Time to level an op dps for arena and shelf my knight tank , I have play enough games and arenas or pvp to know tanks dont do well on 4vs4 deathmatch unless you have an exceptional group and friends with you.

 

 

 

So any suggestions on which class to level?

I don't see tanks being rendered useless in arenas. They will be as strong as they are now or stronger due to being able to only have to swap guard on 3 players instead of 7 and being able to taunt more effectively.

Tanks aren't going anywhere.

Time to level an op dps for arena and shelf my knight tank , I have play enough games and arenas or pvp to know tanks dont do well on 4vs4 deathmatch unless you have an exceptional group and friends with you.

 

So any suggestions on which class to level?

unless i'm mistaken, it looks to me like the queue is going to require 2 dps, a healer, and a tank to get the queue to pop. just like flashpoints, if you don't play your tank you'll sit in the queue forever.

tanks will be the most important part of the group, just to get the damn thing to pop. if it's the same as flashpoints, you'll have to listen to people ***** about how you're doing it wrong the whole time too.

my question is, is bolster and gear going to stay the same? if there are changes, will it be built around a gear crutch so people who play more often will have a significant advantage, and a person's skill/ability to play their toon doesn't matter? or more of a minor but noticeable advantage to the people who play a lot? or skill is more important than having a gear crutch?

Adding to the pretty constant chorus of 'don't take away ranked wzs...'

don't take away ranked wzs.

Correct.

with the 1 man or group queue for arenas is that for normal or ranked as I generally queue for pvp with as team of three with guild members if that is the case of yes then aint you basically saying that pvpers can only queue together for normal pvp if they are grouped in threes, therefore pushing small groups away form arena pvp unless they can find a extra member that gels well with them

with the 1 man or group queue for arenas is that for normal or ranked as I generally queue for pvp with as team of three with guild members if that is the case of yes then aint you basically saying that pvpers can only queue together for normal pvp if they are grouped in threes, therefore pushing small groups away form arena pvp unless they can find a extra member that gels well with them

Keep in mind that if all 3 are dps you'll never get an arena either.

I'm not sure how I feel about this; however, I didn't read all of the 11 previous pages of responses either before posting. I really don't care about the ranked WZ's....you guys can do what you want to do with those. My Guild has never had the manpower to run these, nor the interest really.

On the other hand, I feel a little miffed that these 4v4 matches & the 8v8 matches are going to be in the same matchmaking system. Especially when you consider that the PvP Group finder is going to try to put together "balanced teams" for 4v4 matches...as a healer I'm never going to get placed in an 8v8 match -- very depressing. I'd much rather have the 8v8 & the 4v4 be their own separate q's & even have their own dailies. I'm not saying I don't like the 4v4s because I do, but I don't want to have them forced on me when I want to do 8v8 matches. Now I could have read this wrong, but I don't think I have.....I hope I did....

PS: On a lighter note.....I am SO HYPED for a new Hutt-Ball match!!

Keep in mind that if all 3 are dps you'll never get an arena either.

I was under the impression that only ranked solo will take into account group composition.

^ This, a thousand times this!

 

I enjoy playing goal oriented WZs, because it means my characters no matter how bad in 1v1 have a use.

 

Sure straight PvP sounds fun too, but an option between "classic WZs" (no arenas) and "new WZs"(with arenas) would be a nice queue option to have.

I dont think adding it to the WZ Q is a good idea at all, actually its horrible for those that dont like arena and those that hate PuGs vs Premades. How they dont see that or can turn a blind eye to it is beyond me.

This has bad idea written all over it. I am not against premades even if this comes across that way as I have ran them as well as solo queued I enjoy having options. I just would like it better if they set it up to make the most people happy and most people are solo queuers. I dont want people to stop playing because of something dumb that can be avoided.

That said, look at the current PvP forums the past year and some of the largest threads are about premades vs PuGs and how most solo queues hate it.

Putting Reg arenas in the reg WZ queue will enhance the pugs vs premade complaints.

Players that aren't as good that get stomped in RWZs already get a max geared group and queue regs to stomp pugs. On the Baston there is a particular player that constantly spams gen chat in the evening looking for max geared DPS with a gear check to queue for regs yet they never queue RWZs. I have seen them also in a stream talking **** to pugs they stomp when matched with another premade queue. This will only get worse IMO.

Now if I understand what's going to occur is these players will get into arena queues with the best comp to stomp pugs that get grouped together that haven't played together and won't have the best comp and or augmented gear. This will lead to more people quitting and ************ despite what people say there is a group of people that do not want competition a they just want to stomp pugs. People will look at their class comp and leave. This is a bad idea.

