This guy plays games to work.

Thing about pvp is you can't even begin developing the appropriate skills and playstyles for a class until you have max gear because your gear will influence when you see your opponent as yourself as vulnerable. Like if I can die in a stunlock I better just pop all my defensive **** the second I get into combat right? Never mind if that isn't how gear-equal gameplay resolves at all in any way.

His goal isn't a working solution, his goal is elitism.

Afking isn't a protest, its a rational decision motivated by self interest when it isn't fun in the first place.

It's not so much about expertise being removed or whatever as it is about stats not being the deciding factor in pvp success. If a player queues into a game with stats that are so low - whether through expertise or any other replacement mechanic - and they're only capable of dealing placebo damage either due to the strength of healers/tanks or just the chances they can actually complete objectives in that environment, of course they're gonna stop. Of course pvp won't be fun for them. This is not to mention that gear grinds create incentive to bot, because when your options are A) play a game and don't have fun for prizes and B) bot for prizes while you do something fun and maybe get banned, some people will take option B because if they happen to get banned... they can just do whatever they were otherwise doing that they actually find fun. Rewards in terms of comms/medals/valor are also disconnected from actual player skill in that if I want to get to 8 medals on a class with taunt I need one group fight and about 3 buttons on my keyboard whereas if I'm playing something like a marauder - particularly an undergeared one - it's far more likely I'll have to work way harder to get offensive and defensive medals. This exacerbates a problem where undergeared characters have to try that much harder to get the currency they need to obtain gear while fully geared charaters can spend all their pointless currency on nothing at all. This is not to mention that offensive/defensive medals in warzones don't actually always award skilled play. Defensive medals for standing on the door in voidstar? Really? So if I'm off the point ready to intercept and cc someone that's coming to stop a cap I'm not doing something worth defensive credit but if I'm afk on the door watching all the enemies respawn that's fine. Basically they should replace the medals with class specific goals involving that class's actual playstyle and group utility, whether it's taunting, snaring, decreasing healing, etc. etc. Likewise I doubt any class struggles to get the crit medals in 4.0 given they haven't adjusted them after everyone's stats went up but those should likely be something more like "do x amount of healing/damage over x amount of time" rather than a specific crit amount in one attack because not every damage/healing class has the same playstyle and some classes have historically had a harder time getting those medals... particularly, once again, for the less geared players who could actually use the rewards.

The classic conversations were a really happy moment for me personally because at long last I'm not annoyed by what my character says not matching the option I picked in tone or content, or even in intent. If lack of voice acting is the price of immersion I'm willing to pay it for a protagonist. Now they could theoretically have the spoken dialogue line match up with the dialogue wheel option but for whatever reason RPGs these days don't... besides divinity: original sin enhanced edition actually which has the voice actors read the dialogue exactly as its written at selection.

I really feel like if players are "giving PvP a try" for the purpose of this quest they're going to hate it. They'll lose their first couple, see the long slog ahead, see the companions like lokin who are gated behind it, and then hate it.

If we don't see returning story NPCs like thana vesh, ardun kothe, Darth vowran, etc etc I will be sad.

Not likely, unless you check under spawn.

I mean I didn't really have an assumption, I just wanted to know if you have taste in entertainment or not.

It's a pretty casual play style too if you consider that while getting rewards from pve requires actual objective completion, getting rewards from pvp just requires that you show up and wait. Really don't understand the association with pvp and being "hardcore."

So you define fun in pvp by a lack of challenge? You can only enjoy it when it's easy? I mean I guess they would find it fun because it's a free x2 completion towards their gated pve content, right?

I'm not going to do this. I'm going to queue up in whatever I have on right now and ruin the experience for you and everyone else.

Baron Deathmark would make a great pvp companion because he's an established pvp associated character.

Title grinds ruined guild wars 1. I'm not gonna say I'm opposed to this as an idea but creating incentive for botting... well, it typically increases the amount of botting.

If I was being required to pvp for something and if I knew I could jump into that content without a ton of preparation needing to be done to be usefull at all let alone to have fun, I wouldn't have a problem with it. Issue is, pvp grinding isn't fun and when I'm on a character that I know will have low expertise it turns into a ride on the struggle bus every time. For me and my team, as I will be dragging them all down with me.

Dangling Carrot mentality. People don't come home from work and go stare at a wall until it's time to sleep, having fun is its own incentive. Make it fun and they will come, no shiny at the end required. A super slog to minimum necessary pvp gear which isn't fun for anyone so you can get the shiny pve pony at the end of it misses the point of pvp in almost every way.

From what I've read companions currently don't have any kind of damage reduction through armor, what with armor not... being a thing for them anymore. That's probably why they're so squishy. Some of their stats for healing/dps very likely need to be nerfed a little bit (I don't think they're THAT OP) but increasing companion armor for tank is probably not too unreasonable a thing to get as a trade off. Current stats and usefulness of the different forms just means heals/dps are too much better than tank to want to use tank.

Peanut Butter Jelly Time dance would be perfect for a droid in M1's shape in my opinion

I wouldn't say quit the game... I would say re-evaluate your goal in the game from doing work to having fun.

Those players can still help their low level friends except now they both get appropriate rewards for it, if it's a heroic. You'll also never be 5 levels lower than anything you'll faced while level synced, and you keep all of your talents/skills so you will still be stronger than them.

I don't think the practical argument really holds water because with level sync your optimal ability rotation will always be optimal. With the previous system your "rotation" on old planets likely consisted of pressing the aoe ability once or maybe twice if they weren't all standing in it the first time. I don't want this to sound accusatory, which it might because I'm using the word "you" but let's face it that's really going to be everyone's rotation if the mobs are weak enough to die in an aoe cast. As for immersion, I find this more immersive than suddenly being an unstoppable god by virtue of being 5 levels higher than old content.

They're not taking away more than they're adding in terms of immersion.

I personally enjoy the classic conversations, typically moreso than I enjoy the guessing game of whether or not the tone of the dialogue option I pick will match the tone of the sounds that come out of their mouth.

Just putting this out there to counter the hate it's getting on the forum, but I really do think this has been a nice change to the game for a lot of reasons, including that it creates an emphasis on play over work, it de-emphasizes level as being the most important player motivator in the game, and it's already a mechanic in the game in the form of pvp and tactical flashpoints and it has worked out fine in those environments. I doubt it's going anywhere because of the way heroics work now, but I just wanted to say that I for one am glad to see this kind of change.