You know, I actually couldn't say.. I rarely paid attention to it back then. This is such a headache, I'll assume that that was the problem (though its a pretty dubious exemption to make for RNG protection..) Thank you!

Pause at 20 seconds on the video, I have mods and augments in the boots.

I can promise you that it is NOT working with equipped, unless I am doing something wrong still? In case it isn't clear in the video (I frantically recorded the previous 30 seconds, didn't plan to record tbh), I bought 8 items. I stuffed all BH and generic set pieces into my character's bank before doing this on one of my Powertechs. The only duplicate item you can visibly see me receive is the Meteor Brawler Boots, which I hover over to show that I am wearing them with mods+blue augments in them. Minor thing of note; You can see when I receive a piece that I DON'T have by looking at my tracked achievements on the side and the chest piece to the Entertainer's set gets ticked off. 4 of the other pieces received here were for the first time as well. The Taskmaster's Belt, Stationary Grit Gloves, and Dying Precision chest were also duplicates I had in personal bank at the time. Its hit or miss but mostly hit. Still shows that protection is iffy, or not an absolute at least?

Even I think this is being disingenuous or an ill attempt at venting valid frustrations at the wrong time. If this were true, there would be many other points in the game where this litmus for balance would line up as well, needing top tier operation gear to burn an enemy in content meant for the minimum effort crowd/story players (hi!). I doubt Bioware would purposefully enact changes that target a specific boss because people were rightfully saying that the game was becoming a snoozefest (I'd even say they could go a long way in improving old content by updating mechanics in big boss fights at the very least) over the course of years. Yes, there are people who would complain that its still too ez even if trash mobs started having operation-level mechanics everywhere, but the 'too easy' complaints were perfectly fine and correct. Before jumping onto the hate train, I'd appreciate seeing a video of OP trying the fight, and I'd happily get a toon there, same spec, same gear level, and see for myself if I can find the time.

Fleet Commendation Vendor has the Inheritance Gloves, Wrists, and Belt available for purchase using fleet comms. Easy to grab all 3 if you're a fan of GSF or the Space Missions. Or willing to play through a few matches at worst.

And its better by a wide margin at that. There's always been a certain smugness to the idea of and supporters of the subscriber-only-forums, and it shows every now and then. Either with false assumptions of what would happen if the gates were opened or the unnecessary repeat of how to post in this hell scape ('Pay the sub so you can be largely ignored and frustrated like the rest of us'), its never sat right with me. It shouldn't be a privilege to give feedback on an official channel. This place has had its chance to be THE nexus for Swtor discussion, I recall it being inferred (and this is one of the tried and true classic Swtor forum responses) that perhaps I was too poor or had my priorities mixed up when I suggested years ago that they open a section of the forums up to Preferred players at least. It would get more eyes on topics and only benefit everyone with more activity on the site, and probably keep Preferred players in the picture if they had a greater ability to be invested in the community/game's operation. You know, the people who have actually paid before and in many cases, far more than current subscribers ever had, but there was concern trolling about the lack of dedicated moderation resources. Because I'm sure there's a horde of ex-subs waiting to storm the pearly gates of this decaying website. I simply have more faith in Jackie, her Leia buns, and basic spam filters than some others it seems. But there is no defensible reason to not relax that a bit besides not being willing to commit to scaling up moderation, probably for a short time at that. I'm having a hard time envisioning a non-stop influx of preferreds pouring back in at this point in the game's life.

Blizz exists already, and is recruitable by all classes.. You're literally just asking for a different skin with this though. What they SHOULD do is make them actually worth using. If each came with their own fun gimmick and stood out, I'd have no complaints about them because their integration works well whether you're a newer character or further down into the story. Being voiced or not really does nothing, though they probably could use new alien voice lines I guess? I just don't see what them speaking basic would do if people don't care for them outside of their seasons use anyway. What I'm saying is give the damn Jawa his bazooka back and undo the blanket uniformity of companions. All it comes down to with all of the 70-ish or however many of them there are now is: 1. Speaks basic or not 2. Dress up or not 3. Combat style This is so trash. Why have all of these options and step on your own feet like this?

