The end game PVE content is great, its execution however was poor.

Ironic because this is primarily the segment that you're long post states has "nothing to do."

No you dont understand I never once said they should make normal mode harder it is aimed at casuals, and i think i should change that fromm the "hardcore" players. You dont need to be hardcore to raid, especially in this game. The first time I did EV normal my guild had just formed none of us knew each other , our gear was pretty terrible and we 1 or 2 shot every boss except soa which took us 4 tries. Regardless our guild isnt anything special we dont take raiding to seriously we dont have gear requirements for coming to raids etc.

I still think any casual who has any interest in raiding and does a little research on the bosses would have no problem reproducing the exact same results that we had our first night in there, that is too easy, and there is no progression involved with it. Im not asking for it to be infintely harder what im saying is that the operations need a sense of progression, you shouldnt beable to go into a Operation with preraid gear and knock down all the bosses their should be stricter GEAR checks (there is a difference between stricter gear checks and making it harder) so that maybe you need to clear the first 2-3 bosses a few times and get your guild geared up before you can get to the next boss etc.

Regardless my main point is that casuals can experience all the content in normal modes and thats fine, leave them easy, hard modes on the other hand are still very easy, none of the mechanics change just more health and more damage. Not to mention they give no incentives for going into nightmare mode or doing 16 mans, beyond it just being an extra challenge most people play MMO's for a sense of character progression, and that shouldnt stop because a few casuals feel cheated because they cant run the hard stuff. Its not impossible for anyone to get into raiding seriously , its fine if they dont want to but the rest of us shouldnt be punished because people dont want to raid or because they dont want to progress beyond a certain point.

Also i hate it when people say they will be catering to 1% that is so ridiculously untrue. Okay so excluding PVP people who have no interest in PVE , your telling me that right now only 1% of the people who play this game are clearing bosses on hard modes?

On my server at least 50% of PVE players have quite a few columi pieces, and dont tell me "they were running HM FP's" because they probably where but those are supposed to be "tuned" higher than normal mode operations and i beleive that alot of them are. If i went around the imperial fleet and started inspecting players and disregarded all the PVP players I would see alot of players in Columi and still quite a few in Rakata (meaning they are running HM Ops) so dont give me this 1% crap. Honestly what are these PVE Casuals doing then 3 weeks after they hit 50? They just do normal mode and say "okay thats it for me i guess im done"

Also i havent heard any so called casual or anyone at all really say that the operations in this game where too hard at least not anything beyond dealing with bugs.

Wasn't the reason for the thread because you thought you got gear too quickly? Not specifically the difficulty. . .but time invested?

Sort of, but just slowing down the loot doesnt solve the problem

Wasn't the reason for the thread because you thought you got gear too quickly? Not specifically the difficulty. . .but time invested?

edit - oh, i see i brought difficulty into it XD

but it does go both ways, difficulty and time investment are a big gripe from the casual players

For the record: I agree with you.

I stated from the first week (in fact, even in BETA I posted about it) that the leveling/progression was far too easy and would become an issue for those that lack patience.

Sort of, but just slowing down the loot doesnt solve the problem. What point are you trying to make sorry its 7am and I havent slept yet.

I read these forums quite often and i have never once heard a "gripe" from a casual player about time investment for gear (in the PVE sense, ive heard it for PVP) or difficulty complaints beyond bugs. (ie. there was a bug that was stopping progression)

Translation: Design for the lowest possible denominator or people will quit .

I think think SW has proved that incorrect as people are leaving this game in droves.