I'm not too experienced with PT so I'm not sure how possible it is to mitigate the damage and I can't remember if PT has a knockback, so I'll have to give some more generic suggestions (my PT was abandoned a while ago as just one too many tanks to gear) I accidentally started chapter 2 in master mode after that somehow became my default difficulty but it did have the advantage of levelling acina up to level 40 something. Try that if you want to try and get some more healing out of acina. I believe there is a utility that allows leap more often and leap interrupts a cast. I seem to recall that there is one particularly nasty cast on both bosses that needs to be interrupted and others that are just very helpful to interrupt. If you have done the scoundrel and warrior stories, remember that legacy moment has 2 extra stuns that can be used as interrupts. I can't remember chapter 2 that well as I did it late at night and haven't touched it since then. The horizon guard in chapter 7 is pretty awful and the most common way of dealing with him is to throw him off the cliff. This is why I mentioned the knockback. For the life of me I just can't remember if PT has one. Maybe you can jump off the cliff, pull him with you and then leap to one of the adds (that should be simple, right) Otherwise, you may just have to try and use legacy abilities to stun lock him as much as possible and keep the legacy light V defensive ability (I am just not remembering any names right now) to try and mitigate the first DoT that gets through. If you are tanking, you may also be able to use the aoe taunt shielding to reflect damage when Lana runs headlong into red circles/lines.

I like the idea of a rotating schedule but it would need to have enough encounters to not repeat during the week as they second time it appears there may not be so many people available to do it. On the other hand, it may encourage people to gear up alts and try different roles. Having the event bosses in GF is also a nice touch. The temple of sacrifice style operations route or solo route in the story would be interesting but would possibly defeat the purpose of making production faster. As you say, it would require more dailies to give the solo players something to do. Solo versions of the bosses also seem too painful to script for NPCs. They'd have to be really cut down versions of the boss and probably wouldn't be too fun to repeat. I figure doing the Ravager style side mission should be simple. Alliance alerts or NPCs in quest areas could give missions to help the cause eg Civilians asking for help with a local monster/crime boss/gang etc or resistance members suggesting high value targets. The raiders may have an issue with only 1 boss at a time but, as you pointed out, it's that or wait much longer for a full op. If the bosses are put together into a full op/campaign with shuttles appearing after each boss to quick travel players to the next boss then they would have a full op and around the same time as it would have taken for a full op anyway. They'd just have individual bosses to play with in the waiting period. Also, make the HM (even NiM mode depending on how much time that would take) sufficiently challenging and each one could keep them occupied for a while. If the campaign lockout was kept separate from the individual bosses, it means that players can do all the individual bosses at any time and still be able to do the full operation when it comes up in the rotation. It would allow guilds to do a quick run if they can't get everyone together long enough for a full operation (this seems to be a big issue now) or as a warmup while waiting for everyone to arrive for a scheduled progression run. With the raider community dwindling and many non-raiders hesitant to join a long operation run, having a range of individual bosses available for short groups might get more people into raiding. It seems to work quite well in events as many people who don't usually raid join groups because they are in the area when the call goes out. If the individual bosses are easy to get to through group finder or heroic style priority travel then they might be a great way to get non-raiders who either don't have time or are daunted by a full operation to join in.

Also, on a related sidenote, can I suggest putting a quick travel on TC and HoR weeklies similar to the heroic weeklies?

