This is what really phases me about the alt crowd: you want the ability to shift your class choice based on balance, so you can run the FOTM AC without having to put any real effort into progression. You're willing to fling any game system you can under the bus to accomplish these ends, without any consideration or care for what it does to the health of the game. It's ridiculous, frankly. "I put the effort into levelling an alt, so why shouldn't I be as powerful as everyone else?!" Quite simply: because you spent time levelling alts, rather than progressing a main. You made a cost-benefit analysis, decided to go in one direction, and now you're demanding that the cost is removed. I mean, if we're honest here: it's quite clear from literally every post arguing for the removal of even slight gear progression in PvP that this has NOTHING to do with what's best for PvPers, or what PvPers want, and EVERYTHING to do with people who run alts wanting the progression system compressed to be more forgiving to their playstyle. All this "I'm so egalitarian" nonsense is just a mask.

Lightning didn't get a DPS buff, true, but Madness got a 5% increase on DM and a 5% increase on FL. And I've certainly noticed those changes. They should have increased the range on DF and buffed our passive self-heals to make it noticeable, but I has a feeling that'll all be coming in August. But yeah, Static Barrier isn't worth **** anymore and should just be removed from the game. Same for Dark Heal tbh; barely makes my health bar move at this point. Survivability hasn't changed much though. The problem I have with sorc deeps is that our survivability is based on avoidance; we have to remove ourselves from the fight in order to survive, where most other ACs just seem to be able to pop endless damage reduction buffs and DCDs before they have to run off.

maybe you're the one who should get yourself straightened out?

I'm sorry, but anyone who's parsed the numbers knows that your 40% claim is an exaggeration of the highest order. And if there's evidence of your claims then feel free to present that evidence yourself, as opposed to expecting us to find it for you. It is incumbent on you to back your claims up with facts.

Sub cost on the high side? World of Warcraft costs more in the UK than SWTOR does ( and you hve to pay for every expansion, and there's a cash shop ). So does every Funcom game, and Eve Online. Runescape costs less, but it always has. The SWTOR sub is the standard sub that the industry has been using since forever. Stop dramatising everything. Jeez.

They ARE going about it all wrong. Given the way utilities work in SWTOR, or any MMORPG, balance should be approached as a holistic concern. Isolating one element of class balance ( raw damage numbers ) from another ( utilities ) does not an effective approach make. I haven't seen any other developer take this approach, and that has me worried. Sadly, I don't think they have a choice. I'm not sure they have the manpower or resources to effectively approach balance and content creation at the same time. I'm guessing the balance team is a skeleton crew, so the only way they can approach it is "piece-by-piece". It's looking more and more like SWTOR is a dying game, at this point in time.

No one has suggested there should be a laborious gear grind in PvP. What has been suggested is that a sense of progression SHOULD be maintained, even if slight, and that removing gear entirely would actually have a detrimental impact on the game as a whole ( because it would, because it has in every other MMO that has tried it ). Beyond this, the gear grind in SWTOR only became even vaguely laborious in 5.0 with the introduction of GC ( the reliance on RNG ) and the removal of loot drops in FPs and Ops. The latter change hurt the PvE community immensely and drove players away, and I have no doubt that a very substantial core in the PvP community would react in the same way; they would see that a fundamental element of what an MMORPG is about has been deprecated in favour of an approach that is not in keeping with the philosophy at the heart of these games. Those players would move to other games that more adequately cater to that philosophy. Let's not pretend that SWTOR has had a punishing grind for gear in PvP for very long; at the start of its lifecycle, completing weeklies and dailies, and further playing intently for a few hours a day, would net you two-three pieces of PvP gear a week, and it was very easy to get 5+ items in a week if you spent more than 5 or 6 hours a day in the game. And the second tier of PvP gear was all you really needed to compete. It is only recently that the "remove gear" argument has gained any real traction. There used to be some distinction in the PvP community, much like there is in the raiding community and the GSF community, but now... PvP is just that game mode you go to when you have nothing better to do. I can understand why people would want PvP in any game to purely be about skill, but there must be an assessment of such efforts based on the context that PvP is framed in. PvP in MMORPGs is a very different construct to PvP in a MOBA and PvP in an FPS ( which is why the various comparisons in this thread between SWTOR's PvP and Overwatch or LoL are fundamentally flawed ). There must be an acknowledgement that in a game like this, gear is an important part of a character's progression and a key way in which player engagement is maintained. That's why gear drops were added back to ops, and that's why they'll almost certainly be added back to FPs with more frequency in short order. I mean, it's no real bother to me. I enjoy SWTOR for many different reasons, but if at any point changes come down that fundamentally alter my enjoyment, I'll go to a different game that more thoroughly caters to what I expect of an MMO. One of those expectations, one of the most important expectations, is gear progression that has some impact, that matters in some way, in every game mode I chose to play. If that is removed, I'll move on *shrugs*. I obviously don't want that to happen however as I've invested a great deal of time and money into this game aha

