Yep, as mentioned here: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=9023330#post9023330

It's a very old issue which unfortunately suggests that it's not very likely to be addressed at any point. This is the drive for the "yes it sucks, but just get used to it" type of responses you're getting. Yes, it's a flawed design. One might assume that the game's maps each have one universal network of navigation nodes which both factions draw from when calculating the "shortest" path to an objective. (A way to avoid these issues would be if each faction had its own different version of the navigation node network. Select certain nodes in the Imperial copy and certain different nodes in the Republic copy, then replace / move those nodes to avoid having indicators on top of enemy bases.) And with that one universal network the system will blindly highlight the closest node without making any special considerations for you. So long as that flawed design is in place (which unfortunately may be permanently because the devs have sat on this problem for so long already) all we can do is just learn our way around it. Like on Hoth for example every section of map (except maybe the bonus series section?) follows the convention that the Republic base will be in the north and the Imperial base will be in the south, so if you're playing an Imperial and you see an arrow directing you to the north you would know to be suspicious of their directions and to start looking more carefully. If the objective appears to be on the next map, not just a cave somewhere on the current map, odds are pretty good that that arrow is on top of the other side's base. If you go too far north or too far south on Tatooine and Alderaan as well, you may start to encounter the other side's bases.

Huh. My Senya was only rank 2. She was set to heals and I was playing a marauder (annihilation). I don't remember if I ever even saw any skytroopers spawn during the fight, so it was just burning him down and hitting the panels. No... Wait... Yeah, there were something like 3-4 at a time like someone else said, but they went down fast. Edit: Hmmm, I just randomly recalled the old glitch that could happen (and probably still happens) for a specific step in the Inquisitor class quest on Balmorra. Normally when you entered the instance there was this spot where you'd have to fight something like 3 different waves of about 5-6 colicoids at a time spawning in, which wouldn't normally be a problem but if you happened to be running with a group (as I've done with some laid back play with some friends, just cruising through soloable stuff in a full group just because we could) it triggers those spawns for every person in the group instead of only for the owner of the instance. And maybe they might have all been upgraded from plain to silver because of the group as well? So we went in and we just got completely wrecked by this seemingly endless swarm of colicoids where you wouldn't normally have any problems. It's probably not relevant to the "25-50 skytroopers" thing, but... Who knows? The game can do weird things to you sometimes.

What happens if it finishes doing whatever it's doing at those panels anyway? I didn't wait to find out when I did it. There was something earlier (I think?) in that chapter though. I forget what the enemy was called but it kept locking onto me with a big linear area attack and I was wondering if it's possible to avoid the attack. It didn't really seem to do that much damage anyway but it still bugged me that no matter what I did I could never avoid it. It's not like other "tracking your movements while the enemy locks on" area attacks where the area stops moving a few seconds before the attack happens. It just keeps following your every movement up to the last millisecond. The update that added mobility moves for everybody (4.0? I forget) gave the Commandos / Mercenaries a move that pushes them backwards while pretty much everybody else got something that either moves forward or warps to a target. I forget offhand if Commado / Merc have something else besides that move (wouldn't their only other mobility move be their speed booster Hold the Line?), so maybe they'd have the awkward prospect of flipping their camera around so that the "escape" move gets them closer to the enemy. But yeah, I also can't think of a class with no options at all for leaps / rolls / warps / speed boosts / snare removers / etc.

A few patches ago they actually added a legacy perk to buy one for every class ship in your legacy, just like the perks for guild bank, training dummies, GTN, etc. that you can get on your ships. Granted, the stronghold (or guild ship) is more accessible and convenient anyway since you can jump straight there from almost anywhere and then jump straight back to where you came from. There's the priority transport character perk that you can buy for a character to be able to jump straight to their class ship from almost anywhere, but you can't return back to where you had been from there.

