The OP is so desperately fawning that at first I thought maybe it was a Broadsword dev sock puppet. But then I remembered Broadsword devs don't post here.

Life must be fabulous when you have no standards.

Based on the state of the game, there's no evidence the devs are doing an adequate job, let alone a good one. But it's still possible that the meager product we have is the result of hard work. And if the devs truly are working hard, then they do deserve some appreciation (even if it should be a pat on the back as they get kicked out the door). Unfortunately, threads like this are exactly why White Knights are so pernicious. As long as there's a segment of the player base who will worshipfully accept mediocrity, the devs are able to buttress their decisions by pointing to this unconditional support. You see this all the time in post-mortems, where devs defensively say things like "we saw X signs the community loved our choices" or "there were some people who wanted X, some who wanted Y..." Broadsword is providing us a product. We are customers. This game isn't a gift or a favor. If we don't hold them accountable, we deserve the laziest rubbish they can get away with.

Just to be clear, simple optimism, even if it is so blind as to be naive, is not white knighting. The white knights are those who have moved on from being fans to partisans. They generally exhibit a worshipful belief in the superior capabilities of the devs, an inability to recognize criticism as a valid method of seeking changes/improvements, and a slavish submission to the game's publisher that often expresses itself as a sentiment that we as players should be grateful we get access to the game, as opposed to understanding that as customers, in fact the publisher should be grateful to us. There's nothing wrong with valuing and supporting products and companies that you like. The issue with White Knights is that they fail to understand it is possible to enjoy something generally, and yet still have issues with it. They are also frequently used as justification by developers, as there's always a bloc of unconditional acolytes who can be pointed to who support the current state of the game (whether SWTOR or really any MMO). Ultimately, White Knights harm the game by making it clear they will accept any manner of disregard or degradation from the publisher. If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything. And that's why White Knights have acquired the bad reputation they deserve.

Two words: Maintenance. Mode. If Broadsword had any other plans, they would have cleaned house and swapped out the time serving failures that are running the game. Instead, it's obvious EAware sold off the hassle of keeping this game on life support to a smaller company that was willing to do it as cheaply as possible. The thing is, even at the reduced resources Broadsword will have available, it will still be possible to do good things with SWTOR. But it will require a fundamental repositioning of dev priorities away from their pet projects, moon shots, and yearly 30-minute content drops in favor of QoL improvements, bug fixes, and content refreshing (through updating rewards, using existing resources as the basis of new content, etc).

The way it should work with these currency caps is that you're allowed to exceed the caps for a limited period of time (~5 minutes or so). This way exceeding the cap during game play allows you time to spend the tokens you earned, but you can't stockpile an absurd amount.

There's nothing wrong with criticizing devs for not making changes "to match whatever said forum participants want." This game is a PRODUCT. We are CUSTOMERS. Despite what some of you think, the devs aren't doing us a favor by running this game. We are doing them a favor by playing it. We have every right to voice our preferences regarding content and the game's direction, and to express disappointment with the state of the product we pay for. In any other industry, this is patently obvious to both producer and consumer. Only in gaming do Caballero Blancos not seem to understand this. Imagine if Coke replaced their formula with a new canine excrement flavor. Then, they declined to make any statement other than housekeeping shipping notifications about it. Who then would say it's wrong to complain about the change? Who then would question why anyone who enjoyed Coke would want information regarding the change, whether the change is permanent, what's coming in Coke's future, etc? Some of you need to get the devs off the pedestal you put them on. They are providing a service. We are customers. They dismiss their customers at their own peril.

If Steam represents half the player base, then the numbers of concurrent players are already below the 10k that was so disastrous for SWG that Smedly had to publicly deny to CBS that the population was so low. Even if Steam is only 25% of the player base, that would place the active population only a little above it. This game is clearly destined for maintenance mode, if it isn't in it already. That doesn't mean there can't still be good things. But the devs have to be realistic about what they can achieve. Their own little pet projects and moon shots need to give way to QoL improvements, bug fixes, and easy content updates like adding new rewards to existing systems.

