My agent follows a simple code: Do whatever is necessary to help the empire grow in power and security. If the decision doesn't directly effect the empire, pick the one that will directly benefit herself the most. If the personal benefit is minor or nonexistent... be nice! So, y'know, execute/interrogate traitors, occasionally take bribes ( unless taking the bribe hurts the empire), but no pointless murder, and favor the lightside option if there's comparable (theoretical) benefit between the two... For PR purposes.

I remember when people were begging for developers to expand token based looting because they were getting so sick of gear that nobody actually wanted dropping when they downed a major boss.

Darth Jadus by far.

Entirely off topic, but not necessarily, you can have open character progression/customization and still have the rest of the game be theme-parky rather than a sandbox.

Well when you word it like that it's clear which side of that issue you fall on... I think though you can phrase it more succinctly though, you can sum up this whole divide with one question: Are you RPing a living, breathing character with a unique identity, or are you reading off the script for a predefined character archetype? BUT: I actually think this is the larger issue here. Though you have it backwards. The OP is the one, after all, that decided to first put the players on his personal blacklist and then go rant on the forums about it when the characters didn't conform to his expectations, choosing to treat the actions of those characters as some sort of personal attack on him from their players, and did so with no apparent degree of intellectual curiosity on the subject (choosing to reject the scenario outright. Whether or not the padawans' players were rejecting lore or not is actually entirely irrelevant when you boil down the two issues here to its core. It's a matter of how much someone feels they should be able to define their own character and a matter of whether or not you're letting IC interactions pollute your OOC behavior and vice versa.

Forces? Hardly. There's no tangible advantage for being biochem. Using the re-usable stims/adrenals, once again, is weakening your character. It saves you time and credits... but my synthweaver saves herself time and credits by making herself high tier BoP craftables too. True, though implants are far more limited in scope. Possibly, though rather speculative. Possibly not though if they applied this same standard to every other profession simultaneously ( which would dis-incentivize people from dropping biochem ).. unless you're suggesting that this "rule" should be applied unilaterally. and close the market for energized tier consumables (potentially weaken the market for exotech consumables too) You -do- trade the good stuff though. Exotech stims sell rather well. We're in complete agreement here... and that's actually the way it is right now. Being a biochemist just gives you a bit more convenience with absolutely no combat advantage... just like how being a synthweaver or cybertech makes gearing yourself a bit more convenient.

Doesn't that sort of make the point moot then? If they're irrelevant, then it doesn't matter whether or not they exist. Macros would be nice, but honestly when I play my Sentinel, there's only 2 or 3 abilities I don't use ( so, incidentally, they're not hotkeyed and a couple aren't even on my ability bars. ) the rest though? I use them, and I'd honestly be worse off if BW started crunching them all down, because it'd mean a loss of functionality for no real gain. I mean, the "can only be used on stunned enemies, does not work on players" skills can go in the trash can, but most of what's left? Not really. You don't need a gaming keyboard or gaming mouse to play this game though... Unless you call a regular 2-8 button mouse a "gaming mouse" Like a couple people have said before, the larger problem is a UI that doesn't overtly display cooldowns or make it comfortable to watch for procs, not the abilities themselves.

I don't know how you can hold to the position that re-usable stims/adrenals/medpacks are OP at endgame when by using them endgame you're putting yourself at a disadvantage by using weaker items. Even if they were exactly the same as top tier stims/adrenals.. It's still only a money saver, there's no physical advantage at all. Why? It won't desroy the crew skill outright, but it is thematically screwy (as it makes biohcem no longer a commodity crafting skill, but an equipment crafting skill ) ... and really doesn't accomplish anything helpful. This is a pretty backwards argument. Because the market for stims/adrenals is apparently weak, Biochemists should want a change that would make buying stims/adrenals even less appealing? This one is even more backwards. Saving Biochemists a few credits if they're willing to gimp their character is "overpowered" but giving Biochemists an actual gameplay advantage over every other player in the game would be fine?

If you really wanted to play deception... why not just play deception then?

Really? On all three of the servers I play on Smuggler/agent is bottom in terms of popularity.. Powertech/Vanguard being the only class that's ever as low

Oh, and I'd advise anyone who wants to try this not to play the same class. Playing the same class means you either do each story area twice, or split up for it. Playing different classes means you get to ( if you want ) see two stories on one go. Also means less gear competition.

I admit, this sounds pretty interesting of an idea.

My hypothetical padawan has a master who's begun falling to the darkside. He tells her that engaging in this intimate relationship with a padawan is "no big deal" or "Helps blow off steam" and that I should ignore the "stodgy old men" who are "blinded by trivialities". He also is constantly bemoaning the jedi council as "lazy" "constantly talking while never engaging in any action" and "useless". Provided I am fully accepting of my master's teachings, when I see another jedi master ( who is at best only my own master's peer ) throwing a fit while I'm relaxing at the cantina with a prostitute/love interest/random person I met at the bar and threatening to tattle on me to that "useless council who can't even figure out how to deal with dumb, murderous tribals at their own doorstep"... Laughing him off is not only realistic, it's the only logical response. In that instance, following the OP's script for "How padawans must act" would be breaking verisimilitude, not maintaining it. It's also a bit curious that a Jedi Master would be almost hoping to see a padawan trembling in fear considering that fear is the first step on the path to the Dark Side. It's hard not to be a little disgruntled when he's showing a strong tendency to avoid defending his position or adding meaningful discussion on the subject in favor of brushing off most disagreement as the result of some perceived personal grudge.

