100 % support for the OP. I am pretty disappointed with the silence so far regarding the promised introduction of LGBT content, but there is still hope that at some distant point in the future we might be recognized. As it is right now playing through the various storylines has been a matter of hitting esc quite often and feeling immensely annoyed at all the implied interest my gay character apparantly has towards girls. Prime example that really ticked me off: Nadia. There is this scene on your ship where your character and she kiss each other, no matter what choice I pick, and from the responses of my character it is definitely shown as him agreeing that they have some sort of secret relationship. Seriously, ***? This is shoving it right in my face, and imagine the outcry this would get if the same were to happen with a gay character coming on to a male player. So for the moment I cant progress the storyline with her, because the game makes me straight by default. It also is incredibly easy to get to sleep with a girl (as a smuggler) even if you thought you were just being friendly. Oh well, the damage is done and it really cant get much worse than it already is right now. I tried hard to ignore this issue but seeing it constantly pop up in my dialogue choices is really getting on my nerves.

Been thinking about this for a while...and I found, I am also in favor of a X-Server grouping tool. As it is, most if not all lvl 50 activity centers around the Fleet Stations, because thats where you see people post in general chat looking for groups to do stuff. Doesn't matter if it is for premade pvp or HM FPs, the station is basically the big game lobby where players meet. Now that is where you have your community right in front of your eyes. They are all on that station, you can see them, talk to them, RP, whatever. Would a X-Server tool take away from that experience? No, not at all. In WoW I still felt that there was a server community, even though you were able to group cross server wide. You still met the same people in front of the instances and in the big social hubs. You had special chat channels solely for the server community like a dedicated PuG channel or PvP channel. You knew where to go for RP or friendly dueling. You still had your community. That being said, I really don't think having the X-Server FLG option is destroying anything other than long wait times and WZ queues.

There are alternatives: Make a pvp guild. Add people you know are good and you like to pvp with. Premade with them. Organize Ops for Ilum. All that worked for me at least. We have a solid win rate in WZs and with the new pop cap in Ilum we managed to chase the Imps around a few times when zerg numbers were roughly equal. It is possible to beat the odds, it still is. Is it more work than Imps have to put up? Sure, but you can do it

Well, you just have to take my word for it, but I am telling you, it has happened a few times to me already, and it does look kinda hilarious with the object hanging in midair. By the way, I am not whining, I just think that in PvP there should be equal ground from the start, meaning mirror classes and abilities should indeed be identical mirrors, so not the ability decides your wins, but your ability to use them. Mind you, it's not that I use my dps stuff that often as a pvp healer, but I had a few close situations when it came to interrupt someone capping a door/turret where I noticed the slight delay in project. I think its barely 1 second that it takes the animation to pull up the object from the ground, my char raisinghis arm and hand and then doing a push motion towards the enemy propelling that object. It is not even 1 second, but it is enough for someone to finish capping, and it is certainly far from being instant hit. I just hope they gonna fix this at some point.

I've fought so many assassins by now that I can safely say, that it does not break their stealth, nor does it auto follow them. It does what I describe. My projectile hangs in midair and disappears after some time. So, he either popped out of stealth by himself or had a DoT going on him. Stealth seeking rocks, hehe, that was actually funny, more please

Could you please explain to me then why my rock is hovering in midair, staying there and doing pretty much nothing, should my target use vanish and go stealthmode? I don't think the same goes for your shock, as it is, you know, instant.

I can agree to what my fellow pvp seers have already said, like that you are very squishy if focused by a good premade and that ignored you can put out some serious healing. I'd like to add that pvp healing requires you to be constantly on the move and aware of all your tools in your skill arsenal, especially the CC ones. You really will need them, because as pointed out, expect to be targeted a lot once people notice you healing. Once it is obvious that I go down within a blink the fun part begins. Hiding behind pillars, throwing out heals, jump back into cover, stun the charging marauder, force lift that healing sorc in the back, use force speed to dive for that healing orb or run beind a LoS object to fire off your conveyance boosted big heal...you get the picture. You have to give it all to be useful and stay alive, but it is also very rewarding imo. If you happen to have someone huard you your survivability goes up even more. So in short: Having lots of fun with my sage healer in pvp, just like I had with my disci priest in WoW. Plays pretty much the same

Changed my sub from 3 months to just 1. They got 1 month to bring pvp to a state where it is at least somewhat balanced, enjoyable and in the case of Open World PvP, playable with more than just 1-2 fps. I enjoy the game for the single player experience that it is, but I had planned for PvP to be my main if not sole occupation at 50. In the current state I cant see myself enjoying PvP that much as my endgame entertainment, so I will watch them fix this mess during the next month. If they improve it a lot, I ll continue my subscription, if it is still in the sorry state it is now I wont. My biggest concern is still the engine that doesnt seem able to handle any large scale battles, as proven by testers and those guys from the Ravager server, who showed a youtube video of them lagging and crashing during a relatively small sized raid vs raid battle on Ilum.

