It's not sustainable with a themepark MMO such as this. The games that are focused around player driven content are the ones that can and do sustain the hardcore mentality. Games like Eve, shadowbane, DAoC, and even Everquest to a certain extent accomplished this. In Eve there is always content because of the never ending wars between militia's and corporations. In Shadowbane guilds could build cities and control continents which lead to intense politics and wars. DAoC's RvR was similar. EQ's PvE content was more exciting and more player driven because you were actually competing against other guilds to kill a mob. Each guild didn't have it's own instance you actually had to assemble your party and kill the boss faster than the other group. All of these things lead to a more sustainable experience that people will stick around with longer because the players keep it interesting. WoW and SWTOR do not have any aspects that are truly player driven and that is what makes them themepark games. If developers want to make a game that is really going to keep hardcore gamers around they need to think bigger and create the groundwork for players to build on. Not just another new instance or warzone that is just like the last 9000 we've played.

+1 Having no dynamic weather or day night cycle really bugged me when I first started playing. I've learned to live with it but imo it's just sloppy and makes it feel EVEN MORE like a single player game and not an actual galaxy of planets constantly moving and living.

^^ still pretty bad =/

This is what I don't get.. There's only so much you can improve without having more tools available to you. There have always been divides in gaming communities. In everquest before WoW damage meters didn't exist but hardcore guilds with strict recruitment policies did. There has always been a divide between casual and hardcore players and there always will be. It's just seen more prominently in MMO's because we all share the same space. Everquest functioned differently from WoW or SWTOR. A hardcore player wasn't someone who had the best numbers it was someone who was always on at the drop of a dime because boss mobs could spawn at any time in a very large window. Games now don't work like that we get to choose when we raid now and now hardcore is defined by who plays their class the best. Even though hardcore is defined differently between the 2 games it's essentially the same thing, the people who can play 8-10 hours a day to work on their char and the people who can't. Even back then the people who weren't hardcore had their own guilds and the people who were had theirs. They didn't all mix together, they could be best friends IRL but they understood that they weren't going to be doing the same content together or even be in the same guilds. Basically what I'm trying to say is this divide that you think happened because of DPS meters has actually always existed and it always will. Casual or Hardcore we're all gaming in this little world and most likely you know which one you are. Regardless of what you are though everybody can gain from DPS Meters. It won't suddenly make it so you can't discover and grow with your character it will just give you another tool to help do it.

Seriously what are you people who don't want DPS meters afraid of? Anybody who is participating in hard to nightmare mode ops should be for them. If your not then why do you care? No one is going to kick you out of HM FP's because your dps is a little lower than the next guys, no one is going to boot you from a normal mode ops because your low on dps because normal mode ops are already SO easy. I have to assume that if you don't want DPS meters your not "evil elitist hardcore raiders" if this assumption is right then really when is a DPS meter going to actually effect your game? You aren't going to get booted from lvl 10-49 FP's because your dmg is low. Your not going to be unable to do your story quest. I seriously doubt you'd ever even be kicked from a HM FP for having low dps. If your DPS is that low guess what you have a log and you can look at it while your playing and adjust your rotation as your playing to improve. You won't have to exit the game theory craft go back try again just to exit and theory craft some more. Somewhere along the line you people became so afraid of being judged by the "elite" that you've decided that you'd rather not know if your performing poorly. You'd rather just keep playing incorrectly day after day taking more repair costs and making everything you do take longer. If you don't want to play with the elitist jerks who do want combat logs don't join guilds that are advertised as "hardcore" guilds. Most likely if you aren't in a "hardcore" guild nothing will be expected of you. You won't have to optimize your DPS to do normal mode ops with your friends and you can keep playing like you normally do. However should you decide that you actually want to improve your play you would have the tools to do so. I mean think rationally here people, what are you afraid of? Having more tools to help you learn and improve is never a bad thing. You sound like a bunch of republicans who refuse to listen to logic and facts. Instead you choose to be afraid of being judged by the big bad elite guilds. Ohz no they may tell you if you suck! Personally I'd rather know if I'm doing something wrong.

I have both a 50 sin and 50 jugg and I can honestly say that the assassin is waaaaay better in pvp. I think even the best jugs will tell you that a pvp speced sin with their cooldowns up is basically always going to win. Sins have just as many defensive cooldowns (better defensive cooldowns), vanish, stealth, and all kinds of life stealing moves. They do pretty decent dmg maybe not as much sustained dps as a vengeance jug but still pretty good. The main thing is they just have so much survivability it's ridiculous. The assassin is also a lot easier to play in my opinion. That said I like playing my jug more, it's more rewarding and I actually have to think when I pvp if I want to kill people. On the sin I just wtfroflstomp everyone who comes close.. The gap between the two classes is really kind of ridiculous imo. I have a guildy who also has a 50jug and a 50 sin and he agrees with how I feel.

