Agreed. The simplicity of a /roll command and the existence of master looter... it really boggles the mind at how its MISSING from the game.

Alts as companions would be cool. But I don't think we'll be seeing that though. That said I do believe that we'll be able to use other classes (that we've levelled) companions. Every companion character on every class has a final dialogue option where they basically ask to be part of your 'legacy' and talk about how you'll be recruiting/bringing in 'others'. The context of this changes between characters (a jedi companion may refer to additional padawans, a military man will refer to you 'building up an army' for example), but I believe that it hints towards a legacy feature. Here however the 'additions' to your legacy are simply your alts. As such I infer from that its likely that we will be able to use alts companions...on our other alts

What is needed is not an automatic finder+porter. Whats needed is an actual manual LFG Tool that lets players broadcast their group wishes and allow others to search and narrow down what people are looking for regardless of where they are in the game. And no, /who does not count. That does not allow you to select what flashpoint people are hoping for as a filter option, and you'd still have to do a search of every planet, and then still go through all the people who ARENT flagged 'lfg'.

Think I would have changed it by making Anakin older in the first movie (effectively playable by the same actor) which, in-universe wise, would have made the the length of the three prequels about 6-8 years. Probably redo the Naboo thing. Notionally I like the Padme romance and him trying to save her from death so reworked, with less horrible dialogue and the inevitable hammy acting that sproutes from said dialogue, that stays in (especially as you still need luke & leia anyway). I would have had the clone wars pretty much start at the end of the first movie. Qui-gon would live past the first movie with Maul being the principle face of the seperatist movement with the whole 'republic is anti-alien' vibe to set up the empires human-centric policies as a result of the view of the seperatist movement being aliens going for dominance. Definitely would rework Anakin's fall to being like what it was in a new hope, going down the 'quick' path to power. Not just him being *****y and having a hissy fit. This would probably start about halfway through the second film with Qui-gons death. Final half of that would be him effectively patching things up with Obi-wan but secretly going to Dooku (who in this iteration would be either a spy jedi for palpatine or still part of the seperatists) as basically a secret 'side' master to get more power. Final movie would be them starting to whip the seperatists as in the case in the actual final prequal film. Really hit the whole 'Padmes' in danger note with actual repeated assassination attempts on his life and hers orchestrated by palpatine since by this point Anakin's become the face of the jedi order in the war. Have some manipulations so some jedi actually become part of the assassination, make it believable that Anakin feels under threat and not some split second choice because he cuts Windu's hand off.

Did all the flashpoints duo my first time levelling (myself as a sithwarrior tank friend as an inquisitor healer). A lot of the early ones we just used my healing companion to keep us up with him offhealing but mostly dpsing. Was only as we hit boarding party that we realised a dedicated healer was needed while duoing. Definitely dont think your average players can duo the flashpoints from colicoid wargames to force emperor though.

I think expanding it to 16 character slots would be cool solely because of the legacy system. Theres not really a lot of benefits to making different faction characters on a single server but the legacy system may well call that into question. Granted because much of the legacy system is a mystery at the point, and even when it is fully known we could probably debate the virtues/vices of it for a good while, but unless theres a severe problem with memory on that part its worth examining.

Its a tricky question really. Especially at the end for class quests a lot of it practically needs healer companions. Some of it is relaly almost impossible without your healer. Ignoring the performance of the roles for a moment, it largely comes down to that the healer can prolong the fight so long as the damage intake isnt too large (and unless you overextend yourself thats a supreme rarity). So if you take a tank companion... if he has 10k health he'll take that 10k damage and then keel over. Your healer comes along, and he heals that 10k damage on you plus however many more until it finally dies. Tank companions definitely need a buff, but that would still leave dps out of the loop really as they arent 'equal' to a healer companion. I'm not really sure that nerfing the healing is necessary though as while I can survive a lot with a healer there are a fair number of cases where the healing is about the right level and if it was nerfed much it'd probably shelve healers.

