The OP has a point, but that's just the way MMOs are designed. The become victims of their own mechanics after a while too once people get everything there is to get and become disillusioned. For most of us who don't play a huge amount, ideally there should be sufficient gear to keep aiming for, aka the ol' carrot and stick approach. Some people just run out of carrots...

More Huttball arenas would be great. Depends on your server how much you play it I guess. I PvP at least an hour or two most nights (Ven Zallow, Imperial Faction) and seem to get an even split of Huttball, Voidstar and Alderaan. Sometimes even a Rep vs Imp Huttball!

And there's your problem. Sorry but if you want to tank damage, go an Immortal PvP build. If you want to be a wrecking ball, go Rage...if you want to keep sucking at both, then stick with Vengeance. If you're a huge Veng fan and want to stick with it then fine, but you'll keep on being consistently underwhelmed.

All this "hard work" in video games, ahaha. The old system was poorly thought out and they fixed it. An average person hitting 50 now has a good chance to take LONGER to gear up than someone who hit 50 a month ago and got lucky with the RNG system. The difference is that the tokens you know you're getting per bag allow you to plan and purchase the gear you need rather than relying on completely random chance.

Bumping a positive post about SWTOR PvP! These forums are a terrible indication of the real state of affairs because people only ever really want to make themselves heard when something negative is going on. (not often someone posts to say "everything is fine!") Sure there are some issues to be resolved, bugs to fix, a little balancing to do here and there with PvP currently but as an overall package I'd say its great. Looking forward to whatever the next year brings for the TOR PvP community!

I understand your frustration but don't really understand the question. It's like saying "I'm bringing a butter knife to a nuclear missile war, why am I losing?" There really is no good answer, other than to get your own premade and try to upgrade your gear as best you can. A combination of dailies (for good modifications), buying upgrades from the GTN, PvE and PvP should get you at least a competitive set of gear after a week or so. As an undergeared player in a group of 8 strangers you're always going to be at a disadvantage against an organised group of people with good gear - no amount of tactics or unsolicited forum suggestions from others are going to change that.

Operatives have a stupid amount of stuns, quick movement speed, and the ability to stealth, in addition to being able to heal and do excellent damage despite the recent nerfs. My point is, not everyone needs everything. Operatives have a combination of skills and abilities which no other AC does.

Snipers/Gunslingers are far from broken, but equally far from being in a good place in PvP. Changing the damage type of Ambush/Sniper/Followthrough/SoS for Marksman would improve the tree dramatically as right now the damage is highly mitigated against heavy armor targets. Either that or add some stacking armor piercing debuff a la BH Mercs. Cover has a lot of unresolved bugs (unknown effect result, anyone?) and still feels "clunky" to PvP with despite best efforts to fix ability delay in recent patches. I think the issue is more with the animation/mechanic itself than ability delay at this point. Until it's a time when it really IS ability delay, adding another layer of annoyance. Poor mobility. Sure we're squishy and I have no issue with that, A Sniper should get decimated up close and personal. I think the class could benefit from a gap creator without making it OP though (something to move the sniper away from the enemy, not another knockback). Easy to counter (perhaps TOO easy to counter at this point). People complain that we're too easy to LoS as Marksman.... I get that, but what's the alternative? Lethality is fun but it's annoyance at best. You flit around the enemy team wracking up great "damage done" on the scoreboard with your DoTs but it requires a lot of setup to get damage enough rolling on someone to kill them 1v1. During this time you're wide open to CC. Cleanse wrecks lethality all on its own against people who understand what they're doing.

The only time I'm concerned with lower levels if when people are sub-level 14 so they don't get the Sprint ability. My level 22 Juggernaut finishes most games over 100k damage done with 7+ medals and I've spent the whole game worrying about objectives (particularly grabbing the Huttball, looking for that charge and/or pass to a good position while I survive with my defensive CDs up). I also have a level 18 Sorcerer and honestly...it feels like I'm cheating every time I play that character. It's a freakin swiss army knife at level 18 already. Regularly around 200k healing and get the 75k damage medal in addition to being a total CC/objective-based monster. My point is that even lowbie character can contribute. they just have to be played well. It's important to not get stuck in small skirmishes all over the map but rather keep your eye on the objective. Versus a level 40+ in 1v1 combat you'll likely die most of the time, so stick to what you can do well and lowbies can absolutely shine.

