But we are given a decent reason for that. Raina didn't think she was strong enough in the force to face the Korriban trials so she hid with the Chiss Ascendancy. It is literally why we meet her on Hoth.

You've missed a lot of things but the most important one was common sense. The only thing you won't have are weapons, the rest of the outfit designer is the same. Hammer Station can't be spammed all the time as it depends on the group finder's rotation of flashpoints, which will change. The idea that somehow mercenaries are going to have a harder time finding groups bc "they don't have a speed boost" is also ridiculous. Plus, have you talked to the entire community to know that no one wanted this companion? I've seen quite a few people excited about it. 20 minutes of the story is an obvious exageration, but the fact is we don't know how long the story will be, most likely at least 2 hours. About the reasoning for finding Malgus, he is dangerous, reckless, and has threatened the galaxy multiple times before, probably doing so again. That reason enough for you? It seems you actually got most of it wrong, so, yes, you missed a lot.

First of all, I agree with the general sentiment that it's good you're taking your time to make this expansion good and not releasing something unfinished. HOWEVER, I also hope you're already thinking of some sort of proper compensation for all the customers who bought a subscription just for this expansion, ESPECIALLY, when you're telling us about a 2-month delay 1 WEEK before the supposed release.

Had one of the weirdest (and funniest) encounters on MM Depths of Manaan, with me as operative dps, another merc dps, a sorcerer healer, and a pt tank. Until the second boss (Ortuno with the water and lighting), it went without a hitch. After we did the bonus boss tho, the healer, the other dps, and I got to the second boss pretty quickly but the tank for some reason was taking his time and then he entered combat so we started to go back to go help him. We were already on the way to him when he leaves combat and passes us extremely fast with rocket boost, enters the boss room, and starts fighting the boss. Obviously, none of us were in the room, so he wiped and started complaining that we had a lot of time to already be there, ultimately, we decided to ignore it and continue like normal. This is when it gets weird (and funny), the tank wouldn't stay still for one second during the boss fight. I mean LITERALLY. He was sprinting around the entire map and I mean the entire map, above and below the left stairs, then walking around in circles in the middle, then he would move to the other stairs and again above and below. Obviously the water was getting everywhere and when the boss entered the "flow" phase the other dps and I died, somehow we ended up being able to finish it, but it was actually the funniest thing being dead and just watching that tank constantly run away from the boss the entire time. The others and I even joked he must've been REALLY afraid of getting wet. So surreal.

I mean if the only thing you care about is conquest, then, yes, you are correct.

And it appears you need to start reading the comments people reply to and the actual text used for the post. My post was made to answer a specific comment, mainly this part: "They should have bring all big and needed changes with one expansion instead of dividing it into several parts. So we will have combat styles in autumn but pvp revamp in the end of 2022? New advanced classes in 2023? Changes to team ranked quests in 2024? Players needs all these IN NEAR FUTURE not in 1-3 years". My point was they don't have the resources to do this, so asking for it is pointless. The "useless ability swap system" as you call it is something a lot of players have been asking for a long time. Perhaps realizing that your likes don't correspond to the entirety of the community's is something to ponder. Many players asked for this, and many are happy about it. Just bc you don't find it useful or interesting, doesn't mean others don't. As such, this wasn't the wrong direction for many players. It probably was for some, but with limited resources, they'll never please the entire community anyway.

I really don't get what is supposed to be your point? Do I wish unicorns existed? Obviously, it would be pretty cool. But they don't. Any SWTOR player that has been here for a meaningful amount of time knows they don't have the resources for anything that big so what's your point? If you were truly expecting a gigantic expansion, with every system revamped, you have only yourself to blame. I dare say what we got was more than expected and the improved communication of what exactly is the game's future is a welcomed improvement.

Just because the situation was difficult that doesn't erase the consequences of their actions: so they could survive, thousands more died. I simply believe Zenith's rage is justified when he discovers the truth. It would also be good to point out there's a difference between "maintaining at least decent relations with the Empire" and betraying their comrades which ends up leading to their deaths. Ultimately, we don't have enough information about the subject: were they tortured, or did they do it to get a better life under imperial occupation? Very different scenarios. I also fail to see why the Republic should be blamed and the Empire not, you know the faction who actually occupied, tortured, murdered, and terrorized the inhabitants of Balmorra.

Well, I believe context is key here. He wants to murder someone in cold blood...who literally just tried to murder you in cold blood. And, although I convinced him to forgive the refugees, let's not sugar-coat things, "the families who had to make tough choices" are, in fact, traitors to their people that to ensure their own safety betrayed their planet and lead to thousands of balmorran deaths, so I don't think it's really fair to make them out to be simple "families in a tough situation". Zenith's anger when he learns the truth is completely understandable. About the rest, although I'm not so sure it will be the case, I would also like to see some character growth for Zenith when he comes back.

I have to say that after recently doing a playthrough of the consular story and bringing Zenith along with me everywhere, I don't see him like that at all. Zenith is extremely passionate about people who are just trying to survive, hell he knows better than anyone what those people go through, he cares deeply about balmorrans and other refugees of the Empire. (Not to mention his obsession with ensuring the consular is safe.) After playing through all of the planetary quests and paying attention to what he approved and disapproved, Zenith simply has no mercy for imperials, and it makes sense due to what they did to his homeworld, he's obviously deeply scarred with it. Saying that he would "throw people under the bus if it is good for Zenith", doesn't correlate with what I saw with him at all, in fact, Zenith would disapprove every time I decided not to help someone and would approve every time I decided to help right away. Bluntly put, he doesn't believe in second chances, he doesn't believe in forgiveness and he does see things a bit too black and white when they are a lot more gray, but ultimately I would say his heart is in the right place if a bit broken because of his past. To be honest, I never got why so many dislike this character so much and after doing a full playthrough of the story with him, I understand it even less. I would personally say he is one of the most interesting companions the consular has.

