One of the best things that happened in 6.0 was decoupling BIS gear from NIM play and allowing any player to earn it through playing anything. Why on God's Green Earth would you go back to locking it behind NIM play? You'll be going back to the tired closed loop of "You need BIS gear to raid with us in NIM" but you can only get BIS gear in NIM.... I've heard the argument of "You don't need BIS gear to do SM or Vet ops." My answer: "So what? Who cares if you don't _need_ it to do vet mode?" I've done some NIM raiding, but since I work in the Real World, and NIM raiding is a second job, I don't do it very much at all. Plus, I enjoy doing Ops with my guildies, most of whom are not at and never will be at NIM level. Having min-maxed BIS gear in vet and smops helps me help other players new to Ops or vet-level content actually survive long enough and meet the dps checks so that the new players have time to learn the mechanics. I can make up the dps that the new players can't generate until they learn the mechanics better. I can stay alive longer when the tank or healer is new and reaction times are slower. Because I can stay alive longer in a boss fight, we have a better chance of seeing the entire fight and learning mechanics better. Helping other guildies and players succeed in smops and vmops is enjoyable for me. Take away BIS gear from me? You hinder my abililty to help my guildies and other friends, and you make it harder to get through group-finder Ops successfully. I've done nearly everything in this game that I can, and I've done everything I want to do. Helping my friends and running Ops with them is why I continue to sub. Make that a lot more difficult, and there's no longer a reason for me to stay. You're already taking away a lot from end-game players at 7.0 launch--taking away ("pruning") skills, taking away set bonuses and tacticals (and theoretically replacing it with something else, but I'm not holding my breath that it'll be specifically better), taking away the ability to min-max except only with NIM gear. I get letting NIM players earn BIS gear faster by doing NIM content. That makes sense to me. Give NIM raiders additional non-gear-related rewards, even. But going back to preventing non-NIM players from ever being able to earn BIS, min-maxed gear? That's an idiotic idea. I'm usually one of your supporters with major changes--I know that a lot of people gripe the first few weeks, get used to the new system, and then quit griping and maybe even decide that it's better. I groused about the tech frag grind when 6.0 came out, but once I got to 306, the new gear available at fleet vendors and Kai and especially BoL gear was great, and a definite improvement from previous major updates. The question is if current end-game players will stick around long enough to get through the griping phase, or if these changes will completely alienate too many of us.

So point totals will be the same, but the new required conquest point total will go up to 100k, and rewards will go down. This means that small guilds will have twice as hard a time earning the encryptions needed to unlock a guild ship. This is a horrible idea unless you drop the number of required encryptions to unlock each room by half to keep the time needed to unlock the same. Now I understand why encyption costs have skyrocketed on the GTN--whales buying them up in anticipation of this change so that they can sell them for an even greater amount after 7.0 hits.

In Warzones, because I play Infiltration Shadow/Deception assassin extremely well, in unranked I can get 8+ medals no problem. Plus, there are lowbies, midbies, and level 75 brackets. How many medals do I get in GSF? In turret matches, maybe 4--mainly from defending a turret. I've upgraded my scout ship enough to get to a turret quickly--but there was no way to do that in a starter ship. In dogfight matches, I'm lucky if I get 1, because, well, I suck at it. But I enjoy it enough that I'm secure in my suckiness. I can reliably get some assists and even a kill or two or three, but getting a medal? Ha. I've had matches where I had several assists and kills and never got a medal. No clue why that is. GSF has a pretty steep learning curve if you've never done ship fighting before. I had no idea really how to control my ship (ran into rocks a LOT at first) much less what the skills actually did, and it took me some time to settle on which skills I really liked (barrel roll vs koinigran turn, or missiles vs other weapons, etc.) You also have to win medals to gear up your ships more quickly, so for newbies, that's a slog. Just spitballing here on ideas to make it more newbie friendly: I'd add in some objectives newbies could easily do--get powerups could be one--maybe change powerups to benefit the entire team rather than just one player, and have a bunch around so that, say, 5 powerups are needed for a buff instead of just one. Newbie players would be able to learn how to fly ships around a little better that way. Get some powerups? Get a medal. Blow up turrets, sure. Get some hits in on a turret or one of the missiles protecting it, get a medal. If you get killed a lot while doing some pew-pewing, get a medal. At least you're flying around in a zone where enemies can hit you and trying to shoot them back rather than just afking around the perimeter. Maybe scatter smaller missile batteries around that need to be blown up. Now, that could be a low-reward target while blowing up opponents would still give much better rewards. But attacking non-moving targets would give newbies a better chance to get used to the controls over the course of several matches, and it's a lot easier to hit a non-moving target. Help blow up a turret or missile battery? Get a medal. Definitely give more medals for the first couple of kills/assists--maybe 2 assists or 1 kill gives the first medal. Any medals after that need more assists/kills. It might be fun to attack a capital ship. Since it's easier to hit a big target, that will make it more newbie friendly, and it might require the whole team to bring the large ship down. Get a few hits on the capital ship? Get a medal. Probably the easiest solution is to just award 1 medal for a single kill or assist. You have to participate enough to actually get that kill or assist. Anything after that can be made a lot harder to reward the better players.

