So, earlier it was said... And then it was clarified... So, yeah...

Two things for Bioware to ponder: First, when you make changes like this, do your customers and yourselves a favor and include information about them in the patch notes. Your patch notes are, in general, way too shallow and lacking in detail. You can improve quite a bit in that area. Second, when you make changes like this - affecting the player experience in a manner not related to power balance - make them configurable, so that each player can decide - on their own - how they want it to be set. The ideal, in this case, would be to add a slider for opacity in the game's tooltip preferences. Thus, what you should have done, and still can do if you get your act together: Make the tooltip opacity configurable, with a new value as default. Document the change, and the reason for the new default value, as well as it being configurable and where to change it for those who do not like the new default value, in the patch notes. Done.

I can only speak for myself, but no, I have never, ever done this. In all cases where I wanted an item for one of my companions, I have always, without exception, asked first, and rolled Need only if the group as a whole said yes. Be careful with your assumptions.

I understand your point, but I disagree slightly or vehemently, depending on what part is most important to you. To elaborate: I agree completely that if the members of a group are all on the same page with regards to loot rules, there should be no room for drama to be caused, the exception begin due to honest mistakes which do happen, although not commonly. I utterly disagree with the notion that it's the responsibility of the members who already know, and adhere to, the established social convention to preemptively inform any newcomer(s) of said conventions. The very point of a social convention is to not have to reiterate it, again and again. (To quote Wikipedia, just as one example: "A convention is a set of agreed, stipulated, or generally accepted standards, norms, social norms, or criteria, often taking the form of a custom.") Note the past tense. Thus, the responsibility for learning about any social convention in effect falls primarily on the individual who is not yet familiar with it. This can be done either by learning about them before placing one's self in a situation requiring the knowledge, or by asking about them right at the beginning of such a situation, or by adjusting one's behavior when informed about the error in one's actions during such a situation. When I visit another country, I don't presume that what is custom in my own country is also custom in the other country. I try to learn before travelling what I need to know in order to co-exist peacefully with the people I'm going to visit. If I still make mistakes, and I am informed of my error, I adjust my behavior accordingly. What I don't do, is expect my hosts to educate me on their own accord. The responsibility to become educated is mine, and mine alone. If I refuse to become educated, that is my problem and not one of my hosts, and it is I who will suffer the consequences, not them. I apply the same approach to my online gaming, and it tends to work well. In summary, there is only a minor adjustment needed to the statement of yours that I quoted above, in order for me to agree completely with it, and you. It would be interesting to see what your objections to my adjustment is, if you have any. Here goes: If a group-member who is unsure about the social convention regarding loot rules would take the time to ask about it, rather than just assume their personal idea to be it, there should be no room for drama to be caused.

I concur. An upgraded companion movement and positioning AI would be great.

Yes, there is. Things turn grey too quickly for some people, trivializing content too soon. Expanding on that, a little bit: Those people have no interest in levelling quickly, nor skipping any of the normal content. They want to enjoy both their class story as well as the planetary stuff, fully. They probably don't do many war zones and perhaps only a few of the flashpoints already, in order to not over-level too much, but do not want to skip the planetary content since that would remove too much from the levelling experience. The simple solution that does not hurt anyone, is to provide the option to turn it off, for those who want to, and leave it on for everyone else. Those who enjoy it can continue to do so. Those who want to use the regular xp rate can switch the toggle and do so. Nobody is forced to either rate. Everyone defaults to the bonus being on when it's initially enabled. Everyone can play at the rate they prefer. That's how I see things. I've seen a few posts demanding that the feature be removed entirely, and I disagree with those. The feature as such is great. The only problem with it is that it's forced on and can't be turned off, even if you want to. In short: - Scrapping the increased weekend bonus rate is a very bad idea. Tons of people like it. - Providing an option to disable it, for those who want to, is a good idea. A lot of people want that too. - There is even an overlap: For some of my characters, I'm enjoying the bonus rate a lot, while on others, I'd like to be able to disable it.

No, I'm not. I like the feature, personally. I'm just suggesting an improvement, so that people can decide for themselves if they want to use it or not. Calm down.

Not having everything go grey is the point, in case you missed it. Being able to disable it, if you want to, solves it for those who want to disable it. Not disabling it keeps it nice and fast for everyone else. Win-win.

Not everyone has a 50 to play, but that's beside the point, really. The solution to the whole thing is trivial and utterly non-intrusive: Allow it to be disabled for those who want to. It'll remain on for everyone else. Everyone ends up happy. No big deal.

It'll be a mix. I'm speed-levelling two new alts to ~20 or so. On the other hand, I can't really play my main story-enjoying characters at all, since they'll out-level their current content way too quickly with the event bonus in effect. I have no characters close to max-level (I have tons of alts, of which several are hovering at ~42-43) so personally I have no need of the bonus in order to get to 50 as quickly as possible, but I appreciate it being very useful for many. It has probably been suggested several times already, but I'll take the opportunity here as well to put forth the notion of a toggle for this feature, allowing those who do NOT want the bonus to be in effect the option to switch it off, while still allowing those who enjoy it to continue doing so. Should be a win-win with no drawbacks for anyone.

As nice as the 200% xp rate during the weekends up to launch of 2.0 is for quickly levelling alts as well as getting that last stretch to 50 done, as horrible is it for those playing regular characters, doing most of the content, and trying not to become too over-levelled as to trivialize everything. In order to not remove the benefit from those who want it, I propose making available a toggle allowing for the disabling of said bonus for those do NOT want it. Notes, in order to avoid confusion: - This is not a toggle to disable xp gain entirely - This is a toggle to enable/disable the bonus rate, only, and nothing else I'm playing various characters, and enjoying their story, and as a subscriber they are currently gaining xp way, WAY too quickly. Seeing as I cannot affect this (except by either not playing normal content to completion, or by not playing the characters, and thus the game, at all) the current bonus rate in effect is for me simply horrible.