It's a minor thing but... It is mentioned in the description for "Freedom from FR3-DOM" objective that it requires active subscription and/or access to Legends of the Sith. Pretty sure the expansion is called "Legacy of the Sith" 😄

We all know that voice acting and, specifically, voiced protagonist is a signature feature of SWTOR. We also know that it costs and also takes time to plan, organize and deliver. Need to record 1 line said by player character? Contact 48 actors. And don’t forget about NPCs. Let’s go down the memory lane a bit. 4.0: KOTOR style cutscenes come into play for side missions such as Alliance alerts and Star Fortresses. Protagonist isn’t voiced but has more dialogue options as well as different ways to interact with the environment (remember Sith relic puzzle on Yavin IV?) 6.x: during the pandemic side missions were released with close to none voice acting – PC is silent, NPCs use recycled alien lines. This approach is still utilized in story bits associated with Galactic seasons. 7.3: KOTOR style cutscenes made its way into the main story, but it felt more or less appropriate. Missions in Interpreter’s retreat are similar to half-voiced New Manaan or Ruhnuk planetary arcs, you just have to complete them in order to progress through the main story, not after it. And finally, in 7.4 main storyline we jump from normal cutscenes to “black box” ones seemingly at random. That lack of pattern is what bothers me. Sure, important parts are fully voiced, like the final encounter, but I can't wrap my head around everything else. There’s also (pretty nice) banter between cutscenes with PC having things to say. But if the amount of PC’s lines has to be reduced for one reason or another, cutscenes should have priority over banter, no?.. If we look at FFXIV, for example, they have 3 types of interactions during MSQ: short conversations with one NPC outside of cutscenes; non-voiced cutscenes with multiple characters discussing things or with some action; voiced cutscenes (important stuff, pay attention!) It's logical, and you get used to the scheme. It doesn’t mean I only want important stuff being voiced in SWTOR too. I also understand that it’s unrealistic to expect everything being voiced like in the old days. But if fully voiced scenes are going to be mixed with half-voiced ones from now on, I’d like to have some pattern here. I don’t see any at the moment. Do you?

What about twitch drops? Would it be hard to implement?

I’m about to go through somewhat similar changes at my own work, which I’m not exactly thrilled about, and now I read that news about my favorite-comfort-zone game. Life is ironic. Best of luck to devs and all the staff in their careers. At the very least I expect SWTOR losing in the future updates (beyond 7.4) its identity and uniqueness which, ironically, set it apart from the other MMO titles - voiced story with roleplaying options. All these seasons, conquests, events and other systems have always been fluff aimed at keeping us busy between meaningful story updates, regardless of the size and quality of these updates. All this stuff is undoubtedly cheaper to produce/maintain, and the game will probably still rely on it instead of full maintenance mode, it just won’t be the same game. Still, preparing for the worst but hoping for the best. Our main source material is called A new hope after all…

1. How are you enjoying the Galactic Season system overall? Quite a lot. I don’t have any major grievances. 2. Do you like the Companions offered through a Galactic Season? Is there any way you think the Companions can be improved? What companion has been your favorite so far? It’s hard to care much about new companions since we have a threatening amount of them already. I rarely use these new ones outside of active season. That said, I liked the story bits around them, and having actual little missions in addition to conversations in Season 3 was nice too. What can be improved? I’d prefer them speaking basic. We all understand why they don’t but listening to alien gibberish, especially battle cries, gets tiresome very quickly. And as others mentioned, it’s probably time to move away from the underworld theme (black archaeologist? or it’s not that different… deep space explorer? freedom fighter? adept of a less common Force cult like Kel Dors’ Baran Do?) 3. Do you like the rewards offered from Galactic Seasons? Are there rewards you wish were included in the reward track? Rewards are fine. I especially welcome stronghold titles. It would be nice if dyes could stack, or at least went into inventory within a crate. Rewards I don’t care much about are comp customizations and comp weapons. It’s slightly annoying when you see, let’s say, a cool blaster in the track, then tooltip says it’s for companion, not you… Other possible options are emotes and HP regenerating toys – tied to the season theme, of course. 4. Do you enjoy the content used in Season Objectives? Are there parts of the game you wish you saw more, or less? It’s a good mix of common and uncommon (for me) activities. I’d like to see full operation (= defeating all bosses, not only the last one) as an objective, not just single bosses. 5. Have you been able to complete Galactic Seasons? Do you feel the season requires too much effort, or is too easy to complete? Yes, I’ve completed all three. Seasons 2 and 3 were not too hard and not too easy, just about right. 6. How does completing a Galactic Season fit into your desired play session? Are you able to progress the Season while doing your normal activities, or do you feel Galactic Seasons prevent you from completing the content you enjoy? I don’t really have a set of normal activities. When Season is active its objectives are usually my main focus. 7. Do you have any other feedback or suggestions for Galactic Seasons? Reputation tracks seem mostly pointless, easy but long grind for the sake of grind (and a few titles). Other rep tracks in the game usually unlock cosmetic items on vendors but we have a lot of season related cosmetics within a season track… There’s not much to spend season tokens on after buying fleet strongholds and sub rewards you’ve missed in the past. Not sure if adding more cosmetic stuff is worth it but what about an option to exchange token for in-game currencies like tech frags? I don’t mind having a «complete 100 weeklies» achievement as an entirely optional goal within the season but title and comp customization as a reward for it don’t feel worth the effort. I’d like to see something more unique, maybe an item similar to Yarvok’s gratitude?

