All operations and every boss are easy across every setting: 8 man, 16 man, normal, hard, or nightmare. Everything should be buffed in nightmare.

16 man is easy, 8 man is even easier. You're stupid and bad and you should feel bad.

Empire should have red. Republic should have blue/green. Purple should be obtainable through end-boss 16man Nightmare operations, assuming the difficulty was ramped up significantly. Purple should also be obtainable through ranked PvP, assuming it previously existed like it should have. Orange/yellow can be craftable items or something stupid like that since everyone likes cool crafting for some reason. PvP and PvE look retarded when people are running around with black-red, black-yellow, cyan and purple. God help us all if some people are more special than you, though.

The title of this thread had me interested because of 14000 HPS, or Heals Per Second. Now I'm just disappointed.

People are always going to complain when something is unobtainable for them because they lack the time or skill (what little it takes). I completed Nightmare 16 EV in under 2 hours a month ago, in two different lockouts, and didn't get the title either time. It was the same idea in WoW. Normal for the casual players who complained they didn't get to see the content, heroic for the hardcore who complained that things weren't challenging enough. Then casuals complained they couldn't see heroic mode content and that started to get nerfs too. I sort of just started to lose the will to log on when there's no accomplishment to be had in the game. When there's no fun accomplishments, when the game is too easy, I don't see the reason to keep playing. But I'm patient. We'll see where the game goes. Edit: As far as other people caring about my achievements, I couldn't care less if you do. I want to be able to care about my achievements, but there is nothing challenging enough to feel excited about right now.

HM Flashpoints are harder than Normal Ops. I feel like it was probably intended.

How are they catering to hardcore elitists at all? Hardcore players stopped doing Flashpoints more than a month ago and likely couldn't care less about finding groups since they all group with each other. All operations are easy across all modes and settings. PvP is only a grind right now, there are no ranks or anything beyond things like Champion and Battlemaster, which are equivalent to Grand Marshal or High Warlord, in that the only difficult part was finding enough time in the day to grind in the lagfest that is Ilum. Gear is easier to get than any other recent MMO I've played. How are they catering to hardcores?

I'd say it's among one of the most important issues. Other issues include, but are not limited to: 1) GCD lasting too long, contributing to combat feeling slow, removing skill from PvP when players are allowed the luxury of having too much time to react. 2) The 3 difficulty modes not being labelled correctly as "Pug, Very Easy, and Easy" (This could also be resolved by tuning the difficulties to the way they're advertised) 3) Lag in the fleet and Ilum on some of the best rigs available 4) Poor UI and no addons to compensate 5) No sort of linear PvE progression. (Why is Columi easier to get than Tionese and why does Columi drop in 'Normal' and Rakata in 'Hard mode'?) 6) Stats in PvP not equalizing across the board immediately upon entering a warzone, when PvP gear in any game should only be for vanity since not only is that what most people care about anyway, but it's no test of skill for a fresh 50 to fight a Battlemaster.

And hard mode and nightmare mode. I'm hoping one of the 3 difficulties in 1.2's raid will be hard.

While I think it is stupid to complain about having too many choices in combat, I do think there should be something equivalent to what Power Auras was so that I don't have to look through my buffs all the time. It's not really a hindrance, just a preference. It's also another reason why we should have addons.

You make a thread to complain about companion customization and dyes whenever there are so many other things to complain about that actually have a meaningful impact on the game?

Most of the 'skill' involved in killing Ragnaros back in vanilla WoW can be attributed to the difficulty of getting together 40 people who would not lag, disconnect, afk, or just be completely retarded. It's hard enough to get 25, 16, or even 8 competent players together. More on topic: I agree with the OP's sentiment. Normal mode should be something that is challenging, but ultimately doable for the vast majority of players. Hard mode should be something that presents enough of a challenge to keep most of the population actively raiding until the next content patch. Nightmare mode should be for top tier players who don't mind wiping 200-300+ times per boss. And instead of simply scaling stats and health, it would be nice if the mechanics were actually different on each difficulty. They don't even have to be that drastic. You can add a single element to most fights to make them leagues more difficult.

Gear progression makes sense in PvE. It does not in PvP.

Yes, there are technically 4 classes, but the ACs of each class play completely different from one another. If you think a Tanking Assassin plays like a Healing Sorcerer just because they're both technically Sith Inquisitor, then you're delusional. If you think a Deception Assassin plays like a Madness Sorcerer just because they're both technically Sith Inquisitor, then you're delusional. If you think a Shield Tech Powertech plays like an Advanced Prototype Powertech just because they're both technically Bounty Hunter, then you're delusional. This can be said about any 2 ACs that share the same overarching class.

SWG planets were giant and mostly featureless. What you want is a galaxy that is EVE in scale with surface-exploration that is as detailed story-wise and environment-wise as the planets in SWTOR. You're not going to get that game anytime soon.

Stopped reading at "there are 4 classes." Assassin =/= Sorcerer Marauder =/= Juggernaut Mercenary =/= Powertech Sniper =/= Operative

Pretty much the entire time we were clearing Nightmare we only got 3-4 Exotech pieces along with maybe a schematic or two. If we ever turned to Hard Mode then we'd get a ton of Rakata. Working as intended.

Even Nightmare ops in orange gear with daily quest mods is not hardcore. I'll re-categorize for a more accurate description of operation difficulty: 8 Normal -> Very Easy 8 Hard -> Very Easy 8 Nightmare -> Easy 16 Normal -> Very Easy 16 Hard -> Easy 16 Nightmare -> Easy, with the exception of XXR-3, Soa, Sarg & Jorno, Karagga all being Normal.

People got Tionese gear? I thought you just go straight to Columi.

Every popular online game or community is going to be like this. League of Legends, WoW, Call of Duty, and others are certainly worse or at least on par. It's the internet, it's always going to be like this.

Everything apparently

As a hardcore player, I'm not sure how this is specifically a big win for casuals considering that I also am in favor of these changes.

I have a lot of problems with the game right now, but I send in reports or simply wait until it gets fixed. If I feel like there are enough issues that persist for too long, then I will quit the game (hypothetically). However, I won't feel the need to let a bunch of strangers on the forum know.

No MMO that's in known development right now is "next Gen". Nothing out now or that's coming out in the near future is revolutionary or drastically different in some way.

And WoW encourages alts because of heirlooms. HM Flashpoints and normal mode operations should drop only tionese gear. HM Operations should drop only columi gear. Nightmare Operations should drop only rakata gear. But that would be insane if T2 was actually more difficult to obtain than T1. That would mean that there is some kind of natural character progression.