The awkwardness of "Bolster" and its balance : Note that we're all level 75 and this is HS Vet Mode via GF. Me and the Merc were 306 IR, while the other two were sub 300 IR. Difference in HP and damage dealt was incredible. It took nearly a minute and a half for the Sin (Hatred if I'm correct) to kill off one of the big droids, while I was melting them in sub-30 seconds time. I have no idea how I got level-sync'ed down to 70, and got more HP than what I actually have while not level-sync'ed and/or bolstered. Usually I max out at around 250-260k health pool.

I have a bad feeling about this ! The balance needs tweaking, drop rates needs tweaking, prices needs tweaking, crafting needs ... a miracle if you ask me. What's the rush ?! Make it a Christmas launch, but make it solid and stable. I don't want another 5.0 "brand new Command Crate gearing system" sorta pushback to the community, where you forced us away into one activity in order to be able to combat those horrible RNG changes you've made. It went from killing Mandalorians on Drommund Kaas, to farming DP 1st boss, to running Fractured 24/7. See how long it took you to sorta fix this ? Would you like to learn my estimate on how long it will take you guys to recover from what you're propositioning as 6.0 ? Around 2 to 2 and a half years. If the game ain't dead by then of course, because I don't see how majority of us are going to stick around, being forced into doing stuff we find repetitive in SWTOR, if not outright boring and distasteful. I say this as someone who's "equally terrible at all of the specs", because that's who I am - I can't play a single advanced class and spec for too long, because I get bored. If I get forced into collecting 3 set bonus gears per spec, per advanced class, it will take me years to recover back to where I am right now in the game. I say this as someone who has over 40 max level toons across two servers (SS and DM). This patch and the state that it is right now, feels like it was design to force me out and away from the game. Personally ! 'Coz I'm also a crafter !

I'm struggling to find positives to be honest. It's extremely frustrating for me personally. I'm not the usual hardcore grinder. I like a challenge, up to a point. I mark myself as "equally terrible at all specs" and I do actually re-spec and re-gear myself on a regular basis. I get bored beyond common sense playing one class and one spec only. One of the reasons I haven't progressed with all my toons thru KOTFE/KOTET yet. I have over 40+ lvl 70s spread around DM and SS servers. For someone like me, the new system is a nightmare. 3 sets with bonuses per spec, per advanced class, means that I'll prolly never be able to play like I used to play prior to 6.0. I initially liked the way they were saying that you'll be able to play your own style, but let's be honest - some of the sets (and tacticals) are utter rubbish. Which means that noone will ever use them. Which begs the question - why are they in the game in the first place ? Strange stuff IMHO. Ignoring all those 3 sets per spec per advanced class, we're left over with over 20 variants of a simple Lethal Mod as an example. Just the "simple" Verastile Armorings have at least 12 versions from what I've gathered from the vendor. I get it - better min-maxing for the hardcore players and whatnot. Why waste points in Accuracy going over the 110% limit, when you can be exactly at the limit and invest those extra points into Power or Mastery. Sure, but I'm not the kinda player that has a calculator next to him when playing. Makes no sense to me at all. And as someone who is "equally terrible at all specs", min-maxing every single set, just because I can't stay still and play just one for an extended period of time, means months and months of lost game time in mindless grind for gear, instead of just having fun. Why ? Thank God that at least they are going to clear my Legacy bank from all the materials I've been gathering, so I can have 3 pages worth saved up for gear set bonuses ! Don't get me wrong - the system we currently have, with one set per advanced class is sorta boring. Boring, but working ! Having 3 sets just per Spec is making my brain hurt. And to be honest, to my surprise, most of them don't even do what I wanted them to do. There are few exceptions, but those are rare and usually not particularly exciting anyways. Tacticals on the other hand seems to be game breaking at times. Or just replacing old talents, which is just "meh". I sense great disbalance in the game at the moment. And gear seems to have a huge part in it. I usually get the Star Wars bug nagging me around Christmas time, when I usually sub to SWTOR, go kill 2-3-4 months and then chill again till the next winter. Now I jumped the gun way earlier, just to show my support for a game that I love, after I've heard about the big upcoming expansion. But after what I'm seeing at the PTS at the moment, I don't think there is a high chance of me staying subbed till April. I think it'll be a miracle if I extend past December with this mess. Yeah, I'm also a crafter in my free time, so you'd forgive me for feeling doubly crossed.