I’m surprised at my emotional reaction to this news. As Shintar said in her blog, Charles is one of the faces strongly associated with SWTOR. I’ve always tried to be optimistic about the game’s future but it’s a huge blow to my (decaying) optimism. Best of luck to Charles and to all newly appointed people.

You... play whatever you like in the game? Complete story on another alt, work on tricky achievement, get creative with your stronghold? *** Frankly, I've never could understand that drama around gear that starts and goes on every time yet another gearing system or some silly items (golden augments... cough) are introduced. Except for maybe 5.0 gearing. As a person who isn't really into MMOs (but can probably be considered as part of that elitist ********** of narcisstic endgamers as my main day-to-day activity in SWTOR is raiding) I find it weird that raiders want some fancy stats as a reward for completing the hardest content (what's the point if you have already completed it? showing off? carrying a buddy?). I find it equally weird that players doing simple PvE content are so obsessed with it as well (as long as you can easily slice through opponents the game throws at you... why bother with item levels). I do understand PvPers whose main need is being equal in terms of gear so skill was a deciding factor. But others? Gear is nothing but a tool. Not a reward, not a goal. It's certainly not content. If nothing else keeps you in the game, you'd better find something else to do. It won't benefit BW but it will benefit you. (Yeah, I'm ready to get yelled at, how I dare to tell people what to do with their time!). This post will be buried and forgotten but damn, I needed to vent a bit.

From sage's point of view: 1-2. As others said, there're very few items, and half of them aren't working at the moment. It doesn't look like a good mix of options, just "default" bonuses we use now and some others we mostly ignored in 6.n and will ignore in 7.0. E.g., as a TK sage I don't see any reason to use anything but Gathering storm and Haste package - same as now since this combo is universally effective. 3. I'd like to see some of the bonuses of the old Force Mystic set, specifically reduced CD on Healing trance. It made seer's "rotation" more fluid, the spec was so much more fun to play. I'd even settle with Healing trance being less effective in terms of healing output, just... bring that -1,5 sec back please.

Have you tried commanding your comp to attack the adds? I mean, manually. There's a bug when Rass just stays around doing nothing during the adds phases. I'm not sure if BW has acknowledged this bug. Anyway, every class has plenty of tools to deal with enemies without comp's help - defensive cooldowns, stuns, mezzes, abilities allowing you to move faster (these are very helpful in SM/VM FPs since you can get to the healing stations in 2-3 secs). You haven't mentioned what advanced classes you're playing; is it guardian, sent, sage, shadow? The advice would vary depending on that. I've also seen a post on reddit about a workaround that allows you to use Jesus Droid. You need to start one of the older SM FPs, leave it, enter SoV and hit the button to summon the droid. I'm not sure if it actually works though.

Again, my point was LoS'ing adds in that fight is not exactly an optimal approach. LoS is used to make ranged mobs come to you and stay on top of each other so they could be AoE'ed quickly. Melees come to you and stack on their own, there's no need to LoS them. It's waste of time, especially if they appear simultaneously and run together to the person with aggro (like in Rakata FP). If I had to come up with the most optimal approach I'd say it's stacking up in the middle (already mentioned that). Sadly, LoS fans won that round.

