I get that there are workarounds like using a gaming keyboard to write macros that will auto-fire some of these and I know some of you do that, but to me, that isn't very fun. I know that you could also use a gaming mouse to just have more key presses within easy reach too; however, I think that these solutions are gamer solutions and even as a fairly hardcore game, I'm reluctant to do them because it seems like a hassle, so I know that my friends who are less hardcore than me won't do them.

Buying a special mouse or gaming keyboard isn't something everyone is going to be willing to do which limits the game's appeal to broad audiences and thus limits the amount of funds they can throw at it (or a sequel). These changes would make the game more accessible without **any** dumbing down as you'd still need to learn timing; currently, they likely balance around the idea that most users aren't using these abilities because most users likely aren't and their metrics show it, but if they changed it so that players only need to be able to hit 8-10 abilities actively in combat, they could balance things so that we are expected to hit the interrupt when needed, etc.

That's a good example of a cooldown key press that should absolutely stay a key press ability, but there are many that it would work on and I think the other changes that would lower the number of key presses needed would absolutely help tanks who also have to deal with their taunt and group taunt abilities on top of trying to do dps and staying in position while being a target of a lot of damage and CC. I think these changes should be made intelligently and after play-testing - not sweeping changes that hit **every** ability. Some of them might even be bad ideas, but I'd like to see some effort made to reduce the number of key presses required.

MMOs have changed over time and one of the major changes that I've seen is that all (or at least almost all) Western MMOs and many of the Eastern MMOs now try to limit the number of abilities a player must use actively to around 8-10 based on the player's build. Star Wars regularly goes over this with most of my characters needing to hit 11-13 buttons regularly (and many more than that with long cooldown abilities), and because I'm not an ambidextrous spider and I've never mastered shift-clicking like some of you old school wizards, I have to give up on being able to use highly situational skills like my interrupt and I'm only able to use movement-burst abilities early in a character's life when they don't yet have a ton of abilities or as something I mouse-click between fights. Additionally, for my bounty hunter and trooper, I have to put my (high heat/auto-attack) skill on a bar that I can easily click because I only need it in long fights, but I definitely need it then. Further, some of my long cooldown defensive or offensive skills **never** get used. I have them in my bar to use, but when I need them, I'm in the middle of a tough fight and moving my mouse over to use them will get me killed. Suggestions: 1. Have long defensive cooldowns change to procs that fire when you reach certain health thresholds. For example, at 50% HP or below Energy Shield is used and raises your defense by 25% for 8 seconds (that is an example, I am not in-game so I probably have the power's name and description wrong). It would actually be useful this way and game designers could balance the game based on knowing that even players like me will be using the power. 2. Have periodic offensive buffs also auto-fire or give us the option to have them auto-fire and have them not effect the global cooldown. For example, I have super-charged gas ammunition for my bounty hunter that I can use, but it only provides a short buff that doesn't greatly increase my damage, so it doesn't fire often enough for me to have it on a key I can easily push and it isn't a good enough buff for me to waste a second finding it with a mouse-click, so I never use it. If I had it on auto-fire, it would be "wasted" a bit on small fights or at the end of fights, but at least it would be useful sometimes. Currently, it is just a skill that makes me feel bad that I am under-utilizing my character because I am not dexterous enough to hit so many keys. 3. Have the hold removal skill proc and go on cooldown when being CC'd by a full stun. Then make it so that all movement-burst skills remove slow CC, so that they are useful in battle but we only have to have one of these in our 10 easily-pushed combat keys. 4. Make the most basic "auto-attack" skill actually work like an auto-attack that is fired when you are at high heat or have no resources and make it interruptible by key presses and make it not trigger the global cooldown. This would make it so that troopers and storm-troopers and Jedi who are resource limited do not have to have the "auto-attack" key handy for long fights when resources are diminished. I think if all of these things were done, the hotbars would be cleared up and it would make the game a lot more accessible. I've managed to get friends to play other modern MMOs with me, but while I've had some play this for a while; eventually they get overwhelmed, and I understand it because I do too. I'd love to be able to use my interrupt skill and I dislike that I am not playing my character as well as I am supposed to because I can't hit all the buttons.

That was a F2P person requesting this. I'm a subscriber requesting it and I have different reasons. That F2P person wanted it because he cannot afford to pay for it and he thinks they will be fun; I want them so that we get fast queues. That's the point of F2P.

I'm a subscriber, and I want this for me and other subscribers. The whole reason for having F2P is so that there is a healthy community with which paying players can play. Please give them access to flashpoints and warzones so that match-making isn't as slow.

