Okay, forget gear hi-jinks (worse drops, nerfed tactical- the operation frames that are harder to read- latency to the Satele Shan server as APAC has jumped by forty- fifty ms (gpn barely makes a difference)... what did you guys do with this last patch?

As someone who has a guild in the process of imploding where the many hard earned credits have been lost to the majority who earned them, even if I still had that support (and I still have access to other raiding guilds)- I would still have the other faction for my raiding characters and the cost is insane. Do not go after endgame gearing- new expansions are bad enough without this. I have to sink millions into just being able to craft when I need those credits to prepare my characters for getting back into Nightmare/Master mode. I'm not using the new augs yet but installing the right kit on my gear is crazy expensive- you're going to get my credits via prog. I run all three healer classes and the restrictions on gear prevent me at least running a universal optimized fourteen piece set. It's ridiculous- if you really, really want to deplete credits from the economy- that HK chapter should have been a credit cost to initially unlock per character at an insanely stupid price. By all means, have credit sinks but don't turn SWTOR into Monopoly where the average player who isn't even me has only one little property and a massive cost every other square on the board.

Please don't shove this into suggestion, but you really need a filter for GF Flashpoints for playstyle: like cutscene, levelling, expedient so people can be matched up. I hadn't gotten the chance to run on the opposite faction all week to level and it was a character I didn't want to skip story on that I raid on with a limited amount of time so I had my old XP bonus from fps but I kept getting groups after the quick finish. I must admit, my temper was running short itself and I was queuing at a stupid time and should have declined anything with a max level player. I haven't run GF for FPs for a very long time and I normally don't run vet- usually master/hm for a crystal and now the new gearing system. The reason why this isn't a 'suggestion' is because there is a lot of friction in game between various player types, all of which feel you cater to the wrong sort and at the moment, to retain players there really should be something that helps people queue with likeminded individuals. People won't always have guild members or teammates to run with and meeting new people (I'm not the target audience here) can help people build ties in game. I mean, the moral to my story is- don't try to level on a time crunch but there really needs to be something so we can stop adding to the ever growing weird people met in GF thread. I'm fairly certain I was one of them.

Or just run it completely empty for levelling? I only use it for speed levelling and it was fine on my healer less than thirty minutes ago.

Uh, no- not only is it balance breaking but that's a feature for certain classes. You want stealth, roll an assassin/shadow or an operative/scoundrel. I wrap my right wrist which has helped me. At the end of the day, this is an MMO and there will be trash between story sections. I think people need to be taught but I don't think frankly shoving this in (difficulty increase for story) at the same as implementing a gear grind for PvE/PvP players is a good way to support the game considering we lost so many people in 5.0, it led to server merges.

