If anyone asks or wonders why RP'ers are the worst, just refer them to this thread.

This is unfair to players on servers that don't have the possibility of completing Ranked daily/weeklies due to server population issues. This won't help improve the too low Unassembled Component gain for players where Ranked doesn't happen ever. I'm on Jedi Covenant and I haven't had a solo ranked match in about 3 months. A fix to population issues is years overdue at this point. We are pushing the three year anniversary of "better than cross-server". Can we expect some attempt to fix population issues coming down the pipeline or should we accept the current situation? I think at this point after years of waiting we deserve some answer to this. If the answer is no, than this is not a good way to increase Unassembled Component gain. A flat buff across the board would be much more equitable.

Add that Virulence/Dirty Fighting will no longer be viable in pvp due to the nerfs to its burst capability to this list.

No, not to my knowledge.

This is an understatement. These changes are going to totally break Virulence for pvp to the point of barely being viable for regs. If the the goal was to lower sustained output, which it should be, there are better ways to do it. WB-buffed Cull is the only heavy hitter Virulence has. Take that away and its 100% fluff damage. Unless you are putting out extreme aoe pressure, which Virulence does not currently, that is worthless in pvp.

You could argue that Virulence is not that great of a pvp spec in its current state. If these changes make it through intact it will no longer be viable in pvp. I suspect it will be the absolute worst of all specs in pvp.

That's the thing. These changes remove any burst Virulence has. It will be a 100% sustained dps if these changes go into effect. Removing Weakening Blast triggering from Cull is a very thoughtless change that totally neuters this spec.

I am pretty confident that these changes make Virulence the single worst spec to play in pvp. Cull was the only ability that gets kills. Nerfing it by that much removes any burst the spec has, and is going to make killing anything a near impossible feat.

Yes, that is the point I was trying to make. There isn't one side to this debate, and the dogmatic view that there is no room for compromise is not ok.

It would be an improvement in the sense that it would counter the perception that Bioware is trying to profit from population issues that it refuses to attempt to fix. For me, it does. Combined with the current broken pvp gearing system, its game breaking. Low cost transfers are not a good answer to population problems, and Bioware has said as much in one of the live streams.

I shouldn't have to pay additional money on top of my sub to have worse ping. Its not fair to East coast players to have no option for steady ranked queues on the East coast.

If the hypocrisy of asking for empathy while refusing to give any is lost on you I don't think I am going to be able to explain it to you.

I want to thank you for proving my point in spectacular fashion.

This is true, but the people who have legitimate concerns about server population and those who don't have any ability to play certain aspects of the game because their server does not support it are not being given equal consideration by the anti-merger people. Half of them are writing off those concerns completely. Everyone in this thread is pushing their own agenda for what they want for the game, yourself included. Bioware's chosen course of action to the "between a rock and a hard place situation" they are in, is to do nothing. The end result of that choice is the game is going to die faster than it would otherwise.

This is coming from a place of ignorance, as I have never tried RP, never been around it, nor do I have any interest to, but isn't it proper etiquette that RP is done in private chat, not general chat or instance chat? Is the griefing even that bad for people who keep to themselves?

If only anyone had told Bioware back in 2012....

Took care of the ranked part for you. http://www.swtor.com/leaderboards/class/undefined/the-ebon-hawk http://www.swtor.com/leaderboards/class/undefined/begeren-colony http://www.swtor.com/leaderboards/class/undefined/jung-ma http://www.swtor.com/leaderboards/class/undefined/battle-meditation http://www.swtor.com/leaderboards/class/undefined/the-progenitor http://www.swtor.com/leaderboards/class/undefined/vanjervalis-chain

What is this supposed to prove? This screenshot is from 4 years ago. It literally says 2013 in the url.

Wasn't the discussion on RP servers ended when Bioware removed the RP server designations? I feel like that is a strong enough answer on how much concern Bioware has for RP in this game.

Here is the second time they said it in case you missed it. Carry on.

You missed the back half of that quote. Carry on.

I agree. I've never thought the ignore list should affect PVE queues. Maybe it's because PVE can be done outside of random queues, where PVP cannot.

This would affect bad players much more than it would affect toxic ones. If ignore lists respected who you were on a team with, there are a few players I would make sure are never on my team again. If a player has a reputation for being terrible at pvp, he is going to be on a lot of people's ignore lists and not ever able to get a queue pop. This becomes a bigger issue in solo ranked as it is a smaller pool of people queuing, and a bigger incentive to not have terrible players on your team to protect your rating. Also at a certain point queues would just shut down because the system could not resolve ignore list conflicts. Its a total non-issue as it is now as you still can't see chat from someone you are ignoring. If you can't handle someone on your ignore list being on your team, thats your problem.

There is no chance of this ever happening. It would open the door to so much abuse especially in ranked. It would give players a lot of control over team makeup. And you could potentially shut someone out of the queues entirely.

This is wrong again. Population is where it is now, because the story players it brought in with KOTFE/KOTET are not playing anymore. They did leave, as it should have been expected they would. Its fine if you enjoy playing the story on repeat, but you have no basis to claim that players like you that play the story repeatedly make up the bulk of the player base. Its just not true. This statement just shows a total lack of understanding why pvpers and raiders play the game. Gear is not the primary end goal. They are a minority like every other group of players in the game in the sense that they are not the majority. There is no basis to say most players are here just for the story. Its fine if you are, but that does not mean everyone is. Story players are a subset of players just like raiders, pvper, gsfers, and rpers.