One of these issues could be a glitch in the game program. The other two are designed the way they are, and I still have tremendous problems with them.

Now, I've been where a lot of you will probably be in a minute, "Oh do you want a little CHEESE with that WHINE?" or "WAAAAAAA WAAAAAAAA WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA you special snowflake." But the thing is, once in every hundred blue moons... what you read is true. And since I am really not writing this for the player base, but in the hopes that it will reach people who can actually DO something about it, which none of the players can, I will not engage in any kind of debate, conversation, or screaming match with anyone who doesn't like the content of this one post.

Any MMO, not just SWTOR, can be outrageously and extremely unforgiving in requirements of distance and positioning while engaging in combat with mobs, whether trash mobs or an Operations boss. Facing a mere decimal of a fraction of a percent of one degree to the left or right and the game will *ABSOLUTELY* refuse to process a single attack ability-- you are *NOT* "facing the target." If you are a mere decimal of a fraction of a percent of a single millimeter, less than 862 gazillion entire *MILES,* INTO and UP the mob's backside, you are absolutely absolutely ***ABSOLUTELY*** NOT in melee range. (Probably why I like playing my sniper/gunslinger, commando/mercenary, and sage/sorcerer so much more than a pure melee character). Yada yada, ad nauseum. You will find this in pretty much every single MMO out there, and it's part of the game design, and no game designer is ever going to change it. So that's not what bothers me. (Well, it does, a hell of a lot, but I'm not going to make demands for it to be changed, because it won't be.)

What DOES bother me, that much more in SWTOR than many other games, is the font size and color of the visual cue that you "cannot see target" or are "out of range." It's nearly impossible for me to see. Any of you reading this post, who can see it just fine, then that's great, I'm happy for you. But I know I'm not alone in having tremendous problems seeing and identifying what the game is having such a hissy fit about this time or that time, why my toon is standing stone-still, TAKING the beating of her life without being permitted to lift a single finger in her defense (whether or not my toon's health bar is actually going down, being irrelevant).

Then we have what might or might not be a glitch in the game program, and it's particularly infuriating.

I can be trying to type something in the chat window, whether guild chat, a group/community channel, ops chat, any kind of typed chat-- and the chat window simply (and very abruptly) exits chat mode. I'll try to type the word AND and my toon will strafe left (my keybind for A), then my companions/contacts window will popup (keybind for N), then my toon will strafe to the right and jump (D and spacebar). Because just before I started typing the word, my chat window will just up and deactivate, my game "cursor" will pop out of chat mode. The word, 'the' becomes "No target," my GSF window popping up, and "no target" again (T and E are keybinds for two of my combat abilities).

Pretty aggravating on its own, for certain. But not even a fragment of an iota, as aggravating as when my chat window activates and enters chat mode while I'm hitting keybinds to attack a mob, and it STAYS activated, STAYS in chat mode, and I'm on the verge of a psychiatric rage-induced meltdown unless I just HAPPEN to glance slightly to the left and notice RRRRRRRRRR132E111122TTTQ typed into the chat window (some of my attack keybinds). And yes, I'm a psychiatric outpatient, I take meds, I see a therapist and a psychiatrist, I have MAJOR issues with anger management and control, and this is one of the things that sets me off in ways that would make parents turn their kids away in utter horror, while if it happened to any of them, they wouldn't even bat an eyelid. Oh, how I'd love to be like any of you, who are like that-- but I have to play the hand I'm dealt, and if it's a 'busted flush,' so to speak, then that's the hand I have to work with. I play this game for human contact, and because blasting lots of video pixels to oblivion can be very therapeutic at times. Until, of course, something like this happens, and I experience a "feedback effect" that starts feeding all that negative energy IN, instead of channeling it OUT.

If you stop and think about it, I'd probably make a heckuva Sith Lord if all this actually existed for real.

So, now, we come to the meat of why I'm posting this... "What do you expect the devs to do about it?"

Well, hopefully my idea is simple enough, and I've seen it in one or two other games: Add an ability to change the font size and/or font color of any and all combat messages. (EDIT: I just thoroughly combed through "Preferences" to see if this already exists, and I can confirm it doesn't.) This will, hopefully, make such messages as "Cannot see target" et al more visible for anyone like me, that simply can't see the tiny, dark red text font that tends to blend in enough with the general screen display, as to make it very hard to make out. Also, making the message stay on screen a few seconds longer wouldn't hurt either.

Another idea is adding a toggle that lets you decide whether to add an audio cue to combat error messages. This might help a lot in identifying exactly what the game wants this time. I'm not much of a multitasker in the heat of combat, so for any of these "combat errors notifications" to stick out like a sore thumb would really be helpful sometimes.

As for the chat window constantly popping out of chat mode when I'm trying to talk in a channel, but popping INTO chat mode and STAYING there while I'm trying to hit combat keybinds? Well, I'd like to know whether or not this is a glitch, and if it is, whether or not anyone has any interest whatsoever, in FIXING it. (I just combed through Preferences again just in case there was something that might help control this, in there, that I might have mnissed.)

I really don't know exactly which of the forum categories to post this in, and I've picked this one in the hopes it's the "correct" one. Also, it seems to be the one that gets the most attention from devs. If this is the right board, then great. If not, I'll be happy to repost it in a different category, unless a moderator wants to move it over there.

If any of the Bioware folks see this and like it enough to pass it along, then this post will have served its purpose.