Most of it is pretty much what I expected, but restricting stuff like showing your legacy name, not allowing helmet hiding or color unifying, little things like that, those are head scratching decisions to me. The amount of squeezing-blood-from-a-stone ill will created by charging for that kind of thing vs the amount of people who will pay for them doesn't seem like a winning ratio. Maybe it'd be less so if preferred players got a few more of those little things or they put in a knick-knacks sort of combo pack of small conveniences at a discount, like phone companies do to common services. As for quick bar slots, two is the minimum necessary to play the game without being hamstrung. Three for free would be nice and is possibly necessary for PvP, but then again F2P is designed to skirt the edge of playable vs. annoying. Four and up IMO is convenience for most players.

You are falling into the gambler's fallacy. Yes, the average is expected to come out to 1 in 5 as the sample gets very large (as in, the limit approaching infinity), but each individual attempt is always 20%. When looking at probability for independent events, what already happened doesn't matter. There is no corrective force that says that because you failed 20 times, the 21st time has to succeed because you're not getting a 1 in 5 average for your actual attempts. Your next RE is still a 20% chance to succeed. To put it another way, if you said you should expect around 200 successful REs out of your next 1000 tries, that'd be reasonable. If you've done 999 REs and failed and you expect your next attempt to be anything but a 20% chance at success, you'd be wrong. (And probably cursed.)

Yes, your conversation progression is gated by your class quests as well as affection. Kira from my Jedi Guardian didn't talk to me for the longest time, but as soon as Act 2 started the floodgates opened and she suddenly wanted to talk for days and then get it on. (YMMV)

"What is it with you? It's always kill, kill, kill. Can't we settle this with an insult contest? I'll even let you go first."

Nah, I'd still go for Risha as done by Tara. Ms. Wilson's voice is pretty, but it's too smooth for Risha. I like the gravelly delivery and the lilt. It's like an older, sassier version of Raven from Teen Titans (also Tara), and IMO it's super-sexy. Whenever she says, "Missed me?" I'm like, "Hell yes, I should unsummon you so you can say that again."

Late in the Risha romance:

Hate it. All my companions sound wrong after patch 1.2, plus a lot of it makes no sense, as visors and headbands are changing my character voices. (I imagine they're all torturous-looking mouthpieces on the Imperial side or something.) Plus, given that alien characters like Bowdaar and Guss have no visual helmet element, it's hella confusing, and I thought all my companions were bugged for a while. Wookiee roars with any sort of distortion sound terrible. Y'know what, how 'bout an option to turn off companion helmets being shown while we're at it? I'd rather see faces anyway.

I'd suggest learning how to use Focused Defense, however "stupid" it is, because I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for BioWare to revive Protector. It's pretty clear they wanted to break the hybrid hopping cycle.

Perseverence is not as good as it looks. If you look closer at how much of your Strength applies to your skills, you only get roughly 20-25% of your Strength added to your attacks. So 6% more Strength is something like a 1.2-1.4% Strength value boost to your damage. IMO you're better off taking Single Saber Mastery and getting a flat 6% boost to your melee.

You're really SOL until you either are significantly over level for the Heroic, or you get your healer companion. Otherwise, you just can't hold off the enemies long enough without dying. And even then, your chances of doing Heroic 4s at anything above a low green level aren't great (but really, what did you expect against a mission that usually needs 4?). If you still want to try, general tactics: 1) Always focus on one enemy at a time. Get your companion to attack the same enemy as you by using Ctrl-1. 2) Kill the weakest enemies first. Reducing the body count is your best chance at survival, and the adds typically do more damage than they can take. Particularly focus on any mob that attempts to heal. 3) Keep your companion alive, obviously. 4) Find/craft the best gear for you and your companion. 5) When attacking an enemy, try to move so that you and your companion are attacking from opposite sides, which reduces the chance that splash damage from the enemy will hit both of you. Really, the advice to re-roll on a better populated server for your time zone isn't bad, though, if you're not all that high level. It doesn't get any more crowded at the higher level planets, and heroics are more fun when you take them on with others at the appropriate level.

You should run whichever companion you've geared up the best. Corso and Bowdaar have similar stats and abilities other than the range/melee attack thing, and most of the difference is the quality of gear you give them. After all, the amount of damage you resist is directly dependent on the strength of your armor, and companions are no different. Also turning off their AoE attacks is essential if you use the slice droid and tranq powers regularly.

Alternately, a simpler solution would be bind the ship's left/right to strafe left/right, in addition to turn.

Risha: Never thought I'd say this, but you're my favorite partner in crime. You make beating the odds look easy, Captain. Me: What can I say? I'm inspired by a beautiful woman. Risha: Just so we're clear, I had a snappy comeback for that line--but I'm not using it out of respect.

Me: If Rogun goes down, as far as anyone's concerned, I did it single-handedly. With a spoon. Darmas: Blindfolded and after four shots of Corellian whiskey. Of course. The funniest part of this conversation when you get to it (during Blood Feud) is going through different interludes with your companions at the bar, though. Corso's is boring, but Risha and Akaavi get hit on, Guss can't find a drink he likes, and Bowdaar gets denied, gets angry, and throws the bartender across the room.

The less successful, Get Smart-homage attempt: Lieutenant Palinx: Hey! What are you doing poking around here? Palinx: The only arrival code we've received is for Imperial Starship 2423T6H3L5. Pilot Lieutenant Commander Ina'irolia'kleoni, of the Chiss alliance. Me: I've got two dozen heavily armed mercenaries in that ship, with blaster rifles targeted on you. Let me pass, or I give them the signal. Palinx: You're bluffing. Palinx: Someone like you could never put together that kind of force. Me: Would you believe a dozen mercenaries? An intergalactic bank robber and his idiot savant partner? Vaz Traniff: Oh, for the love of--!