If a Sith that's not completely malicious bothers you, you'd actually lose sleep over my Dark V Jedi Knight that

I hate Ashara Zavros. I took her along on all my missions in Chapter 3 and just re-did cutscenes over and over until I figured out exactly what options gave max affection with her, all the while cursing her soul, because it was just way too expensive to rep her up using Gifts since she gives minimum gain with every possible type. As soon as I reached 10k Affection, I shoved her into a cage in my cargo hold, never to be seen or heard from again. "I hope I haven't displeased you!" were her final words. Ha, ha. That's an understatement. I spent all of Taris working to "corrupt" this padawan, excited I'd be getting my own personal fallen Jedi. Then the game was like "NOPE.GIF" and gives me a... non-fallen, obnoxious wannabe Jedi who spends all her time lecturing me and handing out pamphlets with titles like "The Light Loves You Too" and "It's Never Too Late to Be Good". Hate her!! But I'd be more frustrated as female Jedi Knight, since I received all of zero [Flirt] options outside Doc from 1-50. Whereas male Jedi Knight, from what I understand, gets to sleep with half the population every new planet. Seriously, double-u tee eff?

Every time I have a group for Red Reaper, the same pattern occurs: Begin Get confused because half the mobs in this first room are invisible. Why are they invisible? What's going on? Stop thinking about that because you just got swarmed by like 12 more Strongs making like 20 Strongs attacking your group and everyone is panicking and running in circles with their arms flailing going "Ahhh, ahhh, ahhhh" Wipe Revive 10 meters away and kill more Strongs Wipe Revive 10 meters away, finish off the strongs, move to next room and clear entire remaining instance without any issues at all. Obviously this is not the intended design, so I assume these Group Finder PUG members (including me) don't understand something. What is the correct / intended way to handle the start of Red Reaper when you're at-level? (43-45ish in on-level gear)

While I appreciate your position as a BioWare apologist around here, and usually you make relatively sensible posts, I'd like to point out that as my OP specifically stated... I do use coms as intended (or as you imply the intention is), and have been with all my leveling characters since I joined the game in January. I just don't use them as fast as BioWare apparently expects me to, and it's very unpleasant and frustrating to be slamming into the cap when I'm not ready to spend them yet. Even a cap of 150-200 would have you forced back to Fleet within 2-3 planets if you're selecting Commendations from all the missions, doing dailies, and running FPs all mixed together. The problem is that there's such a huge range of possible com caps. They didn't think through, or didn't think correctly, about how differently people can rack them up. Someone who selects lots of Green upgrades from missions, never does FPs, never does dailies/weeklies, and never does Group Finder — yeah, it could take them an entire chapter to hit 50 coms. Someone who never takes crappy Greens from missions (but still does everything on a planet before moving on), does FPs every queue pop, does dailies/weeklies and Group Finder — now this person can fill up to 70-75 within one planet, more if they take some extra days doing FPs/dailies without leaving. Additionally, this doesn't stop coms from being used "unintentionally" — that is, blindly dumping them into mods and shoving them on GTN because you have better gear from FPs or a sugar-mama main. In fact, for me, it encourages it because I just want the things gone so I can keep playing again without "wasting" coms. These are my frustrations. While I would hate it economically, I think BioWare could make several changes to really force Planet Coms to function "as intended": Increase the cap to 100-150 to allow for a wider range of leveling playstyles. Expand planetary vendor inventories to cover a level range of 6 under and 6 over with its mod selection. This is obviously overkill, but the point is — any reasonable leveling progression (heading there early, leaving late) would be able to spend coms usefully without Fleeting inconveniently. Add a duplicate Com vendor to every major Outpost on a planet. Again, the point is: "Oh, I'm capping coms" or "Oh, I have X coms, let's buy some upgrades" so you just trot over and do it, rather than feeling like "Ugh, I'd like to use these coms / not cap, but ... I'm in the middle of a storyline." Make everything you purchase off the Planetary Com vendors BoP. I would personally hate this (since I like to sell excess mods for $$$), but it would stop the 'hoard' and 'just sell it' mentalities, make crafted mods more valuable for the crafter again, and make people see Coms as alternate gearing strategies rather than liquifiable pocket change. Make all companions' "starter" outfit Green Moddable gear, so that dumping excess coms on companions doesn't require tightly-budgeted newer players to buy hideous Alderaan outfits for Torian Cadera in order to use coms to upgrade him.

