This unfortunately will never be "fixed." The reason TTK is so high is because the format for Solo Ranked is an arena. Arenas are a different beast entirely from warzones and class balancing has to be done with the expectation that any DPS will be self-sufficient in a solo Ranked arena where there might not be any guard or healing. In order to be viable in that format each DPS needs to be able to withstand some intense pressure from multiple opposing players without the help of mitigation from teammates. Since warzones play fundamentally differently than arenas, deaths are permanent, are more likely with the 8v8 format to have healers and tanks, and don't often duplicate the same sort of pressure on a single target outside of premades, the end result is that TTK is often high in Regs. You're getting a lot more 1v1 and 2v1 action with the likelihood or more healing or guard mitigation thrown into the mix. It is also why some specs that aren't considered strong in Ranked are strong in Regs. The only way you could have Regs return to an era where everything dies relatively quickly without healing or guard would be if the Solo Ranked format was also 8v8 warzones, which unfortunately won't happen. That ship has long since sailed.

Queshball would have been better if the player spawn was down below with the ball. At least then the deathmatchers might accidentally contribute by controlling the ball spawn. It would then have the oddity of the endzone being separate from the player spawn but that would also set it apart from Classic & Vandin, and it isn't like someone coming out of spawn is going to stop a score most of the time anyway. If they get the ball that far they're probably getting in. Of course you'd still have desync issues.

Even the scrub premade has a built in advantage. Put four people on a premade team that don't know when to use their defensive abilities at the right time, are bad at positioning, and using offensive abilities in a subpar manner...and they'll still win a kill battle versus 95% of PUG teams if they just manage to focus the same targets at the same time. They'll spend the entire match getting mismatches and deleting people in 4v1 matchups because the target PUG players aren't going to get much if any support. Premading is basically EZ mode which is why there are some players who won't enter a warzone without one. I PUG & premade depending on my mood and who is on, so I can see the pluses & minuses from both sides. Premades shouldn't be removed from the queue because playing with friends is fun and should be an option in an MMO, but more should be done to balance teams. It is hard to know what goes on under the hood but matchmaking seems to prioritize fast pops because even during peak hours when you have multiple premades in the queue, more often than not instead of facing off they'll usually be in separate warzones facing separate PUGs. You can see it through Who searches. Math also tends to screw over the PUG players because while they'll get some matches with a premade on their team versus one without, the odds are greater than they'll be on the all PUG team. If you have 16 players in the queue and 4 are on a premade team, 8 of the remaining 12 are going to be on the all PUG team. Since most players queue for multiple warzones the way that will all shake out is that the PUG player in the queue is going to be against the premade most of the time. That maybe more than anything is probably why you get threads like this. People would probably accept the broken matchmaking as a fact of life if they had one bad match from it, but the people who create these threads have probably just come from half a dozen matches where it was a PUG team versus a premade. That said sometimes salt leads people accuse to teams ofbeing premade that aren't as well. I know I've had trash talk thrown my way in Say about premading when in fact I was solo for that match. Sometimes you do get a couple random players thrown together that coordinate well.

There is a middle ground and that is to make premades wait until another premade is in the queue. The queue isn't segregated into separate premade & PUG queues but matchmaking prioritizes balance over fast pops. That is the way it should work quite frankly. If they aren't getting a pop they can spam "Q premade Regs" just like how solo Ranked matches form. The tradeoff for queuing premade should be maybe having to wait 10 minutes instead of 30 seconds for the next pop. There is no reason for anyone to be against that except for preferring matches to be imbalanced. Premades aren't so rare that anyone would sit in a queue without pops. 10 minutes should probably be the maximum limit as well. After that it just pops even if the teams aren't balanced. That is all true but PUG teams for whatever reason can never match a premade one for coordination, even if the PUG team has 3 or 4 solid players. There's just some weird psychological barrier where people fail to cooperate if the other 7 players are strangers that they didn't group with prior. As a PUG player you can even mark targets that should be focused or call it out in Ops at the start of a match and more often than not people still don't focus the right targets even if it is an arena where failing to do so usually means a loss. Or they fail to suggest an alternative target for that matter if they disagree. In arenas you'll often get 4 people on 4 different targets or in WZs frustration like being the only one on an unguarded and marked healer, but nets, CC, and knockbacks from teammates limit your pressure while they get some breathing room to freecast, because you don't have a teammate applying pressure while you're eating that CC or root. Invite some of those people to a team, or they invite you, and all of a sudden cooperation starts happening. It's weird. Happens with PVE too.

