Thank you for the very good response, and I especially agree with points 1 and 2. Something is desperately needed that is infinitely repeatable, and the consistent changing of once infinite repeatables to daily ones per legacy makes it seem like you don't particularly care. As you noted yourself, this was hardly hardly first time that had been done. I'm glad the feedback on that point has been noted. I am also still peeved about the change to guild cq for new characters, but I haven't made a new character since the change, so I have no feedback to provide that I didn't before

I have joined it, and no it's not public, you require an invite (which I grant you is widely avaliable). If it makes you feel better delete private from that sentence and replace it with third party moderated, same point. Official information or official appearing information should come from official means. If "biochris" wishes to participate in the discord, he should do so in an obviously private manner - i.e. remove "bio" from his name

He said nothing about it being too difficult. Its about a private moderated channel having a known, self advertised dev.

Agreed. Even if he says "unofficial" with the name "biochris" it will be interpreted as official.

My line has been rather simple this whole time. What anyone does on their own time, as an individual, is their business. It is in using the name "biochris" that he makes it BW business. This is not "transparency" as he stated; it is giving the appearance of official statements in an unofficial medium. If Chris is more comfortable with discord, perhaps bw should make an officially sanctioned and BW moderated discord channel. Being too critical for the devs to participate in a discussion is a pathetic excuse. If someone goes against BWs stated TOS they can (and have) removed the posts. As we have now seen several examples of, a third party moderater has their own agenda and is free to do as they choose, to the extent of being just as toxic as they accuse forumgoers of being. In addition, in my opinion, to the presence of a known and self stated BW employee being in the channel giving the appearance of favoritism on the part of the company and giving the potential third part moderater a seemingly company endorsed sense of self importance.

Personally I preferred 5.x after the addition of vendors. This rng on top of rng with rng item mods, even to the point of adding more item mods explicitly so it would be less likely you get the one you needed (under the ruse of providing more options) is too much. Especially in conjunction with the fact that the overwhelming majority of endgame pve content is downscaled, and thus, stat capped. The system does need fixing. Primarily the idiotic scaling of endgame, secondary the item mod randomness issue, thirdly amplifiers, fourth augments.

The new augments are, and always were, stupid.

Agreed conpletely.

I guess I come from an environment where I do have to be very careful to separate my personal opinions and statements to avoid giving an appearance of anything official. Thus, perhaps I'm oversensitive to the concept of private statement from a known employee. It's my humble opinion that, if Chris feels BW is overly limiting in what they choose to discuss, he should take that up with BW. If that is his opinion, I happen to agree, BW sucks at discourse and handling criticism, even constructive criticism. I think more discussion on BWs part would be great; I also feel that presenting yourself using the company name in your tag is giving the appearance of official endorsement, intended or not.

I absolutely despise crafting in this (or most) games. Trixxie really isn't telling you that you have to craft, they just want the option to be able to do so. Just because I think something is mind numbingly tedious doesn't mean I feel someone else shouldn't be able to benefit from it. Crafting as it stands is a massive time and credit sink. More power to those who find it in themselves to enjoy it.

I also have not seen a dev posting on reddit, so it's also irrelevant, but I think the point was you don't have to log in to reddit or have an invite to the sub to read what is posted. Just like I don't have a Twitter account, but I can still look at what BW posts on Twitter.

Agreed and me too apparently

Personally, I've been running a defensive set on my tank (I grant you with power mods) since the shield/crit changes. Defense needs a rework if they want us to run 3000 points of it. On the pve front, though, for downscaled content, defense is technically more useful than power over the hard cap. (Power is hardcapped, def isnt). I personally refuse to gear for BWs idiotic downscaled endgame that still requires level 75 gear, but im apparently the only person playing the game who finds this design stupid.

