Hello SWTOR players and readers:

Monoth created a post called "Premades are ruining non-ranked warzones"http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=544543 And instead of reading through the 50+ pages of replies, I listened to a summary about it from a friend. I too have experienced the frustrations of lvl 50 PvP warzones. The transition from 49 to 50. Going from being almost god-like to being a pile of goo that a lot of players refer to as "BAD" no matter how you look at it; a solo player outfitted with Recruit gear, is like having a big target painted on you that says, "EASY KILL" to those that have grinded up the ladder and have Elite War Hero gear. Most of your warzone time is spent debating/arguing/venting in general chat because the pre-made or the other team is wiping their butts with you and your Recruit gear. This inevitably leads a frustrated, Recruit geared, player to either "RAGE QUIT" the game, or start a new alt vowing never to hit 50. Or you find them on the forums begging BW to put in a feature that allows a player to turn off XP.

I'm not entirely opposed of the idea of turning off XP, but I do not feel like that's a solution. All that does is kill lvl 50 warzones. Seriously... a show of hands (/raise) How many players out there would use the XP off feature and never set foot into a lvl 50 warzone??(and it's for other reasons then just the beatings I get from running against pre-mades)

/RAISE

So my idea for a POSSIBLE solution. LOL "Get rid of Expertise..." No =P I was playing my lvl 35 sage and zoomed over to a PvP vendor and was looking at the list of lvl 50 gear... Battlemaster. 975 wz comms for the legs. I click on it, to buy it. The game informs me that I'm not high enough, in level, to buy this item. So what if.. Bioware... you remove that. You allow a player(lvl 10-49) to buy Battlemaster gear. It's level 50 so we wont be able to equip it. It's mods are 50+ so it's not like we can strip it and use the mods to "twink" out a pre-50 character. Keep Recruit gear for players who didn't participate in Warzones from level 10-49. But are lvl 50 wanting to PvP. they can buy Recruit gear and suffer through the pains of being "BAD" But for the players who enjoyed pre-50 warzones, and want to compete with the lvl 50 players, who have War Hero or Elite War Hero gear, having a set of Battlemaster gear would make a huge difference. Even with BM gear we still have grinding to do for War Hero, and eventually Elite War Hero.

tl;dr

All I saw was get rid of expertise, so I assume you were trolling.

tl;dr

 

All I saw was get rid of expertise, so I assume you were trolling.

Learn to read! I jokingly said, LOL "Get rid of Expertise..."

So, people having full battlemaster at level 30+ if theyre pvping the whole way. (yay) no

The caps have been increased to 4,5k ranked and 2,7k normal comms too you know.

Also recruit MK-ll isnt bad, ive tried it already (for some classes its a cosmetic copy of BM too, nice camo ikr)

The biggest problem is that these "PuGs" are running in Columi and stuff, because lets be honest.. they are plain dumb and ignorrant.

Theyre wearing it because:

1: Its purple text and carries a set bonus

2: "OMG SO SHINY XDXDXD 1337"

3: "It cant be that bad"

Then you have the: "I hate people" persons who are usually sorcs who likes to solo defend and (consumption + dark infusion) to look good untill they get 1 shot by anyone and capped.

They usually dont know how to write in the chat.

Gear is a minor problem, average intelligence is a bigger one.

Ive seen an Operative DPS in Recruit solo defending who cc'ed the incommings long enough for backup to arrive, and not go "HURR DURR I WAS OP AT LEBUL 49 TIEM2DIE NAPS" when the "incs" are halfway

If suddenly EVERYONE got a brain boost, i will never ever que for warzones with my fully geared characters, unless its ranked warzones and do PvE the whole week.

So, people having full battlemaster at level 30+ if theyre pvping the whole way. (yay) no

 

No... it's not about being able to Use BM gear early. it's about having a set of BM gear when you hit 50. It's about using the excess commendations that everyone has, who does enough warzones, and spending them on BM gear, so by the time they reach level 50, they have a full set of gear waiting for them to use.