These threads are a guilty pleasure. ~Both sides of the argument have their points. People should be allowed to group with friends in an MMO, including for PVP, but the people who gripe about premades aren't wrong that matches cease to be fair when that happens. That has more to do however with SWTOR prioritizing pop times over balanced matches, instead of making premade teams wait until another is available for an opposing team. IMO premading should come with an acceptance of potentially longer wait times if it means more balanced matches. ~Premades aren't any more likely to win than PUG teams, at least in 2021 where way too many players both PUG and Premade care about nothing except their leaderboard numbers. Sometimes the premades are a detriment to the team they land on because they spend an entire Huttball match fighting in a pit or spend an entire Voidstar defense round not fighting near doors and failing to catch up after they get capped on. It's really a coin flip whether the premade or PUG will play the objectives better. ~Where premades DO dominate, at least if they've got a very basic level of teamwork, is in damage output and kills. PUG players aren't going to get peels from DPS teammates and heals or guard are never guaranteed so the way that tends to work out is that the PUG player never fights one player from that premade, they end up fighting all three or four at once with little or no help. A PUG player can at times use that to their advantage by luring people away from objectives, but spending an entire match being tunneled by half the other team isn't exactly fun. When people aren't having fun, they tend to drop queue. ~That premades often dominate in the deathmatching the majority of the time has absolutely NOTHING to do with individual skill level. As much as people like to gripe about Ranked teams ruining Regs, the All-Star Ranked teams breaking the queue is about as rare as snow in Mexico City. The average reg premade is composed of players that are maybe Bronze skill level at best, and that is being generous for most. The average Regs premade is composed of players who aren't good enough to compete at a high level in Ranked. They win in the kills column because it is nearly always a numbers game because matchmaking doesn't wait to pit premades against premades. That team of 8 PUG players is going to be a team of individuals that isn't going to have the coordination to counter 3 or 4 premade players all focusing the same targets, and you don't need to be in voice chat to focus the same target. ~Heals & tank imbalances. Trinity premades aren't the norm but matchmaking breaks one enters the queue because more often than not they'll be pitted against a PUG team that has neither, instead of making them wait. ~The "We just want to play with friends" defense gets trotted out way too much. It has a kernel of truth to it, but let's be real. Most of the premade teams that stomp PUG teams on the regular drop queue themselves the moment one of the players from the PUG forms their own team of heavy-hitters through Discord or guild chat and turns the tables in the next match. Once they start getting farmed by another premade, they log off almost without fail. Or send nasty tells before quitting. Of course there are exceptions but on the whole it is as much or more about stomping PUG teams that don't stand a chance as playing with friends. Not sure if Eiekal's post was 100% serious or bait, but it doesn't really matter. The post is truth. ~Even if Bioware does nothing it all balances out in the end. You're going to get plenty of matches where the premade is on your team and the opposing one is a PUG. W/L also is determined more by which team plays the objectives better than whether or not a team has a premade. The exceptions are arena matches & maybe Ancient Hypergate, but that last one is winnable even if your team is losing the kill battle. There is some truth to the argument that people only complain about premades when they lose. ~"Make friends" is an an amusing meme response but most people playing solo aren't doing so because their friends' list is empty. Sometimes people just want to play solo so they won't be beholden to their friends' whims. Maybe they want to play the objectives for a change but their friends deathmatch, or vice versa, or they'd like to play through a Huttball match instead of following Moe, Larry, and Curly into a drop. Or maybe they're playing at a time of day when their friends or guildmates just aren't on yet. Maybe they just want to try out spec they aren't as familiar with without the pressure of needing to keep up with the Joneses. There are lots of reasons to queue solo & anyone who NEVER queues solo is just scared of playing solo.

