Me an my buddy for the last few years played wow. Every time we hung out, inevitably, if only for a few minutes, we'd log on and show each other the character select screen to see what our characters looked like/were up to levelwise. "oh nice robes" "hunters look really boedoess in the pvp stuff" etc. The Tor select screen -doesn't seem to show light side/dark side -doesn't seem to use the cinematic level of texture and lighting fidelity -has the person way up close to the camera so you can see their face, but not the rest of their body/equipment -shows the character just breathing and kind of looking around a little--they never take out their gun or animate or show an expression or anything to bring life to the presentation. It seems like some small tweaks, basically to enable the cinematic stuff, pull the camera out, and queue a random set of animations and emotes to make the screen more fun and more fun to show off to friends.

I love these missions and played them dozens of times. I was usually able to beat the missions 'requiring' some level of upgrades well before those upgrades were affordable for me, and, going back, I've enjoyed using more firepower to try to completely clear the levels. Considering what some people have said here about what bothered them on one mission or another, and that some people are saying 'you must have xyz upgrade to progress', I want to offer up some thoughts. Things to keep in mind at all times 1 - You have a much longer range than you might think, and there are very few cases of something 'appearing' in a mission. Almost everything spawns well before you have an opportunity to shoot it, and if you see a space ship far away in your view, and you don't have anything else bothering you, definitely put your mouse over its vulnerable spots--because half of survival is shooting at something well before it decides to start shooting at you. In many cases, reducing the damage you'll receive in a mission is a matter of shooting things at max range. 2 - Missiles are fire and forget. Don't mix missile fire with blaster fire on the same targets if you can avoid it--unless you're trying to blow up something that takes a lot of shots, like a heavy fighter or some of the pieces of space stations and ships. 3 - You go from just barely having the missiles you need to accomplish your tasks to having more than you could possibly ever want. Get used to using them all the time. Use them on trivial things. 4 - Your weapons take time to travel to your target, and while you're waiting for them to explode, you *really* should be targeting something else. Test out how much time it takes you to shoot down enemy fighters or blow up enemy turrets--get a feel for it and the rhythm of moving on before they explode. If you wait until something is blown up before retargeting, you'll end up wasting half your firepower as shots arrive after a target is already set to spin out and explode, or emit a gout of flame and explode. Or spark and explode. There's a lot of exploding. 5 -Commendations Are great. Find the missions you enjoy the most and do their dailies to get their bonus commendations. Even if you're not grinding xp anymore out of them. For one thing, you still get some xp and cash, which doesn't hurt, and for another, you will accrue commendations and be ready to buy the 4 ability pieces right on time. Upgrading The most important part of your upgrades are your blasters. You can dodge fire. You can be spare with your missiles. But what you *can't* do is make things explode faster without better equipment. Always get blasters first and fastest, and when you hit the level to get the power conversion module, buy it immediately, and always set yourself in weapons mode at the beginning of every flight. Completing the first round of 'new' missions when they're unlocked usually yields a special upgrade, as well. These upgrades are generally some ship piece with an oddball improvement thrown in. for instance, blasters that include extra toughness for your ship, or shields that add to your blaster damage. Always keep the ones that add extra damage as long as you can get away with it, and replace the ones that add extra toughness whenever you can get one that does more damage or gives you more missiles. It's a very one-dimensional upgrade process. There is no 'tanking gear set' for the space missions. You will *always* be limited foremostly by the damage you can dish out, and will have many options to improve your survival. Weapons and prioritizing targets You will begin these missions without the missiles to really make wholesale slaughter possible. You should *always* have a dry magazine at the end of a mission, because that's more things that will explode while you're dealing with other crap. When the game suggests you use your missiles for certain targets, sometimes that's a good idea. Sometimes it is ridiculous. The best examples are missions where your primary mission is fighter kills and the game is telling you to missile the fighters. In general, there are 3 situations that call for missiles. Targets which cannot be hurt without missiles A field of targets which are all relevant to the mission or the bonus objective which are impossible to destroy, completely, with blaster fire alone (the first pass on the stations is typically like this--especially later when you want to shoot at the frigate on the side that you only get one further shot at) Hard targets, especially when they only show up briefly, or share screen time with objectives. As you fly around, your weapons will auto target very generously. Any time you see the red attack reticle, hold down your left mouse button. Don't let up unless there is nothing in view worth shooting at, or you are dangerously low on shields. While you are firing your missiles, move your mouse back and forth over all visible targets, like you're scrubbing something off your mousepad. The game's generous autotargeting can cause a fair number of blasts to be wasted on exploding enemies--by scrubbing back and forth, you'll avoid wasting shots, and instead of having 1 or 2 ships explode as the 3rd gets away, all 3 will explode at roughly the same time. This is particularly important when you see two tiny bright engine flares in the distance--as fighters approach