A Very Brief Overview of Upcoming Mod Changes [MEGA]

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ShaolinPunk
3486 posts Moderator
edited August 2018
CG_SBCrumb wrote: »
This past week we concluded the second round of internal testing of our upcoming mods changes, have reviewed a number of points of feedback and are making changes thanks to our beta players. Earlier this year we added a number of new guilds to the beta program and are continuing to introduce more players and guilds to make sure we have lots of well-rounded feedback from the community. We have also just started using a smaller group of players to provide feedback on every build, given that recently we have had an uptick in bugs and issues that have not been received well by the community. All of this is to say, as we move forward, we are creating as many avenues as possible to listen to feedback, especially around changing existing systems like mods, which is why this update has been so long in the making.

As we discussed in the Road Ahead blog post, we have several goals for our next big update for mods: clarity, ease of use, depth, and balance, while simultaneously respecting the investment made so far in existing mods. What follows is an in-depth description of these features, which may be a little lengthy and detailed for some, but we’re hoping will provide clarity to others.

For this particular beta, we are allowing our testers to discuss their experiences testing the new update publicly so you may see some of them discussing upcoming changes on the forums.

Over the next few weeks, we will be doing some videos (for people who prefer to watch than read) about how this will work. Check out this pinned post where we’re going to list new announcements and content related to Mods.

Objective: Clarity These features are intended to make mods easier to understand and use. Currently, many players who would benefit from using mods are not using them, and we’ve heard from the community that one of the major issues is that they’re hard to understand.
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  • Basic vs Advanced Views: A Basic view of mods has been created to make the introduction to the mods feature more streamlined for novice mods players. In the Basic view players can Auto Assign mods using a mod recommendation system detailed below. Additionally, the mods inventory and stats are not displayed to reduce the amount of information being served to players in Basic view. Advanced view is similar to the current mods view that is live. You can view mods inventory, stats, and manually assign any mods in Advanced view.
    Note: The last view you had selected will be the view loaded when you return to mods.
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  • Recommendation System: One of the most difficult aspects of mods is understanding which mods to put on a character. The recommendation system simplifies this by suggesting specific mod(s) from the inventory to assign. The recommendation system identifies the best set, primary stat, and secondary stats for general use of that character. If the player has an available mod that is a “decent” to “perfect fit”, it will be recommended; if not, it will identify where that mod can be found. As this system provides an all-purpose set of recommended mods for general utility, players that are experts at mod optimization will likely continue to select their own mod configurations in Advanced view (especially if the player changes mods based on the game mode).
  • Mod Auto Assign: This is a quick way to assign all the recommended mods for a character. When auto assigning mods, players can choose to have the algorithm not only search your mod inventory but also select mods that are currently assigned to specific characters and gives recommendations based on the best mods a player owns.
  • Mod Energy: Mod Battles and Mod Challenges now have a different energy from Cantina Energy. The purpose of this change is to allow players to do Mod Battles and Mod Challenges more frequently without sacrificing progress in Cantina Battles. Cantina Tokens will be removed as rewards for Mod Battles and Mod Challenges although players will be able to get the same amount of Cantina Tokens using their Cantina Energy in Cantina Battles. Like ship energy, mod energy will not count toward the daily 600 (or else we’d be forced to increase that requirement).

Objective: Ease of Use These features are meant for players that currently engage with mods but would like mod management to be easier.
  • Mod Loadouts: Players can now create, edit and save sets (Loadouts) of mods for re-use across characters. This is a quick way for players to swap mods onto characters for different game modes. To make the process of creating mod loadouts easier, a loadout can be created based on the mods currently assigned to a character.
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  • Advanced Filters: Players can now filter their mods by a variety of criteria including slot, set, primary stat, and secondary stats. This includes searching for a mod with multiple specific secondaries (ex. Mods that have Speed and Offense). In addition to filtering, you can sort by rarity or any secondary stat to you find that elusive mod even easier

