This is the very definition of making old content relevant. I don't understand why this comment was made? See above. And no actual rebuttal means you have no counter. Understood. You misunderstand the position. So here is breaking it down simply. If you one-shot a mob, it involves pressing one button. If you have to use your rotation to kill the mob, it requires several buttons. Several button pressing is more tasking than a single button press. The more button presses, the more compelling the gameplay. That better?

When I spoke of old content outside of heroics, I meant FPs and Ops of yesteryear. I am well aware class missions and planetary quests are one and done. Your analogy is terrible. Level syncing is so different from forced PvP (it starts with two completely different facets of playing the game). You are right on one thing: it is absurd. Going to Tython, Tatooine or wherever else and one-shotting everything you say, is objectively non-compelling gameplay. It is tantamount to a child crushing beetles between his fingers, or hammering ants with a play hammer. It's a 'wee I'm the giant look at me crush the smaller creatures.' Well, if that is what you find fun, so be it, but most people prefer tasking their brains with a little bit more. Thus level syncing is objectively compelling gameplay -- and that means it's fun!

OP makes a great point and I agree with it 100%. One of the problems that western MMOs have had in recent years (so I'm talking about the "WoW Era") is new expansions = old content doesn't matter. BW has made a concerted effort to make all of their pre-existing content matter (and now, including old heroics). I really don't get why people want to redo old content with no challenge (by extension, I don't understand why people like one-shotting low levels in PvP). There is no fun in one-shotting weak mobs. Now you can go back to old planets, at a reasonable level, and redo content (if you wish, you do not have to) and you won't be falling asleep at the keyboard for boredom. Making old content relevant = good. It gives you more things to do, more ways to accumulate commendations (or crystals as they are being renamed). It's nothing but good vibes, man.

I have tremendous empathy for anyone playing this game with a disability that affects completion of class quests. That said, the game should not be designed around them. Class quests are easy as they are (on level) and require but a little bit of coordination and focus. Anything less would have a negative impact on the game. Also, if you do not have a disability, and need to be over leveled to complete class quests, I suggest really looking at how you play the game. It is not working and you would be better served by figuring out what you are doing horribly wrong.

This is what should have done in the first place. The GSI Droid is overkill and needs to go.

Draw distance has always been a problem in this game (which the update made worse, admittedly, with objects popping in and out). That said, I would not revert it at all. The performance gain is significant.

I wonder if some people in this thread have even played an MMO with macros or are simply misrepresenting what they are based on others hyperbole. Just so we're clear there is a strong difference between macros and bots, since I don't think it is clear right now. @OP: The macro problem is largely solved by gaming keyboards and mice. You don't get the full experience of macros in other games, but it is a solid supplement and makes the game much better.

We do not need an easy way to report hate speech (and other undesirable communications that is punishable by the TOS and EULA) because it is already there. The problem is that BioWare does little about it, unless it is really egregious. When I ran my guild on Shadowlands, myself and my members were continually exposed to verbal harassment, death threats, defamation, and excessive trolling. We would report these violations wherever they occurred (in-game or forums) and literally nothing was done about it. The violators were never suspended or banned, and we simply had to put them on ignore. Some of these offenders would keep making new characters, so we would ignore them too. I had people leave the game or server because the harassment was so bad and so vile. BioWare didn't do much about it. I share this story (we folded the guild a couple years back when I had to take an extended leave of absence) because I'm seeing similiar experiences in this thread. Much as I love this game, BW still refuses to do anything about egregious verbal behaviour. So again, the reporting is not an issue. Right click their name in chat (or report function on forums) but what BW really needs to do is start acting on it. Personally speaking, I would issue permanant bans for hate speech and criminal complaints for death threats. It is really sad to see this is still a problem.

First off, in a general sense, I agree. Parsers are a bane (but also a blessing). Secondly, however, numbers aren't solely why Scoundrels / Operatives were so dominant. A big part of it is HoT healing. In the same way that DoT damage dealing is so good. Reactive healing just can't compete with it (which Merc and Sage are for the most part). If we were still in a world without combat logging, I'd be shocked if Scoundrels / Operatives still weren't considered mandatory because they're HoT healers. It's that simple.

