I have a Razr keyboard and Logitech GS500. My hardware is fine as it is. That's not the issue nor is the problem. That's not the point I'm making either, so let me re-iterate: macros, not scripting, are necessary in any MMO. Even BW will be including macros to make life easier for healers (for some reason, as their job wasn't easy enough already) but no macros for the rest of the classes? So whose at fault here? A game developer that went ahead and created a game in which every class's rotation can be inputted into one macro (highly unlikely to be honest, but keep thinking those "I-WIN" buttons are the norm and that everybody will have one if macros are released) or paying customers who are asking for a functionality that would improve their in-game "quality of life" drastically. What BW doesn't want, and it's obvious, is that they release macros and they become so efficient and so good, that it becomes a necessity to play with macros. They're scared to alienate their casual base, or in my opinion, players who are scared of anything remotely technical. That's too big of a risk to take and given that this game is heavily focused towards carebears (44 PvP servers versus almost 80 PvE servers is the only proof necessary), it's just not going to happen. From a business perspective, this makes complete sense: don't shake up any gameplay element which could alienate your biggest customer base. From a gamer's perspective, this decision just shows bad faith and provides little hope for future improvements and innovations to come into the game.

That's fear-mongering at its best. The players you're describing were maybe those folks in the 2,100 rating+ brackets in WoW Arena and even then, they were the extreme minority. Most players never even got to PvP against them since they never reached that rank. And trust me, if they were to implement the creation of macros tomorrow, I wouldn't become better overnight. It would simply add some much-needed automation so I can be more effective in using more important abilities. I completely disagree that the game in its "natural" form provides more of a challenge without macros. If one can bind his keys efficiently enough so that the most used abilities are bound to the most ergonomic keys around your left hand, then you've already maximized your efficiency when it comes to skill rotation. Macros would add to that efficiency, making it invaluable for many more scenarios not only exclusive to PvP.

Hey, thanks for the reply. You definitely fall in the category of players who don't understand macros too well (hence your inability to "code" them; trust me, macro-building is nothing close to coding) but would also not care if they were in the game. That's the attitude most players should have. And if BW put the effort forth, they could give you a quick in-game tutorial on how to create a macro with some of your most used abilities.

Wow, I was not aware of that. Even though your friend is definitely in the minority given his physical issues, this is a perfect example where the omission of macros is actually keeping BioWare from getting a customer!

Those "I-Win" macros were present in both Rift and WoW. The minority of players used them. And to be completely honest, not many builds benefit from putting your entire rotation into one macro. For PvE purposes, if you're static and standing in one spot and spamming the same ability (*cough*BH/Troopers/Sorcs*cough*), I can see yourself creating an "I-Win" macro, but you'd still need to have your abilities displayed on your hotbar to see which are on cooldown and which are not. I thought that his answer was just dodging the real question which was: "Why would you guys not include even the most basic form of macro-creation available?" And they never answered that.

Thank you. Thank you for making a sensible and much needed post. Don't let the droves of bads and casuals get you down by making you believe we don't need these tools. Any self-respectable MMO player who is interested in improving his damage and play-ability is 100% interested in those kind of number-crunching statistics. They're very important if you're trying to min-max. The fools who would claim otherwise are the same that don't want to be singled out in a raid for doing crappy damage. It is embarrassing to be called out in Ventrilo for doing bad damage in an easy game: it just proves you're a bad player. And there's nothing wrong with that. You're wasting the time of 7 or 15 other people. It's only fair that your performance metrics should be made public for everyone else in the group. If you are dragging everyone down with your crappy healing or bad DPS'ing (bad Tanking is a lot easier to see), then yes, collectively as a group you should get scolded and room should be made for someone who knows what they're doing. Take that time you got kicked out of that raid to go learn some thing about your class; watch some videos; or go read up on some builds. Don't blame your inefficiency and your general poor gameplay on others when it's 100% your fault.