LoS works nicely when you have a bunch of ranged mobs but these guys in Rakata FP are melees. It doesn't matter if you stay behind the pillar or in the middle of the platform, they'll come to you anyway. People just need to stack up and wait for a few seconds. Of course it's hard to expect from pugs, there always will be a mara jumping to adds as soon as they appear or a sorc staying miles away from others and pulling aggro. Similarly, there'll always be a dude who doesn't know about the pillar, doesn't read chat or doesn't bother so adds end up being everywhere. Not a big deal anyway. It's not like you can't finish the fight or it takes much longer if adds aren't stacked up for AoE burn. That tank's reaction was a bit too emotional though.

What triggered me most as a Consular in the recent update wasn't even "I sense this, I sense that" thing (even though it was weird too), but Arn and Aryn lecturing my character on the history of the enclave. Ancient things and Jedi lore is Consular's specialty! Our very first mission in the game is archaeological quest. If anything, we should lecture everyone about such matters. I understand the reason behind it - tech classes needed to know what's so special about that particular Jedi enclave, as well as people who haven't played KotORs. But it could be done in more elegant way - just replace one of the generic lines for the Jedi with something like "Ah, yeah, I remember that". Heck, I'd even settle for a neutral reaction like "Okay, let's move on and focus on our task". But no, it appears our Jedi scholars don't know a thing about not-so-distant Jedi history and can only say "Omg, it's horrible!", "Nah, the Jedi would never do this" and "Nice idea, actually". (Not to mention an attempt to recontextualize what's been done to Revan's identity/ memory here and present it as a common thing. But that's for another discussion). The meeting in the end also wasn't the strongest part of the story, to put it mildly. Nautolan Jedi's reaction to Aryn was forced, cringey and only needed, apparently, to show us the changes in Arn. Since my character didn't rejoin the Jedi Order in the end of Onslaught, in my version of story Nautolan dude turned out to be an exemplary hypocrite who's upset with one former Jedi being there but doesn't mind another. I don't think that was the intention. I didn't hate the story, some bits were nice, but there were too many weird things spoiling the fun. I haven't played the imp part yet, maybe I'll have better experience.

There's a reason why logic as a discipline thinks of analogy as a source of fallacy. The situation you described doesn't represent accurately neither recent changes to crafting nor that whole discord controversy. In the first case (crafting), people didn’t order the same steak. It was a bunch of guests who ordered a steak, and it was brought to everyone regardless if they wanted it or not. That’s not how a real restaurant runs things but it’s exactly how a video game functions. When changes are made, they affect everyone, and there will always be someone who won’t like it. Obviously, the studio has to do its best to satisfy as many people as possible, etc, etc. Still, this example shows why “You must do this because I’m paying you” mindset is ridiculous and counterproductive if demanded changes are going to affect other people; it shouldn’t be abused or used over rational arguments. It’s also egoistic, self-righteous, rude, and won’t get you anywhere since you're telling the sudio what it already knows. In the second case (communication), all the guests actually get their steak, and every one of them can also use a promo code and get some dill on top of it. Important info that affects all the players is provided via official channels, e.g. detailed posts about upcoming changes, patch notes, maintenance schedule, known issues, PTS announcements. What is posted elsewhere is an unnecessary but nice bonus. Missing it won't hurt you in any way. *** Mind you, I'm not against players raising their concerns about it. I simply state that I personally do like that devs don't confine themselves to offcial channels, show interest in other platforms their players gather at and talk to them there from time to time, be it Chris on TC discord, or Charles on reddit, or someone else on another platform or discord server I don't use and not aware of. I like the concept, I want that kind of communication to continue, I don't want it being shut down. After all, I'm a paying customer too and I can demand things... oh, wait.

@Nee-Elder Chill. I’m not an owner, owner’s friend, mod, etc; I don’t even post on TC server, only read stuff I’m interested in, same as on these forums. I’m just a random user who stumbled across this thread and stated their opinion on the matter. I do understand that players are upset about lack of communication from devs, and it’s enhanced with “I pay so I demand” mindset you often see here. There’s certainly space for improvement. That said, I personally don’t have a problem with this communication occurring not only on the forums but also on the platform many players use in addition to forums or instead of them. Heck, I like it since it's less formal and uptight, and also differs from livestreams with its pre-determined points of discussion.

