I'd like to add another question to the list. The rules state that, "cheat[ing] to participate, such as a bot" will disqualify the entries. However, besides botting it doesn't elaborate on what else "cheating" could refer to. For my submissions, I'm wondering if the following would be considered "cheating": - Use of movement speed buffs (i.e. Force Speed, Razor's Kickstart tactical) to bypass obstacles intended to keep the player from escaping the normal playing space - Use of another player using a knockback (i.e. Force Wave, Force Push) to bypass obstacles intended to keep the player from escaping the normal playing space - Use of a bug/exploit (semantics can be argued) in the game programming to bypass obstacles intended to keep the player from escaping the normal playing space Thank you! This contest is amazing P.S. If we wish to post additional pictures, not for the contest but because we wish to share with you our appreciation of this game, is there a way to do that?

Opening Remarks: I'd like to start out thanking the devs and the community team for allowing us to play and test Star Wars - the Old Republic. It's been a wonderful time over the years and I'm glad you're giving us the opportunity to share feedback with how we would like to see the game change. I'll start by answering your question list and then move on to some overall comments. Question List: Does this feel like a Jedi Guardian? Please explain why or why not. Sure. It uses abilities and animations that over the years we've come to associate with the Guardian class. The look and feel of the class is largely the same as it is live because there aren't any changes in those aspects. There are noticeable differences between pts and live, but from the high-level perspective you asked for, the class is the same. Is there anything that feels missing or out of place in the combat rotation? For Focus and Vigilance, the combat rotations felt the same as live. All the same abilities are there, so no changes really to distinguish them from the current playstyle. Defense is a different story. As a tank, the defensive capabilities of the class are going to have a much larger impact on the identity of the class than the offensive counterpart. So with that in mind, Defense felt like it was missing half of its identity, due to how the Loadouts were implemented for this spec. What are your initial thoughts with the effectiveness of the Jedi Guardian against enemies? This question in my opinion doesn't ask much more than the previous question. Dps kill enemies; so if the dps playstyle is the same, then the enemies will die the same, and the class will perform the same. Tanks take lots of hits, and perform crowd control; so if the class is missing half it's toolkit for performing those roles, then it will be half as effective at managing enemies in its role. How are you enjoying or not enjoying this class? I'm...conflicted? I'm excited to see the customization options that will be available to us once we can freely choose our loadouts, but at the moment since we only have access to static builds, its not more enjoyable than playing it on the live servers. This question can't really be answered well until later pts builds become available to us. If you have feedback on the different disciplines and ability paths, please note your feedback accordingly so we can track it. I was unable to verify that some of the abilities were performing as advertised. I didn't see any passive buffs or debuffs informing me that a particular passive associated to an ability from a particular loadout build had been applied. This was true for all three disciplines, for both loadouts each. Furthermore, the Combat Focus ability was never given to players; it is stuck in our ability window under "See Trainer" which, with trainers being disabled, gives us no option to acquire it. Discussion Overall, the current pts build was underwhelming. You are of course not obligated to bring us exciting experiences on the pts, but I felt we were incredibly limited in our ability to give you quality feedback on your implementation. Even if your goal is to get vague feedback from a high level perspective, we can still help you out by pointing out specific bugs and specific qualities of the class or system that we'd like changed. You said, "Go test out the Guardian" and then gave us a mold of what the Guardian could look like. Okay, we'll tell you how that mold performs, but we can't give you any feedback on the system that created that mold, or how altering the system to make different molds might affect the quality of the class overall. I will watch for updates to the pts with great interest. Now, for some more specific feedback. Above, I mentioned briefly how the identity of a class is tied to its ability toolkit. For dps, this includes their offensive abilities. For tanks, their defensive ones. So, and as a great many have already pointed out, having the Guardian choose between Enure, Saber Reflect, and Blade Blitz at level 70, is a poor decision, from a tank perspective. I would propose a sequence where each of the above abilities are made available at three different levels in the progression, as B (defensive) variants to their loadout. In this way, the dps disciplines can choose from the two other options at that level to suit their needs, and the tank can freely pick up their defensives, or, forego as needed to equip a more offensive playstyle. You've done this at level 35, with the awe ability and the A and B variants, and my suggestion would be to make most, (but not all) of the defensive capabilities of the class available in such a manner. There would still need to be several level tiers that offer fun customization changes so that the tank loadout isn't just "pick defensive ability x" for every tier, but that's something you can play with and tune. As an extrapolation of this concept, I can think ahead to how healer classes might look. The healing discipline itself would obviously come with it's necessary abilities to create the rotation, but the loadouts might offer some interesting choices. It would be fun to build loadouts around choices made on the following criteria: Getting a defensive ability Adding a heal effect to an offensive ability Adding a damaging effect (or buff/debuff) to a healing ability AoE effect to an ability (offensive or heal) Stripping an AoE effect from an ability to boost its single-target efficacy With these choices, a healer could elect to be very sturdy with lots of defensives, or more offensive, with abilities that do damage or augment other players in addition to healing. Dps then could also pick up a defensive or add a healing component to one of their attacks. Or, they could just bump up their offensive capabilities to the max. Adding this flexibility and customization is a goal that it sounds like you are trying to achieve with 7.0 using Loadouts and Combat Styles etc. Now, lets work together so that you can deliver the experience we want to have! Closing Remarks: Stay true to the identity of each class, of each role, and 7.0 will be the amazing expansion both you and we are hoping for. You want to give us something new? You want to address ability bloat? You want to inspire us through emotion, artistry, and engaging storytelling? Then do it! But identify what each class and role is supposed to look and feel like first, and stay true to that.

