Put in a tick last night about this. CS got back to me today and said it's a bug, and will need to be fixed in a future update, and cannot be corrected by CS.

I care about the story to an extent. I leveled up my sorc to 50, doing all side quest and such along the way. After the fact I realized that side quest are a waste of time and bring nothing really interesting to the table in terms of story, except a select few ones I found somewhat interesting. Now that I am leveling up a new character, I am ONLY doing the class story, as it's the only interesting thing in the game story wise. I'm also doing warzones, space mission dailies and flash points to get the rest of my xp, and so far so good, and it's a TON more enjoyable. After hearing about 100 "woe is me, I can't do anything for myself" type quest that are pretty much all the same, I can't be bothered with them anymore. Also, I'm a huge RPG fan, it's the reason I wanted to play this game. I love Bioware and their story telling, but I think the side quest in this game are just really poorly done. Class quest though, hats off to the writers. Doing a trooper right now and the story hooked me pretty quickly.

Loot driven game...what did you expect?

They need to work on making republic more attractive. Eventually, things may even out. For example, on my server, Republic is pretty out numbered, but stomps Empire in Warzones. We're already seeing people switch sides in hopes of "easy wins"...which is funny, because those people are generally the the reason why their faction gets stomped. Not sure how some servers are in terms of finding groups and what not, but I could see that as a problem.I started a republic character a few weeks back, and my friend doesn't want to play there because he's afraid he won't be able to find people to do stuff with. Eventually they will merge servers as the populations dwindle down...we can only hope they do so in a reasonable way. The other problem is that you can have different faction characters on the same server. This makes it too easy for people to switch sides, instead of being forced to stay with their faction. For example...if on a server Republic is out numbered and always gets stomped, people can just go make an empire toon and switch. If they enforced that all your characters on a server had to be the same faction, people would think twice about switching sides, as they would need to possibly delete a high level character to do so. Humans want the path of least resistance, and often go with the "can't beat em, join em" mentality.

Your respec cost gets reset after a week of not respecing....so I don't see the need for dual spec yet.

go to about 5:30...my feelings on this problem

The game was designed without world PvP in mind. It was added as an after thought.

While I think it sucks when people drop...I am guilty of it at times however...Bioware needs to ensure it's players have a "good time" while playing. If that means allowing them to drop out to try and find a more "fun" game, then so be. The main problem at the moment is that there is no match making system in place. Often times, you run into a premade and people just give up from the start. Now, I would have no issues sticking it out if the premade made quick work of the pug. However, with the way valor and medals work, more often than not, the premade just holds out to farm medals. Another issue is the lack of being able to choose what warzone we want to play in at the moment. Personally, I hate Huttball, and often drop when I get it, because at that time, I don't feel like playing Huttball and would rather play one of the other two. Until Bioware puts in mechanics like match making or letting us choose what Warzone we want to play in, there should be no punishment. But once these kinds of mechanics are in game, then I think some kind of punishment is valid.

I agree that there isn't much diversity at all. For example, I leveled up my Sorc as light side, and a friend leveled up his Assassin as dark side. We compared our story, and they were pretty much exactly the same, except a few minor details. The endings should have been vastly different if I went 100% light and he went 100% dark. While in the middle of the story, choices made things a bit different, the ending should have reflected our choices...not a give us the same thing with a few different details.

Ya, I was trying to find something to make my Sorc look more Jedi like, as I played mine light side, and don't really like the whole crazy evil look that most of the armor gives. But I haven't seen anything yet. Also, since you can't remove the armor mods from the set armor yet, you're kinda stuck with those looks for now, if you are doing raiding/hard modes or PvP. But I believe they are going to change that soon-ish.

I'm 32. Weekdays I either play for 2 hours or not at all. Weekends, maybe 4 hours or so each day. Usually I just try to log in, do a hard mode and log off. My play time varies depending on how much course work I have going on. Right now I'm working on the initial framework for a game, and writing 3 AI controllers for a pac-man game. Also have a group presentation on Wednesday discussing good and bad UI examples.

I would always love to see it switched back, it was much easier to understand when abilities were on cool down when they were grayed out. Or better yet, give us the option to toggle it!

I think you see both quitting equally. I'm a casual player (now that college has started again) and I'm debating whether or not to re-up. The fact that at end game it becomes a huge gear grind is a turn off. It's hard to find groups when you have a limited amount of time to log in, and this is because they went with a roll based class system. You are forced to find a healer and a tank, and sometimes you just can't. There aren't enough options of things to do if it's the case that you cannot find a group in a timely manner. You can do Warzones, dailies (which mind you, you have to sit through loading screen after loading screen to get to where you want to go), or space combat, which isn't everyones cup of tea. You are already seeing elitist when forming hard mode groups. I have never been for a dungeon finder or dual spec, for various reasons, but my opinion is starting to be swayed.

