Wouldn't this require changing a given saber's sound too? It would be strange to have 'unstable' sounds with a normal blade. Though I doubt we'll ever see it, the game needs to make saber and blaster sounds customizable.

@JoeStramaglia I thought the team's changes were all good until I came to this last one, quoted above. Prices for expensive CM and other items have dropped by a large percentage, basically across the board, since the 'economy initiative' started. The only items I know of that aren't included are old CM items that haven't been available for multiple years, which sell for absurd sums like 25-50 billion or more. A few old in-game drops also make this list. Normal items that have become much more reasonable in price include, say, crafted staples like augments and augment kits, and rare CM items folks sell from packs or direct purchases made on the CM. Items that weren't found on the GTN at all earlier in the year on Star Forge have almost all come back under the 1 billion GTN cap. This doesn't necessarily reflect the credit to CC cost ratio of all items on the server - some of these rare CM items are sold at 1 billion or near it only for convenience. With the cap being increased to 3 billion, prices will temporarily spike for many, many items, as players gamble on what 'markets' can be bought up and essentially monopolized, and slowly come down for the rest. With the game's population much smaller than it used to be, the 'market' for rare CM items or in-game drops isn't that large. What's to stop certain players from taking advantage of the higher cap and selling at an inflated price, after continually buying up certain CM items? And why increase the GTN cap when trading was already being taxed for those rarest of items that are actually worth more than 1 billion? These are basically only a few platinum-rarity CM weapons or armor sets, brand new CM items in the first weeks after they are released, instant level 80 tokens, and those CM items which haven't been sold in years, referenced above, which still won't be on the GTN, even with the higher cap. Can you please drop into the thread again and explain the GTN price cap increase a bit more? The GTN cap increase will effectively encourage monopolies on certain items, and they'll very likely be sold at prices well above what they are worth.

More or less everyone I know that still plays the game is wondering what will be different about SWTOR next year, now that it's at a different studio. This topic comes and goes, and continues to be discussed despite some months passing since the game's transfer made it into the news earlier in the year. In a prior post, Keith alluded to the team having greater "creative freedom," which some have interpreted as being able to make more independent choices for the game, not needing BioWare management's approval for implementing what the team thinks is best (and, in some cases, not being at odds with BioWare priorities, which haven't always been in the best interest of SWTOR's team or the game's). I think most players simply wish to know if SWTOR will continue with updates as usual, or if we can expect something different, better, now that its development is at a new studio. Player opinions I've come across range from folks optimistic about the move, comparing it to what happened to LOTRO, an MMO slightly older than SWTOR that has in many ways been revived after it was transferred to a new studio, to those who believe the game will continue to wind down, as it was under BioWare. At the very least, people have voiced a hope that profits from SWTOR might now at least go back into making content for it, instead of funding other BioWare titles. Aside from 7.3.1 and a more major story patch, 7.4, later this year, what might subscribers expect to see? I'm referring to updates other than UI changes or technical upgrades like transitioning to dx12.

6.0, the Onslaught expansion, brought back differences in the story based on faction. It's been different since. Arguably, this really started with the Ossus update at the end of 5.x, which seems more like the beginning of Onslaught in retrospect, in terms of story.

I've commented before: one possible solution is to allow players to choose more than 1 option in a given skill tree row, with up to all 3 even if playing solo. If PVP is a concern, perhaps there's a way to reduce the choice back to 1 per row when queuing for PVP? As someone who has played PVP since early 1.x, it was much more enjoyable with all the abilities we had through 6.x, in my view. Perhaps it was harder to balance for ranked, but that no longer exists. Same for Operations, though I'd like to think the 'arms race' reason given by the developers on defensives was primarily in regards to PVP, not Operations or FPs. I'd also suggest giving all skills at an earlier level, and leaving 70-80 or 65-80 mostly or entirely without an ability. Leveling a new character feels very different since 7.0, in a bad way, due to the lack of skills and when they are attained. Even with a smaller team, these are the sorts of changes I think they are still fully capable of. Maybe we are stuck with the current tree system, but that doesn't mean it can't be altered somewhat, especially with additional ability choices granted.

Darth Nul's lightsaber was added recently in 7.3 and has a great hilt. Could we get a dualsaber version of it as well, for Shadows and Assassins?

Add ALL the season companion customizations, including the ones which required finishing 100 season weeklies/reputation track. Make the latter cost a lot of tokens if necessary - we need something to spend them on. I'm currently at 15/15 tokens with 11 from the last season in my mailbox, because they couldn't be claimed. Oh, there's another from this week as a subscriber reward for logging in 4 times - think I'll be missing out on that one.

