The DC excuse does seem unrealistic in my experience. I will say that I do get viscerally angry when I eat the lockout for reasons that don't involve me simply choosing to leave. the most common example is I forgot to equip a weapon. it's in my inventory. I just didn't equip it. and now I cannot. well ****. I have to leave now. or I can stay, which I have done twice. but what's more (obviously) infuriating is when I click on the accept for a WZ and it doesn't take me anywhere. the only way to "cleanse" that is to relog, which slaps me with a deserter debuff. and then there's my all time favorite, the backfill, which is 90% of the time a hopeless situation, including porting into (usually VS) with seconds remaining in the match (mind you porting into the losing team no longer even includes the "participation trophy" toward the pvp quests). map selection. I agree that allowing everyone the ability to select their map would be a terrible idea given the current population in the queue. however, at least (and I'm being conservative here) half of the good premades (at least on SF) only show-up to "DM at mid," which can help their team, but more often than not hurts them. if you're going to lock players who actually want to play the objectives into the match, then you really need to do something to force the rest of their team to try to win as well. but that's impossible. there's no way to make players play the objectives. therefore, allowing players to leave w/o incurring the debuff is the only logical recourse I can come up with. but if you have any better ideas, I would be open to them. I haven't seen any....

this is the least plausible "option" anyone has offered on the subject. and you're not the only one to offer it. here is why: every single huttball map is broken beyond repair by desync. and the Pit is broken by the fact that virtually every class in the game can cheese their way around all of the "obstacles" on the map. furthermore, quesh is quadrubly broken in that warriors/knights cannot leap on the top ledges near (but not in) the end zones, AND the map design is such that a full third of the map (mid) is irrelevant to the objectives (ironically it's the most popular area of the map in regs). CW/Yavin has always been a terrible map for rated b/c in rated matches, the teams are full of *good* players, which means they can essentially maintain a stalemate at mid in perpetuem. this causes a chain effect that means the team who caps a node first wins. unless, of course, you can ninja the node from the other team. but again, good players in voice. so that isn't going to happen. the game always boiled down to which team had a combat/carny and a sprint to win their natural node first. with modern movement buffs, it boils down to who has the most lolroll stallers. the map ceases to function. it's just too easy for good players. AHG is pretty much AHG since there is no natural node, and it's pretty flat so little in the way of desync. split your team in 4s. fight over nodes (ignoring mid) for 8-10 rounds, until someone finally caps one node and the game ends. passable as far as existing maps go for rated. b/c it's rated, though, each team sends a trinity comp to each node, so wiping or cc'ing them for a full channel is quite difficult. and teams have the time between rounds to heal, break combat, and essentially reset (unlike arenas). NC is the only well designed (for rated) map b/c channeling the nodes is not a zero sum activity. it requires team work and strategy. again, brute force doesn't work on any of these maps in rated games b/c no decent rated team can be pushed off a node for long enough to prevent respawns from arriving. this is particularly true with modern mobility buffs and dcds. you would have to rewrite every class virtually from the ground up to accommodate rated WZs. this is why, while rated WZs were better than arenas as the only form of rated in the game, they absolutely cannot work in 2021.

it's stupid, but they are removed (even from crew skills missions) while you complete the chapter quests that you started...the ones that require you to use a new or "assigned" companion. your 50 affection companions don't go anywhere. you just cannot use them for the story quest. and for reason that make no sense, you cannot even send them out on crew skills missions while doing the break-in quest. none of that makes sense from a lore standpoint (the alliance is still in tact for the onslaught stuff; they're still your followers). I'm fairly certain the reason for this all is to force you to run the RP with the story-driven, "new" character who may or may not become a future permanent companion.

1. the number of mid players in the queue won't change as the combination of brackets doesn't hurt them. 2. even if 90% of the lowbies stop queuing, that's still more in one queue than was there before. so while you may well argue that it hurts pvp overall and the number of pvpers over all, it does increase the chance for more varied maps in the rotation. I'm not supporting this change. it's patently stupid. but it does increase the participation in "mids."

ok. I'm a bad sent/mara. but that's just b/c I'm bad with muscle memory. I'm playing it in regs and trying to put together a fearless set (just got my 4s, so I'm wearing it instead of 6pcs victor for the first time). anyway...I know how and why and what to do with fury, and is very good. you should not ever have resource management issues with fury. you almost never need to zealous strike if you play it right. you should take the 30s transcend so that stacks are used exclusively for zen. between the normal building of stacks through your regular attacks and the automatic full stacks you get every (1min? 2min?) you shouldn't even need to think about generating focus/rage. especially with bladestorm generating it, getting it back with dispatch, and generating it with leap (you'll want to take the talent to use dispatch on obfuscated targets and buff it with clarity). you might very rarely need to zealous or fill a gcd with auto attack. I understand that sent/mara is more difficult and there are a lot more buttons to push on a regular basis vs. rage jugg (bear in mind rage jugg is 2nd only to arsenal in simplicity). but there's always something meaningful to attack with, and it's never more than 1 gcd away. edit: re-veng immunities, they needed the immunities to CC more b/c it took them time to ramp up damage. the bursty rage spec has always had burst dmg on hand immediately (much like AP PT in the current meta).