So many ideas from people in the original threads (which mostly got merged into one massive thread by the end of that week) and then occasionally repeated in new topics like this one since then... Ideas about what could be done to revamp the format of the machine to something that they could work with for new machines as well, or even just adding all the different rep to the one machine we already have... But the devs really did sweep the idea under the rug and forget it was ever there after they took the machine from one extreme to another. The machine as it stands is essentially just a rep dispenser for that one cartel market rep. It's got a 45% chance on each spin to lose (up from the original 25%), 20% chance that it just spits your coin back at you (unchanged), 34.499% chance to win a rep item (up from 23%), and 0.501% chance to win anything that isn't a rep item (down from 32%). The nerf also included increasing the cost of the token from 500 credits apiece to 750 credits apiece. Technically if you factor out the re-spins (keep re-rolling until they all land on final results) the overall expected output is that 56.249% of your tokens result in a loss (up from 31.25%), 43.12% of your tokens result in a rep item (up from 28.75%), and 0.63% of your tokens result in a real prize (down from 40%). This is all fine and dandy if you're trying to build up that specific rep. The slot machine works as a credit sink to purchase that rep indirectly and with some RNG mixed in, effectively feeding you one random rep trophy for every 2 tokens you put in (more or less). But once you're maxed in that rep the post-nerf machine is just not all that appealing. You can vendor the rep items to regain some of your costs on the tokens (and maybe reinvest them into buying more tokens for extra spins) but you're going to expect that it could take hundreds of tokens to win one non-rep prize and it could take thousands of tokens to win one cartel certificate specifically. If they aren't going to do anything to revamp it, they could at least revisit it just to swap out the rep item drops for a green, blue, and purple "trophy case" (or whatever they would want to call it) which would be RNG boxes for a random rep item of that quality, selecting randomly from all of the cartel rep groups. They could also add the machine itself as an option for direct purchase in the cartel market. This would at least allow the rep dispenser to be used for people to build up all of those old reputations. I'd still like to see them do a lot more than that to it, of course. But that would be a nice simple solution if they want to keep it in this current format.

When I read that patch note the two immediate thoughts that followed were "BOOOOO!!!" and "Yeah, that makes sense." The concept that the developers were aiming for with conquest commanders is full ops group of mixed PVEers and PVPers storming into the center of an enemy base fighting the commander and other base NPCs while any enemy players who happen to be around at the time leap into action to defend their base. The demonstration that they orchestrated for a stream of gameplay on the test server was probably the only time it's ever actually played out like this. In actual practice what's actually happened since day one of conquests going live is that a PVE ops groups will have one tank grab the attention of all the guards near the commander and run away to get them to reset while the other tank grabs the commander and draws them over to where the rest of the group is waiting to pound the snot out of them uninterrupted outside the base. PVP rarely factors into it. (Partially because it's happening out of the way and where nobody actually ended up flagged anyway. And partially it's because few were ever really that interested in the PVP side of it anyway.) The addition of the instance types only made it even easier to keep PVP out of it. (Now there's no chance to end up flagged even if you do take the fight inside the base. The worst that an enemy player can do against you is to heal the NPCs you're fighting.) This new change of making commanders only spawn in the PVP instance is clearly a move meant to try to push things back towards the devs' dream of a large mixed PVE/PVP battle. (Although it does nothing to affect the general lack of interest that most people have for that concept.)

I need to run chapter 15. The first couple weeks after it was released I was focused on leveling my first two DvL characters to 65. And the last couple weeks I just haven't been in the game much. Logged in while the Rakghoul event was running and hung out on fleet just long enough for the DvL achievement for infecting people, and that's pretty much all I've done in the game lately.

