Does it really take this long to fix this problem? It's disheartening, not sure If I'm going to resub if it doesn't happen before my subscription expires Anyone else feel like they have had more then enough time to fix this issue?

So it's OK to insult me? Everyone who isn't in Rakatta is an alt? I disagree about anchorhead, although I will go check it out.

I agree with you here to some degree. Although I think a lot of people will not be able to complete this content. Sure BW might make it easier in the future but the damage has been done.

I would appreciate that you keep your insults to your self in the future. Did I ever say anyone should be given something or not having to work for it? I never said anyone should be given anything. As for the other parts you tried to rationalize... EV and KP hard modes are doable in Tionese and crafted gear. Not by the average player though. I also disagree that 50% of the player base is currently complete hard mode operations, that's far from the truth. Of course that part is purely speculation on both of us, although if you look around at most 50's standing around on the fleet, they are not wearing mostly rakatta and campaign gear, so it's pretty safe to say that your argument isn't valid.

I disagree. If you complete hard modes, you're probably a pretty good player. The average player had a hard time with the old hard modes. EC is even tougher. People will and are leaving the game in disgust now. If I wasn't a decent player and couldn't attain top tier gear and be locked out of parts of the game, I would leave also. It's not about what people deserve, it's the ability to emphasize with people who aren't as talented as yourself. No one likes being relegated to the newbie tier. It's a matter of making the gear attainable to the average player or be content with just letting those people go.

I disagree. The average players are leaving the game. The game is in decline and the problem has just been magnified, some people stuck around for 1.2 because they thought things would change for the better, now even those are going to leave. Summations like yours do nothing but fuel the problem. You're probably a talented player with a core group of good players. The problem lies in the fact that most people are having problems with even story mode. IMO only time will tell, but I'm fairly certain this patch was the last nail in the coffin lid. It will be tough for SWTOR to come back from this, if it ever does. I hate that of my dozens of friends who started this game with me and the hundreds more I met in my guild are all gone. The few who remained except for me and 2 others have thrown in the towel because of 1.2. This really sucks

I have done several bosses on nightmare mode. Don't do it a lot. I agree about the challenge and the difficulty of doing operations. My point is people are not going to stick around or be content with sub tier items. Nightmare is the true hard mode in this game. The hard mode is more of a normal mode for people who have the right gear. It's a good naming convention because it makes the average player feel like they have accomplished something. Why couldn't you run the nightmare modes with hard mode gear, wouldn't it be more challenging that way? It is the challenge that you say you want right? Facts are that if the average person can't get access to top tier gear. They will not play this game. It doesn't matter that people feel they should have better gear or that they deserve better gear. If the average person people cannot obtain it, they will not play the game. If most of the average players leave the game, we will not have a game for much longer. At least not a game that gets very much attention. WoW is a good example to look to. The vast majority of people play PVE in WoW and the raid content isn't too hard, the average person can and does complete their raid content. The same isn't true in SWTOR even before 1.2. The only people in my old guild of 200+ who stuck around are 3-4 of the good raiders and 2 guys who play warzones.

I'm in a progressive raid guild, we complete the content regardless and we get the gear. It isn't an issue of whiny players. If average players lack the skill to have access to similar gear as the better players. They aren't going to play the game. I think the nightmare modes should be xponentially tougher and reward same stat items with different appearances and/or titles. I have many friends that I don't raid with who aren't the best players. They are fun and they are friends, but why would they stick around in a game that they can't complete almost all of the content? The have already quit, people are leaving in droves, it's plainly obvious. The question is why these people are leaving? Well from my experience people leave because they are locked out of content because they can't complete it. Some where OK with just completing hard modes. Before They could sometimes muster out a hard mode and get gear, in 1.2 they cannot. In the end, it's better to piss of and loose the top 10% then the middle 70%. I understand that you want to be rewarded for your skill or whatever, but without the massively in your MMO, you will find that it isn't so much fun anymore. Some people on these forums act as if they are some sort of elite medieval nobles. They have a table full of delicious raid gear. They think the average commoner should be content with fighting the dogs for the scraps that fall to the floor laugh haughtily and pronounce they should be happy they got anything! Plebs!

Replying to the relevant part of your post. I never said someone couldn't beat some who is in better gear. Right now PvP rewards are based on persistence. Take a look at war hero stuff, ratings come into play soon and gear will have a rating restriction. Do you think people will continue to play when restricted from the best gear? I don't think they will, who would?

