The more I dig the less I think the Hero engine will make it long term. Unreal 4 is coming and it is fantastic. Are there any high level programmers here that know what it takes to port to a different engine? Many things should cross over directly like cut scenes/terrain/characters/armor/items. But what about pathing and other intricacies?

I am leveling a Sage and can see why my friends that play a Sage are gone. The cool stuff has been sacrificed to the PVP gods. The PVPers are a large and vocal group so they get what they want. Unfortunately Bioware has not figured out the two cannot balance and be fun for both. Separation works, keeping track or what class is OP and giving each a little OP time works, constant nerfs and play style changes does not work. Few PVP only stay with an MMO long term. Usually it's the farmers and PVErs that also PVP that stay for years if they are having fun. Hence the incredibly long term satisfaction with WoW.

I pretty much lost the quests from yesterday, including my class quests. Any I had done but not turned in quit tracking correctly and I had to abandon. I found three on my server with similar problems. No XP loss, just have to re-do the quests.

Such a limited thought process, not everyone is like you. How many of us are on an eight GB cap? Mine is twenty-five GB. The good ol USA service providers tell us an "unlimited" account is data capped; "the speed is what is unlimited" until after that cap. Quote is from Sprint. Say what? Running over the cap is not a trivial thing. Data rate slows, then increased costs. I started to log on and went to lunch after I saw a patch coming. I have a 1MB connection as long as I stay under the cap. Movies are 8GB and I have watched two so far this month. I came back from lunch with 5GB downloaded towards the client. This is a severe and preventable mistake. "Just play tomorrow" may be possible at a 400 ping; my connection will be slowed because I am way over the cap. "50 cent deposit in your bank account" is no where near reality, download 11 GB on your 5GB plan and check the overage charges. $700 is Sprint's answer. I will not incur that with my plan, but their air card would cost that much or slightly more assuming you did not use it for anything else all month.

This depends on many factors. But changing the stats on Elara Dorne's weapon drops from Cunning to Aim is a few hours at most. Changing the hit permissive on the MOBs so they cannot shoot you if YOU are LOS is a day for a total newb, hours for a programmer. Realizing PVP and PVE is almost impossible to balance if they share gear should be instant. Deciding the easy fixes should wait for a big patch should take forever.

I know in OPS, especially HM and NM you have to get lucky with bugs and who the boss attacks. How about in the wild? I am leveling a Trooper and when I get lucky elites 2 levels above me are trivial. Other times the same level, same type mobs rip me up repeatedly. Is there a RNG on the MOBS making some so much harder than their level and some so much easier?

Problem since before release. I had to complete them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unreal_Engine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HeroEngine Read carefully and think hard. The big advantage of the Hero engine is how fast you can bring a game to market. Note the number of successful games on each platform. Now put yourself in the place of the guy choosing an engine and reverse engineer his decision. Push that philosophy ahead to see how much improvement SWTOR will get.

1. get game play closer to real time, I still often get the 25% is dead scenario. I kill the mob, lag, get death screen and mob walks away. Interrupts? How many have I seen never apply, no counting. 2) Separate PVP from PVE. Blizzard never balanced it, you won't either. All you do is make one side then the other mad. Balance it with gear you cannot use on the other side. 3. Dump the 10 minute timer if I am trying different methods on the same MOB.

Perhaps the [flirt] should be added to companion gift "Courting" and the same option swapped out in the game. No gift = no flirt but the rest of the option stands. That way you can choose the [flirt] with an NPC but not gift and he/she will not be hitting on you. And it will add game content slightly as you will want to have a "Courting" gift at all times.

The real challenge to getting the titles is getting 8 people of sufficient skill to run the same content over and over til you get lucky with bugs. The skill required is social, not gameplay. I say leave them intact.

