Hello!

I've seen some older posts from 2012 talking about this topic, but...its a while, right?

I wanna suggest the option to befriend a whole legacy.

This would make it easier to know íf a friend is online rather than a specific character, especially when not all characters are in the same guild etc.

I think it would be best to ask for permission therefore or to have the possibility to say no (like for the guild invitations). Also if you have a specific character you do not want friends to know about, it would be a good thing to have the option to make him "invisible" for friends then if they befriended your legacy.

I've NEVER understood this about SWTOR to be HONEST; I mean in STO that's the ONLY way to add a friend is (account-wide) yet in this game everyone likes to HIDE? Makes it extremely difficult to maintain regular, or even semi-regular friendships in this game.

Yet this game does not really ask authorization before a person friends you either, though you quickly REMOVE them.

So without being in same Guild, this game is impossible to maintain regular friendships, without the use of Discord to see which toons your friends are on; then you got to add each character by name...

To ME that's 10x more frustrating! So I kind of agree with the OP.

There are also the custom made chat channels ingame. With those friends who aren't in my guilds I have created private chat channels by using the command /create channelname and then have them join by /cjoin channelname.

That way we easily can stay in contact over different toons on the same faction and everyone can decide if they want to join the channel on a specific toon or wants it to remain incognito.

I've NEVER understood this about SWTOR to be HONEST; I mean in STO that's the ONLY way to add a friend is (account-wide):

Just because another game has no sense of respect for the privacy of its players doesn't mean this game must strive to be equally egregious in its treatment.

Yet in this game everyone likes to HIDE?

xordevoreaux.com shows I do not hide. My Sims4 mods are listed on more web sites than I can count, more than 50,000 downloads across them, 47 thousand downloads on one site alone.

I'm no stranger on the Internet. But neither am I harassed on any of those sites for being there.

When it comes to SWTOR, different story, and it's not just a focus on harassment.

I will hazard that some players other than myself may occasionally appreciate some downtime, just waltzing through the world however they please on an anonymous toon, happy to go about in their own little world, minding their own business, free from any distractions, unconcerned that any minute they'll be snagged into a situation that they didn't log on for.

Call it healthy anti-social behavior. Call it me-time. Call it whatever the hell you want.

But for me at least having that down time is worth while, and I appreciate that I can negotiate playing this game that way.

As a guild leader, I don't care how many other guilds my players are in. I don't chase them all over creation to figure that out. Let them do what they want. They don't need to worry that at any minute one guild leader from one guild might ask them to join into something while they're engaged with their other guild, or the other guild leader get grumpy because they find one of their members logged on in another guild (or no guild at all) during an op or other guild event.

Compartmentalization is useful. Having our own space is useful.

Account-wide knowledge of every last one of my 99 toons on my main account whenever I'm on? Even so much as just legacy-wide on one server?

Screw that.

Just because another game has no sense of respect for the privacy of its players doesn't mean this game must strive to be equally egregious in its treatment.

This is about MAINTAINING friendships; something that's nice. And STO respects PRIVACY just as much, if not more than SWTOR does in fact! They at least ask your permission before adding a friend, and only then can both see the character's you login as.

Also STO has an Appear as OFFLINE mode in their Social Options. So when your busy, want privacy, or just some ME TIME alone to yourself, click and enable that. I also don't know if SWTOR has that enabled feature either!

Both games also have IGNORE their Legacy if you desire, as does STO have that. I'd say STO does a 2x better job at Privacy even with Legacy-wide friendships, than SWTOR.

Call it healthy anti-social behavior. Call it me-time. Call it whatever the hell you want.

 

But for me at least having that down time is worth while, and I appreciate that I can negotiate playing this game that way.

I never have friends or very many in this game, perhaps only 3-5 across all my toons! It's just TOO HARD to maintain them, especially when someone has several toons. Yet also understand why some want the option! I also don't think Legacy name needs to be shown, just the Character they are on and the Class / Combat Style.

I think asking PERMISSION first rather than just adding friends without asking like they do now, and then permitting APPEAR AS OFFLINE to friends in Social Options; work for the VAST MAJORITY!

