My guild might actually come back if this sort of thing was implemented. It sounds like something I think most any serious World PVPer would like to see and is definitely along the lines of my own thinking in many ways. A PvP end game like this would be excellent.

Solo'd the Ord Mantell heroics as trooper without Aric, myself, and was maybe 9, likely 8. It's easy as hell. All you need to do is kite and prioritize targets correctly. I died only once because I made a dumb mistake and didn't have a medpack. A smuggler, likewise, wouldn't be able to do it without Corso or a lot of luck, skill, and abuse of LOS or similar mechanics because he can't kite. Also, slacking not getting Aric by level 7? Maybe if you rush only the class quest and ignore all sides, but then you're going to Coruscant without an advanced class. Rather foolish. Takes very little extra time doing the sides on newbie planets and I'm almost always 12 or nearly 12 by time I hit the fleet.

/golfclap I'm simply amazed that no one realized yet how hard you're trolling them.

Aside from how so god damned obvious much of this stuff is (chat bubbles especially, WTH were you thinking not adding them, Bioware!?) you forgot possibly the single most lacking feature in this game: Pazaak. Where the hell's my Pazaak!? This would also be an excellent use of not only cantinas but as a viable option for social points. I can't get any on any of my characters unless I'm playing with a friend and we purposefully use those characters only when the other is on because there aren't enough flashpoints available with conversations that are offered throughout the instance and players almost ALWAYS have the quest in their log, so Heroics and the shared flashpoints never garner any real social point gains. There's another card game that's been mentioned on my smuggler, but I can't remember what it's called. Introducing that would also be a great side and social endeavor for players.

I would be quite happy with dual spec. Might not always employ it, but it'd be nice to have at least something viable for leveling and something oriented for group play at the very least, and I bet even players with classes like Sniper/Gunslinger which only have DPS trees available would find use for as many as four different specs by time they're max level. Leveling a tank spec is kind of annoying when combat feels slower than it could be going, likewise with heal specs. It's also annoying when you've got cases such as two tanks and two healers in the same group, essentially forcing two players to either be sub optimal DPS or for the overarching builds to become a nuisance. Once went through Cademimu trying to play as a DPS when I'm specced fully under shielding as a vanguard, but the shadow tank two levels higher than me couldn't hold aggro, and I felt like I'd be losing out on too much damage if I used a different cell than Ion. I personally have reservations about offering Dual-AC because you have fundamentally different playstyles between the two of any class, though the same could probably be argued for ACs that offer tank/dps and heal/dps trees. I kinda want it but kinda don't, whereas Dual Spec is definitely a needed quality of life feature. Maybe Dual AC can be a future Legacy benefit? In the meantime, Dual Spec should definitely become available by time you get your ship. It makes sense even from a roleplay perspective, because you can consider it as using a different loadout for tech classes whereas a force user would apply a different form or style or application of the Force.

I want my preferences on one character to be account wide, so that for every new character I make I don't need to spend 5 minutes changing and adjusting dozens of preferences (namely hotbars and hotkeys). Why don't we have this? Why isn't there at least an export/import feature? And if there's a .ini I can use to do this automatically, why should I need to discover or figure out a workaround?

Don't think I've replied yet. Doing so to keep this bumped because it's pretty obnoxious. In most cases, they need to give the disadvantage of the Republic mirror to the Empire side, or tweak both to normalize them. Smuggler VS Agent should definitely be a case of the Empire mirror getting the disadvantage in particular for the stun and probe, but something like Shock should have about a 0.3 second animation before it goes off and project to be sped up and hit "instantly" at the apex of the lift. In the case of the Trooper VS Bounty Hunter, though, most of the issues seem to be clear bugs and oversights that should be fixed ASAP. You have about 1/3 of a second before the third MV shot goes off in which the channel is completely over and you can move and attack without canceling the final shot. It also takes over one full second before the first shot is even fired. Ammo VS Heat I think would suffice with a slight ammo regeneration rate boost.

Or, get rid of it entirely, normalize PvP gear stats to compensate, and everyone's happy?

This needs to differentiate between GCD and ability cooldown. As it stands now, it's not only HARDER to determine when something is actually coming off cooldown or is ready for use, having the entire hotbar flash every 1.5 seconds is distracting and disorienting. Abilities ready for use need to be fully lit up. GCD should NOT cause the icon flash. Abilities that are on their own cooldown should be darkened, and THEN flash when available. This HAS to be a bug. I refuse to believe your UI team could have possibly thought this live iteration is working as intended and also actually play the game.

