Once more FACTS show that only a very small minority of people visit the forum for their respective games, as small as 10%! FACTS prove that you have no valid argument and really need to just stop digging your hole. So Bioware placing it only in the forums (no matter how easily accessible that is, it's a FACT that people do not visit them) KNEW that they would only reach about 10% of the gaming population of their game. That is not a PROPER announcement, no matter how you like to spin it. And if it was a proper announcement, there wouldn't be THIS MANY people with a problem with it who had no idea a change was coming. You can say I don't have a valid argument all you want, but FACTS prove that I'm correct and they handled this INCREDIBLY poorly.

I clearly stated the forum does not count as an appropriate announcement and provided FACTS for why that does not count as an announcement to the general gaming population. A VERY SMALL MINORITY of players look at the forum for the game they play. An even smaller minority are likely to visit the dev tracker instead of just hopping to the forum they normally go to (PVPers come to mind as well as the story writers). It's not that players didn't heed it, it's that players were not PROPERLY warned. There is a VERY GOOD reason that the announcement bout speeder piloting was put prominently on the game launcher - it's a place that EVERYONE sees before logging into the game. That someone does not trawl the forum constantly - such as you apparently do - does not make their money less meaningful for purchases.

Did the ad have a big sign over the puffy outfit that said "Phantom Chestpiece!" that I missed? Because last I looked those splash adverts just showed some pictures. I had absolutely no reason to believe that the chest I received was one of the ones in the picture. Not all of the items in the pack make it into the advert picture. I assumed that was one of them and that ugly puffy robe was something else.

Actually, patch notes only mention two items being changed - Phantom and Preceptor - but a ton of items were changed, including non-cartel items. So it's possible that TWO items were intentional and everything else was an accident.

Um, I didn't look at the advertisement to decide whether or not to buy the pack. I bought the pack, opened it and used the PREVIEW button to try it on when it turned out to be a chestpiece. So yes, I DID know what it would look like on a female character (and a male for that matter as I tried it on Corso too, just to see) before I decided to equip it. I did not get what I paid for. Had it looked like this when I opened the package, I wouldn't have put it on and bound it to myself, I would have put it on the GTN. But that's not an option now, because I bound the item based on the preview window in game, not based on a tiny splash advertisement that didn't have a name over the top of the item.

Please tell me where this announcement was made weeks ago - and it has to be a place where EVERYONE would see it, similarly to how they announced the speeder piloting blurb was incorrect and did not apply to an entire account. If it was NOT made in such a manner, and was only on the forum or dev tracker, then it is NOT an announcement that the majority of users will see. Less than 10% of any games population is likely to visit a forum EVER, so to only make announcements there, about items that cost real money, would be foolish, at best. So no, we did not ALL know. Those who troll the forums were more likely to know, but even some of those didn't know as they liked the armor how it looked and did not seek out any threads pertaining to that armor.

I don't find it to have 'character'. I find it to be the same boring sith inquisitor outfit I got thrust upon me at almost every mission completion. If I wanted one of those, I'd have had one of those a million times over. I liked it the way it was. And I PAID REAL MONEY for it to be the way it was. And in no way did I ever say it needed to be changed back and screw those who paid money trying to get the way it looks now. In any post where I've mentioned it, I have clearly suggested that an exchange needed to be available to allow BOTH camps to have what they wanted. Exchange phantom chest for great phantom chest, exchange revan robe for greater revan robe, etc.

I got it out of a pack that I paid real money for. I did not buy it off the GTN. So eat your hat, sir, for making flagrantly false statements.

And it's considered illegal since there was no proper warning given outside of the forums (statistically less than 10% of all players visit forums for any given game) about the change planned for armor purchased with real money. However, it seems a statement by a yellow in another thread has said this was all a mistake and will be corrected.

Actually, your comparison is not the same. I did not buy the phantom chestpiece off the GTN (second-hand without a warranty). I bought a pack, opened it and that chest was one of the items. I put it on because, upon previewing the item I paid for, I liked how it looked. Now I have a bound item that I think is ugly as sin. You strike me as someone who's probably awful at customer service if you think you drew any logical parallels.

Then the same can be said about the initial complainers that came to the forum to QQ (I don't believe it was QQ, as it was a legit complaint, just like this is now a legit complaint) about the armor not looking like a vague picture on the cartel pack. Those who liked them didn't even notice the cartel pack advertisement, but bought the item (or equipped it out of the box after purchase, as I did) and were happy. They didn't come to the forum to say 'thanks so much for the awesome armor'. It works both ways, buddy. And they NEED to cater to both sides and allow for an exchange of items (as well as any credits spent to augment the item you no longer want) so that everyone gets the item they paid real money for.

I find the preceptor armor - both before and after changes - pretty disgusting, but there are people out there buying it and wearing it - both before and after changes. What does it matter what YOU like or don't like? People paid real money for an item that looked a specific way and now it doesn't look like the item they paid for. That's what matters. They should have provided a way for people to get both pieces - an exchange for one or the other so it's no extra CC for anyone - so that everyone would get the piece they wanted and not piss off either side of the fence.