interestingly enough, the classes that benefit from guard are not the classes with good standalone dps. give a merc guard and heals, and he'll certainly live longer so he'll do more DPS. give the same thing to a PT and OMG WHAT IS THIS? MY EYES! AHHHH!

the thematic differences were: burst (rage) vs. dot (veng) aoe (rage) vs. st (veng, but I guess spread was possible and better than IO lul) however, rage/fury was tweaked to be more effective ST once the smash monkey era came to an end. afaik, veng has always been tankier than rage b/c they weren't bursty. they had more cc immunity for the same reason. rage got a huge boost when BW opened up the skills trees for all 3 specs to each other.

mids on SF was predominately arenas. I liked that. they're quick and there's no "ignoring objectives." however, I know a lot of ppl despise them, and 70% arenas is a bit much for most ppl. so combining brackets would bring more balance to the maps. I can see that as a major factor.

it mostly depends on who's in the queue (shocker, right?). but on SF, I could run off 5-8 guilds that if I saw them in a premade, the chances that they'd play the objectives are low. I could do the same for 10 or so individuals. there are still high caliber players who do seem to play objectives (in some of those same guilds). the map determines this a lot too. with HB, I usually give it one try to play objectives. at least half the time, players are just DMing at mid. and if I feel I'm alone or it's 2v4 trying to actually win, I'll just shrug and DM at mid. note that vandin is impossible to win alone. it just takes longer to move from spawn to end zone, and just one person judiciously CCing you can force you to blow up. so the tendency to TDM in vandin is extremely high. Quesh is literally broken for warriors, so you get a ton of TDM there (at mid where it serves no help at all to objectives). and classic HB...well...there's always DMing at mid, but the map is so easy to cheese with ops, mercs, sins, juggs, snipers, and sorcs, that it's really easy to score even with just one or two players trying. it's dumb, but there it is. the other maps are less impacted by "DMing at mid." side note: since the new ranked season and GS has started, the quality of players in regs has dropped precipitously. I specifically mean quality in terms of output (dps/hps). I assume this is because 1) the high output players spend more time in rated matches, and 2) GS has pulled more PvE-centered players into WZs to get their heads cut off.

eh. juggs are tricky. rage juggs (and skank tanks) run amuck in regs. honestly, playing rage is the 2nd easiest dps in the game to playing arsenal (which is prolly why I have as many juggs as mercs. every time I rolled on a new server before mergers, the first toons I started were mercs, PTs, and juggs!). anyway...there isn't anything actually wrong with rage. making them tankier is a huge mistake, imo (as in a new dcd). the problem they have is being controlled and lack of escapes. personally, I hate the idea of giving juggs an escape. it's just completely antithetical to the class, imo. if they could do their damage before they expire, they'd be fine. kinda like PT with no guard/heals to prop them up (although not the broken burst).

i love that you jumped into ranked for the first time, got your clock cleaned, and then declared the format unplayable. there's a huge learning curve from regs to ranked. dps jugg are arguably the least viable specs in yolos, but they're far from the only one. most classes only have one viable spec. immortal jugg is BROKEN. I'm sorry that spec bores you. arsenal bores me. mara is finesse vis-a-vis jugg dps, but it's perfectly viable in ranked. you have a slew of defenses and abilities to circumvent CC. but from previous pb interactions with you, I'd say you feel you know them all and they're not good enough, or it's too many buttons to push, and you're squishy af. I know that not to be the case, but I'm not going to debate it with you. as far as getting out of combat, every map has a few places where you can run and hide to heal up. it's ranked, so the competition isn't stupid af. they will hunt you down and cut you off if they can. it's a team game. if your team cannot pressure the others so that they cannot afford to hunt you down, then your team failed. if you pop a cd at the wrong time, you failed. maras have a lot of options, but it's easy to make the wrong one at a given time. I'm going to assume you know to purge with combat stealth and pop transcend immediately. you also have to know where the nearest los hiding place is and calculate what you need to do to get there. but...I've been in ranked on an off for years. it's perfectly doable. maras do it all the time. I cringe when you complain about mara being under-powered or in need of "help" on this board. literal. visceral. cringe. a quick check of the leader board shows a mara far and away above everyone else with 2 more maras/sents in the top 10. going further, the top 10 scores for all classes are in the 1500s. in fact, the lowest class leader scores appear to be for...ops and then mercs. that's right, those annoying, over-used, lolrollers have one of the lowest top scores of any class in s14. by the end of last season, well, by the time I stopped playing last season, yolos were dominated by stealth. not all the time, but there were times at night when there were 3 stealth on each team. after a couple games like that (win or lose), it was enough. time to go do something else. mind you, the same was true of mercs with net. there's nothing anyone can do about 3 nets or a couple of warriors with 6s CC immunity and obfuscate pounding on you. it is, in the end, a team game. as you surmised, yolos is mostly about survival. but being able to dps while practicing survival is important (I never did master that last part). there's much to be desired from the matchmaking for solos. it's pretty good about role balancing, but it's bad about class stacking, and it doesn't make any sort of account for class viability (it just looks at one's elo). honestly, I'm not sure how much effort BW can or should put into the system, given how comparatively small the community is - it's a niche of a niche. but yeah, obviously stricter adherence to role balance and significant consideration to class stacking would be welcomed.

