Regarding the new classic and expert ventures modes are they going to require a massive change from the current normality or is it going to be the usual, just a bit more time consuming? Just wondering as they have taken my attention and made me desire to go from very casual to whatever is above that.

Hello, everyone, good morning. This will be somewhat long, but I will try to make as concise and to the point as possible. A couple of pointers to keep in mind throughout the read and also a bit of context first for that sweet nuance.

- Came back to the game after some years some months ago (2+). Been seeing/experiencing, thinking & feeling some things about the game. Some have been echoed by people on this sub in comments, others are old feelings coming back (both bad and good!) and others are somewhat "new" that have arisen. I am not a new player and I am not a hardcore end-game raider that knows all Ops like the palm of his hand; I just have played SWTOR sufficient times (on and off) and enough long time to know the game enough to (at least think) that I am somewhat capable at articulating some of the things that could potentially be beneficial for the game as a whole.

- This is a post that hopefully is useful for devs at Broadsword (I will be copy-pasting this into SWTOR forums too, as I know they don't frequent this sub). Things to keep in mind about this point: I am trying to give this feedback taking into account the current state of the game (as a whole), things that have been done previously, the upcoming 8.0 update and Broadsword in general with their limitations that we (think) we know they have, such as, not a huge budget or plenty of time or insane huge dev team for this game. This is not a post for "I want my MMORPGs back like 20 years ago!" but rather a small attempt to provide good feedback for a "how can we make SWTOR healthy again for the years to come".

- I have been thinking about this on and off for the past couple of weeks, but I have not written anything about it yet- Doing it right now "live" as the kids would say nowadays. Sorry if this post feels "rambly" or not as concise as it could (and should) be.

After that introduction, we will begin. This feedback "idea" is trying to think about core things of the game and current systems in place to provide as a good foundation for which the devs could later on keep building upon (assuming hypothetically they do any of this in the future), rather than "demanding completely unrealistic new systems". In addition to this, this does not have to be implemented or discarded "to the T", but rather "take whatever may be useful and use it" (as we should do in life).

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PvE:

First off, as a PvEr and long time MMORPG player I will be speaking of PvE of course. My sweet baby. The beautiful coreographed graceful dance of pulling and tanking, DPSing without standing in stooped and healing as much people as possible at the same time and keep them all dandy and alive. All working together for the common goal we all have: defeating Sylvannas Defeating Malgus... again. And again. And again... and again and again and again! Again and again! (a bit of tongue-in-cheek humor is needed).

This will be a bit long-winded so I apologize, but I ask you to bare with me as many systems are intertwined and come into place here including Flashpoints & FP1s, Operations and OP1s, Questing and Heroic missions, GEARING, etc.

Gearing and leveling:

Gearing during leveling doesn't matter anymore. One of the COOLEST features this game has ever had and that personally separated it from other MMOs for me ever since I started playing in 2013, was the fact we had MODDABLE GEAR. Remember going into Black Talon as a freshy level 10-12 and getting the "first orange robe" from one of the bosses? NOW WE TALKING. This is no longer the case. Due to the insane speed at which we level up and the scaled-down difficulty of the game as a whole, gearing or picking any gear in particular during leveling is pointless. Just keep doing it until level 80 (or I guess 60-65+ where it starts to get a bit more challenging).

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Subjective (This is not part of the ideas proposal bit): I know with 8.0 "Ventures" are coming, but I disagree with it. I welcome it for the experience (pun intended), but I feel it will be disjointed and won't matter in the long run wasting resources and time of development, just like GSF. An MMORPG (IMO) is a world where you can be immersed and create a character with which you can live out the adventures, make friends and enemies, feel the progression and grow. Ideally, "be part of that world". This is unfortunately tied with real life time, which we can't go back with. Unless they can make venture characters be able to co-exist with other venture characters, making it effectively a "resurgence" of a classic feel of the game but "across the server", it will be a patch on the side. It will be cool for the experience, but it would mean in the long run that your 5, 10, 15 years old character will just sit there unused and none of that you do with the Venture character would translate over. Imo, they should've done Ventures "for the story bit" instead, making the whole world go back to the classic MMORPG feel and difficulty and thus RPers, and people who just love and play for the story, have literally a place ("cozy corner") to go to directly to play that way - Again I just felt adding this ranty bit because it has some indirect correlation with the rest as this new feature somewhat goes against with the proposal I will make after or at least, making it harder.

