Another crafter voting against this proposed update. It could be renamed the Chinese Gold Farmer Full Employment Act. These mats will trade at tens to hundreds of millions each and the finished augs near a billion. And the pvp folks will pay, while the NiM raiders will farm these for fortunes. I already sell every purple 286 aug I can make in minutes for millions, yet my best toons wear the blue 276 augs to accomplish virtually all game content. Sales of the 286 augs have been brisk for months, with little drop in price. At 70 million+ to equip a standard toon, many are already turning to the farmers. This proposal will have them needing multiple booths on Fleet. It also appears that rather than learning from the grade 11 crafting fiasco, we are repeating it here on a grander scale. Tons of mats, most at inflated prices, for minimal improvement. Making the critical pvp or pve mats interchangeable, cutting the numbers to 3 to 5, from 45+ proposed, and offering them as drops in the content the want-to-be raiders or pvpers could do, if that is in fact, the target market. Dropping them in vet mode, or non-endgame pvp is how the folks who would need the help are going to get it.

Well, the stupidity of this proposal and the 300 level aug finally got me to reply after years away from the forums. Nerfing CZ-198, planetary kills, and other simpler ways to make Conquest makes no sense other than to require more grinding. The larger guilds have already beat you to implementation in that regard. I have toons in major guilds on both American severs. The Ponzii scheme that is grinding Conquest to stay in the larger guilds' good graces continues to be ratcheted upwards. What used to be one toon earning conquest every three weeks is now every toon, every week. 25k used to be ok, then 50k, this week grew to 100k by Sunday mid-day. No slack for how many months or years you have been in. Insta-boot for failure to meet the new goal. Recruit noobs, they make more than vets. CZ-198 and planetary kills allows simpler/non-dps focused toons, such as healers, or tanks to get their weekly quotas along with the more powerful dps, who can solo the tougher or longer weeklies. One toon per day is not an exploit, and does not need to be nerfed.

Wow there is enough e-peen in these recent taunts to impregnate a bantha herd. Whether the difference between 220 and 224 is 3 %, 1%, or .1% the fact is, it seems to matter to you greatly or we would not be 15 pages into this ego exercise, whining the peasants are getting their hands on items only I should have. I may be able to get through content with significantly less than the best gear, but that doesn't mean I can't want or use the top gear effectively. I'll take a +5 sword over a +1 any day. I ran with several pug groups in the recent rotation of EC HM where the other folks had a peen-fest where they posted their accomplishments of HM, then NiM EC. We wiped on every mechanic. Every mechanic. Twice I decided that sleep was a better alternative than listening to each profession rant at the other by the second boss, but none of them bothered to actually explain the mechanics, except the one we just wiped on, guaranteeing we would on the very next one. Sure, I love a good NiM run with a tight team. Being the last party member standing with 2% health just as the boss goes down right before enrage is a rush that is hard to beat. Real life says these teams are together for limited periods of time with family, job, school, or whatever taking one after another out of "the team". Those folks have to be replaced. Helping a newer player through the final Jedi Knight story encounter they have tried over and over is a similar jolt when they thank you sincerely. I put them on a friends list and see them playing for months afterwards. Having been a raid lead since beta, sometimes we run NiM, and other times we train folks through SM and HM. I don't put my NiM gear on the shelf, I pull the newer team members through with it while they learn. Selling the gear or a run to get it, and then saying average gamers shouldn't have a crack at it is hypocrisy. The devs have done a great job getting extra mileage out of the older content and have given all of the ops value rather than just one or two. I am typing this so when the next round of levels and gear are determined, hopefully there will be a stepping stone that can get average players a chance to touch the higher gear. Sure we need new ops, but the large number of pug EV and KP runs will hopefully demonstrate that there is interest in the larger gaming community to do PVE and group content, rather than just the solo focus we have now. We went through this at level 50 with EV and KP, then at 55 with those ops, and so on. The most recent being 192 vs.198 gear. Small deltas in performance, bigger egos fretting over who got access to it. I had a martial arts sensi from Japan who chuckled at Americans and their fascination with awards and recognition for every minor accomplishment. In Japan, there was white belts and black belts. In America, there was a rainbow of belt colors. In the recent update, we had 192. 198. 208, 212, 216, 220, and 224 gear. For performing the runs 220 would be just fine, but I am an American and I'll take the 224 any way I can get it. Measuring worthiness in the number of times you must die to get it would make my sensi smile and shake his head.