Huh? What's bugged right now? It's a good subject to bring up though, because conquests haven't really been in the right place since they were first added to the game anyway and there are tons of ideas that could be thrown around to tweak and revamp them. Number one complaint by far: once per legacy restricted conquest objectives. Kill them all. Make them die a painful death. No objective should ever be limited in this way. Make them repeatable and only enforce limits by making them look for completion of a dailiy or weekly mission. (Some conquest objectives already do this. But it's far too few of them.) Each planet (and dailies zone) ought to have a "Conquest Mission Terminal". (From the game in its current state, these would be edits of the current heroic terminal / dailies mission terminal on each of those locations.) Terminals would be filled up with all sorts of daily and weekly missions such as: * heroics/dailies (same as what the planets have already) * rampages (broken down into separate missions for different regions of the planet and/or for different types of enemies on the planet) * recon missions (new dailies similar to the GSI dailies) * priority target hit lists (mission for achievement named NPCs, mission for the world boss, mission for the named conquest commander) * crafting / trade (missions that trade things like assembly components, war supplies, prefab kits, etc. to certain NPCs on the planet) * invasion mission (must kill any conquest commander and a certain number of enemy faction base guards) * forward outpost offense / defense (offense is a pvp mission calling for pvp kills within areas located at each conquest commander location and at a forward outpost which would be added to the map for each faction, defense mission has you go to your faction's forward outpost and fight off waves of NPC attackers) * and anything and everything else they can think to add to this list The core foundation of the entire conquest system, the part that puts the word conquest into the whole thing, would then be that each planet covered in a week's conquest has an objective which calls for completion of any mission on the planet's Conquest Mission Terminal. Set the baseline value of these objectives low (like 50 points per completion, but maybe a special condition has it that weeklies trigger the objective to complete twice) but set them up so that the guild bonus on your guild's selected target is something very high (like x10, making the target planet be worth 500 points per completion). So guild members would be encouraged to pay attention to their targeted planet because it's easy points towards each character's personal target and easy points to support the guild's effort. Granted, the points are exhaustible and this won't fill the role of a competitive grind opportunity. The competitive grind needs both a solid pvp core and a solid pve core, balanced against each other as much as possible. They've already kind of got pvp covered with the points per match in warzones and points per match in starfighter, but I'd actually suggest tinkering with each of these pretty heavily. Instead of just blindly rewarding points just for being there... Each one should have some sort of target point value that we're aiming for, like 50 or 100 or whatever. And each one should have a list of conditions specifying all sorts of things like (point values made up arbitrarily for example purposes): * complete a match = 5 points * win a match = 10 points * get a kill or assist = 1 points * earn a medal = 2 points * every 100 (or however many) objective points earned in a match = 1 point * every 10k (or however much) in damage or healing or protection = 1 point * and whatever else seems necessary So just being there or just happening to be in a winning match will be part of it but you'll complete the objective faster and more often if you really commit to helping the team in every way you can. The pve grind would be an objective based around boss kills. It would have some target point value that you're aiming for (3 is what I usually have in mind when I throw this idea around) and a list of rules specifying something like (arbitrary examples again): * solo FP boss kill = 1 point * tac/SM FP boss kill = 2 points * HM FP boss kill = 3 points * world boss kill or SM OP boss kill = 4 points * HM/NM OP boss kill = 5 points So with that one objective all flashpoint and operation and world boss activity counts for something (it's not rate limited by the group finder daily), and since it's counting boss kills instead of instance completion people can't cheat the system by skipping bosses (like they did for False Emperor and Battle of Ilum in that first or second week of conquests). The objective just naturally scales itself to reward points slower/faster depending on what type of content you're taking on. (There are 3 bosses in most flashpoints. Farming solo FPs, that's 1 objective completion per run. Tactical FPs would be 2 objective completions per run. Hard FPs would be 3 objective completions per run. Operations can be 5 or 7 bosses long. Using 5 for the examples: SM OPs would be 6.67 objective completions per run. HM/NM OPs would be 8.33 objective completions per run.) The balance would be very hard to find of course, but they should try their best to balance out the point values of the grind objectives against the average expected queue times and average expected completion times so that they're as close as possible to being equally viable for grinding. I'd suggest a hefty target system like those for a crafting grind as well. Make a lot more items count for something in it. Include point values for all of the items like the assembly components, war supplies, prefab kits, etc. Include different tiers for each grade / mark of those items. The cheaper/faster an item is to craft, the less it should contribute towards the objective completion (so a Desh assembly component would be worth 1 point). But then set a high target like 50 or 100 points or more, and make the objective worth a moderate amount of points (like 250 or less per completion). On top of those core elements, it's just a matter of adding the thematic objectives which set the tone for each specific week. (Crafting week, flashpoint week, warzone week, etc.) They're already pretty good with this for the most part, although the weeks associated with the events are in desperate need of objectives that acknowledge the event activity. The least they could do is to add an objective similar to the Conquest Mission Terminal objectives. Completion of any mission on the event's mission terminal triggers an objective. Make this be worth more per completion than the planet terminals (like 300 maybe) but don't offer any guild bonus for them. Outside the scope of those suggestions, another idea I've had is that I'd like to see a console added to the player ships which lets you select a conquest target for your legacy. Rework the way conquest points are earned so that your personal goal and your guild contribution are a little more separate from each other. Stronghold bonus does affect both but legacy bonus (offers same planetary multipliers as the guild bonus) only helps you earn more personal points and guild bonus only helps you earn more guild points. Legacies either don't have rankings or they compete on a top 20 list which is separate from the guild top 10 list. The reward system for conquests would be restructured with this as well. Perhaps include separate immediate rewards for both the personal targets (which would be expanded into three separate targets: one that's easy for anyone to reach, one that's of moderate difficulty, and one that's much more challenging to reach) and the guild minimum contribution. And then there would be special prizes for finishing on the legacy leaderboard and a bonus for finishing as a top 5 legacy. Guilds would continue to have the top 10 placement prize and the #1 placement bonus.

