Agreed. It’s nice that we can disable guild flairs near characters’ names. I don’t like how they look, I don’t like how they match with personal flairs, and I’m not impressed with my GM’s… erm… artistic taste. But what if I don’t want other people seeing my chars with these flairs? They kinda ruin their looks. Pity I didn’t check it on PTS. I’d definitely ask for a “turn on / turn off guild heraldry” option in character sheet. Maybe it would even come true. Or maybe not.

It’s really nice to see more yellow posts Here’re some points regarding gearing which I think should be kept in mind: The hardest PvE content in the game (Master Mode operations) should give MM raiders the best gear as a reward or at least make them closer to getting it than other types of players. Progression raiders consider the highest rating gear not as a reward but as a tool which helps them to clear harder content. That’s why it shouldn’t be gated behind MM ops. Casuals and solo players got used to having access to the best gear in 5.n, and I believe they won’t be happy to lose this access. PvE and PvP gear have to be separated. RNG is not exciting at all. I also don’t think that Galactic Command as we know it now can make it into “next large update”. If devs add new GC levels, it won’t be good for new and returning players – it’s not easy for them to catch up even now. If they reset levels, lots of players who’ve spent ages grinding CXP will enrage. Besides GC doesn’t make much sense story wise anymore. Still, some of its aspects can be salvaged. For example, here’s a gearing system I wouldn’t have much issues with: We still get CXP (maybe named differently) for various PvE activities such as regular quests, chapters, dailies, heroics, flashpoints, world bosses, ops and space battles. We also continue getting crates as we gain new CXP levels but instead of pieces of gear they give tokens (bound to Legacy – think of command tokens or unassembled components) which can be used to buy or upgrade gear. When we acquire enough tokens we can buy Tier 1 PvE gear (purple / gold with set bonus), after collecting more we can upgrade Tier 1 into Tier 2, etc. That’s a path for solo and FP players. Raiders can also get pieces of gear through operations. E.g. SM drops Tier 1, VM drops Tier 2, MM drops Tier 3. There may also be Tier 4 which can be acquired only through upgrading Tier 3. There’s no need to reset CXP levels, on the contrary, new levels can be added. At higher levels crates contain more tokens, e.g. 1-89 lvl crates give 10 tokens each, 90-189 lvl crates give 15 tokens and so on. Those who have been playing in 5.n would have advantage over new and returning players but it wouldn’t be significant, and their efforts won’t be wasted completely. Gear cost shouldn’t be astronomical, of course, especially for Tier 1. Tokens can also be used to buy crafting schematics for blue / purple gear (not adaptive and without set bonus), as well as schematics for purple / gold augments. Green / blue Tier 1 gear can be looted from mobs. I’m not sure how to include PvP into all of this since I’m not avid PvPer (I queue for regs from time to time but don’t touch ranked), and it’s hard for me to judge what players who are interested in PvP only would like. As far as I understand, they: don’t want gear being decisive factor in PvP, don’t want huge gaps between people’s gear rating, don’t want to do PvE to get gear for PvP, don’t want players who do both PvE and PvP having advantage. That said, I think they deserve their own gearing system which is not tied to CXP and crates, similar to pre-5.0 era. I personally wouldn’t mind grinding 2 sets of gear, one for PvE and another for PvP, if getting PvP set won’t be too time consuming.

Ossus reputation vendor sells a Crystal light deco which apparently doesn’t exist. You can buy and claim it but it never shows up in the list of decos, and its preview is bugged.

I also liked indirect mention of Ysanna. Tau suspects there’s someone else on the planet who secretly observes colonists, steals their stuff etc. I wish Ossus lore was explored further but those little things are quite nice too. Great post, by the way.

It would be much more interesting if we could do Republic story on Imperial characters and vice versa. Just imagine all those possible interactions with suspicious Jedi, colonists and Republic personnel who have no other choice but accept former imp’s help, or attacking pubs as DS Jedi or disillusioned Trooper who had enough of Republic hypocrisy. I believe we didn’t get this option because we can’t abandon our faction gameplay wise. It doesn’t make sense when Imperial character sides openly with the Republic in story, then goes to Vaiken Spacedock and forms a group with fellow imps to run daily op. Clunky post-Iokath workaround can’t be there forever.