OK, so the trolling finally made me comment on this issue. I like the fact that one HM op drops the top gear per week, and that there are two easier ops in the 9 week cycle. It makes the game FUN, not a grind, not a job, not you must put up with some self important SOB of a raid lead and gather enough points to maybe, just maybe get a piece of nice loot. You get to have fun playing a Game. This not how you survive in the world, or something that is important to anyone else in the world other than a few other gamers. Gamers that can ride giant mounts and drive around in rare vehicles or carry glowy unstable, tuned weapons if they really want to show off their "wealth" and "power". No, these are simple higher stat items that help modest players play to a slightly higher level. It doesn't transform them into gaming gods, nor does it keep you alive for standing in stupid. It doesn't give you killer rotations or any other special advantage over lesser mortals. It just takes away one more excuse for why you can't play with the big boys. What most of this whining seems to be about is e-peen, and the fact that the "elite" are worried that the great unwashed are going to get the cute girls to look at them instead of you, when we all know really this is supposed to be about you. Sorry to break it to you, but the cute girls don't bother looking at stat slots unless they know what they are doing, and then "gasp", they know what they are doing, and they don't care what you wear, it's how well do you perform, and how polite and friendly are you, and did we actually have fun in that run? Oh yeah, there's that word fun again. I ran EV HM 8 times last week, and had fun. I won five 224 items, which if they did fit all on one toon, would equip one third of one toon. Big ^%&^ deal. I ran melee dps, ranged dps, heals, and tank. On harder weeks I main ranged dps, but I gain experience with other classes to better respect them and have toons ready to fill in when I raid lead. There are still many challenges out there, but to keep my raid team filled, I have to bring up newer folks and get them gear. The EV and KP weeks are great for that. Life moves on, folks constantly leave and enter the game, and I am always looking for good new talent. Fun runs help find that.

To the original poster: You are definitely starting off on the right foot to be aware or gear levels and fight rotations. My friendly suggestion is to a starting PVE dps is to download a parsing tool and use it on a test dummy for a while. Nothing shows you the value of a good rotation and gives you a measure of your performance like a real time tool will. There are many boastful folks spouting how little gear they did a run with, or how great they know their toon, but nothing separates the good from the bad like a short enrage timer. SM ops can typically be done with 2k+ dps, but to do HM ops, being over 4k is preferred. Now there are a lot of e-peeners out there that will tell you they do 5k or 6k in the nude, but EV and KP HM are great for getting gear and do not have the performance requirements the others do. Many whine about this, but it is great for starting folks to get into the big leagues faster. The two most important slots on your dps toon are the mainhand and offhand barrel or saber slot. If you afford it, craft it, or trade a guildie for it, those slots should have purple 216 or 220 items before moving from SM to HM. I am so tired of dragging some person's 22nd alt through runs with greens or blues in those slots. They may know the toon or the rotation (usually not that well), but they are a drag on the team's performance. When the blame starts flying on why a group wiped, if you know your dps was good, you are not the problem. Have fun!

Wow, such doom and gloom amongst the raiding community. I think ending the Infinite Empire with an Op would be a natural. I see two ops would be great endings to the current chapter set and be a springboard to the next. Ops 1 Assault on the Drakul Crystal Palace. A mixed faction team (hey, they are going to allow it on the pvp side, and it would be a challenge to balance properly, but a mixed final pve assault makes perfect sense) prepares for the final take down of the Emperor and his offspring. Boss 1 - Your Alliance companions have softened up the area and readied your insertion into the Palace Base area. Wade through oceans of Star Troopers to get to their leader. Fight off strong counterattacks (waves of adds) to gain entry to the Palace. Boss 2 - Since the Star Troopers and Fleet are droids under some kind of central control, fight to destroy or conquer the control center. Again, determined resistance must be overcome with any remaining Star Troopers being thrown at the fight. Boss 3 - With the automated systems shut down, now the elite guard (what is left of them after the amusements of the children have thinned and weakened their ranks) fight for their charges. Boss 4 - The children of the Emperor. My money is on the sister killing the brother when she gets a chance, but whomever is left in the final chapter becomes the battle royal. Fight should be in the Throne area, with knockbacks or throws plunging folks to their deaths. Boss 5 Valkorian - If he is truly immortal, let's get SOA's old digs spruced up for a new occupant. Fire up the Rakatta energy chambers, and put the prison together while being whooped on by the galaxie's biggest baddie. Victory is when the blue green energy shell envelopes him! Ops 2 So the King is dead, Long live the new King! Fly the Gravestone to a new system in the Infinite Empire and convert the planets to your faction! This fight is strictly for one faction or the other. Boss 1 - While the Gravestone takes on portions of the Infinite Empire's Fleet, the players jump into their Galactic Starfighters and have a Grand 'Ol Furball (yes, this boy can dream Big!) Boss 2 - I can still hear the sniveling from the first GSF fight, but now it is time to take out the AA defenses on the ground. Strafing runs, smart bombs, and a command and control center takedown to soften up for the ground assault to come. Boss 3 - Once the skies are clear, it is time for the aerial assault. Riding in assault transports, players leapfrog the planet clearing areas of strong resistance leading to a ground commander fight. Boss 4 - Planetary boss fight. A really big ugly to take down to win over the locals. Boss 5 - Winning their hearts and minds. So you blew it all up, now you have to put something you can rule back together. (This is the part we still haven't figured out in the 21rst century) For added giggles install one of your companions as Supreme Leader of the system and keep them alive long enough for reinforcements to arrive. Hey, the chances of it happening are slim, but so is winning the lottery, and all kinds of folks play that. You asked and I just had a creative burst I had to type in.

