I'd even take a dedicated solo mode at this point (even though I'm not a fan of them in general). As it stands right now, it's technically possible to solo veteran mode at max level, but the last boss can be a major PITA and is likely beyond soloing for a lot of players that could otherwise clear the rest of the instance by themselves with ease.

It feels funny for me to be campaigning for the return of KDY to the group finder when there was a time when I rather disliked it, but that was so long ago now... as the saying goes, distance makes the heart grow fonder - and I've definitely not seen enough of Kuat Drive Yards in a while now. Bring it back!

GS3 Review: Star Forge

Galactic Season 3 ends tomorrow, so today I'd like to talk about the last server on which I finished my GS3 goals: Star Forge. Of all my secondary servers, this one has long been the most progressed for the sole reason that I've had a character there for many years that was actually at the level cap during several expansions, even if I didn't really do any endgame with her. As such, Star Forge was the only secondary server where I already had a character hit level 80 during Season 2.

However, with all the new max-levels I've gained on the other servers, it feels like Star Forge is no longer as ahead of the pack as it was, even if my Cathar trooper has marginally better gear than the others, with an average item rating of 328 and being only a few tech fragments away from maxing out her second implant at 334.

That said, my legacy here is still the most advanced by quite a margin (aside from my home server of course), coming in at legacy level 37, and I also did more PvP here than on the other servers, incidentally reaching level seven in the PvP season without trying.

In terms of story I didn't make a lot of progress but that was okay, since my trooper here has been trying to do all the quests just like the one I made on Tulak Hord. She was on Belsavis at the end of the last season, and made it about halfway through Voss this time around. I did the Belsavis bonus series for the first time in what felt like forever and boy, did that bring back memories. I was a little confused though that there was one mission I remembered that I couldn't find anymore, the one to stop a Sith from escaping on a shuttle. Wonder what happened to that and why anything happened to it in the first place, assuming I wasn't just being blind.

I also ended up soloing Kuat Drive Yards at one point (though I don't remember how that tied into seasons, having to complete missions as a trooper perhaps) and ran into a massive wall by getting Station Guardian One at the end, who must have killed me a dozen times before I managed to got him down. I wasn't sure whether he was soloable at all as I couldn't find any evidence of it online, but well, now I know that he is. I'll have to upload the recording I made of it to my YouTube channel at some point.

My other two characters on the server, a Gunslinger smuggler and a Shadow knight, didn't see much play this season, though the smuggler did make some progress on her class story, and seeing how she didn't do all the side missions, it felt rather weird when I realised that she had almost caught up to the trooper in terms of story progression. I guess completing chapter two on her was notable in so far as it made Star Forge the first of my secondary servers on which I have access to two of the legacy class buffs instead of just the one.

Hammer Station No More

Let's ring in the new year with an update on my Nautolan Shadow's progress levelling through flashpoints.

Hammer Sta... Kuat Drive Yards!
I levelled: 38-40

As it was the start of a new week I queued for the full selection of available flashpoints once again, expecting to be thrown into Hammer Station for this transgression (when the queue popped I could see that we had a level 17 in the group so it couldn't have been anything other than that, Kuat or Athiss), but I got Kuat again! Yay!

In this one I was actually the highest level, grouped with two Sentinels and another Shadow below me. The Shadow was the lowest level and admitted that it was her first time in a flashpoint of any kind. Poor thing got lost at the very beginning as she couldn't even find the elevator but I showed her the way.

We got the Starship Assembly first and things went well enough, except for one or two deaths, which I consider fairly normal in a low-level group with no healer. But one of the Sentinels clearly wasn't happy, as (from what I could tell) he started swearing in Polish after dying once. Then he jumped into another big pull all on his own while the rest of the group was still low on health from the previous fight, died shortly thereafter and finally quit the group.

I re-queued us for a replacement unfazed and tried to actually do the puzzle properly since neither of the two lowbies seemed to know what to do and were therefore unlikely to interfere, but I messed it up and picked the wrong options anyway. D'oh! A level 75 Shadow joined the group just as we finished the section.

The second part was the hangar, and I'm happy to say that for once we completed all the bonuses in that one!

The final boss was Lieutenant Krupp again. I explained what to do and everyone executed things perfectly so that we got him down on the first try. Afterwards I stayed grouped with the newbie Shadow for a bit longer and she told me that she played other MMOs but had only just got started on SWTOR. She also said that she'd had fun in the flashpoint and added me as a friend. Warm fuzzies all around!

Hammer Sta... Taral V!
I levelled: 40-42

My initial enthusiasm for these runs diminished a lot after the first week, which made me log in to work on this project more infrequently, but being ill for a few days caused me to take a break for a full week, so that I soon found myself with the weekly quest yet again. Again I braved the full random selection and did not get Hammer Station - instead I found myself getting sent to Taral V, which was handy as I had the story quest for it too.

Taral V is one of those places where I always struggle with the majority's desire to skip as much as possible, but this time around I decided to take it easy and go with the flow. The other dps was a Nautolan Sage, and we had a level 75 tank and healer, so I let the tank lead us past most trash and bonus objectives, just doing their thing. The only skip that stung a bit was Doctor Zharan, whom I consider a very fun boss and I always expect him to drop loot (though I later verified that he doesn't), but I didn't say anything either way. At least with full restedness I still gained two levels despite all the skips.

Ha... Mandalorian Raiders
I levelled: 42-43

Third time in a row that I queued for everything and didn't get Hammer Station! Is the madness finally over? Even better, I got another flashpoint that Nautalie hadn't done yet.

This was another all-dps group, consisting of me, a level 75 Guardian and Commando, and a level 41 Sage. Contrary to expectations, the 75s didn't seem entirely sure what to do and were initially very hesitant to make the pulls, despite of it being the most sensible thing for them to do considering our level distribution. The Commando also ran off into completely the wrong direction (which is to say backwards) after we took the shortcut involving the elevator. Meanwhile the Sage seemed to be the one person who knew what they were doing... never judge your pugs by their level!

The first boss was the usual crazy mess (though nobody died) and it was once again mostly down to me to click kolto stations. I'm coming to appreciate that it really is an art, knowing when to click these, in particular that you need to start thinking about doing it before you're almost dead.

The Boarding Party was interesting in so far as I swear that I've killed its members in the same order pretty much since the dawn of time (warrior, inquisitor, then agent and bounty hunter more or less simultaneously), but as usual pugs are great at providing new experiences. I didn't actually know what would happen if you changed the order... as it was, the group actually left Rotham for last and he promptly one-shot the Sage with a Force choke from hell the moment all his friends were dead. Good thing I had been hitting him at least, so he didn't have that much health left.

Considering how it had been going I made sure to highlight the rule not to attack the final boss while turrets are up, and fortunately everyone was compliant in that regard so that we downed Mavrix Varad himself with no problems.

