The problem with PvP balance is that things that can make a class "OP" in PvP can have little effect on PvE balance... and yet the nerf to said thing can have a serious effect on the PvE play of that same class.

 

( Never mind how much of the PvP balance commentary amounts to "Dear devs, nerf scissors, rock is fine -- signed, paper." )

The problem with PvP balance is that things that can make a class "OP" in PvP can have little effect on PvE balance... and yet the nerf to said thing can have a serious effect on the PvE play of that same class.

 

( Never mind how much of the PvP balance commentary amounts to "Dear devs, nerf scissors, rock is fine -- signed, paper." )

Regardless, balance needs to be fixed. I seriously do not care if it greatly impacts PvE Max...it's THAT bad in PvP right now. Drastic measures are needed and I'd go a year without PvE balance to finally get some in PvP...

 

However...I don't want it to impact PvE...that's not my goal either. With that in mind...there is a VERY VERY easy "fix" that only impacts PvP...adjust Expertise stats. Nothing more. Adjust them class by class. Very simple, no impact at all on PvE.

However...I don't want it to impact PvE...that's not my goal either. With that in mind...there is a VERY VERY easy "fix" that only impacts PvP...get rid of the Expertise stats. Nothing more. Adjust them class by class. Very simple, no impact at all on PvE.

 

Fixed.

Fixed.

I have lobbied for that since launch...I HATE Expertise.

 

This is the ONE situation where I can see it being useful though.

The Red Eclipse is still going strong

The Red Eclipse is still going strong

 

Stronger than it was 6 months ago? A year ago?

Harbinger is also strong, in my opinion there always lots of people of the fleet. The reason no sever is on heavy is because they increase the server capacity back on October. The long war zone queue always been the same for a long while just slow. But when the war zones comes in queue will be lot faster because people will be interested in war zones again.

Harbinger is also strong, in my opinion there always lots of people of the fleet. The reason no sever is on heavy is because they increase the server capacity back on October. The long war zone queue always been the same for a long while just slow. But when the war zones comes in queue will be lot faster because people will be interested in war zones again.

Harbinger had 3 Pub fleets most nights this past summer...right now we can't fill 2. We usually have one with 170 and one with 40...prime time.

Harbinger had 3 Pub fleets most nights this past summer...right now we can't fill 2. We usually have one with 170 and one with 40...prime time.

 

To be fair, they did release a new chapter so I presume a lot of people will be messing around on Zakuul for awhile. Fleet may not be the best indicator to decide the total population at the moment, however it has been declining as of late.

Harbinger had 3 Pub fleets most nights this past summer...right now we can't fill 2. We usually have one with 170 and one with 40...prime time.

 

How many people usually hang out in Odessen instead? I know that's where I usually am now instead of the Fleet.

Harbinger had 3 Pub fleets most nights this past summer...right now we can't fill 2. We usually have one with 170 and one with 40...prime time.

 

Is that possibly because people are off fleet and playing KotFE for the 8th time, trying to keep their alts up to date?

 

***EDIT***

 

I'll even take this thought further. BW have actually done a good job of giving us a variety of things to do. These things spread players to all planets, which makes the old hub less necessary and less populated. Also, those Ops that people would stand around queued for are getting stale (or so I hear) so people go and do those other things that spread them out, away from fleet.

Edited March 10, 2016 by AlienEyeTX

Is that possibly because people are off fleet and playing KotFE for the 8th time, trying to keep their alts up to date?

 

For the most part Zakuul is dead, and Odessian is literally a ghost town. However I have not been able to log on to do the new chapter or see what's up .

To be fair, they did release a new chapter so I presume a lot of people will be messing around on Zakuul for awhile. Fleet may not be the best indicator to decide the total population at the moment, however it has been declining as of late.

Fleet is a fine indicator.

 

That observation wasn't from Tuesday night after Chap 11 released either...that's how it's been lately. It's not uncommon at all.

Are all the rats abandoning ship now?

 

 

Anyhow. The Division came out. A new chapter of KOTFE, and like it or not a lot of people do spend time and play around with that stuff. Strongholds draw people away from Fleet. Odessan has drawn people away from fleet.

Also it's been fairly nice weather for most of the US this last week, people might actually *gasp* go outside.

 

Or maybe that game is dying and all these naysayers and toxic fools on this forum can dance and say they told us so.

Didn't one of the patches this year up the number of supported characters per instance, thereby reducing the number of total instances even in locations and times of high pop?