The point I made was that a compromising solution should be reached that bridges the two groups arguing about gear in PvP right now ( just like a compromising solution should be reached in regards to GC grind on alts ). And you come along and say "bad idea", and then offer the extreme solution that one group is demanding as the compromising solution? Way to miss the point almost entirely. If BW wants to alienate large chunks of their players, they'll go with a solution like you suggested. If they don't, they'll try to nuance it. You don't seem to understand or appreciate that though.

I'm not sure why this is a complaint when progressive power increases through gear acquisition has been a central pillar of the genre since its inception ( and a facet of RPGs in general since time immemorial ). Admittedly in recent years, developers have rehashed old content using bolstering systems, but that's not actually a bad thing; the mistake Bioware made was in believing that doing that would allow them to forgo adding new content. Also, you're not re-earning what you had prior to the level cap increase, are you? You're running old content to earn new gear that you didn't have prior to the level cap increase.

Nah, it really doesn't. One of the biggest arguments right now in the PvP community is between one group that wants some form of gear progression and another group that wants all gear removed. Nobody is attempting a compromising solution however, and that's what we need to aim for ( because, God forbid a change comes through that alienates yet another core group playing the game; how much more of that do you think it can take? aha ). Getting rid of bolster at max level, and then removing set bonuses from PvP, as well as the bonuses ( at least, although ideally bonuses AND stats ) granted by accessories and relics, and compressing the scaling multipliers on stats in PvP so that the difference between 228 and 248 is noticeable but not overpowering would go some way to a working compromise imho. As I said, it's a different conversation aha

This really speaks to a problem with PvP more so than anything else. I think the solution to this would be to remove set bonuses from PvP altogether ( along with bonuses granted by relics and accessories ). That's a different conversation, however.

Personally, and I've said this in another thread, I think BW need to look to the Legacy system to bring forward some alt-friend CXP changes that would go some way to mitigate these issues. The Legacy system enables alt play by buffing exp and proving utility to alts that initial characters do not have. I think it's perfectly reasonable to expect the GC system to be folded into this philosophy. My favoured solution is to implement a progressive CXP boost through the Legacy system that boosts CXP by up to 25%-100% at each level as opposed to the current flat 10% boost. In order to mitigate the impact this may have on the initial progression curve, each rank could have a lock out that requires having at least one character on the Legacy at a given command rank that ties with each tier boundary or alternatively the entire batch could have a simple requirement of at least one character at CR 300. I prefer the former, because as new tiers are added in the future, new levels to the boost could be added locked behind the requirement to have at least one character at maximum command rank, protecting the initial progression curve intended by the system as it stands. And if you really wanted to be a bit more restrictive about it, you could make it so that the buffs are purchased with Command Tokens instead of credits, expecting alts to play through maybe 10 or 20 CRs to get the tokens needed to purchase the boost at each tier. That's off the top of my head tbh. I can see problems with the system but I'm trying not to overcomplicate it aha I just think it's a nice middle ground that rewards those who have max command rank and run alts, whilst also ensuring that the progression curve isn't significantly impacted to any great extent.

