Time to merge the US servers... again. Primetime window getting smaller and smaller.

Yes, and no. Some of the classes were devastated by the PvP nerfs, while others weren't, or weren't so much, as it were. Perception is reality, when you can't take a class through a solo mission, because 2/3 of your skills won't work, or are worthless against a mob, it's not a L2P issue, it's a "but mah PvP" issue. I've got a few decades of experience in MMOs too, and I've seen this "X is OP and needs to be nerfed, but my class is UP and needs buffed", despite others telling said player that the classes are fine. You get enough wine, you'll get some cheese, eventually. The only MMO that I've played to date that completely shut the PvP crowd down was DDO, where PvP wasn't even on the radar as a focus, and the devs told 'em "this is all it's going to be, if you're looking for a PvP focus, you'll have to look elsewhere". They can't do that here, as they tried to make it relevant, but they failed, on so many levels, to do so. Conquest was where they could have pulled it off, and nope, they dropped the ball.

Ok, not sure what this last paragraph has to do with anything I wrote. I'm not looking for a game to be built around me, or my playstyle. I commented on how initially my playstyle, or at least part of it, was initially supported, but then nerfed due to PvP. When you can play a class to 70, running a dps comp on a dps toon for the majority, and then, out of the blue, you can't finish a solo mission, or a mission where you're required to use low influence comps, it's not a L2P issue, at least, not for you. Regardless of how some will rail against this, the perception remains, and as I said earlier, perception is reality. It was nerfed because enough PvPers claimed it was OP, and BW listened, and nerfed 'em, trying to get these players to stick around. It cost them my sub, and the current iteration of the game isn't going to be enough to keep me wanting to play, after I spent an hour with Heskel. I got through it, but the frustration of spending an hour doing something that, on the mirror took me one try, so about 5 minutes, even with telling Valk to stick it, means that I'm not happy with the design choices made, and won't be sticking around.

This has to be addressed before people start screaming again for merges. If people can't play the toons they want to play in a manner that is efficient, and entertaining, they won't stick around.

The problems with nerfing and buffing between pvp and pve have mostly been because Bioware uses the wrong methodology to balance and “don’t listen” to what the actual problems are.

They don’t look at the “whole picture” together. They split DCD, survivability and then balance around damage.
This means they nerf the wrong stuff and buff the wrong stuff.

Ie: Mercs were too strong in pvp, but it was not the dps that was the problem, it was survivability and DCDs. We told the Devs over and over and over and over... what the problem was. Except instead of nerfing the DCDs, they nerfed the damage, which didn’t need it and was fine as it was, no one was complaining about that.
Then they also left the DCDs as they were, so the problem wasn’t fixed at all and the QQ about them being OP continues to this day. The OP status was never about the damage and Bioware were / are clueless.

That dps nerf really affected the pve guys and it wasn’t needed. We all told them, pvers and pvpers alike.
But they refused to listen.
All they do is follow some dps combat metric against training dummies who don’t hit back. The whole method is flawed.

They did the same to my beloved dps Sorc 2.5 years ago and it’s never recovered and its now one of the worst performing classes in pvp. Sure they can be hard to kill, but if you can’t kill anything, what’s the point. You may as well play a healer.

Nerfing isn’t the pvp communities fault for complaining something is too OP in pvp. It’s Biowares fault for not understanding the actual problem or bothering to listen to the pvp community explaining “in detail” what the problem is and how to fix it. Sadly, pve guys sometimes get shafted because Bioware refuse to try and understand the actual issue. But, it goes both ways, pvpers have been affected in the past in similar ways.

Bioware need to change their methodology on how they balance and not just use dps like a holy grail.

merge them.

I'm not going to spend the CC to move 74 characters on 1 account, 23 on the wife's account, and 26 on the kid's account. even if the transfer was 90 CC. I wouldn't spend the time to move that many characters on a dying MMO with sub-par performance in PvP and 8-man operations.

waiting for the new SW MMO to release.

What if the transfers were free?

You know, when I started playing a healer spec'd sorc, I could save a dps with a bubble. Some damage mitigation, and a smallish HOT, Heal Over Time. I wonder what metric they looked at to see that that was OP? Maybe there's a secret mob forum, where they all complain about not being able to kill players? My Assassin/Shadow tanks used to use Phase Walk to protect, and improve the performance of healers, again, must be a mob forum we don't know about? Nope, it was the PvP forums. Most of this comes back to "How dare they use class skills to win", sort of like the nerf, ages back, to Smash, where they used a fully PvP geared Mara against a group of naked players to show how "OP" it was.

But this is way off topic, other than looking at why a population might be dwindling, I know for a fact that after wave 9000 of PvE nerfs, I canceled my sub and left, I wonder if I was the only one? I also have to wonder if my threshold was higher than other people's thresholds. I asked back then, when I left, if they really thought there were enough PvPcentric players to keep the lights on, and based on the OP, and the queue woes, that there must not be enough players game wide, or they wouldn't be looking to merge, yet again.

Fleet counts are NOT that useful anymore. More people stay in their strongholds or flagship

/who fleet

is only going to bring back the first 100 results

I’ve still been tracking numbers when I play by using the 1-10, 11-20...... 61-69, 70+... count system

It goes up and down, but Tuesday (my time) is by far the worst day of the week at this time.
9:30pm AEST
12:30pm GMT
7:30am EST
4:30am PST

Star Forge
Imp = 457
Rep = 540
Total on the server = 997

The time zone reflects the low numbers. But I have to say, this is the worst I’ve seen so far.

Well there's your problem. So far all you've posted are numbers for early AM US, when MMO activity is usually the lowest (AM I mean, not US specifically) and this game is primarily US and EU based. And when you did check in prime time you said:
But you have no problem releasing early AM numbers (the antithesis of prime time for both Star Forge and Satele Shan).

Here's a thought. Since you like AM times so much why don't you check the numbers at 07:30 AEST, which would be 17:30 EDT, and give us those numbers?

ETA: And before you ask why don't I do it myself, because I already did over here.

You’re looking too hard for a conspiracy where there isn’t one. I didnt release the primetime ones as they would have caused a lot of arguing over the results not being what most would expect.

I think we all realise that the times I posted would be low. I even put a disclaimer to say as much. You didn’t need to point out the obvious when it was already there

You are trying to make more of my post then it needs to.

FYI, saying 100+ in your own count when there are more than 100, isn’t very accurate. http://www.swtor.com/community/showp...&postcount=192
When I find there is 100+ of a class, I take the time to go in and search by instance.
For all you know 100+ means 101 or it could mean 401.

So instead of attacking me, get your own house in order first. People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones

And yet you post numbers that slant toward your agenda. Yet base your argument for not doing it as "people would argue". That in itself is a joke & actually shows it's pointless to try & reason with you.
We all know this game isn't what it was when we joined it. But to try & claim the game is "dead" enough to force merges for one server is a joke & I will fight that tooth & nail until BW forces it.
Both servers have plenty of stuff do to in Primetime.
Heck last night I ran lockouts on both servers in prime time.


Either way, you're arguing semantics in that quote. 100+ is that. WE don't need to know exact numbers as what we know doesn't matter. BW knowing is what matters. And when the numbers that we can see are 100+, we are doing just fine with how the game is right now.
Spending that much time of your play time to calculate ever moving numbers as people log in & out, is a pointless waste of time.

Attack? No it was a counter argument towards you. Attacks mean s/he was personally "throwing things" at you/your character.
Posting contradicting data does not conclude an attack on you.