I don't think it's an either/or thing. It could be all of the above and more. Obviously you want people to play the game, so you need to balance ease of access and challenge. People playing the game bring in money, which since this is Electronic Arts we're talking about is more important than anything else, including player enjoyment. They want just enough enjoyment to keep players playing, and gouge them for everything they can. Electronic Arts has never, and probably will never, been accused of caring about their player base and what their player base wants. This can be seen extending over to Bioware. Look at Mass Effect: Andromeda. Look at Anthem. Just enough effort, and more importantly cash, to make the game somewhat work, and bail on it. Andromeda is the perfect example of a Bioware game that was butchered into oblivion because EA mismanaged the entire affair. SWOTR isn't far from that line either. They need to keep their EA overlords happy... minimum effort... maximum cash grab. There's so much in this gearing system that follows that example. Massive grind and RNG to dig the hooks into players and keep them playing trying to get that last piece of armor. Never mind that players are frustrated with this playstyle... grind is the key. The bigger the grind, the more they play. Now add in hubris and ego, that they are the devs, and they know what their game should play like and be like. Never mind what the players want, it doesn't support their vision, so damn the players... full speed ahead. In the end what is cheaper. To fix an entire game so that accuracy isn't as important. Or simply make a relatively cheaper change to the gearing system. People want a challenge? Well we're simply lower the amount of accuracy they can have. The devs want certain tertiary traits to play a bigger role. Simply tack them onto gear, and ignore the fact that no one wants these traits. By our EA overlords, they are going to damn well use that tertiary trait.

See in this case I believe that their intentions are good. They really wanted to fix the gearing system. Lets be honest, the gearing system was horrible. But instead of simply removing mods that no one used, improving the drop rates, increasing the level of mods, and making those mods harder and more expensive to get, they had a new idea. Now here's the problem, they don't want to back down from that new idea. Some of it is ego. It's not unique to the devs. They honestly feel that it is the greatest idea, and human psychology will tell you that anything that goes against your preconceived notions, is generally minimized or ignored. This is going to be doubly true when you have the bubble of devs insulating each other from those ideas that don't agree with their preconceived notion. You also have ego here where they created certain content and want people to play said content. So instead of admitting that there may be a problem with the content (and admitting that their good idea wasn't that good) they go ahead and force players into the content, by restricting where players can get certain currencies from. Plus lets be honest, the fact that every needs 110% accuracy doesn't sit well with the spreadsheet. They want people to spread out those attributes. But instead of asking "why is 110% accuracy so necessary" and fixing the game, they just force people into tertiary stats that aren't used as much. Some of this is the devs honestly feel that, according to their spreadsheets, these attributes should be useful. The fact that they're not goes against their spreadsheets, and of course is ignored. Finally yes money is a concern. They've spent too much money on this "good idea" to back down now. They can now, later, sell all these tokens in the cartel market or make them rewards in lockboxes. They can see boosters and multipliers now in the cartel market. It's most certainly about money, and the figure the loss of up to a certain percentage of players will be offset by the increased cartel market purchases. The problems going to come when they start to loose over that percentage of player base, and have to waste more developer money to fix a broken system and bring them back in.

It's been a complaint since patch 1.0 that the devs of this game don't know how to play the game. They know their code, but generally their get their information from spreadsheets. Whenever this argument raises it's ugly head, the devs will magically start showing up in PvP games and the like to prove that they play the game, until it's realized that they aren't very good at what they are doing, and leave the game and go back deving. It's all based on spreadsheets mostly. They get enough feedback from players that something needs to change (as in this case that gearing is confusing and not very newb friendly) and they sit down with their spreadsheets and come up with a "good idea". The problem is, that this good idea is never very good, because they don't understand the game. Point in fact, that the entire point of accuracy being key, is lost on the devs. It's why we got gear that didn't even have accuracy on it, because they don't understand it's importance because they don't understand at the player level, what their game entails. It's why Sorcerer got nerfed into oblivion. They don't understand their game well enough to understand balance. The spreadsheets are saying something, and they fix the spreadsheet, not the game. Oh they know the code, and they know the spreadsheets, but what it takes to be a top player in this game, they have no idea.

