I guess they'll start taking their customers more seriously when their subs continue dropping like a rock, but most will probably be laid off by then.

Didn't read the thread but hopefully someone pointed out that EA has to pay licensing fees to LucasArts and the estimated $200 million to create the game doesn't cover marketing expenses, which are probably hovering around $80 million. Also, EA only gets the full $60 per purchase from Origin sales because retailers have to get their cut. There are also operating/staffing expenses to consider. I'm too lazy to dig up numbers but the quoted revenue in the OP is probably too high and the expenses are way too low. Regardless, if EA merely recoups their costs for this game it will be considered a huge failure. The ROI on a 5 year investment like this would be abyssmal if it barely breaks even considering the huge appeal of the IP and investors/LucasArts would not be pleased.

Nah, this game is going down in flames and will be regarded as one of the biggest failures in MMO history. Writing is on the wall. After a 200 million dollar investment, the game sold over 2 million copies based on the Star Wars brand and the good (although recently tarnished) named of the developer. Subs are at about half of that after 5 months not counting idle subs, including the free month that was given out solely to inflate numbers for the investors. Realistically, active subs are probably below 1 million already. We're looking at thousands of more cancellation in the months between now and patch 1.3, then once players learn that 1.3 isn't adding anything significant, thousands more. Keep in mind all of these lost subs were in the absence of any new competition in the MMO space. Once Guild Wars 2 and Mists of Panderia hit, I doubt this game will keep the 500k subs needed to remain profitable. SWTOR will be lucky to see an expansion after EA guts the dev team and puts everything on life support. This is WAR all over again, which isn't surprising since BW Austin dragged some of the old WAR team along for the ride. Hopefully MMO publishers in the future won't be foolish enough to put these people in positions of authority again. If they do they have only themselves to blame.

Lol why would you post this? I would probably uninstall if I ever got 1v3'd. Some people have no shame.

Yeah Vanish is so great for Operatives considering it locks them out of healing for 10 seconds. If you can't solo an Operative as a melee class, you're bad end of story. They have one real casted heal (protip: lock this out) and you have problems if you can't out damage the 200 hps of their HoTs. You just have to CC them below 30% so they don't get instant heal procs. My Marauder cuts through them like butter, Commandos are still the best.

The fact is, you guys are an aberration. Most people aren't going to bother putting together an 8 man premade when there are 0 meaningful rewards for doing so. People are just going to eke out their dailies until rated comes along. Cross server isn't going to fix the problem because it's still going to be your premades vs a majority of pugs. It's great that you have at least 7 other people who love the game so much you're willing to play the same WZs over and over again for nothing, but you can't expect everyone to have the same fervor. Besides, if your group was that competitive you would've moved on to a game with real PvP by now. In the meantime you can queue solo or accept that your group is going to stomp pugs.

Nobody should expect anyone to stay in a losing game out of some vague sense of "faction loyalty" when BW can't be bothered to put matchmaking in the game. There's zero incentive for a solo PvPer trying to eke out his daily to be a punching bag against 4 man premades, sometimes multiple 4 man premades. If you queue solo you see how the first objective goes and if the other team clearly has a premade and steamrolls it, you might as well leave and do something productive with your character. Putting in penalties for leaving won't fix it, people will just afk and come back to move their characters so they won't get kicked. The only thing that will alleviate the problem is decent matchmaking where pugs don't get pitted against premades.

Most people can't articulate why they think Marauders are OP, they just mindlessly follow the herd. These people don't understand that Marauders are a pure DPS class who don't have access to taunt/guard like the other melee classes. Nobody is taking those damage mitigation numbers that Marauders lack into account. Even then, Marauders aren't doing much more DPS. Shadows are still much better even without any changes in 1.2, it's just that the devs have passed over Shadows quietly and Marauders are "next in line" for nerfs from the PvP forum community because hey, someone has to be nerfed.

