All of this. Happened on Infinity Gate too, and is pretty common in MMO-lifecycle. I don't know how you can expect to launch an MMO these days without planning for the inevitable population problems, but BW appears to have done it. THey CAN server transfer (proved it with Oceanic) but for some reason they haven't gotten it rolled out which is quite literally single-handedly losing a lot of their best customers.

Every day server transfers are delayed BW is losing customers. It's just human psychology that it is harder to attract new players, or even to to draw back old players, than it is to retain current players. BW needs to make retention their #1 priority, but they haven't. A short allegory about my server (Infinity Gate), which I think is probably common to many servers: On Imp side we launched with a standard population, peaking at Heavy. There were a number of active raiding guilds. As 1.2 got pushed back, there was a significant and noticeable loss of players in late February/March. Not only were populations lower (reflecting fewer casuals) but many raiding players left due to lack of content. The people remaining ARE BW's CORE CUSTOMERS, who stuck with the game despite relative lack of endagme content, and buggy ops. After 1.2 there was a small uptick in population, that dwindled quickly back down by the end of April as guilds completed Story EC, and Warzone queues got longer and less reliable. Casuals started leaving in droves as it got harder to get groups, and harder to get WZs. GTN prices spiked, because there was no longer a supply of casuals selling mats for cheap. The top guilds on the server lost players who were sick of running around a ghosttown, some of those players re-rolled on busy servers, but for many the thought of re-grinding to 50 with no Legacy benefit was just too much. As guilds consolidated to stay alive and keep raiding, inevitably people with personality conflicts got thrown together, and without a significant player base to draw from it was almost impossible to find replacements. A number of people who genuinely liked the game left due to the emptiness and the game of musical chairs necessary to keep a guild/raid full. There's no sense in accomplishment in progressing content because there are no other guilds to compare your progress to, and no race to "server firsts." When people left, it made their friends wonder if it was time to move on as well, leading to a spiral of people who like the game, but are frustrated with the server, quitting SWTOR. The entire server is now a ghost town. I can log on during peak hours, and run past the GTN without seeing a single person. Some people have re-rolled, but many more have left, and probably for good. Although our server may have been one of the earlier ones to go down this road to abandonment, it is a road other mid to low pop servers will inevitably follow unless BW allows transfers SOON. I was one who re-rolled (Fatman). It has rejuvinated my love for the game, seeing fresh faces, easiliy finding groups, fast WZ queues, and being able to develop friendships and rivalries in WZs. I want this game to succeed,but for that to happen BW needs to reprioritize every realistic resource into fixing their server problem. This is a MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER game, for most people it is not in any way "massively" and for many on abandoned servers, it hardly even counts as "multiplayer." If you don't have the throngs of people on a server, the game is less fun and it will die, as will your profits. FIX IT.

Always talk about passing in Huttball, because lack of passing is a way bigger problem than over-passing. Most people who don't pass only read chat when they are dead anyway, so the more the word "PASS" is in chat, the more they will think they need to think about it during game instead of just when they're on respawn. I'm sorry you get annoyed when people say "PASS" in chat, but you clearly have some understanding of when to pass, but a lot of other people really don't. This thread would be better titled "when to pass in Huttball" and then list when and when not to pass. This title just makes the idiots who don't even put pass on their hotbar think they are justified in not passing.

The problem is that then expertise only benefits DPS and Heals, with no benefit to survivability. If all of a sudden people are doing 20% more damage, and getting 20% more heals, time to kill will still go down dramatically. Expertise has to affect healing/survivability/damage equally, or it will skew the targets for balancing PvP around how much damage someone should deal/heal/be able to live through. Also your idea makes tanks worthless. Changing the number from +100 to +1 doesn't matter, as those are arbitrary. What matters is how that number is linked to the under-the-hood numbers. (IE if +100 expertise = +1% damage, that's the same as +1 of your attribute = enough main stat to = +1% damage). I honestly don't see a single advantage of your idea over Expertise, you appear to have just changed the name and then changed it to affect main stat instead of other important things like survivability.

Frankly the Den doesn't solve any problem except that you can duel there, so I don't think the interwebs have been won nor even marginally improved. It's not about "complaining" it's about finding a design solution that actually works and produces the intended result. For the most use of the dueling feature, you need a lot of people. To have a lot of people, you need a social hub. For a social hub, you need attractions (GTN, mission terminals, rest area, easy to get to/from). Currently Outlaws Den has nothing but an area to duel. To get the people to make it good, they'd need all the attractions of the fleet. If they rebuilt a fleet in outlaw's den, and made it easy to get to, then yeah sure it could replace the fleet and we could duel at the Den, but that's as much if not more work than just adding an instanced duel ground to Fleet, which is already where everyone congregates. Broadcasting it and making it viewable would make it another good reason to be on fleet between activities, and thus build even more community.

