I beg to differ- folks start hitting cap 7 days after... there was a sizable number at 50 at two weeks. If you aren't seeing 50s, it's because folks started playing alts vs struggling in Illum (Republic side). Another point against your response- if the population at cap was truly small as you suggest- would Devs really have made fixing Illum a priority? I'm not 50... I opted to level a couple alts together, but I saw population on Taris/Narshaada on a weekend in the teens a month ago... now it's 40-70 on the same planets... but nobody is spamming for groups as they did during Holidays. These aren't new players... its mostly alts.

You missed the other side of the issue completely. That grind you speak of for a single piece... the Imperials you are fighting are probably gearing up every piece in the same time frame... So the disparity grows even more. Give it another month of the same... and the only realistic solution will be to start over. Rollback gear, tokens, everything. It'll never happen (that would an open admission of failure) which is another nail in swtor's coffin. They'll still have their Story-lines...

Just lose the Expertise stat... completely. That way I can grind gear anywhere. The only reason that's an unacceptable solution is because those with want to be able to stomp on those without. Or they think because they had to suffer- everyone should have too. No thanks- I'll wait for GW2... and you guys can fight amongst your own faction in SWTOR.

Better be nice up front- could easily be a cherry picking opportunity to say they're done something for the community...without actually doing anything at all. Besides- by March my sub will be about over. I hope I don't have to wait that long to make a decision to renew.

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=164411 This thread summarizes a few of the complaints. Whether it was intentional or not is subjective; but the differences are there.

It'll get worse before it gets better

I know the frequent patching is a pain; but they are way past the point of liesurely fixes. The good numbers they have today could become bad numbers by next quarter. It's not just here on the forums that folks are talking about an imperfect game (Marketwatch articles last week). At Launch their stock price was about $22/share... now it's around $18/share. A game that is supposedly healthy and has a great future... you'd think their stock would be going through the roof. Why isn't it? It's time to gamble and start pumping out the fixes rapidly. When we are putting more time into our game-play and less time on the forums (complaining) then they can take a break.

Every single Early Access Realm was 'heavy or full' within a day or two of the actual release date. They aren't that now because AE/BW opened up the cap and/or redifined what heavy/standard etc means. Those values are highly subjective and easily altered.

Only your faction is low- the problem with mergers. 1. They are time-consuming (time taken away from fixing bugs) 2. They are expensive (you will lose some subs who can't keep their special name, etc) 3. You'll dramatically increase the number of Imperials too and their queue times and performance issues will double which goes back to #2. I'm guessing but you'd have to merge 2-3 servers of Republic faction folks to equal 1 server worth of Imperials as it is today. Some are worse than others. I have not heard of any server that had more Republic than Imperial (not that there isn't one... if there is they are being very quiet about it). Assuming that's for every realm at the moment... how do you propose to deal with the overwhelming Imperial population that won't cost AE/BW any money/time dealing with the many bugs/game flaws??? My advice? Reroll Imperial. They have won the war- they have most of the class/PVP advantages. I even hear their story-lines are more original, genuine. The whole known saga follows the Republic... so you can pretty much guess how it turns out. You can alway come back to Republic when/if the issues are fixed.

I missed the opporunity to cancel before my paid time started up by 3 days. You can deduct at least one subscriber in a couple months. I still play a little; but reading the forums is like watching Reality TV, a comedy, and a tragedy. (I don't currently own a TV). Besides- I have more 'player interaction' here than I do in the game right now. You listed a bunch of subs... wonder how many are mostly Imperials vs Republic?

I don't care about gear awards from PVP- just get rid of PVP stats- lose Expertise, etc and let the top tier PVP gear measure up to the Operation or Hard Mode PvE gear. Both take time and effort to acquire... That way regardless of what how you get it... you can enjoy all the content. Let the hard core folks compete for Titles or legacies. PVP stat is fail every time.

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=164411 Good Post on some of the faction imbalances of Mirror classes. Thing is that post was created 1.11.12... roughly 3 weeks ago. It has enough replies that it's about to get closed by the moderators; but if you look at all the patches out since- nothing has been addressed. There's nothing on the Dev Tracker to suggest its going to get addressed. Even if it wasn't malicious... have to wonder if the moderators and QA team are mostly Imps too.

And that's why I don't even bother to PVP. Frankly, I can wait until you are so damn bored that you move on (to another game or quit) and/or the Devs give you a niche all your own.

