Blew the companion ability budget on Fen's recolors, I thought this was obvious. Seriously though OP, I think you'll find a lot of agreement here. But I'm more surprised (or forgetting/missed?) that we've never seen a reason for the neutering of companion identity in general. Altuur seemed to be setting a different precedent not only with his introduction coming with a new game feature, but also a breakaway from the uniform roles they slapped on everyone else. It couldn't have been a balancing issue, could it? Even with the player-argued (because we often argue amongst ourselves about theories instead of having dev responses in hand) pay-to-win theory, they went back and hit other companions like Blizz's rocket ability, Kira's Master Strike/Blade Dance. DS Jaesa's Lightning, etc. When Treek and HK-51 premiered, it felt like an actual choice to make with specifics to them making them worthwhile. For Galactic Seasons companions, who are largely just flavoring to each season's rewards, it could go back to that and I wish they would. Even if we kept the role switching, which I do like, but can we spice it up? Imagine each of the rewards companions having something similar to the abilities you see in the expansion story fights, like in Echoes or Shadow of Revan's conclusion. If they came like that, I'm sure fewer would have minded the unexplained increase in unlock price this season. Then again, I'm sort of convinced that whoever CAN make these changes simply doesn't care.

*cough*

A background vote based one 1 dialogue-like action doesn't sound bad at all since it could in theory be 1 prompt as opposed to a full on cutscene + dialogue read. Or why not randomize it? How many instances are there where decisions made by the players affect the flashpoint narrative/combat path anyhow? These two and Kaon are the only ones that come to mind immediately. Would be surprised to see a widespread disagreement with either option being implemented if they were.

Been saying it for years, make tiers with different rewards for specific flashpoints and have matchmaking roll people queued for higher tiered ones into lower tiered but with higher rewards if queue goes on too long. Here's an idea: Veteran: Narrative > Core > Hardcore Master Mode: T1 > T2 > T3 Narrative Vets would keep conversations but upward of that in Vet and Core would keep Light or Dark decisions or re-enable the DvL toggle (please, give it back..) for flashpoints to auto-grant the points without initiating dialogue. It was said that they wanted player feedback, like @EricMusco asked for (in this thread btw) on player perception of length/difficulty/satisfaction, so feel free to voice your opinions. The player base has LONG been in agreement over certain portions of FP content. We know the pug killers, we know the super long, we know the quick fixes. Take some time to let the devs know and maybe we'll get something good out of it since Bioware seems willing to work on some of these things.

What's with all the doom and gloom in this thread?! I haven't opened the link yet but I'm already AMPED to see the announce date for the start of double rewards and that all out sale (for that load of items that have long been erased out of the market and now go for billions of credits.. each) to finish off this wicked cool anniversary! Here I gooooo~ Edit: I shouldn't have clicked the link 😭 Please reconsider this path, Bioware.

Only CM set bonus I know of is Space Barbie Snob. If I catch someone rocking a full set as an outfit (definitely different than using a set for mod slots) with no mixing and matching, not even so much as a dye, they are sentenced to mocking and a snowball on sight.

I've been playing for nearly a decade now and have not had any issues adding a friend who is either online or off. I've added friends who were telling me their alts as they were online. Added them while they were offline in a whole other game. Used the who list, used /friend, used the + icon and typed it in there. But in recent months I have NOT been able to add some friends I have on other characters' friend lists unless they were online at that moment. A friend I literally was speaking to 20 minutes ago logged off and reminded me to add their alt (with no alt codes) on my new alt. What pops up when I do? "_________ does not exist." For months I was terrified about another friend who took a break because I was receiving that message and their name remained unchanged (name changed characters typically go from 'Argo Rallen' to 'Argo_9091983' for those of you who don't know) and are effectively removed as a friend in all but place on your list. But that was not the case here. I simply could not add them the entire time until they popped up one day and whispered me one day. I've been blocked before, I know the error message, and it was never that either. This has been an issue for some people while others I have no problem adding, like people with names I'll someday claim (because I'm evil). I have also tried sending mail as an alternative to check if they're actually in existence. When sending mail to characters that would be unlikely to exist, like 'kkjqdhnqddddd', I get the "That player does not exist. Please check the name in the "To:" field." message. Sending the same message from a character that does not have said friend added goes through seamlessly, beside the warning saying that this person is not a friend or guild mate. This is very specific too. My real life best friend is almost never on anymore but I can add their characters while on the phone with them as they walk home. A select few others, I can hop over to an alt and hit this roadblock over and over, knowing they're not banned/suspended, and I'm not blocked or anything. Is this a bug or was my whole life a lie and my friends quietly playing on secret alts when I was able to add them while offline for nearly a decade?