Ha... Cademimu
I levelled: 43-45

This was a run with three level 75s, two Sentinels and a healing Sage. Considering that, it was still harder than expected. The Sage was one of those odd healers where I'm never quite sure what they are doing, because he was obviously healing specced and I could see him cast healing spells, but somehow we were still all on half health even on the most mundane of pulls. On two of the bosses I had to click a kolto station because I was about to die from a complete lack of any incoming heals, just to get yanked away from it right afterwards by the very same Sage as if I he as annoyed at me daring to keep myself alive. Very odd.

I learned two new trash-skipping tricks, both of which failed and generally (as these things so often are) seemed way more hassle than simple killing the mobs we were trying to bypass. But I guess it's still interesting to know to what lengths people will go to in places to avoid killing one more mob.

Finally, on the last boss the healer died to rocket fire and then tried to tell us what to do while lying dead on the floor. One of the Sentinels died as well, but me and the other Sent finished the boss off just fine with just the two of us. It was just one of those groups that kind of grated on me despite of nothing going terribly wrong - I just didn't really like the juxtaposition of the dps being in a hurry and wanting to skip everything with a healer who came across as having a pretty high opinion of himself while doing very little healing.

Ha... Kuat Drive Yards again
I levelled: 45-46

And fifth time in a row that I didn't get Hammer Station! Though it was Kuat again, but then I'm not really tired of that one yet. This run was already in progress and halfway through the Starship Assembly when I joined. It didn't look to me like they were going for any of the bonuses, but when I saw the elite defender just sitting in a corner I asked whether we should kill it, and while I got no verbal reply someone else immediately charged it, so yay for communication I guess? As there was some dithering about the actual starship assembly I started to wonder whether they were actually trying to solve it, but the prototype turned out to be a failure as usual.

The second half was the prison wing, which we also blasted through in short order. This time the elite defender just kind of sat in the way of one of our objectives anyway, so I didn't even ask before charging it. I was happy to get all three bonus missions done for once!

We finished up with Lord Modo and I defaulted to clicking the kolto stations again, but this time it was more out of habit than due to a feeling that we were all going to die if I wasn't looking after our health. I haven't mentioned it yet, but this party also consisted of three level 75 damage dealers (two geared, one not) but for once the effect was actually as expected, which is to say that everything melted in short order.

I'm up to having nine flashpoints unlocked and not far off unlocking more at this point, so hopefully I'll be able to keep queuing for a random without being put into Hammer Station all the time anymore. It's certainly more fun to see some variety.

Kuat Drive Yards Can Be... Fun?

Last time on "levelling through flashpoints" I decided that I'd had enough of Hammer Station and that going forward, I was going to exclude it from my flashpoint selection before queueing. Somewhat to my surprise, queue times with Hammer Station unselected really were longer, though it was mostly a difference between mere seconds and waiting a couple of minutes. Things really are more dire than I had thought if that many people are queueing for nothing but Hammer Station in specific.

Also, fun fact: When I went to unselect Hammer Station, I noticed that what inspired this whole project, to find out at which level each flashpoint unlocks now, is actually a pointless exercise since it says right there in the tooltip of the group finder interface what each flashpoint's level range is! D'oh!

Cademimu
I levelled: 30-31

Ahh, Cademimu, an old favourite. My team for this one consisted of two other Shadows and a Sentinel, which led to a lot of sneaking. Mostly we were successful in skipping the pulls we tried to, though other times we did end up aggroing things by accident and once, just before the first boss, this even led to a wipe. Oops!

Order 66 executed successfully.

We were mostly carried by the level 75 in full 306 gear, while the poor lowbie tank seemed a bit lost. I took it as final confirmation of his newness when he died to General Ortol's very first rocket firing - you know the one, where only one of the four quadrants is dangerous and the other three are safe, yet he managed to run right into the one that killed him.

Maelstrom Prison
I levelled: 31-33

I briefly considered unticking Cademimu from the list on my next run to avoid getting it again, but then decided against it because after all those Hammer Stations two Cademimus in a row would have been nothing anyway. As it turned out the question was moot in any case as I ended up in Maelstrom Prison. I've always considered this one a pretty nice flashpoint to pug, as it's one of the easier ones overall but has a couple of tricky bits that prevent it from being a snore-fest.

My party this time around consisted of three Guardians, one level 75 tank, and two labelled as dps, level 60 and 45 respectively. While everyone said hi at the beginning, there was virtually no conversation after that, so I didn't bother bringing up the question of the bonus boss when it became obvious that some people were keen on quickly running past anything that was skippable.

Our tank had a clear understanding of the basics of tanking, as he was taunting and using his cooldowns appropriately, but displayed a surprising lack of tactical knowledge when he attempted to face-tank Colonel Daksh, which eventually resulted in a wipe. The next time around we got him down okay, and the level 60 revealed himself to be the most experienced by using his taunt to take over kiting duty.

The level 45 was a funny one in so far as he kept running ahead to be the first to jump into as many pulls as possible and died multiple times from that. However, every time he was revived he went straight ahead and did the same thing again, undeterred by the obvious negative consequences. Some people play this game in (to me) very strange ways.

At one point he also accidentally pushed a gold mob into a patrol and then said "mb" in chat. After my recent adventures in WoW Classic my brain immediately went to "mana break", which obviously made no sense, until I realised that he was apologising for the bad pull: "my bad"!

Kuat Drive Yards
I levelled: 33-36

Kuat at last! I never thought I'd say that, considering that this used to occupy a similar position as Hammer Station does now, as in: the easy place to spam for rewards (though it used to be more of a levelling thing than about max-level gear).

The group I got for this one was fairly low-level, with the highest character a level 51 Guardian, and the other two slots being filled by a level 16 Gunslinger and a level 21 Sentinel.

I got a bit worried when the Guardian started the introductory convo before the Sentinel had even loaded in and asked people to skip if they'd already seen the cut scene, but then he aborted the conversation when he realised that we were still missing someone and didn't actually complain when we did watch the cut scene. He was sporting the title "Friendly" and I was curious to see whether he'd live up to it. (He did.)

Remembering how rush-rush people used to be in this flashpoint it felt odd to go through it as slowly as we did, but at our level every pull was a challenge and we had to heal up in-between. We got the armoury and the gun emplacements as our random segments. We even did the bonus once! The second time the Guardian completed the final objective before we'd found the Elite Defender, but oh well.

The final boss was Lieutenant Krupp, and of course we wiped the first time due to the two lowbies being completely oblivious to the grenade mechanic. I explained. On the next try the group split and activated both degaussing stations at the same time, so that we were unable to cleanse the second round of grenades and wiped on that one. Friendly Guardian put a star over my head and told everyone to follow me whenever the grenades were thrown.