No... it's not about being able to Use BM gear early. it's about having a set of BM gear when you hit 50. It's about using the excess commendations that everyone has, who does enough warzones, and spending them on BM gear, so by the time they reach level 50, they have a full set of gear waiting for them to use.

I didnt mean wearing it at 30+, its a reason you GET recruit for free, its a reason they upgraded the old Recruit set

Firstly, your proposed solution of optionally turning off XP gain is NOT something I would ever use. Whilst you may prefer the balance during sub-50 pvp, I personally hate the terrible level of player skill that I find in the sub-50 warzones.

whilst the level 50 warzones may suffer from gear imbalance, the skill level is much higher. Most people know how to perform basic team manuvers, such as peeling, stunning so you can can, luring people away from nodes, calling out incomings etc at level 50. In the sub-50 warzones, most people either dont know how to do it, or are simply too lazy to bother. Sub-50 warzones tend to be straight forward deathmatches and for me, thats really boring. Not only is it boring, its also extremely frustrating when I do try to play the objectives as the inexperienced players tend to mess things up for me (e.g. breaking stuns, standing on top of me if I'm stealthed, following me if I'm going for a solo cap etc).

However, if you prefer playing with inexperienced players in sub-50 pvp then such an option is fine for you. But, the same problem exists in sub-50 pvp as exists in 50 pvp: massive gear gaps. A level 45-49 pvper with twinked gear will destroy 99% of players in the sub-50 warzones. They'll have 4k more health than most people and do tons more damage. Additionally, they'll have all their skills and most of their talents which adds a double-whammy. Its just as unfair as the gear gaps in post-50 warzones.

There is only one viable solution to balancing warzones: intelligent matchmaking using a universal ratings system.

In short, every single player in the game should have a player rating that is based off win/loss ratio and the rating of the opponents they win/lose against. Then, warzones should try, where possible, to place players against other players with a similar ratings.

This way, good players will get placed against other good players, bad players against bad players. Premades will naturally win a lot which will result in a higher rating and thus premades will eventually get mostly placed against other premades. People with a gear advantage will win more so will get a higher rating and thus get placed against other people with good gear. It is the only fair way to do it, because lets face it, not every premade is good, not every fresh 50 is bad, not every WH geared player is good etc etc.

Recruit gear is crap. Show me the video of the guy in recruit gear that defended a turret/station long enough for reinforcements to show. Otherwise Recruit gear is a joke. On my sniper, in recruit gear, I feel like I'm level 30 fighting a level 50. Level 50(with War hero gear+) hits me a couple of times and 3/4 of my health is gone. If the most I get to do with Recruit gear is run around delaying the inevitable.. lol I'd rather spend my time doing pve dailies then queue up for Warzones at lvl 50. Which btw is what most players do. Which is why queue times at lvl 50 are anywhere from 15-30 minutes. And most of the time the only players you see in the warzones. are the ones with BM and above gear. The gear you can buy with Warzone Comms from 10-49 is on par if not less then par with gear you can get just from doing missions. or queuing up for a Flashpoint. It's nothing special. A player may spend a few commendations on Implants or Earpieces, but for the most part commendations are capped. And it's not like the game is handing a player a set of BM gear, like they do with recruit gear. A player has to spend WZ comms whether it's at lvl 50 or sooner for the BM pieces, so the player has to grind out Warzones to get the comms for a set of gear that they wont be able to use till 50.

So what's the difference? Oh I know what it is, You enjoy beating on the newly lvl 50s in warzones with recruit gear, because when you were newly 50, you got your butt handed to you repeatedly, so it's only fair that everyone else go through all that too. So Bioware, reward the player that spends countless hours in pre-50 warzones grinding out comms to get a set of gear for level 50 warzones, so they have don't have to accept the "inevitable," they will actually have a fighting chance against a player in higher tiered pvp gear. Why is that so wrong? F2P players, who can only do 3 warzones a week(unless they buy a week pass with CC), can have a goal to work towards... "I may only play 3 warzones a week, but after a couple of weeks I can buy my BM leg(or chest piece). So that by the time I hit 50, I may have a few pieces of BM gear so it's not a total slaughter when I play in the lvl 50 warzones."

