Apples/Oranges A lot of the UI problems in SWTOR exist because it's a Scaleform implementation (more typical of console games) vs a LUA implementation. Scaleform is Flash based. It looks pretty but it comes with baggage.

On one hand, the slave outfit modifiable as heavy armor is just ridiculous... on the other hand if it's got slots at all then why not? Why would a Sandperson get up give someone 1100 willpower? Isn't that the point of social gear? I think making the stuff global is an easy way out though (this probably makes it damn likely in a subsequent patch). The harder and more rewarding path would be to make dozens of OTHER social getups available to medium & heavy armor users. Darth Malagus heavy armor or Canderous Ordo's armor would be great social items to have available, as would all the republic & empire standard troop armor. So much potential, so little implementation. Hopefully it's coming soon.

Fair enough. Rift was also free to play. This isn't. That makes a huge difference.

Rift did not have 5 hour queues on its launch servers either. Apples and oranges, my friend.

Dear BioWare, I have, for the last year, accumulated a group of 30-35 people who are now beginning to come online. They are from a diverse number of games I have played in the past. From Alpha 3 on, members of my guild with beta access tested every aspect of the game in order to ensure we had a built-in knowledge of SWTOR on launch. When the product works, we have been pleased with it. With that said, every last one of us find it insulting to wait in a 2+ hour queue by 8:30am on a Tuesday for a game that we pay for. This isn't a free to play game. You have no wiggle room. Quite simply put, you are in massive breach of our expectations for a AAA title. There is a solution though. We have an immediate need for guild transfers to underpopulated servers. The fact is that some of my players are already approaching their 40s with several days of game time logged. It is unacceptable that you might ask them to re-level. This is not a beta anymore but a product we are paying you for. If someone does not either magically solve the queue problem, or if we do not receive a guild transfer offer, I can guarantee you that I will lose 2/3 or more of my players (by this I mean my guild, not your customers as a whole) by this time next week. They may or may not return but either way, I'll never gather them all in one place again. This is not a threat, it is a fact. We need a guild transfer program effective yesterday. If you do not have a solution for the queues then please let us know how long it would take to set up this sort of a program. If our server has a queue 400 deep by 8:30am server time on a week day, I doubt I'll get an hour in all weekend. This is going to make me and everybody else very angry. I don't want to lose this guild to your level of incompetence. Solve the problem now. Yours truly, Aeo, paying customer http://cantfix.us

Dear BioWare, I have, for the last year, accumulated a group of 30-35 people who are now beginning to come online. They are from a diverse number of games I have played in the past. From Alpha 3 on, members of my guild with beta access tested every aspect of the game in order to ensure we had a built-in knowledge of SWTOR on launch. When the product works, we have been pleased with it. With that said, every last one of us find it insulting to wait in a 2+ hour queue by 8:30am on a Friday for a game that we pay for. This isn't a free to play game. You have no wiggle room. Quite simply put, you are in massive breach of our expectations for a AAA title. There is a solution though. We have an immediate need for guild transfers to underpopulated servers. The fact is that some of my players are already approaching their 40s with several days of game time logged. It is unacceptable that you might ask them to re-level. This is not a beta anymore but a product we are paying you for. If we do not either magically solve the queue problem or receive a guild transfer offer, I can guarantee you that I will lose 2/3 or more of my players by this time next week. They may or may not return but either way, I'll never gather them all in one place again. This is not a threat, it is a fact. We need a guild transfer program effective yesterday. If you do not have a solution for the queues then please let us know how long it would take to set up this sort of a program. If our server has a queue 400 deep by 8:30am server time on a week day, I doubt I'll get an hour in all weekend. This is going to make me and everybody else very angry. I don't want to lose this guild to your level of launch incompetence. Solve the problem now. Yours truly, Aeo, paying customer http://cantfix.us