Please give us the option to turn off his voice without turning other dialog off. As someone who loves blowing up barrels just about anywhere, I approve. However, the respawn timers will have to be as fast as the enemy respawn timer, or you will have a whole lot of frustrated players camping a canister spawn spot. This will be ENORMOUSLY frustrating unless you change the medal system somehow to give at least 1 medal to an active participant. I suck at GSF, but I participate in it for Seasons and conquest anyway. There are many matches (the dogfight ones without satellites to protect) where I earn ZERO medals, despite being a very active participant and having upgraded my ships as much as I can. I can't tell you how many times I've gotten assists and kills in a match and yet earned no medals whatsoever. The only match where I and other newbies can reliably earn a medal is the one where I can defend a satellite. That type of match pops for me about once every 3 or 4 times. The rest are just dogfights. There are a couple of things that will happen with this scenario. a. People will join a match, see that it's not a match where they can defend a satellite, and immediately exit and just wait for the cooldown timer to expire or b. stop participating in GSF. I get wanting to prevent AFK players from getting Season progression doing (or in this case, not doing) this activity, but you'll be disincentivizing new and casual players and people like me who suck at GSF from playing GSF. There is a steep curve to learn to play it well and have decently upgraded ships, and it heavily favors long-time players over new/casual players. That imbalance is far more significant in GSF than in any other mode of play, including unranked Warzones. There's no point in doing GSF if I have to do 15 matches to finally get a match where I can earn a single medal. I can spend my limited time better elsewhere, which is too bad because after months of doing this, I'm finally learning to fly and shoot well enough to actually hit something semi-reliably and get at least a few assists and kills every match. Not enough, apparently, to get any medals in a lot of those matches, but I was satisfied enough with getting Seasons credit while I learned how to do GSF. This PvP activity is far easier to earn 1 medal in, at least. If you sneeze on someone and don't hide in a corner, you can earn a medal. You'll see a whole lot of solo level 75s killing stuff on starter planets. If you're encouraging activity on starter planets, that's a good thing, although it might make it harder for new toons to complete non-instanced quests. This will work ok if the boss respawn timer is low enough. If bosses don't respawn, say, every 5-ish minutes or so, that'll be a problem. Boss respawn timers will have to be a lot faster than 2 hours with this objective, too. Changing the world boss respawn timers on some of the planets did help a lot with getting those conquest objectives. If you make that same change with any world boss who's on the Weekly Seasons list, that will work. If you require both an offense AND a defense medal, that will be a problem for new and casual players. Capturing a satellite exclusively favors long-time players who have the best ship upgrades to get to the satellites more quickly. You'll also see a lot of people exiting matches that don't have satellite capture objectives. All in all, I've enjoyed Seasons and got to rank 100 a few weeks ago, and you even managed to get a die-hard PvE player to try out GSF for the first time in 10 years of playing the game. Some of my guildmates as well have also tried out this game mode for the first time. If you want to keep up that activity in GSF, you'll need to keep making it worth the time for casual players to do so, however. I'd recommend making it substantially easier for players to get a medal with even one assist or kill. Keep it harder after that to incentivize the better players with top-geared ships, certainly. If you want to require a medal to get any Season progression in GSF, however, you're going to have to change how the medals are awarded so that casual players who are active in the pure dogfight matches at least have a decent chance of earning even one medal. Otherwise, I predict casual player GSF participation will bottom out.

This. I LOVE Infiltration/Deception specs, and it depends heavily on this extra stack for our dps. I'd prefer not to get kicked from higher-end content because I can no longer generate the needed dps to complete it successfully. The kolto shell bug is driving my healer guildies nuts, and our Shadow/Sin tanks are having a harder time just staying alive. All in all, it made trying to do vet mode Ops this past week very painful rather than fun.

Hope everyone stays safe. Doing maintenance when the power might go out in the middle of the update would be unwise, so I'm glad BioWare is delaying it to a time when the power grid is more stable.