I was pointed to this area of the forums to post some ideas I had for improving the existing PvE raiding content. This is my first time posting on the forums so bear with me, and it would appear none of the text formatting options are not clickable for some reason, so apologies for the ugly formatting. Anyways, my hope is that some of these ideas can be picked up and used for content in later expansions of the game! Mastermode Versions of Fights that don't have Mastermode: - Temple of Sacrifice - Malaphar: - Does a roar which adds +5 to both the red and purple debuff stacks, followed a couple seconds later by a swipe attack that hits everyone in the circle. Revanite Walkers: - Walker 1's shield cool down is reduced to 45s - Halfway through the timer on the white grenade, that player gets yanked to the center of walker 2 - Walker 2 has the same add as Walker 1 has, which swaps 1's target to 2's tank. The two adds' spawn timers are not synchronized Underlurker: - Periodically slams the ground which knocks down all players (who don't have immunity) and does damage - A new add spawns for the offtank. Revan the Returned: - Essence Corruption continues to go out on 2nd and 3rd floors, but only one stack per use. - Hk's shield does small amounts of damage to players inside it. Also adds a slow (?) - Malevolent Force Bond (tether) still goes out on 2nd floor - Saber overcharge gets an extra stack - Only players with the debuff you get from being revived by the blue circle get teleported to the top. Everyone else has to do the staircase to get to third floor. Alternatively the blue circle doesn't revive people. - On third floor the abberations move as they do on the second floor. - After the core is killed, players lose half of their hp debuff stacks and have to kill that last 9% of revan (maybe only 8% for storyline purposes). No abberations or machine heartbeats during this phase though. - Ravagers - Sparky: - When Sparky leaps and knocks players down, it leaves behind a puddle of (fire/acid/electricity/something) which does significant damage to players in it and persists until the end of the fight Bulo: - Adds will spawn that carbon-freeze random players (similar to jarg and sorno). These frozen players can still be targeted by other aoe effects - Bring back the barrel mechanic! Perhaps have the adds be immune to damage until they chase a player with the barrel? - The blue circles that cover the entire playing area apply a stacking DoT effect to players that take damage from the blue circles Torque: - Torque's Wookie Rage's cooldown is 10s shorter, and Torque only has to smash two consoles to crash the ship - The fire circles that spawn under players lasts twice as long - Torque's fur catches fire if he stands in a fire circle or gets hit by a Dangerous Fire Device, and this causes damage to all players in melee distance while also doing damage to Torque. - Torque throws his wrench at a random player outside of melee range, and then jumps to that player, stuns them, and channels an attack where he's just hitting that player with his wrench. The channel is 20s long but breaks early on X damage taken Master & Blaster: - All players receive blue circle probes whenever Blaster uses that ability. - Right before Master uses his Ion beam on the tank, he applies a root effect to the tank, preventing them from moving for the duration of the ion beam's channel - The stacks from that Ion beam attack persist longer than in hm, (maybe add 20s to the duration?) - In the final phase of the fight, Blaster's Ravager Electro-Pulse Nova knocks players back 10m from him if they have the debuff from ion wave (attack behaves normally to players without the debuff) - Alternatively, two blue circles still go out in the above phase. Coratanni & Ruugar: - Split city's debuff lasts 50% longer, so that it spreads to three people instead of two. - Pearl's enrage when Coratanni dies is increased to 400%, or some such number such that it is no longer feasible to kill Coratanni while Pearl is above 10% hp or so. - The fire debuff has no timer and can only be cleansed with the blue circles. Additionally applies a 15% accuracy loss. - Mouse Droid damage is reduced (to alleviate concerns over the reduced hp pools in MM) but there are three of them, and they all choose different targets - If Cull is used on a target with 3 stacks of Poisoned, they immediately die. - Activating Self Destruct's activation time is increased by 10 seconds, but players must finish the cast on the escape pod to survive and clear the encounter. - Toborro's Courtyard - - Laser starts at minimum cast time - A dps gets targeted by an isotope-5 bomb that will kill them (0 damage) unless they have the cannister