I know there are already one million threads on this issue (or feature, if you're a biowarebot) but I have to get this off my chest. Bioware, your pvp system is HORRIBLE. I've spent 3 hours this morning (trying to cap my comms to stand a chance for 1.6) losing. Not just losing, but being literally roflstomped and then forced to sit it out just for the points (I get more for defense medals than I do head-butting my way through concrete) - which gives me plenty of time to sit there and wonder why I'm playing this game AND paying for it.

Question 1: Why don't you just join a pre-made?

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I play this game casually, I like to jump on play for an hour or two and then carry on with my life. I've asked to join pvp guilds, but ones who accept casual players are VERY hard to find and usually don't just let anyone join, they need to make sure you're good. I'm fully aware that unless I get involved in pvp this way then I'm sacrificing things like rated warzones and the best rewards (this game doesn't have many yet, though) but I'm happy to just stick to normal pvp - I want this to be MY choice.

Question 2: Do you think ALL pre-mades like going against PUGs?

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Absolutely not, in fact I feel pretty sorry for some of you. If you sat in the rated queues you'll probably get a match every couple of hours so I don't blame you doing unranked - but do you REALLY have to join every unranked with a group of 4, can't you just random it like everyone else for a bit of fun? I'm sure your pvp skills aren't exactly getting honed at the moment.

Question 3: Should we really care about casual players? Isn't that what pve is for?

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You should absolutely care about casual players, our £8.99/month is just as good as yours and unless you're willing to foot the bill for all the casuals who leave then our voice is just as important as yours.

Question 4: Isn't this game awesome and people want to play?

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Not really, it definitely has its redeeming qualities for me otherwise I wouldn't be playing but it's technically flawed. Look I'm all for buying into your own brand but sitting there with your fingers in your ears regurgitating the mantra of "everything's fine, people want to play, everything's fine people want to play" isn't a realistic end game. Your game is in trouble, I can tell by the (small) number of people playing on the "heavy" server you people need to pull your finger out.

Look, at the moment your game feels like it's in debt recovery mode. The cartel shop looks like a money sink so you can re-balance your shareholders' books, then when that's done (or as close as they're willing to accept) you'll look at re-investing resources back into your game, or shut it down. Until then you're just going to leak already developed content (stuff beta no doubt) and back slowly away from the time bomb.

To make this a little bit constructive, here's what you can do to immediately improve the game:

1. Make it a 4-man group requirement for ranked instead of 8 - two 4 man pre-made groups against two 4 man pre-made groups, there're already quite a lot of these roaming around in unranked now, so the queues will be better.

2. Make the pvp weekly a repeatable, not just a weekly which gives a better incentive of winning.

3. Put a limit on group size for unrated to two people, maybe even go so far as to share the rewards if you enter as a two-man, this will mix it up a lot more and stop us casuals.

I hope you people at Bioware / EA are listening to us, with Elder Scrolls: Online coming next year and Titan round the corner you really haven't got the luxury of time if you do have any intentions of making this game a long-term thing. I do admit I've rage-quitted my subscription a few times but I've never missed a month since release because I actually believe this game could be something brilliant, if only you'd listen to the people who actually play the game.

Someone got served up on fresh toast and wants to let all of us know about it.

Tears, lovely tears.

i always go pug and i roflstomp premades all the time, why, bacause i PRACTISE! I try and get better if you combined my total amount of warzones played it would equal (just an estimate across all my characters) almost 2500. You have to look back after each warzone and look at how to improve. Im not trying to get harsh but if you communicate with your group you can beat any premade!

What do you do when you're one of the few who are trying to communicate but nobody else is? When you look at the score at the end and it's you and one / two others who have top damage, top medals, top healing, top defense whatever - basically you were the best the team had and you still lost 0 / 6 or 0 / 100% or whatever?

I agree with skill, you never stop learning any pvp system and you can always improve. What I'm saying is that it's very rare to get a team who actually co-operate, instead you're left with people who run around the middle of the map dpsing. I'm pretty sure the answer is "well, get a pre-made team then" but this isn't a realistic option for everyone.

i always go pug and i roflstomp premades all the time, why, bacause i PRACTISE! I try and get better if you combined my total amount of warzones played it would equal (just an estimate across all my characters) almost 2500. You have to look back after each warzone and look at how to improve. Im not trying to get harsh but if you communicate with your group you can beat any premade!