Hello! Thanks and kudos to you all for making the commitment to improve accessibility. For those of you with significant impairments, I highly recommend the site AbleGamers.org. It has some phenomenal information and helps many people with a wide variety of disabilities. I’m both an eye doctor and someone with a lot of ‘life experience’ with some vision issues (I know, the irony) and bad hand arthritis. I’m also someone who is a lefty and can’t use the MMO mice because they’re too big, so there’s a limit to what I can hotkey (the only lefty MMO mouse is Naga, and it’s also not always available for sale). I have used foot pedals with some success. Biggest advice: Allow people to create Add-ons like what’s available in other games that fine-tune visibility/targeting/effect colors/etc. That would be the biggest help you could possibly give, because the community can do what you (BioWare) don’t have time/manpower/financial resources to devote. Someone should argue we shouldn’t have to depend on the community, but let’s face it, EA only allows you to do so much, and it has to make money. Letting the community help you would help all of us. 1. Limit red/green and light pink/pale green cues. These are the ones most problematic for red/green color blindness, the most common version of color vision defects. Having a color blindness option that people could toggle on would be extremely helpful. Allow different colors for red and green name plates denoting enemies/friends. Note to color blind folks—your monitor and Windows have (most likely) color blind options in your accessibility panel. 2. Improving contrast is essential to improve visibility for the vast majority of low vision/partially sighted people. 3. Decreasing glare is enormously helpful for improving visibility. For example, the Scyva fight is horrendously difficult because I literally cannot see the rotating pale purple circle on the ground with all the other ground effects going on. I have to warn the healers ahead of time that I have no idea when I’m standing in the poo or not. Even then, with all the ground effects from boss and adds and players, I’m literally blinded by all the bright effects, and I have no way of turning that down so that I can even see what the heck I’m attacking. I have to guess if I’m behind the boss where I need to be with my Infiltration Shadow or Deception Assassin. Turning off some of those super bright effects would be enormously useful. 4. Allowing increase of font size on tool tips, subtitles, and other places where we can’t currently change font size would be extremely helpful. 5. Allowing us to change the color of AoE effects would be super helpful. ESO allows this, and it is enormously helpful to me. It also helps because I can change the color and brightness based on what area I’m in so that I see it in whatever setting I’m in. For instance, a green that I might use on Hoth would be different from the green I might use on jungle areas like Onderon or parts of Yavin 4 or Rishi. 6. Allowing us to snap-target AoE effects to enemies would really help those who play with only one hand or those of us who have arthritis. 7. Having some audio cues when we’re standing in AoE effects would be helpful. One of my friends has severely constricted visual field, or “tunnel vision”, and when she’s looking at a boss, she isn’t able to see her feet. That means she can never see when she’s standing in poo. 8. Audio cues for boss channeled skills would be helpful. I can increase the cast bar size, but only so much. Allowing a larger and wider target cast bar would be useful, also. 9. The mouse pointer is too small, and because it’s a yellow gold, it disappears against similarly colored backgrounds, like, oh, all of Tatooine. If you could add some kind of size and color change, perhaps with a blinking that could be toggled on/off, that would be very helpful. 10. Please get rid of the instancing for datacrons. I don’t have low vision, but I do have problems with night vision. The Ossus one was absolutely impossible to navigate for me until I discovered turning my graphics to the bare minimum lightened the place up so I could actually see where the heck I was going. I haven’t been able to complete the Onderon one because I can’t navigate the run back—the bad tiles in the dark tunnel are nigh on impossible to see. I can’t even imagine trying to do either of these datacrons one-handed. Just go back to allowing people to help out others by summoning those who can’t make it easily to these places. I get having the group for the fleet datacron to encourage community/group participation, but there’s no reason to do that on Onderon and Ossus. 11. Some planets are glaringly bright or too dark for me to see some places well. Having a way to turn the overall brightness up or down easily would be very welcome. That way, I can turn it way down on, say, Hoth, but turn it up for Mek-sha. 12. Gathering nodes are very hard, if not impossible, to see in some places. I can’t see the faint white symbol on Hoth, for example. If I didn’t have the resource icon turned on for my minimap, I’d never find them on the white background. (note to all, turning off grass helps me see the resource nodes more easily on other planets) 13. Tool tips: The green quality item tooltips have very poor contrast between text and background. The best contrast ones are the white text on orange or purple backgrounds. If you darken the tooltip backgrounds and lighten the text on all of them, that will improve contrast and readability. 14. Having the audio cues for finding datacrons is helpful—keep that. 15. Interactable buttons are hard to see since the glow is not that obvious. A number of times I’ve just had to move my mouse around hoping to hit the right area. 16. I do like that you can adjust different aspects of sound differently—e.g. I can make voice volume louder than effects volume. 17. Companion gifts: To get my new companions to rank 10, I usually give them about 80-ish companion gifts. Right-clicking 80 times in a row gets physically painful. Allowing some macros for things like that or bulk-gift giving would be very welcome. 18. The little pale yellow swirly interactable circles on Onderon disappear in the foliage. I have trouble finding them. My partially sighted friend can’t find them at all and has pretty much given up playing Onderon because of the frustration. 19. Some quest items are very small and hard to find. I don’t mind a little challenge, but for visually impaired folks, it’s next to impossible. If they were larger and/or brighter, or if there was a sound cue when you got close, that might help. Making sound cues and accessibility controls like this optional would make these things more accessible without changing the original experience for players. 20. The camera bug that suddenly has you staring at the ceiling makes me dizzy, and I don’t even have vertigo problems. 21. I do like that you can change font colors in chat. 22. My partially blind friend has trouble with the chat box being too small for her—she uses the largest font size possible to read. If she could make it both wider and longer, it would help her read it more easily. 23. It is hard to hit the lock/unlock and plus buttons on the main toolbar due to size for those with arthritis issues. 24. Combat proficiencies panel—tooltip font is pretty small. I’m going to try to go planet by planet to show some issues as well. Ord Mantell—Inside the volcano base can be a bit tough due to the dark areas. The other areas seem to be ok for me personally. People with limited visual field might have trouble navigating bridges and staying out of the lava. Tython—The lighting seemed to be ok for me. It’s not always easy to see the faint glow of interactable buttons in some places. The little quest marker for the baby flesh raider quest is not easy to see due to its small size and location on the ground. People with tunnel vision might miss it entirely. The ramp up to the Matriarch is easy to fall off of for someone with tunnel vision. The temple for going to Rajivari and also the big cave are pretty dark. The scene where you make your lightsaber is still just the coolest thing ever. Korriban—Outdoors is fine for me, although it might be a bit too bright for some. Some might find the caverns/temple rooms might be a little too dark. Nal Hutta—Lighting seemed to be ok for me, although finding a gold cursor in yellow poison poo can be a bit tough. Coruscant—the Works area can be a bit hard to navigate due to different levels and dim lighting. Dromund Kaas—The dark temple is, well, dark. And while the Sith Sanctum is going for the same giant chasm vibe that we see on the Death Star, I doubt that Imperial OSHA approves of people with tunnel vision walking off the platforms to meet their demise. Some guardrails in the Sith Sanctum might be nice to help visually impaired folks not plummet to their deaths. Taris—I found it hard to find some of the quest objectives because the mini-map doesn’t indicate a location above or below where you’re at. That’s frustrating enough for people without disabilities, but it’s very hard for someone to find a location when the map doesn’t indicate height as well (Balmorra, I’m looking at you….) Nar Shaddaa—some areas are very dark. The map can be a bit tricky in some areas that have a lot of ramps and levels (especially when running for the world boss). Balmorra—trying to figure out where I was altitude-wise took me forever. I like the fact that the world isn’t flat—it adds verisimilitude—but without a topographical map, it’s damn hard to navigate until we learn the areas. Alderaan—resource node indicators are invisible against the snow. Light colored interactables on snow are extremely hard to see. There is a strobe light flashing at one of the outposts on Republic side that is extremely annoying and flashes at a rate that could trigger seizures. Tatooine—light gold cursor and the light gold text in the quest tracker are hard to see against the light brown sand. Bioanalysis nodes are sometimes hard to see due to contrast. Quesh—Not much to say there since you sneeze and complete the planet. It can be hard to see the red AoE effect that the world boss puts down on the reddish ground. Hoth—the world is glaringly bright. Seeing white resource node symbols against the white background is nearly impossible. Finding the datapads lying on the ground in one of the heroics is exceedingly difficult. Belsavis—Agent Mynock, while dead, could be a brighter corpse to be easier to see in the dark cave. Voss—dark gold text on the quest tracker and the gold cursor against the gold/orange background is hard to see. Corellia—It’s hard to figure out which direction to go from looking at the map for some quests out in the map hinterlands. Ilum—the white indicators for resource nodes and light interactables are near impossible to see against the snow. Makeb—most of this area was pretty easy to see, but it’s easy for someone with tunnel vision to walk off the plateaus. The datacrons are a beast to get to if you have hand arthritis due to all the jumping. Manaan—the boss fights in the heroic can be very difficult. Light gray electrical ground effect is very hard to see against the darker gray floor. There’s not enough contrast. Yavin 4—resource nodes and some quest objectives on the ground disappear in the grass. The interactable that you have to scan with binoculars can be hard to find. Rishi—resource nodes and interactables disappear in the grass unless you turn off grass. Figuring out how to get back to the main deck if you forget where you are underneath the town can be a bit tricky the first few times. It’s also pretty easy to run off the deck edges. CZ-198—pretty easy to do for me. The instanced area is pretty hard, and finding the ceiling pipe to target might be hard for visually impaired and those with tunnel vision to find. Ziost—resource node indicators disappear in the ashy apocalyptic landscape. Oricon—The caves/instanced areas are pretty dark. It’s easy for people with tunnel vision to walk into lava. Ossus—the instanced datacron area is extremely difficult to navigate because it is so dark. Dantooine—one of the heroics is in a dark room and can be difficult to see in. Mek-sha—my partially sighted friend says she cannot play a lot of Mek-sha because it’s just way too dark. She also falls off platforms fairly often due to her tunnel vision. Onderon—I love how gorgeous this planet is, but the foliage hides a lot of the interactables. If you made the interactables taller (like loot lines but maybe not as tall?) that might help. The quest items for the one-time quest were small and hard to find. Perhaps adding an optional sound cue when you get close to quest items might help? The instanced datacron is next to impossible to do if you have vision and/or arthritis/hand mobility problems. I'll have to think about the Operations--the biggest problem my visually impaired friend had was being able to interrupt skills in time and being able to see the poo at her feet. Some people with mobility problems might have trouble jumping from rock to rock in the Gharj lava pit and managing the platforms for Soa. Some areas require running a long distance from the respawn point to the boss if you die. That can be frustrating for someone who gets tired out easily. I'll probably think of more later, but this is plenty to start.