The whole point is it needs to be easy to do. The vast majority of players don't go to Tattooine because it takes way too long, and then you're away from GTN/Dailies/other people. If there was a viable way to do it on fleet, especially one that encouraged people to get involved, it would make another reason to be on fleet and be social. Everyone wins.

Fleet dueling needs to be in the game. The devs know it, players know it, it's just a technology and resources question. Here's an idea of how to do it: First, auto-transport players to an area off the main fleet for the duel, that solves performance issues. The tech for this already exists with quick-travel, just tie the transport to accepting a duel. Second, broadcast duels. It would be awesome to have a big visible board in Fleet that either showed a stream of duels going on, or snapshots, or even just results of recent duels. Then have an option for players to quick-travel to a viewing area for the duels, so they could watch. It gives active and passive players something to do on fleet between queues, and would instantly create a player-driven duel community that could be enjoyed by everyone. I think that for the amount of resources necessary to make it, this single feature would provide more hours of player-enjoyment and community-building for your investment than anything else. To save coding resources: Have the duel area quick-travel only by duelers and spectators. Keep it simple, you could probably just dump some of the area design straight from Outlaw's Den, or the main floor of Voidstar. Advanced ideas: I can see an argument for dumping all duelers into a single arena, or instancing each on individually. It wouldn't be too much more beyond that to allow 2v2 or 3v3 dueling. Make sure to have some sort of public broadcast of duel footage, screenshots, or results -- this is a huge attention grabber for the feature, and builds community. The type of people who are really interested in fleet dueling would probably appreciate having some sort of public record of what just happened. It's far from an easy patch-in, but it would be easier than designing a warzone, and probably make people a lot happier. It would be easy to build out from that design into more organized dueling, or even embracing e-sport.

I think that was just bad luck. I've gotten the Mark while tanking Pilgrim, so I was at-or-near the bottom of Dog's threat table at the time. I think 4 marks go out, so you have a 1/4 chance of getting it. Chances of getting it four times in a row are only 1/256 which isn't absurd odds. With 16 people all having a chance of getting it, the odds that SOMEONE in the raid will get it four times in a row is 6%, which is actually pretty darn likely.

I believe the buff lasts five hours, so it's a good lead activity for a night of raiding (if of course you can do it quickly). Also from what I've seen Pilgrim is the only source of Campaign Boots.

I haven't seen any evidence of this, when does it trigger? Are you sure you weren't just seeing the 6:30 enrage? If you DPS Pilgrim down too fast without killing Dog, Pilgrim will put up a shield at 8-10% and be invulnerable, forcing you to kill Dog first. So at the very least Dog has to die that much sooner and it is categorically not true they have to die "at the same time" as they physically cannot due to the shield.

Yes, if more than 16 players are on his aggro table he does an AOE pulse that will kill everyone. *Edit* spectators won't affect this, we had some guy wander over and start watching us, but he didn't attack. I don't knwo if you have to reach a certain level on his aggro table, or if anyone getting on it at all is sufficient, but there is an anti-zerg mechanic so don't plan on bringing over 16.

Good suggestion, it's nice to have other strats that can fit different group compositions. That's really cool you can do it that way, I wouldn't have really considered double-tanking them due to cleaves and the damage debuff. You must have some super boss healers (who probably hate you ;-) )

Nearly full Rakata if you're learning the fight, but if you can dedicate a lot of time to perfecting it and have stims/adrenals/good players and no deaths, you could probably do it with mostly-Rakata gear group.

