For me, leveling alts in SWtOR is more fun than in other MMOs but less fun than in single-player RPGs, even counting Bioware's own. I'm struggling to stay interested in alts significantly more than I did in ME and ME2 and slightly more than in DAO. The SWtOR story lines are good, but the amount of grind to get through them seems insufficient for the payoff once you've already gotten one character to 50. If I could just skip the non-story content on alts while magically being awarded the XP and items they would have provided, that would help, but then I'd lose out on potential decisions and ls/ds points. The repetition of the non-story content saps too much fun, and that repetition is worsened by every class being a glorified pet class. I'm not sure why that seems to bother me more in SWtOR than it did in the Mass Effect series, but it does. Partly it's because I could get through a run of ME in a fraction of the time it takes to get to 50 in SWtOR, so the action-to-grind ration is very different. The other thing is, alts are the only thing I'm doing right now. Dailies bore me silly for too little reward. I'm not into PvP or raiding. So yeah, maybe an MMO just isn't a good fit; I'm open to that possibility after playing half a dozen of them over the last 10+ years.

For me, the nerfs are just the icing on the cake, or the last straw (to use a less joyful metaphor). I thoroughly enjoyed my first play-through and it felt like the best MMO I'd ever played going 1-50. Then I dipped into the dailies and found them tedious and boring, barely worth doing once let alone on constant repeat. Leveling several alts, I've found the 20% that is different is only interesting enough to get me logging in about a third as much as I did early on. In previous Bioware games, I typically played through at least twice if not three times (K1, K2, ME1, ME2, DA), but those were single-player games, of course. This game feels like it wants to be a combination of KotOR3 and WoW, but doesn't quite satisfy as much as either for a majority of players. One thing I never had to put up with in the single-player Bioware games was getting half-way through and suddenly losing significant strength of major abilities because some other players whined too much.

I'm not saying I'm leaving for sure after 1.2, but lets take an example (I play many different classes): On my Mercenary with heavy Arsenal spec, the 1.2 changes will basically mean anything I do that involve battle will take almost 10% longer. The ability changes effectively cancel each other out such that achieving the same cost and cooldown for Tracer Missile is possible, but they are cutting damage by 10%. Since that is what I use to setup my other attacks, it gets used heavily, but now will be less damaging, therefore costing me time in each and every battle. So I'll be spending more time to get the same in-game rewards, making my ratio of effort to satisfaction lower. The repetition of running alts and repeating 80% of the quests has already reduced the fun factor to the point where I login about a third as much as I used to, and if that is going to become 10% more tedious, I'll have to ask whether it's still worth my time and money compared to other games or activities. Also among my classes are a Scoundrel and an Operative and a Sorcerer, so each will take a hit with 1.2. Taken all together, it could easily sap my will to continue playing.

I remember reading a dev quote saying they already have recorded voice tracks for content coming out for at least the next year if not longer.

Every time I get excited by a new MMO, it's the pull of a new world to explore and new classes to experiment with. But in each case, I seem to lose steam after taking one or two characters to the level cap. The repetition, even with different classes, makes the leveling process seem more like work than play oftentimes, and I already dislike the end-game grinds where you do the same instances or arenas over and over for small incremental gains or even just a chance at a gain. SWtOR made the first leveling play-through highly entertaining, but I'm already struggling with alts because only 20% is significantly different and I'm wishing I could just fastforward to the story parts and auto-complete the side quests. Even then, once they get to the cap, I'm bored with anything they could potentially do there. This makes me think I may be done with MMOs in general. I'd rather play engaging single player games that I can enjoy once through then move on to another. However, I'm still open to the possibility that it's not repetition per se but rather unrewarding repetition that is the key issue.

Yes. The ship is still on the planet and should therefore be tied into the planet's communications until I CHOOSE to lift off and leave, as opposed to being illogically separated because instancing dictates and a misplaced cut-scene signifies. I can understand a few game mechanics being somewhat illogical to accommodate the demands of making something fun and playable, but far too many design decisions leave too many players scratching their heads, leaving me to wonder what the devs were thinking. It would be easy to chalk it up to a first-time MMO effort, but the decade-plus of plentiful examples should have overcome such a handicap.

You'd think it was aimed at role players, but the one-surname-for-all flies in the face of that, as does forcing 50 levels to broaden race/class combinations. A role player would be just as likely to pick certain races for certain characters as a min-maxer, but for different reasons. If they really want to encourage alts, why not shared legacy vaults or free mail between alts (friends and family plan, how natural)? There is a difference between encouraging alts and merely rewarding grinding; like most MMOs, TOR leans too much on the grind and not enough on mechanisms with more depth and creativity. That being said, TOR is still probably the least grindy MMO I've played (prior to level cap), and I've played plenty starting with EQ.

