Sorry, you are wrong. There have been 4 types of players since the beginning of the genre and they are all considered to be important to the survival of a game. Achievers, explorers, socializers and killers. Though this 10 type list is pretty accurate MMOs have always been a great space to hang around and relax. That's what towns were for back in the day before voice chat. 7.0 gearing rewards achievers at the expense of the others. You don't seem to realize that it isn't unheard of in MMOs for the best gear to be craftable and thus making it accessible to all players? Locking bis gear behind the hardest raids is not set in stone as an immutable MMO law or anything. You just like it because you like to pretend people are impressed when they see you wear it.

There wasn't nearly the flap over 6.0 as 7.0 and it was only over pure RNG gearing. Bioware made major adjustments to mitigate the RNG because even after launch players were unhappy. It wasn't until AFTER Bioware made changes in the system that people came to like it.

While the iLevel for solo players will be higher, the stats will be much worse, so in any content that is downleveled a solo player will be better off with 306 gear than the best they can get from 7.0.

I can get behind improving resolution, and hair certainly needs a lot of work, but I get worried when people bring up the new skin textures. I hate them! They are all so ugly! I don't want to see pores and black heads. Really, I don't! I'm not too sure they can actually improve on our hair though. Have you seen Arn's hair? It's laughably bad. I think it is safest for Bioware to work on planet assets first. Fewer people to piss off if they screw up, and they have a long history of screwing up.

I do hope your design team understands that their static vision of those companions makes them significantly less desirable to the player base. Personally, I think it's a very poor trade off. But since we are being deliberately ham-strung on personalizing so many of the newer companions, could you at least have them fix Vector, Scourge and the Gamorean guard? I'm sure they are all tired of wearing bras and silver unitards. That's why, as a solo player, I'm not going to bother with GS2. If you ever figure out how to equitably balance objectives and their rewards, then I'll participate. The system, as is, makes me feel like a second class citizen.

Thank you!

Two questions. 1. Will those be new schematics, or the current ones? I think I still need some of the current ones and I'll be sad if I can't get them anymore due to a bug. 2. Is there any hope Kai's unidentified crate will have some sort of RNG protection? If not, the odds of finishing any sets will be astronomically low. I had really hooped they would continue to drop for lvls 75-79

One of the earlier posts about all of the changes said they plan on having a new way to earn DvL tokens in the future, but they haven't decided how yet. If they don't even have a plan yet, don't expect it any time soon. I just hope there is a solo path since 7.0 is really short on solo rewards.

The stumbling block is the contracts Bioware signed with the other companies that paid to have exclusive distribution of these pets. If there was no expiration date, Bioware would have to make a new deal with those companies to get rights to distribute them. I'm sure they are not willing to pay money back to those companies just so they can give them out for free.

I was responding to the necromancer, not the 10 year old thread.

It all boils down to personal taste. I enjoyed the sequels far more than FE/ET. FE/ET really didn't have anything fresh and new in it. If I'm going to have a rehash of tired clichés, I'd rather have those clichés at least feel universe appropriate. And I think there is a vast difference between small sentient droids like R2-D2 and Kaiju monstrosities.

For me, giant robots don't feel like Star Wars. People piling into each others' heads doesn't feel like Star Wars. It's not the Empire vs. Republic plots that are the problem, it's all of the rest that just feels like generic science fantasy that was problematic. There is nothing contradictory about wanting the movies, or this game, to feel like Star Wars while still being original and avoiding over-used tropes. A lot of SWtOR players felt that movie 9 borrowed heavily from FE/ET, and those elements, such as the return of Palpatine were pretty well panned by fans. So it wasn't just the rehashing of Imp. vs. Pub that was disliked.

Bit of an exaggeration. I've accidentally not had companions in story content and lower level heroics and barely noticed they weren't there.

The ones on my list are: Default Vector & Scourge, & the Gamorean Guard wearing unitards and bras. Companion armor showing the wrong faction in cutscenes. Companion armor not color matching in cutscenes. Some armor sets showing black bits instead of skin in cutscenes. Master Ranos showing her default armor under the armor you put her in. (Hopefully her GS2 skin won't do this too.)

If this were the case, they should have spent time upgrading low level gear textures, but unless they are hiding it, they haven't. The low level experience as played on the PTS is boring compared to live, and most of the new features are confusing and lack tutorials (the ones that are at least sort of working). They also made it HARDER for new players to get into group content, which seems very counterproductive. I fail to see how any of the changes are going to make the leveling experience more engaging to new players once they get past character creation.

I feel you on a lot of those points! I'm pretty sure there is a GSF tutorial though, but it's inadequate. Maybe it's too hard to find? As for why to subscribe? That depends on what you like to do. I'm an alcoholic, so I subscribe to have access to all of my characters. I also subscribe to have access to all of my credits. With hyperinflation, there isn't much on the GTN that is affordable to non-subs. Raiders need to subscribe to access operations. I thought there was talk about bringing back passes, but so far nothing has come of it. Galactic Seasons has a subscriber track with some decent rewards and next month subscribers will get access to lvl 80 and the new story.

Yes, however, they seem to take more vacation at this time of year than just about anyone.

A couple of little things: Solo and casual are not synonymous. Some solo players are anything but casual, and they are the ones being hurt the most by this change. They absolutely do need the best gear for the short-manning they do. Reports from the PTS, Eternal Championship is not tuned for 318-322 gear, I don't think MM chapters are either. Many, many casual players are also pvpers and raiders, just not NiM raiders. Pvpers are getting hosed by this change too since they can't optimize their gear like NiM raiders will be able to. Balancing for raids has been hit or miss, at this time, some bosses are significantly harder than they are on live, others easier, so as things stand non-NiM raiders will really struggle with older content in places. The daily area doesn't release until 7.1. So the only playable content is going to be a short story and one story flashpoint. (Story flashpoints are jacks-of-all-trades. They don't satisfy any player base, but allow Bioware to check multiple boxes.) Need is very subjective, since even good NiM raiders can clear their content in less than optimal gear. Better gear makes ALL content easier and faster for everyone. Who doesn't want the 1000th run of an heroic to be faster? If all players can't get BiS, then all content should stat cap to whatever type of gear that content rewards, so no player type has an advantage over others. (i.e. a NiM raider wearing fully optimized BiS gear should have identical stats to a solo player in 322 in all solo contents.)

I'm pretty sure every story important fight is instanced.

*hugs* I know this wasn't the design you wanted. This is the least flexible, least elegant way they could have added a weapons designer. Bioware has a talent for taking a feature that players want and twisting it around into something lesser.

You are confused. 6.0 was billed as, "play what you want". 7.0 has no slogan, but if it did it would be, "play a narrow selection of predetermined activities".

Way back in the day I would sit and farm mobs for hours. Mob drops in the higher level dungeons had vast loot pools and could drop bis gear. Trash loot could be crunched down for the mats used to further upgrade looted gear. It was fun looting a big pile of bodies and seeing what you got. Yet mob loot has gotten worse and worse in SWtOR and from what I hear will be non-existent for lvl 80s. (I have to verify that on the PTS tonight.) 7.0 feels like they have taken everything I enjoy in MMOs and corrupted or removed them. (The paltry deco drops in the newest flashpoints are a great example of moving in the opposite direction of what is fun.)

That was total revenue a couple of years ago, not profit. Given how expensive the game was to produce and the ongoing costs to develop and maintain the game, I doubt the yearly profit was terribly exciting to EA.

Am I misremembering? I thought we were told at one point that we would get some GS2 progress from daily log in.

Try watching the movies with an eye to the details. Tons of glam and pretty in Star Wars.