As my sub ends for probably the last time I wanted to leave with this. I hated the rng heavy renown system, but still it had its merits, especially compared to whats proposed on PTS now. If the constant deconstructing of trash was negatively influencing the economy -- instead of it giving almost guaranteed junk, tech frags or another universal currency would have been fine. Doing stuff on PTS without renown system felt empty as if you were doing all that work for peanuts. I get that there are "reasons" for pruning but I would have been far more careful in my choices focusing heavily on the least used abilities and finding spots to integrate the old utilities. Raising level cap and taking away powers just doesn't go over well. Combined with the junky gear, leveling up to get weaker won't work. New content is great but as I was there for the gap between tyth and the sisters, I no longer expect "new operation" level content. What I do expect are bug fixes though. Bugged nodes. Npcs falling through terrain. Scripted fights getting out of sync and throwing of mechanics... I mean the other weak was doing bonus boss on korriban excursion in mm and the gunslinger got knocked through the terrain, despite back being near or against wall. On PTS my shadow stride sent me under the floor on Makeb. Suffice it to say -- new content isn't nearly as appealing as fixes for long time issues (at least for me). 6.0 helped mitigate rng by placing most of the sets on vendors. It could have eliminated it all by placing them all on vendors. It also had a lot of junk bonus sets. Most classes only had one "real" set bonus worth using outside of specialized ranked pvp. I spent far more gambling on junk than I did actually putting sets on my 30+ lvl 75 alts. I just spent hours this morning cleaning up junk sets for more gambling frags. If anything, the limited rate of fragments coming in prevented me from wasting even more credits. Shiny and new doesn't equate to much. While I'm sure quite a bit of work went into new flashpoint, I would have much rather had more bug fixes. I mean even the story mode aspect of the fp was scaled poorly for one boss. I can't emphasize how little the new content means when bugfixes and quality of life changes would mean so much more. I'm sure there's more I would have added and probably sorted this a bit better but I want to post before I lose the ability to do that too.

Let's be honest -- the player base is typically not all that great. When I started, most were capable of EV/KPHM level stuff. Now even that basic level of HM is so risky to pug its barely done now. I've payed once to be run through TFB HM years ago when they did the focused operations and it dropped the ever so coveted 224 helmet. I paid after each boss maybe 30mil I can't remember, and a bit extra for the helmet. I still had to do the content and participate. And I was literally doing it just for the helmet since having to roll against 7 other people for one token isn't great odds. I didn't buy cc to raise credits, it was all naturally earned through regular content. You know why, because I don't like spending real money on digital goods. As my sub is ending probably for the last time -- I was gonna buy wings but because inflation spiked the price, going through the trouble of finding a group that could do it and setting up a date just stopped feeling worthwhile. Nim content tends to require prog teams. Most of the player base struggles with basic stuff, hence the need for 30s res. One shouldn't be surprised an individual player would hire out just to get something specific done.

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If cap was raised, it wouldn't be as detrimental as a lot of people believe. However, the biggest problem is having reliable and worthwhile credit sinks. I remember when I was saving 4 million just to get satele boots only for them to go up to 12. About a year ago when I came back, mk11 aug kits were around 500k+ - those are now almost 2mil a pop on my server. Purple augs that were around 5mil can go over 15 now. People have to keep in mind prices were fairly stable for a long while and there are multiple factors that have led to the sudden rise in pricing. For example one might conclude that demand is causing the spike - but I would suggest that a lack of supply from a reduced player base and lack of market participation means a lot less competition to drive prices down. To be fair, there are some ultra wealthy most likely manipulating parts of the market, but again, a lack of competition helps enable them to do so.