Man, first couple weeks of chapter 15 being available I didn't get around to running it because I was working on my 2 DvL 65s. In the next week or two after that up until now... I actually kind of haven't really been in the game much at all. Still haven't gotten around to checking out chapter 15. Didn't even move on to getting my other 6 DvL characters to 50, just logged in long enough to get the Rakghoul part of DvL crossed off and that was it. And then chapter 16 is coming... when? This week? Next week?

I don't think I've ever seen a situation where I was stuck on something and NOT in that eternal fall situation. It's pretty much a guarantee that if you need to use /stuck you will be in a state where quick travel won't actually be an option. Sucks when /stuck doesn't actually move you anywhere and just leaves you in the same stuck position. (Had that happen to me on Oricon once. Just on one of the dread root things sticking out of the ground somewhere where I was going around some enemies instead of starting fights. Hit /stuck and just end up still trapped in free fall on the root. I think it took until the third or fourth time entering /stuck before I finally got out of it.) Anyway... Not a clue. People always seem to throw around some vague claim about people using /stuck to cheat somehow but I haven't got the slightest clue what that's supposed to accomplish / what sort of cheat that could possibly enable. I don't think I've even seen anyone try to explain it and explain it badly. They just simply don't say anything more descriptive than that generic claim about cheating. If I had to guess I'd say that it might have something to do with teleport hacks, which bots use to reach all of the security chests and slicing nodes on a planet the instant they respawn, but.... Bots teleport in and out all over the place anyway despite the /stuck cooldown so it must be something completely different that allows them to teleport. (No idea at all what that could be either.)

I've been through the HK quest plenty of times (I like it, plus I have no interest in paying for the unlock so long as it's not a legacy-wide / account-wide thing anyway) and I can't think of any times where I've ever done anything at any point on the quest where I got stuck on any scenery. Not saying it can't happen, I just haven't got a clue what this guy could have possibly been trying to do / what he thought he was trying to do for it to become such a major issue. And yeah, as I understand it /stuck is only supposed to kill you if you're in combat at the time and I don't think that dying in that way creates a need for repair costs because that's what people in operations will suggest that the rest of the party does when it becomes obvious that it's going to be a wipe. So no clue what the topic creator is seeing there.

