Well.... to flesh out the idea a little.... Would a Gen'Dai be a ranged or melee tank? Maybe aim & strength dual main stats..... What about a DPS stance for those players who main a tank spec? 12 buttons on a companion tool bar... 4 are used by attack/passive/stance 1/ stance 2. That leaves 8 active abilities. All tanks currently have 1) a gap closer with a 2 second mez or root 2) an attack that boosts defensive stats 3) a small aoe 4) a large aoe 5) a basic spammable attack 6) a channeld damage attack 7) a single target taunt 8) an aoe taunt Unique abilities to set the companion apart? I'm thinking a ranged ability that works/looks something like the absorb ability of the Corrupted Bothrium beast on Oricon, given the physiological nature of that species.

I believe the NPC you are reffering to is a "Gen'Dai"..... the model is used again on Belsavis for the broken quest line that takes you to the daily mission area. I agree that model would make a good companion, considering how little it is currently used by the game. A Nikto or Rodian would also make good choices. A Rodian particularly because there would be easy room for a half a dozen quick customizations... that are already seen on various Rodian NPC's.

I would love to see this. It would be great if they would just cut up the various droids already in the game into armor pieces & let us mix and match however we saw fit. I'd also like to see chrome & gold parts as well.

Huh? How does creating a new product category for a craft reduce the market for crafters? Does you biochem toon actually manage to sell many medpacks? 6% of 100K credits is 6K..... that's a significant sink. Everything sold through the GTN results in a credit sink. And when players buy anything with the intention of reselling ~ the same 6% happens again every time it is sold.

That means the battery is almost dead and you need to immediately find a charging station before you character become permanently inactive. If you disappear, we'll check the garbage compactor daily.

2) Add small quantities of lower level mats to higher level missions. For example: run a grade 9 mission and it will also return a low number of grade 1-6 grade mats randomly. There is always a surplus of the highest grade mats on the GTN because of players grinding for artifact quality mats. This would improve the supply of lowbie mats, and bring those prices more in line with where they should be. This is not a bad idea. Not sure how feasible it is though Simple fix: the quantity of lowbie mats at 1 or 2 & make a simple RNG to determine which grade of "bonus" mats returned based on the grade of the missions being run. This would mean that grade 2 missions would always return grade 1 bonus mats... but that wouldn't hurt anything. Actually....it would have the desired effect of ensuring that grade 1 mats were always cheaper than grade 2. I mean this primarily for the mission skill blue quality mats, as the gathering mat market is fairly reasonable most of the time. The only missions it would be more difficult for is the archeology color crystal missions where the bonus mats require an extra RNG calculation to determine the color of the bonus mats. 4) + Accuracy color crystals & more dyes for Artifice. Some recipes for matrix cube(ish) stat holding relics that don't have alighnment restrictions. Dyes are being released albeit slowly. Both CZ and Oricon have an armor dye schematic available for 100k at the champion rep level. We could always use more dyes. 5) Recipes for modable companion armors for armormech & synthweaving. Simply removing the class restrictions on the existing orange quality stuff would be sufficient. I wasn't real clear about this... what I mean't was recipes for modable versions of the armors that companions were wearing when you first saw them. It would be nice if those were not restricted to being worn only by companions as well. 7) Biochem reusable medpacks that are BoL & don't have the skill restriction, just to give Biochem something else to sell. ya one person buys one for his/her legacy and simply mails it back and forth. That market would explode for a month and then be reduced to a trickle. Alternative thought: make existing blue quality medpacs worth investing in - reduce materials to bring them in line with vendor medpacs and/or make them sufficiently better than vendor medpacs so that players actually consider them a viable option. But that will probably never happen because vendor medpacs are a credit sink. I'll concede that the BoL part of that idea is broken ~ I didn't think it through. But are medpacks actually a credit sink in this game? I don't think so. The real credit sinks in this game right now are mounts/pets/toys/dyes/aug slots/mod removal. I still think it would be nice for Biochem to have something from the medpack category that can could be sold for a high price. Maybe reusables that are Bind on Use...... 8) Slicing crew mission fragments that can be cashed in for missions at a vender in a similar fashion to companion gift fragments. HATE HATE HATE this idea. Sorry but those gift fragments are F***ing annoying.I HATE THEM!!!! The basic idea is to stop the crit within a crit nature of Rich Lockbox crits. TH & UT mission discoveries are much more valuable than the others. And will always be worth considerably more if there isn't a way for the supply to adjust to player demand without creating an even bigger surplus of the less desirable mission discoveries. The gift fragments are a nuisance.... but they do serve that purpose for the companion gift market.

