After many months PvPing at 50 (EWH, ToFN serevr) I decided the time had come to roll the first alt I'm going to stick with and do the whole questing thing again.

 

Problem is, I've been popping in and out of WZ now and again - and it's a vastly inferior experience to lvl 50.

 

A small part of that is that I don;t have as many skills as I used to, and am often up against players who have more tools than me.

 

However, I find that once I got past lvl 20 I became much more viable, and the bolster mechanic works well.

 

But the massive problem is ....... A lot of lowbies simply do not know how the WZ work, and worse, don't seem to care to learn.

 

I don't like going into WZ and telling people what to do, but I find myself in general chat , map-watching and shouting out orders (mostly ignored) more than playing, as teams constantly make basic error after basic error.

 

I've seen Alderan matches lost because my teamates fought the imps at their drop zone and ignored the turret, or went for the one imp turrent when we comfortably held the other two. Same goes for NC.

 

I've seen Voidstar matches lost because no one called out incs, or bothered to follow the imps through the blown door. And I can't you the amount of Hypergates I've struggled through with no-one guarding the pylons......

 

I shall not mention hutball - I don't want the painful flashbacks all over again.......

 

So why do people claim that low-lvl PvP is a better experience? At least at 50 most people know what to do and you can actually spend the match, you know, PvPing....

There's a lot of reasons.

 

1) Bolster system. Gear isn't as important or hard to maintain or grindy.

2) No weeklies, so people tend to be less whiny when you lose or are in the process of losing.

3) Not as many 4 man pre-mades - much more common to see 2 man pre-mades, which is fine.

4) Because there's no gear grind, the only people there are people who *want* to be there.

But the massive problem is ....... A lot of lowbies simply do not know how the WZ work, and worse, don't seem to care to learn.

 

That's why.

 

While knowledge at 50 certainly isn't perfect (people not understanding side speeders, able to do the simple match to determine when a 3 cap is needed in CW, not understanding AH etc), it's much better than it is in lowbie warzones. This makes simply being somewhat competent and spatially aware enough to make you the best player in most lowbie warzones, making it easier for people who are frustrated with the 50 bracket to roll over hordes of foam mouth drones.

Edited February 3, 2013 by ebado

4) Because there's no gear grind, the only people there are people who *want* to be there.

 

the bolster effect scales. there is a gear grind. if you don't constantly upgrade, while I do, I'm going to absolutely crush you on gear alone. there are no tiers (other than the 3 colors). however, there are levels. and a 25 wearing something for a 15 usually isn't such a good idea.

Several reasons:

1.) Less premades

2.) Less people wearing Best in Slot gear

3.) The person is bad and (a) Enjoys playing with people who are equally as bad/not fighting better players (b) has less confusing abilities and procs to try to keep track of

the bolster effect scales. there is a gear grind. if you don't constantly upgrade, while I do, I'm going to absolutely crush you on gear alone. there are no tiers (other than the 3 colors). however, there are levels. and a 25 wearing something for a 15 usually isn't such a good idea.

 

This. If you keep your gear updated you'll have like 14k hp and higher stats while others have 11-12k and lower stats. It's a big *** difference.

 

The difference is even larger when you get people who use purp items and augment their gear.

I find lowbie PvP is a great base to start collecting commendations for the future. Sure you spend most your time playing yourself since like 75% of team insist on playing team deahtmatch, but it can still be enjoyable at times. At 40-49 you can basically faceroll anyone anyway so that's fun in a sense. If you're rich (or have credits to spend) then get fully purp mods and augs and the cartel crystals and your stats + endurance skyrocket in pre50 PvP.

Less frustration.

 

If someone does something utterly stupid in lowbie you can jusy shake it off as them being new and not familiar with the game. The same things are just annoying at 50 and they're just as frequent.

The fact that at around level 20 an only half decent player (such as myself lol)can completely dominate just about every WZ besides the ones against level 40+ premaders, says it all.

Don't kid yourself, there are plenty of people that don't know how to play at 50 either.

I find that in pre 50 pvp there is alot less CC'ing going on making the pvp much more enjoyable. It's not fun (especially playing a healer) to spend 15 seconds strait stunlocked and then having a Bukaki spent on you like you get in 50 pvp. Happens even when you have fully augmented WH gear.

This. If you keep your gear updated you'll have like 14k hp and higher stats while others have 11-12k and lower stats. It's a big *** difference.

 

The difference is even larger when you get people who use purp items and augment their gear.

 

Mhm, I seen a sin tank earleir with 17k hp in pre50 (was level 49)

 

Makes me wonder what kind of damage I could do as level 49, fully purple modded/augmented as smash monkey.

I find that in pre 50 pvp there is alot less CC'ing going on making the pvp much more enjoyable. It's not fun (especially playing a healer) to spend 15 seconds strait stunlocked and then having a Bukaki spent on you like you get in 50 pvp. Happens even when you have fully augmented WH gear.

 

there is less CC because most people in pre-50 WZs dont even have half of their skills yet. usually people who say pre-50 WZs are fun are people who twink and stay at lvl 49 forever. im sure they love having all their skills and full skill trees minus 1 point and fighting against lowbies dont have many skills to use.

 

pre-50 WZs are about as fun and challenging as ganking lowbies on tatooine is.

