I'd like to see a two handed casting animation, and just leave the saber on the belt until a melee attack is used.

PvP in warzones and PvP on the planets are two different things. 32/5/0 sage here. -Warzones- 1) NEVER use disturbance, project, or TK throw- they all give away your location and Identity. 2) Buy yourself a pair of pants & hide your hat- the dress tells everybody who and what you are. 3) Buy a vibrosword for WZ- the unused lightsaber blade gives you away. 4) Do not try to get in the fight- focus on healing, and mitigating damage. 5) Tell your team in chat that you a a healer at the start. -Open world PvP- CC their companion so that Qyzen goes after the player first- that's it.. Burn down the player, and the companion despawns. Even if the CC gets broken, Qyzen will stay on target 90% of the time. And his abilities will force their companion to attack him. If he doesn't stay on the player, instruct him to target the player by clicking on the fist button and then the player's toon. Do DoT's/Slow/Sheilds and Heals. That's pretty much it, unless you're under the level of your attacker by more than 2 or 3 levels.

/signed

Something is up with the space minigame because there is code in there to render the character and companions aboard the ship. I can't be the only one who has see the bug where their toon ends up standing in the middle of their ship as it flies through space? That doesn't make any sense at all for that code to be in there. There is the vacant vender stall on Carrick Station across from the GTN. Absolutely nothing to prevent ships from being added to the fleet map/taxi. Or preventing destinations from being added to the galaxy map. TOR has a framework that is built for expansion. It they thought they might need it, they put it in there. That is probably why we have an escape pod on our ships. I think off the rails combat/ ship modding/ and space PvP are almost inevitable in TOR. Otherwise this game will always lack something that SWG provided. The question is how many years will it be before we see it? The BF2 space game would be better than any of the current Warzones by a HUGE margin. Also.. My toon can sit in the FOUR cockpit chairs on my ship That has TWO sets of guns, but no chairs anywhere else in the game that I have found thus far. Why was that coded, but not implemented elsewhere? The animation for sitting is already done. Why else would they have gone to the trouble?

This cracked me up ! The best reason to understand economics is to prevent economics from being done to you... I like the Idea of a "Hutt Cut". But I also like that there are three distinct markets on each server. I could imagine that it may eventually be okay for there to be a shady little grease ball vender in some remote corner of Carrick Station that served as access to the HTN. With the number of darkside exclussive items that crowd the GTN on the Republic side, we really need easier access to the cross faction market, to cash those out. And I'm sure the Empire market is flooded with lightside only equipment that they would love to unload as well. But right now the Devs can't really change it until it's had some chance to stabilize.