Yes, this is what too many people seem to ignore (and similarly for Commandos/Mercs and their spammable grav/tracer). Spamming FL/TKT is admittedly a good rotation but it is not by any means the best rotation. If it happens to be a better rotation than what is available to another class, I'd say that other class deserves a boost as opposed to punishing the class that actually has the good design. But then you'd just get the difficulty fetishists grumbling about how now that class can be half-brained two-buttoned. And I'll echo the sentiment on Reserves. It's for those champ PvE fights (and the occasional elite that might as well be a champ) and those H4 disaster emergency healing situations. We take it because we're casters and we want to be as prepared as we can (especially considering how slowly Force regenerates).

Is your point that the OP was so vague that we can't conclude whether he thinks sorcerers are too powerful or too weak? Or is your point that a balancing change that weakens a class doesn't necessarily qualify as a nerf? In either case, you seem to be on weak foundation. It's not a stretch to assume he meant sorcerers and the Imperial faction are unfairly too strong. And a "fix" to that could surely be considered a nerf. (Leaving out the ridiculous proposition that one Faction has more stuns or controls than the other.)

This is exactly what I was talking about when I mentioned difficulty fetish. What reason do you have for wanting to force all those who play those two classes to have a harder time playing their characters? What right do you have to demand they meet your standards for how much work they should exert to play their characters? If you get off on difficulty, then play a class that takes more skill/effort to play right, or play another class and gimp yourself to achieve whatever balance of hardship you prefer. But don't force that on everyone else, because not everyone wants what you want in the game and others should be allowed to play the way they want instead of just the way you want.

Yes, those horrible people with less tolerance for grind and repetition have forced developers to replace mob grinding with quests and to reduce downtime and now they're even stooping to making the quests more engaging. Maybe they just don't realize, as you seem to, that EQ and UO were the epitome of MMO-ness, and any reduction in harshness is a backward step. And yes, that paragraph is seeping with sarcasm. Having played many MMOs over the years, I can say I do not care much for the end game in the genre. I enjoy leveling and experiencing steady progress while exploring new areas. I get substantial but lesser enjoyment from alts that still provide progress and some novelty in play style. But repeating the same content over and over at level cap to get incremental gear increases, only to turn around and do it all over again with each cap increase is what seems to turn me off every time and drive me back to single player games until another MMO piques my interest.

Somewhere around 30 is when you start to notice that your damage is not keeping pace with mob health, so battles start becoming longer for no reason other than a tuning decision. Those that make a continued effort to optimize their character/companion will experience essentially a speed bump while those more casually inclined will get a grind vibe as battles drag out for no apparent reason. The greater relative power feeling that peaks around 20 is deceptive and can cause later frustration.

Anyone else feeling the need to demand more relevance for the forums because of all the whining about various classes? And generally doing something about the misinformation strewn around based on biases and poor sampling? Is it just me or does it seem kind of inane?

I agree. The problem lies in the mismatch between their numbers-based changes visible to us and our own in-game experiences which are colored by numerous psychological biases (poor sampling, etc.). Compounding this is that the numbers they pay most attention to may not correspond to what we see as the worst problems in the game; they may give too much weight to their own vision of how they intend us to play rather than how we would prefer to play. It seems obvious they care most about cheating and certain PvP imbalances, but not much at all about class population balance or video performance issues (the latter may just be too big a problem to fix without a complete engine overhaul).

I completely disagree with the premise of the original post, which proposes using what they consider the worst class as a model. That seems like an obviously idiotic stance. They should use the best class as a model and make all classes similarly capable and fun. To do the opposite would reduce the fun for a majority of players while what I just proposed would lift nearly all boats. If you have a difficulty fetish, that's fine, but don't push that out on everyone else. You can make your class as challenging as you want by tweaking skills and gear and companions. My hope is to see all classes be fun and handy in both PvE and PvP, not some continuous diminution of classes one by one until nobody is happy with any class.

Just a warning to those playing various classes to 10 or 15 or 20 to decide: you get a somewhat limited view of a class because that early you only have your first companion. This biases some because companion roles can make a big difference in how a class plays. For instance, the BH gets a healer first, enhancing their sense of power early on, and the Sorcerer gets a tank which is also highly complementary. The picture changes later when you get a choice of companions and therefore a choice of how to play your class, even beyond the choices provided by how you allocate skill points. Another misleading aspect of early level perspective is how your attacks do not scale up very well with mob health. An attack that takes a third off the health of an average on-level trash mob at 15 will be lucky to take a sixth off at 40. This tends to inflate your sense of power early on. That's getting a bit far from the central topic of fun, but I felt compelled to throw that out there after seeing several talking about playing to relatively low levels to get a feel for the classes. So many aspects, from companions to scaling to some trees being late bloomers can affect how classes feel at various stages.

The illogic of the surname system is obvious. The permanence is frustrating. But what worries me most is how the legacy system might complicate character transfers. Will they additively merge legacy points? What if two characters have the same name and same legacy name? What about same name but different legacy name? Will they let you pick which legacy name to keep if they are different? Is it better to put off choosing a legacy name on one server if you already have one on another and anticipate moving characters?