Yeah, it was weird. She was so happy to see JC, and he couldn’t say anything better than “So you guys are evacuating, right?” And it was so easy to make it look a little more natural and less rude without adding extra conversation wheels and breaking default dialogue. Nadia: I sensed you presence something something! JC: Nadia! *smiles* Doc: Friend of yours? Nadia: It’s my old master! He’s gonna save the day! JC: So you guys are evacuating, right?

I realized that I need to share my thoughts somehow, somewhere, with someone. *** About choices You could call the update “Writers under siege”. Both storylines are full of compromises and half measures, and still lack flexibility. Even if your character likes being a leader of the Alliance and doesn’t want to hug imps or pubs, he’s still forced to pronounce scripted phrases like “It’s time for me to go back to the Republic” and can’t even show that he understands the necessity of this choice but it doesn’t make him happy. Maybe things are better if your character is eager to return to their original faction? Yeah, he can state it a few times but NPCs keep reminding him that he’s a Commander and leads a separate faction. And if your character wants to switch sides, guess what… he’s not trusted yet and has to do minor damage while fighting the faction he’d prefer to fight for. Looks like it was written with certain protagonist in mind, and it’s not about the classes, it’s about attitude: “It’s good to be a leader of semi-independent faction and support another faction I like!” If your character feels differently you have no other choice but to headcanon things. It’s understandable: after so many years of continuing story characters have evolved so much and their background have become so complex that it’s just impossible to make them all fit into any new piece of story. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. And yet… I felt so sorry for my Consular who had to say things he’d never say. *** About storylines Republic storyline evolves around the theme which has been already explored in SWTOR (see RotHC) but I still liked it more than Imperial one. It’s more coherent: the protagonist was asked to help the Jedi on Ossus, and that’s exactly what he was doing from the beginning until the very end (or pretended doing it). Returning companions are integrated into the story far better than Elara and Quinn on Iokath, and remind of KotFE chapters which were exemplary in this regard. Lastly, it gives us a character who represents contradictory nature of the Jedi ideals, and dynamics between her and “old man” is very curious and touching. Sadly, Imperial story seems to be very clunky compared to Republic one. Pyron asks us to help soldiers under insane Dark Council member’s command, and we end up running around the planet looking for missing scouts and mysterious drops and then suddenly storm the Jedi Library with a dude returned from the dead. Huh? Obviously, when you need to fulfill a vital mission you choose a woman who’s not exactly sane and can’t concentrate on anything but her own goals and researches. Obviously, when you need to rescue a squad who’s suffering because of her decisions the best choice is a leader of a third faction. Obviously, when a mission is on the verge of fail, you try to save a day sending there your personal enforcer (pity his box lacks a gift ribbon). Everything seems logical so far… wait a minute… why not sending him here instead of insane girl to make sure that vicious “let’s eliminate the Jedi and steal their food” plan will be successful from the beginning? My favourite part is “dead” Malora finding Commander and Major to inform them what she’s up to. Are we her best friends or what? I don’t see any other reason for this awkward reunion but to explain her presence in the library in Republic storyline. So, you want to resurrect a big bad from the early days of the game. You want him to play a vital role in this little story. You want to please “For the Empire!” type of players allowing them to storm brutally a Jedi hideout having this big bad at their side. Of course his return should be a surprise, he needs some sort of decoy, and the planet has to be filled with different enemy mobs – here comes Malora with her bugs. And of course the protagonist needs a reason to come to Ossus – here comes Pyron worried about his soldiers (I’m still giggling trying to imagine a DS SI Empress forced to run around the planet looking for missing scouts). But, you know, when you can see the seams and stitches which desperately try to make the story whole, it’s not a good story. *** About Malgus *sigh* No one dies in Star Wars only once, right? He’s in good company: Palpatine, Maul, Vitiate, Revan, Ysanne Isard, the whole army of Force ghosts and poor characters who died twice in different continuities. At this point it’s a Star Wars tradition but I’d prefer it has never been established. Resurrection of a dead character is a cheap move, the worst type of fan service ever and it rarely pays off unless it's a feature of this particular character or the story which was thought off at the point of their creation. Period. We have a few examples in SWTOR. Vitiate was established as a dying-and-rising god from the beginning, and everything happened to him later made sense. Kephess is a funny meme. And Revan… I love this game but what it and its media have done to Revan was horrible and destroyed his character completely. Now Malgus is in danger of taking Revan’s path. I hope it won’t happen. *** As a conclusion. Cons: Malgus. Lack of flexibility despite all the efforts. Imperial storyline is clunky and rugged. Very few mentions of Ossus lore. I find Malora not worth that much attention. There’s nothing interesting about her, she’s just generic crazy Sith. Her modulated voice and the way she speaks are extremely irritating. A moment when Consular meets Nadia on Ossus and has nothing else to say but “Oh, you guys are leaving, right?” Nadia and Jaesa don’t recognize Lana in their Alerts. That’s just weird. There was a cutscene in the beginning of SoR where the whole player character’s crew is heading to Rishi. Why does the game presume that PC was gallivanting around Rishi and Yavin IV alone while his crew was dying of boredom on their ship? Why risking including such questionable lines which don’t even add much to the dialogues? A mention of planets introduced in new canon. That’s… personal. Pros: I’m very happy to see Ossus added to the game. The planet is awesome, especially the Library. Republic storyline is very solid. Nadia and Doc fit the story much better than Elara and Quinn on Iokath. Tau and Anri are both charismatic, memorable and beautifully voiced characters. I love the Jedi Scholar type Gnost-Dural represents. Daeruun and Anri acknowledge player’s choice on Iokath. Enjoying sunset with romanced Lana. Lots of mails showing what different characters think about recent events. A quote from The Phantom Menace. Nice touch.