It's about encouraging players to want to play in lvl 50 Warzones. Recruit gear, cool I get it, queue up run a Warzone have my butt handed to me repeatedly, and say to myself, "Do I really want to do this over and over just so I can afford 1 piece of BM gear?" Bioware, you want to encourage a player to do more PvP in SWTOR, Recruit gear is NOT the answer. Letting a player work(in pre-50 warzones) towards a full set of BM gear... is.

I didnt mean wearing it at 30+, its a reason you GET recruit for free, its a reason they upgraded the old Recruit set

Wrong. The recruit set is there because people hitting 50 being destroyed by people (then) wearing full Battlemaster was causing people to either stop PVPing or worst case, quit the game.

The proposed solution is perfectly sensible -- the gear can be bought before 50, but it can't be EQUIPPED till 50. This is exactly the same as with the level 20 and level 40 PVP sets, and the PVP weapons -- you can buy them well before you can equip them. So, if you like to PVP a lot, then you can buy your level 50 Battlemaster set well ahead of time.

(And, even if nothing else changes, you can start buying your War Hero set at 40).

Recruit gear is crap. Show me the video of the guy in recruit gear that defended a turret/station long enough for reinforcements to show. Otherwise Recruit gear is a joke. On my sniper, in recruit gear, I feel like I'm level 30 fighting a level 50. Level 50(with War hero gear+) hits me a couple of times and 3/4 of my health is gone. If the most I get to do with Recruit gear is run around delaying the inevitable.. lol I'd rather spend my time doing pve dailies then queue up for Warzones at lvl 50. Which btw is what most players do. Which is why queue times at lvl 50 are anywhere from 15-30 minutes. And most of the time the only players you see in the warzones. are the ones with BM and above gear. The gear you can buy with Warzone Comms from 10-49 is on par if not less then par with gear you can get just from doing missions. or queuing up for a Flashpoint. It's nothing special. A player may spend a few commendations on Implants or Earpieces, but for the most part commendations are capped. And it's not like the game is handing a player a set of BM gear, like they do with recruit gear. A player has to spend WZ comms whether it's at lvl 50 or sooner for the BM pieces, so the player has to grind out Warzones to get the comms for a set of gear that they wont be able to use till 50.

 

So what's the difference? Oh I know what it is, You enjoy beating on the newly lvl 50s in warzones with recruit gear, because when you were newly 50, you got your butt handed to you repeatedly, so it's only fair that everyone else go through all that too. So Bioware, reward the player that spends countless hours in pre-50 warzones grinding out comms to get a set of gear for level 50 warzones, so they have don't have to accept the "inevitable," they will actually have a fighting chance against a player in higher tiered pvp gear. Why is that so wrong? F2P players, who can only do 3 warzones a week(unless they buy a week pass with CC), can have a goal to work towards... "I may only play 3 warzones a week, but after a couple of weeks I can buy my BM leg(or chest piece). So that by the time I hit 50, I may have a few pieces of BM gear so it's not a total slaughter when I play in the lvl 50 warzones."

 

It's about encouraging players to want to play in lvl 50 Warzones. Recruit gear, cool I get it, queue up run a Warzone have my butt handed to me repeatedly, and say to myself, "Do I really want to do this over and over just so I can afford 1 piece of BM gear?" Bioware, you want to encourage a player to do more PvP in SWTOR, Recruit gear is NOT the answer. Letting a player work(in pre-50 warzones) towards a full set of BM gear... is.

Stop getting offensive already.

And for the recruit geared story, you should read it again. I never stated there was any video.

Operatives has stealth right?

Stealth classes has a out of combat cc, which can lock down a person for 12 seconds, you knew that right?