Sly of the Rebel Guild that held Keren from the Imps is now Slyy of the Republic still killing Imps on Harbinger

As a PVE player around since beta, who grows ever more tired of seeing forum posts ranting about the lack of new content for PVE, I am painting a target on myself and posing the question - How could we make this more fun while we wait for new ops? Given that new MMOs take hundreds of millions of $ and years of development to do well, and that the limited resources our gaming company has available to write new things are focused on story for the foreseeable future, what we can we do with low bucks for the maximum fun? Since 4.0 we have been given new levels, several new tiers of gear, and reasons to run most heroics and ops for crystals and gear, but no serious challenges as to what to do with all this new potential. One idea I have is that if you can kill any boss you want with the right group or solo, maybe the next challenge is how fast can you do it? The whole op, start to finish. With our parsing tools we have timers. Bioware could add at minimal programming cost/time a button to hit at the start and one to hit at the end, or the parsing tool might be able to do the same if the developers are too busy. Titles could be given for fastest 8 person and 16 person runs, by difficulty level, by server, by faction (it might even be fun to allow companions to run in the ops group for added e-peen and variety, or to fill in for DCs along the way). One tank, three tanks, swaps at each boss, naked save a weapon, whatever strikes your fancy, the mission is get to the big button at the end of the run (that only illuminates when the last boss falls). Whether one person presses it or all have to press it could vary by the run. Rewards could be your toon glows for a week, or gets to be 2X size, so that all on Fleet can marvel at your uberness (and you instantly gain 250 influence with your romance companion ...wait I haven't seen my romance interest in 5 years, throw us a bone as to when/if they are coming back Bioware!). We could throw in reasons to keep playing like one try per op per week (lockouts), or just keep running till you are so sick of it, you never want to see it again. I work in a world where every expenditure of time by employees must be cost justified (Rants about how much you should get for you $15 a month don't amount to spit when computer programmers get charged out at hundreds of dollars per hour, so please don't reply with what you think you should get, but keep it constructive with what we might be able to create ourselves). Putting a timer function on existing ops would take a minimal capital investment, but given elite guilds an incentive to keep playing for a while longer. Dole out the ops with the feature to a few per month and you can help bridge the gap to new content. I am not taking a stand on the gaming company's business decisions, I am asking for positive suggestions on how the player community can offer ideas for the near future.

My experience in the first round of EV HM was every PUG group I ran with , except the one I ran, had the Group Lead ninja the 224 Mainhand. Subsequent weeks with much more challenging bosses have introduced many creative loot distribution schemes, none of which seemed to improve on having a trustworthy Lead. While I agree the best would be to gather all the loot and distribute it at the end, I have rarely seen even the 220s and the DMCs get handed out fairly at the end. Under the guise of a rage quit or accidental DC, the Lead disappears along with the gear. Need/Greed runs devolve to greed = pass. Even decos get needed by folks who have won three or more. The tougher runs see folks come and go like a pro football or basket ball team. I have seen S&V runs with seven bosses still have 5 folks rolling for the final gear items due to so many drops and replacements. Now the wheel has come through a full rotation and it is EV HM time again. I ran a group Tuesday night. We cycled through 13 folks to get an 8 person raid started (DCs, mom called, guild called, flakes, etc.). I had to type the loot rules 6 times, as the last guys over and over demanded to know what the rules were. Just keeping the raid trinity ratios straight, trying not to have the twitch monkeys start the fight before everyone arrived, looking for lock-outs, explaining to the woefully undergeared that HM does not bolster, having the pvp geared remember to switch to pve, etc. makes repeating the loot rules that many times a royal pinta. I found the best way to earn raid trust was to hand everything out as soon as well got it with the warning that if you leave the area too soon, you are not eligible for the loot (because chasing you down to hand it off while the twitch monkeys are string pulling the trash mobs, or finding out you rolled an 89 in an area I can't see is another royal pinta). I pug because as a guild raid lead we only have time for one run a week, and I can get multiple toons through these runs. I pug because my reward for the run was a single 220, and I have starving alts at home who need the gear. I pug because I enjoy the game, and when we all work as a team and blaze through the op, I Have Fun. I agree with the folks that a need/greed system where need is greyed out after a win would be the fairest, but ML will be my run method of choice until the upgrade occurs.