I beat this at 31 without too much trouble ( on the second try granted, screwed up the first time)... the only thing that should really come to mind if you -are- properly interrupting and rotating your skills/abusing your cooldowns is that maybe you've forgotten to upgrade some of your or your companion's gear?

Uh.. what? No. I played WoW throughout Vanilla and counter-raiding when you knew someone was going for a world boss wasn't only allowed, it was basically standard practice. It was far weirder when you -didn't- attack or get attacked. At least on every PvP server I played on.

The positive seems pretty obvious. The only problem here is that the hard modes in TOR are mostly numerical tweaks rather than new mechanics (which is what's making things boring and ). When you have hard modes with flavor and interesting new mechanics, they work great (see: Ulduar).

There's nothing really strange about it. Classes with high sustainability are good at soloing things. The issue is, if you make the content significantly hard for these high sustainability classes, it means doing two man quests with two people becomes much more comp restrictive ( and it's hard enough to find a group as it is! ) There are lots of little cogs that all need to be balanced to make the characters work in different aspects of the game.. and "ability to solo PvE content" is generally at the absolute lowest rung of concern. Yeah, it's frustrating as heck that my Operative can solo Yellow H2s and H4s while my Sniper and Sentinel fumble with Green H2s.. but you can't really balance the classes around it. And balancing the quests around it would make it inordinately hard for sub-optimal group comps while still leaving the content favorable for other comps ( that's just the nature of the game ) That's not to say they can't make improvements so it's not so obnoxious to beat content without overleveling it... just that it's very low priority.

The problem is that the Sorcerer is a utility/AoE healer who also has very comparable single target healing power to this supposed single target specialist. That said, I thought Georg's assessment wasn't that off. The Operative is by and large capable at healing things, the biggest problem is merely that the Operative is a niche healer who's not significantly better at their niche than the "all around" healer is.

I disagree with the first part. The sniper playstyle is essentially to get into an optimal spot where you can safely unload buckets of ammunition onto an opponent and kill them dead. Stealth compliments the first part of that concept perfectly, and the only time that's not really your goal as a sniper is in group PvE, where stealth is trivial anyways. I really think the class would have been better off with stealth as a baseline ability for the IA. Not only from a gameplay perspective, but from an experience perspective too ( it would have allowed them to design class quests more heavily emphasizing stealth. Sorry, as much as I love the story, barging into a fortress and murdering everyone in the building doesn't feel very thematic ). As for balance. I don't think it'd be that big of a deal either way. It'd make solo PvE easier on a class that's very meh at solo PvE anyways. Group PvE it's a nonissue.. and in PvP it'd definitely be a powerful tool, but still not something the sniper can capitalize on as well as an Operative or Assassin simply because they don't want to get in close anyways, which is the primary benefit of stealth. It'd help gain a positional advantage, but it wouldn't be as explicitly valuable as the operative or assassin's. It'd add a nice degree of tacticality (that's a word now) to playing a PvP sniper though, as you'd be able to utilize vantage points that would normally be unrealistic. But other than that. You don't need to be in melee range to begin with ( what the other stealthers use stealth primarily for, to circumvent the gap closing process ) and you don't have any devastating opening ( you'd be out of stealth already if you were lining up an ambush ) It'd also make the subclass a bit more unique and help differentiate it further from the gunnery mercenary ( the other turrety RDPS. )

40m would feel a lot more thematic ( though hopefully they'd buff gadget range too so engineering isnt' left in the dust by such a change ) Offtopic, but stealth on a sniper would be 6 kinds of cool as well >_>

On Ord Mantell you're given the option to either save the lives of sick and dying republic soldiers by recovering stolen medicine, or write their death sentence by helping the thief cover up for her actions. Letting the soldiers die is the light side choice. On Nar Shaddaa as an Imperial agent a slave tries to escape from his captors so he can live a free life, you can either kill him or help him escape. Executing him in cold blood gives you light side points.

I would totally drink some Mandoade.

Why is the immediate assumption that their characters didn't conform to your expectations because the players were willfully ignoring lore ( based on the nature of game mechanics ) rather than that that was simply how their characters acted? Granted, you very well may be right here that they were just twits. But from the way you described how things went, you never actually attempted to engage them OOC over the matter, you just got pissed that they weren't acting the way you wanted them to RP. That's what I think is the fundamental problem here, this idea that a character not acting in a manner that conforms with your expectations is engendering a hostile reaction even out of character. There should be a degree of separation between IC and OOC. I just don't understand this immediate leap from "A character isn't acting the way I'd act if I were playing a similar character" to "The players don't know how to rp / don't know the lore / powergame".

The game says Cauterize is a melee attack and Overload saber is a force attack, so it might work with the latter.

It's not an accident on your part. Right click uses whatever is bound to your first quickslot IIRC by default. As for not being able to do anything when you're out of energy. There's a default attack that costs nothing you should be able to find in your abilities tab (default hotkey: P )