This whole new "shells that have different set bonuses" and "tacticals" is just turning me off. Not to mention crafting which is an absolute RIP part of the game now. It looks like it'll become more tiresome then ever. Remember 5.0 launch and people farming Fractured to get to CR 300 ? Is this what we need to be doing in the launch of 6.0 as well ? Coz I ain't like that. Never played this game as it was a farming simulator. Sure, I'll push myself for a week or two to get reputation or an achievement, but I'll never farm a single piece of content, just so that I can get quickly over the trashy barriers they've put in my way. Ridonkeylous !

We had Crit and Surge back then. Totally different ballgame. They were not the same stat as far as I remember. It was natural. I just thought that the game was going in a direction of "high mobility" and "fluidity", which I thought was only natural to get closer to the 1.2 secs GCD and have it be obtainable, without major sacrifices. Minor sacrifices - yes, sure. But not major ones. I understand your point, but the IR gap between 248/258 and 306 isn't the same as the gap between 1859 and 3200. If the gap was the roughly the same, we'd have an Alac step-up at around 2955. 250-300 points or so difference might not sound like a lot, but when you consider that PvE'ers would also need to spend around 1600 points to reach their Accuracy cap of 110%, it makes the balance a ton more difficult. That's like 5xEnhancements without the Augments and Stims. This is pretty much what a barebone 230 gear is on Live server right now. You'd need 5xEnhancements in order to reach your Acc cap w/o any Augments or Stims. Add to that the mess that is crafting currently on the PTS and you'd have something close to a month on the live release, before people start seeing affordable Grade 11 Augment Kits, Augments and Stims. If not longer, depending on server population and activity. I think the point here lies in the new level cap, not so much with the new Item Rating and the cut off points for each stat. Note that the Alac cap did not change with the introduction of 258 gear. It was always the same, at level 70. Even when the max IR was 242. We try the same formula at 75 and we hit new levels of bad math all over the place. There is something very wrong on BW's end of the story and we need to let them know that they need to look into it. I believe that they've simply forgot to move the "diminishing returns" point on all of the stats and that' why we're seeing what we're seeing now on the PTS.

I honestly thought and believed that as the game progresses, new things will become more easily accessible - case in point, 1,2 seconds GCD. I'm dumbfound to why the opposite seems to be the goal with the new 6.0 system. Why ? Just curious.

I wonder, why there is a Tech Fragments Cap, when they are Legacy wide currency and there is no way to "stash" them up, like with the current Command Tokens ??? There's a tons of ideas around 6.0 that makes me scratch my head and wonder - who hates the players of SWTOR so much to come up with that stuff ?!

They should just make a Level 75 mods vendor that sells green 270 mods IMHO. That would fix a lot of issues ! Specially the way the gearing is setup on the PTS, which makes little to no sense IMO. Wasted over 350k Tech Fragments on my PT last night, just on my main hand weapon. Guess up to what IR I was able to get it to ?

This actually rises a question in me - how exactly, with the new Legacy spread materials, do you "dump it into the guild bank" ? I'm in the same shoes as you Sir - got every crafting skill to the max, and a lot of gather-specific characters too, just to supplement myself and have some excess to leave for the guild to use. But if you're like me, gathering with companions who are not level 50 influence, it's going to take you ages to craft a set of Grade 11 stuff for yourself or your alts. And I'm sorry, but I don't have 40 Dark Projects laying around, and some 45 extra million credits. And that's for just 10 companions. Roughly two per crafter I guess. And if you'd like to max out your output of gathering and crafting, that's roughly 252 million credits and 224 dark projects. That's 7 toons, with 8 companions maxxed out with the Commander's con...thingy from the Conquest reward vendor on the fleet. RIP Crafting -.-

100% agree and support ! It makes no sense to bother with crafting as it stands now. Revisit those numbers guys.

