For the love of god, Bioware should never ever make another MMO. It's just not their thing. They have proven time and again that they are good at single player RPGs. That's their strength and they should stick with it. Also, as an aside, if they ever try to turn the Mass Effect series into an MMO, I will cry for days.

I am almost finding it hard to believe that you are being serious. This games' 1-50 story experience requires virtually no skill whatsoever. Even "easy" for most games requires more skill than SWTOR's class leveling experience. You talk about people of all different skill levels and physical issues playing the game. My goodness, someone with one eye and four fingers could still beat the class story content ( based on my experience, I don't mean that as an exaggeration). At the very least can you agree that there should be a difficulty setting for the class leveling experience? Surely you can see how people might not want to disable their abilities, play without their companion, play naked, etc just to make the game harder. For the love of god, tell me you are at least that reasonable.

Replaying a class and story does often make things easier. That said, that does not negate the fact that the class story leveling experience is beyond easy. I have never leveled a Bounty Hunter before but it is my 5th character so I know how to play the game overall. I wasn't exaggerating when I said I can beat story bosses without using any attacks. I was being literal. My companion will literally, and I mean literally win the fight for me. The game essentially plays itself. That is a problem and it has nothing to do with me being a somewhat experienced player.

I am currently leveling a Bounty Hunter and I am finding the game too easy. Not that this game was ever difficult per se but at least it didn't play itself. The last few boss fights I've had, I thought to myself "why bother?". I just set my companion on damage and they take care of everything. I do not have to press one single ability and I can still win the boss fight. This is silly and immersion breaking. The combat doesn't even have to be difficult necessarily, but at the very least give the illusion. I know some of you will likely say that I should play without a companion but you know darn well that the game is meant to be played with one. They are part of the story. And yes I could remove some of my gear. Nevertheless, I shouldn't have to work around the mechanics of the game just so it doesn't play itself. I love the story in this game. In fact, I play most video games for the story. However, I like to feel like I am a part of the story. Having zero challenge whatsoever, does not accomplish that. I know it isn't likely but I wish bioware would do something about this. I find it hard to imagine that people find this kind of gameplay engaging.

The real answer is who the hell knows. This game has horrible optimization.

Even after 5 years this game still has conflicting identities and a lack of direction. Don't get me wrong, swtor is one of my favorite games (almost exclusively for the story and leveling experience) but it is sometimes marred by various problems. Personally, I think the biggest problem this game has is with Bioware turning what was going to be Kotor 3 into an MMO. The bottom line is that MMOs are just not their thing. in my opinion, the storytelling has been pretty solid and consistent throughout the games history. Nevertheless, just imagine if some of the class stories had the quality and density of a single player rpg. The game seems to change direction frequently in order to keep people subbed. Just recently they tried the monthly chapter thing, now the carrot on a stick grind and who knows what else in the future. I will likely continue to support this game for as long as new story content is released because it is pretty damn good. Still, I hope Bioware doesn't make anymore MMOs in the future. Stick with what your good at, storytelling. As a little analogy, Michael Jordan is the greatest basketball player of all time, but he's a terrible GM.

Although I have been playing Swtor off and on for a couple of years now, I have never bothered with endgame much. I'm pretty much in it for the story. That said, the new gearing changes that everyone has been complaining about don't really mean much to me because I pretty much quit playing my level 70 Jugg until new story content is released. There seems to be a general consensus that getting the latest gear is a huge grind (I hate grind). However, I am wondering what exactly are people grinding for? This is a serious question, there does not appear to be much endgame content to grind for. There's Heroics that are nothing to write home about, Flashpoints that can be played solo, some short uprisings and some old Operations. I am genuinely baffled, are people grinding gear for that? or did I leave something out? If it is pvp people grind for than I suppose that makes sense but besides that I'm not sure what the point is in getting the best gear. There's not much PvE content to use it for, unless I am mistaken.

Why is it so hard for you guys to understand that someone may not want to repeat content (such as the planetary stories multiple times or heroics, side quests, etc) just to see a different class story? I legitimately don't understand why that is so hard for people to comprehend. Lets say a player played through one class story on the republic side with some side quests and the planetary storylines to go along with it and now they want to start a republic new class. What the Frak is so crazy about just wanting to play class quests that time around without any extras? I can hardly believe that some of you get so upset because that's what someone enjoys. You MMO people can be an odd bunch.

Oops, didn't read your whole post. Still, that's not too bad considering how poorly optimized this game is.

Seriously? If you're getting 60 fps with this game you should be thankful.

This brings me joy, maybe I will start a new class.

I am curious, can free to play players keep on pace with leveling by just doing the core story purple missions like subs or will they have to do more than that in order to keep up?

I believe you are missing the point of the epic story boost for many players. The great thing about the epic story boost is that you could level just doing class missions. It isn't about leveling fast per se, it is about not having to do or repeat the planetary storylines or side quests.

The bonus series are some of the worst, most grindy and uninteresting content in the game.

Well the faster the leveling the better in my opinion. It cuts down on tedious repetition.