This has been a really good discussion and one that is worth having. My two cents. Whether raiding is a thing of the past is squarely on developers and players shoulders. The days of exclusivity of raiding -- at least from a developers point of view -- should be over. They key is accessibility. WarCraft does accessibility best -- although if this game had a better queue system,you could make the case for SWTOR as well -- and that makes the investment justifiable. It is so much so that I know WarCraft's participation number is larger than 10%, much larger. Unfortunately, however, this is not the only concern in the raiding paradigm. I do want to state, however, what I feel are the problems of raiding as a long time raider, raid leader, and guild master: i) Coordinating the schedules (this is much harder than you think) of 7-15 people (plus a few reserves) that have sufficient player skill (and by this I mean class mastery) and appropriate situational awareness to complete the content. ii) Pushing progress forward enough to keep everyone happy. This is related to point i, but also a bit different. At the high end raiding game, top end guilds are always looking to acquire talent. If you can't kill enough bosses -- be it because of raid days, weaker players not being able to do the content as fast, or whatever else -- you wind up losing your best players. This, in turn, slows down progression even more because a) your team gets worse and b) you have to train new replacements. Oh, and even if you get back to where you were, more people could leave because they're tired of training new people, and then a and b repeat itself. iii) Balancing egos. I always play with adults, but when you run a raiding guild, it feels like babysitting children. You can lose good players -- and thus fall behind -- because of conflicts between guild members. It's not fun. -- If you're a player who doesn't raid, and thinks raids are full of elitists, reading what I just wrote probably re-affirms that belief. I can't say I'd argue with it. In light of what I just articulated, if raiding is to survive the following needs to happen on the player side: i) Raiders need to be more socially responsive individuals. I've often felt that a lot of problems can be solved by talking to your fellow raiders and / or guild leadership in a respectable way. Whether it is a clash of egos, upsetting others by what you say, or being disgruntled with progress. ii) Log on more, do entry content, to prep newer players to the guild for the harder content. I can't tell you how many raiders log on only during raid days and then are unhappy when newer players can't perform. Work together. iii) Patience. What we need is patience. We're humans, not computers. Mistakes happen. Wipes happen. Real life happens. Don't hold it against the group. -- This is kinda a tl;dr. Raiding will die if players don't become more socially responsible entities. I believe most of the issues stem from unrealistic expectations, poor behaviour to other "anonymous humans", and guild jumping. By being better people, raiding will survive. Otherwise, it will die.

RIP is very, very pre-mature. I don't want to repeat too much of what KBN said -- though he does nail the issue correctly -- but a lot of these reactions are very knee-jerk. Whether it was in PvP or PvE Scoundrel / Operative healers were the clear #1. There is no refutation of this point outside of trolling. The AC needed re-adjustment, badly. In PvP, unless you were with a premade, you had a very difficult time if the other team had 1-2 Scoundrels or Operatives. In PvE -- specifically a raid context -- if your thought process was, "the more Scoundrel / Operatives, the easier this would be," then there must be an acknowledgment there is a balance issue. That said, I, like everyone else, are awaiting 3.0 with bated breath to see how impactful the changes will be. But after reading the changes, and knowing that Scoundrel / Operative is still a HoT healer, I don't think it`s near the doom and gloom that some of you are making it out to be.

The damage really isn't all that bad. I've seen no one come close to death from it. Of course we'll see what it's like come nightmare lol.

That's how CZ behaves. He will come back to you; just be patient.

The one and only. Find me in-game and I'll get you caught up.

Makeb. CZ-198. Oricon. That's 1. 2. 3. Last time I checked, you use your personal starship to travel to them. You then transport down to them... just like you do for every other planet. They're all planets. One of them is larger than others, but they're still land masses brimming with content. How is that over exaggerating?

I supply evidence that the development team is not a skeleton crew by the sheer amount of content we've received over 16 months. You refute this by putting your hands against your ears and screaming "NO NO YOU'RE WRONG" without supplying sufficient evidence for a counter-argument. Your reasoning is baloney. Mine isn't.

You don't get to redefine what words means lol. You do know that the Operations, Dailies, and Flashpoints continue the greater story arc of the game, right? Add the occasional new mechanic and a balance pass? No, there is much more to nightmare than that. Often players have to tackle nightmare fights in a completely different way than their hard mode counterparts -- there is that much change. Lastly, they don't do this sort of content because it is "quicker to build." The amount of resources required to develop and implement Operations are among the most taxing. They do it because it is replayable -- it will keep players busy for long periods of time.