{reserved}

There are several reocurring threads in the crew skills section... 1) crafting skills are broken because.... 2) crafting skills are useless because... 3) ______ skill is the only skill to have because.... These threads may have merit, that decision up to you. What I have noticed is that there is little discussion about the development of the ingame economy. As a business person in RL, I have enjoyed watching the growth of the in game economy. And I've learned from reading these forums that there are things about it that do not seem to be well understood by many players. #1 All the crew skills DO have value. Some things to understand about the GTN that will help you make profits: - Materials - 1) Right now mats are selling at irrational prices, bouyed up by the huge number of people who impatiently power leveled to 50 before grinding their crew skills. DO NOT PAY TOO MUCH for mats - gather them and use your mission skills. ONLY BUY MATS at a rational price, based on the results of your mission skills. Individuals are attempting to "game" the GTN by commodities trading in mats. Gaming the GTN might make them some profit in the short term, but in the long term it will never be more profitable than making & selling crafted items. - What to Make - 1)You can barely get your materials cost out of many green crafted items... Not really worth listing greens unless it's loot. 2) Blue crafted gear IS worth more than it's mats to lowbies ! Because it lets them overgear for their level. The GTN is always short of crafted blues for all crew skills and character levels on my server. Blue drops are not actually very common. This is THE market for all crafts. 3) MOST purple crafted gear isn't worth it's mats on the GTN to any lowbie, because they will outgrow it too quickly to justify the cost. The mats are too expensive for sellers to make profits. This class of gear is best reserved for gifting to people - alts of friends, equiping yourself, RP, and what not. REing to these paterns is unecessary for the purpose of making money selling crafted goods on the GTN. Purple mats are probably worth more on the GTN as mats to a lowbie crafter making their own gear, than they are to you as part of a crafted product. There are exceptions - such as techblades for example. 5) Commendation venders undercut crafters.... FALSE ! The gear that they sell is actually just about on level for someone who is about half done with a planet. By the time they leave said planet- most of those mods are lower grade than the mods they can actually use. The crafted blues for their level are better than what the comm venders are selling, and these characters have the credits to buy the best blue mods they can use. I'm an 389 artificer, and I havn't used a comm to buy an enhancement mod since I left Taris. And the other mods are often wrong for my spec. Cybertechs probably have the same experience with their mods. Crafted blue item mods sell well on the GTN. - Setting Prices - Many people are putting irrationally high prices on crafted items and then complain on the forums that they won't sell because better gear is available. Why would someone pay for a piece of gear, when in a few more levels the greens have the same stats? If the price is too high- they will not. If you price an item at a price that YOU would pay for that item- you will make sales. Learn what your items are worth, look at the stats and price them accordingly. DO NOT trust the GTN to suggest a good price. It often overvalues certain items while grossly undervaluing others. The suggested price system in place DOES NOT WORK. Ask a rational price- and an item will sell. Look at the prices of items with similar stats.. that is exactly what your buyer is going to do. Price crafted items according to the price of the gear that has the same stats and charge for the luxury of overgearing. ~OR~ Start off pricing items at a price that is double or triple your materials cost, and if an item sells within minutes of being listed on the GTN- raise your prices when you list another. Base your materials cost on what your crew skill cost is ~ NOT what the mats sell for on the GTN. If an item fails to sell within 48hrs the price was obviously too high. Yes questing and PvP are more profitable than selling crafted items- but making profit from items that you can craft WHILE questing, LFGing, chatting, and shopping, and then list later before logging off- is just FREE credits. I feel that the GTN is working well, and in the next few months will begin to stabilize. Right now I see 3 crops of players/customers in fleet ~on my server. The economy will stabilize as the variety in level of characters and skill level of players on a server at any given time becomes as diverse as it can. The spread between characters needs to be larger, and it will get larger over time. The variety of sellers and crafted goods on the GTN is pretty poor at this time. The biggest problems I have with crafting and the GTN at this time are... 1) Poor presence of GTN kiosks. We have mail boxes everywhere- but The GTN terminals are too few and too far between. I don't think every planet needs to have a GTN, but I've only found 3 points of sale thus far, and the only convenient 1 is on fleet. Why isn't there 1 on every orbital station? 2) No "commerce" commendations/achievements or unlockable items/titles? Why not reward people for having X number of "made by [their name]" items floating around the server? ~shameless self promotion~ 3) Extremely poor access to the cross faction HTN on Nar Shadaa. I feel like a terminal should be in each faction's space port. Too many hoops for players to jump through if the HTN is ever going to stand up by itself. 4)The crew mission result pop up needs to default to minimized. If anyone is helped by this, please +1

Of course it is in trouble for lvl 50 gear. Because that is what everyone has been racing to. Buying up all the mats off the GTN at idiot prices so they can spam their way to 400. Profit margins of %50 are still great. 1) Have you looked at lowbie blue gear? In most cases the margin is 300 %-400 % of mat cost - because no one is making lowbie blue gear. Because they can make more money doing PvP. 2) Comm vender gear is still harder to get than credits that would buy crafted gear- if anyone was selling it. 3) People are asking stuuupid prices for their crafted gear- and wondering why no one buys it. There is no sense in a lowbie spending credits on crafted purples- but blues can be financially viable. So yeah crafting is a little broken in the respect that people are not selling blues for lowbies.

Does anybody else see this as a problem? I mean a healer already has to run 3 WZ to get the same medals that other classes get from 2. At least give us ONE more medal between 250k and 500k !

At higher levels sages actually SCARE people in PvP. As in they see them and run. Either toward them as a mob running to focus them down before it's too late. Or as singles trying to get away. Eveything about them has been said to be meh by someone here in the forum. I'm playing a 32/5/0 sage right now. And when part of a group in the open world- that group is nearly immortal. Soloing later content as a sage healer is a grind.... But when grouped, you are the anchor for the team. So it really comes down to whether or not you enjoy team play.

RP the Esseles as a jedi master behind a scrub noob, and just use you lowest heal and saber strikes all the way through. Brings back old times on Typhon.....