I used to main a healer as well and I was never really fond of someone putting guard on me in spawn, except for maybe an arena. There were a couple problems when people did that... The first is that we might not be headed to the same place. I've had tanks put guard on me at spawn but then go off running toward the other team's node instead of mid, where my healing would be most needed. I'd just ignore it and continue on to mid. That's fine if the tank realizes and shuts off guard, or knows how to guard swap, but a lot of times they don't. The other is that a lot of times that tank just wants to number farm and is hoping you'll pocket heal. Staying at mid for example in Huttball, or even dueling in the pit, instead of putting guard on ball carriers while I heal them. Getting back to the topic, guard could use a bit more visibility. It is easy enough to work out who is guarding who during an arena but once you get into an 8 v 8 match where the majority of both teams are piled on top of each other, with a lot of ability effect spam going on, it isn't always immediately obvious. I suppose the counterpoint would be that skanks would get less protection points if the enemy was always able to immediately distinguish where the guard got swapped to, but that is why we have a play test server. See if it's broke before it goes life, and if broke, ditch.

There are pieces of that posted regularly on the GTN, though for a few million each. They're all the GC pieces that some players have hoarded. There is also IIRC an identical Bind on Legacy set with a different name that drops now as loot. Not sure if there is any particular place to farm for that. It might just be a world drop that can occur anywhere. Pretty sure I've had a couple pieces drop from mobs while doing FPs.

That isn't the only thing. If that was the only thing why play SWTOR? Plenty of games out there that provide mindless pvp where you don't have to use any tactics besides mashing offensive or defensive abilities at the correct time and place. No doubt that is how people who deathmatch in Regs view things and it is why regs matches that accumulate a critical mass of them turn into a mess. The thing is...for most matches you don't even have to sacrifice DPS to also play to win. Theexceptions are Huttball matches if you're the only one running the ball or Odessen if you run mods and your nodes just don't get attacked. For the rest though the fighting is generally going to be at contested nodes. If a person fighting at that node can't multitask, can't target swap at the right time, or use CC at the right moment without a DPS loss...they're not good DPS.

Damage definitely matters a lot, even in Huttball. If you can't control the spawn point or kill enemy ball carriers you're probably going to lose. You're right though that damage doesn't matter nearly as much as the e-peen measuring damage farming regstars think. You got to be focusing the right targets, first. Sticking with Huttball, if someone is doing a rotation on another DPS and ignoring an enemy ball carrier or an enemy healer keeping them up their DPS is meaningless. Some DPS also need to leave mid (or worse, the pit) and support their own ball carriers. If no one is doing that and their own ball carrier gets blown up because of it, their DPS is also meaningless. Then you have Voidstar or other node matches where people chase so far away from nodes that they can't break caps and someone caps behind them, or they're just so locked into tunnel vision on another DPS that they don't even notice it. Also meaningless. Then you have the DPS that quite literally don't know how to do anything but damage. If it is amazing how many of these damage farming big brains finish a match with little or no protection points despite playing a spec with taunts and guard. Guard is much more situational now but even when it wasn't you'd still have DPS with taunt and guard putting up big DPS numbers but having a goose egg in protection. Also useless. Most DPS also don't seem to know what a mez looks like or when to use their own CC. The amount of times your own team has cap attempts fail because of premature mez breaks or lack of support with CC is amazing, yet some of these same clowns will have the gall to blame their team for a loss when the leaderboard pops with a big D. Of course it's not just the cause of defeats. People tend not to notice those things when they win, but the reality is the great majority of wins are also because of bad play on the other team. I used to be against suggestions that Bioware remove the leaderboard because its always good to see how you performed, and it does feel good when it pops and you crushed it with damage, protection, healing, objectives, ect. Removing it though might lead to some of these people mindlessly focusing on damage and nothing else to play a fuller game, and lead to better matches.

I can afford to buy any item I want from the GTN with credits, so it isn't really a concern for me. The new player wanting a black-black dye that is now listed for 250,000,000? Good luck.

They're up on a lot of CM items. Some of the more in demand items are going for much more than what they sold before the augments dropped despite the CC cost being the same.

Are you sure the emails are completely gone? I've run into bugs in the past where emails weren't displaying. Usually logging back in fixes it.

Bioware is never going to put some kind price controls on items listed on the GTN, because it isn't in their interest. If the credit prices rise for desired items more people are going to buy that item with Cartel Coins, either to sell on the GTN as a kind of credit exchange or because the price spike has put that item out of a player's credit range. CM sales are probably up.