In the last week, I did three EV HM runs. The Master Looter ninja'd the 224 MH in 2 of the 3 runs. In the one that didn't ninja, I was the leader/group former/cat herder/DC replacer/hankie holder. I was ML and gave it to the roll winner (not me). I agree with the original poster, another system could/should be considered. With the top gear being offered at more accessible levels, my alts are running with pugs and all the joy that brings. With tanks being the rarest commodity, anyone calling out for a dps gets instant replies. For the weekly highlighted HM run, my guild have taken it up a notch. one 224 per person, one 220 set piece, and one Dark Matter. I am furiously scribbling notes at loot hand-out time, but we end up with a much happier team (fewer folks go home empty handed).

I can confirm that by focusing my Influence tokens on one companion, who now exclusively runs the rich slicing mission, the influence pays dividends. I converted my 900 or so basic comms (or whatever the lowest crystal equivalent is now called) to Level 5 purple Influence tokens at the fleet vendor (one companion vendor sells Level 1 and 2 tokens, the other sells blue and purple Level 5s). This raised the Influence from 10 to 30 or so. The companion went from rarely returning purples to returning with the top mats on most runs. The runs were considerably faster as well. Similar results have been had focusing on influence for two companions to run rich Diplomacy missions for Biochem as well.

Participated in weekend surge testing Beta events, subbed continuously since, on most nights after work for companion tasking, raid lead on the weekend on Harb. Still in it because I keep it fun, not a job, or a "Look at me, I'm uber!" fantasy.

Typically the game has allowed crafters to reverse engineer the second tier of gear currently available. With the latest update to Ziost, the HM boss is dropping 204 level items. Has anyone been successful crafting 198 items yet? Having scavenged and harvested top tier bosses on the planet, I see that no new mats appear to have been created. If you have crafted 198s, what mats did it take? Thank you

I agree with the core of what is being said here, learning new ops works best in a guild group, especially when you are a new tank, as tanking is the most critical role mechanics-wise. Having a mentor-minded main tank makes life much easier, especially if you can be in voice to hear the calls for tank swaps. Having said that, I have pugged Ravagers and ToS successfully several times, but as ranged DPS, where the main mechanic is don't stand in colored circles. I run a raid group in guild, but I also pug on alts, partially for the gear, and partially to see how other folks do things. The good tactics I take back to my team. I run on Harb and find the best pugging times are Tues-Wed evenings when the main raid groups are pugging to fill holes in their raid line-ups or on Sun-Mon evenings for folks who were gone over the weekend and are willing to try almost anything to get a few comms and a chance at set piece gear. I will grant you, there are far fewer pugs than in the past, and the level 60 ops are not very newbie friendly. Your best option is to read up on the missions, watch videos, get your gear up to at least 186 standards (especially the weapon hilt/barrel, and for a tank, the chest/head/legs armor slots). Similarly, a tank survives on armor and health, so having as many augs as you can, really helps you be survivable. When the tanks die, the raid typically wipes. And can someone explain to me why so many dps pugs have great looking outfits with 192/198s and a sub 186 mainhand? When someone calls in general chat for 1 tank, jump on it, but when they ask for 2, be sure to bring lots of credits for clones, and repairs. Cloning and Kolto are the staples for pugs.