In addition to some people do not want to play arenas at all. This when they queue for a WZ if they get arena they will leave and why shouldnt they?

I get that this is a way to get people in arena queue and have they try it out but people will be leaving right and left leaving arena teams short team members. I get there will be a rating, what some teams will surely do is take 1 player geared with a super low or no rating or an alt to ensure they get matched with lower rated players. Prepare for these forums to be inundated with massive qq threads.

I ask you please to reconsider this choice. Review the PvP forums, look at your metrics for Solo queues vs Groups queues and who leaves what WZs with what composition. Removing RWZs already has part of the hardcore players up in arms dont get the casuals unsubbing as well due to not thinking something through.

Most of us really want this game to succeed and we want to continue playing it to do so we need people to stay sub and happily buying CCs and having fun. Removing options and forcing players into PvP scenarios they dislike will cause them to grow disillusioned eventually hurting us all in the long run.

Rewards will be announced after Season 1 starts but to tease yall, they are unique and make me very happy!

You and cliff hangers...arg.

Alex,

I honestly think you guys are shooting yourselves in the foot by limiting PvP options to players. You've decided that removing 8 vs. 8 ranked is a good idea, and most of the more hardcore PvPers (and others) are not happy about this. If you're gonna have a role check for arenas, you could allow solo queuing for ranked 4 man arenas and 8 man warzones, which would increase the numbers of players doing ranked. I honestly think the 2 biggest complaints from pugs is, pug vs. premade, which you could easily solve by making seperate queues for solo's and 4 or 8 man groups, that way pugs play pugs and premades can play premades, and the other complaint I see a lot is a lack of choice. Not everyone likes Huttball, and not everyone will like arenas. Let people choose which warzones they want to queue for, much like FP's and Ops people select which one they want to do. This would drastically reduce the number of quitters before a match even starts.

Ok, Alex. Kudos on getting my attention (ears/leks are perked up here).

The design sounds good - the potential is there, not quite glad I renewed yet, but I am feeling much more positive. I wonder if valour is going to find a place in the new PvP setup and whether it will play a role in accessing PvP gear. Plus, I wonder whether the PvP gear will be competitive with the PvE gear. [The last batch of gear was not sufficient for me to join my guildmates on many of their quests -- consequently, I was forced to choose between the PvP grind and losing many of the joys of PvE; or going PvE and missing out on my favourite MMO activity (PvP).]

^ This, a thousand times this!

 

I enjoy playing goal oriented WZs, because it means my characters no matter how bad in 1v1 have a use.

 

Sure straight PvP sounds fun too, but an option between "classic WZs" (no arenas) and "new WZs"(with arenas) would be a nice queue option to have.

It sounds like the old warzones are not gone -- it's just you will have to PUG them.

And to others who whine about removing of 8v8 Ranked.

 

I think it is fair to assume that BW has metrics showing how little are 8v8 RWZ played, which led to this decision.

 

Back to the original post: Not sure I am happy about removing WZ restrictions on F2P. Is the pass not purchased that much so it will not bring any harm to CM profits?

Removing the 8v8 RWZ is potentially a good idea. It'll give us another viable route to earn ranked wz comms -- and it'll make it harder/slower for one faction to completely pwn a server's PvP area. Plus, arena style PvP is a good place for the newbie PvPers to cut their chops. The ideas are straightforward and the learning curve should be small.

Now if only the mystery meat effect of Expertise/Bolster is clear enough for the newbies in this new PvP setup...as opposed to the mess of the last overhaul.

My 2 cents (cannot read all 30+ pages):

 

It seems like a major strategy for this dev team is to completely remove parts of the game that aren't exactly working ideally, even where there is no request to remove them from the community. I'm talking Open World PvP areas and 8v8 Ranked here.

 

Nothing about Open World PvP!! I feel that this is a HUGE chunk of PvP fun that this game is missing out on because the devs just decided to scrap it one day because it wasn't perfect.

Reading between the lines, I don't think Open World PvP is done -- just shelved along with the Ranked 8v8. (Heck, you have whole servers that give you an open PVP universe.) Looking at how the experiments have gone so far (e.g., the Gree event on Ilum), I think it could be back. But there are some other things to fix first before it is formally re-introduced. (The devs just have to find the right mechanic.)

I can't understand the business rationale behind this decision. It's a system by your own admission that hasn't been supported, so I can't imagine it would require any resources to leave it in the game.

