OPs complaint was that people need to go to posts like this to understand gearing, and that in-game there's nothing explaining that logic. While your reply may be useful to a player already on the forums making that search, it literally misses the point OP was making.

This is probably a troll post, but I'll play. This is demonstrably false. Player numbers are down. Bugs are everywhere. Leveling is worse. Endgame is practically non-existent. For a case in point, you can literally get better gear running GSF than you can doing veteran operations, or, for another case in point, you can literally get better gear doing Spammer Station than you can get doing SM operations. Couple this with no new operations, maybe 30 minutes of story, and a single bugged-out FP, and this is nowhere near "massive improvement." The game is worse in almost every way, although some silver linings (Loadouts, for example) do exist. 6.0 had no endgame. 7.0 also has no endgame other than GSF. When you get 326 purples from GSF and are capped at 324 blues from veteran operations, you've effectively made the worst part of the game the "endgame." I personally led multiple veteran operations every week in 6.0, and ran more as a PUG on top of that. I don't run them in 7.0, because the reward for effort isn't there, and there's no new content in operations, just rehashed versions of what we've already done with bosses that have more HP and players that do less damage. It's not effective for 'fun' (nothing new), and it's not effective for gearing (you can get better gear in MM flashpoints, and better gear still in GSF). In 6.0, I knew several players that ran several NiM operations. Now, across the entirety of my server, I know of one group that's able to clear one boss of NiM DF. Nothing more. BTW, to expand on the gear: Operations / Story mode caps at 322 greens, which is literally worse than ANY OTHER CONTENT IN THE GAME. (Even conquest gives better.) Veteran mode caps at 324 blues, which is subpar and lacking (VM FPs give the same ilvl if that's what you're going for, conquest gives better). In order for operations to give gear, it has to be NiM, and again, I know of one group on the entire server who's capable of clearing one boss in one operations on NiM. TL;DR - Bioware broke the game. Only real question is if it was intentional.

No you didn't. People are still having empty gear boxes in all content to this day.

I mean, it's life, if it is. I have a coworker who lives in Russia (works on a team where half the people are from Russia, half from Ukraine) and can't be paid b/c the country he lives in decided to do this. He's solved the situation in a way that I hope others might be able to: he's leaving Russia.

Depending on time of day, that's not necessarily true. VM FPs, yes, they pop quickly, almost always have, b/c it's just 4 people. It pops usually within a couple minutes. However, when tactical FPs (the original name for VM FPs) came out, it was basically always instant. MM FPs, depends on time of day. During the evening, they usually pop quickly, especially if on a tank or a healer. During the day, however? Used to still be a fast queue, and just two days ago I was in queue for over 30m each as tank and healer on each faction without a FP popping, while the role I was on was "in demand" for MM FPs.

With the complaints in prior periods about Spammer Station, I'm just waiting until that's the only sub-50 FP on rotation, so I can /popcorn.

Technically, they still CAN do that. You can queue as a tank as long as your Combat Style has a tank spec, or as a healer as long as your combat style has a healer spec. However, if you happen to be doing stuff in a DPS spec on either, you can't actually swap to tank or healer, as appropriate, once you join the group. Or, this happened to me earlier this week: I tend to be flexible in what role I play, and was queued up on my Assassin as dual DPS/Tank, while in Tank spec. Got a group as a tank, joined, got to the boss, no problem. Somebody had to leave (life happens), when it filled the group...it added another tank, changed my 'role' to DPS, but wouldn't let me change my discipline to DPS....so we had two tanks, and not enough DPS for the encounter.

This is not true. ....Walmart CS is definitely way more capable than BioWare CS.

At this point I have zero faith that they'll do anything. Their copypasta response (that I've also seen) is usually: "This is a bug, nothing we can do about it, better luck next time!" That happened when gear boxes are empty. That happened when guild commendations weren't delivered for completing conquest. That happened when locked out of the Feast of Prosperity world boss situation. That happens basically with everything.

You've been lucky. I still get this bug regularly, and I know several others who do as well.

