Half-time

Today I uploaded Pugging with Shintar season 2 episode 10, which means that I'm halfway done with season two, hurrah! I've determined that I'll need/want it to run for exactly twenty episodes, since there are ten different operations for me to cover, and with my intended schedule alternating between operations and uprisings, that'll make for a total of twenty videos. With two uprisings per episode I will have completed all of them on story mode after the next episode, so for the remaining four installments meant to feature uprisings I'll switch to pugging randoms on veteran mode. Should be fun!

Unfortunately as a whole, this season hasn't been as much fun for me as the previous one. I've mentioned before that recording the operations pugs has felt more like "work" than anything I've done before, and as I've progressed I've noticed that it's my self-imposed rule of wanting to do them "in order" more than anything else that's causing me issues. I've always said that the best way to have fun pugging is to be flexible and jump into whatever content people are willing to run at any given time. Unfortunately I need specific operations for this series, and I need them at specific times too, since I only really have time to record an ops pug during weekends. It's getting a bit frustrating to be honest!

I've made a note for myself to not just fixate on the featured group finder operation in the future, but to also see what gives Conquest points in any given week, as those ops might be in higher demand as well. I'm hopeful that the next few will be easier to find groups for (as I said in the video, people aren't super fond of running that one operation that has more bosses than any of the others). Of course the biggest challenge will be Gods from the Machine, but at least I won't have to deal with that one until the very end.

What also hasn't helped is that my viewers seem less interested in this second season than they have been in the first. It might seem silly to worry about viewer numbers when I'm far from wanting to make a career out of making videos and am used to low view counts to begin with, but it's still noticeable and a bit disappointing to see less engagement on these newer episodes than there was on the older ones when they came out. I don't know if the episode length is off-putting, or maybe people just aren't as interested in the content? I'm guessing that season one was a bit more "relatable" in so far as most SWTOR players would have had an Esseles pug at some point (for example), so they have a frame of reference while watching someone else run it, but I'm guessing that not as many people have done operations or uprisings, and that might be why they aren't as interested. Anyway, I can only make guesses about that. If you're someone who's been following the series and has an opinion on this, feel free to share in the comments!

Anyway, these are the episodes I released since the last summary post (only four since the ops episodes in particular took some time to get right, as explained above):

S2E7: Tanking All The Adds in Uprisings - This one was a good demonstration of how the endless waves of adds that you get in many uprisings can get unpleasant for a healer (thus the title).

S2E8: Cheerful Wiping in Terror From Beyond - With TFB being my second favourite operation, I was really happy to pug this one, even if there was a slight hiccup in the middle. I also ended up in another guild's partial guild run again, this one led by an unexpectedly friendly and not at all evil Decepticon.

S2E9: Pleasant Uprising Surprises - This was probably the most fun uprising episode so far, with people interested in getting achievements in both of my runs. Even if I didn't need the achievements myself anymore and therefore gained nothing from them, it made for a nice break from the usual routine.

S2E10: Enjoying the Sights in Scum & Villainy - Scum was a bit annoying to find a group for, but I already talked about that in the main post above. The group itself was once again very pleasant.

Endgame Pugging So Far

Pugette's adventures at max level continue, though I haven't been able to release new episodes as consistently as I did while I was levelling her through flashpoints. Partially this has been due to holidays etc., but partially also because the episodes about operations in particular actually take a lot more out of me than a simple flashpoint run, so I don't necessarily want to dedicate time to recording one every single week. That and wanting to run each operation when it's the featured op of the day through the group finder limit my options further. I've recorded five more episodes since April:

S2E2: Ragging on Uprisings - My first episode about uprisings actually only went on to reinforce why I don't like them all that much, though I was also reminded of some good things about them.

S2E3: Special Nathema Conspiracy Edition - Because I couldn't resist making an episode about a brand new flashpoint, even if I wasn't going to feature flashpoints in this season otherwise. This also featured what's probably my biggest ever gameplay fail in this series, though it was very funny (and goes to show that you shouldn't mistake my years of experience with much of the older content for innate ability).

S2E4: I love Eternity Vault (but nobody queues for it) - This was a bit of a game changer for me because I had planned to feature some more operations pugs built purely through the group finder, but after three full hours of waiting in the queue I got fed up with it and just joined a group from general chat. This did make me wonder whether SWTOR is seeing a bit of a seasonal population drop-off right now. Also, I committed another major fail in this episode, though I won't spoil what it is.