It's hard to say of the class is any good in organized PvP because it's mostly PUGs and semi-PUGs running around at the moment. The fact is the class has no utility and that hasn't changed. The good thing is 1.2 lowered TTK for everyone and it is really benefiting Concealment from my experiences. We hang our hats on ganking a single target and it's easier than ever after the patch. Oh, and 12s Backstab cooldown is awful. Makes our rotation feel super clunky.

Healers were fine pre 1.2. Certain melee classes actually could kill them 1v1 but it took time and strategy. I see nothing wrong with that. The issue was always healers PLUS tanks. A guarded healer receiving the benefit of taunts, not to mention peels and CC, was basically unkillable. Smart teams were stacking tanks and healers and turning matches into stall wars. I doubt that's the kind of exciting gameplay BW wanted to showcase, but that's how Ranked was looking to shape up. So now everyone is squishier due to losing some HP and healing is a bit behind thanks to expertise. TTK is down for everyone. Tank plus healer is still powerful but a bit more manageable thanks to the power of burst, but solo healers are getting left in the dust from the changes. Now most DPS classes can solo a healer and healers rarely have time to do anything but heal themselves. The solution is to restore TTK to pre1.2 somehow (increase Endurance values on PvP gear as a start) and reduce tank+healer synergy. Easiest way would be to not allow the mitigation of Guard+Taunt to stack on an ally.

Yeah it's pretty crappy to shout at people but it happens after a series of losses. But I don't see any problem with leaving the game if you aren't having fun. You didn't really choose these people as "your team" since it's a pick up game so if you find them bad to the point that you're not having fun, just leave and look for fun elsewhere. If you quit on a team with people you've chosen, however, that's really lame unless everyone agrees.

It's pretty clear the designers are drawing from the EU comic books for their inspiration. This explains the over the top fantasy-like armor sets which look nothing like the movies. I would be okay with that down the road after the safe designs got stale, but it is kind of strange to me why they decided to reach right for the out-there material. It seems like most people either actively dislike or barely tolerate the outlandish armor designs of most classes. Seems like it would have been better to play it safe for the first few tiers with designs most Star Wars fans are familiar with then move on from there once the well ran dry. I don't really see where they can go from here to be honest...back to simple robes and capes?

I find Assassins better than Marauders but people will probably say I'm biased. Darkness Assassins certainly kick the crap out of any class 1v1 and nobody has yet to convince me that doesn't translate into a WZ match with all the utility they bring (stealth, pull, speed, knockback, guard, taunt, basically every form of utility in the game). But if the community demands that Marauders are next up on the chopping block, so be it. I'm sure Assassins won't be far behind. The only thing is I haven't seen anyone convincingly state what specifically is OP about Marauders and what should be nerfed to make them balanced (i.e. not worthless). People talk about all these magical defensive cooldowns but there are 3. 1 is shared by the Warrior class on a 3 minute cooldown, and mirrored by the Assassin class. One is on a 1 minute cooldown and essentially gives heavy armor to the Marauder if he's attacked. The other is 5 seconds of damage immunity for 50% of health. The Marauder can still be CC'd for the duration. Keep in mind this is a medium armor melee class without real stealth and no way to absorb damage from teammates like the Assassin/Juggernaut. Also, it doesn't do any more damage than the other DPS specced classes. Please state how this class is imbalanced compared to the other melee classes, keeping in mind all of their abilities.

I think melee in general is just dominating PvP right now. It's playing out like a game of wack-a-mole, who can kill who the quickest. I notice more Assassins than Operatives on my servers, but Marauders are definitely FoTM now. Surprisingly, there are still few Powertechs.

Yeah the increased cooldown on Backstab makes the class feel more clunky. The rotation was never fluid, but there was some consistency as to when you could rely on Backstab coming off cooldown after a round of Shiv/Lacerate. Now you just go multiple seconds with excess energy and no skills worth hitting except...Rifle Shot for 400 damage I suppose. I'd rather have Backstab back at a 9 second cooldown and just nerf the damage by 5% than what actually happened to it.