buff. Still does a lot of damage and hits others within 8m - Add in the hp steal tether from Nathema MM (but change the name to fit the theme) - Hive Queen - - Right after the stun effect on the boss wears off, she uses a 360 degree knockback on the entire raid, that pushes everyone into the green goo around the room. - Royal Guardians are no longer stunnable, but can be interrupted still. - Players hit by the yellow circle receive a dot that does moderate damage - Colossal Monolith - - His ground pound attack knocks players in the air briefly - Summons two smaller monolith adds roughly 20s after the rift is broken - Curse slows the target in addition to it's other effects - Bite wounds' 2nd debuff happens at 3 stacks instead of 4 - Terrible Shout is slightly wider - Color debuffs persist, such that players have to cycle between all four colors before picking up their first color ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mark of Mastery Achievements for Legacy Operations: - Karagga's Palace - - Prevent the band from being eaten by the first boss - Use all three vents in the Fabricator boss fight (VM only) - Eternity Vault - - Kill the first boss outright. Dont let him go into his death animation - Solve the pylons after turning wheels at least 20 times each, regardless of the quickest puzzle solution - Kill the Council without getting the penalty of destiny debuff. (Have the tracker for this persist across fight resets. One try per instance) - Kill Soa after killing all of the rakata things on the staircases between each floor. - Kill Soa after using exactly six (or whatever number) obelisks dropped on him. - Explosive Conflict - - Kill Zorn and Toth after allowing them to get 5 stacks of the buff they get when theyre close to each other (VM+) - Kill Stormcaller and Firebrand despite players destroying all of the shields that protect you from Mortar Volley (VM+) - Kill Stormcaller and Firebrand whilst dropping every single electric dome on Stormcaller - Kill Vorgath after turning red/green every square of the minefield from the control tower. - Kill Vorgath while he is standing in one of the defused mines. - Kill Kephess before the Walker dies - "Mark of Mastery - Exploration": Kill Kephess without clicking the front door of his fortress. (The one that triggers his cutscene, with a mob of 1 spider droid, 2 turrets and 2 trandoshans outside it) - Dread Fortress - - Surviving achievements (MM only) - Kill Nefra after she has stood inside 6 of the add's explosions. - Kill Draxus after killing all three of the Champion enemies in the Gatehouse (VM+) - Kill Grobthok after catching 20 unique ugnaughts with the magnet (MM only) - Kill Corruptor Zero after allowing him to launch every player in the raid with his large red circle's knockback - Kill Brontes after having no one dying to Reaches (tracker persists across fight resets) - Kill Brontes while one of the aberrant clones is still alive (SM+) - Kill Brontes after reaching 10 stacks of Supremacy (VM+) or 50 stacks (SM only) - Dread Palace - - Surviving Achievements - Kill Bestia after having killed 25+ of her pets - Kill Tyrans on the last available tile - Kill Tyrans with 10+ tiles left - Kill Calphayus after making him shield or killing him in all his incarnations of the past/future - Kill Raptus after failing all of the challenges - Kill Raptus after completing all of the challenges - Kill Raptus on the bridge at the entrance to his arena - Kill the Council while Brontes is still alive and doing her rotating beam attack (VM+) - Terror From Beyond - - Kill Writhing Horror without killing a single Jealous Male - Kill Dread Guards when there isnt a single green or red circle on the ground - Kill Dread Guards with a total of 12 red circles on the ground (MM only) - Kill Dread Guards after Heirad has healed Kel'sara or Ciphas to full using Dark Heal - Kill Operator IX with one of the orbs still flying around the room (VM+) - Kill all three "money bosses" (MM only) - Kill the Terror From Beyond with a Hyperspace Irregularity still alive - Kill the Terror From Beyond after killing all of the birthed adds. Let none of them escape into the water (SM only) - Kill the Terror From Beyond after jumping to each and every one of the platforms in the Beyond. - Add an achievement for killing the Dreadful Entity - Scum and Villainy - - Kill Dashroode using only one shield generator - Kill Dashroode after acquiring 50 stacks of the sandstorm - Kill Titan 6 after blowing up every single rock with grenades (MM only) - Kill Titan 6 before he uses Launch for the second time. - Drop Hateful Entity in the sarlacc pit (This wipes the group, but at least there could be an achievement for it) - Kill Thrasher