I could always reliably proc psychokinetic blast out of combat with 2 whirling blows before the 6.0.2 update. After Thursday, I'm not able to anymore. I'm trying to nail down if there's something else going on that's causing it, since procced psychokinetic blast is extremely important for building stacks of breaching shadows as quickly as possible.

1. Since 6.0 dropped, I've noticed that if you hit a procced (glowy) Force Breach/Discharge, then immediately hit Force Potency/Recklessness, the stacks are consumed without proccing the second Force Breach/Discharge (FB/D). You have to wait 1/2 a GCD after hitting the first FB/D in order for the stacks to not be consumed. This might not be a big deal to some, but having to now watch the bar to make sure I'm past that 1/2 GCD mark when I've never had to wait before or lose the procced skill is frustrating. And yeah, 1/2 a GCD is not a huge deal either, but in master mode FPs and vet/NiM Ops where the dps margins can be razor-thing, multiple 1/2 GCD delays add up to a significant DPS loss over the course of a long boss fight. 2. Since yesterday's December update, 2xWhirling Blow/Lacerate is not proccing Psychokinetic blast/Ball lightning all the time. It will proc some of the time but not all of the time. I'm trying to see if there's something that is contributing to that bug, but I haven't discovered what the issue is yet. Thanks in advance for fixing these. Edit: fixed a skill name error.

