Pretty sure if they did this now, it would be a token you buy in the CM. You activate the token and it RNG assigns you an Advanced Class. Think about how exciting that would be! You might even end up with the same Advanced Class you were trying to change out of! Exciting!

That is actually not the case. Gaming studios are always hesitant to make any overt move to correct a fundamental mistake ... because making that move is an admission of guilt. Case in point, the NGE killed SWG. Yes, SWG limped along for another six years, but the NGE was the blow they never recovered from. Nothing they did, no amount of quietly fixing it years later was ever able to wipe clean the stain it left on the studio. So, no, under no circumstances will you ever see them jump through flaming hoops to correct a fundamental design error such as this because that means they have to admit they were wrong and that will not happen.

I would return the gearing system to exactly how it was in 4.X, but eliminate the focused HM operation. That seems to be the source of a lot of non-raid community's angst. ((The reality is that the focused weekly, really did not matter in the least. Many, if not most, of the prog-raiders had cleared every HM raid the game had to offer by the time 4.0 landed. The focused weekly argument was at best a strawman.)) If we must have universal comms, then that is fine now that expertise no longer exists. Universal comms should drop for all previous comm related content. Hell, make it the dang Fleet Comms for all I care, since those are still in the game. And then I would run GCS as an alternate gearing method. The exact same system, that was in place prior to 5.0. But rather than tear out the interstate when paving a bypass the interstate remains and the bypass acts as an alternate route. That is how it should have been handled. Post Script: No one, including BW needs to concern themselves with how quickly a tiny fraction of players can and will grind to their goal. BW's estimate to get to level 50 was 200+ hours. Many of us were level 50 in ~ 50 hours. Driven players will always find a (legitimate) way to shorten their time investment. This is just a fact of life. Tweaking the grind for everyone to stall a few people is counter-productive. Think about it this way, if after Early Access week back in 2011 they looked at the metrics and said: We need to adjust this XP so that it DOES take 200 hours to achieve level 50, then their only recourse would have been to slash XP across the board by 75%. For those players that would require 200 hours, that just became 800 hours. And why? Because 1% of the population proved that they could do it faster? That is a childish reaction.

JC was one of the first "super servers" and can support more players than SL (or at least could back in the day). TORStatus is a good indication of player levels on each server but not necessarily compared against each other. And yes, JC has always had a higher population than SL. What do you expect? They reopened 90CC CTS a few weeks ago. People moved to the larger servers. A ***few*** servers might be "full" of players. But fully 13 out of 17 are empty. That means that nearly 75% of the servers are empty. NONE of the servers are at maximum capacity. Not a single one. Not even Harb has seen anything over Standard in a long time. And that isn't trending upward either. It is Christmas time still. Let's see how things look when people go back to work and school. I can show you trends from TORStatus from this time last year if you want me to. Minor uptick in activity around Christmas then right back down to "normal" and trending downward after January 3rd 2016. TORStatus gets their information from right here: Unless your implication is that Bioware's numbers are not accurate.

The issue is the removal of an entire system, which has been in place since pretty close to the beginning. I doubt there would be an outcry over GCS if it had been incorporated as an additional route. When you build a bypass or loop, you don't destroy the existing interstate.

Under performing is an understatement. This game is attached to arguably the most wildly popular intellectual property, period. It is FREE to play and yet 13 out of 17 servers are ghost-towns. That in and of itself is pretty damning. As a manager, this has mismanagement written all over it. But what do you expect when the Lead Producer's previous position with the company was customer service?

The brutal irony of his OP is that he is trying to shame people for doing repetitive content for rewards, while completely ignoring the fact that that is the only way to be rewarded. I don't think he grasps the concept of stale content. I guess if I were new to the game there would be tons of fun things to do and see. But at this point there just isn't for a long term player.

BT Veteran is still level 10, and default attack soloable. Though I'm sure the Devs will change that once they figure it out.

You are right. The Developers are the problem. They designed a timesink and locked BiS gear behind it. This wouldn't be as much of an issue if there was new content being constantly created. That is the problem. They expect us to rinse/repeat content that is no less than two years old in order to rank up in GCS. While "at level" regular XP is appropriate for going through the KotET story line, you likely won't reach 70 until about the halfway mark. Trying to get to 70 without doing KotFE is ridiculous. The Log entry clearly states the mission XP will be over 600,000 but if you are 65+ still doing KotFE your actual reward is only 60k per hour long chapter. So being level 70 before starting KotET isn't a winning option either.

