I'm pulling this dusty corpse of a thread back to life because apparently after 5 years this bug is still not fixed. How? HOW?! It's one of the most basic and necessary abilities for a tank companion! I took a bit of a break from the game for a while, so I guess I didn't really notice that this was a thing until recently, but seriously! I noticed it with T7 for a while, who had been my main companion on one of my Knights, and now just went through the hassle of getting 4X and he has the exact same behavior. This makes having a droid tank companion incredibly frustrating. I guess not many people use them as such, but it's been 5 years, there has been plenty of time to fix this even on low priority. Please devs, fix this! I want my droids to be able to tank for me, and I can't imagine I'm the only one.

Just had the bug happening to me and found this thread immediately when I did a search for it. Figured I'd add my report to it, maybe get it more attention. Seriously, a year and a half and no fix for a bug that can halt progress? Come on, devs. I guess there's an easy work-around (haven't tried it yet), but it doesn't seem like something that should take a year and a half to fix.

I think I can expand on what the OP was saying, for those that might not get it (disclaimer: I didn't read all of the OP so sorry if some of this has been mentioned). I think the current implementation of Life Day is pretty abysmal. It is not an event so much as a marketing scheme. That's what Christmas is these days too, I get that, and I don't care. This is a game. I subscribe to this game, to have fun in the game. This event is not fun. It is lame, boring, tedious, and, frankly, insulting. Yes, you can get a snowball for cheap and spend hours throwing them at random people in the hopes of getting parcels to trade for some kind of nifty stuff from the in game shop. But the big items, the ones that actually make any kind of difference in your playing experience, are all locked up in the Cartel Market. So, you can participate in the "event" by throwing hundreds of snowballs at other players for a chance to get some cheap toys to play with/wear/ride/etc., or if you want to get something that actually matters from the event, you can shell out real money for coins and just buy it from the Cartel Market. I think that is the essence of what is wrong with the event. Honestly, I don't even care that much if they didn't make the event more fun and interesting (though that would be nice, since the game is SUPPOSED to be fun and interesting...), but I already subscribe to the game, I've already paid hundreds of dollars over the years in subscriptions and my pre-order of the Collector's Edition, I should at least have the OPTION of acquiring all of the event-themed items through in-game activities. Even if they made the Cartel Market event items available only to subscribers as an additional selection from the event shop, so they still know they are getting their money for them, that'd be fine. I just can't justify paying a subscription AND shelling out another $20 for one holiday themed item. I become more and more reluctant to subscribe every day...

Thanks very much, dr mike! Your linked suggestion about BitRaider did the trick. I was thinking there was something wrong with the patch itself, since it seemed to update and just wasn't working. The play button was lighting up and I was able to click on it, it just wasn't launching the game. It is all sorted out now and I'm back in the game. Thanks again!

I'm pretty sure it was unspecified, but I guess I could be wrong. I don't get the error any more, in any case. As I said, it finally did update, it's just that pressing play doesn't work now. I'm currently trying to do a bunch of Windows updates to see if that might help. If it doesn't, I'll try your suggestion anyway. Thanks.

So I'd been trying periodically to update and launch the game since about noon. Mostly, it would just give me an "unspecified error" message after trying to log in. This went on for about 4 hours. Finally, however, it started updating when I tried it one last time, after I had finally searched the forums and looked to see if anyone else had the issue, and was going to post about it. "Hurray!" I said. "I'm finally going to get to check out the new update!" I let it update, which took a while just getting through the last 3%, as usual. Then I hit play. The launcher closed. I sat staring at my desktop. "Oh boy!" quoth I. "It's totally broken!" -_- So I tried again. Same thing. And again. Same thing. I tried restarting my computer. Same thing. Seriously, I'm beginning to think the "2 day early access" for subscribers is actually just a way to get content testers to pay them to test their game... Anyway, is anyone else out there having this issue? My launcher starts up and logs in fine, initialized fine, play button lights up, I click it, and it just closes the launcher and sits there doing nothing. I checked the processes and stuff, SWTOR isn't running anywhere. If anyone has any idea what I might be able to do to actually play this game, please let me know.

