^Indeed! My server, Darth Sion, has a pretty active pvp community - most people are Battlemaster+, properly geared and pretty competent. Warzones run daily from noon to midnight - we are not the Fatman, but there are about 70 US servers worse off than us. BUT there are still only about 30-40 players active on an everyday basis - so naturally, you will see the same guys in every warzone, either on your team or the other - which is not necessarily a bad thing, but it's not enough to form more than maybe 3-4 teams for ranked. So after the initial release hype, I doubt we could sustain ranked warzones with so few teams on my server.

Indeed. I'm currently the highest sniper on my server and did it by 100% pugging. Sure I get invites, but I don't have much desire to join premades - all the politics, attitudes, popularity contests and immature behavior just isn't my idea of fun. As for 8vs8 being a test of skill - it is a test of skill for a team, not it's individual members. Nobody, except the most egocentric delusionals, can claim that they can win a warzone by themselves. Hence, if you get a good rating because you were on a good team, it says very little about your personal abilities: You could be skilled, you could be lucky, you could be socially popular, or you just got carried by 7 guildies - who knows.

Cybertech is useless unless you pvp (and even then it's not that great). But Biochem is very useful and very profitable, if you can get your hands on the right schematics. Overall, the crafting system leaves much to be desired.

So what? We all know that 10-49 WZs are not balanced and mostly brawls and duels. But really, who cares? Let them queue, let them play, learn their toons, and have some fun. Real PVP starts at 50 - and don't forget to buy some recruit gear before you enter!

Holy crap! They are really releasing ranked warzones with 1.3? Prediction: Without a serious effort to remove all the cheaters, hackers and exploiters from the game, one month after release, our rankings will be worth just as much as our valor - nobody can tell if you earned it or exploited it. SWTOR relies primarily on user reports, not actual cheat detection. And one week suspension is a slap on the wrist, especially if the exploited gains are not even stripped from the offender. Nevermind the grouping and matchmaking...ranked warzones will be an Ilum-type disaster!

I wish that was true. I've reported 9 players since 1.15, and all 9 disappeared from the warzones within a couple of days of reporting. But only 2 of them have not returned 1-2 weeks later (they might just have quit playing altogether, who knows). Yes, Bioware punishes the exploiters, but not harshly enough to be a real deterrent.

You misunderstood, I'm not whining at all - I had fun playing SWTOR. But I believe, I'm very realistic assessing the business side of this game. Pre-WoW, MMO's were mostly creative playgrounds with marginal profits. But nowadays, they are big money! It is not easy to predict financial sustainability of any new MMO - players are fickle. Therefore, game companies will maximize profits right upon launch, when the interest in the game is at its peak and the game's short-comings are the least apparent. Bioware/EA did exactly that and now the costs are recovered and the profits are made. Sure, if subscriptions remain high enough, the game may continue to be financially sustainable, but that is no longer all that relevant from a corporate view point, since the bulk of the profits are already in the bank. Which leads me to the conclusion that from a player's point of view - stick a fork in it, its done.

There are 5 snipers in 50 PVP on my (top 15 population) server who play regularly in the warzones. Yes just 5, and all are full WH (or close to it). There are probably 50 snipers in 10-49 PVP (don't know the exact number, but there are a lot of them). Whenver one graduates to 50, he/she plays a few warzones, get horribly obliterated and we'll never see them again. Do you have what it takes to be a sniper?

For us players, it's done - stick a fork it. But from a corporate point of view, SWTOR probably satisfied fiscal expectations - meaning, it returned the cost of product development and grossed a decent profit for all parties involved (Bioware, EA, Lucasart). Now it's time to focus on to the next cash cow - Medal of Honor, I hear?

"absolute highest burst-dps" - lol, please first play the classes at level 50 and in decent gear, before you make false claims. A sniper needs about 3.8 seconds to go entrench (~1 sec) and execute one single ambush (2.8 sec), during which time he deals no damage at all. Do you have any idea how much damage a sorcerer/sage can spam in 3.8 seconds, not to mention all those Marauders/Sentinels? THAT is what's called burst damage! Once the sniper is entrenched, he has effectively rooted himself - so it doesn't matter if he can or cannot be cc'ed, because he already cannot move. But of course, he still can get knocked out of cover and THEN cc'ed, if that's really necessary. All sniper attacks require LoS, so if the target moves out of LoS during execution (i.e. run behind a pillar during the 2.8 sec activation time of ambush) he/she will not get hit. Teams of snipers are a joke in any map, except voidstar. Voidstar is the exception, NOT because snipers are great DPS, but because snipers have multiple AOE's to keep enemies away from the doors. On any other map, I'm glad if I'm the only sniper on my team, any more would just make us weaker. TL'DR - maybe you just shouldn't PvP, if you have trouble with snipers.

Yes child, there is a Santa Claus.