without killing any of the sniper adds - Kill Thrasher while he is standing in three fire puddles - Kill the "Money Boss" while infiltrating Oasis City (during the encounter) - Kill Olok the Shadow without using a single token (VM+) - (Suggestion: Make the blue clickable panel that disables the first laser gate re-clickable after 10s for each subsequent gate) - 4 achievements: Clear the Cartel Warlords encounter by killing (Horic/Garr/Sunder/Tu'chuk) last (VM+) - Kill Styrak before he can summon the Kell dragon (SM+) - Kill Styrak with every player refusing to kill their companion in the nightmare (wounding them to survive the mechanic is okay) (VM+) - Add and achievement for killing the Hateful Entity - Temple of Sacrifice - - Add surviving achievements - Kill Malaphar after reaching 25 red stacks - Kill Malaphar after reaching 25 purple stacks - Kill Walkers after using all of the bombs - Kill all three Revanite Commanders withing 5 seconds of the first one dying - Kill Revan after jumping up the rock staircase to the third floor - Kill Revan without being knocked away by a single abberration - Kill Revan after reaching 5 stacks of Essence Corruption - Kill Revan while the Meatbag Entropy Droids (the ones that die upon being interrupted) are still alive - Ravagers - - Add Surviving achievements - Defeat Sparky after 50 adds have spawned - Defeat Sparky before 20 adds have spawned - Defeat Bulo after picking up a barrel while still under the effect of the debuff from picking up a first barrel - Defeat Torque in under 2 minutes - Defeat Torque after he has broken each of the 4 panels - Defeat Master and Blaster after prematurely detonating the blue circles 8 times. - Defeat Master and Blaster after getting 20+ stacks on Ion Wave (VM+) - Defeat Coratanni after cleansing the fire debuff 5 times - Defeat Ruugar without killing a single hostage - Defeat Ruugar after killing every hostage (Suggested Achievement Name: Don't negotiate with terrorists) - Defeat Ruugar after being the hostage, and surviving - Gods from the Machine - - Kill Tyth after he reaches 20 stacks of Rage - Kill Tyth without letting him get 10 stacks of Rage - Kill Aivela and Esne after reaching 100 stacks of Disruptor Pulse - Kill Nahut after reaching 25 stacks of the debuff from standing inside the shield - Kill Nahut after he has covered every section of the outer ring in electricity - Kill Nahut after being spiked - Clear the Whirlpool room without anyone dying - Clear the whirlpool room after taking damage from the sniper but still surviving - Kill Scyva with 7 of the red stacks - Kill Scyva with 7 of the blue stacks - Kills Scyva without seeing Extinction Protocol - Kill Izax with the Scyva droid at full health (VM+) - Kill Izax after allowing him to get to 100 stacks and attempt to cast Omnicannon but getting interrupted by the electric wall effect during the interrupt phase (VM+) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- New Encounter ideas: - Idea 1 - This encounter was inspired by the ability to pilot giant robots around Iokath Imagine a fight against a life-sized boss. At certain hp-based intervals, boss will run away and come back piloting a giant robot/mechsuit/iokath god. At this time, a panel will become clickable, allowing a single player to pilot their own copy of what the boss has. The other seven players will run to the side of the arena, and click a panel that spawns a barrier around them, protecting them from the blasts of the two titans' attacks. Inside this barrier will be a battery. If the battery is destroyed, the player in the robot will be ejected early (and subsequently killed by roboboss). Inside the barrier, adds will spawn, with +1 adds per wave. They will initially target the battery but can be taunted. The barrier will dispel on a timer, the same timer as it takes for the boss's robot to run out of energy. At this time, the life-sized boss ejects and the fight repeats (the boss's robot recharges while players fight the life-sized boss. - Idea 2 - Items listed in the format of (x/x/x) are notated as such to distinguish changes for sm/vm/mm respectively Imagine a circular room, in the middle is a platform not unlike the one seen in Savrak from Lost Island. Around this platform is a circular catwalk separated from the platform by a pit of some unpleasantness (it will kill you if you fall into it). The outer wall of the catwalk is the outer wall of this encounter. Connecting the catwalk to the platform are four walkways, at the cardinal directions. Above the platform, is a much smaller platform, held there by four support girders from the catwalk, each directly between two of the connecting walkways. For players to go up to the top platform, there