If youre so ***** on a video with a full recruit geared holding of 2 til reinforcement comes, ill put the recruit gear back on my fresh 50 Scoundrel and make a video of it. (FYI that character skipped the WHOLE grind )

You dont think I got my butt handed to me? I played ranked to speed up my first WH grind

Since you guys are so up to skill based warzones and low level warzones are a fine example..get a full gear set in purple mods at YOUR level, oya 16k hp+ Powertechs with 5k rail shots against a team with pretty much 11-13k hp now thats skill based. I have tried it with a 49 Merc I had 15,7k hp and my heatseekers did 4-6k

My point: Get Bioware to make cross server queues BEFORE you whine about gear brackets.

Id love to actually get in a 16man recruit warzone with the current population of certain servers.. yea good luck

Recruit gear is crap. Show me the video of the guy in recruit gear that defended a turret/station long enough for reinforcements to show. Otherwise Recruit gear is a joke.

Pfft, even my OP at level 30 could slow down a(n) attacker(s) long enough for inc's to be called.

1 attacker:

Call as inc.

Wait for them to be 1/2 capped, then Mezz (4 seconds)

Once it ends... (8 seconds if not broken)

Wait for 1/2 capped, mezz 2nd time. (4 seconds)

Once it ends... (8 seconds)

Wait for 1/2 cap, then shoot from stealth (4)

Drop off side/LoS, as soon as you hit 1/2 health, stealth escape. (let's call this 5 seconds being generous)

wait 1/2 cap, break again. (4 seconds)

Kite till dead (5 seconds again.)

So that's 50 seconds or so. If your team hasn't responded... they're not going to.

2 attackers is fairly similiar.

Stealth mezz the first asap.

Stealth mezz the second at 1/2 (4 seconds. THis will unmezz the first)

Stealth mezz first at 1/2 (4 seconds)

Stealth mezz second at 1/2 (4 seconds).

Break Stealth, Intterupt at 1/2 cap (4 seconds)

Kite/Los, restealth at 1/2 health (5 seconds)

Break stealth and intterupt at 1/2 cap (4 seconds).

Kite/LoS/intterupt till death. (5 seconds)

30 seconds. If team hasn't responded by then, they suck.

Dear OP,

Getting BM gear is stupid easy, even if you lose ALL your matches... Casual play(10hours) nets full BM in about a week.

You can do FP/SM OPS for BH pieces (which are better than BM pieces). You can do dailies for RAK Ear/Implants(which are slightly below BM pieces, and you can buy stuff off the GTN. There are multiple ways to gear for PvP.

Also, referring to anything as a "grind to be competitive" in this game is funny. There is no grind, and if you have been playing pre-50 pvp exclusively, your should have no problem being competitive at 50.

As a 100% PVP player, first toon, assuming you got ur matrix cube, and chose Cybertech:

Pre-50:

Fill your caps

Buy medpaks with excess comms(you will thank me later) and buy/craft lvl 50 augments/augment kits until you hit 50.

At 50:

TAKE THE CREDITS, NOT THE REC GEAR!!!!(not sure if they took the money option out)

Buy WH MH/OH(4000RWZ COMS)

Buy two BM impants (1250WZ COMS)

Buy one BM feet or hands(875WZ COMS)

Buy one BM relic(550WZ COMS)

Fill-in Recruit pieces on the rest (6 pieces)

Augment everything

Acquire Hyper-Battle/Exotech stims

Instantly competitive, without playing a single level 50 WZ, and *possibly 100k+ in your pocket*

@50 (stack might augs)

http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/character/5cdfd847-dd51-4821-9911-4cb2e5e088ec

17k HP+

1000EXP+(20%/16%/11%)

790 bonus damage

35%/41%(spec) crit

71%/100%(spec) surge

"BiS"or pretty close to being BiS(stack POW augs)

http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/character/644f8d14-9e47-45dd-aa75-b0bb3225670d

19k+ HP(+10%)

1206 EXP[23%/19%13%](+3%)

1000 bonus damage(+21%)

31%/38%(spec) crit

75%/105%(spec) surge

So maybe you are getting around 30% more output, but in PvP, 30% don't mean much when you compare outputs of the same AC/Spec.

