Pray guild wars 2 beta happens soon ...

Re the OP: this game was never meant to be a pvp game. If Warhammer were released now no one would be playing swtor for pvp/rvr. For any serious pvper it is just a filler until gw2. Any game that wants to have credible pvp has to even the playing field re gear and level and competition. This means at the least: 1. when pvping everyone is the same level, or at worst, there are appropriate brackets with bolstering. Being annihilated by players who outgear and outrank only leads to afking. 2. gear is equal .... no grinding. When people are forced to grind for gear to be competitive it ony leads to afking. WoW has huge afk probs because of it. When Warhammer introduced scen grinding for rvr weapons it lead to a huge increase in afking that just wasn't there beforehand. Perhaps some choices re alternative stat combinations and weapons for individual playstyle would be useful tho. 3. pugs and premades are separated 4. rewarded competitions for premades 5. A population to ensure wzs/bgs/scens pop regularly. This usually means cross-server wzs as the population of the game will eventually diminsh. WoW got a lot of things wrong with pvp, but they got that right. Warhammer has suffered terribly from lack of cross-server scens. Swtor has made the same mistake and imo should take a leaf out of WoW's book on this one. Personally, unless there is a reason to, I won't pug in this game for pvp. As a healer pugging Hutball and Voidstar is the pits most of the time.

Agree. There have been amny times as a healer I have topped heals but got only 2-3 medals, yet still knowing I kept the team alive to win. Yet, at other times I have simply defended turrets or doors etc and received just as many medals as those topping the damage or healing scoreboard. The number of medals at the end of a match does not signify who is the best player imo at all, even though I can see that BW intended it to be a better system than just going by who topped damage or heals, which equally does not necessarily signify who played best. doing damage as a healer is usually fluff damage that really adds almost nothing to whether the wz is won or lost, even though it looks impressive on the chart. Been there, done that and I know quite clearly that doing a lot of damage as a healer and also getting those 'kills' has been mostly fluff so trying to argue otherwise as a number have tried to do in this thread doesn't wash. You also can end up ruining your dps's rotations by breaking their stuns and staggers etc. One can also do fluff heals, hotting up everyone and simply not actually doing what is required to keep them alive. There are times, ofc, where doing some focussed dps is extremely useful, especially in smaller scale encounters. But very often, especially when pugging and I am the only healer, there simply isn't the opportunity to be doing dps that will actually make a difference when what is most needed are my heals and appropriate cc. The doing fluff damage in order to chase medals and then pretending it actually means anything other than that is what needs to be shown for what it is. In addition, making sure i am looking after my position as a healer means i am often not in range of getting a defense medal and I think this is something that needs attention as often i have healed my team or a smaller group through an encounter and know that some of them have received defense medals and i have not when without my heals they would have lost. That definitely needs changing.

Well, other mmos (WoW and Warhammer for eg) found otherwise. Eventually the population will drop and unless cross-server warzones are already up and running it becomes harder to implement. Subsequently it becomes a vicious cycle as the warzones pop become less and less frequent. It is easy to organise battlegroups (aas in WoW) so that a warzone 'community' develops. This is much easier to manage than a whole server. Much better to have cross-server warzones and better bracketing with bolstering within each bracket. Bolstering helps a lot but doesn't make up for gap in abilities, especially when pugging imo.