Snipping some for brevity. I think the OP's point was to note that the theorycrafted numbers are being accepted as gospel when his experience clearly demonstrated otherwise (with some numbers to back it up). It's not a bad thing to point that out. Since teens who haven't fully developed critical thinking skills yet play this game (among others who for whatever reason don't have a lot of skill in this department), assuming this is self-evident may be expecting too much from some folks. Common sense isn't as common as we'd like. So, some folks will likely find value in some of the testing the OP did, if for nothing else showing that his alacrity issues differed by class/spec. Someone might look at the paper, note that they play a class that he showed needed quite a bit more alacrity for him to get to 1.3 or 1.4 breakpoints, and decide to test that out for themselves to see if they need to adjust their own alacrity, too. There is some usefulness in that. Getting to level 75 without knowing how to use CCs: that frequently happens since solo PvE players hardly ever have to stun or root an enemy, stims and adrenals aren't essential for overland content, and it's not nearly as important to interrupt a skill in story content as it is in vet or NiM ops. I see this unfamiliarity with certain end-game skills frequently in people new to running Ops and MMFPs. Knowing how to play the game solo and knowing how to coordinate in Ops require different skillsets. In fact, I need to set up an "intro to Ops and advanced flashpoints" class for my guild, now that I think about it.

I agree with you academically. 1213 is mathematically the exact number to hit for the 1.4s breakpoint for specs with no alacrity boost and assuming no guild perk boost. Apparently user experience varies, which is why I noted people should test it out for themselves on their own rigs. If it turns out that 1213 works, great. If someone has trouble getting to the 1.4s breakpoint with 1213 but can reliably hit it at 1250 or whatever, I'm not going to debate it--it's their experience, not mine. What happens mathematically and what happens in Real People Land can be two different things. This is why I suggested people test it out for themselves individually and build their toons for what works for them using the theorycrafted numbers as the starting point. Fifty extra points in alacrity vs crit isn't going to make much difference for someone with >3k crit., and the only ones who might notice that would be NiM min-maxers. I also noted in the document linked in the OP that the alacrity issue is more noticeable with specs that have more channeled skills, and I suspect that it's an issue of the fraction of a second it takes to hit a key unless you're really good at queueing skills (I'm not great at it). I'm aware of all this already. I assumed the OP was trying to note that his experience varied from the expected and decided to post about it, since the impression theorycrafting gives is that if we hit X number, we'll automatically reach Y breakpoint. That apparently is not the case for at least the OP. For @orig_mrrabbit Consider getting your toons all to 306 and redo the testing. What happens at ilvl 296 and what happens at 306 with a full set bonus ideal for that spec is noticeably different. You didn't note if you used or didn't use set bonuses in your research. End-game raiders will be testing in the most appropriate set bonus for their individual specs. As a side note: the theorycrafters are doing parse testing, too, so they're not just blowing math and sunshine our way.

So, I'm reading here: 1. The math says we should have 1213 alacrity for the 1.4sec threshold on classes that have no inherent alacrity buff, assuming there's no alacrity guild perk active. This is based on equations derived from the game code or released by BioWare or both--I don't know which off the top of my head. 2. The OP has noted he needs more than that to get to the 1.4sec threshold. 3. Others have noted this increase could be due to computer processing time, humans being human, server latency, internet lag, etc. etc. etc. So the take-home message: Reaching the alacrity breakpoints is a great starting point based on the math, but individual players may experience some loss due to the factors listed in point 3 above and may need to add more alacrity to compensate. The amount of alacrity one might need to add could vary tremendously, however. My hand arthritis will undoubtedly make me a little slower hitting the keys than others, and client and internet latency can vary tremendously, so there's no good way to predict just how much alacrity an individual player might need to overcome those issues to reach the 1.4 or 1.3sec breakpoints. I'd recommend anyone who likes to do end-game content download StarParse and learn how to interpret the results. Then, figure out what you individually need to make the 1.4 or 1.3sec breakpoint happen reliably for you, and simply adjust alacrity accordingly.

Hello! Thanks for sending Tharan back to us! And thanks for the Death Knell bug fix. And the crafting and tech fragment cap changes. When will the Force breach-Force Potency/Discharge-Recklessness bug get fixed? I've reported it, a number of other Shadow/Assassin players have reported it, but I've heard nothing on when it will be fixed. If you could please let us know, I'd appreciate it. Thanks to the team for getting the servers back up and many things fixed.

