More broken slicing nodes on Nar Shadda. Scattered all over. Server is Satele Shan. Of 8 slicing nodes found, 5 were broken

This is the key. If months go by with no other adjustments made to attack the existing credit supply, the only effect of these changes will be a further drop in game population. There are too many fixes still listed as being "addressed in a future update" (that have been there for years). Hopefully, attacking the real problem of too many credits in the game (as opposed to the influx which has decreased over the last year or so as people have quit playing the game) will not be one of those.

Just tested it and actually it looks like none of the crystals work in synced content now Voss (65 crit with Evisceration, and 65 crit with Hawkeye) Nar Shadaa Stronghold (1260 crit with Eviscerating and 1219 crit with Hawkeye) Voss (329 Power with Hawkeye and 329 Power with Eviscerating) Nar Shadaa Stronghold (8351 Power with Hawkeye and 8310 Power with Eviscerating) I am aware there was a display bug at one time that caused switching crystals to not show up in the stats when you changed the crystal unless you unequipped and re-equipped the weapon (which I did after each change tested). Interestingly, when the weapon is not equipped, it shows the full (max level) stats even on synced planets (I suppose this is so the "upgrade" detection works correctly).

I'm currently on Star Forge running missions, It must be the login server

Eviscerating crystals are all but useless now (as they grant critical). In any synced content, critical is hard capped at a level that you get to just from the gear you acquire while leveling (all other abilities have a soft cap). The only place they still count is level 80 PVE content, and there the +41 crit is a drop in the bucket. You're better off using one of the other types for the color because at least then, they do contribute something outside of level 80 content.

When you use the Jedi Guardian ability Leaping Strike, your character is rubber banded back to the enemy just killed with that attack when the GCD completes nullifying any movement you took. 1) make Leaping Strike attack that kills opponent 2) start moving to the next opponent 3) The GCD completes and you are rubber banded back to the opponent you just killed

The very first thing players who get punished by Bioware do is go to Reddit or Discord and proclaim their innocence and tell everyone how unfair it was that they were singled out for punishment for something "everyone" does. People confess to all sorts of things on Discord and are especially proud if they get away with it. If Bioware wanted to nail a lot of the hackers and cheaters, a couple of nights on the right Discord channel would give them plenty to punish. There is no ban on naming and shaming there.

Mail is tracked and unusual GTN purchases can also be detected in the game logs. Bioware has the tools they need, they just need to prioritize it (which costs money so it takes commitment). It's easy just to slap credit sinks on the average player (which will do nothing to combat inflation unless they are very large and that will make people stop playing) and ignore the real problem. You can't just go after the credit sellers though, that's like whack-a-mole. You need to take down the buyers as well (make it a bigger risk to buy credits).

I ended up completely deleting the retail and PTS (the whole SWTOR folder) and "bleaching" it's location with a "complete removal" application from McAfee. Both compatibility mode check boxes were unchecked before I did this and was still getting the blank server screen (re-installing just the PTS didn't fix it either). A complete re-download of the game isn't ideal, but since I have really fast internet it seemed worth a try after I had exhausted everything else I could think of (antivirus, firewall, IP traceback, etc). I'm suspecting something about the two launchers conflicted (possibly from the launcher upgrade a while back) and the re-install cleared it up.

Both are true. Repair costs come from durability loss.

According to what Bioware posted, deaths are supposed to cost less on the PTS than on live. If it's not working that way, there is a bug on the PTS. For whatever reason, they decided it should cost you more if you barely survive a fight than if it kills you. Durability of equipment should now be lost at a LOWER rate on death, but a slightly HIGHER rate in normal gameplay.

The problem with just an increase is there is no real incentive to use the GTN for big sales/purchases. There is already a thriving market of off GTN sales where no credits at all are removed from the game ("tax evasion"). An increase in the GTN limit would have to be combined with something that forces trades back onto the GTN for it to be an effective sink.

credits from random drops. Killing a mob with a level 80 character drops 250 credits while killing the same mob with a level 20 drops 40 credits (~6 times as much). A piece of gear that drops for a level 20 sells for 70 credits while one for a level 80 sells for 3000 (~40 times as much if you don't disassemble it for the more valuable sub-components). This was a huge boost in credit inflow in the game. Reverting to the original planet level rewards would cut credit inflow by a ton. Much more so than any of the other reward reductions Bioware has done over the years. It addresses credit flux. The only thing that is going to affect Billionares is forcing them to trade on the GTN and taxing those sales (the travel costs are little more than a pin prick to those players - if even that - but are punative to low level and casual players)

