oh, i enjoyed the casual racism too, that part was fun ... anne ni hao ... photoshop malgus and skotia in place for current republicans, and you have a 100% solid parody. unfortunately, you need to break up the solid block of words, images would help. perhaps, banners, or widescreen / screen-cropped-headless shots of republicans talking during debates ... (it doesn't seem to affect their ability to look silly or stupefying) or, mask in swtor characters from cinematics, into the debate pics. i think jadus / skotia get some awesome hand-waving and pointing in their cinematics, most of the darths in standing poses, you can then attach a podium / handshake moment with a bit of twisting/tweaking of arms.

NEVER do progression daily quests again. ever. a holiday event that encourages killing of world bosses is OK, i don't mind that part. groups, on servers that have the numbers to create world boss Ops , is a good thing. an Ilum Christmas Tree Raising with Vehicles, or Vehicle defense/offense, in the PvP zone, hilarious fun. think about it. Having Disease application flag you for PvP, is not a good thing at all, especially if outnumbered on tatooine at low level. The Title is a good thing. it's a familiar, copied thing, but it works. Without the title, i don't think people would have entered into RPO at all, even with the crystals/pets/custom belt. NEVER do Progression Daily Quests AGAIN. Ever. the disease mechanic was, and did break without a timer to know if it was going to tick/progress. it often got stuck in phases if the player had to travel, or got stuck on the fleet. i think players had to work this holiday out by looking at Fan Site'n (plural of fan sites), which is akward, especially if they get it wrong. i'm thinking here of the crimson rakling (?) easter egg hunt. RPO, was not casual friendly at all. you could not complete it in 3 days or a weekend. making holiday events work for a weekend, should be a priority, even if it breaks what you have planned out over a 4 day cycle or a 14 day cycle. the legacy bind customisations were not random, i have 2 of the same character, not my own classes either. this was perhaps unfortunate. creating Tradeable Legacy items is probably not the option, nor is GTN Sellable Legacy Customisations, allowing the vendor to buy the customisation back, for a token. which could then purchase another random box, solves the problem, and adds a risk/reward value other than "farm tokens at 15 tokens/hour for ~2 hours in a stationary area" Legacy items were a good choice, pity that the custom gear wasn't legacy bound, or purchaseable with tokens or DNA Samples. it would have been better if the Daily quests handed out Legacy tokens for Custom gear, so that legacy options would be available for characters to trade gear between high and low level characters who didn't take part but could get to the vendor to buy the item required. The event was not legacy Friendly, the title could only be gained by LvL 50 players. the crystals were a good idea. Pity nobody could buy them or afford to buy them, due to the high cost and low appeal (15 tokens/hour = 6 hours of a player being in the same location, and dying at least 17x per crystal.) the Economics were busted. the dailies didn't reward enough DNA samples for players to buy items with, the timer-based death, wasn't efficient or practical, a player had to remain in the same zone for periods of hours to collect these samples, often in the exact same position. you were encouraging griefing and AFK farming for tokens. which is inexcusable. the orange/custom gear, was Progression Quest based. which means a significant number of people have 2 or 3 or 4 items and not the complete set. i would estimate 0.1% of the people who have 1 Containment Officer item, don't have the chest or belt. it' can't be higher than 5%. you could have made the holiday a lot better by making the infections work, or setting the DNA Samples as GTN tradeable, even if only on the Neutral GTN (lore-based quarantine/health notions, like on eBay) sidenote: why is there still a 50 post limit on the GTN 5 months after launch... NEVER do Progression Dailies AGAIN. Ever. Glaring, Obvious Mistakes that could have been addressed before implementation in no specific order, Legacy Companion Character Customisations being random loot boxes. Legacy Companion Character Customisations being limited to 8 Companion Characters. Progression Dailies Progression based holiday events in a Limited-Time Holiday Event. Non-Purchaseable Custom Gear to fill up Holiday set items that may be missing, Horrible Cost of Holiday based gear using Time/Tokens (DNA Samples/Hour) Broken core Mechanic - Infection Phase timers Non-Sellable DNA Samples you don't need player feedback, you need to test the game and listen to that feedback from people who DO complete all of it, not just 20 people testing 20 things and getting the QA nod. change your QA approach or hire better MMO QA specialists.

