Political opinions are subjective and essentially irrelevant to this discussion. I would think more people are affected in a more immediate way by EA than by the situations you mentioned. SWTOR easily makes them one of the worst companies. If they actually were in charge of the banking system, the energy production and distribution system or any actual critical system, our whole country would have sunk by now. "Oh you need a keyfob to buy gas at the pump because the one time password isn't letting you access the pump-console. Just use your one time password at the pump to access your keyfob...." "...oh your loan went through and you will be paying your mortgage very month but everytime you use your own key (your pw) to open the door a second lock will appear. When that second lock appears a key (OTP) will be mailed to you, so just go to the post office to get it. Ok, that key doesn't work and is often never even sent, so why not just use that second key (that never comes) to open the second lock in order to access a third lock (security key). See how easy that was?" We would all be without shelter or gas AT ALL for long random periods of time.

Now that is an unreasonable response from you. You took the quote out of context. A good reason is because people want to. It is enough of a reason. It should be implemented in a way that does not break the game- as I said. Why are you not responding to the part where I say "It should only happen if it can be implemented in a way that does not break the game"? What "breaking the game" means, as a discussion, is topical and productive. People just saying yes or no, period, is not productive.

I think a good enough reason is that people want to. Though I do not want to see it happen in a way that totally unbalances the game, which is why to me, a compromise with penalties is in order. I can see unlocking the ability to do an advanced class switch at level 55 or so. With a penalty. Putting them back to 10 might be a bit severe- maybe a 5 level penalty instead with a minimum level of 20. And a three month cooldown. My mind is changing on this because as long as something doesn't disrupt game mechanics or make it "less hard", I see no reason to block something that a lot of people want to do. I would rather see a brand new set of classes beyond advanced, that start at level 55+, and I would rather see more build diversity overall.

I've brought up a ton of reasons outside of "laziness" for why ac switching is a bad idea. No one has even responded to my points. Others bring these points up, and minus vitriol there is little said in this thread by anyone, that is actually responded to.

My suggestions of a progressive xp penalty are meant to maximize those pros while minimizing the cons. They are based mainly on this game. Half of that game is character builds. Really it allows for more build diversity and complexity than any game I have ever played. You play your build through to 80 (or 60, or 40) then reincarnate and do it all over again, with either a totally new build or with a improved version of the same build. The thing is, that system much allows for that kind of upgrading. For example, access to subraces that have inherent stat bonuses and which can be found as a part of end-game loot. You would need a maxed out build based on one of those subraces in order to even be able to survive the "new" endgame that was being developed. Constant development and refinement and always new content. For free. Then again that is a heavily modded/changed/tweaked/improved BW game that is made by and for the players. Given that system, it is almost inconceivable for a player with multiple level 60+ characters of differing classes to ever roll a new toon. They simply reincarnate their older toons.

Rarely do three short lines of text so thoroughly destroy the chances of a persons opinion being taken seriously in the future. If life is about money why aren't you using the resources you spend on swtor to make more money? Because its not just about money.

Sorry for that. I am currently playing 2 other games after a pretty extended swtor streak and have been looking for reasons to come back and play more classes here. This definitely isn't something I can put in a "reason to play swtor" column. I am scared now that it will happen to me and I don't want to deal with the aggravation when there are so many good alternatives.

Have you tried logging out of and back into your forum account ? My experience has been that the otp sent to relog into the forum is sent immediately, and that after logging into forum I am not asked for a otp to log into the game its self.

It boils down to lack of end-game content. I am sadly probably going to Neverwinter because I finished one class and am bored playing through with a new class knowing that at the end there really is nothing. I cannot convince my gaming friends to even try swtor because of its reputation as lacking end game. The fact that swtor has a really negative vibe in gaming circles is a really serious blow that I do not think it will survive in any way other than possibly as a marginal niche-game in some future emulated form.

A Sith Inquisitor switching from Assassin to Sorc effectively causes the same character to switch roles from tank to healer. Thanks for the touch of class.