Another, and better way, to control influx of credits into the game (though it would be very unpopular among players that run lots of high level alts through content) is to go back to drops on planets being consistent with the planet level instead of the character level. When the character level based rewards were implemented, it infused tons of credits into the system with high level characters farming low level content and still getting rewards in line with higher level, more "difficult", content. A lvl 80 character farming mobs on Coruscant shouldn't be getting level 80 rewards. The original reason for this was to "fill out" population on planets by getting high level characters to go back there (and get people to replay old content since there was no new content). Now that there are gearing rewards, conquest rewards, and Galactic Season rewards for doing this, I don't think the high level rewards on low level planets is needed any more. One of the arguments made was that high level characters got nothing from helping out their low level friends under the old system of planet based rewards, but there are a lot more rewards now for doing the content on those lower level planets over (or helping out if you want to go that route). As I said this would be very unpopular with players with lots of high level alts, but it would have a much bigger impact in cutting credit influx into the game than hitting casual players and new players with high travel costs.

Tython: Kalikori Village Part I Met with the council and got mission to go to Kalikori village. I usually walk there so did that again for this test. Picked up all the missions there (missing father, elixers, and find weapons) then headed out. Finished at the point where you first meet T7. QT to the temple cantina and Kalikori village was about the same (200 credits) while travel to the Temple speeder pad was twice that (390 credits) which seems odd, obviously it is physical distance determining the cost and not "flight path". Since any of those were at least a third of all the credits I had (591 credits) at that point, hoofed it back to Kalikori Village (had to fight everything in the Flesh Raider caves again because they all respawned - more gear damage). Repairs were 45 credits and after turning in the three missions there I was up to 1103 credits. Still too expensive to QT to the temple to pick up the next set of missions on the way to the Elarin Trail speeder. Took the speeder instead. picked up the romancing padawans and Fia missions then headed out for Elarin Trail Speeder post. After fighting the force using flesh raider, picked up the last mission in the area (flesh raider baby). After completing all the missions, turn ins were in three different locations. On live I would have quick traveled to all of these but that would have cost about 800 credits (I only had 1100 at that point). So, hoofed it to Elarin Trail to turn in the droid brain mission, took the speeder to the Jedi Temple for the flesh raider baby and romantic padawan missions and then the speeder again to Kalikori Village to speak to Orgus. All of the quick travel options were 10% or more of the total credits I had so I didn't use quick travel. Repairs were 60 credits and I ended this section with a "bank" of 2054 credits One other thing that I ran into as an issue on the PTS that I don't have on the live servers was inventory management. You don't have enough credits to expand your inventory (costs 5000 credits) so it fills up pretty fast and with no companion to sell "grey" items, I ended up leaving some things behind because my inventory was full and the cost of the QT would have far exceeded the value of what was sold. Walking back to a vendor to empty the inventory added a lot of time to this section of play. On live I simply would have quick traveled to the nearest vendor, emptied my inventory and then went back. That was too costly an option on the PTS. I'd estimate that the high QT costs increased the time to play this section 3-4 times. I'm still at a point where QT anywhere is at least 10% of the total credits I have (so not using it). Another note is that I am using my knowledge of the game (from playing it for 10 years) to minimize the back and forth, something new player wouldn't do which would increase their repair and travel costs above those I have mentioned above. Also of note, a lot of your "income" comes from "exploration" missions, so skipping those will leave you with a lot smaller credit total.

Honestly, with the prices where they are now on the PTS, most people are just going to stop using Quick Travel, which I think is what Bioware really wants (slower progress through the game). There is no way quick travel should cost significantly more than a speeder. The benefit just isn't worth the cost and that will severely limit the effectiveness of the "travel tax" since it is an avoidable tax.