It is the new augments. The prices spiked as soon as they were introduced. It is sellers raising the prices of cosmetic items they are selling so they can afford to gear their toons. That has a knock on effect because even people who aren't interested in the new augments raise prices either to earn more money for the now more expensive cosmetic items they want, or because the thing they are selling is listed for a lot more than it used to.

A ton of wealth being in the game is nothing new. The real reason why GTN prices have spiked so much this year is the new augments. People are raising prices on their GTN sales with the hopes of making more credits so they can afford to gear up. That has a knock on effect because even people who aren't in the market for augments raise prices as well, both because the cosmetic items they want to buy are more expensive and because the thing they're selling is now listing for more.

I have to disagree with your assertion that the skill requirement lowers the more teammates you have. I'd argue the opposite is true. The smaller the team, the more outcomes are determined not by gameplay but by spec distribution. Many arena matches are determined before they start based on how matchmaking sorted the teams (ex. giving one team 3 specs than can guard and the other zero). While spec distribution remains a large factor in 8 v 8, the bigger team sizes and larger maps with respawns and objectives beyond PKing provide greater opportunities for teams that weren't blessed by the matchmaking god to pull off an upset by focusing their efforts away from the spec mismatch. The 8 v 8 format also allows for a greater number of specs to be viable. Objective play, just like killing other players in arenas, requires coordination with teammates and strategy. It's no less skill based. It arguably even adds another layer of complexity in terms of strategies than arena matches. It is true that the skill requirement for Ranked is much steeper than that for Regs, but that is because it is Ranked...not because the maps are 4 v 4 arenas. That is the players and not the format. If 8 v 8 Ranked was a thing and the only game in town you would see 8 v 8 played at the same high level of 4 v 4 Ranked.

Create a bounty hunter character. Not only will you get a Jawa as one of your main companions, Blizz also happens to be one of the fan favorites. As the previous poster mentioned he also returns for all characters in KotFE, but the majority of his story content is going to be in the bounty hunter class story.

Tank companions have always been bad sadly. I can't comment on whether things are worse now because I don't use them in tank stance for that reason, but they've lacked guard as far as I can recall and have always struggled to hold aggro. Unless companion tank stance gets reworked so that they have better or more frequent taunts, or they're given guard...it is best to either set them to heal or DPS. Tank stance companions are basically DPS companions that do worse DPS than their DPS stance.

Solo Ranked happened. In a system where all Ranked relies purely on trinity teams, class balancing is conducted with that trinity in mind. In other words pure DPS classes are allowed to be fragile because in theory you have a healer and tank mitigating incoming damage. The same is also true for difficult PVE content. Solo Ranked is an entirely different beast to balance for than Team Ranked or PVE and if Solo Ranked is going to exist pure DPS specs need to have some sustainability. Trinity team versus trinity team is going to be the exception and pure DPS matches more common. Without a tank or healer to rely on, in theory a DPS spec needs some strong counters to not get blown up out the gate if they get first focus. That isn't to say that class balance has ever been executed to perfection, but if you're bothered by pure DPS specs having tanky DCDs or off heals...the bad news is that isn't going to change. It can't so long as there is Solo Ranked.

This. I can understand the frustration if someone is pugging it and they're up against premade that is playing to win for a change, but not every match is going to be a solo player with 7 other puggers versus premade teams. Play enough and you'll also get pug vs pug matches or get the premade on your team while the opponents are all puggers. It all balances out in the end. Rolling back this change would only revert Regs to it's 5.0 state, where most of the premade teams were just mindlessly number farming and were a detriment to whatever team they landed on. Not that deathmatching was any less prevalent among puggers than premades, but a premade that wasn't playing to win was sandbagging their team with 3 or 4 players that were dead weight. Sometimes you had better odds with a pug team. Things are better now and more competitive.

Rather than a customization pack for humans or cyborgs this would probably be better handled as a Near Human "species" option you choose when creating a character, similar to choosing Human, Twi'lek, or Pureblood Sith. A generic Near-Human option that included skin tones that varied from chalk-white to pink to red to violet or coal-black, with hair and eye color options that varied just as sharply, would allow players to create Arkanians, Echani, Zeltrons, Pantorans, and Keshiri with that one startup option. Or create their own entirely unique species. One of the sliders can also be for cybernetics allowing for the creation of cyborgs.

