I said fixing the engine is hard, fixing spawn bugs is not. Reading is an acquired skill and can be honed with lots of practice - keep at it.

Hard to fix? Fixing the engine so that it doesn't create monster lag when 2 dozen people pvp in the same area is hard to fix. Dumping agro and auto-cleanse people as they respawn doesn't take much - all other games with pvp have managed to get it right in well under 15 months! If you were a PVPer, you would understand why these bugs are not only annoying but can very well affect the outcome of a warzone. 4 more examples to illustrate Bioware's track record of NOT playing or play testing their own game: 1. Repair cost spike in 1.7 How can developers who supposedly play this game NOT notice the enormous spike in repair cost? It took countless threads providing real proof that Bioware messed up before it was finally fixed. 2. The "improved" Resolve system Anyone who would have tested this in real warzones, would have concluded that the changes did not improve the existing system, but actually made it worse. Again, countless threads agree, yet Bioware has still to act. 3. World Event #2, scavenger hunt (forgot the name of that event) You could finish the entire event by doing a Space Mission (which was also part of the event sequence). Once again, how could developers who supposedly play this game NOT notice this serious bug? Players found it within hours of the event opening, yet Bioware took several days to correct it. 4. Ancient Hypergate Warzone Upon release, guarding the pylons (which is the main objective) would not reward the defenders. Any developer who would have just played or play tested this warzone ONCE would have noticed this glitch. But they did not and it took several weeks to get it fixed. Yes yes, I'm perfectly aware that arguing with a fan boy is a waste of time.

And you should read the developer notes and press releases. They balance by metrics only. It's fast, it's low overhead, and naïve people will believe that they are actually doing something useful. If it were otherwise, bugs that have been around since launch would long be fixed. I will give you only 3 examples from PVP here - spawning stunned or face-down, spawning with half-health or hostile effects still running, spawning while still in combat. Present since launch, reported at nausea, yet never fixed! Anyone who has played warzones regularly has encountered these bugs at one point or another but apparently the "actively playing 50's" from the developers have not. I believe that they play when I see one - were not hard to spot in all the games I've played.

In all other games that I have played over the last 15 years, I have personally seen developers playing in game. But not in SWTOR, developers are not playing their own (live) game. Here, "balancing" is done by metrics only. They have acknowledged that themselves in several developer notes and press releases. So yes, the quoted post is fairly accurate.

Why is it so obvious? In Groupfinder, I'm assured that people on my ignore list will not be teamed with me. But in Warzones, I'm forced to team with each and everyone on my ignore list if it gets queued that way. Other than Bioware's complete disregard for PVPers, why is this feature ok in PVE but not in PVP? Enlighten me, please! Evil - I like it.

Really? When and where? Because I would like to see that! Then again, lethality is for PVE or for scoreboard junkies, so it would be very fitting if Dev would play that spec in PVP. On a different note, we had a sniper epidemic once before, that was around patch 1.2. Then they all leveled up and got destroyed in 50 wzs, and just like that, the epidemic was over. I expect the same to happen again once people realize how severe the limitations of this class really are.

I know it's double-xp weekend, so I'm not surprised that there are a bunch of afkers in the lowbie warzones collecting medals and not doing anything else. I was not going to complain about that, I just put them on ignore. But lo' and behold! Unlike Groupfinder, ignore doesn't stop them from being in the very next warzone with me again. Bioware, I have accepted that you will always treat PVPers worse than PVEers, but could you at least give us that feature sometime in 2013? Much appreciated. (I know, whom am I kidding? BW is never even going to read this....)

I agree. But this is a PVE game. Bioware only tolerates PVPers and they will never be on equal terms with PVEers. So, if you pvp here, be prepared to be screwed and learn to like it.

Novare Coast, Pub-side. We cap west and east at the start. We call our guys from mid to east and west and both nodes were well-defended. Imps never got close to capping either. Everything pointed at an easy win. About 5 minutes into the game, this conversation happens: Idiot teammate: "It's so far to run east, lets just try for mid instead!" Ops leader replies: "Huh, defend the 2 nodes we got!" Idiot says: "Takes too long to run east, I'm going mid now." I say in utter disbelief: "You want give up on a node we still own because you are too lazy to run your toon over there?" 5 people follow the idiot to mid, leaving only the ops leader and myself to defend east and west. Meanwhile, the Imps had pretty much given up and gathered all at mid. Naturally, we never took mid but the Imps took east a few minutes later since nobody wanted to defend it. Literally, we lost because people were too lazy to run across the map! Maybe the idiot identified with his toon so strongly that he thought all that exercise is going to give him a heart attack?

Factions are the "Essence of Star Wars"? Yes. Factions are the "Essence of SWTOR"? No. You have to differentiate between the Star Wars story and the actual game Bioware created. Since launch, BW made some irreversible choices with the factions and we are stuck with now - like it or not. A while ago I was in a CW wz as Imp and one guy on our team was telling our movements and giving our nodes to his Pub guild over voice chat. Not only did he admit to it, he was taunting us with it. For every guy who admits to it, there are probably 10 who do it secretly. I believe it is much better to allow open interaction than deal with covert collusion. Again, I agree with the OP and some of the comments in this thread - let's make the best out of the status quo.

Yup, that's true. I would have liked if BW kept the factions truly separate. At launch, I felt like "Imp-for-Life" but now I don't really care which faction I'm playing, got friends on both sides, and sometimes I even forget which side I'm on. Well, since we can't turn the clock back, OP's idea about mixed warzones isn't a bad one. It would probably help to even things out and would make it easier for rated teams to get going, especially since I don't think we will see cross-server pvp anytime soon, if ever. At least whisper, mail, and friends lists should cross factions to make everyone's life a little easier.

