I am reeeeally not liking this system. I got a lightsaber with better stats than the one I had... but the one I had uses a skin from the Cartel Market. Before, I would have just pulled the mods off the better one and stuck them on the pretty one. As it is now, if I ever want to upgrade my lightsaber, my real money purchase is wasted. That honestly makes no sense, and in a game that has cosmetic weapons there has to be some way to keep the appearance you like but change the stats.

I finally tried the flashpoint this evening - I figured if I gave it a month, the hiccups would be worked out. Nope. It was still uncompletable due to bugs. I died repeatedly to the fall damage from Malgus glitching me through the floor over and over at random points during the fight. When I tried cheesing it from behind the pillar, I still died. At one point the game said I had been killed by my own character using Force Barrier. Both companions were also glitched and were no help; Lana wouldn't move and would only fight if Malgus came directly to where she was standing, and Tau just flat-out disappeared from the combat area and I have no idea where she went. I finally gave up because I wasn't getting anywhere and it was the opposite of fun. This... really isn't an acceptable quality standard for a commercial release, especially when it has been out a month and these game-breaking issues haven't been addressed. I'm giving up on this one until the devs get it functional.

Can you actually do it in a team for story completion?

This FP is pretty close to making me unsub. I've gone through all of it up to the end twice but got the same bug at the very last part both times. (Companion stops moving or using skills, just stands there and dies, and I can't solo everything in the room without him.) The flashpoint was tedious and not fun, just pounding on enemies with no real mechanics other than high HP pools, and it takes sooo long. I'm dreading trying again and have just been putting it off because it's a chore rather than something entertaining. At this point I would be happy to just skip it. I don't want to waste another evening on this. I wish I could just play with a friend to advance the story rather than having to solo it. It's making me avoid the whole game and I just want to get past it. This is the only thing in the game that I've attempted and had serious trouble completing. Making my sub seem kind of pointless if I can't progress...

I agree. Solo/story mode should be accessible to the average player without frustration and stress. If you (general you) want it to be more difficult than that, choose a harder difficulty. That's the whole point of having settings. It makes no sense to choose the lowest difficulty and then look for it to be harder. The fact that the bugs made it such a different experience for different players didn't help. Hearing that someone had an easy time of it with a companion who was 25 ranks higher than mine and didn't bug out and stop using skills at a critical moment doesn't convince me that this is functioning well.

Thanks. I know sometimes bugs take time to fix. Just as long as they are at least aware and working on it.

So... any word on whether Bioware is planning to address the bugs in this at any point, or have they just decided it's good enough for who it's for?

This suggestion would vastly improve the content. Part of what was frustrating about my two attempts was "I need to go cook dinner" and "I need to go to bed; I have work in the morning" respectively as I was trying to get through the ending point where I was stuck. I would have had a lot more time and patience for it if it didn't require a large block commitment of real-world time with no other responsibilities. It would also mean if you got stuck on part, you could just go back to that part rather than starting from scratch. I haven't bothered trying it again because it's such a waste of time when you can't finish and have nothing to show for it.

Bear in mind that it's quite buggy. I imagine it would be significantly easier if the companion was leveled like he was supposed to be, boss mechanics were working right, and things weren't resetting when they aren't supposed to - but some of us had all those issues, while others did not. Not all of the "difficulty" is from things that were intended by the developers.

Yeah, unfortunately if you have to log off for any reason without completing the flashpoint, you'll have to start over completely. It doesn't save any checkpoints between sessions. The two times I tried this, I made it all the way to the second set of adds on the final boss but couldn't progress further. It didn't save anything from either attempt. Thus I'm hesitant to waste the time trying again.

If this is accurate, it's bugged for some people.

I agree this is the best solution. I don't like forced grouping either, but in an MMO it should at least be an option for main content.

Yeah, this. Difficulty issues aside (though that's clearly an issue,) I have a friend who wants to do this FP with me to advance the story but can't because of the solo requirement. That makes no sense in an MMO. Solo is a nice option if you don't have anyone to run it with you, but it's really backwards to gate playing with others behind solo play for a mission that's 6+ chapters into an MMO.

I just saw in the other thread that Rass is supposed to start out with 25 affinity, and does for some players and does not for others? He never had any affinity during my attempts. Things like this are almost certainly contributing to the wide discrepancies players are experiencing with this FP. I will certainly acknowledge others play better than me, but if their companion was 25 and mine was 1, the playing field didn't exactly start out level to begin with... This was happening to me too (solo) but I assumed it was a mechanic I wasn't understanding. My positioning didn't seem to affect it. I died a number of times for no apparent reason before lucking out and not having that happen. I can't tell if this is a joking or serious suggestion, and I don't mean to pick on you because you aren't the only one who has suggested "just" switching to a different class, but... no. Not a viable suggestion. This is story mode. I am not going to switch from my main to an alt I don't prefer just to get through main story content. It's one thing if this was something specialized that the player picked a higher difficulty for, but the baseline main story is not working if it's not relatively equally accessible to every class.

Is there any way to bring a friend along in this FP for story completion?