Didn't one of the patches this year up the number of supported characters per instance, thereby reducing the number of total instances even in locations and times of high pop?

 

Watch it, you! We don't take kindly to no facts or statistics round these here parts!

Didn't one of the patches this year up the number of supported characters per instance, thereby reducing the number of total instances even in locations and times of high pop?

 

You guys are hung up on the fleet. I could careless if the fleet had zero people on it. What I DO care about along with just about ever PVPer I know on this game is how frequent are the que pops.

 

The trend is this and I speak from 3 server mergers experience. Que pops start getting slow. Play XXX says I aint gonna wait for these PVP que pops to happen Ill go play my other game XXX instead of sitter here waiting to play. Then the ques get slower because he left. Then the next guy rinse and repeat. And there goes the snow ball down the hill.

 

The process happens pretty rapidly and I speak from experience. The point of this thread is this. There is nowhere to goto now. Harbringer is the last and only populated server. And the past 4 weeks has been in steady decline compared to the past 2 years. It has never been this slow in the past 2 years.

 

Once que pops start getting to the point where you have to sit there and wait for them for anymore than 5 to 10 minutes people absolutely leave the server or leave the game. I speak from personal experience with dozens and dozens of in game friends I have PVPed with. The problem this time is that the option of server transferring is no longer an option anymore. There is nowhere to run to anymore. So instead of transgering to a populated server, people just uninstall and leave the game completely.

 

To argue about where people are hanging out is a waste of time. The question is are the que pops happening quickly and are people having to wait for them. And the answer to that question on Harbringer is yes, they are getting longer and longer week by week at this point. And in 2 years I never seen them take this long as they do right now.

You guys are hung up on the fleet. I could careless if the fleet had zero people on it. What I DO care about along with just about ever PVPer I know on this game is how frequent are the que pops.

 

The trend is this and I speak from 3 server mergers experience. Que pops start getting slow. Play XXX says I aint gonna wait for these PVP que pops to happen Ill go play my other game XXX instead of sitter here waiting to play. Then the ques get slower because he left. Then the next guy rinse and repeat. And there goes the snow ball down the hill.

 

The process happens pretty rapidly and I speak from experience. The point of this thread is this. There is nowhere to goto now. Harbringer is the last and only populated server. And the past 4 weeks has been in steady decline compared to the past 2 years. It has never been this slow in the past 2 years.

 

Once que pops start getting to the point where you have to sit there and wait for them for anymore than 5 to 10 minutes people absolutely leave the server or leave the game. I speak from personal experience with dozens and dozens of in game friends I have PVPed with. The problem this time is that the option of server transferring is no longer an option anymore. There is nowhere to run to anymore. So instead of transgering to a populated server, people just uninstall and leave the game completely.

 

To argue about where people are hanging out is a waste of time. The question is are the que pops happening quickly and are people having to wait for them. And the answer to that question on Harbringer is yes, they are getting longer and longer week by week at this point. And in 2 years I never seen them take this long as they do right now.

 

 

I don't think I mentioned the fleet in my post... I think what I did was mention a technical change that could affect what people are seeing in any highly-populated area if they were used to "counting instances".

 

 

Personally, I never see queue times, because I never queue for anything.

You guys are hung up on the fleet. I could careless if the fleet had zero people on it. What I DO care about along with just about ever PVPer I know on this game is how frequent are the que pops.

 

The trend is this and I speak from 3 server mergers experience. Que pops start getting slow. Play XXX says I aint gonna wait for these PVP que pops to happen Ill go play my other game XXX instead of sitter here waiting to play. Then the ques get slower because he left. Then the next guy rinse and repeat. And there goes the snow ball down the hill.

 

The process happens pretty rapidly and I speak from experience. The point of this thread is this. There is nowhere to goto now. Harbringer is the last and only populated server. And the past 4 weeks has been in steady decline compared to the past 2 years. It has never been this slow in the past 2 years.

 

Once que pops start getting to the point where you have to sit there and wait for them for anymore than 5 to 10 minutes people absolutely leave the server or leave the game. I speak from personal experience with dozens and dozens of in game friends I have PVPed with. The problem this time is that the option of server transferring is no longer an option anymore. There is nowhere to run to anymore. So instead of transgering to a populated server, people just uninstall and leave the game completely.