I'm not sure if this has been suggested at some point but I could only find 1 similar thread with the searches I used (see link towards the end). I'm not sure if this will actually improve things from a design perspective but figure it is worth suggesting. I also want to acknowledge that there is a good chance the team has thought of this but, again, no harm in suggesting it, especially if it was rejected because the players might not go for it. The short version is that the delay inherent in creating a full operation with a large sprawling map, lots of trash mobs, 5 bosses with unique mechanics and environments could be decreased by creating bosses similar to Toborro's courtyard and Colossal monolith and releasing these more regularly. These could be separate to the story but tied together with a theme (eg zakuul - zildrog or other swamp monsters, giant guardian droids, even mentor style military facilities). These could be put into a new group finder queue for all single bosses or, once a few have been released, they could then be tied into a single campaign or tour with teleports to the next boss after each boss. Single bosses have issues currently: 1. A bit of a pain to get to, particularly TC. 2. They take longer to get a group together than they do to actually do the boss. 3. They drop 1 token per 8 players. 4. A single quick boss is anticlimactic after all the effort of putting a group together. You could run both of them together but see point 1. 5. Individual bosses on separate planets need a separate environment designed for each, not really saving time on designing the artwork. This leads to possibly spending an hour of time if you join the group shortly after it starts, just to have a 1 in 8 chance of a drop and for about 10 min of play if you one shot it. This is slightly improved if you do the HM version as well but its still not brilliant. Stringing together multiple bosses into a campaign (eg a zakuul campaign for the examples I mentioned before) allows for: 1. Using teleports or group finder to get people quickly to each. This also cuts down on the clearing trash stages and allows progression groups doing the harder levels to concentrate on clearing the bosses. 2. Groups wanting a full raid can run a full set of 5 bosses. It can then be put into the regular rotation for group finder. 3. The loot should be similar to any current raid (except SNV as it has more bosses). They can be random drops still or follow a set drop table if part of the campaign. 4. The operation should take longer than putting together the group. 5. Using a unifying theme or planet for the operation, or using resources already designed for the chapter content if the bosses are done as side quests to the story chapters cuts down on having to design a full set of art resources for each boss. It should be a similar amount of design work to a full operation but just done and released room by room. Avoiding creating a brand new planet like darvannis, asation, etc could make it easier. These bosses could be included as side quests to the story like the ravagers with cutscenes OUTSIDE of the boss instance giving story and avoiding complaints of skipping cutscenes like what happens in flashpoints. Putting them in group finder would allow them to be done by any character, even if they haven't done any KOTFE chapters if it is linked into that story. A proposal for individual bosses was previously suggested here: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=867952 However, this post suggested putting the bosses into the story (all the posts about the dread operations and solo players wanting to see the story show why this would be bad) and compensating for lack of gameplay with more grand design. This would result in little decreased effort but much shorter gameplay (or much more involved and difficult gameplay to draw the encounter out). I think this would still appeal to regular raiders as it gives more regular raiding content with eventually a full operation with multiple bosses but also appeals to more casual raiders who could practice individual bosses or get together groups that would bypass the group finder campaign and skip pug killer bosses if they aren't up to it yet.

