TOR Itemization and Crafting info

I found this little tidbit of information out there on the web and I thought I’d share it with you. I know a lot of you will be playing SWTOR and would like a little insight onto what you will be doing once the game goes live.

Everything you ever need to know about Itemization and Crafting in TOR

To anyone reading, feel free to cut and paste this (or link to it) if other people ask about mods or crafting, I’ve typed something similar a few times now.

Basic stuff:

All characters in TOR use one primary stat of Aim, Cunning, Strength or Willpower.

• All primary stats give 1% crit for every 140 (at level 50)
• Aim gives 0.2 ranged damage
• Strength gives 0.2 melee damage
• Cunning gives 0.2 tech damage
• Will power gives 0.2 force damage

Endurance gives 10 HP per point.

Your primary stat will always give either [Ranged + Tech] or [Melee + Force], so a Trooper will get a tech bonus from Cunning, and a Smuggler will get a ranged damage bonus from Aim in addition to the bonuses they already get from their primary stat. This causes Smugglers to do more damage with Weapon attacks, and Troopers will do more damage with Tech attacks (see: explosives) assuming both had the same base value and scaling. Strength and Willpower give both of them nothing but crit.

Secondary stats are:

• Presence – boots companion health, damage and healing
• Power – adds melee, force and tech damage
• Force/Tech Power – Found on weapons, works like Power but does not provide melee/ranged damage
• Accuracy – Gives +hit and gives armor/spell pen over 100%
• Crit – gives melee, force and tech crit
• Surge – increased critical damage
• Armor – reduces physical and kinetic damage (all Tech and Force powers unless listed otherwise are Kinetic)
• Defense – increases Parry/Deflect (deflect is just ranged parry)
• Shield – increases chance to be shielded on attack
• Absorption – increases the % of damage shaved off shielded attacks
• Alacrity – Cast/channel Haste
• Expertise – PvP stat. Increases damage and healing done, reduces damage taken.

Basic Equipment Information:

All character have 9 armor slots, 3 relic slots, 1 mainhand and 1 offhand slot.

9 slots are: Head, Chest, Hands, Waist, Legs, Feet, Wrists, Ear and Implant

Mainhands Weapons: Lightsabers (single and double), vibroswords and knives, blaster pistols and rifles, sniper rifles, assault cannons, scatterguns (shotguns), and electrostaves. Gauntlets and Training swords are also listed as being in the game, but are insignificant past level 6, or not in the game as far as I can tell.

Offhands: Focus, shields, generators, lightsabers and blaster pistols.

Relics: Relics are poorly implemented currently, but they are just stat-sticks you make by combining matrix shards (which come from Datacrons.) Matrix Shards come in 4 colors, Red, Green, Yellow and Blue. Tri-color combinations (RGB, RGY, BYR and BYG) require level 15 and give a primary state and endurance (stat depends on the combo.) Double-color relics (YYR, BBG, etc.) give more stats, require level 24, and have a secondary stat. Single-color relics (RRR, BBB, etc.) always give your classes primary stat, have 2 secondary stats, and require level 50.

It should be noted, it is currently impossible to make some of the single-color relics as the matrix shards are not implemented correctly. The only 2 you can legitimately make to my knowledge are YYY, and possibly RRR.

Most gear is itemized currently so item types have correct core stats (i.e., no +WILL Heavy Armor.) There are a few exceptions that will be fixed (+CUN Assault Cannons, for example.)

Companions:

They share the core-stat system and all wear armor of a certain type. They do not have relic slots, but have every other slot.

Droid companions have different gear, but share the same gist to itemization. They have a Sensor Unit (Helm), 2 Cores (Chest/Pants), 2 Motors (Gloves/Feet), and 2 Parts (belt/bracers) and they all use +AIM as a stat. They still use Ear and Implant slots, sport regular Blaster-type weapons (pistols or rifles), and use normal off-hands (sheilds or generators.)

How Mods Work:

It should be first stated that not all items have mod slots and cannot be upgraded in any way.

The mod system is like socketting gems in WoW, but they give more stats and generally drop into items that, on their own, have absolutely no stats; not even armor. Armor values are determined by the type of armor (light/med/heavy), and the armor rating stat listed on mods. Damage is the same thing, but with damage modifiers and weapon types (assault cannons do more than blasters, for example.) Your level 10 armor can be your level 50 armor if you can mod it enough to keep it relevant.

