And what don't you get about upgrading companions being part of the character progression in this game? If "progression" doesn't lead to a (significant) improvement in their efficiency, why should I even bother doing it? What kind of ... progression is that? You also seem to want progression, but then don't care if its rewards are totally nullified by the capping system. I don't need a rank 50 companion... in my stronghold, just to look pretty - if I put time and resources into getting companion stronger is because I need them on the field! I don't find any logic in pouring resources into upgrading companions only to hear them "I can't last much longer" when I'm out on the field. If I can't rely on their help it's like not having them at all!

What, is this even an argument? If you wanted "lower than 50" you had 40+ degrees of "lower" to look for! More options that could suit more different player requirements is always better than fewer options, that would please only a few. Your "should be" is not necessarily my own and 50 degrees of strength coming from companions could fit the whole range of players, from those that are happy with next to none, to those that rely on their companions for whatever reason. Also, don't forget that some bought that token from the Cartel Market, for real money only to find it useless now! Selling such items to players binds BW to certain obligations that cannot be altered without consequences. On the other hand, what would a Presence Datacron say: "You... potentially get +2 presence (mastery, endurance...), as that might count as +0.25 when on certain areas, +0.75 on areas" and so on. Same goes for all the other stats gained through other datacrons: retain them no matter what, or else just take all those quests away and don't trick people into thinking it would be worth anything.

Energy Burst instant ability grated at level 15 is unusable as it "requires Energy Lode" which I don't seem to get anyway! Apparently, Energy Lodes should be obtained from using Rail Shot that, actually, doesn't grant any. However, it should also be possible to "instantly build 4 Energy Lodes" from using the Power Yield ability, but this again doesn't seem to grant any, or at least doesn't enable the aforementioned Energy Burst. Default discipline for a brand new, level 1 Powertech seems to be Pyrotech. Probably that's why the Advanced Prototype path has not been taken by many while levelling new characters. On a side note, the level "inflation" has become hard to bear. You get the basic Rocket Punch, Rapid Shots and Flame Burst at level 1, then a couple more (Rail Shot and the conal Searing Wave) a few levels ahead and then nothing till level... 15! Not even level 10, which previously opened the path to other "Disciplines" has no importance now. Then I had the unhappy idea to switch to Advanced Prototype at level 10, a choice that took away the only "AoE" ability I had, the Searing Wave, and so I had to same 3-4 abilities I picked during the first 5 levels. Then at level 15 I got probably 4 at once, but two of them were actually of not use (Power Yield & Energy Burst).

I will start with my thesis that proper level synchronisation is an illusion: a max level character in 7.0 is a different "creature" compared to a max level 65! Max level 65 is past tense now and so are most of its characteristics. Skills and defensive are different and so is going to be with gear: BiS was easy to achieve back in the day, but now it's still on the "to do" list. However, let's see some numbers*: Player stats Level 65 (2016) - HP: 80k - Mastery: 5,276 - Endurance: 6,400 - Power: 2,845 - Presence: 3,762 - Damage (Pri): ... - 3,250 Level 65 (synced) - HP: 70k - Mastery: 3,626 - Endurance: 4,477 - Power: 1,816 - Presence: 3,130 - Damage (Pri): ... - 2,096 Eternal Championship Bosses 1. Arlaia Zayzen: 129k (2016) -- 159k (2022 / 7.0) -- Medical Unit: 33k (2016) -- 44k (2022 / 7.0) -- Combat Unit: 29k (2016) -- 39k (2022 / 7.0) ... 5. Lanos: 210k (2016) -- 259k (2022 / 7.0) 6. Breaktown Brawler: 240k (2016) -- 296k (2022 / 7.0) -- Mister Ripper: 375k (2016) -- 417k (2022 / 7.0) -- King Crush: 375k (2016) -- 417k (2022 / 7.0) 7. Nocturno: 210k (2016) -- 258k (2022 / 7.0) -- Drake Raven: 378k (2016) -- 465k (2022 / 7.0) ... Shall I go on? While player's stats have been reduced even below a "standard" level 65, bosses stats have remained and in some cases even further buffed, much as they were with the "bolster" system previous to current version. I insist: "adjusting" only these numbers will not magically solve the level synchronisation difficulties, since our characters have been affected at a much deeper level by the current changes than simple stats values. Not to mention how efficient companions were back in the time! To all those that might argue that a strong companion takes all the "fun" out of the game, I would like to remind that "Sprint Champion" title pursuers heavily relied on the efficiency of their companions! Most "sprint champions" switched their companions role to DPS to help them beat the dps check, but now, with the greatly reduced survivability of our current characters, one cannot have that luxury: without a healing companion you have to keep moving to stay alive, so if you are a caster you are in no position to compete for the sprint champion title. Actually, not sure if any class is in such position any longer! * 2016 data credits to for player's data and Dulfy's for Eternal Championship Bosses data.