Lol @ your nonsense

Question 1: Why don't you just join a pre-made?

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I play this game casually, I like to jump on play for an hour or two and then carry on with my life. I've asked to join pvp guilds, but ones who accept casual players are VERY hard to find and usually don't just let anyone join, they need to make sure you're good. I'm fully aware that unless I get involved in pvp this way then I'm sacrificing things like rated warzones and the best rewards (this game doesn't have many yet, though) but I'm happy to just stick to normal pvp - I want this to be MY choice.

1) No one is stopping you from solo queueing. You can play without a premade team in this game. But expecting to have the same effectiveness as a solo player that a premade team does in an MMO, is pretty silly, as is asking the devs to gimp the people who actually get organized and play together.

2) You have some serious misconceptions about most guild premades. Do the few elite guilds have hardcore pvpers who play nonstop? Sure. But there are plenty of casual guilds, like mine, who do pretty decent four man groups with a very good win/loss ratio, who aren't made up of "elite" players, and can give even some of the top server teams a run for their money. I don't buy that these guilds are difficult to find. If I can find excellent part time pvpers on my freaking roleplay server, you shouldn't have a problem finding them on yours. You just have to make the effort of seeking them out. So stop whining about the top two or three pvp guilds on your server who won't take a player like you, and start looking for a good casual guild with pvpers who will.

1) No one is stopping you from solo queueing. You can play without a premade team in this game. But expecting to have the same effectiveness as a solo player that a premade team does in an MMO, is pretty silly, as is asking the devs to gimp the people who actually get organized and play together.

I'm absolutely not against pre-made groups, or co-operation. It's an MMO, co-operation is one of the main points of the game. I'm also not expecting to have anywhere near the same effectiveness solo as I would in a team. What I want is to have a pvp bracket I can jump in and play without having to organise a group first (what we have now is intended for this, but is monopolized by the few). This is an ADDITION, I'm not asking for anything to be taken away from people who organise themselves, but when you're stuck with terrible PUGs and you've been losing against the same pre-made of 4 all morning, you kind of want a break and to enjoy the time you're spending - everyone does, that's the point of playing a game.

If anyone wants a good, casual PVP player on the progenitor then let me know, because I can't find any in game.

Well lemme respond to those questions/statements first:

1. One to two hours is plenty of time to find some friends, and as the posters before me noted, it is nonsense that there aren't qany good "casual" pvp guilds on your server, or that PvP guilds won't let you in unless you aren't "casual."

Having listened in or even been part of "Top PvP" guild discussions for allowing a player to join almost the top reason for a denial is the player's skills. Did they call incs? Did they leave the node to chase enemies? Did they break someone's CC repeatedly for no reason? Etc...

The second top reason is almost always their attitude. I know of atleast one guild recently that denied a player because several of us noted he always leaves earlier if his team starts losing. Another player got denied for constantly trash talking in /say.

2. No response, other than joining a random solo when you have atleast 3 players is just stupid.

3. The biggest problem I have here is casual players getting lumped into one category. Most often then not I'm considered casual. I work, most weeks I can player 2, maybe 3 hours a day. I have a million alts (including many 50's) that I opted to play over my "main." I barely worry about optimizing, etc... Heck, I skipped my pvp daily for the last 3 days on my "main."

Please stop lumping casuals with "lazy casuals." Some of us/them understand that our choices are what is limiting the chances to win, and don't ***** about better players.

4. You have no actual data to determine ToR's status, or if/why people are leaving. This is just hearsay.

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Now for a few points of my own:

I agree pvp can be a bit lackluster especially with faction imbalance and for solo queue'rs. Luckily 1.6 is brining an end to the gear gap (despite slapping many players in the face with it) and BW's live stream Q&A promised better matchmaking is coming. Can we please stop complaining about the wrong thing, when Bioware is fixing the right things?

Rofl @ "I hope you people at Bioware / EA are listening to us, with Elder Scrolls: Online coming next year and Titan round the corner"

It's not gw2 and pandaria anymore? Have those gone out of vogue?

There's always something that's "comming next and it will kill the game" isn't? I meant this is actually a thing on the Interwebs.. xD sorry i'm new to this stuff.

I agree with the OP on the view that this game could really be great. Right now even matches are very rare and moreso than in other mmos I have played. I either have sure wins or sure losses most of the time (except when ranked actually pops and a real team is there).