I don't even understand where you got this idea about ages from? What does that have to do with anything? Have you documented every Swtor players' age and their opinion of the game? Some of the most vocal players on this forum are older and they are the ones who ask the most for change. About your "constructive criticism" I don't really think it makes much sense. If you want difficulty why not play master mode flashpoints, nightmare operations, master mode uprisings, ranked PVP? The harder content you ask for is there if you want it. I mean even if they upped the difficulty of the story it could never be to a significant amount since a lot of players would leave. I mean have you seen the reactions to Spirit of Vengeance? There are still people complaining about its difficulty today. I would understand if this game didn't have any harder content, but like this, it just seems you're asking for it at the wrong place. -- About the OP's post, I think it's a bit more complicated than that. it's fair for a lot of players who've been here for so long to start getting discouraged with the state of the game, however, some of them bad-mouth this game to such an extreme I truly don't understand what they're still doing here. I also agree that one of SWTOR's biggest enemies in terms of popularity is definitely some of its player base, I've never seen so many people who actively play a game yet trash it at the same time and will literally say they won't recommend it to anyone.

This MMO is about the Old Republic era that's it. The fact that you want them to focus on both of those factions alone is something different. What? After KOTET the game went back to being absolutely about both factions. BioWare has literally given the player the option to disband the Alliance and all the new story has been focusing on Republic and Empire. You literally have different stories on each side with base common elements. It's still worthwhile to play both sides. I mean if you want the same boring and stale war constantly happening, without anything ever changing be my guest. But don't make us other players have to suffer that. Plus, you're uniting 2 completely different things, one thing is wanting them to go back to 8 coexisting storylines, which I agree with (but admittedly will never happen), another completely different thing is wanting them to go back to the boring war we had at the beginning. I'd rather have a story where what we do actually has some impact on the story.

//Edited bc I misunderstood your point about "ground level" choices at the beginning. There's no point in comparing SWTOR's story to other MMOs', especially, when most of the others barely give you a choice at all and that's SWTOR's whole chabang. Look at WOW for example, what choice can you make there? To accept or not a quest? To follow a written narrative or not? In the end, there are 2 solutions for this problem, you either decide a predetermined setting for the RP session, which is always done in some way or another. Or you take away real choice from the player's hands in the game's narrative, taking away the player's involvement in the higher echelons of the story. I think the former is much easier to achieve than to hinder the game's story, to make it easier for RPing. Now, I understand what you're saying when you say that real choices don't have to be big choices and I do agree that ground level choices are very interesting to explore but at this point, it would be more a matter of preference, of which type of story each person likes so not much of a point in going there. Every game that offers choice only offers an illusion of choice, so there's not much of a point in going there either. Also, imagine if they decided to take away from the player involvement in big decisions like who rules the galaxy and if the Alliance is disbanded or not, after already giving so many of them before, do you think most players would be happy about it? It's also not like moral and ethical decisions don't have lasting consequences on big decisions as well. I do understand the struggle of RPing in this game, I just think there's not much they can do to fix this problem without harming the story they've already built, and since there is a solution for the problem, complicated or not, by deciding together a predetermined setting for the RP session, there's not much of a point in discussing this.

This game is about Star Wars in the era of the Old Republic, that's it. About what you said next, we've already seen it. We've already had a really long time where the factions were balanced, eventually one of them has to get the upper hand because if not it would become pointless. The story doesn't become pointless if they're not balanced, it becomes pointless if no matter what you do, nothing really changes. And it's not like they're even forcing one side to win over the other no matter what like they did with Makeb (even if both logic and lore demand the Republic to win), so you still get to choose which faction is winning. Plus, your point about favoritism is kinda invalid, everything you do is about what you prefer and want to do. It's impossible to run away from it, by giving players a choice you are always putting it up for favoritism, unless you give them no real choice, only then is favoritism actually excluded. If the factions are constantly balanced and the player is never given the chance to tip the scales, of course there's no favoritism, but then where's your choice? Where's the point of even following the story? Why do you think we got expansions like SOR and KOTFE/KOTET, bc you can only create a story about an unchanged war for so long without it becoming stale and boring. Not really. RP has always been done in a predetermined setting. This isn't a new problem, and it's not even a problem caused by these bigger choices. This "problem" has always been around, if you have 3 Jedi Knights RPing, did the 3 of them become the Hero of Tython and kill the Emperor? Of course not. How do you fix it? You create a predetermined setting, giving new stories to each one. Same thing with all the big decisions introduced after. Who is the Emperor? You decide beforehand. Is the Alliance disbanded and who is in better shape? Same thing, decided when creating the setting for the RP session. This has never been an issue. Like I said before, RP is about new stories, not the story we get in SWTOR, as that one is obviously tailored for individuals, and RP is supposed to be done in a group. Even if this was an actual problem, which it's not, it would be ridiculous to ask writers to continuously create an interesting story while fundamentally not changing anything, may as well not have a story at all.

I actually agree here. They have a proper reason to bring him back one last time, unlike TROS. With all the identities he assumed along the centuries and all the characters he came across, his last appearance in KOTET left a lot to be desired, since it was really only a send-off to Valkorion, not Vitiate, the Sith Emperor side of the character and especially not Tenebrae. This seems to be a good way of tying up all the loose ends and doing a proper send-off to the character as a whole.