Awesome news. Thank you.

They could have easily done an item exchange. If someone had the first robe and wanted the new one, they could exchange it and get the new one instead. Anyone who liked the original could keep the original and be happy. It would have pleased everyone (except the trolls that just like complaining). To wait one - two months to make changes while continuing to sell the item (and without warning purchasers at the items would be changed in the future) is bait and switch and is illegal.

It's not just one piece of armor. MANY pieces of the cartel armor were changed. I did a list of some of them here http://www.examiner.com/article/swtor-changes-armor-looks-months-after-real-money-purchases-of-it but I didn't get them all before the server went down (and I don't even know what all of them looked like to start with). The real issue is that there was no warning about he expected change anywhere obvious for people who might want to buy these items because of how they looked previously, not because of how they looked in an advert most people didn't even look that closely at. And then they waited almost a month (two in the case of the trailblazer outfit) to make any changes. Sorry, but that's bait and switch and it's illegal. You can't screw with real money purchases like this.

I'd dump you too to avoid that agony.

The other team cannot see your marks, just like you can't see theirs. Even in a premade my tank usually marks me with a shield so that he can find me easily and so that, if we get separated, someone else might get the message to shield shield.

Twice now while playing on the Republic side - we were attacking in the second round both times - the game has stopped us with time left on the clock (1.30 and 5 minutes) as it does when you beat the other team through the objectives. However, when the end screen popped up it said we had been defeated and it only counted for 1 completion of the daily and nothing for the weekly. I submitted a bug report for it, but is this happening regularly and is it happening to the Imperials too? I've never had it happen while on my Imp toons (it's become something of a running gag for us that BW really does prefer Imps and even lets them win when Pubs really won).

There is nothing that puts my mando healer down faster than a couple people who know how to use interrupts double teaming her. She can't get off any heals except her instant one and kolto bomb when they're off CD and she can't even defend herself by attacking except with sticky grenade and spamming 1. I've seriously been toyed with an entire round by two people - they never even bothered to kill me because I was turned into an almost no threat target - who just interrupted me repeatedly and then killed anyone I had been trying to heal. I was helpless to stop it. And if I get grouped up on? I can survive it for longer than other healers, but I have 0 escape abilities if my team isn't peeling for me (and if I'm solo queuing, no one is peeling for me, almost guaranteed). My scoundrel gets jumped she can pop disappearing act and run away to a safe distance to heal. My sage gets caught like that? She uses force speed to get away (I usually run right into the nearest couple of gunslingers/scoundrels since they can CC or inadvertently peel for me) and heal up. My mando just has to face tank it and hope she can heal herself long enough that my team can cap something while their entire team tries to take me down (that's her real skill, being able to take a beating for a sustained amount of time despite not being a tank). And don't even get me started on trying to pop a supercharged gas kolto bomb on people! stop running away from your healer, people! I swear, the last dozen times I've thrown that stupid thing I get maybe one person besides myself in it because everyone scatters (despite having just been all lumped together - it's like a cruel joke). And the green beam of death that troopers have to deal with is just... well I try to avoid it unless I'm desperate because that stupid thing just throws out a big 'I'm the healer, mark me now and burn me down!' and that leads to ammo problems and... yeah, basically no matter how well my mando does in a match, I would have been able to perform 100% better on a scoundrel or sage.

My guildies and I were sitting in queue for well over an hour. Right before that we'd been getting regular pops so it just suddenly happened - no one logged out and back in or anything when it stopped popping. We gave up after over an hour and didn't try relogging or anything - none of us were in the mood for PVP anymore so no point.

Tell the nodes and doors to have bigger areas then because sometimes the best way to get a cap is to have two people capping at the same time (someone may attack only one, not noticing the other or not having an AoE ready) and get rid of that little porch the Civil War nodes are standing on (pesky LoS means I have to be up there with my team if I'm going to be healing them and it's not that big of a space) and the team has to be up there to hit the people trying to cap it (again LoS forces even the ranged up onto that pedestal). Of course, I'm sure those in support of this OP smash are so uberleet they are always aware of exactly where 5.1m away from ALL their teammates is and NEVER cross into it, right? Never need to burn down a healer or other enemy, never need to use two cappers at the same time, etc. (By the way, my focus spec mara friend likes waiting for a bunch of enemies to jump on my healer - we make it super obvious I'm a healer, doing everything short of yelling, 'she's a healer, everyone dogpile!' so he can smash them all. I can keep up long enough for him to get another smash out and then the rest of the team can pick them off one at a time while their healer, if they have one, struggles to catch up. I will probably die in the process, but we usually get very large kills out of it. We constantly joke how it's OP, but 'when in Rome').

