Bumping this topic, in case anybody is interested in offering feedback!

DISCLAIMER: Greetings all! This is quite a long post and it’s got a “formal” tone. In this post, I’d like to address each part of the SW:TOR community that could be interested, from newbies to veterans to developers. I tried to cover the matter with as much detail as I could in a way that it'd be accessible to everyone. I have been a player for a couple of years but I’m just now engaging in the forums. That’s to say, don’t hesitate to leave a comment with your thoughts! It’ll help me more than you can imagine. Let’s note that what I mean by “Systematic Analysis” is that I’ve looked for suggestions of players about the subject at hand, sometimes highlighting useful comments as well. As a final note, I would like to thank every single one of the people mentioned in this review, they have (most likely unknowingly) helped me have a more informed opinion on the matter! Hope this is an intriguing read and thanks for taking the time, cheers! [For a tl;dr, start from section: “Discussion of Results”] Glossary: O.P.: Original Poster P.D.C.: Personalized Dye Customizability (or Customization) tl:dr: too long: didn't read “Dye-discourse” has been circulating around the community for the better part of 11 years. As is expected, a plethora of suggestions has been bred regarding outfit color-matching. This post will present different methods of Personalized Dye Customization (P.D.C.) that have been proposed by the playerbase to the best of my capabilities, hoping to construct (or re-construct) a fair, structured and overall desirable model of achieving P.D.C., which will benefit both the players which will adapt to it, as well as the developer team which will work on its implementation, will this suggestion be Greenlit by each party. Introduction Over the years there have been many dye variants and combinations introduced to the game. From vendor schematics to Cartel-Market releases, they can be obtained through a variety of ways. Content Creators have covered the subject of existing dyes and the way to obtain them, such as “SWTORista”, who has long constructed a thorough guide on the matter. It wouldn’t be unreasonable to assume that since their release, dyes have been key to outfit customization. Players can also choose which pieces of their outfits to customize with dyes, giving more creative liberties to the users. Although character customization in the game has unarguably high limits, the subject of Dyes has been a longtime subject, with P.D.C. being suggested through a multitude of ways, by many members of the community. Let it be noted, one of the most important issues in this “dye-discourse” and subsequent suggestions is the inclusion of Cartel-Market dyes in the “Collections” tab of players. This post does acknowledge the benefits of such a change for the playerbase but will not be delving into this subject, instead focusing on P.D.C. and the ways that it could be achieved in a beneficial way for all parties. What follows is a review of suggestions throughout the years on how even more creative freedom may be given upon the player on obtaining a Dye they have an interest in, that is most of the times not obtainable by the means of the Cartel-Market or the Artifice Skill (which enables players to craft Dyes). The posts were retrieved and found by googling phrases such as “swtor dye suggestions”. Surprisingly, inserting the word “dye” in the Forum’s search engine only came back with 2 results from the same 1 post, which was not included in the review due to it not being relevant to the subject. In the end of the review, I will discuss a methodology that: a) draws from previous player suggestions, and b) hopes to be beneficial for all involved parties. Results The posts-findings presented below will be formatted as such: the post’s title, its Original Poster’s (O.P.) name and date of publishing will be shown, along with a link of the original post itself. There will be a small paragraph describing what each post says, along with a second paragraph which will include some minor comments from me when needed, so I can pave the way for the upcoming, final suggestion that I’ll be proposing. Sometimes, certain comments from the original posts will also be talked about to shed more light on the discourse surrounding the matter. The posts will be presented from oldest to newest. This is by all means not every single suggestion on the issue of P.D.C., but just the ones that I found to be more important for my suggestion in the end. Ditch the color dyes – Oneirophrenia, 2014: https://forums.swtor.com/topic/649083-ditch-the-color-dyes/ All the way back in 2014, roughly a year after Dyes were first introduced, this thread’s O.P. describes an ideal method in which the user has free creative control when color-matching their outfit, through a use of a color wheel. The O.P. follows this up with some technical details upon their imagined implementation of this method that could be monetarily viable