Thank you for the funniest post I've read today OP. Seriously the screenshots you posted as evidence are especially priceless. You realize that a DPS Jugg has only 1 cooldown that increases any defense, No cc, and no real escape ability. Not to mention our only knockback is on a minute cooldown. We hit harder because we lack ANY utility.. My first 50 was an assassin and he pwns so much harder in pvp and is soooo much easier to play well. This guy has to be trolling..

Exactly my point.

Yes I understand that, but still why the valor req? It doesn't really make a whole lot of sense. I'm not complaining that I'm not getting gear quick enough, this new system is wayyyy better than the old. Just wondering why they chose to go with a valor req instead of a lvl req when champ gear has always been lvl req only. I think it's a fairly reasonable question.

I'd really like to know why the new champion coms (120 wz coms per) require valor 50 buy? I currently have 62 champ coms but my char is only valor 33. Champ gear has never required a certain valor level only the lvl 50 req. These champ tokens should not require valor 50 but just lvl 50 like all champ gear has since the game started. I guess maybe they did this to prevent lowbies stacking up on champ tokens but how would a lvl req not accomplish the same thing? Seriously by the time I hit valor 50 I'll have bought enough bags to probably have all the champ gear I need. Champ gear has always only had the lvl 50 requirement why should these coms be different?

No not everyone wants to be a heroic douchebag. Sometimes you just want to kill people

Honestly the OP brings up a solid point. Gear is way too easy to get and is just way too generic. There is no task that is just insurmountable.. if your ops group has full columi (which can be acquired from 4 man hard modes) you can kill every boss in the game. Add a few rakata pieces to that and you can clear everything on nightmare mode. I know this because my group has done it. There's no big mythical boss. None of the raid content takes more than a couple weeks to clear and be on farm status. It's just simply not challenging. I remember in EQ and WoW you would clear maybe 2 or 3 out of x amount of bosses and be stuck there for up to month just gearing up and attempting that 4th boss until you got it. You don't see that here and it takes a lot of the fun out of downing a boss. The only boss in this game that has actually proven to be a challenge is SOA and that's not because his mechanics are difficult it's because of how bugged and random the fight is. It's gotten better since they fixed him randomly dropping agro and automatically taking people out of mind traps at the end of the 2nd phase but so much of the fight is still just a battle against the RNG. Another issue is that nightmare and HM drops the same exact loot. I mean honestly bio aside from the challenge whats the point of doing Nightmare? We do it because its fun but if we're tired and don't want to bother wiping to bugs on soa for an hour straight we know we can switch to HM and get the same exact reward. It's just silly. It also really doesn't feel like your getting some amazing epic piece of loot when your just going to the rakata vendor and trading in a token. Obviously this system is nice for many reasons but would it really be that hard to add in some actually RARE (as in it doesn't drop every single time for atleast one class) legendary items? I mean it doesn't even have to be better than rakata just something different to show off and make our e-peens larger. Oh yea and master looter is still broken.. jesus christ how is that even possible.

They also failed to mention that we now have to purchase surging charge in order to purchase induction. Before you could purchase one without the other.

I guarantee you won't find a single shadow who believes this is a disadvantage and more than a few would be upset if it were nerfed to be completely instant like ours. Is it really too much to expect that "Mirror" classes actually be mirrored? I guess you are happy with flawed design?

You are being thick. When they say all saber charges they mean when you are changing from dark charge to surging charge or lightning charge. However we are being nerfed this patch no doubt about it. 23/18 is no longer viable since raze can now only be used while lightning charge is active. Induction also can now only be used while surging charge is active. Before this patch these talents could be used with any charge active. It's pretty lame, my entire build has been rendered completely useless and now I'm going to be stuck with full darkness. I honestly don't think that it was overpowered or if they even realize they are nerfing certain builds.

That shadow burst is significantly stronger than ours? Project, the jedi version of shock does not deal instant dmg like shock does. It's dmg is dealt 1.7 seconds after the button is clicked meaning that they can activate project (shock) then force breach directly after (discharge) and because of projects animation delay they will both hit at almost the exact same time. This gives shadows a pretty huge advantage especially when it comes to killing healers. I'm sure this has been brought up before.. Earlier today I saw a post about a similar issue with bh's death from above and the repub equivalent. This is something that can't be overlooked. It's a huge advantage for shadows. Here's a vid that shows what I'm talking about.. if your a 50 sin you will immediately notice something is wrong. :eek:

I did this at lvl 30 as an assassin with mainly blue/orange and some green gear. If you pop a stim and know how to play your class it's completely doable. You just have to interrupt and overload at the right times and move out of aoe's. Khem is going to die no matter what he's pretty much useless. Just pop your cooldowns, bring medpacs, stay out of lightning, and interrupt as much as possible and you can beat her. It is damn tough as an assassin though, took me quite a few tries to get her. I believe I was in tank spec at the time, so you may want to try that.