I was talking about 1.2 content. Also wasn't looking for snide comments. Was looking for responses an opinions and elaboration on why you think what you do and explain it thoroughly. As stated I wanted to know what people's opinions where and why. I don't care if you just disagree. If you do disagree, please keep it relevant to what I said at least and stay on the topic of 1.2 content and what direction it is headed. Thanks for coming

Will the average player continue to play a game where they can't complete new content or have access to top end gear? That's the question BW should be pondering. It doesn't matter if the top 10% of players who run orginized raids find the game easy. That's what nightmare mode is for, to get extra gear as a reward for running extra hard content. Most of the people who play this game are casual. The casual player should be able to complete operation and hard mode flashpoints with their friends. They should eventually be able to complete hard mode operations to get top rated gear after a month or two of gear progression. The current state of the game restricts the average casual player, by far the majority, from having access to end game content and gear. The best players and best raiders should have a challenge. For them we have nightmare mode and yes, I agree, it should be really hard. Much harder then it is now. The problem is hard mode ops. The top players want it to be elite player exclusive transistion grounds and the casual player wants access to the best gear. Hard mode, has to be casual friendly. Why? I'll tell you why, because people will not play a game where they are excluded and in a game like this, gear is everything. The same goes for rated warzones. If you restrict average players from the best gear. They wil not praticipate for very long. Who would? Many casual people hung on just long enough to see some of the changes made in 1.2. What did they see? They saw that they will not be doing the new operation. They see that very soon they will be given a warzone rating and will be told they can't have PvP gear if they don't add up to the pro player. IMO, BW has gone the wrong direction with this update. I think it will effect the overall player base and we will see a huge dip in subscribers. BW should have made nightmare modes harder and the new hard mode operation accessible. Everything I have said is anecdotal, am I right? What are your opinions on the new content and will people stay to play it? I don't think they will.

WoW became a huge success when it made all the content and gear accessible. If the game puts high end gear out of the hands of the regular player, do you think they will still play the game?

Perfectly presented. I try to say stuff like this but it usually comes out as FFFFFUUU BW!

It is declining. Layoffs at EA. Server loads are almost light for every server. Anyone in a guild can just look at their roster to reassure themselves people are leaving the game. Posts from BW about how people aren't leaving, they just aren't playing as many hours a week. The game is in serious decline, if you can't see that, it's because you see only what you want to see. Time will tell.

Only because people where waiting to see some fixes and changes in 1.2. Since they made the ops harder and derailed their game even more by listening to people on these forums, the game is dead in the water now.

I agree with everything except, that, people wont just stop raiding. They will quit. The servers where getting bare before with the current level of difficulty. Since BW went with making the ops harder, that pretty much killed the game. People came back for 1.2, where disappointed with the new raid, now they will all leave again and even some of the people who stuck it out will leave now also. BW has made a HUGE mistake.

The problem is that the people who find it too difficult are about 80% of the player base. Also we should just be happy with our T2 knowing that we can't achieve T3 or T4? Yeah people will stick around for that.

A lot of people aren't raiding because it's too "difficult". Those people are leaving the game, in a few more months the game will be barren and you can enjoy what you and others on the forum have reaped.

enjoy playing the game by yourself in 6 months.

I completely agree. Although you'll find that most people who post here will disagree and BW definitely will not listen. That has been their problem all along and they are still moving further in the wrong direction.