Bioware has never, and will never, listen to PTS feedback when it contradicts what their spreadsheets and ego are telling them. So right now the spreadsheets are saying "we need to fix gearing" and "this is the best way to do it" and then the devs chime in and figure out this "really great new system" that everyone hates. 6 months later they finally get it to a working condition, and a few months later it's actually somewhat enjoyable. This isn't the first time they've done gearing and class changes, and every time they are universally panned until fixed a few patches later. It's ego and money talking, and when both are in agreement, it means the players on PTS don't have an idea how to play their (the devs) game.

So I think I want to get this straight in my head here after reading the post. 1: Goal is to make gearing easier for the newb to understand. End result: We make gearing even more complicated then it is now. 2: Goal is to allow players to play the game how they want to play it. End result: We'll allow you to do it, but you only get the rewards if you play it how we tell you to play it. 3: You decide that allowing players to have control over how they want their gear to be to fit their playstyle isn't right, so you decide to give everything to RNGesus and hope that they can get that piece of gear that they've been searching for months for. Didn't that go out the window with Warcraft raiding when they realized it wasn't fun to do raids for months to get that shoulder piece you were looking for. 4. You're going to release non-moddable gear before you have a system in place to allow people to play with cartel weapons that they paid good money for. Way to **** over your paying player base. I swear it's like the devs watched an episode of "who loved the year 2004" and decided that you devs loved the way that WoW launched and reverted this game to 20 years in the past in game development. Massive RNG. Incomplete systems. Fixed systems that take control away from your customers. And what's even funnier is when pretty much your entire player base tells you "this isn't the right direction to go" you chose to totally ignore your player base because you are so arrogant that you know how they should be playing your game better then they do and chose to ignore your player base all together. It's like you are trying to destroy this game.

Thank you for proving my point actually. What you're saying is that the math, as created by the devs, says that it's necessary to bend the knee to join a guild. And no, from your other post, I'm not vilifying guilds in general. I'm a member of a number of them. The point I'm making is that many guilds operate with certain restrictions in place, either implicit or overt. You want to game at 3am US West Coast Time? What are the chances that there are any guilds really operating operations at that time on Satele Shan? Hell what are the chances on Star Forge? So I get it, you want people to join guilds. I can appreciate that, but your thinking is the exact thinking that the devs are having. Forced group content, at the expense of solo operations. In your case its forced group guild joining vs standing on an island. In the devs case it's forced operations. Both are wrong thinking in a game billed as "play how you want". It both cases its "play how you want as long as you conform to the group thinking we have"

Well this here is the crux of the problem. SWTOR devs billed this as a "play as you want". That means technically I should be able to play without a guild being forced down my throat in order to play. Guess not. The other issue here is a lot of the guilds have "mandatory" requirements in order to join/stay. If the OP works a swing shift at 72 hours a week, when do you think he's going to be able to meet all the requirements of a Operations guild? Answer, probably none at all. Also with a swing shift, he's online most hours when others aren't. The answer to bad development shouldn't be "join a guild". I'm not saying a MMO should be solo friendly, but it shouldn't be solo antagonistic, especially on a MMO that the devs are billing as "play how you want".

I understand the nerf to a degree. A vocal minority have been complaining that end game content is too easy with the current gear set up, and something needs to be done. Of course like every MMO out there, devs haven't learned to ignore vocal minorities, but that's another complaint. So they listened and they nerfed. Fine, we will overcome and adapt. That's what players do. The problem is, and always has been with SWTOR, is that they have zero clue what balance is in this game. They never have. It's why Sorcerers went from Godly to God Aweful a few patches back. So we're just seeing another example of how they have no idea how to balance. They've nerfed gear AND buffed NPCs. So instead of getting a fine tuned balance, they've over-tuned it and created this mess.

They did it before, they'll do it again. In fact remember when the 6.0 gearing system came out and they had to go back months later and fix it, because the outcry was so loud and people were leaving the game in droves? It was mentioned on PTS that it was going to be the case, and they didn't listen because their "spreadsheets" said it would be fine. Then it wasn't. I see the same thing happening here. They'll release it as is, because their spreadsheets say it should be this way. It'll bomb, people will leave, and they'll fix it 6 months later. I really hope they don't. I'm begging for them to not release the gearing system and split the 7.0 launch into two different launches, but they won't.