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  • Assign mods already assigned to other characters: One of the new mod inventory filters will display mods that are already assigned to a character and allow moving a mod directly from one character to another.
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  • Toggle Arrows: Players will now be able to cycle through characters on the mod menu by using the toggle arrows on the basic or advanced views. Players no longer need to return to the character select screen to select a new character.
  • Destroy button removed: We have removed the destroy button so players will no longer accidentally destroy mods.
  • Mod Leveling Screen Improvement: Leveling a mod has been improved to allow selecting the desired mod level immediately without needing to tap "Select Level"
    e7lg1m9zf1hn.jpg

Objective: Depth These features are meant for players that would like to continue to make their mods stronger. When designing these features we focused deeply on respecting the investment that current players have already put into their mods.
  • Mod Tier Coloring and Naming: One of the most confusing aspects of mods is just determining which mods are good in the first place. A mod’s Tier (Color) is based on the number of secondary stats when it is acquired. For example a Tier A (Gold) Mod has 4 secondary stats at level 1 where a Tier E (Grey) mod has no secondary stats at level 1. What is confusing is that we currently increase the tier (change the color) when leveling the mod. This results in all level 15 mods being Tier A (Gold) when there is a vast difference in the value of a level 15 mod that started at Tier A (Gold) vs one that started at Tier E (Grey). To better represent the value of the mod, we are no longer increasing the mod’s tier when leveling.
    We’re going to set each mod’s color to the tier of the mod when it was first acquired, however the mod’s stats will remain unchanged. This may be somewhat of a visual shock, but keep in mind that the stats are not changing through this update. We’d also suggest that until these changes go into effect, you may want to avoid mass selling your 5-dot mods, so you can make a more accurate decision about their value.
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  • Mod Slicing (upgrading Tier): We’re introducing a new feature, Slicing, that allows players to increase a mod’s tier. Slicing can only begin after a mod has been leveled to 15. Similar to crafting gear, Slicing requires new pieces of salvage that can be acquired through Mod Battles. This is a new battle tier (tier 9), so if you haven’t completed your Mod Battles yet, one way you can prepare for this update is to do that now. Once the salvage has been acquired, players then elect to slice the mod which will improve the mod’s Tier, increasing a random secondary stat and changing to the next color. This process can be repeated until the mod is at the max tier of 5A (Gold) which will have roughly similar stats to a natural 5A, but requiring the investment of slicing materials and credits compared to a natural 5A. For example, you can now take a rarity 5E mod (Grey) and increase its stats by slicing it four times to a max tier of 5A (Gold).
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  • Mod Salvage/Recipes: Slicing a mod will require Mod Salvage ingredients. The ingredients required will change depending on the Tier of the mod.
  • Slicing to 6E: The primary reason we introduced Slicing was to find a way to introduce rarity 6 mods while respecting current mod investment. Rarity 6 mods will be acquired through slicing from Rarity 5, Tier A to Rarity 6, Tier E. This process increases all the existing stats on the mod. 6-E will be the highest that a mod can be sliced at this time. See the Balance section for more details.
    ou84w68358tg.jpg
    5A vs 6E Primary Stat Values
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Objective: Balance Create more diversity in the mod meta by elevating some of the sets and secondary stats that are currently under-utilized. Secondary Stat changes are exclusive to rarity 6 mods.
  • Max Level Set Bonuses: To give value to all mod sets, the set bonuses of under utilized mod sets like Defense have been improved. No sets have been decreased.
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  • Rarity 6 Mods with Secondary Stat Balance: When a mod is sliced from 5A to 6E, all secondary stats will be increased by a multiplier to new 6E values. No secondary stats will get an additional roll at that time.
    axw6ximmeqkm.png

    Here’s an example of slicing a Speed Mod:
    ofp9sytkobt9.png
    In the example above, your Flat Health increases from 632 to 796 when you sliced from 5-A to 6-E.

    Another important thing to note is that we didn’t change the relative range of possible values for your mods. A mod which has accumulated 30% of the maximum possible value at 5A, will scale to 30% of 6E’s maximum possible range when sliced.
    noru7vtd24fp.png
    In short, top mods will still be awesome after slicing…and your not so great mods, though having higher stats at 6E, may still be candidates to sell.
Reduce Cost Of Leveling Mods:
One step we are taking to make Mods more accessible is to reduce the cost of leveling a mod. Particularly before 85, the cost to level a mod deters many players from investing in mods even if it’s the best choice to improve their team’s overall power. This is already live as of July 25th.

