This a hundred times over. EA sees the cash cow in SWGoH and thinks you can do the same thing in every game now. While it is frustrating, I am beginning to wonder if they are right. When you read threads of people upset with the game changes as the just bought 3 Hypercrates and also complain about not getting the 0.000000000001% platinum item, so they buy another Hypercrate, why would EA want to change? You just need to keep people around buying those crates. Mark my words, within five years there will finally be legislation to stop this practice because it has got so out of hand in the industry it isn't even funny anymore. RNG Digital Items are being used as money extraction schemes and, quite frankly, it is disgusting. But, it is working as there are enough people stupid enough to keep feeding the beast. With the way a vast majority of the video game industry is working today, I always think of a line my late father used to say, "Some people have more money than brains."

Nope. The other thing that is missing is the ability to do the grind for free. We have the boosters already to reduce the grind (as Asian MMOs do) but BW one upped them by getting people to pay a sub for the grind.

No, BioWare wouldn't mislead people now would they. Not like pre-5.0 when they talked and showed screenshots of 100 CxP levels, or put only 100 CxP levels on the PTS and then launched with... 300 CxP levels. Sorry, but BW has a history of deception. Not buying it was an overlooked mistake.

Just to clarify a few points: While it is not called advertising fraud, false advertising is indeed illegal. Specifically these fall under the laws of the Lanham Act and the Uniform Deceptive Trade Practices Act. As for what the EULA says... this has been challenged and lost in court many times with enough precedent that a EULA can eventually mean nothing. The courts have upheld that no contract (of which a EULA falls under), can be established between two parties that is in violation of any federal or state law. That being said, what most companies (specifically EA and Activision) bank on is that because their customers base is made of millions of smaller paying customers this will never see court. A law is only as good as it can be enforced in a court of law. So the reality is unless customers could bring a civil action suit (which I doubt would ever happen in the case the OP mentioned) or a state AG in the relevant jurisdiction brought case, nothing is every going to happen or change. That is the unfortunate reality of law in the US.

Actually, the forum defenders represent the minority. The vocal forum warriors have the facts on their side. To whit: Over 180 servers at launch to 17 servers today. Servers constantly at heavy to full loads at launch (sometimes having to wait in queue for an hour just to log in) to servers barely ever getting past light at present 2 million players at launch down to 200,000 six months later (which doubled to 400,000 when F2P launched) Four servers with okay populations today (TRE, JC, Har, BC), rest are almost ghost towns. Three straight quarters of EA commenting on the declining revenue in SWTOR. The problem is and always has been, that people think that the "vocal forum warriors", as you put it, represent the minority. Stinks when facts say otherwise though.

So the tokens and/or gear are not Bind on Pickup/Equip?

Dude, taking time for new gear isn't an issue - IF THERE IS NEW CONTENT TO NEED THE GEAR FOR. Instead, we have had the gear reset TWICE for the same old content as we could do with BiS 3.0 gear. It should be faster gearing if it is only about getting to the same dang content you have done for two years. You add slower gearing and grind, like every other MMO, for NEW content.... which we haven't had in over two years. With 3.0 you ground out the gear so you could take on the newest Op boss - REVAN With 4.0 you gorund out the gear so you could take on the newest Op boss - REVAN With 5.0, they expect to have an even longer grind to take on the newest Op boss - REVAN See the BIG problem? You are expected to grind out the gear THREE TIMES NOW, to take on the same newest Op boss you took on for two years. I don't think that is fast, or wanting it now, in any extent. In fact, I would say SWTOR raiders have proven to be the MOST patient with gearing in the entire MMO universe.

No, it won't even if you run every Op in a week with the same 8 people you still only will have 25% chance of getting gear drop at end (since only 2 of you per week can get the drop) and some Ops will need to be run twice (for implants and relics). With that being said, unless you go immediately into NiM mode, and completely skip T2 (which based on the new tunings seems like you will need T2 to even tackle NiM mode), you are still talking a minimum of eight weeks. There is no way around it with the limited boss drops and raid locks.

