If there were incentives to play lowbies or midbies there would almost certainly be more people playing each. I still think there would be a bit of a population problem however in that order to do either you need to have a character in the correct level window, and in this game it is very easy to quickly level right past either. Add to that a largely veteran playerbase, many of whom have multiple level 70s, and many people abandoning alts for a variety of reasons before they even get to mids and I think even incentives aren't going to be enough to raise either to anything close to the activity of level 70 warzones.

I think what Bioware should do to drum up activity, in addition to offering incentives, is to allow F2P players to participate in lowbies. Level 70 PVP and Ranked should be sub-gated.

Mid should be scrapped altogether and just combined with lowbies. To help make it so the level 10 isn't even more of a free global than they already are, change bolster for lowbies so that every player is not just raised to max level stats but has full (but temporary) access to every single ability of their chosen spec, with the game auto selecting utilities that are useful for their spec in PVP but that they haven't leveled enough yet to obtain.

To make it so that unsubscribed players aren't getting an entirely free ride that undercuts the incentives for subscribing, perhaps F2P should be level gated (ex. past level 25 they can no longer participate without subscribing or purchasing a pass from the CM) and have limits placed on how many warzones they can queue for per week. Allowing an "in" for some F2P players, if done right, besides drumming up activity for lowbies would also work as an incentive to getting people to subscribe or purchase passes from the CM (which should be a thing) if they enjoy the PVP.

If there were incentives to play lowbies or midbies there would almost certainly be more people playing each. I still think there would be a bit of a population problem however in that order to do either you need to have a character in the correct level window, and in this game it is very easy to quickly level right past either. Add to that a largely veteran playerbase, many of whom have multiple level 70s, and many people abandoning alts for a variety of reasons before they even get to mids and I think even incentives aren't going to be enough to raise either to anything close to the activity of level 70 warzones.

 

I think what Bioware should do to drum up activity, in addition to offering incentives, is to allow F2P players to participate in lowbies. Level 70 PVP and Ranked should be sub-gated.

 

Mid should be scrapped altogether and just combined with lowbies. To help make it so the level 10 isn't even more of a free global than they already are, change bolster for lowbies so that every player is not just raised to max level stats but has full (but temporary) access to every single ability of their chosen spec, with the game auto selecting utilities that are useful for their spec in PVP but that they haven't leveled enough yet to obtain.

 

To make it so that unsubscribed players aren't getting an entirely free ride that undercuts the incentives for subscribing, perhaps F2P should be level gated (ex. past level 25 they can no longer participate without subscribing or purchasing a pass from the CM) and have limits placed on how many warzones they can queue for per week. Allowing an "in" for some F2P players, if done right, besides drumming up activity for lowbies would also work as an incentive to getting people to subscribe or purchase passes from the CM (which should be a thing) if they enjoy the PVP.

All fantastic ideas

I made a new ops healer recently, started PVPing at lvl 10, got him to 28 now... Lowbies is AWFUL. It really is. Used to be fun, used to seem faster paced, used to have vets that played lowbies so the matches were competitive. None of this applies now.

I find the teams awful in skill, the players talk crap (which is hilarious to me because the ones talking crap aren't special one bit), I just found the experience abysmal. The fact there are zero incentives to queue lowbies makes it even less appealing.

If I was a new player and tested the waters first by doing lowbie PVP, I'd probably have no interest in sticking with PVP because I honestly got bored on my ops healer by lvl 28, I have no desire to play him.

The players make it even worse with their crappy toxic attitudes. Example is a mid 30s sniper bragged about his dps which made me chuckle seeing how OP'd their AE is in lowbies... Then ironically the same sniper was on my team and we fought a 4v4 against a bunch of 30-40 jugg/maras and we got smoked. After they killed the sniper in /say one said, "you need to spam AE more you might have won." This kind of crappy attitude doesn't make new players want to stick around.

That brings me to the other point, the only thing that pops is 4v4s now! Who wants to do nothing but arenas in lowbies??? Anyway, it's a complete **** show, I want no part of it and paying 30mil for a master datacron is well worth it imo just to hit lvl 70 and bypass the awfulness that is lowbies/mids PVP.

I made a new ops healer recently, started PVPing at lvl 10, got him to 28 now... Lowbies is AWFUL. It really is. Used to be fun, used to seem faster paced, used to have vets that played lowbies so the matches were competitive. None of this applies now.

 

I find the teams awful in skill, the players talk crap (which is hilarious to me because the ones talking crap aren't special one bit), I just found the experience abysmal. The fact there are zero incentives to queue lowbies makes it even less appealing.

 

If I was a new player and tested the waters first by doing lowbie PVP, I'd probably have no interest in sticking with PVP because I honestly got bored on my ops healer by lvl 28, I have no desire to play him.

 

The players make it even worse with their crappy toxic attitudes. Example is a mid 30s sniper bragged about his dps which made me chuckle seeing how OP'd their AE is in lowbies... Then ironically the same sniper was on my team and we fought a 4v4 against a bunch of 30-40 jugg/maras and we got smoked. After they killed the sniper in /say one said, "you need to spam AE more you might have won." This kind of crappy attitude doesn't make new players want to stick around.

 

That brings me to the other point, the only thing that pops is 4v4s now! Who wants to do nothing but arenas in lowbies??? Anyway, it's a complete **** show, I want no part of it and paying 30mil for a master datacron is well worth it imo just to hit lvl 70 and bypass the awfulness that is lowbies/mids PVP.

I'm in the process of leveling a new alt, something I haven't done in a long time, and have run into nothing but arenas as well. I was wondering if maybe it was just because I was queuing outside of prime time. I'm sad to read that isn't the case.

I'm in the process of leveling a new alt, something I haven't done in a long time, and have run into nothing but arenas as well. I was wondering if maybe it was just because I was queuing outside of prime time. I'm sad to read that isn't the case.

Not enough people to fill a space cruiser or a 8v8 match

Not enough people to fill a space cruiser or a 8v8 match

Hard to believe. I figured it's a purposeful queue system that being 4v4s are priority over 8v8s now for some odd reason. I'd rather it be no queue pop at all if they can't manage to get 8v8 matches.

This is sad. Arena only lowbies, no incentives to queue lowbies, I honestly feel it's by design to kill off the lower tier PVP.

They probably make decent coin selling Master Datacrons and other boosts that people feel forced to buy just to avoid the lower much of leveling nowadays.

Hard to believe. I figured it's a purposeful queue system that being 4v4s are priority over 8v8s now for some odd reason. I'd rather it be no queue pop at all if they can't manage to get 8v8 matches.

 

This is sad. Arena only lowbies, no incentives to queue lowbies, I honestly feel it's by design to kill off the lower tier PVP.

 

They probably make decent coin selling Master Datacrons and other boosts that people feel forced to buy just to avoid the lower much of leveling nowadays.

Waiting up to 40mins for a 3v3 pop at the moment. It’s 12pm Austin time and there is hardly anyone online. What must the Devs think when they look at the game during their work day?