Great post OP. Constructive and right on the money. I like a lot of this game back lack of feedback on critical and balance issues is a problem. I know they can't fix everything at once and changing community perception regarding 'cooler faction' is a long process. However, not giving any kind of acknowledgement of the issues leads to an impression that: 1) They don't care 2) Mirror class imbalance and bugs are intentional or are not seen as an issue (cause the further impression that Dev's don't play or care about the negatively impacted faction) 3) Faction imbalance is intentional (unlikely due to assumption of some degree of professional) Either way, community consultation or at least communicating with the community on topics that are repeatedly posted about it necessary. If there is a project manager worth his salt in charge of this he/she have a communication plan that includes responses/concerns raised by key stakeholders (in this case the forum community).

Your missing the point. The BH versions of these skills don't suffer the same delays in activation or drawbacks for taking damage. We are not saying that the skills in and of themselves are bad only that the trooper version of them suffers problems the BH mirror skill does not and that is the problem.

I prefer the feel of the Republic overall despite to obvious need to make it seem less 'good' by adding endless corrupt bureaucracy type storylines (seriously too many of the same themed quests). Sadly game balance wise it is clear that they didn't get the same attention the Imperials did. More class abilities bugged, delays on abilities and generally seemingly less effort put into story, dialogue and gear design. The glaring imbalances and lack of testing for Republic abilities shows a clear lack of interest on behalf of the class balance team. How do bugs like inconsistent cooldowns between mirror classes on each faction go live? Its nice that damage matches animations but why do several abilities on the Republic side suffer from inequality due to this? This makes a huge difference in pvp. Sadly, and much more depressingly, why have Bioware remained quiet on these issues, especially those of ability balance due to animations?

Amen! Whole heartedly agree and had a very similar experience.

Point is he didn't need recount and all the potential abuse that inevitably comes with them. Even if only 30% of people use them to exclude others it hurts the entire community. I have seen it in even MMO that has put meters in. As soon as they are in the community becomes obsessed with numbers rather than fun and immersion. SW:TOR has tried really hard to be an immersion MMO, not one that is based satisfying the ego of people that lack real world sense of worth or achievement in life. Seriously, how will Recount improve the immersion factor? I have no issue with some kind of self only meter to test self effectiveness but then, why am I playing an RPG and not a score point game? What matter is you had fun with a group, you like the people you play with rather than put up with them because they do good dps. I think if they do go so far as to implement this they should at least have the option of servers without Recount or LFG tools for that matter.

Agreed. Community interaction, even if it is just 'we are looking into this matter' on big issues help keep communities interested, particularly with how negative game forums are a general rule. Mirror classes should be mirrored.. you know the damage delay due animations on some republic abilities need to be evened out. Make the Imp ones delay or put the damage upfront and ignore the animations. Faction balance is important and contrary to many posters quoting articles about random distribution, faction imbalance snowballs as it is not random. People make decisions based on flavour, impressions and wanting to have at least a fair chance at objectives. Not able to find groups for FPs, not standing a chance in world PvP zones or objectives and missing out on getting stuff is not fun and will drive more people to the favoured faction increasing the snowball effect.

Add 10% bonus to drops, crew mission results and increased loot or w/e from OPs/FPs and you might start a huge shift over. Would only need to do it for a few months till the factions get closer to being balanced. That and fix the delay in damage from Republic abilities compared to Sith ones. The Consular abilities feel sluggish.

Hate to tell you this but it doesn't 'even' out until mass exodus starts. Prime example was the Oceanic Server Thaurissan on WoW. Even with free transfers for alliance to a pvp server from pve servers (something that was up to that point not allowed in wow) still didn't fix the more than 5:1 population ratio problem. Faction imbalance on servers ends up snowballing to one side at a certain point, particularly on pvp servers. This will hurt pvers eventually too, it takes a little longer than for pvpers but in the end it does. How did Blizz fix server imbalance? The merged servers. This takes time and resources away from bug fixes and new content etc. End of the day queue times won't hurt you or your playing that much but uneven faction populations will hurt the game and that will eventually hurt you and your friend. Be part of the solution rather than part of the problem rather than whinging about a 5 minute wait to get into the game. 5 minute wait is better than playing for hours in a dead faction. Think about the whole population, not just whether you will be inconvenienced by a short queue before you type.