If you have to either do pvp or miss out on GS objectives and leave progress on the table, sorry that's forced pvp. You either do it or you're punished with delayed progress. You won't change my mind on that. All the more reason I'm glad I canceled my sub since they're not trying to pull the "do pvp and GSF or else" card. pvp and pve need to be kept separate.

Just when I thought I had seen it all you post one of the most disingenuous and slanderous statements I've ever read. Your entire argument is little more than a strawman and false equivalency fallacy all rolled into one. Before I get into this I should thank you in part for proving my point for me that you don't punish the collective playerbase for a problem, you attack the problem itself. Now first up, you do not get to sit here and try to put words in my mouth. You're sitting here trying to compare the illegal activity of credit selling to changing a personal mechanic in a video game. The fact you think the two are even remotely comparable shows you don't know anywhere as much about game development as you've wanted others to believe. Credit/gold selling is illegal in virtually every game out there by the legally binding contracts you agreed to in the ToS to play the games, not to mention other laws about lost sales, contract interference and so on. To stop credit sellers it's actually very simple, ban the players engaged in it, then let Broadsword's legal department sue the credit selling companies out of business. That's how you put a stop to something like that. There is a HUGE difference in an actual illegal activity vs a programmed game mechanic. As for the line in bold, my argument has been the same from the start. The devs deliberately programmed the rep token to grant 43k, and programmed the system to allow you to stockpile tokens so you're not having to farm them every second of every day, and programmed it so you could use it up to 7 times per week. Those are deliberate actions and standards they themselves put forth, meaning guess what, it was an intentional act and doing exactly what they programmed it to do. That's how programming works, is you have to tell the system what you want it to do. Now after the fact years later they've decided that wasn't intentional and have been throwing a temper tantrum that players used the options they were given and blamed and have gaslighted players for a problem they as devs created. We never told the system to give 43k for a rep token or drop as often as some of them do, the devs did that, but I as the player am somehow the problem for using an option they gave me? Nah dude that's classic gaslighting behavior just like an abusive spouse that keeps saying "why do you make me do this". You should take your own advice on this one and stay away from any decision making regarding game mechanics because you clearly don't understand how game development works at the small time/indie level or at the AAA studio level. I've been creating content for games for 20 years now with some of my maps for games being some of the most downloaded ever, along with my recent Space Engineers creations being used by the largest private French server that exists. My work speaks for itself. Now if you want to compare resumes in this area, we can do that but I assure you I'm going to win. What you refuse to understand about game development is that you are responsible for what players are able to do/not do in a game. If I'm making content and don't want people having infinite uses of a certain item, I'm going to limit that item. If I don't want someone using an item infinitely but refuse to limit that item, that is 100% my own fault for giving it infinite uses to start with and again for refusing to limit it. If I'm serious about people having the option of infinite uses I need to be prepared that some people will use it infinitely. To punish people for using an option I gave them is foolish and dishonest. As a prime example, for Space Engineers I had to create custom ammo types to achieve my goals for my mod. I didn't want people ammo racking folks to death who use my custom ammos, as to me ammo racking is one of the most unfun and unskilled ways to win/lose to exist in games even if it can be realistic. Since I didn't want that to happen I disabled the ability of my ammos to be ammo racked to start with. Again this is not rocket science. And the line in bold is where you're objectively wrong if they value keeping my money. If they want to keep money coming in from customers they're going to meet certain demands of those customers, or those customers will withdraw support. So yes it actually does matter what the customers think in this instance. Now as I've said from the start, if you want to keep playing, you do you. I refuse to give them the same amount of money for less game. If they actually added all those extra objectives they promised instead of just 2 crumbs to offset this, then we might be having a different discussion. Not to mention if they hadn't lied to the players and gaslit everyone in the process. But again you do you. For the final time I'm also going to ask this, since you agree with nerfing the rep token and dictating to other people how they should be allowed to play, when are we nerfing GSF and pvp by similar amounts since you can literally afk and do nothing to get full bars of conquest? Afterall if you're concerned about balance as you say then you can't have one drastically outperforming the other.

If it wasn't an intended possible outcome they would've capped the amount of points you could earn each week just like they do with how many reputation points you can earn in a week, but they didn't. If they didn't intend for a single person to be able to earn 5m points as a possibility they would've already restricted these huge guilds from putting up 100m+ points per week or more. 5m points by one person is just as valid as 5m points put up by 10 people or 100. You really need to quit worrying about what other people are doing to earn their conquest. If a guy wants to put up 5m points by himself, who are you to say he can't or it's not intended? This right here proves you have zero clue what you're talking about because you could only use the tokens 7 times in a week since it was a daily objective. If someone is hitting it more than that they're either running multiple servers or there's some exploits going on. If the devs didn't want people using the token so much they should've limited it to a once a week thing or how many times you could use it in a week. Them getting mad at players for using an objective they gave them is like a parent offering to take a kid out for ice cream then getting mad when the kid orders a flavor they as the adult don't like then trying to punish the kid. You don't get to do that. Even if we said for sake of argument you could use it 50 times in a week, again who are you to tell people they can't do it or shouldn't be able to? For the love of the Force read a dictionary before you post junk like this. Using the rep tokens was NOT an exploit at all. The system was designed to allow stockpiling of tokens and to pop it 7 times in a week. So yes it was working as intended. If the devs didn't want people stockpiling tokens or using the rep objective 7 times in a week they shouldn't have given those options to start with. If they want to get people spending coins there's an easy way to do that, LISTEN TO WHAT YOUR PLAYERS ARE TELLING YOU THEY WANT. Spitting in their faces and telling them they're playing wrong isn't how you get them to open their wallets which is what they've done here. No their mistake is in nerfing the payout instead of making the tokens harder to get. Their second mistake is continuing to maintain an over 1m point gap between pvp and pve. What you and they need to get through their heads is that people who don't want to play pvp or GSF are not going to play GSF or pvp. If I wanted to deal with an unbalanced nightmare of toxicity that is pvp I would go back to CoD or WoW's pvp scene. I can count on one hand how many pvp folks on these forums and in game I can actually stand, but that's neither here nor there. Point being you can't make people do what they don't want to do, and if you have to try to force people to play your way, you are in the objective wrong. When you pay my sub then you can have a say in how I play. Until then you need to stay in your own lane and quit worrying so much about how other people play.