This would be my thought as well. New item. Could be added as a new subscriber reward or as a cartel market purchase or as a reward in-game for some sort of crazy Jawa themed sidequest mission chain or whatever other way they can think up to make a new one available. But new item with the same concept and a completely different animation, and then just hook it up to the same achievement.

Colicoid War Game also got left behind when they converted everything else for 4.0. You can still pick up the same old story mode on fleet, tuned for level thirty-something (but not really because the enemies for the turret part have always been massively overpowered to discourage solo attempts since they want you to group for the puzzle gate part anyway). But you won't see it as an option in group finder.

They are a possible drop from the Contraband Slot Machine, but... Well, they nuked that into the ground and swept it under the rug within a week after the fiasco of its initial drop rates being too generous. Initial rates: 25% loss, 20% respin, total of 23% for some type of Contraband rep item, total of 30% for some type of Jawa scrap item, and 2% cartel certificate (that's 1 in 50 spins). Nerfed rates: 45% loss, 20% respin, total of 34.499% for some type of Contraband rep item, total of 0.45% for some type of Jawa scrap item, 0.05% cartel certificate (that's 1 in 2000 spins), and 0.001% for a faction-specific walker mount reskin. They also raised the cost of the token from 500 credits to 750 credits. So imagining that the drops work out precisely as the odds describe, the pre-nerf rates had you getting a certificate for every 25k spent on tokens and the post-nerf rates have you getting a certificate for every 1.5 mil spent on tokens. (Your mileage on that may vary thanks to RNG, of course.) Huge credit sink and huge time sink just to pick up 1 certificate, and it seems like a lot of the things that you can spend them on call for 2 or 4 or however many certificates. I think some of the bigger items call for 10 of them? Massive massive massive sinks to get those items for those who don't happen to just already have a stockpile of certificates leftover from opening the cartel packs that had a chance to drop them. In other topics, tons of ideas have been thrown around again and again for how they could revamp the slot machine and return to their original plan to release versions of it for the other cartel market reputations as well (unless the revamp just makes the current one start giving all of the cartel rep). But at this point it doesn't seem as if the devs are ever going to revisit it or make new slot machines. (It's kind of a different topic but) they didn't even add new prizes to the Nightlife vendor when that returned last summer and it seems like we aren't going to get Nightlife at all this year. They've killed and buried all things slot machine.

Yeah, it's the one you buy from a vendor in your Odessen base for a million credits. The entry in the decorations list that's filed under technological for medium hooks and previews correctly with the two datacrons on display is the correct one. The entry that's filed under furniture for large hooks and previews as a log or whatever is some sort of bugged entry and should not be there.

Flashpoints aren't any better about it than the open world. You'll see piles of credits individually assigned to each group member in both cases, and in both cases when one person loots their own personal pile of credits it splits that out among the whole group. It's pretty dumb, really.

