In my guild, I main tank as a Guardian. In full 180 min-maxed gear, I do just north of 1100 dps in a typical boss fight (Nefra, for example). All of my dps members are doing north of 3000 dps, and some are pushing over 3500 dps. My healers can sustain over 4000 hps, and at times 5000 hps. Next I know that as a tank, I get 2 pts of threat for every dps, and at least 1 attack I have will generate 3 pts of threat for every dps. Thus my 1100 dps is generating around 2500 threat per second. This threat goes up against a dps that's doing 3000+ dps, and approximately the same from my healers (who generate ~2 pts of threat for 3 pts of heal). Obviously, without taunting by myself, or aggro dropping by all of the rest of the raid, I am in a losing aggro battle. There simply is no way for me to keep up. The math is pretty simple here for anyone to see. Now, before anyone misunderstands me, I personally have zero aggro control problems. I know how to get aggro and how to keep aggro. My dps all understand the consequences of uncontrolled aggro (attacking an untanked mob). This post is absolutely not about me whining that I cannot play my class successfully. What it is about, is to discuss whether the AVERAGE tank even knows the data I posted above? Does the AVERAGE tank know which attacks generate the most aggro? Do they know EXACTLY what a taunt will accomplish? Do they know how to watch a single target taunt fall off and immediately hit an AOE taunt (double taunting) to get a huge threat lead? Does the AVERAGE tank even have taunt on a keybind? My belief is that NO, the AVERAGE tank does not understand these things very well. I think the AVERAGE tank expects all they should need to do to maintain aggro, is follow their dps rotation. In my experience, the AVERAGE tank understands that taunt will gain them aggro if they don't have it (particularly when taunt swapping between tanks), but they really don't understand the math behind taunt, and they certainly don't understand why they lose aggro mid-fight to a dps. All of my experience as a PUG DPS in SM operations tells me this is true, as even in what I consider to be under-geared DPS classes I will constantly pull off of the AVERAGE tank, as they don't have a successful strategy for gaining and maintaining a threat lead. I believe that at the core of why aggro is an issue, is because tanks are putting out too little DPS to be able to rely on their rotation to maintain threat. If my Guardian were able to generate 3000+ threat per second, only using it's dps rotation, needing to double taunt and taunt swap would be far less necessary than the current state of the game requires. BW has done an amazing job of placating all of the whining DPS with higher numbers. Essentially every class in the game has now been buffed a couple hundred dps (except my beloved gunslinger, which has now been nerfed into the bottom of the dps barrel, but I digress). Which makes tanking a harder task to perform. And thus creates fewer players who want to be tanks. This increases queue times, which then causes BW to create boring tactical flashpoints that don't need tanks. Instead, what I wish BW would do is make sure tanking is a little easier to do for the AVERAGE player, by ensuring our threat generation is on par with AVERAGE player dps. That could mean either buffing our DPS -or- buffing the threat per dps that we get.

I'd say the quest "Traken-4's Legacy", which is a Republic Area quest on Balmorra is a nice surprise for an MMO. Likewise, all of the "puzzle" bosses in the operations to date have been refreshing for various reasons.

It's necessary fixes like this that honestly drive me nuts with how long it takes BW to address. A similar issue was BW taking 4 weeks to fix Tyrans with the NiM mechanic installed. Sure some raid groups figured it out and cleared it, but many were completely stopped in their tracks.

This is where I would disagree. First, you still need to augment legacy gear. Second, if more attractive shells become bind to legacy, in future cartel packs, players like myself finally have a reason, or a temptation to change the look of our gear. As is, there are so few bind to legacy choices, there's nothing tempting me to change my gear, which means I'm not spending credits to re-augment, and rip mods out of one set of legacy gear and put it into a new (better looking) set. FYI, at the cantina event in Phoenix, I recommended this feature to a couple of the BW employees that were present. Honestly, it appeared to me that NONE of them understood how an end game (elder) player is using legacy gear today...similar to how ignorant responses like this are. They pointed out things like: "you can unlock CM gear via collections". Ummmmm...duh. I know that. My question back, is why would nearly ANYONE ever do that? (beyond a color crystal or speeder).