But it's clearly something that hardcore PVP'ers want. I play on the Harbinger and most of the hardcore PVP'ers that I know left for the Bastion after paid transfers were offered. On Saturday night there were at least 4 teams out there playing ranked WZ's on a non PVP server. I don't see why you would risk alienating even a small population of the game.

A group from the Harbinger just started working on putting together a ranked league - brilliant idea. I think it was some guys from Ghost Infantry. I was really looking forward to that.

I'm excited about the idea of 4v4 ranked PVP. But, eliminating 8v8 sounds like a bad idea.

Hopefully you guys change your mind.

and again Bioware show they have no business running a MMO and knows absolutely nothing about PvP.

 

People are excited over this because they cling to hope, like they did when the debacle that was Ilum was launched and then the big ilum "revamp" that was going to be super awesome and bring Orvr to swtor in a big way. Then of course it was a disaster and was ultimately a waste of resources.

 

Warhammer has been on life support for years, content doesnt arrive and the players there do nothing but PvP and the reason they do is because there are objectives, if Ilum had 2 bases, one at each end that are able to be captured by the other faction then there would be PvP there, all the time.

 

People like objectives and progression in a MMO, pvp gear in swtor is comically easy to get and doesnt even really progress your character with the idiotic and overcomplex bolster system.

 

All this shows is that they have given up any ghost and are setting their sights on smaller and smaller things, forcing objective pvpers into smaller death match garbage will ultimately result in less pvp and less pvpers.

Counter-point: the PvP gear is easy to get, if and only if, you know enough people to get into ranked and are on a side which has a lot of well-equipped players. However, if you belong to a faction which got off to a bad start at the start of the patch, and consequently forced to randomly PUG, you will get less regular comms and your medals count less when trying to get new gear.

It sounds like the old warzones are not gone -- it's just you will have to PUG them.

I PUG only, what I asked for was a way to avoid arenas if I don't want to play them.

With the new system if I queue for PvP I have just as much chance at joinning the old PvP WZs as I do arenas.

MIndless PvP sounds like fun once in a while but I prefer the goal oriented WZs, I want more options then "queue, hope it's something I like and leave if it's not".

It's not fun for me, and not fun for the group I leave shortmanned either...

You can only play Ranked as a premade 4-player team or a 1 person solo grouped with and going against other solo players. The two do not mix.

Thats a great way to devalue competitive PvP....

There is no risk vs reward. Unless you can earn greater rewards in the Group queue than in the Solo queue.

We originally wanted to launch 2.4 with Makeb Mesa Arena but we found a really nasty performance issue that needs to get fixed and polished before we launch it, so Corellia Square will be replacing it!

Will that by any chance include a fix for the horrible performance issues everywhere on Makeb and in some other multi-leveled areas that pretty much break once someone enters combat?

Thats a great way to devalue competitive PvP....

 

There is no risk vs reward. Unless you can earn greater rewards in the Group queue than in the Solo queue.

Expect to see plenty of people queuing up and going afk, or deliberately getting killed, just to farm comms.... should be lots of fun to queue solo.

Question 1 Que times:

Question regarding que times. As it currently stands there are way too many dps compared to healers and tanks. The ratio is not remotely close to 2:1:1. Que for FPs takes about 30 minutes or more as dps, where tanks are almost instant and healers is below 5 minutes.

Guaranteed it won't take that much time for arenas, but if I have to wait 15-20 minutes as dps to join a game, that lasts 10 minutes, the que times are down right unbearable. If you think about it, it will be 2 games per hour if you are lucky. How do you plan to address the wait time considering that 80-90% of the PvP population play as dps?

Question 2 Role Restriction:

Currently the assumed roles are 2:1:1 dps:tank:heals. I personally do not think this is ideal by any means. To give you an example, when my guild currently run 8 man classic operations we do run only 1 tank and 1 healer since you don't need more, thus the formula is 3:0.5:0.5. 16 man Operations are typically played 2 tank, 4 healers and 10 dps, which is 2:0.5:1.

The point is the player determines which roles they need depending on the nature of the content. Based on earlier responses the player is forced on the role based on how many points they have in a skill tree. I personally think that the best composition will be a sin deception/darkness hybrid investing mostly in deception, ops healer, ops healer/dps mostly healer and full deception sin. According to the automated formula I will not be able to que in with that composition because it will be 2:0:2.

To conclude 2:1:1 is not always ideal, and probably won't be for arenas. Why is it enforced?