It's fairly apparent that they have some sort of focus group that they listen to. You wouldn't have seen them talking about needing to simplify the game and removing currencies and stances and things like that, if they didn't have some feedback mechanism other than the forums that they're listening to. The forums are a better indicator of what the veteran/"hard core" crowd might think, but maybe vets aren't the most lucrative demographic for them. "Rich idiot" is pretty much always the best customer to have, even moreso when you have a cash shop. One guy who spends 10,000 dollars is a lot easier to cater to than 1000 people who spend 10, or none.

Some one asked for it. I suspect it was a focus group of people who don't play video games, commissioned by some genius marketing exec who noticed that "People who don't play SWTOR" was a massively larger target audience than "People who already do play SWTOR" and decided they need to design the game to appeal to people who aren't currently interested. Same kind of decision that Sony to change Star Wars: Galaxies from a "Star Wars simulator" into "WOW IN SPACE." As SWTOR shows, it's not wrong to build a game to cater to a different audience. But as SWG shows, it's wrong to try to make a game with an existing fan base into that game for a different audience.

They're in denial, and totally arrogant in their approach. They think for some reason that their job is a multi year project, rather than a monthly service, so they think that the time to make changes is three months or six months from now, rather than three months or six months AGO. The time to fix this system was before it saw the light or day, with minor tweaks being made once the community saw it. Instead, they still don't grasp the enormity of their own failure, so they're happily steaming their way into an iceberg. Well, they've probably got a focus group, probably the same focus group of idiots who can't understand the concept of currencies, who are like "Yea! It's great! It's just needs to be even more linear, so I don't have to strain my brain to make decisions." Maybe they're turning SWTOR into a mobile game.

Run into melee range to avoid reflect, run out the second she starts channeling, grab heal buffs whenever you see them appear instead of waiting until you're low on HP (since she WILL explode them). Did it first try, having never seen the fight, with no companion (did LS choice) and burning no cooldowns. This was on story mode though, maybe it's really hard on Veteran.

Well, the concept of RNG is exciting, in the sense that you literally don't know what you're going to get. However, there are a number of problems. 1) RNG is RNG. Not every one will have the same experience, and a person who has a lot of good luck might enjoy the system very much while those who don't, might not. It really doesn't matter what they "average" outcome is if you're the unlucky 10 or 20% and that keeps you from feeling rewarded and enjoying the game. Even worse if the lucky 10% make every one else feel unlucky and neglected by their own success. 2) Some people are inherently more risk tolerant or risk averse, and that affects how much they enjoy any form of gambling. Risk averse personality types don't get a positive type of excitement from randomness or gambling, they get negative stress that's temporarily relieved when they get a positive result, but which returns quickly, and amplifies with every negative result. While command crates aren't technically a "risk" (that is, you're presumably just spending time that you would have spent anyway) the psychology remains that some people simply cannot and will not enjoy investing their time, effort, money, or anything else into an endeavor where there is no reliable outcome. Some people LOVE gambling and uncertain outcomes. Since the core game mechanics have never really been about gambling, that means you have a lot of existing, core players, who aren't interested and don't like it, and a lot of players who might have liked it who tried SWTOR and abandoned it a long time ago, and aren't coming back. 3) This is exacerbated by the lack of alternative methods for getting the gear from GC. You MUST grind the system, you MUST tolerate the RNG mechanics, and you MUST simply hope (no control on your part) that the RNG favors you. This can make the system feel less like a form of progress and more like being put in detention, or working a job you don't like, just so you can pay the bills. The rational behavior in such situations is to do as little as possible. In SWTOR terms, that means simply not playing a max level character or doing any of the content that Bioware expects to keep people busy for the next 6 months to a year. But all of this has been covered as nauseum. Bioware either doesn't believe that human psychology is real, doesn't understand it well enough to design for it, or some one just doesn't care, because they've already resigned themselves to this game failing in relatively short order. Or, maybe they've got some really hot metrics that tell them that their MMO doesn't actually need a large player base, just needs a core market of addicted gamblers, and that this design will reward and encourage the core demo while discouraging the dead weight.

Teeseven seems to enjoy them. 4.0 broke them. They will never work correctly, because Bioware is severely understaffed/incompetent, so if a bug doesn't get fixed within a month of being created, it will never be fixed except by accident.