*EDIT* 3/7/2012 Since this thread has exponentially grown to my surprise, I would like to put my definition of what I believe macros would accomplish in this game in order to deviate from all the misinformation and confusion surrounding the issue. I will also post a definition regarding scripting since a lot of folks seem to think both terms are synonymous: Macros: to streamline the automation of a repetitive activity which would result in the same expected outcome even if that activity were to be performed manually. Script (from Wikipedia): program written for a software environment that automates the execution of tasks which could alternatively be executed one by one by a human operator. A macro is not a third-party software or program. It would be a native functionality within the game to create a more unique and tailored experience for each player. In retrospect, those using current third-party software that comes along their keyboards/mice are indeed using scripting programs. *END EDIT* Let me start out by saying that I want to give props to BioWare for creating one of the most successful MMOs in recent history. The game has many faults and many bugs but it has been smooth overall (a.k.a I'm able to log-in and play without servers or my machine crashing every 10 minutes). The Guild Summit, for many players, was a make-or-break deal. It answered many questions regarding a shaky economy, a static UI, the current state of the bugged FPs and OPS, a few answers regarding ranked PvP, and other information. But one decision has me confused, and to be completely honest, pretty angry. I was baffled at your decision not to include macros because: "We don't want to add another barrier to entry in terms of gameplay." I understand that your business model is to cater to the majority of players who are casuals. But from the statistics you gave yesterday, it seems that most players aren't so casual: the average player plays 5 hours per day and almost playing a full 40 hours per week. That's almost comparable to a full-time job. And that's most of your "casual" audience. From what I've gathered by reading threads which touch upon the issues of macros, a majority on these forums (I am aware of the fact that the forums also poorly represent the entire playerbase in general) have simply no idea what a macro does. For most players, they believe that a macro equates to inputing all your abilities onto one command line then spamming this over and over again until your rotation is completed. This isn't Rift; this isn't WoW (even though it has borrowed almost every idea from the-game-that-must-not-be-named). Macros, ultimately, increase the rate of efficiency at which a player can manage his abilities along with the better management of a player's resource (rage/force/heat/etc); it promotes creativity when it comes to certain builds and also promotes those "quality of life" improvements you're so fond of by making certain actions automated and easier to handle. Example: as a Marauder, I would love to include Retaliation (an ability which is off the GCD and procs if you parry/dodge a melee attack) in front of all my offensive abilities meaning that if I parry or defend an attack, my next Annihilate will cast Retaliation then Annihilate without having to manually use Retalation. This accomplishes two things: The most obvious is that it frees up a space on an already limited number of hotbars, which are not being increased in 1.2 by the way The other is that it automates ability usage and lets me be more efficient in terms of ability/rage management This is what most players who are against macros don't understand. They think of it as an unfair advantage even though macros are accessible to everyone including the vocal majority who are against them. There are many more reasons that are argued against the use for macros, but most of them are asinine and can be easily debunked. I won't waste my time going over those since, to me at least, being against macros is the same as being against the self-checkout at your local grocery store: it's there for everyone to use, it won't give you an advantage if you use it and nobody is forcing you to use it. You're just being inefficient and showing that you are scared of change by automating your checkout process. It's unfortunate that the majority of folks are risk-averse. It also baffles me that nothing was mentioned regarding the the good chunk of players who would love to have macros. It's not because you include macros in the game that they are necessary to use. Look at WoW for example (since this game is a clone of WoW): the macros have always been present but most people didn't use them since the audience of WoW is even more casual than that of SW:TOR's. If anything, most people didn't since they downloaded add-ons to do the work for them. Your decision to not include macros in this game is very, very disappointing. It is a staple functionality in many modern MMOs and your belief that it will add another layer of complexity to an already very simple game is unfounded and false. If what you claim is really true, that your average player spends 5 hours per day, they can take the 10 minutes it would take to read a tutorial about the use of macros. And again, if they don't want to use it, don't use them. It won't even change their gameplay one bit. Don't penalize the chunk of players who'd love to have macros because a vocal majority on the forums out of all places is scared of something they don't understand. I had high hopes for this game. Most of what was introduced in 1.2 should have been included at launch hence reinforcing the belief that this game was rushed for the holidays -- don't have to be a genius to figure that out. But your decision to not include macros in the game will come back and bite you in the butt in the future once more skills and content is added onto the game. And I'll be right here, shaking my head and saying to myself... "I told you so." TL;DR - Very disappointed at BW's decision not to include macros in the game to avoid adding "an extra layer of complexity onto the gameplay."

Question: is the legacy system going to introduce new abilities to be shared between characters or is it simply going to introduce the possibility of sharing pre-existing abilities between characters? Example: I would very much like the possibility to enable Sprint at level 10 for all my characters or invest 5 points into an ability that increases my critical chance by 2.5% across all my characters (0.5% increase per point).

This is from the French Community manager Charlotte Dubois. Translation: "Possibility to group with 8 players and no need to re-create the group at the end of every Warzone." If this is indeed true and included in 1.2, I'm happy about one change at least.

Different abilities used for different purposes: Annihalate: high damage ability used to refresh Rupture CD Obliterate: low damage ability used as a gap closer if Force Leap is on CD Obliterate is not to be used with the expectation of a high damage ability: it's a gap closer to ensure that you get your Smash off if Force Leap is on CD. And finally, there is currently no viably "hybrid" spec for Marauders -- there is one out there but it's purely for running Huttball.

Just wait until tomorrow when you'll be getting 2,000 Valor and 40 Commendations minimum per game given that you can muster up to get 4 medals which is not hard at all: 1. Killing blow 2. 75k damage 3. 10 killing blows 4. One-on-one medal (Assassin medal) There you have it. Anything else that you will gain beyond that will be extra commendations and extra valor.