I just want to say that I appreciate greatly that Chris engages with the community the way he does, and I’d like it to continue. Discord is a great platform for less formal and stretched communication compared to what the official forums are supposed to provide. I realize it’s speculation but it feels like the amount of active players who frequently visit forums and don’t use discord is fairly low; it means very few people are “gated”, and it’s entirely their choice. Besides they aren’t really missing much, nothing super important and crucial is discussed there; it’s more like getting a little bit of insight into some aspects of the game and seeing a dev as a living person, not a faceless individual behind the wall of yellow text.

Yeah, but on Parsely you can also find info on class perfomance in ops under Operations leaderboard. You can use health reduction modules on dummy. People usually parse with 6,5m module (and armor reduction module) since it better reflects the average boss' health pool. Not sure about the last question since I almost never use SP ratings (where're nims?) but the logical answer would be "yes".

You can only buy this rug with cartel certificates, and this currency only drops from ultimate packs (rarely) and slot machines during Nightlife event. I'm not sure about contraband slot machine, even if it still drops the chances are astronomical. So yeah, I personally wouldn't pay 20 mil for this rug but I can understand why a seller puts such price. Decorating is rather expensive hobby but deco prices are at least stable, especially compared to armor or weapons. I have an impression that the price of many older items haven't really changed since introduction of the ultimate packs. New CM stuff is usually quite expensive though.

WB is broken in all 5 instances on DM now. It's Nightlife all over again.

Just adding my voice to the chorus even though it probably won't be heard. I guess we'll get used to these new cryptic symbols, overall design and such. But I don't appreciate when info I'm not interested in is thrown into my face. I couldn't care less about sales and conquest, and I'm well aware about my toons' story progress, you know, it's right there, in the mission tracker. It will just keep to annoy me every time I hop to another toon. Obviously, it has to be treated the same way as other UI elements. We should have control over it, be able to lock it, change size, etc. I do prefer the old social window but I'd settle with the new one if I just could disable this sales-conquest-story pop-up window.

Thank you so much for this! I asked once if post-KotFE soundtrack could be released. Great gift.

This argument doesn’t hold water. 1. Merch based on DT and targeted at kids and teens doesn’t sell. At the same time merch based on OT, PT and TCW still sells decently. There’re plenty of articles discussing this issue. Kids don’t ask for it, parents don’t buy. 2. It’s been 4 years since TFA. Some of these kids the movie was supposedly targeted at are young teens now. Somehow I don’t see them all over the internet expressing their appreciation towards DT. On the contrary, I saw some of them on the so called “hate subs” and was surprised that they even care. There’re franchises that are far more attractive for teens than old school Star Wars with its futuristic shabbiness. MCU, for instance. 3. It’s also amusing how TLJ fans keep claiming that this movie is a masterpiece, and those who don’t agree aren’t just smart enough to comprehend it. A movie made for kids, huh? I’d say the only new demographic DT attracted is young females dreaming of Reylo, and they’re even more toxic than Fandom Menace when they don’t get what they want or don’t like what they get. Besides, as soon as they smell another Twilight in another franchise they’ll move there. Pissing off old fans who’s been keeping the franchise alive for 40 years, and hoping that they’ll be easily replaced with younger ones, isn’t exactly smart move. Plenty of these pissed fans are parents and maybe even grandparents who don’t want their kids watching what they don’t approve. I mean, even three parts of their AAA trilogy contradict each other and don't make sense as a whole thing. Every time they try to fix it in additinonal content (art books, novelization, comics) they make things even worse. Rey's a nobody and Kylo's antipode, nope, Rey's Palp's granddaughter, nope, Rey's daughter of Palp's failed clone, well, forget about it, it doesn't matter anyway sinse she's a Skywalker now. And according to the dude from the Lucasfilm story group, they don't care about continuity and consistency. I find it hard to believe that they'll manage to tie all the stuff they're going to release or even try to do so. Sorry for off-topic.