I echo that. Those perks and guild leveling is just another grind, and I can easily choose not to participate in it. Leveling is tied to conquest which I‘ve never enjoyed. Perks look overcomplicated on paper, and I can live without those QoL improvements. But what my tiny raid team in a tiny guild is supposed to do now? We’re not NiM gods, we struggle a lot and need any advantage we can get. Disband and put our chars into big guilds? Adjust our raiding time to the raiding time in these guilds? Please reconsider it and remove all the perks which affect stats and performance in HM/NiM ops so it didn’t look like a carrot we can’t get unless we make an unpleasant compromise.

I also played for several hours and got about 10 decos, one of them was dug up with seeker droid. It seems rng doesn't like you.

First of all, thank you for picking Ossus as a scene for the new piece of story. I have very fond memories of Tales of the Jedi comics, they’re bizarre, funny and naive but still very engaging, and I always thought of them as of in-universe heroic epos. SWTOR version of Ossus is quite enjoyable to explore; I expected it to be much smaller, and I’m glad to be wrong. Jedi Library is gorgeous. Here’re some notes: - I’m not sure if it’s working as intended but several quest givers don’t have a triangle above their heads. Major Belatro in the Republic compound is hard to miss since she’s staying next to the bounty board but I was wandering in circles around Imperial base looking for NPC who is supposed to give me weekly. Turned out it's a Naulotan female behind the terminal with dailies, and looks like she’s about to throw up. - I’d like to have a terminal where I could pick all the heroics. I didn’t even find all of them (“Enkindled knowledge” on impside and “The Sacred Holocron” on pubside, maybe they're not on PTS yet). I’d gladly talk to NPCs while doing them for the first time but after that it would be nice if I could just pick them all at once. - Please make all types of Ossus currency legacy wide. It’s not about the classes, Imperial final boss is much easier than the Republic one. I completed Republic version on TK sage (252 gear +240 augments, with lvl 50 healing comp) without much trouble but I had to move, interrupt, use self heals etc – it isn’t insanely hard but you need be on guard all the time. On lightning sorc (248 gear + 228 augs, 30 lvl comp) I pretty much sleepwalked through it, it’s just tank and spank. Maybe the Jedi boss is missing some abilities? On the other hand, there’re lots of irritating mobs inside the Imp instance, and in Pub one you just fight 4 Sith lords. Imp and Pub heroics where you have to fight waves of adds are also different in terms of difficulty despite having the same mechanics. "Supply heist" isn’t hard, but I have no idea how to complete "Hold the Line" solo – too many mobs, and all hit hard. I believe the intention was to make waves of bugs (like waves of droids and Jedi in Imperial heroic) but they all appear at the same time instead. Looks like those heroics were developed by Empire lovers. I get it, there’re more missions which means you can get more rep tokens per day but completing a daily quest on Ossus doesn’t feel as rewarding as completing one, let’s say, on Yavin IV. I did about two dozens of quests today, and barely reached Outsider rank. It rather demotivates.

