The only reason why I say it needs "fixing" is the stated purpose of the system in that quote from James Ohlen. I find that the Legacy system does the opposite of that stated goal by encouraging credit farming instead of playing alts. Maybe someday once people have earned the millions of credits they would need to unlock the rewards they want, they would finally be able to carry on with their alts as the system intended. But personally, I expect I would burn out on the credits grinding long before I got that far... especially if the 1.3 unlocks are going to have similar credit requirements.

Meh, sorry, I'm against this suggestion. I'm in favor of optional same-gender romance with companion characters, but to sprinkle same-gender [Flirt] options into the NPC conversations all over the game would be too much, IMO. It's one thing to respect sexual preferences and have those roleplay options in the game, but it's another to have those options appearing constantly everywhere you go. I think that's pushing it a little bit. Yes, I know, it's not fair because you have to see opposite gender flirt options constantly (especially on Smugglers/Agents), but I don't think it's important enough for Bioware to spend time and resources on [Flirt] dialogue.

In an interview with Gamespot, James Ohlen said this about the Legacy system: “We wanted to have a system that encouraged players to create alts and to play the game through the different story paths." Early descriptions of the Legacy system sounded great. It would reward players who spent the time leveling multiple characters and gaining a high Legacy level, and give us an incentive for playing all of those alts. However, now that we have seen the first set of Legacy rewards, it looks like nothing more than a massive money sink. Legacy in its current state does not reward or encourage playing alts at all. In fact, it does the exact opposite -- it encourages eschewing the story paths altogether and instead playing repetitive endgame content to earn millions and millions of credits needed for Legacy rewards. When 1.2 was released, the altoholic player either had one or two level 50 characters and had started working on his next character, or he had eight or more characters at various stages of their class stories. He doesn't do FP hardmodes, he doesn't do dailies or pvp very often, and he doesn't do operations. He has a high Legacy level, but he doesn't have a whole lot of credits. So when he looks at the Legacy system, he sees a bunch of rewards that would be great for leveling his alts, but most of them he will never be able to afford if he sticks to his preferred play-style. Playing alts simply doesn't earn a lot of credits, and what credits you do earn you need for buying skills and for crafting. He has the Legacy level requirements for all of the unlocks covered, but that's totally irrelevant because the credit costs are too high. His options are to abandon his preferred play-style and begin "grinding" for credits by doing endgame tasks that he doesn't enjoy, or ignore the Legacy system completely. SUGGESTION #1: Reduce the costs of Legacy unlocks across the board. There's really no reason for the costs to be so high. SUGGESTION #2: Make sure all Legacy unlocks can be unlocked by some means other than just credits. This could be by achieving a certain Legacy level (higher than the current token Legacy requirement) or by requiring a certain number of level 50 characters (1 level 50 for the first reward level, 2 for the second level, and so on). SUGGESTION #3: Discount the cost of Legacy unlocks based on Legacy level. i.e. For each Legacy level a player has above the minimum required level, the cost for that reward is reduced by a certain percentage.

Pretty much this. I'd like companions to have a little more to say during missions, including side missions.

I said this back in beta, but Biowhatever didn't listen to me. Companion customizations should be offered right from the start. It really doesn't make sense to get familiar with a character, and then find an option much later that totally changes their appearance.

Hi! Legacy system as it was originally described sounded like a great system for rewarding players who put the time and effort into leveling multiple characters (and by doing so, experience all of the great Bioware story-telling). However, now that we have seen the first set of unlocks, it appears that the Legacy system is actually all about rewarding the richest players. Only players who farm/grind for millions upon millions of credits on a level 50 character can afford most Legacy unlocks, while players who like to play alts (a far less lucrative play-style) can barely afford a few of the cheapest rewards. Is the purpose of Legacy unlocks to encourage playing multiple characters and experiencing more story or to encourage grinding for large amounts of credits?

I understand the appeal of having something in the game to work toward, but it's only a good system if the "work" you have to do is enjoyable and fun. This was going to be a great system for SWTOR when it was about Legacy level and not purely about credits. Somewhere along the way they completely abandoned the whole concept of a Legacy level (you can just hide the Legacy bar on your UI, because it's 100% meaningless) and went full-bore money sink bananas. If all of these unlocks could be achieved by obtaining a high enough Legacy level, then you could "work" toward these goals by doing something fun -- playing through all of the different class stories (that "4th Pillar" Bioware promoted so hard leading up to the game's release). Now, however, you can't unlock anything that way. You have to stay away from any story content and just stick to your level 50 character, repeating the same old daily quests literally thousands and thousands of times in order to earn enough credits for the Legacy unlocks. It's amazing to me that Bioware spent so much time promoting the "4th Pillar" in SWTOR, and since the game was released they seem to be doing everything in their power to push players away from story content as much as they can.

