So, I was thinking, which is often a bad thing to do... I have a lvl50 in BM and probably just over 50% WH now, and I have lvl 40 also, both repub on Fatman. I've declined to join a guild so far, and I mostly pug. In the lvl 50 bracket, it sure seems like a lot, maybe most, of my WZ games are a blow out. Either we are crushing them, or they are crushing us, without there being much hope of turning it around. It's rare, maybe very rare, that I feel like I'm in a game that could go either way. Sub-50 WZ are leaning that way, but less so. Does that seem right? Is that a consequence of pugging? Or just the way it is for everyone?

Is that a consequence of pugging? Or just the way it is for everyone?

 

Mostly it is a consequence of pugging. When you pug, it is random. And your opponent is chosen random. If you are against a coordinated team, your chances are low and you will probably lose badly.

 

Recently, I started talking to people I see often in the WZs and forming a group with them. While we are not coordinated, it is still much better than complete random, since I know at least my teammates know what they are doing. Until we hit against a premade, the WZs become easy this way. And if we face a premade or a similar group like ours, then we get close wins or close losses. That is the best outcome.

Edited August 9, 2012 by Ghostuka

Luck of the draw totally. I play WZs with my sub 50s and it's toally random. We win big, it's close or we get blown out. The one thing I do notice is we tend to succeed (win) when we have a lot of Troppers and ranged classes +1 active healer.

 

But to be fair I also depends on battle instincts. I have been on teams where few words ever ever spoken other than occasional "3 inc mid" and everyone performs their role.

Consequence of pugging. When your team has 3-5 guys in recruit gear and are facing war hero opponents. Yea. Good luck. When your lowbie team is facing a premade group of 40-49's and the highest level on your team is 33. Yea. Good luck. I had a level 50 sentinel on my team the other day, full warzone and was active the whole game (i.e. not defending) .... 67k damage. Full warzone. Joined a huttball game this morning that had just started, watched my teammates literally throw it to the other team every time they got the ball, except for a guardian who threw me the ball as soon as he picked it up... I was next to him healing him. Another guy says he's going afk, sits at the spawn area in stealth. Vote to kick doesn't work or is apparently as hard as passing the ball. It's so hilariously pathetic at times that all you can do is laugh.

No hard numbers, but it feels like 1/3 getting stomped, 1/3 facerolling the other team, 1/3 close games. Half of the close games being awesome fun to play.

I get close games maybe 1 out of 4, or 1 out of 5.

 

Usually I can tell the outcome of the game in the first minute. If your team doesn't start off with the "correct" steps, it usually means they don't know what they are doing and most likely cannot successfully launch a comeback later in the game.

1 in every 5 for me is actually good. But I don't define "good" by how it's actually going- I define good by how our team is actually working together, and working for the objective instead of just a kill. For example- voidstar today, everyone was fighting away from the doors, doing nothing to protect the healer getting dogpiled a short distance away from them- that's the exact opposite of a good game.

More and more people are gearing up. More and more people give up in futility after being continuosly mauled.

Sort of an improvement from the middle upwards and a culling of those that don't have their heart in it, I think things are balancing out by the day.

 

I play Republic and for some reason, the closest matches tend to be against my own faction. Maybe because you are inherently more familiar with what they can and cannot do (teaming up with them and such) and the time it takes to process that is slightly quicker.

 

I have been playing ranked much more often as well. Quite a learning experience and there are definately specific players you try to mitigate as much as possible. I can't really point to one class either. If a guy can really play his character, he seems to do well no matter what class it is. Faced a monster Sentinel a couple of times today. Never knew that class could be so good because I never read much QQ about them. Our ops leader was coninuously keeping everyone informed about where he was (or where he thought he might be headed to). Constantly reminding us "Don't break the mez on him".

 

One thing I have quickly noticed is if when one or two of your team go down, the rest can fall in a big hurry. A delicate balance where losing one player can change things quickly. I learned the hard way in Voidstar today. Saw four team mates in relative proximity to the door, turned away to focus on a healer, looked back and an opponent was capping the door. Those four teammates are not chopped liver either. The speed at which situations change seem so much faster than in normal warzones (when both sides are relatively equal). I had to remind myself that the door must always be within view. Always.

 

I don't know if it would have made much difference as they mauled me rather quickly, but......it is a game of seconds and you never know when reinforcements will be hopping off that platform.

