Exactly. I haven't played this game for long periods of time, but I am a founder and I have spent maybe a total of 6 months combined playing it since release. Like I said, not a lot. Anyways, I agree with you, there needs to be balance and there used to be balance. I remember just starting out in SWTOR. You had your exploration quests and planetary quests. While exploring your challenge was mob density and/or pulling more strongs than you intended and living through it. Strong mobs could kill you if you weren't paying attention. Class stories were similar in difficulty as exploration quests and class quests, except some bosses were hard to solo. It may of took some players a few tries to figure out how to beat them and I remember some people spamming LFG for those fights. That's about as challenging as solo play got, aside from soloing some Heroic 2 quests. Then you had Heroic +2's and +4's. These were hard if not impossible to solo, but if you brought a friend they were more manageable. Lots of players like to duo through the game, so this was a good activity for them. I remember lots of people spamming LFG for these quests. Then there's FP's. Most were challenging for a group of players until they got it figured out, but even then you couldn't solo them. So Bioware had balance and something for everyone. Solo players had their challenges, Duo players had theirs, groupers had theirs, and raiders had theirs. With companions being so strong, things are out of balance. I don't want my companion to be worthless, because after all I'm the hero of the galaxy, so my companions would probably be extraordinary people. But I don't want them OP either. They shouldn't be so strong that I'm now able to solo things people used to group up for. I would play more FP's, since that's my thing, but they made them tactical and thus sorta broken. Most of the time, people are disbanding the group before it starts because it isn't a good group comp. They are challenging though if you don't know your group members and it isn't a well balanced comp. Those can be fun.

That's just the thing. I'm probably just an average skilled player. I use my mouse to click abilities, no addons, no keybinds, and my companions are a really low level. Things die so fast in this game. I click just a few abilities at most and a target dies unless it is a strong enemy, and then I might get to get through a full rotation of abilities if I'm lucky. Gold star enemies are the only ones that take some time to kill, but as long as I'm hitting any abilities they will die and I will have barely any loss of life. I have tried different companion specs, and no matter what the game it isn't challenging. Turning off companion abilities is an option, but it's an option that will guarantee my death when I run across a player enemy.

The whole argument for 4.0 buffed companions was to alleviate the tedium and monotony of playing the game. If the game is so tedius and monotonous, then the game isn't for you. Why drive to make a game that others enjoy, who also enjoy a challenge so easy that there is no satisfaction to be had through combat for a casual player like myself?

Heroic Missions are group content. They're marked with a +2 or +4(haven't seen any since I returned). That means it's recommended to bring 2 or 4 people with you. Before the latest buff, I was still blowing through Story content 4-6 levels above me. 5-6 levels below the story was proving to be challenging. I needed to use all my cooldowns and abilities and regen every other pull. FP's are broken since they went tactical and I never find groups for Operations or Hardmode FP's due to me being a nightshift worker. So yeah, I wouldn't mind solo content to be on the challenge level of any other game on Normal mode at least. Even after the most recent companion re-buff, I'm able to roll my face across the keyboard and defeat anything solo with barely any loss to life.

Not to mention, those of us who play on PvP servers don't have the option of toggling off abilities. That'd put us at a disadvantage against other players. Also, if you're making the game harder for yourself, shouldn't you get rewarded better than those that play it on "easy?" Isn't that how most games out there work? The higher the difficulty, the higher the reward?

Thanks you. I will give lvl 51 and then the ship a try

The new expansion motivated me to return to the game after being away since near release. I recently hit 50 and I'd like to begin the Rise of the Hutt Cartel expansion content. The in-game mail I received after subscribing said that once I hit 50, I just need to access my holoterminal on my ship. I did so and nothing happened. The mission terminal on my ship only gave me an Ilum mission. Can anyone tell me how I can begin the Hutt expansion?

I had a similar question. I received a quest for Ilum in my late 40's, but never a quest for Makeb. I'm level 52 now, finished with the first story line on Ilum. I'm going to seriously out level all expansions content because I'm being forced to do Ilum.

I'm having the same problem. Starting to regret even trying to play this game again.