The only "problem" with an appearance tab feature, is that it completely bypasses all credit sinks related to armor in the game. You would NEVER need to re-augment or rip mods out of shells again, to change your appearance. I think having the credit sinks are fine, and I'm willing to pay the cost each time I choose to change my appearance. I'm not willing to pay the cost several times a week to mail my gear to an alt, however...which is why I exclusively use legacy gear.

This is far from P2W. I get 4 complete legacy sets emailed to me every single time I roll a new toon. That means, just for my level 55 characters, I already have 60 complete sets of legacy armor that cost me absolutely nothing. If for some reason I wanted 4 more, I can roll an alt, email the armor sets, and then delete the alt...at zero cost. No rep grind. No credits. No cartel coins. Absolutely nothing. For the players that this feature would get used by, this feature simply gives us more variety of what armor shells we'd have access to. We already have a tremendous number. In fact, the casino event just gave us yet another set (also with no rep grind, only a credit sink).

I have to believe that BW is not seeing as much revenue from CM Packs as it once did. I also believe that GSH is our next major patch for one reason only: to increase CM sales (apartments, furniture and decorations). The trouble, is that GSH development is taking longer than the bean counters at BW want, so they pushed out a massive price increase on CM gear and unlocks to "test" what would happen (while at the same time pocketing a few more dollars). It looks to me like BW is testing the resolve of the biggest whales in the game, to see how far is too far. Perhaps they found it. Or perhaps they didn't. Only the bean counters will really know. And not for a couple of packs yet.

I know I'm in the relative minority of SWTOR players. I have (literally) 15 level 55 characters. I have almost every single advanced class on both Empire and Republic. Accordingly, gear that is bound to legacy is highly valuable to me, because I can take my full set of armor off my gunslinger and send it to my sniper or my 2nd gunslinger. Literally 3 characters share 1 gear set. And this scenario repeats for my guardian and sith warrior, my operative and my agent, my sorc and my sage. Each mirror pair is sharing the same armor set. They wear the best looking this I can find that makes (somewhat) sense for their class and is bound to legacy. As a result of the way I play, if armor and weapon items are not bound to legacy, it is cost prohibitive to use. I mean, I could legacy over all of my gear, pull the mods out of each item, and then put them into cartel market gear on the destination character, but if we consider the costs for that, it's not something a sane person would do very often. That leads me to my point: For me personally, there isn't a single cartel market armor or weapon that I will use, as a result of how cost prohibitive it is. So here's my request: In collections offer two price options for unlock. 1 price is to unlock the item legacy wide (but its still bind to character) and the other option (this is new) is to unlock the item as bind to legacy (I'll leave it to you if you can then make unlimited copies, or if that's a price for 1 copy). I have over 5000 cartel coins. At this point, I simply cannot see anything meaningful to spend them on (my current thinking is that GSH may find a use for them). But if this feature were added, for me, the possibilities would _endless_.

Personally, if I can use the CC benefit on many, many alts, it's something I'm willing to pay for. So that means rocket boots, quick travel cool down reduction, fleet travel cool down reduction, bank tabs, bag rows, and a +41 unlocked crystal. I'd recommend buying a cartel market +41 color crystal off the GTN (pricey!), and then use Cartel coins to unlock it legacy wide. Every future alt, and every future companion character will benefit from this expenditure. After that, I'd recommend saving the coins for galactic strongholds, if having a cool looking stronghold appeals to you. I have a strong suspicion that it's going to be CC heavy for getting the best "stuff".

I think it's fair to expect that when one party (BW) makes a promise to another party (the community), that when the first party doesn't hold up their end of the bargain, the other party can still demand them to do so.

It would make a bit too much sense for BW to sticky a post in this forum (the most read forum) with their status on such a significant issue.

This is still bugged. And to confirm, I also notice it when companions are out on crew skill missions. If a companion comes back with a mission result during a parse, it's a reset at that time.