 

Most of my team was much more experienced at ranked than I am. Quite a learning experience and I wasn't entirely displeased with myself. I definatley have room for improvement though. I need to get better at targeting specific focus opponents in a crowd. Too often I was wasting my biggest damage cds on the wrong guy. I thought my taunting was very effective though. Thank gawd I have an AOE taunt. It does give you a moment to retarget the right guy as well.

 

I had grown accustomed to 550ish dps in normal warzones. I don't think I broke 300 in any ranked match today, so i am particlurly impressed with those that get >500. I'm thinking you only get there by teamwork. You can't get there on your own.

 

Forgive me for getting off the beaten path. Obviously I had fun today and feel the need to tell someone about it. My first couple of paragraphs are my answer for the OP. I think things will balance out more through time.

Edited August 10, 2012 by Sungas

In recruit/partial bm: 99% being stomped as everyone else on my team also had mostly recruit gear or even greens. Now that it's partial wh, about 50% getting stomped through other people doing stupid tactics, 40% getting stomped through just getting stomped by premades of full WH who can't find ranked pops, and 10% being on a team that has a clue.

 

That 10% can be either us stomping them or rarely a nice close game where you barely realize it's over because you're still fighting so hard!

That's a consequence of pugging yes. Signing up as a group of 4 will generally bring your win rate from 30-50% to 70-80%, even if you don't necessarily come with awesome PvPers.

 

I would say there is more or less 4 categories of players

- The "tourists" : they sign up for WZ for comms only and have no clue AND no will to learn or follow instruction. They are easy to catch. In CW/NC, they are those who go defending the node even if they were told not to (as Ops leader assigned a better defender to it). Don't expect them to be calling for inc, if they are left defending in VS, they will have the door ninjaed 95% of the time. In Huttball, they are just chasing kills everywhere or filling resolve bar and will most likely be bashing at a random guy at the other end of the map while his team try to score. Hopefully, they will learn at one point and become the second category.

- The standard player : neither determinant nor useless, he will call inc 50% of the time, generally a tad too late by excess of confidence (as he thought he could do it, but die). He doesn't necessarily chase people far from the nodes in CW/VS/NC, but you can count on them to do that from time to time, and they won't necessarily pay attention to the node capping. They CAN be guided by more experienced player. It's always safe to remind them some of the things they shouldn't do.

- The organized players : Not necessarily great players, just people who are doing their job correctly. They understood how the warzones are working, and will focus on winning the warzone rather than being solo hero.

- The self proclamed Pros : not necessarily great players either, but it's how they see themselves. They are some kind of mix between an organized player (as they DO know the wz and can do good, when they can be bothered) and a tourist. They generally leave warzones fast if you loose, and tell everyone how noob they are. They are an asset ONLY if you win. If you loose, they are a dead weight and will participate to you loosing even more by wasting time whining rather than winning.

 

The outcome will be determined by how many of each category you have in your team. By Pugging, you increase the chance to have a bigger proportion of 1 and 4, whereas what you would really prefer is 2 and 3. If you premade, generally you ensure yourself to have at least 4 of the second or 3rd category. So eventually you randomize only on 50% of your team, and it's way more efficient.

 

You can safely bet unguilded player to have a bigger proportion of #1 and #2. Reason for that is that a player who doesn't bother with a guild is generally not taking the game very seriously (which is fair enough) and won't bother that much to do better. That or they lack the social skills to get one. They don't have guildies to help them to progress, so their progression rate is slower.

 

So yes, sure, pugging increases the imbalance of the warzones. Note premading doesn't really solve it either, but at least you win way more than you loose, but you'll crush more than you'll be crushed.

 

Of course, other parameters come after that. Mostly the amount of healers each side of the Warzones. Unarguably, the loosing faction is in general the faction where the healer population is the lowest. I don't know if there is any solution to it but healers really turn the tide of warzones, way more than any other so called "OP class".

Edited August 10, 2012 by Nolenthar

- The self proclamed Pros : not necessarily great players either, but it's how they see themselves. They are some kind of mix between an organized player (as they DO know the wz and can do good, when they can be bothered) and a tourist. They generally leave warzones fast if you loose, and tell everyone how noob they are. They are an asset ONLY if you win. If you loose, they are a dead weight and will participate to you loosing even more by wasting time whining rather than winning.