While I have been dabbling to see what the lowest threshold at each flashpoint I could solo it, I agree making a solo option flashpoint with x3 companions is a bad idea. I disagree with it at the basic level in that there should just be content thats group focused. I dont mind that you can take companions into flashpoints, wouldnt mind if you could take companions into operations, if they cant hack it to do the content thats fine by me. I'm hoping that with the legacy system if they go the whole 'you can have epic skywalker-esque duels' route that means questlines. Make em repeatable ala heroic quests and you'd have a cool solo companion gear route. Kind of tricky to do the solo content route with the class quests since they're meant to 'matter' (thougn I'd personally lobbey for first time = story choices count, then you can do em as dailies or something... be nice to relive some of the class content again without the drudgery of rerolling. Perfectly justifiable by having it as a retelling to a companoin or something). The idea that there should be a solo+3 companions route to flashpoints is kind of pointless. Theres no small number of flashpoint bosses where frankly companion controls are too poor for them to perform. Case in point the bonus boss of esseles, creates a melee aura that ***** companions, Vokk on esseles has a lightning attack on non tanks thats a pain in the arse to move companions out of, and have a lot of fun with shifting rockets to turrets on HK in false emp. Fact of the matter is even if a solo option for flashpoints with max group companions existed, it'd have to be severely nerfed to be feasible. Far better to have its own content anyway and frankly companions NEED a control overhaul. To get them to move atm requires them on passive... and they dont move on passive... they walk. Makes a lot of crap a pain in the arse with them, its more bearable if they are ranged companions but melee worse. Though theres a question for how their development resources is. Which is always something thats grating. They supposedly 'listen to the community' but theres not the barest hint of whats feasible design wise to allow features to be prioritised within the community. Just degenerates into a bunch of crazies spamming the place.

I'd just like to begin by making a mild disclaimer that, in terms of my ideas for the class side of things, I understand it'd be pretty damn low priority which is something I agree with, but the legacy side is still in development so should be easier to design around and implement within the medium term. I am an MMO oriented player, as such I completely agree that the class specific content is not the focus of all gameplay, particuarly at the endgame. However with the stated potential of the legacy system to eventually 'have two of your characters engaged in an epic skywalker-esque duel' I thought this would be a good time to raise the issue of making this content similar to the heroic quests of being repeatable once-per-day. There are some points in the class story for instance where I think its a dissapointment that you'd have to gruel through the entire levelling process again to see. I'd be very interested if some system in the future could allow you to replay key moments, perhaps under the guise of recanting the experience to companions that weren't there. The legacy system as well, if the character interaction takes the form of quests, I would very much like to see being repeatable in some form. It feels a waste to have some of the more character pertinent stuff dry up very quickly. For sure there is the very relevant argument to be made that these affect your story... but for that I have to ask what story is relevant? The TOR story as a whole seems very hard to place currently. Class stories themselves take place in a heavy microcosm so much as you get only the barest hint of stuff in only the most extreme rare cases (SW gets a mail at the end detailing JK story a bit but thats it as far as I've experienced). On both factions to, corellia ends up as a 'victory' despite both stories basically steamrolling the other faction. Shared flashpoints to raise a questionmark. This makes me question... is there a unified story in TOR? Or are we basically playing our own story microcosms where only what 'we' do matters? If the latter is true then it would be more justifiable to mould this kind of repeatable system. Perhaps tie to to a companion reward system. You could have it so the first time locks your story choices for future content, but anything after is for fun and different choices will not extend beyond that play session. It is a difficult thing, because the argument can be made that in its transience the class stuff takes on meaning. But it also makes it a very shallow pool of content to draw on. Short of legacy bonuses allowing you to level practically by doing your class quests only (an unlikely scenario) such things should be explored in my view. And the legacy system has greater freedom to enact this and perhaps could very well be the main font of repeatable solo content for when your not engaging in other MMO aspects with a companion reward system.

I agree, it should be normal = tionese, hard = columi, nightmare = rakata. The mish-mash atm kind of ruins both the balance purposes of the difficulties (ie each level meant to accomodate defined niches of palyer skill) and progression. I'm not really one for encouraged difficulty grinding, but with difficulty settings for some groups that will happen anyway. THe systme should reflect that its to accomdate players of certain skillsets though not some weird hashbash.

Think your unlucky i've seen tons. Frankly I think the people who have bad luck are the 'real' people and everyone else who gets loads of loot are imaginary figments of a quantum world gone wrong

On rare occassions (seen it like four times) he'll cast ultimate power with no cast bar. He gets a buff for it and it can be interupted exactly the same way only without the cast bar. So you need to watch out for his cast animation and/or the buff.

You cant get knocked off the kaon gun unless you die. If he's clicking he's doing it wrong, clicking dismounts you . Got to turn with the a+d keys and the gun shoots automatically when its facing enemies.

- Sprint at level 1. - Bonus to companion affection gains. - Some family tree based ability, eg all your characters get to do a unique force lightning. - Acquiring other characters regen abilities (your LS sith warrior can now do the knights meditate as well as channel hatred for instance). - Actual story paths where appropriate if they go ahead with the 'your family members can have skywalker-esque duels' route. With reflections on their class stories, not just 'oh we've met in a room now we fight father/mother/brother/sister Boom fight over thats it'. - Being able to use alts as companion characters based on their AC archetype. Eg Juggernaut would be a broonmark companion in abilities. - Cost reduction in learning abilities/speeder ranks at the trainer. - Being able to unlock fully moddable gear used on one character to be bought off a fleet vendor. For instance having equipped all the pve columi tier on the warrior I could 'unlock' that set on the vendor and use its looks on a new character. - Not so much legacy related... but 16 characgter slots so i can eventually, down the long long road, have one of every AC to my legacy. - And the big one... I want to make a voss!!!!!