from very far away. Scrub your mouse back and for for a second or two while firing (after the reticle is able to target them) and then wait and watch as, a couple seconds later, they spin or flare and go boom. Frigates have turrets arranged in convenient patterns. Hold left click as you start at the back of the ship, and then click and right drag across the ship. Release the right click as you get to the front to unleash your missile volley, and then look at which turrets were not outlined in blue, and target them specifically with your blasters. When a couple turrets are close to each other in the view, remember to scrub, to make the most use of your blaster fire. Cruisers, in particular, with their long rows of turrets need efficient fire. Scrub vigorously along their gun batteries, and make sure you blast a different battery than you target with missiles. You generally have time for 1.5 volleys of missiles on a cruiser as you go past--make sure you get those other 2 missiles in. Learn about what are threats and which things matter in the field of view. Fighters which come from behind, generally, take several seconds to turn around--if they turn around at all, and generally do not take many shots at you. By ignoring them for as long as you can, you are able to shoot at oncoming fighters (who generally do fire at you, and generally fire more times) and turrets, or, simply stop firing and allow your shields to recharge. Once your missile magazine gets bigger, do not hesitate to shoot them in the rear with a missile as soon as you see them, and allow your shields to recharge while you wait. If shields are full up, don't waste the missiles. You can shoot through most objects in space. Mouseover asteroids and ships to try to fight 'targetable' spots. This will often be gunbatteries on a frigate or cruiser that is in your view, but hidden at the moment. Once you have the power conversion module, you need to use it to the hilt. Always be in blaster mode. When you pass a difficult section of the level or an area with a mission objective, immediately go back to shield mode. Missile damage is unaffected by shield mode--and you can take advantage of this. In the latest levels with best upgrades, your shields are FAR more important than your armor (though your armor is somewhat important). They can recharge in about 5 seconds, completely, if you can give them a rest. There is a small rhythm to switching energy modes, as well. Learn to work with it. Hit shields, then wait a count of one-one thousand, and switch back to blasters. You can often get away with this during periods where the only targets are fighters. When the level has asteroids to dodge, don't be a hero. Make sure you direct your fighter out of the way *first*. If it is hard to get in position to shoot something, just revert to shield recharge and focus on dodging within the space that's safe. Asteroids are a huge pain to run into and do a lot of damage. They're your biggest concern in some areas. The later missions are not comfortably able to be won without use of the EMP and Electronic countermeasures. Always time the emp as early as you can to avoid a spot of early damage by destroying packs of enemies (for instance in the station protection levels by firing it as you fly by the first big bomber swarm where, in later difficulty versions, you will see a heavy fighter appear--this softens everything and means faster killing and less shots coming at you). Save the EMP for times when you have to be in danger while shooting things down. So, for example, if it's a brief pass over a Cruiser that will hurt you, but isn't an objective or bonus objective, just dodge around and avoid the shots. If it's a heavy fighter, bomber swarm, or turret battery that you have to dive on and destroy to complete the level, use your emp to ensure some time to focus on getting it done. Try to avoid wasting ammo on meaningless targets. There are some elements on frigates in particular, like engines and their sensors that seemingly give no benefit or xp, but are targetable. Generally you have better things to shoot at. Don't get caught up trying to destroy them. The mines in the blockade missions also fall under this heading after you've hit your quota. Learn to look at the reticle, not what's in front of you. Often, when you're doing well, frigates that are pouring gouts of smoke will fly around in front of you. Move your reticle back and forth to find fighters in the distance that you can't see and destroy them before they come rushing past you and land some hits. Try to observe moments in the rail when you can target something far away that you might not think to hit, otherwise. The defensive satellites in the station attack missions are a great example--you can target a couple of them very early in the level for a few shots and a missile. In fact, if you're quick, on your very first station pass, you can lay a few hits on one (and even destroy it if you have a full missile magazine--though that's generally not worth it). Always keep an eye out for times that you can shoot at a vital or bonus objective when there's nothing but enemy fighters on screen or there's a frigate in the way that isn't a threat. Barrel rolling is overrated and occasionally self-defeating. The movement isn't exactly the same every time, and depending on your class, your ship can be easier to hit (the trooper, in particular, has these wings that flop around and seem to grab laser hits like a moronic farmer reaping a harvest of trauma). The best time is to try to wait for the enemy to actually shoot at you--when the blasters will be flying through space, and *then* barrel roll, thereby getting out of the place that they were aiming at. I see a lot of people just kind of hyperactively pressing the space bar when they play (either in youtube vids or when I'm by a friend) and, while it's fun to see the ship spin around, it's not the best approach. This is especially hilarious when someone barrel rolls near an asteroid and clunks into it. Like a farmer who's dumb and hits asteroids. You do more damage if you say 'pew pew pew' when you left click and 'boop boop boop khssssswaaaaa' when you right click and drag. Above all, do not go outside your ship. You will have to play an MMO. And nobody wants that.

