Any update on this @CommunityTeam? It has been over a week since this post was made and there is still no mention of any form of the promised compensation for our lost time and lost progress.

The patch worked for me, I can finally get in now. Thank you devs!

I agree with this, and I'm glad they're trying to fix it and taking the time to test the patch properly this time, but it is still very frustrating that we're unable to play (or at least unable to play on our main server) the game that we all paid for or currently pay for. I hope they compensate us for this and maybe do something to let us catch up on Galactic Seasons too.

That is not the issue. You can remove it yourself, like Owen said, but the actual problem is the game trying to load with the wrong graphics settings. Removing the splash screen will not make it any easier for your GPU to handle all those high quality texture files. Let's be patient now and see if this planned fix works. Considering they only figured out what the issue is today (or over the weekend when they were probably off work), it is probably best that they are taking another day before implementing it, hopefully to test it and make sure the fix does not cause any new bugs. We're not all going to die if it takes them another two days or even a week to fix the game. I'm frustrated about this too but calling it a death sentence is a little dramatic. There are other games, or books, or movies and shows you could enjoy in the meantime. They didn't lock us all in Shadow Town.

We figured out that there is a bug where the game is forcing everyone to use the highest texture setting on the character selection screen, and that this is most likely the root cause of our game crashing/freezing issues. If the developers are reading our feedback they will know this too. But figuring out which piece of code is causing the game to ignore texture settings on that one screen, and how they can fix it without causing other issues, is more complex. We also figured this out on Friday and over the weekend, so this is basically the first day they can work on the issue. I'm annoyed about this too, but it makes sense that they haven't created a fix yet.

I already tried to do this but my computer does not have this option in BIOS so I cannot test it.

Yep. I feel fairly confident we've pinpointed the main issue here, and hopefully they can fix this bug soon. I really want to get back to playing with my friends on Star Forge, and to be able to do galactic seasons.

Ok, went back and double checked my client_settings file. I didn't modify the current file, but it also doesn't have that line in it. I added the line before since you suggested it as a possible solution, and it didn't force low texture quality on the character select screen, so it didn't fix this issue. But I think after deleting the file (another proposed solution I tried that did not work) it didn't create that line when it generated a new client_settings file. Not sure whether this is intended but for me it is irrelevant until the issue of textures being stuck on high is solved. I am not going to try readding "MinspecVramCutoffMB = 256" to the file since I already tried that and it didn't affect textures on the character select screen, so it isn't a fix for the problem we're having now and I do not have the flickering bug. If you want to test it, go ahead, but that isn't something that affects my machine.

This is incorrect. I just tested it on one of the servers I can still log into. I am currently able to change my graphics settings to 'high' ingame. This does change all settings including the texture quality, contrary to what you are saying here, and I do not have flickering issues when I do this. My computer can handle the high settings without crashing once past the character select screen, but it started to heat up so I turned the settings back to low again. And no, I have not altered that line you mentioned in my client settings file. However, none of this applies to the character select screen. When I try to change my texture quality setting in preferences on the character select screen, it reloads the graphics but does not lower the texture quality at all. On that screen specifically, the game is always loading with high texture quality. This is, again, a software issue. The game is not working as intended. The fact that better graphics cards can handle the game not working as intended does not make this a hardware issue.

We know we can't run the game well on ultra high settings on our computers. That is only an issue when the game ignores its own graphic setting options and forces us onto higher graphics settings. This appears to be an issue with the game ignoring graphics settings during the character select screen and putting them on the highest setting even when we set it to the lowest option, which is a software problem. Assuming this is in fact the issue, it probably is also affecting some people with older/lower performance computers who don't have Intel integrated graphics, just in less dramatic ways like longer load times that don't stand out enough to get forum threads dedicated to them.

This might be relevant. I'm curious whether anyone having this bug is either A. NOT having the issue with a second server that has >17 characters (since that is the lowest number I've seen quoted as being a problem) or B. IS having the issue with a server they have <15 characters on (the highest number that worked for me. If anyone is in either of these situations that might rule out the number alone being a problem. I can't test your suggestion, unfortunately, I am poor and only have this one computer with integrated graphics. But I agree it's worth trying even if it probably isn't causing the issue. The issue seems to be related to number and/or complexity of characters and character data, not subscription status itself. Being a subscriber (or having been one in the past) lets you create more characters. And Stefan and I proved that we can still log into other servers as subscribers, just not our main servers where most of our characters, items, and game progress are. So unsubscribing alone is probably not going to get you back into SWTOR as you will still have the same characters. Yes, I am still having the issue too. They said they are trying to fix it, but it is currently the weekend so a fix likely won't happen until Monday at the earliest. For now, email them your DxDiag files and wait (or use the internet connection trick to play on another server for now if you want).

