Who Swtor was made for.

I posted this in peace. A simple nudge at the more vocal players that are dissatisfied with the content or difficulty ramping. Please don't assume to know my playtime or that I play this game 24 hours a day. As i said in my OP, assumptions, more often than not, fail the assumer.

In the end being hardcore does not necessarily mean you got a better game.
Making content impossibly hard is easy but making good content is not.
I believe that as the game grows we'll get harder content but what I
don't want and what I'm really tired of from other games is to get the impossible
"have to grind and raid for years" stuff.

I agree with the OP that the current state of SWTOR is NOT targeted at the small percentage minority of players that are looking for very difficult challenges that require coordinated groups spending lots of time working together to overcome.

I find the idea that the content that has been released as 'hard' or 'nightmare' is tuned for this demographic to be laughable. It isn't hard, nor a challenge for players that have grown up on MMOs and have completed the most difficult content in the most difficult games.

It is instead designed for the average gamer, and the average gamer has been very successful against this content.

Which isn't to say it is a bad game or a game I don't find entertaining, but rather like the OP, I understand this isn't where I'm going to go for really difficult raiding content.

And while releasing the game with everything tuned for the average masses makes good business sense, I feel the designers have set themselves up for a very bumpy ride the next couple of patches.

Many players who wanted this to be their new hard raiding game have moved on, and it isn't clear they will come back. Meanwhile the average players have been able to complete content labeled 'hard' and 'nightmare' and feel that this is their game.

So what happens when the designers start making 'hard mode' actually hard and 'nightmare mode' something that only the most dedicated players in organized guilds can complete?

Will they be able to get the players who wanted this level of challenge come back to consume the new 'hard' and 'nightmare' content?

Will the players who have completed 'hard' and 'nightmare' when it was easy continue to have success, or will they get frustrated with the difficulty?

And for a preview of this, just look at the posts whining about the healing nerfs and medpack changes coming in 1.2, and this is before anyone gets a chance to see if the new content is more difficult than current content.

Heck many of the post already have some variant of 'I am a hard / nightmare raider and with these changes the content will be impossible'.

I don't envy the balancing act the developers will have to perform to keep from alienating various segments of the games population as they move forward.

In fact, if I were them I'd just focus on several broad segments and not try to please everyone, especially the small niches.

There have actually been several, but you make a good point. Those titles that do focus on hardcore PvP, specifically, either don't last long or subsist on a small player community over their lifespan. Developers have to balance focus on hardcore content with focus on the desires of other player demographics targeted by the game.

So can I ask you this.. As an ex-hardcore player (life and starting a business have taken precedence), what is wrong with playing the game for what it is intended?

It's the Pareto principle in action

Very well stated and full of interesting and valuable questions (to the player base and the devs) as the game matures post 1.2