IMO they just moved things around. With Wandering mend nerfed One for All tactical becomes a default one. You can take Storm’s Succor for fights where intense AoE healing is not needed but as a Sage / Sorc you want usually some kind of middle ground, both decent burst and decent AoE. They made Empowered restorer a bit more useful but nerfed Revitalized mystic so it’s also just moving things around. Besides it’s like adding half of Rejuvenate heal to other bubble’s effects; it will slightly improve HPS, and that’s it. Yeah, they introduced a new set that’ll drop form Dxun NiM but most players won’t have a chance to obtain it. And honestly, I don’t find it more appealing than other sets. You’re meant to sacrifice the most useful DCD you have to heal you raid for ~70k total and absorb some damage (not sure how much) every 3 minutes, slightly less with utility. Ugh. It looks like they also nerf Op’s Tactician set, and probably something will be done to Mercs. In this case Sorc healers may become a bit more appealing as a class but certainly not because of stuff that was listed in OP.

It’s nice to see that Seer / Corruption specs are getting some attention but it seems the changes were made for the sake of changes, not to improve class' performance. I did some parsing on live and on PTS using both Revitalized Mystic and Empowered Restorer sets. There was hardly any difference in terms of HPS, and PTS experience was rather underwhelming and annoying, mostly because of 2 reasons: I got used to having 1,5 CD reduction on Healing trance, and rotation feels clunky without it. I don’t like that too many abilities are tied to Rejuvenate and its effects. Wandering mend has always been useless without Conveyance, and you needed it for Healing trance as well since its crits are, well, critical for Force management. Now there’s also no point in using Benevolence without it, and you have to choose constantly which ability to use when Conveyance is up. Choice is good but it feels messy. I guess we have to be grateful that nothing is tied to Force speed yet. Other notes: Buffs to Force management are hardly noticeable. I was hoping it’ll allow me to spend less time hitting Vindicate and more time using actual healing abilities, and it’ll improve my overall performance. Nah. It just compensates the removal of 1,5 CD reduction on Healing trance. A change for the sake of change. Changes to Wandering mend and One for All tactical made me chuckle. Yeah, let’s nerf the ability so the tactical that’s meant to impove this ability wasn’t too OP. Another change for the sake of change. Single target sustained healing somewhat improved; I like Deliverance + Rejuvenate + Benevolence combo. Merc’s single target and burst are still superior though. Revitalized Mystic set feels completely useless now. Empowered Restorer set will only be useful in encounters with lots of raid-wide AoE damage when you have time to bubble everyone in advance. None of Sage / Sorc sets can be compared with Op's Tactician and Merc's Concentrated Fire sets. To sum it up, with these changes my Sage and Sorc healers will continue gathering dust. There’s still no point to choose them over other classes. Suggestions: Leave 1,5 CD reduction on Healing trance as part of Revitalized Mystic set bonus. Don't nerf Wandering Mend but redesign One for All tactical so it gives WM one extra healing charge but each WM charge deals less healing. There was suggestion to redesign All for One tactical so Salvation provides that “burst of Force energy” in the beginning, not in the end. Everyone who enters the pool when it’s already on the ground gets that “burst” as well.

Thanks for info on crystals. As for stats, I've been in encounters where tank made a difference when replaced some of their gear with skank pieces. One can hope And I know it's a tired argument but if you want old raids being for you the same in terms of difficulty despite new gear being introduced, you can choose not to spend a fortune or lots of time getting it, same as you did with 286 augments. You didn't need those to clear Dxun, right? So why bother at all? My initial point was a bit different though. I haven't said "BWA has to scale content asap ", I've said "BWA could have avoided this whole argument if they scaled content 4 months ago". I'd still prefer endgame content being scaled properly (there're plenty of reasons, convenience being one of them) but it's too late already. Damage is done.

Of course it wouldn’t satisfy everyone. On the other hand, we would have more control over our stats, could trade one for another in certain encounters, wouldn’t be forced to use ****** relics, etc. Nim crystals would be a thing (I’m not sure if they work in scaled content and haven’t seen any reports about it). Or people would just wait for new augments and tiers of gear knowing that it’ll help them to clear content they couldn’t handle before. Yeah, I wouldn’t mind nims having stack and no-stack options. Raids with stacks could become a good training ground since the gap between hms and nims is now bigger than ever. Removing stacks from hms won't solve the problem because in 5.x. the difference was huge as well. They can gate chievos and shinies behind the harder option, or add new ones for completing it.