Thanks for this post! I just started a guardian and while I will level as tank spec to do flashpoints and such, I was wondering if dps spec was viable at end game. Going to bookmark this and come back when I'm 50! Thanks for the effort you put into this post!

The lvl 50 PvP gear has a stat called expertise on it, which increases dmg done, reduced dmg taken, and increases healing done in PvP. So yes, the gear is very important. You seem like me in a sense...I'm a college student who doesn't have a ton of time to play, but I was just on break so I was able to level up to 50. Gear is not too difficult to get. There are two weekly quest, one for Ilum and one for Warzones that grant 3 champion bags each. Then the daily versions of those. So if you can plan it out to do the daily 3 days out of the week, you'd get your weekly quest done as well, and get a total of 12 champion bags. Not to mention your commendations that you can also use to get bags. Now, this will depend on your server, and other things. Get together with a team and you can likely get it done pretty quickly. PvP is decently fun in this game, but the system for obtaining the gear is rather grindy, and you need the gear to be at a competitive level. But even for a busy person, you should be able to obtain the gear over time without too much effort.

I've never voted because it's a pointless feature. Ya, vote for the top healer...the guy sorc/sgae who's sitting in the corner using consumption on himself and healing himself up. Always laugh at those guys, because if they actually tried, the team might win, and they'd at least get more medals, if commendations is their goal.

My one complaint with premades is when they farm. I just don't think it's a very "sportsman" like thing to do. Just stomp the team and get it over with. I've seen a few in Hutt Ball that hold onto the ball once they reach 5 points and just farm. I don't see how it's fun for anyone involved...but we are talking about an MMO here, where jerks live =p But really....stomp the pug and move on. Other than that, I have no issues. I think it's great that guilds and players team up to play together in a coordinated way.

Of course PvP is what you make of it, but this game suffers from the same mechanics as more recent games...you need gear. I'm sure there are some exceptionally skilled players who can and will beat players who are in full PvP gear while they aren't, but they will be at a huge disadvantage due to expertise. Until developers get rid of the whole gear grind in PvP, we're going to see people continue to do what is currently being done. MMO players in my experience, generally try to take the path of least resistance...if that means win trading or in this case, trading points in Ilum, then they will do that if it's easy for them to attain gear that way. Most of my good memories come from SWG pre-CU, as that was my first MMO. Gear mattered, but it was all player crafted so everyone had access to it. It was more about server/faction pride than anything. Now it doesn't matter...it's just queue up, get your tokens and move on. There is no meaning behind it at all, except personal gains. Even with the changes coming to Ilum, it is still a gear grind.

I think they need to balance the classes out before they even think of something like this.

Well, if you'd like a comparison...what are the numbers like on the Imperial Fleet during peak times on other servers? On The Swiftsure tonight it hovered between 250-280. I sure hope they do something about it, because I'm tired of spending my time in a queue. Just hit 50 a few days ago, so not sure if I want to reroll or not....and going republic doesn't help any either because both sides share the same queue.

Exactly! I don't mind the initial queue too much...I try to time it so I can take care of some stuff, then when I'm done I'm ready to play. But then I crash and have to do it all over again

Ya, I had some issues tonight as well. Crashed right before the final boss of False Emperor...waited in a 1300 queue, crashed again 5 mins later. I'm 50, and I'm considering rerolling tomorrow. I would gladly take a free transfer as well to ease things up. I only got to 50 cus I'm on break. This quarter is going to be pretty crazy for me, so I will only have time on the weekends. I guess playing some is better than waiting in a queue half the night.

Hi, So I'm currently playing a 50 sorc on The Swiftsure, and I can't handle the queues anymore. Been there since day 1, and it's hard giving up a 50 so early in the game, but the queues are insane over there right now. I start class again next week, so my time will be limited, so would rather not spend it sitting in a queue. I am considering rerolling republic, and looking for input on any good servers to roll on. Considering playing either a Sage, Shadow or Commando. Any input would be great. Thnaks!

Would love to see this. Had two disconnected tonight...and I play on The Swiftsure, so ya lol. I would reroll, but I'm 50 and I start class again next week, so won't have much time to play during the week. A free transfer would also be welcome.

Tried this spec out today and had a lot of fun with it in both pvp and pve. What stats do you mostly focus on with this build? Also, any suggestions for what companion to roll with when soloing?