Running Ops isn't much better. First, the gear is now limited based on the Op. So if you are looking for legs you have to run TFB since they tied it to the end boss. With 2 pieces in an 8 man instance, you have a 25% chance of getting the drop at the end. If you don't, then you have to wait a week to try again because you still have weekly raid lock outs. So it could take you a month to get the drop depending on the RNG and assuming you always run with the same 8 people so they pass on the end drop. Secondly, it is probably going to be harder for that as people are going to focus on running Ops where the end boss has the gear they need. So the ones who got the legs the first couple times around are probably going to want to move on to a different Op that has another piece they need. So, to get say 14 pieces in casual play, where most casual raiders do maybe 2 Ops a week, you are looking at a time frame of 6-24 weeks, depending on your luck with RNG. This of course is per tier. If you decide to just start going for NiM, you could theoretically have a full set of T3 in six weeks. But I don't see how peeps are going to do that without first having a complete set of T2. So, assuming you start Veteran Mode first, you are looking at 12-48 weeks (3 to 11 months) before full T3. Assuming your get average RNG on the end drops, it will be around 5 to 6 months to do it. Oh... and that is just one character. I hope people are finally figuring out that this wasn't done for your benefit. This was done to INCREASE the grind but give you some consolation prize for the stupendously bad RNG in the command crates. BW is trying every trick in the book to keep people subbed and the only thing they have is the carrot of re-gearing over the next year so you can then be back to doing all the content you were doing with BiS 3.0 gear. And none of this still fixes the issue of newer players coming at later times to raid groups and trying to power gear them to catch up with older raid group members. This is the thing that, over time, is going to completely destroy raiding in this game. But at least then, BW will have their metrics that say no one wants to raid so they won't need to do them anymore.

You have a good point. I did originally leave the feedback but, like so many others, it is completely ignored by BioWare. So, I guess I kept posting in hopes they would wake up. But you are right, at this point they are not going to. The only thing that will wake them up is a massive drop in subs. So, thanks for that. Outta here.....

it is done this way on purpose and I am surprised no one has figured it out yet. Here is the real skinny to think about when this goes live: Let's say you are one of those players that has already reached CR300. You will have 2,610 tokens on patch day - that you can't do a thing with except buy boosters for your alts. Now, let's say you still need the boots, pants, and chest (because the RNG gods have REALLY favored you). Just three pieces of T3 gear. Here is what ONE will take in addition to the grinding you already did (let's use the pants as an example). Via Ops - you run 8 man story mode TFB and have a 25% chance of getting final boss drop gear. It will take you 1-4 weeks at 2 hours a run for this to happen but at least you can go right for the T3. So you only have 2-8 hours per piece in addition to all the CxP you have already grinded. Via PvP - You need 475 total Unassembled to get the legs. Winning every match means at 95 matches. Losing every match means 238 matches. Let's say it will fall right in between at 166 matches (you win 50%/you lose 50%). Counting queues and various timers in the matches you usually can average 3 WZs an hour. That is 55 hours of ADDITIONAL grinding, again on top of all the CxP ranks you already did. So, in addition to the hundreds of hours grinding CxP ranks, you need 1-4 weeks or 2-8 hours of running Ops or 55 hours of running WZs just for ONE piece. Yeah, that really helped fix things! If people haven't figured it out yet, this is about INCREASING the grind because peeps are getting through the ranks too fast in BWs eyes (thus why the mob CxP was drastically lowered quickly). There is NOTHING in this "fix" that is a benefit for the players - at all.

I won't be in another 21 days. And, you can't set your expectations any lower than this game. When over two years ago you were told you would never go another year with an Operation... Forgive me if I somehow don't believe a thing being said from the team in charge of this title.

And this is why they do not feel the need to fix anything in the game nor provide any meaningful content in two years. This is what keeps them going.

No, you are twisting what I wrote to support your argument. I am well aware that concurrent means number of players commonly on line at on time. Using YOUR previous comment and YOUR link to the article. The article claims 324K global players. What I am telling you is YOU are not reading the article you linked. From the article: No 2: FFXIV with 324k global players No 3: ESO with 250k simultaneous players No. 10: SWTOR with 9k-18k concurrent players What I said was they use the terms interchangeably. So for FFXIV to be No 2 over ESO which they list as SIMULTANEOUS (same as concurrent), then they must be referring to CONCURRENT players. You are the one who earlier stated that concurrent generally represents about 10% of total players. Using the articles 324k, that would make subs at about 3.2 million. That 3.2 million makes sense and jives with what is reported from SE in their financials. You, my friend, are the issue. You keep taking the literal word written in the article rather than the context of the whole article. If the 324k in that article were total players, and the 13k concurrent you wrote about earlier true, than FFXIV would have been listed behind SWTOR. As far as embracing the numbers, No. SE is the one who reported, when they hit the 6 million mark, of having 800k-1.2m concurrents. You are the one who pulled a completely made up number of concurrents representing 10%, perhaps it is more like 30% of total base who play concurrently. What I did was use the article you linked, from a third party source, to show regardless the point is made - if SWTOR had been managed like FFXIV has been (i.e, delivering content and being appreciate of their customers), it would most likely occupy the spot FFXIV has now. Instead, due to utter contempt for their customers and complete mismanagement of the biggest IP in MMO land, it has barely survived.