We continued in that vein but wiped about another half dozen times without much progress, barely shaving twenty percent of the boss's health off before dying. I was getting increasingly worried that someone was going to get angry/frustrated and leave, but that didn't happen. Friendly Guardian and I just kept trying to come up with additional advice to improve our performance, such as to kill the adds as soon as they appeared, while the two lowbies did their best to execute it (though with limited success).

As survivability was our biggest problem, I eventually took it upon myself to personally run back and forth between the kolto stations - I had expected our Guardian to heal himself there since he was the one with boss aggro most of the time, but after a few tries of that not working I decided to just do what I could myself. I also taunted the boss every now and then to spread out the damage a bit, and the Guardian let me take some hits, then taunted back when I got low. We were obviously on the same page on that point.

I think it must have taken us ten or twelve attempts until we finally got the boss down. On that final successful try the Sentinel died early on too, so that we three-manned most of the fight. I was doing very little actual damage, mostly just running back and forth between the kolto and degaussing stations, but eventually we got him down. I checked the time and the fight that finally led to the kill had taken us a full seven minutes. Quite hardcore for a group of lowbies fighting a flashpoint boss - and easily the most satisfying run Nautalie has been in so far. (EDIT: I actually uploaded a video of that fight to YouTube in the end, you can see it here.)

I don't mind showing these guys' character names because they were all goddamn heroes.

Cademimu
I levelled: 36-37

I guess after the positive excitement of the previous run, karma decided that I was due for a train wreck. I got put into a Cademimu run in progress, though they were only on the second trash pull. I saw two level 75s still in levelling gear designated as tanks, a Vanguard and a Shadow, and another dps Shadow a few levels below me.

When we got to the bit at the bottom of the first elevator where you can run past a lot of mobs, one of the other Shadows charged right in and pulled half the area, causing us to wipe. The Vanguard yelled some expletives. We re-grouped and the Shadows (or one of them, I couldn't quite see) ran right back in to pull the same group again. The Vanguard left as soon as that happened and we wiped again.

We re-grouped for a third time and someone was obsessed with getting revenge on that Champion drone now as they unnecessarily pulled it yet again... but we got two at once and wiped yet again (well, I stealthed out just beforehand). That resulted in the level 75 Shadow leaving as well.

The lowbie Shadow had been passed group lead for some reason and I told him that he had to re-queue us if we wanted replacements but he was completely non-responsive and just seemed confused. I summoned my crappy influence level four Qyzen Fess and tried to gently guide him onwards. He did follow me for a bit, which got us past the cantina and to that bit where you can take a shortcut through the fenced area. We both snuck up to the next pull right outside it in stealth and I was pondering whether we should just bypass it entirely, when the Shadow decided to jump out of stealth with an AoE, dying a few seconds later. I still tried to help him but died as well.

We started running back once again, and I watched him jump to his death while the elevator wasn't there, just like that. I didn't know what to say. Suddenly he seemed to have found the queue button as the prompt for getting replacements popped up... but before we could actually get any, he left the group, causing it to disband. I returned to the fleet, somewhat bewildered by what had just happened.

Kuat Drive Yards
I levelled: 37-38

I re-selected Hammer Station just so I could get the weekly Searching For Allies quest done, fully expecting to get thrown into it right away, but the instant pop I got actually took me to Kuat Drive Yards again!

This time the group consisted of three other dpsers just below max level, two Shadows and a Commando. There was a bit of confusion at the beginning as one of the Shadows lagged behind and eventually asked us to kick her. I was glad that the other two didn't immediately oblige but rather asked why. She said that she couldn't see her UI, which prompted the other Shadow to explain how to reset your UI. I imagined the Commando rolling his eyes as he announced that he was going for a bio in the meantime.

Eventually we got everyone onto the station though, and this time around we got the hangar and starship assembly scenarios. Nice variety! My attempts to get people to do the bonuses before completing the main objectives were once again only moderately successful. I did grit my teeth a bit when people didn't want to do the Elite Defender in the hangar even though he was right next to the exit, so that when we eventually had to kill him anyway, we didn't get anything for it since the bonus quest had disappeared. On the starship assembly someone customarily mashed all the buttons before I'd even had a chance to figure out the puzzle and the prototype exploded. Nice to see that some things haven't changed.

The final boss was Station Guardian One, whom we dispatched easily enough as everyone used the two kolto stations responsibly (thankfully). I just found it amusing that I was once again the lowest level by far yet ended up tanking the boss for most of the fight - until I got caught in a tight spot with no kolto station in reach and stealthed out to avoid dying.

It does still feel a bit strange to get this much satisfaction out of running Kuat Drive Yards of all places, but right now anything that's not Hammer Station is a win.

Pugging with Shintar: July Update

I know it's August now but this is mostly about videos recorded in July. I thought I would give another update on how my Pugging with Shintar series is progressing for those who aren't subscribed to my YouTube channel (and at this rate, I really need to give these posts their own tag).

Episode 7: Defying the Randomiser - After getting Hammer Station for the third time in six episodes, I decided that while repetition had been fine while I was simply writing about adventures like these, in the video format redoing the same flashpoint over and over again was simply boring and rubbish. As a result, I cut down the run to a few key scenes in the video and then queued again with every flashpoint I'd already done unselected from the group finder list. This time I got Athiss, which was at least something new.

Episode 8: Sneaking Through Red Reaper - I decided to start doing the intros on Nar Shaddaa while the Nightlife Event is running and after a commenter reminded me that I could use the heroic quick travel to get there even without a ship. Forcing the group finder to always give me something new from now on, I ended up in Red Reaper, a place known for its nightmarish trash pulls at the start. Of course since I knew and talked about those, I ended up with a rock-solid group that had no trouble with anything whatsoever and managed to skip even more pulls than usual. In Red Reaper I've never minded because there is no bonus anyway.

Episode 9: Cheerful Musings in Korriban Incursion - After the previous episode I realised that out of sheer habit, I had been uploading these in a lower resolution than I actually use to record, so this episode brought an improvement in video quality as I finally made some adjustments. Korriban Incursion made me particularly talkative because there are so many connections to the Sith starter quests - though I wasn't beyond making mistakes when trying to recall them from memory. I oddly enjoy correcting myself via text overlays while editing the footage later.

Episode 10: An Unlucky Gunslinger in KDY - Finally I got the story quest for Kuat Drive Yards out of my log, after having had it there since level 15 or so. A gunslinger asked early on whether he could do the "rescue ten prisoners" achievement if we got the prison cell scenario, and everyone enthusiastically agreed... but this is a pug, you can already guess how it went.

Episode 11: Sentinel Silliness in Battle of Rishi - I was late with recording this episode due to real life distractions and recorded it on a weekday after work, feeling like I was going to fall asleep at any moment. Oddly enough, this made me even chattier than usual, and I ended up in a group with three sentinels, which I considered very humorous. Also, I enjoyed ranting about Battle of Rishi's wasted potential like I already did in a blog post once here.

