That's just plain false - don't spread lies please! Ilum was canned with 1.2, WH armor was released with 1.2. When WH armor came out, the most active PVP'ers were in full BM (most without augments).

You don't like cc? Do what everbody else is doing - dl netlimiter and get your free cc breaker now! Nowadays, my cc fails about as often as it succeeds on targets with empty resolve bars. Yes, it's a lag issue, the kind you create yourself.

PVP: One week of pain and you are in full BM gear. PVE: You have to be very lucky to grind a full set of rakata in one week. Stop the injustice - I demand FREE PVE GEAR!

Yes, that's realistic - I do routinely about the same as a MM sniper on zero expertise targets (hey PVE's, get some recruit gear!). On a different note: DPS Sorcs/Sage could have the highest burst of all, if they are geared, specced right, and know their rotation - quit whining!

Ahh, I see. You are not a hacker, just inexperienced. CC immunities have absolutely nothing to do with this. Apparently you don't really understand the resolve system, which is why it is so easy for this next generation of exploiters to fool people like you. As for the link - what does that have to do with diversion failing? Diversion WILL remove the sniper from cover, it WILL prevent him from entering cover again (6 secs), it WILL end cover-dependent effects (such as balistic shield) and it WILL prevent cover-dependent abilities (such as ambush) to be used. There is NO defense against diversion, other than lag exploits. I think what you wrote there pretty much ends this debate: You want me to use hacks myself to show you proof? Really?

In just the last 12 warzones I counted 5 failed cc on people with empty resolve bars and 4 failed "diversions" on gunslingers in cover. Since December, diversion has never failed to knock me out of cover - not once! Yes I agree, lag is the issue...the kind you create with netlimiter yourself! I love statements like this - show me proof, lol. What am I gonna show you? A screenshot of my cc or diversion being in cooldown while the target is not affected? Would that suffice or would you cry "photoshopped"? (and you would be right, because I would have to photoshop the player names, or otherwise I would violate the EULA). In 1.15 Bioware announced that they have banned 100s of accounts for cheating - if that's not proof in itself, nothing will convince you. Then again, those who deny that hacking occurs, usually fall into two categories. Those too inexperienced to know what is and what isn't possible in PVP, and those doing the exploiting. Pick your poison.

My Temple is full BH/WH gear, Kaliyo mostly, Lokin mostly, Vector is full rakata, Scorpio is Tionese+ (droids are almost impossible to gear beyond that) I can solo Poisonous Strategy with Kaliyo. I can't do that with any of the other companions. Lokin and Temple have only situational uses (i.e. 2-man Torvix). Scorpio is just a crafter until BW gives us rakata+ droid parts. Whatever Vector can do, Temple or Kaliyo can do better. Hence, Kaliyo is the best agent companion as of now. As for her attitude, I had ex-girlfriends and an ex-wife who were far worse!

First of all, I don't object to the concept of free-to-play as business model. But I have my concerns, most of which revolve around Bioware's ability to deal with what's coming. Sure, going F2P will get a lot more players to join SWTOR. But what kind of players will we get? F2P players have very little to lose! Making a new account after one is banned takes just a few minutes. Leveling a new toon to 50 takes a week, if not less. From my own experience with F2P games, it's like opening the gates to hell - the "internet scum" will pour in. Every FP, every OPS, every WZ will become a target for intentional sabotage. Chat will become an endless stream of racism, homophobia, profanity and harrassment. The Hero Engine, which is already very suseptible to exploits and hacks, will become a playground for cheaters. Last but not least, every post, every discussion on these forums will trolled and trolled again. What does Bioware currently have to stem the tide? "Ignore function" - which is a) used AFTER the harrassment has already occurred and b) severely limits communication in OPS and WZs. "Profanity filter" - which can and will be circumvented by creative spelling, spacing, numbers, etc. "1-week suspensions for using 3rd-party software" (aka hacks). Sporadic forum cleanups by the moderators, usually during weekly server reboots To my best knowledge, that's all Bioware has in place. I've mostly played LoL before SWTOR. Granted, that's not an MMO, but it's a good example of a F2P game. I'm not critizing LoL here, it is a good game and I quite enjoyed it. But what made me quit in the end was the community - match after match, day in and day out, I was exposed to the worst humanity has to offer. And while I'm not a thin-skinned person, after 1.5 years of it, the trolls finally wore me out. So, is Bioware really prepared for F2P? And are we (the paying subscribers) prepared if Bioware isn't?

