This is true for me too and I've been wondering what they would have to do to fix it. There are a couple other games I can point to that have creative solutions for specific issues. Genshin Impact only uses voice actors for like half of the content, for example, and it doesn't seem to be a problem. I played a stardew valley-type game called My Time at Portia that did a great job of keeping you connected with your spouse instead of just ending the story when you got married (you randomly get a quest to essentially go on a date with your spouse - nothing major, but it works great). I could go on. It seems like a lot of the technology is hard to change though, so I'm not sure that creative solutions are possible with an aging game like this. We may just be stuck with the best they can do with the limits that they've got. When we get sick of it, there are other games waiting.

When I first read about loadouts, I was pretty excited. I had plans to turn my favorite characters into versatile powerhouses that could fill any role in a group (at least, in a group doing "regular" content). My dream was to be able to join a PUG and ask "what do you need the most? I'll do that!". I could stealth through a flashpoint with a stealth group, I could heal a group with no healer, I could tank for a group with no tank, I could pump out high damage for a group that already had everything else covered. You get the idea. Instead, I've found that I'm essentially forced into just doing one thing on each character, just like if there were no loadouts available at all. The only difference is that I can choose to do stealth on my trooper if I want. Let's review the problems and some possible solutions: 1. It's hard to gear up for multiple roles Although it's not hard to get conquest-style gear at your current item rating, or even random drops at your current item rating, there's no easy way to get the specific pieces you want at your current item rating without just starting from the bottom. Possible solution: Getting a gear piece to a certain item rating unlocks the ability to buy any version of that gear piece at that item rating. Example: I get my DPS head piece to 326, I can now buy a 326 head piece with either DPS, healing, or Tank stats. Possible solution: Create a new type of gear that changes stats as you change roles so you can just keep the same set on no matter what (this also solves some other problems, but seems hard to do) 2. You can't change roles in a flashpoint / operation / uprising / PVP instance I get that they're worried about "unintended behavior" in nightmare operations, but for the easier stuff it seems unnecessary. Especially for things that don't require specific roles anyway (like veteran flashpoints or unranked pvp). I mean, I can 2-man a master mode flashpoint and switch my companion's role whenever I want - why can't I switch my own role? Possible solution: Allow loadout changes in all (non-combat?) situations. Or, if necessary, restrict nightmare ops only. 3. There's not enough inventory space for all the different sets of equipment If you want to be effective in different roles, you must have different equipment (at least specific tanking equipment!). However, my inventory already gets filled quickly as I go through content. I certainly don't have enough room for 3 or more sets of equipment. Even if I were to take an efficiency hit and overlap my dps and healing equipment, I'd still need 2 full sets plus some extra space for tacticals or implants. Possible solution: A new inventory space for "equipped" items that are not part of the current loadout (bonus: unlockable via cartel coins or massive money sink!). I imagine this would just be a restricted space that can only hold equippable items (the FFXIV solution) 4. Outfitter doesn't accommodate different types of weapons If you set the outfitter to work with your loadout that uses, say, a dual-blade lightsaber, it won't work correctly with your other loadout that uses a single lightsaber. This is more frustrating than game-breaking because you can technically just set up two outfits with the exact same equipment except for the weapon, but this makes it both cumbersome to deal with outfits (which one is the 2 lightsaber one again?) and limited in how many you can set up (now you can only do half as many as before unless you ignore the weapon). Possible solution: Allow multiple weapon slots with each outfit (1 per combat style that automatically updates?) Possible solution: Have a separate weapon outfitter system that is not tied to the other gear equipped on the character (i.e. you select both a regular outfit and a "weapon outfit" for your character) 5. Loadouts can't be "locked" or "exported" When you're switching around between things a lot, it's easy to get confused and make a mistake. In this case, it's easy to be "in" one loadout and think you're in a different one and make a change that is not appropriate for your current loadout. This comes up rarely today because people don't change loadouts, but in the world I dream about, this would definitely come up - especially because there's no indicator about which loadout you're on other than in the one loadout window. Possible solution: Add in a "lock" or "export/import" feature to avoid or recover from mistakes. This would include things like the quickbars as well as the selections made in the loadouts pop-up (outfitter, equipment, class feature selections, etc.). What do you think? Have you wanted to use tons of loadouts but been stopped by these issues too? Have you run into other things that I didn't think about? Are my solutions ridiculous? Not good enough?

Another example of this same thing is that I constantly see people advertising for nightmare operations in general chat on the fleet, but I have no idea what my lower rating gear is capable of, so I'm always torn between feeling like I need to do those groups to gear up and feeling like I will just die and/or get booted if I try to join those groups.

I've always been confused about people who get bent out of shape about people sucking in a PUG group. I think the best perspective is to think of the people in the PUG as unpaid volunteers. You want to be nice so you'll still be able to get people to PUG again in the future. Tips can occasionally (rarely) be fine, but if you're demanding, they'll just have a bad experience and not volunteer next time. If you're doing easy content that can tolerate crappy players, then just get it done and don't worry about it. If you want a group that's all super amazing, form a group with people you know that are great. If you don't know enough people to make a great group, then don't take it out on the volunteers that made it possible for you to play at all.