Indeed. Terrible change. I want to know when something is more readily available, yes, and I figured that'd mean that what I can't use would be blacked/greyed out until fully available while the cooldown slide goes through. Now, everything looks like it's not ready, and that flashing is distracting, making it more difficult to properly discern what's ready for use. I think the problem with it is really that it counts global cooldown rather than ability cooldown. If that was changed, I think what we have now might work. I wouldn't mind the flash if it was only an ability actually coming off cooldown and not having my entire hotbar think everything is on cooldown due to global. Also, anything just suffering from GCD wouldn't be darkened, it'd look ready to use, and only abilities on actual cooldown would darken.

They need to fundamentally rethink these abilities across the board. I've never seen Headshot light up for my Sniper, EVER, and given that the only time I'd find a free attack useful against a mob I can incapacitate would be mobs it doesn't work on, as soon as I have something better I'm replacing my Vanguard's equivalent.

I'd likely take Aim, I actually haven't used any stims on my Vanguard yet. I've yet to feel I needed the extra boost (not sure just how much impact my biochem Sniper gets from his reusables) If I knew what Presence did for healing, maybe I'd use that instead so Elara keeps me up better. As for interrupts, naturally you Riot Strike. If you can, you break LOS while it's on cooldown, or save your stun. If you're shield spec, Storm interrupts, so after a MOrtar Volley you Storm an enemy that's powering or channeling. Likewise, especially to help line up for good Ion Cannons, you can use Harpoon as an interrupt. You also just need to learn the attacks you SHOULD Riot Strike, and that changes with every Heroic and every mob, so that's on you to figure out.

Storm should definitely be baseline. I can foresee them wanting to place Harpoon in Shield talent, though, that'd make sense. Of course, they could also do something to Storm that requires it to be talented, like has been mentioned it'd reduce cooldown among other things. Maybe you only get the interrupt effect when it's shield spec talented, too. All of that would work great. I want to play my Vanguard as a tank, so naturally I'm playing under Shield, but damnit if after getting Storm did I feel like I'd hate to be a DPS Vanguard.

What are you using Explosive Round for? That's the first ability a Vanguard should STOP using. You replace it with Ion Pulse. Leveling up as a shield spec, your ideas for changes are completely misguided. The only thing Vanguards really need is for Storm to be available as a base Vanguard skill rather than a shield spec talent because we're a close-range class. As the above poster said, maybe Harpoon should become the talent, instead, because not every Vanguard is running with Ion Cell and playing tank.

"Down The Hole" was very much doable for me, and I wasn't very overleveled when I did it, just barely made all mobs green I think. In fact, some might have been yellow, but I don't remember well enough. Not sure what the Nar Shadaa one is that you're doing, but I remember a Nar Shadaa that gave me a bit of trouble but only at the champion boss, after assessing my mistakes the second fight never dropped me below 80% health. Your problem, I'm presuming, is a mix of a few things: that you're not prioritizing enemies well, you're not using a stim or any medpacks, you aren't using your defensive cooldowns and stun at good times (or at all?), you aren't lining up enemies well for Ion Cannon or Mortar, you have a bad rotation or ammo management, you aren't interrupting anything, or your gear isn't as good as you think it is. 2+ heroics are very doable as a vanguard with Elara. I always start with Mortar Volley usually into adhesive grenade, line up as well as I can (if necessary, breaking line of sight to herd) for Ion Cannon, and focus down strongs or one specific of a group of elites. Also, after gauging how the fights go, I might pop a defensive cooldown early, or a stun early, or save the stun for an extra interrupt to keep damage down until I'm at two strongs or one elite. By then, Elara can heal fast enough, especially if you're shield spec like I am. Tactics also change based on each fight. Some I can just sit there and battle it out, especially the champions at the end. Others require more maneuvering. Gotta abuse LOS to solo much of this stuff as a vanguard.

No, you've missed the point entirely. Just as a player would earn prestige, bragging rights, and more skill with time invested, an employee earns more money, job security, and valued experience with more time worked. The problem is with Expertise and not with PvP gear itself. It's more like the vet having all the newest furniture, computers, software, whatever to do his job while the new employee is sitting at a Pentium II on a wooden box and forced to write reports using Notepad and level of experience isn't being considered, just time with the company.