 

Project much?

Edited August 10, 2012 by dcgregorya

Its been my findings that the later it gets at night (and into morning hours of 2-3 am) the better the quality of players out there in the warzones.

 

Im currently leveling a imp in warzones and use to play him after I did flashpoints and ops with my rep characters and was always bragging about how good the imps pvp over the republic.

 

But many times we would finish really late and id not do the daily at a min for my imp

 

So I changed to doing the pvp daily between 11am and 8pm (local server time) and ...

 

Well lets just say im no longer bragging about imps pvp ability and leave at that!

 

Im back to doing my imp pvp after 9pm on week days and sparatically at best on week ends because the earlier hours and week end hours just are not enjoyable pvp matchs and rarely have a good game.

 

Oh I still get my average 35-40 kills and usually come in at the top 5 or so of the match, but the team more often then not loses and gets demolished. And im a team first type of player, so it bugs me to all get up when I see selfish style play common before 9pm happening.

When I pug, I get close games about 20% of the time, the rest are blow-out win/losses.

If I'm in a premade, it's 90% blow-out wins for us, 10% close games against other premades.

 

Either way, less than 1 in 5 games are actually competitive fun.

I feel like there skill'wise is a severe faction imbalance on Corellian Run. Both factions have that top layer of really good players but if the rest of the imps are averaging a 50 rating, from 0-100 and 50 being average, it's more like 40 or perhaps even 30 for the pubs. The only time I've been on a winning streak on the pub side is when there were hardly any players online and we happened to have the better eight. With 250 on the fleet it's pretty much a given that atleast 4 pubs on your team will be completely clueless, to the point that you consider the possibility that they're giving away wins on purpose.

 

My theory on why it is this way is that the republic side gets more lore and story enthusiasts. This is where the hardcore SW fans accumulate, in contrast to hardcore MMO players. The imps on the other hand seem to have a good deal of the "Halo generation", kids who re-roll as soon as there's a new FoTM. It's not rare that you will end up on a team stacked with sages and commando dps'es against 4 maras, 2 pyros and 2 ops healers. Doesnt take a rocket scientist to figure out how that's going to end. My win:loss ratio, pugging is probably 1:4 or something and even games are rare. Hell, only time it's even, score'wise, is when both teams are equally retarded and keep trading nodes instead of sticking to two when they have them. Having to experience such stupidity is worse than getting rolled.

 

I often find myself wishing that I could give my mvp vote to one of the imps instead.

Edited August 10, 2012 by MidichIorian

It's not rare that you will end up on a team stacked with sages and commando dps'es against 4 maras, 2 pyros and 2 ops healers. Doesnt take a rocket scientist to figure out how that's going to end..

 

so true haha,...

Not often whilst pugging unfortunately.

 

Republic talent is low across the board.

 

Being a healer in a WZ with clueless people is masochistic.

So, I was thinking, which is often a bad thing to do... I have a lvl50 in BM and probably just over 50% WH now, and I have lvl 40 also, both repub on Fatman. I've declined to join a guild so far, and I mostly pug. In the lvl 50 bracket, it sure seems like a lot, maybe most, of my WZ games are a blow out. Either we are crushing them, or they are crushing us, without there being much hope of turning it around. It's rare, maybe very rare, that I feel like I'm in a game that could go either way. Sub-50 WZ are leaning that way, but less so. Does that seem right? Is that a consequence of pugging? Or just the way it is for everyone?

 

To answer your question, I play on Droogas Pleasure Barge, as a pug. As of late, it' been a triple split. We crush them, they crush us, or we have a really close game equally. There are bad days, but for me it's been consistent for the last 3 weeks! Close games are the best!

Why we started winning and equalizing the victories;

Lastly I want to add that when our team has done great, it has seemed like it's partially because of me, the tank (not being haughty). I tried very hard to learn how to PvP better after level 50. I had a lot of learning to do despite being number one all the time in pre-50. This week it was me or the healer (I was protecting) that got first place or second place in medals. SO my advice to you is this. Don't listen to those DPS PREACHERS. Before the match starts make sure everyone knows who the healers are and make sure they team up with a decent tank and literally "hump" each other the whole match (the closer they are the more they protect each other).

Edited August 11, 2012 by NoaFlux

Good games I'd say occur < 50% of the time, probably between 25-40%.