Also, seems odd, that after a 6 hours session on the PTS today, all I can "brag" about is about 1,200 Tech Fragments and a 270 IR Mara with zero tacticals. Ran Balmorra's Heroics, The Black Hole, CZ-198, KP SM, HS MM and VM numerous times ... basically playing very dedicated for the last 6 hours ... and all I've managed to gather is 1,2k Tech Fragments, which is not enough for a single Tactical or an empty Set shell. *sad face* I think we all know how much gear I would've gotten on live server for 6 hours "activities". That's 4x Command crates on each of the weekly zones. Around 6 to 8 for the OPS, depending if I forget my booster or not, and prolly another 4 crates out of Balmorra's Heroics. Sitting on Renown Rank 309 on my Mara and leveled up few other toons as well a bit. But it's not feeling fun at all.

If Renown Crates are just a supplementary system, then I'd have to object to the regular item drop rate, coz it feels non-existent. Ran around 10 times HS Vet Mode, and I've ended up with something like 3 items on boss drops overall, that was "an upgrade". Everything else was a "side-grade". Including tank bracers that dropped for my Sniper. AMAZING ! BTW, did a bit of sniffing around and I've found out that with the current system, a Weekly, like CZ-198 and The Black Hole, only gives u approx. 100k Renown Points in total. Which is far less then a level. And it makes the whole experience of lackluster drops combined with the painful grind that Renown has turned out to be, to just suck massively. Not a pleasant experience whatsoever.

Sann'tah / Marauder / Fury (not Furry !) / Empire

RNG is awful ! First off, I have 15 characters on one server alone. Planning to have few more as I have free slots to utilize. With each, I need to level up my Command Rank to a certain level, as reaching 70 is not a challenge at all to a veteran like me. If I'm to have a chance of getting any decent gear, I'll need to reach pretty high GC Rank. Solid 4-5 hours game session, will get me from Rank 1 to Rank 10 at best. Given that the current daily bonus is set on an activity I like and enjoy. That is "per character" ! With each GC level, it requires more and more "activity" in order to progress. Now, if that was like "Legacy Level", I wouldn't have minded at all. But problem is, this one is "per character", even thou the schematics I've seen are bound to Legacy (oh, yeah - and the Jawa Scrap lol !). People saying the old system was for elitist and whatnot, but I had no issues queuing up for SM OPS with 208 gear and was never kicked out because of it. Hell, once I joined a guild further down the line, we had people showing up in "greens" 160 something, and we still managed to pull them thru and get them the gear. Another thing - Republic and Empire counter-classes could use the same gear. I had no problems switching my Marauder's gear to my freshly leveled up Sentinel. I had also managed to collect both DPS and Tanking gear for my Juggernaut, with the plans of leveling up a Guardian at one point. Now I ask - why should I care about leveling, if there will be nothing for me to do, that is meaningful, like HM & NiM OPS ? Or Ranked PVP ? I would need to go thru months of end-game grindfest of daily planetary heroics, meaningless "tektikal" flashpoints and a very very awkward PVP queue, just to be able to get to a point. Oh yes, but I can do SM everything, just bashing my "1" key and it's all fine ...DAFAQ ?!

Can confirm. 8 men SM (!) group wipped at Gharj due to missing rocks once. Just totally caught us off-guard. And then we couldn't kill Soa at all, due to missing platforms. We had to try orientate with the "yellow" thingies in the middle of each platform. Managed once the first stage, failed at the others. Tried changing my graffix settings to min, to max, altered pretty much everything I could - couldn't fix the issue. After 6-7 wipes we just gave up.