The throw away the item was for those that didn't want them on their ship or in their comp list (since you only need the comp on one character for your legacy, destroying all subsequent tokens you get keeps them off your ship and out of your comp list - and doesn't take up cargo space). They only needed to be unlocked on one character in your legacy ever in order to turn in rep items or access the Reputation bonus. Having a companion unlocked on one character is pretty insignificant if you hate them but being able to have them is pretty significant to those who do want them. It was a simple solution (a workaround if you like - and we have plenty of those already in the game). If they unlinked the reputation from the comp, there really shouldn't be any arguments about having comps in every GS. People who want them can have them and those that don't can tuck them away on an unused character or destroy their tokens outright. The reason for no comp in GS 5 is not likely due to complaints but rather running out of time on the dev side. The transition from Bioware to Broadsword obviously took up more resources than they expected, so cutting the companion was an easy place to go. With the transition complete, those resources should be freed up again.

Also not a good reason not to have a companion

Agree as well, but this is not an argument not to have a companion.

The only thing the reputation track gets you is conquest points and there are plenty of other ways to get those so you don't need to do reputation on any characters at all. There are more than enough objectives in the season to reach 100 objectives for the title without using any of the companion (or reputation) related ones. Reputation is legacy wide, so unlocking it on a single character unlocks it everywhere so you could even put the companion on a throw away character and still benefit from the reputation CQ boost and progress the reputation track.

Every one of them boils down to the same thing. They don't want the companion in their "list" of companions. The problem with that argument is that you never had to accept any of them (GS companions which is what we are talking about anyway). They were all summoned by an item you got for the first level of GS. Had you thrown it away instead of activating it, you wouldn't have the companion on your ship, or in your list. And before you go on about "what about the associated story", if you weren't interested in the companion in the first place why would you care about the tiny amount of story associated with them.

Companions are cool and people love them. One thing new companions add to the game is variety. There has been so little content released over the last several years that people who are still around are reduced to running the class stories over and over in lieu of any new content (and thus have dozens of characters they can use new companions with). I find it refreshing to be able to use something other than the stock companions on story repeats. It adds a tiny bit of freshness to the game even though all companion perform basically the same way. It's very much the same as a reskinned mount, or reskinned armor set, or reskinned weapon. The best way to implement companions going forward is to have them be summonable from an object in the GS rewards track (perhaps an additional "reward" on the FTP track) or mailed to the character at the start of the season (just like the hundreds of pets we get). That way those that don't want them can toss the summoning device (although I am sure there will be some of those people complaining later they can't get the companion, just like they did when the begged Bioware to let them kill certain companions) and those that do want them can use it.

Because lots of things are way overpriced on the GTN and the people buying up everyone else's stuff and relisting are gouging. Undercutting by 1 credit is a d*** move. At least have the courage to undercut by as much as you can afford, otherwise you are just feeding the problem.

The biggest problem with the comps has been generally lackluster story associated with them. You don't "bond" with them over a series of adventures but just drag them out for the GS points. GS 5 was by far the worst implementation so far for GS with no companion, a totally minimalist story (which to add insult to injury, they originally wanted to charge GS tokens for - presumably because not enough people are buying the junk they put on the vendors and so are full up on GS tokens), and in the end there will be nothing to "remember" the season from (reskinned weapons and armor, no companion, achievements will be blanked and no meaning to the reputation gained). They wasted what could have been a very good story arc with a gimmick mission, a gathering mission, a pointless combat mission, and a very unsatisfying ending. So much more could have been made of the concept behind it, but instead they threw it all away.

This is really the only problem with the changes. What should be done is all items from the same seller should be grouped by their price so that only 1 line shows up for that seller/price combination (or maybe just one entry for each seller of the item - that being their lowest cost one). What is a "reasonable" price for a crafted item (and we are really only talking about crafted items here since the CM items are in such low supply that the fee compared to the price is meaningless) varies a lot from person to person. If I have a massive supply of mats collected over many years of playing all aspects of the game normally (as opposed to dedicated farming or buying the mats) my "reasonable price" is going to be much lower than for the person who only plays GSF, for example, and had to buy all the mats to make the things they want to sell. The non-refundable fee is fine (and is generally insignificant compared to the selling price of the item), and is where it should have been in the first place to discourage people from listing dozens of non-stackable items to "flood" the market to push people off the first page of the item listing (undercutting by 1 credit for example). The only other concern, though only a small concern, I have is about the buyer fee. They should just increase the maximum "tax" on the seller side to increase the removal of credits rather than have a system where it's not clear to the buyer or the seller what the "real" price of the item is.

Crit is hard capped so no matter what your gear rating, you cannot increase damage by using crit (unless you are below the threshold which is unlikely since it is very low). The other abilities are soft capped so increasing them can have a small effect (though the reduction in those abilities is greatest on low level planets - up to 99% reduction).