This skeleton crew baloney is just that... baloney. Since September 2012 we have received the following: 23 Operation bosses in story and hard. 13 Operation bosses in nightmare. Two new companions. Two new FPs (story and hard) and 4 FPs converted to hard mode. 3 new planets. An increased level cap. An entirely new game mode, GSF. A plethora of class balancing (which will be complete in 2.6) that makes all classes viable. So over the course of... 16 months we have received all of that. But yes, that's a "skeleton crew." edit: And we'll be getting 10 new bosses in nightmare very soon.

Melee healers can be very, very bad for the game's long-term health. Commonly -- and this thread represents this -- these melee healers heal players while doing damage to the boss and / or adds. This damage is a fraction of what a dedicated DPSer can do, but it's also more than tank damage. In most cases it's like having half a DPSer. So what's the problem with this? Well, if this melee healer can fill the role of a healer and be half a DPSer at the same time, what is the point to non-melee healers? For this reason I would rather BioWare never walk down this road.

There isn't a Blizzard-level of communication, but it's more than sufficient. We did just finish two major holidays and they've already promised more information about 2.6 this week. Chill out.

LOTRO had an "anonymous" option where you could hide a whole plethora of things -- including your gear. It became a pain in the butt more than anything else. Most people wound up being anon and every time you invited someone and asked for an inspect... yeah, painful more than anything else. Please do not put this option in.

I think a better application of this suggestion would be a "carry over escrow." That is to say any elite or ultimate comms that you accrue after you reach the cap are held in an escrow that is immediately applied to your collection when the cap resets every Tuesday. This still bottlenecks progression (a good thing - you don't want people gearing up too fast) and players won't feel like any activity they do is wasted.

The fundamental problem with these sorts of ideas is that the Operation Bosses would have to be dumbed down so much that this would do little and less for "training" to do the real thing. I don't mean insomuch as the DPS or healing requirements -- these can be scaled appropriately for this endeavour -- but the movement and positioning required. In essence, if this is to work -- assuming a major overhaul of companion AI is not done -- it would be nothing short of a re-skinned target dummy that your companions can attack. Look towards Story Mode Operations. They are ridiculously simple and incredibly PUG friendly. That difficulty mode does everything you want and gives you some semblance of what the fights will be like. This accomplishes what you want; this does not. Companions are one of the strongest aspects of SWTOR. Unfortunately they're limited in any end game capacity because of the AI and the restrictive controls we have over them. If we could give them script behaviour (eg., stay to the outside and DPS or stay out of harms way and heal) and we could direct them to specific spots on the map, then this idea could have a lot of promise. But until then? It just doesn't work.

Exiles of the Jedi is currently looking for DPS players to add to our existing raid roster. We are a 16-player Ops guild who have enjoyed tremendous success in Dread Fortress and Palace and are preparing for the upcoming release of nightmare content for those raids. While being already experienced and geared is a plus, we're looking more for players who want to raid consistently and are able and willing to learn to play at a high level. Gearing runs can and will be made if you need to catch up on gear and to get you integrated with our raid team as well as teach you the mechanics if you haven't seen these fights before. The most important qualities we're looking for are: 1) Being able to show up consistently. 2) Being willing to put in the time to better yourself as a player. 3) Being able to grasp the mechanics of a fight and learn from your mistakes. Our normal raid times are Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday from 9pm to 12am, with optional raids throughout the week as there is interest. Additionally, several people have Imperial alternates and we'd like to start up Imperial raiding as well, so having Imperial alts is a plus, but is by no means required. Our voice chat program of choice is Teamspeak 3. So, if you'd like to get into endgame raiding, are looking for a close-knit group to progress with, and think we may be just what you're looking for; head over to http://www.exilesofthejedi.com/recruitment and put in your application today! If you think you might want to check us out first before making any commitments, feel free to whisper any of our officers with questions. You can whisper Goldeneyes (alts: Owyn, Vybil, Amalya, Aingon), Wnd (alts: Imix, Nastyy, Tumbaric and Assi), Dirian (alts: Catylen, Malisandre, Horaceharkness), Goeblu (alts: Tobina, Bluebladez), Blakzar, or Elidibs (alts: Elidibz, Elidibsz, Ellidibs, Elliada) whenever we're on. Hope to see you soon!

The problem is the group leader believes this to be the case. It is advertised as a full clear. The players in the raid acknowledge that they're here for the full run. And then the mass exodus begins as soon as the weekly boss dies. Players are choosing anti-social behaviour. The only solution to this problem -- and yes it is a problem -- is to change every weekly to the final boss.