About adding back the removed pick-up / turn-in cutscenes for the heroics that have lost them, a part that I forgot to mention for that little revamp would be that the mission step when picking up from the terminal directs you to pick up the mission, but includes a mission item at that step which can be used to bypass the regular pick-up method. Then have it as I suggested before where after you complete the objectives for the mission the mission step updates to directing you to go turn it in but you'd get a mission item which can be used to bypass the regular turn-in method. Hmmm... I do still think it's strange that Voss got a weekly added for its heroics a while back (this was way before KotFE) and no other planet has gained the same thing since then. But I'm not sure about this... Where the alliance crates are concerned... Okay, brainstorming something here (with heroics back on a daily limit but losing the alliance crates)... 1) Add [Alliance Weekly] tagged missions, up to four per planet where each one is attributed to one of the four alliance specialists. Missions with this tag are on a weekly limit. The alliance mission asks you to pick up and complete one heroic from a list of 1-3 heroics (all those on a planet that currently award the same type of crate). Each mission has a specific alliance crate as a reward, matching the specialist associated with the mission. 2) Add [Alliance Daily] tagged missions, one for each planet. Missions with this tag are on a daily limit. The Alliance mission asks you to pick up and complete any X heroics on that planet (where X = 1/2 of the total number of heroics on that planet). Each mission offers your choice of alliance crate as a reward. 3) Also consider adding an [Alliance Weekly] that calls for completion of all [Alliance Daily] missions covered by point 2. This mission might reward several of each type of crate. (You are doing half of all heroics to complete this.) 4) Another idea could be four other [Alliance Weekly] missions which would each be associated with a specific specialist and call for completion of any five of the [Alliance Weekly] missions from point 1 which are associated with that same specialist. These missions might reward a few of each type of crate. (You are doing about 20 heroics to complete each one.) With those kind of options in play... Completing a few specific heroics to knock out the weeklies described in point 1 will be the easy part, although the way I described it does cut the number of crates in half (more or less) compared to how it is currently. The dailies in point 2 are less specific about what they ask you to do but it's more of a grind because they ask you to complete multiple heroics for each crate you receive. Then you've got some other big payoffs you can aim for with the other weeklies suggested in points 3 and 4. Those call for grinding through multiple dailies, basically. So... Okay, for an example planet with 8 heroics: Currently that's 8 crates per week. With the idea I just threw together it would be 4 crates from the first weeklies plus 1 per day for running 4 heroics per day for that planet's daily, so that's 11 crates per week (just from the missions suggested in points 1 and 2, left off the others since they'd be more relevant in a comparison of running ALL heroics now vs completing ALL of these dailies and weeklies). So my idea does increase the number of crates that could be pulled in, but it's not going to be anywhere near seven times as many crates.

Remember that the checklist for the "master achievement" includes as one of its objectives the "master achievement" for the previous tier. One of those four that you don't have credit for yet is likely to be the one for completing Eternal tier. since we're all at a roadblock with Champion tier until the last chapter of KotFE comes out.

I think they added Ilum as being available to pick up from the terminal on your ship at 47. (I could be wrong about the exact level.) I think that might be why Makeb's availability got bumped to 51? Not that that really makes any sense... Also remember that what made leveling on Makeb starting as low as 47 possible was the GSI bolster that let you run around on Makeb with level 55 stats, but they removed that when 4.0 hit. Aside from the addition of level sync, Makeb is back to being like it was when Rise of the Hutt Cartel launched. There is no bolster and it's not intended to be run under level 50. Why that means 51, not 50, I don't know. But that's why it's not 47 anymore.

There have been much more poorly translated topics than this. At least the basic idea did come through on this one. The topic asks the devs to introduce a dailies zone version of Tython (a new map in that setting, like what Black Hole and Section X are for Corellia and Belsavis) which can be accessed after completing that flashpoint as part of the Forged Alliances / Shadow of Revan Prelude storyline. This should bring up something else though. The topic does not ask for this, as far as I can tell, but the topic should be asking for a dailies zone version of Korriban as well. Republic players would get the dailies on Tython. Empire players would get the dailies on Korriban.