Honestly I've said this before in non-sticky posts, but I'll say it here. They need to release 7.0 without the gearing and flashpoint changes. It's not ready, and all it's going to do is drive away players. If combat skills, load outs, and the character creation were bug free, I may feel differently under the circumstances. but the devs don't have that much time left, and they need to concentrate on stuff that the community wants. Gearing and flashpoint changes aren't on that list, especially these really bad, unbalanced, and buggy gearing and drop changes. What's even scarier is the Bioware didn't learn anything from the 6.0 launch when they launched a gearing change that was universally panned and disliked, and then the community had to suffer for about 6 months until Bioware made enough changes to the gearing system that it was at least livable. Then they decided to do it all over again in 7.0 and not learn anything. Just forget about the gearing and drop changes for now. Launch 7.0 with the story, the new character creation, the load outs, and the skill changes. Concentrate on making them better and bug free first. By putting on hold these gear changes it would free up manpower and manhours to the parts of 7.0 that the players actually want bug free (of free-er) and balanced. Then take the added time to sit down and figure out a balanced and proper gearing system that allows all your players, and all play styles to enjoy the game again. Right now as it stands, the solo players will hate the system, the group players will see the costs of gear prohibitive. Anyone with multiple alts will hate it. Shift manpower around, delay the launch of the new gearing system until it's actually ready and balanced, instead of doing it the typical Bioware way, of launching a system that no player likes, then scrambling to fix it 6 months later to try and retain you player base.

So now healers are mandatory. What ever happened to "we want you to be able to play the way you want? It's just another example of the devs thinking that we should play the game their way, and anything that doesn't conform to that vision should be wiped away and discarded. So now the devs feel we need the holy trinity of tank, healer, dps, and by gods they are going to make sure we play that way.

Personally I think the major problem I have with the update is the gearing and the total disregard for casual and solo players. I don't me slight disregard, I mean total absolute disregard. That said there is a lot that is good, or at least could be good, with this release, but they've marred it with two really, really bad ideas, that so far I don't see anyone liking. So my suggestion, concentrate on the new character creation, loadouts, and combat skills update. Those are probably your least controversial and still need a ton of work to make them playable. Totally scrap the gearing and flashpoint changes until you get a system that's not horrible, because that's what it is right now, horrible. Please don't play "artiste" dev, where you feel that the players don't understand your genius and need to be told how to play the game properly, because you as the devs have the grand design. Listen to your player base, listen to the total dislike for the new gearing and flashpoint system, and just go back to drawing board on them, and don't make the same mistake you made in 6.0 that you released a gearing system that was universally hated so badly you had to go back and "fix" it to make it somewhat palatable.

So I guess this here proves a lot of points. No offense, I think you did some great work, but any new player shouldn't have to go to YouTube to figure out a game mechanic that's become a basic staple of the game. It should be explained in game, simply and easily so that any new player can figure it out. Hell they have a tutorial for buying a stronghold, they should have on for this.

I think a lot of it has to do with narcissistic behavior to be honest. The devs worked hard on content, and then watch that content be ignored for other content. This doesn't sit well with them. So you have two avenues. One is, ask why no one likes certain content and fix it. Problem is, even if they do ask, they probably don't like the answer. So they ignore it, or simply don't ask the question. The other avenue is simply force players into playing the content. Numbers go up, and the devs feel validated and can point to numbers saying "we're admired". Hell, half of 7.0 is about this. The idea of marginalizing solo play for forced group play because they feel their work is better played in groups. The whole idea of rotating flashpoints to force players into playing flashpoints that no one likes. No player asked for it, it's a good-idea-fairy idea, and the devs won't back down from it, at least until the player sub numbers drop and they are forced to look into it. But to be honest it's not a EA/Bioware exclusive situation. Almost all game developers are like this. Failure to listen to feedback and their player base is a problem in almost all games, when the devs come up with a "good idea" and need that validation.

If I'm going to guess, SWTOR is sliding even more to a grind F2P style game then it already is, possibly with a P2W model being more heavily added. Need that extra currency, well hell buy the 5 pack in the Cartel Market for just 500 cartel coins. Stinking casual solo player and don't have time to grind? Buy the combo pack for 2000 cartel coins. Oh and we'll make it random too, so there's a good chance that RNGesus won't like you and you'll have to buy even more from the cartel market. Not saying that it's where it's going, but hey it's EA, and they love their in-game purchases. I wouldn't be surprised if they're setting it up for that eventuality, just in case.

