Instead of new companions, I´d love to play more with some of my current ones, but with their fixed role/spec make it kinda hard. You could sell unlocks for alternative roles/power sets for our standard class companions so they could see some more use.

Dear Bioware, Instead of giving us unvoiced, non story, boring "new companions", why don't you let us change the role of our class companions so we can use the ones we like most and are not pigeon holed into using only certain ones? Ir could be a Cartel Market or Legacy unlock, your choice. Just let us have more fun with the ones we care about, please.

I always play pet classes in mmos, so I am really disapointed companions are becoming more and more useless as I level up. Now I started leveling with friends full time, so I decided to stop upgrading the companion gear or caring about their affection all together because it's useless and meaningless, as I won't be using them at all, unfortunately. It's really disapointing and heartbreaking because I find the system so full of (non realized) potential.

He has an ability called Flush Prey that works like a charge, most melee companions have a similar ability, the problem is that Flush Prey works up to 15yrds only, while most other melee companions have 30yrds range on their similar abilities. If they change Flush Prey range to be 10-30yrds, the lizard will respond much faster to our attack command. Our ranged tank, Lt Iresso, has a similar problem with his charge like ability range being up to 20yrds only, that is one of the reasons most people find him a worse tank than the lizard. He needs to be in melee range to use some of his best tanking abilities, but when we attack ranged mobs from max range he will never engage melee due to his charge ability not being 30yrds like it should be.

This is exactly how I feel too. I play 12h+ a day, so I have a lot of characters at a nice level and I have to say this: I like the looks of my smugler gear so far (the green/blue/purple ones) and don't feel the need to use orange gear for him. What I noticed is that when I play smugler, every time a gear drop it is much more exciting! On the other hand, I hate the looks of most of Consular gear, so I have almost full orange gear, and feel exactly how the OP described when any loot drops. People defending the orange gear I can even name some of them, they are always the same few people and always respond to any orange gear post with the exactly same arguments. BW should really put an A-tab and let the mod system be about stat customization. It would be better for crafters, it would be better for those who deeply care about looks customization, it would be better for those who aren't only happy when it rains.

Nice suggestion. I almost never play alone, so it would be of little use to me, but I think that is a nice idea. So, what's the incentive left for grouping? Simple put, companions performance aren't anywhere near real people, specially at lvl 30+. They would be just a poor man party member for those who really can't find someone to play with, cause my experience is companions currently only perform 50% of a real player or less.

If BW changes his Flushprey(charge like ability) from its current 5-15yrds range to 10-30yrds like all other tank pets, he will start attacking after we command him much much faster. They should also change lt Iresso RiffleRush to be 10-30yrds while at it, he is our ranged tank, and he performs really bad against ranged targets when you are a ranged sage attacking from max range. Some of his best tanking abilities are really short range, but if you start attacking from 30-35 yrds he won't close enemies cause his RiffleRush is 20yrds only and such will perform really really bad.

Well, most people are level 20ish right now, and it's really just too low to experience what I explained. I'm wearing some of the same items I got at the second planet now at lvl 40ish not because I like their look, but because there was no real valid options for me. One important aspect of games for me is the loot feeling rewarding, and with the current orange system it just fails to feel so. Most gear drop is just vendor trash because I dislike their look, and their stats doesn't matter. My argument is that if appearance and stat customization were two different things not tied together, like it is in the current orange system, sometimes I'd get ugly gear for their stats, and sometimes I'd get bad gear for their looks, increasing the chances the loot having any rewarding feeling. In the current system is just: Oh, I dislike the looks, vendor trash no matter the stats...

I really dislike the orange system, and it causes the game to feel less rewarding. Now, everytime a non orange gear drops it feels meaninless because I'm just gonna vendor it no matter how good or bad their stats are. All that matters are orange items, and they are few and far between, and most are not my taste, what just makes this all feel even worse. This is happening in the game right now, most game rewards just feel boring, really, they just killed an important aspect of the game for me, and most loot just go vendor trash, even when I got them in instances/groups. It's really sad, but it's their game, not my game, for good or for bad. All I can do is to express my dislike and hope for the best. Another thing, most newbies don't get how the orange system works. My friends constantly ask me questions about it and I have to explain again and again. A lot of people have vendored an orange gear they liked when a better stats green gear dropped because they didn't understand how the system works. It's unintuitive.