He said a contested node, not while guarding a node. You know, contested, the one that everyone is trying to cap, and therefore the one where all the melee people have to be lumped up together smacking the various people trying to cap at the same time. I suppose we should all stop rushing through those Voidstar corridors together too and take turns going on at 10m apart to avoid smash damage. And we shouldn't fight on the doors in that one either, you know, where you need to be to stop ninja cappers (a few people can all be 10m apart, but if they are zerging a door, it's guaranteed some people, especially melee, are going to be standing near each other). And if there are a lot of smashers you should use the same courteous exit strategy for the barrier, too, because otherwise those smashes will get you all on the way out. And let's all not go to mid during Hypergate (ever been in there with four smashers ?- six if you count our own side's smashers. It's ugly and I think both sides were back at their respawns before the pylons reset), because that would put us in too close of quarters and being that close is just absurd. And when my mando gets supercharged gas going and wants to throw a kolto bomb down for some heals and shielding, should I just face the music that no one is EVER going to stand close together ever again so I can get the biggest bang for my buck out of that? Because if everyone always had to stand 10m apart, I'd only be able to hit ONE person with it at a time. What a waste of my only special ability. Not to mention people would never be able to run through my sage's salvation because they'd probably get too close to someone else using it too. Again, talk about a wasted ability. Yes, of course, these objectives we must accomplish.. they're absurd. We're going about it all wrong trying to do the actual mission in the WZ and cooperation with teammates - which will require some close proximity to your teammates. I fail to see how a healer being forced to facetank because no one is peeling for him has anything to do with the conversation about OP smashes. However, I have to do this regularly. I'd really like to NOT have to do it, but when no one is peeling (or when it's not working for a variety of reasons), running away on my mando is just not going to happen (they are slow and made of tissue paper and can't cast heals while moving). It also usually takes 3 or 4 people hacking at me to take me down at any reasonable speed so when any class except smashers are on me, I know they're not doing serious damage to anyone else (and hopefully that means someone is capping something or healing themselves up or being useful in some way). The overabundance of smashers with their OP ability have made that pretty useless though because if I happened to be near the cap area while getting beat on, anyone trying to cap will get caught in the AoE - possibly repeatedly as the smashers try to down me.

Just went up against an entire team of smashers - some mara, some jugg. Only one on the team was a sorc - poor guy is from my guild and was telling us how he felt out of place. Actually, not really poor guy as he is a full heal sorc and was just dropping revivification, which made our lives even worse. He could have only made it worse by being bubble stun spec. The match was voidstar. So the objective is to stay near the door and not to let them cap. So we stayed near the door. We were trying to keep away from each other - as we'd been having a long line of smashers all day today - but all of them smashing at once.... well the ENTIRE team (minus the guy guarding the other door, and he desperately tried to run around and stop the cap, but couldn't get there fast enough) ended up behind the barrier while they capped. Oh and coming out the door? We HAD to be grouped together because we were all trying to get out the dang door! So first one smasher leaps up to us as we're exiting the door and then smashes before we can all scurry away, and quickly follows a second on one side (where half the team ran to try and stop caps and recuperate their lost health) and a third on the other side (to get the other half of the team). And, if you were still alive by then, there were FOUR MORE lolsmashers just waiting for you. We weren't overrun by superior tactics. We were simply overrun by 'LOL SMASH! we kill you all at the same time!' My heavy armor commando healer was hit for 7.3k on one death (full WH with one EWH piece, mostly augmented). I got a paltry 50k in heals off because I spent more time dead than actually casting anything (I think those were all just my instant heal being popped on myself to try and survive for another smash). We actually got to the exact same spot in Voidstar as them (with 1 minute to go, don't know why the game stopped us before we go to the core) but they won by kill numbers. Hardly fair that we outwitted the smashers to get just as far as they did (with a minute left that the game didn't let us have because of their sheer DPS output) and they won because they could kill us all off at the barrier. So no, totally not OP. Nerf operatives. They're clearly the problem.

LOL. Behind being on Fleet. So they need to add another Fleet so we can stand around on it - because clearly that's the most popular and most done activity. That's your logic, by the way. Nevermind that there's not any questing to do after 50 and all that's left is ops or WZs (and a WZ is easier to queue with). Or that only about 10% of the game is unique (storylines, everything else is exactly the same) so once you've done the same quest twice you're probably bored of levelling that way and, again, 15 mins in a WZ is easier than an hour for a quest with the same gains. And what if you could sex up your romance companion whenever you felt like it instead of just the couple times the game allows? I think that would probably be pretty high up on the list of things people do every day in game. Would that then 'prove' that there need to be more romance companions, including SGR ones? To suggest that a graph of what people do every day in game is indicative of what they actually care about in game is funny. Because that graph clearly says we'd all like more Fleet maps to stand around on if we go with that logic. I also find it absolutely hilarious you got butthurt about a joke aimed at someone who suggested SGR was going to lead to furrydom in SWTOR.

Many people who can do well at the game also don't like it. That's like saying "only fat people don't like track because they can't run fast." Lots of fast people don't want to run for a sports competition and lots of tall people don't want to play basketball. Just because you dislike something doesn't mean you're bad at it. My guild regularly dominates at this map when we put together even a small 2 or 3 man premade. I still hate the game. The map is very interesting though.