It's not as bad if you have a security key as the vendor sells fleet passes for 1000 credits. It's still a lot worse than it ought to be though. I'd really like to be able to fast-travel from one planet to another, and it should be reasonably easy to implement using the current system. But then, I also don't understand why fast travel needs any sort of cooldown at all. Who cares if someone teleports back and forth across the map?

He's providing a service to the market and being paid a fee for doing so. 1. The person who initially put the item up for sale gets their money faster. This clearly benefits the seller of the item. 2. The next person who comes along to sell another of the same item might have posted said item far below what buyers think the item is actually worth. However, thanks to the "parasite," this seller gets more money for his sale than he otherwise would have even if he undercuts the "parasite." 3. In the case where the "parasite" is wrong and an item won't sell for what he thinks it will, he loses time and money. In this case, his loss is an immediate gain for the initial seller. I don't do this sort of thing myelf because I'm not the type of guy who wants to spend all day staring at the AH screen. However, I'm also not the type of person who thinks that anyone making money who isn't me is evil. Just saying.

The changes to the mean mitigation section look good, except that you're using the first formula I posted for crits, which is wrong. In that formula, "(1-B)" is directly multiplied by "(1+.5*.25)" which is the crit chance and damage part. So you've got the chance to not shield an attack times crit stuff. This means that this formula works if and only if increasing your shield chance automatically decrease how much damage you take from crits, and we know that it doesn't. The formula that's correct is 1-(1-A)(1-D)(B*(1-C)+1-B+X*(Y-1)) = Mean Mitigation Where Y is the crit damage multiplier (ie 1.5 if the mob has 0 surge). Note that in this formula, 1-B is not multiplied by the crit stuff (X*(Y-1)). If you are confident that crit damage from mobs is always 150% of non-crits (and it may be, I really have no idea), then you can replace the (Y-1) with .5. For completeness, here's what the newest formula says when broken down. * All attacks have to deal with (1-A) and (1-D), which means that all attacks can be shielded or mitigated, unless those variables are set to zero of course. * Attacks which are not avoided are either shielded, a crit, or neither. B*(1-C) deals with shielded attacks, 1-B deals with normal attacks, and X*(Y-1) deals with crit attacks by adding the extra damage that occurs over and above a normal attack. Or, you could break it down like this: B*(1-C) = M = mean percent unmitigated damage of non-avoided, shielded attacks before DR 1-B = N = mean percent unmitigated damage of non-avoided, non-shielded attacks before DR and crits X*(Y-1) = P = mean percent unmitigated damage of non-avoided crits before DR, minus N M + N + P = Q = mean unmitigated percent damage of all non-avoided attacks before DR (1-A)(1-D)*Q = R = mean unmitigated percent damage of all attacks after avoidance and DR 1 - R = 1-(1-A)(1-D)(B*(1-C)+1-B+X*(Y-1)) = mean mitigated percent damage from all attacks

On the crit theory thing, I don't think what I said is terribly relevant after having slept. On the formulas for mitigation involving crits, I'm convinced I'm right there as long as it goes like this: check 1: Hit is either avoided (miss, dodge, parry, etc) or it is not. check 2: If not avoided, hit is either a crit, shielded or neither. As long as that's how it works, what I said about it in my previous post should be correct. Baltazarr's version would be right if it went like this: check 1: Hit is either avoided (miss, dodge, parry, etc) or it is not. Check 2: If not avoided, hit is either shielded or it is not. Check 3: If not avoided or shielded, hit is either a crit or it is not. Edit: Obviously I could be wrong, as I frequently am. Hehe. I don't think so though. To any other math-oriented people, Baltazarr or whomever, I'd be obliged either way if you would confirm or disprove my position.

No problem. By the way, I was thinking about the following. In the Georg Zoeller quote you posted on the previous page of this thread, he says that if shield chance and crit chance come into conflict, some shield chance can be pushed off of the table. That would presumably only happen when crit chance boosting cooldowns were blown in PvP though, if at all, but it should probably figure into Crit Immunity Theory somehow, right? Anyway, if I understand it correctly, that Georg Zoeller quote would imply that the roll after the miss/avoidance check is based on a table which looks like one of these, depending on whether or not crit chance + shield chance > 1: crit shielded normal crit shielded |--------|------------|----------| |--------|------------| 0 X X+B 1 0 X 1 Where X is the crit chance and B is the shield chance. If this is the case, that would mean that the base formula for crits in the guide is off because it assumes that the crit chance only applies after a check is made to determine that the attack wasn't shielded. If the check is made at the same time, as the dev post seems to indicate, then every attack which isn't avoided has probability X of being a crit despite the fact that an attack can't be both shielded and a crit. In other words, the formula involving crits should be: 1-(1-A)(1-D)(B*(1-C)+(1-B)+.5*X) = Mean Mitigation instead of 1-(1-A)(1-D)(B*(1-C)+(1-B)(1+.5*X)) = Mean Mitigation This will give a different answer than Baltazarr's formula because of the differing assumption. Also, I really ought to replace the .5 with a variable, such as: 1-(1-A)(1-D)(B*(1-C)+(1-B)+X*(Y-1)) = Mean Mitigation where Y = the mob's crit damage multiplier (1.5 + whatever it gets from surge). It's also probably worth noting that B cannot exceed 1 - X, as I showed above. ---------------------- It's really, really late at night right now, so please let me know if I misunderstood anything or made any mistakes.

