Long queues at least on Shadowlands and the same faces in most WZs.

That's not what I see on Bastion.

I think bolster is a fantastic idea. I should never have to feel inadequate because that other guy has spent weeks perfecting his gear, while I'm wearing greens I found on Nar Shada.

Come to think of it, they should just remove stats completely. It hurts my feelings that some other guy has more HP than me. No fair. sad panda.

We should remove levels too. Just because that guy has been playing longer, he gets more skills? It breaks my little heart. Remove leveling.

We should all have the same abilities too. It's not fair that some abilities hit for more, and some are AoE. It's cheap. Everyone should have the same moves.

Different weapon types? How is that fair?! That sniper can shoot me from 35m but I have to get within 10m to shoot back? *wimper face* Everyone has the same weapons. Guns I think.

Camera views are a factor. Some players have their camera zoomed all the way out, so they have a wider field of vision. That's clearly an exploit. I think they should bring the camera in to a set view. First person would be ideal. That way all players have the same field of vision.

Lets get rid of stupid warzone objectives too. Those hurt my brain. Deathmatch plz.

I guess what I'm saying is... I really want a game where I don't have to think. At all. No stupid leveling up, or playing dress-up doll with gear, or a bunch of confusing skills, or stats that make me do math. I hate math. I just want to jump in and shoot people with guns.

Also- add killstreaks. And maybe a voice that goes "H-H-Headshot" all awesome when I shoot someone in the face.

If they can do all these things, I believe PVP will be fixed.

Long queues at least on Shadowlands and the same faces in most WZs.

The Harbinger as well, long queues in lowbie, super lowbie, and 55. Best bracket is 30-54 though, maybe 10min wait with some new faces each time.

55 though? I've had 30min waits this last week and when a pop does come, usually double premade vs pugs....then the exact same double premade vs pugs again, 3-5 times in a row (with the same map 2-3 times in a row), then 1 person stops queuing on the pug side or the premade side, then it goes back to a 30min wait.

Bioware, your design decisions for 2.0 have been breathtaking.

PVP queues on Jedi Covenant can take more than 15 minutes.

But hey, at least casuals or pve'rs who only do pvp daily can enjoy WZs now. Doesn't matters pvp'ers need to wait in long queues as long as others are having fun.

BW, I have another issue to bring to your attention. The Devs posted that mixing item modifications with and without Expertise in the same piece of gear will gimp you (to summarize) because of the way the bolster system is designed to recognize gear. That's true (tested) and understood. What you haven't mentioned, however, is that mixing pvp and non-pvp armor will also "gimp" you in the bolster system. For example, having a PvP chestpiece, but PvE pants will cause a significant drop to your bolstered stats vs. having all of one kind or another. And I don't mean a PvE set, I mean any gear pieces that are devoid of Expertise.

Unfortunately, this is usually the manner in which people "gear up"; they upgrade the pieces as they acquire them. But this will put them at a disadvantage. Currently it's better to wear your PvE armor and just keep your PvP armor as you get it, in your inventory until you have the full set and can switch over. This leads to a confusing situation for players since it's something that BW hasn't acknowledged or put in their patch notes, at least anywhere I've looked, (unlike the mixed Expertise in the same item issue). Since the whole idea of bolster is to make it so people don't have to worry about gear so much -- so they can just focus on PvP'ing instead -- this seems a bit much for your average player to have to sort out each time they enter a WZ since the bolster system is so opaque in how it works, i.e. you can't just examine your gear to determine how various pieces will interact until you actually get INTO a WZ.

As for you:

Naw just you have a failure in reading all the post to see that people post here about removing it so yea hope you like being wrong.

So did you go post your views in that thread that called for the removal of bolster, or not? Or did you just continue to contribute more detritus for the devs to sift through here with no positive contribution to the discussion? Insofar as the last part goes, I can say the answer is "yes." If the sole objective of your post(s) is to flame other players for their views -- not to discuss the merits of the issues themselves -- then they are not in any way helpful to anyone, devs or players.

Bolster is here atm, BW just needs to address the bugs and unintended aspects of the new system since it's pretty clear they intend to stay the course at this point.

The Harbinger as well, long queues in lowbie, super lowbie, and 55. Best bracket is 30-54 though, maybe 10min wait with some new faces each time.