I have 15 characters on Satele Shan and am able to play there despite having integrated graphics and not being able to play on my main server of Star Forge. If X characters is the issue, 15<X<29. I have other timed run achievements but not that one. Sent them a DxDiag file. I really hope you can resolve this soon so I can play with my friends again. They are all on Star Forge and that's the server I can't get into without encountering this load screen freezing issue.

I tested this theory today with the Copero SH on Darth Malgus. I logged out inside the stronghold, quit game, then restarted it. Logged back in with no crashes or freezes. Also, as someone who was previously a victim of the stronghold infinite loading screen bug multiple times, when that bug existed it applied only when logging into the specific character, not when logging into a server from server select.

I tried to change the BIOS VRAM setting but my computer's BIOS does not have that option so I'm not sure whether it would work. I do not want to mess with registry if I can avoid it, since I know enough to know that modifying the registry is dangerous but don't know enough to do it without corrupting my windows install or other files. I also would like to reiterate that I am currently having no issues playing on any other server besides my main server (Star Forge), so I am fairly confident the issue is with SWTOR and/or its files/settings, not my machine.

I tried to do this. It still crashed when I tried to load into Star Forge.

Got back from work and testing this out. So far, I can log into Shae Vizla (0 characters) and create one. I can log into Tulak Hord and Leviathan (2 characters each) and play the game with no issues. I can also log into Darth Malgus (7 characters, legendary status) without a problem and successfully played for awhile doing various content and playing on several worlds/zones including Imperial Fleet and the new Copero stronghold. My GPU and CPU are easily handling the game itself once past the character select screen, even when I open several other apps. I can log into Satele Shan (15 characters) without issue. But as soon as I tried to log back into Star Forge (my main server, 28 characters, it froze up instantly. So as far as I can tell legendary status is not the issue, my computer hardware is definitely sufficient to run the game but could be compounding another issue, and my account is not the issue. I still can't rule out a character or armor related glitch. We also know this is not server-specific, since I can play on Darth Malgus but not Star Forge, the opposite of what Stefan reported. I am guessing number of characters is not the issue, since I have 15 on Satele Shan and can play on that server, though I can't be certain. 15 is still less than Stefan's Darth Malgus roster. I did some digging through the game files and found one labeled ContextError. A text file. This is all it contained: "[Settings] GUI_CharacterSheetVisible = false" I tried deleting it and it popped back up after I tried launching the game again. The game still froze up. Is this relevant?

I have different numbers of characters on different servers, and none on one of them, so if it's not solved/resolved when I get back from work today I'll play around with this trick and see which I can get into, and whether there are any obvious differences from Star Forge where I have been having this issue. My current hypotheses are that, since we're all playing with older accounts, it might be either an issue with loading some part of the legendary status/story completion graphic (since new accounts would not have all the stories completed, but my account does on Star Forge and I'd guess most people playing for several years have completed the origin stories on their main server) OR an issue with over a certain number of characters like Stefan speculated. I suppose an issue with a specific character customization option or armor piece equipped on our characters could cause this. I know some alliance crate armor pieces caused graphics issues years ago, but that was more of a spaghettification situation rather than crashing or not responding. But it seems somewhat unlikely that we'd all have the same armor and character customization.

I understand that the game lists 1024mb dedicated video memory as a requirement, but we are all having issues now with computers that easily ran SWTOR prior to 7.4.1. Since that update was not a major graphics overhaul, this issue is obviously a software bug of some sort and not just a matter of us having inadequate hardware. The fact that multiple players were able to play on the same computer with a different account further confirms this.

I am also having this issue. Prior to patch 7.4.1 I had been playing the game with no problems on medium graphics settings. Since the patch, on the same computer, the game freezes on the loading screen when I try to log into a server (I play primarily on Star Forge). When I launch it with Task Manager open to monitor resource use, my CPU use abruptly fluctuates between ~30% and 100% (at which point the game goes into "not responding" freeze). My GPU use remains very low throughout. Patch 7.4.1a has not fixed this issue. I have tried every solution posted in this thread so far and none have worked, including all permutations of modifying or deleting the client_settings.ini file, allowing both launcher and app through firewall, and even a few that were not posted such as clearing DiskCacheArena (I remember this file often got corrupted and caused issues years ago). I am currently subscribed, I have an old account, and my GPU is integrated Intel IrisXe. CPU is Intel core i5. I know my computer is not very good, but it was running SWTOR without any issues prior to 7.4.1. Edited to add: Using steam launcher. And yes, I have restarted the game, steam, and my computer multiple times across the now several days this has been an issue. I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling the game. I have tried repairing the game and verifying integrity of game files. None of that has worked for me.