If you're trying to use deductive reasoning, that doesn't make any sense either. The buff goes away and you get an item, but there's plenty of times in the game where you use something and lose an item and there's no reason a buff couldn't make an item go away too. Just because most of the time it's 'you had explosives, you planted a bomb, now your explosives are gone' doesn't mean that they actually need a metaphor that makes sense to take an item out of your inventory.

I agree, and the jump between +2 and +5, is, itself, a pretty big deal. Even when imps have a critter, assuming you want to specifically run up a class just for access to that crew member, they don't have it at as high a quality. Smuggler, trooper, and jedi knight dominate the options for armor, biochem, and arms. This is that old routine of the game bonus question where you offer a player +30% xp, or a 1% extra damage. It sounds like you want the xp while you level, but you're going to be cap someday, and the efficiency improvement won't matter to you anymore--all you will want is access to better stats which you can't get any other way than RNG and luck. Maybe they should just put crit into companion opinion of you and give them base efficiency improvements. They simply classify a companion as 'talented: cybertech' or whatever. That way they can do a behind-the-scenes calculation to crit, regardless (which they can also balance whenever they feel like universally across companions), and give a uniform speed bonus in the chosen discipline. So for example: 4X; talented (Cybertech). His crafting comes out 15% faster, from word go, but as you get him more affectionate, behind the scenes he gains an extra cybertech crit bonus. Which helps him make awesome droid parts. Which nobody cares about and won't buy on the GM. But good for him--he should have a hobby. :jawa:

I don't know, man. It's great when an officer offers himself up to die--beats getting the short straw, myself --but it's also keeping your priorities straight. I don't think they'd officially recommissioned him at that point. He's just some prisoner you've been ordered to retrieve. They say the person he orders you after is a high priority target, but so what. There's high priority targets all over the place. If everyone stopped to shoot at everything high priority, nobody would get 5 feet from their ship. It's darkside to go chasing after some guy for revenge and letting your mission die on you, and it's lightside to stick to your mission even when you're tempted to want to do someone a favor, and, in the end, put a good guy back in the pilot's seat to fight for the right side. It's a little contrived that the choices is he dies/you do what he asks or he lives/you ignore him, since it seems like those things shouldn't be related--either he's mortally wounded or he's going to pull through. The medicine they've got is supposed to be incredible. This is why it doesn't pay to have a vet write it. Ask 10 guys and you get 10 different answers on what they're willing to put up with/find believable. Depends on service, duty, or just their bad/good experiences. There are vets out there who think this story is true to life because they had a weird CO in a crappy post and no friends.

They need to let it happen and then have Jaesa be a a healer to compensate. But only if you go through with it.

how did 'there fixed it for you' supercede 'fixed that for you' as the acronym when that was the original meme. I just spent a bunch of time trying to figure out where that came from because I assumed it didn't just mean 'ftfy'. Or 'fixed' which is the same number of letters and makes more sense. Society is crumbling.

If you marry both of them, you get a purple light saber.

I would like flying mounts. The current slow speeders trapped by the ground do not look or feel like star wars, and make no sense for the setting. In almost every movie there are small personal craft that fly at high speeds and have freedom of movement. Surely there can be a balance between being shot at while you fly by and risking a crash, and implementing cool free feeling flying mounts. In fact, that would be an incredible experience--to fly by on your flying car, have a missile launched from some ground mob hit you, and take falling damage. Problems solved. Keep the flight ceiling low enough, and you have a fun trade off between risky speed and safe behavior which resembles the current system, but is more fun and feels more like star wars.

I would also like faster speeders. The speeders do not feel like star wars. They do not feel like technology. In a world where coruscant has 'speeders' that are always flying back and forth at 100s of miles per hour, it seems strange to be both stuck on the ground all the time as well as at a snails pace. I do not care about what anyone thinks an average person's walking or running pace is in real life. In a world where people have their muscles augmented by the force or biomechanical implants or powered armor or all 3 at the same time, even bringing it up is mindless. It also has nothing to do with the speed of a space motorcycle or flying car. The taxi service should only be useful for its autopilot feature or because there's inaccessible areas of the map that have to be flown to. Otherwise, once you get a speeder, it should behave like the speeder bikes, cars, and pods that you can see in most of the movies--something that moves fast. If your first mount was a tauntaun or an ATPT, I could understand moving at +90-120%. This is not true to the background or the universe, or even real life experiences with vehicles, and feels strange.

There are over the top light side options. I don't think comparing wimpy light to exagerrated dark is anything but moralistic favoritism--people who think light side is 'good' favor that kind of spinballery. In reality, light and dark side are insane constructs of a bunch of writers that only apply in the universe of star wars. And even there, really, light and dark are nothing but 2 political parties who's membership is made up entirely of midichlorians. It's better to say there's plenty of light side examples where you're being polite and merciful to someone who's clearly going to kill a bunch more people, or you're destroying perfectly good data that could be used to save lives and help people just because it was procured in an ugly way --even if you put a stop to what was happening, personally, and make sure it won't happen again. Allowing disasters to happen in the name of temporary apparent largess is just as ridiculous as allowing disasters to happen in the name of temporary personal gain. And you can be just as insulting on the light side--it's only a matter of how condescending and irritating you find passive aggressive holier-than-thou types. Personally, I'm anti.

I sympathize with him. You don't understand what's going on and you're giving orders. There's two parts to the statement about the effect of accuracy. One is on defense. The other is against resistance vs energy and kinetic. Armor penetration is not precisely what is happening, but that is irrelevant. It's linked because armor is effectively where you get your resistance for most purposes, and having an effect which changes your resistance effectively neutralizes your armor--it's the same as saying pressure and temperature is equivalent, which is basically true. He's observing something which is ambiguously worded, but undeniable. The point here is that resistance is a damage multiplier that goes both ways. If you accumulate accuracy beyond 100, it operates as negative resistance for the purposes of kinetic and energy attacks. Which is useful information. The testing part is probably excessive. If you don't like it, you can go to the suggestion forum and ask bioware to remove it, I guess. I'd be curious if the language is still the same after the patch, or if the damage type of force choke is typed differently than tech kinetic. Like in the mode of (force) Kinetic instead of (Tech) kinetic or something like that. It would make some sense, since it's not an attack that relies on accuracy in any way. I mean, in the metaphor of the animation. To do this right, someone really needs to set up a couple cheap orange armor sets for themselves with the right kind of enhancements and mods, and then switch out between sets of punching something.