Not much of a problem early on but it gets worse as time goes on and they're not wrong for feeling how they do. Negligible or not, kicking the can (abilities) down the road did nothing to improve the leveling experience or enhance player skill. Level 10 may be a little petty but what they're saying is not far from the extent this disruption has caused imo.

Yeah, that's roughly it. Sort of. Story players felt this too, though not the same gravity of it. I have friends who dropped the game a few weeks in to the expansion despite having the time of their lives doing the stories. But I can expand on some other things a little as a fellow story enjoyer who dabbles in everything else. Note: TLDR at the end but this will only be an overview mostly from memory and will not cover everything. First the expansion was announced too early. In fact, it was very much hyped up going back probably a good year before hand too. The original launch date was for the holiday season of 2021. The game was in a lull with a lack of engaging content (some could say the lack of incentive exacerbated this, leading to 24/7 7 day a week runs of Toborro's Courtyard which is a 1 boss instance to get the quickest earnable tech fragments). The launch date was then officially set for December 14th, 2021 but as anyone who stepped on to the Test Servers could tell you at the time, it needed more time in the oven. A lot, but fatigue was felt in the game already. The anniversary celebration started in late 2021 and the crazy good sale they had actually was a necessary positive at the time. The game's population was feeling like (and only documented and reflected in the Steam charts to be clear) it was on a decline, activities were dry, little else to do but repeat content that has been repeated many times over (and RP, throw us some new bones!). The update would be pushed back to February 2022 but it was a demoralizing trip getting there and the "10th anniversary celebration" was already a meme at that point because of how it was unfolding already. The Public Test Server experience was abysmal. Bugs out the wazoo. Unwanted/unnecessary changes left and right. Lack of communication and adequate response to loud and clear feedback. Frustration from testers all the way through. I won't rehash, the threads are there. Google Swtor 7.0 PTS and read through the reddit and forum threads. Much of those issues made it to launch. It was almost like feedback had no effect on the final product, which we all knew was going to be rushed. The actual changes on the PTS brought about a lot of doom and gloom. Yes, combat styles was a cool concept, but the cons seemed to outweigh any pros at the time, or at least that is what general sentiment said. Parts of the UI, namely the Character Sheet, Character Creator, and Inventory were changed despite no one ever asking for this (while the crafting menus stay outdated and crappy) and have certain things moved around but to make it worse, the changes come out rough. The highlight bug for the inventory, the character creator having awful lighting and still looking pretty empty, character sheet bringing in new stat trackers that do nothing for you while further obfuscating actual stats we have to care for like Accuracy and a bugged view of your character iirc (or this was an issue with just the outfit designer, which also had its own new bugs that came in 7.1). It all left many puzzled. Next you had the amount of content that actually arrived with the initial patch. The new story was hit or miss though even with the people who appeared satisfied, there was the question of "Is this it?". It was roughly 2-4 hours worth of content, a flashpoint that was (and probably still is?) bugged that blocked completion, and a new daily zone locked off to people who completed all of the new story up to that point with no option to skip. The new daily zone had no worthwhile rewards. Now what about the shuffling? Skills, UI, player retention strategy, gameplay mechanics, etc. In short: Not the most exciting nor wanted. Screwing with the leveling experience while making no improvements to the dispersal of skills is dumb. The changes to the UI? Some can be explained (if they bothered to), some understandable (like to lay a new foundation for later improvements/additions), the rest are straight garbage and were NOT asked for. Resetting weeklies, removing dailies, flashpoint rotations? Fire whoever came up with these. Gameplay mechanics like stealth being nerfed and removing the ability to swap specs in instances where it would make sense if things go sideways and actually would compliment 7.0's selling feature of combat styles?? Genius. Not popular, but genius. Scaling? Necessary change and the changes to bolster as well, but they weren't fine tuned well enough and some would say it still could be better (I am some). And the update screwed up everyone's 5th and 6th ability bars, leaving holes in slots all over the place. There some characters I stopped playing all together because having to choose between actual useful abilities when I once had both is not worth the annoyance. It actively hindered me from having fun, but I guess someone else knew best! Removal of Dark vs Light system for later revamping (that has yet to be followed up on) while leaving us with the classic and by far inferior version of point accumulation? Why now? Double Conquest point requirements? Garbage. The removal of class identity in iconic AoE abilities? Minor, very minor but it sucks (RIP XS). Nerfing Horizon's Razor (one of yall knew this point was coming, the crusade continues!)? I'll see you in court! TLDR; (1) There was too much hype, (2) the delivery was super late with late communication causing people to sub though BW would later announce the release being pushed back, (3) feedback was seemingly discarded, (4) changes that were unpopular with testers (and no effort to incentivize the broader playerbase to hop on PTS this time around were used for some reason as if there aren't titles they could give out..) were kept in and subsequently some tossed after poor reception or walked back, (5) 'class balance' was operating on a frequency players were not let in on, (6) severe lack of content to justify calling it an expansion, and (7) the nerfing of Horizon's Razor. They got some things done right in the update too, with combat styles, shared tagging, revive ability cooldown, and loadouts is a cool idea even if the execution feels lacking. But the overwhelming bad tainted this, and then we've been playing catch up ever since with each update. This wouldn't have all gone to hell and back if no one touched that damn tactical, it hurt no one!