I tried to keep an open mind about 7.0, and even on PTS I've tried to keep an open mind figuring it's PTS and things can change. But it's not easier on the vets and certainly won't be easier on the new player. It certainly doesn't help that the 7.0 content is so buggy that it barely works enough to be actually tested properly, but it's not easier to understand. But lets be honest, other than bug fixes, they're not going to change anything major. What we have is what we get. Maybe they'll give us a new tutorial or two, but otherwise, it's not going to change, at least for 6 months after 7.0 goes live and the general outpouring of hate and frustration from the general population reaches their ears. For example the current Renown System that is in place. When it came out, everyone hated it, to the point where months later they made changes to it. The problem was, the fact that everyone hated it was made clear when it was on PTS, and the devs didn't listen. The other issue here is EA/Bioware/SWTOR games I don't think play the game at the level that most players play it. You can see it in changes to the Sorcerer, where admittedly the Sorcerer was OP, but then they nerfed it into oblivion instead of listening to the players and finding a balance. Course it doesn't help that the devs favorite classes are the Knight and the Bounty Hunter.

So bug I found and not sure how it works, or actually why it doesn't work. So I transfered my Sith Madness Inquisitor over to PTS. Took the Juggie second combat style. Began to work on my loadouts in the fleet Cantina. First it wouldn't let me switch between combat styles. So I logged out and logged back in. That fixed it. Switched to Juggie, and then it wouldn't let me switch my skill trees in Juggie. *Sigh* Log back out, log back in, still doesn't work. Logged back out, logged back in, this time it worked. Switched back to my first loadout, and it had switched me back to Lightning. Okay, so go to switch back to Madness, of course I can't switch skill trees again. It's really hard to test this stuff out, when you can't switch between skill trees, load outs, and classes on a whim, even in a Cantina just to set up your loadouts.

So bug I found and not sure how it works, or actually why it doesn't work. So I transfered my Sith Madness Inquisitor over to PTS. Took the Juggie second combat style. Began to work on my loadouts in the fleet Cantina. First it wouldn't let me switch between combat styles. So I logged out and logged back in. That fixed it. Switched to Juggie, and then it wouldn't let me switch my skill trees in Juggie. *Sigh* Log back out, log back in, still doesn't work. Logged back out, logged back in, this time it worked. Switched back to my first loadout, and it had switched me back to Lightning. Okay, so go to switch back to Madness, of course I can't switch skill trees again. It's really hard to test this stuff out, when you can't switch between skill trees, load outs, and classes on a whim, even in a Cantina just to set up your loadouts.

I'm going to set my two cents in here. But solo players getting told to force group or go home, and the fact that when you do the missions you run the risk due to RNG of not getting anything useful and just wasting time, has to be the worst idea ever in the history of MMOs. So I say do away with RNG. You already have a system in place for Tech Fragments, just use those as rewards. So, without actually real numbers, a story flashpoint gives you 1 tech fragment, a vet flashpoint gives you 3 tech fragments, a operation gives out 5 tech fragments, and a full raid gives out 7 tech fragments. Do away with gear drops entirely, and just have it be RNG tech fragment drops in their place. You then can go an purchase gear that is actually useful. The higher the iRating the more tech fragments it cost, and the more grind you have to do. This system will still reward those who raid more, but not put out into the cold the solo player.

I don't understand why people are being penalized for not getting into raids. Simply put, you either devote a ton of time to this game doing raid content, or go home. Some days I have the time to do raid content, and that's all well and good. Some days though, I only have time to do a single flashpoint, and now it feels like I'm being penalized for doing those FPs. As someone said earlier the Raid or Die game model died out years ago, so why is this game going back to it? I get the concept that BiS gear should come from the most challenging content, that's fine, but why does it feel that the devs are saying "play our way or gimp yourself to hell and back". It's going to really suck when I have only a few hours or less for a week and fall behind on my raiding, then try and get into a raid and realize that my gear is sub-optimal because the devs won't allow us to casual on occasion.

Bug: Playing a Sorcerer./Lightning, currently level 16. Haven't been able to change my specialty on my sorc regardless if I'm in a cantina or not. Went into Black Talon and finished the mission. Sitting on the bridge of the Black Talon and I open my character screen on my Sorc and it shows that I can change my specialties with the selections actually lighting up as I pass over them. Course I can't because I'm not in a cantina. Go to Drommund Kaas. Go to the cantina there. Now the selections can no longer be chosen again, even if I'm in a cantina.