Given that you could still theoretically conquest farm by losing (you get conquest for participating, just not progression on the daily/weekly quest), this is silly of them. This is how you completely kill PvP. While surely some people played just to PvP (and probably still do), by and large I'm willing to bet the vast majority were always there for something else. Experience and levels, gear to get started, etc.

Were you running it on random (i.e. all veteran options for your character selected)? If not, that's a known issue. Does the same thing on MM too.

This is probably the best way to handle the situation. You avoid people that might swap to a stealth class just to stealth and then change to something else, but still allow people to, y'know, do their jobs.

Experiencing this on MMs as well, today.

It's even worse than that. I queue as tank in a MM FP, somebody leaves (life happens), queue brings in ANOTHER TANK and I can't swap to DPS because...reasons. Oh, and now the group has two tanks, and not enough DPS to clear the FP. GG.

Not really an answer, but a workaround: have you tried reloading your UI (Control+U twice) after setting your spec to just DPS? That's something that we've had to do for quite some time now (because Bioware can't fix that).

IF it works (no guarantee here), you might have the option to do so on your combat styles page. I see it on my Assassin to swap to Shadow there.

Title says it all. If you're running a MM FP, and somebody drops, GF lets you queue up for a replacement (all well and good here). If you choose to be considerate of the group's time and flexible, you can select that you're willing to do multiple roles (again, all well and good here). If someone queues up for your existing role and joins the group, it will mark you as the other role you selected (yet again, all well and good here). ...but it won't let you change your specialization to actually BE that new role.

This shouldn't be a luck issue. I get loot 90% of the time from the boxes, but a friend of mine only gets the loot 10% of the time, so...

Sounds to me like you're assuming other players are by and large not trying to play it, then. A more reasonable and believable situation would be that they don't know how to play. That's on BioWare, not them. You can't expect someone forced into content they don't enjoy to be an expert at that content. That'd be like NiM raiders being mad at you because you didn't know the strategies and mechanics for every boss if NiM raids were required for GSF ship upgrades. I explained why they're there even if they hate it.

Thing is...medals of commendation aren't a limiting factor in gearing up quickly. The other currencies are. The only real spend I have for these (and that's more of a thing now than it will be later) is iRating 320 sets for a fresh 80 (6 of the 8 characters I'm keeping at already 80, so about done with that, and the remaining 2 won't be 80 for a couple weeks, by then I'll have full sets of 326 to send them from heroic crates [my main's already 326]).

Because GSF is the most RELIABLE way to get gear. Ops and FPs literally can't get you there (unless you're doing NiM ops). Conquest gets you there much, much slower. Warzones require you to win. GSF you get gear for playing, win or lose.

Update: CSRs in game are easily confused. Submitted a ticket about this for the guild, and they went off about the individual currency "Medals of Commendation." I am NOT referring to medals of commendation (that you cap on so easily that nobody cares). I am referring to GUILD COMMENDATIONS, which are used to purchase flagship buffs.

Guild commendations looked a little bit low in one of my guilds today, so I dis some look into the commendations as they currently stand. Prior to 7.0 dropping, we had 600 commendations, or the cap, as you could not spend them for several weeks due to the perk bug. On release day of 7.0, we purchased the following perks (comm costs) Major Hasten (31) Space Pirate II (52) Exp. Powerhouse III (36) Sprinter II (52) Flashpoint Profiteer II (52) Harvesting Yield III (60) In total, that's 283 commendations spent. Subtracted from 600, that left the guild at 317 commendations. Since 7.0, the guild has leveled up 4 times (max XP each week), which refunds 5 comms per level, or 20 comms. That puts expected comms at 337 comms before conquest. The guild invaded (and completed, as characters received individual rewards) a LY conquest, which is supposed to give 90 comms. That should leave the guild at an expected 427 comms as of today. ...we have 337. Edit: Just checked my second guild (other faction), which has the same purchase and conquest history....and has the same issue. Large Yield Conquests appear to not be giving guilds their guild commendations to purchase perks.

Don't worry. PvE gearing faovrs PvP play as well.