Haha, yes, I had a LOT of that. Unfortunately, I'm a little tired of it at the moment so I was just looking to mix it up =) I just love the grind. I know a lot of people dislike achievement systems and the like, but that's why they are optional. But, when none of your guildies are on, you're tired of PvP, and space missions are so repetitive it's not fun anymore, you have to seek something out to keep you interested in the game. It's why Skyrim was so freaking fun (and still is) In that other game, I loved grinding reputation, secondary professions, mounts, titles, etc - just looking for a couple things here to focus on as well Definitely seems like the general consensus is just to stick with alts until we get more content end-game (hopefully soon!)

Excellent - and yes, I highly doubt most people will have 8, even the altoholics. Although I found by trying to level a sorcerer I was largely bored because the storyline was the same as my assassin. Although, I might get over that once I gain a few more abilities

Yes, I'm thinking you are correct. It's one of the many reasons I wish legacy would have been there from the start. It seems like a system designed to assist with alts, but as it stands it looks like a LOT of people are already going to have their alts leveled up before it comes out. Then again, we don't know much, so it could add perks overall to any character you have. Granted, they will be people like me who just enjoy timesinks, so other players will be able to take advantage of them.

Heh, I've actually put some thought into doing this. I really enjoy the game, and it would be fun experiencing the storylines until some of the other aspects of the game get fleshed out a little bit (and/or my guild starts doing operations). Also, it lets you learn a bit more about how the class mechanics work, so it helps understanding PvP / EG roles with the different classes. Good idea, I've started a couple and done the entry levels to 10 but haven't decided which ones to push through. Which classes have you enjoyed leveling the most so far?

So, I'm one of 'those' players. I enjoy the senseless farming for achievements that do absolutely nothing for you except give you another achievement completed. In this game, I'm severely lacking as to things to 'farm.' At first, I farmed PVP up to rank ~50ish and it's gotten a little boring so I've been trying to mix it up a little. Thought about picking up a profession to farm out recipes, but at the moment I'm still waiting to see how the crew skills are going to be re-worked (if at all). The datacrons are a pretty good timesink for a few days, until you find them all. The dailies are...dailies, and worth doing I suppose. Hopefully soon others in my guild will catch up and we can start experimenting with Operations and that will take up quite a bit of time! So, for those of you who LIKE timesinks, what are you guys doing as a timesink? I know that "other game" has reputations, secondary professions, achievements and titles to occupy us, but I find myself coming up a little short here. Just curious to find out what others are doing so it might help me along when I get bored!

Just going to use my post I made in the other thread...you know the one you guys should be using to discuss the nerf: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=1998066

It was a good read, and a lot of valid points summarized into the front page. Hopefully your explanations will get through to some people and enlighten them. More than anything, I'd like to see a response from BW. I'm a little burnt out trying to make these kids see sense, but I'm going to enjoy reading through it.

You said it yourself, and it's been said before. Slicing was OP at early levels due to being able to farm higher yield lockboxes. Slicing was kind of meh at later levels (but it DID help for the more casual players). Again, I must point out that level caps would have remedied 80% of the situation (along with a slight nerf, because of the little effort that goes into slicing). Also, at 50, attempting to farm slicing nodes is pointless. Just do dailies and/or space missions and/or grouped PvP. MUCH higher yield/hr. For hardcore players, slicing was never the most profitable circumstance. That is why it made it through the beta. It was picked up so one could easily afford to level, then dropped it at 50 for more useful/profitable crew skills. Slicing was always for the more casual players. The lack of level caps, internet egos being injured, and abuse was a problem.

There's a lot of hope for that There have been quite a few issues brought up all around, but crew skills (not just slicing, mind you) is one of the most important ones to me and many others.

No word yet from BioWare, sorry.

It's okay, I was much more of an *** than you at times, although I try to hide most of it in subtle insults most people won't catch. The reason you and I sparked against each other so much is because you do catch them. On another note, this is where the devs should come in and notice. When two people who have been completely at odds start agreeing that most of their crew skills system needs to be reworked or at the very least re-evaluated, something definitely needs to change. I actually laughed as I read your post, because I thought "Well da**, I no longer want to debate with him. Now I really know something needs to be done about the crew skills." Carry on, folks, it's been fun. I think I'm going to take my exodus from the forums for a bit and go play.

Jack, before you call a lot of us stupid, a couple key points I noticed while I endured through your post: It's slicing, not splicing. Fix your grammar and spelling before you try to place your intelligence above any of ours. There have always been better ways to make money than slicing. But then again, those who haven't hit 50 don't know that yet. Hit 50, then come back to me and tell me the other crafting professions are just as useful as Biochem. The caveat to this, obviously, is that we don't have a lot of the recipes that may or may not drop, allowing crafters to create better armor than they can currently. [edit]Although I do agree with you that part of the problem is a lot of people just want something that makes them the most money for the least amount of effort. [/edit] Also, Violet, one of the few things you and I agree on is the sad state of the crew skills on SWTOR. Admittedly, I was poking fun at you there due to some of our recent engagements. I do not want to see any crew skill get nerfed at this point, Biochem least of all as, like you said, it does actually make sense. The problem is, as you stated, relativity. People are clamoring for a Biochem nerf because in comparison to the other skills, it is superior. I'd love to see _all_ of the crew skills re-visited, it needs it. Crafting is a large part of any MMO to me, and thus far it has left me with a bitter taste in my mouth. I heard once, and I do not know if this is true, that crafting was more of an afterthought in SWTOR development. Originally, there weren't any large plans for crafting in this game. I heard this several months back, but it seems as if that might be the case with the lack of thought put into many of the professions. I will get down off of the high horse now, and grudgingly give you a nod of respect for the Biochem post - I did enjoy it

Have you hit 50 yet? Or been too busy trying to prevent Biochem from getting nerfed, since that is your profession. It'd be a shame for that to happen, I'd hate to see you trying to defend arguments against trolls. And no, I'm not calling out 'everyone' and saying they are jealous. Merely using the powers of observation from general chat pre-nerf. It was full of e-peen contests about slicing credits. I'm sure you remember, if you were there? And again, you use the same logic that everyone should play an MMO the same way you play it, a farmfest. Please remember, as I've reminded you before, that not everyone enjoys grinding to pay their bills. But, we've had this discussion before, haven't we? I can pull up the links if you want to remind yourself of them.