Reading through the thread I don't see alternatives to the RNG. WoW used tokens for some loot, get enough tokens and buy the loot of your choice. Some of the BIS loot was BoE. AO had nearly fixed loot tables, you kill the boss with the loot you want. I am a smuggler and can verify not all guilds are getting "Ridiculous amount of smuggler loot". Worse yet is that I need to part out two sets of Smuggler loot and the Trooper main hand to get BiS. I suggest a token system with tokens not being class specific. Class items are seldom optimized for stats so we should be able to build our own with enough runs. But not so many runs we quit. Build up orange sets, bet the look you want with the stats you choose.

There would tons to do if the gameplay was really smooth and responsive. Everyone would be leveling at least a Trooper, Jedi and Scoundrel.

3 Smoother game play, better character control. No amount of content will keep people playing if gameplay is not good. The worst is in OPS, Bosses like Bonethrasher spin, blink and pop all over. We down him by brute force, not gameplay. Once you recognize this in OPs you see it more and more in normal play. Eventually it wears people down when they are sure they moved/cast/potted and it just does not happen so they die.

Why my friends quit SWTOR: 1) Tank - "after 4 years tanking WoW now a couple months of SWTOR I am tired of depending on others that don't do their homework". Referring to OPS. 2) Healer - "I am returning to WoW, SWTOR has too few instant heals and no 'save the day' abilities for healers". 3) Ranged DPS - "Fights are just too jittery, I hit my keys and things kinda follow, but I am never really in control" And so ended my four man team. I still play, doubt they will ever return.

On our server we have lost a few then gained. Most of the gain is in alts I am guessing because it is almost impossible to get 3 HM FP's done unless your guild runs them.

Some mobs are too close together, pull one you are sure you can take and you have six. Mobs can respawn mid fight right on you. Surprise mobs pop up or drop from the sky. MMORPG's are for thinkers, FPS are for reactors. Surprises are to be expected, but not to the extent I find leveling in SWTOR. I put in tickets when elites are joined that look like single pulls and are part of a quest I should be able to do. I assume others do also. I am on my third toon through some of the content and NOTHING has improved.

That will help some, but without other issues getting attention grouping will fail. 1) rez timer - groups often wipe and you can corpse run much of group content. Why wait for a group and incur costs when you can solo corpse run and get the same loot in less time? Drop the rez timer while in a group and you will see everyone grouping. 2) real players are much better than pets in groups. Either make pets viable with better controls or get rid of the tank/heals requirements for more fights. 3) get the group lag under control, especially for dialogues

The thread is about how to determine if something needs re-balancing. Voss might be a candidate, might not.

Voss is typical of some heroics. Noone leveling wants to do them because the chance of failure is way too high. Players with good enough gear don't go to Voss. This should show up as dramatically lower completions of that heroic. Count the relative times heroics are done on a planet and consider re-balancing the ones noone does and the ones they farm all the time. Except the daily token ones, lvl 50's getting gear will skew the numbers.

At the very least this should make optimization of upper tier less of an issue. Currently I have to trade off between Cunning (main stat) and set bonus. I have to get at least two sets and tear one apart or forgo stats or bonus.

Good idea! Currently gearing a high level companion is not all that easy given that the daily awards are for you and your stats.

Just so you can consider why I am suggesting this. I am sitting in Fleet LFG HM's; 2 hours and counting. I have a few posts in trying to quickly add content that would be fun. Perhaps not progression but fun none the less.

Perhaps allow a full crew for normal Flashpoints?

"Runs like a Slide-Show" You can either complain here or fix your problems. There a LOT of solutions out there. It will take some time. But if you have modern hardware the game can run well. When you find what works, post a positive thread with exactly how you did it and Bioware will be that much faster at fixing things. Am I saying you should fix their game? YES Or just wait and they will get it done eventually. WoW was floundering, they implemented add ons to show them which way to go. Any add on that is really popular is a candidate to become game code. Here we only have the forums, but the principle is the same. There are millions of us and hundreds of them. Are they trying? yes Do they need direction? yes Are they listening? Mr 8Ball says "it is certain"