Thank you, to the OP, for a wonderful display of trolling skills and thank you even more to the rest of you guys, every single one failing to sense the massive sarcasm in his posts. Pure win, I'm still laughing.

Do not mess with the warzone credit rewards. 5k was too little, but we've sucked it up. Make it less, and you're really going to piss us pvpers off.

We need a response from the devs as to how the translation of the mods/enhancements with 1.2 will work. -Will only untouched BM gear be affected with the changes? (Unlikely, but most disappointing if true) -Will BM gear pieces have their stats changed to what they show in PTR now, regardless of how they have been modded previously (This would suck and open up alot of abuse opportunity, but still better than option 1 I guess) -Will mods/enhancements that were originally taken out of BM gear be recognised as such and have the stats they'd have if they were still slotted in the post-patch BM gear regardless of where they are now? (This is how it should work imo) -Will BM gear be updated although it has previously been modded, but only if the original conditions have been restored before the patch hits, e.g. all the original mods are being put back where they were? (lolweird, but still... tell us!) I personally modded 4 out of 5 pieces of BM gear, and I could care less about spending a few credits on reslotting them after 1.2, I obviously kept all the stuff I took out of them. However, the risk of players like me missing the 1.2v BM gear simply because we tried to optimize our gear, investing time and credits, is something I expect the devs to anticipate and prevent from happening.

Except your whole analogy -while interesting in itself - doesn't exactly grip onto the current situation in swtor, since pvp gear progression post champion is pure luck based, and has nothing to do with how many medals you get. Basically, it's the exact opposite. The RNG factor enables the occasional idiot to completely outgear a skilled player or vice versa. Being at the top and staying there in swtor pvp means you got decent skill and aren't the unluckiest guy in the world either. Moreover, you compare entities of completely different nature here. ManU hardly won because of their overpowered shirts, but - as you said - skill. If you completely remove gear influence on pvp, you reduce the teams to their skill. THEN you actually ARE at the level where you can 1:1 compare them to your football situation, teams at the top will remain at the top, because they're the best, idiots won't be allowed to join and whoever has a brain will want to play with and not against them. Again, gear is just the way of an mmo to even out those odds. Deal with it, or go play CS. I'm perfectly aware that the means of acquiring gear will change with 1.2, however, there will be additional changes we don't anticipate yet, so that leaves us to wait for the devs to come up with some interesting pvp mechanics adjustments. Removing gear most certainly won't be one of them, I'm fairly confident of that.

Very true.

I too agree on the open world pvp part. They could actually work with your ideas. Not so much for the stat normalizing in warzones. I never really got to understand why some people so harshly oppose pvp gear progression. You have that in pve, too. You work hard in order to stay competitive. In pvp, whether for you that means index finger muscle training in order to click faster, tactics crafting for specific warzone "encounters", grinding gear (there it yes) or - imo ideally - a mixture of everything, what does it matter so much. If you're really that skilled, you won't mind facing a bunch of tards with slightly better gear in a rated match, because you'll beat them nevertheless. You'll even welcome the challenge they provide, their lack of skill being somewhat compensated by their gear. If you absolutely can't beat them, you may have to reconsider your self-assessment. I do admit that myself comes from good gear probably just as much as from skill. Yet there are probably far better geared players out there playing this game, I still got some champion slots. Bottom line is, on my tiny server, when it comes to the decisive mixture of gear and skill there's hardly anyone, whether same or opposite faction, who can beat me and any three friends from my guild. I thus oppose the idea of stat normalizing because of two reasons: 1. It's going to take away the only remaining reason I play warzones / pvp extensively. Three warzones just aren't that many, and while there are still some good laughs and mediocre challenges every now and then, looking forward to the next level of gear is what ultimately keeps me - and I bet most of the rest of the pvp community too - playing. 2. It will destroy all customization options of characters. Because once you have mutilated e.g. all jedi shadows into one set of stats, why not go on and remove skill trees, for that advanced class to have one set of abilities so they're all on the same level. And while we're at it, why does a scoundrel get more cunning (arbitrary wtf4k) than a gunslinger (3999, 1 presence)? Right, we should give EVERY char the same stats and same abilities. Balance! That's super casual train of thought, and it's not gonna ruin this game for serious players, too. Before anyone stops taking me seriously, jokes aside. I personally consider equipment customization too an important aspect of player skill. This game offers a refreshing variety of customization currently. Three skill trees, mixing pve and pvp gear, heck the whole equipment modding is awesome. Remember all the guys complaining about too much accuracy on their bm gear, guess what? Replace it. Yes, you can do that. I personally don't consider the impact of gear levels in this game weighted too heavily. It does a deal from zero to max, alright, but then everyone has SOME level of gearing, and the differences between say, champion and battlemaster, or rakata and battlemaster are rather mild. The difference between a character with gear modded and balanced around his strenghts, even on a lower level, would scare me much more. If you are a skilled player in all respect of the aspects that I have elaborated so far, nothing they throw at you gear level wise is going to outperform you. However, I find it absolutely legit that when on the same skill level, the one with better gear should win over the other. Agree with me on this or don't, but the so called "casual pro gamers", claiming for themselves to have superior skill at the game, but at the same time have too little time to grind their stuff, are a rather contradictory joke in my eyes.

When is the buff coming? I'd like pvp in pvp gear, gear progression is what keeps all of us playing, but there's currently no point in wearing Battlemaster gear over Rakata. It's much easier/faster to acquire and far superior. With all the recent changes to the bag system, enhancing the bonus-per-point-contribution of expertise would be very welcome to the pvp community and will not hurt anyone much, it doesn't effect pve at all and fresh 50s will profit equally from stronger expertise, since farming a full centurion/champion set is now a matter of hours/few days. Thank you.

They changed a lot of things, whereas "change" is maybe the wrong term. "Assimilate" would be more accurate. Ultimately, the screams for more equality and their hearing destroyed a big part of said game and almost all of its diversity. that's why we're here in the first place, isn't it.

If you're complaining about "exploits", at least get your facts straight. @OP: Any Consular/Inquisitor Spec can use Tumult/Spike, because it's a CONSULAR/INQUISITOR ability. Big surprise. All medpacs share one cooldown, which is 90 secs. I have never seen anyone being able to use them more frequently, if that happens, well there's an exploit. Where's your proof? Now to the rest of you imbalance-whiners: There's absolutely nothing wrong with Biochem. The Rakata Medpac is stronger than the 48-prototype tradeable version, alright, but only by an approximately 20% margin. Technically, you could just buy the blue ones off the AH and and take whatever other crew skill appeals you, since they have their own (maybe less pvp related) advantages. If that's not satisfying you, well, roll Biochem for hardcore pvp. What keeps you from it? You got 3 crewskill slots for a reason. And since generally people seem to compare everything here with WoW: You basically had to have engineer there if you were serious about pvp. It's just similar here, if not even less dramatic. Talking about design failure because of such issues coupled with the fact that most of you can't come up with solid arguments underlining such accusations makes you look like complete idiots.