1. When you subscribe, you get access to all content up to that point. You should have access to all the expansions and all Fallen Empire chapter up to now. 2. The 60 token can be useful but is probably not the best place to start. The 60 character has all class and companion story and conversations already completed and locked. You will only be able to do non class content and it is designed to begin Fallen Empire straight away. I wouldn't recommend this as it contains spoilers for the Shadow of Revan expansion. Personally, I used mine to quickly get a sorc healer to mirror my sage healer (my inquistor was an assassin) and using the legacy gear mentioned in the last post, am able to send most of my gear between the 2 characters so that I can heal an operation impside if I am already locked out on my operative. 3. Rerolling is personal preference. Levelling is MUCH faster now as you only really have to do the class missions and maybe half of the planet storyline mission (less if you do flashpoints, heroics or other side missions). Be aware that the flashpoints may be a lot harder if you jump in at a low level and get a group of all lower level players. If you want to get back into flashpoints and are still a bit rusty skillwise, doing it at 65 makes it a bit easier. Doing heroics is probably a good way to get used to your characters again. They are all possible to do with just a companion now and you get synced to the max level of the planet they are on so they still provide a bit of a challenge (more than story missions, which are really easy now) and they have really good rewards. The heroics are weekly now rather than daily but you can pick up all the heroics from any planet at a terminal on fleet and they all come with a quick travel item to teleport to the area quickly. 4. Basically, yes. Some gear is still marked as light, med, heavy and some is custom. Make sure you check before binding it to you. Otherwise, if you get a decent bit of gear drop and you don't need it on that character, you can pass it to another. With gear with slots (ie armour/hilt, mod, enhancement), you can pull out the individual components and put them in legacy bound gear (usually gotten from the reputation vendors from the various events but can also be bought from the legacy vendors on capital worlds and the adaptive vendor next to the lowest level gear vendor in the supplies section on fleet). This legacy gear can be mailed to another of your characters or put into a legacy cargo hold to be retrieved by another character. 5. This is now disciplines. There is an abandon button if you have the field respec legacy perk down at the bottom. Just choose a new discipline from the drop down list and you'll be respecced. There are then the utilities on the right hand side. You can also respec just the utilities using the button down the bottom right. 6. For a list of the post class mission content in chronological order, check: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=8326539#post8326539 I recommend going through in order at least once as it's not a bad story. Be aware that the oricon storyline ends with 2 operations that have to be done in order but that content after oricon doesn't really contain any spoilers so you can easily continue on while waiting to finish the operations. It is now possible to get a stronghold to decorate. These also allow you to have legacy storage so that you can easily share loot between your characters. The item limit per slot is now 999 so you may be able to clean up some of your old crafting gear. The cheapest strongholds are coruscant and dromund kaas if you want to check out what they are like before pouring millions into the effort. Crafting has been changed. You need to create generic pieces/components from the raw materials and then these get used in the recipes of the items you can actually use/wear. There is now space PVP in the form of Galactic Starfighter. Pressing H should bring up the hanger. Run through the training mission for it and check out the starfighter section of the forums for an idea on how it works. Have a quick browse through the tutorials if you haven't yet. They give a run down on some of the major additions to the game. 7. Flashpoints are now level 10 - 65 with all levels able to be in the same group and not requiring the tank, healer, dps configuration. You are bolstered to 65 but they get easier at higher levels due to better abilities and a fuller rotation. Some of the flashpoints that were designed for level 50 and above contain spoilers for the story if that bothers you, so you may want to run the story first. Hard Mode flashpoints are technically 50 - 65 but the bolstering is not great. Some of the flashpoints are easily doable without great gear but a few need level 65s with decent gear unless you really know what you are doing. Story mode Operations are 50 - 65 with bolstering to 65. Hard Mode operations are 65 only and require at least 216 gear.

This pack is just subscription time and coins now. It is a bit confusing because all the descriptions for these kind of deals makes it sound like you are actually buying all the expansions. In PREVIOUS packs like this, you WERE buying an expansion and some sub time but with KOTFE, there is no expansion to buy because simply subbing will give you access to all the expansions, including KOTFE. If you have already subbed and gotten access to KOTFE, this pack will just give you subscription time and coins. There is no extra 60.

I've been running around doing dailies and heroics on my sage healer with no issues. Just remember to take the utility for greater quake damage. A DPS comp is pretty easy to keep up between doing damage yourself. Not sure if that approx year break put you before or after 3.0. If it was before, then you'll have to learn the ins and outs of the new discipline through reading/practice etc anyway. The class is probably more mobile than even ops/scoundrels now with the right utilities and salvation doesn't require players to stay in the aoe to heal, so in movement heavy fights you can throw it out where players are likely to run through rather than wait for them to come to a stop. If it was after, just be aware that there was a change to force regen a while ago. Noble sacrifice is now vindicate and will not take any health. It now uses a GCD though, and increases your passive regen for 10(?) seconds after so you will actually need to throw one or two in regularly in most op/fp boss fights.