for instance, because it is a nerf. For one thing, the ideal situation argument is a wash. Either everyone is in it, or neither person is, since you are either 'in pvp's fast and furious world of gangsta unforsoothsayable skillzorz' or you're fully charged and trying to ruin the day of someone who's afk near the entrance to a class quest. The numbers went down. The fact that you can change your approach, to, in the midst of a furball where you see someone use up their cc counters, swoop in to do more damage than you could have with the jars of delicious jam, isn't an improvement to the tool box. The crux of your argument is that this class is still deadly--probably *too* deadly in the right circumstances, because we can watch for openings and obliterate someone who's put some of their **** on cooldown, or by cooperating 2v2 or 3v3 to fit in with our teammate's cc. If that's not the crux of your argument than your argument is heretical because it lacks a crux. Now, moving along that idea, that's fine, and it certainly makes it less likely that you'll absolutely destroy someone without support. It also makes it hard to justify delicious jars of strawberry currants spread on smug toast. So now you either need a friend to hold your bread while you butter it, or you hold the bread, and they butter it. And your spec makes that determination for you ahead of time. Should anyone ever be obliterated if they move more than 2 feet from the nearest trooper buddy? This is the question we need to ask. The answer is yes. Kill them all. Republic scum.

Everyone and their dog recommends Agent it seems like. I played BH a bit, and I can only say that it's not particularly exciting, at least for the first part. It's more about whether the character is fun to play. Which--as a tank, it can be. Certainly I played a trooper, adn that's basically the same--and the BH is just a trooper without bugged animation times. So it should be fun. However, just as counterpoint on the trooper quest. I found several things about it to be fun. 1) it blends in very well with the actual missions. As other classes you show up at a world and people drop things in your lap and it seems odd that you're taking all these odd jobs sometimes--unless you're just a career adventurer. Which admittedly we all play as, but still--when someone puts the future of Balmorra on your shoulders, as opposed to just getting some help with their problems (and life continues on) it makes less sense than when it's part of the trooper's objectives. It makes sense that the premier special forces ****** would be going from hot spot to hot spot, problem solving, and picking up their awesome team of misfits at the same time. 2) It is SO great to make light/dark side choices as trooper if for no other reason than several of them are *actually* ambiguous and kind of interesting. Like whether you preserve 'one of your own' who's also mission-critical or a bunch of strangers that you don't know, but are the more virtuous thing to do. 3) the end point is much more satisfying. In the beginning you get thrust into a situation that's appealing, but immediately evaporates, and you kind of feel cheated out of a sense of belonging to your character's story--but then, as you go, you end up building the scope and experiences that create a sense of that belonging much better than you could have imagined. And at the end, you have a team of people in storm trooper armor all standing behind you that look ******, but also part of a unit--that you lead. Even their prime stats are the same, which feels cool in a way. Other players have a motley crew standing behind them. 4) Dressing as a dark jedi with gun.

You just godwinned this thread. So that's great. The only way you can think the nazi regime was intelligent is if you somehow conflate germans with nazis to the point that you think they mean the same thing. Germans have brilliant doctors, philosophers, engineers, physicists, and artists. Nazis are a bunch of pig brained drooling morons who ate up insane rhetoric that, in the end, got their entire country scooped out like a rotten melon. Many of them came from Bavaria, and had no more sophisticated view on life than a sense of entitlement to the major industrial centers in germany to fund their modernization and economic recovery--at the expense of absolutely anyone else they could blame or sacrifice for it. Decades later, they're the ones who resist returning the favor when the cities are in an economic recession due at least in part to reuniting with east germany--something they only had to do because of the mob mentality creeps who helped get the nazis into power and provided their raw manpower. And that's all an oversimplification of just *how* unforgiveably stupid the nazi movement was, and the difference between it and general german culture. It's like saying the klu klux klan had some smart people in it because America and the klu klux klan are the same thing and America has smart people in it. That said, the Sith, if there's nazi callbacks going on at all (other than the color scheme) are useful in as much as they're a combination of pig headed jack booted thugs with no sophistication or brains who seemingly want to do bad things for the sheer hell of it, working with and controlling through intimidation a bunch of well intentioned people with genuine ethics that are just a hair over the line in terms of struggling between their national pride and larger duties. Also, as a republic trooper, I made a pact with a dark god to mortgage the future. So. You know. 6 of one... Edit: if you're just saying smart in the sense of 'beware of thinking that evil people aren't clever enough to take advantage of you', fair enough, but honestly, I don't even buy that. Intimidation and organization do not require intelligence. That's the benefit of training soldiers instead of relying on self-made warriors or knights. And you can judge the intelligence of the leadership by the use to which they put those 'troops'. In this case, not just the destruction of those they hated or felt superior to, but of their own people cause and country. Which is pretty stupid.

Guys. This kind of says it all: http://www.findmybrick.com/product_info.php?products_id=4366&osCsid=05cb20a067be53cbb3a395ab2eaef6bb Clearly, red light sabered jedi are canon. Not only canon, the norm. Not only the norm, required. If you think otherwise, you obviously don't like or understand star wars and need to switch to something you don't like as punishment.

