Another satisfied customer! She must be wrong too.

So, Boch, can we assume you enjoy playing in pre-made's?

And yes, voice chat is a SIGNIFIGANT advantage for groups in PvP, for the same reason it is in PvE. Positioning your forces and reacting to threats as a team by tacking out "chats" is MUCH slower than simply shouting them out - it's the reason we have voice to begin with. While it's true that voice doesn't make a player "better" in solo combat, it gives his team a reaction-time advantage the other doesn't enjoy. Would you say that isn't true?

Yes, Pugs/Pugs & Groups/Groups would be the simplest, if not the most elegant way to go, and likely the way Devs would go under pressure. You'd hope though, that a group of sharp programmers could figure out a way to apply some seamless, well-balanced matchmaking. They could even go "outside-the-box" and create a large, open-ended WZ (don't know why they stopped the whole Ilum thing anyway), or something even more creative and yet unimagined. One thing's for sure, when this many people are unhappy there is, de-facto, a problem. Wonder if the Devs are putting as much thought into this as we are?

We'll see what the Devs do, if anything, about it soon hopefully. If they DO elect to change it at all (which is no certainty) I would expect a solution involving the fewest, lest complicated changes to the platform. They get kinda jittery when you start talking big changes heh heh.

That might work, assuming that Devs would be willing to put the required effort into such a restructuring. The problem I see here is that, especially with already low population levels, splitting the available players up by so many different leveling criteria would force much smaller "match-able" subsets than simply dividing by two (pubs & groups), also, ppl can switch between solo and group. I'm not sure the current population of the servers would support such pigeon-holing of players, though the concept would be sound with an abundance PvPers on every server. See? We agree a little bit

Oh, you mean the "Holy Trinity" advantage, the "miked-up" advantage, or the experience in reality advantage? Seems like you're trolling ME now haha! Again, if you truly don't see any advantage between pre-made's and solo's then we're just beating that poor, dead horse. I believe you are wedded to your position, lucky for us people of good conscience can agree to disagree.

How many groups, exactly, of 4 lowly geared and inexperienced players have you encountered? While there will always be exceptions, the advantage of a pre-made group and the REALITY of them in practice is not in question. Again, the more contorted your reasoning becomes, the more obvious it is that your argument doesn't hold water.

Wow. I guess if we can't even agree on the inherent advantage of grouping vs. going solo then we don't have much to discuss. Not trying to "troll" you at all - just a loud mouthed American voicing his opinion. Enjoy the game and MTFBWY

That all sounds very cogent - unfortunately it's just wrong. The advantage is not necessarily the gear or level of Elder experience, it's the group obviously! It just also happens that the groups usually consist of we'll-geared Elder players, creating a double-whammy. Having a solo-only queue wouldn't make it harder for groups to form, just another option - remember that individuals can leave groups and queue solo, solos don't have that instant option. If a server's population is so low that it can't field a group of 16 solos and a few groups then I would suggest there is a larger problem. Also, follow your logic to its ultimate conclusion, where, the only ppl PvPing on your server are groups? There are many ways this problem could be solved, funneling saber fodder to AF groups in non-ranked WZ's helps zero. Any argument to the contrary is a transparent attempt by AF's to preserve the current imbalance for their own benefit (they might not even realize they're doing it) or hubris meeting laziness on the part of Devs. The truth has a unique quality of not needing justification, clarification, or rationalization....just sayin

I think I do haha! People naturally are unwilling to relinquish an advantage they have over others, it's understandable because its so cliche.

Again, the lack of understanding, followed by the knee-jerk criticism "ohh, stupid, lowly, know-nothing players blah, blah, blah..." Your self-aggrandizing argument is essentially that, since other players can't compete with fully tricked out gear and a group of miked vets they aren't qualified (like you obviously) to complain. Question: Is it not in the best interest of the entire community (including AF's) to have a self-promoting platform that includes EVERYONE who wants to play - thus swelling server population? Consider this: The "natural" progression of the game (for most players) is to start out a Pub jedi, level a bit, get used to the game, find some friends, join a guild, level out their favorite toon, and start PvP. Only AFTER developing a Legacy with a few more toons and getting good do most ppl decide to start over on the Imp side. The result is a natural talent/experience disparity slated towards Imps - with the new (often younger) players constantly cycling in at the lower ranks and "feeding the beast" so to speak. With the mandatory inclusion of pre-made groups in WZ's there is very little for these relative "noobs" and lesser experienced players to enjoy PvP-wise. It's so obviously a problem, I just can't understand why vets would want to perpetuate this, stopping the flow of new and excited players so they can farm them with noses held high. Seems awfully stupid to me.

After 400+ pages on this thread, it's clear that the first post contained the simplest solution - which is often the correct one. Create an option for pugs and solo PvPers to play in "Solo Queue Only" WZ's. It won't discourage social play, unless your idea of "social" is farming noobs from the cowardly comfort of a 4-8 man miked-up team. It won't contribute to the frantic search for that elusive "we'll balanced server", in fact, it would encourage folks to stay on their original as they would always have a viable PvP option to play as they progress. For all you arena-freaks: keep in mind that many ppl don't have hours on end to sit, coordinate with 5 others, and THEN play - many of us only have 30-90 mins to sit down and hope for a WZ to pop before RL intervenes. Wasting that window being farmed by pre-made's is no fun. Before you discount me as "baddie" or a "lowbie" consider that I'm a Founder w/multiple 55's geared out, and have been on both sides of this phenomenon. Bottom line is that the game will LOSE a good amount of players (f2p AND subs like me) if they have nowhere fun to play. Hope BW and the Arena-Freaks enjoy less populated servers.