DoTs are fine. If nobody was able to ever get through the doors in Voidstar or cap a point in Alderaan then I would agree with you. Fact is, games right now (at least on my server) are always close affairs. Both sides get DoTs, both get dispels, I don't see the problem?

Agreed, and that's in the 1.1.2 patch notes already ... something along the lines "significantly increasing" the number of Cent commendations in Champion bags, but lowering the drop rate of Champ/BM tokens from those bags respectively. Might even turn out that's all that was meant by half a paragraph in the middle of a thread about Biochem changes.....

Thanks to you too for a well-constructed response. We remain in disagreement but I respect your opinion. I even agree with you, to a certain point at least. My concern with PvP gear right now is twofold: 1. The only two deciding variables for getting the best PvP gear are: Time invested and Luck. 2. If you have one of, or neither of the above, your chances of being able to compete effectively are reduced dramatically. Your argument is that due to the time you've invested in PvP you should have a competitive advantage over people who have put in less hours. No arguments from me here, I hope whatever changes they implement to "close the gap" between fresh-50 and Battlemaster-50 does not make it a completely level field. Else, for those who PvP for progression, where's the incentive? I'm going to presume a couple of things here - firstly, you hit 50 just two days after official launch so it's fair to assume that you got at least some Centurion/Champion gear before the 50-only bracket hit. Secondly, not everyone was as geared when that bracket appeared as they are now. Now let me say, I do not take anything away from you fighting other 50's in the old, pre-bracket Warzones. I'm sure fighting 50s with a lot of gear was just as frustrating as it is for the rest of us right now. That being said, for every geared 50 who pissed you off I'm sure there was a level 12 or two just swept aside without a second thought. I represent the flip-side of your point of view. I too am a good PvPer and have a lot of MMO experience. I am not, nor do I claim to be an elite top-flight PvP player or the best at anything, but I understand tactics, strategies and how to play the game against other people. I leveled slowly having limited time to give to the game from release, plus wanting to see the story. I spent a enough time in Warzones to hit valor 41 when my character hit level 50 (just over a week ago). As a fresh 50 in the 50-bracket now I find I cannot compete. The driving force behind this lack of competitiveness is a lack of gear. From my 6 Champion bags at 50 I got 18 centurion commendations and nothing else, so I was forced into Warzones with 0 expertise and just over 12,000hp. I am obliterated in a matter of seconds every time I'm spotted, and once the opposition realises I have no gear, I'm often a prime target. Yes, I could grind away relentlessly enduring many losses and much frustration to the random chance of better gear in a Champ bag, but I would rather spend my time leveling alts and playing in the (more fun, imho) 10-49 bracket.

And Kudos to you. I think you misunderstand my post. Valor 50-60 right now is a HUGE grind, as is the terrible RNG-based bag/gear system. I make no comment to the contrary on that one. For those who facerolled the 10-49 people as 50 in their Expertise-packed gear, and those who participated in "Ilum-gate" to get to Valor 60 in a single day, those people I aim my criticisms at.