If you just want to chat to group members while running around, you can group up and stay on totally different planets. You won't get any benefits from grouping but you will be able to chat with group members. Now, if you want to run through content with others, the type of group content will determine if/how you travel. If you want to queue together for any group finder content (ie flashpoints, operations, warzones, GSF battles) then you don't need to be on the same planet/area. Once the group finder completes the group, it will pop up a prompt to transport you to wherever you need to go. If you want to run heroics with others, you will need to be on the same planet. However, each heroic mission now comes with a quick travel built into the quest. If anyone in the group already has the heroic quest in their mission log, they can go into the log, select the quest and click 'share.' This will give everyone in the group the option to accept the mission. If you have the heroic quest in your log and it is displayed on the quest tracker (the active quest list that is by default on the right hand side of the screen), it will have an icon next to it of a ship or something (haven't paid enough attention to really work out and remember what it is). Press this to transport to the quest location. If you want to run any story/solo content with other players, you will again need to be in the quest area with them but there is no quick travel for these missions. You will need to get there by ship, taxi, quick travel point etc OR if you are on the fleet you can grab a heroic on that planet from the heroic terminal and use the quick travel to get quickly to that planet without using your ship. If you want to run story content with someone and the mission is on a special storyline only space station that you can't fly to, you will need to get on their ship. Meet up at fleet or on a planet spaceport/station and the player with the quest will need to enter their hangar first. Then everyone can enter the hangar after them. They will then need to enter their ship and everyone follow them. You can also use this method if you just all want to travel to a normal planet but do it all together in 1 ship for fun or roleplaying. As for missions, you can join and complete any mission if one of the group members has it. However, only group members with that quest will actually complete and get rewarded for the quest. Group members can share any daily/weekly quests as well as heroics and side missions easily using the method I mentioned above for heroics. However, most story (including planet story missions, one time flashpoint introductions etc) missions will require you to pick them up from the NPC quest giver, and if they are part of a planet storyline, you may not be eligible to pick up the quest if you are not up to that part of the story yet.

How does mastery affect endgame gear progression? Sure, you can send legacy gear to other alts but endgame progression involves set bonuses. What's the point of sending a 6pc sage healer bonus to a commando healer? You will still have to gear up all your individual toons separately. Different specs will also still need different ratios of crit, power, acc and alac so you still have to play around to min/max your gear anyway. What will change is the random loot drops. No more will there be willpower tank gear dropping that nobody wants because there is a shadow/sin dps in the group and no shadow/sin tank. No more will someone trying to get gear in a flashpoint get nothing because all the gear was the wrong mainstat (doubly painful if the other players don't need it either because they already have better gear). I can understand those who have played all endgame content to death getting bored. I can understand a bit of annoyance at the crit/surge change because some specs have bonus crit or surge built into the discipline and you mostly want to stack the other stat (though likely this won't make too much difference). What I just don't understand is the hate and anger towards mastery. How is mastery dumbing down the game? Seriously, what difference does it make? I have heard of only one spec that really benefits from using another main stat and that's only at the very top level of gear. It is removing a level of complexity that was totally meaningless to anyone except very new players and reduces the chances of worthless loot drops. I know there are a lot of changes going on and people are worried that the game will be a lot different to what they know but please just think through what actual affect these changes will have. How will they actually change how you play the game?

http://www.swtor.com/user/ce/1yuoy5 And comic con cantina in case all 50 referrals weren't used: http://www.swtor.com/user/ce/1yuoy4

This is probably what you have heard. This is the only official information we have about story so far. If you create a NEW level 60 character, this character will not be able to go back and do the story line for that class, whether you have started the new expansion or not. It is assumed that a character starting at 60 will has already completed the story so that you can jump straight into the xpac. http://www.swtor.com/blog/operations-and-flashpoints-fallen-empire This blog entry shows what they are doing with old flashpoints and operations. These are all being changed so that they can be done up to level 65. Since it is being designed so that you level to 65 through the new expansion, it wouldn't make sense to cut off access to all this content. Since this means that some stories from before the expansion are available after starting it, we can ASSUME that previous planetary content will be available too, especially as most of the 50+ planets/areas have dailies to complete. I can't find the reference at the moment but there was a comment in the official information about the expansion that some of the old content will be reworked as elder game content for the alliances system being introduced for companions. No indication what content this will be but it may be some of the heroics and repeatable content likely to be skipped with the new 'streamlined' and 'faster' levelling experience. They have said that more info about alliances will be released closer to October. Ignore this guy. He has a history of making up 'inside information.'

Stronghold bonus is only on the base points. So the 100% bonus is giving you 250 +250 for the base values. Add this to the 250 + 750 rewards and you get 1500 points all up. The points are correct.