S2E5: Trying To Find The Fun in Uprisings - By this point I was actually wondering whether including uprisings in this was a good idea because I'm really not enjoying them all that much and I think it's very apparent in the way I talk about them. I feel I'm kind of committed now though. And they do give me a nice break from the more intense operations episodes...

S2E6: Getting into a partial guild run for Explosive Conflict - Here I initially failed to get a group through chat, but came back to it later and then ended up joining what turned out to be a partial guild run. Apologies to any members of BRACTWO whom I might have made look bad in any way; the awkward start to the run really threw me off though.

Pugging with Shintar is back!

When I finished up my Pugging with Shintar series last year, I already knew that I wanted to do a "season two" but I also felt that I needed a break and didn't want to get started on it until early 2018. That then got delayed first by me wanting to create a best-of video of season one, and then me getting stuck with a cold that I seemed to be unable to fully shake for several weeks. (Degree of illness aside, coughing and sniffling a lot does not make for the best recording voice.)

However, I'm finally feeling better, so when I found myself with a few hours of unallocated free time this weekend, I set out to get started at last. My plan for season two is to do some endgame pugging, so I started episode one with an operation:



As you'd probably expect, the episode ended up being pretty long even with more than half of the original recording edited out, but I guess that's the sort of video you can put on and watch on the side while doing dailies or whatever. (And I even put in the effort of making a custom thumbnail this time!)

Stay tuned to the YouTube channel for more (though I don't expect to create weekly episodes in this new format; pugging operations is too time-intensive for me to be able to reliably devote time to it every single weekend).

Best of Pugging with Shintar

Did you enjoy my Pugging with Shintar series? Did you like the concept but maybe weren't up to watching all the full 30min+ episodes? Or do you have no idea what I'm talking about? Either way you should watch this Best Of compilation because it contains all my favourite moments from six months of pugging and it's funny. You can tell that I worked hard on it because it's the first time ever that I bothered to create a custom thumbnail for one of my videos!



I actually meant to have this ready much earlier already, but then I decided that I should really re-watch all episodes in full to make sure that I didn't miss anything instead of purely relying on memory to find all the bits I wanted to include, and that ended up taking longer than I had hoped. But here we are now!

To give this post a bit more meat, let me also give you some random video statistics for the series so far:

Most viewed: The most viewed episode is Episode 1: Watching Cut Scenes in the Esseles with 152 views, which makes sense in so far as it's the first of the lot, so if anyone finds the title of the series intriguing that's where they'd start. Considering that there's a huge drop-off in views when you get to episode 2 however, I fear that not many viewers found it that convincing! (To be fair, it having been my first try, episode 1 wasn't that great. But things got better!)

Interestingly the episode with the second most views is the very last one, Episode 30: Pug Interrupted in Traitor Among the Chiss. I'm guessing this might have been due to me managing to release that one during the week when that flashpoint first came out, so people were interested in seeing what it was like in general.

Most liked: That would be Episode 26: Thinking About The Future in Assault on Tython with 9 people having given it at the thumbs-up, and to be honest I have no idea why! In my opinion that was one of the more boring episodes, with a fairly uneventful veteran mode run and me just speculating about what SWTOR might be doing with its (then) upcoming group finder revamp, and pretty much all of my guesses turned out to be wrong anyway. Do people just like hearing about that kind of stuff?

Most commented on: That would be Episode 11: Sentinel Silliness in Battle of Rishi, which got a whopping five comments, mostly by people expressing their love for Sentinels. That was also a really good episode in my opinion though, easily in my top five due to the funny group I had.

Pugette Hit 70

After seven months of (near) weekly recording of her adventures with random groups in the group finder, Pugette the Commando has hit level 70! Her actual /played time is pretty short though, only 1(!) day and 9 hours, which once again reinforces my impression that flashpoints are actually a pretty good way to level but also that levelling is just super fast in general nowadays.

I got to finish on a nice round number after exactly 30 episodes. Towards the end I decided to ditch the random queueing in favour of choosing some specific destinations, to make sure that I would go out on a bang instead of by blitzing through yet another randomly assigned Hammer Station, and I think it worked out great, with several of the last few episodes being (in my opinion) among the best ones of the whole run. The only thing that could be considered an issue with them is length (if you don't actually like long videos), as two of them ended up taking close to one and a half hours in the end. Either way, without further ado, here's a list of the final six episodes with links:

Episode 25: Racism in Progress in False Emperor - Even though I always had the option to accept in-progress runs ticked, this was the first and only time I actually got into one, with the group already standing at the second boss in False Emperor. My entrance was kind of overshadowed by one of the pugs greeting Pugette (who, unlike me, has dark skin) with a racist term. That was just so confusing, I had no idea how to react. I let it go and moved on and nothing else offensive was said, but it was certainly a strange experience.