So I went back into the character creation, and thought I'd go in trying to act like a new player. First thing I noticed, was that there was no "inspect" on any of the classes like on live. On live when you pick a class, you can hit the the button on the top of the screen to give you a bit more indepth look of what you're getting yourself into. That's missing here. So as a experienced player, looking at a Powertech, I know what to expect, what to look at, what a Pyrotech is. As a new player, I'm afraid I just know it's a pistol wielding character with cool armor, that shoots fire. Then I look over and see it's a melee class, and have to wonder, how it a pistol/flame thrower wielding class a melee class? There's nothing beyond the "coolness" blurb (that at one point defaulted to assassin's blurb) of any kind of detail on skills, or what the disciplines actually provide me. Operative is even more confusing. Am I using a rifle or two-melee blades? I'm wielding a rifle... how am I melee? Then I get in game, and don't get to equip melee blades, I think I may be a bit disappointed. Bugs A lot of time the Style blurb defaults to Assassin's blurb. Not sure why and it's not consistant. Bug 2: When I went into the creator, my class defaulted to Marauder. Switching to other classes, the light saber blades never went away. Going to looksmenu: The roll over race names seem awful small, and just placed in random places. Sometime it's in the upper left of my screen, sometimes the middle left of my screen, sometimes in the middle. I'm assuming most new players will be familiar with Star Wars races, but who knows. You may want to highlight the name block a bit. The black and white part kind of makes it blend in, and if I wasn't looking for it, I'd never know it was there. Bugs: If you pick Cyborg, the rotate/zoom bar is on the same line as the Skin Color line, making a janky mess. Issue: Since you were so kind as to not unlock the optional species so we can try out the character editor for those, I have no idea if the other races work or not. Overall, veteran players won't have any issues with the character creator, and I think many will enjoy it more than live. It certainly more modern. As a new player, it can be a bit daunting, when you are dumped on the specialty page and have no idea what all those classes actually do or the skills they provide. For example: After December I see another large influx of Bobba Fett and Mandalorian pretenders. If I'm a new player, what class/specialty combo would work best for them? What discipline?

I want to add onto this a bit. Have you ever gone to a costume party and seen a female there wearing a male costume and to get the look of stubble, took a grease pencil and just kind of dirtied up their face? That's what some of these facial hairs look like. Some of them aren't bad, but some seriously look like they're costume pieces or grease pencil and not real facial hair. Doing some more research, a lot of it has to do with the head you pick. The facial hair complexion doesn't always mesh right with the head, and it creates an ugly and immersion breaking costume, vs a "female character" with facial hair.

So an interesting suggestion. Star Trek Online costume creator has a button that you can swap lighting between various different planet's lighting. This allows you to see your character and costumes under different lighting conditions. That idea wouldn't be bad here. Umbra has very different lighting conditions than Korriban or Taris.

So I like the idea of Loadouts. On the surface the idea that I can PUG or group up, switch my loadout to compliment the team, and go into the operation is a great idea. Except the whole idea that to do it, I need to run back to a cantina or my sanctuary to do it. If I'm on a planet doing conquests, and pug up with someone else doing conquest, I'd be holding up the team to transfer to my sanctuary. Switch loadouts, transfer back to the planet, run back to the team. It defeats the whole purpose of loadouts. It kind of also defeats the purpose of loadouts is I'm soloing an Operation, get to a spot where a different loadout would work better. Say an epic boss where I'm went in as DPS to get rid of all the trash mobs quickly, but now that I'm at the boss, a tank load out would be better to fight them. Or went in as melee, and now ranged would work better against that boss. That's the purpose behind loadouts, and currently being so restricted, they're useless. I mean that, useless. Right now they are a great Roleplaying tool, and that's about it. Since you killed RP in SWTOR during the server merge on most servers, there isn't much use then for loadouts. As to how to use them... it took me forever to figure it out. It looks like a computer developer made them, and said "they're figure it out.". It's hard enough to test with the focus on character creation and early leveling, but once you can... they're not the most intuitive system out there. At the very least a tutorial mission. For the love of Valkorian, you made a tutorial for housing... housing... and that's so much easier then this. Edit: As others have mentioned, PvP is probably the restriction for swapping loadouts on the fly. Understandable. So here's a simple way to fix it. The moment you are flagged for PvP you can't swap loadouts. Once the PvP flag goes away, you can swap again.