How definitive. And how definitively wrong. Having both a Sorc and a Merc over 35, I can tell you that both their highly used attacks are mitigated by armor. You know what bypasses armor? Internal damage. Lightning does not, missiles do not, blaster bolts do not, lightsabers do not. Try asking yourself why Mercs would get a skill in the Arsenal tree that stacks minor armor penetration and procs on Tracer Missile if that attack already bypassed armor. They would never use another attack if Tracer Missile ignored armor. As it is, that attack is stacked to generate procs, at which point the Merc uses other skills that do greater damage.

It is only Bioware's fault if they didn't make all the classes as entertaining as a Sorcerer. I play many classes and have fun with them all, but there is something about the Sorcerer that just seems a bit cooler. Granted, those of us partial to caster classes are biased in that regard. From my perspective, it has to do with the combined package of lightsaber plus lightning plus Sith awe (people calling you "my lord", getting the "Darth" title). That package makes for an engaging roleplaying experience in addition to the satisfying combat provided by the well-designed class mechanics. My hope would be that Bioware uses this class as a benchmark and brings all classes up to the same standard, instead of listening to PvP-centric complainers and degrading the class to water it down to the level of other less adequate ones.

My first two points go there. It's worth it to shave that time off my main heal during the whole leveling process. It means I can more readily bail Khem out of jams, and I can also heal H4's if needed. Easily worth 2 points in my opinion.

When a game is centered around combat, it's hard to implement a good alternative to the classic trinity. When you and the mobs both have HP that needs to be either preserved or depleted, you'll naturally see roles develop that resemble the trinity. To get much beyond that, you'd have to move away from being combat-centric and make the quests more like puzzles or diplomatic encounters. Even adding diplomacy as an optional route in quests would take a step in that direction, and SWTOR has a bit of that. Now imagine if every quest could be completed without combat, whether via acrobatics or stealth or faction grind or canny conversation.

Exactly. The OP is so vague, it practically screams "troll".

Everything you said there either applies to pretty much every class or is just flat out not true. Name one class that cannot spec into a rotation that does decent DPS but does not deplete their resource. Sorcerers/Sages cannot indefinitely spam their best abilities; they can only do that for a good ability that is not their best DPS, just like Tracer Missile/Grav Round for Mercenaries/Commandos. In both cases, the "spammed" ability must be mixed in with others in order to achieve optimum DPS. Sorcs and Sages have a bigger pool because they are the casting classes and they have a slower resource regen rate. They do have a simpler resource to manage, but it is also less flexible. As others have mentioned, it's not so much that certain classes are significantly overpowered, it's that they are less complicated to play. A certain portion of players lean toward greater challenge and will play whatever can potentially dominate though it requires enormous effort to play expertly. Another portion just wants to get easy kills and will lean toward classes that don't take as much effort but can get good results. The latter demographic is bigger than the former.

That is a common belief, but I think the evidence points away from it. BW claims they nerf based on numbers they get (numbers we have no access to). I was skeptical about that at first, but now I'm inclined to believe they are not lying and they indeed make most changes based on numbers they collect. The changes in patches do not match the volume of complaints I see in the forums. Many issues raised loudly go unaddressed, while other issues I've not seen raised much get some patch focus. Part of the source of the misconception is that their numbers don't seem to match most of our experiences in the game many times, so we search for other probable motivations and settle on the easy target of the constant whirl of debate and complaint in the fourms. But I am convinced a thorough comparison of forum complaints and patch changes will show very little correlation, other than in the forum reaction to changes.

So people that play solo in MMOs are giving in to their dark side? That's a pretty absurd assertion. Most soloers are either time-constrained or simply want to avoid the bother that grouping can often involve. It is selfish players that turn some off to grouping; someone ninja-looting a boss or needlessly needing a roll or instigating drama instead of fostering fun. For myself, I try to complete most of the content, including Heroics as I level, but getting groups can be frustrating most nights if you're outside the initial bubble of leveling players. I will confess to lacking a fondness for raiding and some forms of PvP; I don't care that much about having the top gear or the top score. But I do research builds and make an effort to effectively allocate points and gear out companions. I've played MMOs since EQ and I've done my share of raiding and grinding, but that style of play lost much of its appeal for me years ago. I don't think I was ever truly hardcore but I'm still not what most people think of as casual either. The so-called blight is really just a changing gaming landscape. MMOs are not the niche curiosities they once were. They go for a broad market and therefore seem ill-fitting to those that want a hardcore masochistic experience that punishes the unworthy masses. But those invading casuals with their vile refusal to group with you or meet your standards are paying for your game, as they are for all widely popular online games. That does not mean that games couldn't make it easier or more beneficial to group, but with so many players needing to play in shorter chunks of time, forced grouping leads to alienation which leads to drop out which leads to less money and fewer players which leads to game stagnation.