I call this thread a lie and I call Courtney a liar. There apparently is no Rob Hinkle. Or at least he is not working for this company. How else can you explain him being introduced without any kind of response from him? Considering how little Courtney and others at support do, I guess they fill their time with bogus threads like this. Probably so they can laugh at us when we take them serious.

They don't respond to any kind of threads, so it's completely the same if he changes his thread title or not. After all making a response would demand someone with actual knowledge of PVP which EAware doesn't have any more.

1. It wont solve it but it will make it much, much better for PUGs. What you and so many others don't understand is the fact that players that like to PUG are not bothered by getting killed by better players. There will always be better players and I think we all can agree on that. The fact that bothers us is getting stomped by a team of players who have nothing else to do, continuously. They have and will play much, much more than we have or will. That's the reason they are called hardcore and we are called casual players. Our understanding of the word "play" differs. 2. Than why do you keep playing in a pre-made? Maybe to farm comms for grade 8 stuff? Or do you simply like owning others? I am amazed how much win/lose attitude there is among players. Maybe that is just a personality thing and you gals and guys actually don't know any better. Bet let's try ... having fun in playing is (or should be) the most important thing in playing! Not winning or losing. Sure, winning gets you a nice feeling and more comms, but is that all you care about? Is having your face planted in the behind of your buddy all the time, really the only thing you enjoy? I've tried premade group and while it can be fun while you learn the composition and team play, it can become like a work with the attitude it usually brings. It's the "we must win" mentality that has made me quit two premade groups so far. It's just too much like work and obsession. But this is just my experience, and it doesn't represent any other, of course. PUGs bring some chaos and unpredictability into "been there, done that" constant, repeating WZs. They are a group of players, just like a premade so please stop with this "its an MMO so premade is the only way to go" mentality and try to understand that separating yourselves and us is going to help you as well. You will not longer have to compete against bad teams. Unless that is the way you get wet (or hard depending on your sex) of course. You will no longer have to play unchallenging WZs. You will not longer have to play against people that just don't understand how the game is supposed to be played right (I really don't understand where you get he idea that playing in a premade is playing the game right). If the only way of playing WZs for you is premade, please feel free to do that. But allow us the same freedom to have an option to play the way we want it. In a crazy, unpredictable and chaos filled world that is called PUG.

You don't exactly understand the problem. No one wants to nerf team work. We just want to separate any kind of "work" (it was your choice of words and very good one, I might add) from "fun". Many players find it fun to play in a random team against a random team. Many players do not want to do anything that resembles work or too heavy commitment and simply want to have fun. In losing or winning. With like minded people. Which you are not a part of. And that is also the reason to separate your play from mine. They are different.

I wonder what would it take for someone in EAWare team to make some sort of official response to this topic? Probably big fat check is the only thing they are interested in. It has become one of the most important topics in SWTOR and yet they continue to ignore it and us. Or maybe they are just waiting for a chance to put the solution on the Cartel market. In any case, solution is sorely needed. The best possible one at this time would be to add new queue options and prevent anyone in group that has more than 2 players to queue for solo.

You expect responses and communication from a team that is barely above competence level. You expect them to understand PVP and it's imbalances the way we feel them. You expect Joveth and the rest of them to be of any use. You, my friend, expect too much. I was once like that (prior to F2P launch). Not any more. The only thing you can expect from this CS or dev team are some wage promises and lots and lots of boolpoop statements. I don't understand how they earn their pay, I don't understand how they see themselves as professionals and I don't understand what will have to happen for them to realize they are as worthless as cheese holes.

Prove it, Rob. We all know EAWare's employees are masters of promises. We rarely see those promises delivered. Start engaging in this forum's discussions. By yourself or by proxy, we don't care. We just want something out of you besides "you will be excited", because right now you sound like a drug dealer promising us a new "thing" and all we expect is that you will "stick one up there " as you usually do.

Many of your points are reasonable and to a degree accurate. But you fail to see the whole picture. And we could swap such lists entire day and not get anywhere. Nobody wants an easy win!!! Being with a premade as a PUG is almost as bad as being in a PUG against a premade. Only that added feeling of win is what makes it better. And to many, that's not the most important thing, surprised, surprise. To explain that to someone who plays in a premade and thinks that's the only way to do it: we want better fights, not easy wins. Why are you playing in a premade that enters an ordinary queue if you know you will almost certainly be matched against a PUG? Want an easy win? If the answer is no, why is your premade in a normal queue? You have a separate queue for you and you are almost guaranteed a better fight there. Not enough premades? Make a thread that entices people to join premades, not a thread that criticises PUGs. Without PUGs you would get less WZs and let's not forget ... less easy wins. So be thankfull for PUGs. Playing the game in a premade does not mean playing the game properly. It's an MMO. Any kind of group is "playing the game properly". Which means you don't have to play with your closest friends or your favourite group to satisfy this game's mission. Try it sometimes, you will find an entire world of unknown people out there. Now, to explain to you why playing in a PUG is better than playing in a premade (which is the reason so many of us are doing it). Because it's much more fun. You know, opposite of work or "must do this". Playing in a premade (I've done it) feels like obligation. You have to be there, do that, don't do this and many times play differently that you like or are used to. That by itself is not so bad, it adds a feeling of belonging somewhere and doing something meaningful. Which, on the other side, can be the biggest problem of premades. It takes away all the drama and spontaneity of the play. It doesn't have that unknown factor that is so sorely missed from MMO games, where most of the things repeat themselves constantly. You guys have an entire separate queue for you. We don't.