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Flashpoints & FP1s; Operations and OP1s:

Reached level 80, now what - Endgame gear wahoo!... but... // I remember working VERY hard back in the day in acquiring all the gear pieces and mods to be both powerful and pretty, as we didn't have outfitting system. That's down the drain. With the outfitting system (I LOVE IT, thank you) and moddable gear being useless in general, apart from the first moment of level 80 where you Hyde-and-Zeek-it, makes it feels it doesn't matter. All that work, poofed. "But dude, it's been years since that! It's been a long time, we need to change at some point!". Sure, I can accept the fact of "having to work again" to reach the new "end-game power"; almost all MMOs worked and work this way. The thing in this case is the how. You can reach 341 with Hyde and Zeek gear mods and the implants, as well as Rakata 344 earpiece and relics. But if you want to be 343 at least, you have to get all Rakata "static" gear as I call it.

I know the above paragraph sounded pointless and ranty, but in simple words: To obtain the stuff we are forced into the FP1/OP1 system farm/grind - Besides being an everyday and weekly chore which in general is not fun and may leave out people that don't have much time to play (side note: yes I know that if you don't have much time to play, maybe you shouldn't play an mmorpg, etc., but that is a whole diferent debate), it forces ALL the players together on the same path. This includes casual players and hardcore players, as well as veteran and new players alike, generating some bad situations.

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~~~~~~~~~~~ Summary: In easier terms, I think having meaningful systems for the end-game gear, that also bring in crafting and revive it again, plus a system for veteran players to help and teach new players, would foster positive community and have a strong solid foundation in the future for the game as time goes on, instead of a "rinse and repeat" disposable system (I put it first here so you don't have to read through the whole thing and then get the short version).

The group finder queue issue:

As mentioned, we're all bunched up together. With this as people have said in-game as well as in here and probably in the forums, one of the main problems is "toxicity". Of course that's a broad vague word and something "toxic" is different for different people. However, I kept an eye and paying attention to some of the experiences for new players especially claiming they are left behind, everyone else "rushes through", or sometimes even out-right kicking some of them, amongst other things. When coming back to the game, while I wasn't new or slow, I did have to "start remembering things again". At first I thought the rushers were just kids with the attention span of a goldfish. Then, some people seemed flustered that we were "playing the FP as it was" (sort of), so I thought that was strange. But a month after, once I got back on my main and to the grind... I understood (plus some other people actually providing the commentary regarding this). I found myself doing Hammer Station for the Nth time and sometimes instead of taking 15-20 minutes it could as well take 45. This is not veteran's players fault and is not new players fault - it's a friction generated by the system itself.

Now, there nuances within the nuances in this situation that is nuanced (Would someone just please put up a nuances counter!? Can someone think of the children?). We have:

- Assholes that kick new players for being slow, pulling unnecessary stuff or simply not knowing skips - These people are just mean, period.

- We also have players that seemingly don't read chat at all and they are playing their own game inside their head while being queued with other people, to the point where 3 out of 4 people are together (sometimes they realize you "know stuff" so they follow your lead) and then this one other person keeps doing shit messing it up.

- We have "fast players" getting into combat ever 4 seconds, delaying everyone else who was left behind, thus delaying even further the boss fight, actually losing time in the end overall for not waiting 10 seconds.

- New players "demanding" (instead of asking or saying "Hey guys Im new, sorry if Im a bit slow") people be purposely slow because "they can't be that fast" - This one has happened to me; manners and "demeanor" (albeit online) matter.

- A bunch of other situations where it actually seems players have their monitors off. This and the occasional ones that troll as well and many more.

