I'll just echo what some others have said: homogenization was not a bad thing. It meant that I could complete Conquest by doing what I like to do, rather than having to dabble in a bunch of stuff that I don't really care for (or have to sit in queue for for 45 minutes). Moreover, specializing the different Conquests runs counter to the stated goal of helping smaller guilds. Some content necessarily requires more players to complete. If someone works the night shift and can't get into Ops or GSF, well, they're basically up the creek. Reducing the importance of crafting was a good idea. But as you said, you went way overboard. All you had to do was limit the amount it could contribute per character / Legacy. The changes to the recipes was absurd. I suspect that there was a secondary motive for that: to give people something to spend that Jawa junk on and to reduce what's probably an excessive economy-wide stockpile of the lower-grade materials (same reason you upped the GTN tax, really). But there are better ways to do that. And finally: next time, let's have this conversation before the bombshell patch. You would have blunted many if not most of the complaints if this post had gone up on Monday instead of Thursday.

First rule of negotiating: always write the first draft, so that you can frame the discussion. And this is, of course, a negotiation. Because what they want (money) is not what we want (fun), and those two things are in open conflict in any game with "convenience" RMTs.

Unlike many others posting here, I haven't played consistently enough or long enough over the years to have any kind of ax to grind with BioWare over this game. I haven't really pored over many of the complaints but I think the sheer volume speaks... volumes. Just two observations: (1) Generally when you have a system which isn't really working or needs updating, you'll want to solicit feedback before taking the hammer to it. It seems clear that this did not happen. Why? The scarcity of details prior to release of this patch, which has been in the works for some time, combined with the massively negative response, creates the impression that BioWare was aware that this would not be received well... and forged ahead anyway. This is a really common developer tactic in aging or dime store MMOs that are looking to make their game progressively more grindy, and thus the cash shop "time saver" products more attractive: make extreme changes, then placate the outrage with concessions that still leave things in a much worse state. I really don't know if this was BioWare's intention, but if it was, it can't be overstated how toxic that is to your brand. You will alienate the players whom you need the most. (2) The stated goals of the Conquest changes look, frankly, farcical when juxtaposed to what actually happened. This is such a boon to the biggest zerg guilds with the most active players, and a bullet in the heart of smaller or less active guilds. I'm not sure who in their right mind could ever think, "we'll make them put in more time, give them a lesser return, and severely restrict everything that can be done solo -- that's the perfect way to help guilds with fewer players and resources!" The crafting changes are case in point. It's very easy for a huge guild to pool their materials and redistribute to maximize their point return. Small guilds? Not so much. Solo players? May the Force be with you. I can't imagine how a solo player could consistently meet their personal Conquest objective without selling CC items or something to afford the astronomical number of materials required. All I can say is that, as someone who does subscribe, but doesn't play an extraordinary amount each week, it was already difficult for me to reach my personal objectives unless we invaded the planet with the more-accessible bonuses (i.e., not GSF). With the way things are now, I won't even bother opening the interface anymore.

There was no other way that this could have gone, really. The unique, divergent class stories of the original game were its signature feature. That was the bulk of this game's appeal: insanely high replayability. The Alliance system just wipes all of that away and tries to pigeonhole that immense diversity into a single storyline. How else are they going to accomplish that except to turn your character into a railcar? Take my Assassin (the character I decided to "main" for the KotFE story because after chapter 12 or so I couldn't be bothered doing it on more than one character). I roleplayed it basically middle-of-the-road to the Darth Imperius title, making pragmatism my rule of the road. Calculating, but not cruel. There's just no way you can unify that in a coherent way with a bloodthirsty, insane Warrior type, or an altruistic Consular. They tried to just seal you in carbonite for 5 years as a "reset" and gave you dialogue options to cue you to think of yourself as a "changed man". But I didn't want to be changed. I wanted to be the same ruthlessly effective Sith that I was when I climbed my way to the Dark Council. That was the entire appeal of a character that I poured A LOT of time into building. It's not a bloody etch-a-sketch. What's frustrating is that we know this game is immensely profitable. This is, effectively, the only content they're creating for the game now. There's simply no excuse for it not to be top-notch. It's easy to blame the writers, but ultimately they were given what was probably an impossible task: to convincingly converge what is basically a cast of 24 different characters (light/dark/gray * 8 classes) into a single vessel, and do it while keeping us limited to three conversation choices. It's impossible. The loss of character individuality was a cost-cutting design decision more than bad writing, and that loss of character individuality is what basically turned our characters into a marionette for the NPCs. It just gives the impression that they don't care about the game anymore, and combined with the ludicrous new Cartel Market "features", that they're in maintain-and-milk-it mode. edit: To clarify, I'm specifically speaking to the "our choices don't matter" stuff. Obviously there's all sorts of other things wrong with the story.