No change needed. EA is profitable enough just by ripping off its customers.

You are a coder? I doubt it. Little history lesson for you - lag switches are around since the days of Halo 2. They worked then and they work now and they worked in many games inbetween. The best defense against it is to immediately disconnect the user when the connection is throttled. That's the approach many games have taken - LoL being one example. Want easy proof that it works in swtor? 1) Find an aggressive mob. 2) Run towards it just before you aggro, then hit the lag switch 3) Keep running past it until you hit the "invisible wall". 4) Toggle the lag switch off and, voila, you are past it without getting aggroed and without getting rubberbanded. It works every time - you probably could just disconnect/reconnect your cat6 cable to get the same results. What works in PVE, works in PVP. But using lag switches in PVP is harder because it requires some practice to get the timing right. Hence, most cheaters prefer speedhack-type software because it is easier to use. Now stop bs'ing people with false information!

OP - great post, great advice and a nice effort! However, it would have been more appropriate for any given MMO 10 years ago. SWTOR doesn't have a community and the modern MMO player does not care about etiquette, just him/herself.

90% of the time, I pug and I don't really mind premades IF they are trying to win efficiently. Last night, I joined a premade myself and we got huttball. 5 mins later it was 5:0 in our favor and the warzone should have been over. But one guy says "don't score, lets farm them!" So, for the next 5 minutes the warzone deteriorated into a DM-style pug slaughter. Finally I was disgusted enough to score and end it, which prompted my teammates to yell at me. Getting steamrolled by a superior team isn't nice, but an acceptable part of the game. Getting unnecessarily humiliated for the maximum duration of the warzone is what's really hated. Unfortunately, there will always be people who enjoy inflicting misery on others, hence pug and premade queues should be separated.

As a healer, you heal who needs healing the most to further the objective - and that's not always your tank or guild buddy. If you don't understand that, don't play a healer. I've seen plenty of that in huttball: "Eff the ball carrier, I gotta heal my smasher who's mindlessly brawling in the middle!"

Yes, that's a good idea! In pug wzs, often times the healers don't heal the team at all, just themselves or their favorite tank/dps/guildie. Yet they still get a bunch of mvp votes for big scoreboard numbers (not that mvp votes matter, but it still isn't right to get rewarded for a sham).

This is nothing new really, I've seen it happen the first time a year ago. Some people just take pleasure in ruining a match for their team. Along the same lines, but a little more concerning is what happened to me in CW the other day: One guy on the team said at the beginning "lol, we are playing against my pub guild, I'm in vent with them!" Then he proceeded to let them take our nodes deliberately while taunting us with "u mad bro"? Nothing can be done about it, reporting anyone for anything is pretty much a waste of time in this game. Bioware won't act.

Posting on the forums about cheating is always a bad idea: 1) Bioware will not read it 2) The topic attracts players with vested interest, trying to refute that exploits/cheats/hacks ever happen 3) Should you post names, screenshots or videos as the trolls demand, you are in direct violation of the EULA It is much more likely to get punished for posting about cheaters than to be punished for cheating itself. Historically, Bioware has been extremely slow and lenient with exploiters and hackers. At launch, several weeks passed before Bioware fixed exploits such as the /getdown glitch or the Pub-side arming of the voidstar doors before the match started. Nobody was ever punished for exploiting either bug. It took them 4 months until patch 1.15 to finally admit that hackers existed. They dinged a few hundred accounts for speedhacking and teleporting - warning letters and/or 1 week suspensions. By contrast, most other MMOs would punish such hacking with immediate account closures. More recently, it took them 6 weeks to ban a notorious hacker (Gingers), but only after several videos, many forum threads, and countless report tickets against him - and that guy wanted to get caught to promote his hack program. Unless the cheater creates a public relations issue, Bioware prefers to do nothing. A suspended account is a potential lost sub and that looks bad in EA's quarterly reports. Bottomline, as long as you sub, cheat all you want.

Heh, yeah the old RNGs were a real pain and I sure don't miss them. But it reminds me of a time when I still had naive hopes that Bioware knew what they were doing with PVP.... Now it's metrics instead of play-testing and boosters instead of balance? PVP ain't going anywhere fast here, that's for sure.

There is a worldwide, centuries-old convention in place that states that the top of a map points always NORTH. Most people instinctively follow that, even if they don't know the origins. But because Bioware does not flip the Voidstar map for the defending team, it causes all this confusion. Yes, naming the doors would be the easiest solution to the problem. Portside/starboard would be appropriate for a ship - perhaps in 3.0, we might even see that happening.

Number of actual warzones played by BW staff/developers: ZERO - "metrics" FTW

7) SWTOR warzones are not deathmatches, they have OBJECTIVES! If you want to win, you play for that. 8) Scoreboard/mvp votes mean NOTHING if you lose. As for healers in pug warzones: Sure there are a few very good ones, but 9/10 times they only heal their favorite tank/dps/guildie and ignore the rest of the team. Really, it goes both ways - why protect someone who doesn't heal you?

Reminder: this thread was about SWTOR's pvp image! Valor trading happened extensively on all 5 servers that I've played at launch. Sure, Bioware didn't punish the exploiters, didn't even take the valor away. Instead of dealing with the collusion, they just abandoned open-world pvp. Same will happen again if win-trading is allowed to continue. But yeah, I get it - you are one of them.

Reading not a strong suit, I presume? Or will bolster also give us 24 LEVELS OF MISSING ABILITIES? God, I swear these fanboys never learn...