There are also more thieves than murderers. I guess being a murderer would be better in your book? If you claim that you haven't seen a hacker, you are too inexperienced to notice them or you are the one hacking. IF Bioware can fix matchmaking so games start with even teams, I would support punishment for quitters. As long as i.e. 4vs8 games start on a regular basis, leaving should not be penalized.

I'm reading a lot of threads complaining about low population servers. "Whaaa, my server is underpopulated, merge merge merge or let me transfer!!!!" Obviously, dying servers are a big problem for the players but not a big problem for Bioware or EA. This is capitalism, not kindergarten! You are appealing to a company, to MBA's sitting in Marketing and Business Development, not some (potentially)compassionate geek programmers (those days are long gone). Only money talks here: "I offer $X to have my toons transferred to Server Y!" If enough people write something like that on the forums, it will be noticed very, very quickly because it would give Bioware/EA an uptick on the next quarterly report. So, sign up here if you are willing to PAY for tranfers!

I think this guy is just being sarcastic - I got a good laugh out of it, thanks!

I call bull. I'm a WH sniper, about 18K health. Upon first strike, an equally geared sorcerer (or sage) can take off about 13K health through entrench/dampeners, before I can execute one single ambush/probe/followthrough. If I cannot interrupt the next lightning/telekinesis attack, I'm dead. Because of activation times and cooldowns, Sorcerers/Sages can generate roughly twice as much DPS as, for example, snipers.

QFT! Couldn't have said it better myself.

Yes, uneven warzones are very annoying and it seems matchmaking has a lot of issues getting it right. I rather wait a few minutes longer in queue then end up winning/losing because one team is short-handed. Fact check: Warzones with 2 people or less on either team will still terminate after 30 seconds. ( example: 3 vs 3 warzone will continue running, but a 2 vs 8 will terminate) If you leave or have left before the auto-shutdown, you will not get any credits or commendations. If you stay through the shutdown, both winners and losers will be rewarded accordingly.

If you really have played as much as you claim and never saw cheating: 1. You are not paying attention and/or are oblivious what is and what is not possible in PvP by "natural means". 2. You are pretty naive and believe in the good of your fellow MMO players 3. You are playing on a particularly clean server (if those even exists) But most likely, you are using cheats/hacks/exploits yourself and just try to discredit this thread with the same ole L2P babble.

Some people are naive and believe in the good of their fellow players, some people might play on particularly clean servers, and some people are just too inexperienced or too unaware to notice the hacks or exploits. But mostly, the people who deny the existence of hacks are the ones using them. Rule #1 of MMO's: If it can be exploited, it will be exploited.

I love open-world pvp and I would love to see it return to SWTOR. But since people can have both factions on the same server, the potential for exploits and abuse is simply too great. Unless someone can come up with an incentive that cannot be exploited, it will just be Ilum valor trading all over again.

Both, winning and losing in warzones is a team effort (or lack thereof). If your team is good, you might win even if your skill/gear isn't up to par but if your team is bad, no single player can win a warzone just by himself - no matter how well he's geared, no matter how skilled he is or how much e-peen he has - if it were any different, 1 vs 8 matches wouldn't be a problem. If you consistently get matched into bad teams, you will consistently lose. If you consistently get matched against pre-mades with voice chat, you will consistently lose on a pug team. If you get matched into uneven warzones - you will lose almost always when your side is short-handed. If you get matched into a 0:5 huttball with 2 minutes to go - yup, you will always lose. It really comes down to 3 problems: Low server population for pvp, premades queued vs. pugs, and terrible matchmaking. As an individual player, there is not a whole lot you can do about low server population or Bioware's "awesome" matchmaking system. You can try to find a premade, but that might not be so easy on a low population server or if you are not already geared well - catch 22. The only silver-lining is that with patience and persistence, you are still able to get the best gear regardless of your win-loss record. Of course, if you PVP for competitive fun under those conditions, you are probably out of luck, sorry.

I don't know if this is just a dark side choice or not, but I am certainly bigamist - have we forgotten the Voss chick already?

Agreed! Of course, pets have been around MMOs for a long time, but I hoped that the Companion system on SWTOR would go beyond that and break new ground. It had so much potential and was one of the strong points of this game at launch. Today, companions only serve a purpose while you still level up, but after 50 they quickly fade and become just crafting tools. Many solo daily missions can be done without companions, and even for the harder ones, any companion in any gear will do fine. So far, Bioware has missed an opportunity to be truly innovative with companions.

I have no idea what Bioware's punishment is for cheaters, but I agree that it appears to be not harsh enough. I've reported 9 people since 1.15. All disappeared from the warzones shortly after I reported them, but most of them returned after only a few weeks. Only the 2 worst repeat offenders seem to have gone for good, although that might just mean that they got bored of cheating in this game and quit, who knows? In my opinion, if you get caught cheating, especially in PVP, your account should be closed permanently.

I don't disagree with getting social points for PVP - it actually makes sense. But I wonder how social points would be useful for a PVPer? I already have too many titles that I never use. And do we really need another pet lagging up the warzones?