But is it really punishing them? For all intents and purposes it's keeping them from participating in an aspect of the game that they were, apparently, not enjoying anyway. If there were rewards specific to PvP like there used to be then a LO would work far better. But since there isn't, the LO really does nothing and isn't really causing any negative impact on players that drop. Some sort of incentive needs to be added that would prioritize staying in the match and contributing. Right now, such an incentive does not exist.

No. There are already way, way too many companions in the game. I understand that not all of them have a meaningful story or dialogue but there's just too many. This amount should never have been added and a smaller, more manageable number should have been what Kotfe went for so that a new companion or two could be added down the road with no issues. But, as it is, no.

You could probably get rid of 2B altogether. Being the last toon standing on your team doesn't mean that they've actually contributed. It could also fall under your exploit #1 by a person just remaining in stealth the whole time. But since in arenas you earn medals just have it tied to that.

If you like that playstyle I would go ahead and purchase the Pike/Quell Strike fighter and start upgrading it. Two different types of missiles and make sure you get the Quick Lockon that's available to it and, eventually, the Rapid Reload crew skill passive.

Problem is, SWTOR PvP has never really been that good. Though I do think it was a lot better early on. I would disagree that it was never a gearing game mode. In the early days you had the BM and WH sets that people worked the grind for. I think that, honestly, a LO timer would have worked back then much better than now. But let's say that all rewards were removed from PvP. How long do you think that game mode would last? I would wager that what little population that it still commands would greatly diminish in a hurry. There are way too many issues with class balance, glitchy maps, matchmaking, and other bugs that would, IMHO, out way any enjoyment that a person might get from chasing numbers. But, with PvP and PvE sharing a loot table now it just has to be accepted that it is more of a gearing mode than ever before and has to be dealt with as such. Because of this, players will need to see some form of progression in order for them to keep coming back. I'm not saying that losses should have the same rewards as a win. They shouldn't. But if you complete a match, it should count towards the weekly and daily if, for no other reason, a player managed to put up with glitchy maps, bad class balance, bad matchmaking, and the host of bugs that have been floating around for years.

The lock out in conjunction with only having wins counts is having the opposite of the desired effect. The LO in of itself is not enough to keep people in. As I said previously, there are easier and less aggravating ways to get the same gear that's offered by PvPing in regs. What exactly is offered by PvPing that would entice people to stay in through the threat of a LO and through the very real possibility of taking days to complete a daily? I would say that, right now, there's really nothing.

Are there rewards for losing? Yes. Are they enough to keep people in a match? No. There is a far, far greater chance of getting a crap piece of gear that's unneeded than getting one that's needed. There are also far more, and far less, aggravating ways to get said gear since most of it is just going to be destroyed. For the lock out timer, it's pretty much the same deal. It in no way stops people from leaving a losing match. If they are losing, why stay? What would have kept people in previously, slowly working your way to the weekly/daily, has been removed. You can get the same amount of gear, if not more, by burning through the CZ dailies in 15 minutes. If there was still PvP only gear then, maybe, there might be enough incentive to keep people in. But that was removed a long time ago. As it stands, there is no real incentive to keep people in. You say that offering rewards for a loss invites poor performance. But I'd argue that the current changes result in no participation which is probably far worse than poor performance. My suggestion is simply this. Have WZs match GSF with 2 losses/1 win for the daily and 10 losses/5 wins for the weekly (or any combination thereof). The rewards for a loss stay the same as do the rewards for a win. This would at least keep people coming back after getting roflstomped by premades or simply getting stuck on bad teams consistently because of terrible team building algorithms. This way someone is always making some form of forward progress.

Instead you want to go to/stay at (we will start at 4): 4) Your team starts getting rolled for various reasons (bad, inexperienced, opposing premade, bad matchmaking, or just don't care). 5) A good portion or your team decides to just sit in a corner/give up. 6) You get rolled some more. 7) You get stuck in a match for 5-10 minutes, or more, depending on if the other team decides to pad their numbers. 8) Receive nothing for having to spend that time with AFKers/quitters/what have you. In regs, there is nothing that they provide that can't be gotten by other methods with a lot less aggravation. Perhaps some crafting items but, if I remember right, those only come from ranked. Even if I am wrong, the items created aren't really needed for anything other than ego. People use the analogy of a participation trophy, and that is a bad comparison. Why? Because those receiving the trophies generally aren't paying customers. Customers that want to see some sort of return on the money that they're spending. So some sort of carrot has to be offered or people will stop doing WZs. Instead what is offered is two sticks in the forms of a lockout or not making progression in the weekly/daily. Here's something to ask yourself "Did these changes make PvPing enjoyable to the average player and entice them in, or did they drive more people off?" For me, these changes made PvP less enjoyable and I've been PvPing in this game, with a few breaks here and there, since right after it launched. So that is why I'm done with PvP in this game.

Yeah, I got that after his second post. I've yet to see BW make a decision concerning PvP that actually brought players back to PvPing. I guess the closest might have been the cross faction ques but I'm not certain. Ove the life of the game, there has been a constant decline in the number of PvPers. Some of that, undoubtedly, is due to just atrophy that is natural. I've been PvPing in this game since right after it came out and this is the worst that I've ever seen with players not sticking around and new players not even giving it a shot. A lock out timer on it's own may have been doable. The change to wins only might have been doable on it's own. But both together? Nope. At least in GSF if you get stuck with a bad team and get rolled you at least make a bit of headway and so a reason to stay in the match. Now, in WZs/Arenas, there's no reason to stay in the match and the deserter debuff isn't actually enough to keep people in.

