Except your definition is not generally accepted by anyone. Pay to win means paying to receive an advantage in game. It has been used in a variety of places to mean that, from gaming companies, news articles, and scientific peer reviewed journals. For example, it is used that way in this article from Computers in Human Behavior: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0747563219302468 It's also used that way in this paper presented at the Digital Games Research Association Conference: http://www.digra.org/wp-content/uploads/digital-library/nordicdigra2014_submission_8.pdf You're making a plain meaning argument of the term without showing an understanding of the context surrounding the term and its generally accepted use.

You know what, I know this is off topic, but I'm tired of people acting like that is a KotFE/ET problem and not just the way things are with all the expansions. Other than factional differences in RotHC and Onslaught every storyline has been the same no matter what class you play. A Jedi Knight and a Smuggler both had to deal with the Hutt Cartel in the same way. A Bounty Hunter and a Sith Inquisitor both had to fight Revan. Other than one class specific quest on Rishi there has been 0 difference in the story since Makeb, so stop acting like that's all because of KotFE. The problem with KotFE was that they didn't do a good job at sprinkling in class references. Not that they didn't do it at all (like some would have everyone believe), because playing through again right now I've had people call me Jedi and have referenced my specific Battlemaster status at least twice, but they didn't do it enough. It had nothing to do with the storyline not being divergent any longer. What really gets me is how everyone points to SoR as being the best expansion, even though it was the first expansion to deal with the Emperor no matter what class you were or reason you had to do so, the first one to put you in charge of an alliance, no matter your previous background in leadership, and the first one that seemed to make more sense if you were force sensitive. If SoR is the best expansion and KotFE/ET was the worst for story then it seems like the issue isn't one storyline and more the fact that there was a smattering of class specific content in one.

No I didn't. I pointed that out as one of the factors that shows it has not actually been 650k over thag time, but the equivalent. Another factor is that supposedly around 2 million players bought the box when it released. The numbers are just for perspective not what I am saying happened overall.

You don't gear up at 70. No content requires more than the mods from the fleet vendor. If you want more than that then that's on you, but those are plenty to get you through KotFE/ET and get you to 75. Trying to do any sort of gear progression before cap doesn't work in this game because the way you get gear (ie grinding) levels you faster than you get gear. So until cap sticking with fleet mods is the best you can do.

Neither paying for credits nor paying to skip to companion influence 50 is P2W. P2W is when you have to pay real money to get the BiS gear or when stat boosts are sold only for real money. Paying to skip or speed up content is not that and every mmo out today has some level of that.

To put those numbers in perspective. The game has been around 8 years. The base cost of the game was $60. RotHC and SoR each originally cost $20 iirc. So if you bought the base game, subscribed month to month for 8 years, and bought both expansions on release you would have spent $1,540. So $1 billion is the equivalent of 650,000 players doing that. In other words, if this game had 650k players buy the game at launch and play til today it would have made the same. Obviously this isn't what happened, subs were front loaded, the cartel market changed things, etc. But that is the equivalent. So people can make of that what they will. Personally it's very neutral news to me. Good to see EA doesn't plan to shut the game down for sure. And the ammount is a nice chunk of money for sure, but overall averaging 650k players wouldn't have been great or terrible for an mmo.

Those Billion credits didn't come from nowhere though. The problem is the income in game at this point is far outstripped by the costs. People cried about inflation because of credit dupes and years of game so Bioware put in massive credit sinks. All these do though are turn the game into one of people who have money and those who dont. Yes, a few lucky and smart people can go from being a have not to a have, but as you rightly point out, that's not going too work for everyone. So before if you didn't have credits to buy things on GTN you could earn it over some time grinding and working ok n it. Now income has been slashed by over half and the cost of everything has gone up over twice. So anyone who doesn't get lucky or comes even a little late now has to take at least four times as long to participate whereas those who have a billion+ credits don't need to worry because they have enough of a credit cushion to play around with. So congrats on your success but you succeeding doesn't indicate the system isn't flawed.