Sure. Everyone has an opinion, but I'm wondering why you didn't like the combat in Skyforge. I dislike the game because it is the most predatory F2P setup I've ever seen, but the combat was amazing IMO. Also, I'd be happy with another hotbar MMO too, but I'd want it to have modern combat design. Basically, it should get rid of every button that isn't meaningful and have fewer skills overall but deeper gameplay in how those skills are used. Procs, combos, etc. I am not an ambidextrous spider, so I find first-gen MMOs really hard. I have the main rotation and a bunch of the situational buttons mapped, but then I forget to hit buffs, or I have to go hunting for weird CC buttons for different mob types, dots, and debuffs that I only use very rarely, but that are a big deal on harder modes. I know that I absolutely should be throwing out debuffs that lower mob accuracy by 45% during boss fights and using Dodge and that shield droid when I get focused and then surrender, and I have them there and I do get to them eventually, but I have to get there with my mouse and by then a precious second or two has past and the tank has usually won hate back. . . so, you know, I'm trying, but I just don't have enough easily reached keys to be able to hit things and this game bans people for using macros, so I'm just never going to be that good. I have good reaction times, but I have little hands and just can't manage to hold shift and hit keys with one hand like the "pros". Plus, I don't really care enough to worry about training it. I could map a shift key to like a mouse 4 button and probably figure this all out, but I just figure games like this are on their way out. Everything new has much better usability (with the exception of Korean games that have gone so far up the F2P tree with crazy drawing and wheels of fortune. . . . and well, I'm already not playing them for other reasons, so no worries).

Oh cool. I hope that's true and we'll find out in just a week or two. Though any story-driven 3rd-person Star Wars game by Bioware would be exciting.

It certainly might help. I'll check them. Thank you.

I did a search and just found one guy from over a year ago who was just using it for an "I love SWG" rant. Has there been any discussion about bringing this game to a modern game engine? Honestly, you can see so many lessons learned by this game development team in the expansions and on-going story. Though the game isn't perfect, it is so much better. I'd love to see a sequel because I bet they'd go with a small-group instances design so that we can have active combat (think Dragon Nest or Skyforge). This would make combat more interesting, get rid of the Gen-1 MMO situational-skill overflow, and it would lower the skill plateau so that hard-mode was more accessible to more players so that our queues would be shorter and we'd know if we had a good tank or not before spending 30 minutes to get to the last boss. . . the point being that a better combat design would eliminate a lot of other issues that have occurred because the combat was designed with ancient MMOs as the template when better solutions have been adopted by modern MMOs. Of course, your mileage may vary, and I'm not dissing the current game. I enjoy it too and I don't want it to go anywhere. I'm just hoping that they are also working on SWTOR 2 somewhere so that we can get to play in 2-3 years.

I dislike directional sound. It annoys me when I miss out on my companion speaking because it doesn't happen to be in the pie-slice in front of my character. That isn't how life works. You don't have to stop and look at people to hear them. I hate this in Skyrim, but you can at least mod it out there. Can I turn it off in SWTOR?

Good responses, but my point was that there are between 10-12 powers I use all the time on every character and then a good 4-10 more above that which are very useful in some situations. Normally when games give us too many abilities, I would use macros so that I could intelligently put long CD abilities as powers to use when they are up during normal attack chains. . . the idea being that this isn't perfect, but at least I'd use them regularly instead of just as very rare "oh no" buttons during difficult boss fights. Also, I'd like to just see less glut. I can comfortably use 8-10 skills by mapping powers to 1-5 and QEFGT, but I run out of easily reached keys then. I know some of you are dextrous spiders who can shuffle hotbars, but it takes me out of the game. Too often, I find myself looking at my hot-bar instead of enjoying the game.

I love this game and loved it at launch. There are so many things that have improved too, but the thing that I am most surprised to not have seen changed is the number of powers/skills every class gets. I have a ton of skills that never get used because they are highly situational and don't add that much to my firepower or defense - is there any chance that the classes will be overhauled to replace these skills with passives and/or always-son group buffs? I prefer every skill on my bar to be important and needed. Also, we should only get talents when we get a meaningful choice, the other power-ups within the talent tree that everyone gets could be erased and the choices made more powerful (and thus more interesting). Anyway, my question is: has this been requested a lot? Have the developers made plans to do this in an upcoming patch? I'm honestly very surprised with so many expansions that a class overhaul to remove the button-glut hasn't already happened.

This is a big deal to me. I unsubscribed despite loving the game. I plan to come back soon, but I need a break so I have more fun leveling a character to 50 again. I'd focus on the endgame, but I've gotten most of my PvP set and I can't be bothered to spam LFG for HM groups. (Also, my guild's leader seems to be MIA. We beat Eternity Vault twice, but then nothing got scheduled again - and I don't care enough about the endgame to want to find another guild. I can tell from having run the more popular hardmodes (only got a few of these when I saw a "LF1M need healer" spam while waiting for warzone pops) that the story is being told in the flashpoints, so I'd probably be interested in operations (raiding) if there was an LFG tool. Anyway, I'll come back when I'm ready to make a new alt and maybe they'll have an interesting endgame then. The other endgame disappointment is Ilum. . . I thought it would be like Wintergrasp but with Star Wars vehicles and themes and instead it is 1) way too big and 2) doesn't reward a win objective (by this I mean winning by taking the enemy base - not trading a point back and forth). Now it's built on kills and players are just cheating on this - dying and then running back and being allowed to kill the other team without opposition. So now they can still cheat, but they get huge amounts of Valor instead of just a daily and weekly. Just adding that this feature would go a long way to keeping me as a permanent subscriber instead of someone who plans to pop-in and play solo PvE every couple of months.

I'm not trolling. There's a real bug.