You should clarify what kind of "classic" exactly because the original vanilla swtor had many issues that took years to fix. Only after 2.3 patch or something did the game become good, maybe even later.

By now you should know that BWA simply doesn't care.

Well, I sure know one benefit - with a small body one can fit in small crevices. For example, in TOS on walkers, there is a creviсe in a wall that allows escaping for bodies 1 and 2.

"but that's a different story" - I put it for a reason because pvpers definitely should get the highest gear through pvp progression like it was pre 5.0. Again, i did say "most hard mode ops", because some of them, like for example EV - isn't hard and can be done with 5 if not 4 people.ToS is indeed an interesting one, not to mention nim. I wish I could get my hands on financial data, but sadly I can only observe player population on the DM server, which dwindled heavily since the 5.0 "expansion". Gearing was not the only problem, but it contributed heavily. The situation only worsened with 6.0 and it's undeniable. Fewer players - less money. Well, maybe it's an issue then? Maybe that's why, similar in terms of game mechanics, WoW has times more population? Maybe instead of focusing on a mediocre story, devs actually start creating MMO content? And yes, i played more than a dozen MMO's, but only 3 MMORPG's: swtor, wow, eso.

My god, it's unbelievable how many people think they're entitled to the best gear for doing nothing. I hate to break your little bubble, but no. The best gear should be awarded only to the people that complete the hardest content of this game - operations and PvP(but that's a different story). Eternal Championshis's difficulty is nowhere even remotely near that of most hard mode ops, not to mention nightmare. Even with guides and tutorials, people wipe for prolonged amounts of time. And what do these people get in the end? Oh, the same rewards as people that are doing heroics? Wonderful, what a great incentive. BWA's catering to the casual community already ended up in a mass exodus of actual MMO players to WoW, ESO, etc. Given the sudden roll backward of a gearing system, it was a huge number of players and likely financial metrics confirm that otherwise, a current RNG-******** system would have remained. If casuals want to leave... well, good luck finding a mmo that has a different gearing system.

Christ, was it so hard to use a brain once in a while and just sub on 14th? You know, to maximize gaming time?

To get 326 gear it takes 8 characters accomplishing personnel conquest. Even faster, actually much faster with fps or ops. Well, that's up to you. For me, 6.0 definitely destroyed any kind of "anticipation", because accomplishing ops awards nothing valuable of any sort. That's why I haven't raided in 2 years and frankly, next to all raiders I know have quit the game early on 6.0.

My god, is it so hard to realize the basics of the compulsion loop? There is a reason why ALL of the MMORPGs are following it, and it has nothing to do with raiders - it's all about getting the highest neurochemical reward. Anticipation->Action->Reward. And SWTOR is no exception to it: the game has essentially 3 difficulty modes: story, hard, nightmare. The problem is that there is only one type of content that has the highest difficulty - ops. Thus only one type of person is eligible for the highest kind of reward - raider. Story mode ops award you the first tier of the current end game gear so that you could progress to hard mode. By progressing harder difficulty ops you get even better gear so that you could take on the highest difficulty. Completion of each cycle award you that pesky dopamine. And it's exactly how it should be: if you don't bother spending countless hours wiping on the hardest content in the game - why on Earth should you get the best gear for no reason?

Didn't BWA say that now upon stealthing classes don't exit combat? If that's the case, then OP's can't CC and heal up..

Yeah, do you really think BWA would remake trash mobs for this? They hardly care.

VG items are decent, but I'm worried about one (in terms of PVP) - the Supercommando Package. Essentially, it gives 3 seconds of invulnerability - which is nice, however, since almost all classes lose some of their DCD's and VG doesn't, this ability may just make DPS specs a bit overpowered. Would be great if it was locked for tank spec only.

PvP, PvP, and PvP. There is hardly any content as dynamic, as PvP. Oh, and checking/testing PTS of course.

It is definitely beyond me how people think they are entitled to the best gear in-game without actually committing to any kind of hard content. I'm sorry, but it's not how MMORPG's work. At the core of such games is a compulsion loop - Anticipation->Challenge->Reword loop-system. Locking better gear behind harder content creates a meaningful reason and motivation for players to improve their skills, do the challenge and get that loot players have been dreaming about, not to mention sweet dopamine release. And it's not like SWTOR came up with it. In ESO, if you want to get anything, but blue gear, you must do... harder content. Shocking. It's high time players of this game realize that SWTOR isn't just about the story and repetitive heroics - It also has other content, like ops and PVP - which is fun and rewarding as well.

Yeah, no. It kinda looks like devs don't have enough time to properly develop and polish OP in time, so they moved the release date. This would've been understandable, if, let's say - 2 op's we're being released, but just one? That's just a ridiculous excuse.

Doesn't work like that. Depending on your force alignment before joining the Dark Council, you get different names, not titles. Light/neutral/dark - imperious/occlus/nox