There's the white knighting defense and gaslight right on schedule. Simply because you can do something as a developer doesn't mean you should. Along that same vein of thought, just as they have a legal right to make changes to something, I have the legal right to withdraw my financial support of their products and to encourage others to do the same. Once again we can survive without them, they can't survive without us. You also prove once again you have zero clue how game development works or what constitutes intended or not. If you program a feature to do A B and C but somehow it also does D, that's not intended and is a bug. If you program it to do A B and C and it does exactly that, then it's working as intended. If later I decide it needs to do A B C and D, then adding D is a change and update like a game getting an expansion. This doesn't mean the game wasn't suddenly working as intended before, it means that new content was added because the goal posts moved. For years the rep token gave 43k points because that's literally what it was programmed to do, so yes it was in fact working as intended whether you like it or not. If they thought it was doing too much they've had literal years to fix it but chose not to. They were the ones who said "if you do x amount of work to get a rep token we'll give you 43k for it" and established the baseline of work demanded to get the 43k. If they thought it was giving out too much reward for too little effort, you don't throw a hissy fit and blame the players for using the system the way you designed it to be and nerf the rewards, you make it harder to get the tokens to start with. Blaming the players like they're doing is like a restaurant giving a choice of Coke or Pepsi with purchase of a meal then getting mad when people pick Pepsi over Coke. Like dude, if you didn't want people picking Pepsi then why did you give people the option to do that in the first place. This is quite literally the devs setting the standards, getting mad that players played to those standards, then throwing a hissy fit and getting mad about it and gaslighting people when they get called on it. As someone who has developed content and items for other games, I'll use my Space Engineers mod as one example. Currently my weapons in that mod deal a minimum of 15% above vanilla values, and strongest armor gives 10x the amount of durability vanilla armors do. If I wanted to I could buff the weapons to do 50% above vanilla values and cut the durability of the mod armor in half, I have the right to do that. If I wanted to make the custom thrusters suck up 20x the power they do now meaning folks will need more reactors, I can do that. If I want to make it so you need 5x the amount of material to keep the modded reactors going, I have the right to do that. While I have the legal right to do those things, it doesn't mean I should. If my goal is to get as many people to use my mod as possible, then I won't just go around nerfing things willy nilly. On top of that it means I will also listen when people tell me they want something and I can reasonably provide it, such as dude that asked for the Railgun turrets and custom solar panels. I was under no obligation to actually give him those things. However if I wanted to keep him subbed and folks like him I needed to do that or have a picture perfect explanation as to why I couldn't. It cost me nothing but a little time to add those items, I keep him as a sub and draw more folks to my mod, he gets his railguns and solar panels, everyone wins. Contrary to popular belief there does not need to be a loser in a business transaction. The devs here claim they want as many people playing as possible, yet their actions suggest otherwise due to their ignoring the vast majority of their players saying "hey this sucks, change it back." If you want to make your game or content as successful as possible, it's not about what you want, it's about what the players want.

One person farming the required points for their guild is just as valid as one hundred people doing it as it's still the guild doing it. If one guy has the time to put up all 5m points in a week for his guild and wants to do it, who the heck are you or anyone else to say he shouldn't be able to do that? People are not limited on the amount of points they can generate and earn in a week, so to sit here and say it's not intended is just flat out wrong. Especially when you have some guilds putting up 100m+ in a week. If they only wanted people to be able to earn so many points in a week they would've capped off the points after awhile. That is NOT abuse but the system working as the devs designed it. In order for people to buy a rep token to start with they had to farm out the currency before hand to do so, which requires active engagement with the game, meaning a butt in a seat farming something somewhere. Abuse would be if someone figured out how to get infinite rep tokens even after the rep itself was full and still benefit from them, or make it drop OP Catalysts. If I farmed out enough currency to make 100 rep tokens, it makes no difference whether I use those tokens all at once or over the course of 100 days or even 100 years, the result is the same. I still put in the work the system itself said I needed to put in to get those tokens. Now I have to ask, how was my rep token at 43k hurting someone else? Was it locking them out of content? Was it allowing me to steal points from them? Please tell us. Otherwise where there is no victim there is no crime. Overall there are way way too many people who were too concerned about how others farmed their conquest points that need to mind their own business.