Good post OP, that is what I am also worried about. Right after the patch went live when there were still relatively few people in Ilum, we had 2 Ops sized raids fighting each other. That is not a lot, considering we talk about maybe 40-50 people in total. Ability lag was about 1-2 seconds. Frame rates were very low, gameplay was stuttering and not very enjoyable. Fighting actually meant activating your AoE target marker, dragging it carefully roughly in the direction of the enemy group and place it carefully on the ground, clicking it the moment your screen has updated enough that you are sure it will fire off. Healing pretty much went the same way. Single target healing not very reliable as people were usually dead before your heal went off, so AoE healing was the best tool in your arsenal. CC and more complex tactics just werent possible. Add to that random loading screens popping up and you had a pretty terrible performance. I am afraid unless some serious polishing and tweaking of the engine is done, mass scale pvp just is not an option.

I can agree that the turrets dont even matter in the bigger picture here. And the main issue is still imbalance when it comes to population of Empire and Republic. The side outnumbering the other will likely always control all 5 objectives, granting them a huge kill bonus. I believe it was like 20 per kill and 180 bonus? That is a huge gain compared to the time it takes to play a warzone and complete it. Now it really doesnt matter if the turrets also gave valor. Being able to camp spawn for hours gaining 200 valor per kill, that is what most complaints are about.

Well, this is all assuming they do indeed act on their promise and remove valor from those people. I still have my doubts though but I am waiting to be pleasantly surprised. About the lag issue: I don't have issues in Warzones, I had issues like pretty much everyone else when fighting in an operation sized raid against another one on Ilum. I suppose you can understand that I am interested in an enjoyable gameplay experience when doing PvP so that's why I bring this to the attention of the devs so that one day we might get an open PvP world zone that can actually handle the amount of players it is supposed to handle.

So as the intelligent person you imply to be you will probably understand my reasoning when I say that this is NOT a minor issue, because a minor issue would not affect gameplay balance for weeks to come. Already favored overpopulated side getting an even bigger advantage to make the gap even bigger gear and (valor) level wise? Lag and bugs to the point of unplayability in Ilum? The engine not being able to handle a reasonable amount of people wanting to pvp against each other? In what world are those minor issues?

No, but it actually made me feel better after I posted it. And I had to voice my concers somehow

Since the release of this game we have been fighting an uphill battle as Republic on my server due to faction imbalance. Warzones usually had a single 50 or if we got lucky, maybe 2 50s and a mixture of ppl from 10-40s on our side. More often than not we were going against 50 premades consisting of at least 4 50s + a number of players usually in the 30-40s range. Now a few weeks later we have some geared 50s as well and if the matches had even odds we had good challenging and fun games that we won more often than not. The 50 only brackets are ok imo, but Empire outgears and outranks our side by a lot, as most republic players just hit max level and start gearing up. I'd say most are in the range of valor 20 to high 30s. After today's desaster the imbalance will increase even further, because if suddenly a huge number of Imps flew through valor levels and achieved valor 60, that also means that they can start grinding for the gear immediately and that will put us Republic players even further behind who still struggle to get even to valor 50. Don't get me wrong, I love a good challenge, and I couldnt care less about the title. Let them exploit their way to valor 100 and be named Supreme God of PvP, I dont care. The issue I have is with the gear which -sadly- plays such an important role in the overall performance in a PvP environment. As it is valor rank also determines access to pvp gear, and there already was a huge gap between Rep and Imp side, on most servers at least. After the Ilum grinding today, Republic will be off even worse. I first said to a guild mate "So what, let them. You ll see PvP scrubs with Battlemaster title, doesnt change the fact that we are still better players than them." Then it dawned on me that by having access to BM gear, a few weeks later it wont matter if they didnt PvP as much or arent as good a player. Sporting a few BM pieces they just dont need to be that good. The gear will negate the lack of skill and effort/experience put into playing actual PvP in Warzones. I am really wondering if this fiasco can be salvaged into something acceptable, for both sides, because I dont think the Imps who gained their BM title and gear by playing a lot will like the cheap gain of that title any more than we on Rep side do. PvP fun has always come for me from having roughly equal chances in a match of skill and then beating the opposing team, especially if the odds are against us, but I see that pretty much destroyed now after what has happened to Ilum, because the odds arent only not in our favor, they have become entirely impossible to beat. Add to that the general population imbalance issue, the slight favoring of Empire when it comes to class abilities, casting delays, warzone design etc. and I really wonder why I should bother anymore with PvP. Oh, and the fact that this patch also did nothing to reward objective focused play in WZs and is also still not adressing the issue of less medals gained if you play pure healer is further adding frustration with this game's current state of PvP. Bioware, I implore you to make some changes, and do them quickly, because I have a very bad feeling about this and I dont want to see this game tank in such a short time.