So Revan is a Cylon, then? It all makes sense.

You'll note that I noted that this happens in every game, and is not a new experience for me. I've even participated in it in the past, briefly, though I quickly got bored. I'm not really faulting anyone for it, just making an observation. I'll get there one way or another, if not in season 3 then for season 4. Not many people have the patience I do. Again, this happens in every game: entry-level PvP is often a miserable experience and communities slowly choke themselves to death, as old players get bored and/or retire at a faster rate than new people enter the fray. This game is better than most. Bolster does a decent job and gear seems relatively easy to obtain, but is still meaningful. It feels like a good balance between incentive and barrier to entry. Yeah I'm definitely not getting bolstered to max Expertise, which is the issue. I've tried looking up information on exactly how bolstering works. On its own it's confusing, but most info I've found on it is at least a year old, and uses the "old" mod numbering system, for extra confusion action. I was initially in full Oricon gear and wasn't getting put at max expertise, and as I've upgraded that gear I'm still not (~1900). I decided to stop wasting time trying to figure out bolster and just grind it out. Survivability is really only an issue when there's a premade with coordinated DPSers on the other team, and those are going to be painful whether I'm taking full advantage of bolster or not. Thank you for sharing this bit of wisdom, I had no idea. It's always an honour to benefit from the experience of big-name PvPers. Wait... who are you, again? Ohhh, that is good to know actually. Thanks!

It helps to have gear, though, which is hard to come by when the 4s teams practice by farming the unranked WZs. At the risk of sounding like a sanctimonious douche, that sort of thing really puts people off even attempting the ranked queues. I'm not new to MMOs, this happens in every game of course, but it's still rough. I'd actually really like to try putting a team together (or joining one), but I'm new to the game and need to gear up. Getting hit for 40% of my health makes it clear that bolstering isn't much of a substitute, and there's only so many hours I can endure that lol. No community can survive without a flow of fresh blood. =)

Hi! I'm a newish (2 months or so) player (sub) to TOR but an MMO vet. I have a 55 Sent and a 51 Sage (Seer), the latter is likely to be my main. Generally I like to just "do my own thing", but I also enjoy group content -- dungeons, raids, PvP, etc. For the most part I've only done leveling content, and I'm looking to expand once I reach 55 with my Sage. I'm looking for a larger, very active guild with diverse options and knowledgeable players that can answer my endless torrent of questions. So, a bit about me. I've played RoM, Rift, FFXIVARR, WildStar, and a bit of WoW. Without going into too much detail, I used to be a hardcore raider/PvPer in top guilds. I'm not really into that scene anymore, but I do still like to do what I can to optimise and progress my character. And, of course, see content, even if it's not at the cutting edge. Despite that history, I'm not much of an elitist, and at one point I even co-led a semi-casual raiding guild. I'm also an educator, so I have the patience to help others learn. Plus, I'm hilarious. Send me a PM or post to let me know about your guild! =)

Thanks, pretty much confirms what I'd been thinking. I leveled Sent with Combat and really liked it; I saw they're removing the RNG components, which is a bit disappointing, but I've decided to just level both and see where things go (have a feeling I'll wind up back with my Sent).

Oh this is wonderful. ^_^ Defence: 5 Support(Healing): 5 Damage: 8 Light Side(Good+Lawful alignments): 10 Dark Side(Evil+Chaotic alignments): 1 Empire: 1 Republic: 10 Lightsabers: 10 The Force: 5 Tech Gadgets: 1 Guns(Blasters, Snipers, etc): 1 Armour: no pref Dual Wielding: no pref Big Weapons(two handed): no pref Stealth: No Method of damage: no pref Scope of damage: no pref Favourite SW character: Revan <3 Prior MMO experience/liked class(es)/etc: Rift, lots of exp (Mage, loved it, especially Chloro); FFXIVARR, moderate exp (Dragoon, White Mage); WildStar, moderate exp (Esper); WoW, lowish exp (Fury Warrior); Runes of Magic, moderate exp (Warrior/Rogue) I suppose I'm torn between Knight (Sent) and Consular (Sage). I like classes that are high-input, high-output: takes a lot to bring out their full potential, but very rewarding when you do. I generally like to heal more than to DPS, but I also worry about Sage healing having a low skill cap. Sentinel, on the other hand, seems to be pretty nuanced, the type of class where there's plenty of room to distinguish a great player from a good player. Plus, I tend to gravitate toward dual-wielding. Another concern: I've poked around the forums a bit but it's always very hard to gauge class balance that way. I don't do the FOTM thing, but I've rolled into gimped classes often enough that I'd like to avoid it for once if possible. I've read quite a bit about Sage/Sorc being at a disadvantage. Oh, and I like both PvP and PvE. Thanks in advance for any advice.