Change to Mod Secondaries:
The addition of Slicing has resulted in us needing to make one change to how Mod secondary stats are earned. As you know, the number of substats on a mod at level 1 is designated by its Tier/Color. So at level 1, mods will look like the following:
  • Tier E (Grey): 0 Secondaries
  • Tier D (Green): 1 Secondary
  • Tier C (Blue): 2 Secondaries
  • Tier B (Purple): 3 Secondaries
  • Tier A (Gold): 4 Secondaries

A secondary stat is then added or increased at level 3, 6, 9, and 12. For Grey Mods this means that a new secondary is added at each of these levels and for gold mods it means that a random secondary is increased at each of these levels. This will not change.

The change we are making is specific to green, blue, and purple mods. In the current system, these mods increase one existing secondary before revealing new ones. For example a green mod will increase its one secondary stat before adding the other 3. This gives the green mod some added value as it guarantees its first secondary to get an increase.

The problem with this approach is that once Slicing is introduced, starting with a green mod that has a speed secondary, leveling it to 15, and then slicing it to gold will give better odds of a high speed mod than starting with a gold mod that has speed as one of its 4 secondaries. The change we are making is to always add secondary stats (up to 4) before increasing a secondary. This will ensure that starting with a green mod gives the same odds as starting with a gold mod, it will just take resources (ex. mod salvage) when starting at green due to the slicing materials that need to be acquired.

There are still several weeks until we will be making this change. We implemented the lower mod leveling costs to give players time to upgrade their existing green, blue, and purple mods at a reduced cost prior to the change, so make sure to take advantage of the old system with solid green, blue and purple mods before this update happens. Particularly those green mods with a speed secondary!

Mod Challenge Requirements Change
Another step toward making mods more accessible is making it easier to acquire mods. We have taken steps in the past to do this such as moving to a 100% drop rate on Mod Challenges and are now going to take another step in accessibility by removing the specific character requirements on Mod Challenges. While we recognize the investment many elder players have put into these characters, a combination of data and player feedback is showing that a major reason why players are not engaging with mods is that they don’t meet the character requirements to do the challenges for more desirable mod types, such as Critical Damage. For a player getting started on Mods, there is a large barrier to entry of getting the required characters, even before beginning the search for a set of “perfect mods”. This results in new players having to make a hard choice between investing in the characters that best help their guild, such as characters needed for Raids/Territory Battles/Territory Wars/Legendary Events or to invest in characters for Mod Challenges (like Jawas). We believe that the sooner a player starts engaging with mods the sooner they can start making meaningful contributions to their Guild and this change will enable those contributions.

Suggestions for the next few weeks
  • Complete Mod Battles in preparation for tier 9.
  • Level up your Green, Blue or Purple mods if you want to take advantage of how revealed substats are currently leveled into prior to the upcoming change.
  • Hold off on selling lower level mods until slicing is available.

Original Post (LINK)
**Please tag me (@ShaolinPunk) if you need assistance.** My Collection. . My Poll.. Ally Code: 332-622-913 Discord: shaolin_punk#2107
Post edited by CG_SBCrumb on

Replies

  • ShaolinPunk
    3486 posts Moderator
    Reserved.
    **Please tag me (@ShaolinPunk) if you need assistance.** My Collection. . My Poll.. Ally Code: 332-622-913 Discord: shaolin_punk#2107
  • Idk why they added slicing...so much to read...ugh lol
  • I told everyone 6 dot mods were coming and the secondary stats would be balanced. You all thought I was crazy!

    I don’t think the secondary stats are getting enough of a boost (speed will still be king), but it’s at least a step in the right direction.
  • Oh, also, how is speed increasing by 3%? What does that mean. If I have a +16 speed mod, what will it go to? 16.48???
  • Oh, also, how is speed increasing by 3%? What does that mean. If I have a +16 speed mod, what will it go to? 16.48???

    The show an 11going to 12 , so odds are, your 16 will go to 17
  • this sounds pretty good overall at the first look
    thank you for the headsup informations
  • CG_SBCrumb
    685 posts EA Community Manager
    edited August 2018
    Oh, also, how is speed increasing by 3%? What does that mean. If I have a +16 speed mod, what will it go to? 16.48???