The original poster has a good point. It would not take much developer effort to clean up crafting missions and it would make it much more fun for the serious or casual crafter if we could filter the mission types. Most of my crafting toons can now do 6 companions at a time (after a similar long forum thread about how it would ruin crafting), but I rarely send more than two, as the purple mats are typically the only end game interest, and are only worth doing as bountiful or rich. Logging a character in and out multiple times, every time, to finally get the rich missions is simply a time wasting grind. The second poster's classic whine of No No No, translates to me as: I have found a money making niche hidden away in a mindless chore and you are not allowed to touch it for fear I will make less money. Grow Up! The vast majority of crafters in the game do it primarily for their own toons, and could care less about the latest market quotes. Making the materials take more time and trouble to get does not add fun or value to the gaming experience, it just makes it annoying. It also means the "do it yourself" folks are typically undergeared for endgame content. They will be better able to join the mainstream if their crafting experience is entertaining one. Putting in random companion kidnappings, arrests (especially for dark missions), illnesses, or strikes could add a similar effect, but with a little fun factor. As silly as that statement sounds, keeping a task broken or annoying to justify a market price is even sillier. The phone app, with a timer or status meter to show you when they are ready again would be quite clever, but likely beyond the budget allotted for the Very small fraction of the gaming community that could make effective use of it. Add a feature that limits them to 8 hours of missions per day with overtime bonuses or labor laws and we can have it be even more engaugeing.

In since launch with a total of 9 toons on one server. Net cash is just shy of 200 million, net worth likely over 250, mostly from crafting for a selection of markets. As an avid PVE player, my main expenses are the barrels and hilts to stay recruitable for high level ops, as I am in modest sized friendly guilds that cannot muster the talent for 16 person runs. Craft my own meds, MK-10s, augs, etc. I regularly help friends with gear and runs so they can run the high level ops as well. Spent 25+ million since strongholds and 3.0 released and have recovered most of the expenses by finding viable markets. I spend less than an hour most evenings sending out companions and crafting market items while watching Fleet chat for interesting ops runs.

Simple statements of fact: 1.) This will kill ops and fp runs for the most part. I and my fellow level 60s have been running these ops like mad over the last few weeks. Tons of fun to get through ops that could take 2 hours or more with pugs in around an hour. As a person who knows the mechanics for HM and NiM, I was dragging the great unwashed through these wholesale. I have watched newer players get geared and educated on the runs. I have seen newer 55s get half a dozen gear pieces or more on a single run as the majority of 60s are there for the comms and chuckles only. I have recruited a half dozen runs or more a week and trained dozens on the mechanics. No ultimates = no interest in running. Good luck, have a nice day. 2.) The average gamer has no clue how the HM ops/HM 60 FP run. I have tried multiple HM/NiM pug runs with zero success unless the ops lead screens all players for achievements. I don't support elitist gaming at all, we all have to learn sometime, but the vast majority haven't read Dulfy, went with a guild, or are sober enough to function in HM/NiM. 3.) I'll run Ravagers/ToS with a guild, get my weekly lockout and go home. The guilds I run with can barely assemble an 8 person run of Ravagers or ToS. We have been pugging 1 or 2 slots with success. That is how I learned the runs; Dulfy, YouTube, and running with other guilds. Trying to pug 8 or more slots of uninformed/undergeared folks through, that much pain med is bad for my liver/stomach. Good Luck, have a nice day Proposed solutions: Bring back ultimates to HM DF/DP and 60s will run them and teach a few newer folks each run, eventually we will educate and gear the community. Allow 6 or 8 to do a HM level 60 FP and I will consider GF. If everyone has to be geared and know their roles, I will sit on the sidelines and read "Weird folks you meet in Group Finder". Or finally, allow me to buy the mats others exploited with basic and elite coms like we did with Isotope 5s and I'll consider continuing to help the newer folks get through ops.

Sorry, but lets get real here folks. Some have used the exploit once or twice, but there are many who have turned it into a farming industry worth tens of millions of credits. This is not a small thing to wave ones hands or shrug shoulders and hope it goes away. As a crafter who watches prices daily, the items exploited were not directly sellable on the GTN, but the crafted products of them most certainly were. Each Monday night the prices would fall in anticipation of a fix on the Tuesday reset, followed by a flood on the market of the crafted items by Tuesday night at prices almost double that of Monday. There were names on the GTN with 12 to 15 copies of some the items, indicating they not only knew of the exploit, but cashed in on it to the full extent that they could. Similarly, there were nightly general chat calls for the items, both crafted and freshly looted, with the same names appearing over and over. This was not a small, whoopsie, look at that, or even a quick offer to guildies. This was a large scale farming operation by raiding guilds that could get the numbers needed to the right place in the right ways. What can be done about it weeks after the system started, with the raw and crafted items spread through thousands of hands by now is honestly, very little. Any attempt at Justice will be slow, painful, and likely innocent will be hurt along with guilty ones missed. The net effect on game mechanics is minor to modest in that the items made are at least one full tier below the best that can be had. The items help you level or progress to the top faster, but are not the finest. Those that chose not to cheat will take longer to progress, but are not prohibited from progressing. That might be the cruelest punishment of all. Rather than nightly raid calls to pug missing holes in guild runs demanding to see gear and achievements, the raiding groups which exploited the programming error the most must drag along a certain number of pugs who did not exploit, in each of their standard ops runs for a period of weeks, watching them get the loot to bring them up to a comparable level. A more realistic approach might be to make the key items crafted with the exploit be purchasable with comms from the current vendors. By far and away, the most commonly crafted, sold, swapped, or otherwise exploited items are not stateable here, but are obvious to a blind man. Allow them to be purchased with elite or ultimate comms for a modest amount and we have Justice served for the greatest number of players