All that needs done (beyond a replacement of the horrible RNG bag system) is for Expertise to be replaced with more and more meaningful stats comparable to PvE (also, worthwhile crafting, but that'll never happen in a themepark anyways). In a gear-based, stat-based game, as much as personal skill makes a difference, your superiority of stats can still be even more impactful than your level of skill depending on factors such as class, build, and how designed the game is towards rewarding better stats. There's nothing inherently wrong with PvP gear in such a setup because it is QUITE stupid to lose so handedly to someone clearly inferior to your skill level solely due to the stat disparity. Losing cuz you don't PvE raid and there's no other available progression to even the playing field is exactly why PvP gear was ever introduced. Character progression, and progression in general, is a staple of the MMO. This is especially true of themeparks because they consistently reward progression with a better character. Given SW:TOR's design, there's nothing wrong with PvP gear. What's wrong is Expertise. This is especially true given that the Bolster system rather effectively neutralizes the impact of gear and superior stats. Expertise is the same exact problem that once existed when some raider would decide to start PvPing and win only cuz of his gear. Now, players who DO PvP are punished because of the same reason, but only because they haven't PvP'd "enough", as well as those who seek to enter the PvP side of the game late. It's an arbitrarily separated progression line and has only gone from one broken side of the spectrum to another broken side. Now, with a PvP stat, your level of skill and gear is near meaningless without said stat, and by having that PvP stat you cannot jump into any meaningful PvE endgame. It's the same problem all over again. Meaningful PVP would be nice. Something not just warzones over and over would be wonderful, especially open world related because this breeds community and roleplay. While the bolster system should and can be improved upon and further equalize things to reward skill over stats (especially if they introduce real open world and meaningful PvP), they need to replace Expertise entirely. It's the equivalent of (since some posters are using the FPS argument) giving players who do CTF all the time special rewards that reward playing CTF and giving them an advantage over others who are new or don't, and then doing the same thing for those who do deathmatch, wherein the rewards are mutually exclusive and worthless in the other game type. It'd be like giving a scout in TF2 two flag caps for the price of one just cuz he plays CTF a lot or a demoman immunity to sentries in assault maps just cause he plays that all the time, unfairly giving an advantage to a player just cuz they play a particular side of the same coin more often or exclusively over another. tl;dr remove Expertise and normalize its stats compared to same-tier PvE gear and all will be well (oh, and the bag system, but that goes without saying).

It must have been a balancing issue early on. Watching the smuggler clips on the class page shows specifically the cover your mention, but they obviously removed it. I'd love to see it implemented as well, but... fleh...

You need to be crouching to use gunslinger abilities. When you are in cover, you are crouching. Crouching and ending crouching triggers all "in cover" talents. Cover's main advantage, and truly only real advantage, is the defense bonus you get against ranged attackers who are in a position to shoot against your cover. It IS beneficial, mostly in PVE, but it can provide some benefit PVP as well assuming the human factor works in your favor. You don't need the roll mechanic, either, to be in cover against an enemy, you just need to have the right positioning with some obstruction in the way that you can still shoot over. The green arrows above an enemy's head indicates you are covered against that enemy. Sitting in cover and not attacking, MANY ranged attacks will miss, unless they're considered tech or force, since cover only defends against ranged. Overall, though, while being immobile IS a bit of a handicap, especially PVP depending on your playstyle, simply crouching down activates your cover bar and all other bonuses to being "in cover", you don't need to use a roll-in position. You CANNOT be interrupted, you receive NO pushback from damage, and you begin to develop a lot of useful defensive abilities over time. PVP requires more effort given the human factor, but gunslinger/sniper is a very powerful class in the right hands.

Do... you really care that much? I mean, really, you eventually still get the money or unsold items back. It's a very minor bug so long as there aren't any ghost credits or ghost items and patches completely delete an auction. It's weird seeing "You sold [Random] Blaster Rifle" and such but all I see is credits and I'm good.

That's why the removal of expertise would result in comparable stats for comparable tiers of gear across all content. Players only need PVP gear so they do not HAVE to PVE for good gear. They should drop Expertise entirely.

Emphasis mine. Raids take time, too. They take time to get the guild geared, just as i takes time to gear yourself in PVP. Drop expertise, normalize stats across the board, and everything is great. I shouldn't NEED to start with Tier 0 PvE if I'm in Tier 3 PvP just cuz i want to do some raiding, and likewise I shouldn't be getting dominated by someone in PvP just cuz they have PVP gear on and I'm wearing my Tier 3 raid stuff. Get rid of expertise and things suddenly will start to balance themselves. There should be advantages PVP gear has in PVP over PvE gear and vice versa, and this should mostly lay in set bonuses and the abundance of certain stats (PvP might have more surge, PvE might have more accuracy, just as an example).

When they pushed storm higher up in the tree during beta, I was surprised. I was really getting used to using it because my most valuable skills were close range and melee. After they made the change, I felt rather convinced that Storm should just be baseline around level 20 for all Vanguards since we're very front-line. Just keep its talents in the shield tree.

Sniper/Gunslinger NEXT! Seriously, though, if you suck too much without exploiting a design flaw like walking through people and circle jerking to LOS, go the hell back to WoW.

I once was stuck in cover in Voidstar after a round change. Not sure how or why, had something to do with the fight I was having when it ended. I eventually got out of it, but it was pretty funny, I was able to move while sniping people.