Due to recent announcements regarding making Level 50 PvP even a fraction more accessible to those without Champion/Battlemaster gear, all players who DO have such gear will be given replacement "Q" keys for their keyboards. Thank you. I'm sure everyone has seen the 1.1.2 dev tracker post which made reference to level 50 PvP today: (click here if you missed it). To quote the offending paragraph: Perhaps I'm going blind in my old age, but I fail to see the comment which states current PvP gear is being nerfed, or even changed. In fact I read between the lines to translate: "We are reducing the chasm between those with gear and those trying to get it, to make it a more fun experience". It is a game, after all, and is meant to be entertaining regardless of how good you are or how much time you can commit to playing. The outpouring of comments on these forums has cheered up my Thursday immeasurably, so thanks to all whose tears participated in that one. Some personal faves: "Do you know how hard I worked for...X/Y/Z item(s)??" Oh please, the game has been out for what...6 weeks? And you've likely been grinding gear for around a month. This does not constitute hard work. "Why should new players get to avoid what we all went through to get gear??" Aaaa...haha. I'd wager a huge portion of those with their Valor 60 and T3 pvp gear managed to grind out a competitive set of Centurion/Champion mix on poor lowly level 10-49's before the bracket change. And we all remember how much fun THAT was? Right? Oh, yes...none whatsoever. "Omg PvE Noobs coming into my Warzone and one-shotting everyone!!" All aboard the fine vessel Knee-Jerk Reaction, helmed by none other than Capt'n Dramatic! Quite a reaching comment for something which hasn't happened, or even been mentioned yet. Look - joking and sarcasm aside, Level 50 PvP is not very fun and even less accessible without gear right now. Most people who are raging mad about any changes to make it easier are likely those who already got their gear...via an easier route than exists today. There's a reason a huge portion of PvPers reroll an alt for the 10-49 bracket when they hit 50. It's not fun, it's not balanced and it's too easy for baddies who had time to grind their gear early on to hide behind that gear now. Why would anybody who is interested in competitive, Player-versus-Player combat based on skill (ie: true PvPers) be against levelling the playing field a little?

Le sigh

In warzones there's a definite delay in putting up cover to having your abilities available to use. Not all the time, but at least 75% of the time. My cover is bound to one of the extra buttons on my gaming mouse and it's exclusively for that purpose. The delay in cover/abilities is commonly and widely known and nothing to do with "playing the class right".

A very simple fix for Cover. Make it automatically casted when you use an ability which REQUIRES cover. For instance, you push your Ambush button. The cast bar starts charging immediately and your character spends ~1 sec of that cast time doing the "enter cover" or "Roll to cover" animations. I think the problem most people have with cover, other than the horrendous bugs, is that the setup time makes if feel slow and clunky (basically everything that spells death for a squishy PvP class like us).

Uneven ground. close to ledges, near natural obstacles. That's half the PvP map. Just another peg on the long, descending ladder of PvP Sniper issues. By the time you've found somewhere that the game deems acceptable to take cover, your target has either skipped away into the sunset or has shivved you, unceremoniously, in the particulars. Either way, that message is VERY annoying...

Pretty much. I once Took Cover so hard, I barrel rolled into my buddy's space mission! True story...

I'm seriously considering trying out Engineering so would welcome any guidance or feedback from those who have some experience with it. My Sniper is currently level 47. I went Marksman from 10-41 then respecced Lethality for the last few levels. While Lethality is arguably better for PvP especially, I'm not sold. Perhaps Engineering holds the key??

For sure! Roll to Cover is more likely to send you through a wall and underneath the game world to your untimely death. Or inside an acid pit. Oh you, Roll to Cover. Oh, you. I've yet to hear about Crouch killing anyone...

A thousand times: ^ this. The only factions which should matter are your guild and perhaps a few pre-defined factions, one of which you could pledge allegiance to. I played UO for a long time and being freely attackable anywhere in the game world, by anyone around you, definitely added an edge to the game. It'll never happen in a modern MMO as there's just not the demand for it any more. We can dream, though!

Pretty much that. We have a lot of options to protect ball carriers or other objectives in our arsenal. Sure, we have poor survivability but that comes with the class. From what I've read, Marauders (being the other pure-DPS AC) are having a worse time of it than we are!

I'm going to hazard a guess and say 99% of these problems are latency-related. My average latency is 20-40ms and my FPS is always good, yet I've experienced exactly as you describe. People warping all over the place is hugely annoying. I have a hard time believing so many people would risk their accounts with widespread cheating on a subscription-based MMO. Not saying that there aren't any cheats out there, but the majority are probably bugs waiting to be fixed.

Indeed.