Looking at the original point of the thread, the OP is looking at the issue of restrictions in light of the fact that new sub only content is being added. With the new expansion pack, BW now has more carrot (51 to 65 content, sub only story, wide range of current operations, 3 good looking SHs that can't be bought on a credit cap budget) and maybe they can ease off a bit with the stick. The problem with the restrictions is that they give the appearance that a player is going to be nickel and dimed for nearly everything in the game. A F2P player has reminders EVERYWHERE that stuff is locked from them and constant reminders about the cartel market. It really does appear that the cartel market plays a bigger role in enjoying the game than it actually does. Unfortunately, the realisation that the cartel market doesn't really matter only comes from experience with the game and if the impression that new players get from their 'trial' is that they will have to constantly pay to unlock stuff, they may be turned off before they learn what it is really like. I started as F2P because I had never played an MMO and wasn't sure if I would like it and subbed pretty quickly mainly because I had wanted to try the game for ages and would likely have gotten into it for a storyline or 2 unless I REALLY hated it. However, I have been turned off many other F2P games or F2P trials because I instantly get the impression that it is a money grab. Even the posters who really hate any F2P or preferred players seem to agree that these restrictions are fairly easily circumvented. Why risk turning players away by giving them the impression that they are going to be accosted for payment in every part of the game before they get a chance to get hooked, for a couple of features that don't really matter anyway? Other restrictions are generally OK because they give impression that subbing will get you MORE and they come up later, once the player has played for a while. MORE XP, MORE content like operations, MORE story, MORE credits, CHEAPER vendor prices, MORE rewards, MORE crafting skill, all add value to a sub. Reminders that things are FORBIDDEN that you find on day 1 while looking through your character screen just give the wrong impression, similar to all those 'free' games that are more expensive that most paid games. TL;DR Players should feel like a sub gives them MORE. With so much MORE to offer them with the new expansion, why have obnoxious untickable options to spot straight away?

As others have said, try healing in tacticals first just to get used to the style. Even if no one is really taking much damage, resist the temptation to mostly dps the tactical. Keep up healing even if there isn't much to heal. You want to get used to keeping up a constant heal and managing resources and threat. If you can't keep up because you have to keep regenerating force after each fight, tell them to slow down. Good tanks will make sure their healer has enough force/energy before pulling. Also, remember that sages now need to use vindicate regularly throughout a fight to keep up force thanks to recent changes (don't use it without resplendance either). Anyone who abuses you for bad healing is a jerk and is probably also blaming you for their own mistakes. Don't feel too bad about it. Don't jump into HMs or ops until you feel comfortable keeping up regular healing but you also don't have to be so good that you can keep up a group who can't do their own jobs properly. As has been said, rejuvenate and wandering mend will heal multiple allies within 20m for a large amount. Regular salvation is also useful. Remember that allies only need to be in range to get a HOT and then can still be healed while out of range. In movement heavy fights, put the circle down where most of the group will run past it (useful for the last boss of tython). Sometimes you may also need to sacrifice a dps to keep the tank up if someone makes a mistake. Try to avoid that but generally keep the tank up, yourself and then the dps. If you manage to get all health to close to full, drop force armour on the group rather than overheal. This will give you a bit more time to react if take a big hit from mechanics. Get used to healing with easier group content and then check the guide again. Unfortunately, healing guides can't give a straight rotation or description of what to do in each fight. Healing is all about watching the health bars and the fight, watching where damage is going and mitigating it with protective abilities or reacting quickly with heals. Once you get used to the style, the guide will make more sense. Generally, for a sage especially you want to bind keys for all your moving heals at the least as well as speed and your self heal. Use rejuvenate as much as you can as it improves your other heals and use it on the tank most of the time as it gives a bonus for using it on an ally that still has a previous rejuvenate ticking. Keep any unbound abilities close to the group/raid windows so that you can quickly change targets and cast. Use healing trance regularly to keep up stacks of resplendence. These are necessary for force regen (with vindicate) and to make salvation faster. It is useful to adjust the raid window appearance to increase the size of debuffs that need to be cleansed and to make the health bar prominent enough to easily watch while navigating your own character around circles and such. As a healer you will generate low threat but as has been said, if no one attacks an enemy, you will have the most threat on it. If it is a silver or higher, cc it with your 1 min cc (force lift) or the short cc if someone is likely to attack it soon. If it is weak and likely to die in a few hits, hit it with project and a few attacks between heals. If there are multiple melee enemies after you, run to the tank and stack on him. He will probably get threat off them with a few AOE attacks. Force speed is your friend here. Make sure it is bound somewhere easy (I use X as some fights you will use it on CD). You should also be ready to use a threat dump but this will only work if someone else has actually done some damage to the enemy. I know a lot of this has been said but I hope that I added enough and put it all together clearly enough to make it worth the read. Don't give up on healing, it can be very rewarding in some of the more damage heavy fights when you keep everyone alive.