Episode 12: Businesslike in Czerka Corporate Labs - After a slightly chaotic start, this flashpoint became quickly dominated by a scantily-clad Commando who was eager to push forward no matter what, clearly thinking that she didn't need the rest of the group. I couldn't fault her ability, but I also couldn't help highlighting it as another type of behaviour that I'm personally not super fond of in my pug groups.

Using Kolto Stations in Tactical Flashpoints

The Dark vs. Light event had me running a lot of tactical flashpoints while levelling, and I'm happy to report that on the whole, it's been a pretty smooth experience. When I performed my flashpoint levelling experiment shortly after 4.0, I found that being a healer seemed to help a lot with ensuring any given pug's success, but these past couple of months I've done pretty well even while queuing as tank or dps. That's not to say that there were never any wipes, but those tended to be random screw-ups rather than hard road blocks or any sort of inherent incompetence on part of the player base.

In fact, I got the impression that overall, players have learned to handle tacticals a lot better than they did even a few months ago. Presumably more people have had a chance to get used to how they work and can help their less experienced brethren by making the average run more likely to be successful.

One subject that's been on my mind a lot though is the use of kolto stations on bosses. Again, in most cases there are no issues, but I remember actually getting into an argument with someone in Kuat about how to best utilise them, and since I have a blog (and he presumably doesn't) I get to spread my point of view more widely. Hah!

Basically, there are three core facts to consider about the kolto stations available for boss fights in tacticals:

- Clicking on one casts a big heal on the person doing the clicking and puts an also pretty sizeable heal over time on everyone in the party (assuming they are in the same room, the range is pretty large but not infinite).

- After it's been clicked, the kolto station goes on cooldown for about thirty seconds.

- There is a limited amount of kolto stations available.

From these, three basic consequences arise:

- Since the heal over time gets put on everyone, everyone in the group can use the kolto stations to heal other people.

- However, since the one actually clicking also gets that big heal on top of it, you get the most bang for your buck if the person with the heaviest injuries (which is usually the one with the aggro, whether they are a tank or not) does the clicking.

- Since the kolto stations have a cooldown and there are a limited number of them, it is possible to "mis-use" them by clicking at the wrong time and end up with no option to heal when it's actually needed.

This in turn means that there are basically two things that can go wrong:

From my experience, most deaths and wipes on bosses occur because nobody bothered to click a kolto station at all. Sometimes you'll get people complaining "why didn't you click", but fact of the matter is that nobody is "the healer" (this whole post is working on the assumption that you don't have one, or you wouldn't have to rely on the kolto stations to begin with), so you can't blame any one person for not doing the clicking. If you notice that you have the boss on you and are taking heavy damage, it's best to run for your nearest kolto station at about fifty percent health. For the reasons mentioned above, it's best if you do the clicking yourself.

However, sometimes things can prevent the de facto tank from reaching a station in time, such as when the boss decides to stun or knock them down at a bad moment. If you see that happening and it looks like the injured person won't make it to the console in time, it's OK to click on it even if you're not the one who's the most hurt. Some big bosses also make it really hard to click the kolto stations through their sheer bulk. I remember that on the desert boss in Czerka Core Meltdown I actually had to ask someone else to click for me before, because even though I always had the aggro, the boss's bulk in my face made it impossible for me to actually target the kolto stations even when they were right next to me.

Now, deaths from people being overeager to click are a lot rarer - but they do happen, especially on bosses that have very few kolto stations. Station Guardian One in KDY is a good example, since he's only surrounded by two, which are located on opposite sides of the room. A low-level damage dealer will take quite a lot of damage from him if they have aggro, and personally I found that the only way to survive this was basically to run back and forth between the two kolto stations non-stop. However, this was all ruined if someone else decided to click on one in-between, as the heal over time alone wasn't enough to keep me up until the next cooldown, forcing me to either die or drop aggro and let someone else get killed. It's particularly annoying when I'm almost at the kolto station, nothing is holding me back, and yet someone else clicks on it right in front of me - you're not helping!

Bosses with three kolto stations aren't quite as tricky but can still be close calls depending on how squishy you are - examples where I've had groups struggle include the droid boss in Taral V and HK-47 in False Emperor.

All that said, it's worth reiterating again that your reliance on kolto stations can vary a lot depending on what kind of group you get. If you've got a well-geared max-level character in the group you might find yourself breezing through fights even without a tank or healer and it really doesn't matter who clicks on the kolto stations or when, as they merely serve to get people topped off every now and then. However, if you do find yourself struggling with an encounter for some reason, I've found that making sure that your group optimises their use of the available kolto stations is usually the first step towards success.

Flashpoint Friday: Kuat Drive Yards

Let's talk about a flashpoint that was released relatively late into the game and yet still managed to have a huge effect on The Old Republic - both by introducing a successful new concept to the game and by showing how not to do certain things: I'm talking about Kuat Drive Yards.

General Facts

Kuat Drive Yards, or KDY as people quickly started to call it, was added as part of patch 2.6, Galactic Starfighter's official launch, in February 2014. It was the first true tactical flashpoint in the sense that it was both role-neutral and allowed characters of different levels to play together. The term "tactical" was specifically introduced to describe this, though it was mostly applied to flashpoints that were simply role-neutral in the immediate months afterwards, since there were no others that had level scaling.

To this day it only has a single difficulty, without a solo or hard mode, though at launch it was at least split into a levelling and a max-level version, which is no longer the case.

KDY was also the first and only flashpoint to attempt a sort of "modular" design, in that each run puts you up against two out of five different scenarios and one out of three different end bosses, making no two runs exactly the same.

Fights

Your enemies are combatants of the enemy faction, though they are extremely generic. Having been designed to be defeatable by a group of level fifteens with no useful skills, the vast majority of mob groups in KDY are extremely weak and barely any larger or stronger than something that you might encounter while questing solo out in the world. The most likely thing to challenge your group if you don't have a healer are the random mini bosses in each scenario, as they have champion levels of health but are not surrounded by kolto stations, so your group needs to find a way to chew through those hitpoints without heals if necessary.

As mentioned, you are up against a random two out of five possible scenarios in each run. The options are:

Armoury: Run around blowing up some weapon stockpiles.

Cannons: Seize some cannon emplacements - in practice, this doesn't feel very different from the armoury; there are just fewer things to click on and the room has a different shape.

Hangar Bay: This one has you fighting off waves of mobs that are trying to take over the hangar, which makes for at least a bit of a change of pace. Also, the last mob spawn is actually at least moderately hard and can cause people to die.

Prison Break: Free a bunch of fat twi'leks and thin cathars in orange suits from their cells. They are really fragile and die easily if you run into combat while they are following you. This doesn't cause any issues with completing the scenario, however there are achievements for getting them all out alive... and for being the one person to open X number of cells, which initially led to friction among pugs. (My impression was that things calmed down considerably after the initial rush though.)