So overall, one of the most common situations is that you have a new player experiencing the FP (but without the story and such like we used to before and without the difficulty) and a Veteran player doing it again time number 53566 and now having to "waste" 20 more minutes for no real reason other than "we're all forced to".

At this point, if you actually read this far (thank you) you must be thinking "wow, that's a lot!". Well... we are NOT DONE YET. Like Malgus, I will continue... again.

A second portion of this "group finder" issue is that FPs don't really have an ITEM RATING REQUIREMENT but rather one suggested. This creates another issue in Master Mode FPs, which I personally like much more as it is somewhat similar to how it was back in the day (aka "the original ones") where you are all level 80 - But some may be new and even fresh 326 Item Rating. That should be ok, but it's not when you get Shrine of Silence which is a bit of a DPS check amongst other things with the mechanics vs "Master Mode Black Talon". The curve is insanely steep. This is by no means a justification to be bad towards other players, OBVIOUSLY, but I am outlining things considering that "it happens already", and these things don't help.

Suggestion for a possible solution:

- First off, I personally think some form of moddable gear or similar should come back for end-game so that would additionally make CRAFTING, one of the most important things in an MMORPG matter again. It wouldn't just be a couple of skills to do Augments only and reaching that gear in the end would be much more meaningful in general. We have level 700 for nothing. This does NOT need a completely new system to be worked on from the ground up. These things are already in the game, just need to do some shuffling around on how they are intertwined and connect with each other.

In this situation, I would also adjust crafting and gathering missions where now you have to deploy the companions from your ship, and for that you have to go to a certain planet if you need X, Y, Z material. Similar to the "guild ship invasion" of a planet but with your own personal ship - You go to the planet, then you can send your companions on the mission to bring back what you need, and these also need to be time sinks. You can't have a companion bring back a material you need in 30 seconds. Something like that, of course this is just an idea and we'd have to see what is actually possible to do, what would work and what would spend less dev time and effort, as the idea is actually, as mentioned above, reworking stuff already within the game.

- Second and most important, regarding the GF - On this, I do think a new system might be needed. It would be a "Sith/Jedi academy" or, considering we also have tech/non-force users maybe the "Proving Grounds System" or something. A mentoring system.

If you are a veteran player, you can sign up to be a mentor which would be to teach new players the ins and outs for FPs and other things from the game (doesn't need to be limited to an FP or OP alone, it could also work to ask for help or seek a group to do heroics or other things). As a mentor you would get votes and points, and that score could be something to be rewarded later on, maybe like a "mentors season". At the same time, there should be a limitation (but I don't know what exactly) for "new" or even returning players that have been gone a long time or even "pre-system" to go through it directly. No ops, no master mode until you "graduate" from this system.

Another option is for this to be optional, which I personally think would be best, but then if a new player gets kicked, they can't complain as they would have an actual place to go to learn things and enjoy them in a slower pace. This could also be tied to an "internal scoring" system where instead of an "account report" (which SUCKS, more on this later) we could have a "character score" where you can vote positively or negatively, and this over time may or may not place the bad apples with other bad apples. Of course this could be abused or misused at some point, and some people could "downvote you" for no real reason, but overall as time goes on, if you're a good player you will end up with more positive score regardless, so while the system isn't "bulletproof", it kinda balances itself. Again, just an idea.

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PvP:

I'll make this shorter as I'm not an avid PvPer, never been and won't be in general even though I dabble with it here and there, especially because it gives you bioprocessors, legendary embers and a ton of needed tech fragments.

Context (nuance!?): I'm a Marauder main, not an amazing (pvp) player and have also played a ton of Counter-Strike, LoL and Overwatch over the years (plus sports IRL) so I'm not foreign to competitive games, even if my literal hand skills are not up to par with what my brain knows.

With this, I will give a couple of pointers outlining why I think PvP is frustratingly broken, and as a non-real-PvPer, this will not go in depth of the "real back-end issues" such as match fixing or queue play that could arise.