Sith Warriors (and their counterparts, Jedi Knights) have hands-down the worst companions in the game in terms of story/quests and in terms of useability. Quinn is the worst Operative-companion healer out of all them; the rest don't even need a mention given how terribly useless they are. Compared to my Sith Inquisitor who has a choice of at least four companions that I can use given the situation I'm encountering -- please note that I find the background stories of the Sith Inquisitor companions to be just as bad but if not a tad bit more interesting (I just can't care about Vette at all... the whole "I was an orphan but now I'm strong" doesn't do it for me).

I play on Wound in the Force as an Imperial and this is a huge issue on my server. As soon as someone scores in Huttball or if we don't get two turrets in Alderaan, at least 2 players will leave. Which completely screws the game over. Moreover, almost every Republic team that I play against has 1-2 BMs in them making it very difficult to compete if you're trying to gear up from Centurion -> Champion like I currently am doing on my Marauder. I'm not saying that the Republic on my side are better but since they seem to be fewer of them who consistently end up being in the same WZ, they seem to have better teamwork. Oh and the fact that the majority of all Republic players are Sages/Troopers really doesn't help balance in any way.

I have both and a Darkness spec's Assassin with a 27/2/12 or 27/0/14 build will win 90% of the time. The Marauder just has no room for any mistake and a blown ability could literally mean the death of you. To understand how to fight a Darkness spec's Assassin with the spec I just mentioned, you have to understand how easy and strong that build is: you're effectively spamming Trash (that has a 40%+ crit rate because of the 4-piece PvE set you should be wearing) until you get Energize to then spam Shock. Once you get 3 stacks of Harnessed Darkness, the Assassin will use Force Lightning that is uninterruptable and self-heals for a low amount. Honestly, in this situation, no matter how skilled the Marauder is, if the Assassin outgears him, he will most likely lose. If gear is equal, then as a Marauder you have to use your Force Camouflage when the Assassin pops Force Shroud; you have to use Terrifying Roar (your 6-second AoE stun) when the assassin pops his version of Saber Ward; if the assassin Force Vanishes then stuns you to gain HP back, use your trinket (only time you should use it); other than that, follow your normal rotation if you're Anni-based and make sure to not use FS or any force-based attacks if Force Shroud is on (remember that Force Shroud will last a Darkness spec's Assassin a good 6 seconds). Ultimately, this is a very difficult fight. Darkness spec's Assassins are just too strong right now for the utility they bring to the party and given how easy they are to play -- and it's my main char so I'm not talking about of my butt. They're definitely going to get the nerf bat in 1.2.

Combat logs? Add-ons? 8-man ranked PvP groups? Bug fixes for EV, Foundry, and D7 bosses? Where is this being addressed?

I think it's about time that you can make the Droid gain affection since it will affect his ability to heal (which I never use him for anyways) but more importantly, it will fasten his crafting/mission-fetching time significantly. Check out http://www.dulfy.net There's a pretty nifty chart that says that once your companions all have 10,000/10,000 affection, crafting and mission-fetching time is reduced by 17%. Now say you have a companion that has a +5 in Biochem and you also have 10k/10k affection, you'd have a total of 22% decrease crafting/mission-fetching time. Very useful for crafting those annoying blue items (especially if Biochem for those blue rakata stims).

Are you talking about that one ability that has a 20 minute CD which heals you and your companion for quite a bit? Yeah, I use that one all the time. Unless it's to solo the Champion mob for the Old Enemies daily in Beslavis (if you're Imperial, don't know the Republic counterpart), I never use that ability. This simply proves my point that being able to use abilities during a "Heroic" time is a gimmick that's only available when you have a companion out? That's what all the fuss was about? Of course I'm going to complain about inane stuff that doesn't add much value to the game. There's already absolutely no reason for me to go to any of the lower level planets once you hit 50, I still fail to see what this "Heroic" skill functionality can bring to the table besides enhancing your already crappy level 50 solo experience.

And yeah, the game has been losing players. On my Level 50 Marauder, me and my roommate are both DPS (re-rolled from Tank and Healer) and we cannot find a tank for any instance but for HM BT and FE. Any other instance, nope, gotta wait for the guild run normal EV/KP or wait for the weekly HM/Nightmare OPS runs. My other character is a 50 Sin Tank and you have no idea how many whispers I get just chilling in the Fleet. Sometimes, I see three to four groups looking for a tank (usually for the same instance) and they never end up finding one. And I'm talking at peak times (5PM-9PM) and on weekends throughout the day. When the game came out (Dec-Jan), the Fleet always had 200+ players on peak times; now we're lucky to get 180 at peak times. The number of players on the fleet usually hovers 130-160 on average at peak times. From anecdotal experience, population has gone down (hell, this is my third guild and finally found one that is actively participating in weekly OPS), two of the guild that I was in died due to inactivity, and now that I'm on the other side of the fence playing a DPS, I completely understand people's complaints about their inability to find a tank.

