I realize you're not talking about doing that for fun, but still, does it sound like a reasonable use of your time? I mean, this is a game. You pay money to have fun playing it. Why would you even go there if you can do something else that's not as just plain lame as pulling people to a turret to do a daily/weekly...

Even worse we chain queue for WZs in the lower level bracket where either side has easy access to the same gear...

As has been said, it's the team holding the ball. Definitely, even if you think you remember otherwise. One of the most epic Huttball wins I remember was a 1:1 game that was a really hard fight for both sides. Somewhere around 10 minutes they score 0:1. Then when the game is almost over, we somehow wake up, get the ball, I get it passed to me, quickly pass on and die, and then it goes something like this... I finally get out of spawn, countdown is at 20s. I run to the ball spawn as fast as possible, nobody there because they're all trying to prevent our ball carrier from scoring, and our guys are all back there with him. But I can see we still have the ball and the ball carrier is close to their line, and if they were going to knock him back some more they would already have done it. 9, 8, 7, ... FROG-DOGS SCORE! 6 NEUTRAL BALL 5, 4, ... Ball actually appears next to me 3 Grab ball 2 1 VICTORY

Wait until you find out that you can buy Battlemaster implants directly for warzone/merc commendations. Need valor rank 60 for that but depending on how much you pvp'd before 50, that's only ten ranks to go.

I've gotten rep/rep Huttball games maybe three or four times since the game was released. I guess it can happen that all the imps are tied up in their imp/imp huttball games when enough reps for a rep/rep huttball are in the queue...

Yes, well, what did you think I meant when I wrote I leveled that character almost exclusively through warzones? That I somehow started at 37? Don't be daft...

The thing is though, the only PVE game that really managed to pull this off is WOW. There have been countless others, which failed in rapid succession. (Or at least the publishers said they failed when they really did reasonably well, but not well enough to justify hundreds of millions in budget...) Then look at some PVP centric games like EVE and you'll see a smaller subscriber base, but one that has been growing ever since 2003 when the game was released. Now tell me how many games manage to pull that off, and which model is a better long term business plan...

I think that's what they're planning. It's also easily possible to have an MMO-like reward system anyway. Just make it rewards that aren't effective in PVP. Stuff for your guild or faction, that sort of thing. Have a look at EVE to see what is possible, even a fraction of that would be amazing in a game like SWTOR.

Oh dear lord no please don't convert it to XP, I want to stay in that bracket... I don't really know if I want the cap removed either. Getting geared at 50 would be even more of a pain... not that I'd care much since I don't really want to play my 50ies, but generally it doesn't seem like the right idea to skip *another* gear tier step as a new 50.

Bolster takes care of that admirably well in the 10-49 bracket. Even crit chance and so on benefits because it's not only affected by its own stat but also by your main stat, which is bolstered in any case.

Oh Hi I play a level 37 Sentinel who I've been leveling exclusively through warzones. Watchman is underrated even at low levels. That is all. But I guess this is where the entire skill/gear debate comes into play again because I have absolutely no trouble at all with almost all Marauders that I meet.

The point of the thread seems to be that the 10-49 bracket did improve things for everybody who isn't 50 yet. That's a good thing but there's still some room for improvements on the level 50 side.

Well the single most important skill a level 13 doesn't have is sprint... he gets you into combat, he has already nullified your advantage there

Same thing that I found a little weird in Age of Conan... Except there you can actually find other players in FFA zones because they're also where you go for a ton of your quests (mostly newbies trying out f2p though these days).

The funny thing is, on my Sentinel I don't even have to get the jump on them... well I do have to jump, but I can do it after I see the TM animation and it still interrupts it. And then it's 4s interrupt every 6s you know the drill. They'll get one through if they time their knockback right and things like that but, well, that's about it. Yeah if there are two or more of them that could be trouble, but come on now, if it takes two of them to kill me that doesn't really make TM overpowered.

Valor rank is capped at character level. If you level up a character through warzones, you will eventually hit that cap in your twenties. It happens later if you start later, but it always happens, and it never changes because you need more and more warzones to level up. When you hit 50, you will hit valor rank 50 at the same time because the bar was full at the cap, and the last warzone you need to level up will grant valor again. Even my level 46 shadow that I actually leveled up mostly through solo questing, just with a fair deal of warzones on the side, is a Centurion. My level 37 would be one if it weren't for the cap...

It's not 10% less damage. I do 10% less, and they additonally take 10% less, and the other stats on champion gear are also significantly better than random normal level 50 gear. But that's a bit besides the point. The thing is, warzones are already more based on skill in the 10-49 bracket. They're fairly balanced and fun. Then you hit 50 and suddenly they aren't anymore. Why would I continue to play at 50 under these circumstances? It takes me less than a day to re-roll and get a character to at least somewhere in the teens where I have sprint and can be productive and useful in warzones. It's not like there is a reward for gearing up at 50 anyway other than having fun in pvp again- but I can have that much quicker if I just don't bother with level 50 pvp at all.

So my valor rank capped mid thirties character would be matched up with level 50ies in champion gear after all? If valor rank wasn't capped to character level it would be even worse...

Or just let us buy Centurion items with warzone commendations before hitting 50. The main issue is that Champion is the first set you get. Centurion is worse, but harder to obtain. If that weren't the case, the gear gap would be much smaller.

There's also those who would like to do open world PVP but don't like progression... The thing is, you can have the skill game all the time if you just keep re-rolling around 40. It takes about a day to get another character ready for warzones. And in the event that they actually DO fix endgame pvp you'll have a crapton of near-50 characters with 1000/1000 comms and a champion bag and valor rank 49 or something like that and so on.

I do know that nothing ever happened to people who used regular medpacks or biochem reusables when those still counted... I don't think there's anything wrong with the item in question either, from a mechanics point of view. It's only usable out of combat so it's mainly a faster way to heal up after a fight. Btw., I MVP healers too if I can identify them (if I can't, they're doing it wrong anyway ). But even if I and four others are doing that, it's about one extra medal, which is still two to three less than some other roles get effortlessly.

I think that's roughly the extent of what people are reporting, yes. I wonder why republic usually insists on capping left and mid first, then proceeds to complain about it in chat when the imperials get the advantage again... It had me puzzled for the longest time when I was still playing my shadow because, by right, I shouldn't have been slower...

What makes the 10-49 bracket fun for me is that I can choose to level a character from 20 to 49 in warzones and I will feel competitive and constructive all the time. Access to abilities can make a large difference, but in my experience, knowing how to play your class is worth so much more. But the other points mentioned above also stand, people behave completely differently in the 10-49 bracket. You don't need to farm as many wins, you don't really need to farm medals either (I don't and my current character is capped out at everything relevant at level 37 and has all the level 40 gear, a bunch of expertise enhancements from weapons, a champion bag, 1000/1000 comms, and the valor rank is capped at character level).

I have gear, which beats your gear That's about it. You don't become better. The game just lets you win more often because it knows you've been a good paying customer for longer. Not because you actually outsmarted or outplayed your opponent.

Back when I opened my first bag (from the bank) on my first level 50, a scoundrel, I got a champion shotgun. I was very happy very briefly, the shotgun is after all one of the harder items to find. Then I realized I wasn't really going to feel this happy ever again when opening a bag and started thinking about re-rolling. Which is what I ended up doing. Now I play lower level characters in warzones and it's kinda okay-ish as something to do until my sub runs out.