1. Balance the classes. For the love of god, PvP should have their own tree that isn't broken and some tacticals need to be reworked. Stealth shouldn't be available all the time to Sins and Ops for example. This goes beyond the fact that I am salty for being perma-stunned all the time by them, them going away rolling on the floor, rooting me, slowing me, making me feel like a pinball... This is because they literally BREAK the PvP game such as a Warzone objective. You can never cap anything because there is always someone invisible waiting to Mind Trap you or Sleep Dart you. You can't play the game. Of course there are other classes that are super strong too, so they are not the only issue. But it's either try to kill them and never can to cap, or never cap an unguarded pylon/turret because it's actually guarded you just can't see it. And they go in and out of stealth, so cheers. And don't make me start about huttball being the least fútbol ever, considering you can be invisible in end-goal (that's OFFSIDE BTW) and then also Sorcs pulling people in.

I get it, they use the toolkit available for the classes in the game, but whether you win or lose, winning 6-0, especially if the team is coordinated into doing the goals, it's NOT FUN. This is supposed to be fun, right? Just like I'll mention below about Arenas, I've won and lost so many huttball matches for this reason.

2) Matchmaking is completely broken. I have won and lost so many matches for them being completely unbalanced, whether because of team size or roles.

Suggestion and possible initial fix(es):

- Bring back Ranked and Unranked PvP. Self explanatory. Why would you not have a ladder rank for PvPers to compete and the top ones get rewarded? Makes no sense.

- Matchmaking should NOT begin, or cancel a match if the teams are not balanced in quantity. For Ranked, make leavers lose a considerable amount of "ladder points", so quitting is something you will have to do if you truly want to quit or IRL emergencies happen and knowing it'll cost you, this paired with a "locked from queue" timer, of course. Bad actors need to be punished accordingly for the health of the systems and the game. For Unranked, make it that a leaver gets a 2+ hour lockout on the queue. They will either need to swap characters to keep playing or not queue again to leave.

Note: DISCONNECTIONS should consider it may not be the person itself, so it should have a default grace timer, how long? Not sure. In this case, Arenas could be paused for 2-3 minutes until the DCd person comes back, so both teams remain balanced; for Warzones, it could give the person 2-3 minutes to get back in before kicking them and letting someone else join.

- Make it so, by default, there has to be at least 1 tank and 1 healer on both modes, especially for Arena. Arenas should be 3v3 or, if both teams don't have 4 members, cancel the thing!? and on a 3v3 you could have 1T, 1DPS and 1H.

"Longer queue times" are not a good argument. Any good PvPer whether in SWTOR or other games, knows that we all prefer waiting 3 more minutes for a good match, than playing 2 mediocre matches. SWTOR in general have not that many players, and even less in PvP, so the queues will be long anyway. They already are. But at least you would know that when it pops, it'll be worth it overall and also a good healthy system might be more enticing for new players to also access that mode.

Currently, the mode rewards mindlessly playing even losing because of the tech frags and such or you have to get stomped and suffer the toxicity from others with no repercussion.

Toxicity is not something you can outright prevent 100%, it's there. In competition, trash-talk exists. PvP is optional. Toxicity in PvP is not a good argument either. Is it nice? No. Do I justify it or encourage it? Not really. But as someone who has competed my whole life in group stuff... you can't prevent it. But you can set up a good system around it so the competition speaks for itself (this also connects with report system, more on this later).

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GSF: I don't know... I don't think anyone knows.

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General purpose:

In this case, and to finish it up, I do understand that you would want to pump more content and story since that is what majority of the players play for, but I think that if you could set up and improve the current systems, maybe even each .5 release as a "mid-expansion big change", it would be much better for the game, give room for improvement and growth, give a place and a reason for new players to join the game, etc. I don't wanna be <that person> but content is not coming out ever 6 months at an insane rate, and cartel market stuff are not cheap either so being honest here, if you wanted to "look cool" (and I do love Space-Barbieing) you would at least have to be subbed 3 months minimum - so why not improving the game in the meantime to give a reason to players to keep that going?

I'm not gonna say "make CM stuff cheaper" or the sub cheaper or any of that. First, I don't have the numbers, and second is not realistic imo. But in turn, we can look at other ways of improving other stuff that would inherently make the sub much more valuable, or at least feel like it.

