You know what, you're right, you're a fricken genius. By population, list the top 5 MMO's, not online picture books, but mmo's that do not have raiding? WS is a terrible example because so much of the game in itself was broke. I'm not saying swtor is doing it wrong, it's their thing and I enjoy it for what it is. But to make the claim that raids aren't needed to thrive is silly, EA may be fine with the population in this game, and so may you, which is why you will only get 4 to 5 hours of actual content every 3 to 6 months. Man, I remember the days when forums were for discussing things vice attacking anyone who doesn't agree with you. By the way, this game's failure was pretty epic also if you even played back then, how many servers did we have to start with and how many do we have now? Or did you forget the whole "15000 per server! omgash", when in actuality it was about 1500.

If you stopped at 50, there are some daily quests out there but don't really add to anything. If you want to progress the story by expansion, fly to Makeb, that will start the storyarc for Rise of the Hutt. Once you are done with that, if not 55, can do some of the heroic +2, you can get them from the fleet on main circle which allows you to port right to them. You can solo them with the companions now. When done with that there is a guy on the fleet that starts the prelude for shadows of revan, gives you a solo fp to do and then you're off on that expansion. Once done with that you can easily start KOTFE at 60 and go from there. I was a bit overwhelmed also with everything but just go with the storylines, do a couple heroic +2s for gear, don't worry about mods or anything. The new 40+ blue's will be better than any Rakata raid gear you had from 1.2.

For example, on Makeb, you and a friend can do the storyline together, fascinating, I know. You do the cutscenes together, kill the same targets to update each others' and such, a really innovative way of playing an mmo. KOTFE, no such luck, you HAVE to do it all solo which is what he is complaining about. I finally allowed my son to play with me and have been having a blast with him, laughing at each others' responses or silly things he does because he's still learning but I know we will have to experience KOTFE separately which kind of stinks.

It all depends if their reply can be done via a checkbox response or not, at least that has been my experience with every ticket I have ever submitted besides the ones that never have received a response, still have two of those, one of them over a year old.

This is always the common misconception by a lot of people that don't like to raid. Although, as you call them, "hardcore raiders" aren't the majority of the populations, they are the ones that promote the game. They are the ones that start competitions, drama, rile up excitement, not the casual soccer mom that likes to flirt with Corso. So you are right that a gaming company has to do their best to keep the majority happy but without those hardcore types in your mmo, you just end up with a game equivalent to a facebook cash shop, which is what this is turning into. If that's their vision, then so be it, but totally neglecting that part of an mmo will never allow it to be a top 5 choice. If they and we all accept that and enjoy just the story for what it is, then so be it, but even that has degraded over the years.

You just need two people out of the group to actually CC and the rest to pay attention. You can't just run in guns'a'blazing and expect victory. For larger groups, CC two and pull around corners, kill on incoming. Problem lies in that it takes a little patience to do it with 4 low level dps and not many have that quality. I'd say the only boss that seems out of whack is the last boss of Taral V. Without being able to cleanse the thermal grenade, you suck all the cds on the healing terminals pretty fast but as long as you are on top of clicking them and los the boss when adds come, it's doable. Take charge of your group and lead them, if they want to succeed they will follow, if not, boot them and pull out a healer comp.

It has to be something with bolstering. My son and I leveled to 50 doing only class missions and every flashpoint along the way. Up until level 45, I think, all purple loot that dropped from last boss had no stats whatsoever. We went with the "cosmetic" explanation as the blue drops in the fp were good and leveling isn't exactly hard, that is, until we started getting implants and offhands with no stats.. Sometimes a friend of mine would come with his 60ish toon and would get the same gear (name wise) but his would have stats. At 45, the purple items started having stats on them and were really good for the level considering, like 156 for level 42 or 45. This also could be based on the fp itself as far as level goes. We did them based on the old level requirements for them. The Red Reaper was the first one we did that gave purple with stats. We haven't gone back and done any of the other ones to see if the bug is for the instance or for the levels. I guess a quick run through esseles could answer that.

Long post to prove a point but you are completely wrong on this and I would have quit your group to. This is why they are hard, it isn't because of the lack of skills, it's because people like you are to good to look up the fight or take criticism from others.

^^^^^

Your response makes no sense

I've been doing a ton of them with my son to teach him group mechanics before we bring in others and the loot is questionable. What we have seen, at low levels, all green drops from trash are level 61 req, blue is the same. The bosses do drop blue quality loot appropriate for our level an has averaged about 10 ilvls above the appropriate mods we could buy(one piece assigned to each individual). The last boss though.....always drops a piece of purple gear with no stats unless you have a lvl 60 person then their piece has stats.

Not that the game was very difficult before but with the new companions, I am kind of enjoying it. For different reasons. My son turned 13 this year and is a huge star wars fan, so I fired up an account for him so we can play together. With the new companions, I can duo flashpoints with him and actually teach him how to play without dying constantly or making other people suffer from his mistakes. It still takes effort and coordination to do but we do it and have fun and if the new companion model allows for him to break a cc now and then, I'm ok with it. It's not like you ever really died before, and if you did, you went to the bathroom until you could med probe and go again which didn't happen often. Leveling is bland and the point is the story, now you can focus on that and do ones you might have done otherwise. Just my personal take on it. When you can get the best gear in the game using companions, then there may be a point but for leveling and daily grinding, nah, it's better this way.

After dealing with CS and subscription issues and reading the drama over the past week, I see things haven't changed much in the past 3 years with BW.

I hope so but from the few posts I've read, it seems it's entirely pointed to solo only. I play with my son at times and outside of being on a planet, it is very group unfriendly. For example, I have to go the the fleet or a spaceport, walk behind him to get inside his hangar bay, fly with him to an objective (not planet), and then when done, it boards me back on my ship.......I mean, my ship isn't even there! So if he has to fly to another objective, we have to go back to a spaceport and then go through it all again for me to fly with him. Don't get me started on playing the same class...puke

Did you actually pay any money to subscribe? Reason I ask is because I came back to the game on a friend invite which gave me subscriber status for 7 days but because I never bought the Hutt exp, I didn't have access to Makeb or any Hutt related items until my 7 days were over and I paid for my own gametime. Once I paid for my own sub, I had access to everything short of SoR, which will unlock today.