Going to toss in there, maybe doing something about brackets to make up for the clear skill and ability gap that makes the wholesale slaughter of lowbies possible. Max everyone out and give lowbies full access to their skill tree for PvP-specific loadouts. Loadouts is a feature now Bioware, please use them. The faux concern about overwhelming lowbies with so much choice goes out the window when they're getting their backs blown out by lvl 70-79 groups.

Got repeats of the Hunter Killer chest and boots despite finishing it and having said set in my inventory. Same with having the Meteor Brawler set done and equipped but received the boots. This is way more annoying than it should be lol

Its those numbers or nothing though. I could see a little more still playing on the OG launcher but not much more. The game has clearly been in a slump and I think people would be surprised to see how much heavy lifting whales and dedicated fans do in terms of revenue for mmo's and other supported 'live services'. Subscribers or not, maintaining an mmo from a company's perspective is about finding a happy minimum and working toward the next thing while that minimum is kept busy. The numbers could literally be in the ballpark of 20k people playing total, mixed all between F2P/Pref/Sub and still maintaining roughly 50x the profit each year because of a small subset of big spenders for whatever reason. Its an established trend and would tell us more about why there's almost no push whatsoever to advertise the game outside of expansion drops, and why player numbers in general appear from what little we can see are so low. While we can't be anywhere near accurate about sub numbers, which I think have been irrelevant for a while now, steam charts do provide a worthwhile perspective regarding trends. A sample, yeah, but better than the nothing-ness we get from the earnings reports.

Operative is as stealth-reliant as you want it to be. Lethality doesn't NEED stealth at the level you're playing at if you're asking this question, but using it for Tactical Advantage and immediate burst is always there as an option. I never could get with Vanguard's crappy animations personally, even when tanking with one in MM content for years, but if you need to use a blaster rifle, Lethality Operative combat style sure uses it a lot. Only drawback is the range is trash because someone at Bioware thinks blasters are really just another way of saying 'longer swords'.

And oh boy does it show.. That being said and criticisms of Bioware writing aside, not all good writers transition well into all projects. This is an ongoing story dealing with multiple prior existing plot threads and already has a writing team with their own vision that they've been working toward for the past few years, even with Boyd's departure. Not that Avellone wouldn't be up to it with a cohesive vision the team could get behind, but there's only so much that experience and skill in singleplayer game development can get you when you're now doing it for an mmorpg. Switching lead writer with someone who has not to my knowledge worked in an mmo production setting (even if we're just talking the story) and also has strengths that differ, is inviting mess. And the last thing I'd want to touch is a project that is the product of someone else bastardizing what interesting nuances/characters me and my team may have introduced after the initial entry. Drew really walked in and said "let's get back to my stuff, mkay?" I'm just not a fan of pretty much everything that's been done with Revan and Meetra (the Exile) post KOTOR 2. Also OP, give the games a whirl yourself. Graphics should never hold anyone back from enjoying great products, imo.

Then do it once and swap back to your OG combat style, (your) problem solved. All this is asking for is Bioware to do it for you with the risk of other players being screwed out of it for one weird/dumb reason or another.