So I logged in today and tested the new Ilum. I play on Republic side, and a healing Sage. My PvP experience was mixed. At the beginning we had an operation going and we would fight the Imp zerg around Central. The gameplay was -as expected- a zerg vs zerg, flowing back and forth. A few things I noticed here that need improvement: Lag, obviously. About 1-2 seconds delay in animations and low fps all around. The kill count/reward system. Tbh I am not sure about it, but I felt that in order to get a count I had to stop healing and do damage to an enemy player. I was getting something like 20 valor for an assisted kill and about 50-60 bonus valor. I would like to see a thorough explanation of how valor gain works for what activity, especially for healers. Faction Imbalance. Due to overpopulated Empire side we ended up with our back to the wall, the wall being our base. The fighting went back and forth in the corridor leading to the main plaza with the turrets. Both sides were sitting in a zerg and throwing AoEs at each other with the occasional single victim pulled into the zerg. I asked Imps via /say what they thought about the situation, and we all kinda agreed that this wasnt the "PvP" we were looking for. Us Reps were getting farmed, which got boring very fast, and Imps idled around in their zerg watching tv and looking at the valor rolling in. I think it's safe to say, that this is not working as intended. Faction imbalance aside, there is no skill whatsoever required when you have zerg vs zerg. It all comes down to quantity over quality. So maybe there should be a redesign that allows for more group vs group or op vs op play. Maybe put a limit on zone population for both sides. Change the objectives so that there are more key points of interest where pvp could happen and try to spread the player load over the whole zone that way. In summary, in the beginning where it was roughly one operation vs another, and you also found some stragglers on the side for duels/group battles, it was quite enjoyable imo. At least I could see the potential for fun open world pvp. I would suggest to implement ways that further this kind of situation, because let's face it, one huge zerg vs another zerg isnt exactly challenging, nor is it exciting. Add to that severe lag issues, bugs, and server imbalance and you have a terrible mess going on that noone enjoys. Well, ok, maybe the people hoping for fast valor rush to battlemaster, but aside from that, if you are looking for good pvp, Ilum atm is not where to find it. Best regards, Aeryn, Healing Sage on Progenitor

This "medals for Allies saved" definitely gets my vote, awesome idea. I want fair rewards for dedicating my spec and all my time in a WZ by helping other people achieve their kills

The issue I have with the current system is this: It rewards me less when I am doing my job, aka healing others and focusing on capping objectives, interrupting etc. I average 3-4 medals in a normal game, mostly because when I am guarding a turret and not run around chasing kills, there wont be much healing I can do beyond the 75k one. I just refuse to respec to telekinetic dps just to get more medals. I wanted to play a dedicated healer, and thats what I am staying with. Bioware should really tweak the reward system a bit though, allowing healers who primarily heal in a WZ to get more medals at the end. Maybe if you get a percentage of the dmg done a player you are healing is doing, and also his kill counts, we may be able to get a few more medals. Separate it from the dps medals of course, make 2 more healer specific medals.

While I agree that it is painful to play below 50 vs geared 50s, it does not mean that you have no chance at all. Depending on the warzone you can very effectively use the inherent skills of your class to still play objective focused PvP. A stealther, no matter his level can always try to ninja cap those turrets. Everyone with a pushback can throw people off high ground, especially useful in Huttball. Do you stand a chance going face to face with a geared 50? Unlikely, but you definitely can contribute. Even a geared 50 will still be stunned or rooted on the fire pit if you fire your cc in the right moment, and it doesnt matter what level you have for that. On the other hand though, yes ofc there is a mathematical or numerical evidence that the damage output against an expertise stacked player at 50 is quite low, and that in reverse a lvl 50 does a great amount of damage against a low level player with no expertise. Not sure what can be done here, maybe add to the bolstering a flat amount of expertise for low level players that brings them to at least 5% expertise buff? I know that as a geared lvl 50 healer I can usually ignore the attempts of low level players to attack me and focus on my job. Some classes hit harder though and anyone who plays his class to the maximum of its piotential will give me trouble or at least annoy the heck out of me, therefore keeping me from doing my job. So it's not hopeless but yes, I notice the big gear advantage. And to be honest, if we come up against mostly low level players and win Alderaan with 3 turrets or huttball 6-0 it is not very fun for us either. I love challenges, I love a good intense fight where you have to give it your best, even if it means you los ein the end. Playing as a geared 50 premade against non 50s is usually a snore fest.

Hm, if what you say is true then I would be surprised, because didn't Bioware say that they would never force you into this sort of thing? I mean, of course I am not forced to do anything and I can certainly just ignore her request to talk to me on my ship, but it feels a bit awkward. And before someone point out that this isn't the real romance yet, what with the engagement and marriage etc., yes, of course that's right, but Nadia and my character kissing is definitely crossing the line for me from friendship to romance. And I just don't want to have her as a love interest, I want her as a good friend. So, anyone else who has played the JC story line with Nadia knows about this? Is that kissing/making out scene on your ship avoidable or not?

Hi all, just a quick question about the last JC companion Nadia Grell. I want to keep her as a friend, but I dont want to romance her or anything. Now I am at a point where she wants to talk to me and no matter what dialogue option I choose she kisses me during that cutscene. I havent picked any Flirt options before either, so I am kinda wondering what's going on? Is this avoidable, am I doing something wrong or is my only option to just leave her standing there and never talk to her again?