Unless CM decoration sales are completely essential to financially keeping the game alive, I think adding them, the entire pool of CM-only decorations, as in-game drops is worth considering. One of the few areas of the game that's now completely inaccessible without buying large amounts of CCs is Stronghold decorating. Yes, technically there are some in-game decoration sources, but, in order to create Strongholds that rival or even match SWTOR's environments, it's simply necessary to collect large numbers of CM-only decorations. Some longtime players have been able to do this, over years (or most of a decade), without needing to purchase a large amount of CCs. This is no longer possible, though, and hasn't been for years. Many (I believe most?) CM decorations simply aren't found on the GTN, and in-game inflation has made buying the ones that are impractical, at least in the numbers needed to decorate Strongholds well. SWTOR is winding down, as best as players can tell, over the next couple of years. Would it really hurt, at this point, to start adding CM decorations into the loot pool for various types of content? Perhaps new systems might reward specific decorations for content completed in those environments, or they might be found as drops from mobs or bosses in those locations. This serves as a way to motivate players toward specific endgame content, and also gives them something to grind for, for those who have large, mostly empty Strongholds. In my experience, this is most players. Consider leveraging the opportunity to earn plenty of previously CM-only decorations, enough to actually thematically fill up all those empty Strongholds, as a means to promote FPs, Ops, GSF, PVP, daily areas, and other level 80 endgame content. Even planetary and leveling content might be revived somewhat with this approach. After all, what's the point of leaving CM decorations all behind hundreds or thousands of dollars of CC purchases if the game isn't likely to be actively developed after a few more years, and not many people are even buying them at this point anyway? As in-game drops, CM-only decorations can at least add significant incentive to engage the various endgame systems and game modes for the remaining population, giving players much more agency to engage one of the few areas of SWTOR perhaps many haven't, Strongholds.

You do realize the developers just lost half their team, right? Companions don't just design themselves, go through the approval process with Lucasfilm, and make it into the game. Maybe there'll be future seasons with additional companions, but the upcoming one not including a companion makes sense, given what the studio has gone through in the past few months.

While there are plenty of ways the GTN could be more user-friendly, there are a lot more pressing concerns for Broadsword to focus on. It's been fine for well over a decade, and updates to the GTN can wait compared to other areas of the game.

I've played since the launch days. Leveling in SWTOR was generally the part of the game everyone, no matter what their preferences in an MMO, agreed SWTOR got right. But this wasn't just because of the great class stories, which, over 11 years later, are still better than any other MMO campaign, and even best plenty of single player RPGs. From 1.0 through the end of 6.x, leveling combat always felt appropriate, no matter where you were in the process, with a few exceptions that soon resolved themselves. The process fulfilled a Star Wars fantasy for the archetype of combat a given player selected - more specifically, in class and specialization (now combat style and 1 of 3 available Skill Trees). Too many abilities were taken away in the Skill Tree changes made for 7.0, and what's left as a choice has been spread out too much between level 1 and 80. With Ranked PVP removed form the game, and the endgame raiding community being quite small compared to those who level new characters (or play the SWTOR endgame more casually than those who push it in Nightmare content), I think the SWTOR team really needs to take a look at what feels fun and rewarding while leveling, in terms of skills and passives and when they are acquired. One potential solution is to frontload the current trees, allowing them to be accessed well before level 60-80, largely leaving those levels without substantial upgrades. This, however, ignores the fact that the choices enforced in the 'new' 7.x skill trees take away from the Star Wars combat archetypes that made 1.0-6.x leveling and classes feel complete in comparison. Another solution is to 'give back' more abilities in the available choices. This may involve reducing the number of '1 out of 3' skill choices and instead giving these skills back to players at certain levels in the Skill Tree path. Additionally, some '1 out of 3' choices could be made '2 out of 3' instead. SWTOR was never a game that was difficult to understand. At worst, a player had to try out their new abilities, and infer what they did. What 7.x did, either by choice or removing an ability from the game entirely, has made the best, most celebrated part of SWTOR, the '1-50' leveling process, significantly worse. This includes what is available for a player to use at level cap in endgame content as well. We realize circumstances for the team have been shaken up a great deal with the move to Broadsword, as SWTOR fans. As things settle into a new normal, please revisit the decisions made pre-7.0 in regards to class design and abilities/passives. What was done has not made the game more 'modern' but instead has degraded the game's classes and combat, both while leveling and at endgame. SWTOR's skills/passives were in a much better place before the system that was, perhaps in a rush, placed into 7.x.

