Quote I was thinking about the Master/Apprentice relationships that Force users gain and how the game represents these. Pretty much all of the class quests do a decent job in giving you a mentor figure and a young learner, whether Force sensitive or not.



I started to think that this is an idea that could be adapted in general play quite easily. Here's what I was thinking:



Introduce some certain skills into the game that have to be heavily worked for. They cannot be bought by credits or cartel coins, don't get shared through legacy and take weeks or even months to attain. Completing a certain number of weekly quests consequctively, whilst having to "study" in the form of completing achievements of finding Lore Objects, etc. Eventually the person learns the new skill becoming "the Master".



As the friend system is due a revamp anyway, the Master could assign one person (and one only) as their Apprentice. This person then has a "friend XP" bar whereby XP is granted for doing FPs/Ops or dailies in the same group over the course of days or weeks in the mnner of companion affection. When the XP bar is full, the skill the Master gained is passed on the Apprentice who then has the ability to train others (as does the original Master).



I was thinking that instead of just randomly throwing out skills, this mechanism could be used to train a whole new set of skills used purely for Ops level groups. I'm sure that they could be balanced sufficiently to not ruin the game or PvP but still be highly desirable. It would also encourages further interplay at endgame and feel that the gearing up process isn't just a grind but has another purpose.



It encourages the shy, retiring types to get involved at endgame and would definitely help build real communities on the server. Of course, there wouldn't just be one skill but maybe 2-3 for each class meaning that guilds running Ops could organise each member to find a different skill. I do think that guilds would appreciate a system like this as it would help them evaluate new members by sticking them in the Apprentice role and obviously would help role play and that sense of a meta-game that I do feel SWTOR is desperately lacking.



The trick of course is not overpowering the skills but making them worthwhile. I would say that a huge effort for the Master to initially get the skill would be needed otherwise people would just bypass the relationship aspect altogether and it could cause some uproar if it was too easy or hard to back out of a hastily made arrangement (perhaps activity/XP gain could be monitored as a mechanic?). There is another possible problem depending on implementation that it may force FP groups to change their group makeup (if the Master/Apprentice are both healers say) but a Master should really be in high level Ops gear to even attain the skill so it shouldn't make too much of a difference in non-HM FPs.



Obviously this isn't just for Force users and every class could have their own lore justification for the Master-Apprentice relationship. Even Boba Fett had a mentor who he looked up to.



It could also help new users to either the MMO genre or SWTOR learn both how to play their class and specific dynamics of specific fights in FPs/Ops as they would have a real world mentor teaching them who has done it all before successfully.



I don't even know whether the devs read this forum but it was just a thought that I reckon could solve a few issues the community has and bring almost all positive benefits.