I hate the Revan chest. You have this big, epic battle that smashes all over the platform and just feels like "Yeah, I'm a badarse" mode. Then you get a level 34 orange item (to be immediately vendored since you have full 38s from the other Foundry bosses and ... trash drops), a crappy blue item you give to your companion or vendor, and a crappy green item which is just there to mock you. The fight itself is fun enough that it pays for itself imo, but still — that is a really lame way to end Foundry. It's like reaching climax with your eyes closed, then opening them and seeing a clown.

I am actually very happy with your default UI. Combined with the Interface Editor, it feels much cleaner than WoW, LOTRO, or other MMOs. It's easy to use and everything is well-organized and clear. I have almost no complaints, really. But my one issue is how you handle buffs/debuffs: they are just a total complete cluster-frack of random stuff all over the place. It's like pixelated schizophrenia during big boss fights. I have thought about it, and I believe the issue is that you don't differentiate between my buffs/debuffs and everyone else's — in any way, at all. Is that Retractable Blade — or some other bleed? Is that my Incendiary Missile, or the Pyro Merc's Incendiary Missile? Wait, where is my Crushing Darkness — oh, it was on the left, now it's 6 debuffs down on the right because I reapplied it. It's very difficult to look at or sort out during other distractions in combat. I believe that almost all of this would be solved if you added a UI option to do 2 things: Prioritize my buffs/debuffs. They will always appear first, and then anyone else's will stack up after my last one. Enlarge my buffs/debuffs. It doesn't have to be huge, just a slight size difference to instantly separate things I've applied from things everyone else is throwing around. Stuff will still jump around a little, since things get applied in unpredictable orders, but that would be trivial as long as I could quickly and instantly understand "THIS is MY stuff, and THIS is everyone else's". Please at least consider adding this feature when you get to the "Quality of Life" updates you mentioned in State of the Game 3.

I am constantly filling up my Commendation limit, often before leaving a planet, making me choose between wasting coms or taking a frustrating trip back to Fleet to spend them (not fun when you're in the middle of nowhere on Hoth, for example). There's too many Planetary Coms for a 50 cap: Tens and tens from missions (I run FPs constantly and never need to take the horrible green rewards) Daily/weekly mission terminal Group Finder daily Flashpoint boss drops I fill up really fast. Before 2.0, I could stay off Fleet for a long time, completing storylines and entire planets and then make my way back when I was ready. The leveling com cap was effectively like 200-300, since I had 100 per planet and usually filled maybe 40-70 (depending on the planet) before leaving. This let me take my time and spend coms in big sums when I was ready to take a breath and sort out how to upgrade my current gear. I could also finish an entire storyline on a planet before breaking back to Fleet. Now, I bump into the cap halfway through a planet. It's awkward. And the vendors on the planets are now outdated, since Fleet lets me buy higher-level mods with my coms because I'm usually higher level than the current-planet's vendor due to XP weekends, XP boosts, and Flashpoints. I really like the Planetary Com system, it's much cleaner than the old messy one pre-2.0, it's just this cap is way, way too low. 100-150 would feel a lot better. I know you want people to be encouraged to use them, rather than forget they exist, but this has gone too far in the other direction for me.

Yes it was a good idea. One other thing is, this is an advanced tactic since it requires coordination, awareness, and a healer who can handle not having that recovery period of "total dead time" while the cylinder drops. But, if your group can manage it, and you have people in group that can CC the droids, it's really better to just CC them and beat on HK-47 as much as possible at every opportunity. Then, when he teleports to center and starts the cylinder/core-drop thing, and you can't hit him anyway, turn and blow up the CC'd droids. This makes the fight really smooth (and your group feels like, well apparently I'm not allowed to type that word on the forums but BA's ), but it's better to not push your luck if you sense your PUG can't keep track of all that.

