Or allow us to trade up or sell commendations, so that the line that it would occupy isn't even there and doesn't even exist any longer. So, 2 Coruscant commnedation could be exchanged for one Taris. Btw, that's sell to a vendor. All sorts of economy issues if you let people trade commendations. Although between alts....

For you, tidmass, I'll restate a bit. For a 20% RE... Every attempt, taken as a single instance, has a 20% chance of hitting. I never said otherwise, nor did I intend to. There is no trend, there is no causal link between attempts. We're talking coin flips here. If you make multiple attempts at something that has a specific probability of occurring, such as a 20% RE, while each individual attempt has no higher chance to take place, the chance of at least one instance in the sequence of having a particular outcome (in our parlance, a successful schematic learn from the RE) are based on the formula I quoted before. In other words, the formula calculates the % chance that, for a given number of attempts, at least one will have the desired outcome. So, if you were to try 10 20% RE's, regardless of the results you got, there is an 89% chance that one of them would be successful. To determine the odds of more than one hitting, well that gets complicated. If you believe that formula does not apply, could you please explain why you think it only applies when there is a causal link, and what formula should instead be used to determine the likelihood of a single outcome on a string of attempts. I'm curious.

On the whole, I'd have to say most of the complaints voiced by the OP come down to the fact that MMOs are required to function in certain ways. I agree on some points, more or less, and think that BW/EA/Mythic oversold certain things, but I expect that sort of marketing fluff. 1. Planets are linear? I tend to agree, though I'd say the problem is that the progression as a whole is too linear, there are no real options of where to go and what to do, as far as PvE play goes. A few choices of planet for a given level range, at least on some ranges, might be nice (Go to Taris or planet Wheretheheck for lv 16-20 republic, etc.). I would hope that options will be added in the future, though I've seen no sign that will happen, so the hope is barely clinging to life. One comment though is that most games are pretty linear, unless they are true sandbox mmo's, and those tend to leave people wandering aimlessly. 2. Choices don't matter? Yes and no. I've gone through the same story (or parts of them) with the same class a couple times, intentionally, to see what would differ. The exact rewards/notes you get via mail vary according to choices you made, later conversations do actually reflect previous choices. In the case of my JK, I was very surprised how dissed he was in the finale conversation (reward ceremony) because he was tainted by the dark side. I think it safe to assume that conversation would have been different if he was lightside (or neutral?). However, certain elements of the game, e.g. the situation on Taris, cannot be apparently different to you because the multitude of other players still have to go through the game there, and it has to be the same for them as it was for you. So, in that respect, it is true that the game doesn't change, but I don't see how someone could reasonably expect it to, given the mmo framework (except for those subtle things I mentioned). 3. Pointless quests? Nature of the beast, welcome to the world of mmos. As for outleveling or being-outleveled, I found that by doing only the class missions and world story arc, I was keeping pace with the level of the planets and class mission. The only bonus missions I did were those that happened organically (if I had to go out of my way too kill an extra 20 enemies, or find the whatsits I didn't bother). One exception, when playing a stealth class and avoiding large amounts of kills, I found that I was falling behind a bit, but not massively (a level or two, by end of chap 2). 4. Lack of companion interaction? I have to agree here. Some details and particulars I could add or subtract from, but by and large, this "feature" didn't seem as rich as promised. 5. Not heroic enough? Well, yeah, I agree, sorta, with this. But then, I didn't expect my own movie, I expected an mmo. Given the mmo framework, I didn't get anything less than I expected. I will say that more use could have been made of timed missions to enhance the urgency of a situation, but there are often technical problems (many easily solved) with that. 6. Stalling? Again, it's part of mmo's. I didn't expect any more or less, though I agree that some of the tasks seem a bit trivial (the story progression could have been written a little better) at certain points.

First, don't fool yourself, TOR is a loot treadmill game. Raising the level cap means extended gear grind and obsolescence for prior efforts. Some reasoning below. Second, when it comes to communication, there are a few things to be aware of. If you look at the communication patterns, it is more EA/Mythic setting the communication (or lack of) tone and information (or lack of) sharing. As I posted a long time ago, good communication means active dialogue between the devs (or their well informed proxies) and the community. It is not a one shot thing, it is an on-going effort that needs to be committed to. There are mmo success stories of this sort of communication, EA/Mythic are NOT among them. Is TOR a loot treadmill game? Did it include, at inception, a non-linear advancement system (ala AA from EQ or RR from DAoC)? No. Are there listed tiers of gear, and do those tiers show distinct improvements (as opposed to marginal) over earlier tiers/ranks? Yes and yes. Are you excluded from content because you are improperly geared? Yes. (I admit that this is mostly a problem generated by the community itself, not by specific code in the game, but the game does point people rather clearly in that direction.) (Note: the legacy improvements are not so much about improving the performance of your character(s), but about adding flash and improving the speed of leveling, thus launching you to the gear treadmill faster) I too have some clear opinions on what leveling methods would be viable instead of gear, but that is a subject for another thread.