I could support a limited form of this. I wouldn't want to see this take away from the effect of class choice. And I don't think any changes should be made to the saber wielding of the various Jedi/Sith AC's. There are just too many animations for the Knight/Warrior saber attacks to recreate. I also wouldn't want Commandos or Snipers to loose their unique weapon privilege. But it wouldn't bother me if either of these AC's wanted to downgrade to a standard blaster rifle. I wouldn't want to see gunnery spec using a pistol though ~ but it would still feel appropriate coming from a rifle. However... I can't see any reason why pistol & rifle wielding classes shouldn'thave the option to use either of those weapons. Some of the ability animations are actually already reused between these classes, and because of that the weapon animations already exist. But I question how much value for players would be created by the effort to create the missing weapon animations.

I can imagine it.... but it will never happen outside of a guild premade, and maybe not even then. The best we can hope for is for everyone to Zerg forward at the same speed (maximum), and focus fire the first target to come into range.

Good ideas. But the limitation to how many mats are available on the GTN isn't how many missions players can queue up at a time, it's how much money they want to spend on them. Queueing missions might help bring down the market prices for lowbie mats, which would be good in my opinion. Changes I would like to see. 1) Fix the armor preview for class specific cross faction sets, with a switch on the preview window. 2) Add small quantities of lower level mats to higher level missions. For example: run a grade 9 mission and it will also return a low number of grade 1-6 grade mats randomly. There is always a surplus of the highest grade mats on the GTN because of players grinding for artifact quality mats. This would improve the supply of lowbie mats, and bring those prices more in line with where they should be. 3) Don't know if it will be needed but.. crafted recipes for GSF ship gear & consummables spread across cybertech & armstech 4) + Accuracy color crystals & more dyes for Artifice. Some recipes for matrix cube(ish) stat holding relics that don't have alighnment restrictions. 5) Recipes for modable companion armors for armormech & synthweaving. 6) Recipes for HK/Scorpio/C2-N2/2V-R8/4X customizations for cybertech. 7) Biochem reusable medpacks that are BoL & don't have the skill restriction, just to give Biochem something else to sell. 8) Slicing crew mission fragments that can be cashed in for missions at a vender in a similar fashion to companion gift fragments.

Just go sit on Oricon for a while and think about what you see..........

I let my sub lapse back in June & just resubbed a week ago. My Reasons: For Unsubbing ~ I didn't feel that my subscription fee was giving me access to enough new content in the form of areas/ missions/ & rewards. I still don't feel that content for subs is being added at a pace that will retain my sub over the long term. For Resubbing ~ Enough new content had been added to make the sub worth it for a while. Their was a bonus CC program running for resubscribers. My sub had been lapsed long enough for a friend to get themselves a Kurtob out of my resubbing. And some news about the SSSP had recently been released. And now that the launch date for GSF has been announced, I'm comfortable that I'll stick around at least until after early access. How I prepaired: Before my sub lapsed I bought a full set of CM account wide unlocks, and a few extra character slots. What the limitations of Preferred feel like after you've been a sub: 1) You don't really notice a whole lot ~ at first. The most obvious limitation is the credit cap. And that locks you away from any large purchase of a BoP item, without using a escroe transfer. It's an irritation....but it's not the end of the world. And you can always pick those items up later if you resub. The credit cap is actually a pretty good savings plan, but when you're building your escroe.. the chat box spams you every time you do so much as sell your trash. You can still transfer credits by listing something on the GTN with one character & then buying it with another ~ for the cost of the GTN fees. If you've got trustworthy friends to hold your money, you can still purchase big ticket items that are BoE. 2) Crafting is pretty well borked.... you're limited to using 3 companions, and you can't queue crafted items. But there is also a 10% penalty to crit rates & RE chances.....so researching new schematics for an alt is a real drag. 3) Gear progression is kinda borked... by the limits on Ops, WZ's, & HM FP loot rolls. You can get around these with the passes.... but they're $2.40 ea. It's pretty steep, even if you can find a deal & buy them from the GTN. 4) The space game is pretty much wrecked... 3 missions a week per toon is half the endgame missions... the unlock is $2.40 ~ which you won't be able to stomach paying for such a small amount of additional content. My taste for space comes and goes, and I'll play it heavily for a month & then not at all the next. But I did bump against this limit several times. 5) Leveling alts..... you won't notice any difference at all for the first 25 levels except for the fact that you cannot buy bag slots for credits. Sure... they're on the GTN... for 125K a row. It's not that bad, but you'll waste a lot of time managing your bag inventory. After level 25, you have to start playing as a completionist and using xp boosts to stay on level. If you're tired of the content you've already seen, this becomes a major grind. But if you like low level PvP...this would keep you in that bracket for a longer period of time. Overall.... it wasn't a bad playing experience for a game I wasn't paying a sub to.