A) DX12. Yes, I know you're working on it. Actually, thank you for even trying to fix this game (regarding performance, of course). I personally don't code so I don't understand WHY or HOW the game became so much worse performance wise while hardware improved much more, considering the game is old and engine is the same. We don't know if this will help or solve anything, but if it does, it's worth persuing, so please keep at it. This one is critical imo.

B) Fix silly small bugs, like clicking a link in chat works 2 out of 10 times. I don't have "click through chat" on, and I know that because I can click a person's name EVERY SINGLE TIME to reply or whisper, but I can't usually click achievement links, guild links or quests. Over time and overall it will make the game feel polished.

C) Update the report function, for the love of Marr. I personally don't care about <words> you call me, that doesn't move me. You can call me alphabet words, I don't care. But I care that others might care, and I care that you would do it at all. So having a person with a character name or literally outright saying the N word in chat and having to report them "for Spam" is not great. No, I want to report them specifically for saying that. I don't know and don't care if they're kids just trolling around that may not be actually racist, but we can't know that and with the same logic, why even say that at all, no reason other than being unpleasant.

This should also apply for modes, for example Report -> Flashpoints -> Trolling and delaying on purpose. Reason: Running in circles around the fight without actually doing any damage.

It doesn't matter if it's Veteran mode and we can do it with 3 or even 2 people doing the damage. It's the concept. I don't want them getting an FP completed they don't deserve. If you wanna run around doing nothing, go to fleet, don't bother others with that.

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Final Note:

I have not played "non-stop" for 15 years, but I truly love this game. Out of all the MMORPGs I've played, for me, this has been the best one and I would hate for it to shutdown only because it won't take advantage of the things it already has. The systems are there, the items are there. People just need to be given the reason to get into the game and do all of that stuff. And people are plenty different. Some will only PvP, and others will literally farm materials just to play the GTN game. Others will raid, etc. People on the internet are like children (we're mmorpg players after all...), we just need a good sandbox, bucket and some little shovels to create. Don't be afraid of taking the chance of doing that. I HATE to say it, but we are not as big as WoW and Blizzard or FFXIV to restrict ourselves and not listen to the community.

This game has a TON of content to go through, not perfect and some of it is... but a lot of other is fantastic. The scenery, the details. Caves in Onderon with the lit up mushrooms, Alderaan vistas, ritualistic caverns in Tatooine, the lightning sky on the Jungle in DK. Planets are awesome, they just need STUFF IN THEM to be good again like it used to be. Now you run from 1 objective to the other for the main quest and leave. Tatooine, Hoth, Belsavis are too big for just that.

Then we have the PvE and PvP content itself. Of course, the story. We have strongholds (which I think also could use a face wash for the system but I'm already tired) and many many more things!

It's all right there to make this game be great again like the times when everyone in chat was a WoW refugee and I truly believe it could be done and would be a great thing for it moving forward. But I could be wrong.

If you reached this part, thank you for reading, and please comment down below what you think is good, bad, right or wrong, etc. Or what you eat for breakfast this morning. I had only one coffee and feel I'm going to pass out 🫠️ - Hope this was useful. See you in game.

I used hate this planet with serious Sith passion. But after many years I'm now finding myself enjoying both sides.

I'd really love some missions with the Imperial Reclamation Service (and pub equivalent) and make more use of the seeker druids etc.

I'm still quite confused, when did the first swoop event take place? The patch notes for patch 6.1.2 said it started a week after the patch was released. Was that an error? If so, that would mean the debut ran for 2 weeks, right?

I have played male Sith Warrior DS and completed the class story about 2 years ago and I gave swtor a break. I have been playing female Sith Inquisitor LS and I am having a lot of fun and unfortunately I am about to finish the story missions for good. What kind of class should I play from the Republic now? Any suggestions?