I enjoy the overarching system and think it was a net positive for the game which has long struggled with establishing content cycles that could keep people engaged over lengthy periods beyond more and more story. One of the best additions made to the game in a long time, supplementing conquest, which seems to keep things lively. What's the point of giving more gimmick companions that lose any relevance once a season is up? Altuur had a unique ability, for as minor as it may be, but it showed a break with the ultra-homogenization that was done to companions a while back, to the detriment of the experience. Why can't companions have abilities that stand out anymore? If seasons companions had abilities, even if they were BUSTED, that would GREATLY improve my thoughts on them. So far I've liked PPH4-LNX the most because her background is actually interesting and has a splash of that Star Wars goofiness to it. Altuur's appeal came and went for me for their ability alone (Kubaaz isn't my type but I appreciate the diversity), and Fen Zeil felt very hollow and ANNOYING to collect customizations for. But BRING BACK UNIQUENESS TO COMPANIONS. I'm iffy on the rewards, but that's to be expected. There's a lot of them and they're themed, so if the theme isn't you, the whole thing gets discarded, but I've liked s2 and 3's weapons for the most part. Not a fan of companion gifts, remarkably low amounts of commendations, or non-stackable dyes, but the rest is actually solid. Random packs are lame to me, but I do own most mounts, weapons, and sets as far as that goes. Would like more character titles and less legacy ones though, the legacy ones don't do anything for me. Maybe even a random CM companion pack? Or themed decorations that play nice with various SHs? Idk, we know vanity rules here, so lean into that. The vanity in this game puts its competitors to SHAME. For the most part, yes. I wish there were more options for each game activity, like instead of medals for gsf/wz, completion of weeklies multiple times counted so progress would be made one way or another. Maybe its just exacerbated by the pvp changes and gsf being plagued with afkers, idk, but yeah alternatives would be nice. Or offering them as bonus progress after completing the main ones. All I know is I HATE the snail pace advancing. It requires little effort, though the catchup is ridiculous (seems designed for a specific group of people to be honest, and not just the lazy wealthy). Not too easy, not too hard. Not artificially gating progress so hard would be awesome though. It fits into it fairly little. I log in at reset most times, knock out like 5 of the weeklies shortly, then let myself get the rest passively. I actually love this part of it. Return the original CC reward and cost of unlocks. You're not affecting the people you need to be aiming for, and we know who you should be looking at as far as the player economy becoming a lopsided shipshow. Make the companions worth actually using COMBAT-WISE. Offer a means of bonus progression. Up the reputation weekly limit, my god is 5k so tedious. I'll go on the record for this and say I'm not hopeful any of what we're saying will be factored in and produce favorable outcomes to what's been openly voiced since the hour s3 dropped. Surprise me though, I like those.

Could swear Oricon (or Makeb?) was the first instance of this that I saw too, way back.

Nope, no emote that does the same. Surprised they haven't put each class' regeneration animation up as toys still. Though emotes >>>> Toys to be clear.

Reigniting flames would be nice, but hollow for obvious reasons. Its been 5 years since I've heard from some of the ones that I HAVE reignited with and while another opportunity to 'jump ship' would be nice, we have to keep it real about what sort of good would come from it in the short term. And by short, I mean half a decade. Funny enough, a lot of people would not have felt so inclined to jump to the spy duo when Shadow of Revan arrived if vanilla companions were receiving content (remember when they all went silent throughout that expansion?), but its an understandable reality. I still wouldn't mind letters and updates in some way though, they have that entire companion menu screen to track significant events for them and most of the space is still un-used. But as far as your idea for battle-forged romance and the right words? Sounds a little chaotic and like it wouldn't do much in the end.

Just waiting for the invisible hand of Bioware to make it pop up for collection some day. No word on it for years, much like how some sets completely vanished before rotations were a thing and not a word was said about why, or why they won't remove the mods from certain ancient sets to put them up for sale again. Its annoying to say the least.

