After spending hundreds of hours playtesting the content on the PTS I have a few overall comments about it. Testing was primarily done on Marauder and Sentinel classes since these are the classes I play almost exclusively on Live and have the most experience with pitting against other classes.

Leveling Pace: There are a number of places in the leveling scheme that I would consider "dead spots". Areas where you are just grinding through experience with no real changes in character abilities or increases in power. The biggest such area is between levels 51 and 61. Leveling is fairly slow already with the damage reduction Level Sync is causing with battles with trash mobs taking 4 or 5 times longer and battles with some of the higher powered opponents taking minutes. This would be alright if there was a constant increase in power as you slogged through the content but there are places where your advancement comes to more or less a halt until you gain 4 or 5 levels. My suggestion here would be to add some class specific boosts to the passive leveling abilities. With level sync, stat gains are pretty much useless and the Marauder and Sentinel classes feel sluggish compared to live and could use a boost in alacrity and critical. Perhaps adding a few more places where a passive grants a 2% increase in one of these abilities with the main combat maneuvers.

Gearing: The recently announced changes to gear are an improvement for end game stats but still leave an issue with leveling stats being misaligned with classes. During leveling, characters like the marauder and sentinel need to be dealing more damage more quickly to make up for their loss in defensives. All of the leveling gear for these classes need more alacrity and critical and less accuracy. For other classes accuracy and critical are more important and the gear should reflect those class needs rather than being a one size fits all. The other issue with gearing is that gear stops dropping once you hit level 80 so your supply of tech fragments dries up making leveling content (which is the majority of content in the game) useless for upgrading your gear. I think level 75 gear should continue to drop (though at a lower rate than live) to allow for players running through the leveling content to accumulate the tech fragments they will need to upgrade their gear. The addition of tech fragment rewards to heroics is a nice addition but would require players running through the leveling content to "take a break" from that content in order to be ready to upgrade their gear once they hit level 80 (which will happen well before getting to the new 7.0 content)

Level Sync: I am a proponent of level sync overall but what is on the PTS needs some fine tuning. Alacrity and critical are "capped" far to low for the sentinel and marauder classes. This makes combat with these classes slow and tedious compared to other classes that do not depend on these secondary stats. Rather than increasing the cap overall, I think the best approach is to add a few more passives to the leveling abilities that stack on top of the level sync numbers. That way classes that need these abilities get them without allowing classes that use them for supplemental damage to become overpowered under level sync.

New Story Content: With the ability now to switch light side and dark side combat maneuvers, adding a piece of story on the starter worlds exploring that transition would help in the continuity of that path (this could even be used with the Saboteur route for characters choosing to remain with their current combat maneuvers - and tech classes where switching is currently not possible). Something like half a dozen missions where your character "earns" the trust of the opposite faction. Making this content around level 50 could also help with one of the complaints some people have had about the fight with Darth Baras. He could be moved to the "new" level 50 area of Korriban and be synched there to bring the fight back to its intended difficulty. I think as you go through the other planets updating their graphics, you could drop in short additional post KotFE/KotET storylines to create some continuity between those expansions and the base content (you would need to complete KotFE and KotET to access them).

Furthermore, restoring KotET to its intended 16 chapter format and adding "story" versions of the content currently covered in the "Traitor Arc" would add playabilty to those expansions, sort of like what was done with the operation in Shadows of Revan (you could choose to repeatedly do the operation or a once through on story). All in all, allowing additional paths through the storyline improves the flow and feel of the game. One other addition to the game should be a cutscene of the battle with the Dread Masters at the end of the Oricon path to provide closure for that arc. Right now it ends abruptly with players either having to do the operation or leave the story arc unfinished.

Just my thoughts for consideration. All in all, I consider what is currently on the PTS to be a vast improvement over what was there before Dec15th. Thank you for listening to the feedback posted on the PTS forums.

if this seriously goes live like this? it will be the end of this game...

and i say that as a HUUGEEE swtor and bioware supporter! this is disgusting how they are seriously changing this game and making it feel slower than molasses. the stuff behind play walls, and the new ui with inventory is horrible. the taking out xp and credits from conquest is going to KILL it. utterly. I will no longer be wasting my time with it. EVER. neither will my guild members. stupid decision.

if this goes live? it's done. i think they already have one foot out the door honestly

OK... what did they do with KotFE? Considering that some of the GS goals are doing some chapters in veteran difficulty, surely they are still chapters? I'm confused.

About the leveling experience - you would probably be better off posting in the specific thread about leveling experience.

OK... what did they do with KotFE? Considering that some of the GS goals are doing some chapters in veteran difficulty, surely they are still chapters? I'm confused.

 

About the leveling experience - you would probably be better off posting in the specific thread about leveling experience.

I have posted many times in those threads, this was an overall impression of what is currently on the PTS and some suggestions to improve things overall. Nothing in KotFE has changed from what I could tell. It is similar to Live other than some of the tougher battles are really tough now for certain classes. The veteran chapters likely will require specific classes to complete them, a pure melee DPS class will struggle even with a healer comp.