for the company owning the game. They underline that the suggestion is being made to give players better creative control over their characters’ apparels. This post seems to have gotten a fair bit of attention back in the day, as there is significant and very interesting discourse in its comment section. Ideas are being suggested by other players on how the goal of P.D.C. could be achieved. One user, “anonnn”, suggests the inclusion of a tool that would combine two pre-existing dyes, primary and secondary respectively, into a new, unique dye: “[,,,] Another possibility that could "fix" the Dye Module System is if we had a tool to combine a Primary Dye Module and a Secondary Dye Module into one regular 2-color Dye Module, and if they made available a massive assortment of Primaries and Secondaries. […]” Another user, Blowwtorch, offers the idea of a “Dye Scanner & Dye Printer”. Their explanations offer a way to implement a tertiary dye modification slot as well, but that’s beyond the scopes of this post. Their suggestion is as follows: “[…] A dye scanner is clicked, then brings up an interface kind of like Reverse Engineering […]. They dye scanner now absorbs that item's color scheme and can be used with the dye printer to create that color scheme as a dye. […] Dye Printer would be clicked, then an interface would pop up. The interface would have three slots, and a fourth that is separate and cannot be used at the same time as the other three, and would look similar to the item modification interface, but instead of Armor, Mod, and Enhancement, it'd have a primary slot, a secondary slot, a tertiary slot, and a "special slot." You could place a dye scanner that has a color into the special slot, and print the dye of the color scheme stored in the scanner. Additionally, a dual-color dye can be placed in the special slot, and when the print button is pressed, the dye is split into two single color dyes, it's primary and secondary. […]” The final comment on the thread is made by user “anonnn”, noting how complicated the mechanics for P.D.C. with tertiary dyes seemed to be. Armor Dye Color/Shade Suggestions – xeraphyne, 2015: https://forums.swtor.com/topic/723977-armor-dye-colorshade-suggestions/ Here, the O.P. makes a color palette list of dyes they’d like to see in-game. I sadly could not open the image and using the Internet Archive yielded no results. This post shows that people were asking for dyes not in the game from way back in 2015. Since then, many new dyes have been introduced. It could be the case that all of the O.P.’s palette colors were introduced at some point within the last 8 years, some, or none at all. I decided to include this post mainly because of the comments. It seemed to me that the community always welcomed the prospect of improved customizability with dye modules. As user “azudelphi” puts it: “More color options? I’m down for that. […]” Custom dye modules – acvoelcker, 2015: https://forums.swtor.com/topic/728385-custom-dye-modules/ A smaller post, where the O.P. is asking for more options of dye module customizability through crafting modules with different primary and secondary slots. They also mention that such a change would bring more options for personal customizability. What follows is something that I found interesting. The O.P. politely explains that they dislike certain dye modules that have been introduced to the game. This is a concern that has been posed by some other people mentioned here. I decided to include this segment because it made me think that a lot of players feel they’d like complete control over the colors they use, which is a recurring theme. More on this later, when I’ll discuss what I propose as a solution. More dyes! – tummiswtor, 2018: https://forums.swtor.com/topic/859122-more-dyes/ The O.P. of this newer post suggests that more dye module variants are introduced, hoping to see all colors being available in all sorts of combinations. They further explain in a comment that many times they envisioned an outfit for their character with a certain dye, which did not exist in the way that they wanted: “So many times I had perfect outfit in my mind, but do the colors i want was impossible becouse dye doesnt exist. for example want primary dark brown, but there's only dark brown + black/medium brown/white and all these.” This suggestion seemed to resonate with its commenters, many agreeing that the system of dyes needed a makeover. Dye suggestions for cartel market & crafting. – TrixxieTriss, 2020: https://forums.swtor.com/topic/891934-dye-suggestions-for-cartel-market-amp-crafting/ Another post which echoes the unavailability of certain dye combinations. This post’s O.P. as well as commenters come up with several examples of this. Additionally, the O.P. makes a comment on the way such dyes could become available: “[…] We don’t really need new colours created, just options to craft a larger selection of secondary and primary dyes from the current range of dye combination colours in the “crafting