The beards on women may be a bug, but I think they should be kept either way. Some players will like that option, for playing nonbinary characters or roleplaying drag queens, and the rest of us aren't forced to use them. Cosmetics on men would also be nice, and I would use them on my Commando if I could. Hopefully this is added. I think it would be fairly simple to do. Gender change option would be a good addition. I think it would require changing the dialogue coding for romances though, so we probably won't get it with 7.0. A gender preference setting in the context of a game does not make much sense. You, as the player, can just choose not to flirt with companions you aren't attracted to, whether that is because of your sexuality or because the companion is unpleasant to be around. A new gender in character creation would not make sense. A gender neutral character creator (with their pronouns, appearance, and voice all as separate options) would be neat, but again, I suspect that is too much work for them to finish in 7.0. Remove mustaches?! This is a bad idea for several reasons. It would equate facial hair (which many women do naturally have, whether cis, intersex, or trans) to profanity. And it would be weird to remove characters (players or npcs) from view just because you don't like how they look. While I don't enjoy seeing ugly Hutts, there is no filter to remove Hutts from the game, and I don't think there should be one. More romance options would be nice, especially for women characters, but again, that is a change I doubt will happen before 7.0 is released.

Season 2 Feedback: - Shadow Syndicate reputation system: What does this even do? I did not see an explanation for what the purpose of earning reputation was, and reputation gain did not seem to give me any new missions, conversations, or items to buy. There should be a codex to explain this. If all it gives are titles, then the system is unnecessarily complex, and those titles should be put on the reward track instead. - Open world disguise crates and terminals: Again, there is no explanation of what these are for. I could not use the terminals, and the disguises seemed to have no practical effects. - Cosmetic rewards: The new armor sets, weapons, and decorations look great! And I like the mechanical speeders that were added. However, the ball floating above the Thurrb mounts should be removed. It appears in the middle of the screen, and at some zoom levels, blocks out a large portion of the screen. It is very distracting, and is also off-center and silly looking. Please remove that ball. The pacing of rewards feels better than before. - Crafting material rewards: Legendary Embers are nice. But Iokath Recombinators are a vendor item. They should not be part of seasons. - Syndicate Plans: Getting them in the mail is very annoying. They should deposit into the inventory automatically. And maybe add them to heroic rewards on the focus planets, to give an incentive to redo those. - UI: The list of seasons objectives is nearly impossible to find, unless you know where to look. Fleet chat is going to be spammed for weeks after launch with players asking for help finding it. I would recommend adding a new tab to the Log window, dedicated to the seasons objectives and rewards. There is plenty of space for it, and that would make it easier to find. At the least, make the button more visible and fix the link from the current seasons window. - Seasons objectives: I like that they are primarily weekly rather than daily, that will be easier for players to complete. But I think the weekly objectives should all offer the same number of seasons points. They all require a similar time commitment, so why not give 12 seasons points for each of them? - Time required: This is a bad change from season 1. The season 1 daily objectives could be completed in about 30 minutes per day, and the weekly objectives (depending on luck) were often completed by finishing the daily objectives. So even someone playing about 5 hours a week could complete most of their objectives. But now, the daily objective still takes 15-20 minutes daily to achieve, and the weekly missions take 1-2 hours each when you factor in the time it takes to find a group or get a queue pop. A player would have to spend at least 15 hours a week to complete all their objectives, which is a much larger commitment, and is worse than season 1. I suggest cutting most of the weekly objective requirements in half to fix this.

Finished the main content for all expansions and wanted to leave additional feedback: - Chapter scaling: The wave battles on Iokath in the chapters 'Where Dreams Die' and 'Ascension' are much harder than live. The fight with all my allies in the museum took me 5-10 tries to avoid dying, and even when I killed it (using all my shields, crowd control, and heroic moment) i still nearly died several times. This was on story mode, and felt harder than the master mode fight was on live. The walker fight was more doable, I just felt like I had to stop and repair frequently. Their health is fine, but they either need to have less spawns or deal less damage. Vaylin also hits very hard in her final fight. - Onderon and Mek-Sha: These planets are meant to be started at level 70, but I got no bolster or scaling up when I started the story at level 71, so I had to fight a bunch of level 75 enemies who avoided a lot of my attacks. I don't think this is intended, and once I was at level 75 I had no issues. Overall, most scaling down, or scaling to player level, in the game seems fine. But I think it would be good for developers to play through the expansion content on several classes to test balancing of each encounter. Issues seem to be confined to specific fights or zones for the most part. I did however notice a pattern of there not being scaling up/bolster in zones that are meant to have it.