 

Great games - where both teams are knowledgeable, skilled, and equally geared - 2% tops.

10-49, I'll get a good match quite often. There isn't much of a disbalance between teams usually unless you have a good chunk of premades in it, or one side or the other has more healers. All my 50 PVP matches end with us getting rolled by full warhero premades (or even just a few random war heros). In fact since trying to get into 50 PVP I've seen not a single good or even close match, it's always just a rolling for one team or the other.

10-49, I'll get a good match quite often. There isn't much of a disbalance between teams usually unless you have a good chunk of premades in it, or one side or the other has more healers. All my 50 PVP matches end with us getting rolled by full warhero premades (or even just a few random war heros). In fact since trying to get into 50 PVP I've seen not a single good or even close match, it's always just a rolling for one team or the other.

 

Not the case for me, but I mean some things are obvious. If everyone on your team has recruit gear, or PvE gear you are toast. But I have won a lot with high end PvE gear players, and some low end recruit.

 

Again make sure your guardians are standing right next to the healers, and make sure they stick with each other and get to know each other before the match. Make sure they are spamming taunts in the big groups of players.

 

Communication is everything!!

Faced a monster Sentinel a couple of times today. Never knew that class could be so good because I never read much QQ about them.

 

Wait, seriously? Your post is very good but this stopped me cold. Sentinels have excellent damage and defensive cooldowns. They take a bit more skill to play and, IMO, a lot more skill to counter. The forums are loaded with QQ about undying rage, force camo, cloak of pain, and more.

 

They are pretty close to being balanced though, IMHO, but they do have the single most game-breaking, unbalancing thing in the whole game: Group speed buff. Get a combat Sentinel / Carnage Marauder on your team who is not stingy with popping this at the right times and it's basically GG. They are the only class that is an absolute necessity for rateds.

 

One thing I have quickly noticed is if when one or two of your team go down, the rest can fall in a big hurry. A delicate balance where losing one player can change things quickly.

 

And here you have hit upon the answer to the OP's question. Most games feel like blowouts because the teams need to be very evenly matched to get a close game. A small degree of mismatching in the teams will exacerbate itself exponentially when the first guy on the weaker team dies, leading to a cascade of clobbering.

I get close games maybe 1 out of 4, or 1 out of 5.

 

This is because of the quitter epidemic. When you go up 1-0, the other team has a player quit and that causes more to quit, then they go down 2-0 etc. It takes a little time to acclimate to your new team so the quitters destroy PvP. So the games that would normally have ended 1-0 become 4-0 and 2-1 matches become 6-1 matches etc

 

I have had matches where we get rolled early and then get our bearings and come back well.

i.e. the other team gets a quick plant or goes up 1-0 or even 3-capped at the start of a match.

Edited August 13, 2012 by richardya

More often than not I have great matches when either myself or someone says "Okay, here's what we are going to do"...

 

"If you see someone stunned, don't break it. Find another target."

 

Calling out who's a healer helps. You see them, and you are at 50% health, run to them. They'll get you back to full in no time

 

Using Slows, like Sever Tendon, helps greatly as well.

 

More often than not, I try to emphasize not killing unless absolutely necessary. Focus on capping nodes/passing by using your non-lethal abilities can be the turn around the team needs to come back

 

Basically great matches, whether you win or lose by a small margin, are those that you will remember. And more often than not, the other team will remember you and what you did(I do ), and look forward to teaming with you if different faction

 

Most important, a great game is all about having fun, and not taking it too seriously. There are times where you will get annihilated, times when you do the annihilating. Good days and bad. It happens

Consequence of pugging. When your team has 3-5 guys in recruit gear and are facing war hero opponents. Yea. Good luck. When your lowbie team is facing a premade group of 40-49's and the highest level on your team is 33. Yea. Good luck. I had a level 50 sentinel on my team the other day, full warzone and was active the whole game (i.e. not defending) .... 67k damage. Full warzone. Joined a huttball game this morning that had just started, watched my teammates literally throw it to the other team every time they got the ball, except for a guardian who threw me the ball as soon as he picked it up... I was next to him healing him. Another guy says he's going afk, sits at the spawn area in stealth. Vote to kick doesn't work or is apparently as hard as passing the ball. It's so hilariously pathetic at times that all you can do is laugh.

 

Yes. This sums it up.