Episode 26: Thinking About The Future in Assault on Tython - After having already bested this flashpoint on master mode in an earlier episode, veteran mode felt very easy, and I mostly used the opportunity to do some speculating about the changes coming to the group finder in patch 5.6. I was wrong about pretty much all of it by the way.

Episode 27: Noobing It Up in Blood Hunt - At last, the flashpoint I had been simultaneously dreading and looking forward to since I started this series. All things considered, it didn't go too badly, though we did have the inevitable wipes on Jos and Valk. I also always find this flashpoint to be a bit of a team-building exercise, and our dps Commando in particular had me in stitches at times, which made for a very fun run.

Episode 28: Going Old School in MM Lost Island - I got this one as a random quite often lately, and every time I was surprised by how smoothly it went. This run was not like that. However, it was still fun because people took the wipes in stride and tried hard to do better. When we finally bested the last boss, it sure felt very satisfying.

Episode 29: Reliving Fond Memories in MM Kaon Under Siege - This one was much easier than Lost Island and I mostly used it as an opportunity to reminisce about all the good times I had in this flashpoint and how it provided all kinds of memorable moments for me in the past.

Episode 30: Pug Interrupted in Traitor Among the Chiss - This is the one in which Pugette finally hit 70, and also the first one in which she encountered a type of obstacle she hadn't run into before (I won't spoil what it is). Just prepare to be exposed to some eardrum-bursting laughter at one point...

What's in store for Pugette and the channel next? Well, as for Pugette, I'm planning to keep her "pure" and out of guild runs, limited to what she can achieve in the pug world, but first on the agenda is probably finishing her class story up to the end of Coruscant at least so that she can finally get her ship and make that damn galaxy map icon stop flashing.

As for the channel... to be honest, I don't know! I was pleasantly surprised by how many subs and views I gained while recording this series, especially considering that the original purpose of the channel was just to have a place to upload boss kill videos for my guild and the like. I do think I would like to record a "season two" of pug adventures and I do already have an idea for it as well, but even if I do go ahead with it I won't actually put my plan into action until early next year. You'll just have to content yourself with reading the blog in the meantime. /wink

Pugette's Journey Is Nearing Its End

Pugette, my Commando alt who's levelling through flashpoints and whose adventures I've been recording on video, has reached level 64 today, so she only has only six more levels to go! I expect that my next post about this series will be my last one. I will probably have some more things to say about the project as a whole at that point, but for now, here is once again a summary of the last six weeks/episodes:

Episode 19: Getting Nostalgic in Directive 7 - As I continue to queue for both master modes and a diminishing number of veteran modes, I mostly keep getting instant queue pops for the former but every now and then also still for the latter. This run was part of the second category. Directive 7 is one of those places that always makes me super nostalgic for the game's early days because I associate so many funny stories with it, some of which I shared in the video. The way the run progressed also gave me reason to detour into some adventures I used to have during my time pugging in WoW.

Episode 20: Testing the Puggability of Crisis on Umbara - I was so excited to get the new flashpoint as my random! I had only done it with guildies before and therefore had zero idea what it would be like with a pug. My main impression at the start was that there was a lot of damage flying around and I couldn't imagine doing it without a healer. But when we got to the bonus boss, things got really interesting... I won't spoil the rest!

Episode 21: Unexpected Developments in MM Czerka Core Meltdown - This flashpoint defied my expectations because I remembered the desert boss being very hard to heal while having no issues whatsoever with the jungle boss. Apparently this has been reversed at some point! Also, a 15-minute wait for a new tank after our first one abandoned us led to some interesting experimentation with companion tanking.

Episode 22: Killing ALL THE THINGS in Taral V - At last, Pugette was able to advance her Jedi Prisoner quest line through Taral V, veteran mode this time. I was endlessly amused by the fact that after I explained at the start (and in previous videos) that most people just want to skip most of the trash in this instance, I of course ended up in a group that actually wanted to do both bonuses. The group's zeal for killing absolutely everything was actually pretty comical.

Episode 23: Getting chatted up outside MM Depths of Manaan - Just as I started recording this episode, I got whispers from some random person who started with some innocuous but pointless questions, causing me to predict that he was going to ask if I was a real girl next... and he promptly obliged, allowing me to nicely capture the awkwardness that comes with playing a female character online at times on screen. The instance itself went very well, especially considering that it's one of the tougher master modes. In fact my team seemed to engage in a game of one-upmanship with achievements, trying to convince each other that they were the one who knew the flashpoint best.

