As F2P you sure can buy access to Ops... by paying a subscription.

There have only been two MMORPGs in history (that I can recall) that transitioned to a free to play/cash shop model from a subscription-based model that have allowed me to use and utilize EVERYTHING that I had achieved, unlocked or otherwise PAID FOR during my time as a subscribed customer after the transition to free-to-play without asking me to PAY AGAIN or otherwise double-dip into my own wallet. Things I speak of are points such as: - Characters that were created prior to the changeover, but F2P accounts have "limited" character slots thereby rendering some characters "locked" and unplayable though no choice of my own. - Item quality/tier restrictions rendering certain characters' already-acquired gear unusable post-transition. - Skill tier limitations* (granted SWTOR doesn't have a progressive skill/spell learning system, but I point it out anyway) - Inventory/Bank item limits that were previously purchased being "reverted" to a F2P limit cap. - Other functionality that was available to paying customers that was previously utilized being removed from the F2P tier (such as legacy unlocks that were previously purchased). - Etc. We already know you're willing to rip the heart and soul of the "MMO" out of the SWTOR experience for F2P players by completely forbidding Operations in any way, shape or form, so I figure I might as well ask directly to see what else might be taken away. Given your propensity to not talk to your community until well after it's too late, here's your chance. Or do you not even care anymore, since as your investor conference last night stated plainly anyway, Battlefield 3's success/profits offset SWTOR's failure/losses.

I unsubbed an hour or two before the presser actually - citing many other reasons. The press release made me happy thought, it means I won't be uninstalling a game that I sort of like at least while waiting for it to go F2P. Though in all honesty, in the 7 months I've been here, I've done pretty much everything there is to do in the game already, so going F2P would be pretty much pointless. I do sort of cringe to see how EA/Bioware plans on monetizing the hell out of the game though. It will likely be painfully bad.

As soon as I saw this: I couldn't wait for those two days on your sub to be up. You'll take that as a complement. The rest of the forum population will understand why I said that. Seeya! You won't be missed.

Because you get something out of that, am I correct? The FOTM overgeared get to ******** anyone that challenges them and it stays that way with only the illusion that there's some sort of hope of challenge, whereas world PvP has absolutely no discernible reward other than personal satisfaction that you can't wear on your shoulder like an epeen for the rest of the server to see? Like I said, I don't have a problem with arenas, ladders and tournaments being put in AFTER all the other glaring issues in the game are fixed first.

They already have those - they're called Outlaw's Den and Ilum. You see how popular THOSE are, right?

Playing whack-a-mole with your hotbar cooldowns != skill. 2v2, 4v4, whatever will NEVER be beginner friendly in this game - the devs have all but ensured that by making it a gear progression grind based on the expertise system without any sort of bracketing. Regardless of what you put in at this point, be it arenas, ladders, tournaments, etc., it will always end up the same. The dude with the best gear on the FOTM class will win. Period. There's no reason to put in more of the same when there's so much more work that needs to be done first. The biggest thing this particular subform seems to forget is that SWTOR is first and foremost a PvE game, and always will be. If you don't believe it, just look at the last two content updates. Tell me, was RWZ even close to being a PvP "content" update? Tell me, out of the known future updates, what out of those plans are going to be PvP "content" updates? The way to keep SWTOR going has nothing to do with PvP at this point and the devs know it - and that's exactly why you're not going to get arenas or ladders. Get over it. If anything, the only thing you should be asking for at this point is real open world PvP and free-roaming ship-to-ship PvP because those two options actually fit in with PvE content updates.

Just what we need - more people ************ about more overpowered mara/sent cooldowns that require no skill* (*laugh*) to play. The last thing they need to do is add even more essentially one-time-use cooldowns to the game that serve no purpose other than to taunt people because they can't use them more than once every half dozen fights. My original comment still stands. You're either geared FOTM, or you're dead. *Disclaimer: I played a sentinel to 50 and used 3 full hotbars worth of skills. But apparently I was doing it wrong.

I don't see why all of this crap even matters in a game that ranking is dictated more by gear and class choice than any sort of skill. I'm sorry, but if you want ladders and tournaments, go play counterstrike or something.