The critical mass loss of the SWG community didn't convince SOE to undo the NGE. I have seen little from Bioware/EA to suggest they will recognize their error either. Remember, to them, *we* are the problem for not wanting to play the game they way they want us to play it.

I'd be a lot happier if it was: 1x piece of true gear, not an empty shell. All gear should be BoL at this point anyway. 1x BoL Crafting Schematic OR 1x BoL CXP Token worth 300CXP.

Ok. So how much time do they need? The last raid (two of them) was delivered in December 2014. Two full years ago. Also, two expansions ago. During 2.X they released three full raids (SnV, DF, DP) and a boss-in-a-box (TC). SnV and TC came with 2.0 and DF/DP followed later during that cycle. And then nothing for 14 months. When SOR was released, they promised that "we will never go 14 months again without a new raid". And here we sit, 24 months later. Interestingly, they created enough adds and bosses for a full raid with KoTET. They just chose to make them all individual micro-flashpoints. So, in my mind, they had the time and resources ... they chose to continue breaking their promise.

I thought it was interesting. Welcome back

Well hello there "new player" with member number 9319. There are several reasons why many players do not approve of this new system. 1.) We've done RNG before. In fact the game was like that From Dec 2011-about April 2012, specifically for PvP. 2.) 5.0's version of RNG (and by default the GCS) was meant to be a Jedi mind trick to distract the players from the fact that there has been no new multiplayer content since December 2014. 95% of the activities that grant CXP involve content that we have been doing for years, making the "grind" that much more boring. 3.) They aren't even hiding the stick or the string attached to the proverbial carrot. 4.) In every other version of the game (other than pvp 1.0-1.2) players could "work toward" specific pieces of gear. This meant that "within reason" you could obtain BiS gear by participating in the (often multiplayer) activities that you wanted to participate in. Even while working toward BiS gear, you could upgrade by using various currency (obtained through end game content) to purchase slightly less than BiS gear for most slots. This "timesink" was much lower than the "advertised" rate of 300 hours to reach GC300. And that is another point, there is no guarantee that by GC300 you will be finished with "the grind". Players not involved in end game content, didn't "need" to worry about end game gear because solo content ( and even flashpoints and SM Ops) was/were (all) designed to be completed in "at-level" greens.

Sometime in 2018

My, how easily people forget how extremely OP Mara/Sents were from 1.0 until ... well, present. I have PvP'd a Merc from Day (negative) 7. The new Overpoweredness of Merc has likely led to more Mercs in the WZs, but let's not pretend that this has not been the case with EVERY OP advanced class or spec since day 1. Mara/Sent =/= Merc/Mando slayer. In all honesty, it hasn't for a LONG time, like somewhere in 2.X. I've been peeling faces off of Mara/Sents for years.

Most likely because he is a main story companion for the BH. I reclaimed him with my BH. Haven't tried on my Juggy. Edit: Was able to recall him from the terminal on my Juggernaut. Might be an imperial thing. Might also be specific to SW/BH as those are the only classes involved in the loss of a main story companion in that choice.

Yes. Especially if we have multiple levels of difficulty.

This. Make Command Tokens BoL (if they aren't already) and let us cash them in for CXP.

And for the record, you knew this was an exploit. It was frowned upon way back in 2.0. You really thought they'd not close this down? Be thankful you got as many through this exploit as you got. You really can't argue that you didn't know that banking missions is unintended (and therefore clearly an exploit).

It feels like Us v. Them because "they" do not play the game. This is painfully obvious anytime they try to show us "content". They do not enjoy their own product, they do not actually keep their finger on the pulse of their customer base. Ultimately they are entirely removed from reality as it relates to this community.

Good. A little history lesson. SWG fans decried the NGE, SOE chose not to listen. Their game never recovered. If EA/Bioware choose to make the same mistake then this game deserves to die so that another might take its place .... with a more competent studio.

Makes sure you check the reader poll. The results aren't even close.

Time will tell whether or not I resub. I can't see them making the changes necessary to regain my recurring 6-month subscription. But I might go month to month or use time-cards.

I'd just ignore him. He is in denial, or has somehow deluded himself into thinking this is supposed to be KOTOR3. He quit the game for over four years and then came back last year. Shortly thereafter he appointed himself to be SWTOR's White Knight. I've been here since beta and I can't recall a post xpac survey prior to this one. He keeps saying "empty threats" while ignoring all the people that still have time left on their subscription. Personally, I'm paid through February and I will make my opinion known regardless of what he wants me to do.