Episode 24: Inconsiderate Tanking in MM Esseles - This was a fairly uneventful run, except that our tank seemed to think that "tanking" means constantly charging ahead to solo things and ignoring what's going on with the rest of the group. Fortunately it wasn't much of an issue considering the low difficulty of the flashpoint, and at first I even laughed about it, but after a while it did get a bit annoying.

Pugging with Shintar: Venturing Into Master Modes

I've managed to continue to upload an episode of my pugging video series pretty much every week, despite of being worried at some point that I might not be able to keep it up. I'm kind of amazed by my own ability to maintain a routine sometimes. Too bad it's not really a very highly-valued skill (though handier in everyday life than you might think).

Somehow I've also ended up with one hundred subscribers on YouTube! Thanks, everyone! I hope the fame doesn't go to my head. Anyway, here are the new episodes I uploaded over the last six weeks:

Episode 13: Falling Off Lifts in Cademimu - Long-time readers may know that Cademimu is an old favourite of mine, and I was pleased to get it as my random that day. Following the age-old tradition, someone fell to their death off a lift, including me. You'd think I'd really know better by now.

Episode 14: Confusion, Chaos & Naked Anti-Bob - This episode started with me ending up in Cademimu again because apparently I had failed to unselect it from the group finder menu - still, what were the odds of getting the exact same thing again? Like back in Episode 7, I powered through quickly and then queued again. This time I ended up in Mandalorian Raiders, in a run that included a Commando who wore virtually no gear and needed on everything. Strange times!

Episode 15: Splitting the Party in Legacy of the Rakata & Pugette's First MM! - In a relatively unremarkable Legacy of the Rakata run Pugette reached the milestone of hitting level 50, which allowed her to queue for master mode flashpoints for the first time. I put myself in the queue right away, expecting nothing to happen, but got a pop almost instantly and therefore decided to turn the episode into another double feature. I got into master mode Athiss as my first of its kind, which was fortunately a relative softball, especially as my group consisted of pretty good players.

Episode 16: Trash Skipping Gone Wrong in MM Cademimu - With master modes unlocked in the group finder, I decided to queue for both veteran and master modes simultaneously, fully expecting the veteran mode to pop first... just to get into another master mode run instantly. Back to Cademimu I went once again, though this time in its harder iteration. No deaths from fall damage in this one, though I made a complete fool out of myself on the first boss. The ending was also a good demonstration of how badly (or not at all) communicated trash skipping attempts can go horribly wrong and just end up delaying everything.

Episode 17: Bad Chemistry in MM Assault on Tython - The instant master mode pops continued. This one was off to what I felt was a super awkward start, with the tank asking to be kicked, me causing a wipe by obliviously running into a group of mobs the others had skipped, and a strangely passive-aggressive exchange ensuing between the dps when we got a replacement tank. The run continued fine after that, but my good mood was shot, because that's what this sort of behaviour does to me unfortunately. I also found the last boss quite tough to heal!

Episode 18: Interesting Times in MM Maelstrom Prison - This late-night visit to hardmode Maelstrom Prison ended up being one of my favourite kinds of pugs: We actually did both the bonus missions for maximum XP, people were chill, and while some mistakes were made, they were amusing and/or simply shrugged off, so a good time was had by all (I hope).

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.

More Pugging with Shintar

It's been over a month since I wrote about my idea to start a video series to detail my new Commando's levelling progress through random flashpoints, and I wanted to give a bit of an update on the series for everyone who doesn't keep a close eye on my YouTube channel.

I was pleasantly surprised that my pet tank didn't mind giving me the quiet time required to do the recording on a regular basis, so that I've been able to release a new episode every week so far - there just won't be one next week as I'll be on holiday.

I finally learned that the best place to sync video and voice recording is the moment when I say hello in chat at the start of each run, as the sound of me hitting the enter key and the line of text appearing in chat make for about as reliable a match-up point as I'm going to get.

Pugette is up to level 32 and the series is up to episode 6! Here are links to and summaries of all the videos I recorded last month:

Episode 2: Buggy Adds in Hammer Station - I was a bit worried about what sort of experience I would have being thrown into the big pool of "proper" tactical flashpoints at level 17, but as it happened I got Hammer Station, which is both level appropriate and quite a softball. (Incidentally, that's the exact same thing that happened to my Mercenary back in 2015.) Unsurprisingly, it ended up being a pretty smooth run. Also, I actually ran into the person who tanked that run on Twitter the next day. Small world.

