Aren't the servers now owned and operated by a third party. I thought that was the whole point of "cloud" servers.

I do agree it could make things more difficult, but in a good way. Right now, making a flashpoint "more difficult" pretty much means tons of hp for the boss which makes it a real slog for weaker DPS groups/solo (without really adding any challenge at all to high level BIS geared groups - they just power through the extra health without changing their tactics). Changing the AI could offset the slog with more tactics and responding to what the boss is doing rather than just a heads down button mash. Adding more variety to fights would make things more enjoyable for most players (there will always be a few that hate change and hate unpredictabilty - unfortunately, they are usually the loudest voices on the game forums).

Just played on Star Forge and everything was normal for me. Lag under 50 ms.

Agreed Planned shortcuts are one thing but terrain "exploits" are another. Hammer Station already has a planned shortcut if you have the right crew skill, doesn't it? I find it very difficult to believe the "jumping" shortcut was planned. With Hammer Station, the turrets always seemed like they were in the wrong place anyway, like the devs entered the wrong x,y position for them. Having them on each side of the bridge would have made more sense.

Since it is clear there are not enough resources to add any substantial new content to the game how about re-vamping the existing content to make it less predictable. You could start with something small such as a single flashpoint. Since both solo and group players play flashpoints to some degree, both types of play would benefit. A few "simple" ideas: 1) Add some randomness to the "trash" mobs both in size and identity. Have 2 or 3 possible types of npc/creature that are determined randomly when the flashpoint starts at each of the spawn points for the mobs (maybe different mixes of ranged/melee/healer types) 2) Give the "bosses" better AI so that they respond to what the players are doing. If there is a lot of healing going on, they redirect their attacks to the healers breaking the tank's hold on them regardless of how good the tanks are and it is up to the tanks/DPS to pull those attacks back off the healers (which for good tanks and DPS should be fairly easy to do quickly but requires the players to respond rather than just being heads down pushing keys). For high levels of healing, the boss could also throw out a healing debuff or damage booster. If there is a lot of ranged DPS, maybe they deploy a shield that reduces damage from ranged attacks, if its melee damage, they use a knockback effect. Basically have them respond to the way the players are attacking them. Maybe even give them minor adds that are designed to go after players using structures to hide behind (maybe something with a pull type attack). 3) Change the loot tables to reward loot that is relevant to the level of the participants. High level characters get tech frags/tokens, low level characters get appropriate gear when grouped together. 4) Add back the flashpoint specific gear sets from the older versions (Sentinel's Foundry Coat, Marauder's Maelstrom Pants, etc) to create an incentive for people to run the flashpoints at levels other than max level. "Back in the day", lots of people ran flashpoints specifically to get those pieces of gear. 5) Adjust health and damage done by the bosses based on the health and damage potential the players start the fight with. A bunch of high level BIS equipped characters would face higher damage output and boss heath than players running it at the "correct" level. This also potentially reduces the "slog" effect many of the later flashpoints have for smaller groups/solo Using a flashpoint for this experiment is better than using other content because if you break one flashpoint doing it, only that flashpoint is out of play. If you use operations, you risk taking one of very few of them out. If you do it with other missions you potentially could block character progression. Heroics would be a viable place to go as well but very few players do heroics in groups anymore even though it is much more profitable to do so. Any other ideas on how to change the existing content to make it more interesting for everyone?

That's exactly what it is. They don't want people to have lots of these "legacy" currencies as a way to "level the playing field" for newer players (which they value much more than long term subscribers because the long term subscribers don't spend money on the Cartel Market since they already have stuff just like what is on the cartel market - with almost all of it being reskins of older items). The tokens you get from the GS levels aren't worth spending your tokens on junk you already probably have (there's too few of them available in the GS level tracks). Tying them to other rewards that you can't claim is intentional - to "increase the incentive" to spend down the tokens to get the other item. The devs never make changes like this without thinking through the "consequences". All of it has a reason (sometimes with bad intentions, sometimes not). I expect that if this tactic doesn't draw out enough of the surplus tokens, they will just announce that the tokens are going to be retired (and a few month later introduce new tokens to replace them)

It's hard to say it's a dissapopintment after last season which from my persepctive was the low point in the series (no story, no companion, and a stronghold you unlock once per server so no real "replayability"). All in all, last season was just do Conquest and earn these extra "rewards", nothing new or different (in fact the first "mission" was run these old, long flashpoints because no one runs them otherwise). I do have to say that a one time use "bubbles" item is a bit cheap for a Seasons level reward. Nothing really worth making an effort for (since I'm not an achievement chaser anyway). This might be the first season where I don't even complete the 100 levels, no real incentive to go after any of the rewards there and Conquest burnout is a real issue (no need for the gear, mats, fragments, or credits at this point). I'm happy for the people who are "bounty hunters" that they have something to head canon but there are a lot of people getting basically nothing out of participating in the "event" which I think will show up in the "final numbers" for the season.

Logged into SV a few minutes ago without issue. Seems to be running fine now.

Same here. From the US Midwest, my connection to Shae Vizla is better than to any of the European servers.

In a 12 year old game we have too many of everything except playable content. If it's no more companions, it should be no more strongholds, no more mounts, no more pets, no more gear and weapon sets based on lackluster streaming series, etc. Take the time and money saved there to add playable content to the game.

While 7.0 didn't start the decline it was very likely the biggest disappointment of all the expansions. It was billed as the 10th Anniversary Celebration and fell flat. It was delayed from its original launch because the Playtest version was so full of bugs it was borderline unplayable. When it did launch, a lot of the problems were still there from the PTS. For a 10th anniversary, one would have expected more than an hour or two of story that was the same for every class, a broken required flashpoint, and lots of changes that really didn't improve the game (not to mention some of the crippling bugs that were pointed out in the PTS version and more or less ignored by the Devs). Let's be frank, UI changes is not a celebration of 10 years of SWTOR and that was a big part of what the development effort went into. Those kinds of changes are ones that should be spread across all the .X releases, not the "flagship" release. 7.0 wasn't the start of the downfall, but may end up being the nail in the coffin. It managed to upset just about the entire playerbase.

The character select screen would be a good place. It already has your subscriber status

The last two GS have been an example of what "story" is without companions. Totally lackluster and uninspiring. There is nothing to connect the player to the GS story (it's just another grind now just like Conquest - starting the GS "story" with "grind these three old and very long flashpoints" really made the whole thing uninteresting). Add a new companion, just don't make it required (even if it is only purchasable with GS tokens during the season) with a some add in interactions with the PC. Then the anti-companion crowd can skip it and those that like to have a variety of companions to choose from, can have them as well. Having companions increases the probability someone will play through the GS story multiple times rather than spending CCs to buy an unlock.

Battle of Rishi today, same problem

They have been extremely rare drops for a while now. I've only gotten them from mission mobs (planetary random mobs too) but very very rarely, never out of any lockboxes (at least for as long as I can remember).