kind of wish they'd leave the vendor around for a while before the reset, as there's no chance now to get the armor pieces that are missing and most iconic or the remaining customisations / pet. i wonder what percentage of players now have the chest/headpiece ? if it's 1/10 or 1/20 of the players that started, that's kind of a sign that they shouldn't have progress-delayed the dailies. and since it's the last day, at least the vendor could sell most of the pieces ... sigh.

not sure if this is the right place, since it's not a game change... here's a numbered list. A B C and here's a bulleted list A B C anything else you've found that needs fixing ?

if it's your first character, you'll suffer for the choice, as jedi / sith commendation / vendor / flashpoint and quest weapons have alignment. not all do, just most. the advice for buying having alts send you custom gear, if you can buy the saber mods, should actually tide you over, if you can find the GTN selling approproate level crystals, hilts or have artifice/synthweaving to fill in those gaps, or you can remove the BoP mods in the saber. the most annoying thing is to play a jedi or sith, and use a vibroblade or techblade. it breaks the quest cinematics. actually playing with a 5ft wide sword, looks hilarious the first hour, after that, not so much. hearing your old fashioned, non-glowbat sword, ignite, during quest events and cinematics, is often hilarious and akward.

yes, i too thought this quest deserved it's time. in every decision in the entire tree, your choices are constricted, and your actions are always going to be wrong, even if it rewards LS. the first few times, it was a real quandary, but now, i expect a brief cognitive dissonance, and i'll go with my playthrough goal, or what my current companion thinks. there's a few times where i've just said, i'll go with what my companion thinks i should do, because they mean more than this decision does in the long run. ord mantell has a bonehead runaway child quest, taris has the lovers, which is high-larious, everyone goes for the crystal, the empire's dissonant quandaries are kind of lame, do you kill a father or set a carnvorous beast up to attack sith graduates ... it's also a parallel to the sith revanites, almost any decision there puts you in conflict with your own value system, until after then end, and you can comfortably betray people, it's back to normal. i haven't really played LS on empire, to see if there's a significance or cost, other than "here's LS points, and 13 credits for saving my life", vs "here's 93 credits and some grey trash that sells for 50 credits" and the DS points. i'd expect LS on empire is "well intentioned casual murder" , where you kill 200 villagers, then enter a house, kill their guards hand over some rice to the family for LS points, offer the chance to surrender/hide, , then kill more guards and family members on the way out. brutal violence and senseless charity. seems like a balance.

i've been using the askmrrobot.com character listing to update my character, but it's akward and draconian to switch between game and browser. so i just hit prtsc and save a screenshot of the codex entries of each datacron's number, scroll along, hit screenshot again, until done. i also do this with each wearable item on companions and main characters, so if i get bored / downtime comes along, i can update the listings with new achievements and gear/mods for gear. havent really added alts, it's a chore to keep updated gear for one character, let alone 5-6.

to be fair, every other person you meet in the republic is holding armistice pretty akwardly at best in the smuggler storyline. Act 2 onwards, ignoring Smuggler's true purpose, the search for booty you see everyone and everything but booty. there's a few admirals you meet along the way, some even survive, but i don't recall it. i can only think of belsavis/hoth/corellia, which are post-war cleanup or fighting over territory, like ilum, and the Taris/Balmorra swapover on the timeline, which are alternated for republic/empire. i had the feeling that republic comes later than sith warfare, etc., due to the JK conclusion, but, it may not play out that way for empire. you explicitly go through all the BS on balmorra to not start up the war. and then ilum comes along, but it's not a war ? DK, DK IDK, i only finished a few Act 1's, and JK/smuggler. smuggler has a pretty relaxed/disconnected view of the big picture lore. there's no inciting incidents, act 3, you kind of save "everyone", and no-one. if dark side actually changes the outcome of the war, OK but LS, you're basically cutting down proxys and pirates funded by empire cutouts everywhere... because you were one (aghast shock in 3 ..2..1..)