Here's an interesting one: We were working on galactic seasons objectives tonight and we were trying to do the eternal champion and then finish off the 200k conquest points to get the 2 galactic seasons objectives. As you know, solo+ eternal champion is bugged, so the only workaround to do it in a group is to leave group and rejoin after triggering each boss. You don't accomplish the bonus weekly quests, but you still trigger the galactic seasons objective this way (at least, for the person that never leaves). However, after we did this, any conquest points earned stopped counting toward the 200k galactic seasons objective. So we had over 200k listed on the conquest tab, but only 146k listed in the galactic seasons objective. After quitting the game and re-starting, conquest points started to count again in both places. Note that we had also had a similar problem a couple weeks ago where it seemed like the flashpoint-related galactic seasons objective wouldn't increment (I didn't note down all the details, but I recall messing around with eternal champion that week also). We didn't check this time, but it seems like doing eternal champion stops all galactic seasons progress until after a restart.

I decided to play SWTOR on my laptop recently and it started doing this thing where it would turn my brightness all the way down whenever I switched in or out of it (either opening/closing or alt-tabbing). I know what you're going to say: It sounds like a bug, right? No! Do not fall for the evil one's tricks! Consider: * This only happens if I play SWTOR * It turns everything DARK * It doesn't happen on my PC where I once watched some religious videos There's only one logical conclusion: My SWTOR installation is possessed! Can you find any flaws in my reasoning?

If you can find a friend or guildmate to help out, it's possible to summon them into the story with you (invite them to your group, then right click your face and find the option for summon group to story instance or whatever it's called). They may need to check the option to allow them into a same-class instance (I also forget exactly what it's called, but they should be able to find it).

Can confirm - this happened to me and my buddy also. It was the last boss kill that didn't register for one of us and we wondered if it was a tagging issue or something because we also seemed to get a different number of kills in CZ-198 in general. We also had something potentially similar happen with the eternal champion fights - couldn't advance to the next fight while we were in a group.

It's possible that with a high level of skill all accessible content for solo players is easy with crappy gear - but for me, the quality of the gear has a direct impact on my enjoyment of content I do solo. Yes, this may mean I suck at the game, but I'm okay with that. Easy example: I'd still love to get that Eternal Champion achievement for soloing the whole thing in 15 minutes.

Tried out Solo+ Eternal Champion last night and we weren't able to get it to progress while we were in a group (terminal was non-interactable until someone dropped group and left the instance).

For the stories, I'd probably restart them - you'll pick up on a lot more details that way. For the loadouts, think of it this way: A sorcerer can either be set up to do healing or to do ranged damage with lightning. Loadouts let you set up both options and switch between them when you want to. If you're just playing for the story, then you probably don't need that, so you can just ignore the loadout screen altogether.

Thanks for the thoughtful responses! If I were to distill what I'm hearing, it looks like this: If any item ratings below 324: * Get legendary implants ASAP * Don't open weekly boxes from MM flashpoints, PvP, or Operations * Do open weekly boxes from everywhere else (after getting legendary implants) * Equip whatever set. Doesn't matter * Maybe keep one set of second-highest item level gear in legacy vault, but basically just trash everything you're not equipping If everything is item rating 324 or above: * Open all weekly boxes (make sure to equip any upgrades before opening the next one) * Equip highest item rating for each slot, equip best rarity if multiple options available (will probably be Thrysian) * Keep a set of 324+ items in legacy vault for alts to use If everything is item rating 326 or above: * Upgrade legendary implants so they aren't tied for lowest item rating * Open all weekly boxes and send extra 326+ items to alts

I suggest starting a new stealth character and playing through to the end with that character. I find the expansions to be much less annoying when I can sneak past enemies instead of fighting them.

I also got a duplicate of the Avenger's chest piece early on after 7.0 launched and have not been willing to spend more currency since. Would also love to see clarification on the intended behavior: * Does RNG protection apply to items in personal cargo holds? * Does RNG protection apply to items in legacy vaults?

I'm having trouble wrapping my head around the different gear options in the game and I'm hoping someone can give me some really simple rules to know when to switch my gear and when to keep what I've got. I started out with a full set of 320 Noble Decurion gear on each of my characters. Since then, I've started to randomly acquire other pieces of gear, so that I currently have some Elite Decurion, Supreme Decurion, and Thyrsian items. Now I have to figure out: Do I swap out my Noble Decurion piece for the other piece? Do I keep one or both of them in my legacy vault to further upgrade later? Also, I'm starting to have enough trade currency to upgrade things. What should I upgrade? Improve my Noble Decurion weapon first so I hit harder? Improve my highest-rated item even if it's an earpiece? Improve whatever I have from a certain set? And, realistically, what's my goal anyway? Get my item ratings as high as possible then get the set that I want? Get the set I want then start boosting it? Get one character maxed out and then trade items to alts or just build them all up in parallel because it doesn't make sense to put targeter gear on a jedi? I understand that some sets "go higher" than others. I also understand that some sets are green/blue/purple. I just don't understand what I'm supposed to do with this information, given how the game actually works and you actually acquire gear. Please note: I am a casual player Thanks everyone for your help!