I agree with this. At the very least, they should add faster versions of the CE speeder to the CE store, so that we can keep the same look but go faster. Should be something very simple to add, I'd think. Maybe this is already in the works though.

This is an optimization feature, actually. You'll notice that every building in the game has some sort of twisty hallway entrance (with the exception of very tiny, one-room buildings, maybe). This is so that the game can stop rendering everything outside while you are in the building without you ever noticing, freeing up a lot of memory so your game can run more smoothly. As you run around the twisting hallway entrance, the game loads the interior and "unloads" the exterior, and vice versa on your way out.

I think the reason there is an invisible wall is that the spire is a phase, and you can't enter a phase except through the phase "gate" (the red/green glowy wall over the entrance). This is rather unavoidable, as they can't let you just fall into the phase when you aren't supposed to be in there. What they actually need to do here is make it so that the place you were trying to explore doesn't even look explorable. Sometimes invisible walls are necessary. The key is to make sure the player never touches them. They should only be the last line of defense, so to speak.

While I don't see the current system as being particularly broken and in need of "fixing", I do find your suggestions to be well thought out and can see the potential they have for improving the experience further. Particularly, I do agree that all legacy rewards should be acquirable via some in-game progression. For instance, getting the ship droid could be a function of having one (maybe two) level 50 characters with a maxed-out crafting crew skill, plus a certain Legacy level. It would be nice if we could actually unlock everything we want by doing activities related to the unlock. Sending a certain amount of mail + reaching certain Legacy level = ship mailbox Selling certain number of items on GTN + reaching certain Legacy level = ship GTN etc. Obviously they would have to be carefully designed, just like everything else, these are just some examples. In short, no the Legacy system isn't in need of "fixing", but rather improvement; these suggestions are good ones to help toward that end, though.

That is actually a really cool idea. It would have to have restrictions though so that people aren't making wild alignment shifts whenever they like. I could see a level 50 single-player flashpoint-style weekly quest, the climax of which includes an epic decision involving the life and death of your character as well as others. Light side choice - sacrifice self (near-death outcome), dark side choice - sacrifice/kill others. Each play through could shift LS/DS points 10000 points (so it would take two weeks to become Light V from Dark V). That's just an example though. I think the idea is fairly sound. It would just have to be difficult enough so as to not be a simple LS/DS toggle, essentially.

I also support closing the gap between PvP and PvE content. I think Expertise is one of the worst design decisions the devs made, honestly. However, after reading many of the posts here, I've come to a conclusion: PvE needs to be more dynamic. If Expertise is done away with, PvE must be made to resemble PvP. Enemies must move during combat, must use similar abilities as players in similar ways as players, and must be intelligent enough to at least match the worst PvPer's skill. Now, AI is a long way off still from real intelligence, so it will always be less dynamic and probably easier than PvP, but I've come to realize that PvP and PvE are, in fact, quite different experiences, and that the separate gear progression is there to make sure that players are ready to tackle the different challenges presented by each. That said, however, I think that PvE gear progression is much more important than PvP gear progression, as far as the actual progression goes. PvP tends to be a similar experience every time, whereas PvE gets progressively more difficult (even if only due to enemy health/damage increases and such). An alternative to the separation of gear progression could be a simple rating system that fulfills the same function. If players could receive a rating for PvP and PvE, it could lock out the players from reaching new levels of the content until they were ready (had the skill or acquired better gear) while still allowing those players who are good at both and interested in doing both to easily do either without having to go through the hassle of grinding out two separate gear progressions. You could still get better gear either way, but it would be compatible with both. After gearing up, you play PvP or PvE and your rating is updated and, if it increases such that you are ready for the next level of the content, you gain access to it. This would make it much more skill oriented than gear oriented, while still keeping the gear as a reward system, I think. So to sum up, I think the separate grinds for PvP and PvE is a major problem with the game that needs to be addressed. Two ways I see at the moment to fix this are as follows: 1. Make PvE content more dynamic, with smarter and more mobile enemies. Make it similar in action to PvP (the main difference being simply the kill difficulty of enemies; standard enemies still won't be as strong as players even if they are smarter and more mobile, they will simply behave more like PvPers, thus training the player for that style of combat while not making the game particularly more difficult) 2. Introduce a PvP rating and PvE rating system, whereby players achieve ratings for each and are allowed into new content based on this rating, rather than gearing. Players can still get the gear rewards, but they would be cross-compatible between PvP and PvE, so that you can be good at both, play both, and progress in both, or if you are good at one and not the other, you can still play that side (say, PvP) and be held back in the other (PvE, to continue the example) until you've proven you can handle it well enough; at which point you would be allowed to progress to the next level of content. This replaces/augments the gear progression with skill progression. Ideally, both of these solutions could be put in place to make the entire situation that much better, I think. As a final note, closing the gap between PvP and PvE gear would also allow players to always look how they want to look. I support the gear modding instead of cosmetic gear approach; however, it can be expensive and time consuming to get a single set of gear that you want for your character. Forcing players to have two sets of end game gear makes looking just how you want very difficult, maybe even near impossible (most people at end game look the same because of this, I think). Closing this gap would make the visual variety of players that much easier to achieve. Just one more up side to closing the gap between PvP and PvE gear!