The point (imo) is: is this how they meant it to be? What's the point in delaying a character from getting those items by forcing them to do x number of activities when there is already a currency cost limitation? I'm already level 80, I've already got enough Tech fragments and what not from doing the other activities required (for the needed currency) and now you want me to do yet other activities just for... what? I'll surely waste on currencies I got capped already... or maybe that's exactly what they want?!... Lower the required activities points to 10 and be done with it! It's a one time quest, without any significance and we could have surely lived very well even without having it at all! Making things difficult just for the sake of it is a poor choice and leaves a bad taste behind!

It's not only companions that are out of balance, but player characters too! Even if your companion would get some of their previous efficiency, if you are a lot squishier than before you'd still have issues completing solo content. I went to PTS to check if they adjusted the Eternal Championship. Yes, I know, I keep dreaming, as they only "adjusted" the Presence value to decrease at slower rate. However, what is more surprising is that while your character's HP has been reduced to what was probably the level 65 values, the Bosses have been buffed actually even more! More that they were in pre-7.0 when players had a much higher HP pool and damage output! I mean, what kind of "balance" is there? I did some quick math and it turns out that, in order to achieve the "Sprint Champion" title (complete all 10 ten rounds within 15 minutes) you'd need to keep a steady 7k output damage for 13 minutes! I mean, 13 minutes non-stop! At least 1 minute goes into announcements and I threw in some other seconds for stuns and other unavoidable moments when you can't do anything but run for your life. Therefore, since your character is also squishy like a soap bubble you'd need to keep your companion on heals most of the time so they cannot really help you reach the dps mark. I went in with 320 blue Decurion gear and barely reached 4k in one round. I doubt 326 rated gear would make that huge of a difference so, without an overall re-balance of players-companions-NPCs, this content (to make an example) is not playable anymore, unless you really want to ... hate your life! Resuming, they nerfed companions, they nerfed players' overall efficiency and their gear rating and then they... buff NPC Bosses?... I mean, you could keep trying and hit the wall with your head as long as you want, but 2 + 2 will never make 10 however you turn it! Developers, or whoever comes out with those number should check their 101 Mathematics textbooks again! Or, maybe this is how the game is meant to be ..."played"... o.O Good thing my subscription runs out in 3 days. I feel sad for those that showed their faces in the streaming announcing the 10th anniversary, as they seemed to be nice and passionate people, but I cannot drop another cent into this game without feeling guilty thinking of so many other developers out there that really deserve it more!

I wonder if the ability to ... exchange one currency into another of your choice would be a good idea. For example, the specific currency you need to upgrade your gear: Hazardous Matter Catalysts, Decurion Isotope Stabilizer, Thyrsian Production Accelerant etc. Let's say I prefer to go for Flashpoints gear route (Elite and Supreme Decurion), but as I completed other activities (PvP, Operations) I got other pieces that have their own route to get upgraded. Should I reverse these items that are specific to these other activities I should still get a few tokens of their related currency which, in my case, are of no use for my goal to complete the Decurion (Flashpoints route) gear set. I know I could still play with gear of various "flavours", but I'd prefer to go for a simple, clean way. This way, even if I'm ...forced to do other activities for Conquest points, it will still benefit my own goal and feel less of a burden. In this case, I would like to have the possibility to select e "preferred" currency for when I reverse an item and get, say, Flashpoint gear currency from any other activity I (need to) complete. Much the same as how you select which of your preferred specializations should your gear drops match. The idea behind this comes from realizing that I have many currencies (again!) that don't fit my current needs and only clutter my "Currencies" tab. This suggestion mentioned the gear specific currencies, but there are others that will sit there in my currencies tab forever (so to speak), like the Ranked PvP tokens from some earlier season that are too few to exchange for anything. On the other hand, however one tries to play, too soon you hit the cap on a currency while not having enough of others to exchange it for. Or a huge "cap" for currencies you get in a very small quantity and small cap on currencies you get in much larger quantities, like Medals of Commendations when you complete your weekly task. Being able to convert currencies into the one you actually need would make any content a lot more appealing to complete.

Agreed. As a mostly solo player improving companions' efficiency is the first step I take as soon as I get a new one. I enjoy their comments while completing quests, besides of course their help, but since 7.0 they are like: "I can't last much longer!"...

I had goals I felt were within my reach, before 7.0 came out. Goals mostly related to solo content like The Eternal Championship. Now, with all the nerfs of both players and companions, it seems I would need to get into a NiM raiding team to get the gear I need. Wait, they said we would not need that gear for ... most of the game content! Even so, companions will still be useless, without any other means to improve their already max (?) rank 50 "performance". At least I only spent game items to get the rank 50 token, but others spent real money to buy it from the Carte Market, and nerfing companions in this context feels like a... scam! Probably a heavy word when referred to the owning company, but unfortunately it looks like that no matter how you want to turn it.

