There shouldn't really be a need to take gear *in* anywhere, unless the Bolsterizer doesn't work correctly after this patch.

The general consensus from most of the PVP players I know personally (obviously not claiming to speak for everyone,) - "tons of potential, mostly squandered."

Well, this one *is* a "no," it would fit.

It *should* have gotten a yellow post (IMO) but didn't. Maybe it can get one now?

Yeah, I have several issues with the answer (one of them being how accurate their count actually is, because...reasons) but it is at least addressing the question. It really should have been said on the forums, though - soooooo many people seem to not be aware that he said this.

They have - it just never got posted to the forums. http://www.twitch.tv/swtor/b/533755890 Go about 1 hour 24 minutes in, someone asked this question, and was told that they looked at the number of people who actually hit the cap, didn't think it was very many, and decided not to do it.

You're both right, IMO. We lost a huge chunk of people with the initial delay - and then a decent chunk of what was left when ranked 8's were removed.

Yep - there is a limit to the amount of times players are willing to pay for transfers. Most people I know hit that limit some time ago.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with marking your own healer. As someone who mostly plays healers, I've had people recognize me, mark me, and tell the rest of the pugs - "keep people off of Shield, if you want to get heals." And if often did make at least somewhat of a difference.

as·cet·ic əˈsedik/ noun plural noun: ascetics a person who practices severe self-discipline and abstention. I think you meant to use a different word at the end there.

And that right there is the precise reason I say that if they're going to invest in cross server at some point, that's also when they'd need to drop the warzone restrictions. I could persuade QUITE a few folks who hadn't logged in for a year + to come back if I could say. "hey, you're not going to believe this.......etc...oh, and btw, the warzone restrictions are gone, too - what do you have to lose?"

This is correct. Bear in mind that the following formula is two years old and has likely been tweaked substantially by this point, but... "PvP Trauma Ignore % = 20 * ( 1 - ( 1 - ( 0.01 / 0.2 ) ) ( Expertise / max(Level,20 ) / 0.72 ) ) Trauma ignore overcomes the Trauma (-30% healing received) debuff that players get in PvP, so it effectively improves healing." Edit - a more recent post seems to say this was simplified to "PvP Healing Boost = Expertise / 9900" - but it's still the same general idea (trauma ignore.)

The sad thing is? Many (not all, but many) of the folks that complained that getting 8 people together was hard, now say the exact same thing about 4. Because the issue was never "finding 8 people," it was "finding 8 people who were already really good and not on someone else's team - OR 8 people who were willing to learn." Now, that's not to say that I blame them - if you're starting from the bottom, how much learning are you going to do in matches where you're getting flattened so hard that it would be hard to call it an opportunity to practice much of anything? It really needed to launch WITH cross server, so those teams could learn playing each other, and rise to the limits of their individual skill potential with practice. But that's not what we got. :/

I'd add a #4 (which might end up lessening the necessity of tinkering with #3.) They mentioned dropping the warzone restrictions in a long ago blog (but it has since been stated on the official stream that it isn't going to happen.) Add cross server, bring back ranked 8's, drop the warzone F2P/Preferred restrictions (yes, even for ranked,) and watch people go nuts contacting their friends telling them "you're not going to believe this..." and then log in and look at your friends list - "wait, didn't he quit like a year and a half ago? HE'S back? Wow!" Matchmaking needs LARGE amounts of people to work properly - I don't know if we can honestly even say how well this system even works, because IMO, it has *never* had the critical mass of people needed to function the way it should/could. "But won't all the PvPers just cancel their subs?" Sure, some might. But they'd still have to deal with the stuff that you can't even bypass with unlocks (reduced comms being a big one, just as an example.) I think a fairly substantial number would stay subbed just for QOL stuff like that. And then there would be people who would sub (just like they do now) for the simple reason of wanting to support the game. (In this situation, I'd be one of them!) Bottom line, you need a LARGE influx of people. Do those three things? I know about 15 or so people personally that I think I could have back and playing the game within days, and that's just me/my friends. Go big, or go home.

I can't do any kind of meaningful PvE - I have physical reasons why I can't raid. (Mainly relating to not being able to commit to hours long chunks of time on any kind of regular basis, even casually.) Meanwhile, with PvP, I can log in, do a match or two, and if I feel like garbage, log back off again. It's on my schedule, not the schedule of 7 or 15 other people. Raiding and doing a ton of PvE is also very much a "been there, done that" thing for me - did the whole hardcore raiding thing back in the day, along with rep grinds and all that jazz. A surprising number of my PvP friends are also former raiders who went there, got the t-shirt, burned out on it now. But hey, thanks for the advice about how I should spend my time in game, I'm sure glad I asked for...oh wait. I mean, clearly, we must have been unaware that this game has PvE. Thanks for pointing that out!