Add to the italics, every time the player buys anything or sells anything on the GTN they are affecting other players. Those are just examples. It is one big system we are all a part of and when you open up the degree to which the components that make up that system can change, you add a degree of instability to it. Also, this game is in a huge gray area, not totally single player, not totally multi-player, not totally pve, not totally pvp, not yet a sandox. It doesn't know what it is. Any strong move in any of those directions will cause the game to become more of 'that' and less of the other things. One of the reasons so many of us keep our subs is because we all hope the game goes in the direction we want it to. I can't see how a strong move in any of these directions helps swtor.

If the degree of freedom in switching ac's in swtor were even a meaningful factor in people maintaining their subs, my suggested system would result in a net gain of subs retained because, after all, it allows for a greater degree of freedom in switching ac's than we have now. So the premise of your argument against my suggestion is null. I don't see how forcing a toon back to 10 is detrimental to a players enjoyment. If they don't like the ac enough to level the toon back up, they probably shouldn't be switching to it.

Not sure how long I can carry on a conversation with someone who's first reaction to something I say is to characterize it as "stupid". But I will try. Switching AC's is totally different than switching specs- one cannot respec from tank to healer, but one could switch roles from tank to healer by switching AC's. Roles are important in defining the game. You totally blew off that part which indicates to me you want more of a sandbox type game than what SW currently is now. There are already plenty of those, feel free.

...so it looks like the main argument isn't whether or not ac switching should be allowed but rather the degree it should be restricted. I am still for ac changing at level 20 for free with a steadily rising xp cost per level after that and a 90 day cooldown. So 1 change at level 20 is free, 90 day cool down. Every level after 20 is a 5% xp charge maxing out at 100% xp charge at level 40. 100% xp charge simply means the character reverts back to level 10. So if you change ac at or after level 40 you are going to be reset back to level 10. That way the more time invested in a character, the steeper the penalty. I think level 20 should be the minimum to be able to change just so you don't have people changing arbitrarily- they will have 10 levels to really make up their mind. EVEN given this fairly conservative and restrictive system I can still see the game being somewhat of a joke up to level 20, and not being 100% legit till level 40. Why? Because people will design toons that are meant purely for leveling until they reach a certain level at which point they will switch out to the ac and spec and gear to the character they actually do want to play. The more liberal the "character change" policy, the worse that kind of situation becomes. A very liberal policy with few restrictions results in a game that isn't really legit because no one is playing the character they really want to play, they are just playing what is needed in a specific situation. It turns mmos into sandbox games. In other words, the more liberal character change policy, the less the things that define a character actually mean. Make classes super flexible in terms of switching everything around at will and classes become meaningless. The more the things that define a character become meaningless the more the characters become meaningless and the more the characters in a mmorpg become meaningless the more the game its self becomes meaningless, begins to lose what defines it and makes it unique.

I want to address this because I think a few people feel this way. If this were a single player game I would say your right. But it is not. SWTOR is an MMO, a community involving multiple systems that all players take part in and are affected by regardless of how involved or not with other players they try to be. When you make major changes to how characters can be developed you are also by default changing how those characters affect the systems which affect everyone else.

If Bioware would have thought of that in the first place the game would probably still be geared towards subs rather than the cm. Just sayn.

Repeating myself but in a new post. Should AC change have any restrictions at all? To what degree should AC change be restricted? I think those are the relevant issues.

...many days later. Ok- to be a "game" it neither must include or exclude competition. Some games are competitive, some are not competitive. I think everyone can agree on that. What we are really arguing then is whether or not swtor is a competitive game. I am willing to say that it IS a competitive game, and would rather discuss to what degree it should be competitive. I think most people who are against or who want to place restrictions on AC change feel the same way. The people who argue against us seem to want AC change with no restrictions; they are essentially arguing that swtor is a non-competitive game. That side is already playing a game that "to my side" is competitive. The less competitive it gets, the less interested in the game we become. The only really relevant/productive point to all of this would be discussing to what degree should AC changes be restricted? The "against ac change" group generally has compromised to become the "pro-restricted ac change" group. The "pro ac change" group seems to still just be the "pro-change ac group". And through all of the argument and baloney, that group doesn't seem to want to budge even an inch towards some compromise. So that group is essentially the "pro unrestricted ac change group". aka pro-non-competition group. We should all get to the meat of this.