They claimed they did that to remove FOMO which is a crock because the very nature of seasons themselves are FOMO. So yes they did remove some tokens. Once again you are objectively wrong. They're not trying to stop people from using them, they're just throwing a temper tantrum that people played the game the way it was designed and got mad that people were getting the 43k conquest points that they designed and blamed players. Instead of making it harder to get rep tokens they decided players were the problem and nerfed the reward. Point blank this foolish rep nerf and crumbs they've thrown people afterwards is par for course for them. It's like them suddenly deciding there's too many Juggs being created and played so they nerf Juggs and restrict how many you can have on account. Sorry but no you don't get to do that. If you want people to play something other than a Jugg, fix the issues with the other specs that keep people from wanting to play Jugg. Now in the case of rep tokens they had YEARS to fix this if they thought it was an issue, but they never did because it was working as intended and as they designed it to do. Only when they wanted to try and increase grind time did it suddenly become an issue. Not only this but they outright lied about adding more than 2 objectives to compensate for it, lied about forgetting it in the patch notes, and then have been constantly gaslighting the players since every time they post because they're too arrogant and proud to admit they got it wrong. Point blank again, how I farm/farmed conquest was none of anyone's business. There was nothing wrong with the rep token at 43k as you still had to farm the tokens to get it. The only reason it got changed is they wanted to push their metrics up higher artificially. The so called "compromise" is little more than them saying "take these crumbs and go away peasants." It's basically them saying "yeah you're playing the game wrong" because they suddenly didn't like people using an option they gave them to use YEARS after the fact. Again you do NOT blame your customers for your mistakes. But of course this bunch doesn't care. They think they know all and the Force itself could tell them they're wrong and they would still find a way to say they're right and the Force is wrong while gaslighting the Force in the process. Far too many people worried about how other people farmed their conquest.

People are going to be tools in chat if they think they can be. This isn't exclusive to DK but to the internet as a whole. You're never going to get rid of all of the foolishness and toxicity that can pop up in chat. If someone is outright making threats then yes absolutely report that. Otherwise if people are being tools your best bet is to ignore it and turn chat off. You're not going to stop it all and even then it's not your job to do it. If you want to police the chat then you should apply for a moderator position. 99% of the time people on the internet that talk crap are all bark and no action. Now by no means do you have to like it, but like I said you'll go nuts worrying about it so much. Report it if there are actual threats but otherwise it's not worth your time worrying about is so much.

This right here proves my point that core issues can be addressed without having to leave a massive point disparity between pvp and pve that some people are saying needs to exist. Now that in mind I do have to ask one question regarding the pvp community. This isn't meant to be a swipe at you but is a harder general question in light of this and things I've heard other pvp folks saying. How is it that there are enough premades to constitute a major problem some folks make them out to be, but not enough to sustain a premade mode? Because some people make it seem like every other match is a premade, yet when I mention certain changes they say there's not enough pvp folks left to carry everything. Then I have to ask myself, if there's barely enough pvp folks left to much of anything beyond the one general mode, why devote any major resources to something that won't get much if any of a return? Note I'm not saying they should cease supporting pvp, I am simply trying to navigate my mind through the logic. Since you've been involved with pvp more than I have lately, make it make sense lols. That aside if all it takes is limiting premades to take care of some of the core issues of pvp then by all means I'm on board with it. It may sound like I'm trying to be an uber son of a hutt spawn over pure text at times, but I do want to see the game do well. Time will tell if the devs listen to anything or continue to dig their heels in and take us towards star wars galaxies territory.

No such thing as a "one click wonder" as we've already been through with folks. In order to have a token to use you had to farm it which requires more than a single click. It requires active engagement to earn the tokens to use them. Simply because the claim process takes only a couple seconds does not mean it's "one click and done" for 43k. That's no different than saying a quest giving you a choice of tank or DPS gear is a "one click wonder" for gear and xp. It's a disingenuous argument that ignores everything else that went into generating those rewards. If you object to my use of the word "demanded" then sorry but I call it like I see it. If certain individuals don't want to risk hearing calls for nerfs to how they play, don't try to justify or call for nerfs against how I play or I will demand you be held to that same standard you're trying to force on me. By your own admission you've already seen people trying to justify it and advocate for it, with several posts in this very thread. Really a simple concept, if you're going to try to justify nerfs to how I play or call for or demand them, you've opened yourself up to me doing the same for how you play. If you actually read what I said in some of my earlier posts and most recent instead of skimming you would have the answer to your question already. Your inability to find matches at certain times of the day is not my problem anymore than me not being able to get into MM FPs or OPs at certain times of day is your problem. I have maintained and still maintain time sitting in queue is not work nor should it be treated as such. If queue times are a concern, then form your own groups with like minded people and join stuff thus bypassing the queue outright until the core issues are resolved. You may not like that option, but it's still an option that's available to both pvp and pve players who dislike queue times. By their