I've put an HK droid armor set suggestion in the CM section of the forums for years now. I think the team, for some reason, can't get approval from Lucasfilm for it, or just don't agree it's a fun or good idea. I'd love being able to make some of my characters be an HK droid as one of many saved outfits. Other droid models seen in the game would also be welcome, like some of the ancient ones found in the game (on Belsavis, Tython, and elsewhere), underworld ones, faction ones, etc. Again, I suspect there aren't more droid options because it runs into some problem for approval, they didn't sell well-enough, or the team itself doesn't agree it's a good idea to have player characters look fully like droids. At this point, with only a few new CM items coming out every few months, it's probably not likely we see a bunch of new droid sets.

Deleted. My solution was bad!

Return the game to 1.0-3.x leveling difficulty, with a corresponding adjustment of skill trees and what abilities players have in their toolkits, as an option. I don't know how this could be implemented, if it's possible to have a seperate instance that can accomodate this, or if it would need to be on its own server. Either way, I also don't enjoy leveling characters now, because the experience is so boring compared to how it used to be. There's no reason a class story chapter boss should die as easily as a normal elite somewhere in the open world. Those fights used to have mechanics in them, you sometimes needed to upgrade your companion's gear for them (when companions still had gear), and, in general, the leveling experience used to teach the player the basic aspects of how to play SWTOR (rotations, how to interrupt, how to CC, when to use a med pack, how to manage a companion, etc). This simply hasn't been the case for years now, and it's yet another choice by the current team that has made the game worse.

The SWTOR team works remotely, for the most part. Keith already wrote they will also be moving to a smaller office space in Austin (and based on the Malgus statue in the passenger seat of a car on SWTOR reddit recently, they might already be moving into it), but that the team will continue to primarily work remotely on the game.

The story is more about Darth Nul and Sa'har than it is about Malgus at this point. I actually prefer the Darth Nul/Malgus story to the Mandalorian one, which is also dragging at this point. I'm assuming the story updates not really going anywhere were the result of the team not being sure about the BW to Broadsword transition and what might take place when. All that said, just be happy if we even get fully voice-acted story updates twice a year, as in the past few years, after 7.4. That's not even been confirmed as still occurring by Keith, which I found odd. It's among the most basic aspects of story in SWTOR, player character responses being voice-acted.

I'm not sure how this can be implemented, as I wouldn't want to take a FP away from folks that want to run it via the group finder. This post is being written because, for level 80 players queuing for a random Veteran FP, it can be a frustrating experience to get Black Talon or Esseles. This happens often, even when all players are level 80, i.e. you can't decide to not accept because someone seems to be very low level and likely to match for only Black Talon or Esseles. In case the reason isn't clear, Black Talon and Esseles are, depending on faction, the first FPs in the leveling experience, are both very long on cutscenes, and simply don't have engaging bosses for level 80 characters. The Master mode versions are fine, even if among the really easy ones. The problem is with Veteran mode, what many players run when doing a daily FP for conquest points, or just queuing for a random FP. The rest of the early leveling FPs are fine on 80s - it's these 2 in particular that are a source of frustration, mostly due to the length of all the cutscenes found in both.

I think SWTOR's combat is part of its appeal, even if, in a sense, it's from another era of online games. It shouldn't try and be someting it's not, and can appeal to players that enjoy something different than what the latest games offer. If a player wants 'realistic' lightsaber fights, other Star Wars games like Fallen Order and its sequel arguably have them. SWTOR is an MMO that uses tab-targeting in combat. That's fine, as long as the game is updated with enough playable content per year, both story and multiplayer. The overall population has dwindled to what it is now because EA and BW didn't invest in the game and keep up with other, similar MMOs, and possibly because almost anything cosmetic worth getting is in the Cartel Market, not because the lightsaber fights don't look like they do in Star Wars films. The 'Andor' series didn't have a single lightsaber fight, and few set action sequences at all, yet was easily the best Star Wars has been on screen since the original films. If SWTOR was given the budget to play to its strengths and produce worthwhile content updates, the combat system wouldn't really be holding it back.

I think making rewards available that would be nearly equivalent of doing the season track again on a different server would be better. Folks play any given season on multiple servers, which does probably help with population issues on some, but I'd much rather the benefits of putting in the time investment be available on a single server. Perhaps it's unrealistic to expect another 2000 CCs in any potential level 100+ track (though, currently, it's available on multiple different servers, so why not?), but a sizeable portion of the 2000 CCs would probably motivate some to continue playing than a companion customization (the only reason to do 100 weeklies currently).