About me. I lead a guild that had 273 active members at its prime. We ran multiple operation groups every week. As of several weeks ago we have 4 players regularly loggin in. We had to merge with another guild. That guild had a large number of players also. It now has almost enough for a 16 man operation. So I agree the game is in decline and I have a lot of insight into why because I maintain contact with my former guildies through email. The game is in massive decline, similar to AoC and Warhammer. BW shouldn't be asking what's wrong on the forums. Contrary to these forums, the end game content was too hard before EC/LI came out. EC/LI came out and EC/LI is even harder then the previous Operations where. Most of the folks who browse these forums claim the content was to easy. To their credit, it probably was for them. The problem is that for most regular players operations as they where, are too hard. BW released EC/LI and made the operations and new hard modes EVEN HARDER?!?! *** where they thinking? It's pretty obvious why they are having Q and A's on the forums. It's because they have no idea what players want. The problem with asking people on the forums, is that forum browsers are mostly elitest's or a small percentage of people who come here to post because they are angry. These forums have turned into a mirror of WoW's forums. It is trolled by elitest's and people who pounce on anyone who criticizes anything about the game. I never thought a forum could get as convoluted as Blizzard's, but BW has managed it. Also regular players, the majority of the game's player base, don't browse the forums, they don't in any game. The forums are browsed by mostly the best of the best and they share a lot of stories and strategies. Most the people who browse the forum's are really good players, sure they are elitest's and everything, but hey, they are good at the game. You aren't going to get the answers to your questions here BioWare. If you ask them, they will say the operations are to easy if they are hard and they will say they are just right. You are pretty much asking the top 10% about the game's difficulty. With the number of people leaving the game without full operation sets, it should be obvious the operation content is too hard. BW should look to the obvious. The obvious, you know, how many people who have a level 50 that can actually complete a hard mode operation. Also they could look at how many people attempted EC and gave up. I'm certain they would find that only around 10-15% of people can complete the content. Itemization and content matching the rewards. So you need mostly Rakata with maybe a few Columi to complete the new hard mode, sure if you are really good you could probably do it in just Columi, we are talking average players here. You work at it and work at it and finally kill the first boss. Congrats you just earned some Columi gear!! What? Really? Now you make it to the end boss because you hear he drops a rakata chest. You kill him and he drops a bounty hunter chest, the thing is your group doesn't have a bounty hunter in it. Then you have hard mode EV and hard mode Karagga's. I have been doing both for months. I have 3 rakata pieces and I'm using the battlemaster sniper rifle. Granted most people aren't as unlucky as I am, but hey that's what commendations are for right? Guess what, no Rakata commendations. Was that done to intentionally force people to rage quit? Also BW introduced a new loot bug with 1.2. What bug you say? Try running hard mode EV or HM Karaga's without a class. For instance, go without a Sith inquisitor, that means no assassin's or sorcs. If you run without a specific base class you can get bugged so that the first Rakata piece that drops, is always for the missing class. Now look at some of the boss's in hard mode flashpoints. Some of them aren't balanced at all. The bonus boss on Kaon under siege is awful. Everyone used to glitch it before because it was too hard. Well BW has nerfed that glitch and he no longer drops the Columi head piece. He drops tionese. If you are wearing tionese you probably couldn't run KUS so why have the hardest boss in there drop Tionese gear? Bugs, bugs and more bugs. Here's a short list of bugs we had issues with in the Hard mode operations. Soa not dropping his debuff pillar count on a wipe. Soa platforms disappearing after a wipe, lots of fun if you don't notice and fall to your death half way through. Soa RNG means sometimes a run can't be completed no matter how well you run it. Pillars not bring down Soa's shields Pylons in EV, we all know about this one. At karagga, having the ground AOE fire stuff be invisible to some people. (they still haven't fixed this one) I'm tired of listing these, there are a bunch more, almost every boss in the operations had some chance of a debilitating bug. Sure BW fixed most of them. Took them 4 or 5 months. Nothing pisses people off , like fighting bonethrasher, who is tough to start of with, and finally getting him down to 5% health after a bunch of wipes. Things or going great, everyone is still up and no one got knocked into the acid, we are about to win!! Bonethrasher disappears and walks back through the gate at 100% health. To make things worse, that bug was left in game for almost 5 months, 5 MONTHS! PvP, bad to worse. So you are going to add rated battle grounds? Let me guess, you'll have a rating system and players will only be able to get the best gear if they have a good rating. You will limit this content to about 10-20% of the player base. Now you want the other 80% of people who play this game for PvP to resub? Really? You didn't learn your lesson with the Ilum graveyard debacle? You're just gonna throw this into the game on top of the operations that are too hard? Why? To make sure you alienate anyone who you might have left playing the game? Now PvP is a special case when it comes to rewarding players gear. The problem lays with the fact that, the more you gear out the great players, the harder it is for new or average players to get the same gear. It gets so bad in rating systems that only a really good player will ever have a chance to wear the top tier gear, like in WoW. Seriously, stop copying WoW, most of us came here for something different, it's similar enough, stop it. Server Merges and population balancing. Do server merges and do it right now. Bite the bullet and fix the problem. If you wait, more and more of the people on low pop servers are going to leave. Also why haven't you added incentives to play as republic on unbalanced servers? You have done nothing at all to fix the balance problem in almost 5 months!! Sure you gave out a free 30 days to people with level 50 characters, but you couldn't even do that right. You alienated everyone who doesn't have a level 50 character by saying they weren't important enough to get a free 30 days.

Do you plan on making the end game OPS more accessible or do you plan to hemorrhage even more of your player base when they can't get into EC because of RNG loot and RNG loot bugs? Also do you ever plan on making operations easier or do you plan on just making them harder and harder to cater to the top 10%?

Finding a group can be tough. I agree they need to implement the LFG tool here. Good luck finding anyone else in SWTOR to agree with us though. A lot of them come from WoW and seem to think that somehow makes the LFG tool a bad idea. Mob mentality on this issue I'm afraid.

...and I have 3 rakata pieces. F you bioware. /frustration = off

This is the problem with the state of the game. People tell this stuff to the developers. You are trying to say that you completed the first encounter while taking three times the damage and a minute less on the enrage timer? You're a liar.