Starship Assembly: This one is interesting because it has a puzzle component, as you're supposed to create a working starship prototype and need to decipher a minor logic puzzle from some nearby datapads to figure out which parts are the correct ones (there is more than one version of this as well), else it blows up. Picking the wrong parts won't affect your overall completion, but picking the right ones counts as completing a bonus mission, which is neat. This can be very hard to get right in a pug though, as people will just click random consoles and cause the prototype to be assembled incorrectly.

The three end bosses of which you face one at the end are:

Master Khoris/Lord Modo: A Force user that jumps around like a bunny on crack, which makes him very annoying to fight.

Major Benes/Lieutenant Krupp: A soldier that throws grenades at everyone that the group needs to cleanse at a nearby degaussing station. I actually really like this mechanic because it's forgiving enough to be pug-friendly (you don't immediately wipe if someone messes up) but still demanding enough to require your party to achieve some form of co-operation (if nobody bothers with the grenades at all, people will die).

Station Guardian One: A not very exciting droid that summons some adds.

Story

One thing I've bemoaned about the fact that Bioware made all the old flashpoints tactical in 4.0 is that this made a mess of their stories for new players, as there are no clear in-game indicators of what order you should play them in.

Kuat is interesting in that regard because it's the one flashpoint that was actually designed to have a level-neutral story from the get-go. The intro quest is even slightly different depending on where you are in the levelling curve when you pick it up. At the same time, the story itself is so far removed from the main storyline that it doesn't really matter when you do it. It's just the Republic and Empire fighting over a shipyard basically, which is the kind of thing they would do at pretty much any point in time (even post-KotFE).

There's also a tie-in with Galactic Starfighter, as you meet the NPCs that serve as default co-pilots near the flashpoint entrance and there is a comment or two that you can also "help the cause" by jumping into a starfighter and engaging in some space pew pew.

Conclusion

Kuat Drive Yards was a huge success on release. Letting people play together regardless of level and role meant that queue pops were incredibly fast, and people loved it. Levelling purely through flashpoints became viable for the first time.

There was a downside to this though: particularly during double XP events, people would chain-run Kuat to quickly level alts past any semblance of sanity. I saw it with some of my own guildies: They came to loathe the instance but didn't want to stop because the XP was so good. I'm convinced that this was a major factor in Bioware coming up with the first class story levelling event, because they saw that people were playing in really stupid ways just to gain experience more quickly and needed to be directed towards more fun and varied content to not burn themselves out.

At the same time, the role- and level-neutral flashpoint concept was successful enough that Bioware converted all flashpoints to it in 4.0. They also evolved loot scaling so that people can actually get level-appropriate gear from tacticals now. Kuat initially didn't have this, which is why it drops no loot other than reputation tokens. In a post-KotFE world, this seems oddly outdated. At the same time, Kuat has remained the only flashpoint that embraces the tactical concept from a lore standpoint and has a story that makes sense at any level.

The modular design doesn't seem to have been that much of a hit, as it was never repeated in quite the same way, and even KotFE's Star Fortresses only made cautious steps into the same direction again, presumably because ticking off randomised objectives didn't really fit in with Bioware's focus on story.

Flashpoint Levelling: Russians and Reruns

I'm enjoying this whole experiment more than I thought I would. I run about one flashpoint a day, usually in the evenings after work, once everything else in the house has been taken care of. Most of the time the runs are smooth and the groups chill. It's been a long time since I spent this much time pugging... and it's actually nice.

Czerka Corporate Labs
I levelled: 35-36

I should mention at this point that I tend to decline groups in which the system tries to pair me up with another healer. Not that I have anything against them, but experience has taught me that you gain little from having more than one healer in a four-man group and it just makes everything sooo much slower. In the evenings the pops are near-instant anyway, so you don't really lose anything by declining a group. You'll get a different one two minutes later anyway.

With that said, this was the first run on this character where I did end up with another healer (and two dps), because after I had declined initially, the system tried to put me into the exact same group again when I requeued a few minutes later - and I figured: whatever. The other three players were probably getting tired of people declining or timing out.

I zoned into Czerka Corporate Labs and was immediately in combat. Turns out that the other three were already fighting the first boss. I tried to run down and join them but got insta-killed on the way somehow - it looked like the boss was trying to pull me in and the game decided to one-shot me since I was still upstairs, in a place from which I couldn't be pulled. I resed and tried again. Apparently other people in the group were dying and running back as well! It was a dumb zerg, and even once we finally had everyone alive and in one place, there was still a lot of pointless running back and forth. The boss actually enraged on us, something which I hadn't seen in quite a while.

On the second try we got our act together and killed him, but everything still felt incredibly slow with two healers (plus neither of the dps seemed to be particularly good either). After the second boss, the other healer suddenly piped up with "w8 - banan needs toilet", and it took me a moment to realise that she was talking about one of the dps. I asked if they were all one group of friends, and she explained that it was just her and that one dps, that they were Russians and always skipping all the cut scenes. I asked why, since her English seemed fine, and she explained that the other guy didn't speak any at all. One wonders why they chose to play SWTOR of all things then... they must really like Star Wars.

After we had successfully completed the flashpoint, the Russians initiated a vote kick on me because I wasn't leaving "their" group quickly enough, which amused me. I never knew that you actually get a notification in SWTOR when someone tries to kick you, because you don't in WoW.

This run also seemed to provide pretty strong evidence against my earlier theory that level 65s in the group reduce your XP, as everyone in this run was in their thirties and yet I only gained a single level. I think I've simply got to the point where the XP gains from flashpoints slow down somewhat compared to the levelling insanity of the low levels.

Kuat Drive Yards
I levelled: 36-38

Kuat again? Well, at least I had the story quest for it this time. This time we got the scenario with the cannons and the armoury, as well as Station Guardian One as the end boss. It was a smooth run overall, but during the initial intro conversation two group members went into a veritable "spacebar" frenzy. I screenshotted it so I would be able to reproduce it verbatim (names changed to protect the guilty):

[Dude1]: skip
[Dude1]: SKIP
[Dude2]: S TO K TO I TO P
[Dude2]: spacebar
[Dude1]: space bar
[Dude2]: spacebar

I think this really highlighted for me why I find spacebar warriors so annoying, and it's not because I often do like to watch the cut scenes: it's because they are always so freaking imperious and rude. Have you ever seen anyone say: "Could we skip the cut scenes please?" Me neither. They always have to be bossy douches about it. You are not the boss of me, Mr Random Pug, and if you start like that you are unlikely to get me to do anything for you.

Hammer Station
I levelled: 38-39

Pug separation in Hammer Station - that ryhmes!

Another re-run of a flashpoint I'd only done a few days ago. I got really excited when I saw that one of our group members was a tank. My first run with a proper tank! Of course, the moment we zoned in he said that he was confused about why he had ended up queued as tank, as he was actually a dps. Hah.

