I do think that they went to the current system from the old because it is easier to balance as you don't have to worry about lower levels of non-main trees providing too much boost to such characters. Because the solution to that situation which would keep trees would be to nerf the lower level trees such that characters get very little benefit from that portion of the leveling curve (which would lead to more quitting at low levels without any noticeable increase in power) and thus damage player retention. The new way is easier to balance. That is not the same as saying that they have a lot of interest in tweaking class balance at this point, but the original intent is still valid.

Apparently you started MMOs with WoW or EQ and never looked at other games. Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxies let you build your own path and mix and match skills as you liked, up to a certain skill cap (at least with swg). Not all current mmos have such limitations. Classes in ESO do limit you to certain class skills, but weapon and armor skills can be picked up by any class. DKs can heal, Nightblades can tank, Mages can tank or heal or dps. In TSW there are no classes, just skillsets you can pick from. In GW2 (at least when I played) there was no strict tank or healer class, but you could buff allies and debuff enemies.

That's pretty much it. I'm sure there is a guide in the pvp forum that discusses any details on making that 162 suit.

Do not wear your ops gear in pvp as any gear higher than 162 will cause you to lose expertise due to how bolster works. Check either the pvp forum or reddit to get the breakdown on how to do so (I believe you can do something like a 168 barrel/hilt and 148 mod/enh). If you pvp in your ops gear you will garner a bad name for yourself as you will be taking more damage from enemy players while healing for less/doing less damage to players who already have a damage reduction. Unfortunately it's not real obvious that you shouldn't queue for pvp in high end pve gear but at least you're reading about it here and will be able to decide if and how you will start your "pvp" set of pve gear (so you can start your pvp comm grind).

No worries dude. Like I said, the videos were very well done. Just your voice being so soft on the demo. Otherwise really good. And neat intro too. Good job, good content.

Good content. My only comments are relating to the second video vs. the first. The volume in the second listed video (how to bolster) was pretty much perfect. Move to the demonstration video (first linked) and your voice is super quiet requiring an increase in my pc's volume. Then you have the "round 1, fight" audio which is about 10x louder than your own voice. Since I'd maxed my laptop's volume my ears were blown out. Luckily I wasn't using headphones. That's really my only comment, work on regulating the voice over volume to match that of the "how to bolster" video. Otherwise the videos are very well done and I'll be on the look out for other videos from you.

+1 for revert Never would have occurred to me that the way it has been since launch was unintended. This is a QoL issue and should be reverted or made toggleable.

You needed 58/66's for act 3 finale? You're bad. This is not good evidence of anything except for not being good. It's meant for level 47-50 and I did it at 46. Took a bit with some misses and whatnots, but was quite doable.

It's kind of silly to press random name 25x and get "that name is unavailable" each and every time.

I'm pointing this out because people who have no idea how software development works often speak/post this sentiment. However, if you have ever worked in software development you know that when you add people to a team, you slow the existing team down as they try to help the new people get up to speed (and/or fixing the unintended consequences that new devs will typically cause with their first additions to the codebase). Anyone wanting to spout off about how adding devs doesn't impact things should at least look at the amazon page for "The Mythical Man Month" so they can not spout things that show they obviously don't know what they're talking about. I'm not saying in the long run that it wouldn't help. I'm speaking mainly to short term (6-9 months depending upon the complexity of a code base new folks are dropped into), but there are limits to what manpower can do. To quote a well known phrase, 9 women can't make a baby in one month. Yes, tor needs more frequent updates and at the very least they need to stop counting difficulty modes as separate raids. Content locusts will never be satisfied, but Bioware could approach things better with their communication (unlike additional staffing, that's relatively free, only costs time). It's one place where companies should really try to emulate blizz. That said, I sub to both tor and wow and have 15 toons on my main server in tor. Bioware is keeping me because of their 1-50 story, not because of their end game (I raided through sm tfb and hm ec pre-makeb and had fun, I just enjoy wow's raids more).

Actually, you remember wrong. Wow has dual spec, not dual class. Not sure where you came up with that fantasy, but you cannot be a hunter/warlock who switches between bm hunter and destro lock. Not possible, never even mentioned as a possibility. What game are you talking about? Rift?

Never buy a guide for leveling in swtor. Just do every quest you come across and you'll be fine. If you're a subscriber, get rest xp when able. Use xp boosts from the cartel market if you have the money or see if you can pick some up on the GTN. If the quests you're doing are green to you, maybe just do your class quests until you get to a point that quests are yellow again. There's absolutely no reason to use a guide to level in swtor. I say this as someone who uses the wow-pro guide when leveling in wow. The difference is that swtor has no variety in leveling content. You'll never be wondering "where do I go next?" if you're leveling via quests. You're always going to be hitting planets in a certain order. The other options running a lot of pvp or flashpoints, or....that's about it. Until GSF launches and you can level that way. Similar thread: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=5436147

Lowbie fp queue takes 2 hours to pop. Get in to Cademimu and the tank, after 8 minutes, d/c's, then reconnects, then chooses to drop group. Healer says "my comp can tank this." Other dps and I say ok. Healer did 80% dps, 20% healing, but it's going ok, if slow. Then the healer runs ahead at a part we can shortcut through with crafting and 45 seconds later the other dps goes down after healer pulls a group without us (we caught up after crafting the shortcut). "Gimme a minute, I'll stealth and rez you." Sounds good right? We get that trash mob down and other dps accidentally clicks rez at med droid instead of accept rez. I think "No biggie, he'll be back soon." Little did I know that the healer, after seeing the convo about "doh, clicked the wrong button," decided to pull the next room alone. I was about 100 virtual yards away waiting for our teammate. Healer/comp dies, the mobs find and kill me, and then healer says, "sorry guys, I don't have time for this" before leaving. Thanks mr "my comp can tank this," for reminding me why I don't run leveling fp's unless I'm with a guildie and one of us is the healer.

Yes, but you said per the RotHC press release, which doesn't mention them. Since including new hm fps would be a good bullet point to have, I'd think they'd be mentioned if they were explicitly part of RotHC. They didn't even make a vague statement of "at least 1 previously unavailable hm fp." I'm more inclined to believe they're part of 2.0. Either way, we should be as clear as we're able when throwing out comments. At this time, RotHC does not include the new hm fps, per the information they've given us. They might require RotHC if you can't level beyond 50 without it, but the earlier statement you made is incorrect. Not trying to be trolly, just trying to make sure I hadn't missed a bullet point that would justify my pre-ordering RotHC.

Where are you getting the FP's being mentioned on the page for RotHC? Cause I'm at http://www.swtor.com/rothc and I'm not seeing those fps mentioned at all. Not saying they aren't part of rothc, but if they had been mentioned originally, I would have preordered.