very nature, queue times with group content are random, sometimes they're faster and sometimes they're slower regardless of what you're joining queue for, be it OPs, FPs, or pvp. Your faction, the server you're on, time of day you're playing, what day you're playing on, all factor in across the board. Some group content is more consistent than others such as veteran FPs, however even they can be far far slower depending on time of day you're playing and what's going on. If being unable to guarantee a certain number of matches per time unit means you can't compare pvp and pve, by your own logic you have ZERO grounds to say pve players are in a privileged situation since the ability to make that statement requires the ability to compare the two which you just said is impossible. So which is it dude, can they be compared or can't they? You don't get to have it both ways. Since you can't guarantee how many possible matches you'll get for either side the only way you can run calculations is if you only take into account the amount of time actually played and assume the queue itself is a non-factor. Either because the queue has been bypassed and its a full group running, or it's a solo player that got lucky. So in comparing actual time played in the various matches and content, pvp comes out ahead with close to 1.2m (a little over 1.1m for exact calculations) of pve in an equal amount of play time. I can happily post the numbers again if you would like, or do you want to actually get fixes done so we don't need to keep having this discussion? Based off my own experiences with content if I was at the helm I would address core issues vs focusing on band-aid fixes. 1: quit trying to pigeonhole pve people into pvp as it's not going to make the pve guy want to do pvp and only annoys both sides. If people on either side want to play the alternative game mode they will seek it out. 1a: balance points as close as possible between pvp and pve so neither side feels pigeonholed into the other. one side should not feel punished for playing the wrong game mode. 2a: Introduce a mode for premade teams only. I'm not opposed to premades existing, however there is a huge power and experience disparity between a well rehearsed and practiced premade and a random group formed on a whim. Like a team of NBA hall of famers in their prime vs the local high school team. Thus you only see premades vs premades. 2b: Since premades would only be allowed to go against other premades, I would have a solo mode for solo people that want to join up for pvp which is a true roll of the dice. Perhaps giving people an option to join queue with a single friend so you're not playing completely alone. 2c: This one would be optional depending on how the people wanted it to play out, but I would also leave a mode in for people who want a free for all. In this mode anything goes. You might get premades, you might get all solo players. Assuming the pvp crowd wanted this, then you have the ability to choose your battle so to speak. Far as rewards however this mode would not qualify for competitive rewards. 3: bring back competitive pvp in light of parts 2a and 2b. You could have competitive solo and competitive premade and let people choose their battles. 4: Win trading. If people are caught doing this they forfeit all ranking. The rewards they picked up illegitimately are removed from their account and transferred to rightful winners of those rewards below them. I would either divide it out based on rank on the leaderboards, or just hand it to the next eligible person below. Could be adjusted as the community voices thoughts. Then once the rewards have been removed from the account and given to their rightful winners, the win traders would be banned from the game. 5: Pvp arena strongholds. I know that some strongholds have arenas in them now so this isn't entirely new in theory. However what I would do is give people a much bigger arena area to goof about in and customize on the scale of the Alderann stronghold. If people want to goof about and practice for certain maps they can, if they want to replicate certain maps or create their own they can. If certain layouts become super popular then look at incorporating that layout into an actual sanctioned map for competitive play, with an acknowledgement being given to the original creator. Thus you now involve your community to a degree in the maps they could be playing on. 6: Revamp certain quests to avoid AFK leeching. As I said several times I don't approve of this, but I can't pretend it's not possible currently. For GSF I would split the "fly x type of ship" into a couple variants. First is giving "earn x amount of medals as (ship type here)". Second is changing the "fly x type of ship" to being they have to complete the majority of the match as that ship type, as in 80% of the match as that ship type. 7: Forced respawn timers. This could sort of go with number 6 but you get the idea. One of the things I liked about Star Wars Squadrons was the forced respawn timers so you couldn't just AFK the whole time. You had 1 minute to make manual changes or pop a pre-set loadout for your fighter. Then at the end of that one minute you were spawned in ready or not. 8: AFK ejection timers. If after a certain amount of time no input is detected from the player, or no input below a certain threshold is detected, they are automatically booted from the match and given an account wide lockout timer so they can't just swap toons and do it again. 9: Starter mode gear only. Despite the name for this you could have a mode for GSF where it's starter gear on the ship only for those who want more of a challenge. This can be applied to other pvp modes or perhaps even some pve as well. Whatever the starting gear level is for your respective mode, be it 324 or whatever, that's the highest you can use. Akin to WoW's challenge dungeons of the same vein. Now again this is by no means meant to be a comprehensive list of things I could do, but it's a start. I'm not simply talking out of my aft shuttlebay when I say I've given it thought. If there are things you would add to that list, take off or change, that can be a separate discussion. To use a medical analogy I would actually try to cure the disease vs simply managing the symptoms, as the devs have merely managed symptoms for far too long now. I do not have to like your game mode to want to see it succeed. I despise most competitive and modern pvp with a burning passion due to one too many negative experiences with it, but for those who do actually enjoy it, more power to them.