1.7 million users at $60 a pop is $102,000,000 - in less than 2 months on the shelf..... If they don't sell another copy this year and %50 quit subing before the end of the year. That's still as much as $140,000,000 in sub fees during 2012 <--- more than the game That's as much as $240 million before expensions. This game is already a wild success story- they'll be making money off it before the end of the spring. Most business models don't make a dime during the first 3 years. And they managed to do it with a game that wasn't even ready to go live. Not a fanboi- but I can do the math.

QFT They've already done the hardest part of the work for introducing Torgruta, Rodians, Trandosians, Wookies, Nautolans, Mon Cals, Wee-Qay, Kel Dor, Devaronians, Gand, etc. The head models/ emotes/ lip sync are done. These races will eventually be a playable part of the game - but probably only through paid expansions that will eventually be released. The original stories might not be playable with these races, but they will probably exist as playable races- because the functionality has already been created. They've already done the hardest part of having them in the game. If they gave up everything with the first game- why would anyone pay for an expansion in 18 months? Bad for business..... Give 'em a taste- and then watch 'em sweat for more...LOL P.S. I pray they don't put cathar in the game- it was dumb in KOTOR- it would be even dumber in SWTOR. Keep the thundercats out of my star wars !!

Is it just me... or does all the PvP consular gear look like.... well... HEY YOU, YEAH YOU, HERE I AM ! FOCUS ME DOWN SO YOUR TEAM CAN WIN !!

I had that happen once too! I'm no math wizz- but that just about has to be statistically impossible. Not that we both had it happen- but that either of us had it happen. There is more to REing than a simple RNG system. I don't know what it is- but there is something else to it. It seems to me that rested state might have some influence. I wonder if the people who are reporting astronomical numbers of RE attempts before a proc occurs - have anything in common? (Aside from the fact that they're probably all exagerating) I've leveled my crafting skills as I leveled my character- and havn't had any real problems. I wonder if it hurts your proc chance to be level 50? Or if the number of blue and purple paterns you've already discovered have any bearing on your REing more complex patterns?

I went through 2 story areas on Quesh with a level 40ish sage full heal spec healer and died more than once in each of them. Just way to much DPS in 2 places. Not that I mind a challenge in the least. BUT - It did seem those particular quests were MUCH more difficult than my previous quests. And had no idea that those items were buffing me all that much, they didn't seem to be making much difference in how fast Qyzen got beat down. Yes I used them. Yes I had great gear for both myself and Qyzen. And I pretty much facerolled everything after those class quests on Quesh. And I had no problem at all on Hoth as a level 43. I don't think it's fair at all to say L2P to someone who's played a toon all the way to lvl 40.... If they didn't know how to play that class by that point, they would have rerolled or quit.

There are a dozen threads on here where people are QQing about crafting procs being broken. People are saying that they are REing outlandish numbers of items without getting a proc. I don't buy it, because it's not broken. They are either grossly exagerating, or they are doing something wrong. Because the gap between what their saying and what I've experienced is Grand Canyon HUGE. The only times I've had extreme difficulty getting a proc was the few times I jumped to the top of my crafting skill level, and started trying to get procs for the absolute best paterns I had. I've hardly ever had any problem getting procs from my lower level paterns. And the 2 or 3 times that I did- I only made around 20-30 green items before I got the blue proc. I've had 3 blue procs happen on my first ever RE of a particular geeen, and once had a purple proc from the 1st blue item I made from a new blue patern I just got! 2 procs on 2 RE - back to back! What are the odds? Given the smallish number of green paterns available in each crafting skill, and the fact that I've obtained less than %50 of the procs available to my craft - I'd say that it is statiscially impossible for that to have happened as a result of pure random chance. There is more to the RE setup than a simple RNG- and the community hasn't figured the mechanic out yet. The number of lower level prototypes/artifacts you've developed might have some influence on your higher level proc chance. It is also possible that a high level toon has a more difficult time REing much lower level paterns. I've had better gear than I could buy or than would drop from elites or even area bosses- pretty much from Taris on. But I've also been credit poor- because of crafting, and not been able to waste 250K on the speeder grade 2 that only gives you a 10% boost over speeder 1. I've even passed on a few of my questionably useful class skills for my spec. Every player I've talked to in game that has been actively working on their crafting skills while leveling has been having the same experience. I can certainly understand why BW would NOT set it up so that people could... TL;DR - -If you don't want to craft until lvl 50- don't expect crafting to be easy when you hit lvl 50. BW doesn't penalize you for not crafting as you level, by giving you access to PvP gear. But they probably DO reward crafters for crafting while they level, by somehow giving them better proc rates. And I'd be extremely surprised if there are not crafted items yet to be discoverd that are every bit as desirable as PvP gear. They're not going to penalize the PvE or RP people for not enjoying PvP in the warzones. And even if they actually have- it will certainly change as they patch the game.