The video above is from our guild-first (Chimera) and server-first (Infinity Gate) kill of Nightmare Pilgrim, so it's a little choppy but goes to show some of the mistakes you can make in the fight and how they can be overcome. We actually lose quite a few people during the fight, and end up having some run back and still narrowly make enrage time. Fight appears to be tuned for a mostly Rakata 16 man group (more than 16 people leads to an AOE pulse wipe). A very well organized group in mixed Columi/Rakata might be able to do it with great execution. All raid members must have a Rakata AlphaWave Inhibitor (30 daily comms) or have an Artifice or Armstech make them an Inhibitor. Failure to have an Inhibitor active will lead to instant death to Pilgrim's AOE attacks. Crafted Inhibitors will save you a lot of daily comms, so are preferable if you have someone who will farm up the rare mat (only found in Daily areas) for it. The hardest mechanic in this fight is the 6:30 enrage timer, which is tight. We actually hit it, and started losing people but just managed to down him anyway. There are two mobs that must die: The Thing From The Stars (Dog), and Nightmare Pilgrim. Dog should die first, and as fast as possible, as I do not know of any necessity of simultaneous death, and it allows you to avoid a lot of dmg from Dog and focus DPS on Pilgrim. Anyone who dies should be combat rezzed, or if that is down release immediately and run back; it isn't far and you can still beat the fight if everyone is on top of it and you lose a person for a little bit due to a run. I'll break down the fight strat by role. DPS: DPS has the hardest job in this fight. All DPS should be on Dog to start. Periodic yellow/purple/red/white/whatever AOE circles will appear on the ground. Get out. When Dog starts casting Gore (1sec cast time) all DPS who are fast enough should try to interrupt. Pilgrim will periodically self-shield, about 5 seconds later random raid members will get a Blood Mark debuff. This debuff is the key to the fight. DPS must look at their debuff list to see if they have it, and once a raid member sees the debuff come onto them they should say something. Everyone should then wait 2-3 seconds to make sure they don't have debuff. Blood Marked players will insta-die if they attack Dog, so they must attack Pilgrim for duration of the buff. Non-marked players kill the Dog. New rounds of Blood Mark come out every 90-120sec or so. It is IMPERATIVE you not lose people to Blood Mark, as lost DPS will cause failure on the hard enrage at 6:30. I can not emphasize enough how important it is for DPS to be careful they do not have Blood Mark before so much as auto-attacking Dog. Blood Mark is a little weird and appears to go out once at a time over a space of a few seconds, so after someone gets it an announces, give yourself a few seconds before you consider yourself "safe." 6:30 is long, so all DPS should use their cooldowns/relics/adrenals in the first part of the fight to have them come up again once or twice during the fight. Tanks (3 or 3 + offtank): 2 tanks on Dog, and one on Nightmare Pilgrim. Pilgrim Tank: Pilgrim spawns on a patch of brown ground southwest of the clickable boss-spawn, so wait for him there. He has a cleave with range, so face him towards the rock wall. He hits hard, but pretty consistently. He is not interruptable. Periodically, Pilgrim will put yellow/purple AOE circles on the ground, get out but don't turn him towards the raid. Several times during the fight, Pilgrim will knock back the MT and shield himself. TANK MUST CALL OUT FOR DPS TO STOP. Shortly after the shield goes up (5 seconds or so) the Dog will put out a debuff onto random raid members called Blood Mark. If tank doesn't alert DPS to stop in time, someone might accidentally attack with Blood Mark on, and die. Dog Tanks: Dog I believe has small cleave, face him toward wall and space the two tanks about 90 degrees apart with DPS behind/to Dog's side. Dog doesn't normally hit that hard, but he has Gore, which is an interruptable ability which does tons of damage. Dog also has a debuff he will put on a tank which dramatically increases damage taken, when that debuff comes up you must tank swap. This debuff is separate from the Blood Mark debuff. When Blood Mark goes out, it is possible one, two, or all three tanks will get it (though the last is highly unlikely). If one tank gets it, he should go over to Pilgrim, take aggro on Pilgrim, and have Pilgrim MT switch to Dog (This occurs at 4:19 into the video, and switch back at 4:45 after Mark runs out). If two tanks get it, both move to Pilgrim, and Pilgrim tank moves to Dog -- at this point you need to either have Big Heals and tank cooldowns to keep that one tank alive through debuff (what we did). Alternatively, you may try to use an offtank in mixed gear who steps in to taunt when the remaining Dog tank gets the debuff. Depending on your offtank's gear and spec, this may be easier or harder than healing through the debuff on one tank. Feel out how good your DPS is, and make a judgment call on whether you're better off gambling on getting friendly Blood Marks, or playing it safe and having a solid off-tank ready. If all three tanks get Blood Mark, you probably die as an offtank likely cannot tank through the Dog debuff. Healers: This is a heal-intensive fight. Pilgrim does high sustained damage, and Dog does spikey damage due to the debuff. In addition there is a significant amount of AOE raid damage that is inevitable. As much as possible have DPS group up for AOE heals, though this means they need to be doubly aware of yellow/purple circles to get out of. Discuss primary vs. emergency healing responsibilities to avoid overhealing tanks. Conserve mana as 6:30 of intense healing is a long fight. Pop cooldowns early so they come up again by the end of the fight. There is enough raid damage and spike damage that all the healers will need to keep an eye on tanks and raid, we didn't find it helpful to try to set up one healer per tank and one for raid healing. Make sure you aren't standing somewhere that a tank switch or tank-evading-aoe will not lead to you getting cleaved by a boss. I've said it before but I'll say it again: DON'T DPS DOG WHEN YOU HAVE BLOOD MARK. Follow that and you should be fine. Main loot was 3-4 Black Hole pieces and 2 pieces of Campaign gear (unclassed, so anyone can get them). You also get a sweet +50 all stats buff, which is great for progression raiding or trying to get titles in NM KP/EV. The first two times we tried the fight we almost insta-died due to the high amount of raid dmg and people not staying out of fire/interrupting Gore fast enough. Once we figured that out, it only took a couple tries to get it right and get him down. Good luck and good hunting! Chuggs