Post-50 (You will have 500 RWZ and 75 WZ left over)

(Worst Case)Play in 9 losses(2.25hrs of WZ play..max, average 80 comms per match, +daily)

Buy one BM feet/hand, not purchased above(875WZ COMS)

Run DA/FP between WZ to get RAK/BH ear(slightly below BM/WH respectively).

Continue to replace Recruit pieces with BM pieces.

People who QQ about the (non-existant) gear gap are unprepared, which goes against everything it means to actually be a competitive player. The real "gap" is between the classes and between the keyboard in level 50 PVP...

So pass this message to all the crybabies that didn't prep for level 50. It still boils down to them not doing something. It's their own fault, not the game/design/other players.

Or maybe all of you softie gamers can harden up a bit, and grind up your gear the same way the rest of us did.

or that.

It kills me to see these "advocates", when I had to go through an a much worst "grind"....

RNG BM bag garbage...

Going weeks without getting BM gear token,

or

Getting only one bag at a time cause it was a "unique" item, and being forced to choose Champ bags when I already had 100% Champ....

I played FFXII for 35 game hours, just to get one bleeping end-game sword. That's a grind people...

http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Tournesol

An equivalent amount of WZ time will get you close to BiS if you actually preped.

Seriously, back when the game was young, I opted the PvE leveling route. I figured I'd be doing all PvP when I hit 50 and all. Didn't want to burn out on 5 huttball matches a night.

when I started PvPing at 50, I had exactly 0 expertise. Worked my way up to 600 before the new BM/War Hero sets came out. Since then, I've sowly but surely, as a 15 hour a week gamer, worked my way up to full war hero over the course of a couple months (obviously, I took large breaks from the game here and there).

My point is, if my old a** can do it, anyone can.

Seriously, back when the game was young, I opted the PvE leveling route. I figured I'd be doing all PvP when I hit 50 and all. Didn't want to burn out on 5 huttball matches a night.

 

when I started PvPing at 50, I had exactly 0 expertise. Worked my way up to 600 before the new BM/War Hero sets came out. Since then, I've sowly but surely, as a 15 hour a week gamer, worked my way up to full war hero over the course of a couple months (obviously, I took large breaks from the game here and there).

 

My point is, if my old a** can do it, anyone can.

Same here... about 20hr/week...

And while I was asking questions about why I was getting train stomped I got the some of the best pieces of advice on this forum:

1. NOTHING ever replaces MAIN stat in an MMO.

2. Don't play 50 PvP until you get mostly LVL 49/50 epics and RAK pieces. You'll be better at 0EXP than Cents and competitive or better than Champs.

3. You might just suck, L2P Sage better (when I was complaining about Sage being subpar).

4. Teamwork, knowing your limitations, and having situational awareness trumps gear 100% of the time.

All of those can still be adapted to the current situation as I hav shown in the previous post...

I don't see what's so wrong about what the OP is proposing. After all, you're able to "buy ahead" for your 40 PvP gear while you're levelling sub-40, no? On my latest 'toon, prior to hitting 40, I'd already grinded my own PvP set plus two more for my healing & fave dps companion. Allowing players to use their WZ comms to start buying BM gear in the sub-50 bracket will only incent more PvP participation earlier in the levelling process.

It's true that it doesn't take all that long to grind out a set of BM gear, and if you plan you can pick up the mainhand weapon right away, but it's still a trial by fire (and an eye-opener for some PvP "stars"). And getting opportunistically focussed after each respawn as soon as the opposite faction realizes you only have 14k hp can be a bit frustrating after a while. You just have to have a sense of humour about it. But the OP's idea isn't a bad one imo.