I am of the opinion that if a player wishes to have all restrictions removed, the player in question should simply subscribe. It's ridiculously cheap to subscribe. So just subscribe. If you say it is too expensive to subscribe, then how the heck did you afford a computer capable of playing this game? The players in question are paying NOTHING to play the game, a game which does actually cost BioWare real money to be able to provide for the paying NOTHING player. Yet you wish to give them more of what a person that actually pays to play the game gets. No. No. No. How about being happy you can play for free at all.

This change trivializes/marginalizes the work done by anyone that has leveled the same class twice, to get both possible advanced classes. And it's proposed by a player that has yet to get even one toon to level 55. Honestly...it's a bad idea. Seriously a bad idea.

Honestly, how can you still be working on your gear? If you do the Oricon story arc, you get a full set of armor. A quick trip to the gtn and possibly 100k later and you have everything else you need. If it takes a fresh 55 longer than 2 hours to be SM Ops ready, you must be doing it wrong. The only thing you may feel you need to work on, is augmenting, as that's a bit expensive. Certianly it doesn't take time, but it takes a lot of credits for a fresh, first time to 55 toon. However, you don't need to be fully augmented to do TFB SM, as most groups are so completely overgeared they can easily take a couple of "newbs".

Bruce, your team really, really needs to add NEW content to the end game sooner than your "roadmap" implies. By new content, I'm mostly referring to operations, but I'm also referring to anything that improves gear for the end game player. Some will say that the new flashpoints should be counted as end game content, but that's really only true for the most casual of players...the once a week players...the ftp player that you don't make any money on any way. Your subscribers have consumed that FP content and it's old and stale, because it doesn't advance your character. As a reminder, the existing end game operations include one that is almost 2 years old, one that is over a year old, and 2 that are 9 months old. This roadmap says you are planning to make this old content more accessible, which over the life of the game will serve you well. Kudos to that. But you don't need this overly easy and stale content to be more accessible today. Down the road, sure...but not today. If I were in your shoes, I would have saved this feature for the next level cap expansion, at the earliest...or even the first major update AFTER that expansion. Another thing your team seriously needs to get it's arms around is how you've made the existing level 55 HM FP's all but meaningless. NONE of them provide meaningful end game gear as a result of the Oricon Story arc, combined with crafted gear at current prices (ears, barrels, and implants are all quite cheap and easy to buy to gain access to SM Ops). If I may suggest, if you wanted to refresh old content, adding a way to get a (underworld level please) relic via HM FP's, to get the BAD PVErs out of PVP at end game would be a useful allocation of resources, in my opinion. Likewise, I would even be in favor of having MK-9 Kits be a HM 55 FP reward. Some crafters might not like losing a few customers, but I'd rather see more augmented gear out there as a result of this type of improvement. TL;DR- None of the roadmap is "bad". Much of it is simply not what I would consider the highest priority for the state of the game today.

I don't do any planetary stories any longer, just class story. I do my PVP daily and weekly reliably, because when I hit 55 I want to be at least valor level 40 and have banked enough WZs comms for 2 PVP relics and potentially an upgraded PVP relic. I'll do a KDY flashpoint occasionally if the class story and PVP still aren't enough to keep me on track, but I'd prefer not to.

Section X rewards 25 basic comms per week, if you do the daily and weekly 1 time. Go back every day and get 10 more basic comms a day. A FP gives you 6 basic comms...so FPs are on the losing end of that discussion. If you really have enough time to do both (dailies and FPs), then do dailies with a second toon. Or third. But dailies would be the smarter way to spend the same amount of time. Looking at the weekly for 3 HM FPs it rewards 12 ultimate comms. Or you can run EV HM 1 time, and get those same 12 comms in 30 minutes. Once again...FPs are on the losing end of this discussion. I still see no point. To the OP's point, those running FP's should be doing so because they are "fun". Not for gear, not loot, not rewards, but some emotional reason. Therefore, trash pulls should be part of the fun, and I would agree they shouldn't be skipped.