We need more even matches for both casuals and decent hardcores. We need this fast.

Huttball is awesome, and having all 8 classes I really like the class design for pvp (for the most part). With some incentive for world pvp and with some kind of matchmaking system (or split q with x server) then instanced pvp could be greatly improved.

I also think 4man ranked is a good idea. What they could do even is just make it so that if you q up as a 4man then you get to see other 4mans q'd up (gear/class comp) and then you could talk to them and maybe make an 8man so that you could have some choice in your 8man if you want it. Without x server they need to do something with ranked.

As a player who had no experience in MMOs before swtor, I was able to rapidly build up a friends list of people that wanted to group with me long before I joined a guild. Then my guild left for Gw2 and I did the same all over again. I refuse to believe that if you /2 lfg pvp you will not find a few other lonely players to join and have fun learning each other's playstyles. You still might not win, but it should be more fun. If losing frustrates you that much, you are not really casual imo

The whole whining about premades thing is dumb. There are nearly as many bad premades as good premades out there. I q'ed with a friend the other night, each of us did more individual dmg than the entire four man premade. Needless to say we lost.

4 man warzone? Really what map are you going to do? Voidstar with a 4 man guarding sounds boring as hell most of the maps are to big to make that work I mean think for moment. As for the premades vs solo for crying out loud post in the other thread we have like 3 or 4 of these you are not all special snowflakes you can post your gripes/suggestion over there the same people that come on this one will come on that one and tell you the same things.

For myself if I pug and it seems like it is a rough patch I quit and walk away before I get angry. Ironically I do the same thing when I am with a casual premade that is losing, go figure.

I know there are already one million threads on this issue (or feature, if you're a biowarebot) but I have to get this off my chest. Bioware, your pvp system is HORRIBLE. I've spent 3 hours this morning (trying to cap my comms to stand a chance for 1.6) losing. Not just losing, but being literally roflstomped and then forced to sit it out just for the points (I get more for defense medals than I do head-butting my way through concrete) - which gives me plenty of time to sit there and wonder why I'm playing this game AND paying for it.

 

Question 1: Why don't you just join a pre-made?

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I play this game casually, I like to jump on play for an hour or two and then carry on with my life. I've asked to join pvp guilds, but ones who accept casual players are VERY hard to find and usually don't just let anyone join, they need to make sure you're good. I'm fully aware that unless I get involved in pvp this way then I'm sacrificing things like rated warzones and the best rewards (this game doesn't have many yet, though) but I'm happy to just stick to normal pvp - I want this to be MY choice.

 

Question 2: Do you think ALL pre-mades like going against PUGs?

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Absolutely not, in fact I feel pretty sorry for some of you. If you sat in the rated queues you'll probably get a match every couple of hours so I don't blame you doing unranked - but do you REALLY have to join every unranked with a group of 4, can't you just random it like everyone else for a bit of fun? I'm sure your pvp skills aren't exactly getting honed at the moment.

 

Question 3: Should we really care about casual players? Isn't that what pve is for?

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You should absolutely care about casual players, our £8.99/month is just as good as yours and unless you're willing to foot the bill for all the casuals who leave then our voice is just as important as yours.

 

Question 4: Isn't this game awesome and people want to play?

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Not really, it definitely has its redeeming qualities for me otherwise I wouldn't be playing but it's technically flawed. Look I'm all for buying into your own brand but sitting there with your fingers in your ears regurgitating the mantra of "everything's fine, people want to play, everything's fine people want to play" isn't a realistic end game. Your game is in trouble, I can tell by the (small) number of people playing on the "heavy" server you people need to pull your finger out.

 

Look, at the moment your game feels like it's in debt recovery mode. The cartel shop looks like a money sink so you can re-balance your shareholders' books, then when that's done (or as close as they're willing to accept) you'll look at re-investing resources back into your game, or shut it down. Until then you're just going to leak already developed content (stuff beta no doubt) and back slowly away from the time bomb.

 

To make this a little bit constructive, here's what you can do to immediately improve the game:

 

1. Make it a 4-man group requirement for ranked instead of 8 - two 4 man pre-made groups against two 4 man pre-made groups, there're already quite a lot of these roaming around in unranked now, so the queues will be better.

