What is an objective player and how are they different from other PVPers? How does playing objectives make one "bad?" Serious question, since it is possible to both dish out a ton of damage AND play objectives. Easy, even. The only map where that sometimes isn't the case is Odessen. But Voidstar, Novare Coast, Ancient Hypergate, and Yavin all involve fighting other players at nodes that are the objectives. How hard is it to target swap to the guy capping the node? Taking 8 seconds out of your rotation to cap also isn't going to prevent you from topping a leaderboard either. Even Huttball doesn't require you to sacrifice a damage rotation to play objectives. You get objective points for killing enemy ball runners too. The point being is that if you can't play objectives AND crush the leaderboard anywhere except Odessen, you're not as good at this game as you think. If you get 0 objective points in Huttball, or get capped on at Voidstar or in a big mid fight at Novare Coast "because situational awareness is HARD" and "can only focus on one enemy player at a time" you were bad in that match. End of story.

Valkorian's story had a good conclusion in KoTET so I'm also not for bringing him back. Hopefully we've seen the last of him. That said...he had amazing voice acting and so I hope they keep Daerunn around for a long time. Daerunn & Valks share the voice actor.

This. I think it may be Marr though, just because Satele also features in that story.

Patrolling guards would be cool.

Mercs are pretty garbage as Huttball runners IMO, at least if evaluated on an ability to run a ball solo from spawn to the end zone. Sure, they can take a licking and keep on ticking, but they're pretty vulnerable to CC, their speed boost is Meh and they have no ability to charge to another player's location (short of a friendly pull), and there are much better specs for clearing traps. Rocket Out can be used to clear traps but the Merc has to get there first, and they're easier to stop or force into an early pass than some other specs. I'd much rather be on an Op, Marauder, or Jug if I'm going to be running huttballs from spawn. Mercs work better at defense in Huttball (see E-net, plus stealth detect and 2 AOEs if an enemy ball runner is in your pit and headed for a ledge pass to someone in stealth) or support for friendly ball runners (besides the DPS, stun, mez, net, & knockback). The only exception for Mercs IMO is Classic or Vandin if you have a Sin or Op in their end zone. Merc works great for running the ball from spawn to a point in the pit where they can pass. (though Jug tanks are better)

Don't fret about the MVP votes. Votes often don't go to the most deserving. Probably the best arena match I've ever had in the game was one where it went to round 3, I was the last player left on my team in round 3 and only one of theirs had died, so at the end I was 1 vs 3, and I killed all 3 for the win. (on an Op so I could stealth out / heal up). Also finished with top damage and the most killing blows. Got zero votes. lol

Reg arenas are mostly terrible and unless you're in a premade, I'm not sure why anyone would like them. My experience is that if I'm not grouped an arena pop will mostly likely feature unbalanced teams, with myself on the weaker one because I have high valor or whatever. 3 DPS for example versus a team of four that also has trinity, and one of those three DPS from my team won't even know what a DCD is. lol Even when the teams are even you're likely to get teammates who are each focusing a target other than the one that was marked (and not even the same target at that), and most wins are due to being able to carry two or three players on your team or the other team just being very bad rather than good gameplay all around.

Eliminate ELO loss. Just have a system where you gain ELO by wins and get nothing but practice from a loss. As a bonus (and really the main reason why there shouldn't be ELO loss) it will also lesson problems caused by wintrading, since a system without ELO loss would mean you'd need a lot more matches thrown to wintrade your way to top 3, making it more expensive for the wintrader and with a much greater likelihood of being caught. People who are new to Ranked will still suck but will be less likely to told not to queue again if their teamates lost no ELO from it. PVP being PVP there will still be salt & bad attitudes (see Regs), but probably less of it if the only thing wasted with a queue is time.

I can understand why you want bugs to be prioritized, but there is a fatal flaw in that argument. Namely that there will always be bugs. Even as old bugs are patched out new ones will be introduced as new content is added to the game. If Bioware operated by your suggestion that Strongholds not be touched until the game is bug free, Strongholds would never receive any attention. Imagine if Bioware applied that policy to PVP, or PVE, or GSF. You'd get no content.