If you are like me, you were probably critical of 2.7.0. It was very buggy, including nearly shutting down DP HM for many ops groups (we still cleared it, but many could not), with the introduction of accidental NiM mechanics. But as far as I can tell, 2.7.1 doesn't have a single new regression bug. In my experience I'm not seeing anything, at least. And the forums are pretty quiet. So what say the community? Best patch ever? If so...it was worth the wait. PS- referring to quality here....not necessarily quantity or content.

My question is why are you running flashpoints at all? Not only do you not get xp, you don't get useful loot, or useful comms. I mean...there's simply no point for any of them (the 2 latest are an exception if you want the legacy gear tokens) outside achievement hunting. I really am clueless why anyone bothers the tried and tired 55 HM FP's.

If you only got mid-level on your previous toons, I wouldn't reroll...just keep playing them. It's an MMO...the mechanics aren't that hard to figure out. Plus, the guides on Dulfy.net are good enough to fill in any gaps that the tool tips don't make obvious. FYI, this game rewards, through legacy, getting ALL of the classes through at least the end of chapter 2, to gain the class buff from all 4 classes on every toon. So time spent starting over really isn't a good use of time. You are resetting all of that legacy leveling work you've put in, and delaying the ability to get those class buffs. Legacy level also helps with certain convenience unlocks. And you gain more legacy xp at higher character levels...so starting over slows down the pace that you gain legacy level. Plus, remember you don't even get a legacy at all, until at least 1 character has finished Chapter 1.

My Sentinel is using a hallowed Gothic Chest, belt, and bracer. A Dread Host glove. A Czerka Executive Legs and boots, and then the Tattered Rituallist Headpiece. Died Black/Deep Red, of course. So gear from 3 different vendors with different rep grinds needed. But it looks reasonably sent/mara ish. The completed Tattered Rit set would be nice, but the grind is going to take ridiculously long, and I figure you, like most raiders have Czerka and Oricon rep at max by now anyway.

The CM got zero support from me, when I realized nothing in the CM is "bound to legacy", and thus cannot be shared across my plethora of alts. An appearance tab would potentially fix that problem for the CM for me as well. If I could still legacy around my armor and weapons in some form of container, but dress each toon as I saw fit, I'd be one happy clam...and might even support the CM now and again.

Eric, If a guild capitol ship takes credits to "buy", then please add an ability for a guild to "tax" it's membership. It should be some setting a guild leader can put from 0-10% of credits earned (from missions and drops, not off the GTN) goes into the guild bank. And we need this feature implemented as part of early access, so the guild has the time to save for it. If a guild capitol ship takes materials to "build", then there really isn't much I can see for "taxing" the guild...I simply hope its far more of the former. If it takes 200 MMG's, 800 EEE's, and 800 Iso 5's, as an example, that's a rough type of requirement for any guild, and one that's going to burden the few, while benefiting the many...not my idea of fair in the least. Lastly, it's worth noting that as players we know vastly more about a release now scheduled for October, than we know about the release formerly scheduled for June (and which I assume is about to be rescheduled to July). That is NOT an example of transparency. In fact, it's the opposite. I really don't understand how it is the dev team thinks hiding the content of 2.8 from us this long is a good idea, as from my perspective it's very much a bad idea. Something to noodle on as you consider how long you are going to sit on this "roadmap" post.

My very first thought was that top tier would get a black core, bright red glowing crystal. Black cores look amazing to me. But since Strongholds will be out by Season 2, I strongly suggest offering a reward that can be placed in the stronghold. Top Tier gets some huge arsed monument for your trophy room. Middle tier gets a small statue. Bottom tier gets a table top sized trophy. Honestly, if you need to come out with some shiny new epic mount twice a year that's unique, the rewards are going to be a bit of a failure at some point. So I would discourage them sooner than later. The stronghold trophy makes more sense to me since we have this trophy room for precisely this sort of reason. Another highly valuable reward would be MK-9 kits. Bottom tier gets 1. Middle tier gets several. Top tier gets a full set. This way top PVPers have the kits to completely change their armor set to something new and fresh, along with there required changes for "left side" gear.