In the last few days, my in game characters have been experiencing what I can only describe as sexual harrasment in game. Now I am a veteran gamer, having done over 10 years in MMOs, and have a thicker skin than most as a result of doing real world medical volunteering. SWTOR has looser dev monitoring than most games I have seen, with long profanity laden rants being a nightly occurance in general Fleet chat. My ignore list maxxed with gold spammer names, but I have been removing them recently to make room for the particularly annoying and profane in general chat, who seem to thrive knowing it will take many hours to days before they will be wrist slapped. As a result, I cannot honestly reccomend the game for older children or young teens (I am aware of the game's maturity rating, but it should be for content, not chat). Yes, I know that killing NPCs for money or sport has been a long standing ethics debate, and that is not my point here. What has happened in both a recent ops and on Fleet while using the GTN is that a male toon approaches, uninvited, to a female toon I am running, sends a profane private message wanting to mate, and then proceeds to use a variety of emotes and actions to imitate a sex act. My toons quickly /ignore and move to avoid participating in the act. In the recent encounters, I report the incident, but the player knows there will be a considerable lag before any action is taken, so he continues the pursuit or starts the process annew on another female toon in the area. I can log to another toon, but that should not be the point. While my toons are attractive, they are conservatively dressed, have no suggestive names or titles, and are not talking or acting in provacative ways. The ops was a pug, the Fleet encounters have been random. When I examine the assaulting toon's history, they appear to be recent 55s with little end game experience (i.e., little to loose if banned). We are supposed to be adults here, and with the recent addition of player housing, what two or more consenting folks choose to do in the privacy of there own dwellings is there own business. But assaulting folks against their will in public places is wrong, and some faster response mechanic for dealing with these issues is needed. Even if I could post the dialog into a reporting window to give the report some priority, it would help. As females are making a higher percentage of gamers, finding a way of limiting their harrasment would help retain more gamers over the longer term.

My take is the biggest time sink for resource gathering is cycling through all the toons and their companions as I log in and as I log out for the night. For the last couple weeks I have been dozing off at the keyboard waiting for the next toon to load (modern machine, good connection, still takes 1 to 2 minutes for the next toon to be ready), so being able to allocate 6 companions per toon is a great idea. I would also like a mission filter similar to the market search filters. Moderate missions are a complete waste of time and credits, as are abundant ones for the most part. Sorting and sifting through the unproductive missions wastes time, and make for another sleep inducing character load when the rich and bountifuls do not randomly show (I don't know about you, but this is not fun or "content" in my view). The whole market demand/supply issue is moot now that we can power level toons to 4 or 5 companions. I did a batch of alts a while back to level 10 for the ship storage reward. Now I am 12x ing them to future productivity as hunter-gatherers, so folding your arms across your chest and saying "change is bad" clearly ignores reality. Most of the previous arguements for or against a sixth productive companion sound as though they are only playing one toon. Most crafters run numerous toons, with some usefull for pvp, some for pve, or crafting, and many failed experiments that are just run as foragers. Similarly, the whole market is on its ear in the last couple of months, first as materials are shoveled wholesale into the firey furnace of "planetary control", second as folks sought to decorate their strongholds, third as alts are power leveled and lower level gear has leaped in price on the GTN, and fourth will be the complete revalueing of the entire market in early December when 5 new toon levels get added. How many new teirs of gear/mats/heals/stims/etc get added and how crafting will play a role in it (historically a small to insignificant role) will reshuffle the market yet again. So worrying about how a sixth companion would affect market prices is not seeing the bigger picture. Let's make cratfing less of a chore, more enticing to folks on the fence, and add usefulness by enabling a sixth companion to earn their weight.