1. Making green grafts/assembly components to make blue ones to make purple ones to make something gold is a royal pain in the arse. PLEASE change that to something less tedious. To make one gold stim, I have to start with 45 level grade 11 green cell grafts. Then I have to make 15 blue cell grafts. Then I have to make 5 purple ones. That's just NUTS. And that's not including all the other mats involved making blue, green, purple and gold things. Since I can only make 40 grafts max at one time, I have to constantly send out companions during whatever else I happen to be doing at that time. That's a challenge in vet Ops or FPs. It's impossible in PvP. Can you imagine me saying to an opponent, "Uh, excuse me, I need to send Theron out to make 5 more cell grafts...." I know I'm just waiting with bated breath every day when I log on to say "Oh God, here is my greatest opportunity in game: craft 65 cell grafts, cause that's just how I envisioned having fun in SWTOR!" Instead of having to do that to make any gold thing, instead just require the equivalent mats and time requirement we're using to go from green to gold anyway and let us do it in one shot rather than through a bazillion intermediate steps that are nothing more than time gates. I love crafting, but stopping in the middle of a flashpoint to tell my guildies "Hang on--I have to make 4,000 green grafts, and all my companions just finished making their 40. Only 3960 left to go....." I'd rather just gather up the required 4000 (as an example, not as an actual amount, please don't torture us players that way) mats and send a toon out for an hour than send 60 companions out for 1 minute a shot. 2. The RE percentage needs to be substantially increased or even better, eliminated. This is clearly a time and credit sink hoop that we have to jump through. Just put the schematic on the vendor for a reasonable and appropriate cost and spread out the time and credit sink into getting the mats and fabricating the item. 3. I can't harvest enough stuff to keep up with the amount of mats required to make all the green, blue, and purple things to get to gold without sending out companions all the time. It currently takes 1,385 harvested mats of various grades and 540 recombinators of various grades to make one single reusable stim. Nor does my bad-*** Sith Warrior want to spend all day picking flowers instead of using his elite skills to gut the enemy. Fighting people over crafting nodes is even less fun. At least Guild Wars 2 got that one right by allowing everyone at the node to harvest it, and that would be a great feature to add here to stop people ninja-ing nodes. I gather mats by necessity, but it's not fun. And I actually _like_ crafting. 4. Out of the thousands of items my crafters could make, there are only about 20-30 actually useful items: a. Synthweavers' mk 10 and 11 augments and kits. None of the top tier gear is in any way useful, sadly, compared to gear drops. Maybe armorings might be semi-decent now since the set bonus is on the shell instead of the armoring. b. Cybertech's earpieces and _maybe_ mods as an intermediate step to gear drops c. Armstech's barrels (as an intermediate step to the top gear), mk 10 and 11 augments and kits d. Armormech's mk 10/11 augments and kits, maybe an armoring now that the set bonus is on the shell instead of the armoring e. Artifice's relics and hilts as a stepping stone to the top tier relics/hilts that drop. Lightsabers, shields and foci have never been useful, sadly. Some crystals can be made that are useful if you are cool with the colors, and some dyes are fun. f. Biochem--this one has the most utility with the medpacs, stims, adrenals and implants (intermediate to highest level implant drops). Oh, and Ice scrabbler jerky. Can't forget that. There is so much more you could do with crafting--e.g. allow crafters to make decos and decorative gears and weapons (and then you sell crafting packs on the Cartel Market to compensate for the lost CC for the gear people would buy there. I'm aware EA has to make their $ to keep the lights on and the devs paid and server hamsters fed). Allow more variety in dyes and crystals, make the crafted mods/enhancements/armorings reasonably close to top end gear.

