The datacron system is awful and needs to be redesigned from the ground up.

I enjoy finding the datacrons around the world. But I do not enjoy getting them. Those pipes are my nemesis, so glitchy. A certain planet's tricky datacron took me over an hour of jumping and falling.

/inc rant
Oh and then there's the Jawa balloon. I hate you Jawa balloon. It despawned after 40 minutes of being on it, leaving me and a few friends on the dunes. We were not pleased. Don't worry though, standard customer service "We're sorry for any inconvenience but too bad lulz" response.
/end rant

Well said, OP.

I agree that because they confer stat bonuses, they ARE mandatory for serious players. But the steps needed to get some are ridiculous (eg Jawa balloon). And just to be clear I LOVE exploration and lore in games, but this goes beyond that. I spend hours just exploring each new map, the SWTOR environment is so well done. I would still never spend hours hopping along pipes or jumping on travelling background scenery just for lols.

I would suggest that if it is to be left as "mandatory" make them possible to get through normal exploration/skills/quests.

Alternatively, remove the stat bonus and make it just a lore find plus perhaps even some "status reward" eg medals that can be displayed, or titles

Actually, I think the datacron system is absolutely fine. It is a great treat for us explorers and OCD types, some nice ohnicelookwhatifound thing for someone who only grabs them when he stumbles across them, and the min-maxers who don't care about exploration can just google up a guide that leads them to each datacron and be done with it.

And, speaking as an explorer-type player myself - some of the datacrons (I haven't all yet) are extremely fun to obtain, and there were a lot of "hah, I knew some day all this climbing would lead to something" moments (I climb on stuff even if there is no indication of a datacron nearby... sometimes I find them then by accident).

The only actual issues are bugs, like the MGGS resetting your position 90% of the time, or the place where body type 3 and 4 cannot proceed, and the balloon disappearing (though I had luck with that, did the ride on two characters so far and both times it worked without trouble). But the system itself is, imho, great, I love it.

Datacrons are BONUS items. It is not mandatory that you get even one of them. They are for players who like to explore and challenge them self to get to hard to reach items. If you only want them for the stat bonus then you will just have to deal with the pain of finding them all. I personally found the search for them to be a amusing time sink that provided me with some extra stats. Only a couple of them are truly hard to reach once you learn how to judge jumping distance properly. Some things should take some investment to reach the reward.

O.P

If you put as much effort into searching the internet for the locations and videos, as you did this thread, you would have them all !!

So to sum up if its not wrapped in 24k gold and handed to you on silver plater with all the endgame content and pvp gear it sucks right?



**** I had to jump on something to get another something that wont mater one way or the other when all is said or done if you have it or not.



Rly rly?

Ohnoes I have to waste 5 seconds of my precious time to Google "datacron guide". The world is ending!

Well, what exactly do you want customer service to do about it? Redesign the game?

Would better if it was time spent exploring the game then search engines.

Couldn't disagree more with the OP, I don't personally like hunting down datacrons... but then I am not big on exploring. For those who are its nice to have something substantive in the game for them. The datacrons are not necessary, they are a bonus, they shouldn't be handed out after combat, quests or anything else of the sort.