    You most likely see it rounded up to 17 but in general speed is going to almost stay the same in the update. I believe you'll around 2-3 more points of speed on your character from upgrading an entire set so probably more worth it to you for the upgrades to the other stats.
  • Ebbda
    261 posts Member
    Another reason folks aren't engaging in mods is Cantina energy is gold dust and gambling on mods over hard node farms (Vets, Death Trooper, etc.) takes a back seat.

    I'm belatedly farming the Vets so mod farming is off the table for quite some time. Perhaps having the same as normal energy would give more options? Soon the influx of marquee toons into Cantina no doubt will continue this trend.

    Look forward to seeing how this plays out.

  • CG_SBCrumb wrote: »
    Oh, also, how is speed increasing by 3%? What does that mean. If I have a +16 speed mod, what will it go to? 16.48???

    You most likely see it rounded up to 17 but in general speed is going to almost stay the same in the update. I believe you'll around 2-3 more points of speed on your character from upgrading an entire set so probably more worth it to you for the upgrades to the other stats.

    So your “exact” and “display” fields are throwing me off. Does the game use decimal points on its stats? It sounds silly to be concerned about tenths of speed, but I frequently design my teams to have a very specific turn order. That could be thrown off and make things very irritating if the displayed values aren’t the actual values because of rounding.
  • What I picked up:
    •New mod energy (good)
    •New mod salvage (hopefully good, might be bad if it has a low drop rate)
    •Green mods will no longer have a 100% chance to upgrade their starting secondary stat (bad)
    •Blue and purple mods will have a lower chance at upgrading their starting secondary stats too (bad)
    •Players can choose to assign mods themselves or have the game do it automatically (good)
    •Mod Loadouts (very good)
    •Destroy button removed (good)
    •Mod colors are going to change back to their level 1 color based on their tier (probably slightly confusing)
    •Mod slicing (good)
    •Six dot mods (dunno if it’s good or bad)
    •Six dot mods have all secondaries increased by a small amount (good)
    •All mod sets besides speed and CD have increased bonus stats (good)
    •Mod challenges no longer require specific factions (good)
    •Mods are cheaper to level up (good)

    There’s a lot of changes that’ll take some time to get used to, but overall they look like mostly good changes.
  • That's the brief overview is it....okey dokey.

    Hey, it's still better than MSF
  • The problem with this approach is that once Slicing is introduced, starting with a green mod that has a speed secondary, leveling it to 15, and then slicing it to gold will give better odds of a high speed mod than starting with a gold mod that has speed as one of its 4 secondaries.

    So in my confused state.. this is just a way to indirectly nerf the speed stat so we don't end up with more 20+ speed mods?
  • The problem with this approach is that once Slicing is introduced, starting with a green mod that has a speed secondary, leveling it to 15, and then slicing it to gold will give better odds of a high speed mod than starting with a gold mod that has speed as one of its 4 secondaries.

    So in my confused state.. this is just a way to indirectly nerf the speed stat so we don't end up with more 20+ speed mods?

    It won’t though. That’s why they changed it
  • "Slicing to 6E: The primary reason we introduced Slicing was to find a way to introduce rarity 6 mods while respecting current mod investment."

    Hahaha no it's money from when the salvage packs are released in store
  • Overall, I think these changes (especially buffing the underused sets) are right on target.

    Removing faction requirements is a bit of a bummer, because it forced me to build out some backburner teams, but that was also before TW/TB/STR/JTR came out, so new accounts already have waaaaaay more on their plate.
  • Syrup_Chugger3
    2170 posts Member
    edited August 2018
    The problem with this approach is that once Slicing is introduced, starting with a green mod that has a speed secondary, leveling it to 15, and then slicing it to gold will give better odds of a high speed mod than starting with a gold mod that has speed as one of its 4 secondaries.

    So in my confused state.. this is just a way to indirectly nerf the speed stat so we don't end up with more 20+ speed mods?

    It won’t though. That’s why they changed it

    Still confused. I kinda see theyre trying to move away from the speed is king thing lol...

