It's better than it was. I'd like to see something implemented where the hotbar slot glows when say, a free project (in the shadow tank tree) is up. It's really hard to tell from your buff bar. I realized this would be a WoW addon (i think it was an addon) ripoff, but damn, it was handy (especially for Frost DK's.

That's what the resolve bar does. Maybe they need to turn down how fast it runs out, but given BW isn't fixing any of the things people are overwhelmingly telling them need to be fixed I wouldn't count on anything changing.

Since that's where the games going anyway, why not? They've had almost 2 months to address problems that have been pointed out numerous times on the forums, yet nothing is changed. My server, and from people I've seen posting, probably almost every server, is at least a 2:1 ratio. Tarro Blood is at least 3:1 to the Imperials.

Ahem...uneducated means lack of knowledge, which means ignorant. Thanks for proving my point for me. I'd rather them fix the balance problem too, but you can't make people play a faction they don't want to play, broken as it is, or not.

Have you played a republic character to high level? No? I have. Consulars are broken (e.g. project cast to land time and other inconsistancies). Have you played an operative to 30 and a scoundrel to 30? No? I have. Scattergun animations are at least 0.5 sec. slower than operative knife animations. That means backblast takes 0.5 seconds longer to hit from when you hit the button than a backstab does. A lot can happen in 0.5 seconds. If you aren't informed at the very least, and maybe, just maybe, have experience with both sides like I do, keep your ignorance (that means uneducated) to yourself.

Republic is broken and BW isn't doing anything about it. I've started playing Imperials on my server and I don't want to have relevel my original class with all the time put into crafting all the way to 50 again. I think you owe it to your customers that paid 60 bucks + the sub fee for a broken faction. Of course there will be people that say **** whiner, just start over and quit whining, or you should have played Imperial first. Those people can get the hell out. I thought I was paying for a balanced, working game. It isn't. Why should I have to spend 3-4 weeks releveling the same class because BW can't/won't fix the problems? Give us faction changes or fix the problem.

I've leveled an Agent Operative and a Smuggler Scoundrel to 30. Scoundrels animation for drawing the scattergun is at least 0.5 sec. slower than the same abilities for the vibroknife. It's completely noticable and you can feel the difference. I've given up playing republic, crafted a ton of gear from my level 45 shadow and sold it to my new toons on the hutt cartel network so I at least get some use out of all that work. The Republic is completely broken. I can say that because I was adamant Republic until about 3 weeks ago. I've played both sides. The differences are there. And then you get to the aesthetics. The empire just has better looking stuff. Armor, ships, races (Chiss are awesome). This is a one faction game, single player game. The only thing MMO about it is Warzones. You can argue that there are FP's and Operations, but PVP and crafted stuff is better in most cases. Republic is not the faction you are looking for. You can go about your business. Move along.

Yeah, that's gonna happen. Just another way they Republic got screwed and they're not doing anything about it. I just cant figure out why they'd design a game and WANT it to fail after a few months due to (among other things) a severe faction imbalance.

I first got scared about a faction disparity when I saw the Knight vs. Bounty Hunter video. When Devs are taking sides instead of remaining objective, you should have know there would be problems. Well, there is. I called it back then and I was right. It would seem that the HDIC (Head "Developer" In Charge) favors the Empire. I saw the problem coming then, and BW didn't dissappoint. Well actually they did, but they didn't prove me wrong.

This. I want to see a PvP experience in which skill, not gear, decides who wins. Gear should give you a *slight* edge. Not put you in godmode.

Temporarily? I want to switch all my toons to the Empire permanently. Republic got screwed. I'm just trying to draw attention to that fact and offer up ideas on how to make it better (not that BW is going to listen). I'm keeping my sub for now, but by the time the next game comes out (GW2?..I don't know what's big coming next) I'll probably be leaving unless major changes are made.

Yeah, when I first got my ship as a Agent, my jaw dropped. I never worried too much about how the ships looked before the game was released, now I think otherwise. The trooper ship is a flying box, the smuggler ship is a Falcon ripoff, and the consular ship is just lame. You are right in that the Empire got all the cool stuff, but let's give suggestions on how to fix the problem. You can add ship overhauls to the list.

