I noticed the white crystal on the test server has Expertise stat. Will be that stat tied to crystals instead barrel/hilt when the PVP gear becomes fully modable? Because I would like to use my Magenta crystals on my items instead being forced to use the ungly non-canon and non-starwarsy black/blue on Battlemaster gear just because the expertise. Just a little feedback from a player: Linking mandatory stats (like Expertise that is needed to be competitive in PvP) to aesthetical assets will never be a good idea.

The best thing BW can do is remove completely Augments. These are plain stupid and not needed in this game. Just remove them and put another cool item to compensate crafters doing it. Issues about gear are at last (if we believe these patch changes) about to dissapear, and puttting augments on Orange gear is going to bring headaches again. I still don't undestarnd how we are still having such as issues right now, when the solution is fairly simple: - Make ALL armor sets ingame have an Orange version (right now half of the sets are not orange). - Make all raid/PvP sets Modable (so we can extract their mods). - Make orange gear schematics more common on loot or missions. - When these 3 things are done, don't touch them again. BTW, Expertise in this game is already too high and too imbalancing, and too frustrating for people who doesn't play 6-7 hours a day. Adding augments to the mix will just kill PvP for non hardcore players.

Quote: Originally Posted by Vecte If this means I can actually wear the gear I desire to wear, AND be optimal, well then you have a game-long subscriber here. There is NO customization available right now. Once you hit 50, each class looks the same. I have sets of orange gear that I have collected, and kept, awaiting the day I would be able to remove the mods from my purple gear, so I don't look like everyone else... Patch 1.1.2 is live and that's not exaclty what that means. We still have to stick with PvP gear and we can't remove ALL it's mods (including armoring, barrel and hilts with it's expertise value) and use them on our Orange (modable) gear. Still no customization at all. Still crafters useless. Still we can't enjoy items like magenta crystal at level 50. (And still ugly PvP chest for Smugglers). Digesting: Still a "clone" realm at level 50. I will like you to be clear on this issue, because this is a big reason for unsubscribe this game in short term, because we are getting very tired of wearing the same crap since 4 months ago and looking all players the same: Are you locking that because you don't want several different armor pieces (in terms of rendering computation) on high populated areas like Ilum battles? If the response is yes, you should start thinking to redesign that kind of battles, because customization is most important than massive battles in any mmorpg. If the response is no, do you have any reason at all to not unlock these mods? Because this is a very easy change on the game that only needs a quick hotfix and almost no testing (and you can give me any technical argument against this statement, but I know that's the truth).

On a server merge (that will occur sooner of later, because there are too many servers) they will probably give you the option to choose where to transfer between a x number of servers. If you are unlucky and your character name is taken in all of those servers you will just have to change it.

I agree with the OP about Free 2 play model is not a failure at all as tons of people think. In fact a well managed free 2 play brings more revenue than the monthly fees. In any case, swtor will never be a free 2 play game. Lucasarts doesn't want that kind of model because it may be seen as a low quality product (even if it's not), and they want to have a reputation of highest quality products (in marketing, having higher prices means "better quality", or to say it with other words: it's more "exclusive"). A good example was SWG. Lucasarts didn't allowed SOE to adopt the F2P model and they decided to shutdown it just for that reason, and they would make a lot of money without closing it. The "we don't want 2 star wars mmo at the same time" was just an excuse. In an hypothetical failure case, Lucasarts would just close the game and make a new one creating hype again.

Doing that without aid, is actually skill.

addons vs real skill is getting old. I never needed neither will need addons to be competitive, even if others are using them.

I doubt a gear based (not skill based) game or macro based game will become a competitive sport anytime soon. Just look at Starcraft competitions and tell me if any macro or even special hardware is allowed. Is like allowing jetpacks on a football match.

Fix a lot, but not that much. I speak again about smuggler because is my main class (but I noticed this in the other classes too). I have seen only 2 orange chests without cloak or gaberdine. Curiosly, these two are "unique" (I mean, no texture color variations), but there are 5 or 6 more models without orange version (and I search every day the GTM, and schematics). Then you have 2 models with cloak, and 2 models like a gaberdine, these with several color variations. If we speak about belts, the cooler ones (for me), these with lights etc, are not modable. Yes, I can wear sentinel armors too, but again, almost every non-gaberdine no-cloak armor are not modable. So we still look the same, different color, same model. What I don't understand is why not every set in the game is modable, only a small range of them.