I am a Subscriber and I have the current maximum 6 Quickbars. I would like to be allowed to use the Cartel Market to buy more. I'm not asking for free quickbars, just to be able to buy more than 6 via Cartel Market. I don't just use Quickbars for storing keybinds, I actually use them to visually organize my UI. Each different kind of ability is sorted into its own special Quickbar placed in a specific area of my screen. For example right now on my Powertech I have: Abilities with cooldowns, at the bottom of the screen near my Health/Heat/enemy target. Abilities without cooldowns, hidden since I don't need to see these Control abilities like stuns, interrupts, etc. I keep these next to my enemy target frame. Big cooldown abilities like Death From Above, Valorous Call, Cool Head, etc etc etc. I keep these right next to my Health/resource bar. Defensive cooldowns like Energy Shield, medpacs, etc. I keep these a little to the left of my big DPS cooldowns. "Junk" buttons that you need to click a lot, like your group buff, Stim, channeled heal, speeder, stance changes like Combustible Gas / Ion Gas / etc. I keep these in a tiny quickbar at the far right of my minimap. I would like to be able to split things up even more, organize them a little better. For example having a small quickbar for my fifty thousand Legacy Heroic Moment abilities that are used like once a week. I know this is not necessary to succeed at the game, but I personally feel more comfortable and enjoy my play experience more when I have everything organized in an intuitive and reliable manner. So, I would really appreciate the option to voluntarily spend Cartel Coins to get more quickbars above the 6-bar limit.

Thanks guys! I took everything you said into consideration and tried again today. I had a different healer, but one of the same DPS (just random luck with the queue) and another DPS who had never run a Flashpoint before (no joke). So it was PT (tank), Sorc (heals), Sniper/Sin (DPS). We one-shot it without breaking a sweat, even though nothing changed about my gear or spec. I have since cleared HK without any issues every single run, by using the following tips and explaining them to my group. I'm going to discuss the things I tried and did differently, in case it helps anyone else having trouble tanking this. Overall, I think the most important things are (TL,DR): Kill droids as fast as possible. The droids are the "real" fight, HK is just a nuisance. Let Heals deal with it during Snipe phases. There is nothing you (as tank) can do to help except killing droids faster. Never face HK toward the group during center-of-the-room phases. He does a lot of conal attacks. Always pick up threat on HK immediately as the cylinder comes back up — literally, immediately. As soon as you can see his feet, start attacking him again. He needs to be tanked hard right after the cylinder comes up. Don't stand in Flame Thrower, and run up to him right away if he starts a Powerful Blast. Don't break locks on the cylinder. Use that time to kill droids. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ WHAT DIDN'T REALLY HELP AT ALL: Trying to LOS his shots. This wastes too much time that could be spent killing the adds, and he just runs to find you anyway. Trying to drag adds to the barrels in the corners. Again, this wastes too much time and then leaves DPS no time to attack HK once adds are gone. Pointless. Trying to knock adds off the edges. Again, setting this up just wastes too much time when people are already stressed and flipping out. Great idea in theory, doesn't really work in a disorganized Group Finder mash-up. Playing games with the panels / locks on his cylinder. It seemed to go the same way no matter what gimmicks were tried with timing. Just ignore the cylinder. You cannot interrupt Powerful Blast. But, HK will interrupt himself if you get close to him. If you see him Powerful Blasting at someone other than you (tank), that person is about to 1-shot-die if they don't run up and hug HK. STUFF THAT REALLY HELPED: Different healer. She PvPs — A LOT — so was already experienced with damage going all over. She also had never done Foundry before, and HK attacked before I could finish typing so she had NO idea what was going on. But we still one-shot it. Heals that can't multi-task or manage resources poorly or aren't in a real Heal spec will drown here. Ignoring Power of the Core. I think this is scary in HM, but here, we just ignored his cylinder and killed droids instead. When the cylinder popped up, I Jet Jumped to him, Taunted, and spun him around right away to stop Suppressing Fire from hitting the group. And droids were already dead, so DPS got full time on him. Prioritizing droids. Before, I would get them off heals then go back to HK. This time, any time droids spawned, I COMPLETELY ignored HK and immediately locked solid aggro on both droids and helped DPS them. I don't do a lot as a tank, but the extra DPS made a noticeable difference getting them down faster. There is NO benefit to trying to "tank" HK during Snipe phases. None. Kill droids. HK-47 uses Powerful Blast when you're too far away from him during a non-Snipe phase (center of the room, tankable). So, I think Powerful Blast has a minimum range, like Force Charge / Death From Above / etc. Since Powerful Blast hurts INCREDIBLY hard, it's important to always tank in melee range of HK when he's in non-Snipe mode. Always run away from Flame Thrower, though. It hits really hard (scary hard), and he won't Powerful Blast during a Flame Thrower channel, and you have time to run back up to him if he does follow Flame Thrower with Powerful Blast. Anyway, all the feedback helped me understand this fight a lot better and realize I'm not a horrible tank who should stop queueing (lol). Really smooth run once I grasped what needed to be done, and got a Heals that could function under pressure. Thanks all.