Put in your CS ticket that you have an issue buying cartel coins. It's the only thing they are guaranteed to address.

<enable Caballero Blanco mode> But...but...Steam player counts aren't all the players!!! You didn't see yesterday on fleet there were TWO WHOLE INSTANCES (second instance only had three people, but still counts)!!! Only a tiny minority of players posts on the forums to complain. The vast silent majority love everything the devs have done! KotET/KotFE was great! I loved how powerful I felt beating an IMMORTAL GALAXY EATING FORCE GHOST. Eliminating class stories was the right move, I was getting too confused by how many stories there were! The gearing system constantly changes is dynamic and refreshes the game! Galactic Seasons is exciting content! No new rewards to GSF, BBA, Gree, Space Missions, Rakghoul is great because it provides consistency which players need (except in gearing systems)! Story bits coming out once a year and consisting of 30 minutes of game play is great because it gives everyone plenty of time to see it with all eight classes (even though it is the same now since everything is pigeonholed into one story. One AWESOME story)! The lack of dev communication is exciting because we never know what's not coming! </disable Caballero Blanco mode>

This game is very near to maintenance mode. You have to be realistic in terms of what's going to be possible in the future. Especially because Broadsword is almost certainly going to be working with less resources than EAware had, and they've carried over all the time-serving failures who have been running this game into the ground over the last several years. Positive changes are possible, but at this point I'm not optimistic.

We don't need more meaningless companions. Seasons are just retention treadmills. They should have them tie in to the original companions, so that their stories can be advanced a little.

Honestly, this right here feels like you just don't know the game very well. There's a ton of very fast, easy points in pve. GSF is better in some cases for seasons, or for some alts when you've already got some of the objectives primed from other characters (like the play 5 games as x ship, or GSF achiever), but pve is a fast and easy way to do conquest. If you think the fastest way to do conquest is to suicide in GSF, you're wrong. And even if you were right, which you're not, that doesn't justify suiciding. Griefing games because it's faster than other conquest methods is not a reason. It's not even an excuse.

Just another "make a premade" spiel. I especially love the part about how premades make the queue pop. No, a sufficient mass of people make the queue pop. Just some of them have grouped for easy wins and lopsided lolz games. But again, let's just live in a world where premades drive activity. Great! That means premade queue will pop all the time. So there's no need for premaders to fear a premade queue. Every argument centered on the vibrancy of the premade meta is simply reinforcing the functionality of their own queue. Even I want premade queue to pop. I'm fine if groups of people want to play each other. More than fine, with having done plenty of group pvp in several MMOs, I know coordinated group v group games are different. Now, I think it is fairly obvious that despite these rosy boasts, everyone is pretty sure premade queue wouldn't pop with any regularity. Despite the fact (that escapes premaders no matter how it's explained) that the queue could be made from "groups of groups," it probably won't pop much. But we know such groups must be common, or at least very reliably formed, because it is literally the only suggested response to premades from premaders. Curious that!

Go play Baldur's Gate 3. It's amazing what a competent studio can do.

No, I'm confirming that you've still failed to come up with an argument that hasn't been completely refuted. I'm on BG3 for a bit, so that should give you time to try to find one. GSF's new player experience does appear to be pretty bad. It's been way too long since I was new at GSF, and the environment at the time was completely different, so I can't compare it to my own. But I've heard from many, many people how rough it was to try and get into GSF. Most didn't survive.

Great! I love hearing how common premade vs premade is. It only strengthens the argument to put them into their own queue. Remember: "The fix is A" "A is why the fix doesn't work" Is one of premaders main arguments. Keep those stories of premade games coming!

The one I'm thinking of was a few years back, so I assumed that aligned with the most recent effort you described.

lol I remember super serious night. That thread was made specifically in response to the fact that the elites don't want to play the elites (and during another one of these ban premade discussions). It had a slow start, a decent mid, and then died with a whimper.