2. Make the pvp weekly a repeatable, not just a weekly which gives a better incentive of winning.

3. Put a limit on group size for unrated to two people, maybe even go so far as to share the rewards if you enter as a two-man, this will mix it up a lot more and stop us casuals.

 

I hope you people at Bioware / EA are listening to us, with Elder Scrolls: Online coming next year and Titan round the corner you really haven't got the luxury of time if you do have any intentions of making this game a long-term thing. I do admit I've rage-quitted my subscription a few times but I've never missed a month since release because I actually believe this game could be something brilliant, if only you'd listen to the people who actually play the game.

I agree with your post however you left out one more thing which would make pvp more sub friendly such as a cross server que. this whole premade complaint has been going on about 1 month after release. BW really couldnt care less because i really doubt the devs that are responsible for pvp even play the game. I love the pvp of this game but patch 1.4 has made pvping horrific to say the least. I will give this game 1 more year or so and if it does not improve ill likely take my money and play another game. to be honest the only reason ive stuck it out this far is because this is a star wars game and i like the KOTOR lore.

i always go pug and i roflstomp premades all the time, why, bacause i PRACTISE! I try and get better if you combined my total amount of warzones played it would equal (just an estimate across all my characters) almost 2500. You have to look back after each warzone and look at how to improve. Im not trying to get harsh but if you communicate with your group you can beat any premade!

Then you are lucky. Most of the people just ignore the chat.

Example: "All go right, stealthers left!"

Expectation: Non-stealthy classes will go right, stealthers/some of the stealthers will go left.

Reality: Two warriors are going right, two warriors are going left where one will 100% break the cc.

dem premades

Question 1: Why don't you just join a pre-made?

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I play this game casually, I like to jump on play for an hour or two and then carry on with my life. I've asked to join pvp guilds, but ones who accept casual players are VERY hard to find and usually don't just let anyone join, they need to make sure you're good. I'm fully aware that unless I get involved in pvp this way then I'm sacrificing things like rated warzones and the best rewards (this game doesn't have many yet, though) but I'm happy to just stick to normal pvp - I want this to be MY choice.

Your answer is irrelevent. The question is why don't you just form a pre-made of your own. Are you in a guild at all? Does anyone else in that guild PVP? If the answer to both those questions is yes, you can form a pre-made. I do not consider myself a hardcore PVPer. I PVP casually as something to do when I'm not raiding. My guild is not a dedicated PVP guild, but rather tries to focus on both aspects of the game and while we're decent in both aspects we aren't topping the charts quite yet either. Find people you enjoy PVPing with and play with them. No need for a specifically PVP oriented guild. You still might not ever do ranked, but you can least suffer through the face stompings with a friend, and you might even win a few.

Question 2: Do you think ALL pre-mades like going against PUGs?

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Absolutely not, in fact I feel pretty sorry for some of you. If you sat in the rated queues you'll probably get a match every couple of hours so I don't blame you doing unranked - but do you REALLY have to join every unranked with a group of 4, can't you just random it like everyone else for a bit of fun? I'm sure your pvp skills aren't exactly getting honed at the moment.

I have fun playing with friends I've met ingame. I want to play with them. Heck the only reason I still play this game at all is because I like playing with my guild mates. Just as you want to just log on and play some PVP matches for a few hours, I want to log on and do the same thing with my guild mates. So, no. I'm not going to be solo queuing anytime soon. At least not for a bit of fun. Not my cup of tea I'm afraid. Besides if I'm meeting premades on the other side, I'd rather fight fire with fire.

Question 3: Should we really care about casual players? Isn't that what pve is for?

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You should absolutely care about casual players, our £8.99/month is just as good as yours and unless you're willing to foot the bill for all the casuals who leave then our voice is just as important as yours.

It sure is, but no more important, and if the "hardcore" are going to stick it out for longer than the casuals, then while your 8.99 a month is just as good as mine THIS month, if you are likely to quit anyway next month, then your money isn't worth squat to BW since they'll be losing it anyway.

I also object to the notion that PVE is where you should be caring about casuals. There are hardcore PVEers as well. In PVE there is never any confusion that the goal is to work together, and at the highest level that is not for casuals. Put in the time and effort to get better or stick to story mode. Is that possibly an argument for a "casuals" bracket? Perhaps, but with lower brackets come lower rewards.

Question 4: Isn't this game awesome and people want to play?