Over all, I like playing the game very much, or I wouldn't still be here after 8 years+beta. I get my money's worth from my monthly sub. Communication is A Good Thing™. More of it would be even better. I get that business leadership doesn't want to over-commit, things have to be vetted before being released, the lawyers want you to consult them before even basic things like inhaling and exhaling, etc etc etc, but keeping people informed is essential. If I went even a couple weeks without communicating with my patients, I'd be fired. Yes, it sucks when people yell at you (and sometimes yell at you for utterly stupid things), but that's part of the job dealing with the public. Those of us who work with the public have to put our Big Boy/Girl/Whatever Pants on, suck it up and deal with it. Here's the thing--when you (collectively) respond, I _think_ concerns have at least been heard. You're not required to agree with me on everything obviously--I don't know the backend coding stuff and how it makes things possible or not possible to implement or change. I'm cool with that. And I understand my place in the world as a gaming peon, so I live with that. I LOVE Onderon. My guild roleplays, and my RP toon was set up as an Onderonian before Onslaught had been even breathed as a possibility, so I totally geeked out. The planet is gorgeous and the decos look great. Mek-sha looks cool. The style isn't my cup of tea, and going up the ramps with the turning camera makes me a bit dizzy sometimes, but it's quite interesting to look at, and I appreciate the tremendous attention to art detail. Some of us even geeked out over the little details on the red Onderon carpet--I kid you not. And I'm art-impaired. Pat yourselves on the back for me for all that. More decos and outfits and dye types, please. As one of the high-level employees, I would HOPE the team would just give you a tricked-out optimized amplified 306 6-piece set and a kill stick right off the bat on at least 1 toon. If they didn't, they kinda tortured you. My initial experience with going from a gold 258 (nearly) min-maxed geared Infitrator able to do some NiM content to a 270 green no-set bonus gear at 75 making my accuracy, dps, and endurance take a dive into the crapper and then having trouble with trash mobs on story mode ops was Not Fun. Being able to buy with credits (a la the Tier 1 vendor in 5.0) or exchange the old 258 gear for at least _something_ with a set bonus might mitigate some of that frustration. Our guild has to run people through a bazillion rounds of Hammer Station and Athiss to get them geared up before we can even do story mode Ops now. At least it's a LOT faster to get from 270 to 306 than it was to get from 230 to 248 before Ossus. The average group of sub-280/290 range ilevel geared 8 players is currently not able to do Story Mode, rendering it inaccessible for a group of new(er) Ops players just gearing up. Note I say average. Experienced Ops gamers are a different story. Something needs to be re-tuned there--whether adding some purchasable sets off the bat, or changing the stats on the 270-286 range, or tuning down some of the mobs in story mode Ops, at least maybe in EV/KP so that new and average players still have a place to start that is a challenge but isn't impossible to beat. The level syncing capping of power/mastery is really affecting gearing for the pre-Onslaught content vs Onslaught activities. So, if I want the uber-optimal gear, I'm going to end up needing two sets of gear--one for pre-Onslaught FP/Ops with about a bazillion points in crit instead of the optimal amount of crit and the rest in power/mastery, and one for the Onslaught content with min-maxed stats that the calculus theorycrafters come up with. Sure, I could rip mods out of one set, but that's freaking expensive, and after blowing all my credits trying to level my crafters (see below), move a few mods around, and burn through replacing amplifiers, my 50 million credits are shot. *Looks at empty coffers and cries.* My experience with a couple toons at or very near full 306 is improved. I like the theory of amplifiers but not the insane costs. I like the theory of all the different types of mods/enhancements, but there seem to be a whole lot more than we really needed. But more is better than less for variety, I suppose. Tacticals are cool. New set bonuses are interesting, although I'm sure the theorycrafters will have everything figured out for BIS in about 2 more nanoseconds. I've submitted about 7 bug reports so far. I try to make them entertaining instead of cranky, at least. PLEASE fix the Force Potency/Recklessness bug. Having to wait half a GCD to hit Force Breach so that the stacks of Breaching Shadows aren't consumed without proccing Force Breach is killing dps. Even more frustrating is forgetting to wait the .75 seconds after several years of hitting Force Breach right after Force Potency assuming it's procced and realizing "Oh, crap, it didn't proc AGAIN, just wasted that Force Potency...." And in a tough Vet/NiM boss, where the margin for error can literally be that extra crit Force Breach hit, it matters. (humor mode on)Plus, my infiltrator already has an inferiority complex comparing his DPS to top Plasmatechs. He doesn't need any help to make his numbers look worse. (humor mode off. Sort of.) Please fix the stronghold/guild ship bugs so that we can summon non-guildies there again. Our guild has four guildships (two for each faction) because we have a lot of players and need overflow space. Being able to summon to each others' guild ships and guild strongholds and our personal strongholds for role-playing is essential. We have this wonderful Rishi stronghold that we can do group PvP on, but we can't invite non-guildies to it anymore. Quick travel keeps killing my companion. I fear poor Theron can only take having his heart defibrillated so many times before perma-dying. Despite your best efforts to fix the final ship log on Onderon, someone keeps stealing the damn thing so that it doesn't show up. Kai Sykken gave me the cold shoulder and refused to face me, so he didn't stay fixed from the patch. A number of harvest nodes on Onderon seem to be spawning inside the rock walls and the center of trees, making them inaccessible. If it means the Server Maintenance Strike Force can wipe out more bugs like the Force Potency bug, a couple days extra to fix more bugs would be welcome. I hope the 'surprise' is good. Surprises in medicine are (almost) never good, so I tend to cringe when I hear about surprises. Could we please have something besides Life Day trees drop when we pelt Overheated Droids? I mean, there are only so many stronghold hooks I can put my stash of about a couple thousand trees on. My Tatooine stronghold is a Life Day forest (on the plus side, when we needed 100% decoration for the SH bonus, all those Life Day trees were a big help toward that goal. Bonus: Life Day trees require no water, so they're an ecologically sound alternative on Tatooine to real Life Day trees. I like to think they're solar powered). Credits, free amplifier re-rolls, more credits, crafting mats, and other useful goodies would be nice. Be the Lifeday Oprah of SWTOR this year. Tharan returning: 1. YAY!!! 2. Will Holiday be coming, too? Will she promise not to electrify Tharan's bunk after a night out? More Mek-sha activities would be great--it seemed far less finished than Onderon did in that department. Crafting changes: If the changes you mention make crafting easier, faster, cheaper, and more useful, then Hallelujah thank you Jesus. Who ever thought that making green things to make blue things to make purple things to make gold things should be forced to buy a round of drinks out of his own pocket for every player who's had to try to create things under this system. LOTRO used to do that with cooking--make basic stuff to make intermediate stuff to make advanced stuff to make the final product. They finally got smart and changed the system to something that isn't so mind-numbingly tedious. Please learn from their example: my Sith Lord wants to Force Choke his in-game enemies and do missions. He does not want to make and reverse engineer 5 bazillion assembly components to get one medpac. That's just about as fun as getting audited by the IRS or having hot pokers stuck in my eyes. (Note: do not stick hot pokers in your eyes. I don't want to get sued. And try not to get audited.) 1,500,000 credits as an entry fee to just start making/harvesting stuff at 601 for a single toon made me say naughty things. Now try paying that on my four other toons who had the different crafting skills maxed and then a few more characters who have gathering and mission skills maxed to be able to farm mats on top of all the new gear expenses. REing hundreds of green things to get schematics for blue things to make thousands of those to get schematics for purple things to make tens of thousands of things for the gold schematics had me making socially unacceptable rude gestures at the game. I mean, crafting already is minimally useful as it is (ever see anyone running around in crafted armor and weapons except for RP costumes? No? It's because the stats suck and you can't put mods in them....) Making Iokath recombinators so expensive? Also not cool. Suggestion: let us craft decos (like ESO for example). That could be fun for those that enjoy that kind of thing. Let us craft things that could have far more usefulness than just a few mods, augments, and medpacs/stims would be greatly appreciated, too. Now, if by 'changes' in crafting you mean "things that we'll make sound just as good as the new crafting but cost players more so that there are even MORE humongous credit sinks in 6.0," I will NOT be A Happy Camper. I can't speak to PvP stuff. My method of PvP is "Go there for the missions and conquest xp, die a lot, hope I get some hits in, and pray my hand arthritis doesn't act up in the middle of a match." Happy Holidays to you, too, and thanks to the whole team for the hard work.