Great thread. Bumping for all the good suggestions. Some changes I'd love to see... - Companions no longer displaying as holos when entering that Stronghold on alt, or at the very least an option for the character owning the Stronghold to determine whether their comps display in the flesh or as holos. - The maximum deco count for a Stronghold at least matching the number of hooks. Perhaps not a problem with some of the larger Strongholds, but it can be in some of the smaller ones like Nar Shaddaa or Dromund Kaas. I have some Strongholds I'd like to decorate further but cannot without removing placed decos, despite having open hooks, because of an arbitrary limit. - Raising the count of companion, vendor, or personnel decos that can be placed. NPCs bring Strongholds to life and make them feel like real places in the Star Wars galaxy. Arguably they're the most important decos, so an ability to place more than we can currently would be great. - Jukeboxes looping the music they play instead of powering down after every song. If looping music was introduced to those decos, also introduce an ability to shut off the jukebox by interacting with it a second time. - The platform in Nar Shaddaa that is disconnected from the rest of the Stronghold having some connection to the rest of the Stronghold. If not a bridge or something of that nature, at least the addition of a speeder hook that travels between the two sections similar to the speeders on Tatooine. As it is that platform can only be accessed by making a jump while on a speeder or rocket boost, and you can't return to the main section short of dying or using stuck or phasewalk... which is a bit odd. That section feels like more was planned for it but it was unfinished. Most people use that bit for a player ship deco, but it isn't very immersive when there is no way visible way for characters to access the rest of the Stronghold once leaving their ship. - Allow all decorations from the Cartel Market to be donated to guilds. Most of them can currently but there are a few of them that still cannot be donated to guilds once you unlock them. One of them off the top of my head is the Scorpion TK Weapon Rack. - Vendor decos no longer displaying a flashing vendor icon above their head. It kills immersion. At the very least there should be an option in settings to disable the icons in Settings, similar to the ability to disable nameplates on NPCs. - The introduction of NPC decos that are interacting with "furniture" or in poses where they can be placed by players in ways that they can interact with other decos. In the game there are plenty of NPCs for example that are leaning on bars or counters, sitting in chairs including some that are cleaning weapons, bartenders wiping down the bar counter, Imp or Rep engineers fixing some piece of technology, ect. Some of those for Strongholds would be great, whether in poses where they're placed by a player to interact with other decos or as part of an arrangement where the NPCs are permanently attached to the furniture and part of the set. -Increasing the drop rate of some Cartel Market decorations so that there are more in circulation. Maybe new packs should also contain some extra bronze and silver decorations that were introduced with older packs.

While I don't disagree with most of that (OPG aside, I don't mind that one) I still find Regs enjoyable most of the time. Sure, you get ugly matches where your teammates can't answer calls or leave a healer to guard a node or clueless teammates that can't even do basic things like fight in range of Voidstar doors or focus enemy Huttball runners...*but* (and its a big but, lol) all those "problems" affect opposing teams in equal measure. The Voidstar match where your team races to the datacore was probably enabled by clueless gameplay on the other team (as someone who has been playing Op frequently for the last year or so...most of my door caps are literally right behind opposing players who are in range to stop me but are too locked into tunnel vision on another player to notice that I've come out of stealth at the door), the times when you solo kill a guard at the opposing team's off node and cap on him were also probably enabled by unanswered calls for help in his Ops chat, and Huttball matches where you score 4 times and carry your team were probably helped by opposing team players ignoring you or whitebarring you at a bad time. Ect, ect. It all balances out in the end, but no one notices or complains about it when it affects the other team. As for premades, they're not as big of a deal as they once were. Sure, you occasionally still get some groups that cause team balance mismatches or groups with strong objective play, but you're just as likely to get groups who aren't answering calls from their teammate at the offnode, who are ignoring the Huttball, who are fighting at the enemy's spawn on the defense round of Voidstar, or tunneling mid in an Ancient Hypergate round where you need to delay an enemy's cap to win. Honestly premades these days are as likely to be a liability for whatever team they're on as they are to be an asset. That balances out in the end too, with enough matches played. Got to take the good with the bad. The Huttball pop rate is a bigger problem because that one can't be avoided at all short of leaving a match, and you're just as likely to get another Huttball match with your next pop. I'd say on average at least half or more pops are into Huttball matches. Bioware should adjust how match type is determined by lumping all three Huttball matches into a single option with that initial dice roll, and then having a second roll to determine which map if Huttball wins. That would lower the rate at which Huttball pops to a reasonable amount and maybe result in better gameplay. Huttball maps are the worst offender for teams playing cluelessly and a good deal of that is down to players just being tired of Huttball. Its a shame really, because Classic Huttball is a lot of fun when both teams are playing the match well. Quesh and Vandin as well to a certain extent, though those two maps are marred by too many bugs that spoil the experience, even when both teams are trying.

The BH has plenty of opportunities during class or planet story content to say they're just in it for the paycheck and don't care about the Empire. Not exact dialogue but when taking a planet story quest for example your BH might have an option to respond with, "What's the upside for me?" after some Imp makes their mission pitch. Not every quest of course, so if you are a completionist you'll run into some planet story quests that don't give your BH a chance to respond like a mercenary, but a good number of them do. Class story quests are a bit better in that regard. You should definitely give the BH a shot. The female BH is one of the better voice actors in the game (Grey DeLisle aka Viconia from Baldur's Gate) and the BH in general is probably the most humorous protagonist after the Smuggler, depending of course on your dialogue choices. BH also gets one of the better casts of companion characters.