Here's a simplification for the MEAN MITIGATION section. The 100's are unnecessary since percent is literally "per 100." Removing them leaves: ((((1-A)*B)*(1-C))*(1-D)) + (((1-A)-((1-A)*B))*(1-D)) = T 1 - T = Mean Mitigation Combining those two equations, and simplifying gives: 1 - (1-A)*B*(1-C)*(1-D) - (1-A)(1-B)(1-D) = Mean Mitigation The above can be factored to: 1-(1-A)(1-D)(B*(1-C)+(1-B)) = Mean Mitigation Dealing with crits in the same way that Baltazarr does, which is to assume that all crits from mobs do 150% damage (ie the mob has zero Surge, and I have no idea if that's true for any or all mobs), you get: 1-(1-A)(1-D)(B*(1-C)+(1-B)(1+.5*X)) = Mean Mitigation Using Baltazarr's example as proof, his numbers are: A= .16 B= .35 C= .24 D= .3665 X= .25 1-(1-.16)(1-.3665)(.35*(1-.24)+(1-.35)(1+.5*.25)) = .4693 = 46.93%, which is the same answer Baltazarr got.

I swear I remember reading a Bioware post or interview somewhere semi-recently that said that Armormech / Synthweaving was supposed to produce best in slot gear for hats and shoes. Has anyone looked into whether or not that's the case?

I'm not 100% sure, but I've seen beta players say the untyped bonuses are the same thing as the efficiency bonuses.

This. For solo PvE play, you can let Kaliyo tank, or you can get heals from Doctor Lokin at higher levels. For group play, you have a tank and you should be behind cover, so you shouldn't be taking much damage there either. PvP is a different beast. After healers, snipers are pretty high on the kill list, plus more hit points are always important for PvP in pretty much any MMO. We do have good tools to try to keep those melee's at range, but when that fails, we can end up in a lot of trouble.

Looks pretty good to me. It might be worth dropping Cover Screen for Steady Shots depending on how often you use Snipe and Series of Shots, but you'll probably know the answer to that by the time you finish up the Engineering tree anyway.

Personally, I'd say excitement, camaraderie and preparation for nostalgia in a few years when we re-read it. You can find something negative in about anything if you look hard enough, but it doesn't mean it's intended.

Iirc, you can turn it off in options. I think it's called the cover bar or something. It's a totally separate bar which replaces the normal one whenever you are in cover. I actually found it pretty useful in beta as it let me assign my vibroblade skills to the same keys as skills like Snipe and Ambush.

Yeah, it really stinks that they haven't been removed. Even one of the devs said that they were a terrible idea. :/

Have you checked your ship's hold?

Well, probably 1/2 your abilities require cover (or at least being crouched) in order to use. You can break cover and move around in between, but you will probably want to be in cover as much as possible both for your abilities and for the defensive bonuses. If you pick up the Ballistic Dampeners talent from Marksmanship (and possibly Cover Screen as well, though I'd skip it), resetting cover every 6 seconds ends up being beneficial defensively, and if there are multiple cover points nearby, you can roll between them pretty quickly. There isn't really a sniper spec that lets you run and gun though.

I only played up to level 25 and didn't PvP, but I found PvE on a Sniper to be pretty much on-par or easier compared to other MMO's. PvP is probably a different beast though. I could see a bit of a learning curve there because you really need to keep cover between you and enemies.

Yes. This thread must be saved from any prunes so that we can lord it over newbs. Um. I mean, talk about the good ol' days. Yeah, that's it.

And those instances run on machines behind the scenes. If you have 10,000 players and divide them into 100 groups of 100, that actually significantly increases the amount of work being done by the server since they have to account for 100 extra phases worth of mobs. So, having lots of players in a single zone actually increases processing requirements on the server relative to having them spread out over multiple zones which have to be run if there's even 1 player in them (and probably if there are 0). Secondly, we don't know what kind of load balancing is going on behind the scenes. If those 100 instances are dynamically split over general-purpose boxes that can run a phase from any zone, then this part is a non-issue. However, many games designate certain boxes to run certain zones, even when those zones are being phased. If this is true for TOR, then they may have one cluster being pounded by everyone on Hutta, for example, while the cluster of Ilos is relatively unused. This would only be an issue for about 2-3 weeks out of the total life of the game, and there are some benefits to doing things this way, which is why many games do. TL;DR You don't know as much as you think you do.

Perhaps, but do you have inside knowledge into how they allocate loads across their servers? Most games have designated machines which handle specific zones, so when those zones are overcrowded, they lag out while other zones are fine. But in any case, I seriously doubt Bioware is doing it just to annoy you. So what's your theory? EDIT: I missed that you actually gave a theory earlier, but I have to say, I doubt it's just that they don't have anyone they can trust to make the call when the guy who'd normally make the decision is asleep.

Just a guess, but I imagine as people get of of work in the US starting in about 2 1/2 hours, server numbers will jump. This will effectively create another couple of waves. I don't think they want to risk letting anyone in until they know that the newb zones are relatively clear.

My IA is totally going to be just like the press guy at the beginning of this video:

I apologize for nothing.

Yes, as the 2nd post says, but it will be shared by all your characters on a server.

I'm pretty much in the same boat, not having preordered until mid-November because I didn't have the cash, but I still think it's pretty fair how EGA is being handled. I'm miffed about the grace period debacle, but why shouldn't Bioware reward people for early pre-orders? I certainly would if I were them. EDIT: Oh, and SR has tweeted that everyone will get at least 1 day of EGA.

During the stress test, all the servers said Full when they weren't full at all and there weren't even queues. They told us it was a display bug. I wouldn't worry about it.