As someone who has spent plenty of time as both a sub and pref status, I think you're being far too disingenuous. Back when we had the 350k cap, you had to constantly micromanage your credits because you'd go over so easily (and thus lose access if not deposited into legacy) At 1 mil, you can at least buy the 306 pieces one at a time off the vendor. But when trying to reroll gold amps you were having to constantly withdraw. Most items go for well over 1 mil. What I do think is funny is that you think that the cap increase made things great for credit sellers. Free accounts are unable to send credits through mail. Free accounts lack the space to store much and can't deal with any real trading because of said cap. Credits are easier to come by than cartel coins. When I came back I had 400-700 mil from a few years ago, and that was a lot. I spent a few hundred million to avoid extensively grinding up from 270. In less than a year I was able to become a multi-billionaire, and really over the course of a weekend of selling stuff I sat on because it wasn't worth selling unsubbed, hint hint. Escrow and preventing people from selling/buying doesn't help in the way you think it does - especially if the user subs from time to time. If they don't, they pile up anyway if the player still plays a decent amount. With subs being the only potential buyers, the supply and demand is largely dictated by the current subs. I spent 3-4+ billion over the course of xmas break, often overpaying just a tad. The only reason I spent at all was the sales on account unlocks, giving me incentive to get the most from my coins. Otherwise, I would have just piled up more credits and continued to NOT BUY ANYTHING (of major value at least). On the bright side my time on the PTS tasting 7.0 means that the credits in my account will effectively be out of the market. It may not be quite the same as the "combat upgrade" but its a lot closer to it than even I thought it would be. Maybe the strategy to reduce inflation is alienate a lot of the long time players, might even work.

I can't remember if a copied character brought any account unlocked type stuff across --- pretty sure it didn't. If you really want you could create a new character with desired species and such on live then copy to pts, that will work and level 1s can be copied over

Ilum is still included (or at least should be) as its before makeb and rishi and the rest of the revan stuff on yavin. The likelihood is that her class story isn't "complete or some other quest is still incomplete leading to ilum. Having had alts sitting at various parts of the story line (often for years) I would bet there's more to be finished - like corellia isn't necessarily the final stop to a character's respective story as they may have to visit a ship or some other place and do a bit more.

Just expect disappoint everywhere really.

I've quit once before - namely after ignored feedback by plenty besides myself --- you know the stuff they thought was better only for it to wreck the economy and find they have to change it anyway---- only to replace it with something even worse.... Keep in mind a number of us have years invested in our characters --- there's a sentimental attachment. I'm already prepping to leave for the final time but there's still a chance they realize how poorly it will fare when it hits live.

Tutorial does virtually nothing for those that use it and its typically bypassed anyway. Swtor was more populated when I started. Gunships aren't usually the domineering force - but its definitely grown way too dependent on locks since the protorp wars started. Players aren't motivated enough to improve - there are still some long time vets that should be far better by now. Most of the newer folk don't bother to stay.

The problem with the upcoming 7.0 is this: We're leveling up only to become weaker with worse gear with the only consolation being able to swap to an additional set of specs that was also made weaker anyway to basically replay the same content we've had for the last several years. When I started raiding I had to link my underlurker achievement just to get into a story mode ToS Pug. Today I had to summon a guy that was in his second raid that clicked the wrong button after death and got lost on Rishi. It was just a 16m Story Mode Ravs. One of the new guys died at least once every boss fight. Several of us had to inform the group to target the little guy (master) and lost almost half the group at one point. If they hadn't dumbed it down to the 30s combat rezzes that pug would have ended there as only a handful of us were carrying the group. Raiding and group content isn't the magic it once was. The night before we couldn't even find 5 people for an HM and the 4th was only a level 70 and didn't know any better. If not for the crazy inflation I would have probably paid to hire a team just to take me through some of the achievements I've wanted. Prog teams tend to require long term commitment and I find it hard to want to stay subbed for more than a few months at a time. Crafting isn't going to change things -- most of us can craft everything we need because we have the alts for it. And since some players have exorbitant wealth, they're able to manipulate the market to their favor. I remember when I thought being able to craft every 220 was great --- then they changed the gear and it meant nothing -- that's the cycle. In the case of 6.0 the crafting market was mainly folks wishing to speed up the grind to 306 (aside from usual consumables) so very niche and generally not worth the effort.