    Side note @CG_SBCrumb I see that there's charts with changes to max level set bonuses, and secondary stats,(probably skipped over it and sorry if I did) but is there a bit about how primaries will be changing when sliced to 6 dot? IE 23.5% protection becomes.. 28%? 31%?
  • Tier 6 mods will come from pre-existing Tier 5 mods. THANK YOU!!! This was by far my biggest worry about mod changes.
    #CloneHelmets4Life...VICTORY!!!! :smiley: "I don't like sand. It's coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere." The more you tighten your grip, CG/EA, the more whales will slip through your fingers (and go F2P or quit).
  • The problem with this approach is that once Slicing is introduced, starting with a green mod that has a speed secondary, leveling it to 15, and then slicing it to gold will give better odds of a high speed mod than starting with a gold mod that has speed as one of its 4 secondaries.

    So in my confused state.. this is just a way to indirectly nerf the speed stat so we don't end up with more 20+ speed mods?

    It won’t though. That’s why they changed it

    Still confused. I kinda see theyre trying to move away from the speed is king thing lol...

    Side note @CG_SBCrumb I see that there's charts with changes to max level set bonuses, and secondary stats,(probably skipped over it and sorry if I did) but is there a bit about how primaries will be changing when sliced to 6 dot? IE 23.5% protection becomes.. 28%? 31%?

    When you upgrade a mod after this update, it will show you all stats first before upgrading one. So upgrading a green mod to level 9 will reveal all its stats, then upgrading it to 12 will reveal 1 stat upgrade. Slicing it to blue will reveal the 2nd upgrade, purple the 3rd, and gold the 4th. So a green mod showing protection as it’s only stat could actually upgrade to become a +25 speed mod. It will just take a lot of resources to find out.
  • Ikky2win
    870 posts Member
    edited August 2018
    While changing mods to be a separate energy might seem like a good idea at first glance, I actually think it's going to be a huge problem, especially for older players. Many older players have all the cantina characters, so they farm mods and use refreshes to mod challenges. This earns tickets for the guild. With this new mod system, the mod fights are going to use a separate energy which will NOT count towards the 600 daily tickets. So: 1) New energy doesn't count towards 600 tickets, 2) Some people who were refreshing cantina energy to do mod fights no longer will because there is nothing for them on the cantina table 3) Getting 600 tickets just became that much more difficult.

    I guess we have to wait to see how it plays out, but this is not good for guilds. Not good at all. @CG_SBCrumb one solution to this might be to only let the first refresh of mod and/or ship energy count towards the daily tickets. Your first refresh earns you tickets, subsequent ones don't.
  • CG_SBCrumb
    685 posts EA Community Manager
    edited August 2018
    The problem with this approach is that once Slicing is introduced, starting with a green mod that has a speed secondary, leveling it to 15, and then slicing it to gold will give better odds of a high speed mod than starting with a gold mod that has speed as one of its 4 secondaries.

    So in my confused state.. this is just a way to indirectly nerf the speed stat so we don't end up with more 20+ speed mods?

    It won’t though. That’s why they changed it

    Still confused. I kinda see theyre trying to move away from the speed is king thing lol...

    Side note @CG_SBCrumb I see that there's charts with changes to max level set bonuses, and secondary stats,(probably skipped over it and sorry if I did) but is there a bit about how primaries will be changing when sliced to 6 dot? IE 23.5% protection becomes.. 28%? 31%?
    No it wasn't included for some reason, making a chart right now with that info and will post shortly
  • Ikky2win
    870 posts Member
    edited August 2018
    The more I'm thinking about the energy change, the more concerned I am. There are two issues now that I see

    1) This one I mentioned in my previous posts: Older players who are currently refreshing cantina energy and earning guild tickets no longer will, since they already have all the cantina characters. Since the new mod energy does not earn tickets, some people are going to struggle to get to 600.

    2) Newer players (and by newer I'm meaning people in the 6-12 month range) who still need items from the Cantina shipments now have to decide whether to spend refreshes on mods or Cantina. If they spend them on mods, they not only don't get character shards, but they don't earn the cantina tokens because the new mod energy doesn't reward them. This means it will take them longer to get the characters in the Cantina store. Under the current system, these players could farm mods and still earn guild tokens to get the stuff they need from the Cantina store. Not anymore.