I don't mean this how it will sound over pure text comms and it's not directed at you specifically. But if the pvp community doesn't want to risk hearing potential calls for nerfs to the pvp objectives and their playstyle, they should reign in the elements in their own community demanding nerfs to mine. Otherwise I am going to demand they be held to the same standard they're trying to force on me. Regardless, the point disparity is a discussion that's needed to happen for some time. Also respectfully there is no "seem" unbalanced, it is unbalanced. I don't expect everything to be point for point equal as that's a nigh unrealistic goal. However they should be at least within 5% of each other regardless of which one has the extra 5%. I'm well aware of a bunch of the pvp guys leaving in 5.0, again I was there. I agree with you that pvp isn't in good shape right now, for that matter the entire game isn't in good shape. Our disagreement is not in whether improvements need to be made all around because they do, but what those improvements should be. This is where I strongly disagree. I get that they want to try to get more people into pvp and GSF, but the way they're doing it now is unnecessary and comes off as "play pvp and GSF or else". A similar situation occurred in WoW just a few years back in one of their expacs in Battle for Azeroth I believe it was. They wanted to give people an additional 20% experience if they flagged for pvp, and people rightfully protested it saying it was being told to flag for pvp or eat a 20% nerf to their experience. So that got scrapped. I give the devs some benefit of doubt in that they may legitimately have not intended harm by it, but you cannot just give such massive advantages to one side or the other as it comes off as trying to force people into that game mode. Thus you run into those exact issues of people joining that don't want to be there I've seen several people say they don't want in those matches. Speaking from my experiences creating content, resorting to that dramatic of a band-aid solution tells me you have critical core issues going on with the content that haven't been addressed, either in handling it, how it's made, or so on. In content development if you want someone to interact with something, go to a certain part of a map, or what have you, you have to answer the questions of "why would they ever interact with this" and "why would they ever go there". If you as the creator of that something and that map can't come up with valid answers, you can't expect the general playerbase to come up with it either. When creating various maps if I wanted someone to go to a certain spot on the map I had to give them a reason to go there, typically it was some extra health packs, maybe some stronger weapons, armor kits, perfect vantage point to pick off foes, or combination of things. I would say about 80% of the time it worked because you're always going to have those wildcards that do their own thing. Simultaneously I learned very early on I can't force people to do what I wanted them to do. Because what's going to happen is they're just not going to play my content or use my stuff. If I want them to use my stuff or play my content a certain way, I have to address why they're not doing it. Sometimes it's simple and sometimes it's not, and sometimes I was targeting the wrong audience. As an example on this I gave before, I am the author of the Space Engineers 2125 era mod which is essentially a rebalance of all the vanilla blocks in game from weapons all the way down to basic armor. Originally I had no intentions of adding railgun turrets, the beefed up solar panels, or some of the armor panel blocks that exist in the mod. However a user asked for them saying alot more folks may use it if I had dedicated railgun turrets and solar panels since not everyone wants to use bulky reactors. So I rolled the dice and learned to make custom turrets and solar panels and added them to the mod. Sure enough it got some more subs. I also added some armor panels to the mod that you can't get in the vanilla game as another draw. So in each of those things I have things meant to appeal to the big weapon guys, the green energy folks, and space barbie folks who want to use different armor panels they can't get naturally. It may not be alot of people at once, but the largest french server for the game uses my mod, I know that much. Now how does that apply to pvp in this game, I addressed some things that created further draw to the mod and picked up some extra skills in the process including creation and editing of particle effects (massive pain in the aft shuttlebay originally). In this instance the devs need to be addressing core issues of why people don't want to join pvp matches and GSF. No amount of extra rewards or anything is going to make the pve crowd suddenly decide "you know what I'm going to do pvp and like it". It's going to come off as them trying to pigeonhole into doing stuff they don't want to do, just like this push of "just do heroics" is doing. My issue is they're trying to band-aid solution things while ignoring core issues and it's harming the game as a whole. I'm sorry but I do not accept that pvp should be allowed nearly double the points because the game mode is different. If they're concerned about queue times and getting people in the door, be it pvp, MM FPs, or whatever, they need to address why people are hesitant to join those queues to start with and they're not. Artificially proping up something without ever addressing core issues only delays the inevitable and I can't speak for everyone but I would rather buckle down and fix the core issues vs continue to kick the can. First step is taking off the band-aid and suturing the wound. Because if you're going to have pvp and pve in the same game like SWTOR you cannot sacrifice one for the sake of the other. And currently the conquest on pve is lagging severely behind in terms of points.

As someone who has mentioned nerfing said points I think this needs to be said. I do not really want to see those pvp points nerfed. I'm glad the pvp folks have things to do they like. Now we need to get some objectives for the various pve stuff that gives as close to equal parity as possible. If people want to farm heroics to get their conquest, they should be able to, if they want pure FPs they should be able to, if they want OPs they should be able to do OPs, if they want some odd mixture of everything they should be able to. I strongly disagree that pvp should be allowed nearly double the points purely because the game mode is different, wait time or not. Now the solution is not to nerf pvp but to add in pve based objectives to close the gap. I don't expect them to be point for point equal, as long as they're within say 5% of each other I would consider that balanced. I mentioned nerfing the points on the pvp side due to certain individuals arguing that the pve side of things be nerfed because of the erroneous "it's one click and done" junk they were spouting and trying to say it was free when it's not. In other words they argue that how myself and other pve guys play should be nerfed because they don't like it even though it has literally zero effect on them. I then brought up nerfing the pvp points because the sword of equality is one that cuts both ways. They're going to demand I be nerfed because they don't like it and it's "not enough play" I'm going to hold them to that same standard. I can't stand double standards with this junk. In reality I don't actually want to see this happen as I would much rather them buff pve objectives.

