It is more than annoying. It is embarrassing. I hoped the 10 year anniversary would be the time where SWTOR would come back into the consciousness of the general MMO player groups. Instead, it has but for the wrong reasons. The game is a technical mess and this issue is one of the more severe I've encountered in all my years playing this title. I hope Bioware issues a public apology about these issues it only seems to be the right thing to do at this stage. So much for an all year celebration I hope Bioware can right this ship but my enthusiasm has died as well as any hope of them fixing these issues.

That was fast! See you all ingame!

Probably requires a client side patch.

I think this is quite disruptive honestly especially if you have groups doing content or guilds doing planned activities. That said, I think a bit of both is necessary, issues that do not require a client side patch should be fixed as quickly as possible, most issues (if not all) on known issues probably requires a client side patch (they should consider doing at least 1 before 7.1 to iron out some issues). What I would like to see is better heads up communication from the forums about takedowns (and some better information on how long maintenance is expected to last ingame instead of the generic maintenance message).

Definitely. This expansion arguably introduced one of the most ambitious overhauls to the game in combat styles and loadouts that on top of all the UI improvements and additional story really is quite a bit considering all of the old code they had to dig through and the hurdles on their design goal they encountered as a result. I was not surprised when they had issues on the PTS builds as a result of this, so the delay came as no surprise. What I would like to see is a post about why it was pushed live in this state, with some pretty fundamental known issues to the new major overhaul of the expansion in combat styles and loadouts. I hope the developers can quickly sort these things out and that content in future patches won't be derailed more as a result (weapons in outfitter, new ops and daily area all got pushed out of the expansion release to 7.1). One key point I would like to push is even clearer communication (if possible) from devs to players about decisions made around the game in my book communication is key. As a long term paying customer of this product this is not the quality I've come to expect from this game but I'll stay around for the first patch (at least) to see if they can start to steer the ship in the right direction because, beneath all of the tech issues of the new systems I am intrigued by the story so far and I can see huge potential for combat styles in the future so I just hope that they can bounce back.

They said during the 10 year anniversary livestream that they would continue to update the UI over the course of the expansions life cycle so we will see more in the coming months.

I am happy you guys fix things and I know you all wanted this to work out that said, the amount of issues on display here on day 1 is concerning especially since a lot of it was noted during PTS testing as well. Also, for some reason I lost my (dark side) DVL set on my main char (except for the helmet) that I had pre-equipped in outfit slot 2 before the expansion went live. No biggie of course, but as a long term supporter of the game I can't help but be slightly disappointed.

1. Did not minimise or tav out of the game until I got tired of the spinning wheel and forced the game to shut down. 2. I was in the state for around 40 minutes (this is on your end I think, usually when I boot the game it takes me seconds to get in). 3. It was spinning the whole time. Additional info: I play on the Steam client no idea if it is a universal issue so the tidbit could be important. One last thing, I have been subbed to this game since launch I have never experienced this, it is fairly disappointing that it was pushed live like this. I have other games I can play in the meantime so I do not really care for myself, however I feel for the players who bought a returning sub for this content. I hope the expansion live cycle is less of a train wreck.

I assume you mean disciplines combat styles only refer to the class (assassin, sorc jugg etc) disciplines is the specialization within the class itself (Madness sorc for example)There is currently a bug that does not allow you to choose disciplines for your character during the creation stage, you can still go to the fleet to change the discipline to one you want for your chosen class.

To my knowledge yes, there is also a droid on the Fleet that awards 80 endgame starter gear go there after.

The PTS through steam is not built into the launcher. If you use use Steam download it from the steam store page (click on the prompt on the page that asks if you want to download the PTS launcher it is in the middle just below screenshoots and trailers).

Skills are awarded automatically when you level up at certain levels now, trainers only teach general skills as pointed out in your post. There is currently a bug where some abilities do not show up automatically in your ability bar when gaining the required level so check your ability at times.

So far I have levelled my sin to level 10 on the PTS using no legacy perks or boosts in order to get the feeling they are going for for fresh players. So far I like the flow of rewards and XP, I have not encountered a piece of armour yet that is above my current level (as was pointed out during previous PTS cycles). However, I do feel that the rate of gaining abilities could be a little bit faster than it currently is, not much however since I think it sits in a rather good position through levels 1-10. I do believe that the PVE world content should provide some sort of difficulty for the player to keep them engaged so rewarding too many abilities at one time might break the balance even more, however rewarding too few makes the rotation repetitive and boring fairly quickly. I'm interested to see how the rest of the levelling experience has been impacted with the changes presented in this expansion.

For your last point it might actually be due to PVP, I would assume the developers do not want players to be able to switch loadouts mid match easily and PVP is an instanced activity so either it is a bug (as in a potential lockout for switching is only supposed to be for PVP games but is currently affecting PVE content as well) or it is an intended lockout, if it is indeed the latter I STRONGLY suggest that the developers reconsider since the point of loadouts was ease of switching between a combat style and a variety of profiles, this will be WAY more relevant in the future if the intent of separating classes and story is, as was pointed out in a dev interview, in order to offer some more variety and an opportunity to finally create new classes using the origin stories already present in the game. Thank you for pointing out the droid by the way! I will create another character in order to try out loadouts and endgame more thoroughly within the next few weeks.

This 100 %, I also agree that at this point in time it is quite difficult to test out loadouts due to the focus on the levelling up experience currently. However, this will of course naturally change over the PTS cycle as we gain levels. Now I do have some thoughts on the UI for loadouts, I personally find it a bit confusing and convoluted to use in it's current state I accidentally saved my first loadout twice and the game currently won't allow me to save a new loadout to the second slot which is a bit annoying since subs will only have access to a few loadouts before having to buy more once it gets pushed live. Have I understood correctly that loadouts also save different outfits if you choose to equip those? I do also agree with a previous point of feedback here, loadouts are part of a fundamental system change to the overall game and how it can be played and it is a great addition to the overall function of combat styles in concept, but it will remain that way if it is not explained how to utilise it properly within the game itself, a tutorial is necessary here. In the future Loadouts and Combat Styles provides a lot of opportunity for the developers and players to iterate on how we engage with classes so not having a tutorial on how it works is a bit weird at this stage. Maybe it is already implemented and I just have not seen it yet.