People who ninja for their companions

Well, considering crafters are not crafting for their community, players need to gear up their companions somehow, since the amount of commendations you get on each planet is not enough to gear you AND your companion, its one or the other.

So here's what I am getting from this. I want to group with LogicalPremise. He sounds like a cool guy. After grouping with him, I would probably want to do so again in the future because he seems to care about more then himself.

I don't want to group with Eldren. They sound selfish. After grouping with them I would probably feel indifferent, if not unhappy with them, depending on whether they told me ahead of time they were rolling for their companions. Regardless I doubt I would do so again.

LogicalPremise, you seem to understand that with no Random Group cross server button that shunts 4 random strangers together who will never see eachother again, we are once again forced to treat each other as human beings, instead of NPCs of variable skill and vocabulary, that we can forget when the instance if over. You are playing the long game, and intend to be able to group with as many people as possible. I commend you. You seem to be a very smart guy.

Eldren (im probably spelling it wrong, so if you reply, remember to correct me), you seem to still see people as tools. This is a shame. I understand you want to keep this cold rigid system between you and other players. But regardless of how many times you tell someone "I have the right" even if they agree with you till the flashpoint is over...you probably wont see them again.

I see the same people on my server every day on the fleet. I associate openly with a great deal of them. I wouldn't want to start alienating them this early in the game.

Yeah the inequity in quest rewards is really strange.. We'll give you one (1) commendation or an orange piece that is worth fourteen (14) commendations. Or we'll give you one (1) commendation or a hilt worth (7) commendations. Even though I just upgraded my hilt.

Other comments are when you look through the commendation mods, there seems to be a HUGE lack of mods, armor etc in the might line.

Sounds like you solved your own problem, flashpoints for you, commendations for your companion.

Careful now, the other camp is going to tell you that you're exerting peer pressure on them and that it's tantamount to "bullying." Trust me, I've had to defend myself against them on many occasions in these threads.

They will also be the same people screaming for a LFG once they are on most everyone's ignore list except their like minded thinkers.

Wouldn't that just be verifying that their argument that theres no society in the game and thus there can't be reprocussions, is completely wrong? I hope so, that is kind of the point.

Hey! Not all people that believe it's justifiable to roll need for companions want an community destorying LFG. Grrr.....

How typical: you resort to mischaracterization because you've no other outlet left.

You've had to "defend" yourself? Curious... I haven't seen a cogent defense from you quite yet...

Like Eldren said, I'm a bean counter. I'm also a pastor. It's my job in both professions to sublimate myself for larger goals and longer term perspectives.

But like my name says, I usually want everything I stand behind to have an unfaulted logical premise. People emphasize the wrong things in life and as a result are unhappy -- this is true IRL as it is in SWTOR.

At it's deepest core, this isn't an argument about loot. I may amuse myself by researching the effects, but this isn't about loot. It isn't about grouping, and it isn't about social contracts or selfishness.

It is really about what people take away from the game. I take more away from a good group experience. I make IRL friends from the game. I find people in my local community in the game. That's MY experience. I can't expect it, or worse, demand it from anyone else. I gotta make sure I'm not pressing my unfounded belief on others simply because it's mine, but because it's better for everyone.

Eldren's argument is not illogical. You simply cannot proscribe group utility without someone being a loser, and a badly designed loot tool that depends on some preconceived and unstated rules of etiquette isn't fair if it means that people who define the companion as part and parcel of the experience have to sublimate that to meet other people expectations. I suspect that Eldren is exaggerating, after reading posts I doubt they hit need very often at all, if ever.

But we -- as a community, and BW don't start that "don't talk about the community" jive -- cannot castigate members and demand norms if the tools are flawed and the actual effects are completely unknown.

Again -- some of the research on gearing companions I'm doing shows that a SW with properly geared or high geared companions (specifically some stuff from BP and Foundry) can literally double the DPS and survivability of a PC. That is not something to overlook.

What we need is simple:

1) Is the gear cutting it for companions? If it isn't, then that is what is driving people to have to need for them to keep them competitive. And the answer isn't bashing people over the head , it's BOLSTERING how companions can be geared. It's hard to spend on the GTN if you also have to pay for repairs, crafting, training, speeders, mats, etc. And commendations can be frustrating games to play -- equip yourself, or your companion?

2) Is the tool adequate to the job of measuring out loot? Is the LOOT system worth while or should it be adjusted? Let's not merely assume that since BW came up with it is as perfect as Adonis, here.