I'll give you a million credits if it really is "the last time." We already covered this ages ago, but since you apparently can't remember, just for short hand we're going to include premade supporters in with premaders, since the Venn diagram of those populations fall into Pi's rounding error (and including people advocating against premades as the "most of the people" who play solo is beyond absurd). If playing with friends is the real issue (it's not, but let's just say it is), then they should rejoice as, I've said multiple times, they can queue with one other person in "solo" queue or they can queue premade which, according to their own claims, has enough grouping people to pop constantly. In fact, I'll make this premade separate queue even more generous by specifying that solos can queue in it too if they want, so that the apparently endless legions of solo players who love premades can fill in slots and bask in the glory.

Again, if the answer to premades is making a premade, then that means if premades were in their own queue, that queue would pop. So it would be only win-win, because people who don't want to deal with premades don't, and those who do, do. The reality, which we all know, is premade queue won't pop. It just won't. That's why you're so threatened by the idea. What's at stake are your curbstomps. It's why this topic pops up repeatedly on the GSF and WZ forums.

Don't worry, I wrote to Amnesty International to let them know people were keeping you guys in a forum thread against your will after your arguments had been demolished. Help is on the way!

Yeah, I'm really not sure what point he's trying to make with the player population numbers. Unless it's "GSF is so small, fixing it is pointless." In which case I disagree, as I enjoy GSF and want it improved. But he could very well be correct in represening EAware's opinion.

Again, I don't know why you guys are so enamored with "FIX PREMADE NO FIX EVERYTHING NO FIX PREMADE!!1!!111!" Improving the matchmaker is 100% a good idea. In theory, fixing the matchmaker could even fix the premade issue, if the matchmaker were capable technically as well as personally (that is, the proper people are available) to do so. There's no need to pose any sort of "X is a more important fix." By all means, fix X, Y, and Z. But also premades. Whether the matchmaker is designed around ELO principles or some kind of player retention matrix isn't known by me, but I assume it is trying its best to arrange what it thinks will be an even game, just that it isn't programmed very well. I could be wrong here. But it doesn't really matter. I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you know what straw-men are, and that you just skimmed too fast because I never accused anyone of coming up with a GSF licensing scheme. I described the qualifier as a license because it was a term that could encompass both of the potential restrictions that they provided. I couldn't use "floor" because the scenario they described would block people for being "too bad" OR "too good." A "license" was simply a way to describe someone who fell into the qualifying middle. Now that I've explained this to you, I'm sure you'll appreciate it. As for whether it would be a good idea (and here I am using "license" as "floor" because that's how you used it), I don't think an actual requirement is a desirable, but # of games played should definitely be a factor in match maker rating calculations. Again, this was someone else's player division proposal, and it was itself not an actual proposal so much as a mistaken restatement of previous proposals. Would it be a good idea to separate out experienced players from newer players in the queue? Potentially, though I've heard (and anecdotally believe as well) that GSF's population is not sufficient for it to really be workable. Yeah. It's hilarious to watch them spin. "The fix is A!" "A is why the fix doesn't work!" The sooner they just rely on "I want easy games" or "I want to play with my friends" more than "I want fair matches," the better for them. Until then, it's just a giggle fest.

Remember, the premaders exist in the following world: 1. Premades aren't a a problem: So there's no need to address them, and everyone who is complaining is just wrong. 2. Even if premades are a problem, it's trivial to form your own: Apparently, you can instantly make your own equally effective premade (this part is an implicit promise, because they are suggesting this as a response to premades -- that aren't a problem anyway, remember) instantly just by joining /gsf. 3. Despite the fact that you can instantly create an elite premade: Premade-only queues will never pop because it's too hard to make premades. There's just no squaring their circles, which is why in the end their defense of premades boils down to one factor: "I like premades." That's it. And that's valid. They are allowed to like them. But it's not a reason for anyone else to like them. EDIT: I forgot number 4: "FIX PREMADES NO FIX EVERYTHING NO FIX PREMADES" the GSF equivalent to "but her emails!"