And they ignore the ones who are dreaming that 99% of the players are still playing after 5.0. 4 livestreams in less than two months since launch (all about changes to the GC system). A first ever survey on an expansion from EA. Massive changes on the GC system in the very first patch after release. And Ben doing interviews trying to convince people that the system is great (when even the MMO sites have trashed how stupid it is). Yeah.. sorry but the evidence isn't there that 99% of players are happy with it. More like 1% are.

Since Summer of 2015 this game has headed horribly off course. It's as if it is being lead by someone who really doesn't know what they are doing. They made good strides with 2.0 and 3.0 and went off into la-la land with 4.0 and 5.0. So what happened in Summer of 2015 you ask? Ben became producer.

Okay, the thing is most of the players are veteran players in this game. Veterans who have done the same content over and over and over again hundreds of times with nothing new. Secondly, I respectfully disagree with your assessment of it being one of the best experiences for new players. It is actually one of the worst for new players. Most won't start with subs, they will start as F2P. As soon as they hit that first hump of - what do you mean I have to buy a quickbar - you lost them. I have seen it happen dozens of times already. No other MMO restricts F2P players like this game does - NONE. There is a reason it won the pleasurable award of worst business model. So that then bring us to value for your sub. Everyone who subs is paying $165-$180/year for what? I have seen few MMOs go this long with a major group content drought. We are talking about almost half of this game's entire existence without new group content. In fact, of all the MMOs I have played, I can not think of one, outside of SWTOR, that went TWO years without putting in ANY new group content (and cut-and-paste uprisings do not count). Finally, to your point about waiting for groups. Most MMOs have two paths to gear - the group content and a solo alternative. In TSW for example, you can get the purple drops from NiM dungeons or raids, or you can just save up bullion from regular questing and buy them. So they have a model for both group players and solo. SWTOR had this pre-5.0, now they don't. Even with 5.1, they still don't fix the fundamental issues with raid gearing. Over time, players fall off and new players need to be introduced. Frequently, they are undergeared compared to the regulars so you "power gear" them by running them through raids to catch them up quickly. This is they way it works in almost every MMO except SWTOR 5.0. It shows that they haven't the foggiest clue what goes on with the raiding community. PvP will also become a complete mess because of the gear disparity. When a new player first hits level 70 and maybe has a few command crates and goes into a PvP match versus veterans who have almost fully geared in 242 they are going to have a very bad experience. Before, they would at least be in 204 PvP and very close (gear wise) enough so they could compete. So, 5.0 really doesn't serve the veteran players nor does it benefit new player coming into the game who are going to be frustrated at top level being so far behind everyone who already grinded through many levels of CxP. 5.1 is not going to fix any of that.

Really, let's see what MMO players should expect from an expansion, shall we (and no, this isn't from WoW). Here is one for comparison: Level cap increase to 60 (from 50 to accommodate a lot of new content) Three new character classes Three new zones that are each three times the size of the original in game zones (i.e, equivalent to nine zones) that are fully explorable (you know, real zones not corriders used once for a story mission) A new playable race Flying mounts 819 new quests (including 3 unique quests for EACH class) Story continuation from level 50 (not an entirely new story like SWTOR) 18 new 4-man dungeons 6 new 8-man raids (level 60) 3 new 24-man raids (level 60) Three new abilities for all classes Three new PvP modes Mini-games including a casino/carnival games, mount racing and a few others. All told it takes a few months to play through the content of that expansion. Just FYI, the base game prior to the expansion had 1,268 quests, 29 dungeons, 6 8-man raids (level 50), 3 24-man raids (level 50) and nine zones (which are 1/3 the size of the expansion zones). In other words, the expansion was equivalent in content to almost 75% of the original game. In fact, people are still playing through the content since the expansion launched and another expansion, similar in scope and size, is launching this fall. What did we get with SWTOR 5.0 "expansion" for new content: 9 story chapters 5 uprisings All told, it is about 6-8 hours to play through the content and 90% of it is really not repeatable. People were pretty much done with this the first week it launched. Finally, the price for the comparison above? $20. The price for a BW expansion is at least a month's sub so $15... look how much more you get for your money with the other. It is pathetic how little content BW has given for wanting people to subscribe over the last two years. Frankly, they are taking players to the cleaners with this game compared to most MMOs on the market.