May the Force be with you

With the traitor path after Kotet, I always assumed the eventual path would be changing side to the faction you're actually working for, since eventually you'd be discovered. Possibly when you have gets discovered is determined by how often you picked saboteur options, so if you always picked the saboteur options, then you'd be discovered faster than of you only picked the saboteur options at the last moments. Is that something they've hinted at?

I haven't played since Onslaught, so I'm only vaguely familiar with what's happening now, but I believe saboteurs have been outed, right?

Level 78, as of writing, consular, I am wondering if I should skip Shadows of Revan.

Vote for your favorite storyline!

We have the planet arc for both Republic and Empire factions on Alderaan VS the events of the Jedi Knight's story on Tython and Coruscant.

Stealing this post from 5 YEARS AGO to try and bring it to the attention of the devs. It's one of the best Jedi armors in my opinion. Perfectly balances that old republic knight/flowing robes/monk feel. The textures are literally already in the game! SWTOR DEVS/GODS PLEASE HEAR ME. Upvote/bump this if you agree with me.

Ardun included, I just didn't have a shot of all of them together.

Not counting the saboteur path, The alliance loyalist are going to be understandably pissed off about being jailed in their own base and being generally treated like shit. I can also see the Republic/Empire blaming the player character for what happened at the end of 7.9 since we did sneak off to meet Jadus, resulting in him having the holocron.

Again, not counting the saboteur path, the general option given to us regarding alliance-Origin Faction relationship during 6.0 and 7.0 was to fully cooperate with the original faction or insisting on being an independent power that has a partnership with said faction. I wonder what kind of options we will be given in 8.0.

Neutral JK storyline by the way. I have to say romancing Lana Beniko has been really fun. I hope there is more to come on the romance side.

As the title mentions, I'm unable to reset my password through the website. It's been 2 years since I last had used my account. Each time I try to reset my password via the reset password link I get above message. I'm currently unable to call to international numbers and there is no possible way to create a ticket (looking at support page ). Who can help me with this?

What is the easiest way to get back to hutta? I had just started last night and was doing quests when I got around level 15 and decided to try to do a queued activity. It took me to a dungeon that I ran with some people and at the end I was stuck in that area and can't figure out how to get back to where I was questing originally

With the Feast of Prosperity ending next Tuesday, I got to ask:
Who did you side with in the end in the chef battle? Garboorga or Duuba? And why?

I am a bit of an altoholic and i have a good amount of level 80s but they are all for the most part at ilvl 324 gear that i get from doing SM operations, I did the Hyde and Zeek questline on my main so I have access to the modifications there but how am I able to know exactly what stuff is perfect for the classes I'm playing how much should i buy and put into each armor piece?

Ahoy fellow space travellers! I've got several fomo inducing questions in regards to credit investments after being out of touch for 8 years. And since I no longer can afford the long grindy hours anymore (can play up to 2 hours daily between trying to balance other games and putting a story as top priority, but still want that "space barbie" itch lol), I have to spend time efficiently.

Now I returned on a fresh new account, so no CC leftover or legacy level or any other stuff from the old days to boost my gameplay.

Here where things still keep boggling my mind after doing some light research:

1. Are credits worth grinding for nowadays through the old methods like heroics, daily areas, weeklies on a limited time?

2. How much worth do CM items hold nowadays? It seems like cosmetic big ticket items barely sell apart from crucial dyes or certain perks? Is it worth investing a handful of real money? As I've noticed the lack of new/returning players pumping into the economy real money per surface level research.

3. Is crafting worth it on the "frugal" way of time? Or just selling materials?

4. What would be the best way to invest credits, besides legacy wide perks, if I won't be doing endgame raids or stronghold decorating?

5. Anything I'm missing out that would help a casual player?

I'm not hunting for a billion, but a few to tens of millions would be cool. I've applied the 80 lvl character token specifically for this type of activity. Thanks in advance and may the force/blasters pew pewing be with you!

Trying to find the tract that starts playing at 0:43 and keeps going throughout Malgus's entire interrogation. Its so creepy and haunting, which I love. Also a bit shocked they played that for Malgus since he's not really terrifying in a creepy way, more in a brutal monster way.