I can't say about the Umbara one, but Manaan, like all the others, allowed you to add 25% to your stronghold bonus, just like all the others. I went from 125% to 150% It is 1/4 of your total completion of the SH (so you have to unlock every room and decorate up to the hook limit in order to get 100% completion and the full +25% SH bonus).

Back in the days of 4.0, exotic isotopes did not drop from Vet FPs, IIRC. We actually cared about getting them in ops. Before this change, I noted in one of guild ops how I'd get way more of them from an FP.

There's only two possibilities for the "number of guild members" you'd get paired with, and is either 2 or 3. If it's 4, obviously you wouldn't have been able to join. If it's 1, then you wouldn't have noted it. Almost all of us in my guild can play 2 or even 3 roles. And just about all the time, we can play DPS or the "other spec" of a class, if it has one. It seems obvious to me that by making sure a 3-person group represents the trinity, that we'd be prepared for any content, even just Veteren Blood Hunt That said, when we queue, we don't generally pay all that much attention in my guild for Veteran, but we would probably avoid queuing with 2 healers or tanks.

Times change. What used to be a "sports car" that could go 60 mph, is now something the cheapest of economy cars are expected to do and more. What traditionally defined the "MM" of MMO back in the mid-2000s does not seem terribly special. Even a 40-man ops (not even sure WoW still does those) seems not terribly large. In my experience, the only MMO that has really pushed the "MM" boundaries is EvE online, with its thousand or more player space battles. Not only that, but the entire concept of the game is around the economy and politics of multi- tens of thousands players. While I have high praise for the concept and execution, being PvP-centric, the game has no place for me. In my opinion, the downward slide of MMOs as a game type is due in part to the fact that it's not evolving, except perhaps graphically, from its roots. From the monetization model (subs becoming a non-starter now), to gameplay, it's not terribly different from 10 years ago. I guess that could be said of a number of genres, but the the difference is now that the playerbase (and more importantly, the potential playerbase) is no longer in tune with what the traditional MMO has to offer. I grant that SWTOR has a difference from traditional MMOs, in having a story-centric campaign that offers not only full voiceover, but regular and constant conversation choices. To the extent that these actually alter outcomes... well, that's spotty at best., but there are few games out there that let you really feel like you've defined your character's personality like SWTOR. But that doesn't make it a great game in and of itself--in fact, I would say that BW's own KotOR and ME series did this better. What I'm constantly on the look out for is an MMO that will break the mold, and offer the concepts of the community driven core of EvE, but applied to a mostly- (or at least half-and-half) PvE experience, where the actions of the players define the ongoing story told in around monthly editions--and not in a grind-alicious fashion of "do this op/mission for 10 rep/alignment/whatever points" and the highest total wins. What does this mean? I have no idea, frankly. It will be hard, and it will probably fail a few times too. But I'd like to see MMOs head towards actually feeling like an alternate reality, and not just a simplistic arcade game.

I'd like to eventually see some QoL improvements in gearing. Mind you, I'm not complaining about the CXP system itself--I've never been in better gear. It's just that aspects of the system itself feel... I guess "punishing" is the word. At times, even though I'm fairly satisfied with the gear I have, I get mightily annoyed at the process. A crate hardly feels like a reward. The low drop rates of purples or golds makes you approach each one like you're dumpster-diving. Yeah, maybe you'll find a gem, but it's 90% trash. Cosmetic gear? Instant disintegrate. Any scrap other than purple? Instant disintegrate. Purple scrap? Yeah, I'll keep the ONE piece I get. Rep Tokens? Mostly disintegrate since I'm Champion with all but the CM-based ones and the two fleet ones. Schematics for static armor/weapons? Disintegrate. Blues or Greens? Disintegrate. Gifts are cool, and I'll keep them. There's just too little of value in the crates. If you're going to give scrap, give lots--100 greens, maybe 50 blues, or 10-20 purples. Gifts are great, but are way too rare--each crate should have 5-10 purples and at least a couple golds, if not more. Cosmetic gear should be bound to legacy, though I'm not sure even that would be enough to make me keep any. And then dups.... Players HATE dups. You luck out on gold gear, only to find it's the one you already have. Yes, RNG is RNG, but you really shouldn't have both low chance and risk of dups. One of those two things should go. Maybe dups should disassemble into unassembled components, so at least it's worth something towards gear you need and not just a few hundred CXP.. Or, maybe at least allow you to convert it to your alt spec, but that still is just a one-time dup use. And other than crates, there's a lot of other annoyances with gearing. Get a new ear/implant/relic? Got to buy/craft another augment kit, and spend 40k for the slot. That's why using green/blue gear isn't worth it--without the augment, the lower rated stuff is better, and if you augment it, you're probably wasting creds on gear that will be outdated in a week. Then there's the annoyances I have with modding. Almost 50k to rip out a gold mod? I'm sure that some will say it's a needed credit sink, but the problem is just how annoying it is. I get a new gold earpiece, and now not only do I need to spend the augmentation cost for it, but also if I then need to rebalance my enhancements, more credits. It's like I said earlier--it sometimes feels like getting new gear is a punishment. It takes the shine off of it. And finally, most of us know to use only bound-to-legacy moddable shells. That way either a) you can pass the gear back and forth between pub/imp mirror classes; or b) you can pass the gear to a character who has the mod you need, without having to pay twice to rip the mod out. But why are mods bound to a char anyway, if the game lets you "hide" these bound mods in a piece of legacy gear? Just make all mods bound to legacy so we don't have to play these "games" doing what we're going to do anyways. And then, for extra brownie points, let mods of the same type and quality stack. Oh, and fix the bug where you don't see the set bonus on an item after you've taken it out of the legacy hold. I've personally lost a set-bonus piece that way... Though if we could pass mods around without this rigamarole, it would be less of a big deal.