First off I'd like to say great job on releasing many new personnel decos over the last couple years. I hope that trend continues as they help make strongholds feel like real places in the Star Wars universe. On that note it would be great if new personnel decos included species that are currently in the game as NPCs or player characters, but not yet represented by a deco. Some variety in background would be great as well, so that there would be something available for most Strongholds regardless of theme. A few examples... Wookies - Would be great as both Republic soldiers and underworld characters like Smugglers or Bounty Hunters Abyssin - Violent culture, so underworld thug, bounty hunter, mercenary, or Sith could all work for a theme Advozse - The wiki says they often made good bureaucrats and during the film era many of them were Smugglers, so a Senator and Smuggler could be good themes Anomid - Noted technicians, so that would seem an obvious theme Bothans - Anything Republic themed would suit. Soldier, spy, Jedi. Cathar - Technically one exists as a vendor deco, but not counting it due to the vibe-killing vendor icon. The species' history would make them well suited to anything Republic aligned. Jedi, soldier, pilot, spy. Chagrians - They're noted for their peaceful culture, so perhaps a Jedi. Technically one exists as a vendor deco, but since it is a vendor with the vibe-killing vendor icon, I'm not counting it Drall - Noted scientists and scholars, so that would seem an obvious theme Esh-kha - Assuming any escaped Belsavis, perhaps a bounty hunter or pirate. Jedi could be interesting as well, since the Consular recruits peaceful force-sensitives. Evocii - Enslaved by Hutts, so a slave theme might suit Gen'dai - Bounty hunter, mercenary, or pirate Gormak - Aggressive species, bounty hunter, mercenary, or Sith Houk - Underworld thug Ithorian - Noted for their peaceful natures & being devoted environmentalists, so a Jedi master would suit well. The robed variety hopefully rather than the one in the pilot suit. Klatoonians - Although I don't believe any speak there are a couple NPCs in the casinos on Nar Shaddaa. A Hutt vassal species, so underworld thugs, smugglers, bounty hunters, or slaves could work as a theme Krex - Technically one of these does exist as a previous Ranked reward. Since only a tiny portion of the playerbase plays Ranked & the reward was time sensitive, I'm not counting it. Obviously the Ranked reward should remain unique, so no Huttball player. A bounty hunter or Republic military officer background could suit. Neimoidian - Generally viewed as villainous or greedy by other species, so smugglers, pirates, or Sith could suit well Ortolan - Seeing as we're also missing a character that can play the Nalargon, despite many cantinas around the SWTOR galaxy featuring one, why not provide players their own version of Max Rebo? Ongree - Noted for their diplomatic skills, so a Republic diplomat, Jedi, or even an underworld figure could suit. The wiki notes that the less reputable of them often lend their skills to gangsters. Tusken Raiders - Self-explanatory. Could work well in outdoor sections of Tatooine SHs. Ugnaught - Technologists / engineers Voss - Noted for their force-sensitive mystics and the class / planet / flashpoint stories included attempts by both the Jedi & Sith to recruit Voss, so Jedi padawans and Sith apprentices could be interesting Zeltron - Assuming that Darth Rivix is one. Noted for their hedonism and ability to influence others. Sith, imperial intelligence, bartender, entertainer, or a cantina patron would all suit. I'm aware as well that some of these are represented by companions who can be placed as decos, but I'm not counting them as they are limited to certain characters and cannot be used in guild strongholds. Companion decorations also turn into holograms if you visit your Stronghold on an alt, making their use very limited compared to personnel decos obtained as rewards or through the Cartel Market.

The Jedi Order plans to build a temple elsewhere. If you ask why, the response is that Tython was isolated from the rest of the galaxy. It seems the SoR era destruction isn't the reason, but rather a decision to a build a temple on a more settled Republic world. I don't believe anything is said on Korriban's status.

It has been happening groupfinder flashpoints as well. I've had two where everyone had to leave, reset active phase, and reenter to get put into the same instance.

The solution to grouping difficulties for Heroic 4s isn't to do away with them or make them solo content, to make them repeatable and worth Conquest points during certain weeks. Making them repeatable and worth a decent amount of Conquest points would eliminate most problems players have with finding groups for the Seeker Droid / Macrobinos heroics.