Almost all mods have variable quality (not rarity.) They will have minor variations in their name, and will provide different statistical bonuses even though they will have the same level requirements and rarity.

Example: Patron MZ-40y Power Cell.

Patron is a prefix that always gives +CUN +END. y can be a number between 1 and 4 and is the indicator of quality, 4 being the best (having the highest stats.) The range from 1-4 can be fairly significant. This will drive min/maxers completely insane as you cannot craft them (currently.)

Patron MZ-401 might be [+10cun +8end] and Patron MZ-404 might be [+13cun +10end]. You have 21 mod slots that can have this variable quality “feature”, which can result in the difference of hundreds of stat points on high level mods.

Modulators:

Modulators are the only common mod shared between weapons and armor pieces. Modulator slots are found on critical crafted items, and are effectively a “free” slot. Crafted items with static stats can have modulator slots. Modulators are obtained through Underworld Trading crew missions and can have any stat, making critical crafted epics potentially the best items in the game unless high-level epic items spawn with more mod slots or static stats (both of which are expected.)

Armor:

The 6 types of Armor mods: Harness, Underlay, Overlay, Support, Circuitry, and Modulators.

Items are composed of: Harness or Underlay + 1-2 of Overlay/Support/Circuitry + Modulator (crit craft only)

Harnesses (head/leg/chest) and Underlays (everything else) always have armor rating and core stats, and no items have both Harness and Underlay slots. Overlays have core stats, support/circuitry do not.

Optimal armor items are always Harness/Underlay + Overlay (+ Support/Circuitry if 3 mods.) It is actually not worth upgrading if you lose an overlay slot because of how much better core stats are than secondary stats.

Weapons:

Weapons have the potential, unlike armor, to have 5 mod slots and have more mod types.

• Ranged: Barrel + Power Cell + (Trigger or Scope) + Color Crystal + Modulator (crit craft only)
• Melee: Power Crystal + Hilt + (Focus Lens or Matrix Emitter) + Color Crystal¹ + Modulator (crit craft² only.)

1 – Vibro weapons do not have color crystals. 2 – you cannot currently craft full lightsabers.

Barrels and Power Crystals control damage rating, Power Cells and Hilts have core stats while Triggers, Scopes, Lenses and Emitters do not. Color Crystals can have core stats (but usually just have endurance), so using vibro weapons is inadvisable.

Crafting Basics:

The general crafting system in TOR is nearly identical to WoW, except to make items you simply open a menu and send a companion to do it instead of running to the required apparatus and crafting it yourself. This is actually really convenient, especially since some crafted items take upwards of 20 minutes to craft, and your idle companions aren’t doing anything anyway. You can generally send all but 1 companion to craft, or on missions, but it’s based on your level, not how many companions you actually have. This means you can only send 4 at level 49 even though you’ll have 6 companions, whereas you can send 5/6 at level 50.

All companions, except for the ship droid who’s sole purpose is a profession bot, have bonuses to 2 professions. +Efficiency reduces the time it takes to complete missions by a percentage and +Critical increases the likelihood of getting a critical craft or acquiring epic gems, metals, fabrics, and polymers from mission-based professions. All bonuses cap out around 5-10, and some are lower (+critical to missions are +2 while crafting is +5, because missions have a 20% crit chance already, and crafting is 5% base.)

Critical crafts do 3 things:

• Armor/Weapons: Adds a modulator slot
• Mods: Makes 2
• Missions: Gives epic quality crafting materials

Reverse Engineering:

RE is TOR’s version of disenchanting. You are only able to RE items similar to ones you can craft, and the item’s overall quality determines what kind of goodies you get from it (you always get crafting materials.) Generally speaking, you should never RE anything you cannot craft as it is unprofitable.

You currently cannot RE mods. I don’t know if you ever will be able to, but I feel it has to be added in order make crafting viable endgame.

The main reason RE exists is to learn how to make better craftable items. When you RE an item that you can craft (which you learn off of trainers or schematics) there is a chance you will learn to make a better version of the same item, both in rarity and power. This is done through a prefix system, that will determine a static property being added to whatever item you RE’d.

Lets say you RE’d a Space Blaster (uncommon) and learned how to make a Commander’s Space Blaster (rare).

