Of course they can make abilities work differently in PvE/PvP, like they are doing right now with Focus/rage (though it doesn't make the tree PvE viable, just toning it down PvP wise; on the other hand, the focus/watchman hybrid is viable PvE wise and not nerfed through the change). Here what I think is make several skills in the infiltration tree that doesn't work in a boss fight right now work in a boss fight. For example, make nerve wrecking still grant damage bonus for the shadow himself for x seconds, if the target is always immune to low slash/spin kick's control effects. Or reduce Force potency's active cooldown when consume your infiltration tactics on a champion.

I don't think so. My main toons are on Lord Calypho and I heard the server has 20-ish people at prime time on Fridays. I have also heard that there's no transfer to/from Lord Calypho. So, unless this is changed, the chance that I'm coming back is zero.

Depends on how big the AoE is. Spreading sunder is a really cool idea. Still, guardian slash is on a 15 sec cooldown and is a bit long.

SWTOR has these sub numbers because it's an overly hyped (hence fully voiced and story driven) MMO under star wars IP by a group whose name was recently changed into Bioware, not because it's themepark, or a wow clone. Even though it's speculations at best, but making the game a wow clone is a huge missed opportunity. It's a low risk operation, and low risk means low return, which is high risk in the long run. There are tons of people who are already tired of wow, and they won't stay for a wow clone.

I'll definitely recommend the 31 point defense build for PvE purposes. Hybrid spec is mostly for PvP I believe.

F2P=P2W is the general stereotype, but as some other people pointed out, they aren't necessarily equal and there aren't many recent P2W games in the F2P nation. Maybe give it a few more years, people's view on F2P will change. But yeah, forced into F2P is bad reputation.

I don't really understand about putting all of those MMO's names out. And frankly, only a few games on that list are worth mentioning. What is he talking about in his original post anyways?

Well, if a patch can stabilize the population then there's still hope. Though TOR isn't going near its original 2mil any time soon.

also for accepting/completing missions from holo-terminals. You still use the ship a lot when you level up, every time you go to a planet you pick up your class quest on the ship. However, unless BW add more endgame content such as ship customization or things like companion daily/weekly quests, I see no point in forcing players to go through extra loading screens.

I have heavy doubts on TSW. From the beta it clearly looks unfinished, yet the release date is June.19th.

Personally I think Twi'lek's head gear, unless it's goggles, should never be shown. According to SW lore lekkus are very sensitive and any 'limiting' headgear could cause pain.

Add a galaxy map droid on the fleet, and probably at some major space stations on other planets. You could use it to travel to other planets; when you click it, you are shown a few cutscenes: 1) You walking towards your ship; 2) Your ship leaving the planet/station/fleet; 3) Jumping to hyperspace and you are 'teleported' to another planet. This is mainly to reduce the number of loading screens one has to go through when traveling to other planets, because having to go through two loading screens and three elevators kinda discourages people.

Perhaps there should be a middle ground such as a "save your spec and keybinding" option at the skill trainer. It's kinda annoying every time I want to do something different--yes indeed it's simple and inexpensive--I have to rearrange a lot of my key bindings. And I'm not even a healer. I can't imagine how annoying it will be when a person switches between healer and DPS spec regularly.

So where did you get the assumption that Tera is going to have P2W stuff? Why not wow?

Technically, EA is Bioware. Most of studios under EA are renamed to Bioware anyways

Imo, Kira is better than Rusk for the most part for one particular reason: Her freezing force can set you up for an opportune strike, a free attack on a 15s cd that does good damage while leveling.

Well, why not have something in between? Anyway. On this one, SWTOR took way too little risk in production, and it's not just a sandbox vs themepark problem. With low risk comes low reward, and eventually it's high risk on the long run.

For PvP, depends on the spec you're using. On a spec like this: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#500RrGbddrzbZsMr0MZM.1 I don't see where else you put those two points

This. Even though I don't fully agree with his idea of horizontal progression, vertical progression is detrimental to PvP gameplay (and to some extent, gear incentives harm PvE gameplay as well), even more so when badly gear players can be queued up against well geared players because that will just be a faceroll. Thus I think expertise is not the cause of the problem, it is just something there to blame on. Without expertise, high end gear will still roflstomp low end gear and that is the issue. --------------------------------------- Now, given the status quo, which means gear progression stays The expertise/progression system could use some extra work, such as: 1) making all PvP gear in the same slot give the same amount of expertise, such as 10% increase for a full set 2) design a similar system to wow, so that for the 2nd best set , players can use PvE tokens to buy PvP gear and vice versa so that the players don't have to suffer the period in which they can contribute nothing to their team in a warzone. For example, in wow you can transfer justice points into valor points and vice versa. However, there must be a PvP stat, it is needed.

Something like this. Get all CC skills in defense tree and unremitting from vigilance. http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#500RrGdkdrzbZsMr0MZM.1

F2P doesn't mean it will automatically suck, but with EA's habit such as their talk about charging a dollar to reload, I guess for them, F2P = P2W. That is what sucks, and that is exactly the wrong approach. However, with current SWTOR's model, I don't think the "fair" F2P model like LOL or GW2 suits it in any way.

Well, tbh, EA probably invested most of the 80 mil on ads, trailers, bribing IGN and etc rather than on the actual game. Data shows that EA spent 900 mil on that area last year.

I'd say Stupid decisions from the designers/devs (who know nothing about PvP) Both the first week of 1.1 (lol ilum) and the first week of 1.2 (auto BM upgrade for some people, extremely little reward for losers) were disastrous, along with the RNG bag system which also made a lot of people unsub. We don't have exact data, but I'd imagine in those two weeks the population took a big hit, which contributed a lot to the dead server problem.

http://www.mmodata.net/ TOR's sub never exceeded the peak of Aion, and now that Aion went F2P and is in constant decline, TOR's subscription peak is below Aion's active accounts. Aion's subscription base, in general, also declined slower than TOR's even with all the flawed design; the curve is flatter. Both Lineage games also have a larger peak number and a slower population decline rate. Something must have gone terribly wrong.

Well, if you want to level as tank spec, I'll propose a kinda crazy idea: use Kira all the way. If you look at the talent tree, you'll notice that tank spec isn't that short on damage compared to vigilance; it is, however, much shorter on focus generation. So it's good to use all your abilities that don't cost focus, especially master strike and opportune strike. They, imo, should be on cooldown all the time. Opportune strike has a 15 sec cd and requires a normal/strong mob to be slowed in order to use, so use once immediately after force leap. Kira will use her freezing force to slow the mobs, so if the fight is long enough for you to use it a second time, use it, or if it's on cooldown before you open up a group of mobs, open up anyways. Of course it isn't as safe as using Doc, but I find it noticeably faster with either tank spec or hybrid PvP tank spec.