No. Faction balance is the single biggest issue that needs to be addressed.

There's a lot of posts going around about the hugely disproportionate factions and ideas to fix them. Editted the original post to clarify for people that don't read the entire thread.

Unless you have a better idea, get out. Seriously, everyone, if you don't have something positive to contribute, just don't post. Will better graphics get people to play Republic more? Probably not. Will people like you who just say "no" to every idea people toss out there help the issue? Hell no. See this thread for non-game breaking bonuses to any faction that is severely outnumbered. http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=2175309#post2175309

There is no server in which the Repubic has anywhere near the numbers of the Empire. None. I've posted about this before, post ideas on how to fix the problem here: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=2175309#post2175309 The bonuses I have suggested aren't game breaking and *might* help get people to play republic. Note these bonuses would dissappear once some semblance balance is achieved. If you have better ideas, thorw them out there. BW won't listen and won't do anything about it, but you can fool yourself into thinking they care.

I'd bet it's because BW lowered the server capacity to give the illusion that more people are playing. Either that or to get more people just starting to play on the less populated servers. No, I don't think more people are playing (at least not in the amounts you seem to be suggesting).

You have no idea. I wish I'd have rolled Imperial to begin with. Now I have 2 pretty high level toons, and 3 more with pretty high crafting skills stuck on the Republic side, leaving me with only 3 slots for my Imperial toons. Why not just start on a new server? Because by the time I realized how bad the balance was off, I already had a ton of legacy xp and a ton of credits/recipes amassed on my republics...however I mostly play my Imperials now. I'd pay (a small fee at least) to be able to change my toons all to Imperial.

I think they need to merge servers. I think they need to do it in a way that evens out the faction imbalance. They can always bring servers back up if they need to (i.e. they actually fix the game and people start playing in greater numbers).

Didn't read all this but let me say this... I've played a republic scrapper and an operative. The delay time on a scrapper from drawing the shotgun to do a backblast and the ops animation for the backstab is noticable. There's lots of things I don't like, but every time I post something about it, it's just flames and lots of people crying "whiner". I don't like the faction imbalance. I don't like the crap economy that comes from a 3:1 imerial to republic ratio. I don't like it that imperials ops have noticably better activation timers (see above) than scrappers. I don't like it that I spent 8 hours trying to RE a scattergun from green, not knowing that it wasn't in game and no tooltip or codex telling me you couldn't. Lots of things I don't like. I could go on. I just got an invite for the closed beta of Diablo 3. I think I'm going to cancel too and play that for a bit and see if they can fix some of this crap.

This is one of the issues that merging servers would fix. The problem is they turned on too many servers too late. Another problem is that on every server (please tell me if you know differently), the Imps outnumber the Repubs on a massive scale. I'd pay a few bucks to transfer all my toons to Empire toons just so I'd have have my characters (yes I've started some Imp toons on my server). Wish they'd do something about server populations and faction numbers.

L2play, shadows get a tank spec and use Qyzen for DPS. He needs dps dps dps. =P

I guess I was wrong, after playing for a bit this morning:... This is a significant nerf. Very much so. If seems more like a 30-40% nerf. Shoot first feels useless now. This is not the class you're looking for. You can go about your business. Move along. I was also fighting an Imp that seemed like he was guarded, but had no guard nearby or guard icon on him. He was also breaking CC's and stuns 2 and 3 in a row. I don't know if they introduced new bugs with this patch or what, but scoundrel now feels damn near useless.

Instead of just saying "no", why don't you offer constructive feedback? Besides the bonuses I suggested (if you bothered to read the thread at all) are in no way game breaking and would just be a nice boost to a severely underpopulated faction, mainly to help the economy and help people get crafted gear. Read the thread and contribute or get out.

Sometimes it would be nice just to know our thoughts on the game we're now paying a sub for get heard. I know a lot of stuff gets posted on the forums, and I realize BW reps can't reply to every post, however many people in the community (I hope) would like to know what BW's official stance is on this and what is being discussed internally. Perhaps promote someone to forum duty and have them post what is being discussed so the player base knows what is going on with the game we choose to play. A "middle man" between we, the players, and the BW developers. Just sayin'...