“Commander” is a prefix (like WoW’s “of the _____” suffixes) that adds +Presence to the item. If you don’t like the prefix you got, you just RE more Space Blasters until you get something you do want, like “Overloaded” (+power) or “Critical” (+crit rating). I do not have a full list of these, but as far as I can tell, you cannot get a prefix from crafting that gives core stats.

Now that you can make Commander’s Space Blaster, you can now RE that to learn an epic version. This epic version will retain the prefix of the first, but since it’s an epic, will have increased stats by having better base mods.

To summarize:

• Step 1: Uncommon version. Learned from trainers.
• Step 2: Rare version. Has improved stats in addition to a prefix for more stats.
• Step 3: Epic version. Has improved stats in addition to the rare prefix. They will also add another prefix “Advanced”.

You can also crit all of these crafts which will add a Modulator slot (as mentioned earlier.) Critical crafts also have a higher probability, when RE’d, of learning better patterns. Unless you fill the Modulator slot, critical crafts do nothing on their own.

Critting an epic craft leads to an obnoxiously long item name, such as: [Exceptional Advanced Commander's Space Blaster]

Specific Crafting Information:

All players can have 1 Production, and 2 other crew skills.

Sending your companions on missions is expensive and time consuming, but the only way to actually level the mission-based professions. You can level a tradeskill from 1-400 without using any mission professions as they only exist to facilitate the crafting of rare and epic items. All Mission professions provide companion gifts, and have 1 other unique feature to them in addition to resource gathering.

Production:

• Force user crew skills: Artifice and Synthweaving – Lightsabers, offhands, STR and WILL armor of all types.
• Non-Force user skills: Armormech and Armstech – Ranged weapons, AIM and CUN medium and heavy armor.
• Good for both: Biochem and Cybertech – Consumables, implant and ear slot items, droid parts.

Gathering:

World nodes are the main way of leveling these, but they do have missions which are useful for getting rarer components such as artifact fragments or color crystals for Archaeology. Droid parts are also quite rare from gathering for Slicing.

• Archaeology – Synthweaving and Artifice
• Slicing – Cybertech, makes tons of money and gets lots of free items (always take this until 50.)
• Scavenging – Armstech and Armormech
• Bioanalysis – Biochem

Missions:

• Treasure Hunting – Gemstones are used to make Weapons and typeless gear (Armstech, Artifice*, Cybertech)
• Diplomacy – Fabrics make “Light” armor (Artifice, Synthweaving)
• Investigation – Research Compounds make “Medium” armor (Synthweaving, Artifice, Armormech)
• Underworld Trading – Metals make “Heavy” armor (Armormech, Artifice, Synthweaving) Chemicals currently unused, but are for Biochem. Only source of Modulators

* - you cannot currently make full lightsabers, but this should be changed before launch.

All the professions are in a bit of a weird unfinished state right now and needs some TLC before launch, but the overall premise to them is good. Artifice makes a lot of armor items it probably shouldn’t, and Cybertech doesn’t make items it probably should (vibroswords/knives and electrostaves.) Slicing is basically a money fountain. All of these things would be reasonably simple to improve before launch.

Here is the link to the original post http://www.reddit.com/r/swtor/comments/k5mcd/

I hope this helps you out and ill see you in the game!!

Mark

Mogs.com

SWG Guru

Star Wars: The Old Republic Trooper Dossier

Last week the latest class video from SWTOR was revealed, highlighting the Republic Trooper. The video showcases some of the incredible weapons and devices Troopers will be able to use to defeat their enemies. With combat experience and intense training, Troopers are able to specialize in different Advanced Classes in order to increase their battlefield prowess and tailor your character to match your playstyle: improve your Trooper’s defensive tactics to become a nearly unstoppable Vanguard, or go all-out on offense and become a deadly Commando.

Tanno Vik the Weequay

The first Trooper companion are are introduced to, Tanno Vik, is an ex-military demolitions expert who really loves his job. A Weequay who impressed his military instructors by always planting explosives where they would do the most damage, the Republic army considered him for the Special Forces division, but his attitude and disregard for authority always held him back. Vik will eventually run into you and become a part of your crew if you pick the Republic Trooper class.