I agree that BW could do a better job of creating value for subscribers. 2 months of early access to GSF counts for quite a bit in my book. And you're completely ignoring all the other perks that subs are getting beyond these 2 crummy armor sets. But if you're looking for esclussive armor sets that are sub only.....head on over to the CE thread and see what BW thinks about exclusive armor. That's exactly what CE holders were promised & precisely what they didn't get. To think that they would give all subs an exclusive armor set just for being sub'ed when GSF is released.....that would never happen. This idea might be more relevant if not for the fact that it's a FREE expac..... So basically it's just a larger than normal regular patch. F2P has the same access to all the gear and venders added to the game since the launch of F2P. The only limitation are the BoP items which have their credit prices set above the F2P credit cap. Which cannot be circumnavigated without SOMEONE spending CC in the cash shop. The subscriber exclusive perk you're looking for is the ship skins that subs are getting.

Well.... the good news is that you didn't make it to endgame, and really learn how to heal before they wrecked sage healing with patch 1.3. How high a level did you make it to? cuase if you didn't have healing trance yet... you were just a baby sage. It's much faster to level as a dps, but it takes practice to heal competently. So.... it's a trade off. If you level dps, you'll have more game time to get good with ALL your heals ~ after you hit 55. If you level heals, you won't really need much more practice to refine your healing at level 55. You Pick...

And you were looking forward to wearing one of those super exclusive sets that all the subs were getting for free? How often do you see anyone wearing any of the pilot suits that are already in game? You do realize that both sets are recolors of gear that is already in game? /thread

Similar issues here. It's strange though.... normally the system shows problem with my connection, high ping & such followed by the dreaded red X. Today.. there isn't any warning ~ just BAM I'm inside invisible walls & then straight to to server selection screen. Happened on 2 different characters so far. EDIT: won't be trying other characters... now unable to log in.

Case #1 This person in the Black Hole Daily area....when I'm there grinding credits on my level 55 toons. General: (me) LF2M for the H4 General: (dipwad) we just did that with only 2 L2P noob! ~as if anyone over level 50 is in the Blackhole for anything other than quick credits.......... Case #2 That lazy player on Oricon or CZ that stands there waiting for you to pull so they can go ninja the clicky just past the mobs. Case #3 That player who asks for an invite while they're still in the group finder.

yep... that's the idea.. no weapon damage, just something to hold mods & provide stats. Hydrospanner anyone?

Adding the necessary scripting for NPC AI would only delay the release of what they have. I'd rather see it, and play it before they spend more time developing it further. If it stinks, they need to start over. If it's good, you can bet that there will eventually be some off rails PvE. Probably something along the lines of FPs & Ops, with a similar number of solo zones. Eventhough it's "off rails", how good could PvE GSF be anyway? The best an AI can manage in these types of games is to attempt to get on your 6 and shoot up your stern. So it would pretty much devolve into lengthy turning battles in every encounter.....okay. Of course, the winning load out would always be the most agile one. So much for choices of gear/ spec/ or ship. If the AI were realistic at all, PvE would only expose the fact that the current generation of empire capital ships are poorly designed. The Terminus Destroyer has no turret coverage below it's keel, and the Harrower Battle Cruiser has no turret coverage to the stern. There's no attack formation possible where a fleet of those two ships could hold their own without fighter support, because bombers would tear them to pieces. Versus the Thranta, that might as well be a porcupine. Granted the Republic Battle Cruiser is pretty weak below the keel as well. This mismatch means that either these ships would have to be able to fire their weapons through their own structure, or any PvE stuff would have to be rep/imp vs. 3rd faction for balance reasons. Riiiiiiiight..... every PvE encounter Vs. fleets of the "Theoretica" & .......whatever the hutt capital ship is. Or maybe we could do Ops against the 3 types of space stations that are seen in the game.... the defensive platforms, the DS9 fleets like Carrick, and the asteroid base. <sarcasm>Gee, all that sounds interesting to do over and over.</sarcasm> TLDR; ~ if the enemies are still on rails, the whole thing might as well be on rails.

It wouldn't be worth even for, "It was as if a million Gungans cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced." ?

There are about a dozen different humanoid droids found throughout the game. I'd settle for those looks associated with the NPC droids being made in the companion customizations. Just the same as the CZ dustomization for HK. Of course I'd also like to have a mainhand weapon slot item & proficiency for the C2 & 2V droids, just as a stat holder, to put them on par with the rest of the companions.