Operative/scoundrel healing, the lack of decent set bonuses coupled with the loss of the moving Infusion/instant rez (which I personally found the most decent puts us in pretty much at the same disadvantage to the other healers except more pronouced. For a class with lackluster burst in comparison, we really need a 1.30-1.45 cooldown on the new Tactical Overdrive ability. You can even make it exclusively a passive in the medicine/sawbones branch. As a healer class, in PvE we have to be competitive with our co healer classes, in fact this has to start being a focus when designing raids and with class balance. With the slower use of recuperative nanotech/kolto cloud- I would ask we get an automatic TA on cast with a chance of a freebie over the duration. Other than those tweaks, I'd live with what's shown. I'm not asking for a mega buff- I'm asking we have better tools so I don't have to hear about how rare my main is. Output feels weird and not where it should be at a 306 level. I'd honestly have to get my hands on live to see whether its just PTS. As a healer, who also plays merc/commando (sorc on a mediocre level)- you also have to start separating PvE/PvP balancing and making abilities work differently in PvP. PvE nerfs caused by PvP actually hurt and I have no doubt that class tweaks will ask for new nerfs. I'd give more insights but only had time to test my main class and the new op which looks like it'll be fun- please make Nightmare/Master Mode challenging. The gearing grind is stupid and overbearingly tiered. Too many numbers when the easy solution is to drop gear via raids and PvP. Leave the RNG to gear people who aren't into it. On the subject of level scaling ops/content- it was a bad idea and will stem people doing it. I would argue that people should be able to jump straight into any old op with the relative power of at tier and only be able to boost themselves to the highest power of said tier. 5.x 242/8-258, and so down and so down. People don't need a super charged based on the shiniest gear and for level scaled content, it's an absolute joke to necessitate gear to do the content beyond that level's stat thresholds. Also fix relics/abilities/adrenals so people can get relative procs and boosts in level scaled content. Do not make old content weaker but do enable legacy cleanse speed in Cartel Warlords for NiM/MM if you manage to make at tier difficulty as healers did have faster cleanses. Also fix any and all guild perks so they no longer affect Nightmare/Master Mode or Hard/Veteran Mode. It is not bolstered content and it's a joke that people have been able to clear HM with essentially crystal mode or mass resurrect in NiM/MM. It's done for memes and all but no one actually thinks any guild perk should be functional for completing NiM/MM. On story difficulty ramp up. I'd have to see it in action, I play on my mara for story and don't really story on my healers or tank but there has to be a balance between too difficult and oh look, my healer companion just killed that trash mob I've been scratching my head at for ten minutes. Conquest locked anything is asinine. CQ is point farming and requires no skill except grinding so stop locking mats and gear behind it and yields, and instead start offering that crowd something unique for CQ leaderboard placements. Let people get the full rewards for hitting personal and ditch the small/medium/large yield and instead actually create content and things for them because tying PvE/PvP stuff behind it increases grind on what is already an insane system. The crafting expenses are too high. We don't have the playerbase to survive another hemorrhage so I implore you to reduce the overall gear item levels by at least half prior to launch and also make every piece an automatic upgrade, you should not get an item that is weaker than the currently equipped one nor should certain pieces have worse RNG.

How about they allow subscribers to take non subs into operations? (like a maximum of two non subs in a raid) I'm sick of getting told creating content for my part of the community is a waste of resources when a sub is required for raiding, especially when our content is put behind the story content players raiders had to support for all of 4.0 and much of 5.x until Gods was a thing. Preferred just means you aren't currently paying and you got to play for free for all that time. You don't need a reward for it.

Can I recommend putting this in the server section- that way you will find your chosen audience.

You're an entitled one, aren't you? I do group content far more difficult than your GF 'elite' content and only run story on a few select characters... I bet you're a healer who hates people running ahead of you and chain pulling in some flashpoint or SM op, lol, I imagine it happening on NiM/MM would do your head in. Get good and don't expect any sympathy here. You don't like the fact you can be replaced by a companion- do content in which people can't. But don't go after the story players who simply want to play their SW stories, many of them wouldn't queue for anything so they can't exactly ruin your GF fun.

I earned the DvL armour and that, I a hundred percent disagree with. I've never moved the armorings out of the shells- that was a reward and I worked my fingers tired to earn that- they should not be retrospectively stripping player rewards from the game. I and others were playing and earned those.

This system as it stands is going to result in a severe exodus like the CXP crates at the beginning of 5.0 and we just don't have the game population to survive it. The devs can't just put in some backwards insane RNG grind- as a healer, I shouldn't have to contend with not only random, garbage stats but unusable main and offhands from a vendor- you know it doesn't keep people subbed- and the gear tokens off bosses should be static unassembled pieces for set slots- and then there's the tech fragments dropping for one person in the raid. I just- at this point all I see is some eldritch gearing system in which the devs didn't learn their lesson. Hell, I found a comic strip about the pieces which dropped back in previous expansions. Stop repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results because you've used up all of the good will and there aren't enough players to sustain another heavy loss. You've got so much to fix that you should honestly come up with some reward and delay till the end of November (some people have said you can't delay till December) and do it properly rather than leaving an aspect to the wayside. We'll forgive delays for a system that works instead of one we're beta testing on live for months on end.