I tend to agree with the poster's assessment, which is why folks who are casual about PVP- can expect to lose 99% of the time vs those who do it consistently, esp near and at Cap. It's not gear per ce- it's the PVP stat that kills my interest. Raid Gear or PVP Gear... should be the same stats- the only difference is how you go about getting it. Both require time and effort. There will still be folks who will be less geared; but as it's set up... with a finite time to play... if I want to win at PVP... then I have to spend all my time at it to get the PVP stat gear to be competitive- to reach "Full battlemaster vs Full Battlemaster". If I want to Raid... which inevitably involves a different set of gear... then I have to spend most of my time doing PvE content. I just don't have time to do both- in truth I can barely manage one.

In WZ if either faction is short people- the game fills in the short-fall with the other faction and lablels them 'Mercs'... the idea is no queue times waiting for enough peeps from either faction to fill a group. It might not play with the "Story" in SWTOR... but it's not that different from introducing a 100% same faction WZ option. Most of the issues I read about here are FPS and ability delay in PVP... but there have been a couple comments on queue... and faction imbalance.... Thoughts?

It's a great concept- but the whole damn system is unfinished (like bits of the game). Biochem is just the most publicized example; but whether its OP or nerfed... the whole system is incomplete. When they eventually fill in all the 'holes'... then we can look back and decide. It definitely woudln't hurt to have a secondary route to discovery- common in a couple games that I paid/played more than 3 months: lotro and Rift. [that's a subtle hint for AE/BW... fix the craft system or I'm out of here. Rift 1.7 came out today...and it looks tastier than SWTOR right now] Something that might take a week to achieve, but having at least 1 100% discovery per craft per week... would offset some of the frustration.

I stop at 10... if no schematic it's just a bad night. Try again in a day or two. I had rotten luck on more than one toon for a whole week and then last night I got 3 blue schematics in a row. 4 REs and 2 new recipes on my Artificer and another on my CyberTech. RNG just plain sucks. Fortunately I have more than one toon- I don't have to halt my progression per ce just because I'm unusually screwed on one.

Yes- SWTOR is in no danger of dying. The real question is how many subs will it have. That is more problematic. I'd wager it'll keep 20-25% of its subs- and that's largely dependent on additional content, features, and bug resolution. Nobody is debating its potential... I haven't heard anyone post anywhere that the game couldn't be mind-blowing. It is just isn't right now. There are too many bugs... and some good titles on the horizon. GW2 is coming sometime this year. If their launch is only half as bad as this one...and F2P to boot... I can't see anyone paying a sub for 'lesser content' unless they are already locked in.

I have noticed the game runs very well with 8GB of RAM vs 4GB. And the Poster stated he was running a 64bit OS... seriously- get more Ram. With the memory leaks (that are widespread)- 4GB is not enough. My game runs at 4-6GB typically and my fps is decent. It's not even remotely choppy so I don't even bother to measure it. The one time I tried to run at 4GB of RAM (I was troubleshooting a suspected hardware issue)... game crashed even as I tried to log in.

Busted- there is no Medium setting anymore.

I can totally appreicate the need to moderate the number of issues fixed at a time- From an IT point of view myself if you change too much too fast- you'll get unexpected results... which mean more or worse bugs or exploits. What's frustrating is the shear volume of bugs and fixes that need to occur. I can appreciate that The Dev team needed to fix graphic card compatiblity and connection issues early; but damn we're pushing 6 weeks into launch. At the current pace you are not going to be able to get it fixed in 3 months or 6 months! How many other titles are on the horizon in the time frame? It's time to gamble and start publishing bug fixes faster and fix some of the 'design flaws'. I'm trying to be understanding, but SWTOR seems to have more issues than can be reasonably explained away considering your budget ($2-500M), developing time (6 years), and the Betas.

I have a better idea- how about you reroll Republic, level/pvp to 50 and then come back and tell us how it went? How it compared to the Imperial Faction PVP.

It's one thing to say it... quite another to follow through. It was BW talk (advertising) that convinced me to buy their game... but what I actually got wasn't what I was 'promised'. Unless they actually post the names/realms of the offenders... it's just BW PR damage control. All bark and no bite.

We're serious. I'm certain there are a few diamonds out there- guilds/groups that are beating the odds and will continue to do so, but I'll let the forums and the many posts about faction imbalance speak for me. I'll let BW same faction WZ speak for me. The only real faction vs faction PVP in SWTOR future will be Imperials who reroll as Republic. Comical in a way- so many fanboys keep posting that 'we' should give BW time to fix a game that is 6 years in development and had a $200M budget. Well, I'm telling Imperials the same thing- you'll just have to wait for a sizable portion of your population to switch factions and level to 50 before you'll have any consistent, decent PVP. Can you wait that long?

There are already a dozen threads on this issue- next time sort forums by "Replies" column... and pick one. There is a post on the Dev Tracker that this is supposedly being addressed; but no details on when.