If there is a problem, as there clearly was, it is up to bioware to take the server down to prevent this. By keeping the server up, and saying nothing else, the only conclusion is that the fault has been repaired. Blame those at fault, not the people who have lost out from it.

Of course, this only highlights the problem with such a broad RNG implementation for gearing. Someone gets a set piece, then gets rolled back. they ding the same level again and that piece is not replaced, they could get some jawa scrap and a shell instead. This turns an inconvenience into a progress gate. And it does it to the one group of players who reliably pay for the game every month.

There is nothing wrong with RNG itself, there is everything wrong with the current implementation. RNG should never be the choice between something and nothing when you ding a level. Because getting nothing provides no encouragement for players to continue. It is basic MMO design, because ding-reward works. RNG should be the decider between something useful and something special. That way everyone gets a reward they can use for their effort. Bioware seem to believe that they can rewrite basic game theory. I think they will be shown they cannot.

There is another issue with cxp boost. By setting gold as 1xp, they have taken away xp boost on some content. (you cant be awarded 1.25 xp). That leads to all kinds of distance selling problems here in Europe. Mainly it just shows haw badly thought out the xp nerf was. Consequences were not even looked at.

Dont worry. I made the same mistake myself.

Its a confusing mission. It is not those power relays. You have to exit the room koth is in, and a timer starts where you have to destroy power relays in 3 other rooms.

The only way to make galactic command work is to do two things: 1) Make progress faster not slower. This is game that has spent five years pushing alts, the last big event , that finsihed the DAY this went live, actually required it. To then focus on a single toon is not just bad design, its moronic. 2) Each time you ding, you get a reward. That is how MMOs work for very good reason. Not rewarding people gives them no incentive to keep going. Again, that is not just bad design, but a complete failure to understand the medium they are working in. That means, there needs to be a guaranteed tangible reward for each level attained. The RNG should be between a useful piece and a special piece. Not something or nothing.

Basic MMO design, you ding the achievement you get the reward. RNG can be ok if it just affects a small area of the reward, that is you are guaranteed something useful, with a chance of something special. Galactic Command is bad design because it breaks the ding-reward system. You ding the level, then get no reward. Do that 5 or 6 times, why bother with the next level? The reward is there to encourage players to keep playing, this is basic stuff for game designers, or should be. What they have done is frankly idiotic.

A lot of words have been written about galactic command, sometimes over complicating it. MMO games are built around certain gaming principles, one of these is known as ding-reward. That means, you ding a level or achievement, you get a reward. This works, because each reward gives the player an incentive to work towards the next ding, to get the next reward. It has been basic MMO design since Meridian 59 (killing stuff increased you health for instance), or for most people, Everquest (and the level system we take for granted now). Galactic Command is being rejected because it breaks this. So much so it actively pushes away paying players. You see, they ding a level, and then frequently get no reward. Where is the incentive to go for the next ding? It simply is not there. And then, right in the middle of that design fiasco, they make it take longer to get to the ding. That is the problem. Someone here in Austin thinks they understand MMO design better than Raph Koster or Richard Garriott. I hope the lesson to be learned is that no, you do not.

Grade 6 companion gifts cost 250K a piece now. I have been playing since early access, I have not seen one drop anywhere, so for anyone who has not already got a level 30+ companion, getting a level 40 is going to be difficult.

In a ding-reward model, which is what they are switching to here, the entire premise for feasibility is the correlation between the two. Galactic Command fails because there is a long road to the ding, and far too high a chance of absolutely no reward to go with it. This pushes down any incentive to go for the next ding. It is just bad, bad design. It goes against all MMO design theory from the industry itself. My guess is someone thinks they know better than 15 years of player history. They are currently being proved wrong.

I said it yesterday and I will say it again. The biggest problem with this change is 1 XP. Not that they reduced it, they may as well have removed it for all the difference 1 XP makes, but that they put it at 1XP. Its like tipping 1 penny, its a giant middle finger. And they did it to the customers who actually pay money every month for the game. In my line of work, entire management teams would be out of a job for this level of incompetence.

The disconnect comes when you talk about the 'game the devs want to play'. I am willing to bet there is no one in austin any more that has actually leveled a toon from start to finish. I've seen it before in MMOs where staff changes mean we end up with devs who really do not understand the gaming experience for most players, that is people who do not have hours every day, who do not have the very best gear or a dev console to get them and how the game is for them. It always goes like this, they can get a pack an hour. It took me about an hour and a half to get level 2, and that was before the nerf of the mobs I was killing on the heroics. Double that now. The devs don't get it because they do play a different game to most of us, if any of them bother to play it at all.

The worst thing about is 1XP. They may as well have removed it completely. It is basically an insult to the players to put it at 1XP. Having 0XP would feel less like the middle finger.