OK, do the same with raiding. Remove gear from raiding, bolster everyone. Make alts viable again in ops! Or not, because that would kill raiding. Just like removing gear would kill the core community that are stable. What happens if you remove a sense of progression from any game mode in an MMORPG is that you kill the core of the game mode and you increase the content demands of those that remain. So Bioware would have to invest significantly more money keeping the game fresh, because no progression = faster content churn = short life cycle. They're not going to do that, are they? The population might boom for a brief period of time, but then it would crash again to lower lows than everyone seems to perceive now. I fail to see why PvP is being victimised and tortured into dropping a central draw of an MMORPG to keep a small minority happy. Seriously, if gear is totally nerfed out of PvP it will lead to yet another population decline and it will cut out chunks of the population that do flashpoints, ops and uprising merely to get the better gear for PvP.

When you can make a post without misrepresenting the game's history, I'll take the time to offer you a more thorough response. When you claim that there has never been gear progression in PvP in swtor and then you go on to talk about PvP gear progression that was present right at the start of the game's life cycle, you're setting yourself up to look like you're being intentionally dishonest and misleading.

I find this complaint really odd. The entire point of MMORPGs has always been to progress your character through gear advancement. If you don't like that, why are you playing an MMORPG? It really is baffling to see people complaining about one of the central premises of a game like this... xD

This point is utter nonsense. The PvP community boomed at a time when gear had an impact in PvP, and that scenario is replicated throughout the MMO genre. People need to realise that gear progression is a fundamental draw when it comes to MMOs. In every game mode, from small group content, to raiding, to PvP, to crafting... gear and gear progression have always been a core incentive at the heart of not just the MMORPG genre as a whole, but of almost every single MMO that has ever been released. This idea that "real PvPers should only want skill to matter" is utter garbage. By that backwards, nonsensical logic... real PvEers should only care about the skill involved in boss kills. 5.0 removed gear drops from operations on the understanding that raiders cared more about the encounters than they did the gear they got from them. That worked out well, didn't it? World of Warcraft tried to do the same thing. In both cases, the raiding community collapsed. Various MMOs have attempted to remove gear progression and/or gear impact at various points over the last decade, and in almost all cases the result has been a collapse in the community. The lesson learned is this: removing a fundamental component of the appeal of these games results in the alienation of the community that plays them. If you remove gear from PvP, if you remove gear progression from PvP, you will destroy the PvP community. That isn't a nonsensical prophecy, but an observation based on other MMORPGs that have gone down this path There is a caveat to this: if you release a game that starts out with no gear progression in PvP, or base your gear system around horizontal progression, then you attract a certain subset of players from the outset that prefer that type of progression. SWTOR is not in that position, however; for most of the past 5 years, gear progression has been at the heart of every single game mode the game has to offer. Gear progression is at the heart of the game, at the core of the philosophy behind it, and as such removing it would not be beneficial because a large chunk of the community ( full disclosure: myself inclluded ) are drawn to the game for that kind of progression. A good example here is World of Warcraft: Blizzard at first intended to remove gear progression from PvP in Legion, only to face a backlash from the community. So they compromised: gear still matters, there is still progression, but the difference between the bottom end and top end in PvP is much, much smaller than it is in PvE. And that's where we should be with SWTOR. There should be gear progression in PvP, just like there is in every other game mode, on the basis that it is core to the philosophy behind the game ( and always has been ). The only thing I agree with is that there shouldn't be a vast gap between bottom end and top end gear in PvP, and that is something that has easily been achieved in other games. Bolster should work to remove the dramatic gap between gear levels, but it should most certainly NOT remove gear progression - or stat benefits from gear - all-together. If we are to have bolster, it should enable the bottom end to meet the top end head on... but those that have put the time and effort in should still enjoy some sort of noticeable - if minimal - advantage as part of their progression. I actually don't think bolster is a good answer to the problem, personally. Instead, I think the solution should be more nuanced: remove the stat benefits on non-set items ( relics, implants, ear pieces ), remove consumable buff stats ( things like stims ) entirely. Set pieces should grant minimal stats that allow some form of progression, but the multipliers in PvP should be a fraction of those that apply in PvE. Further, set bonuses should not apply in PvP. There should be a difference between a player in 228 and 248, and it should be noticeable, but not overpowering.