The re-playability of the vanilla content (basically through KotET). It's extensive enough that you can play through it every few months and it still feels "fresh". Since 5.0, there has been so little content and it has been so heavily focused on flashpoints (or extremely linear and generic mission paths), that it loses the feel of re-playability. I've played through to the end of KotET dozens of times but beyond that only a couple of times. I also tend to wait to play any of the "new" content until there is enough of it that it takes more than 1 short sitting to complete it (only up to date on 1 character and probably won't take another character to the end for quite a while as it really isn't worth it right now).

The problem was that while it was a good idea for a storyline and had a lot of potential, it was wasted in the format it was presented. It could easily have been a 10 or 12 mission arc. Instead it was a gimmick mission, a gathering mission, one moderate fight, and then an anti-climactic ending. I think it would have been much better as an actual story expansion where you bring back Leeha Narez and her Meedies and explore the idea of droids being able to use the force.

Likely the reason for not re-using existing companions was that there were a lot of people that wanted to kill X companion, skipped content that provided companions, or even just hate some of the companions. By creating new ones, Bioware avoided all the complaints from those folks that they couldn't complete GS because they didn't have the required companion. That said, they should be able to find some way to include existing companions in GS or at least make any new companion interesting in some way so that people would use them for something other than farming crafting mats. As far as less participation goes, I can confirm that at least in my case. With GS1 and GS2 I completed them on multiple servers. By GS3 and GS4 I was down to doing them on only 2 servers. This time around, I'm only doing them on 1 server. A big reduction in play time. The rewards just aren't that enticing anymore. I have all the credits and cartel coins I'll ever need and the GS rewards themselves are underwhelming (how many new sets of armor and weapons do I need especially when almost all of them are reskins of old armors/weapons I already have)

GS5 certainly wasn't better than previous seasons. It was just the same but no companion when you were done. A very short side story which in this case ended in a very underwhelming manner.

Back when progressing the storyline was more than a couple of cut-scenes in a flashpoint (whether you call it that or not), they could have done something as simple as having one of the "combats/interactions" be slightly different for a specific base class. No need to have the entire series be different, but just a little "personalization" here or there would have gone a long way. Now, with so little "story content", it would be hard to find a place where you could do something like that without effectively duplicating the entire thing. Focusing on group content has led to an increasingly generalized storyline since the released content has to work for all classes (not that as little content as is released now would make a difference with a different focus).

Or read the Heir to the Empire trilogy by Timothy Zahn

That happened with the European servers as well. The lag spikes did settle down eventually but I did end up with a significantly worse ping even though the route seems to be the same. In addition, I also see worse ping during European off-hours than during "prime-time". It has been consistently that way since the lag spikes settled down. It seems to be some sort of "burn-in" with the new servers.

This was how it was supposed to work. You are supposed to be able to move things within your legacy without incurring the tax. Anyone outside your legacy incurs the tax (with the exception of guild-mates after 30 days).

Yes, it is a little buggy at times on both Star Forge and Satele Shan. Like DM, it will probably take a few days to work itself out and then it should be more or less back to normal.

Only one stat is hard capped (critical) which means no matter how much crit you pile on, you will never increase it above the level designated for the planet you are on. The other stats are soft capped but the reduction in performance is massive (as much as 95% depending on how far above planetary level you are). It's not really worth putting much effort into gearing up while leveling as you will gain very little from it. Just equip the story provided gear and any planetary drops you get as they show as better (a green upward pointing arrow if I recall) and you'll not struggle much with any of the content up to KotFE and KotET where level sync is a bit broken (you'll need to over-level and over-gear the content compared to what was expected gear levels when it launched)

Well, the previous update broke quick travel and travel to stronghold in a lot of areas. Perhaps the UI update was the only way they could fix the problem with those bugs (by totally going around the previous interface) and still keep the QT/Stronghold travel costs. They also made the cost of traveling different for different level characters which would have required an update anyway (and perhaps wasn't compatible with the previous interface as well)

They do still drop. You have to be using Amity as your companion. I had two drop earlier today when playing. The drop rate is low though.

same number of hops before and after for me. The issue seems to be once the signal reaches Ireland (it's rock solid 100 ms up to that point). It may be related to the logging issue that they are going to monitor. Perhaps the connection to the AWS server is unstable.

I would agree, though there should be very little difference between my current connection to Ireland before an after the move. It's unlikely that somehow the connection from the US to Ireland got worse just by moving the physical location of the servers (no real reason most of the backplane would change). Some people are going to see a worse connection and some will see little change. It's also likely that as server population drops, the provider diverts resources to other areas so after thinking about it, it's probably expected to see a performance drop off as the servers depopulate.

I'm seeing this too from the US. The median ping is only slightly higher (5-10%) but the range is much wider. Prior to the switch I was seeing 150-175 pretty solid. After, it ranges from about 175-275 (stuttering starts around 225 or so for me). What is strangest about it is that it is the worst when the server is least populated. Playing very late night EU time (2-3 am) it is much more variable than when I play in more or less EU primetime. As far as variability between the three servers, they are all performing about the same.