you sir completely mistook what we are after. the "don't stand in the fire" mechanic was taught to us from day 1 of MMOs. Ever do Grull's Lair back in BC? If not, go on youtube and find a strategy guide. Spoiler Alert! it requires a mage tank! and that's just the beginning of it. We don't want gearcheck fights (patchwork, etc) we want strategy fights. The LOL EASY players, want a boss with 20K health, no enrage timer, and hits like a feather so they can go in and solo it with their companion.

When did they come out and say "The easiest and more relaxed MMO"? I remember them putting so much emphasis on the story (with voice overs and everything) but that's because they listened to the community and we were tired of reading everything.

It is people like you I feel for, it's the ones on a high pop server that complain they don't have access to content that I have issues with.

What i am suggesting is, that there be different content for casuals and hard cores. If you're someone who logs on once a week for an hour or 2, be content with your flashpoints. If you're someone who's on 3 or 4 days a week for 2-4 hours a day, be content with entry-level ops and Flashpoints. If you're a hardcore that logs on 7 days a week for 8+ hours a day, you should be rewarded and challenged the entire time. And before you guys go ranting on "yet another hardcore" I fall into the 2nd category, where on weekends and a night or 2 when i come home from work is all I play. I don't need the BIS gear, because i'm not doing the content that requires it. I need the gear that will let me do the 2-3 hour ops, not the ones that require 5 nights a week to get through. If you want to spend days on end for months to get to the highest PVP rank, then all the power to you. There should be content for you at that level to support you. I'm not saying take anything away from the casuals, i'm saying add more for the medium to hardcore players so they don't get the "I'm bored syndrome" after a month and cancel their sub. Casuals are the ones that ***** the most, but they're not 90% of the gaming community either. If they don't offer content for hardcores, they loose probably 10% of their player base. If they don't offer content for competitive players (those that log on when they can and do the best they can to try and progress), they loose probably another 40%. Tie that together with the fact that casuals are more likely to cancel their account on a whim (due to the fact they don't find much in the game other then fleet talk) and approach Bioware with this statement and see how they like it. Sir. 50% of your clients are unhappy about the fact there is no challenging content left in the game. Granted some of them got there in 2 weeks, and some got there in 4 months, but they are bored and are looking for something new! I have a list of our options and outcomes. 1. We implement some harder content, as well as some elite content. The outcome of this is we keep our hardcores interested, and we hear some minor bickering about how someone who plays once a week can't get the new helm. This result keeps hardcores interested more, and brings in more revenue because they don't cancel their subscriptions when they have all the BIS gear after 2 weeks. We may hear some additional complaining from casuals on the forums, but nothing most of them will cancel their subscriptions over. 2. We cater to the 50% we have left, and allow them to play cards on the fleet. The outcome of this will be complete loss of 200,000 of our most elite gamers who test for us, who make full use of our game, and another 500K of our medium crowd (roughly 1/2) who were looking for some challenging content in this next patch. This result brings our player base down from 2Mil, to 1.3Mil, costing us $10.5 Mil every month as well as the loss of almost everyone that participates in public tests, attends our conferences, and will eventually develop addons for the game. Which option would you prefer sir? edited for numbering (forgot a 0 on 200K)

Crafting is a way to get you into OPS ready gear. WOW gave everyone raid equivilent gear through crafting, and points that you got from running 5 mans, and the crowd wanted to kill someone after the change. I do agree that crafting needs some perks, and they already announced there will be a "balance" to crew skills.

Here is a "fix" to the whole casuals thing. Endgame ops and top-level PVP should be made challenging, that way the "hardcores" have something to work at to keep them interested. Casuals (while they may not get to endgame raiding) have quite a bit to do anyway. There are FPs, and lower-end ops to keep them busy, as well as lower "bracket" pvp. If you want the shiny, BIS gear, go work for it. If you don't have the time/drive to put in the time to get it, then chances are you don't need it anyway. Which brings me to the next point that I know i'm gonna get bashed on: "why should I have to suffer if real life keeps me from the shiny?" To this I answer if your life is that busy, then you understand that being good at something takes time, practice, and persistence. Sure you may play guitar twice a week for a couple hours, but that's only going to be good enough for Jam sessions with your friends.. Don't expect to play for Trapt at the next Superbowl.