When I pug, I get close games about 20% of the time, the rest are blow-out win/losses. If I'm in a premade, it's 90% blow-out wins for us, 10% close games against other premades. Either way, less than 1 in 5 games are actually competitive fun.

I could see the Advanced Respec and possibly the Companion Parties (if Bioware actually expands on the companion system instead of just giving us more silly, useless pets). Everything else would be too imbalancing or too much pay-to-win. But hell, I would already be happy if they just implement paid server transfers so that I can consolidate all my toons!

I think what disappointed me the most was that you could roll Imp and Pub toons on the same server. That should have never happened - it would have changed the whole gaming experience, making Dark vs. Light Side feel much more real. Otherwise, here is my list of complaints: 1. Cheaters, exploiters and hackers and what little Bioware is doing about them (netlimiter is the cheat FOTM atm). 2. Buggy FPs, OPS and WZs - some of these bugs have been around since launch (i.e. spawn lying down) 3. Death of Open World PVP (I miss mega battles on Ilum, lag or not, they were fun!) 4. Crude crafting system (they could have really made an effort to make this more challenging and sophisticated) 5. Legacy being all fluff and no substance (give loyal subscribers a real reward, not another silly pet or dumb title)

I probably draw some fire for saying this: Pyro PT's are not OP! They are just much easier to play than snipers (or any other dps class).

The flaw is simple: This is an MMO - progression is king, both in PVE and PVP. If you don't give people the opportunity to improve their toons, they'll stop playing after level 50. Even in PVP games like LoL, where gear is a non-issue, there is a progression element build in (for LoL, that would be grinding for runes after you hit max level). People enjoy building their toons, it's a big part of the fun! On the other hand, people do not enjoy having their carefully built-up toons dimished by giving late-comers everything instantanously and for free. It negates the time and effort they have spent. If you want pure skill-based PVP, play chess. (not being sarcastic, I actually enjoy playing chess)

The graphs really say it all: Yes, expertise has a slight DR, but not enough to justify exchanging expertise for anything else - especially since expertise (unlike any other stat) affects BOTH your damage and your survivability. At full augmented and modified WH, substituting PVE items gains me very little, hence I go with max expertise. FYI: 1332 (no moddable off-hand) / 1372 (with moddable off-hand) i.e. sniper vs. gunslinger (so much for mirror classes being mirrors)

Right on, you tell em! Seriously though, it's a disgrace! This bug has been around since launch, was "fixed" in 1.2, and yet it's still alive today. Who knows if BW ever gets a handle on this, but for now, a sorc/sage can pull you up when it happens - works most of the time, but (unfortunately) not always.

I salute your idealism! I only know of 2 games where the code monkeys were actually playing the game: LoL and Anarchy Online - I know, because I have played with or against them. In most games now, the developers couldn't care less if they code Barney the Purple Dinosaur or Darth Malgus. Again, I salute your idealism. The time of creative innovation in online gaming is long gone - WoW killed it. Now it's about market shares, revenue projections, quarterly reports and shareholder expectations - pure captialism. The code monkeys decide nothing anymore, the MBA's in corporate HQ do - and that's the real reason why no complaints or suggestions from us, the customers, are answered. They do what's good for profit, not what's good for the game!

