Personally, I'm not one of those players who does the "Hide Head Slot" thing. I'll buy a tiara or an efficiency scanner off of the GTN before I hide my headslot. Cuz I'm like that. For other players, wear a helmet or don't, it's your choice. But I've got an idea that would allow us to have the best of both worlds But the other day I was playing another game from Bioware, known as Mass Effect 2. I noticed that ME2 had a much wider range of options in the arena of helmet or no helmet. Wear a helmet all the time, never wear one, take the helmet off in conversations, and similar options for companions. But, I'd like the option to have my helmet off in conversations and on during combat and in the open world, like in Mass Effect 2. My Warrior is a bulky, mohawk wielding Zabrak and I took a good amount of time designing his face to look like someone who could fit the role of "The Emperor's Wrath" Part of that facade is him wearing a big, tall mohawky helmet that I got from Section X. It makes him look intimidating as hell in a fight, towering what appears to be a foot and a half over most enemies. But I'd like to think that he'd take off that helmet in coversations and use his "angry eyes" to intimidate people when circumstances do not permit him to do so with his lightsaber.

Which is exactly what I am proposing. As I have said, the game clearly all ready has the capability, as evidenced by the boarding of Tavus's ship in the trooper storyline. It would just be a matter of installing the system itself. And the point of a game is entertainment and excitement, not a dull grind. Which is what I experience every time I get into a group with enough undergeared, intellectually subpar, or inexperienced individuals who cause us to wipe multiple times and waste my evening. Did it ever occur to you that there might be people out there who would like to fill their evenings with questing that relies on their own preparation and skill, rather than gambling on some random person you pick up in GF or from spamming? Once again, I am not suggesting that they change ALL Heroics, FP's, and OPs to the format I have proposed. I merely suggest how to fix specific content that I feel is broken and perhaps try to design new content for it. You don't understand. I'm not complaining against the format of the fights. That is necessary in any combat-based game. I'm making light of the fact that the current mechanics of the fights are repetitive, i.e. run out of circles, kill adds, cleanse the deathmark, and shoot the boss, MAYBE with one unique mechanic apiece. New mechanics could be designed to accomodate this multi-companion system. These guys are creative specialists, and I am offering up suggestions and fodder for them. Except for the seeker droid and macrobinocular content, which was purely solo right up until the end. Niether is it "challenging" content. The only thing that held me back from clearing these once I painstakingly got a group together was glitches, and I nor any of my groupmates was superbly geared. Except for the seeker droid/macrobinocular content, which is level 55 content and as such cannot be soloed ten levels later. I've got a good idea here. Just accept that.

But you're thinking within the box of the game's current mechanics. New ones could be designed for such content. It wouldn't take a total redesign, either, just some tweaks. I'm not suggesting this be applied to EVERY H4 or anything, nor am I saying that it should replace Ops or FP's as the main medium of endgame content/gearing, I'm just saying it would be a new and unique type of questing. Personally I just find the mechanics of ops and FP's to get repetitive and tiresome after a while. "Interrupt this attack, avoid these circles, kill these adds, and hurry up or he's going to b***h slap you" Just gets old after a while, especially when getting into a 4, 8, or 16 man group means you have to potentially put yourself at the mercy of the undergeared and the stupid.

Yeah I made that post last night after a long, long day so I wasn't too keen on making it neat. But I still think the idea presented is pretty good, amirite?

So, a while ago I finally managed to finish the Macrobinocular and Seeker Droid missions. Like many people nowadays, I had a helluva time finding a group and with the seeker droid mission, I had to give up a perfectly good group more than once because of glitches. I realize that they (glitches) happen, but it was still frustrating. I read in another post on some forum a while back about incorporating multiple companions into specialized missions. Those two thoughts rubbed together in my head and gave birth to the following idea - why not tweak the game so that I can use more than one companion - maybe all of Havoc Squad (as I am a Commando) - for the specific instance of these missions? Obviously there would have to still be tweaks, but think of the Macrobinocular heroics. You infiltrate the Shroud's lair, and there's that mechanic where you take over the security system and have to destroy the panels to take down the laser grid - why not be able to switch which companion you are playing as, like in SWKOTOR? For example, I'd be playing as my main character. Take over that security hub, switch to Yuun, plant him there. Switch to 4X, have him gallop over to the droid conveyor belt, park him in the spot to take out that panel, switch to, say Elara, walk her over to just outside the poison room. Switch back to my character and walk myself to just outside the laser grid. Switch back to Yuun, have him work the controls while switching back and forth between the necessary characters to destroy panels. While playing as a companion, you would have access to only their handful of attacks and abilities, which would make you prefer to play as you, but would be enough to get through small encounters with weaker enemies if you have to break off of the group for some solo mechanics. Maybe, before the final fight with the Shroud, you could mark specific panels for your companions to go over and poke when you give a certain command. Have your basic "Attack my target" commands, put them in the appropriate stances before the FP starts, so that you can have the proper roles for combat. It's just always struck me as odd that I'm the leader of Havoc "Squad" and other classes have assembled their own teams, yet it's always just me and the one other I find useful running around doing ALL the leg work, while everyone else gets relegated to crafting and running crew skill missions. To me, the most memorable moment of the Trooper storyline is when you board Tavus's ship and fight a mob of enemies, with your WHOLE squad, and I think the game could benefit greatly from more such moments. But back to my original idea. In getting prepared to finish off the macrobinocular, seeker droid lines, I think it would be a fun yet challenging bit of preparation to ensure that not only I am geared well, but also my companions. I think that the gameplay I have described would be fun, interactive, require thought and planning, be great end-game material, and even be replicated and installed into future content. Imagine stellar end-game content, where you have daily areas or special, repeatable missions and heroics, where you call your squad together and do more than the common, workaday grind of FP's and Ops. Not to say they aren't fun, but I don't know of any other game that has such content, and it would be expanding on the excellent companion system you all ready have set up. Thank you. Thanks to AXtrophi for the proofreading lol!

My main character is a Trooper. A while back, I took the time to take a good look around the ship and spotted a holochess board in a corner, by a couch. I'd been to busy rushing around and questing to really notice it, but it gave me an idea - why not make use of this set piece and install a holochess/dejarik minigame? I've seen that a dejarik emote/regeneration item is all ready in the game via the Cartel Market, so obviously this is in the mind of the developers, and it doesn't seem like it would be that hard of a thing to insert into the ships of other classes as well. The game table itself would be clickable, much like the galaxy map, a chair, the holodeck, or the summoner thing in the meeting room of most ships. You could choose to play the game against one of your own companions, and as a reward for winning or losing, you could gain (or potentially lose?) a small amount of affection with that companion. It could be a small amount, not enough to destroy the need for companion gifts or conversation affection. I think this could be a fun activity to do while in que for PVP, GF, or Starfighter, and just be a nice little set piece for our ship, not to mention increasing the variety of the monsters spawned on the board based on one's Bestiary (in the codex). Along that same line of thought, maybe on Nar Shadaa, being the "Casino Planet", could have a place dedicated to similar minigames, where you could perhaps gamble a moderate amount of credits on the games. Just a thought.