- In the storyline: Same as live, more or less. Story mobs were generally not a challenge. Story bosses were sometimes a slight challenge, but definitely doable with only class abilities. Doing them as any type of Vanguard was slow and boring at lower levels, but that was not an issue as a Scrapper Scoundrel, so I put the blame on the Vanguard's lack of attacks. The only boss I would say is poorly scaled is Revan on Yavin 4, who took about 10 minutes to kill because of how much health he had. - Heroics: Harder than live. I don't think the scaling itself has changed here, but the relative lack of abilities made it harder to do heroic missions at-level on the Chapter 1 planets. I could not complete some of the heroics without using Heroic Moment. This was not an issue when I came back at a higher level to redo heroic missions. This difference is not necessarily a problem, though, since heroics are intended for two players. - Story flashpoints: I am not sure if there was any scaling. When I did the Shadow of Revan flashpoints for my story progress, I was one level below the recommendation and did not receive a bolster. Even after I got to the recommended level, they were still quite hard to kill at-level compared to the live servers. I don't mind a challenge personally, but I think a new player would be unable to clear some of them, particularly Blood Hunt. Boss health is fine, but the bosses are dealing too much damage currently. - Daily areas: I only tested Yavin 4 and Section X, but they were perfectly tuned and exactly the same as live. No issues here, either at-level or at level 80. - Experience and scaling: Even tougher enemies, like champion bosses or heroic elite mobs, sometimes do not grant XP to higher level characters that have been scaled down. I don't know if this is intentional, but it is annoying. I specifically ran into this with the heroic mission to kill Mandalorians on Dromund Kaas. - Chapters: The scaling here is similar to live, maybe a little tougher. A few of the bosses seem to hit very hard, particularly the Overwatch Hunters on Zakuul, Valkorion in the Odessen Wilds, and the Gemini Captain during the phase where she spawns 3 copies of herself. It was particularly tough to survive long enough in that Valkorion fight, even on story mode. This was an issue for both of the disciplines I tried. I did eventually kill them, but those fights felt like they were scaled for veteran mode rather than story mode. None of these have been a challenge when I've done them on story mode on live servers. I was playing mainly as Tactics Vanguard and Scrapper Scoundrel when testing, with either a healing or damage companion.

1. Mobility. Vanguards need both Storm/Impact Charge and Hold the Line. These abilities should be granted to all players by default, and are not remotely equivalent to grapple in gameplay. They are so important that I cannot imagine taking a different choice on the level 35 or 73 choices in any scenario. Vanguards also need some form of gap closer at lower levels. On live, they get Hold the Line somewhere around level 25. But on the PTS, Hold the Line is only an optional ability at level 73. So Vanguard DPS get no mobility until level 35, and tanks have to wait even longer, to level 51. This really, really, needs to be changed. I know other people have said this, but it needs to be said again. 2. Low level ability granting. While I was able to kill most enemies, the combat at low levels is exceedingly dull. Stockstrike and High Impact Bolt have long cooldowns, resulting in me using Hammer Shot about 75% of the time from level 1-14, because I simply had no other attacks off cooldown. From level 15+, when I got Explosive Surge, story mobs were not as bad. But heroic mobs and story bosses still required the boring rotation until I got Ion Pulse at level 35. 3. Endgame rotation (Tactics). On live, the Meteor Brawler set's energy reduction after Battle Focus, Recharge Cells, and Reserve Powercell, are all very important to energy management. They can be rotated to fix energy management mistakes or increase damage at several points during the rotation. On the PTS, the more powerful Recharge Cells is nice, but it doesn't make up for losing both the set bonus and Reserve Powercell, and it is considerably more difficult to manage my energy cells. I would suggest making the Meteor Brawler version of Battle Focus available in some way. Other than these things, most of the changes to the class seem to be fine. I don't have a full set of max level gear and augments on the PTS, so I was unable to test damage output.

The loadouts have some strange bugs. When trying to change loadouts with different combat styles, outside of a phase on an open world, I am getting an error message 'Discarded the ways of the 15 and learned the ways of'. when I hover over the loadout in question, and it is grayed out. These loadouts were working fine earlier today, on the same character with the same combat styles and disciplines, and I have no clue what changed aside from my level. Loadouts that change discipline but not combat style are working. The combat styles buttons on the combat style page, to swap between those, also seem to be non functional currently. I bought the field respecialization perk, so that should not be causing my problems in this situation. Loadouts also change which cosmetic outfit is visible sometimes.