Edit: Tried again today and smashed him! [noparse][/noparse] Here's what tricks helped / didn't help, in case anyone else is having trouble and finds this post: http://www.swtor.com/community/showpost.php?p=6139348&postcount=15 ~~~~ I am learning to tank on my Powertech, I am currently level 35 and have full level 34 mods in all my gear from running Boarding Party. So far, I have not had any issues surviving any fight or trash pull I have tanked. I use all my cooldowns and control tools and most healers never dip below 85-90% resources during combat, even on Champions / Bosses. I can also tank Revan and the Boarding Party bosses without any issues, including the bonus boss with the 2 droids and the final 3-boss pull. My health never goes below maybe 60%, even on the bigger nastier pulls. When I get to HK-47, I am torn to shreds within a minute every single time. I don't understand what I'm doing wrong. I engage him, run away when he does Flame Thrower, we break the locks right away whenever his cylinder comes down, and I pick up the droid adds and keep them off the healer... every time. But HK-47 just starts spamming Snipe, or Powerful Blast, and rips through my Health bar so fast I can't even react. I put down Oil Slick, I use Energy Shield, it doesn't matter — I'm torn apart. Why can't I tank this fight? What am I doing wrong? Should I stop tanking?

I just want to say that the changes to Trick Shot / Sharpshooter feel really awesome. I always wanted to play Sharpshooter with my GS, but found the weird way Trick Shot worked unpleasant and clunky. The new Trick Shot design feels smooth and fluid, it's really fun to play. It just feels natural and intuitive and has a great rhythm to it, especially with the double-low-cost-Charged-Burst mechanic thrown in. Say "Thank you" for me to whoever redesigned the Sharpshooter tree for 2.0.

It serves as much purpose sub-55 as it does at 55: a target you can practice on. People want to practice or experiment with their skills/abilities for reasons other than maximizing an endgame Ops DPS readout. For me, I'm new to the game, exploring all the different classes/stories, and I really like the insight the ship dummy provides. Trying to get a grip on a class' resource system / spec rotations / ability nuances in the field or in FPs isn't the same because of all the extra distractions/pressures. I find I play a lot better after spending some time figuring out things peacefully at the training dummy. Now I have to go all the way to Kaas City or Ziost Shadow to have a training dummy I can actually hit. I feel like I wasted the money I spent on the Legacy unlock.

Pre-2.0: Training dummies on your personal starship (unlocked through Legacy) were scaled to match current character level. Post-2.0: Training dummies on your personal starship are level 55. At every level. This basically defeats the point of the Legacy unlock for me, since my primary interest in the game is leveling through all the different Class stories. The dummies provided a great way to experiment with different specs, rotations, etc. while figuring out a new class as I leveled up. Now, it's just useless ornamentation... until level 55. It's even useless for all my level 50 characters. Seeing "Dodge Dodge Dodge Dodge Miss Resist Dodge Miss Resist Dodge Miss Resist Dodge Miss Resist" = useless object. Please revert Personal Starship training dummies back to scaling with character level.