Had a bit of fun where I did the weird thing. I was aked to join a guild run of S&V sm using the group finder mode. We make it through the first three bosses without drama, but we are light on dps due to two folks being recent promotions to level 55 (think lower level green weapons). Past the weekly we begin to slow down with several wipes through the trash to boss run four and then a couple more trying to clear the town in boss four. As we entered through Group Finder, rezzing takes me back to Fleet each time. Now initiating vote kicks for the undergeared dps will most likely earn me illwill in a guild run, and spending the time to explain how to make one or two super teams clear to the town while the others wait will just take too long, sooooo...being a "comfortable crafter" I stopped by the Galactic market and bought some needed supplies. Not full 72s mind you, but purple 66 versions of barrels, hilts, mods, etc and handed them out quietly upon my return. I recieved some very greatfull TYTYTYs, and we cleared the rest of the ops without further issue. Sometimes the easiest way to solve a problem is fix it yourself rather than complain about it. Fun times

A fun one.... I was on my lead crafter posting things on the GTN, when out of the blue I received a group join request from a name I had not seen before. I accepted thinking it might be a guildie alt I didn't recogize. Nope, not in the roster. As I was checking, I received a group tell, "please mister, we need a hand". Still in the trader mindset, I responded "with gear, credits, meds?" The reply was slow and fragmented...."we are in a flashpoint and the boss is killing us". Being the sort who loves saving damselles in distress, I offered to switch to my DPS main. They were OK with it "just hurry". Do the swap, dash to the entrance, and then I noticed they were in Hammer Station, but story mode, and they were levels 17 and 18. I am level 55 in 78s and 72s. I note that I don't have any toons in their range and that the exp will suffer as a result. Reply is "Hurry". Two of the three folks who invited me have tired of dieing and quit, so I (as a type 3 body style male mando complete with BFG) am facing the large mining droid boss with an appropriately Type 1 sized female level 18 jedi. I am about to start typing how the fight works, thinking about the need to cleanse in the only version I have done before (HM), when I note she is about to launch. OK, full attack on boss takes it down in 3 shots, my new jedi friend hasn't even had time to move. "Wow". hehe, Ta-Da. We continue on with nice orange items falling off the bosses, and me passing on the loot (There you go ma'm). When we complete and turn-in she gets the fanfaire of a level boost and I just wish I had a silver bullet to give her. Many thanks received as I ride off into the sunset (well actually it was the elevator on Fleet, but hey, I am telling the story here). Much fun was had.

PUG commendations run on Dread Fortress. Leader encourages folks to join in group voice, so we comply. After greetings, fighting commences. I am calling out bomb droid entrances on first boss, but I am the only one talking, noting a decidedly chilly response. Laughing and cat-calls follow someone getting killed. Primary reason for voice, to compair DPS parses after fights. Tanks rarely get to start fights, and there is minimal teamwork, as the challenge is to do the most damage. Other DPS getting killed, knocked back, or having to heal, decreases their threat to the highest numbers. This became especially clear when we fought trash mob droids that have a red circle of death appear just before they explode/expire. Early DF runs developed a tactic of knocking the droids back before they explode. The new tactic is to knock the droids into the party, seeing how many group members you can kill. Again cat-calls and profanity follow with claims for the most party kills being boasted. On my first experience of this run method, I just thought it a fluke group, keep head down, grab comms, put leads on ignore. My second exposure to this was more frustrating, so I commented in voice. After being shouted down by the majority of the group, I dropped voice, I again put head down, got the mission completed, grabbed comms, and left (yeah, yeah, greed won over principle). I have encountered this as tank and DPS, and both are in mostly 78s, so loot is all greed, which is to say these are comms only runs (way too much work to police the ninjas). After the run, I recieve a profanity laced private tell on my looting habits (I checked, no loot recieved) and several "old man" references about my desires for teamwork and mutual support. Easy enough, he was added to my growing /ignore list, but it realy struck me that I have a very different version of fun than these crowds I pugged with. The recent posts about needing to challenge the group to find your limits is all well and good when all agree to do so. My guildies and I used to time ourselves on level 50 HM Flashpoints back when they were worth running. Stealth stunning, skipping, diving through things was fun when we all agreed, and cutting 30 seconds off meant something. The thing that ticks me the most about only seeing the back of a tank that won't self heal is the payouts the same guys! Saving 1 or two minutes of my life when it took 30 minutes to get everyone invited and in one place is nothing. If you have 11 level 55s you are cycling through every day or week it is NMFP. Getting 16 folks to agreed to run through trash mobs to Titan 6 is guarenteed to kill at least one and take Far More Time while they clone and try again. An all friends DPS parse-a-thon? Sounds fun. I am a PUG watching you fools try and get me killed? I want off this crazy ride.