No community feedback on this idea? I am rather curious (and would like to have a few other voices in support of the suggestion) if people think this is a good idea. Personally, I think it would greatly increase the amount (or at least the ease) of RP in the game, which is always a plus to me. I guess it comes down to how many people enjoy random RP encounters in the worlds.

Hm, well for sure it would need a very careful implementation if it were to be done. As far as players actually sending messages in /say to RP talking to themselves or force ghosts or whatever, I don't even see why anyone would bother typing it out if no one is around to see it... Just doesn't make any sense at all. If some people do that, that's fine with me, but it seems their time would be better spent simply writing those details in a story for others to read later than actually RPing in-game with nobody around. Seems like a scenario contrived specifically to punch holes in the idea I'm trying to suggest, honestly. I can see most of the concerns here being legitimate. However, I still think there could be a way to implement this system that would be simple and unable/undesirable to exploit. Then again, it may just be wishful thinking. In any case, the devs will decide whether or not they want a system like this in the game when/if they see this.

I think that every playstyle and preferred activity should be supported (within reason), and to that end I suggest adding XP gain for /say dialogue. Now, I'm not saying it should be anywhere near equivalent per time spent as killing things, but it would be a little extra way of making it more productive to simply RP. As it is, those who like to RP a lot must sacrifice experience gain in order to do so. This makes it so that heavy RPers may lag behind standard players in XP gain per time spent in-game. I'm not suggesting a system that will make RPing just as viable, but something that will help close that gap a little bit, so that RP can be a side form of progression. This could be character XP, Legacy XP, or both. Alternatively/additionally, this XP gain could be lesser or non-existent while in cantinas, as the rested XP would probably make up for it. Now, as far as implementation goes, I think it could be fairly simple. The game could log up to, say, the last 50 things the player says in /say. This can probably be done client-side, I would imagine, and I wouldn't think it would take up a lot of resources, though I'm only a novice in such matters so I may be wrong. If that is a viable method though, the game could compare each new /say message to each of the logged ones; if it is different, the player gains RP experience. This way, the player will actually have to be carrying out a conversation in /say to get the experience. This can be tempered by requiring that there be at least one other player nearby to get the XP. Perhaps also, if it is not too resource-intensive, have the game check each message to ensure it is not just a couple of letters or incoherent gibberish, to help prevent exploiting of the system. Of course, exploitation would be a major concern for this, as it is essentially free XP, even if only in small amounts. But if the system could be designed to be more trouble to exploit than it is worth, then it may be acceptable. The reasoning behind this suggestion is that, while fun, RP has no real gameplay benefits at the moment; it is just a time sink, gameplay-wise. Gaining RP Experience could help give RP an actual value in terms of gameplay and make RPing more rewarding to players, helping heavy RPers not fall behind the curve as much at the same time. This is just a suggestion. I'm not saying the above description is how it must be or how it may work best, but the general idea of gaining some sort of mechanical reward for RP I think would help RP feel more rewarding and productive.