Posters have said you can only RE items that are built from a patern available from a crafting trainer. But I've seen prototype(blue) grade crafted items of low level on my GTN that match the names of some premium(green) grade drops. And I have no idea where 1 would obtain that patern besides slicing or REing those low level items. That being said I RE'ed 12 orange lvl 7 crystals before I lost count. I stopped doing it 5-9 crystals later because of cost. I might do it again later- but as of yet, no patern. My artifice skill is 318 at the time of post. And I have Artifact(purple) schematics for all 7/15/27 crystals. I would be a little surprised if there is not low level schematics for orange crystals, considering how easy they are to obtain from drops. Although right now- all the items they come in seem to be BoP. And removing the crystal from such an item binds it. My biggest question is- what mats would they require? If the crystals are (blue) quality- the only patern available would be (purple) - So wind crystals would be a mat for a lvl 7 orange crystal.

It means placing a higher priority on doing what is in the best interest of creating good around me than doing what is in the best interest of creating good in my own life. Baically, it is the antithesis of being selfish. A jedi understands the existence of force capable individuals is dangerous for everyone else in the Universe, and that because they are the only individuals with the capacity to do so- they must stand in the way of the darkside. And if that darkside is ever defeated, they must do their best to recuse themselves from the lives of non force sensitives.

I realized a few days ago that the Esselles is essentially the best mission in the game for grinding social/ alignment/ & Qyzen's affection points. Once I did a speed run with some high level players, I learned that farming it is not enjoyable. So then I picked an obviously lost noob at random as they came off the elevator headed for Coruscant, herded them into the Esselles, and RP'd the whole way through the mission as a jedi master returning to coruscant for personal reasons. ~An alt won't ever stop running when they come off of the elevator.~ I stayed in character as much as possible, and left my compaions at home. Afterall, I do have the level and title as a lvl 43 sage. I didn't provide anything other than force armor and heals until my "young jedi friend" began to feel that the mission was becoming a grind. I stayed behind them, and out of sight while they explored the FP at their own pace, and let them take it all in. Only directing or proding when they seemed or said they were lost. I even let their health bar get a little low every now and then- just to keep their tention level up. After that I made sure to confine my targets to the adds that were out of their LoS. and used only low damage abilites like slow on golds and elites. On the final boss- I just provided force armor and heals to make sure that they held aggro. I passed on all the item rolls, and then gave them some crafted purple mods for their level at the end of the mission to "help them on their journey". It was kind of tough to figure out what color to make the crystal without giving away the surprise. First time out- the experience was wonderful for me- and the lowbie was just plain ecstatic! They arrived on Coruscant comfortable with playing TOR in a group, and absolutely geared to the nines for their level. I got my social/ alignment/ affection points, you get them on your last companion that was with you- even if they've been dismissed. And we both had a good RP experience. It took a lot longer than a speed run- but it was definately worth it. It was great fun to watch their reactions to surprise mobs and environment effects, and to have the chance to take a good look at the environment, without feeling any preasure at all. I did this for the second time this evening- and I now feel like BW may have actually built the Esselles FP this way on purpose- it just works too well. I didn't know either of these people before hand, but it was very natural. I'll probably do this every time I'm tired of leveling, I'm grinding crew skills, or those points, from now on. I might even start keeping a few blue crit focii around to give away to new sages, because focii wouldn't hardly drop on Coruscant or Taris when I was first there. I didn't even know that I needed a focii until about lvl 16. The augment slot will let them gear it on up if they can't find a better 1 before they leave Coruscant. And that low level crafted gear costs a whole lot less than the affection points would. Plus- it's got my name permanently attached to it, they might seek me out when leveling an alt. I might snag the next one as they pause when they first get to fleet- or when they find their class trainer. It would be great to help a noob pick their advanced class, if they don't know what is best for their desired style of play. There are lot's of new players right now- Why not "role" out the welcome mat? Maybe try to set the tone for how RPer's would like the whole game to be? Maybe alts will start showing up on fleet looking for an experienced master who happens to be on their way to Coruscant? Master Telagtun Telag of Lord Calypho.