 

55 though? I've had 30min waits this last week and when a pop does come, usually double premade vs pugs....then the exact same double premade vs pugs again, 3-5 times in a row (with the same map 2-3 times in a row), then 1 person stops queuing on the pug side or the premade side, then it goes back to a 30min wait. [...]

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If I may ask, when you are experiencing the long queues how many people are you grouped with? The reason I ask is that nowadays I mostly queue solo and the pops are very fast (not more than several minutes between matches -- depending on the time of day, of course). When I'm grouped with another person, they're just about as fast. With 3 of us, the queues got significantly slower and with 4 slower still.

I have been on Harbinger since early access, and that was consistently the case. That having been said, I used to be in a largely PvP oriented guild (95-98% of those players have since left SWTOR). Back then, we would field several groups of 4 (on rare occasions ending up together on the same team and ever so often on opposite sides). What I would notice is that the queues would get progressively longer over the course of a couple hours. I came to discover that the reason was that the other faction would largely stop queuing because of us so the pops would become very spread out (30-45 minutes). BW's adding of more same-faction pvp alleviated that to an extent, but same faction pvp is relatively rare these days (especially since several server mergers) given the amount of players that are queuing from both factions. It still seems possible that the same mechanics may be present when grouped with more than one person, however, so I'm not sure that's because of anything new.

I'm sure you could confirm, but when you are experiencing the long queues how many people are you grouped with? The reason I ask is that nowadays I mostly queue solo and the pops are very fast (not more than several minutes between matches -- depending on the time of day, of course). When I'm grouped with another person, they're just about as fast. With 3 of us, the queues got significantly slower and with 4 slower still.

 

I have been on Harbinger since early access, and that was consistently the case. That having been said, I used to be in a large PvP guild (95-98% of those players have since left SWTOR). Back then, we would field several groups of 4 (on rare occasions ending up together on the same team and ever so often on opposite sides). What I would notice is that the queues would get progressively longer over the course of a couple hours. I came to discover that the reason was that the other faction would largely stop queuing because of us so the pops would become very spread out (30-45 minutes). BW's adding of more same-faction pvp alleviated that to an extent, but same faction pvp is relatively rare these days given the amount of players that are queuing from both factions. It still seems possible that the same mechanics may be present when grouped with more than one person, however, so I'm not sure that's because of anything new.

During the last week, mostly grouped with 2 or solo, both took about 15-30mins. This was both early in the morning (7-10am) and in the early evening (5-8pm) server time. Did 4 a couple of times, same approximate wait time, didn't try 3.

Solo queue used to be the fastest, but doesn't appear to be the case anymore. 2/4 used to be maybe a few more mins longer than solo, like maybe 4-5mins more at max, if that.

I think 3 was has always been sorta glitched though, I had like 45min-1 hour long waits in groups of 3 before. Usually had to relog and have everyone in the group relog, then once we queued, almost instant pop, so definitely some kind of bug. Submitted many tickets over this issue to no avail. I've also found that often if group leader DCs, that can sometimes "break" the queue. Had the same broken queue issue with 8 when queued for ranked as well, relogging seemed to "fix" it though. Frustrating nonetheless, especially if it's not due to lack of players, but yet another bug that isn't being fixed.

But yeah, times have actually been somewhat concerning to me, since my first server before several transfers was relatively dead, Very long queue times, so hoping Harbinger doesn't become that way. And if Harbinger, being one of the most populated, becomes that way, doesn't bode well for the game in general.

As for the same faction matches, I actually get a lot of those. Oddly enough, at times, I'll be on pub and get repeated pub vs pub matches.....then switch to imp and get several imp vs imp matches. Very bizarre, since if there's enough of each faction for several same faction vs same faction matches, you'd think there would be at least One imp vs pub match.

During the last week, mostly grouped with 2 or solo, both took about 15-30mins. This was both early in the morning (7-10am) and in the early evening (5-8pm) server time. Did 4 a couple of times, same approximate wait time, didn't try 3.[...]

That's so odd. I've experienced queues quite fast (usually solo as I mentioned) but sometimes with others. Usually the longest que I get is when I first log in and need to fit in a rotation. After that though, it's pretty quick. Server time is based on your own time zone from what I understand and I'm west coast (PDT). Dunno if that changes anything for you. Again, Harbinger has typically been quite robust for getting PvP, especially when the Aussies were here (all times were prime time, hehe).