Sorry... Try this

I acdentally posted this in the general Agent forums. I'll re-post it here where it is most relevant. I thought I'd make this generally available for the incoming sniper community. Perhaps it will help some of you feel strong from the get go instead of wondering why glowbat wielding dudes in bathrobes seem to have it easier: ---- Hey Guildmates, I've come up with this sniper build as the one I'll recommend you go with. This is a final build though, so it doesn't include Heavy Shot. http://db.darthhater.com/skill_calc/imperial_agent/sniper/?build_id=404#::f12ef7e6fefe10f13df4ef Until you get to be a high enough level for Cover Pulse, take heavy shot, as it will knock back anything that you hit inside of 10 yards. This will let you tap a melee mob with another leg shot to slow it down. In theory, most melee enemies will never get close enough to hit you more than a couple of times. In the engineering tree, take Gearhead early for the 9% boost to cunning. Cunning is your primary stat as an Agent. When making decisions always take cunning over aim, followed by alacrity (you don't see this until later levels, it speeds up your activation time and cooldown timers). If you can't get alacrity take crit or power but don't split them, chose one. Power is good for consistent/measured DPS, the type you want in a raid group. Crit is better for burst DPS like you would use in PvP. The risk of crit% in a raiding build is that a big hit will pull agro off of the tank and a boss level mob will come after you instead. As we play on a PvE server, I will recommend stacking power over crit. This doesn't mean that crit is bad - just that all things being equal you want the other stat. Other than that, with both of you being new to SWTOR, I want to add a bit about companions. Your starting companion, Kaliyo, is a bounty hunter. In terms of affection, she likes it when you go for the money, but she has a certain morality to her. She doesn't like darkside for darkside decisions and is in a lot of ways easier to play a nuanced light side character. Think of this style as being very James Bond. You are a patriot and mostly a good guy but you are quite ruthless when the job requires it. It's the most interesting way I've found to play the agent story. Kaliyo should be in a guard stance (ctrl-3). You will know stances because they have a blue light under them as opposed to a green light over them. Green lights are abilities. By putting Kaliyo in guard stance she will draw significantly increased threat. This means that she will take most of the beatings, which is ok because she wears heavy armor. When you see heavy armor blues, don't hesitate to upgrade her. Unlike you, Kaliyo's primary stats are AIM and ENDURANCE. Do not stack her with anything else. When it comes to secondary stats, alacrity and power vs crit advice is the same. Because you are both snipers, the most important aspect of the fight is setup and you will want to get fast at it. 1. Face your target without drawing agro but ideally within your sniping range. Cover is a conical ability so a target outside of its 45-degree area ignores it. 2. Drop a portable cover point if natural cover is not available. Your best shots are available only from cover 3. Instruct your companion to attack (click or ctrl-1) 4. Fire a leg shot at the target you are not engaging, this will immobilize it for a time 5. Fire an explosive probe at the target you are engaging 6. Fire your Ambush at the target with the probe 7. Find a comfortable shot rotation for maximum damage (we can work on this later) Please note that as Kaliyo advances she will gain two area of effect (AoE) abilities. During normal missions you can leave them on. When facing multiple elites, you will want to turn these abilities off in order to avoid breaking your leg shot. Finally, remember what I said about heavy shot. While leveling, if something gets close enough to hit you, blow it back with an ambush then leg-shot it and change back to your primary target (or drop an explosive probe, shoot it, then finish it with another ambush). The goal here is to prevent melee mobs from approaching you while remaining protected from ranged mobs by your cover point. Best of luck, feel free to message me with questions. Aeo / cantfix.us -- PS. You both had an interest in the BH class so I'll link you to this post as well http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=544

I think you will need to break these numbers out a bit further before it's sticky-worthy. How much bonus damage does one point of aim vs cunning give you? When should I go for crit (burst) vs power (consistency) in PvE vs PvP? There are very simple questions that you have indicated broad answers to but there isn't yet a simple answer available. There probably won't be until BioWare turns on the combat logging feature, which is the root of theorycraft. Also, what is tech damage vs weapon damage? Break that out by ability.

I suspect it's happening because populations are kept intentionally light as they tune the early-release stress test and prep for the real hit on the 20th.