Think it has a lot to do with the class you are on. Warriors get their best abilties late and benefit from power stacking at 50 so they're probably going to prefer lvl 50 PvP. If you on the other hand is a sorc and can 1 vs 3 people in lowbie from lvl 10, somehting that rarely works out at 50 against equally geared opponents (regardless of their skill since even a monkey can hit a key and deal 7K blows) , you're going to think that it's awesome down there. I can imagine that a lot of mercs/commandos would prefer lowbie too, on behalf of actually being somewhat viable. Hence, it's once again partly a balance issue, not in the sense that people should expect classes to be perfectly balanced while leveling but because some AC'es go from being on par/good even to "not so good". Edited February 3, 2013 by Washingtoon

Think it has a lot to do with the class you are on. Warriors get their best abilties late and benefit from power stacking at 50 so they're probably going to prefer lvl 50 PvP. If you on the other hand is a sorc and can 1 vs 3 people in lowbie from lvl 10, somehting that rarely works out at 50 against equally geared opponents (regardless of their skill since even a monkey can hit a key and deal 7K blows) , you're going to think that it's awesome down there. I can imagine that a lot of mercs/commandos would prefer lowbie too, on behalf of actually being somewhat viable. Hence, it's once again partly a balance issue, not in the sense that people should expect classes to be perfectly balance while leveling but because some AC'es go from being on par/good even to "not so good".

 

I shelved my Merc long time ago, but I went back on earlier for a shot, from level 23-25 I think I came top damage like every single game, and I wasn't running around spreading DoTs. It's pretty fun since barely anyone bothers to come after you, and the root from setting enemys on fire just makes them give up lol.

the bolster effect scales. there is a gear grind. if you don't constantly upgrade, while I do, I'm going to absolutely crush you on gear alone. there are no tiers (other than the 3 colors). however, there are levels. and a 25 wearing something for a 15 usually isn't such a good idea.

 

Keeping up to date gear while leveling/crafting is trivially easy. You don't need to grind thousands of comms for it.

there is less CC because most people in pre-50 WZs dont even have half of their skills yet. usually people who say pre-50 WZs are fun are people who twink and stay at lvl 49 forever. im sure they love having all their skills and full skill trees minus 1 point and fighting against lowbies dont have many skills to use.

 

pre-50 WZs are about as fun and challenging as ganking lowbies on tatooine is.

 

Eh, that's nonsense. The only class I haven't dominated WZ's pre-20 with was juggernaut. Every other class did just fine all the way from 10 to 50. And jugg was fine as soon as I got to 26. Part of the fun of lowbie warzones is crushing some level 49 marauder with your level 12 sentinel.

Edited February 3, 2013 by dcgregorya

Eh, that's nonsense. The only class I haven't dominated WZ's pre-20 with was juggernaut. Every other class did just fine all the way from 10 to 50. And jugg was fine as soon as I got to 26. Part of the fun of lowbie warzones is crushing some level 49 marauder with your level 12 sentinel.

 

I would say OPR/SCR dont do that hot in low levels.

Its takes like 8-10 hours to get to level 20 and you shouldnt queue for warzones till than unless you want to gimp your team.

Its takes like 8-10 hours to get to level 20 and you shouldnt queue for warzones till than unless you want to gimp your team.

 

Smuggler/Imperial Agents can actually be effective even at level 10. SI/Consular also can be effective. You need to do a lot of hit and run tactics but it's doable. Sadly for Sorc/Sage and Merc/Commando that's pretty much all they can do at 50 too, although that's not really fun if that's all you can do.

In early levels there are less elite guilds, premades and hardcores, less competition more fun. In general pvp in high levels is closed if you are not enough good.

Keeping up to date gear while leveling/crafting is trivially easy. You don't need to grind thousands of comms for it.

 

are you leveling through pvp? or are you casually PVPing while you level? for the former, planetary comms are fairly useless. in the case of the latter, you can only buy 2 sets of gear with wz comms. the rest of the time it's craft or gtn...or get owned. if you're in the pvp forum, I'm going to assume that you're NOT talking about more than 1-a-day pvp. but perhaps I'm assuming too much. either way: you're grinding gear. period.

 

the 50s grind is trivially easy as well. it's not as if you have to actually get by a boss to hopefully get your gear.

Gear scaling with abilities is less of a problem and almost nobody takes the time to form two groups of 4 and try to get them in the same warzone. Warzones are more competitive in the lowbies due to those two factors.

 

The drawback is, as you said, there are more people who don't know what the Hell they're doing, but they get distributed pretty evenly so competition isn't hurt by it.

Interesting posts - and while I've noticed that there is more of a dynamic feel to PvP, I just can' get used to the utter cluelessness of some pugs.

 

I'll reserve judgement until I've played a few more (I'm on a fresh journey to 50!). But I can't help hankering for the tactical, one-mistake-and-you're-dead blood and thunder of 50 PvP - instead of the 'headless chickens engage!' style of sub-50.

 

 

We'll see......

Don't kid yourself, there are plenty of people that don't know how to play at 50 either.

 

This is sadly true, and quite common. You can tell that someone has no clue in 50-bracket PvP when they have PvE Gear or, even better, level 45 Gear.