What they did to Saresh from the time of Pub side Taris to KOTFE was.. pitiful. On one hand, they chose a good character to use for this because of the GenoHaradan's history with the Republic and Saresh's own past. That's where it stops being good. I'm upset because she actually makes a lot of sense in her dogmatic anti-Imperial ways, even if she was presented to be a self-serving power hungry backstabber working with the galaxy's most professional and effective assassins in later expansions and they made her a joke. She was a 'typical politician' from the start, as shown with idealistic she was at the cost of anything on Taris, and then cracks furthered with her showing her face on Makeb iirc, but she still was the sort of leader that would have gone to town on the Empire if given the opportunity. She got that chance on Ziost, which proved to be a blunder for the ages and it worked for the story at the time but it undermines what makes her a sympathetic and quality character. It doesn't help that every time she showed her face, she was active opposition or acting as an annoying leash to characters the player was to be endeared to, like Theron, Satele (Shadow of Revan), and eventually the player regardless of previous faction in KOTFE. She became the stereotypical moustache-twirling villain with a plan a middle schooler could top after scheming her way up the totem pole in the Republic and I despised it. Even worse is the reaction to it. Very few were questioning this sudden leap off the cliff. It wasn't cunning, it had no logical bridges, and it had no firm resolution unless you chose to kill her. An unsatisfying mess and end to a character that had an established and sympathetic background, stood as an example of an anti-Imperial fanatic at the helm of the Republic (would like more of this considering the whole decades of war/slavery/massacres thing and less equating the two sides), and another example of why KOTFE-Iokath was a great example of how not to handle your own lore playground. She was not the only vanilla-casualty after all. But to answer OP, I agree on your Xalek one! Back when everything was grindier, it felt like an actual reward to get to Xalek, even if he was another tank. I have to say I have a LOT of favorites but one of my top 5 all time would be the conversation the Warrior has with their reflection on Tatooine, followed by the Agent's finale on Tatooine as well. One felt exceptionally unique (and arguably should have been for the Inq), and reactive to the player's choices up to that point, and the other felt like a true conclusion to a space western. The setting was perfect, the leadup was worthwhile (though Baras' agent hyping up every step was sort of over the top lol), and they were personally satisfying ends to the arcs. Runner-up being the Hunter physically ejecting the flailing suitor on Alderaan!

Imagine if it offered a minor reward for participating and wasn't locked to subscribers. People are more than fine tuning out things external to their typical experience, setting aside a game while it works out kinks and whatnot. Look at how people stepped out during unpopular updates and returned later when things were ironed out more. Why would they not do the same if the 64 bit update brings chaos with it? I have no issue participating with PTS, but lets be real about this, people aren't interested unless something is at least on the table.

I did exactly that for my 1 deco 😭 I'd do it again if there were any actual reason to run the flashpoints, being that they're not a guaranteed drop even in HM. With any luck, they'll be on this by 9.0.

On SF, its the same guild each time and its sister guild this week from how its looking lol If Bioware wanted to give that chance, they'd reform CQ to allow for such. No idea why we couldn't get a Total Galactic War event throughout the holidays to maximize the conquest benefits. Its like they're adverse to actual planning. Collections sale (Jan 1st), server transfers (Jan 9th), double xp (Dec 27th), Life Day (Jan 10th), sales on pets & comps (Dec 27th), sales on toys & flairs (Jan 4th) and CM sales on very few items that have long been gone before with no notice as to when this could end if it will: all end on different dates for some unexplained reason. You could say perhaps it was meant to carry on through the holiday season and work off of one another, but it makes no sense for some to be mere days apart. Run them all at once. Featured CM flash sale for each day? Unplanned, leaning on supposed rng which hilariously led to about a week of a certain Vorantikus of the savannah variety. Even if there were reason to the CQ schedule repeating certain planets, there's room to mitigate that or adjust to how CQ is currently played by the playerbase. All I'm saying is we're operating off of assumption to think there's a good reason for this repeat, which hasn't exactly been producing different outcomes considering how CQ works and how CQ guilds work.

It feels so insulting in it's current implementation that I am just skipping it in its entirety. I'm not struggling to complete a half-baked treadmill for the sake of completion. Its filthy for people who otherwise do not engage in pvp because there has been no effort to actually improve the experience in general. Resetting weeklies? The outrageous number of matches needed to complete them? (I know people are fine with it, but when you're losing more than winning to complete even 1 weekly, it'll wear you down when there are BETTER games for competitive gaming) 1000 point cap? Unintuitive tracking? Trash or non-existent matchmaking? The busting up the medal system? Pairing groups vs solos? All on top of the leveling experience being hindered with the garbage restructuring they did with 7.0? You'd have to have too much free time, already enjoy Swtor's pvp or be a sadist to willingly pursue and complete this heap of flaming garbage. Could argue all 3 are the same reasoning. But this season's a flop.

Then don't use the title if you suck. People paid for their Dreadmaster Crest and Wings but you don't see people claiming them to be raiding gods. Literally no one of note cares.

I was hoping it was clear enough (they still could be agreeing but swapped to talking about SWG as another example of private servers) but I fully caught their point and would love the idea of private servers like that one other game had either way lol I'd also love something like a more updated SWG on private servers too!