 

To argue about where people are hanging out is a waste of time. The question is are the que pops happening quickly and are people having to wait for them. And the answer to that question on Harbringer is yes, they are getting longer and longer week by week at this point. And in 2 years I never seen them take this long as they do right now.

 

Are you just queueing for regular WZs? I've not had much problem getting pops on Harbinger. On rare occasions I may have to wait like 5 minutes. In fact, pops are constantly interrupting my GTN browsing (but that's good because I get distracted and end up saving credits). But, I think maybe it depends on what time you play.

Stronger than it was 6 months ago? A year ago?

 

6 months? Definitely - was really slow then. A year? Not entirely sure as that's about when I started playing so wouldn't really remember.

 

And as for The Division :

 

You are an agent of The Division. You have been activated and sent to Manhattan to save what remains of civilization after the devastating pandemic. Teaming up with other Division agents, your mission is to restore order, investigate the source of the virus, and take back New York.

 

Too US-centic so really not very interesting for me.

Edited March 10, 2016 by Fluffometer

On the day the new chapter launched every server is light pop (at the time of typing).

 

PvP and Pugs aside, there has to come a point that the devs acknowledge something isn't working, and before we get the we will communicate better in the future after things go bad it might be an idea for them to start listening and discussing options.

 

As currently things aren't working if even on the day the new chapter is official launched no one is playing. Can they really expect it to be better in a weeks time?

On the day the new chapter launched every server is light pop (at the time of typing).

 

PvP and Pugs aside, there has to come a point that the devs acknowledge something isn't working, and before we get the we will communicate better in the future after things go bad it might be an idea for them to start listening and discussing options.

 

As currently things aren't working if even on the day the new chapter is official launched no one is playing. Can they really expect it to be better in a weeks time?

 

Broad brush strokes (which is the best data available).... torstatus says Harbinger (which is the basis of the OPs complaint) is still doing fine. All the servers have been on a modest decline over time since early February according to torstatus. No surprise, KoTFE is no longer a shiny new expansion... so just like every other expac for this game since launch ---> Massive feeding frenzy followed by a slow decline over time beginning after about 60-90 days post expac. And frankly, this is common now days with MMOs. Many players have short attention spans, get bored easily, have a narrow focus of interest in the actual range of content in game, and consume content way faster then any MMO (even WoW) can possibly release.

 

Basically, the servers are right back to about where they were (in terms of player activity) early last fall. Mind you, we have absolutely no visibility into anything other then server activity levels. Probably a good number of players that stay subbed, but only come and play actively when there is something new to do. But then again, there are also a lot of players that learned years ago playing MMOs.... to ... pace themselves and diversify their play time either in game, or across multiple MMOs.

 

Bioware decided to try something new with this expac and focus on monthly chapter releases of the core story for the expac, to spread out the new content. Personally, knowing the player base as I do, I would not have gone that route... but I do admire them for thinking outside the box and trying new things. Of course, NONE of the new things they have released in the form of expac focus is able to hold modern MMO players attention for long. Even the great and powerful WoW suffers from similar fate on it's expac/patch releases.

 

Note to OP: Sorry OP.. the game has not died.. it's just dead to you personally, and perhaps some others who have not yet figured out that the best cure for MMO boredom is to spread your time across multiple MMOs... since they are all on different content release schedules.

Edited March 10, 2016 by Andryah

Regardless, balance needs to be fixed. I seriously do not care if it greatly impacts PvE Max...it's THAT bad in PvP right now. Drastic measures are needed and I'd go a year without PvE balance to finally get some in PvP...

 

However...I don't want it to impact PvE...that's not my goal either. With that in mind...there is a VERY VERY easy "fix" that only impacts PvP...adjust Expertise stats. Nothing more. Adjust them class by class. Very simple, no impact at all on PvE.

 

I remember when they got rid of skill trees, saying the new way gives them time to work on balance. I knew it was BS back then, and it is even more obvious today.

It's happening the same on red eclipse when we had 3, 4 instances on fleet and now we have a full instance and the second one with 10, 15 players, on imp and rep side

Fleet is actually not a good indicator. With the new Heroic structures, population is spread amongst many planets. Also, people like myself play on multiple toons and hardly ever on fleet, except to do a few things here and there. I just don't "hang out" out on fleet. I'm usually in a storyline or off doing something on another planet. I've seen fleet at around 100, but then go to do Heroics on Balmorra and see 90+ on balmorra. So people now are out and about grinding away and actually playing the game, instead of mounting up on a Rancor and doing circles in the fleet...