I do agree that planetary heroics should go back to being daily. I'd add to that that the removed pick-ups and turn-ins ought to be added back in. (Picking up a mission from a terminal will still bypass the regular pick-up conversation.) Also, they should remove the automatic turn-ins (keep reading before reacting to that!), but when a heroic is ready to turn in they should replace its heroic transport mission item with a secure holocomm mission item which can be used to bypass the regular turn-in (for those who would prefer to still get the reward right away while still out in the field). On the subject of the payout of the heroics, if they really wanted to level things out there what they really should have done instead of just dropping all heroics down from one flat rate to another flat rate is to: 1) Perform some trial runs of all heroics with many different classes / specs and rate them all with an approximate average completion time (rounded up to next full minute). 2) Define some target reward tiers for each separate planet's heroics when run by a 65. (Random examples (not meant to be suggestions): 1000 credits / minute for Korriban, 1500 credits / minute for Dromund Kaas, 2500 credits / minute for Nar Shaddaa, etc.) 3) Set every individual heroic's mission reward according to the heroic's average completion time (from first point) multiplied by the planet's target payout rate (from second point). 4) Figure out ways to add bonus missions to any heroics that don't already have bonuses. And more importantly, set every bonus mission's reward to be between 1/2 and 1/3 of the reward value (from third point) for the heroic mission that it's attached to. (Groups of 2-3 will see bonuses handing them about the same total payout as the main missions. Groups of 4 will get a little bit extra.) They could also do some playtesting of all of the dailies (Black Hole, Oricon, GSI, etc.) while they're at it and include those in this as well.

I still haven't yet gotten around to trying hard modes since 4.0 came out. I'd done some before 4.0 and I may try to work on them for dark vs light. Just haven't gotten there yet. Anyway, on the subject of post-4.0 flashpoints I have been agreeing with the sentiment that while the wide open (10-65 tacticals, 50-65 hard modes) queues sounds like a good idea on paper it has not been such a great idea in practice. And I have suggested in other topics on this subject that: 1) They only should have raised the maximums to 65. Leave the minimums where they were, close to each flashpoint's originally designed level. (Eliminate the problem that we used to have where you would level out of options and not be able to queue for them any more. But don't create a new problem by letting in players of a lower level than what a flashpoint had originally been built around.) So for the hard modes, only the ones that were originally level 50 hard modes would be open to all 50-65, and then the 55 hard modes would be for all 55-65 and the 60 hard modes would be for all 60-65. 2) All tacticals and hard mode flashpoints should have remained at their originally designed levels. Do not just rescale and bolster everything to 65. That's not "future proof". (When the cap goes up to 70, they'll need to go through and rescale everything again to the new cap of 70. They wouldn't need to touch anything at all if the flashpoints were still at their designed levels.) 2A) Use level sync instead to bring the higher level characters down to being something comparable to the flashpoint's level. Tacticals might sync generously by syncing to a couple levels higher than the flashpoint's level. Hard Modes would sync to the flashpoint's exact level. 2B) If bolster is still used at all (like if they decide that they absolutely must have everything wide open to all levels, going against the first request), each flashpoint would need a custom-tuned bolster that gives appropriate minimal level and item level to match the flashpoint's level. Side Note) Sync has its own issues that ought to also be worked out. The way they implemented it, endurance and health each have their own separate caps enforced and the cap on health actually corresponds to a much lower value of endurance than what endurance is capped at. This makes no sense. One stat or the other is capped in the wrong places across all levels of sync. It also sucks how the caps are enforced after buffs / stims / procs / adrenals / etc. have been taken into account instead of applying the caps and then allowing extra stuff to bump up slightly from there. The specific example to illustrate how dumb this is: That ability that Guardian / Juggernaut has that temporarily boosts their max health. Level sync does not allow max health to go up at all when that ability is used. 3) I'd like to see a bunch of additions to really redefine "tactical" as a distinct game mode with its own cohesive identity. Add some terminals at the start and at each respawn checkpoint throughout each tactical flashpoint. These terminals would follow a similar concept as the GSI bolster that Makeb had before 4.0 and like the Alliance buffs that the Heroic Star Fortresses give us the option of using. Someone clicks a terminal, that person receives a special package of buffs. There would be terminals for DPS, tank, and healer. Clicking a different terminal after you've already clicked one will disable the previous buffs (so you must choose only one to run around with). The buffs from a terminal will: A) enhance role-relevant secondary stats for that character (for example providing shield chance and tank stats for anyone who chooses to use the tank buffs (this also ramps up threat generation whereas the DPS and healer buffs would reduce threat generation)) B) unlock role-relevant abilities in the temporary ability bar (including both the relevant companion generic abilities and some creative new abilities like the ones we get as Alliance bonuses in the Heroic Star Fortresses) and C) provide creative passive effects that allow cross-role play (for example, a DPS using the Healer buffs can play using their familiar DPS abilities but their damage output would just be significantly reduced and to make up for it they'd have a proportionate heal effect generated automatically for every attack they make. (Area attacks generate area heals. Damage over time effects generate heal over time effects. Single target attacks generate single target heals. System always automatically smart targets to focus the heal on the target that needs it the most at that time.)) All of request 3 would just be for tacticals, of course. Hard modes would still have to deal with traditional group composition, not having kolto terminals at the boss fights, and not having any of those special buffs or powers. But the idea of these buffs and powers for tactical mode is to support the notion of role neutrality. Instead of being worried about the group's chances when you don't happen to queue into a perfect traditional group composition in certain tacticals, you'll all pick up those buffs in whichever arrangement you want. You'll all choose to match or mismatch with your actual roles as necessary to fill in for whatever the team is missing.

