I didn't like Female Sith Warrior all that much, but then I found that giving her a helmet with voice modulation adds just the right touch of menace

There's a time limit, I believe. edit: You can use those fire circles to hurt him, should help kill him in time.

Well, the titles have always been for other players, not in universe. Otherwise running around with a "double agent" title should get you shot.

I doubt F2P will ever get it. F2P are still stuck at level 50. They might eventually try selling access to it for cartel coins? That seems like the most sensible way to make it available for people who weren't subbed for the relevant period.

EA aren't supporting this game as an infinite money pit, they need to make a profit. At the moment they need to focus on delivering regular new chapters to justify peoples subs

I agree. But its a bit frustrating when no one else in the group knows to use Interrupts or basic class mechanics like "mind maze" for shadows.

Savrak just seems like mechanics. Though its annoying how sometimes you seem to get knocked back despite standing right underneath him. The final phase of the final boss seems like it can be an impossible problem DPS wise with some groups.

Its not "necessary" or no one would ever be able to actually start playing warzones. But it helps. And if you play semi-regularly you'll pretty quickly be able to afford a set.

I generally don't find tactical flashpoints too bad, though you need to accept that you'll die a few times. There are a few FPs that are problematic (final boss on Taral V for example) but most seem pretty fair so long as you use the kolto stations properly. Trash pulls could stand to be nerfed since without healers or kolto they're a bit tough sometimes, but they're not a terrible problem now - even if you wipe on one you should have done enough damage to succeed next time around. A lot of the problem is that people aren't very good at using kolto stations. edit: I do think something needed to be done. I thought the old story flashpoints were great if you were healer or tank, but the queues for DPS were ridiculous. Now, I think the tactical flashpoints even help you get into the Hard Modes as a DPS, because the surplus DPS characters are off doing tacticals.

Bolstered characters do seem to noticeably under perform. But its silly not to at least give it a try and see what happens, because skill maters more.

You've got a point. OTOH Lana is the de facto second in command, and she's an Imperial.

Level sync doesn't make the levels pointless, you still have a whole bunch of extra powers. I think the best purpose of levelling is to give you the opportunity to learn your class gradually, rather than dumping you in with a ton of different powers. Even when I'm just returning to a class I haven't played a while, all those buttons can be intimidating. It also allows them to include a gear grind and to gate content. And people like to see their numbers going up, apparently.

Because it is an Alliance, rather than a Confederation, Consortium, Federation or Galactic Union.

When we finally got done with Taral V it seemed like you could simply not kill the adds and thus the boss would be stuck reloading and avoid the horrible DoT

There's a fairly simple purple one I like, but I agree that a plain one would be nice

It might actually be easier to use DPS companion for that fight. It's a tough encounter, but killing stuff fast to reduce the amount of damage seemed to work better than trying to heal through it. Though I was a sage so I had some self heal going on.

Not using the buffs it still seemed reasonably challenging. But doable for my well geared sage with a level 21 Qyzen healing me for that last bit. The room before the final boss fight was tougher than the actual exarch fight, because Qyzen could keep me healed up as long as I didn't screw up.

But with the current design, its quite likely to be actually somewhat challenging up to level 7-8, then uber companion in shows up and takes away all the challenge Honestly, the stories have never been challenging enough to teach the player to use interrupts bar a few very specific bosses. This is actually a major problem for the game that actually in some ways makes it harder - since you can essentially cruise up to 65 without learning key mechanics or having any sort of rotation beyond maybe "click the glowy buttons", when actually challenging content shows up people are pretty lost. And really its a lot harder to suddenly have to learn how to play the game at 65 than at level 10, because you've got a hell of a lot more buttons to worry about. (Though there is a guy in the Agent story now on Hutta who can quite easily be one mistake and you're dead because you don't have your companion yet.)

Does level sync affect you even if you're within a level of the content?

Sorry, my fault. I was quoting the wrong post, I wasn't responding to you. I still expect "Quote" to be at the bottom not the top, so I always get this wrong, and I clearly didn't check before posting.

They intend for the Heroic Star Fortress stuff to be challenging, sure. It probably still will be even with the buff. But that's clearly contrasted to the rest of the Heroic 2+ stuff where the message is simple - fast, easy soloing in whatever gear you show up in is what they've decided people want, and what people are getting

edit: Right quote now Bioware RPGs aren't difficult, but they're not as easy as even the level the story is now. I mean, I just fought the Imperial Agent Act 1 Boss and it was an utter joke and it wasn't like I was overleveled or well equipped or anything. I had on pants that I'd got on Hutta! And it's always going to be, based on the current design philosophy. Bosses in the story are basically lone Golds, so they're quite literally less than half as difficult as a routine pull in a Heroic, so if those are supposed to be light and relaxing, what can the story combat be but an utter snoozefest. Bioware RPGs also tend to have difficulty options, so perhaps SWtOR needs that. A Heroic Story option could work nicely - tick a box and your instanced story stuff is buffed to Heroic 2+ levels, and is still pretty easy but needs you to stay awake. (edit: Though there was a challenging fight before I got my companion, I should mention. Going up solo against a gold at low levels is actually maybe too tough for a newbie. But next mission you get a companion and its cruise mode from then on in)

So if you're now intending the Heroics to be easy, where does that leave the actual story content? I mean, if companion + player is supposed to be able to take on Gold + Silver + Silver without any particular skill or gear, how can combats where the toughest fights are Silver + Silver or a Gold on their own be anything but utter strolls in the park?

I don't find healers that useful in most tacticals. The Kolto thingies make them redundant in most boss fights, though they do help avoid the odd death outside of them. All melee DPS can be a pain, particularly if the healing stations are inconveniently situated. Or if the ranged DPS aren't inclined to keep an eye on the heals. Though the balance is a bit all over the place. I was just doing Directive 7 and it was really pretty easy despite some rather erratic and low level players, while other FPs are a real pain

I'd rather sync to a lower level so that there's actual challenge.