Ironic... I'm extremely envious of the republic gear looks tbh >.<

While I think that it should be normal = tionese, hard = columi and nightmare = rakata unlike the mishmash we have atm. I don't agree that hard flashpoints should be required for normal mode ops and so on forth. The normal modes are meant to be walk over easy for the lowest common demoninator and the ultra casuals. If anything bosses in hard flashpoints shouldnt drop crystals but rather commendations to allow people to ignore normal ops if they so choose. Reason being that a 4x grind (HM Flashpoints > Norm ops > Hard ops > Nightmare ops) is just a horrible horrible idea. I'm even somewhat against what will most likely be the Hard op to nightmare op grind but at least thats capped off at only two levels. For players who will be doing the hard and nightmare ops... theres no need to force them to do the easy options. It might be for some groups thats what they do. But to hardset it into the game is stupid and grindy and runs counter to the notion of difficulty settings. I much rather it be one difficulty setting, but if we're going to have multiple difficulty settings... at least do it right. Multiple difficulty settings give the offer of letting people crawl up the ladders of difficulty. But the primary reason is to allow multiple levels of player skillsets to do the content. For that purpose a system that makes the people who are competing at the higher levels to be forced through the early difficulties basically demeans the system. As I mentioned earlier for this first tier a hard > nightmare dynamic will most likely exist but thats because its the springboard. In the next tier so long as this tiers rakata isnt less effective than Tier 2's hard gear rewards itll work out at letting people just leap at their chosen difficulty between tiers. Therse no need to repeat wows mistake of forcing 99% of people who do the higher difficulties through the lower ones first.

Sadly bioware tried to do both things. They tried to have a lengthy leveling process and they tried to have story. They failed on both counts. The onyl interesting story is in the class stories, which are sadly extremely segregated and have faults on several levels thats beyond the scope of this response. It'd be nice if there was the possibility for some overlap but no, as far as he consular is concerened for example the trooper story isnt even happening. What they should have done is make the class stories more multiplayer friendly, it'd be cool if the end of each planet for example had additional events if you had one of the other classes in. And the levelling time should have been made shorter with the levelling being just class stuff. Trim out the generic world quests and do what they were going to do originally, have the world story arc in a group questline. Same function as current heroic quests, resetting every day, but rather than a questline beginning to end just have all the quests available so people can jump in and out if they need. To actually have a decent depth to the class stories would have been nice. But they are such a small amount of content the idea of rerolling is somewhat horrific considering the temerity of the world quests and the amount there are. If the levelling time was halved, it would satisfy people who wanted to get to endgame and give people who like to reroll a lot to do without 90% of the deluge that is the general quests. Also, a lot of the content thats being added now is endgame stuff. Two months from now we'll still have people saying the same stuff, 'why rush?' (presume much? Sat through all the dialouge). Four months the same. Six months the same. For the people that swapped between four characters in their twenties... if you actually enjoyed the story so much to involve yourself in one character maybe you'd be at 50 to . Ilums a bit of a laugh. A solo/pvp planet that has a total of 6 quests . Its a little dissapointing really. This game could have been really great but they ballsed it up from the ground up on the class stuff. When your finished theres nothing in terms of your class identity to do and your companions clam up and never say anything once you max affection with them. I'm enjoying it all the same despite its many faults but its kind of sad how feeble and disconnected the class stuff is from the rest of the world. Such that any expansions are meaningless. Because characters within it are specific to class story theres no crossover, no cohesion to the overall stories. On the empire side your winning constantly crushing the republic. The Republic side your continuously winning crushing the empire. There is no engaging narrative to the return to the war, with a singular battle that resparks it which all the class stories converge on, suddenly your load in screen just says 'WAR'. For a game touted on 'story' it has done a remarkably poor show of having a cohesive engaging narrative thats shared across classes and factions.

Slower? Dear god lots of the levelling is horrific enough especially at the end. Also 200 hours of class story my ***. If i'm being generous I'd say at most 10, and changing decissions doesnt even radically change stuff. They certainly dont lead to different things happening beyond the immediately superficial, the biggest 'change' is what kind of follow up message you get in the mail an hour later. Sadly the biggest deterrent to levelling again is the world stuff. Later worlds in particular are horribly designed. Like send to far distant places for one/two quests. Turn them in. Then pick up more quests that send you back to that same location. Hoth is notourious for only giving you one quest at a time which it sends you across an entire subzone for. And voss has huge fortresses of enemies, which on the surface I like, but considering it takes you about half an hour to fight through all the packs the least they could have done is made it one quest trip not two to three trips because of the additional quests that pop up on hand ins.