It would be of great help if we could stack the exact same dyes. Obviously it saves room, but it also allows players to look over all of their dyes in one cargo hold tab. I only own a fraction of the available dyes, but my tab is overfull.

can you not just save a "build"? I thought that was a thing. like wow.

I approve of the idea to follow GW's lead on pushing everyone to max level/skill tree, but in making the GW comparison, keep in mind that you're asking a casual, RP-heavy MMORPG (SWTOR) for which PVP was created as a side game addon, to a MMORPG that is basically designed around world vs. world pvp (GW2). it's like asking an 80cc scooter to keep pace with a 600cc crotch rocket. I think this game just needs to focus on bringing class abilities in-line with the (lack of) capabilities with its game engine. then worry about brackets. then worry about potential map selection/opt-outs.

except, as others have mentioned, the sorting feature in the N-window is horrible for 1) selecting the best questing companion and 2) selecting the best crew skills companion. And this is for the same reason: there's no way to sort companions in the N-window based on affection level. I'm sure I'm not alone in having a ton of comps that I haven't leveled affection with b/c they're alts.

it absolutely amazes me that warriors/knights cannot leap to opponents on the upper platform (i.e., through acid) but ops can roll it, mercs can rocket out, inquiz can sprint. it's quite possibly the dumbest thing in the world. and presumably so what? a warrior can't leap with the ball up the level? just incredibly dumb. like leap is what breaks these maps. lol there's no chance I play objectives on a warrior/sent in that place with that fascist ****.

lol yeah. the defaults are N and B. I only used them in the post b/c I didn't want to type out "crew skills" and the other title every time.

so you changed the default binds. gratz. perhaps I misworded this. the problem is that it's the only place to summon, and there's another window that (realistically) requires it. (see the edit) personally, I don't care if ppl like the N-window or use it. I'm not advocating taking it away. but...it's pretty arse for crafting and summoning, which are (I think?) by far the common uses for it?

I'm sure this must have come-up before as I've seen a lot of complaints about organization of the Companions & Contacts (N-) window, but it would be a great boon to be able to summon comps from the Crew Skills (B-)window. Personally, I find the N-window completely redundant. I realize it's a place to pick up callings, but mostly, it's a poorly organized list of past, present, and guest companions. I have 25 toons, and only one did I bother to fill out all of the companion affections and so forth. So that leaves 24 other toons that use the companions strictly for business (either to summon as a solo mode helper or to run crew skills missions). The B-window does everything I could possibly want for 99% of my game time, but I constantly have to slog through the N-window every time I port back from a WZ/arena just to get to the companion who is highest in affection rating b/c he's obviously the one I want healing/tanking/dpsing with me. Edit: forgot to mention that the N-panel DOES NOT IDENTIFY WHICH COMPANIONS ARE ON CREW SKILLS MISSIONS. to spell it out here, you have to open 2 windows or else you summon someone on a mission and interrupt the mission. My question to the community: is there a down side to summoning comps from the B-window that I'm unaware of? Or, my question to Bw: is there some technical difficulty with this solution that makes it impossible to implement? it seems like a no-brainer to me.... oh. er...prolly need a mod to move to suggestion box? (I mean...if you're not too busy tossing warnings and erasing posts - tough life, I know )

I'm going to join the boat of eliminating all brackets and just letting players select talents during the 1 minute before gates drop. eliminate back fill. ppl leave/dc, you deal with it or not. it's no more cruel than forcing back fills to play in someone else's mess w/o the option to leave. two birds, one stone.

not sure it's still in print, but you can get an online sub.

since, as I maintain, it's a load issue, it's not like that all the time. clearly, there was a huge influx at the time. this was also clear by the complete lack of quest mobs in ow quests. gen chat was alight with lag issues. this doesn't rule out routing issues, but it's more likely than not server/engine fail.

my suspicion for GSF is the same for WZs: BW wants to inflate the numbers of players in queue. this is also a way of justifying their "changes" to reg WZs. oh look? the deserter debuff and WZ quest changes resulted in more ppl in WZ! no arse-hat. you pushed them in their with irrelevant seed quests for GS/conquest. hey! ppl aren't auto dropping Quesh and Vandin! the system works now!

tbf, I get angry when ppl try to walk across fire traps. always use speed buffs, immunities, or white bar when crossing a fire trap. that's been a thing since 1.0. I marvel at the stupidity of players not passing across. passing is a huge risk b/c every stealth has a ridiculous teleport "closer" (isn't stealth supposed to be a stealth closer?) in addition to the usual leapers, but seriously, not walking over a hot plate with the ball is HB 101.

you know you can change your binds, right?