This other game I play has this feature where you can check a box and your character does not show up in the /who list or on friend lists. It allows you to place your character into a private mode that, unless someone directly sees you, no one knows that you are online. You do still appear in guild lists so that you can easily communicate with and group with guild mates.

I would love something like that far more than a friend a legacy system. It is bad enough that the current ignore a legacy system allows others to learn your legacy name.

Now, a legacy friends list, would be a good QOL update. A legacy friends list would be a single friends list that is shared by all of your characters on your legacy. That is the important distinction. A legacy friends list would mean that when you friend Character 1 on your Character A, they would also appear on the friends list when you log to Character B, Character C, and Character D. But you would only ever have Character 1 on your friends list and in no way, at no time would any of Character 1's other characters be revealed, nor would their legacy name be revealed. A legacy friends list would merely remove the hassle of having to add a character to your friends list multiple times.

My votes:

• No -- to a friend a legacy system
  
• Yes -- to an anonymous toggle
  
• Yes -- to a legacy friends list
  

This other game I play has this feature where you can check a box and your character does not show up in the /who list or on friend lists...

 

I would love something like that far more than a friend a legacy system. It is bad enough that the current ignore a legacy system allows others to learn your legacy name.

 

Now, a legacy friends list, would be a good QOL update. A legacy friends list would be a single friends list that is shared by all of your characters on your legacy. That is the important distinction. A legacy friends list would mean that when you friend Character 1 on your Character A, they would also appear on the friends list when you log to Character B, Character C, and Character D. But you would only ever have Character 1 on your friends list and in no way, at no time would any of Character 1's other characters be revealed, nor would their legacy name be revealed. A legacy friends list would merely remove the hassle of having to add a character to your friends list multiple times.

 

My votes:

• No -- to a friend a legacy system
  
• Yes -- to an anonymous toggle
  
• Yes -- to a legacy friends list
  

I'd certainly BE all for that, for sure!

And yes, as I said I also greatly LOVE the option of STO to allow you to APPEAR as OFFLINE to friends in Social Privacy Options, when you want to do your own thing! I also like the idea of not having to reveal the Legacy to others, you'd just see the Character's it just hide the Legacy Name not allowing it to be seen!

And if either party REMOVES the friendship, it disappears for both of them; without notification except seeing they are no longer listed! Two Thumbs up!

I'd certainly BE all for that, for sure!

 

And yes, as I said I also greatly LOVE the option of STO to allow you to APPEAR as OFFLINE to friends in Social Privacy Options, when you want to do your own thing! I also like the idea of not having to reveal the Legacy to others, you'd just see the Character's it just hide the Legacy Name not allowing it to be seen!

 

And if either party REMOVES the friendship, it disappears for both of them; without notification except seeing they are no longer listed! Two Thumbs up!

Look what company you're asking to program that. Good luck getting them to program all those changes right the first time, because the first time will be the only opportunity -- the only time -- to program those changes right.

If Bioware screws up so much as one little detail, one line of code, in implementing those changes, people will wind up friending other player's legacies willy nilly without permission.

Even if Bioware realizes their mistake (or multiple mistakes) quickly, and more importantly bothers to fix it, it's too damn late. People will know all my toons, and that knowledge doesn't go away just because a fix is put in place.

You not finding friends is a you problem. Get a guild, get on Discord. Work a little bit at it.

Far better that than the rest of us contending with the alternative.

And, as in my post in the other thread relating to this, if you allow someone to friend your legacy and learn all your toons, nothing but nothing stops that person from publicizing that information wherever the hell they please.

No thank you.

Heheh, keeping track of the friends you have shouldn't REQUIRE 1-2 other separate programs to communicate and find them, then you still have to add each toon in game just to talk--which is just plain SILLY how it's done today!

While, I don't agree with your POINT of VIEW. I realize as I said before they are most likely NOT going to change this; so other suggestions are create a custom channel for friends to join. That has some merit to it for sure, just as is encouraging them to join the same Guild to make it easier to follow or chat.

Still I agree with the OP author comments; how friends are handled today is poor, and needs improvement.