I don't expect end-game sets. I expect to wear the appearance I like independently of the stats, like almost every mmorpg in the market. If I want to wear a level 10 armor chest with my 50 stats, I wish to do it; like I said, as every modern mmorpg, where customization is an important part of the game. Bioware doesn't want an appearance tab, and decided to implement the modable armor system to replace it, but is not replacing it at all.

Still doesn't solve the variety issue. The vast majority of armor sets in the game hasn't orange modable version. As I said, in the smuggler case I can count 5 different modable models (yes, with color variations, but still 5 models). And I have seen at least 7 or 8 more without orange version (neither schems, GTM or inspecting players). If you look daily at other players (below level 50) on your same class you will notice they all look almost the same for their level range.

I didn't found the feedback forums, so I post here, and encourage all players to keep posting topics like this if you agree with me, since I think is one of the biggest issues in the game. Right now, the game forces us to look like clones. Once we reach level 50, our only gear option is to get the PvP champion/battlemaster set (or the columni, etc PvE) set, and stick with them, even I we don't like it's appearance. These sets have their mods (in especial, the most important one: armoring) embeed, so we can't remove them to use in another orange armor. We still could asume losing some stats in behalf our aesthetics preferences using orange items instead these epic sets, but the mods available are level 49, and the stats difference is abysmal (and I'm not talking about Expertise only). The other issue is that not all armor sets are modifiable. Only a very small amount of them have an orange version, and most of the orange ones are just different texture versions on the same armor model. This is ruining the enjoyability of the game (we enjoy being "unique", not clones; and we enjoy looking cool according our personal canons, not looking what developers think is cool for every one). We need ASAP an appearance tab, or a full modable system (all sets in the game with an orange version, and mods in par with epic sets). Is ruining to the crafting system, because almost nobody will buy a crafted armor, weapon or mod knowing at 50 they will change it for the PvP or PvP epic set (and in this game reaching level 50 takes around 3 weeks for a normal not-so-hardcore player). The other big issue (related to the first one) is the Expertise stat. Is totally innecessary and is imbalancing the game. We are not encouraged to be competitive PvP players, we are encouraged to race and grind to have the best armor. Is incredible "how well" balanced are all classes to be only 1 month since the launch, but the expertise thing is breaking it all. Is not a secret a great amount of players are not enjoying PvP right now, and is just because that Expertise stat (even if some people doesn't want to see it). If you want to keep that PvP advantage using expertise, please reduce the bonus A LOT. A 2% advantage would be great enough for a full expertise template. A 10% - 20% or more is just ridiculous. I don't know a single player who will feel "epic" or "challenging" facing another player who just absorbs every single shot an who kill you with 2 hits. And I don't feel challenging at all owning another player who hasn't any option againt me. And of course, is frustrating being part of a great team in WZ, doing a great team play, and losing against a group of players who obviously are not playing like a team, neither playing well their classes, but they have pugs. Is not anecdotal, is an 80% of matches. Just as a personal note: Having my chararacter looking as a clone of the other players, or wearing a piece of armor I don't like at all is one of the biggest reasons to ruin my experience and to think on leaving a game. Take that in account if you want to please your customers, because I think this is more gamebreaking than a technical bug.

I agree. Rest xp should be only an aid for casual players. That's the entire purpose of a rest system since it was invented. But right now you can play 12 hours each day and still benefit of that rest bonus. The main issue is that the Republic fleet and the empire counterpart is a whole rest zone, not only the cantina, and most players spend so much time there, buying, waiting PvP queues or just hanging out. And no, is not negligible the extra xp you gain, it doubles the xp you gain for killing mobs, and only 12 hours offline on a cantina gives you a disproportionate amount of bonus.

Firstly, I'm not a hater, I'm a traditional mmorpg player, but I like this game, but I think it will be not that popular in the months to come (at least if Bioware doesn't reconsider a lot of design choices they made) and it will be not that influential at all. Yes the game is focused on story and character progression, but just for that reason is not a great move allowing people to reach level 50 that fast (a week), because you "finish the game" in that moment, the story ends and you have lost one player. A mmorpg single player friendly like this is a good idea, BUT only if it is "single player friendly" without harming the multiplayer experience, because this is a multiplayer game and should be focused on that, being the "friendly" experience an extra.

I don't know on the sith side, but I'm smuggler/gunslinger and except 2, almost every chestpiece without cloak or "raincoat" are not orange. I was checking vendors, GTM and armormech schematics since day 1. I was looking for the only 4 chestpieces I really like and 2 of them are white ones sold in planet vendors, and the other 2 blue loot, all of them for level 25 or less.