I vote for smaller arena-like warzones with objectives that are just designed for pairs or quads instead of larger groups.

This argument is tautalogical unless you make more of an effort to define terms, and, if I understand what you're trying to say correctly, it's still something I profoundly disagree with. First, the terms. Farming and exploiting are virtual synonyms in the context of resources. These are virtual resources. I exploit my abilities and whatever techniques I learn in order to avail myself of them. If that means following higher level players to scavenge their dead droid corpses or sneaking around a zone to find treasure chests, then the only difference, perhaps, in the those words is in the amount of in-game movement you have to do in order to farm, vs exploitation perhaps requiring less travel. That is a stretch, though. Even in the the vernacular that I think you're using, exploitation's *only* difference from farming hinges on its morality, though that in itself is probably only a connotation of the term, since exploitation seems very often to mean taking advantage of an unintended consequence. Those consequences, when blessed by the game publisher, or taking place in a game which is not an MMO, are just 'gameplay' and do not immediately assume a perjorative context. Second, regardless of whether we adopt the attitude that exploitation is functionally different than farming, the definition of those terms is decidedly left as vague as possibly by bioware, for what is probably the purpose of giving themselves as much leeway as they can in future problems. They are trying to 'handle' this and they want everyone to feel good about the fact that they basically decided to punish some people for making use of what they perceive as a bug or unintended consequence. I have seen similar statements in other places that amount to the idea that you cannot make use of equipment not designed for your level (I think it's in the EULA). This is a *very* slippery idea and one which I don't feel confident interpreting. Clearly I can send high level gear to a low level character. I can also send credits which I could use to buy higher level gear. Some of that gear--specifically orange gear, is meaningless without the mods that fill it. Yes, the gear, even empty, with all mods removed, (and therefore no stats) has a level requirement. If I were to find a way to trick the game into letting my 12th level character wear an empty suit of armor that has a restriction of level 39, then I would be violating this clause in a measurable way--yet I would be causing no meaningful harm. If bioware followed the letter of their law, they would ban me. On the other hand, if my character encountered a non-bound item without a level restriction that they could slot into empty level-appropriate armor, I clearly am not violating any game rules--the game is permitting the action. That this action was not desired by bioware is something I have no way of predicting. While you may thing it's obvious that a level 12 equipping a level 39 mod is unbalanced, functionally, that is a difference of very little. It would be more obvious the more times this was used to make the character powerful, yet, by doing this, I would merely be doing exactly what I do all the time anyway; evaluate, based on the gear available to me, what is the most powerful configuration I can wear--and try to wear it. If I can do something once, and it might be given a pass, then at what threshold am I culpable for breaking the rule? I have to read the mind of a designer? It doesn't matter how obvious it seems to you--for someone it will not be obvious, or for some set of circumstances, it will be vague for all parties. There is no guarantee that bioware will take a relaxed posture if they cannot express their rules in a clear fashion. Third, while, as a purely capitalist endeavor, we are basically 'on their property' and merely renting our experience, so what they say goes, and if we don't like it, let the market decide--as a matter of a purely contractual interaction between two parties (me and the customer service droids), I feel the onus really is on bioware as the party who is in nearly absolute control of the experience to signal their intent about the rules by changing the game. If bioware would like me to stop wearing a piece of equipment or using an in game object, then they can introduce a patch that adds a level requirement to those pieces and disables them for my character. If they believe that massing together to overwhelm a 'base' in a pvp area and effectively blocking enemy players from getting onto a planet is somehow wrong, then they can add defenses or safe zones to the planet until it is impossible to do so. Otherwise, no reasonable inference can be made about their intentions. Getting a powerful gun/weapon/powerup in any online experience that gives you an advantage simply is. You may not like it, you might set up a server (if that's possible) to avoid it, you may form a sub culture where that behavior is avoided, but the fact that it is in the game, itself is not a matter for resolution by the company unless the company wants to remove the item altogether or include, for player convenience, mods and branched experiences that permit people to avoid them. Goldeneye 007 for the N64 had a lethal mode in which one shot killed you, regardless of weapon--making weapon type and strength irrelevant. That is one way to deal with the fact that the 'golden gun is overpowered' or the 'laser gun is overpowered'--make all guns equal in a player selectable game mode. In the case of an mmo where intermixing is required, it is still possible to make servers with special rules (pvp, for example) or zones with special rules (stat normalization or level restriction) to prevent these things from happening. When a company takes action like this, I feel like it is a matter of luck to avoid getting in trouble--whether I will ever come close to getting in trouble is irrelevant. I don't like the implication, especially when so much of games like these are based on precisely a person's ability and determination to maximize their resources over time and persist in the most efficient methods of grinding through tasks which are, functionally *only* a matter of time, and not of skill, intuition, or knowledge. It's not like someone is using a no-clipping hack to fly up to a datacron, here. This is more like getting a sith inquisitor to stand by a datacron and force-grab you up to it so you don't have to complete the jumping puzzle. Maybe for a fee in credits or help to defeat a world boss arranged beforehand. That seems, by any rational evaluation, to be a very clever and exciting form of problem solving and cooperation in a game that is very much about story telling and cooperation, and less so about Mario style jumping antics or arcade action. This is only an example, and if you start replying 'I don't think they'd have a problem with that', you've missed the point. That is an example that could conceivably be on the borderline. Maybe people feel that imperials