Episode 3: Weekday Wipes in Maelstrom Prison - This was my first run with a group that had not just one but multiple wipes, but I didn't feel too bad about it as both Colonel Daksh and Grand Moff Kilran are pretty tough. Either way we picked ourselves back up again every time and eventually powered through. Also, I learned that they finally added kolto stations for the bonus boss in Maelstrom Prison. Holy crap!

Episode 4: Ranting about Trash Skipping in Battle of Ilum - When I levelled my Merc through random flashpoints, one of my posts about it was called "Battle of Ilum Makes Me Mad" because I hate people's obsession with skipping both trash and bosses in that one, and unsurprisingly that was the case in Pugette's first run of the place as well. I actually fell a bit behind at the start and struggled to catch up with the rest of my group weaving through as many packs as possible, which immediately reminded me of why I hate that practice so much. We even ended up skipping bosses I had never skipped before. And the final encounter was interesting, though for a different reason.

Episode 5: Hammer Station Again - RNG reared its ugly head by already giving me a re-run in episode five even though I'd only seen three of the 19 flashpoints available through the group finder so far. At least I can note that being ten levels higher already made a huge difference to how challenging I found it to heal this instance. Also, at this point it has become a bit of a running gag that the group finder always tries to put me into groups with stupid group compositions at first (such as two tanks and two healers), which I repeatedly decline.

Episode 6: Slightly Rude in Depths of Manaan - I noted at the start of this one that it could end up being a toughie, but I happened to get a competent group that tackled every fight with aplomb. However, I also ended up with my first truly impatient group mate - in previous runs I had been asked to "skip please" too, but here someone immediately exploded into "FFS" while I was watching the first cut scene, with me unthinkingly adding profanity to the video by reading her comment out loud. Oops.

Pugging with Shintar, Episode 1

During the past few months, I've frequently found myself thinking back to my flashpoint levelling series. It was just such a fun thing to work on, and I've really been longing to return to the subject somehow; I just didn't want to simply do the whole thing again in exactly the same way. How could I change things up though?

One of my pug runs from back then that has stuck with me to this day was the manic Mandalorian Raiders run where I found myself wishing that I had recorded the first boss fight on video. Just describing it in writing didn't quite seem to do it justice. But hm, recording my pug runs...

There would have to be some commentary to make it entertaining, but I never really got into the whole "let's play" thing. Then again, I have made great strides in the past couple of months in terms of being more comfortable with speaking in front of an audience and not hating listening to the sound of my own voice too much, thanks to things like my invitation to Corellian Run Radio and recording that Dread Master story video.

So after a bit of umming and ahhing I finally decided to go ahead with it: level another character purely through flashpoints, but this time record every run and add commentary to the video. After last weekend, I'm happy to present "Pugging with Shintar, Episode 1":



As I also explain at the start of the video, the aim of the series is both to entertain but also to maybe inform players who are curious yet anxious about making the jump into random groups of what they can reasonably expect. I think there is something to be said for seeing that in detail, and I couldn't find much material about pugging in SWTOR when I did a cursory search for it.

Some things I already learned:

- While it's sensible to record gameplay and commentary separately, one must not forget to then also hit the "start recording" button in two different applications! (I did at first.)

- At the same time, syncing up the video and the separately recorded audio commentary is trickier than I thought. I originally thought that I'd done a pretty good job at it, but at the very end there is this bit where I rapidly train some new skills while calling them out and that shows that I was ever so slightly off.

- While I made an effort to enunciate things clearly at the start, there were later parts where I slipped into "quietly mumbling to myself" mode, making some parts a bit hard to understand.

- Cut scenes are tricky. I fully expected to skip them all, but then of course my pug had to throw me for a loop by being happy to watch them, which made the video quite a bit longer than I had planned. I considered cutting part of them out, but then felt that this would leave the experience feeling a bit disjointed, more so than chopping a couple of trash fights where nothing interesting was said or done. At least it shouldn't be an issue in upcoming runs as none of the later flashpoints have as much as dialogue as the Esseles.

If videos are not your thing, don't worry, this project shouldn't affect my writing. Since I'm also somewhat reliant on both having free time as well as some peace and quiet in the living room, I don't expect to get more than one episode out every two weeks or so. But if you do have any feedback, I'd be happy to hear it!