Put me down on the PvE bandwagon. Not that I'd object to more PvP stuff- but I think there's something missing in the game once you hit 50 and finish your class quests.

A serious crafter will craft stuff usable by level 50 players. Why? Because level 50 players have money to spend. People still leveling up are cash poor due to skills, and skills, and more skills, plus speeder skills. Also, why waste cash on crafted gear when quested stuff is good enough for the most part? I've made many purple items and mods for lower levels, and put them on the broker at reasonable prices (5-10k range). They never sell. I suspect this may change once there are more people twinking their alts. The only people right now who are likely to bother supertwinking alts with purples are crafters themselves. Even that is limited by materials- harvesting in this game is just too slow and unreliable (how many times do I have to click for it to cycle?) to be worth doing.

Imp- yep, you got me there. Loves huttball? Oh, not only no, but HECK no. Honestly Alderaan is the only one I really like. But Huttball? Definitely my least favorite.

Well if you're truly not alone, then you should be fine- because you'll be up against those other rank 50's with no gear. There is no perfect solution, since there is a lot of randomness involved, and since BW has been changing the way PvP works so quickly, everyone got where they are by a different path. I'd be fine with Expertise brackets if they could be implemented in such a way that swapping gear around wouldn't circumvent them. The nice thing about Valor brackets is that Valor is a good indicator of how much actual time you've spent PvPing- and experience matters along with gear.

Why _wouldn't_ I think of something like this? Valor is the best overall indicator of experience and gear. The entire purpose of bracketing warzones is to try to give people a fair fight- obviously Bioware is on board with this, or they wouldn't have created WZ brackets in the first place. I'm not even concerned about TODAY. What about six months from now? A new level 50 is really going to have a problem in PvP- not only being poorly geared, but thanks to all the BM's he's going up against, he's going to have a really hard time getting gear. I was part of the wave that got gear when there were no brackets- it was really easy. Those days are over- a fresh 50 with even decent PvE gear is still going to get owned, even if they've got their 1000 commendations stored away. Bracketing by valor fixes that. The only people I can imagine complaining are the high valor folks who don't want a fair fight, they want to own the newbs, because a fair fight scares them.

Correction- people COULD get gear easily enough. But when the level 50 bracket was added, anyone not already geared suddenly has a much harder road. Anyone saying gear is easy to get- probably already has gear. Plus, I don't want gear to be EASY to get. I just want a balanced fight in WZs so that everyone going in has a more or less 50-50% chance of winning.

Sure, Valor and skill are separate. But valor does roughly equate to how well geared you are. That way, people of equal skill have a fair match, because they have roughly the same gear. I'm also fine having WZ's bracketed by expertise; as people have mentioned though, as long as you can change gear in zone, you can get around that. You can't hide your valor rank. And no, there's no guarantee of fairness even then, since some people start WZs at 50 and by valor rank 30 have decent gear, whereas others might start WZs at 10 and by valor rank 30 still have 1000 of each commendation and one bag in the bank. Any system has its flaws- what I think is good about this one is that the top end people who have worked up their valor and their gear are more likely to face one another than a new-to-50-with-no-gear in WZs. THAT is the advantage of the system, and the failing of the current system.

The brackets could be estimated to match the gear you're _likely_ to have at that bracket, on average. So one bracket for sub30, one for 30-59, and one for 60-100. And yes, cross-server WZ's would also be nice, no matter what, just to increase the randomness of what you're facing from match to match.

Bracket PvP by valor rank instead of level. Problem solved. And yes, the basic problem is that those who are late to the party are screwed. Welcome to the PvP fraternity, enjoy the hazing. Once you hit valor 60 it stops, or so they tell me...

There is already an issue queuing in a group, if you have 50's and non-50's in the group. Whatever is used to resolve that could resolve mixed-valor groups.

Well, you have a right to your opinion- but I disagree. Obviously you've already got your battlemaster gear, and prefer beating up on people without it rather than being put in a fair fight. Bracketing by valor is the only way to go IMO. It is the only fair assessment of how much time you've already invested in PvP- matching by valor matches gear and experience and is the closest thing you can get to a fair fight. The only people hurt by this are the fully battlemastered set, who then have to face other battlemasters.

Bracketing by level actually increases PvP issues IMO because a new level 50 will end up having a hard time gearing up against the battlemaster crowd. Either balance teams better (by gear/valor), or bracket overall by valor- so that yes, if someone starts PvP at level 50 they may briefly have an easy time of things but as they progress in gear so do the people they are matched with. This seems a much fairer system to me.

One of the problems with PvP in any MMO is that people just starting in it don't have a chance against those who have been playing for a while, for reasons of experience and gear. Bracketing PvP by Valor rank fixes this problem. Alternately, when balancing teams which will be facing one another, have the total valor ranks for the two teams be roughly even. That way a premade of rank 60's doesn't end up playing a random group of 10-30's- something I've seen a little too often.

Um, no, that would be "eating and drinking" not breathing. Last I checked, in the US anyway, breathing was still free, unless you need an oxygen tank.

From the first time a mission came back while I was on the GTN (and each time thereafter) I really really really wished some dev had just left those notices PENDING AT ALL TIMES. That way you choose when you want to read them. Seriously, how much more obvious could the need for this be?

LOL! Talk about the great divide, people are either: Already kitted with great gear, and in favor of this nerf; or Not 50 yet, and dreading having to gear up once this nerf goes into effect. Whenever a new game comes out I like to level up as fast as possible, because I know this is ALWAYS what happens- stuff is easy to get/OP to start, and then balanced into impossibility a few weeks later. Thank goodness I already have most of my Champ gear. There's a REALLY EASY fix here: allow a 3:1 conversion of cent/champ tokens. And then a 3:1 conversion of champ/BM tokens. Problem solved.