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Not really, it definitely has its redeeming qualities for me otherwise I wouldn't be playing but it's technically flawed. Look I'm all for buying into your own brand but sitting there with your fingers in your ears regurgitating the mantra of "everything's fine, people want to play, everything's fine people want to play" isn't a realistic end game. Your game is in trouble, I can tell by the (small) number of people playing on the "heavy" server you people need to pull your finger out.

 

Look, at the moment your game feels like it's in debt recovery mode. The cartel shop looks like a money sink so you can re-balance your shareholders' books, then when that's done (or as close as they're willing to accept) you'll look at re-investing resources back into your game, or shut it down. Until then you're just going to leak already developed content (stuff beta no doubt) and back slowly away from the time bomb.

To make this a little bit constructive, here's what you can do to immediately improve the game:

 

1. Make it a 4-man group requirement for ranked instead of 8 - two 4 man pre-made groups against two 4 man pre-made groups, there're already quite a lot of these roaming around in unranked now, so the queues will be better.

2. Make the pvp weekly a repeatable, not just a weekly which gives a better incentive of winning.

3. Put a limit on group size for unrated to two people, maybe even go so far as to share the rewards if you enter as a two-man, this will mix it up a lot more and stop us casuals.

 

I hope you people at Bioware / EA are listening to us, with Elder Scrolls: Online coming next year and Titan round the corner you really haven't got the luxury of time if you do have any intentions of making this game a long-term thing. I do admit I've rage-quitted my subscription a few times but I've never missed a month since release because I actually believe this game could be something brilliant, if only you'd listen to the people who actually play the game.

Listening to people who play the game is iffy. Some people are really smart, have great ideas, and should be listened to. Some people are dumb. Some people have brilliant ideas and are also dumb when it comes to other issues. Hard to separate the groups really, especially when some people seem to be both. Anyway, regarding your suggestions:

1) 4-8 Man ranked warzones seems like a good idea. Maybe with some sort of composition requirement, but this definitely has merit. I'd go so far as to say allow people to form groups of any size and throw them in the ranked queue. That way people with 6 people on could still queue. Have the matchmaking take into account how many different groups are being represented on a given team. Definite possibilities here.

2) Not sure what you mean here. Not entirely sure anyway. Still has potential though. More quests always a good thing. Gives people something to work towards.

3) I kinda disagree with this. As I said, I wanna play with my friends. A possibility if suggestion 1 gets implemented though I suppose.

Overall, a very nice and I think constructive post OP.

why does the word "casual" mean you dont/cant group for PvP?

by definition, i am a "casual". i can play a couple hours at best when i can, and i cant play every day.

that doesnt stop me from being in a guild, or from grouping up when i am able to log in.

why does the word "casual" mean you dont/cant group for PvP?

 

by definition, i am a "casual". i can play a couple hours at best when i can, and i cant play every day.

 

that doesnt stop me from being in a guild, or from grouping up when i am able to log in.

I am a casual pvper, I am in a guild too and i like the peeps that i game with. But casual to me means i just want to que up when i feel like it what ever time i feel like with out having to form a group. casual gamers make up the vast majority of players and BW is basically holding the door open for us to leave this game by allowing the pvp guilds to destroy us every match.

BW if you havent guessed this by now i will fill you in, a unhappy customer / a discouraged customer will not give you money for something they dislike. getting steamrolled most of the day does not add to happyness, it does not lead a F2Per to want to sub, no subs = no revenue. I wasnt sure if you knew this so i felt it would be a prudent course of action to fill in those missing details for you.

To make this a little bit constructive, here's what you can do to immediately improve the game:

 

1. Make it a 4-man group requirement for ranked instead of 8 - two 4 man pre-made groups against two 4 man pre-made groups, there're already quite a lot of these roaming around in unranked now, so the queues will be better.

I have been trying to understand this option... as it is brought up all the time. Do the people who support this option play ranked? Because ranked is not a place where I wanna grab another 4 man premade. I want all 8 people on our team to have cohesion. Without it ranked fails... I also know people would not want to lose rating(I know it means almost nothing, but honestly what can we scale anything by if not rating) because they were grouped with a crappy 4 man hoping to get carried through easy comms. Ranked is not a place to screw around. Ranked is not a place to mix and match premades. Ranked is for 8 man teams made to work together, and they succeed because of the cohesion.