OK, Going through this step by step: Started a new Jedi Knight. Only travel location reachable (due to 0 credits) is Gnarls Completed the Kill the Flesh Raiders and Lost Padawan Quests and had to hoof it all the way back to the turn in point because QT cost 400 credits and I only had 51 credits. Had several unavoidable additional fights on the way back taking more damage. Repair cost was 10 credits and my "bank" was 129 after turning in the mission and selling stuff out of my inventory to clear space. Can't afford to expand my inventory yet as that costs 5000 credits. Went to the Gnarls Cavern to seal the passage. Killed the fallen Jedi and had to hoof it back to the Gnarls base again (only way t get to the Jedi Temple from the Gnarls Cavern). QT cost was 622 credits and I only had 217. Ran into a couple more unavoidable fights taking more damage. Repairs were 12 credits this time (from damage to the upgraded gear I got for completing one of the previous missions). Headed to the Jedi temple (could have taken a speeder as that was only 10 credits but there is a bonus mission between the Gnarls and the Temple). Fought some more flesh raiders along the way. Reached the temple and talked to Satele resulting in a "bank" of 363 credits. Repairs were 12 credits again (less fighting than the previous Gnarls Cavern trip but higher rated gear). Can't quick travel back to the Gnarls since it is 710 credits to do so. All in all completing the Gnarls took a lot longer than it does on live because of the lack of quick travel ability (QT is about 10 seconds while walking there was several minutes). Normally I would have quick traveled at least once (saving several minutes). Repairs were about 10% of my "bank" compared to less than 2% on live. QT costs are outrageous compared to speeder costs. QT from the Jedi temple to the Gnarls is 710 credits while taking the speeder is only 10. More to follow:

There are too many credits already in the game for this to be an effective approach. Credits already in the game are what are causing the high prices not "inflation". Only rare items are skyrocketing, more mundane stuff (like general crafting mats and blue and green companion gifts) is only increasing slowly or not being sold at all because they aren't worth the effort of listing. What they will end up doing is reducing the impact of other credit sinks in the game. With these extra travel costs for quick travel, fewer people will be spending the credits to unlock the reduced cooldowns (if your not going to use QT then why pay for the unlock). The same goes for the other Legacy based Quick travels (why pay millions for something you'll never use). These changes are clearly targeted at slowing down play by making travel slower and more tedious rather than fixing inflation. To effectively drain credits from the game, you need to target the largest pools of credits (not by wiping them out but by targeting the sinks to the larger values - If everything was forced back onto the GTN and the 8% tax was applied to every trade, you wouldn't have to worry about the measly few million players get by playing the game).

What you want to look at is network activity which is under the performance tab. When the update is downloading it will show may spikes as your computer sends and receives data from the server. If all that is going on is hard drive activity (which is also active during and actual download - both hard disk and network will be showing a lot of activity when downloading) then it is either verifying or writing data. I have seen it say its "downloading" in the launcher twice but in reality it is only downloading it once, but I have also seen it download all the data twice (network activity in both "downloads").

So you are saying raiders are the problem. I have played the game "normally" for 10 years and don't even have 1 billion credits across all my characters. I didn't buy stuff to sell on the GTN, I didn't farm content, I didn't buy credits, I didn't buy anything extravagant off the GTN, just played the game as intended. People playing the game normally are not the problem. It is the people abusing the system (like those raiders farming easy Operations for tech fragments to buy rare crafting mats you mentioned). The changes Bioware is suggesting disproportionally impact people playing the game normally. They don't impact the farming raiders, the daily farmers, the credit buyers, the GTN whales, or any of the others that are the real problem. You also can't take a level 80 character running missions on a high level planet as an indication of how much an average player makes in a day of playing. If you are lucky, running through the story (including exploration missions), which is what the vast majority of the players playing the game are doing, nets you a couple million.

except these changes are more like patching up the finger sized holes in the boat while ignoring the basketball sized one a foot away.

Ran the same set of heroics with a level 35 Sentinel in Rating 84 gear. Repair cost was 3600 credits and the yield from running all four heroics was 41,627 (including selling all drops from mobs). So for a level 80 character, the repair cost was 9% of the yield. For the level 35 character it was 8.6% of the yield. Basically the same, though this is a lot of repair for a pretty soft set of heroics. If you added in Quick travel costs, it is massively more costly for the low level character. If you have to have QT travel costs they should be lower for the low level plants and proportional to the taxi costs. I still think these travel costs are extremely punitive to low level characters (5000 credits is way too much for Coruscant)

Ahh, Blake's 7. What a fun BBC sci-fi show Doctor Who, Red Dwarf, and Blake's 7. The classics

Too few people test on the PTS for warzones to pop consistently. Best time is probably US east coast prime time but even that is hit or miss. There was an organized warzone test a few days ago set up by the Devs, maybe they'll set up another. Usually, those prizes "expire" when they take the PTS down for the next Live game update.

KoTFE and KoTET were not re-balanced when 7.0 reduced both character and companion strength (and buffed the damage of some NPCs though I don't recall the ones in KoTFE or KoTET having the "yellow line buff" where they do double or triple damage). The battles were originally designed for much stronger characters than we have now at the "correct" level and gear rating. You now pretty much need to be over-geared and over-leveled (or play a strong defensive class with good DPS). They are pretty much unplayable with the level 1 companion you get for some of the missions.