are clickable things similar to the second boss of Traitor Among the Chiss that will leap them up there (Henceforth known as MGGS stations). Around the catwalk's outer wall, are 8 clickable panels (only clickable when their mechanic is required). On the central platform, will be the Boss. On the upper platform, will be the Miniboss. The Miniboss will be immune to damage for the entire fight (when the Boss dies, the Miniboss goes away) and has two modes of attack: if there is a player with them on that top platform (and that player has threat) then the Miniboss will be in melee mode and only attack that player. If there is no player up there, then the boss will be in ranged mode, and attack the players below. Each ranged attack should reset the target's threat, allowing the Miniboss to switch targets each time (similar to Fire and Forget from Brontes). (Due to LoS issues, if all players are directly underneath the Miniboss, it might be necessary when designing the fight to have the ranged attack ricochet off the corner of the ceiling or some such similar effect. Perhaps, instead of a ranged attack, the Miniboss channels something that allows guns in the ceiling to target players. I leave the implementation up to the devs!) The Boss will be on the central platform, and aside from the usual basic attacks, conals, and raid-wide burst, he will have three special mechanics: Tank Mechanic: The Miniboss will knock all players off the top platform, and disable the MGGS stations. The Boss will move to the center of its platform, receive a (50% / 35% / 20%) damage output debuff, and use a raid wide aoe attack until both tanks have gone and clicked their panels on the outer ring. Successful clicking of both tank panels stuns both the Boss and Miniboss for 4s, allowing the tanks to get back into position. Note that if the tank on Boss ever goes to the catwalk when this mechanic is not in effect, the boss should use this attack (without the damage penalty) because it cant follow the tank off the central platform. Dps Mechanic: The Boss will become immune to damage. All four of the dps much go to their panels along the outside of the catwalk and click them. Successful clicking of all four panels activates lasers that shoot down the connecting pathways to hit the boss and remove the invincibility buff. Players who stand in the lasers will (take 50% of their hp in damage / die / die horribly). If the Boss is not hit by all four lasers due to not being positioned in the center, or enough time passes before the panels are clicked, then adds will spawn that the dps need to kill. These adds will lock down the panels and prevent them from being used. In Mastermode, these adds spawn immediately at the start of this mechanic. Healer Mechanic: The Boss and Miniboss receive a debuff where they deal (70% / 50%/ 30%) less damage. Every player in the group receives a debuff where they receive -100% heals and take a small amount of damage as a DoT effect. Healers must run to their panels on the outer catwalk to cleanse the debuff from the players (and bosses). Additionally, the panels will also heal the entire raid by (50% / 20% / 5%). Burn Phase: Once the Boss reaches 10% hp, it will become immune to damage, and begin to cast an attack that will wipe the group. Players have (60s / 45s / 30s) to kill the four girders supporting the upper platform. Successful dps will cause the upper platform to crash down onto the Boss, killing both the Miniboss and the Boss (and any players not on the edge of the central platform or on the catwalk and connecting walkways. (Melee dps and tanks should be able to stand in a place where they dont have to worry about dying once the final girder is destroyed) In Veteranmode and above: - Players receive a debuff when clicking their panel, so that they may not click two panels within the same mechanic. - There is a mechanic similar to Machine Heartbeat, but perhaps with more warning - When the Boss reaches 50% hp, it will become immune to damage and begin to cast for 20s an attack that will wipe the group. Clicking all 8 panels will break the cast. In Mastermode and above: - The sequence of the three Tank, Dps, Heal mechanics is no longer a set order but randomized. - The outer catwalk is electrified or similar, and players will take damage when they go out to click their panels. Alternatively, the catwalk is only electrified when the panels are NOT clickable to prevent rDps from standing there. The panels are situated as follows: N, S, W, E: Dps panels NW, SW: Healer panels NE, SE: Tank panels -------------------------------------------------------- This concludes my super long post. Share your thoughts below for these ideas and new ones!