If I remember correctly SWTOR uses "single roll determination", not multiple rolls. Defense subtracts from accuracy, and is not a separate roll. While not mentioned here, crits are determined with the same to-hit roll, and is not a separate one as well.

It's PvP, so I'll have nothing to do with it just like all other PvP. Note, I'm not saying it shouldn't be in the game, but just saying that there are those of us who don't play PvP at all.

I guess this is something that must be said: I loathe PvP. There is nothing they can offer me in-game to EVER make me PvP--ranked, unranked, open world, GSF, you-name-it. And it's not just this game--I NEVER PvP, anywhere. I played Eve Online at launch for 2 or 3 yrs and never PvP'ed, that's how much I won't do it. Some of my guild is PvP'ing more, though it's still a vast minority among the officers. And those who do it are purely doing it for gear, not because they actually enjoy it. I am sure that there are many who love it. I have nothing against that. But I want as close to zero influence on the PvE experience from issues of balancing PvP. PvP Bolster doesn't matter an iota to me, as I won't enter any place where it matters. As for expertise gear, I only care about it to the point where I could be put into situations where not having it affects my play--for example, it used to be the case where you could get flagged by inadvertently hitting the opposite faction who were stealthed and flagged near a WB, but luckily that is gone now. But areas like Iokath worry me that the devs are thinking to widen the occurrence of world PvP. But still, I like the idea of all gear being equal.

I just noticed that all the guild conquest leaderboards are blank.

As someone who never PvPs (OW or WZ), I'm fuzzy on a lot of the current mechanics. I think I understand your reply, but it presumes that a group is formed first. How does a Imp-loving Imp and a Imp-loving Pub communicate initially to find each other and form a group? I suppose you can whisper (not sure because I've never tried to do a cross-faction whisper). Even if you can, wouldn't there really be a need for some sort of story-faction-based channel so people can shout "The Pub base is being attacked!", and maybe even when chars are on the PvE instance doing dailies so that they can switch and participate? Won't really matter any to me, as I won't do any of this, mind you, but just wondering.

I just had a thought, for those who will be particpating in OWPvP (which will most definitely NOT include me, as I loath PvP of any type): how will chat work? If the game still restricts most chat to your class faction, how are players supposed to communicate for PvP, and not hear side chatter for your opposing story faction? EDIT: Ah, I see this was already answered--Gen chat is by class faction. So "traitors" would be able to see any planning being done by "loyalists" (or vice versa). I guess I'd have to see how that will work I'll have to see how it's presented in the story, but I have characters that would not really want to support either faction, in-character. So, being forced to do so will seem rather disconcerting, unless it was handled very carefully.

I'm not exactly sure that that means because there is no more concept of "flagging"--you're either in a PvP instance or you're not.

I loathe PvP in al forms. No matter what incentives are offered, I will not participate in any of it. I stopped at Eternal in DvL because there was no way I'd try to get any Valor. I'm at Valor 0 on all my chars, and I've never even queued for a WZ. When I happen to be in a PvP instance (for PvE reasons), if someone attacks I generally just sit back, wait to die, res back at a med center, and continue on doing what I was doing (or decide to change if there's too much PvP going on to avoid it). SWTOR is not alone in this regard. I even played EVE Online for about 2 or 3 years and can probably count on one hand how many times I fired at a player ship.

I might be repeating others' ideas here--sorry but I only skimmed posts... Gear drops: I would ditch specific items that drop. Every crate should drop unassembled components (like PvP). This way, every crate works towards a piece of gear you want. Also, there could be unassembled gear drops. This way, you can decide if you want your healer/dps/tank set-bonus without having to be in that discipline when you open the crate. If you get a dup hand/etc. piece, you can use it for another spec. If you get a left-side item, you can decide which variety fits into your stat allocations. More importantly, both of these changes allow you to gear alts. I don't think that blues need to disappear entirely, if these changes are made. If components are added, valor requirements would have to be removed to use them. Schematics: really, does anyone really want/craft static gear? I disintegrate all schematics for static armor/weapons. Gifts: IMHO, just hand out multiple legendary (rank 6) gifts like candy. Given how many of these you need, 5 or 10 gifts per crate would be appreciated. Cosmetic gear: I don't think there's any reason to eliminate these, however, these are instant disintegrates for me. Maybe if they could drop bound cartel items like what the DvL crates dropped, it might make them more desirable. Rep tokens: not a big deal, but drop lots more of them, not just a single one. Jawa Junk: I only keep the purple stuff, but even that is somewhat useless until grade 10 mats are added to the vendors (will they be added, Eric?) I don't cmpletely mind the green and blues--they are good for a good chunk of CXP

I do ops (SM at least) and so while I appreciate being able to get gear a bit faster this way (though I ran two this past weekend and didn't get any of the 6 tokens that dropped...), I personally feel that it's not a bad thing that you can't just play one narrow aspect of a game for all the rewards. I don't support a huge grind either, and I do hope that BW mitigates that on GC as time passes. And I think they are increasing ops rewards somewhat, so getting some ranks while doing them will come naturally. And I figure most ops players do some heroics as well for cash and/or conquest, and those are pretty good now for CXP too.