it's nice, but it looks suspiciously like battle.net ... what can i say, i like to start trouble.

pretty good list ... have you seen the one i created earlier ? it basically has everything you included, some that you missed, and that other people previously thought would be a good change. to be fair, it's been 6 months and they haven't significantly changed it, even though it's one of the easiest things to fix, it's not ranked or queued warzones, not cross-faction queues, and not additional content or daily quest areas, it's a database change or 10.

i may try all three/six healers later on, but i levelled as a sawbones. scoundrel sawbones is tough, (as is IA medic) but that's mostly because you need to be in range to interrupt, so you need to step up to the boss, every time. or have corso harpoon ... (er in patch 1.2, they removed the harpoon and added a jetpack... making corso tactically useless.) it's really about focus. healing isn't terrifically more time consuming, but it involves keeping an eye on energy/health, which will be frustrating, while gunslingers and scoundrel DPS will be about maxing out DPS, by interrupts/DoTs or cover, etc. your job will be to do a little DPS while keeping your energy up so you have options. without LoS (standing near walls, above players, behind columns) or cover, sawbones is suicidal healing, you have to stand in the middle of the fire and throw healing out while under fire, with stealth and dodge and shields coming much, much later in the game. you will be in melee range, bandaging people while being shot in the back, as a playstyle. so you can imagine, PvP is brutal on sawbones healers that stand still and don't run away. a lot. you can still do great in PvP by being the annoying SOB that heals and takes health off others, or interrupts capping, reports others, etc. or just team-healing. if you're in flashpoints or PvP, either, you need to be 'behind the boss, healing', which is kind of stupid in PvP but marginally more fun in flashpoints, or, behind a rock, healing/DPSing. most questing content and levelling will be the first option, healing others after backblasting, then kicking the guy in the nuts, then recharging your energy by shooting the boss a bit. rinse, repeat. first, companions sawbones tanks are terrible. Corso, with the harpoon/jetpack off, is acceptable. you can tweak the grenades for special occasions, but really, it's never a bad option until you try to avoid pulling champs that patrol nearby. Bowdaar, will kill you more often as a tank than any companion you will ever have. he's a good guy, but a terrible tank. he will push mobs into elites or AoE when patrolling champions are around, etc. however, he's fun. Tatooine, with bowdaar, is the worst place to learn melee tanking, because of this knockback, and the interrupt gameplay. if you do persist, swap with bowdaar/corso to fight mobs that become insufferably tough. 90% of the time past lv40, you will probably swap from your melee DPS companions (no spoilers) to Corso, because it's less of a headache to heal a geared up corso. he takes less damage than bowdaar generally, and you can send him out of range, to separate mobs, which bowdaar, can't do. there's not a great deal of DPS with a geared corso, it's just mortifyingly difficult & expensive to gear corso below 40, due to the GTN's 50 item limit, people vendor their low level gear, and don't waste time making mid level mods/augments/armor pieces. unfortunately for the smuggler, the last companion you get is a healer, which makes quest areas tougher on a DPS class with a range tank that does or doesn't get into melee range, and an AoE melee tank, that pulls in everyone and knocks them back into groups of larger mobs. you will die often. it will just take longer to die because you can heal through a lot of things that would kill a regular DPS smuggler. anyway, strategy with the exception of class quest bosses, which are notoriously tough because they require strategy changes at the level you get them... At-Level class bosses are going to test your rotation and awareness of mechanics. you really start off in a loop, grenade, recharge, heal, interrupt, recharge, x 99 until dead or the other guy is. you can swap in a few DoT's or damage abilities, but you will then have to refresh health and energy soon afterwards. it's a judgement call to what you want to do, damage early, or late, heal early, or late, interrupt early and late, etc. the major skill is to keep an eye to making sure you have 50% energy in those slack spaces, where you've just interrupted, and checking the