He has been accused of criminal exploits countless times in his past, and those Troopers who wish to keep lawfully aligned might do well to stay weary of this shady character. Still, in a fight, it seems that having Vik on one’s side could mean the difference between victory and defeat. It is a troubling time in the galaxy, and allies of a less savory nature are proving to be invaluable against the New Sith Empire. As long as the profits keep flowing, there should be no complaints from this companion.

“I don’t trust him either; he is my friend.” -Han Solo

Trooper Ship: BT-7 Thunderclap

For Air Combat, Troopers are introduced to their Rendili Hyperworks BT-7 Thunderclap. This ship is the Republic’s largest and most elite rapid assault ship—streamlined for fast deployment in combat situations. State-of-the-art armor plating and heavy laser cannons provide exceptional combat capability, modular shield systems protect the Thunderclap from enemy fire, and the ship’s design deflects blaster fire away from crucial components in the event of shield failure.

Massively interviews BioWare on SWTOR’s crafting and PvP

Last week, BioWare dished a bit on the crafting aspects of Star Wars: The Old Republic. This week, there’s a bit more detail on it ¹, and thankfully, the developers are turning the sometimes daunting task of crafting on its ear a bit.

Oh, and there’s a bit more on PvP as well.

Crafting in the game will basically be accomplished by your crew members so that you can run off and do other things. How this works, was explained to Massively by lead writer Daniel Erickson.

“If you wanted to play the old-style crafting game, and you wanted to watch that progress bar for 20 hours, I mean, you could,” he said. “You could just stand there. But this is always the part that seems monotonous. So [in SWTOR], I’m the crew boss. I decide what we make. I’m the guy that knows all the recipes. I’m the guy that knows how to do everything. And then I’m putting all of these people to work as my whole crew, into one unit — your companion characters are all a unit with you. And so, one, it makes all of your companion characters useful, which is nice. Two, it puts in skills for people who aren’t ever going to be real crafters. People who are not really into crafting are going to take mission skills, so their people are still going to be useful, but they’re going to run them on missions all the time. But serious crafters say that it’s a super deep system.

“[I] can’t talk too much about it, but you are going to be able to make stuff that is among the top stuff on the entire servers. And there are going to be people who know things that almost nobody else on the server knows how to do. There are elite, rare recipes. People who want to dabble in crafting, can, and can be successful in it and make themselves a little bit better. People who are not terribly interested in crafting can do the mission system and still get some cool stuff out of their companion characters. People who are really into crafting have a huge, complex system that they’re going to be able to go into and become masters at.”

So, choice is a good thing in this respect. Nothing is worse than sitting there, staring at a progress bar when you can be out killing shit, ya know? It’s good to know we canhave minions to do it for us if we so wish.

Now, onto the  PvP bits.

The reward system in the Warzones, explained a bit by lead PvP designer Gabe Amatangelo, it’s not going to be an all-or-nothing system. Players will be rewarded based on how much effort was put into the battle. Obviously, the longer you hang around, the better the reward. Each Warzone will also have a different mechanic, but certain ones – like the reward system – will span across of them.

“Basically (long story short) once you’re invested in the match, if you’re trying to min-max your rewards, you’re not going to want to leave,” said Amatangelo. “You want to finish the match and then start another match. Now, it’s a fine line, because you don’t want to not have the incentive to win. So it’s not like everyone gets equal rewards, not at all. But if you do the math — and of course, players will — it’s going to be better for you to finish that match, and then go into the next one and try to win the next one.

“Warzones are finite, and the goal is that it’s immersive along the way. You want to feel the tension of the combat, and so there’s a lot of visceral elements that elevate that tension as it goes on. In the months to come we’ll be talking about some other PvP features including some more specifics about features inside Warzones that kind of go hand in hand with that sort of elevation of gameplay tension.”

SWTOR is slated for release sometime after Q1 2011, and EA announced this week it has taken over full publishing duties from Lucasarts.

1. http://www.massively.com/2010/11/12/massively-interviews-bioware-on-swtors-crafting-and-pvp/  ↩

The Old Republic Space Combat Teaser Video

Whether you’re a groundpounder or a space jockey, The Old Republic is gunning your way, big-time. Fans of either (or both!) aspects of the game have a little more to look forward to this week, as BioWare released additional information on the advanced classes and rolled out the first two starfighters for the public to see.