We use this feature (or did) for a guildmate who is visually impaired. It makes life much easier for all of us to move through a zone when there are areas in the game that are too dark for her or don't offer enough contrast. It'd be really good to have that fixed.

Thanks! My physical authenticator's battery is dying, and I'd already used the SWTOR authenticator on a second account. I'm happy I don't have to use a google product, too.

Awesome info! Thanks!

I think I just broke something laughing!

And remembering to switch them out before entering battle because there was no cargo bay inside a warzone was a pain in the arse. My inventory is max size, and I still run out of room carrying around crafting supplies (I send my companions out frequently to do things), stims, medpacs, warzone stuff, various drops, etc. The last thing I need is yet another entire set of gear to grind and clog up my bags. I also don't want to grind gear TWICE. Once per set is more than enough, thank you. I was thrilled when Expertise got removed. Besides the gear juggling which I despised, Expertise gear put me at a disadvantage against the roflstompers. I do a fair amount of Vet Ops and MM FPs. I know and play my preferred role pretty well. When the Expertise system was in place, I didn't play PvP often enough to have decent PvP gear, and that put me at a huge disadvantage vs top-geared players. Enough that I got stomped not because I'm good at spiking down healers and thus hated on the field, but because my Expertise was low enough that I was easy to kill and thus good for the other team's kill count. It became a vicious cycle--get killed a lot so I couldn't get the commendations needed to advance my gear. That quickly made PvP very unfun. Being able to use my PvE gear in PvP made PvP a lot more accessible to me as a casual PvPer. I don't want to be at a huge advantage over PvPers based on gear. I enjoy the challenge of beating someone (and even losing) based on skill and team communication, not gear. Expertise also meant I couldn't transfer gear from Pub to Imp mirror toons and back, although I suppose that could be fixed by making PvP gear also legacy bound. If the problem is getting gear in PvP as fast as in PvE, then change the drop rate of unassembleds and tokens from PvP activities to bring parity to the system so that players can gear up with roughly the same amount of time put into the different activities. Finishing the weekly, for instance, could drop more unassembleds/tokens/command xp than it does now to adjust for the current disparity. The biggest issue I'd see speeding up the gearing time in PvP is win-trading guilds throwing a lot more matches so that half their guild could win and thus gear more quickly and/or the cheaters cheating more--and that is a substantial problem that is not being taken care of well enough. That might have to be addressed with some penalties for using exploits or those stealthing and hiding out in corners an entire match, like taking away commendations or putting <minimum> point players on a cooldown before they can enter another PvP match (just throwing these out for ideas, but you get the picture--win-trading/cheating should be heavily penalized since reporting win-traders and cheaters isn't doing jack to solve the problem right now). Or scale up the rewards based in part on total points of BOTH teams--the winning team still wins more, but teams get more when every player on both sides play hard vs. 8 players on one side just standing around while the other side kills them repeatedly. I can't remember if this is already being done, and if it is, incentivize it more. Rewarding positive behavior can work as well as penalizing the bad.

I enjoy how welcoming it is, too.

Hi all! Remnants of Hope is hosting a fundraiser event for one of our guildies who has just been diagnosed with Stage III breast cancer. We're trying to help her out with some of her living expenses while she undergoes chemo. To encourage participation and to just plain have a lot of fun, we're going to host a server-wide event on November 2nd and 3rd. All are welcome! Donations are not required, but we hope you'll consider chipping in $10 or $20 to Stephanie's GoFundMe to help her pay utility bills and transportation costs to the hospital and doctors while she's off work. We'll be hosting a Fleet datacron run, fleet conga line, a Rishi stronghold Beach contest, a Tacky Tourist costume contest, PvP duels and speed runs of some flashpoints and the Eyeless Operation. Team Hippy and Team Jae will be battling it out for bragging rights. The full schedule is on our website. Prizes will be awarded, including platinum items and Cartel Crates. Want to know more details? Check out our event forum here for schedule of events and sign-up sheet as well as the link to Stephanie's GoFundMe page. https://www.remnantsofhope.com/boards/index.php?/forum/728-remnants-of-hope-breast-cancer-fundraiser/ Any questions? Ask away!

Hello! Remnants of Hope is family-friendly, laid back, and active. Feel free to check out our website at RemnantsOfHope.com to see if our play style meshes with yours.

Welcome to the game! Feel free to check out Remnants of Hope--we're laid back, family-friendly, and active. If you go to RemnantsOfHope.com, you can see if our play style is what you're looking for.

If you're looking for a family-friendly active guild that's laid back, check out Remnants of Hope. We're active in both factions in PvE, PvP, and RP. Check on our website (RemnantsOfHope.com) to see if our play style meshes with yours.