I mostly enjoyed the latest expansions. The main strength of the Star Wars universe in my opinion is not endless confrontation between two factions which could be arguably associated with Empire from OT and Republic from PT, but its ability to assimilate a wide variety of genres and themes using a space opera background. KotFE and KotET reintroduced family conflict (which became the very essence of OT after TESB) and explored it on a new level, returned to certain themes and motives from Expanded Universe, fleshed out certain characters (Valkorion retcon saved Vitiate as a character in my eyes), brought a new culture with its own believes and aesthetics. They weren’t perfect but I count them among the most curious pieces of Star Wars media. If I could choose between “Knights of…” trilogy as it was conceived and KotFE + KotET + Traitor arc + reset to default conflict, I’d definitely take the first option. Still, I can’t say that I’m completely unhappy about the new direction of the story. As long as the new additions to plotline allow me to explore and deepen my characters’ personality and observe how the circumstances affect their strengths and weaknesses, I’m fine. And looks like my main who was obsessed with the idea of Republic and Empire coexisting peacefully since vanilla is going to face his worst challenge – being disillusioned. It’ll be sad but interesting.

Gear – I vaguely remember that a few months ago new set bonuses were accidently added to the game and then removed. Maybe new tier has something to do with that. (Btw, the outcry about gear is amusing. It’s obviously supposed to help folks who’re planning to run MM Gods even though top raiders will probably be able to complete it in 236 . Progression teams who can’t kill certain bosses in other MMs because of the lack of dps (raises hand) may also find it helpful assuming the schematics and mats aren’t locked behind the content they can’t beat. I understand pvpers’ frustration but rather than that… why do people even care and pretend that someone is forcing them to grind stuff.) Story – I’m not happy about returning to pubs vs. imps conflict after everything our characters have achieved, including mitigating this very conflict, but my inner EU fan was excited to see a mention of a certain world from Tales of the Jedi comics. I also hope we’ll get an update on Jedi / Sith Outlanders’ current status in the Order / Sith food chain: are they considered to be outcasts? do they have a chance to reclaim their pre-carbonite ranks, positions and titles? will they be welcomed? what their former colleagues think of them and their actions? Companions – as a JC main glad to see Nadia coming back. Vandin map – as a Huttball lover looking forward to it and hoping for another chance to participate in PTS tests since I missed the previous ones. QoL for guilds – interesting, but looks like the fight for increasing guild member cap has to continue. And… …this.

Here’s a story. I had a ridiculous classic Huttball match recently followed by another ridiculous classic Huttball match, two in a row. I wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. 1: We were brutally stomped. I hardly had time to cast a heal – immediately focused, netted, stunned, chased, killed. Based on the amount of teammates I was seeing at spawn point every time I got there they were experiencing the same. There’s no need to mention that enemy team was holding mid and their ball carriers should’ve felt they’re just walking idly enjoying the scenic view. It was one of the most unpleasant Huttball games I ever had. 2: Enemy team was brutally stomped. I scored, scored again, looked around and didn’t see a single red dude. My team was chilling at mid, someone was running with a ball to scoreline meeting no resistance at all. A few seconds later a bunch of enemy players jumped down from spawn point, tried to get to mid… and died again. And again. And again. It was one of the most stupid Huttball games I ever had. Look, I main a pub char on DM. I’ve seen some ****. Well, actually a lot of it. Maybe it was just a bad luck but the last thing I’d expect after the implementation of matchmaking based on skill, gear and role is having two ridiculously unbalanced huttballs in a row. === That said, I haven’t seen many issues regarding the number of healers (tanks are harder to identify). I pay close attention to it since I usually play as healer myself, and before 5.9 having 3+ heals in the team was normal on pub side. Now I see equal amount of them (1 or 2) in most warzones and arenas, 3+ are usually found in the least popular maps (OPG and Yavin), obviously, because of the randomness of backfilling. And despite that Huttball thing a few days ago I wouldn’t say my overall PvP experience in 5.9 is negative though I expected it to be better. Maybe because I’m not a god PvPer with insane amount of hours played or because I queue solo. Sometimes my teammates are very good, sometimes they’re very bad; and it doesn’t differ much from what I had before the patch. But I see less stalemates now and get more matches where you can’t say until the very end who’s going to win, and I appreciate it.