If the recently revealed space combat has you itching to jump into the cockpit, you can check out the first two starships (out of six) that will take pilots through the midst of adrenaline-pumping battles. The Fury is an Imperial interceptor (which looks like a predecessor of the TIE Interceptor), designed with speed and firepower in mind. Its counterpart, the Defender, is a standard Republic corvette that’s been upgraded with turbolasers and shields for quick combat missions. Hopefully, we’ll find out the remaining four fighters before too long! ¹

1. source: Massively: The Old Republic unveils first two combat ships  ↩

Jedi Knight Specializations In Star Wars The Old Republic

BioWare recently announced two specializations to the Jedi Knight class, the Sentinel, and the Guardian. Brief descriptions of each have been released. These help to illustrate what possible MMO archetypical roles the specializations will fit into.

The Sentinel dual wields light sabers, creating a barrage of damage that is hard for foes to evade. Moreover, they can measure their own technique against their enemies defense, and make adjustments on the fly. This sounds like an all out DPS class that will have different tricks to ensure their damage output stays high.

The Guardian uses his perfect concentration to withstand the onslaught of multiple enemies at once. He dares opponents to attack, and inspires allies to perform beyond their normal abilities. His mastery of the force allows him to evade enemies despite the weight of his armor. The Guardian seems to be a traditional tanking class. Also, they will provide buffs to party members to inflate their stats for battle.

Starwars: The Old Republic Music

The emotional experience of Star Wars™ comes to life in new music created exclusively for The Old Republic™. From soft melodies that ring in the forest of Alderaan to the magnificent booming of a battle scene on Ord Mantell, a talented team of composers, musicians and developers came together to create a magical score for the game. Audio in The Old Republic, just as with the rest of the game, begins with the storytelling. As you all know by now, for the first time ever in an MMO, every quest and character will come to life fully voiced. This is a Star Wars saga that gives new meaning to the word ‘epic’: eight unique class storylines, thousands of hours of gameplay, and hundreds of thousands of dialogue lines. It is likely the largest voiceover project in entertainment history.

When you think about the legacy of Star Wars™, what you hear has totally moved and excited its fans: the orchestral score, the Cantina music, Chewie’s roar, and the pew-pew of a blaster rifle immediately take us to a galaxy far, far away. Developing sound for Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ requires that they bring together the talents of dialogue writers, cinematic designers, voice-over actors, musicians, engineers, and production teams at both LucasArts and BioWare. It’s their job to create an audio experience that enhances the emotional experience of the game and reaches the quality level expected of the Star Wars franchise. As fans and as game makers, I hope they’re excited and privileged to breathe life into every planet, every weapon, and every creature that beeps, squawks, or just plain talks…and it’s not as easy as it looks, er, sounds.  ¹

Mark@MOGS
SWG Guru

1. source: http://swtor.com/news/blog/ ↩

Starwars: The Old Republic defines Bounty Hunter class.

Hunter, Seeker, Killer for Hire
Countless enemies stand in the way of the Sith Empire’s drive for domination. The Empire spares no expense eliminating these threats, offering massive bounties to employ the galaxy’s most lethal hunters. Earning a death mark from the Empire means a life spent in fear, constantly looking over one’s shoulder. It is not a question of if a Bounty Hunter will find you… only when.

In my last post, 10 Upcoming MMOG’s for 2009, I touched briefly on some of the games coming out this year and how excited I was about Star Wars: The Old Republic. Last week’s Star Wars: The Old Republic trailer revealed that the soon to be released MMORPG will continue in Star Wars: Galaxies footsteps and allow bounty hunters as a playable class. This week Bioware updated their website to include a new class section devoted to providing more information about the current and upcoming playable classes.

The first public class Bioware defines is the Bounty Hunter class, giving us a good look at our future Fett, who apparently activates his jetpack with a wrist-worn laptop or something. While this is the first class to be announced by Bioware, it’s pretty much a given than Jedi Knights and Dark Jedi will be playable classes as well.

In describing bounty hunter capabilities, they mention their overall efficiency against “force-users”, which might be something to think about since you can almost guarantee that if Bioware follows in Sony’s shadow and makes the same mistake as far as making the Jedi class so easy to reach, everyone and their mother will be a Jedi something or another.

They also go a little in depth about itemization for the class, mentioning flame throwers, rocket launchers, and all manners of specially designed armor. “It’s not unheard of for a Bounty Hunter to spend as many credits on an advanced blaster as others might spend to purchase an entire starship.”

Jason@MOGS.com