Respectfully...I'm wondering where you are getting the authority to speak for "most of us." I've been PvPing since launch and I'm honestly worn out with the maps that we have, I've run them so much I could probably do it in my sleep at this point. PvPing because it's fun but also being very, very bored with the current maps aren't mutually exclusive concepts. Edit: Just because content doesn't matter to you, and the lack of fun since 2.0 for you has had nothing to do with lack of content, again doesn't mean that is true for everyone.

Honestly, at this point, you're probably right - but there was a time when it (cross server) would have made a big difference, especially if it, and ranked, had come out when it was supposed to. Back then, with cross server, I think there would have been enough queuing that the inexperienced teams could have ended up playing each other.

You do realize that a lot of people have already done that once, right? Tons of people did exactly what you're suggesting and moved for ranked 8's. The response = the removal of ranked 8's. >.< At that point, some folks said "to heck with it" and went back to their original communities, where a lot of their friends were/are. So those folks? You'd be asking them to pay for a *third* server transfer; because (essentially) EA doesn't want to give BW the funds to do PvP right. I wouldn't blame those folks for saying "umm...nope."

I might be overcomplicating it a bit - but I *personally* don't have problems remembering which is which. For others that seem to, though, I think remembering it in terms of where the datacore is could be helpful. Because you pretty much always know where you are in relation to that. If you can remember it's north, but STILL can't figure out what's west and east from that? Well, I wonder how those people managed to even log themselves into the game.

One new ground based 8v8 warzone map since the end of 2012. And it was a redesign of an existing game type. And arenas. But for people who enjoy 8v8 objective warzones...one. Since 2012. I mean this with all due respect, but I do not need to be told what I *need* to do. Do you follow people around at restaurants and tell them how much they need to tip? If not, why tell people here whether or not they should be happy with a service they're paying for? (Just for the record, I ALWAYS try to tip generously, because I know that some other people are cheapskates and I try to make up for it at least as much as I can.)

In VS, though, it really shouldn't take that much thought power, if you can remember one thing; According to the minimap, the datacore is always, always, always North*. (Well, technically Northeast, but still North of everything else. If you can remember that, getting W/E is way easier to remember. *Except if you're in the top hallway leading down to it. But if you're up there, you don't really have anything left to call out anyway.

There is no restriction on doing the actual story from 1-50, and a lot of people say that's the best part of the game. So I'm not sure I'd call it nonsensical, especially since at one point they actually said that's what they were going to do - do away with at least some of the WZ restrictions. (Musco later said on a stream that they'd decided not to.) Besides, my suggestion wasn't do remove all F2P restrictions..just the WZ cap which no one worries about anyway because...reasons, allow the same people to queue for ranked as well, and watch the population explode. Large amount of people, matchmaking actually works, more people queue, some sub, possibly (paradoxically) leading to a net increase. I wasn't implying in my post that they should introduce a cost to respec - merely stating that (unless I'm mistaken) non-subs ALREADY have to pay to respec -and that's one of a few reasons people might sub even without the actual WZ cap/ranked restrictions in place.

Personally, if it were up to me, what I'd do is this; Bring in cross server queues, bring back ranked 8's, and...here's the big one they won't do - drop the F2P and preferred restrictions entirely, including ranked. The response to that suggestion is usually "but then all the PvP players would instantly unsub" - but..would you? Even with buying all the unlocks with credits, you'd still have to deal with some things you probably wouldn't want to. (Getting commendations more slowly would be a big one. You'd also not be able to post on the forums. You'd still have to pay to respec, etc.) There would also be people who'd sub even if they didn't technically have to just because they wanted to support further development. What do you guys think? Personally I think that would have the potential to actual build the playerbase to the point where ranked could actually work like it's supposed to. And PvP subs could theoretically go UP.

No. Not if the new people doing it really don't want to be there, it's not.

Instead of making value judgements about your personal character as some have, I'd like to propose an alternative solution - keep the guild ship price the same, but let you make a formal alliance with those other small guilds you already know and have hooked up with. (Without having to ditch your guild.) http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=761490