I don't think gold spammers will be an issue on SWTOR. All endgame gear is BoP, almost everything of value has to be purchased with various commendations. The legacy perks are mostly fluff and convenience - and they are all one-time purchases. There are only two things I use credits for on a regular, reoccuring basis: 1. Repairs 2. Stims/Adrenals (and if I had a Biochem crafter, I wouldn't need to) Hence, my bank account keeps growing everyday and there is nothing worthwhile to spend the credits on.

So, OP's message is: We need price-fixing for the GTN! Learned your lessons from the Oil Companies, didn't ya?

Wrong! Expertise works in 2 ways - increases damage AND increases damage mitigation. In your own (crude) numbers: 20% damage loss PLUS 20% damage mitigation on the target = 40% damage loss.

Ahh, a new twist from the PVE'ers: 1) Spend the token money on anything but recruit gear 2) Check post-screen damage to find someone who did worse, then use that as "proof" that you don't need expertise. 3) Compare tactical errors to gear/expertise (which have nothing to do with each other) to further bolster your "proof" 4) Ruin more warzones for the real PVP'ers Yes, there are people in expertise gear that play worse than you - but you still die in 10 seconds, over and over. Trust me, you ain't "carrying" nothing and nobody, don't delude yourself. So, unless you are on the other team, get the hell outta of my warzones!

The generally accepted map convention is that UP is NORTH. The problem are the Voidstar doors: When attacking, the map convention is honored - north is up, east is right, west is left. But when defending, the map's UP side is SOUTH, and that's what confuses people. Bioware could easily solve this by giving names to the doors - i.e. Port/Starboard - or by simply having a little compass app on the top of your screen (many MMO's have that for years).

I stopped voting a long time ago. All the post-screen numbers can be easily manipulated, so who knows if that healer was really healing the team or just spamming consumption at a node?

While the Medic armor set is clearly for Operative healers, the Enforcer and Tech set are viable for either agent spec, if they are dps. In PVP burst damage > sustained damage, that's why MM snipers are better suited for PVP. I use the Tech armor set, because of the bonus: The extra Orbital Strike and the 5m increase on Takedown make it the most useful set for PVP.

As much as I understand that the server merges were necessary, they have not been very good for me. I came to Drooga's from Darth Sion, which was actually a not-so-dead server. But first the good things: 1. Warzone queues are moving fast - no more than 15 minute waits, even at 4 am in the morning. 2. It's easier to find people for heroic dailies and Torvix weekly 3. Open-world pvp exists again (sort of - some of it comes via AOE exploits of course) Now the bad things: 1. Random disconnects to server screen (Error 9000 and despite their best efforts, Bioware has no clue what causes it) 2. Lag spikes in warzones and ops 3. Fierce competition for dailies (kill and objective stealing are now standard procedure) 4. Groupfinder is horrible - I had one good experience and a string of bad ones, so I'm not using it anymore. (afkers, underequipped people that want to be carried, trolls, quitters, loot-wh*res etc.) 5. Quality of warzones has gone downhill (on Darth Sion, the same 30-40 pvp players were in the warzones everyday, but on Drooga's, warzones are now filled with undergeared PVE'ers farming the WH relic). 6. Due to mega-server anonymity, the exploiters have multiplied too. 7. General chat is now so appalling, I've turned it off completely. (either political rants or homophobic/sexist/racist name calling - I used to have many friends and only 1 ignore but now I have few friends and 26 ignores). So yes, the community after the merges has become much worse, but unfortunately that was to be expected.

And how would a Solo Ranked Queue improve PVP? As you predict correctly, normal wzs would probably die out. All the idiot PVE'ers would come to ranked instead, since it would enable them to farm the WH relic faster. I'm sure that would raise the quality of the rated warzones a lot - Mission accomplished? In response to the OP: Currently, my problem with RWZs is that I'm unwilling to enter as a pug or part of a pug team, yet my guild is too small to support a ranked team. In my opinion, pugs should be the exception, not the rule, in competitive PVP. So I can either stay in the guild I like or go guild hopping in the hopes of finding a ranked team - considering what RWZ's currently have to offer, it's an easy choice for me to stay with my guild.