This is most commonly seen with HK who comes with level 50 gear even if you get him from collections at a low level. Since you are not level 50, he can't use level 50 gear and you get these messages. Now, why that would happen to Khem I am not sure. Likely it is a bug of some kind. If relogging doesn't fix it, open the character window, go to the companion bar and hover the mouse over his gear. Check the description for any red text. Red text on requirements will show you why it is having an issue. The only other thing I can think of is that the gear is badly damaged. Check the durability of it and repair it at a vendor (open the vendor window and repair all or go to the repair tab to select what to repair if you are low on cash). This shouldn't give this message but maybe it is giving you the wrong message for it.

He isn't saying it isn't worth the time. In fact, he was saying that they were making changes to the operations SYSTEM to increase the number of raiders and ENSURE that it remained viable. Unfortunately, players will move away from the game due to life, new interests, different circumstances etc. New players are required to keep the game going. While this doesn't have an IMMEDIATE benefit for all hardcore raiders (though there are comments in the forum from some vanilla players who look forward to doing old ops at level again) it does have a long term benefit in an increase in the raiding community and a system that means they can release operations when they are ready with no worry about effects of future cap increases. Also, there have been many long term players who have been asking the forums (especially the suggestions forum) for these changes to operations and flashpoints, including the level decrease to play with friends at different levels that hasn't really had a mention.

The problem at the moment is that when the level cap is increased, there is little to replace it. You end up with a situation where they either save all of their content (the cause of the DF/DP to Rav/ToS drought) until the increase or have it way easier than it is meant to be when released. That was OK for the introduction of level 55 but it got a bit problematic with 60. They had only a few FPs and 2 ops and ALL 50 content was worthless for new players. The initial outcry was fierce until they added 55 content back to the group finder. It is extremely difficult for new players to run the story flashpoints like Ilum, maelstrom etc at level and once they hit 56 they didn't even have the choice to do the HMs as group content. You can solo them or try to get together a group manually but it's not that fun when u can just walk through being invincible. Same with the 50 ops. It is no longer really MMO content. Now thing about level 65. What will be available to level 65 players? All 50 and 55 group content will be obsolete leaving just the 60 ops and flashpoints and maybe a few new Fps and ops. Any players who haven't done all the 50 and 55 content won't ever experience it as proper group content. Making them ALL current removes these problems and makes it easier for new people to join the raiding community.

They are reworking the levelling experience, how flashpoints and operations work, the companion and crafting system and making old content relevant to the many new players who missed it. These are also MMO elements, even if it is not new content. Unfortunately, improvements need to be made to keep the game moving forward and it addresses issues that have been going through the forum and suggestions for a long time. It is not like all the developers have been working exclusively on the story; the ones on the non story teams have just been busy with all the changes needing to be made. The OP of this thread is highlighting that they are getting to work on new content once KotFE drops. They also have seen the need to improve on post vanilla story content. The information about story that has come to light so far highlights changes to make the story deeper, more immersive and dynamic and with a greater level of replayability than ROTHC and SOR, even if it is the same story. While we will have to wait to see if it works, what they have released shows that they are aware of previous shortcomings and are trying to avoid them Yes, the lack of totally new, fresh group content sucks but don't lose sight of the fact that there are positives to this expansion.