It was a really smooth and pleasant run though. Now that I had a cleanse, the tunneler droid was a piece of cake to heal. I also maxed out my scavenging skill in this run. (For comparison, my bioanalysis only sits at 169.) 

Directive 7
I levelled: 39-41

OK, I partially retract what I said about people who want to skip the cut scenes above. In this run we had one who said "skip pl". Two letters of the word "please" have got to count for something, right?

This being D7 and us having a level 65 in the group, this was another run where people just wanted to get to the end as quickly as possible while skipping everything else. We jumped across the tents again, and again the lowest level in the group didn't manage it and pulled anyway. I actually died on Mentor and got a combat res! So there are some people that are aware of having that ability.

I think mostly this run annoyed me because it was another repeat of a flashpoint that I'd only done a couple of days before. There are 19 tactical flashpoints in the queue now, and at this point I had queued for a total of 12 runs. However, these only resulted in me seeing 8 different instances, as 4 were repeats. I guess that is proper randomness, but it's still a bit annoying.

Cademimu
I levelled: 41-42

Yay, a flashpoint I hadn't done before, and one I quite like at that! I had the feeling that two of the people in the group must have been quite new to the game, as they seemed very hesitant and I could see in the group log that they both had the "Introduction to Group Finder" mission in their log still, even though they were in the high thirties. The third dps was a "legendary" player like me.

I had a blast knocking probe droids to their death and was kind of surprised that the encounter in the cantina appears to have been removed entirely - you know the one, where people would come down from the ceiling and all the patrons would scream and cower. Was that actually an issue?

At the taxi point I sliced access to the police car for the shortcut, but the two newbies didn't follow and we got split up. We reunited soon though. Having got somewhat off track because of this, I was delighted to find a cage from which I could free a temporary hound pet! Four years and there are still crew skill nodes in some of these flashpoints that I've never seen... Sadly my doggie died on the lift to the Wookiee boss, but we actually got XP for its death, which amused me.

About halfway through the run I found that Kolto Shell had appeared on my bar, which made me happy because I'd been missing having that ability. Constantly wanting to rebuff the entire group every three minutes is a habit that's hard to break. The only downside was that I find its sound effect a bit annoying compared to the Republic version.

As we approached the last boss, the other legendary player asked if everyone knew how to do this fight, but the newbies shrouded themselves in silence. Unsurprisingly, they both got burnt to cinders pretty early, and me and the other guy ended up finishing the rest of the fight with just the two of us.

I think Bioware were really proud of their "lekku physics" at launch, but in practice they can get super awkward at times.

Cademimu
I levelled: 42-44 (that included the weekly quest)

Yay, Cademimu again! I'm not even sure whether I'm being sarcastic here or not.

Now this was my actual first random flashpoint that I completed with a genuine tank! Only took 14 runs to find one... To be perfectly honest, it didn't seem to make that much of a difference in this instance, though it was nice to have someone who was happy to jump in and have all the mobs whale on him, instead of the awkward shuffle you get with some of the full dps groups where nobody wants to be the one to go first and get all the aggro.

We had three deaths by falling, which brought back fond memories for me.

Towards the end, one of the dps asked "who chaine for one more dj?" and I couldn't figure out what DJ was supposed to stand for. Disc jockeys in Cademimu? It was only at the end that I realised that he had meant dungeon and wanted to know if we could re-queue together. As I was happy to have completed my one run for the night however, I had to politely decline.

Cademimu
I levelled: 44-45

Cademimu hat-trick! Who would have thought?

This one included only one death by falling and one person dying to Ortol's fire, though it also featured the first time that I saw a player get caught in a trap on the first boss. I also noted down: "Does this flashpoint think I'm a trooper?" Until now the last boss in each run always seemed to drop useful loot for my class, but in the previous run I got a generator off-hand, and this time Ortol dropped an assault cannon.

Ten levels from seven flashpoints definitely prove that things are slowing down.

The Flashpoint Diaries: Blood Hunt Wants My Blood

If you thought that my little bounty hunter's first bunch of levelling flashpoints sounded like I was getting way too easy a ride, you should enjoy this entry.

Blood Hunt
I levelled: 29-29 (that already says it all)

The time had finally come: The group finder had randomly thrown me into a flashpoint that was originally designed for level 60. I had heard bad things about the new tactical version and remembered the hardmode being waaay overtuned. But well, you'll never know until you try, right?

On the first boss I was happily distracted by the fact that he was surrounded by "healing spores" instead of kolto stations... how did I never notice that before? We had one death on that fight but did OK otherwise. Likewise, the three challenges fell before us with no issues. But then came the moment of truth: facing Jos and Valk Beroya.

We actually had a pretty good first attempt, during which we made it into the second half of the fight, but then... I'm not entirely sure what happened. I remember seeing people take lots of damage, me trying to run to a kolto station, being yanked back before I could click it, and then people were dead.

We got up and tried again, but this time our first death actually occurred even earlier, due to the vicious knockback. The guy who died went into a rant about how that knockback was "BS" and rage-quit. We hadn't even finished wiping before everyone else dropped group as well.

I felt a mix of annoyance and relief: I was annoyed that people gave up so easily and relieved that I had an excuse to move on to something else.

Kuat Drive Yards
I levelled: 29-31 (this included the weekly quest, which didn't give a crazy amount of XP anymore. I don't know if they fixed it or if I'm just high enough level by now that it doesn't have as much of an impact anymore).

As soon as I saw where I had landed this time, I wanted to slap my foreheard for forgetting to pick up the story quest for this. After all, this is the one flashpoint quest that can already be picked up as early as level 15! I made a point of picking it up afterwards, just in case RNG brings me back to Kuat later on.

After the Blood Hunt debacle I was glad to be back on more forgiving ground, even if my group consisted of three twitchy Marauders. First we got the starship assembly and someone asked if anybody knew how to solve the puzzle. I wanted to give it a try, but someone else clicked on the consoles at random and our prototype blew up. Not that it really mattered.

Second we got the hangar defense scenario, which also went smoothly enough. The final boss turned out to be Major Benes and apparently nobody else had done him before, as I was the only one who ran to cleanse her grenade and we wiped. One guy immediately went into "blame the healer" mode, but I countered by calmly explaining that people needed to get rid of the grenades. We tried again, and while people still blew up a couple of times, we managed to muddle through and by the end of it everyone seemed to have understood the tactics. The guy who had got mad at first said with a smiley that he got it now... and we lived happily ever after.

I was just disappointed that there was no loot other than the little reputation commendations. Now that all flashpoints are tactical, Kuat looks kind of silly for giving lesser loot for basically no reason.

After this flashpoint I also upgraded my armour's mods for the first time in fifteen levels, but I couldn't really see it making much of a difference to how I was getting bolstered. I shall resist the urge to queue up naked though, just to see how powerful bolster really is...