This will just hurt energy regen for healers unless costs are reduced for us and not just one class if it goes live. The 6.0 sets are lackluster.

At the moment, it looks like each class is only going to have one truly special ability attached to their set bonus. If this is a balance thing for the tacticals/amps- it truly becomes a case of why would you bother inserting them into the game at all, when you could have simply increased the array of set bonus pieces and prevented unnecessary stat bloat creep.

I've been favouring the Tactician's set- simply because I wasn't interested in solely buffing AoE healing capacity via a situational stationary AoE but other than that, you've summed up mostly how I feel about the changes. Unless they buff our class significantly- Tactical Overdrive would need a minute cooldown and given how the ability works, we shouldn't need an OP ability to help our class make up for what we're losing. My current set bonuses for operative/scoundrel are more or less perfect. Agree with the criticisms on Critical Surgery- if it was a default auto crit for SP, it would have my vote over casting KI while moving/instant rez- as it is, it's only useful in the way we shouldn't be playing the class, it should get reworked. I would suggest a stacking increase to the heal itself which holds for about ten seconds to a maximum of three/four. My major bug bear with the utilities is the sheer amount of useless abilities in the first tier which is where I wasted my third point as after damage reduction/AoE reduced damage, it's lackluster.

Can I just ask what the point of introducing the server lag was if they were simply going to increase the totals- because I'd rather not have it mid raid when all it'll mean is another massive point grind and a total that for a raiding/PvP guild which actually needs the high end mats for content is harder to reach than some mega Conquest guild with faceless members grinding out points.

Yes, please.

I think it goes: Goals Team currently with ball (on draw) Deaths (if neither team has the ball and is even on the goal or none front)

Where is the fix for Tyrans on Nightmare/master mode where the datacron does not transport you back up which effectively breaks the entire Op on that difficulty unlike EV which has a feasible workaround?

Would this Soa fix include one for NiM Tyrans? I really wish you guys would have combined it for a longer downtime instead of two separate days.

I'm far more upset they broke the Tyrans crystal for Nightmare than the most fun I had in EV for years.

I will second this- the gift of playing with low latency and ping would be worth having a smaller pool of people to play with and attract more APAC players back to the game.

I don't PvP much anymore because of APAC reasons but I retain enough of my competitive spirit that any character I'm earning crystals on will be trying to win first, medal later. There's no reason to act like a child and ruin other people's fun because you're a petty little brat you have to do things to earn components. Bioware aren't doing PvE any favours but here I put forward that guild perks shouldn't affect HM- HM isn't meant to be content you're bolstered for, not that they don't give you participation components which you get for the weeklies, this person seems to be crying they don't get participation components. Note: You did avoid name and shaming them so I don't see you getting into trouble over it.

So I finally got a friend to play so happy but he'll be free to play- can I buy him something via the CM to get him as a preferred and if not, will we need to get him to use a referral link so I can send him unlocks or can I send him things with him just being unable to send anything to me? Thanks and yes, I know he can get access by subbing once but I want him to enjoy things enough to want to do that.

What I've heard from some NiM people and I might be wrong is it has to do with learning the schematic from reverse engineering a mod from crafted 258s but take with a grain of salt and that it's silly rare. I may and could be wrong but it's what I heard over the Lethal B 258 which sounds all kinds of painful.

That's enemy players but a common trick is to time coming out of stealth for when the teammate has reached the right spot so the ball can be passed or you can be jumped to like an anchor and immediately retreating back into stealth, timed right- it beats staying out of stealth because then the enemy team knows where you are as you camp their spawn/goal zone. Play your cards right and you can manipulate them into tying up two/three players just searching for you as well. Sin/shadow tanks pull enemies (does not work against full resolve) or can stride to an enemy/ does not work on friendly players.