Posting only in agreement to what's been posted already by many: The changes here hurt new/poor players who are struggling to accumulate wealth more than it drains the wealthy. The charges affect things new/poor players use to save money -- and time. For instance, my habit of going to the fleet and using hanger terminals there to go to planets at no cost is a habit formed when I was broke.

OK, let me get this straight. One kind of WEEKLY takes on five or 10 minutes -- but let's say 20. Another kind of WEEKLY takes 1 hour, but let's say 2. And the balance problem is perceived to be the WEEKLY that takes a couple of hours per character, not the one that takes only 20 minutes. Now in fairness, group-finder is a pain if you're not a tank or healer because DPS are a dime a dozen. True story; I play tanks and suggested to a healer I teamed up with that we just two-man one of the flashpoints. He rightly pointed out there would be no wait at all in GF and we might as well do a couple of DPS players a favor. But plenty of players have done a favorite flashpoint solo. I've done it with a DPS playing along with another DPS buddy without breaking a sweat. And if you both have stealth, two players can do Hammer Station, for instance, in less than 15 minutes. So no, I don't see a problem here at all, and I have 48 characters.

OP Your post is well thought out, factually based, balanced and accurate. You should post it somewhere where these things matter.

You opened this thread with a very good post. Now you as much as declare that only raiders' opinions have any value. My sympathy for your situation -- watching something you worked to build collapse -- just largely evaporated.

Exactly. I'm not saying Bioware has a good plan. But this, as described here, is clearly THE plan. This ship has sailed. Agree with this too. The rest of the post deserves a better reply than I have time for at the moment.

Indeed. That said, let's acknowledge that a guild of singularly dedicated raiders has little reason to hang around any more. Let's also acknowledge, however, that if raid-only players were a truly vital segment of the customer base, they simply would not be treated this way. We would not have gone two years without a new op, nor would most of the changes of the last two expansions have been made.

The OP has a valid point: The game no longer fits the style he and his wife want to play. But the shift in this direction's been clear since KotFE came out. This expansion, the conversion was largely completed.

Yes, that was my mistake.

If the OP's point is bad, posting it won't make it valid. If the OP has a point, claiming it's bad won't make it invalid. Insisting that a position shouldn't even be challenged, however, makes it sound like there's not a good comeback.

Thanks. Wow. Glad I didn't do any star forts after 5.0 dropped.

I'm not at home and can't check. Sorry. Tank armor was available from the vendor for Armormech.

Me too.

Although you're clear that you're talking about mats you can get on your own, it should be noted mats from hard-mode flashpoints are a lot more plentiful than they used to be. Hammer Station, for instance, drops three exotic isotopes -- per player. No rolling. No need or greed. Everybody gets three. I haven't done a star fort since 5.0 came out, so I don't know if they the new mat when you kill the exarch or the old one. Probably the old one but I'd like to know for sure. Those can be done solo.

Hard Mode Flash points give 100% grade 10 mats now. Hammer Station has lots of scavenge. That I've confirmed. Athiss should have lots of biosysthesis from critters you kill (and archaeology too, IIRC,) if nothing changed on that in 5.0. Two people can finish those two. Even if you don't want to do the whole thing, at least some mats are available from the start.

(emphasis added) I agree. Note, I'm not cackling here. I wish it had been the "WoW" of Star Wars that it was clearly intended to be. But that didn't happen. Now, to avoid taking the thread off topic, I'm going to reiterate (less sarcastically) that OP is right. I was very pleasantly surprised at how easy new armor, mods and enhancements were to r/e and how easy it was to get the mats. Crew missions on my platoon of alts got enough mats to upgrade all my toons crafting skills without ever leaving the stronghold.

Is there an echo in here? Been hearing that for five years.

Agreed, but I commend OP for trying.

(RNG Haters) I can't hear you! La la la la.

Yep. I was stunned by all the CXP given by my first post-expansion HM FP. Of course, I would have been less surprised if I had ignored threads saying it was "impossible" to get CXP in PvE.

That's a good analogy. Not yet sure I agree with all of it, but your point is clear.

Yes, I've played several and will play them all this week, but there are some special circumstances: 1. There's a bug with heroics making them repeatable. It's getting fixed next week, as was posted on the forum, but will not be considered an exploit. Therefore, every single alt I have from lvls 60 to 65 will do the missions for .... wait for it ... 2. ... Double supply crates. 3. Crafting and supply missions. All my main crafting toons got to 600 from grade 10 supplies gathered in crew missions without gathering anything in the field. 4. Now that I've leveled my main and gotten him through the story, I have a 'Pub toon and will now level an Imp toon. I have friends on both sides who need my help to do things like Hard Mode Flash Points for the exotic crafting mats that now flow in those things. Both my best buddy and me got 3 exotic isotopes from one HM FP without having to "greed or need" once. Unfortunately, though, we're both tanks. The process would have gone a lot faster if one of us could have dealt some real damage. Therefore, I will be getting at least these toons to 70: My main ( Pub tank); My main Imp (tank); a Pub DPS and an Imp DPS. After that, I may even level up a healer for each side. 5. Getting the first 10 crates for the first 10 command levels is pretty ridiculously easy. I'll probably do that with an alt once in a while just to get the schematics and stuff. 6. Many heroics are stupid easy for characters with stealth. That was true before this expansion. Now, blackout is on all the time for all practical purposes. A stealth character can kiss a NPC and run fingers through his hair and not be noticed. I have seven lvl 65 characters with stealth. Whenever I need some more companion gifts and such, I can practically get them for free.

This is a very good observation.

(sigh) Never said that. Straw man. Riiiight. Most expensive game in history. 218 servers. Cut it all down to nothing and went f2P because that was an even bigger cash cow. Got it. So it's just another coincidence, then that KotFE was released just before "The Force Awakens" and KotET comes out just before "Rogue One." Got it. To repeat, if I had a dollar credited to my account every time a thread saying that was posted, I'd have a lifetime subscription.

Agree with all that. The game went RPG to survive. It has -- for now. But the opportunity to make it a great MMO was missed at the start. I think we agree.

No. And the decline you cite is proof. The massive drop you refer to came four years ago after the game launched as an WoW killing MMO. It crashed very hard, a crash made much worse by being the most expensive video game ever produced. One night before the first server merger, a friend of mine and I signed on to our server, went to Tython for some reason I forget and -- were literally the only players on the only map there. SWTOR went FtP and casual to salvage something. Then BW decided to go casual and story-based to survive. Then new Star Wars movies started coming out. This expansion, for instance, is obviously timed to get all the bugs worked out before "Rogue One" premiers and another marketing opportunity hits. The game went RPG to survive. It has.