So, knowing how forums tend to be, I will probably be mocked / derided / abused / etc. for this. But in the hope it causes you to improve your storytelling in the future, I'm going to try explaining myself here. Because the story is the best part of the game for me, and you effectively just unfairly mutilated my Jedi Knight story. On Corellia, I'm given the option of Dark Side / Light Side approaches to problems in Labor Valley and Axial Park. There is no warning, no plot hint, nothing makes clear that if you go Dark Side in even ONE of these options, the end result is that Corellia resolves with your entire Jedi squad being slaughtered. So all these characters you met and recruited, poof, dead. Var Suthra too. This is beyond unfair. You cannot do this sort of thing in a game where there is no option to return to an earlier save point. And by the time you realize what the consequences are, it's too late to reset the chain and redo it. Effectively, you punish players with trap options for not tediously slapping every single Light Side star that shows up. I'm fine with DS having different consequences than LS, but you went too far with Corellia. The magnitude of the consequences isn't foreshadowed, and doesn't match up with the generally irrelevant outcome of DS choices in the plot up till that point. Further, any minor shadowing occurs once it's too late to change the choices. It doesn't even make sense, since the options are ludicrously mundane — there's no indication the DS option is more reckless, nor any explanation for why an effective squad would suddenly become incompetent and gunned down in the DS version. It really feels like developer cruelty, shoving proscribed moral directions down the player's throat and punishing you for DS choices with inexplicable trap options. This isn't right, because the only option to "fix" it is to level to 50 all over again as a Jedi Knight... all over again. And that's bloody damn stupid. Make fun of me if you must, but I'm being honest: this absolutely ruined the JK plot, and my entire character, for me. I'm so frustrated and demoralized that it effectively ruined the resolution of Corellia, ruined the climax of Chapter 3, and I honestly don't even feel motivated to play the character any more or go to Dromund Kaas and see the ending. Please find whatever storyteller came up with the Jedi Knight Corellia alignment branches, and let them know their hamfisted, rigid, trap-filled design has totally destroyed one player's game experience.

I was playing with the 2.0 skill calculators at SWTOR Spy and it looks like in 2.0, the end-tree ability (like Blade Rush, etc) has been shoved up 5 points, so you now get it at level 45 earliest. Is this still accurate? I guess it doesn't matter to players who have been level 50 and bored for years, but I think it's a mean change to the leveling experience. Waiting till 40 for your big shiny button can be bad enough for some specs, delaying it till post-Belsavis seems cruel. The rough pacing of "every 10 levels, something big" feels good right now. I'm asking here because the PTS Forum guidelines said not to post there if I'm just making suggestions. But, if it's true, I think it should be switched around: the end-tree ability should stay at 31 points, and then the new 5-point bonuses (which all seem very strong) should be picked up afterwards, at 32-36 points. Because the new tier of bonuses each looks very strong, I don't think it would encourage 31/x/x hybridization. It would just keep the current feel of the leveling experience, instead of forcing people to wait even longer for their capstone skills.

First, let me make clear: I like this game. I'm overall very happy with it, having a lot of fun, enjoy the cinematic presentation, etc etc etc. But there is something really wrong and super-loathsome about how your coding team designed or resolved player positioning. If you're going to design a game with 9 billion knockback / knockdown / pull / push effects on every single enemy in PvE and PvP — which is fine, it's a lot of fun to bounce all over — could you at least put more effort into making sure that positions are resolved correctly between client and server? I played World of Warcraft for years, with all sorts of knockback / charge / pull effects going on, and never once — I mean, NOT ONCE — encountered the sort of weird bugginess that SWTOR displays when this stuff happens. Namely, existing in 2 places at once, being inexplicably rooted in place, rubberbanding, jumping yet not moving when I finish jumping, standing in front of an enemy but being KB'd over an edge that's behind them — the list goes on. I've run into these issues hundreds of times since subbing in January. And, it's more-or-less the only real bug or issue I've had to deal with, making it even more frustrating. ~~~ EXAMPLE: I was just doing a Mandalorian Raiders instance. The Elite patrol droids do a PBAoE concussion charge knockback effect. One of them successfully KB'd me on to the top of one of the raised pipes / conduits in one of the hallways. My character became paralyzed, unable to move off of it. Typing /stuck killed me (lovely). When I ran back, the group was engaging another droid. I ran in, it Concussion Charge'd, and I Force Leap'd immediately — well, the game got confused and my position didn't change from where it knocked me to even though Leap went on cooldown. After that, every single one of my abilities — including melee abilities — gave me the "Out of Range" error. My group said I was standing in the middle of a bridge, even though I saw myself right next to the enemy. So I tried logging out to fix it — it instantly kicked me out of my Group Finder group and they couldn't invite me back once I relogged. ~~~ I'm not being sarcastic, at all, when I say: Maybe you could contact Blizzard Entertainment and ask them for some tips about how they code for positioning? Because again, 4+ years of Death Grips, Typhoons, Thunderstorms, Rhino punts, boss grabs/throws/shoves/flings and a billion other knockaround effects never once led me to rubberband, paralyze, or exist in multiple places at once while playing World of Warcraft. And that game's engine should be ancient compared to SWTOR. So why does SWTOR feel like 10 steps backwards in this specific area? It's very disappointing. Otherwise, thank you for a fun game with a great story and very slick presentation. I've only seen 3 classes stories so far, but I'm still excited and captivated by the world you've created. Just please fix the client/server positioning issues.