Hi Rob I have question ... do you and others at PVP team actually do any work? How do you gals and guys earn you pay? The amount of PVP balancing issues you've created in this past year is greater than the amount of balancing issues you've fixed. That is why I ask. I simply can't fathom why a company would need a PVP team if their work is so nonexistent in most cases and so ridiculous at times when they manage to do something. Do you devs all work on Cartel market items and can't afford any real work on PVP balancing? ------------------------------------- What’s the biggest challenge you have to face in your role? Receiving feedback from players, by far. When you’ve got players on both sides of a combat, one of them will win and one of them will lose, and no one likes losing. This can lead to emotional feedback, and we have to try to look at that feedback and get through any emotionally-driven comments to find what’s at the core of the issue. Even beyond that, almost every change we make will make some players happy and some players unhappy. We have to gauge the health of the game versus the health and happiness of our player base for almost every single change we make, no matter how minor it may be. ------------------------------------- Feedback??? Where??? Oh ... and one more question? Are you forbidden to comment on PVP forum?

What you are asking is too much for them. First of all they don't have any to begin with, and if they would start commenting (which would be like a miracle in this game) they would only be able to show us their incompetence. Or they simply can't comment as there is no one in PVP dept. They've all been moved to Cartel market section .

Obviously you care or you would not feel the need to answer her/him.

I think the reason for not having more info is simple. They themselves don't know more than they have already said. The day ROHC was announced was the day they started working on it, imo. EAWare has seen huge success of Cartel market and decided to capitalize on it. So they promised something new, but something in a future in order to retain many players that will pre-order the thing. And they have succeeded in that. Now all they have to do is to "leak" some small pieces of info once in a while and still satisfy many SWTOR players, especially those that have already preordered and those that are thinking about it.

I couldn't agree more! I don't want to appear as advertising Razer, so if there is any other mouse with so many buttons on it, it could be as good or better than Naga. Naga does have two buttons (next to left top button) that are almost useless to me due to their placement. But until you try it you just don't realize how much difference, having 12 buttons under your thumb really is. Especially in PVP where quick reactions are so important. For me it literally meant the difference between playing or not. Before Naga I was really frustrated with using 20+ skills which meant finding them on a keyboard, pressing 2 or more keys together in order to execute one skill and missing the intended keys due to the hectic environment that is called WZ. Now I use keys 1-6, F1-F12 and my Naga. No shift or alt keybinding, no searching for my keys (maybe sometimes with F9-F12) and no excessive mouse movements.

Why would that make a difference? They made a "promise". And they did it several months ago. Not several years or decades. So ... in those few months they managed to bring low quality of their CS to even lower level. To level where it is almost nonexistant if you take this forum as a reference point. Has their forum usage improved in this time? No. They still think that the only subforum they are required to appear in is CS subforum. So, please tell me why shouldn't we point that out?

We most definitely do need non-premade WZs. Playing a game should be about fun and being in a match you know from the start you will lose, is not fun. If individual quality was the factor, then premade Vs PUG would not be such a problem, as you can have many very good players on a PUG as well. But playing against a premade means you are playing against a team. Which PUG is not. PUG is a group of players and as such is not on the same level of play as a team of players. Just put those premade players into a solo PVP match, without their buddies, and the level of their play drops dramatically. I've sen that many times so far, and it makes me laugh every time. "Oh look ...he is completely lost when he has to do something without his buddies to help ". Having a more developed queue system is something that should not be so hard for the devs of this game. But since it has nothing to do with Cartel market, they don't care.

I understand you point of view but don't agree with it. They posted this in August when I quit for few months. Came back with F2P launch and what do I see? Even less of their efforts. CS in this game, be it forum, ticket or phone support is an insult to what customer support should be. Maybe it's the incompetence, not enough employees, not enough desire to do proper work or some other reason. But in any case it's on them to improve it. How can we improve something which we already pay for if this "something" is out of our control? They are professionals (getting paid) and do not have the luxury of having an "attitude" like we do. Sad, but true. And right now they are professionals that are doing very poor job.

Or adjust the system so more players will find WZs enjoyable.