There is another point that has been missed from Eric's comment on the ops drought between DF/DP and 3.0. They got caught knowing that there was a level cap increase coming and that a large majority of the population would not finish progression and gear before they cap increased and new progression started. This is what they have now been working to fix (by making levels obsolete for ops) and they announcement that started this thread shows that once that fix is in the operations team will start on new ops. It is regrettable that it means a large delay again but it also means that they will have a decent groundwork for releasing operations content more regularly. They will not have to worry about how making old content obsolete or how long until the new content becomes obsolete. Challenging operations like Ravagers and ToS won't scare so many new/casual players from raiding as other operations will still be available at max level (without being total faceroll content because of overgearing/levelling). Raids can appeal to a broader range of players. On the larger argument about what is good for the game, I agree that regular group content is needed to keep everyone interested. However, as many have said, this is not the ONLY thing required. Part of the content drought on ALL sides (story, ops, PVP) was the time they spent developing strongholds, GSF, conquests, tactical flashpoints and other parts of the game. They diverted resources from existing communities to give content to communities that didn't even exist yet in order to improve the game and these had flow on effects on the other communities. The content drought has consequences and I am sorry about the hardcore raiders who have been there and done that in old ops just too many times. However, I have been playing for nearly 2 years and the 50 ops were obsolete by the time I got to them and not regularly played. The 55 operations haven't faired so badly since they still appear in groupfinder and so have groups for new players but it isn't the same as playing them at level as a challenge. I have met a LOT of new players that started after me and while levelling a few new toons have had a new player in every flashpoint group I have joined (and a few where I was the ONLY one with more than 1 character). From a business perspective, bioware has the opportunity to improve the game system around operations to make releases easier, keep content from becoming obsolete and give a lot of new players content they haven't really done before OR they can spend the same effort making a couple of operations and flashpoints and deal with the a similar situation to 3.0 where only a couple of endgame options were available at level. It would actually be worse as everything 55 and below would be totally pointless and there is not a great deal of 60 content in the less than a year since the cap increase. There have been comments in this thread about a lack of compassion of other communities (some with a laughable lack of compassion for the group they are accusing). All sides need to remember that new content is good for SOMEONE else, even if not for them. Hardcore raiders have lost out recently, PVP hasn't had new content for a long time - though they have had regular seasons and it sounds like work is being done to enhance the gameplay - and GSF hasn't gone anywhere really, but this expansion is bringing a large number of players who left because of a lack of decent story content back. I won't debate whether the story will be worth it until iwe have actually played it but the focus on story is bringing these players back and many new players in. In the last couple of years I can see effort put into quality of life improvements and KotFE promises more. This delay of raiding content is not caused only by the focus on story but also on the operations team working on a new way of working with the operations/flashpoints. If this leads to more regular op/fp releases and pulls more players into the raiding community then it will be good for the game as a whole. I really hope that this will also bring many of the raiders who are leaving back into the game and makes it enjoyable for them. TL;DR The lack of new operations is not good but they have been busy. The changes to operations/flashpoints that comes with the upscaling of old content will have benefits to the whole community. It should lead to more regular content releases. It will decrease the divide between old and new players and encourage new players to join the raiding community. It is understandable why raiders who aren't interested in story are leaving but I hope the future brings enough to pull them back.

http://www.swtor.com/user/ce/1yuoy4

press Control+shift+F to show the frame rate at the bottom left of the screen. The colour tells you what is affecting the framerate the most. Red = graphics card Green = CPU Yellow = both There quite a few guides with advice for increasing frame rates depending on the cause. Once you have an idea of what is causing the issue (GPU or CPU) you can search for fixes for your particular cause. If the frame rate is fine and it is more a case of people not appearing quickly, rubber banding and ability activation speeds check your ping rate down on the bottom right (should be a series of bars like a phone signal meter). Hover over it to get your current ping rate as a number.