Oh, I wasn't dismissing the issue. Just noticed the necro as an afterthought. Wow. I wouldn't quite go that far. But you can see the approach that I would suggest in what I wrote in my last post, which would be to lessen the impact of "just being there" and make it based more on actually participating in every way you possibly can. The numbers I threw around are not meant to be final but using those numbers a player who just hid in a corner waiting for the match to end and contributed in no way to the team's efforts would earn the points for the objective once every 20 matches (or if they lucked out and got in all winning matches despite their leeching, I suppose it would be once every 6-7 matches) all while a player that gets a few medals / kills / captures / etc. might expect to earn their points once every 3-4 matches (slightly better with wins) and a player that really excels at PVP might earn their points once every 1-2 matches (slightly better with wins). The actual numbers could be chosen to be something that allows the really outstanding PVPers to earn points more often than once per match. Normal players putting in a decent effort should be approaching that "once per 1-2 matches" range. Leechers would of course do far far worse. Not zero, but still bad enough that it wouldn't really be worth the time they're putting into it. Also, ideally the goal ought to be (though I acknowledge that it's an impossible dream and it can never be done perfectly because of unpredictable and variable queue times) that all grind activity (FP, OP, WZ, GSF, and whatever else) ought to aim for being able to earn at roughly the same rate. Like if Player A spends 2 hours running tactical flashpoints and Player B spends 2 hours running story operations and Player C spends 2 hours in unranked warzones and Player D spends 2 hours in starfighter, they all should have earned roughly the same amount of conquest points as each other in that time. Crafting is a trickier situation to talk about balancing but I'd hope that with my suggested counter on the objective and its tiered item values for many different types of crafted items... Crafting also ought to follow this principle where points earned and time invested scale together in a certain way. The suggestion I described for crafting would have it so that we would only see guaranteed points on every item crafted when there are additional objectives added for those specific items in a crafting themed week. Otherwise each item is only partial credit towards the grind objective and the number of times you can earn points from the objective for each batch of 30 items (if you queue up, log out, then come back later after it's all been finished) may be something like 0-5 times depending on the type and the grade/mark of items that you make.

Was the post edited? I looked at this topic the other day but I don't remember it having a link in it.... Anyway, the link has a picture of Ezra Bridger from Star Wars Rebels holding a crossguard saber for some reason. (Attributed to a season 2 trailer and the last episode of season 2? Weird. I don't remember ever seeing that moment before today. I see it in the trailer, but... I can't seem to find it anywhere in the episode.) So I guess the topic is asking if anyone knows the lore behind this saber design. (Why is it posted in the suggestion forum though?!) So... http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Crossguard_lightsaber Oh wait, found something else... http://io9.gizmodo.com/the-producer-of-star-wars-rebels-answers-your-burning-q-1768048083