A ton of great ideas here, and I don't see why player housing couldn't be implemented. Ship customization should probably be near the top of the list. Areas of the ship where no custscenes take place are a good start, or even being ad to add modules to your ship that ARE fully customizable would be great. Ideally, you would be able to buy and sell and fully customize entire ships, and would not be stuck with just the one you get. I don't see this ever really happening but it would be nice. I don't see a problem with off-ship homes and think there could be some creative solutions to ghost towns. Like your home could be scavenged for crafting materials if unused for a certain amount of time. The natural parasites (and I mean that in a nice way) of swtor would happily dismantle discarded houses and clean up planets, just for the easily obtained crafting materials. On pvp planets, maybe inhabited homes could be scavenged, with the option to buy and upgrade NPC's on the CM to protect your house.

Odd, I find my toons do not level fast enough. I would consider my gaming style to be a mix of heavy story + light rp + powergaming. That said, I enjoy exploring the little details on planets once I have finished them and can spend some "off time" going around gathering crafting materials. Kind of like tor toon tourism. (I said it first ). But when I am into the story I am not feeling like being a tourist, I am feeling like getting to the next part of the story. Because it is that good. You don't see James Bond, Frodo, Luke Skywalker, or whoever doing every little possible mission they can. Imagine how boring it would be to watch 8 hours of Luke killing a bunch of things between point a and b, so he can click on point b, and run back to point a to hear some officer or npc tell him how great he is. So I just do the storyline and the odd fp, and help friends with heroics- mainly because they are my friends. I never complete any planet unless I am running with my friends. The social element with everything that swtor gives you as context, is to me, one of the best parts of the game. That is true for any game but especially so with swtor because it is a superior game (imo) with really much more to talk about in terms of the game its self, the movies, the details on the planets. My main stood with a friend for about an hour once at a window on the Imperial Fleet, just talking and gazing at the stars and the ships that make up the fleet as they orbit around the central station. I am subbed, in a large guild, and get a ton of rest xp. Yet, sticking mainly to the storyline, my character is consistently under leveled. No complaints there, yes the challenge is fun. I think if you do some of the side quests, the heroics, the fps, some pvp, you level right on schedule or a little beneath. I think that is how the game balances people who like to do every quest with people who don't.

^^^^This.

The thing that the supporters and detractors of this game have in common is passion for the game. Really OP you love this game dearly, otherwise why would you put so much energy into such a rant? Like the crazy drunk old man yelling to the invisible person on the street about the shape of the clouds. It is either non-sense or you love it so much you have to put some strongly worded statement together about it. Play the game or don't, at most your paying $15. to finish a single class story line (a month). Or play it for free and it can take longer. No one cares. There is an off button.

I am saying the players should put the things I have mentioned into place. EA should put a guild section on the forums. It just seems like guilds are really shallow and pointless on swtor. Maybe after I have multiple level 55 toons here a year or more I will learn about/find actual guilds. Better yet, I will probably start one and do exactly what I am saying others should do.

Maybe I am still a huge noob, but I think a very good basic start would be a guild section of the forums. I have played quite a few mmos and have been in quite a few guilds on swtor. What I see lacking most in swtor guilds are things that the players themselves can do. Like actual organized and scheduled flashpoints and warzones. Most guilds seem to be casual, which is fine. But I see "guild" on swtor so far being really just a smaller and slightly friendlier version of general chat.

My jugg is nearing the end of its pve life (55) so I think I'll transfer it to pot5. Better that than let it sit and gather dust.