I think the biggest problems with the game economy right now are... 1) The short listing times for auctions, people get fed up with trying to find that magic price where people will buy, and just cash out all green equipment through venders. I know that's what I do now, it's just a pain to relist things over and over, while my mailbox is full of expired listings. Not because I've been greedy and overpriced stuff- but because I listed items at or below the price suggested by the GTN at the time the sale was created. Create a 3 day listing, increate the listing cap from 50 to 75 items, and fix the price suggestion that the GTN makes when you list an item. The market is flooded with green items, and the GTN UI needs a better way to filter by which slot an equipable fits. If I'm looking for a belt- I shouldn't have to dig through 15 pages of gloves. And if I'm looking for an assault cannon- I shouldn't see blaster pistols. This would allow the GTN to become cross faction or cross seerver without making the UI too flooded with listings to use. 2)People are still leveling their crafting skills- so there are few blue/purple/orange crafted items listed on the GTN. High lvl players are depleting the GTN of low level mats- and paying ridiculous prices for them. Both of which hurt the noob trying to find mats to craft with. The economy hasn't stabilized yet for any prices on mats. This may fix itself over time. Make gathering skill level have a greater effect on the drop rates of nodes of a lower skill level , so that even if a crafting skill won't be improved by gathering a particular node- people have some incentive to gather it. Plus that gets high level toons off planets like coruscant faster, so they are not as disruptive to the game for those that are on level to that planet. I know it happens- because I've seen and done it. 3)NO money in crafting low level blue and artifact items. And ther never will be- because low levels cant afford them. They also know that they will out level them quickly. And the environment drops higher quality items. Why craft these items when you can make more money AND find better gear to sell by questing? I can sell 50 crafted blues for levels 7/15/etc every day, if I put rational prices on them. - but there isn't any incentive for me to do so. Something needs to change to encourage people to craft while they are still leveling - or give lvl 50's a reason to craft low level items. Maybe legacy experience? I'd suggest a commerce bar, just exactly like the social bar - that would unlock some unique gear available through a new tab on the GTN. Only it would work sort of different, commerce points would be earned by the way that an item listed was valued. It would be the "price of the item" X "community value of the item" with low level items having a larger multiplier than high level items. This would make any item worth crafting. High levels because of the credits involved- low levels becuase of the commerce gear they would unlock. 4)- Commendation mod venders undercut the crafters. YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY RIGHT ON. Crafters should be the only source for certain items. They should be the exclussive source for certain things, just like PvP & boss drops. Every crafting skill should have at least a few high level items that are not BOP, worth epic volumes of cash. And throughout their crafting tree they should have some craftable items that do not drop from the environment at all. Commendations are not exactly hard to come by, and they are completely useless after you level past the world they come from. This gives everyone more incentive to use the commendation mod venders, because they'll loose those rewards if they don't use them as fast as they get them. The commendation vender area either needs an exchange that lets people trade their old commendations for those that are relevant to their current toon level so they don't cash out those commendations and GTN those mods -OR- make those mods cost more commendations -OR- make those mods BOP - OR- all of the world commendation venders need to use a single currency, and have the high level worlds have much higher prices.

quick questions... 1) Are you jumping ahead and trying to get procs for items that are at the top of your crafting skill? 2) Are their big gaps of un RE green schematics in your crafting UI? I've found that I get procs very quickly for items that have turned grey difficulty, but almost can't get a proc for an item that is still yellow. I'm taking a completionists approach to crafting- and it's going great for me. It's costing a WHOLE lot of credits- but I'm getting procs within 1 - 10 trys.

Artifice has a pair of, indentical excetpt for name, low level focii/ sheild genreaters that don't appear to RE into different versions.

Actually, I've found that whenever Qyzen has a techblade that is on-level.... he kills mobs so fast- I don't get more than a few casts before the fight is over. If I just want to be qyzen's heal bot=- that's cool. But I've actually unequiped my best techblade for him several times, because it was making the solo game as a seer boring. I don't need him to kill- just generate more threat than I do, and not die. The lack of techblades- may not be an oversight....