Longtime readers will know that I’m not usually one for hot takes. It’s been a more than week since SWTOR‘s last update, but I think it’s probably worth putting my reactions on the record. Consider this my lukewarm take on game update 6.2.1.
First let’s start with the elephant in the room, because relatively speaking, it takes up about as much space on our screens: the Amplifier sidebar. It is a real head-scratcher. The newly designed character sheet puts Amplifiers in a position of prominence that far, far outweighs their actual importance to players, while the information that actually matters is relegated to a tabbed table in the bottom left.
I don’t even know where to begin with this. The User Interface should, above all, account for how players will use it and make information and functions easier to access. I often check my Accuracy and Alacrity when swapping gear, I generally don’t care what Amplifiers I have. Additionally, putting the weapons smack dab in the middle of the column of armor slots in remarkably non-intuitive. I can’t tell you how many times last week I tried to equip a belt in my weapon slot.
I am all in favor of an improved Amplifier interface, and I have no issue with the cost of rerolling locked Amplifiers. The game needs credit sinks, and the players who most care about their Amps likely have the most cash to burn. I tell new players not to worry about Amplifiers at all; as they acquire maximum level gear, consider setting aside good mods with good Amps if they want, but, aside the daily reroll for Conquest points, I think the vast majority of players have no need to fuss with their Amplifiers.
The Amplifier window should not be a massive caboose that distracts players from the real reasons they want to access the character sheet.
This was not the only annoyance to be found in the latest patch. SWTOR game updates often come with new and unintended bugs. This time those bugs have affected Utilities and Tacticals that grant extra stacks of buffs. For example, the Tactical that is supposed to give Sage healers an extra jump of Wandering Mend currently has no effect, and the Force Harmonics Utility that should grant Shadows an extra charge of Force Potency is likewise ineffective. Pretty much every class has at least one spec affected, and it’s frustrating that we are into our second week of discussing which bad Tactical or normally subpar Utilities should be used instead while we await a hotfix.
Finally the update did bring some changes to Uprisings, Knights of the Eternal Throne’s forgotten group content. The Uprisings have been rebalanced for level 75, and I’m honestly glad to have more max-level content to romp around in. I am on the record as someone who enjoys Uprisings. The have some neat mounts and achievements to farm, the power-ups are fun and they are a nice change of pace from the Flashpoints I’ve run many times over the years. There, however, is legitimate confusion over how the difficulty designations of Uprisings and Flashpoints don’t align. A Storymode flashpoint is meant to be soloed, but a Storymode Uprising is meant for a group, and a Veteran Uprising has more in common with a Master Mode flashpoint. I think some nomenclature clarifications are in order.
While I haven’t tried any of the rebalanced Master Mode Uprisings yet, I have run a few Storymodes with a friend and they seem to fill the spot that the old school Heroic-4’s used to: quick, small group content where companions can fill in for players in a pinch. Even in 270 gear with mid-level companions, we were able to complete several Uprisings in 15-20 minutes without much fuss. The boss fights felt maybe a bit too long, and some mechanics chewed up companions while others had very little effect, but that’s always been the risk when subbing in companions in place of players.
If you’re tired of Hammer Station and the same old heroics, grab a friend and your favorite companions and try a few Uprisings. You’ll get to revisit some familiar locations, watch trash mobs explode like popcorn and hopefully have a laidback, good time. In the meantime, we await official word about whether the Character Sheet will be revised due to player feedback and when those frustrating bugs will be quashed.