O boy... the whole "I want to experience everything the game has to offer, but I don't want to be social on an MMO" complaint. This isn't your XBOX 360 game here folks, you're surrounded by a world of players! for those on low-pop realms, i feel for you, I really do, but those that just don't want to be part of guilds, get rid of the "I want to take my brother and do 16 man ops with just him" attitude. It's an MMO, it's meant to be played with others :-D. On another note, everything in the game doesn't require "group" makeups. Legacy, crafting, companion rep, datacronns, etc, all make up "solo" gaming. When you're the only one on, go do those kinds of things. When there are multiple people on, go do FPs, or if you're part of a progression guild, go do OPS. Unfortunately, MMOs have become more SPOs (single player online) and no one knows what it's like to learn to work together to accomplish a goal. they just want their button and LOL mode from wow. If you fall into that category, go play wow, and leave SWTOR for the socially inclined people.

Although cross realm FPs may help low pop. servers, cross realm LFG is not what I believe to be the best for the community as a whole. I believe server mergers would be the most appropriate action (making 3 low pop servers into 1 standard pop. server). Unfortunatly, WOW proved that cross realm LFG (and more importantly cross realm LFR) caused a huge community crash. Anymore if you find a decent person in WOW, concider yourself lucky. And it's only a matter of time before you ask for cross-realm ops finders as well, and if history has shown us anything, it's that the same actions always seem to have very similar outcomes. At least with a server merger and same-realm LFG, you are grouping with people on your server, so the "I'm never going to see this person again, lets see how bad i can piss them off" attitude shouldn't set in.

THIS THIS THIS 1000 times this... Most MMO players come from having played WOW at one time or another, and guess what. There is a reason we're not playing wow anymore. It maybe because of the LOL mode content they've come out with, it maybe because the community has hit the fan, but we all have our reasons to play this and not wow. If you want WOW, go play wow, if you want something different, Play SWTOR. Don't try to make this game just like another game on the same market. It's like buying a Ford Fusion, and then complaining it's not exactly like a Honda Civic. If you wanted the Civic, you should have gotten the Civic. IF you want to play wow, no one here is stopping you. Leave us be with our game with tallents every level (not 15), and our fun social game and go play WOW.

Well then to get back on topic, let me just say something about that. When Someone puts work in on something for months, why should someone else come along and get it in a week?

I think we're getting a little crazy here. The biggest complaint is that average joes that log on for 20 minutes a week, are screaming that they can't see 16 man op content. WOWs fix to this was to incorporate a LFR system that was so dumbed down 10 twelve-yr-olds could complete it on their own, with buying their characters off ebay the night before. This combined with the valor system took all sense of accomplishment away from group play. That is what we're trying to avoid now. Yes you can do your stories, world pvp, and low ranking warzones all you want. There needs to be a different content for those that play for the social aspect, and those that log on for 30 minutes a week.

No... just don't try to enforce things to make those single player too! Leave the people who want to play solo to space battles, and charming their companions. Leave the people who want to interact with each other, to go out and do the group things.

Good call on the 33% damage buff of full auto, and the 30% boost to HiB. That makes it better regardless of if it crits or not. You would get 1 ammo back when you hit with HiB so that would help the ammo situation You would shoot off more HiB shots, so would that make up for the non-crits?

I would be ok with a same realm LFG. At least you would be gaining rep with people on your server, just cross realm, hell no!

Really? cause ops don't require grouping? FPs don't require grouping? nothing in this game requires you to actually play and communicate? New news to me