For the companions that start with a (green, typically crappy) scattergun in their offhand, is there a particular point to keeping a scattergun equipped? The scattergun tooltips themselves say "this weapon is only used by like 3 abilities so what the hell". For players, obviously, there are abilities which require you to have one, so that's all good. But what about companions? None of the abilities I see on a companion's list of abilities say "requires one of them shotgun thingies". Can I just toss the scattergun and replace it with a moddable weapon of a type that they can use, say, blaster pistol?

I've been playing for a while, but just had a conversation with a friend who recently started, and I realized that I can't answer all his questions. I consulted with my better half, who pays closer attention to these things than I do, and her response was "enh, dunno". So, the last resort: asking teh intarwebz. When looking at a modification that's been slotted into an orange/custom item, it shows up something like this on the item: Enhancement (42) +6 Epeen The tooltip for the modification itself is like this: Smiling Bob Enhancement 33 Total Stats: +6 Epeen Requires Level 67 (Actual names and values may be fictitious.) In the specific case of armor and weapons, there's an additional "rating" number, determined entirely by the hilt/barrel/armoring socket, which in turn determines the actual armor value or damage range, respectively. That's totally clear and we're leaving that aside. I know that the "33" is just the grade number of the mod. They're entirely sequential and have no relevance to anything except other grades of the same mod. I also know -- and I think I got my buddy to understand this too, but he seemed fuzzy -- how there are multiple levels of quality/rarity at the same grade. REing a green can teach a crafter how to make a blue of the same grade (33) but with better stats (+8 epeen), and so on from blue to purple. Here's the thing that I couldn't answer: what's the "42" that appears only on the orange tooltip, after the modification has been socketed? Sometimes it happens to be the same as the sum of all the item stats from that mod, but often it's different. It doesn't seem to be related to the character level required to use the mod, or the crafting skill needed to produce it. Followup questions: can that "42" be predicted just from looking at the modification item's tooltip? Is it even useful to do so?

If it's not listed in the keybindings menu, you can't do it. Personally, I wouldn't expect a gear manager to be implemented until either (a) scriptable addons get added, or (b) duel-spec is added.

It's what the players themselves have selected over time, in that MMO's with body collision result in non-stop griefing.

This is becoming increasingly frustrating. I'm logged in, and yet... not actually allowed to play the game. Instead, I have to run (not ride) across the ginormous per-class spaceports. I have to go up and down elevators which do nothing but proc gratuitous load screens. I have to run through needlessly sprawling buildings where I can't ride. All of that just to get to someplace where I can enjoy things like class abilities and cutscene conversations. What is the point of the orbital stations? Completely egregious load screens and elevators, more time spent walking around. They're a bunch of freaking hallways that serve no purpose but prevent me from playing actual content. Blizzard has learned the difference between "immersion" and "gratuitous delays". BioWare... hasn't.

The phrase you're trying for is "for all intents and purposes". As to the topic at hand, the glaring UI flaws are about to annoy me right out of a subscription. If BW offers some kind of server transfer/merge from a nearly-dead PvP realm to a high-pop PvE realm, that would keep me around. Hell, each time I get out of a ship and realize that I can't teleport, can't mount up, am stuck walking through two gratuitous elevators, a huge pointless orbital station, FIVE load screens... just to get off the damn ship...

ORLY? This is the first mention I've seen of affection (negative or otherwise) having any effect on combat at all. If you're joking, well and good. If you're serious... dammit, I *still* can't kill off the shipdroid.

The gathering missions seem to be inherently skewed towards returning one of the two (or three) possible components for each grade. Gathering while in the field seems to be inherently skewed towards returning "the other" possibilities. If you are doing gathering missions and also actually playing the game, things tend to even out in my experience. The only frustrating part is trying to craft things for lowbie alts; you can't reliably send out your crew on low-level missions.

That's not the kind of thing that qualifies as a "quick modification". It's going to take some time and effort, which means it'll take a back seat to endgame PvP crap. I've been buying a replacement shield with planetary commendations, when they're available.

A couple of simple fixes to the UI would make that flag tons more useful without needing to implement a group finder: - Make the entire goddamn comment field viewable. - Make the /who command take some arguments. Include the LFG comment field in the search parameters. I want to be able to type something like "/who lfm <name of flashpoint>" and have it do something useful, even if the person with "lfm <name of flashpoint>" is on a different planet or back at the space station.

According to this, that's the only one (although it's using datamined stuff from beta). I'm kinda surprised you went to Tython; would've figured that taking a step back from Taris would end you up on Coruscant.

It's the other way 'round, actually. Epeen meters of any kind are simply parsing through combat log events, whether it's in-game (like Skada, Recap, Recount) or offline (like WoL). Until we get a scriptable combat log, nobody other than Bioware can make an epeen meter.

It'd be nice if we had keybindings available to set the target icons. Lotta groups get pissy if you take the time to mark a "kill this first" or "don't attack that" icon. That, and it'd be nice if the damn icons would go away once the thing is dead, but that's an unrelated complaint.

It's worth reading a bit about why WoW's threat changed to be such a large multiplier. It's disheartening to see SWTOR repeat all of vanilla WoW's decisions, step by step. /shadow kinetic tank //aoe threat is crap until in the 40's ///never ever will tank for a pug

"I spend too much time with a casting bar before I can actually cause any damage." ...the cover version by Radiohead sounded better than how I'm presenting it on the forums. Honest.

And amusingly, it doesn't put them back at the departure point. It puts them (AFAICT) on the nearest planet from the departure point. So even if your party left from the Republic Fleet, they get dumped on Coruscant.

*ahem* A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away... The whole "convenience for paying customers" concept wouldn't enter into postal service for many years. They had to fire everybody from the Load Screen Union first.

What really breaks the immersion for me: Playing a lowbie on Coruscant on one side of the underground Senate building, and QT-ing to the cantina on the other side because it's faster than "sprinting". That shuttle picked me up from twenty meters underground, hauled me fifty meters sideways, then dropped me off twenty meters underground. (And required two load screens to do it, of course, but that's another whinge.)

Don't try this IRL. It does not work.

The regen talent helps by tons.

SWTOR's got some good ideas about crafting (having the crew do it, for one), but they need to pull their heads out of their bums when it comes to the results. This guy said it pretty well: http://www.manaobscura.com/2011/12/19/swtor-the-broken-mess-of-crew-skills/ Having been sick the last few days, I do like that I can log on, send my army of minions out in a flurry of orders, then logout and pass out. The most glaring problem is that everything they craft will be instantly replaced.

Holiday wiped my flashpoint group the other day. I was tanking on my Shadow, the other two puggers were both melee dps, and so I brought out Tharan to sort-of-heal. Presumably the other two hadn't grouped with a consular lately, and also were presumably teenage boys who haven't been on a first date yet, because suddenly they just stopped doing anything. (It's more obvious in SWTOR than in a game like WoW, because here there's no autoattack.) The conversation went something like Raging Hormonals: wat Me: everything okay there? Me: guys? Me: ??? Raging Hormonals: ...girl Apparently her "daze" CC can also affect the players. Who knew?

I should know better than to take a swig of my drink before reading a thread like this one. +1 intarwebz

Look at player position in the Justicar area (little dude in lower right). Look at where he's flying (double arrow in lower left.) justicar_to_jeditemple.png Who designed this flight path? Continental Airlines?

This is about the most awesome thing ever. Thank you!