I actually found another one here. It still explodes with fake credits.

Your example isn’t perfect. If mats were rewarded for doing solo content they’d become much easier to obtain and crafted items would sell for much less. If you want them to craft stuff for yourself, well, it’s completely different subject. Besides, endgame mats are not completely gated behind group content these days. You can get purple ones doing conquest (you have to join the guild but there's no need to socialize, turn off the chat if you want and do dailies, rampages and solo FPs). Some of them also drop from CXP crates (but yeah, the chance is small and rng sucks). Isotopes drop from the bosses in Eternal Championship though the chance is not good as well. But I see your point, you don’t care about the actual ways to obtain certain items (GTN is still the easiest), you’re fighting for equal rights. Which is fine. It’s just not as simple as it looks. === I’m not answering to anyone here, just some thoughts about the subjects discussed in this thread. 1. Why devs are trying to persuade people to play group content? – As others already said, this game’s genre is still MMO, and it has to be justified. There’re people who come here because it’s the closest we have to KotOR-3 and they want to play story, and those who come here from other MMOs because they want something new. The game should meet all of those expectations. Story is always there so potential solo players will be satisfied; but if potential group players see that queues are slow and you need 2 hours to gather a group for op, they’ll leave, and their money will go with them, and it'll be a vicious circle. – Maybe it’s pure speculation but I think that group players are more willing to maintain subscription than solo ones since harder group content is gated behind sub unlike dailies, heroics or even story. But it’s a very controversial subject which depends on certain decisions made by devs so I don’t really want to deepen into it. (E.g. in 4.0 story players had to maintain sub to get chapters, and, let’s say, raiders could buy dozens of ops passes on GTN while being subbed and then switch to preferred and continue raiding. On the other hand, story players could also wait patiently for the finale of KotFE and only then subscribe to get the whole story.) I used to be a solo player myself, and I didn’t feel incentive to be subscribed constantly. Being a group player now, I don’t even think about dropping sub. Of course, other people’s experience may be different. 2. What are the ways to persuade people to try and continue playing group content? – Pieces of story which are not crucial part of the main storyline but still curious. – Attractive items you don’t really need for playing your favorite part of the game but wouldn’t mind having. And no, it’s not forcing. The game rather suggests than forces. Wanna do op? No? Well, you won’t miss much. (That said, I think the GotM mission shouldn’t appear in the log automatically, something has to be done with heroics in the end of Macrobinocular and Seeker droid missions since finding a group for them is annoyingly hard these days, and Oricon quest’s description could use a warning that it ends with 2 ops.) 3. Why do people even need to be persuaded to try group content? I’ll answer with another question. How would you know that you don’t like group aspect of the game if you never tried it out in a friendly environment? And what will make you try it if there’s no “carrots”?..

Thank you for listening to feedback! All the changes are great. In addition to what others already said: + Garbage wasn’t an issue for me but I admit, SH looks much better without piles of trash. + Glad to see that fake doors were removed and speeder doesn’t fly through buildings anymore. – You can still hear jungle noises in Starboard Quarters on the ship. It’s actually amusing. – With the current hook options the Huttball deco is quite useless. It’s much easier to score if you just run on the floor, the way doesn't seem to be longer, and no one is going to knock you down preventing a goal. The easiest solution is being able to put decos which can block the way to all four ramps leading to the scoreline.