Problem is, a lot of these players didn't know about slicing. That's where the problem comes in. Us Beta players knew how expensive 35-50 is, so we picked up slicing. Sure, most of us dropped it at 50 because there are much better ways to spend a crew profession (to make money or to craft, either way), but that is beside the point. Enter the new players...they pick what sounds cool. Then they either: a) become broke b) hear other new players gloating about 200k credits In either scenario, likely both, these players become upset they are having to 'grind' for money while slicers do not. All they had to do was 'click a button.' They didn't realize that 200k credits is roughly 4 repair bills at level 50. They just realized that someone had something they didn't, and they became upset. Enter the PR disaster followed by the nerfbat. Followed by a lot of threads filled valid points, followed by trolls who would rather spend time on a forum than make it past level 30. Followed by a lot of the educated players not bothering to argue with less educated trolls who refuse to understand simple concepts. And that, my good friends, is why you see so much anti-slicing talk.

Biochem will be the most useful.. As for making money, run space missions. No professions right now are extremely lucrative as the economy is kind of in an odd state. You could try playing the GTN, it depends on the server but some are having success there.

I would suggest you read through this thread: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=98429 This topic has been covered a plethora of times, and countered as many or more ways.

I agree they are avoiding this issue. As far out as it is, I'm hoping my above theorized reason as to the avoidance is correct. I was trying to point out that it seems as if they are starting to get into more of a communication channel with the player base, which is a good thing.

Actually, if he had posted and played the GTN, he would have had a LOT of money. Pre-nerf, I knew more people who made a lot more money using the GTN than slicers did.. Slicing was for the casual players. It was for the players who did NOT want to grind 24/7. It was for the players who were not trying to get to 50 in less than a week. It was for the players who did not want to continuously play the GTN. These were the players buying items off the GTN. For me, buying a level 25 mod off the GTN is stupid, I'll be out-leveling it in less than a few hours. For a casual player...why not? They may want to goof around, RP with some friends, etc. And for those who say you have to 'work' in order to pay your repair bills and leveling costs, shame on you. You're forcing your beliefs of how a game should be played onto others. A game is meant for fun. There are many, MANY different ways of achieving that goal. For those who say gather nodes. Why? I make more money doing space runs than I did before slicing was nerfed. If I'm going to spend the time to run around gathering nodes (which were nerfed also, by the way), why wouldn't I just go do space missions?

Thank you. Here's the link for others: http://www.swtor.com/community/devtracker.php They actually have acknowledged several of the complaints. Albeit with lack luster responses, an acknowledgement is still an acknowledgement. I wonder if these are only through ticket submissions, though? Edit: Nope, there are several forum post links. Not sure, but thank you for the heads up. And, to those wondering, there is not a response to slicing. But the fact they are starting to respond more and more (if you check out the frequency of dev posts) is a good sign. I also want to add in the suggestion that perhaps they are avoiding slicing on purpose, but for different reasons than we believe. Let's assume it wasn't a knee jerk reaction. Even now, there are still very few 50s to do end game with, but I think it's safe to assume a large percentage of the SWTOR population is almost or past level 40. Perhaps they are simply waiting for all the complainers to actually realize what the costs are like, so they can see that slicing was, indeed, not that great after all and truly was intended for the casual players. Throughout this thread, I bring up the level point time and time again, because a lot of the people that are anti-slicing are not even close to 40 yet.

For a lot of us, they only have a couple weeks. It saddens me, but I won't participate in another MMO where communication with the players is so overwhelmingly lacking. It's not worth it As I've always said...all I need is to hear a 'squeek' from the devs/community manager about any of the constantly recurring issues so many players have brought up. Slicing is just another example, not an isolated case.

Just curious, why Jan 4? Patch 1.0.2 notes don't state anything regarding crew skills.

It is a gathering skill. Point is, though, missions are also there for a reason. If the other gathering skills were not able to bring back mats they needed (ahem, bio) through missions and you had to find them, less people would use it. It's pretty simple. People have their preconceptions about how this game should work based on prior MMOs, and are attempting to force them on others. BioWare put it in the game. They put missions in the game. It went through a very long, very extensive beta. Saying it wasn't working as intended is kind of dense. The reason it was nerfed was, as I've said before, the lack of level caps and levels 15-35 feeling slighted because they didn't get it....not understanding that at the later levels (read:end game) slicing didn't matter much at all, there were much better ways to use our companions - or to farm money. Slicing was an attempt at enabling casual players. People whined, now the casual players got the shaft. Enjoy.

Slicing was made for the casual players. Stop whining about it. Sad part is, it really didn't pull in THAT much money in comparison to the costs from 40-50. All the lowbie levels just think so. Granted, I still maintain it needed a nerf...just not the one it got. And level caps, it desperately needed level caps.

If I need cash, I do space missions. Make more profit with them than I did pre-nerf slicing anyway. Slicing wasn't the end-all for everyone. But it was for casual players, and it did hurt the market. Especially with my repair costs creeping ever so close to 50k now.

Yep...even if it's a 'we did it on purpose, please chill out' type response. Just something to let us know they acknowledge the community sees it as an issue. Edit: Don't forget Kira http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=108694