I do think they should make GC grind more "alt friendly". Perhaps this could be achieved by deriving a multplier from the character on your account with the highest command rank, say... 0.5% CXP bonus per CR for every character below your highest CR. So if one character has 300 CR, and another has 0, the one with 0 gets 150% CXP boost until they surpass 300, at which point the boost is taken from that character (150.5%). If that scaling is too much, you could cap it at 100%, to keep inflation to a minimum when CRs are increased; so the boost would scale up to rank 200 and no further. You could even cap it at 200 CR, with no boost past 200 CR. Further to this, I do think that once you hit a certain CR threshold on one character, all other character should get minimal CR whether they are level 70 or not. However, no command crates should be awarded until a character reaches level 70, and any ranks achieved during the levelling process should not retroactively award command crates once they hit 70. To tie it all in with existing systems, these benefits could be purchased through the legacy system. Again, this is all in the interest of making the game alt friendly. Every character should have to go through the same progression to one extent or another, but I do feel in a game that encourages you to play other characters - and gives you bonuses for doing so - should include all game systems in that philosophy. The reality is that CR is setup the way that it is right now not to make the game better or make the gameplay experience better for players, but to keep you subscribing for as long as possible. That is weak, frankly.

I'm sorry for this aside, but I really can't let this point go without responding to it directly... I haven't seen you engage in one actual, genuine conversation since you've become producer. Your idea of transparent dialogue is dumping a huge post about how balance is achieved, but where were you for the actual conversation about it? Nowhere to be seen. A set of quasi-blog posts dropped on the forum for us to discuss and you to abandon does not a conversation make. I've seen you dump info in response to posts, I've seen eric dumping info as per usual, I've seen random devs and writers dumping info, and then? Nothing. The story thread? Info dump, not a conversation to be had. The class change threads? Info dumps, no conversations to be had at all even where people make highly salient and meaningful points about things the community is genuinely concerned about... Don't take this as any disrespect here, Keith, but your idea of a conversation and my idea of a conversation appear to be two very different things. You guys talk AT us; you rarely, if ever, talk WITH us. I think you need to stop trying to convince us this thing is a duck; it doesn't quack like a duck, it doesn't swim like a duck, it doesn't fly like a duck. It patently is not a duck. You can't market this sort of thing like that. Sorry if that's a slight aside, but it's something I felt I needed to say.

And vice versa doesn't apply because...?

Do the same for PvE content.

OK so, I just had a thought: if we are to "bolster" to 248 and remove gear from PvP entirely, why don't we bolster to 248 for higher tier Ops, Flashpoints, Uprisings, and GSF? If the gear game is to be removed from PvP, then it should be removed from the entire game. After all, raiders don't raid for gear; they raid for the joy of killing bosses! So let them take on the hardest encounters right out of the gate! After all, it shouldn't be about gear, but skill. Anyone who suggests that raiding isn't about skill or that people raid for gear isn't a REAL raider and is just a carebear who isn't that good at the game tbh. Hate me all you like, the point stands.

This criticsm is so weird, given that the reviews for the game skyrocketed in scores with both 4.0 and 5.0.

I don't think he ever was in two places at once. He was either on Zakuul as Valkorion, or he was in the Sith Empire as Vitiate. I think that once he became Valkorion and took on Zakuul, his manifestations in the Sith Empire were merely puppets he controlled via the force rather than distinct "copies" of his spirit. Either he did this via moving between bodies, or he remained in Valkorion's body and simply "projected" himself via the control of an avatar.

Seem like this might be a heavy handed hint as to where the story is going to go next? So I'll ask the question to end all questions: is He Who Has Many Names actually dead (in the definitive "no longer the big bad guy" sense, won't be coming back, his story is done, etc)???

People have been saying this since the dawn of SWTOR back in 2012; it's never happened, and it will never happen.