It would be possible before Cartel market. Now it's just a wish we have and something they ignore. They can't even implement a proper PUG Vs PUG and pre-made Vs pre-made system. Cross server RWZ is waaay over their competence or desire to do. Maybe they will do something about it when they figure out a way to charge us for it.

So far I've had several matches where we were owned by a pre-made, several where we were owned by better PUG and several where we were the ones that did all the "owning" . I only PUG, so I can't say what a pre-made against PUG experience feels like, but to me it must be mostly people that get hard (or wet, depending on their sex) that enjoy being in a pre-made and play against a PUG. How else can you have fun or any kind of enjoyment against a group of players that are destined to loose in any case? But it is an MMO, so every kind of personalities is in an abundance. Gear disparity is one thing, it's a basic concept of this game, but group disparity is something completely different. It can be adjusted and improved. It just takes a dedicated developer and desire to improve. I am afraid that in case of EAWare neither exists. They have their favorite toy (Cartel market) and they are unwilling to let it go and pick one of the others (older toys) up. Just look at the number of topics about this subject and their lack of response and you will see how much they try to ignore this. But their incompetence or lack of desire is for another topic. Getting against a pre-made is a pain. And being better than the other team (both PUGs) so much that they sit on their behinds for more than half of the match is also pain. But in first case there is a simple solution, in latter one there isn't. If playing with few buddies is the only way someone wants to fight, than SWTOR should accommodate them, but not on the backs of others. It's their (very few players') desire to play together, so its them that should be "punished" with longer queue times or necessity to queue for ranked WZs. If that is not enough, they should get another form or option of playing in a WZ and not get PUG as an opponent. I don't know what, I am fairly new to MMO games and don't know how others have solved this problem so far. But some solution should get implemented into this game. PUG and pre-made are similar only if viewed from far, far away. It's a group of players, that is the only similarity. The closer you get to them, more differences you notice and this needs to get addressed by EAWare. Many people feel like they are playing against exploiters when they get a certain pre-made in a WZ, and even if they know that is not he case, the feeling that leaves in their mouth is very bitter, not matter what. Repeat this process several times and they have less and less desire to join another WZ.

Do you know what those two M's stand for? Do they stand for "stay close to your buddies and don't leave their side no matter what"?. Do they stand for "playing with few teammates"? They stand for "Massively Multiplayer" which is much more than those few buddies you can't play without. WZ is general is not exactly MMO. And ranked queues are empty because your group (among others) is not using them.

Ever since F2P launch I've been very critical of customer service of this game. I even made a forum signature for the first time in my life for that purpose. Why? Because I've lost any respect for you as CS representatives or the work you've done. I am not a hater even though I know I represent one if we use forum terminology. I simply don't see any reason to not bash you since I see your work as un-professional and many times insulting with the amount of ignorance you've shown so far. My vocal and harsh words have resulted in 3 infractions and partial forum ban so far. But now you say you want to turn a new page. Great! I welcome the day when I will feel the need to deleted my sig. Reading the OP of this thread got me worried, as it reads as you want to turn this forum into something that was happening (or maybe still is) on GW2's forum. That one was managed as a nazi camp forum with deletion of almost any thread that wasn't either praising their game or had overwhelming amount of suggestions. Because you see, being constructive is not something that is black/white. Even a criticism alone can be considered constructive enough, if you read it as such. Which means that everything we'll write here will be evaluated by one of you. That by itself is not a problem, but your views about "constructive" could become one. I will let myself be surprised, so let's just wait and see how this will turn up. I welcome your desire to better this forum and it's importance with all my heart. But it is you, CS dept, that will have to do most work. Because you will have to earn our respect back. Not us. You are professionals and do not have the luxury of being offended, angry or insulted. Sorry, I know how harsh that sounds , but it's the direct result of financial system you implemented. Simply put, we pay for your professionalism, so we can expect more from you than you can from us. Sad , but true. You made a promise to work more and harder. To "get out in the forums more". Now, a promise like that should not have to be made in a first place, but let's forget that. Prove it to us by actually participating in our threads, discussions and ideas more. And do it in all sub-forums, not only in CS one. That alone will help a lot.

Wow ... he actually does exist!

It just means they have found their gold laying goose and will continue to "milk it" as much as possible. Unfortunately it appears that they have also decided to put all other things besides Cartel market on side track and not spend so much time, money or focus on them.

Thanks for now. I will definitely contact you in next few days. As I already am a member on your web site I imagine contacting someone in-game and asking them for an invite is the way to go?

I would say that means you guys are pretty active and it's nice to hear that you belong in my age group . I see your OP runs are well organized, so my only question for now would be in regard to PVP. How many players are interested in PVP? I know we are talking about RP-PVE server, but there are still many good fights in WZs. I have just reached 50 and after my first shock of being almost completely useless with my recruit gear, I am in a process of getting to the WH gear. I don't know if I am good enough for ranked WZs, but would at least like to try few WZs in a group so I could see the difference organized approach has in WZs.