Is there any possible pathway that doesn't lead to killing Skavak at the end of Chapter 1? My Smug went from a blood feud with him to a sort of mutual, grudging respect — they're both equally slippery and mercenary. I was really hoping he'd join my crew as a companion. While we did finally release all that tension at the very end (drifting into the event horizon of a black hole — what better time for a quickie, right?), I couldn't find any combination of dialogue options where I didn't have to kill him. This makes me sad. Beat him viciously, yes, we should all do that. But then he should join us! Is there no way to make this happen?

Hi, I tried the F2P and was surprised how much I liked this game. I think it's much better than word-of-mouth gave it credit and I'm really having a lot of fun! So far I have no regrets about subbing. I noticed in a few Googled posts that the devs have said they are interested in hearing suggestions about how the UI can be improved. I just came from WoW, a game where you can make the UI do whatever you want, and so I'm having some trouble getting used to playing SWTOR. To be honest, I think most of the UI is fine. My primary complaint is the way I have to try to monitor 3 key things: Buffs on me Debuffs on my target Special procs Here are my problems: Both buffs and debuffs are too tiny, and if I inflate the Player / Target frames it gets really ugly and takes up too much room just to see bigger buff/debuff icons. It's very difficult to pick out important buffs (QUICK, YOUR NEXT MAUL IS FREE AND DOES 30% MORE DAMAGE GO GO GO MAUL!!) from irrelevant ones (yes, you still have Sprint active.) It's very difficult to see buffs that are important to me, and that I have control over, when they're mixed in with every other buff anyone else casts on me (random buff, heal over time, heal over time, random buff, random buff... somewhere in here is my Duplicity proc...) This same problem also applies to debuffs, especially when you have important debuffs to maintain and they're scattered all over inside many other people's effects. Or, other effects you apply which are trivial. For these same reasons, important procs (CD reset / bonus damage to Shock, etc etc etc) are easy to completely lose or miss while concentrating on the actual game envrionment. For me the issue is that, I can do OK without worrying about this stuff too much. But it takes a lot of the fun out of certain talents / abilities / etc when I'm excited to use it, but it's really hard to ever have the mental bandwidth to sift out that my special tool has become available. I think these would be really positive changes to help making playing SWTOR more comfortable, especially for someone coming from more flexible MMOs: Allow an option to significantly enlarge buffs and/or debuffs you personally applied Allow an option to only display buffs and/or debuffs you personally applied Allow creation of a special "Observation Bar" for Target, Focus, and Player. You can drag buffs and debuffs from their normal display location into this observation bar, and that buff or debuff will always appear in the observation bar whenever it is active. This way, players can quickly and easily check for very important buffs/debuffs without sifting through millions of unimportant ones (stuff like Sprint, Lightning Charge, etc that you don't ever have to react to). Finally, I think you should make procs more obvious, like WoW does. There are many possible solutions and I think any of them would be fine, but please do something. Add some sort of indicator on the skill icons. For example, cause Maul to light up with a bright border if a Duplicity proc is active. Make Crushing Darkness flash in a very noticeable way when its CD is reset early. Add some sort of stylized overlay, like WoW Power Auras. (I don't like this option because creating special overlays is just a waste of art time, imo) Add a simple overlay, like popping up the ability's icon. For example, when Duplicity procs, place a transparent, pulsing Maul icon somewhere around the player character. Let me end by making clear I am really, really having fun in this game even as it is now. Again, SWTOR has very pleasantly surprised me. I think you have a good game here, I just think it would be a little more user-friendly if you made certain aspects of combat less confusing and difficult to keep track of.