This still comes down to an allocation of resources. Regardless whether you think Bioware has a lot or a little in terms of development resource, we can all agree the pool is finite. So you have to divide the pie in some way. Now there are 25+ LIs in the game. If Bioware gave each a two minute cut scene at the end of Onslaught that would have been an hour of cutscenes. And that would have been for a two minute scene where the LI doesn't recognize your choices. Throw in choice recognition and it goes higher. So the question is would people have been okay if Onslaught was half an hour shorter per side in order to accommodate every romance option with a 2 minute scene? That's not a judgmental question. It's the reality here. If people are okay with that then that's what they should tell the devs, but enough people need to recognize that and affirmatively tell the devs that. Because right now you have people who are already saying Onslaught was too short and then people who are asking for development in a different area and somehow the devs have to split up their development pie

ESO really does have one of the best and most consistent release schedules. twice a year (every six months) they release two new dungeons, once a year in between those two they release a small zone with a new storyline, and once a year they release an expansion with a large zone, new storyline, and a raid. That's been pretty much clockwork for them for the past three years and its amazing. I wish SWTOR had gone the model of making people actually pay for expansions and/or subs get them only as long as they are subbed like ESO does. It encourages constant content production rather than constant cosmetic production for the store.

Except level sync has been in the game for years and was not an issue. This isn't a problem with level sync in general. It's just an issue with certain implementations in this expansion.

There's a reason I put Zion on ignore. I take it from the context this is another "Solo players are the ones complaining about Onslaught, but this is an MMO" threads. Nevermind how many PvP/OPs players have been critical of the expansion and how many solo players have praised it. If its not all in one camp then who will Zion blame? The crafting changes, the RNG gear, the increase in tedium, etc. is not an all solo problem like some would like to believe. It is an issue for players across the spectrum. Additionally, some of the difficulty threads have touched on problem areas for both groups and solo players. Bowdarr's alliance alert has you fight three level 75 silvers while you get it in a level 65 part of the game, and are downscaled to level 70 even if you are overleveled. This is a problem. Groups have been reporting vet flashpoints completely disintigrating players to the point where they are refusing to group with lowbies because the time investment isn't worth it. That is a problem. There are plenty of great things about Onslaught and Zion has made sure to tell us about them time and again, but shoving your head in the sand, claiming its all solo players who are upset, and acting like a short term boost in players on the fleet will lead to long term retention isn't going to do anything for the actual problems in the game right now.

I mean there's not. This game will never put out $180 worth of content a year. It's not possible. That's the price of 3 new games, or 9+ DLCs. That's not going to happen. And it's not just here, no MMO puts out $180 worth of content per year, especially without charging extra for expansions. At this point you either pay for an MMO for access to something non-subs don't get, or else you subscribe cyclicaly. Paying a full $180 a year just for the content will never be worth it.

Just to put the numbers in context, 2 seconds on a 16 second fight sounds like a small amount. However that is almost 15% faster on quick fights (ie those where DPS makes smaller differences). Even using those fights as an example, 10 minutes of combat becomes 8 minutes and 45 seconds. That by itself is pretty significant. Again though, DPS rotations and skill caps really only come into play when battling things that last more than one rotation, where you can see the effect of timing cooldowns and using oGCD powers effectively. As for the discussion on DAI or ESO, lets be realistic. Whether you love or hate that style of game doesn't matter here because there's no way the devs are restructuring the entire combat system for this game. Whether they should simplify rotations and cut out power bloat is debatable, but we're not going to suddenly be playing an arpg no matter what.

I say unlikely because I feel like it's been asked for enough over the past years and there was enough desire for challenging content that if it was going to happen it would have. I don't know if there is a technical limitation to the older instanced content or a lack of developer will to do something like that, but I just have my doubts it will happen. I hope it does though and will continue to bring it up whenever I can.

Personally, I disagree for a few reasons. First, I would findthat to be fun because it's something where I'd actually have to stay awake and play the game rather than rote rotations. Secondly, I don't think content at that level is balanced around a level 2 companion. Surely the fight would have been quicker with a higher level companion. I'm not saying it should be balanced around level 50 companions either, but if they balance everything around level 2 then level 50 becomes too quick and easy. Somewhere like level 30-35 should probably be the sweet spot.

In my own opinion, for story we are in good shape, I agree. I think heroics are more of an issue because, for me, some have been taking quite a while to do without providing much challenge. Not all heroics are like this, but there have been some I've run where the process just isn't worth it to me because it lacks fun. But that's also my own opinion. The problem is we're never going to have everyone agree unless they make vet and mm instances for all older content so people can have a choice and that, unfortunately, is unlikely to happen

Okay, but can we not agree there is a point where the game becomes a slog. Obviously going from one cut scene to another wouldn't be fun for most people, but taking an hour to fight one enemy that only repeats the same 3 moves wouldn't be fun to most people either. There is a middle ground. The thing is challenge is only fun as long as it's a challenge. For example, I soloed vet Hammer the other day. The trash in there was challenging when I had my companion on dps. I had to use my cc and dcd and keep my head in the game. On the other hand the bosses were not a challenge at all. I had to use my comp on healing mode, but when I did the enemy just did a basic rotation that didn't require much thought and I just did the same rotation for 5-10 minutes. The trash in that FP was fun even if it didn't last as long. Each mob may have only taken 30-60 seconds to kill, but that time was intense and challenging. The bosses took significantly longer bur weren't a challenge. Longer content does not mean more fun if the content doesn't require more than rote rotations which is what a lot of people are finding since 6.0

Is driving away players a good idea for the longevity of the game? I guess it will be extra challenging to do quests in the game when the servers eventually shut down so may as well make that happen ASAP?