    I'm not entirely sure how this is going to play out, but #1 I think is the biggest issue. As an officer or a guild, getting every member to get 600 tickets every day is about the worst thing we have to do. I'm sure other officers of guilds will commiserate. It's going to be even tougher now.
  • Iy4oy4s
    2923 posts Member
    Overall, I think that its a really good change. Hopefully, the ingredients won't be as hard to get as say, stun guns. Step in the right direction. Bravo. Now, can you stop by the other forum fires please (t1-6 rewards review) please please please.
  • scuba
    14034 posts Member
    The problem with this approach is that once Slicing is introduced, starting with a green mod that has a speed secondary, leveling it to 15, and then slicing it to gold will give better odds of a high speed mod than starting with a gold mod that has speed as one of its 4 secondaries.

    So in my confused state.. this is just a way to indirectly nerf the speed stat so we don't end up with more 20+ speed mods?

    It won’t though. That’s why they changed it

    Still confused. I kinda see theyre trying to move away from the speed is king thing lol...

    Side note @CG_SBCrumb I see that there's charts with changes to max level set bonuses, and secondary stats,(probably skipped over it and sorry if I did) but is there a bit about how primaries will be changing when sliced to 6 dot? IE 23.5% protection becomes.. 28%? 31%?
    New way
    Purple mod with 3 secondary stats 1 of them speed

    Take it to level 3 it shows 4th secondary.
    Take it to level 6 upgrades one of the 4 secondary stats.
    Take it to level 9 upgrades one of the 4 secondary stats.
    Take it to level 12 upgrades one of the 4 secondary stats.
    Take it to level 15 and slice it, it upgrades one of the secondary stats.

    Gold mod (really old or new way)
    Take it to level 3 it upgrades one of the 4 secondary.
    Take it to level 6 upgrades one of the 4 secondary stats.
    Take it to level 9 upgrades one of the 4 secondary stats.
    Take it to level 12 upgrades one of the 4 secondary stats.

    So with the change coming all secondary stats are shown before any are upgraded.

    Basically any mod will have same chance of upgrading any of the 4 secondary stats regardless of what tier/color it started with. The difference is do you have to level or slice it to upgrade it.

    So this means to "take advantage" level up any green, blue or purple mods that are currently showing secondary stats that you want a better chance to upgrade before the change happens.
    If you have a green mod with speed level it up to at least level 3 because currently it is guaranteed to get a bump in speed, after the change it is no longer guaranteed to be a speed bump could bump one of the 3 unshown stats. If a green, blue, or purple mod is not showing the secondary stat you want then wait till the change to level them because then the unshown stats have chance to be upgraded with leveling and then slicing
  • CG_SBCrumb
    685 posts EA Community Manager
    Updated post with 5A vs 6E Primary Stat Values
    uqkEbwu.png
  • @CG_SBCrumb I’m asking sincerely - what are your plans to reimburse my 700+ shards invested in Jawa for a competitive advantage that now means absolutely nothing? I really hope you’re not going to just hang me out to dry.....
  • 0.5% on protection only?
  • vice
    90 posts Member
    who the hell came up with 3% increase for secondary speed stats? why not 5%? achieves the same amount of increase...
    or you could have just said +1 speed... unless there is potential for fatter secondary speed stats in the future but even if you had 30 speed, 3% will still be +1 speed, so why not just make it simple and say +1 speed?
  • You tell us to hold on to all our mods, but I'm running out of space. Could you increase the space so we don't have to sell our lower level 5 start mods?
  • benjammin wrote: »
    @CG_SBCrumb I’m asking sincerely - what are your plans to reimburse my 700+ shards invested in Jawa for a competitive advantage that now means absolutely nothing? I really hope you’re not going to just hang me out to dry.....

    You had a competitive advantage for a while... And now you have a team to throw in TW. It made you a better player.

    You're welcome.
  • Nikoms565
    14242 posts Member
    I did learn one other thing. CG's definition of "very brief" is different than mine.
    In game name: Lucas Gregory FORMER PLAYER - - - -"Whale blah grump poooop." - Ouchie

    In game guild: TNR Uprising
    I beat the REAL T7 Yoda (not the nerfed one) and did so before mods were there to help
    *This space left intentionally blank*
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