Blood Hunt
I levelled: 31-33

My heart sank as soon as I saw where I was going. Blood Hunt again? Whelp, once more into the fray then...

Our start was very similar to my last run: one death at the first boss, then no further issues with the challenges. All the other group members were dps (as usual), of levels 27, 64 and 65 respectively.

Once again we wiped twice before the quitting started, but fortunately it wasn't a full disband this time. It was just the 65 who left, to be replaced by a level 34 Sniper. She really impressed me on the next try, doing an excellent job at staying alive, but unfortunately we wiped again anyway.

Another member of the original group left, just to be replaced by a level 50, who was coming in just as me and the Sniper were talking about how this flashpoint was really hard. "It's not so hard," crowed the level 50 the moment he entered. "You can save us then," the Sniper joked in response.

Alas, we still weren't quite there, and wiped again, though it definitely felt like we were doing better with each attempt. At this point the last dps from the original group dropped, to be replaced by a level 65 Merc. We all greeted her enthusiastically. Her response as she realised where she had ended up: "Oh -.-." What can I say, this flashpoint clearly has a reputation! However, with her help we were finally victorious. I actually felt the urge to take a victory screenshot at the end, because it had been such a challenge. Shout-out to Lhoola, Vi'kk and Yelisa of the Red Eclipse for being awesome!

Here are some tips that I felt helped to make the difference in the end:

It's counter-intuitive, but during the red circle phase... don't run. Just stand there and eat your circle, just make sure you're not standing on top of anyone else. I found that when I originally tried to run out of them, it pretty much always led to bad things, as I didn't have the abilities and more importantly the mobility talents yet to remain useful while running around. The damage isn't actually that high, so it's better to just stand there and to continue giving it your best.

The knockback is a huge pain, so try to stay near the centre as much as possible (unless there's fire there or something - that fire actually hurts). I somehow managed to get knocked down once or twice without dying - instead I simply got teleported back up again. I couldn't tell whether that was a feature or a glitch though, so I wouldn't rely on it.

Most importantly however, everyone needs to spam those healing consoles. At my level I just didn't have the AoE or burst healing to deal with the damage output, not to mention that sometimes I would simply get stunned - who's supposed to be healing then? Fortunately my final party members were all good at doing their part to survive and clicked consoles as much as they could (while minimising their stays near the edge of the platform).

Finally, if someone does die, use your combat res if you have one! I'm astounded by the amount of high level players I've already seen who do not seem to be aware that they even have this skill.

Oh, and Torch? She was easy mode after all this; we got her on the first try.

Directive 7
I levelled: 33-35

This was the first flashpoint I've done in a while where the group didn't want to do the bonus, but then two of the dps were max level and it was D7. They went for all the annoying trash skipping moves in the book, including that stupid tent jump - though at least it wasn't me who failed on that one and aggroed half the area this time.

They also weren't very good players, as they would do things like run to break the crowd control I had applied to a gold mob while multiple weak turrets were still up and shooting (... me, due to healing aggro). That made the whole exercise a bit tedious, but other than one grumbly comment about me and the other lowbie pulling too many things it was a decent run. At least there was no griping about cut scenes.

Day 4: Missions & Conversations

This is the fourth post in my 10 Days of SWTOR Screenshots challenge. Click on any screenshot to see a larger version.

The cut scenes inside operations are a strange thing. Even while making them, Bioware has to be aware that operations are made with repetition in mind and that therefore these probably see a lot more space-barring than any other cut scenes in the game. And yet... I'm still glad that they are there and add something that other games don't have (as far as I know). Space-bar through certain cinematics often enough however, and you may even forget what they were all about.

When I took my Marauder alt to TFB one day, I actually watched the cut scene you get when the Terror is unleashed, because it's so rare that this character gets to go to any operations and I wanted to savour the moment. And as I did so, I couldn't help but think: "Damn, that still looks cool."

I really love the Imperial intro to Kuat Drive Yards. (The Republic one is OK, but not really remarkable other than that it featured the game's first Bothan NPC.) Bioware is better than most game developers when it comes to providing screen time for more than one sex/race/sexual orientation/whatever, but that doesn't mean that they are perfect and never fall back on clichés. As such I found it quite refreshing that the assault on Kuat Drive Yards on Empire side is led by two women whose sex nobody makes a big deal out of, who are very focused on business and who work well together. Much love for Admiral Ranken and Lord Krovos.

The end of the Legacy of the Rakata flashpoint felt pretty damn amazing to me the first time I played through it. (Considering the name of the expansion, I feel that it's not a spoiler anymore to mention that Revan plays a major part.) The final cut scene was very well orchestrated to make the big reveal feel satisfying, with the music swelling at the right moments and everything. Every time I do this flashpoint now I can't help but feel a little sad that new players won't get to have the same experience anymore, even if nobody bugs them to skip the cut scenes. Bioware had done such a great job building suspense during the staggered release of the Forged Alliances story arc... but now that Revan the cat is out of the bag it would be pretty hard to get a similar experience, considering that the very name of the expansion gives it all away. Sometimes you really just had to be there.

Bioware: letting me walk away from explosions with my character having a smile on her face since at least 2011.

I'm not a huge fan of the Blood Hunt flashpoint (and I still haven't done either of the two Rishi flashpoints on hardmode) but that doesn't prevent me from admitting that it has some very cool cut scenes towards the end when you meet up with Shae Vizla. Of course, her retractable floor and random lava flows are so showy and over the top that you can't help but wonder what could possibly have possessed her to build a compound like that - I just can't see any use for most of it other than "wanting to look cool".

Kuat Drive Yards - Different Perspectives

Tuesday evening it was time to try out the new Kuat Drive Yards flashpoint. I was curious to see if/to what extent my predictions about a lack of story would turn out to be correct.

The introductory quest was actually pretty nice. I liked the little conversation you end up having with the Starfighter-only companions, as it gives them an actual presence in the game instead of them just being little pictures in your Starfighter panel. Getting to meet Fleet Admiral Aygo was neat as well, as I always love being able to put a face to a voice, and I'd heard his voice plenty of times before during the start-up of Galactic Starfighter matches. And what a cool-looking Cathar he is! I really like the elongated ears and funky beard. (EDIT: I'm being told that he's supposed to be a Bothan actually.) I was also pleased to see that the conversation with the Admiral and a little cut scene of ships flying to Kuat are actually part of the flashpoint. I don't care if it'll get old the tenth time, these little touches are what make the game what it is.