During the last playtest I've got a feeling the matchmaking is not implemented at all. On this pic you can see 4 healers in my team and only 2 in another. Looks like there were no backfills. Maybe they got 2 heals and 2 tanks? But protection numbers are not that high. --- I was looking forward to matchmaking and limiting the number of healers/tanks, and I'm dissapointed to see that it doesn't work. As a healer main I'd rather spend a few minutes in queue and eventually get 2 heals vs 2 heals match (or 1 heals vs 1 heals arena) than get an instant pop with 3-4 healers per team.

I love the Ravagers’ aesthetics so I have no issues with the stronghold being a “pirate’s roost”. My smuggler just got a dream house. The creative approach is seen everywhere, old familiar assets are mixed the way they turn into something new, impressive and enjoyable to explore. Thank you very much for your work. Some notes and observations (most of them were discussed already though): – Having closed doors you can’t open and rope ladders you can’t access in your own hideout is weird. Maybe there’s still time to disguise those doors somehow? – Being dismounted every time you enter or leave PvP area is quite irritating. Being dismounted when you enter the Port Quarters on the ship is just strange. I suspect it's a bug but who knows. – The speeder needs a new route since it flies through walls. – Not exactly about the stronghold itself but… A noise the new fabricator droid makes (similar to Blaster’s) is too loud and annoying.

/signed I’d like to have Rishi as a guild stronghold since it’s designed with group play in mind and has dummies but sadly deactivating the old one is not an option. Too much time and credits were spent.

It's not surprising that this thread was invaded by the people claiming that the poll is weird, and inaccurate, and has no purpose. OP's curiosity about "general consensus" (no matter how sincere it is) just adds fuel to the fire of constant bickering between two types of players. That’s sad.

Rep main here, and I don’t have the issues you’re describing. Regs pop relatively fast (sometimes even faster than on impside), same goes to HM FPs. I’m not sure about pugging ops since I rarely bother but my guild is running them every night, mostly SM though. That said, I usually play as healer, and everything can be very different from dps’ perspective.

Group finder is used for FPs, Uprisings, unranked PvP and solo ranked. If someone wants to do an operation or team ranked outside the guild, they always go to fleet. That’s why one can assume that the amount of LFGs on fleet depends on the amount of people currently playing the game. Speaking of toxicity, well, I rarely see it on rep fleet and I learned to ignore everything but LFGs on the imp one. I’m sure I’m not the only one who managed to develop that ability. Besides, I doubt there’re much people who sit in their strongholds thinking: “I want to do a GF op but the fleet is so toxic… oh, no, I can’t stand it, I’d rather do heroics!!”. === When I said “the fleet was unusually quiet” I didn’t mean the numbers. I was surprised that the chat was barely alive – no guild announcements, no trading, no questions, no discussions, one dude was forming a group for EC and another for TR. I didn’t stick around for long though. I’m not jumping to any conclusions; on the contrary, I’ve found it unusual. Actually, based on the amount of complaints about the pops on SS and SF and all those “merge us!!!11oneone” threads I started to suspect that DM may be the most active server. === Maybe one of those instances shows how much folks are on guildships.

I haven’t been on fleet for ages since I usually chill out in my strongholds but yesterday, around the same time, I went to Republic fleet hoping to find a group for GF op. Yes, it was unusually quiet, I remember it being more active on Friday nights. But keep in mind that the busiest hours on DM are 8 – 10 pm GMT (well, based on my observations). Lvl 70 PvP pops were okay though. Unfortunately, it's not a good argument. Less people are in game -> less people want to find a group -> less people go to fleet.

It would be nice if there were two ways to acquire this SH, playing some matches or buying it directly with credits or CCs.

I’ve run the MM version of this flashpoint several times and I still didn’t get the achievement for completing it. I do get the achievements for defeating the bosses and get the reward for completing the quest but the legacy system refuses to acknowledge that the FP itself was completed. My guildies and some other players I know encountered the same problem. We were hoping that the new patch would fix this issue but looks like it didn’t. At the same time I’m a bit surprised that no one on forums or reddit spoke about this problem; I believe the achievement hunters wouldn’t be exactly happy about it. Is it happening to everyone? Am I missing something?