A warning to fellow tanks out there. The same lack of tactics and respect that has invaded HM Flash Points is now appearing in SM Ops runs. Case in point, ran SM TfB last night as Main Tank. I am not forming the group, but no off-tank identified initially. After I started the first two trash fights, never lead another. Some jedi or another would fly through the air just as one fight was ending to start the next trash encounter. Recover half my lost health and ammo only to have the next red tag of combat preclude any vehicular travel. Just in case one of them was my off-tank I asked...several times..healer answered...nope he's not a jedi. No wipes, so I casually monitored target-of-target (partially to keep my Tank Union Card). It was a a kalidescope of dps, with no one fighter holding agro for more than a few seconds until it would land on a mid-rank female toon. I jumped in at this point thinking the deer-in-the-headlights tactics resembled a novice healer. Turned out to be a dps. First boss, try to communicate to OT when I expected to transfer (Jealous Male). Response from several dps was, don't worry it's SM. Fight starts, sure enough Hand-off time comes, I switch to JM, and the OT isn't stepping up. Only chat comment was I need to turn boss away from party. Leap in with de-buffs still active, boss is down before next JM spawn. I query where OT was in tank swap...from healer..."Change of Plan". Rest of run plays the same, but now the OT was jumping into trash fights with dps, same kalidascope of target-of-target for the big trash fighters. I solo fight the bosses, including two at a time with Dread Guard. After weekly is completed, I am too tired to fight about it. "Thanks for the help, good luck". I figure I'll be pounding too many dents out of my helmet when the Terror's scream gets ignored. I have stopped running HM FP for the lack of CCs, target progression, or anything resembling tactics. "Dude it's SM" is supposed to suffice. I call it Stupid Mode. Our gear allows us to zerg through, but my Tank Union Card says I need to maintain some semblance of a plan. I don't need full stamp-my-feet control of the group, but some form of order would be nice. Now HM classic Ops, and with the 78s in the game, TfB and S&V, have become zerg-fests. Leap through the door, biff the monster, grab the prize,.....repeat, .....whine when you don't get all the best loot. The worst of paper and pencil, dice bag gaming has come to MMOs Not my idea of fun. Fold up soapbox, go back to running fun DPS.

My ignore list on my tank is twice as long as those on my DPS or healer. Last night was a typical group finder run. I ask for CCs, we get two (rare), and as the fight goes down smoothly, one of the DPS, a knight, taunts me with "didn't think you could keep agro huh?" Mid-way through the next trash fight the other DPS drops for a home emergency, so while I set the group finder to recruit another DPS, I get another taunt "why are we waiting? I can tank if you are afraid". Gear check time. I am in 69s and 72s, Attitude Dude has 58s, but with shield and absorb. Ah, a rising star tank trying for better gear in 55 HM as a DPS. Grab a bag of popcorn, as the next fight just had 4 normals and a gold. Funny, the baddies' health is going down a lot slower than Attitude's. I jump in when the healer draws the gold's agro due the sweat he is working up keeping Attitude alive. While I wait for the healer to recover energy, Attitude Dude runs past with their hair on fire, a line of agroed baddies from the next trash fight in hot pursuit. I pick a gold out of the train as it was vearing for our healer again. After the dust cleared, I get "Fine, we'll do it your way Mr. Know-it-all". We proceeded through the next 2 boss fights cleanly with steam coming out of AD's ears, but eventually our modest pace was too much for their connection and they DC'd around the Bonus Boss. I am seeing increasing hostility even when the fights are going cleanly. A DPS in virtually all 72s left a clean run with a stream of explicatives because he was pulling agro in some of the fights. We finished the run intact , but he did not like having his health bar go to 50% while I had to wait for my prime agro attack to come off cool-down. Even with my back to a wall, the boss can change agro if they knock me back hard enough to get vertical distance. We had a recent fight where the tank was a novice and was getting coaching from us through a voice chat. Perfectly clean run through the first two bosses when the private messages started from a DPS, "This too slow" "You are a noob", he then stumbled into a side mob and got the group wiped. The last two bosses had one wipe each from the now rattled tank. If they had just kept calm and enjoyed the ride we could finished faster by not cloning. Whether this your first toon or your tenth, I will work with you, but when you start taunting your own teamates and act like you are the only important one there, it gives me an attitude of NMFP. If you are here for fun, let's have some. If we are you gear finding tool to uberness, may I suggest <right click> group <leave group>.