I do remember the group glitches, though, but again I agree with you that it doesn't appear to be a lack of players issue atm, but I don't know how the PvP "groupfinder" (equivalent) creates matches and therefore may favor pugs to groups in its assembly vs. first come, first served. I can't even guess about that. BW needs to look into it on their end if there are still remaining bugs or prioritization issues.

If I may ask, when you are experiencing the long queues how many people are you grouped with? The reason I ask is that nowadays I mostly queue solo and the pops are very fast (not more than several minutes between matches -- depending on the time of day, of course). When I'm grouped with another person, they're just about as fast. With 3 of us, the queues got significantly slower and with 4 slower still.

It is worth noting at this point that there is/was a bug where you could queue with a group and the queue would not pop for any of you because *one* of you was bugged somehow and had to relog. Would be nice if it was acknowledged somewhere but the solution is to relog if you find yourself affected by it (which, is hard to do, since you only know its affective you after you've spent some ridiculous amount of time waiting).

It is worth noting at this point that there is/was a bug where you could queue with a group and the queue would not pop for any of you because *one* of you was bugged somehow and had to relog. Would be nice if it was acknowledged somewhere but the solution is to relog if you find yourself affected by it (which, is hard to do, since you only know its affective you after you've spent some ridiculous amount of time waiting).

The bug can apply to any single person, but if any person in your group has that bug the whole group cannot get the queue to pop. I've had the same bug while solo queuing too. It's just that since you expect to wait longer while in a group queue you might not suspect the bug is in place until a long time has passed, while the single queuer usually will know something is wrong.

The group queue takes longer because a group never backfills a game, and of course if there are say 3 spots left in a game that's being formed but you're in a premade of 4 you obviously have to wait for the next game while any smaller group would get in.

BW, I have another issue to bring to your attention. The Devs posted that mixing item modifications with and without Expertise in the same piece of gear will gimp you (to summarize) because of the way the bolster system is designed to recognize gear. That's true (tested) and understood. What you haven't mentioned, however, is that mixing pvp and non-pvp armor will also "gimp" you in the bolster system. For example, having a PvP chestpiece, but PvE pants will cause a significant drop to your bolstered stats vs. having all of one kind or another. And I don't mean a PvE set, I mean any gear pieces that are devoid of Expertise.

Can you say more about this, or link to a bit more detail? I saw the "bolster howto" thread, and it said the same, but didn't indicate how much one loses by mixing whole PvE pieces with whole PvP pieces. You're right --- nobody gears up by building the full set before putting it on...

Idea is good, execution is terribly flawed. There is a difference between given everyone a level playing field to work with and actively lifting up lower level players to stats beyond the general means of higher level players. The system doesn't even reward skill or time investment. If I've put in time to my class and worked hard to make it functional and useful...why does the level 30 Jugg get to come in and smash me to death in a disproportionate time?

What expenditure of effort or time did he put in compared to my own that grants him the ability to hit me the way someone in EWH used to hit someone in Recruit?

Set a baseline and let it be modified somewhat by gear stats. That's all you need. None of this strange, arbitrary formulation. If your goal is to make things equitable for players, just take the damn risk and actually offer equity vis a vis expertise from bolster and let player skill be the dominant factor of your game.

I've defended this game time and time again. I enjoy playing it. I enjoy the PVP. I loved the idea of Illum when Gabe first told me about it face to face. He seemed passionate, excited. And yet, we've seen a slow and very real decline in the quality of the PvP meta game and a seemingly deliberate neglect of this aspect of the game.

It could be so much more but you keep smacking it down. Aim high and have dignity for once, please.

Idea is good, execution is terribly flawed. There is a difference between given everyone a level playing field to work with and actively lifting up lower level players to stats beyond the general means of higher level players. The system doesn't even reward skill or time investment. If I've put in time to my class and worked hard to make it functional and useful...why does the level 30 Jugg get to come in and smash me to death in a disproportionate time?

 

What expenditure of effort or time did he put in compared to my own that grants him the ability to hit me the way someone in EWH used to hit someone in Recruit?