^^^ This. Detaunt cooldowns are all generally 3x every tank class's taunt cooldown. The adage goes, "Every little bit helps." If it were me, I'd still much prefer a tank slapping guard on me and taunting the person jumping me. But I'd still use my detaunt if it was available to me. So I'm mistaken - my apologies. In my experience in PvE, it always seemed to only work against the mob I was targeting, and not any others - and usually not terribly well for that matter. Perhaps the others were outside of the ability radius or something though.

Because a tank will reduce the damage of an attacker against the entire team for the duration, whereas a de-taunt will reduce the attacker's damage against a single person (yourself) for the duration. The tank still has an incredible amount of value with guard and taunt of his own. Besides, Bioware's propensity for massive DPS means more and more damage sinks are necessary, making tanks even more necessary concurrently with other active damage sinks.

I should know better than to apply logic to this particular subforum, but would it possibly - ever so slightly possibly - be worth investigating allowing de-taunts (such as Cloud Mind, etc) to apply a damage debuff to your attacker specifically against you in a similar manner that taunts work in the opposite manner? This might actually be a nice little balance to those squishies that run around the warzones complaining that they get their brains splattered against a bantha every few seconds where there's no tanks around to shepherd them every second of the day. Plus, well, it seems extra silly to have those vestigial skills sitting on the toolbars doing nothing 99% of the time.

I never said there is anything 1-shotting. I did say we're not too far away with the direction the devs are going with this though. 3 shotting? I've been on the receiving end of that, many times, thanks. I've also been on the giving end a few times too.

A few notes, though this will get buried because this is a thread the developers will never ever look at: #1 - Snares/Roots don't count towards resolve - this was addressed by the developers this past week. By address, I mean "dismissed" (yet again). Why? The notion that snares and roots don't actually cause a player to "lose control" of their character because they still maintain the ability to take some sort of offensive or defensive action in the process? Pardon the vulgarity, but that's complete and utter bulls***. Given the durations of snares and more importantly roots are generally much longer than the hard CC counterparts, they are much more problematic. #2 - Resolve and (the lack of) diminishing returns Why is there no diminishing returns sliding scale on resolve with regards to CC effects? This would be the #1 easiest fix to the rampant problems with CC in the game. Someone with 0 resolve, full effect of the next CC effect. Someone with 50% resolve, next CC effect has a 50% effect duration. Someone with full resolve, next CC is resisted. #3 - Resolve effects CC resistance Wow, here's a novel idea... if you're sitting at 50% resolve, you have a 50% change to fully resist the next CC attempted on you. 75% resolve = 75% resistance, so on and so forth. #4 - Building resolve via combat In the heat of battle, you're hyper-aware. You're much less likely to be caught blindsided. You should always be building resolve when fighting, not just when you get hit by CC. Why isn't this already in the game? #5 - CC breaker grants a limited duration immunity to further CC If there was one and only one thing I personally would put into the game, this would be it. A skill with a 2 minute cooldown that pretty much demands to be used every single time it's off cooldown deserves to have a duration of at least 10-15 seconds.

As I said in the original post, there are going to be those that are of the opinion that "ooh a 1-shot instagib definitely does have it's place in the game!" I'm inclined to believe you're one of those people.

They do happen, far more than you think. Regardless, 4k crits, 5k, 6k it's all ridiculously out of hand. The simple point is there's a lot more running back from spawn than there is actual engaging meaningful combat going on. Hence, you're missing the point, as I expected most people to.