NO Personally, I don't care for solo quest grinding as the meat and potatoes portion of the leveling up experience. I love the class quests and would have preferred to of seen more of those, and far far less side quests/chores. Instead of solo side quest grinding, I'd of preferred to of seen more class quests, more heroic/area quests, possibly a public quest system, RvR lakes like WAR/DAoC has, and an endgame that pits Empire vs. Republic, RvR style. I'd also like to see some form of alternative advancement for max level characters, such as Realm Ranks that DAoC has or the Alternate Advancement system that EQ2 has. If Bioware absolutely has to stick to the quest grind formula, at least have 4 completely different leveling paths, so that we're not redoing the same content on each character. I cancelled my subscription today and won't buy another MMORPG until one comes out that doesn't revolve around solo quest grinding (ie. one quest hub to the next) to get you to max level. I'd rather go back to the old days of mob camping as a group like in DAoC, than run even 1 more solo side chore, I mean quest. Quests used to be something that were rare, epic in scope and nature. Think about a quest you read hero's doing in fantasy book novels or a quest done in RPG's made in the late 90's. Even single player RPG's drown you with chore like quests, which drive me to quit even those games. Another thing SWTOR needs if it's going to remain mostly a solo experience to max level is challenge. Why am I able to easily destroy a group of mobs 3-4 levels above me, regardless of class (I play all 8), or a "STRONG" mob that's 3-4 levels above me. I remember barely making it out alive against a mob of the same level in DAoC.

I think there's one point that people are missing. Single Player RPG's are more fun, even though the quests can essentially be boiled down to the same things, because they are challenging. Challenge, and a sense of danger is what makes exploring those ruins fun in a SRPG. When I first started playing Skyrim, I nervously creeped through the dungeons in that game. I didn't know what lay in wait around the next bend or in the next room of the dungeon. I didn't know if there were traps that could seriously injure or even kill me. I knew that if I died, I'd have to reload the game and start over, sometimes losing 5-10 minutes. Also, the sound effects, lighting, and ambience in dungeons and even in the world made exploring feel dangerous. In SWTOR and MMORPG's in general ever since WoW became popular, there isn't any danger or challenge during the majority of the game. Most of the game you can faceroll through. I don't recall ever coming across any traps, aside from the Collicoid Wargames FP, which I enjoyed. In SWTOR, I didn't even bother with the side quests on my alts. I just did the class quests, and even though I was usually 3 levels below the level suggested, I still was able to complete them, and get through the mobs on the way to the class quests, which were anywhere from 2-4 levels higher than me. You don't ever feel like you're in danger when you're able to kill Strong enemies 3-4 levels higher than you. The sound effects, ambience, lighting, and so on in SWTOR does nothing to make you sit on the edge of your seat. Questing in SWTOR is just extremely boring and grindy, which is why I'm not subbing anymore. It's not just SWTOR either; almost all MMORPG's are like this and those that aren't are over a decade old and I've already played them to death. I remember exploring dungeons in DAoC with a group and the music and eery sounds alone made you feel you were in danger. Nevermind the fact that you actually "were" in danger, because it didn't take much to pull more than your group could handle, plus you had to worry about respawns or trains of mobs from other groups that were running for their lifes after enough of their members died.

If anything, I think it'd have more to do with the fact that March is the last month of the quarter and they want people to resubscribe that month to show high subscription numbers for their financial reports. I didn't even know there was a such thing as 60 day game cards. Then again, I've always used a credit card since 2002.

Good idea for Flashpoint icons aswell.

After running through all the quests once, sometimes 2-3 times on some planets, I don't want to do them anymore. I prefer leveling up by different means. However, I still enjoy grouping and Heroics is what people group up for on the planets. Yet, I don't remember who gives out the Heroic quests and I don't want to wade through all the quests just to find them. That's when I thought Heroic quests should have a seperate icon above the quest givers head or mission terminal. If you support this idea, please let Bioware know in this thread. Thanks

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. When Bioware said that the game was based on story, YOUR story, and add that to their comments about KOTOR being 3-9 when asked "why not create KOTOR 3 SPG," I took it as most of the content in the game was your class story, but in all actuality, most of the content in the game is the same menial chores/tasks we've been doing since WoW released. I understand the design decision, but I'm sure most of us would rather the money and resources spent to make the hundreds of side quests instead be used to make more class quests. Granted, because you'd have to make uqique quests for each class to do this, they couldn't make enough to equal nearly the amount of the current side quests, but I bet we'd be fine with each class quest taking longer to complete. Why not make more class quests, but each quest takes 30min to 1 hour to complete. I can't stand the side quests so much, that I've resorted to mob grinding in between class quests to avoid doing the same side quests again and again. I'll play through the side quests once, but beyond that it's mob grinding, FP running, space combat, heroics, and warzones for me.