Even my story is completely predictable at this point. Let me guess I'm gonna get to the planet and he's not gonna be there and I'm gonna have to do all these other quests for other people before someone will let me know where he is? That's been pretty much the story... on every character at every planet.

Come on. What other MMO has ever been THIS linear? (ok Rift)

On my third character... and it's just... a tread mill at this point. I have to stop space barring just to try to give myself even a superficial reason to be going to the same area and doing the same thing again. I know I won't make it through the 4th character, but honestly the strictness of the leveling path is completely breaking me. I loved my first leveling experience... until the horrible end. I liked my 2nd experience. My third experience... is just... I am trying to break it up with space combat and stuff but the exact same point to point leveling pace is just numbing my brain. Is it even possible to alter your leveling pattern in this game?

Not while Gabe Amatangelo is in charge. He is the biggest obstacle to world pvp and pvp in general in SWTOR. He was warned and knew about all the issues during beta. Little has changed. Or even the willingness to change. Ilum needs a map overhaul. The "pvp" area needs to have choke points, and defensible bases to leap frog to the other side. The fact that ilum launched the way it did says something about this teams ability to develop pvp.

Name another main stream MMO where this much cheating / exploiting / hacks have gone on this long? Honestly please name one.

Except I know what I'm asking for. I have been pvp'ing since it was pk/pkk. I played UO, L2, SB, AO, AC, SWG, DAOC and pretty much every other Main Stream MMO out there that had pvp. I know exactly what I'm asking for. I know what I'm talking about and the developers were warned all through beta.

You've never seen anything other than dual faction wvw I take it?

Bioware bought the rights to DAOC, like Michael Jackson bought the rights to the Beatles music, doesn't mean Michael Jackson is a Beatle. GW2 is going to be the closest thing to DAOC 2 you will ever see with their WVW The development team at Bioware doesn't know how to do world pvp. As evidenced by Ilum. The area they developed for focused pvp had no defensible positions, no choke points, no places for mass battles other than at either base. Just hang out in SWTOR till GW2. we are 8 days away from the GW2 press beta, and the announcements are going to blow your mind to the amazing that is coming.

The guys with the same guild tag

Oh you can still do it. Not to say they aren't worth playing cause you can contribute. But at max level the best sage is better than the best gunslinger.

Sages can pretty much do anything a gunslinger can, except better, faster, and more mobile.

What does a gunslinger bring that isn't already done better by another class?

i don't think it's the armor that makes a difference, it's the expertise. a well geared anything is hard to kill. I've seen inquisitor tank full groups of level 50s.

As someone that is leveling both a sage and a gunslinger at the moment i really feel that my gunslinger does not bring nearly as much as my sage. My sage can dps just about as good as my gunslinger, while remaining far more mobile. My sage can back up heal/shield people. My gunslinger can root / cc people... my sage can snare/cc people.

You see you're wrong. A sage's attacks are kinetic. They should be just as mitigated by armor as the gunslinger. Project = Kinetic Mind Crush = Kinetic Disturbance = Energy All armor is supposed to reduce both kinetic and energy damage.

That's thing thing. When swapping between my Sage and my Gunslinger, it feels like my sage is always hitting harder than my gunslinger.

Has anyone done any tests to make sure that Bioware didn't screw up it's classification of damage?

Yeah except all the inquisitor nukes are energy. so they should be getting damage reduction on them.

Most all sith inqisitor attacks are energy or kinetic. I am supposed to (based on my Defense tab) be able to reduce 35% of all that damage. So all that damage I am taking from an inquisitor... is reduced by 35%? Or is my math wrong?

The Rated Warzones should fix this problem. See when you're in max gear and max mods, you dominate the crap out of people and it's not fun. This unbracketed pvp is a poisonous unto itself. Bioware knew this, and knew the consequences. They will eventually introduce bracketed warzones, but for the meantime the system is what it is.

A huge problem with pre-expertise gear, is that most damage can't be mitigated, until you get expertise. Why did Georg Zoeller decide to allow for such a backwards combat system to where so much damage just can't be mitigated by defensive abilities?

I honestly have no idea why Bioware went with such specific damage types, and then made most defenses in the game ignore most of them.

That, and pretty much any animation prevents you from throwing cover down. That's pretty annoying as well.

You are bad at Vanguard. Snipers for me on my vanguard are free kills. And as a Jugg, stun + leap = win.

You're joking right?