The pillars shift about before deciding where they come down, but typically on a straight path and they start moving fast before slowing down. You just have to taunt the boss and chase it along its path, boss can be a bit of a pain because of his casts so you want to stay several steps ahead of him to keep him moving along the path.

It'll only be when they raise the level crap. The class story lines follow the levelling curve as they are a large part of the 'gating' content as bioware sees it. If they expand the class story lines in the 50 range multiple times over, then when new people hit 50, before they could level onto the new zones/planets whatnot they'd have to spend however long it'd be at 50 doing all the class story stuff that was expanded pre-expansion. That doesnt sound to me like a design philosophy that bioware will go down. Would be nice to actually have some class stuff though. im a big MMO'er so never realy wanted the solo stuff to eclipse everything on the table. But it kind of sucks, hit the end of your class story, do all your companions affection... theres nothing class defining that you can do and the silence of your companions is a little sad.

Woudlnt mind it if they added in the whole wow thing 'unless you try and rip the mods out/put new ones in you can sell it back within X amount of time to get your commendations back'

With the recent announcement that endgame gear that locks the armor/hilt/barrel mod slots opting instead for base stats in place of them will be open to full moddability again my musing made me think about the future expansion of the legacy system. The current system on the WIP page currently in hints at new abilities and character creation options, in line with recent developer statements that they want some cosmetic things to be something earned I think it'd be interesting to have a cosmetic gear option that you can unlock on your main that you could basically buy on a fleet vendor for your levelling alts. For example, say I completely lose my mind and actually fall in love with the Sith Warrrior Tionese/Columi/Rakata gearsets and want to level with it. If I manage to purchase every piece of that gear I can choose to unlock it via the legacy system, which would let me buy an unmodded piece of gear with those looks for my alt. Perhaps it'd be some kind of achievement and that by doing it you get 'Rakata Warrior' or something which meant that I could level a marauder and get the warleader gear, or level a sorcerer and level while wearing the looks of the force mystic gear. Obviously this would be complex and not be something that'd be input anytime soon. But while I use the tier armor as an example it could be used for any kind of gear really. Just another kind of system that can provide fun fluff things for your characters that aren't really as concrete as character creation options that may allow you to level a new character in a different cosmetic way to what you did before but still providing a system of rewards to aim for to expand upon your stock.

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=156471 Specifically on your puzzlement over the hard flashpoint columi drops I completely agree there, pretty much said that on the third page in the above.

So your not complaining theres not enough solo content to get you to 50, or you not even complaining that theres not enough solo content at all. Your just looking at the group content and saying... 'there should be less of that even though it doesnt affect me'? Thats just... yea. How many would be 'enough' flashpoints? Two flashpoints? One heroic mission a planet? Theres content for soloists. And theres content for gorup players. And, more importantly, theres content for people who do both solo AND group content. Your complaint is irrational really. You dont even really seem to indiciate that this amount of content somehow impinges on your playstyle. Your simply offended by it because its... there.

I think the 'reason' that the drop rates are minimilised is to encouraage participation in the normal mode operations. But if that is the case frankly its unneeded. Normal mode operations are the base level, supposed to be done in gear available right from when you hit 50, its meant to be a low cost kind of operation to just go through for an easy time. As such I dont think hard flashpoints need to be paced gear wise to force you through normal modes. After all there are guilds/players that might want to go straight to the hard modes rather than doing operation grinding x3 difficulties. I think its rather daft that hard flashpoint final bosses drop columi gear as well. Its very... nonsecal compared to the tionese drop rates there. They should make the minibosses there drop tionese crystals as they already do (slightly buffed in the amount they drop, make bosses not drop crystals but do drop tionese commendations. Then remove any columi gear tokens or gear (a friend swears that HK dropped him a columi lightsaber but I really cba to check) that exists and replace them with tionese tokens/gear. That way you get 3 tionese commendations a flashpoint, probably the same crystal droprate as currently but giving a defined niche to the minibosses, and end this insanity wwith the columi gear. It kind of makes tionese progression route meaningless. And perhaps give crystals a conversion rate, like warzone to mercenary commendations. Considering crystals are from the same content as the commendations that shouldnt be too controversial. Something like a 10-20 conversion rate. As for it 'sensing' your group composition I would like less cunning crap to drop with no cunning players... but its like how I feel about changing the op auto-assign thing. Have to be careful there as players should have the ability to gear their offspecs. That said, if the commendation rate was adjusted to what I suggested. i suppose you could gear from a smart drop based system that checked your specs and class makeup in the group, then buy your offspec stuff/companion gear from the commendations.