Random number generators are inherently unfair, unless they have some sort of streak-breaker to insure people don't get reamed by chance. I too have noticed what seems to be a problem in the overall success rate. I do hope it is being looked into by Mythic/BW/EA, since they have the numbers that are likely to be statistically significant. However, to give folks some idea that I have a small clue about the actual math behind this... Yes, if something has a 20% chance of happening, theoretically it will happen one in five times, but it certainly isn't guaranteed to do so. Note, however, that the chance of something happening at least once, which is kinda all we care about in this case, when we consider the multiple tries as a set, is 1- the percent represented as a decimal (80% is 0.8) to the power of the number of tries, times 100 to bring it back to a %. Thus .8^1 is .8, thus .2, thus 20%. Two tries gets us .8^2, .64, 36%. Three tries is 49%. And so on. By the time you've made ten tries to RE something with a supposed 20% chance to occur, you are looking at an 89% chance of getting a single successful shot. Still not a guarantee, which you will never get, and the chance of any individual attempt working is still the low 20%, but the odds start to be in your favor, sort of. Methods from the book "Randomness" by Deborah Bennett, the closest probability reference I had handy. For most of the RE'ing people are likely to be doing, the sample size is most likely too small to be statistically significant. That being said, I have noticed that my own numbers of late seem to be more in the neighborhood of 10-15 attempts as the usual. I do get the seemingly rare early success, and the occasional many-lots attempt "success". A few patches back, my typical numbers were more like 4-7 attempts, with the semi-regular success on the first or second try, and semi-regular runs of 10 or more, it seemed to be averaging out, but was reasonably consistent in my limited experience. Again, I hope the current numbers are looked at to be certain that no additional factor is being added or subtracted to the equation (like, perhaps, the addition of the legacy crafting perk, and how it may have skewed an otherwise simple equation?)

As I said above, and Rhaphael confirmed (ty), the bonus is for each companion type, not each and every companion. The five types are: mdps, rdps, support, mtank, rtank. You can certainly unlock each companion, even two support companions like Doc and Mako, but you won't earn the same bonus twice. So, even if you unlock both Qyzen and Skadge, you only get one accuracy bonus for the melee tank. Sigh, if only the display showed where you were getting each bonus from and/or listed all the specific bonuses you'd earned this wouldn't even be a question. Or, would be less of one, as people were pointed to that info.

Extra character slots would be great.

Well, the game is an mmo, so some of the permanent effects and so forth people are asking for just aren't feasible. You may have sold some guy off to the empire, or saved the world, or become some massive dark lord, but all the other folks around you, including the same class guy next to you might not have... yet. Best you can hope for is that the class story missions might have some indication of what you've done thus far, and in fact, some of them do. Would I like to see more of that? Yes, and I can only hope I will. That said, some things are potentially doable. For example, being attacked at random , based on what you've done is certainly doable. However the thing to remember is that it as to be equivalent for every class and every story/choice, and that becomes far less reasonable. Having played through much of the stories at this point, I can say that not every class story or choice would lend itself to that. It's kind of an all or none sort of thing, and that is, again, one of the evils of the mmo world. I am, however, very disappointed in the fp/ops big boss methodology, something I could swear the devs said would not happen. I find that mechanic non-challenging and dull. Enrage timers? Please, I thought we weren't supposed to see any of that either, and yet we do. There are so many other ways to make ops and fps challenging that they chose not to do. (multiple simultaneous objectives requiring teams or parts of teams to work independently; randomized bosses chosen from a possible pool, with assorted tactics, more varied tactics on the part of mobs, etc.)

If the perk you are looking for is the improvement from the mdps companion type, did you already get it with another class/companion? My understanding is that it can only be earned once for each companion type, not each companion.

Well done. In my experience, people are constantly overrating the benefit of the skill trees in SWTOR. The actual benefits in raw damage and efficiency are not that large, though there are some very good synergies to be had for some AC's. Don't get me wrong, the skill tree purchases are nice to have, but by no means do they make or break the capabilities of a character. Personally, even without the skill trees, I would miss the specialized abilities you get for the AC's (like heals).

Interesting point, on the items. That does give the merc an edge over the trooper. Since no generator I am aware of is moddable, the double moddable guns work better for customization. Sigh. And they clearly tried to make the factions balanced, but obviously failed to consider all the parameters. Perhaps they will fix this at some point, and we will see moddable shields/foci/generators? As far as abilities go, as posted above, they are exactly the same, excepting the animations.

Because then each player wouldn't get their individual experience in developing their character story their way, each step of the way, it would be shared at best. Though I personally don't think there would be that much of a problem with it, that is against BioWare's vision of how the class stories should go.