and republic shouldn't be able to 'help each other' in this fashion. Certainly by doing this, it opens the question about why imps and republic might not engage in trade or join the same party--in a logical outgrowth of the concept of a neutral galactic market. \ Maybe it undermines society, I don't know. But this is not a clear message to me, and I don't appreciate what it appears to say about their approach to any given unexpected player behavior. It's not like I'm going to stop playing--I'm having fun, and I'm not interested in writing some long drawn out screed about how this is all awful. I just honestly don't understand what the expectation is, and feel like some potential for having fun and playing creatively is being curtailed. I do not want to operate in this game as though I am an extension of Big Brother's snitching network--constantly watching over the activities of my friends for any signs of in appropriate behavior such as killing one monster too many times, discovering ways to make money too quickly, or obtaining exciting in-game items too early or too easily. When, frankly, that is literally all I spend my time trying to do, since much of the content in the game is gated by time, and if I can trade cleverness for time, I will happily do it. I want to see and experience things and have fun, I don't want to be killing the same 40 droids for hours because someone decided it should take exactly 3 weeks of daily play to achieve the ability to wear, for example, a pilot suit. Or something. Ideally, gating systems would be like the space-combat arcade game. I play it all the time and do well at it, and get more xp than other people because I'm good at it--allowing me to get a couple easy and fast levels every time a new mission opens up. The time that it takes to level going through a story should be linked to the story, not to an arbitrary timeline enshrined in some burn-down chart on player retention. And by that I mean, I feel that these kinds of measures, without clear guidelines, border on exploitation of the control that bioware has over the environment that allows them to specify, after the fact, their intentions, and control the customer's access to the game with impunity, when, I think it is fair to say, in the kind of contracts this resembles, there is should be mutual understandings of expectations. If a movie theater sells tickets to a performance, and you sneak in, and the usher kicks you out, then that is fine. If a movie theater sells concessions and posts signs saying no outside food or drink, that's fine too. If a movie theater demands you give up your phone because it might have a camera in it that you could use to record the movie, then that seems borderline--given that you haven't actually *done* anything yet, and they have the aforementioned ushers to keep an eye out for that kind of thing. Especially in the case of a monopoly on an experience, this kind of thing is frustrating. If they provide lockers, free of charge, in which to put your phone, or put a giant sign out front 'please leave your camera phones in your car, or in your bag, or in your coat--because if we see it, it's grounds for you being escorted out' then that helps me decide if I want to go to the theater before I get there, or if I want to do something about my phone. Or whatever. If the theater has a smart-phone applet that interacts with their coming attractions as part of the theater experience, *and* they have an un-posted rule about camera phones, then that is a pretty clear breach of that mutual understanding. I feel that there is potential here for that kind of breach and I would appreciate it if bioware would either assume from now on that unanticipated behavior within the game client's normal operation should be patched out, rather than arbitrated. If there really is an overwhelming emergency, such as the ability for someone to crash the servers regularly through normal client operation, then a temp ban on the account seems very easy to justify in comparison to what is a vague interpretation of what sound like unduly flexible policies. I'm not assuming they'll target innocent people for fun--they're a business after all, and the gold farming issue is particularly t***** since it involves such extraordinary leaps in logic and lack of proof. If I decided I was santa claus and spent my days making money and giving it away in big chunks to random low level characters I would probably be banned--as the pattern of behavior would match the gold farmer. It has become very popular to nail down gold farming as an immoral activity, since supposedly it interrupts the play of others. But the fact remains, I cannot recognize the difference between a gold farmer and a normal player who is merely more dedicated than I am in finding ways to make virtual currency. The only real issue is that bioware feels that money is being made from its game by a 3rd party--yet there are perfectly legal ways to do this. For example, writing a strategy guide about their game with fair use imagery and names of items to sell to players--in the manner of many Wow guides (or really any number of game guides). Or writing a comic that parodies their work and selling t-shirts with phrases like 'I used to be light side republic vanguard but then I took an ortolan in the knee' or something on them. It's largely the same debate with every MMO, I'm just unimpressed with the implications here. In Wow, the main means of controlling gold farming seems to be complaints about in-game spam and attempting to track hackers and hacking like behavior, and a somewhat creepy antivirus-like program that checks for known 3rd party software that wow doesn't like. Avoiding trouble, then, seems like it's mostly about not running 3rd party software that everybody else isn't also running (like deadly boss mods or something), and not spamming other players or trying to steal. In EVE the threshold is even looser (and in some ways full of more subjective pitfalls). There's 3 issues. One of violating EULA clauses, One of engaging in business that attempts to capitalize on bioware's game, and one of zerging and spawn camping. No one was banned, on some of those counts, but even to warn someone about it seems ridiculous. Patch or don't patch. There is no warn. Edit: this ran long and rambles. If you staid to the end, thanks. Disagreeing with parts of what I say are something I understand both in terms of how much something bothers you or what you think is fair to assume about bioware's intentions, but I don't think it's worth calling out my lack of irritation over gold farmers or my clearly cynical views on companies and their legal obligations. What I hope everyone can agree on is that the customer service droid message is too vague--and that even if you can understand what they specifically did here, why they did it is hard to know and reflects some elements of the agreement in the EULA (which I read this time-- I have no idea why) which are strange, even for software agreements, in general (which are universally strange and untested creatures).