Players don't have any blame here because they don't have direct control over what goes into the game and what gets removed. All people can do is get enough folks to vote with their wallets and say "if you do this we're leaving" and make them do something and even then it may not work if they dig their heels in like Star Wars Galaxies before this. Players also have every right to be angry about the nerfs, especially the underhanded way they were done. And let's not even get started on how certain devs have come on here to dev-splain to us why we're wrong and don't really know what we want, so we need the devs to save us from ourselves, and gaslighting the players in the process of it. No people have right to be angry over it whether you like it or not. The people who come on here and say something are the folks who actually give a crap about the game and are giving them a chance to change things by saying "hey if you don't fix this we're leaving and taking our money with us." That is voting with your wallet. Far as "accusations you can't prove" their actions are all the proof needed. If they weren't trying to hide this junk why did they skip the PTS and why did they conveniently "oopsie" it out of the patch notes? "oopsie" is accidentally leaving out a bug fix or getting a date wrong or something along those lines, not leaving critical information out of a patch. Maybe you've not been around as long to spot the patterns, idk how long you've been here, but that's okay if you haven't. Point still stands regardless. They have a history of pulling underhanded stuff when they want to do something to try and justify their positions. I don't blame the pvp community for anything that's went on either. However point still stands if certain individuals are going to say the rep nerf was deserved and it needed to be nerfed, then I'm going to demand they be held to that same standard and their point totals be nerfed equally as much as mine. The sword of equality is one that cuts both ways. You demand my gameplay gets nerfed because you don't like something about it instead of staying in your lane, you just opened yourself up for me to demand yours gets nerfed too. Now I'm very glad you mentioned what you did about writing because it gets to the heart of part of the issue here. What you need to understand is that people are free to criticize the writing at any point for any reason they want. You're free to disagree with their criticisms if you do, but people know what they like and what they don't. You also need to keep in mind that as an author you have an unfair advantage that they don't, you already know what's going to happen and can change things anytime you want. In some of my own stuff I've been preparing there are some scenes that people will find disturbing and some people will probably say "I don't like this" because that's the point, it's supposed to get a reaction out of people. Now with that in mind if someone just goes off and starts saying "this sucks, it all sucks, it needs to change", I can give him hints that not everything is as it appears to be without spoiling it for him. It's as simple as saying "I realize this is disturbing but it's not over yet, and not everything is as it appears." Simple to the point and doesn't insult the reader. In your case if you were to say to me "get off or stay is your choice" as condescendingly as that, you would've lost a reader and probably many more. If you're as into writing as you want me to believe (not saying you aren't but making the point), then you should know the delivery of the content is as important as the content itself. The best scenes can be ruined by the delivery of certain lines or information. You're certainly free to tell someone "hey dude I respect you being willing to say you don't like (scene here), but this is the story I want to tell and I'm not going to be changing it." At that juncture you've made it clear you're not changing anything and given him the option to stay or leave without having to insult him in the process. Simultaneously you've also made the choice that you don't care about having as many people as possible read your books and have chosen a target audience, which is certainly your right to do. Just like in my TimeSplitters days when I was making my most successful map series TimeSplitter Origins, in some instances I would alter things to appeal to a wider audience, and in some instances I didn't if I thought it went against the core of the series. If your goal is attracting as wide an audience as possible you don't have to jump every time they say jump, but you do need to be willing to do it at least more often than not. To wrap this up as to how it relates to the devs, they have said plenty of times over they want to get as many people in here as possible. If that's the case then they have to be willing to change things when the majority of people are telling them "hey this sucks". You don't come back at them and say "nah you're just wrong and aren't grinding enough" which insults and gaslights the player in the process. No game or story is owed support purely for existing. If you want people to play your game or consume your content, you have to cater to those people you want to attract, or otherwise accept the hand you're given be it good or bad. Problem is these devs want to have their cake and eat it too. They want to have the big numbers of people in the game, BUT think they get to dictate to those people how long they have to play or that they have to do certain game modes they don't like for the sake of metrics. Yeah no sorry no dev is important enough they get to do that. You want my time and money you're going to earn it on my terms. If your goal is as big an audience as possible be it in writing, game development or whatever, it doesn't matter how good YOU think you did, it matters how good THEY think you did since it's their money you're trying to attract. They're free to disagree with you at any time for any reason and aren't wrong for it, likewise you are not automatically right because they disagree with you. This game is not owed support purely because it's got Star Wars in the name or purely because it exists. I don't want to see the game tank, but if they're going to dig their heels in every single time then yes they very well could go the route of Star Wars Galaxies.