My suggestion was made in hopes of renewing interests in Warzones at lvl 50. Queue times as it stands are too long. Wouldn't you rather spend 5 minutes in a queue? New players coming into this game will get slaughtered by the level 50s with higher tiered gear. Some of them will be die hard pvp'ers and keep queuing up. Whereas others wont be, and instead of queuing up for a warzone they will do Pve dailies, till they get bored and eventually cancel their subscription or uninstall the game. We, as a gaming community in SWTOR, should be trying to find ways to promote and/or encourage players to play warzones at level 50. Being crushed repeatedly for a week or more at lvl 50 just to get a set of gear... I did that back when the game came out. But if you expect me to do that again with 15-30 minute queue times. LOL thank you, but NO. And can you expect a new player/50 to want to do that too, just because it's what you had to do?

This way or My suggestion, has it so players will be more active in pre-50 warzones to acquire commendations for their BM set that they can use upon hitting lvl 50. Then HOPEFULLY, with the skills they acquired in pre-50 warzones, and a set of decent pvp gear. They will queue up for warzones and it will be.... FUN. Because that's why we play games right? To have FUN? I mean I don't pay $15 a month to have my butt handed to me daily wearing recruit gear, by some WH or EWH geared player <~~~~ That's not my definition of FUN. NOT EVEN CLOSE. Maybe for the WH/EWH geared player it's fun. But the idea is to encourage new players and new level 50s to ENJOY PVP in this game.

but I only spend 5 minutes in a queue now?

Maybe you are on Jung Ma, that server's prob the most dead of the bunch. Come join Prop5.

4. Teamwork, knowing your limitations, and having situational awareness trumps gear 100% of the time.

^ Needs to be engraved on large shiny plaques in all WZ holding areas.

I agree with Touvell. Let players buy their War Hero(since BM is being removed) pieces as they level up to 50 so they can have a full set ready to go at 50. I see nothing wrong with this. It helps even out the playing field and you'll have more competitive matches and fewer people qq'ing because they're getting stomped. Sure, there is still the element of teamwork and if you don't have that you're still gonna get stomped but I think it will help.

And to all those posters who say they spent weeks/months grinding out their battlemaster or war hero gear and everyone else should do it too? How wouldn't they be if they're allowed to buy pieces before level 50? They're still having to grind warzones and save up the coms to buy the pieces. Its no different than we did.....its just they could do it while they're leveling to 50. Still the same grind though. Also, grinding out pvp gear doesn't equate to being a skilled pvp'er. Anyone...and I mean anyone can grind out gear. You don't have to be good at pvp to do it. Last time I checked skill was about knowing how to play your class and knowing your opponent, not what gear you were wearing.

I agree with Touvell. Let players buy their War Hero(since BM is being removed) pieces as they level up to 50 so they can have a full set ready to go at 50. I see nothing wrong with this. It helps even out the playing field and you'll have more competitive matches .

Problem:

In competitve matches there is rarely "even" playing fields... It's an illusion... And gear fills that illusion in this community....

There is a difference between "competitive" and "close" match.

Turning off XP and ganking in lowbie PVP is just like Ranked War Hero teams rolling PUGS...the fix for these things is not to turn off XP or alter the gear. The answer is to use Valor ranking for WZs. Make a few more tiers of WZs based on valor rank. If you que for lower ranked WZs you get a loss in Valor which would eventually make you lose the ability to equip certain levels of gear.

To me this is really the only answer to this mess. If you add more gear or tweak more gear you are just adding to the crap pile we have atm. If you continuously allow ranked teams to play down (usually because there aren't enough ranked teams to play) then you will keep seeing people leave and not ride it out. This is why people like the lowbie pvp, because in reality the Bolster is fairly effective in making it not a total wipeout in a pug group...which lets face it...most people are PUGGING in these wzs, so make PUGs more enjoyable by leveling the playing field a bit more or giving negative results to the people that like to beat people with lesser gear.

If you argue that "player X on my team has less valor so I can't play with him now" well, its the same argument for most players/subs in this game when they are faced with fighting for gear against people that have nearly twice the endurance, boosted damage/defense and a organized team to boot.

Valor was established as a marker for pvp. USE IT.