Well each person is different, but I think it is both, and some other things too. 1) RNG is definitely an issue. People have no idea what they're actually working for, which means there's little sense of anticipation. Sure that crate could have something great, but chances are it has some green or blue gear that barely matters now, and literally won't matter in a month or two when the population actually has crafting schematics and crafted items in sufficient quantity to bring prices down on the GTN. If Command Crates were a secondary source of rewards (they had cool aesthetic items, jawa junk, companion gifts, etc) then you'd look forward to them as a treat, but when they are the source of actually improving your capabilities, the RNG makes them less of a treat and more of a trick. 2) CXP is also an issue. It's a linear grind. No matter what you do, you're staring at that one bar as your only mode of advancement. If feels like punching a clock at a job you hate and watching the clock every 5 minutes to see if it's time to go home yet. There are no decisions to be made in terms of even what currency to pursue or which OP or flashpoint might provide the gear you need or want. Even if the grind was fast, it would still be obviously be a grind, because there's no sense of multiple reward paths. Everything comes from CXP so that's all you wind up focused on for rewards. 3) The grind is slow, and it just got even slower. With the nerf to gold mobs, there's not even a grind while you wait for a queue to do the grind. I used to enjoy doing heroic missions in this game. Okay, it's a stretch to say I enjoyed the missions themselves, but I enjoyed that they were a rewarding distraction while I waited for a queue to pop for something I really wanted or needed to do. Now, I'm staring at the queue timer because there's literally no reward (20 CXP for doing a mission is nothing) unless you're in group content. And even then it's slow.

I honestly don't think Bioware understands the essence of what makes a game a game. They seem so focused on randomness, linear grinding, and a narrative that they've lost the core of any engrossing game: meaningful decisions. Without meaningful choices, it's not a game. I'm not talking about choices in the story, either. The story was fine this time around. What isn't fine is everything else. Doing a slow, linear grind for gear is boring. A slow, linear grind that's also based on RNG is infinitely worse, because there's no interaction, no choices, no options, it's just "play the game, get an occasional box, open the box to find disappointment inside, rinse/repeat." On top of that, the execution is what I'd expect from a 5 year old. The CXP rewards are pathetic. Do a heroic, get 20 CXP. Great, if I do 100 of them (about 5 weeks for me, because I don't enjoy doing more than 3-4 a day at most) I'll gain a Command level. It honestly feels like all the rewards are missing a decimal place. Even at 10x the current rate, the loot rate wouldn't be great, again because there's so much RNG. If you're going to have a grindy, RNG based system, then loot needs to rain from the sky, and loot needs to be interesting. Your game has neither. The exciting new group content (Uprisings) is like a Flashpoint for people who think Story Mode flashpoints are too hard to understand. The game is chock full of bugs. My pre order reward Shae Vizla is bugged. My video is bugged. Even the stuff they simplified is something MORE complicated, like the top menu bar. The bottom line is it's just not interesting or fun. There's not much to do, and the stuff I can do isn't worth repeating on a different character. It's barely worth doing once on my main character. I was enjoying the game in 4.0 in spite of all the bad decisions that were made. 5.0, I enjoyed the story, and now that it's done, I see no reason to keep playing.

Yup. It's a big problem. Have to close the game in the task manager to actually close the game, otherwise it hangs at a black screen with the mouse pointer.

Think about what they're telling you with this: Bioware did not anticipate that players would kill enemies.

Maybe she's just not that into you.

Yea, it was a little weird having Acina lecture my sorcerer about the Sith code. Like, bish, I'm Darth Nox. I'm keeper of ancient knowledge. I'm literally infused with the ghosts of ancient Sith Lords. I sat on the same Dark Council as you. Don't tell me what the Sith code is. However, I did still enjoy the mission a lot, and I am not finished with all of KOTET, but up through chapter 6 I have enjoyed it immensely.

1) I don't expect a bunch of players to come flooding back for an expansion, especially when there's no progression content to create urgency or excitement. Maybe when word of mouth gets around that KOTET's story missions are better than KOTFE, but even then, you can binge play it on random Saturday, so I doubt that's going to increase numbers dramatically. 2) The expansion doesn't even come out until tomorrow, so why would returning players be playing right now? 3) 4.0 was busy because of The Force Awakens. Rogue One isn't out yet, and it's not nearly as big a deal. I wouldn't expect nearly the same bounce.

Doesn't work for me. She says "You waiting for me to put on a show?" "I don't think so!" and "What?" When I talk to her.

This bug needs to be fixed ASAP. The mail you get on log in explicitly states that using the token won't prevent you from being able to do the recruitment mission, and yet it does exactly that. On top of that Shae is bugged and has 22k HP at level 70. So yea, that needs to be fixed too.