If a lvl 30 sith warrior, who has less talents invested than you and doesn't have his best abilities yet, can own you.... then either that sith warrior is highly skilled or you're bad. Sith warriors start to shine at lvl 40+ just so you know. Oh and reminder: although the WH/EWH set is not longer the top pvp gear, it is still viable in warzones. However, the new top pvp gear is the partisan/conqueror set and this is on what you should work. the EWH/WH was the top pvp gear for how long? 1 year or so? Anyway, have fun farming your new set.

Although the implementation of the bolster wasn't perfect, they are slowly but surely fixing the bugs. Patience, people.

Bolster will no longer affect augments after tomorrow.

http://www.swtor.com/patchnotes/2.1.0/customization

If a lvl 30 sith warrior, who has less talents invested than you and doesn't have his best abilities yet, can own you.... then either that sith warrior is highly skilled or you're bad.

Tired argument. And trite at that. All rounds tonight, I was top scoring in general and DPS (to say nothing of objectives). The point is that the relative benefits of Bolster, even taking into account talent tree and such, seems to need a significant degree of tweaks in order to make the system actively viable. This is to say nothing of the fact that I'm not sitting here going "EVERYONE HIT ME HARD, BWAH! I CAN'T WIN!". It's a combination of Bolster and the effectiveness of Smash as a skill, in this case...even sub your 40+ level baseline. I work harder with my rotation than Captain Keyroll and he gets comparably better results for less effort.

Bare minimum, exercise your brain to come up with a better reply than "You're bad". The numbers don't support the argument. Hell, I'm doing more general damage with items slots left empty. That's sort of....wait...what's the word I'm looking for...stupid.

Side note: if you had any competency in reading comprehension, I didn't say I was playing in WH gear or EWH, you clod. Furthermore, why are you bringing up Partisan gear when I'm talking about middle bracket and therefore am not using it?

No. What I said was I that the comparable effect vis a vis bolster, in terms of the match up was akin to mismatched item tiers and relative effectiveness. Or at the very least that one party was receiving extraordinary benefit relative to the the other that were unearned.

Bolster will no longer affect augments after tomorrow.

 

http://www.swtor.com/patchnotes/2.1.0/customization

lol........lolbolster.

So in essence, because the devs can't figure out how to bolster augment slots properly, or at the minimum figure out how to prevent inflated stats from adding/removing augments from 3 pieces, they're just removing augment bolster entirely. Nice call.

So now Augmented PVE gear is going to have an even bigger advantage over unaugmented conquerer gear.

If augments aren't factored in At All, there's going to widen the gear gap again...which is what bolster was supposed to fix, right?

So how long before you devs realize that there will ALWAYS be a gear gap before you scrap this flagrantly broken system that not even you can fix when exploits arise? 6 months? 8? And by that point, how many of your 500k subscribers will you still have left?

lol........lolbolster.

 

So in essence, because the devs can't figure out how to bolster augment slots properly, or at the minimum figure out how to prevent inflated stats from adding/removing augments from 3 pieces, they're just removing augment bolster entirely. Nice call.

 

So now Augmented PVE gear is going to have an even bigger advantage over unaugmented conquerer gear.

 

If augments aren't factored in At All, there's going to widen the gear gap again...which is what bolster was supposed to fix, right?

 

So how long before you devs realize that there will ALWAYS be a gear gap before you scrap this flagrantly broken system that not even you can fix when exploits arise? 6 months? 8? And by that point, how many of your 500k subscribers will you still have left?

 

so just augment your conqueror gear problem solved

so just augment your conqueror gear problem solved

This is actually really logical response, thank you. Now using that same line of logic, please tell the devs to remove bolster. Then when people cry about getting owned from wearing pve gear, you can use the argument "grind warzone comms for pvp gear, problem solved."

This is actually really logical response, thank you. Now using that same line of logic, please tell the devs to remove bolster. Then when people cry about getting owned from wearing pve gear, you can use the argument "grind warzone comms for pvp gear, problem solved."

how is augmented conqueror affected differently then augmented pve with tomorrows changes?

how is augmented conqueror affected differently then augmented pve with tomorrows changes?