I'm pretty sure all of the listed patterns which are not trainable drop from UT missions of the apprpriate level. IE -- level 27 schematic drops from UT missions 25-32. VERY anecdotally, my guild's testing indicates you're more likely to get a synth scheme from a fabric mission. That isn't very hard evidence though.

It sounds like your guild leader doesn't know what he is talking about, both with regard to itemization and the mythical increase in HM difficulty. My best advice to you is to watch some videos and read some of the excellent guides out there on your class, and find other people who will do the same. You're clearly someone who wants to improve, and you should surround yourself with other people who want the same. Even if you're carrying your weight, if the other three in your group aren't you won't be successful hitting enrage timers and beating HM's (which are far from "easy" unless you're overgeared, but which should be VERY doable even in substandard gear if you have 4 people who are playing well and working together).

The difference between 80 comms for a loss, and 120 for a win, losers have to play 3 games for every 2 games a winner plays for same rewards. That's a HUGE difference. OP is mathfail. BW please keep comm significant for losers, but with enough extra for winners to make people want to win.

Use high-affection companions, and try to only do Abundant missions or better. Or buy the level 300 missions of the GTN, or buy the mats directly. Honestly the premise of your question is kind of silly though because making purple level 45 mods has little use, since you'll replace them with 48 mods so soon.

Delrusant, I think you're right, thanks for reminding me about that statement. I guess that just leaves the question of: Does anyone know where to obtain the schematic for Warrior's Pulsing Chestguard? http://www.torhead.com/item/9QhYlOL/...ing-chestguard

Tooltip for Black Hole Implants at least allows RE at 20% rate, I've done two with no success, but I have no reason to think tooltip isn't correct.

I have a couple synthweaving questions if anyone has the answer, Can the Warbringer's Body Armor from Hammer Station be RE'ed now? http://www.torhead.com/item/TGEpKp/warbringers-body-armor#screenshots Alternatively, does anyone know where to obtain the schematic for Warrior's Pulsing Chestguard? http://www.torhead.com/item/9QhYlOL/warriors-pulsing-chestguard Thanks!

Also, has anyone managed to find any of the "new" schematics in the game or are these just the pvp schemes?

You're approaching it wrong, it's not "what can I make" it's "what will people buy." The answer to the latter is: 1) Augmented orange items for hardcore min-maxers who likely have a lot of credits. 2) Cool looking orange items for cheap vanity changes for people. What you are making isnt' an upgrade for people unless it's augmented, so ask yourself how much a vanity change is worth to people, especially if it is something other crafters can make too. If it isn't augmented, it's not worth much. Mark down, or RE for mats as appropriate, but honestly I'd be shocked if you sell much stuff that isn't crit-crafted. The crit-crafted stuff you need to sell for enough money to compensate you for all the "wasted" construction of non-crit things, but crit-crafts will be in VERY high demand especially for cool skins.

I have searched high and low over the mighty internets, and cannot for the life of me figure out who trains or drops the schematic for Warrior's Pulsing Imperial Appearance 27 - Warrior's Pulsing Greaves 27 - Warrior's Pulsing Chestguard Can anyone point me in the correct direction please?

Well, I patched the 1gb dl, then game wouldn't load. Exited SWTOR, and now it is repatching me 11gb worth of data. AWESOME work team BW.