They never said it would be 100% even. In fact, they've said that their design intent was to get it closer to 80% even. So yes, 50s have a clear advantage, working as intended. The system also tries to match 50s vs 50s, but it isn't going to wait forever if it can't get a full match.

The way it worked in beta is that it was an exponentially escalating cost that reset after a certain amount of time. I'm sure that the actual pricing and reset times have changed so any details I could give based on beta are obsolete, but I think the basic premise is the same. So, basically, to answer your question, if you continue respeccing on a whim, it is going to cost you lots of credits. You probably want to cool it for awhile until the price resets.

Lame! IMO, a color shift on the same wireframe model is not variety in item design. Unfortunately, based on the blog post regard the Match to Chestpiece feature, Bioware is banking on exactly that. They need an A-tab. Plain and simple. I was holding out hope that the mod system would fit the bill, but it doesn't. It simply isn't robust enough and it's too restrictive in what you can actually achieve.

I'm extremely disappointed in the offerings for PvP gear. I went around to each of the vendors and previewed all the different sets and they are all the same. There are a few different purple sets for each class, yet they all look exactly like the blue set. The only difference is a small palette shift, which isn't variety at all, IMO. Worst of all, most of the time I can't rip out the mods to use in Orange gear that I already have. The gear progression, at least from the PvP end, is very poor and it funnels all players into a single class specific look. Let's hope the raid progression gear has even a tiny bit of variety, but at this point, I'm not holding my breath.

I never said PvPers were a niche group, I said the people who want an FFA ruleset like the OP describes would be a niche group. I feel that even most PvPers are satisfied with the faction restrictions that exist in the current ruleset. An FFA ruleset like the OP describes means people would get ganked while looking in their bank or on the fleet using the GTN or trying to access their trainer.

It's a bug that somehow is allowing more players to join. It's as if the system doesn't realize the group is full and tries to add more players. It ends up with one team having more players and then the warzone shutdowns due to unbalanced teams. Funny thing though, this NEVER happened in beta, they have literally introduced this rather large bug into the game since launch.

I wouldn't play on it and I'd prefer Bioware spends their resources fixing things that are actually broke before they try to add things that only a niche segment of players would actually use.

uh, assassins are still inquisitors, right?

That's exactly why hard coded brackets shouldn't happen. Right now, there aren't enough level 50's to have a 50's only bracket or even a level 40-50 bracket, although that could become a possibility soon. However, even when there are enough players at that level queuing up for warzones, the system already looks to match them up together. It's a dynamic system that will actively look to find a balance. But the players that hardcoded brackets will end up hurting is the 10-20 level newer players and alts in that range. Warzones at that level will be non-existant as most people will just look to power level through those levels leaving only a few that actually want to PvP. Many people want brackets every 10 levels, what they don't realize is that without x-server queues, there will be very few opportunities to actually PvP. So if they went that route, they're almost be forced to add x-server queues which have a whole host of other considerations, lack of community building just one of several. The current system can dynamically shift to match players of a similar level range and adjust to changing populations. A hard coded system does not. But even if you do find yourself in a match against a team with a level 50, chances are, your team has one too.

Try out both for yourself and see what works best for you. Then report back with your findings. That's kinda how these things work, ya just gotta experiment a bit.

almost every server is imbalanced and favoring the Empire from a population standpoint. X-server warzones won't allow you to play Huttball less often, it will jut allow you to play huttball with other Imps on another server. Pro tip: if you don't want to play 80% huttball, try being part of the solution to population imbalance and roll republic.

The amount of cross-over questing areas increases as you go to higher level planets. Belsavis, Voss and Corellia are almost complete overlap. Even the chapter 2 planets (Hoth and Quesh) have good amounts of overlap.

The IA ability, Debilitate, does stop movement. The exception would be if the player is currently immune to CC effects (full resolve) but that is working as intended and functions the same for both classes.

^^This. You're spot on here.

You can get Mercenary commendations from open-world PvP. Trading them at a 3:1 ratio is a last resort option.

I hated Huttfail in beta. I railed on it, started topics like this and queue dodged it as much as I could. Eventually, I came around and now I like huttfail. Playing this with noobs or players who just don't get it is extremely frustrating, I understand that, but it's also extremely fun to play with an organized group that communicates and uses actual tactics. Huttfail is a tactical game and if you're not following the strategies, you're doing it wrong. Eventually, the bulk of the population will figure out the correct way to play as we did in beta. Then games will be much more enjoyable when you have people actually doing their job.

I think this is the wrong way to look at it. Huttball is a team-oriented game, and yes, some classes have better utility for certain parts of the game than others. As a healer or damage dealer, you can focus on healing your own ball carrier and killing the other team as they attack your ball carrier. Solo running the ball is doing it wrong and passing, which everyone has access to, is the single best way to score, moreso than leaps and sprint abilities.

I haven't heard that to be the case. That would really hurt tank classes disproportionately more if it's true. Doesn't mean it's not how it works, but I'd be suprised if it did.

Defense rating is usually better than absorption rating until your have a higher shield chance where you're absorbing damage more often. Until you start getting items with all three stats (+defense, +shield and +absorb), I'd focus on +Defense Rating.

Since you are a Sentinel (DPS), using Kira is redundant. In general, you want to use companions that complement your own spec, not overlap it. For a Guardian speccing for tank, Kira is a great choice. For a DPS, I'd go with T7.

There is a mod vendor on each planet that sells basic, green level, mods for your current level. There are also weapon/armor vendors that sell greens. If you absolutely have to replace your entire set of gear, I guess you could do it for around 8k credits.

Well, you could still have the option to queue for all 3 warzones, thus reducing your queue time while other players are able to CHOOSE to wait longer for a specific warzone.

Playing with a partner has the same effect. Is group play in world PvP unbalanced too? Don't think of it as a 1v1 scenario. You have a companion available to you as well, use it. This game is designed with companions as a necessary part of the game. The reason companions are left out of warzones is that 8v8 with 16 companions would just be too chaotic, not because of some "companions don't belong in PvP" concept.

I think you're assuming that the botted subscriber is having no effect on the subscriptions of the legit players. If botting becomes a problem, you will end up losing legit players, so from that perspective, it's better to ban a smaller amount of bot accounts than it is to risk losing a larger number of legit accounts. Clearly, from threads like this, the presence of a bot affects other players.

I think companions in open world PvP are fine. For many players, your companion is an integral part of your character build and removing them would be like playing without 1/3 of your abilities.