The whole point of custom (orange) gear is to allow players to have the look for their character that they want. Getting different gear because it's two expensive to swap mods defeats the whole purpose of having moddable gear in the first place. They may as well just get rid of the whole concept of moddable gear and go with WoW-style purple "epix" if they are going to insist on making mod swapping prohibitively expensive.

The purpose of a money sink is to remove excess money that is already in the economy, not force players into playing the game like Chinese sweat shop gold farmers, spending hours and hours grinding for credits. And a time sink is even worse -- it's just something to waste players time in order to try and keep them in the game longer. If I can tell that something is purely a time sink, I am seeing failure on the part of the developers.

This is a game, not work. I do work for money, not for fun. No decent game should require anything that could be considered "work." MMOs have devolved to such a state where it is accepted and even praised for the amount of tedious work they require in order to gain rewards, and this is why they constantly fail.

Faster XP gain while leveling I want to play all 8 classes, but the tedium of repeating tons of side-missions wears me down. Faster XP gain while leveling would help to alleviate the repetitiveness. The 1.3 Legacy unlocks might help, but not much since they're limited to PvP, Space and FPs, and I spend 99% of my time doing missions.

I agree with this, too. Bioware have said that the purpose of these boosts is so that you can play the way you want to play. Apparently, that does not include people who just want to do quests. Bioware seems to think those people don't count.

Rocket Boost is locked until you reach Legacy Level 8, and then it becomes unlocked for you to purchase. By any definition I can imagine, the Legacy level is an unlock condition in this case. They even use a little padlock icon to signify that the thing is locked until you reach that Legacy level. Nobody is making an assumption because Bioware made it perfectly clear that the Legacy level is an unlock condition for those perks. Even if they can say that Legacy level is not "technically" an unlock condition, then the problem is that the unlock condition is simply missing from most of the Legacy perks.

Oh boy, this is a serious issue. My future with SWTOR hinges on those 1.3 Legacy unlocks, especially XP boosts. I really want to play through all 8 classes at least once, but I can't take all of the repetitiveness. My subscription is already cancelled, and my intention was to re-sub when 1.3 comes out and I can get those unlocks. I was actually hoping most of those unlocks would be automatic with a certain Legacy level, but obviously not. More and more the "Legacy" system appears to have nothing at all to do with Legacy levels and everything to do with grinding for massive amounts of credits. If it turns out that it will be prohibitively expensive to get the unlocks that I want for my characters, it will completely ruin the whole system for me and unfortunately I'll be finished with SWTOR. There is still hope, however, because we don't know what the costs will be. Obviously if the character unlocks are priced anywhere close to the cost of the global unlocks, it will be a total disaster. I have to believe that the prices will be MUCH lower if they only apply to one character. IMO, for the cost of one global unlock you should be able to buy every single character unlock for one of your alts, and have change left over.

No, the unlocks stay unlocked

MACROS! Snap-to features and ability to remove portraits would be nice. And ability to move companion skill buttons on their skill bar

Honestly, I think people who are claiming that they are all about the story and that Bioware has failed them by not releasing more story yet are kinda being hypocrites, because I'm sure not a single one of you has played through all 8 class stories already (if you have, please get a job or find a charity to volunteer for or something). If you are really a story-focused player who is in this for the 4th Pillar, you should want to see all 8 story-lines, not just 1 or 2. There's a lot more story available for you, but if you're sticking with just one or two characters you're choosing to ignore a lot of content. I'm sure the problem is that in order to play through another class-story of the same faction, you have to repeat a lot of content. I get that. It can be a bit of a chore sometimes. I think if Bioware could make it a bit less tedious to play a new character through repeated content, all of those class stories wouldn't go to waste. Legacy XP boost unlocks in 1.3 might help, although I'm bothered by the fact that they are only for space combat, flashpoints and PvP. N0o Legacy XP boosts for people who just like to do the quests? Still, if the XP boosts are significant enough, maybe running a FP or a couple space missions will allow us to skip some of those pesky side-quests.