Sounds like the final piece here is that, while you can torpedo and missile together, it's a little more cumbersome than missiles only--because you lose the multi target click and drag ability which is the most useful feature of missiles. That might be considered a fair trade off in the mind of the space combat designer, but it definitely needs a little more documentation or some more help one way or the other. I think what should probably happen is that the original missile lock on mechanism should be changed to a lock-on like the torpedo--but, instead of needing to wait for the entire time, you basically 'add a missile' for each second. If you just click without locking on, one missile is fired. If you click and quickly drag across some targets, a maximum of 4 targets get selected, and when you release, the missiles fire. If you stay locked on the first target, every second, up to 3, you get an extra missile locked onto the target. If you stay locked you get a couple 'bonus' missiles. So after 3 seconds, you get 5 missiles that will queue up and fire all in a volley at your target. Then, later, when you get proton torpedoes, they will replace this queue-up behavior, and the rest of the functionality will stay the same. This will help with 3 problems - People do not understand how to use the proton torpedoes, because it's a completely new behavior, and they haven't had a chance to 'train' on the easier missions and get used to something similar. Many people may not know the difference between clicking quickly (immediately launching a missile) and click, dragging, and releasing (firing up to 4 missiles simultaneously). - There are a very few *specific* targets in the game that require multiple missiles, but do not need proto torpedoes. The shield gens on the small destroyers are usually easiest to wipe out with a click and drag that hits them and their flanking turrets, and then a second click drag to wipe them out. Or a 3rd click drag on the later levels when they get hardier. The only other targets that demand missiles are the shield gens on battlecruisers. These require (I think) 5 or 6 each. This means you click your entire magazine dry and then have to slightly awkwardly wait a tick for one reload to occur before you can finish destroying the thing. It would be nice if you could just lock on, wait, and unload the full generator-destroying load. - 5 seconds for proton torpedos makes no sense and doesn't have anything to do with the lore/movies. I know I'm being a dick, but since this is one of the few things you get to watch take place in detail, it seems like it's not that big a deal to bring it in line. Luke and the other guys aren't waiting for a lock on, they're waiting to get in *range* of the thing. As soon as they get there, the torpedo locks on instantly and they let it go. At that point, the butt clenching moment has to do with whether the torpedo will accidentally impact the side of the exhaust vent or go all the way in, not whether it has the target acquired or not. Also the torpedos take a pretty sharp turn, so there's probably some kind of timing thing that luke's force sensitivity helps with that is otherwise not 'in the manual'. I feel like as a game mechanic, it's fine, and simulates the idea alright, but cutting it down to 3 would be less frustrating, and still have that feel--and would be more consistent with the pace of space combat. You can still barrel roll during this lock on mechanic, so I'm not sure if it really serves the intended purpose--since I often have to spend 5 seconds sitting still and shooting in order to destroy turrets or something that will otherwise shoot me up on a pass--functionally it doesn't add much risk--especially since you also have the EMP gen to make your torpedo run 'safe', assuming you save it for that purpose. In conclusion - Make a lockon behavior for missiles that lets you queue them up and fire a volley with bonus missiles so that you can 'fire and forget' at some hard targets in exchange for spending a little more time. - Reduce the time involved to 3 seconds, regardless, for everyone's sanity. - Maintain the click and drag multi target missile ability even when you have proton torpedos (it still fires missiles, not torpedos--but that way it stays consistent). Also, if someone doesn't wait the full 3 seconds, it should still fire a couple missiles to prove that it works. - Amend the tooltip on missile magazine to read 'fire missiles at hard targets, lock on to fire a volley of X' where x is a number of total missiles tied to the item quality. Purps do 6, greens do 4--etc. Or mayb eyou could hav ea lcok on speed reduction on some purps. Whatever. - Amend tooltip on proton torpedoes to read 'full lockon now fires a proton torpedo instead of a missile volley'. IMO, bros.

I really wish aric had a customization kit that turned him into 4x. I am not a cat person. I even grabbed the snoopy helmet from Quesh and put it on him just to try to pretend he was always back at the ship imagining it was a Sopwith Camel and muttering about the Red Baron. (sopwith camels are biplanes from world war I, and snoopy would pretend that his doghouse was one. The Red Baron was a german ace. Sopwith was a company. Camels are animals that live in the desert and don't need much water. The desert is a biome that prevails when there isn't much precipitation--surprisingly, Antarctica is a desert, even though it's covered in ice, because of how little it actually snows.) My point, though, is that the crazy robot that gains affection when I hit up destitute refugees for their last cred (in the name of the republic! War bonds, people), is way more fun than this guy who only gains affection when I hit this hard-to-guess-at fine line between being rude and subservient to authority. At least dorne is easier to deal with--say please and thank you and dismiss her before you execute anyone in cold blood. "Go out of the room, dear, Darth Udders and I have something to talk about" *blaster fire* "What was that?" "Weapons malfunction. Reactor leak. Very Dangerous." "Another word and I will stockstrike you in the mouth." And the melee guys, so far, are lamer than ****. This is a darkside vanguard in what is mostly a shield spec, but I grabbed gut from assault for fun. I think the real point here is that, whatever you do, gear your companion or you'll be stuck with dorne. I actually capped cybertech and I still don't want to go through the effort of keeping the robot in good parts. So many armorings and mods. Yeesh. At least with dorne I can put her in a random assortment of crap with a couple oranges I don't need and she does her job fine. SO MANY CUPS OF COFFEE THIS MORNING. Also, I can't recommend this enough--when you hit Dark 4, use the social preferences to turn off your hat, and get an orange jedi knight chest piece with a hood and replace the strength armoring and mod with aim parts. It's too cool for school. I'm having SO much fun right now. making pacts with dark gods... executing traitors on sight... selling plans for baby-skinning knife droids to hutt-operated after school clubs...