health & energy levels, and swap from damage to healing to damage to interrupts. don't be afraid to only heal your companion(s), you'll often get the elite that is just unbeatable until you work out which ability to interrupt and which is 1k periodic damage vs 8k damage slams. once you get used to swapping between interrupt/DPS/recharge, and keeping any interrupt on CD, you can solo elites easily, and run flashpoints/heroics with practise for soloing heroics (why god why) generally, it's a bit tougher than ordinary quest areas (obviously). you can use stealth/dodge/shield to stun/separate and AE low-level trio/quads of elites and champion/strong players. it's typically easier to use attrition, i.e. focusing on the elite that does the highest DPS, while using grenades to take out 1/6 mobs, rezzing, then killing 1/5 mobs, then 2/4, then getting the boss down. especially on heroic level quests. or rooms that end up with you pulling 12 mobs at a time when the boss hits 80%, 60%, etc. in general, attrition is frustrating. and time is your enemy, if you take too long, enemies will respawn on top of you. since most heroic level quests are like this, as are the class based quests, it's a good habit to avoid any case where you can't kill something head-on. so, use stealth. work out how to separate mobs, to use range and dodge/surrender to separate mobs from CC'd mobs, to use the companion to separate strong mobs, and to handle the CC using strong/champion/elites that will take out the companion in carbonite/whirlwind, etc. and end up with both focused on you. most often the strongs will provide the challenge, due to generally higher DPS than you can easily heal through, with champion/elites being interrupt-heavy. you can take on 1 of each, normally without trouble, but when in a quad (normal/strong/elite/champion) , it takes practise and knowing that you need to be on the strong, while the tank is on the champion/elite, etc. using dodge/shields, and interrupts liberally, etc. taking on pairs of champs and elites, trios, is about endurance. and choosing ideal/suited companions. but it's imprecise, and you need the aoe DPS at times from stuns/grenades. it will mostly be about finding a rhythm for interrupting/healing and applying damage as a filler. and dying a lot. for groups, as long as the tank can avoid floor damage, it's easy to group heal, just by always keeping energy up above 50%, 1 HoT on everyone, 2 on the tank and always relying on recharging, even if your health is at 3%, you can hit a medpack and big-heal yourself back to 90%. without energy, or spending too much, too early, you won't have a reserve ready for a player about to die, etc. interrupting a boss, will always be more efficient than a heal. in PvP, not so much, but in a FP/OP, it may be needed more often. you can also throw grenades and interrupts on the annoying mobs in groups, target/interrupt the healers and grenade/filler spam the boss when you can, while keeping the HoT's up on everyone. keeping a HoT on yourself will alert you, but it's not critical, just a good habit to seeing if everyone's in range, etc and recognising buffs and debuffs on the UI sometimes it will be about juggling, especially in flashpoints, where there's melee taking huge damage, and they won't be able to soak tank damage. especially chaotic bosses that jump targets. melee/AE DPS will be the ones you 2x HoT, and regen from/with, while healing the tank with the big efficient heals first. its more about juggling health, interrupts, regen and dps.

tried 1.2's GTN today, got stuck trying to sell items from a full bag, which is probably a bug. name-search without choosing a category works, which is great, as worked on the PTS. i can make a concerted effort to change this list if anyone wants particular suggestions to keep this list updated. i will be busy this week, but i hope to see if they made other significant changes. edit: totally agree about the 50 item limit, it seems archaic. and is. it's the prime reason i made this thread in the first place.

perhaps when they discover a panda-bear like race of force sensitives on a roaming intergalactic planet in the next expansion, sure. zonama sekot, panda edition

open world PvP against your own faction ... sanctioned murder, for fun ? no. for sport ? sure. have at it.

sort of kicking this thread out of necro status updated info from the current PTS, but haven't tried to do a full workup, not enough cash at lv 11 to put 50+ items up, didn't find any companion gifts for sale , etc. if i've missed something, let me know if there's any PTS changes.