50% is the standard for holiday collection sales. Would really like them to do more at this point tbh. What they did last year was indisputably awesome and I encourage them to do that + more this time around!

Made the post without being logged in, so scratch those. Still, the remaining bulk of the list and now I will not relent until I have the Mewvorr in hand Can throw it (as well as the other armor sets that aren't supposedly resold due to them having mods in them) onto a vendor for credits. There are paths to handling these things and this year is the perfect excuse to do so!

I know that the anniversary has largely been given up on but one thing that was really positive in its kick off was the great collections sale. Any chance we'll see something like that for the conclusion to this year? And regardless of whether or not we see it, is there any chance we could see certain old, rare items come back? Last sale had a lot of classic items up and that was legit awesome, but there still were many missing. Just to list a few of the items I'm speaking of.. Covert Pilot CZ-13K Guerrilla Destroyer Humble Hero Lana Beniko's (Gold set) MA-44 Combat Noble Commander Outlaw Pathfinder Sand People Pillager Thorn Containment and Sanitation X-3 Techmaster Corsex Baton Czerka CZX-4 Blaster Pistol Czerka CZX-4 Assault Cannon Czerka CZX-4 Blaster Rifle Czerka CZX-4 Sniper Rifle Gamorrean Axe Infiltrator's Compact Sniper Rile Kyber Assault Cannon R-30017 Aikion Blaster Satele Shan's Dualsaber TM-59 Blaster Pistol Vindicator's Lightsaber and Saberstaff Ancestral Graveyard Large Ancient Burial Ground Rising Corpse Grave Undiscovered Grave Beach Umbrella (red) Beach Bonfire Leisure Beach Banner (wall) Beach Towel (red) Beach Towel (purple) Drink Bucket Drink Cooler Beach Ball Title: Winter Warrior TRK-R Treatment Chamber Wampa Handler License Wampa Life day Bundle Festive TaunTaun Royal Fyrnock Vectron Jo-1Y These all shoot for billions on their own each and it would be awesome to open up the market on some of these items again, as well are capping off a rough year (and help me close the few gaps left in my collections 😭).

Like any other companion, sure? Its not the main function, even if she slightly deviates from the prior norm. A few million credits is nothing at this point in the game's life, neglecting the utterly insane in game market at play. Then again, it wouldn't be the only thing nerfed with gs3.

Jackie had Leia buns and had a cool lightsaber though.. Just sayinggggg 😁

I remember asking for this very thing years ago multiple times and it was radio silence. I'm just wondering what the hold up was, this is awesome!