I recently posted in thread entitled "I'm not a healer". The basic gist of the thread was that the group finder was currently shoving people into roles for which they weren't spec'd. A commando/merc, for example, being put into the healing role even though they are spec'd for dps (and tried to select only that role in the selector). I agree that this is a problem, and hope that it is fixed and/or people make sure they are using it properly. However, I went on to suggest in my post that people not limit themselves by only doing exactly what their build implies and nothing else, even if it would save the team from a wipe. I am NOT suggesting that somebody spec'd for dps bill themselves as a healer (or vice versa) and join groups on that basis. I AM suggesting that if your team needs you to lay down a heal or two, or put out a little cc, and you can, you do so. (Or do a little damage, if you are a healer, and nobody needs healing at that moment) Is there something intensely wrong with that? Yes, this thinking is more valid for leveling fps and heroics than for HM's, but even in the more difficult content it still makes sense to me. Hypothetical Scenario: I am a mostly dps spec'd commando, (a few points in other lines, e.g. for crit improvement). I am in a dps role on my team. We get into a major fight, something goes wrong, and our healer (say it is a sage) is dropping. Do I a) keep on shooting cuz that's all I can do, or... b) backup heal the sage to keep him, and thus the group, alive? I personally will pick option b). Every time. The trade off of a couple attacks on my part to keep the main healer up seems like a no-brainer to me. As a dps commando, my non-spec'd heals are still vastly better than no heals at all. (If the sage is a lost cause, then yes, I keep shooting.) Yet a couple folks in that other thread suggested this was suicidal/stupid idea. Who is crazy here? A few numbers for the inclined... A commando/merc fully spec'd for healing only gets an 8% (13% when supercharge is up) improvement to their baseline heals. The special heals you can buy are a moderate cd free insta (which is pretty sweet), a minor aoe, an add-on hot for one of the baseline heals, and a charged reactive. Strictly by the numbers, none of these heals are game breakers, though they are handy. Some moderate threat reduction and good pushback resistance, minor defensive stuff, a little cost efficiency improvement, and the 15% improved crit numbers (surge), can also improve the overall effectiveness, but don't directly improve the healing numbers (not including the crits). So, a completely non-heal-spec'd commando/merc can still use the baseline heals (commando = med probe and adv med probe) at least 88%, and much of the time 92.5%, as effectively as a full spec'd healer. It seems I attach more significance to play skill (?) and knowing what abilities are most useful to my team at any given moment than I do to spec. Again though, I do recognize value in the spec. The cumulative benefit of full spec for any purpose is always noticeable, and not to be dismissed. I have seen smugglers/agents refuse to use the slice droid (cc) ability, because they were "dps" and that was not a damage ability. ALL smug/IA have the ability, why not use it if you can and the group needs it? I have seen classes with the baseline ability to heal fail to do so to save themselves or the team, even when all it needed was one or two casts. When I play a character, even if I am spec'd one way, I am still willing to use my non-spec'd abilities if it means the difference between success and failure.

While I respect the right of people to spec as they wish, I think it is a bit of a shame that people consider their characters in such a black & white way. I can appreciate that this is a bug, and people are being put into roles they do not want. Hopefully this will get fixed soon. But still... Stretch your abilities a little. As someone else mentioned, even if you have spec'd your character entirely a different way, you still have the default abilities available to your advanced class. All vanguards, regardless of spec, have the ion cell to let them tank. All sorcerers have a few heals. And so on. If my team needs my dps biased mercenary to heal, I heal. If my dps biased shadow suddenly has to tank, I taunt, switch to combat technique, and tank. If playing my character outside my spec will allow my team to succeed, you better believe I'll do it. I use all of my character's abilities as needed for best results. Or try to. Maybe it will be enough, maybe not, but I'll go down swinging. Too many people seem to have the attitude that if they aren't built for a particular role, they simply cannot do it, rather than being less apt at it. And they will not do it, which I find baffling. I've been in groups that have wiped, literally, from lack of a heal or two. As in one or two casts of a heal on some of the fights would have prevented a wipe. (final champ of Trouble in Deed [heroic 4], boss mob had less than 1K hp left, 3/4 players dead, commando wouldn't even heal himself) {triple champ fight (2 dogs, 1 mando) in mando raid fp, 2/4 players down, myself (gunslinger) and a commando still up, only mando champ still up, champ w/ 3K hp left, I'm kiting as best as possible (not very on that mob), commando didn't heal himself or me, the commando was officially in a dps role, but our healer (sage) had already gone down (and the com never threw a heal on our dying main healer that I noticed)} And, fyi, I play healer/tank capable ac's regularly, and regardless of spec have some of my action bars set up to use the abilities if I need to.

World missions are story lines related specifically to your faction acting for the world. The bonus series are typically extensions to that story line, which you cannot, afaik, do unless you've completed the main world quest series. Now, what would be nifty is a few improvements in that area. Differentiate class, world, and side missions by showing them in a different color on the maps (quest markers) and in the quest offerings over npc's heads. Overlapping non-same-type quest markers could be slightly offset either statically (always appearing on a very slightly different spot on the map) or dynamically (when you mouseover the markers they split). Journal/Codex entries for quests of different types would appear in different subheadings (i.e., in your journal the Tatooine quests would have two sub-headings, one for world related and one for side). This sort of thing would be especially helpful on planets, like Alderaan, where the world quest line is somewhat disjointed. Necessary? Of course not, ease of use/play features never are, but they make the game more pleasant. Hopefully not too tough to implement as well.