Preface: A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away... a bunch of angry PvP'ers critted this thread with flames for 80-bazillion damage and told the RP'er to go away. I'm not an RP'er. That said, hear me out Deckard Cain style. Yes, sit right there and listen for a while. PvP in SWTOR is the only MMORPG PvP I have found tolerable in pretty much ever. Originally it started out pretty well balanced, the classes did what they were supposed to do and things were fun. Then people whined because, well, the mechanics favored certain tactics and lets face it - people prefer to KILL other people, not be the ones being killed. Hence the race for FOTM starts, and balance whining starts and we get into this sort of arms race if you will. Game mechanics change, for better or worse, and devs go off the deep end trying to balance and rebalance PvP, then PvE which breaks PvP which requires rebalancing which rebreaks PvE so on and so forth ad infinitum. So here we are, the land of 8k crits and massive sustained damage in a game where the background history involves lots of cover fire, saber duels that involved a great deal of dodging, parrying and acrobatics. A game where a single player is capable of being a one man wrecking crew against other players that are (in theory) supposed to be his or her equal. I know this isn't the movies, and some of you don't care about the history of this game (though I seriously doubt that's true), but those one man wrecking crew Sith and Jedi had a tendency to be just that against the cannon fodder of the world. I submit to you - granted some of you really do play as is you are nothing more than cannon fodder, and I to am guilty as charged on occasion - players are not the cannon fodder of the game. We are those that should be representative of those opening cinematics of the game: A long, protracted battle that involves one or more individuals with exceptional skills able to take or avoid excessive amounts of punishment. Excessive. Amounts. of PUNISHMENT. Not be felled in 2 global cooldowns. That 8k crit that takes me down? I want that to be that mountain being leveled on me. I want that to be your lightsaber running me through after having used everything at my disposal to keep you at bay for the past five minutes, and I have nothing left to fight with. No. Not another couple crits and yet another respawn. This formula is getting tired. It's spinning ridiculously out of control in SWTOR. One shouldn't have exactly 2 to 3 seconds of viable combat between spawns in a warzone. We're about 1 GCD away from 1-shot instagibs on some classes. I'm sure there are some that will think that this is appropriately fun. So be it. Disclaimer: I have played em all, if not to 50, to the mid/upper 40's. I don't roll FOTM, I play for fun. I don't hardcore PvP, but I know my role, my class's role and my team's role. I know what gear is, what it is to be geared and undergeared. I play warzones as objective based team games, not team deathmatch games - unless of course I'm on a team that doesn't give a crap and refuses to listen to reason. I won't say I'm great, I won't say I'm even good. I'm at least competent. Everybody has those "derp" moments.

No, they're saying that as long as general chat is not being OFFENSIVE OR ABUSIVE it's not violating the terms of service and therefore fitting in with the general theme of, you know... GENERAL chat.

Seriously, I know - I have no life. I play the game, I enjoy the game. I remember when legacies were first announced it was said "Oh hey! You'll be able to unlock them with either credits or legacy experience!" That's fine, and there's a whole what... maybe 3 or so legacy perks that are essentially useless that fall under that category? 1.3 comes along, and again, more legacy fluff comes along, and again I'd have to shell out a bazillion credits if I want to tinker with the legacy perks. Except this time, it's even worse because they're per character. I know credits aren't terribly hard to come by in the game, but come on! The legacy perks cap out at level 25. I'm sure more will be added later. I'm LL30 and the XP just keeps on piling up as I keep throwing my cash at Bioware - and yet you guys keep putting credit sink barriers with ridiculous numbers up? Really? At least start giving legacy unlocks after LL25 to give a discount on legacy perk prices for us losers with no life that support your game!

You can no longer climb over the walls from the outside of mid as your running from grass/snow as a brief shortcut and/or to use as a nice little sniper's roost. You now have to run AROUND the barrier, which if you're coming from defending the "opponent's" side node you'll be potentially running right through respawning attackers trying to get back to acceptable cover in mid (unless you go under and around the back).

Because you know at the beginning of the map odds are there are going to be fewer defenders to mow down at the opposing north emplacement. With the changes in Alderaan, defending grass/snow is no more a penalty than defending mid anymore. Honestly I have no freaking clue why the devs saw fit to screw up Alderaan and Voidstar the way they did. The changes suck, and in the case of Voidstar completely break the entire original intent of the map (defensive battle).

ftfy.

If you're "tanking" in PvP, you're doing it wrong.

Wait till the end of the match and point out in ops chat the scoreboard where I have Out-DPS'd, Out-Killed, Out-Healed, Out-Objective Scored and Out-Lived him - all at the same time.

It's the common "I don't enjoy the game unless I win!" attitude. Perhaps one should take their $15 a month and use it to buy single player games with savegame support instead.