That is a decent strategy for your spec. Keep in mind that the ability & spec points that make a sage a seer healer is the ability Rejuvenate & the spec points that give a 100% chance for the Conveyance proc from using Rejuvenate. Learn to use that ability properly & you will be well on your way. I leveled using Qyzen. It is more difficult to level with a DPS companion, but it is doable if you want a greater challenge. Be warned though, it can get pretty grinding. Actually yes, I keep the free one in my first keybound slot. The best strategy for dealing with a melee mob that you've gained agro from is to first cast Slow. If you have spec points that add a slow to Weaken Mind, you will also cast that. Both of these are instant casts, so you can cast them while moving farther away from the approaching enemy. Then you turn and let loose with Telekinetic Throw. The slow effects from these abilities will stack, such that the melee enemy will not close to it's attack range quickly. In most cases, if you follow up with Project, the enemy will die. If not, it will be so weak that a single hit from your saber will kill it. I also tend to use the saber in conjunction with force speed to finish off nearly dead ranged enemies if project is on CD (cool down). Be warned: finishing off a player in a PvP WZ with your saber is likely to create entirely too much hate and rage toward you for the rest of the match.

Yep... exactly. But a forum is a place for people to express their opinions.. just because others have a difference of opinion doesn't make the opinions of others invalid. And the opinion of a player who'se subscription is still in force, but has been cancelled, isn't any less valid than that of someone who intends to continue paying their sub. On the contrary, the opinion of someone who is not satisfied with the status quo ~if they've got a rational reason for their dissatisfaction & are being honest in their forum posts about it ~ may be more useful to the devs. If everyone were 100% satisfied, why would BW put any effort into improving anything other than the CM? But if people are cancelling their subs, that sends a clear message to the devs that something needs to be changed. The average person who cancels doesn't post any explaination on the forums, they probably don't even fill out the feedback box they get when they shut their sub down. "BioFAIL ur game Suxoz" doesn't help anyone, but that's not usually the limit to what most people who post about their unsubbing are writing.

It's doubtful that any of these questions will get an official response before GSF goes to the PTS. But I'd like to put these out there just in case. 1. At what level will characters gain the ability to participate in GSF WZ's? 2. How will a player acquire their first ship? Will it be sort of ~ "sign your name on the dotted line & we'll get you a flight suit" ~or~ is there going to be some sort of mini quest along the lines of the HK quest? 3. It makes sense to assume that this aspect of the game will have it's own commendation type. Considering that we can currently cash out WZ comms for Planetary ~ will we be able to cash out Fleet comms for the GSF comm? Will we be able to cash out the GSF comms for Planetary? 4. Are player/ship active abilities determined by chasis type, pilot tech trees, ship gear slots ~ or ~ some combination of all three? 5. There's been talk of new companions for each faction that are associated with GSF. Will these companions work differently than our other companions? Will we be able to use them outside of GSF for normal PvE or crew missions? 6. Will any of the GSF ship gear be crafted? 7. Will any of the GSF ship gear use item mods? Are these new item mod types? 8. Will the GSF ships use any of the PvE ship gear currently in game? 9. Will any GSF items be on the CM besides skins, and EXP bossts? 10. What does "multiple game types" actually mean? 11. Will there be an instanced hanger where we can walk around our GSF ships? 12. Are the GSF ships hyperdrive capable? Will we be able to use our GSF ships for normal galactic travel? 13. Will GSF items drop from other types of engame content? ~or put another way~ Will we be able to progress our GSF gear by completing other content? 14. Will the GSF ships use ammunition for cetain abilities just as the current PvE space, or will all of the abilities be resource regen & CD limited? 15. Will there be GSF consumables, ala adrenals/ medpacks/ stims/ grenades? If so, will those be craftable? 16. Will the GSF UI be supported by the UI editor? 17. Will we be able to queue for PvP WZ's & GSF WZ's at the same time? ~or~ is GSF going to be lumped into the same WZ queue with 8v8 & 4v4? 18. Will there be an "expertise" stat for GSF? ~or~ is GSF completely oblivious to the gear being worn by the pilot? 19. Will there be separate queues for leveling and endgame GSF players? Or will the entire GSF population be in a single queue? 20. Will there be a GSF "valor"?

unsubbing =/= quiting the game. Players that are completely fed up with EA/BW & this title will simply disappear. Players who would like to see the game improve and give them a reason to resub... well, they'll be vocal about why they're not paying a sub anymore. Maybe those complaints have merit, maybe they don't. But that feedback needs to be seen. I cancelled my 90 day recurring sub right after 2.0 came out, with 6 weeks of time left. It was bad value ~ why would I have paid another $42 for 90 days of access to the same content I could play while unsubbed? I came back just in time to take advantage of the promotion, and I'll sub until Starfighter hits the PTS. If it's something i'll enjoy, I'll stay subbed so I can play during early access. If it's not good, I'll go back to preferred. But either way, I'll never buy a sub in 90 day blocks again. I can agree that forum priveleges should lapse on the last day of a person's sub. Because some people do just post as much hateful garbage as they can create during their last days of forum access. When I unsubbed my forum access lasted for several weeks past the end of my sub. However, I feel that if a person's play time is paid up, they've paid for the privilege of using the forums during that time frame.

What is the point of even grinding the rep to get the companion if I could have just played wallet warrior? LAME.