catalogue”.” This post too shows that this is an issue several people have been experiencing with the lack of P.D.C. and also highlights many examples of this case, as there’s multiple comments just listing non-existent dye combinations. Discussion of Results Personalized Dye Customization (P.D.C.) as a feature would greatly satisfy many of the community’s requests when it comes to outfit color management. As was stated above as a recurring theme, a lot of players feel they’d like complete control over the colors they use. This is a simple thought that is rarely true in practice because many players find themselves “thinking in molds”. That is to say, they’re not thinking what dye would go best with the outfit, but what dye would be closer to what they have in mind. Personalized Dye Customization, if implemented correctly, will enable outfit customization to reach new heights, giving full creative freedom to the players. So, how could it be implemented? For starters, it’s important to note that every color used in an outfit inside of SWTOR seems to have certain properties. For the sake of simplicity, I will categorize these properties into 3 groups: sequence (primary / secondary), tone (Dark, Deep, Medium, Light, etc.) and the actual base color (Yellow, Blue, etc.). Several methods have been suggested by other players mentioned in this post. What I would like to propose is an educated suggestion based on those previous suggestions, along with some personal touches in the hopes of making it a more realistic idea to be implemented. The general idea is to keep the current dyes as is and think of a completely new way to make unexistent ones available. My Proposal Through the use of the Artifice Skill, players can unlock a special crafting tab that would allow for custom dye crafting. A menu appears for the player to insert any combination of the 3 groups of properties. Below I show an idea of the HUD, an example for a hypothetical White and Medium Yellow dye, and a suggestion on what would happen if someone tried to make a pre-existing dye combination: - Basic HUD concept: What dye do you want to craft? (At least one of the lines must be filled.) Primary [Shade] [Color] and Secondary [Shade] [Color] Dye Module. [CRAFT] - Example for White and Medium Yellow dye: What dye do you want to craft? (At least one of the lines must be filled.) Primary [ - ] [White] and Secondary [Medium] [Yellow] Dye Module. [CRAFT] - Example of what happens if a player inserts a pre-existing dye request: What dye do you want to craft? (At least one of the lines must be filled.) Primary [ - ] [Black] and Secondary [ - ] [Black] Dye Module. [CRAFT] POPUP – This is a pre-existing dye sometimes available in the Cartel Market, or it requires a Schematic to be crafted! Such dyes could consume materials similar to ones used for other crafted dyes, or (if it would be expensive to implement) come with a small cost of cartel coins (i.e. 10 CC per dye). Another suggestion would be to make this a subscriber-only perk. In each case, the produced dyes should be tradable and able to be sold on the G.T.N. so that everyone might have a chance at them, also being a new potential credit sink. A question that may come up with this idea is if giving such control to the players poses a roadblock to future dye releases from the developers' side. Although it would put an end to the release of dyes as we know it, it could serve as a chance for the developer team to work on even more unique, dye-like items. One suggestion for further experimentation for dye-like items would be: tertiary dyes, dyes that alter the material / texture of the outfit piece (i.e., the Stalwart Protector’s Armor Set has a different, more “plastic texture” from the (old) Charismatic Mandalorian armor set, which has a more “metallic texture”). Other fields of experimentation from the developer team could be customization of Color Crystals or Customizable Armor Patterns and Layers, such as the Tempered Laminoid (Republic-side) Chest piece (Havoc Squad Trooper Chest piece) not displaying the Havoc Squad logo and instead only having the line in the center, or the player wearing it without Shoulder pads and/or other layered pieces, being able to enable or disable them at will in the outfit designer. Conclusion Having full control of P.D.C. for outfits has been a players’ request for a long time. With this review, I hope that I’ve shown the benefits of implementing such a system for both players and the developer team, as well as that I’ve successfully presented it as the solution that it is for many issues, as well as offered an educated solution that is worthy to be considered. Final Thoughts If you have any question that you’d like clearing up or just want to share your thoughts, don’t be a stranger and leave a comment. Let’s make this part of a future update! Once more, I’d like to thank every person who has perhaps unknowingly contributed to this post. And I’d also like to thank you, the reader, for your time Have a good one, cheers!