I wouldn't even say their prevalence is what is destroying the economy, but rather people doing so are reacting to a situation borne from a series of multivariate events that encourage them to actually use the services advertised. Bioware could snap all of the advertising credit seller accounts out of existence tomorrow and there would still be a market for them, as well as an excess of credits slushing about. I can think of a few things that led up to here that have may trounce the effects random spammers on starts worlds and fleets may have ever had: Lower supply of premium items available to purchase off other players (less players, lack of actual sales to increase supply, etc. People know the OG buyers are the suckers) Exorbitant pricing of premium items on the Cartel Market that increasingly 'justified' ridiculous and I'll be clear, very arbitrary resale pricing, on said items Referral code links picking up usage and developing another side economy for a short lived time, though the practice of 'pay for click'ing is much older Unwillingness or inability of Bioware to be more punitive of the more outrageous examples of people botting or using exploits Years of fluctuating between extremes for rewards, most notably the higher output of credits from heroic farming The introduction of decorations, which some that may be highly coveted would influence people to pay rather than play+pray (Lady Dom statue sells for ~5b right now btw) Lack of addressing the issues pertaining to the disparity between crafted goods and CM goods, while flooding crafting with tons of outright garbage I think its a misguided oversimplification to blame credit SELLERS for the economy when all we can say realistically is that they're the primary beneficiaries of a situation entirely crafted by Bioware, and lets be real, segments of the player base. People are greedy as all hell, but why would they not be when a DYE that sells for 360CC (The Winter Scout Dyes) vanishes off the market and the GTN? Where else are people going to get a premium dye like that? More importantly, "Who else are you going to buy it from?" *Lists for 850,000,000* And then we're surprised when people are turning to credit sellers? Idk, at this point, even a year long DvL event with guaranteed premium, account-bound rewards don't seem like a way to flush out some of that pursuit of vanity at all costs. Some people say the game is too far gone, but I'd like to see Bioware try at least. They can start with having some basic and effective anti-spammer tools at work, but don't expect it to touch the elephant in the room.

Too salty to agree, not a fan of the current direction in the least. Narratively, gameplay-wise, in terms of in game systems, nada. They keep taking steps backwards. I think we're too far removed from the initial launch of 7.0 and what it did to the experience out the gates to remember why the population is dropping still despite galactic season 3 going live. Respectfully, this post honestly comes across like one of the stages of grief (bargaining to be clear). Its not like the things you listed they should do are minor, most of those would require a lot of resources with no clear return on investment, for one. If they wouldn't, why haven't we seen or heard anything on those fronts? When we do hear anything, what is it generally about? Its never an actual dialogue unless its about something totally by the wayside. I could type out a point by point reply but there is no need to come off as combative. I'm just deeply disappointed and continue to feel the sense of decay that's been lingering for a while now for a game I love.

They can work on new content while I have the choice to do old content with double rewards (I want to finish my Valor grind), but we're getting either 2xp or new content anytime soon. Double xp can run on top of each of the events. What's wrong with wanting something on top of the usual??

A whole week at that, weren't we lucky? And far more innocent for hoping for more 😭

I'd argue not being stuck with the original launcher and whatever issues come about with it (is BitRaider still part of it? Haven't used it since the Steam version came out) while making my purchases for CC and sub through the website works just fine. You can't renew sub using the original launcher, you have to log in on the website. Simply do the same with the Steam app. Then again, I do have other games I play on Steam too, but there are no downsides. Tracked achievements out of game, tracked time, and no worry about custom loading screens being wiped after an update (haven't had this issue yet).

Happened to a handful of items I've sold over the past few days as well. Kind of annoying but rather minor. Would prefer it didn't happen though.

Yeah, I recall them mentioning they would eventually expand on the ones for Steam at least.

So no double xp 😔 Getting hard to hang in here, folks! Can't wait to see December's lineup to cap off this extraordinary anniversary.

Did you reach a definite conclusion on whether it was an antivirus-related issue or the launcher itself for your steam client? Because I have the game on Steam for 3 different computers and they all use Windows antivirus without issue. I had this sort of issue where I could not get past an initial startup phase for another game when Kaspersky (my antivirus at the time) was blocking it, and another set of software issues because I was using either AVG or Avast at the time on my secondary desktop. If you're having the same issue regardless of how you launch the game, I'd be more inclined to lean more toward it being related to the antivirus. The Steam client seems to be working for everyone else that's mentioned it in this thread too. Mind you, I'm not saying its all dandy for me so it should be for you. Its clear this change to the launcher screwed something up for you folk, but I really don't understand the hesitancy expressed in this thread to using it and being done with this issue.

Some of yall are doing a lot to just not move to Steam for the time being.