I've got to level 5 on one toon since early access. I have been doing heroics to get that far, as I play mostly solo and it seems my only option. I have received nothing usable at all. That is, I got a 220 blue gun (the toon is a Juggernaut), some jawa scrap and a couple of shells. I have also received no comp gifts either. With the new changes to 1xp per gold and 20xp per heroic, that is probably as far as i will ever get. I can't see a way to gear up a toon for me now at all, so I likely just won't bother.

Wow. You see that is just bad design, there is no excuse for it at all. I've been here a very long time, from the first day the forums existed the day the game was announced. I have enjoyed the game all that time, and I rarely post at all, I can't think of the last time I complained about anything really. I play mostly solo, so I don't expect to have the top end stuff, I got 216 gear over time by doing my dailies and so on, and that was fine for me. But here, if I'm going to be getting basically 20 cxp per heroic, then I am never really going to get any new gear at all. MMOs are all about progression, even if it is slow for casual players like me, but if I have no real chance of gaining anything now, I have to ask what is the point? I'd love bioware to answer that one.

Then the cap is too high, not the route to the cap. That is, after all, the entire point of the cap. By the way, from early access to now, I've reached 70 and then command level 5. I have not yet received a piece of gear better than the 216 stuff I already had. If you want it to take me 5 hours plus of heroics for one level at command level 5, then where is the reward to go with the effort? The entire system is as badly thought out as a chocolate fireguard.

Even putting aside the issues for me as a casual player, since early access I have done the story (which I enjoyed) and got as far as command level 5 through heroics, which will now take maybe 5 times as long per level, the thing that is staring everyone in the face but not being mentioned: They put a cap in place to keep progress at a level they are comfortable with. If someone hit the cap, they are being gated already, at the level bioware decided was right. Now they want to further gate things. Why not just lower the cap if the guy had too much xp, that would not affect the rest of us who get nowhere near it. Balancing the game on shut ins will just drive everyone else away.

I think its actually worse than not mattering. Choices have already been made in some circumstances due to the design. Take Kaliyo. You can kill her. I didn't, she is actually one of my favorite companions (don't mock). But because anyone CAN kill her, then she will never be central to the story again. She can't be, they cant write a story that has her in it and then write another one that uses someone else for those who have killed her, they do not have the resources. So even for those of us who don;t want to kill her, she has still been effectively removed. Same for Aric Jordan and whoever else we can dispose of in future episodes. On the topic at hand, the petition is pointless, but I have been here since launch. I'm not rolling another 8 toons for content. They needed some kind of compromise for existing players. There is not one and there won't be one, so it will be an 'event' I don't take part in.

Those mobs can't be hurt unless weapons are fired within melee range. Nico is a ranged comp, as soon as he fires at them from outside the range he will die. The answer is to switch to a melee companion for that fight. And yes, its another part that just hasn't been balanced between various classes and companion types.

The biggest issue with Eternal Championship, as it is in almost every aspect of swtor, is class imbalance. My pyrotech went through this and it was fairly straightforward. I died a few times, didn't read guides so had to learn on the go, some of them are very tricky. The final fight especially took me a few goes to get done. However, on a marksman sniper I found it frustrating more than anything, its difficult to use half of the abilities in any of the fights because of the need to kite, be in melee range and so on. I got to nocturna on that one but it took so long that I didn't enjoy it. I doubt I'll try again on that toon at all.

I think for me, the biggest change has been vehicles at such an early part. I remember at launch my first toon was a marauder, and with training costs and so on, I didn't get a speeder until I'd got to the end of the tattooine planetary story. Running around all the planets, especially alderaan and tattooine made them seem such big places. I also got to see little graphical touches and things hidden away that today's new player will never see as they fly past the scenery at speed.

Indeed, there are many issues with level sync. I pointed out the first day level sync was introduced that if you are higher than level 62 (and so subject to level sync) on Yavin 4, the kill revan mission becomes much more difficult. The reason? Before level sync, Shatile buffs you during the fight, giving you about 120K health. The whole encounter is built around you having that health. If you are level synced,though, your health is capped at the 56K of level 62, 3 hits from Revan and you are all but dead. It has never even been acknowledged as an issue never mind fixed. (The solution is, even though you have 2 NPC healers with you already, keep your companion on heal to keep you alive, or simply stay out of the way. Neither are very 'heroic')

Yup, just RE'd a couple to get 208's. The 208 headpiece has LOWER stats than a blue 178. Online games are always a work in progress, but this crafting update is really poorly done, this is basic stuff.

15% damage seems low, my healer does more damage than my influence 38 companion in DPS mode at the minute. Making heroic star fortresses whatever you want them to be is fine, but you shouldnt be putting the things into peoples mission logs and gating companions behind it if they are end game stuff. This is basic game design here, you dont go from easy content and direct people straight to the hardest stuff in the game to do outside of the big group content. Solo mode should be where it stops for the story, the heroic version should be about gear and achievements. (It only drops 208 gear remember)