If they want me to resub, no there is no midway. They either revert the nerf and add the extra objectives they promised in black and white or I'm out. I'm not going to debate art style as for me at least I don't care about it so long as it looks passable at least and somewhat modern. At least it doesn't look like some of the washed out stuff from the 90s. Not to say all 90s games were bad but you get the idea. Oh really, name some of those failures. Because that is one of the most asinine statements I've read on these forums in awhile. We as players don't have control over what they put into the game and what they don't. All we can do is vote with our wallets and they choose whether they listen or not. Players telling them that they got it wrong and to change things if they want them to stick around is NOT a failure on the part of the players, that is exclusively on the devs. Second, people freaked out over KOTFE and KOTET for very valid reasons and not what people think. Originally it was told that we would be losing our companions for awhile but would be able to get them back through the story. What they didn't tell you was that it was going to be over the course of the life of the expansion and not right away as they led people to believe. Originally you needed to have your comps at influence rank 10 or you had to essentially convince some of them to come back. That was never advertised and what was annoying is unless you did a ton of gifts or similar, the highest ranks you would get on average was 8 or 9. The reason they gave us the console to get the companions back early is because people started leaving because they pulled a bait and switch about how companions were going to be handled. Then you have the fact that we got yet another homogenous one size fits all story that no one asked for. Along with having to level your commander rank and junk to get better gear drops, meaning people either had to farm all that alliance junk they had no desire to play, or get stuck with lower level gear. People ripped on it because quite frankly it deserved it as that method of gearing was hot garbage baking in the sun. KOTET was more of the same with KOTFE's poor design but at least it got rid of the commander rank requirements for gear and let you get upgrades at a reasonable rate. Oh and it took until then for some of the companions to finally come back, which was years later. Not to mention the clone of the Virmire incident from Mass Effect we were forced to pick through that came literally out of nowhere. Like are you kidding me? Then even after all the junk Archan did we can save him but not Vaylin? Like what? Overall if I could erase KOTFE and KOTET from the timeline like they never existed, I would. In my book nothing of value would've been lost as they're the two singularly worst expacs in this game and one of the reasons out of 28 characters I only ever bothered playing all the way through that junk on my main. I despise KOTFE and KOTET with a burning passion and would rather jump in a sarlac than have to repeat that 27 more times. At least with my light side toons I could skip ahead and get most of the flags I want via automatic lightside choices. with my imp toons, nope can't do that since I play near exclusively light side, even on imp. I know you don't want to hear this, but some of the flak they get is self-inflicted that they brought on themselves and is very much deserved. If you tell me you're going to do one thing, but do something completely different instead, that's called lying. They said they were going to add multiple objectives to balance out the points and the heroics plus the daily areas being unlocked were only 2 of those things. So far it looks like that was a lie too. They said they're listening to feedback and value our opinions, but keep coming back on here to dev-splain why they're right and we're all wrong, so that's a 2nd lie. They say they weren't trying to hide the nerfs to the rep token and how everything facing players needs to be communicated, but took weeks to respond and left the nerf out of the patch notes and tried to say "oopsie we missed it." Nah dude that's not them missing it, that's them trying to sneak it in because they knew what they were doing and hoping people would just roll over and accept it. Now they're mad that their hands got caught in the cookie jar and people have told them they're not paying the same amount for less game, and if they want to keep people subbed they're going to revert the nerf and make it right or people are leaving. This could all be fixed in 5 minutes if they would get over their hubris and change it back, but they don't want to do that because that would be admitting they got it wrong. Quite frankly when my company was operating if any of them worked for me and treated my customers like some of them have treated players here, I would've fired ever last one of them. Then if their future prospective employers ever called me to ask why I fired them, I would make sure they knew exactly why so they know what they're in for if they hired them. If you're wanting people to give you money and invest in your product as a business you do NOT blame your customers or talk down to them like they've done here. It's unprofessional, arrogant, condescending, rude, and reflects badly on the company as a whole. If they're going to just treat me like a wallet with legs and never listen when I'm telling them "hey this sucks" but instead are going to just try to gaslight me into thinking I'm wrong, why am I going to stick around when there are other companies that don't do that and will respect me as a player? I'm glad you mentioned writing because it's something I've done a fair amount of myself. In fact when I was in school I won several awards for some of my writing assignments. I also signed a release for the state to use some of my writings to teach kids in school how to write for similar pieces, such as personal narratives being one example. They approached me, I didn't ask them about it. My pieces are still used to this day after 15 years. Part of that writing carried over into my map making for games like Timesplitters Future Perfect when I created the Timesplitter Origins series among several other maps that were EA recommended downloads for weeks at the time. Today I do mods for other games like Space Engineers and some older games. Today I write because it's something I enjoy doing in getting to go on the journey with the characters and the readers. Now I say all of that not to be arrogant, but to say that I've been on both sides of the coin, the person reading or playing content someone created, and also the person writing or creating content for people to read or play. Now I'm certainly free to tell the story I want to tell and not change a thing, and the people that stick around are the people that stick around whether it's 1 or 1m. However if I want to get as many people to play my content or read the story I'm putting out, I have to cater to what they want. That doesn't mean I have to jump every time they say jump, but more often than not if I want them to stick around I have to be willing to alter my plans to keep them around. I am free to target the audience I want to target for my content and stories. If I only care about targeting people who like what I want to tell, then I can just fire stuff out there and the chips will fall where they fall. If I care about targeting the widest variety of people, I have to cater to that wider demographic. That's true whether you're a small time or big time writer, or whether you're a small time modder or AAA studio production. If you want the biggest amount of people playing, you have to cater to them and be willing to give them at least 7/10 of the things they're asking for. You will not please everyone and will only drive yourself nuts trying. In the case of the devs they've made it known they want the widest variety of people possible for the sake of business. Yet their actions run counter to their statements. They're certainly free to tell whatever story they want to tell, or make whatever changes they please as is their legal right. Likewise it's also my right to tell them it sucks and if they make certain changes I'm out and taking everyone I can with me. Simply because someone can do something doesn't make it right, or mean they should. When the majority of people save 2 or 3 are telling them "hey you got it wrong" they need to listen to that if they care about keeping business. They're entitled to tell the story they want to tell and ask people to support it. Likewise I'm free to not consume their products and keep my money or give it to someone who does what I want to see. They are not owed my support simply for existing and quite frankly if this game didn't have the Star Wars label attached to it, the game would've tanked long ago for their refusals to listen.