PVE players typically have more credits than PVP players. Thus, PVE players are more likely to have augmented gear than PVP players. Before, if a PVE player (in PVE gear) came into a match with augments and a PVP player (in PVP gear) came into a match without augments/lower level augments, the augments would be "bolstered" to the same approximate level. Without that bolster, coming into PVP with augmented gear is going to give people a distinct advantage over those without augments or lower level augments.

So this will really widen the gear gap more and yes, goes both ways. So if there happens to be augmented pvpers vs pve players without augments, the pvpers with augments are going to have a greater pool of stats now.

The point is, bolster is now not even doing what the developers claimed the purpose was, to even the playing field, reduce gear gap, etc. So rather than just locking initial stats in place, so that removing or adding an augment at the beginning of the match wouldn't increase your stats significantly, they've opted to just remove that part of bolster from the game completely.

I'm fundamentally against bolster on principle, since it rewards players who put in the least amount of effort, but I understand their intention of wanting people on "equal grounds." This change, however, runs contrary to that. Now players, be they pvpers or pvers who don't have the credits to augment their gear will now have ~490 less mainstat than those with fully augmented gear.

Can you honestly not see how that is going to cause the gear gap to widen?

I'll be honest, I was assuming that the developers were on top of this issue, especially after 3 weeks, and were simply going to adjust bolster so that adding/removing mods wouldn't suddenly permanently boost your stats by 300-600pts. I mean, we're not experiencing that same issue with people who pull out armorings/mods/enhancements, then pop them back in, so why is it so hard to fix the augment slot specifically?

^That is what's so annoying. It's not just that bolster rewards people who don't put effort into pvp to gear up, but when the developers break their own system, they themselves don't even put forth effort to actually FIX the issue, they simply scrap that part of it, even though it basically contradicts their supposed intention to "even the playing field" by equalizing stats.

PVE players typically have more credits than PVP players. Thus, PVE players are more likely to have augmented gear than PVP players. Before, if a PVE player (in PVE gear) came into a match with augments and a PVP player (in PVP gear) came into a match without augments/lower level augments, the augments would be "bolstered" to the same approximate level. Without that bolster, coming into PVP with augmented gear is going to give people a distinct advantage over those without augments or lower level augments.

 

So this will really widen the gear gap more and yes, goes both ways. So if there happens to be augmented pvpers vs pve players without augments, the pvpers with augments are going to have a greater pool of stats now.

 

The point is, bolster is now not even doing what the developers claimed the purpose was, to even the playing field, reduce gear gap, etc. So rather than just locking initial stats in place, so that removing to adding an augment at the beginning of the match wouldn't increase your stats significantly, they've opted to just remove that part of bolster from the game completely.

 

I'm fundamentally against bolster on principle, since it rewards players who put in the least amount of effort, but I understand their intention of wanting people on "equal grounds." This change, however, runs contrary to that. Now players, be they pvpers or pvers who don't have the credits to augment their gear will now have ~490 less mainstat than those with fully augmented gear.

 

Can you honestly not see how that is going to cause the gear gap to widen?

 

I'll be honest, I was assuming that the developers were on top of this issue, especially after 3 weeks, and were simply going to adjust bolster so that adding/removing mods wouldn't suddenly permanently boost your stats by 300-600pts. I mean, we're not experiencing that same issue with people who pull out armorings/mods/enhancements, then pop them back in, so why is it so hard to fix the augment slot specifically?

 

^That is what's so annoying. It's not just that bolster rewards people who don't put effort into pvp to gear up, but when the developers break their own system, they themselves don't even put forth effort to actually FIX the issue, they simply scrap that part of it, even though it basically contradicts their supposed intention to "even the playing field" by equalizing stats.

No i see why it would widen the gear gap, My confusion was i thought you were trying to say that bolster would affect our augments differently due to pvp being affected differently by bolster then pve gear does.

No i see why it would widen the gear gap, My confusion was i thought you were trying to say that bolster would affect our augments differently due to pvp being affected differently by bolster then pve gear does.

oh no, pve and pvp gear will both be at a disadvantage if it's not augmented now, which is a throwback to pre-2.0. But with augments having almost double the stats now, a person with 14 lvl 28 mainstat augments is gonna have ~490 more mainstat than another player, that's a pretty significant difference.

So for the developers to just turn a blind eye to this because they're unable or unwilling to Properly fix the exploit is just laughable, especially if they're trying to maintain that bolster closed the gear gap.