Alongside plenty of folks in our guild, lately I've been playing a lot of Diablo IV. While technically a different genre of game, an action RPG, it still has plenty of MMO elements incorporated into its overall design, and in some ways encourages group play. Despite having the most 'modern' graphics, UI, and game systems its publisher thought worth putting into it, I must admit I found it notable that SWTOR wasn't that far off, even though it's now almost 12 years old. It made me think, though extremely unlikely, that if SWTOR was given a real budget for both story and MMO content, and assuming the game engine could handle those updates, this game could still deliver for current, returning, and some new players, who together make up a significant potential pool of customers. It wouldn't be selling millions of copies of any potential expansion, but the most 'modern' games, like a Diablo IV, don't necessarily best it, despite likely having nearly all the development resources they could ask for. Is it too late for Broadsword to do anything with the game? They don't seem set up as a studio to produce lots of content for any game, let alone a resource-heavy MMO like SWTOR. But if plans there include trying to actually make a good game better, with content updates EA and BW would in the past never approve, rather than extracting as much money out of SWTOR as possible before a future, final maintenance patch, this game still has life in it, is 'modern' enough. Even the newest titles, like a Diablo IV, come up short in important ways, in comparison.

I prefer the launch button for new story updates. The game is different than during the launch era, or more broadly the 1.0-3.x era, after which story chapters started and the launch button was introduced. You, as an individual player, certainly have the ability to still 'travel' to get to the location of new content. Taking the launch button away from everyone else is selfish beyond reason. In general, the galaxy map has largely replaced class ships, in terms of traveling from location to location. The latter is basically only still relevent for origin stories, with a few exceptions.

This game will barely even get updates after the end of this year. The idea of a new combat style is absurd. And for anyone who fell for the idea when it was mentioned around 7.0, it always was.

Players can create their own 'Darksaber' weapon with the black-silver crystal set found on the ranked PVP vendor. The blade doesn't look right with every hilt in the game, but there are several that appear very similar when used. This is your best bet.

I feel pretty unmotivated to play, since the Broadsword transition. Not because SWTOR is any different, but because what Broadsword will pursue after the end of the year, or whenever 7.4 is released, is completely unknown. There hasn't even been confirmation by Keith that any story content after 7.4 will continue with voice-acted player characters, which is as basic to SWTOR as anything can be, let alone continued development of multiplayer PVE and PVP content or more solo-oriented updates like new planets and daily areas. The only thing keeping me logging in is our guild, but we also play other titles together. Lately, Diablo IV, for good reason! For veteran players, in some ways, it's a good time to step away from the game and see where it's at in a year or so. It'll likely be much clearer what Broadsword has in mind for SWTOR by the latter half of next year, and if the SWTOR team can actually deliver better or more frequent updates without BW controlling its finances and personnel. Basically every era since 2.x has had less playable content in its updates, and it's difficult to be anything but skeptical that somehow that will change now, especially when roughly half the SWTOR team is no longer working on the game.

Now that the game is with Broadsword, the most you might be able to expect is, maybe, an 'upgraded' tree where players can get back, say, 2 of the 3 abilities that are currently choices, instead of just 1. Or perhaps some ability choices may be rearranged and given at different levels. Large systems changes, like the skill tree overhaul that was so poorly done for 7.0, are very likely a thing of the past for SWTOR. Sadly for players, the game wasn't 'modernized,' just made worse. You're correct that the leveling skill system, and the utilities that came with it, was in a much better place before 7.0's sweeping (and often uneven, between various class specs) changes were put into the game. Like most things in 7.0, it was a total mess when it launched, and almost a year and a half later, it's not entirely finished. Even the basic art, seen in the class trees and when procs occur in the UI, is still incomplete for many if not most of the class specs. Look, the game was managed so poorly leading up to 7.0 that EA just gave up on supporting it, transferring SWTOR to a studio it doesn't own or directly fund, one established to keep dated MMOs online and functioning with little support. There's almost no evidence SWTOR isn't being shifted into a similar position as Ultima Online and DAOC at Broadsword. I'm of the opinion the staff that got transferred has potentially been contracted to finish up content that will slowly get released as 'new' updates, bring the rest of Broadsword up to speed on how to work with SWTOR's development tools and engine, and work on a few more 'modernization' projects. Maybe the game continues on with occasional story updates that utilize less or no player character voice acting, but, in general, SWTOR is almost surely being sunsetted at Broadsword. At least EA didn't just shut the game down, and the existing stories, particularly the base game ones, will still be around for at least a few more years for Star Wars fans to enjoy. In short, we're likely stuck with the poor systems placed into 7.0 - expect only minor alterations, if that, going forward. You're correct SWTOR was much better to play, mechanically and in terms of general fun, prior to so many abilities being removed or made optional.