Agreed. There is nothing fun or interesting about mobs having CC abilities, and they only serve to pad the length of fights. I can understand bosses having some CC abilities and that can result in interesting fight mechanics, but for mob packs it's mainly just a time waster. It gets especially annoying during the Rakghoul event where you can end up being stunned 3 or 4 times in a row in the Heroic. On that note PVP mechanics regarding CC should be extended to PVE content. If you eat two stuns in a row from mobs (like those Rakghouls) you should now be whitebarred and immune to further CC for the duration of that whitebar.

Original content from release: Taris - A wasteland filled with rakghouls is visually unappealing, and from a story perspective the Republic effort to colonize it just doesn't make sense. Most of the quests on both sides other than class story content are rather dull. It was only included for KOTOR nostalgia but IMO there were other worlds from KOTOR that would have been a better fit. (Kashyyk, Manaan) Hoth - The long treks through a white and nearly featureless wasteland get monotonous very quickly, and the story about Imps & Reps squabbling with each other and the White Maw over trash heaps isn't interesting. Like Taris it was only included for nostalgia, but there were other planets from the films that would have been more visually appealing. (Felucia, Bespin) Post release content: Makeb: The planet story was interesting (more so Imp side) but it was marred by being very, very grindy...particularly at release. Lots of mob packs placed in paths that couldn't be avoided, and at the time they'd knock you off your speeder if you attempted to fly past. I imagine the experience isn't that bad for newer players that are just going through Makeb now, but when Rise of the Hutt Cartel released it felt excessively grindy and padded with time wasters, and overall a disappointing expansion. It was also the first planet that didn't have class story content. Iokath: The pathing here is atrocious and the planet story feels like something from another Sci Fi story that was grafted on to Star Wars. There is a reason why most players ignore Iokath dailies.

This. Sorcs are Sages are pure casters ONLY because SWTOR needed to make classes fit into a MMO trinity model, so those two classes were effectively turned into the Mages or Wizards from a fantasy based MMO with the lightsabers functioning like a staff or wand. The problem from an in-universe perspective is that Jedi & Sith aren't mages, they're more like warrior monks. Yoda & Palpatine for example are probably the two most powerful force users from the films (and the models for the Sage & Sorc classes), and when they fought each other it was primarily with swords (lightsabers). It's a shame that Sorcs & Sages weren't given an ability or two that was useful at melee range and used the lightsabers in the animation. Or instead of multiple force based power casting abilities, one that instead had an animation where they threw their lightsabers.

This is the final bit of clarification I'll add on the subject. I was *not* saying that Maras have weak defenses, I was stating that Maras' damage is fine in light of the fact that they are melee and their defenses are not in a state where they should be at the top of a "Need Nerf" list. My perspective is also coming from someone who plays against Maras, not as one, so I don't think I'm biased in saying they're fine. Clear now? I hope so, as I have no further interest in engaging in a pointless debate with someone who is just determined to be argumentative over a point I didn't make.

Bingo.

#6 happens in PVP, mainly in Huttball matches with platforms.

The best was that one year when the Rakghoul plague event was active at the same time as Life Day. The salt was flowing on Fleet.

Mara stealth is easy to counter because it is short and you can predict which way the Mara is going to go to hide/ regen. Do teams fail to counter? Sure, but 90% of the time it's due to bad play and/or support from teammates. On it's own its not that strong. It's not even close to being on the same level as Ops or Sins stealth. (and shouldn't be) To be clear I'm not saying Maras or weak. The opposite, in fact. They can hit like freight trains, but they should be able to do that because they're 1) melee, 2) don't have self-heals unlike some other DPS, and 3) aren't the worst offenders when it comes to defenses being overtuned.

You and me both.

Mara DCDs are ok. While they're in a better place than Powertechs they're not as tanky as Mercs or Snipers, and they don't have the off heals that Operatives, Mercs, or Sorcs have.

It wouldn't even work for those in any PVE content beyond Vet mode,where you'd probably miss some mechanics, or in PVP where you have to be hyper aware of what is going on behind you as well in front.

People sell things at ridiculous prices so they can buy other people's junk that is posted at ridiculous prices. The GTN in a nutshell.

Playing the game isn't harassment. There is both a hidden daily quest and achievement to infect people with the plague, The daily also awards people a Rakghoul DNA cannister which can be used to buy items from the event vendor or to gain reputation with Lokin for his recruitment quest. Also... As others have pointed out there are Rakghoul vaccines at the medical vendors that both cure you of the plague and prevent further infection. Got infected? It's your own fault for not having a stim active when there is an announcement on Fleet every 5 minutes that the event is on. It's like going to Outlaw's Den or the Gree area of Ilum when that event is on, and complaining that you got killed by another player.