+Me, too! I even bought the "Legacy of the Sith: Digital Collector's Edition", for the "shiny" light-saber I cannot use and for the extra month. I could have stayed preferred since all I'm going to do now is just vanilla levelling and class story. Yay!

The problem is, you get different currencies from different activities and that means you might end up having to upgrade the headpiece you got from operations, the chestpiece you got from flashpoints and some other pieces you got from PvP. Theoretically you could upgrade your gear by doing your.... "favourite" activity, but in practice you'll have to do all the others to complete conquest objectives, for example. If you could convert what you get from side activities to the currency of the activity you prefer that would still be something, but each upgrading path is ... "vertical", in a tunneled sighted limited way. So, yes, the "options" they gave us are not making the gearing progression straightforward at all, on the contrary. Oh, not to mention the... uh, other "option" you have to grind for gear items of some other entirely different combat class if you want to significantly increase your alacrity, for example. LIke, if you are a tech class and you would need an alacrity item that a force class has, then you will only get it from the vendor and upgrade it again only from the vendor, but not as drop from any activity. Multiply that for the number of different classes you want to play and see that you will need to hire someone else to help you figure out how to plan it in a meaningful way!

Same here: I actually enjoy going for objectives, but my aversion for arenas is unfortunately even greater, so I'd rather skip that content altogether. This is yet another area where having options would keep me involved, while taking that option away and forcing arenas on my PvP menu makes me only go "thanks, but no thanks".

How long your level 50 had to get the gear to reach those values? Now, a new character at level 50 has at most a few hours to play before getting to the next level and the gear they can get is going to be far from optimized. Not to mention they'll have almost half of the skills tree still to unlock. Considering a level x content, at level x+1 onward is only a matter of level sync and that is far from perfect. No max level is the same between various expansions, and the differences are difficult to.... "sync".

Level is only part of the equation. Compare your dps output with a then level 65 that you can still find on youtube guides. Your "synced" values are a lot lower. Not to mention companions: except for round 6, they all could keep their companions on damage role. You can't do it now and that makes each round a lot longer. If you are lucky you might stil get the "survive all ten rounds" title, but "sprint" is no longer attainable, at least not with the gear we can get now.

Level scaling would not be that huge an issue if it were only about level (battle stats). It's not. A then level 60 player compared to a current level 60 player have only the level in common, but the current level 60 player has less abilities and worse gear without having the time to get better gear at level. If you play just a bit longer you'll find yourself already at level 61 and all your stats scaled even worse. And it gets worse the more you "progress". Once you reach level 80 your stats will be far worse than what then level 60 had. Not to mention that we lost many of our abilities and also utilities severely reduced. Level sync looks good on paper, or probably sounds good to hear, but it's difficult to make it work well, too. Especially since - for some unknown reason - they find it so difficult to actually balance things. It's either too much or far less than what's needed. But, I insist, beyond the sheer values of your stats there are other factors (abilities, for example) that cannot easily match the target level. Last but not least, the current level sync system requires you to level up and get the current max level (best) gear in order to be able to complete lower level content. Where is the logic in that? The day 7.0 came out, my carefully tuned gear at level 75 became a lot worse than what average player at target level had. For example, the Eternal Championship feels like Master mode content now. A level 75 with its BiS gear should have had no issues in completing it but damage output and survivability were badly nerfed instead and stats went lower and lower for each level gained. When Eternal Championship came live, players had options to fine tune their gear, but now even that option is not available any more for a level 80 players so how is that supposed to be "scaled" down?

What level is your character? I'm afraid it's a wider issue related to how they changed the level sync system. The higher level you are, the worse your gear is devalued. Normally, while levelling, people don't really care about the gear and pick whatever the game drops, but now it seems one has to wait till level 80 and then get the best gear they can get and only afterwards going back to those quests. So, personally, I think it's the level sync that is messed up now.

Has anyone tried it since 7.0 came live? My 306 BiS gear / level 75 has became trash now and having companion going DPS is not quite possible, except for first round. The day before 7.0 I managed a 16 minutes run; the day after I was taken by surprise being killed on the very first round. I kept trying and trying and barely manged to finish it in about 30 minutes, with plenty of deaths in between. Level sync is not really fair here considering that we have less defensive abilities and utility options now, worse gear (no more BiS option, at least not for the vast majority of player base). Also item rating is only confusing since 306 has no meaning for level 65 content. It should also sync with the item rating of a level 65. Last but not least, both starship dummy droids are level 80 now. At least one time the warzone one was the same level of the player so you could practice a bit, but now there's no dummy droid to practice and improve your (level 65) DPS in order to see what numbers you need. I've seen quite a few level 75 beating record after record, getting almost to 10 minutes. I wonder who and how will they be able to replicate that now.