Awesome, and it took me about two dozen WZs/Arenas to complete the last 3 wins I needed for my last weekly which in turn took more than two weeks to complete. Perhaps the RNG matchmaker likes you more than me.

I would see it as a recipe for win trading.

Were they though? I was gone for about a year admittedly, but before that if someone brought up a lock out timer, that idea was pretty readily shot down by other players because of lag and connection issues. It was also usually brought up in conjuncture with selecting WZs. So a player could select where they were going, or remove where they didn't want to go, but if they dropped they got locked. I don't remember anyone, ever, saying that only wins should count. At least, no one that should have been taken seriously. I do remember people making posts about how the number of WZs needed to complete the weekly should be decreased to make it less of a grind. But I doubt the people suggesting that thought that it would go hand in hand with only wins counting. With these changes, the Devs did what they usually do, they took bad ideas and made them worse.

I was in the same boat and once I finally finished up my weekly after two weeks I'm not picking it back up. There's not enough of a reward to deal with the aggravation that is PvP right now.

To be honest, with the state of PvP right now, I'm more than willing to take a 15 min lock out than deal with the level of derp that I'm seeing.

I was away from SWTTOR for about a year and I just came back about the middle part of November. I spent the first few weeks gearing back up before stepping back into WZs. It literally took me 2 weeks with trying WZs at different times to finally get a win to KO the daily. If it takes a week(s), or even multiple days, to finish a daily then there is something seriously wrong with the system in use.

So I'm a returning player that's been enjoying SWTOR on and off since right after it came out. I know that I'm not the best PvPer but I can hold my own usually and contribute. Yea, I'm pretty much just a casual that enjoys the game and PvP. I've been back about a month now and the first couple of weeks was just regearing. Two weeks ago I decided to jump back into to WZs and see how it was going. I can honestly say that I am not a fan of the "only wins count" system that is in use now. It's been two weeks of WZs at different times and two weeks of losses. If it takes someone weeks to complete a daily then there are issues that need to be addressed.

Considering the long wait times for GSF and the fact that it actually is quite a bit harder than regs pvp, they should probably change the requirement from wins to a medal count of something like 25. Similar to the ranked medal requirements for the masterwork and monumental crystals.

A lot of it probably has to do with it being the CXP WZ focus today. You probably have quite a few players that have no idea how to play HB and so just deathmatch.

I would argue that there are more reasons involved than just those two. 1: In the past when it was imp vs pub you had a lot fewer people attempting PvP because of a faction imbalance and so people didn't try. They, in short, didn't want to get curb stomped. Those that did, and stuck with it, usually took it a lot more seriously and they wanted to win. 2: In relation to #1, BW introduced the cross faction PvP. Now less serious players are willing to try because the faction balance is now not a factor. 3: BW added a hidden ELO matchmaking system. Anyone that's been playing for awhile can tell that this system has serious issues. However, adding it gives players a sense that the matches "should" be relatively fair and that they will be partied with players of similar skill against players of similar skill. Once again, less serious players are giving PvP a shot. 4: The damned command xp warzone daily. Pops up every few days and the WZs are flooded with people that can't dps, can't heal, and can't tank. They join ONLY for the little boost to cxp that they get and they do not have the motivation to learn or try.

Remove all of the gap closers and the need for the ranged to have so many defense is negated. That, and for mercs/mandos at least, go a slightly different route and tone down their defenses but up their mobility more. For example, give them back rocket punch (with a root) and have it reduce the CD of Hydraulic Overrides and Rocket Out by 3-4 seconds similar to how Force Scream/Blade Storm do for jug/guardian taunts. But as it is right now, with leaps being 30 meters and merc/mando range being 30 meters, they really don't have an option but face tanking when they get lept to.

The WZ medpac and the MK-2 have the same cooldown however, the MK-2 is also "once per fight" so if you're are in the thick of things, the WZ medpac will still become active after the cooldown is up, the MK-2 will not.

Game engine can't really handle that many players without becoming a lagfest. 24 is about all it can handle, if that.

Until they say otherwise, my working theory is that the algorithm takes 2-3 experienced players and puts them on teams with 5-6 inexperienced players and matches them against teams whose experience is far more equal across the board.

They need to figure something out because the level of incompetence that I am seeing on my teams is astounding. People not understanding how to pass in any of the HBs, along with not knowing how to move the ball in general. People not being able to call out, not being able to understand how to focus a marked target and simply not knowing how to play. I had 3 matches in a row, all losses mind you, where I literally did more dps on my merc than 5 of my teammates combined. I would say 6, but I don't count a healers dps. After one match, a jug player and I figured that our team would have needed to be twice as large for the other dps to match our output. At this point I, honestly, would rather have total and complete randomness in the formation of the teams. Whatever algorithm that they are using is screwed up majorly.

I've cleared the first boss with dps that were in 230 gear or less. The adds can be stunned and CCed which makes handling them easier. At about 25% on the boss just burn him.