I am not going to go off on the White Knighting (or sarcasm, I can't tell which). But it did NOT make the old content relevant. It is still old content that now has had TWO gear resets (at 65 and now 70), just to make your grind again to do the SAME CONTENT YOU WERE ABLE TO DO BEFORE 4.0. The content and mechanics of Karagga's was the same at level 50, then 55, then 60, then 65, and now 70. The difference was, at least up until SoR, new Ops and/or Flashpoints were introduced for the level increase. Since 4.0, there has not been any content that justifies an increase in level cap - none at all. It was only increased so BW could reset the gear grind to do the content you were doing before the reset. Because BW believes in this false dichotomy that players chase gear just for the purpose of chasing gear. We chase gear to be able to do NEW, HARDER CONTENT that every company except BW puts into an expansion. It is a false carrot they keep putting out there because they have released so little new group content in a AAA title that they should hang their heads in collective shame versus almost every other MMO on the market today. It is an embarrassment what they have done with the biggest IP in the world.

Oh god. I am cleaning coffee off my keyboard after reading this. Pre-5.0 - How do you get gear? Answer: Have you played any other MMO before. They say Yes, then you say it works the same way. Earn a specific currency and buy what you need. Post 5.0 How do you get gear? Well, you grind these levels and get a crate that most likely 95% of the time will have garbage in it. And when you don't get what you need, go read the stuff on the website that takes a half an hour to understand how to just get a piece of gear. Guess what... they are introducing this mess because people are NOT getting the gear from the crates. And rather than do something simple like reduce the CxP t oa cap of 2,000 per level (which is what you will earn in an hour in casual play) and fixing the RNG to remove all the junk and just have it drop gear and schematics, they introduce the most convoluted gearing scheme ever. It is TERRIBLE game design that anyone past game design 101 would not implement. Oh and guess what, we are not done yet. They is still more convoluted junk to go on top of this as acknowledged that there is still stuff to fix. Defend it all you want. It is the worst gearing system in an MMO on the market - PERIOD. And I have played a lot of different MMOs.

First of all, I clarified I don't play FFXIV. I use it for comparison because it is an example of what happens when a developer actually listens to their player base (which BioWare hasn't done since beta) and focuses on developing content (rather than skins for their in game store). FFXIV represents what SWTOR should have been. Difference is they put people in charge of the remake that actually care about the game and pleasing paying customers. BioWare could care less. Secondly, the article uses global, simultaneous and concurrent interchangeably. Under the No. 3, ESO, they mention 250,000 simultaneous players (which is synonym for concurrent). They list SWTOR, at No. 10, as 9,000-18,000 concurrent. Being that they listed FFXIV above ESO with 250k simultaneous users, I think it is safe to say they are referring to simultaneous or concurrent when it comes to FFXIV. Lastly, the financials published by Square Enix don't jive with the number. Go read their financials. Estimated revenue from FFXIV is a third of their digital intake which is $1.9 billion, which would make FFXIV near $630 million annually. There is a limited cash shop (Mog Station) so it is mainly from subs only. At $180/year for a sub, that comes to upwards of 3 to 3.5 million subs. I belive it was you who posted earlier about the 10% of the base usually being concurrent. With the 324k listed in that article and the total subs subjected from the SE financials, those numbers tend to jive. In fact, SE published a loss in 2013 and swung wildly to profitability in 2014 and they attributed it all to the success of FFXIV ARR.

Nah, always better to do it on open shareholders call. Executives NEVER like to be embarrassed in front of the other shareholders. Letters get filed and ignored and only you and the exec know it happened.

The one positive thing I will say about the GC System. I have acquired gear I need faster with this system than in 4.0. Mainly because I quit the game. I have only logged in once since two weeks after launch and that was to handle some guild transfer stuff. I have no problem with this system at all. It did it's job and killed SWTOR for me. Job well done! As an aside for Eric: After the 5.1 release it would probably be best to start putting together your excuse list for the execs in corporate. I mean you convinced them (according to the shareholder's letter), that you implemented (and I paraphrase here) a new end game model that would keep subscribers, subscribed longer and therefore increase revenues. We KNOW it is doing the opposite, so you best get Ben working on the excuse list.... And before you dismiss my suggestion, know that I am one of those unfortunate customers that is also a shareholder... so you never know if I might just get on a quarterly shareholder's call and pop a question in there on how well the new end game scheme is doing since it was mentioned in the shareholder's letter.... Oh, the joys of working for a public company. As a boss once said to me when I worked in the world of big, public corporations, "There is nothing worse than a knowledgeable shareholder." What he was referring to was customers of the company who also happened to be shareholders. Those in Austin need to heed that advice even if you ignore the other 1,000 suggestion being made.

Have you read the forums today? Three long posts by Eric on fixes and further admission there are still some major problems to fix. All of this less than 60 days after 5.0 launch. Not to mention 4 livestreams - all dealing with fixes to the GC System and a first ever survey from EA on just the expansion. I think there is plenty of evidence that the majority are in fact NOT happy.

My brain can't handle this..... it is so much simpler than having three crystal levels and WZ commendations that we were too dumb for.