By Ilum getting "fixed," you mean that we will, never, ever, ever have to set foot in there again? Because then yeah, it's fixed.

Why else are you playing for? The deep, meaningful team-building experience that this game enthralls? Or the amazing, completely polished Flashpoints/Operations that do not ever bug out and would never hamper guild progression (Soa is such a great boss)? This tells me that you either don't have a Level 50 character or if you do, after multiple weeks of being at 50, you're still wearing Blues/Oranges. I have two chars at 50. One is a Sin Tank that only needs to do Operations and grind a bit of WZs to get BM. My other Level 50 is a Marauder that also only needs to do Operations and quite a few WZs to get my Champion/BM gear. But with tomorrow's patch, this should fasten the process exponentially, thank God. Essentially, what I'm trying to say is that without the thirst/obsession to get my character better gear, there is absolutely no reason for me to play this game. And that goes for most MMO, however others offer different features that don't always have to do with gear progression (i.e. EVE Online).

So it's a gimmick? Got it. For a minute I thought that this game was done in terms of balance but since it will be related to solo experiences, it's a completely useless gimmick.

I don't know where their Western servers are located, so the closest thing I can do to verify my ping is to test on servers that I know are located on the West coast.

Again, my connection is fine. Would you like me to take a screenshot of me pinging Google.com or Yahoo.com to show you that my ms is under 8 on average? I guess I'll have to test this for myself. Even then, the ability lag that I experience is solely based on Disruption. It's not as 'crisp' as an interrupt as it needs to be.

Thank you. I can't believe people are arguing over the utility of a built-in snare that's added on top of an ability that could roughly do more than 3k damage if Berserk is up (4k if you crit with the initial Rupture hit). As an Anni Marauder, you will be using Rupture around the clock. And with the added slow, I don't have to worry about sneaking in an extra ability. We already have enough abilities to manage on limited rage. Bottom line is that it does become a matter of preference (if you'd like to have two points in Phantom, or Subjugation, or Predation, or Defensive Roll, or whatever) for many players, but for me, I just can't pass such an ability.

I'm specifically talking about the ability lag that BW half-fixed in 1.1.3 or something. They confirmed that they're still working on the problem and a slight ability delay still exists -- whether it's tied to animations or some dubious netcode, nobody knows and it's all speculation, but the ability delay is still present. My ISP is completely fine and my ping does not suffer as well. The commands are simply unresponsive and do not feel as 'crisp' as I want them to (i.e. if I try to interrupt a cast that's 3/4th of the way, 99% of the time it will not get interrupt; that's tied to animation and is un-debatable). I have to disagree on this point. If I cast Assault, then proceed to cast Disruption in the middle of the animation, I'm not getting my Rage which therefore makes it impossible to cast Disruption and I've just wasted a GCD that I'm going to have to re-cast to get my rage back. I have no idea where you're getting your anecdotal information but this is just plain wrong. Why would it be absurd to have a snare off the GCD? We're a class that has arguably the worst mobility in the game and if we cannot sic on a target we're completely useless. You don't have to be a genius either to fit Crippling Slash in your rotation but for 2 Rage, low damage, and a disappointing 50% snare, fitting it in your rotation is problematic. It's simply not efficient when you have an ability that slows just as well while providing decent initial damage and then a 6 second DoT. Crippling Slash needs to be looked at. Period. Compare it to Hamstring in WoW which was probably one of the best snares in any MMO I've played, it's a bad, bad ability. And your answer was summarized into: 'L2P.' There's no other nice way to put it. You barely gave the OP any advice on how to position yourself situationally on the catwalks. You simply said that it's your fault that you can't avoid being knocked off in Huttball or in other WZs. I don't consider you an elitist because to be an elitist you have to prove to be somewhat of a good player. And this game isn't hard. And from what I've gathered from your analysis of this game, you don't seem like a good player. You think you are, but you aren't (waiting for you to post some inane screenshot of you doing 400k+ damage in a WZ). Of course situational awareness is important in any PvP game. The tone of your response was extremely demeaning from the get-go. You came into this thread to simply tell the OP: "You suck. The Marauder class has perfect functionaliities. It's simply your fault you don't know how to use them." You're the one who's pathetic, if anything. Everything the OP addressed as far as PvP was concerned were his personal issues with the game that are most likely shared with many other players who haven't bothered posting in this thread. Don't generalize and think that just because the abilities seem fine to you that it's the same for everyone as well; people have different playstyles. Even if that were presented to you, you're just the type of person who has to be absolutely right about everything. I'd even go as far as saying that you're the type of person that when presented with new information that you weren't aware of before, you'd act like you knew it beforehand. That's just reflective of your character on this forum.