It would be amazing to have customization (preferably free) on how we wield our weapons. Examples would include how Ahsoka wields (one of) her Lightsabers backwards or how Leia confidently lifts up her Blaster. Plus I'd love to see how many new, original poses could be thought up. This would bring a whole new level of customization to the game. Feel free to leave your own suggestions down below, thanks for your time!

Greetings! First off, I'd like to clarify: the Dev Team has done a WONDERFUL job on making some great items for this bundle. Furthermore, from what we've seen from the new Expansion and PTS changes, the team has been hard at work designing the best possible experience for all of us. Regarding the latter, if you've played the PTS, you'll know how much time and effort has been put from the team to re-make the Menus and tweak each Class and their Specs so that they can work well with each other. That much is true and the amount of work put into the new update must be underlined before going any further in this argument. That being said, some days ago we received info regarding the LOTS: Digital Collector's Edition. In it, we're being given a wonderful assortment of items, including items such as Malgus' floating chamber and Darth Vindican's double lightsaber, along with a bunch of Cartel Coins as well (for full list of items, check the original post here). Very nice and exciting stuff, the Chamber looks extremely cozy from the inside, cool on the outside and the Dualsaber is certainly a treat for cosplayers and lore-hunters alike, such as myself. The price is set at 39.99$ and one month of Subscription is also included after activation. While it's a nice assortment of items, I do believe that a thought in both the players' and the developers' minds was whether the LOTS: DCE (Digital Collector's Edition) would come with access to the old Collector's Edition vendor on the fleet. That's shown from the last point in the original News post regarding the LOTS: DCE, where the team clearly states that "we will not gain access to the Collector’s Edition vendor from the Classic CE". At this point, I must clarify that I am one of those people who were a bit disappointed to see that access to the classic CE vendor was not being given out with the DCE. Although this is understandable, I see no point in not allowing newer players (or older ones who didn't have the chance to purchase the classic CE) to experience the goods of the old CE vendor on the fleet. There is at least some demand for there to be a way for newer people to utilize the classic CE vendor and this appears to be the perfect chance. Marketing-wise, it makes sense as well, as it is a great motivating factor for that target audience to purchase it as well (meaning people who want to visit the classic CE vendor). Concluding, I'd say that I view the current price tag as pretty much the only limiting factor on purchasing the LOTS: DCE. I argue that the effects of this factor can be counter-acted upon either by lowering the price tag itself, or giving access to the classic CE vendor on the fleet along with the purchase of the DCE. One limiting factor to these arguments would be that older CE buyers (meaning the ones that bought it back when the Classic CE was first available) could be feeling cheated upon implementation of the above guidelines. It is true that they did provide significant support the game when it was on its first steps. Many could also argue that the game could not have been the same without the assistance of these people. However, this limiting effect can be negated through multiple ways. One solution could be to provide the accounts of these early supporters with a special, symbolic gift, celebrating 10 years of having supported the game. That could be a generous amount of Cartel Coins, or rather a unique Flair which can not be obtained otherwise. Also, it is noteworthy that the original buyers of the classic CE have access to otherwise unobtainable items (many of which are listed here, link redirects to the SWTOR "Fandom" wiki page). The latter rewards are not to be brought back according to the above arguments, but other players may and are encouraged to suggest other adjustments to the DCE rewards below. Please do let me know what your opinion is with a comment! I'd love to respond to each point made. Please do not hesitate to project counter-arguments, as they are most welcome and can further the scope of this discussion and the points mentioned above.