I find it amusing to compare what people "defending" what's to come versus what people are expressing disatisfaction with. Defense for changes -- lets wait and see what happens Dislike for changes -- often including various reasons for why frequently coupled with much more thorough analysis Last time I was included to test upcoming changes we had a whole nda to agree to. Virtually all the negative feedback was ignored, and thus they're finally changing what we warned them about all along. The next xpac requires us to level up to essentially get weaker to grind out inferior gear to meet unrealistic new thresholds. Dxun has been buggy since I came back about a year ago. I think they hit hm or nim a while back because of how maras were being utilized, but other than that its still buggy. Dxun came out quite a while before I came back, yet still not fixed over a year later. First EVHM I did when coming back Soa fell through the ground in last phase, and that's at least been around for a few years. Point being --- we've been taught not to expect expedient bug fixes. I last subbed to hit the renown titles and be an active sub when xpac hit. Having spent quite some time on PTS, I'm really glad it didn't. I've basically tried to enjoy as much subscriber content with raids and such because from what I saw of 70 I will have absolutely no desire to stay for that mess. Players can struggle with basic sm content even in their perty 306 as is - the new gear means most aren't gonna bother augmenting and will be well below the 110% acc so all that missing and damage per second loss, no thanks.

I just realized what you meant --- the real question is why the heck you thought that was safe. I fly through that little gap between the fins, tho it does need particular angles. If a ship goes through that, rails will too. People that know how to strafe can use cover so they can expose just enough to fire a shot without peeking out too far. If this was a scout vs gs its not like you'd be in range so relying on reticle to check cover is a bad practice anyway. I've been the scout and shot people through the gap in the fins, and I've been the gunship that has shot people through the fins --- the big difference is while I know I'm doing it in scout, I'm probably too far zoomed out in gunship to notice how fancy I'm getting (when I use the reticle to know if shot is decent or not).

One thing you'll learn is that the folks that bother to run the ion/rail gs are typically better at it than the ones that run rail/protorp or some similar config. A sat offers you some protection - but ion hits with a radius so you can't just cover and assume you're safe. In your situation I would think one of two things: Either someone else hit you from an angle you weren't noticing (ie above/below) Or ion splash was high enough to finish a damaged ship.

I haven't quite forgotten what it was like to be new - and I really can't anyway considering they make up a lot of a typical gsf team. The short answer is there is a lot of nuance and mechanical understanding that even with flight time and experience aren't natural to grasp. But I'll try to break down some situations. When it seems like you get one shot, you may have been hit by multiple sources in quick succession, like 2 protorps, 2 slug rails, etc You can actually be one shot, but that pretty much requires a critical or a damage overcharge powerup (reds). Ships don't really move in a jerking motion aside from the engine maneuvers, so following someone can be easier or harder depending on distance. Because of evasion and accuracy, hitting isn't as simple as just lining up reticle and firing. While all blasters do more damage within 500m some blasters like heavies are best used at farther ranges as its easier to properly line up target because the blasters lose so much accuracy from firing at higher angles away from the middle point of your ship. Burst laser cannons suffer the most at range but unlike most blasters work even better up close, as they have a larger firing arc and a decreased penalty for firing at angles away from dead center. Rails can hit from up to 1500m away, tho the 1500 only really applies to hit checks when a target is moving away. Otherwise you need to be in 14900 or less to hit. Protorps can lock from up to 11500 I think which is still a long ways away and makes it easier to keep the target from breaking the lock naturally (without using missile break). Heavies upgraded and a few other weapons can partially penetrate or outright ignore (protorp) shields so one with full shields but low hull health can be taken out quickly. Suffice it to say there is a lot to learn for a game mode that's largely been brushed off to the side when it didn't prove profitable for them.