That's an issue for them being used in the general story, but not really an issue with romance scenes. Killing a LI, breaking up with them, or just never romancing them all work out the same when thinking about romance scenes. No matter what it simply would mean you weren't in a romance with them. So it doesn't matter if X is killable because you already may not have been in a relationship with X to begin with and that comes out the same. The problem is the fact that the playerbase is split, in various fractions, over 25+ possible romances. So appeasing everyone would require a lot of work, especially with trying to get them to react to the branching story that is currently going on like some on this thread are discussing.

Yet another person who equates challenge with group and ease with solo. There is endgame content for both solo and group players and there is a variety of challenges for both solo and group players. What people are upset about, in general, is that the floor content for solo players (ie Heroics) are now taking two to three times as long. Not a single person in this thread has said they should be able to solo MM FPs or OPs. No one has said anything to the effect of group play is unimportant. It is entirely the group oriented players who seem to ignore this and equate people saying things are too challenging with soloers. In this thread there are people who have discussed the overtuning of group content making it hard for PUGs to complete group content. There are people who have discussed solo end game content being more grindy and less fun. There are people who have discussed story content being overtuned. And there have even been people saying some Vet FPs are overtuned making it impossible for groups to even complete those specific ones (ie. Assault on Korriban). What there hasn't been is anyone saying everything should be soloable. You're creating a strawman to argue against here. An increase in challenge, for all its pros and cons, affects both group players and soloists and both have representatives discussing how they've been affected. This has zero to do with the BS argument that endgame = group content only.

I guess it's a question of resource allocation. Personally, I agree with everyone here and am disappointed by the vanilla romances at this point. However, we have to recognize there were 19 romances in the original game, and at this point we're up to 25ish total romances. If we say a short romance scene is about 2 minutes of dialogue then Lana and Theron take up 4 minutes, but doing all the romances would be closer to 50 minutes. It's always been an issue with the way the base game was constructed. This isn't to say Bioware can't do that or doesn't have the resources to do so, but that's almost always hour of dialogue for one short cut scene per romance and it has to come from somewhere. So I guess the question, in part, is whether it would have been better if Onslaught was half an hour shorter per side in order to give each romance equal due? It's really a hard place the developers are in now, because I have no doubt they would prefer to have scenes with all the romances too, but the sheer number constrains things.

I can say with absolute certainty that at least one thing was fixed. Jedi Knight Leap is recharing with utilities and force push again and my life has been a ton better for it.

Using what is generally considered to be one of the worst decisions in WoW history may not be the best example for SWTOR to follow.

I actually am willing to admit I'm antisocial in MMO's these days. I'll talk on general chat, but that's it. I will not join a guild because I've joined dozens of guild in a bunch of games and 9/10 there is some major drama within the guild that I have to listen to for weeks. I don't generally PUG because I've been in too many PUGS where some jerk yells at everyone for not doing what they do. I quit ff14 after a guild fell apart because of some random drama and I didn't want to be forced to group in PUGS to continue the story after one of my co-tanks in a PUG decided to pull way to much and then yell at the healer and make them upset because the new player couldn't heal the huge pull. So when I play MMOs I stick with my close friends and my wife. I don't have enough time and patience for the drama "socializing" in MMOs brings.

This is why I wish they could/would have vet and mm difficulties for all instanced content. Because personally I agree. I remember the first time I finished Jedi Knight and remember how epic and exciting that final boss was. As someone who solo vet FPS and enjoys a challenge I would love to recapture that feeling. However, I recognize that my skill level and desires are not everyones and that the class stories have to be accessible to everyone. I also remember how many people used to have for help on their final class bosses and know how much smaller the games population is now. So returning to that level of difficulty for everyone would likely lead to a lot of frustration for people. If we could have increased difficulty levels for all instanced content then I could challenge myself without interfering with others' enjoyment. I don't know if there is a technical hurdle the devs cannot overcome or if this is something they have chosen not to do for whatever reason (like using resources elsewhere) but if they could/would do that it would be ideal to me.