I don't understand how that would work because the NPC doesn't live long enough for you to even physically get to that mob, let alone engage. He dies before I get to the bottom of the stairs if I take that approach because he won't follow me and the sharpshooters take him out.

Yeah. Everything else in the flashpoint is fine for me since the patch but I still can't get past that one point. I've tried it a bunch of times and the exact same thing happens at the exact same place over and over and over. The NPC dies and then I do. Oh well. Is there any way to advance the story doing the flashpoint with a friend?

Story mode is supposed to be focused on experiencing the story. It's... literally right there in the name. If something (bugs, difficulty level, etc.) is interfering with an appreciable number of average players experiencing the story, the flashpoint is not tuned and/or tested adequately. The goal is thus not being accomplished, bottom line. This is why we have game modes. If you want it to be a harder difficulty than that, you can play on a harder difficulty.

The difficulty tuning of this flashpoint seems really off. I enjoyed what I saw of the story (but wasn't able to finish it, as I will explain below) but it seems like the combat wasn't play tested enough. The random mobs seemed really overtuned with their HP and regen. It got really boring to have to just stand there whacking them over and over to just move on to the next thing, especially when there were large amounts of them. No unusual mechanics or anything - just a time sink. The first two bosses were fine for me. The third one actually seemed really undertuned. She was easier to fight than the average commando from the random mobs. The final boss prevented me from finishing. Her first phase was fine. Her first adds were fine. Her second phase was fine. Her second set of adds (and I think specifically the sharp shooters in opposite corners) seemed to overwhelm the companion's AI. He wouldn't move from the center of the room or follow me out of the primary line of fire, and would literally just stand there and die. At which point I couldn't solo everything in every direction without a healer and would die too. This happened three times. In the exact same way, at the exact same point. The NPC would stand there letting himself get shot to death in the crossfire of the second set of adds, and then I would have to start the boss over after we wiped. It became clear that doing it over and over was not going to change the outcome, so I just gave up. I'm really frustrated. I wanted to do the Mando stuff and I was enjoying the story, but I dread trying this again because I don't want to waste all that time on random nameless enemies who all have to be excessively hearty. And then there's the matter of potentially getting stuck again. But I'm worried I won't be able to progress in future stories if I can't get through this. I've never had an issue in SWTOR where I had serious difficulty progressing story content before. I wish they would give this flashpoint another editing pass, bearing in mind that it's supposed to be solo story mode, there's no droid, you're forced to use a companion that you have no affinity with, and your companion may bug out.

Thank you! The new code worked for me. (I'm assuming. I'm not at home to check the game, but I got a confirmation message.)

I decided to get it. I'd been holding off because of the price, but with it being on sale it seemed worth it for some story content. Not sure how much I'll actually be using HK, since I tend to stick to my favorite companions, but it'll be something fun to do in the meantime before the next story patch.

I posted about the issue on their Facebook too, but no response yet there either.

The code isn't working for me either. No error message, just refreshes to the same page.

What happened with your name is frustrating and unfortunate, and I can see why you're upset. That said, I think we need to keep some perspective here. The vast majority of players will take a break at some point for some reason. Whether something comes up in their life or they just need some downtime, at some point most of us will have a period of time when we are not playing actively. According to what you've said about it, your situation was largely the result of chance. You had the bad luck of a server transfer coinciding with someone deciding to enact a vendetta in a really convoluted way that (respectfully) you are way more personally upset by than I think the average player would be. That's not a flaw in the structure of the game itself, or something that is going to be repeatable on a regular basis affecting many players. Sure, it happens sometimes, and that stinks, but I find it hard to believe that it's causing significant hardship to a large percentage of the player base. It does not make sense to "target" an isolated and chance-based incident at the expense of the majority of the players. I'm sorry, but it doesn't. It does not make sense to make something almost everyone will do at some point (take a break) secondary to something that will only happen occasionally because of bad luck (having a name maliciously stolen when it happens to briefly become available.) Bioware needs to focus on the needs of the majority. Like I said in my previous post, I'm fine with a name unlock - with certain conditions. I just don't think people's unlucky personal situations can be the basis for policies that affect everyone.

I've never personally had an issue getting the names I want, but don't have a problem with freeing up inactive names. (I think an unlock is better than a purge, because if no one else wants the name there's no tangible reason to take it away.) I don't think a year of inactivity is enough, though. It may seem like a long time just thinking about the game alone, but if someone has - for example - had a baby, or been caring for a family member with a severe illness, or been deployed, that's not an unreasonable length of time to set the game aside and still plan to come back. I think a couple of years is more realistic. I think the policy would need to take into account both effort put into the character and effort put into the account as a whole. If an active account has an alt they don't play as much, I think that alt should still be safe even if they are lower level. The person may still be working on that character, or only use the character for activities that don't generate much XP (RP, cosmetic improvement, etc.) but still be invested. If the person is playing the game overall, I don't think they should lose their alts' names. I also think Bioware should give a heads up in advance so anyone who does care has time to log back in or make arrangements. This isn't the kind of thing a player wants to be surprised by. If we know it's happening, players who want to preserve their characters' names can do so.