Ok, going to ask a simple question that I feel should have been obvious I wanted the answer to by now. So supposedly a certain dev is active in other discords and not just the one being discussed here. Does someone have a link? Are they as active as the one primarily being discussed? Is the dev support as prominent as in the discord we're primarily discussing? If any of those questions fail, BW is, in fact, prioritizing communication with a specific group. I've tried raising my issues here, including making threads on both 6.x gearing and the failure to have a max level endgame. Both failed to garner much attention from the community, much less the devs. If I'm the only person that cares about a casual max level endgame, perhaps it's time to admit the game I've been supporting for nearly a decade is no longer for me. I find this a sad prospect. But if my issues are no longer important enough to the community as a whole to gain traction, perhaps it is time for me to end my time here. I feel stuck between the hardcore and Uber casuals. I've always assumed there was a decent chunk of us that enjoyed casual group activities and had exhausted solo story content long ago. If the game has reached the point where there's exclusively a group of hardcore and then another group of super casuals that won't or can't group, there is nothing left here for me. Making a group for the multiple boss sm op or a hm ev has gotten to the point where it takes anywhere from half an hour to a couple hours just to form a group. This is the content I primarily enjoy. I would also like new content on the level of ev or kp (without the puzzle, because even that is difficult for the current incarnation of pugs). Gods is too long and mechanically involved even in sm, dxun is better but still too difficult for the average swtor pug (and yes, I've done both. In the case of gods, I've done hard mode before my guild more or less fell apart). The point is merely, from the sources I am aware of, the "theorycrafting' discord is the only place that is as popular as it is that also gets dev support at noticeable levels. To reiterate, I would love to be provided a place to discuss issues that I care about with dev input. To be frank, such a place, to my knowledge, does not exist. And even if I was to create such such discord, I wouldn't know how to get a base of player support, much less personal attention from devs.

I mean, I'll fully excuse anything they've done or not done over the last year due to working from home during the pandemic. Their communication was atrocious before covid. and nothing "biochris" has said changes my opinion about the better people's discord. Where should I go to have a nice chat with a dev about something I care about, which is neither ranked pvp nor NiM. I also have no desire to deal with third party moderators who have agendas of their own. Yes, I joined the discord in question. I have never posted and never intend to. But reading it has solidified my opinion that BW definitively prioritizes certain, seemingly miniscule populations of people over others. (How many people enjoy ranked PvP compared to regs, how many NiMers are there compared to more casual group content, heck how many people are here for story compared to any of the above?)

It's hard to decide what is dumber, the window or the amplifier concept itself. I realize there's no chance, but ideally scrap both the idiotic concept and its hideous spawn.

I suggested adding a trade of some kind on the vendor. For 3000 tech frags or whatever (pick a number, I made up one that seemed fair to me), you can swap a useless 306 item mod for a useful one of the same type. (I.e. mod --> mod, enhancement --> enhancement, armoring/barrel/hilt --> armoring/barrel/hilt)

I have a hypothesis this was done as a test case. I.e. raise the uprisings because there are less of them, then see how the response is. The fault in this logic is obvious, and I sincerely hope that the negative response does not turn BW off of scaling FPs and Ops.

yeah lol, either they're talking regs or gaming the yolos queue has gotten insanely easy.

i mean take from it what you will, in my case what I mean by "private" is "not officially endorsed by BW/" As for official, his name on the server in question is "biochris". If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, perhaps it's a duck. If he was truly interested in being unofficial, as someone else mentioned, he'd take measures to ensure his status as a BW employee was unknown. With a name like "biochris", i think the assumption that he has inside information is a fair (indeed, obvious) one.

i agree completely that ossus gearing sucked. My issues with the current system are: 1. First and foremost, downscaled "endgame" content disenfranchising proper BiS. 2. Too many different possible items in slot without a way to target a specific one. 3. Certain gear sets are available only as rare drops in specific content you have essentially a 1 in 8 chance of getting. 4. Amplifiers - their existence and the fact they're entirely RNG. 5. Augments (BiS) - their addition, the fact they're absurdly expensive, and their extreme limitation. But primarily 1. The current state of endgame is utterly despicable.

well the swtor reddit is mostly used by players, i don't think i've seen a dev post there once. If the swtor discord is used similarly, by and for players fine. I protest it becoming a club for better people to get prioritized attention, like it seemingly has. last post by Mr Schmidt here: 29 Jan. last post by Mr Schmidt in your discord: Today. If a dev can take time out of his weekend in the aftermath of a near natural disaster that left millions without power and that's not endorsing the subset of players he's replying to as a club for better people, i don't know what is. this basically. Naturally the leader of the frat club doesn't want his better people status removed.

If I only won half the games I played, I wouldn't PvP. The entire premise of PvP is to win more based on skill, or why would ranked pvp even exist? So your test is based on a faulty premise, getting an expected result. Duh pvp win rates aren't 50/50. As for Jackie, even I'm not going to judge someone based on what happens in one thread and when there was a freak winter storm in Texas where BW is located.

Eh, I'm very much with dasty's principle here. It's far more "gatekeeping" for Mr Schmidt to respond basically exclusively in an unofficial, privately moderated fashion than it would be for him to respond to issues on an official, BW moderated means of communication. You want to talk gatekeeping, let's talk about the more important people who happen to be in a private channel moderated by a third party.

Forming a premade is hazing now, eh?