You know how they can get that increased cash flow? LISTEN TO THE PLAYERS. People have been telling them for years things they would like to see added, be it cosmetics or similar. On top of this actually buckling down and getting new content into the game. This isn't WoW where they can trickle stuff out and have the same effect. WoW's playerbase is larger than SWTOR and they have a much bigger dev team. Now this doesn't mean they've got to put in 200 missions, ops, and new pvp maps every single update, but you do in fact need fresh content to keep people rolling in, and stuff for them to do between updates. Conquest is/was a great way to keep yourself occupied between updates when you weren't rolling through the new story content or doing stuff for your guild(s). Inflation is going to happen over time whether you like it or not, especially in a 13 year old game. You know how you get inflation to come down, GIVE PEOPLE THINGS THEY WANT TO SPEND CREDITS AND COINS ON which goes back to what I said before about listening to the players. Was a thread not too long ago about putting the old dark vs light gear sets on a vendor for credits. With all these new cosmetic sets, if they put them on vendors for credits instead of trying to make people farm forever in the world for them, people would buy the snot out of them if they think they're good enough. Having credits and coins is not a crime or against ToS. Having more credits than you or someone else doesn't equate to inflation or mean someone is doing something bad. And just because you think a price for something is high doesn't automatically make it bad or mean it is high. Why do you think it's any of your business what another person does with their own sub and their own toons? If they want to farm it to get the free cartel coins, or simply to see how fast they can get it done on 3 servers, what business is it of yours and why do you care so much? Whether they want to run it on one server or multiple that's their business and not yours. Point blank you're way too concerned with what other people are doing. If devs didn't want people to be able to farm on multiple servers they wouldn't have made it so you could. I'm going to echo Vegamist to a degree for a moment here, this whole bit from you just screams jealousy that others have more coins and credits than you do. And your real concern isn't inflation or balance, but wanting them punished for doing something you wish you could do. Your obsession with what other people do and how other people play is very unhealthy. Once again dude, how are you personally hurt by them earning cartel coins and/or credits? How are you personally being harmed by them farming on multiple servers if that's what they want to do? What business is it of yours? And I don't want to hear some meta analysis of how it effects the game, I want to know how you personally AFadedMemory is being negatively effected. Certainly you can tell us yet for some reason you've been too afraid to answer those questions. Even then we've already been through this, only subs get the cartel coins, and by the time they could finish the tracks, which is minimum 3-4 months, their sub has been $45-$60 which breaks even on coins, so they're already paid for. People have already told you why they're infuriated with the change, you just didn't listen. I'm infuriated by it because instead of saying "hey guys we plan to nerf this because (reasons here)" they tried to stealth nerf it in, then lied about not trying to hide it when their hands were caught in the cookie jar, and gaslit the players in the process trying to convince us we're wrong and they're right. Unless there's like one item or something in the seasons lists I care about getting, I don't bother with them, I get there when I get there. I'm infuriated because this crushes the ability of my small guilds to progress in a manor comparable to before and drastically slows down the progress we can/were able to make. And for what? Because "we thought it gave too much reward for too little work since you could just log in and click". Like dude I farmed your game the way you said I needed to do it to farm out rep tokens at the rate you specified, now you want to come back to me and say that I didn't do enough even though you're the one that set that standard? Talk about a bait and switch. You're free to think what you want about why people are mad, but they've already told you why. They as devs set the standard for how often rep tokens would drop and if they thought that people could farm the reps out too easily they should have made the tokens drop less often. Yet they didn't do that. Instead they chose to throw a temper tantrum and blame the players for a problem they as devs created and nerf the reward instead of just making it harder to get the tokens. That's like advertising a 25% off sale at a business, then the business complaining more people bought at 25% off than at their regular prices, and blaming the people for not wanting to buy at full price. They brought it on themselves.

It doesn't matter what they're trying to do, it matters what they're actually doing. Even if they're not actively trying to screw over the players, they are. Actions speak louder than words every single time. If someone constantly says they're going to do one thing but always does another, that's a lie. Just like a thief that claims they're reformed but continues to steal. Like nah dude you're not fooling anyone. Look I don't like thinking this way anymore than you do, but patterns are what the patterns are and they've done this kind of stuff before. When folks told them not to do the ability pruning they double down and censored people who disagreed with it. Then they nerf this and say they're going to fix it by adding a variety of objectives but do 2 measly things that still leaves people with a deficit in points compared to before. So forgive me if I don't exactly take them at their word just because they say something. You said yourself it's easy to manipulate stats to get a desired outcome. It was awfully convenient that when the pvp season released the conquest objectives revolved around it, then again when the galactic season released, and now this heroics update. I don't know how familiar you are with computers but they don't do stuff like that on their own. Once is a coincidence, 2 times is lucky, 3 is deliberate. If you want to think it's not deliberate, you're entitled to that opinion, but mark my words, they're going to come out and say those 2 measly changes were a success and try to get out of doing much else. If not and I'm still around I'll be one of the first to admit I was wrong. Who is saying they're trying to make the game shut down? If there's a post you can point to then quote it. See what I said above to the other dude, actions speak louder than words and what they meant to do is not as important as what they actually do. I'm sure the Star Wars Galaxies team never meant to tank the game with that combat update, but they absolutely did. Likewise SWTOR may not mean to drive people away with these nerfs but they are. Actions have consequences be they good or bad. If they continue to double and even triple down and dig their heels in like they've been doing, a possible consequence is the game could in fact tank. I hope it doesn't, but reality is it's a possibility.