That's an unreasonable expectation and still requires the information to be complete and useful. I don't know of many descriptions of characters that really give me a feel for how they'll play as they level or how they'll be at level cap. There are plenty of MMO classes I've played that were *only* fun when they were capped, geared, and participating in raids or large scale pvp premades. The fact that I stuck around to get that far is not a good thing. I could have been having fun with another class, and if the developer of the game wants to *make* the process of getting there more fun, then they should. The way they're going to do that is by hearing feedback from someone who picked up the class in good faith (OP said he read the description, after all), tried it for a while, and had some complaints. I know this is the internet, but please try to remember just because somebody else doesn't like or didn't enjoy something you enjoy--it doesn't mean you are wrong or that your choice is bad. Everyone gets weird and defensive, but there's no point. If a guy doesn't like the class as is--he says, basically, that it doesn't end up playing the way it's described, well, at the very least, it might lead to better descriptions and more information--and wouldn't it suit you just fine if you didn't have to spend so much effort reading up on a class you wanted to play ahead of time--you could just hop in and have fun without all the corollary work? And if none of that happens, so what? It's not like you're any better or worse for enjoying what he didn't like. You're certainly not any smarter for reading web sites/watching videos to treat a game like a job instead of being casual about it and using that time for something you prefer to do. Again--if you prefer to do exactly that and others don't, that's no reflection on you. Or them. Nobody has to be annoyed here.

Well against trash, worse against bosses, I guess. To be fair. 'Decent gear' is kind of in the eye of the beholder. Clearly jorgen can emphasize single target much better than 4x can--just because of his stances and abilities. So if you can take the hits and want someone to focus targets down fast with you, I guess, you really can't make the case for him. For killing a bunch of trash you dragged halfway down a hall because you're in a hurry, and well geared, 4x seems better to me.

Well it's pretty core. It's just that you definitely lean *heavily* on being in melee range sometimes--either because something ran up to you, and now you have to cc it, get in a couple shots, and then open the distance, or because you are at range, and want to snare and run in to land some devastating hits and disrupt their casting or whatever. What it's *not* is an all-the-time-in-melee class OR an all-the-time-at-range class, like a guardian or a gunslinger might be. Or a commando for that matter. I think it's versatile and cool. I would also like to see it be a little *more* versatile to allow players to emphasize range more. Part of it is having to pick between the stance you're going to spec for. Speccing ion but for ranged damage would be an interesting choice--since much of ion's setup is kind of agnostic about the short range abilities--but you have limited options in the other trees about what to improve. Assault synergizes with shield poorly because you get most of your assault improvements by using Plasma cell, and tactics as a secondary tends to push you toward getting up in someone's grill and meleeing them which works well with storm. So 3/4s of the potential specs *really* emphasize melee, and then even assault has mechanics that work best at short range, where you can weave stockstrikes and ion pulses into your rotation of dots. It's about kiting, but it's short range kiting. I mean, assault seems ideal for pvp more than ranged pve.

This is an interesting statement to me. I've never found that there is any but one right answer for pvp; more everything. You can't be a glass canon because you'll be destroyed too quickly. You can't be toothless because you won't be able to grind others down. So every class that pvps seriously tries to maximize utility and control while maintaining their best survivability and burst--then the winner is down to who plays better or has a better plan (ideally). The shield spec has a lot of damage in it, as well as utility. You really can't ignore it. I don't think assault has a fundamentally different purpose than a shield. It's not like a melee stealther vs a ranged class or someething where the difference is in how you want to start the engagement, and it's not the difference between a healer and a tank or something--vangards in pvp pretty much *alwayS* want to tank advantage of some kiting and stay on the move, and pretty much *always* rely on their superior survivability to harder hitting/easier killed classes. It doesn't matter if you're shield or assault if your approach to a melee sith is to kite them around, dot them up, and occasionally cc them and run in for a a stockstrike or interrupt. I think his pvp conclusion is a valid comparison because while the specs are different--the nature of pvp is not. I mean, maybe you could argue that assault is worse for huttball or something, but I don't really see that as the case. All pvp has a need for cc, positioning, survivability, and damage. That's why the people who like to pvp don't like pve as much--you always need to be aware of all those things in every fight. There's no straight forward 'tank and spank' pvp or 'gimmick fights'. Arguably, if there are, then it's a balance problem. I think your point about needing the combat logs to really decide for pve dps is valid, though.

The key to the class is ion cell, good modded gear (get oranges, then keep them updated with commendations) and go up the shield tree getting the damage skills until you have, at least, the skill that improves the damage of ion cell. Then you can mix in a second tree for more damage, but that should improve how the class plays. Other than that, elara is good for survivability when your gear is too low, and you can use aric or 4x for damage when your gear is good.