This is a problem that I have with the Consular story as well as the Bounty Hunter story (and maybe other classes I haven't played yet) -- the story plays out more like a list of repeated tasks you have to perform instead of a flowing story-line. For the Consular you have to "heal" a Jedi Master on each planet you visit. For the Bounty Hunter, you have to kill a target on each planet you visit (makes sense for that class, but still). Even though the details are different each time, it feels like I'm essentially doing the same thing over and over again on each planet. It's only like this for the first chapter of the Consular story, however. It does get better with chapter 2. By contrast, when I played the Imp Agent story-line, I never knew what I was going to get involved with each time I visited a new planet. It never felt like just another variation on something I did previously. There was always a new twist or turn in the story-line.

"Hi, I'm DPS, I'll go." "OK, cool." /invite This is socializing then? Or does the socializing really start after the group is formed. And if the socializing starts after the group is formed, why does it matter how the group is formed? Yes, I have. It usually goes something like this -- "Damn, it's so hard to find a tank." "Yeah this sucks." "I wish they had dual specs, I'd switch to tank spec." "Yeah." "I'll give it 10 more minutes, then I gtg." "OK, me too." I bet most SWTOR players have had almost this exact conversation. I fail to see the difference between grouping up with random people who respond to your "LFG" advertisement in chat and grouping up with random people from a LFG tool. You seem to be implying that using chat to form a group will somehow magically form only awesomesauce groups of pro players, and using LFG tool creates groups of drooling newbs. This is nonsense. It's the same people either way. Explain to me how using chat enables you to pick out good players from bad players. Do you quiz them before you let them into your group? Do you ask "are you good at your class," expecting that they'll honestly say no if they suck? If you do anything like this, you're a rare one. Most people type "need healer for xyz," wait until someone replies with "I'm a healer I'll go," and then immediately invite that person to the group no questions asked. Most people do not want to spend all day trying to form the Most Awesome Group of All Time. We just want to get 4 people together and go do a flashpoint. If you're doing especially challenging content, general chat or LFG chat is not going to help you at all. The only way to group with people that you know are good players is to group with guildies or friends, and you can still do that with a LFG tool. Get a couple of your friends or guildies together to start a group, then hit the LFG tool to fill in the empty spot. What's so bad about this? Most people are on an extremely dead server, which is partly why a LFG tool is so necessary right now.

A server-wide LFG channel would be a nice addition, but a proper LFG tool is better. I love how people think typing "LFG BT Hard" is socializing. You have issues if that's your idea of being social. Once a group is formed, I type "Hi, how you guys doing?" That's being social. In terms of community and socializing, there's literally no difference between typing "LFG" in a channel or clicking a LFG button on the UI. One is just more convenient than the other, that's all.

I agree completely. The whole point of the Legacy system is to encourage people to play multiple characters and experience more of the story. THIS SYSTEM DOES THE EXACT OPPOSITE. You don't earn credits when you play alts. You are lucky when you break even when you are playing a fresh character because of regular expenses while leveling, like crafting, buying speeders, upgrading gear, etc. The only way to earn millions of credits required for Legacy unlocks is to stick to one level 50 character and do nothing but daily quests and flashpoints all day farming for credits. A system that encourages grinding/farming for credits is a BAD system. Everyone knows that. Bioware should know that, too. A suggestion: the cost of the unlocks goes down the higher your Legacy level goes up. That way if I am focusing on playing multiple characters instead of farming credits on a level 50, I can still get Legacy unlocks by having the costs go down when my Legacy level goes up. And this leaves the money sink in place for players who spend their time madly farming credits on a level 50 character.

Everything looks awesome except the Legacy Quick Travel. Three levels for only one minute each? So we can only reduce Quick Travel from 30 minutes to 27 minutes? That's pretty lame. It should go by five minute increments, IMO. Maybe only have 2 levels then at 100,000 credits each, for a total reduction of 10 minutes. But reducing it by 3 minutes is pointless.

Yes, I agree 100%. We should be able to abandon ALL missions in the game except for the class missions.

Yes, I agree with this thread. It's kinda like if you were a manager of a company, and every time any of your workers finished a job they walked up to you and shoved a clipboard in your face detailing what they did for you. It's like, "Um, OK, thanks... now go away." A message in the chat log and maybe a sound effect would be sufficient for me.

Well, let's see... I haven't quite finished my BH yet, but... 1. I chose to join them, so I don't know exactly how it goes if you chose not to. I'm not sure what you are thinking should have happened. Did you expect them to get mad and try to kill you? I think even if you decided not to join them, they still respect you as the champion of the Great Hunt. 2. Don't know what you mean. It's in the computer, I guess. 3. Can't answer that since I haven't finished yet. 4. You can continue your companion character's story lines by increasing their affection rating more. Give her some technology gifts.