I believe the flashpoint and operations quest givers have a description that includes the level of the content. This is one of those things I am used to but don't actually think about so I may get this wrong when I actually try to describe it. I believe that when you hover the mouse over the NPC or click on them, the name and description of the NPC appears in the info box on the right (default spot unless you moved your UI around). The description should say what they are giving out (flashpoint or operations. Some will be bonus series or daily area quest givers but I don't think their description reflects this) and what level the mission is. Use this to get the flashpoints in order. Unfortunately, the operations givers are all 50 and 55 and don't give a better order than that. The order of operations for story is: Eternity Vault (standalone) Belsavis. Picked up on the operations ship in fleet, in the belsavis hangar. Karraga's Palace (mostly standalone, vague reference to other story). Explosive Conflict - Denova Terror From Beyond - Asation Scum and Villainy - Darvannis Dread Fortress (picked up by doing the Oricon missions started at the ship mission terminal now I think. May still be an oricon mission droid on fleet) Dread Palace (picked up through Oricon after doing Dread fortress). Ravagers (standalone, picked up on rishi in slums). Temple of Sacrifice (picked up as part of Revan Story Line on Yavin). I can't remember names of NPCs on both sides so unfortunately you may have to talk to the NPCs but the original NPC only gives you a vague briefing. The full briefing is given at the hangar on the Operations ship in fleet so use the planets I listed for each operation to do the briefings and ops in order.

Queue times are a lot faster for tanks and healers. Tanks are probably the fastest on average, healers next and dps can sometimes have to wait a long time for queues. This is an average from my experience, as I have tried all three and even as tank have had to wait a long time but generally tank > healer >> dps. There is a tactical flashpoint while levelling (and a few more at max level) that ignores roles for faster queues and there are going to be a lot more levelling tacticals after the next expansion in October. For the moment though, tanks and healers are fastest. If it is a first character, healing is probably the way to go. You can follow the group and learn the content without needing to know all the mechanics. If you tank, make sure you are upfront about doing content for the first time. Players will often follow the tank and get annoyed if you take too long but if you tell them that you don't know it most will happily lead you around and give pointers. If you tank operations and HM flashpoints for the first time, it is often easiest to read up on it beforehand or do it with a guild that can talk you through it. It will be a bit less stressful for you that way. You likely understand this from experience in other games but I'm just giving some general advice for any other new players that may find this thread. Having a mix of characters is the best option for elder game content. Being able to switch around roles when you see groups looking to fill just one role can be handy and it gives a lot more flexibility if you are in a guild.

I would imagine the changes to the core game would be just to make it possible for someone without rich alts to be able to level crafting skills and max character affection before hitting level 60 and possibly changing their companions. As it is now, the fast levelling doesn't give much in the way of companion affection and requires large numbers of very expensive gifts (you run enough gift missions to keep up with demand so they have to be bought unless you wait until max level to max your companions). Levelling crafting and gathering skills also presents problems as you just don't see enough nodes when just doing story missions to keep up to your current level, which means that you have to run constant missions on your companions just to try and keep up. I would imagine there will be some changes to the amount of affection gained from conversations and gifts or possibly some new options. They said that KotFE would have quests to gain reputation to recruit companions. Maybe there might be something like this to increase affection with existing companions. Crew skills changes might be as simple as gaining more skill with each action taken (ie crafting, gathering, missions) or a revamp of the system to make it faster to get what you want or less dependant on companions.

I don't know of any options for showing the group companions and can't find any way to turn it on and off. They should display directly underneath the group member's info box in the group UI layout. Have you seen it on your friend's screen? Do you know exactly what to look for? If you are looking for a big box like a group member box you won't find one. It is normally just a small portrait and healthbar below the group member's health bar. If you still can't see it, try going into the interface editor, switching to the group interface elements and making the group member boxes a bit larger. Possibly they are below a size threshold for displaying them. Also, there have been occasions where group companions don't display correctly. Sometimes the health doesn't move or they don't appear or they appear as dead constantly. It's a bit of a pain if you are healing them.