My first run consisted of me on my main, pet tank on his, a guildie as dps and a pug from the group finder, who turned out to be another healer. We got the prison break and cannon destruction scenarios, and it was... pretty disappointing. Don't get me wrong, knowing that it was a story mode tuned to be doable without a tank or a healer, we didn't expect it to be challenging, not to mention how overgeared we were. But it seemed to be even easier than the Czerka flashpoints, weak mobs everywhere and barely a lone strong or elite mob to be seen anywhere (from what I could see at the time). It felt like it was tuned to be completely soloable for any reasonably competent and geared player, with the possible exception of the final boss, who has a lot of health you have to chew through if nothing else. Why even advertise this as group content?

As we were just running around spamming 1 and the occasional AoE, we looked around and found both the environment and the story inside the flashpoint to be kind of lacking as well. There may be five different scenarios, but they all take place in generic space station rooms, and the story basically consists of the Fleet Admiral giving you a ten second voice-over of what you're supposed to do, which more or less always comes down to "kill stuff and click on a thing or two". There's also no loot other than some credits from the trash and a reputation token from each boss. When we got the "flashpoint completed" message, our pug piped up with: "That's all? Lame."

Not so great then.

I was curious however. Since the big advertising point of this new "tactical" flashpoint system is that it's not supposed to require a holy trinity and be accessible to all players from level fifteen upwards, I wanted to see what things were like on the lower end of that spectrum. So I logged onto the lowest-level character I have right now, a (then) level seventeen Vanguard, and queued her up. I got a group almost instantly.

Doing the intro quest, I was pleasantly surprised to see that it had been tweaked a bit to fit into the lower level storyline, as the quest giver referenced a fear of the Imperials breaking the treaty of Coruscant (which has not yet been broken at the point where my trooper is in the story).

My group consisted of a level fifty Shadow tank and two dps knights in the low thirties. Nobody capable of even casting a single heal. That was going to be interesting. The trash pulls were still easy enough for the most part, but with no heals whatsoever my health got dangerously low more than once. When we fought one of the mini bosses, the tank got so close to death that I taunted the boss off him for the last leg of the fight while hitting the single cooldown I had at my level. It wasn't exactly tough, but it wasn't nearly as mindless as the max-level run had been either. We had to pay attention to our surroundings and everyone's health levels.

On the last boss we even wiped once, as we didn't immediately figure out how to deal with his grenade mechanic, and once we did, we initially split between the degaussing stations, causing them both to be on cooldown when we needed them again. We got there in the end, but it was pretty manic.

The bolstering seemed to work well, though I was sad that I was unable to scavenge any of the mobs we killed as they were officially all matched to our bolstered (high) level. (Want to buy crew skill bolster?) I'm also not sure if the bolstering is working as intended with the kolto stations, as I seemed to get healed to full almost every time while our tank in particular hardly seemed to get any benefit from us clicking them, as if the healing output was somehow based on our real, unbolstered health or something.

The story still felt lacking though, and our tank said that he had absolutely no idea what was going on. He probably hadn't even seen the intro quest yet, as it's a bit hidden away in the new Starfighter launch hangar, which not everyone might've discovered yet. It also may not have helped that one of our scenarios required us to build a ship prototype, something that seemed to have a bit of a puzzle aspect to it and was initially a little confusing. (The prototype we put together blew up and was a horrible failure - I wonder if that's predetermined of if you can build a good one by clicking the right buttons. That would be funny.)

Still, that lowbie run (which incidentally netted me a whole level due to restedness) certainly changed my initial impression of the flashpoint. Or rather, it made me see the bigger picture. Bioware made a flashpoint that's supposed to be accessible to anyone from a full group of level fifteen damage dealers to a group of max-level characters forming a traditional party of four while filling all the different trinity roles. Even with bolster, the difference in power between those two setups is immense, regardless of whether we're dealing with a premade or a random pug. The developers decided to err on the side of caution and designed the flashpoint in such a way that even the worst possible randomly assembled group could do it. I can't honestly blame them for doing that, even if it means that at max level and with a group that has a healer it's pretty damn boring and I wouldn't bother beyond getting the initial quest done. But as a change of pace from lowbie levelling it seems pretty entertaining and viable, especially if you end up with a sub-optimal group make-up that forces you to think on your feet.

And as for that whole story thing? Well, I appreciated the inclusion of a conversation and a cut scene, though the background for the different scenarios is a bit of a "blink and you'll miss it" affair. That said, after having done three runs of the place now, I'm starting to appreciate the randomness as a source of entertainment. It's quite fun to see which scenarios, mini-bosses and final boss you'll get. Oddly enough, this might be one instance where your experience actually improves the more often you repeat it, as you get to know all the different permutations and can see how it all goes together.

The Future of Flashpoints (and Other Parts of the Game)

The rakghoul event is over (for now) and usually I'd do a sort of round-up post to talk about what I liked and what I didn't, but in this case I feel that I pretty much already said it all in my last three posts. I genuinely enjoyed all aspects of the event and am looking forward to its return. We'll see how it plays out the second time around.

Meanwhile, in the news: there's a new flashpoint coming in 2.6, and there's a little news article about it up on the official website. It's called Kuat Drive Yards and will be a so-called "tactical" flashpoint, meaning it will play slightly differently than previous flashpoints. Firstly, it will be role-neutral, like the Czerka story modes. (But will there be a hardmode?) Secondly, it will be level-neutral, meaning that anyone of level fifteen or higher can do it and will be bolstered. And thirdly, instead of featuring a single story, it will consist of two out of five "scenarios" and feature a random selection of objectives and bosses each run.

Now, in many ways that sounds very cool. Content that lets players of different levels play together is always a positive in my book. And having a certain degree of randomisation to keep things fresh sounds promising as well.

But - and you knew there had to be a "but" - I can't help but think that this also means that this new flashpoint is probably going to have less story to it than ever. If you can play it at any level, it's got to be independent of the main game's storyline to make sense to players of all levels. And randomisation automatically puts a limit on how much of a story you can tell. I'm not saying that's terrible, but I already felt that the Czerka flashpoints felt a little thin on story and were lacking a certain charm because of that.

It's a trend that I feel is noticeable in the game as a whole, what with the recent addition of Galactic Starfighter and a general push towards implementing more systems to keep players busy. Less story content, more random things to do. Again, I'm not exactly saying that's a bad thing. The other week Massively asked the question: "Would you prefer new story content or new features?" and the overwhelming majority of commenters on that article expressed a preference for new features. It's clearly something that adds value to any MMO. However, let's not forget that story is what SWTOR does best. The voiced missions are what really makes it stand out from other MMOs and what drew many people towards the game in the first place. If we want randomisation and mini-games, we can get that elsewhere. I hope that the devs don't neglect their game's major strength too much in this pursuit to expand its scope.

I just can't help seeing a certain irony in the MMO news, when SWTOR, a game that was all about the story at launch, keeps adding new non-story features, while a game like Guild Wars 2, which prided itself in not caring about story at launch (no quests etc.), keeps chugging out new "living story" instalments every two weeks. It's a little bit as if each game is trying to take cues from the other...