Star Wars: The Old Republic's patch 2.7 went live the other week, bringing the allure of new progression in the game's story arc in the form of two new "tactical" flashpoints. The intent was to introduce the foundations of the new plot line that will ostensibly round out the 2.x patch cycle, and the year, by fully fanning the flames of a war "recently" reignited. When I started ToR two years ago, I was very disappointed that, at endgame, there was very little to the conflict between the Galactic Republic and the Sith Empire other than bland, repetitive PvP. It makes sense, in a convoluted kind of way, I suppose, but it was still a pretty big let down after fifty levels and something like a dozen planets' worth of cold war ready to boil over into all out conflict.
Now, finally, the spast is ready to hit the ventilator and we get...Two tacticals and a vendor with two specific sets of out-dated gear shells? But, where's the carnage? The devastation? The planet-shattering kaboom? It feels very much like both sides' battle fleets are stuck in traffic honking at each other from opposite sides of the intergalactic freeway.
I'm not intending to hate on the content - in fact, I've actually enjoyed the new tacticals despite there being absolutely nothing of value for me from them save a couple of very rare-drop speeders. Found fewer bugs and had far less intrinsic lag than the last tactical introduced, Kuat Drive Yards, which itself sounded very promising but failed to deliver on replay value for me. And replay must be the goal of new content; people have to want to run it ad nauseum, else they'll leave. All in all, despite my enjoyment, 2.7's content infusion feels very weak in the face of a much anticipated release behemoth like The Elder Scrolls Online.
What's really bugged me about the patch, though, is the continuation of a trend started in 2.6 - the (to me) senseless gutting of reactionary procs. On the one hand, I get it; having your DPS completely dependent on mythic, star-aligning procs is never fun and is inherently bad design (gogo Seal of Casino!). However, making rotations mindlessly sequential is just as bad, to my preference, since it effectively negates any measure of skill in a spec and places a player's value entirely on their gear to produce solid, effective damage. The only thing ToR has going for it in combating this predicament is the absolute lack of automation inherent to the game; that is to say, no macros.
But I do often forget that ToR has really only been out for a touch over two years. The anti-RNG changes that have been addressed seems to indicate that BioWare does, to some small extent, listen to their playerbase and try to address issues. And that's a very good thing for the longevity of the game. So, really, not much to do but sit back and watch.
Your move, Dev Team.
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