"No One Escapes a Black Hole." If your travels take you to the sort of seedy spaceports frequented by petty gangs scrabbling for turf, where the value of a sentient life is often little greater than a bent credit chit, you may have heard the rumble of black Lhosan swoops heralding the passage of the Black Hole Gang. Always clad in black riding leathers covered in stitched-on patches, members of the Black Hole Gang swooper club prominently display the symbol of a jagged black spiral with a stylized vrblther skull at the center. Though few in number, members of the gang are notorious for being unusually violent and unusually willing to handle even the most rotten task. Previously implicated in running blasters to several separatist factions within Republic space, the Gang swiftly found a place on numerous Republic watch lists. Once a considerable nuisance for law enforcement and military authorities on several Outer Rim worlds, the Black Hole Gang recently suffered a setback following an SIS sting---many of the lower level soldiers and some fully patched members were arrested, and the though the Gang's leadership and chief muscle escaped direct implication, their illegal pipeline of low-grade blasters dried up. Other petty gangs said the Black Hole had vanished... swallowed up by the void. But a new brand of premium, high-grade deathsticks recently hitting the market on Nar Shaddaa, Tatooine, Hutta and even sporadically in Imperial space have been linked to these resourceful bikers. Rumor has it that the Gang has found a new specialty trade, one far less likely to end up on Republic radar---though the brains behind these high quality deathsticks remains a mystery to all but a few. "They're Mean as Gundarks and Twice as Likely to Charge if You Make Eye Contact." Though the gang's few remaining members have been struggling to keep a low profile following the string of arrests, they remain easily recognizable by their swooper patches and black bikes. Feelers have gone out into the underworld looking for buyers and distributors for their new brand of deathsticks, and some of the more notoriously violent members of the Gang remain available for hire as expensive muscle. The gang's leadership has been hesitant to recruit new patch members and prospects of late, fearing that should any of their currently jailed associates turn 'womp rat', then informants or undercover SIS could be right around the corner. But recent power struggles and setbacks in attempting to move their new product have convinced some that its worth the risk----the gang now always has its eyes open for the right sort of swoop-biking scum to carry their colors. The Gang's 'public' facades, intact for almost a decade, remain known to underworld contacts across the Outer Rim. Word has it that anyone brave or foolish enough to seek an audience with these swoop-riding cutthroats need only reach out to "Queelo Brothers' Scrapyard" in the wastes of Tatooine or one of several swoop garages from Nar Shaddaa to Mos Ila. OOC Info: Who are we? The Black Hole Gang has been a small family guild since the launch of TOR on Ebon Hawk. We've only recently begun immersing ourselves in the RP community here, but our experience RPing in other MMOs is extremely extensive. While we are presently few in number in terms of players, we have numerous distinct characters available for criminal RP of all kinds. We tend to enjoy PvP (a lot), and it's likely we'd be better recognized in that aspect of the game than any other---but we've always been RPers first and foremost, and are eager to become more involved in that part of the game. What can we offer? As rough-and-tumble swoop bikers, we're game for just about any criminal activity you can conceive. Need a couple extra enforcers / bodyguards / muscle for a shipment, meeting, party or other function? We're happy to oblige, and game to partake in any form of conflict resolution that may arise. Need suppliers of premium deathsticks? The Black Hole Gang has recently come to the market with an extremely pure derivative of the balo mushroom, one that has customers begging for more. Need an enemy or nuisance taught a lesson? We have goons just itching for a fight. Need a small shipment of guns, spice or other commodity transported at speed planet-side? Those bikes aren't just for show. What are we looking for in a potential member? Historically the Black Hole Gang has been a small guild that partakes in PvP, PvE and RP with equal enjoyment. We're self starters who are happy to throw ourselves into any aspect of the game. As we've become more involved with the RP community, we've finally decided to open recruitment to others with a similar frame of mind. What we're looking for are mature adults who enjoy all aspects of the game and are eager to RP a rowdy, tough-as-nails swoop biker. While we do try to run regular RP outings ranging from exchanges with other criminal guilds to dealing deathsticks at high traffic hotspots to stand-alone episodic events and gang meetings, we're also happy to simply get together and engage in social hijinks amongst ourselves at the drop of a hat. It's important to point out that as players, we also greatly enjoy the game's PvP and PvE content and so we'd ideally want players of a like mind. While we will provide RP content as much as possible, we can't promise to hold everyone's hand on an hourly basis. We're not aiming for a huge guild where the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. What we hope to have is a relatively small, tight-knit group of scum and villains that regularly interact and are quickly recognizable. Candidates MUST own a black swoop bike (ideally a Lhosan Manta or Hyrotii Racer, but any black swoop bike is acceptable) and your character must wear some mix of black and/or dark gray. Vests/jackets/swooper gear is ideal, but we're open to anything that looks cool. Contact Us: If you're interested in employing the Black Hole Gang or reaching out to us to inquire about possible membership, the Gang owns several legitimate front businesses that can be contacted, per above. Simply send a tell to one of the following characters (your choice if you want to commlink us IC or inquire OOC) and we'll go from there: Gorax, Rotor, Z-Flare, Vor-Voon, Julilla, Velshia, Longspur. Alternatively, you can post here and we'll follow up with you in-game.

Thanks, I'll give it a shot there as well!

"No One Escapes a Black Hole." If your travels take you to the sort of seedy spaceports frequented by petty gangs scrabbling for turf, where the value of a sentient life is often little greater than a bent credit chit, you may have heard the rumble of black Lhosan swoops heralding the passage of the Black Hole Gang. Always clad in black riding leathers covered in stitched-on patches, members of the Black Hole Gang swooper club prominently display the symbol of a jagged black spiral with a stylized vrblther skull at the center. Though few in number, members of the gang are notorious for being unusually violent and unusually willing to handle even the most rotten task. Previously implicated in running blasters to several separatist factions within Republic space, the Gang swiftly found a place on numerous Republic watch lists. Once a considerable nuisance for law enforcement and military authorities on several Outer Rim worlds, the Black Hole Gang recently suffered a setback following an SIS sting---many of the lower level soldiers and some fully patched members were arrested, and the though the Gang's leadership and chief muscle escaped direct implication, their illegal pipeline of low-grade blasters dried up. Other petty gangs said the Black Hole had vanished... swallowed up by the void. But a new brand of premium, high-grade deathsticks recently hitting the market on Nar Shaddaa, Tatooine, Hutta and even sporadically in Imperial space have been linked to these resourceful bikers. Rumor has it that the Gang has found a new specialty trade, one far less likely to end up on Republic radar---though the brains behind these high quality deathsticks remains a mystery to all but a few. "They're Mean as Gundarks and Twice as Likely to Charge if You Make Eye Contact." Though the gang's few remaining members have been struggling to keep a low profile following the string of arrests, they remain easily recognizable by their swooper patches and black bikes. Feelers have gone out into the underworld looking for buyers and distributors for their new brand of deathsticks, and some of the more notoriously violent members of the Gang remain available for hire as expensive muscle. The gang's leadership has been hesitant to recruit new patch members and prospects of late, fearing that should any of their currently jailed associates turn 'womp rat', then informants or undercover SIS could be right around the corner. But recent power struggles and setbacks in attempting to move their new product have convinced some that its worth the risk----the gang now always has its eyes open for the right sort of swoop-biking scum to carry their colors. The Gang's 'public' facades, intact for almost a decade, remain known to underworld contacts across the Outer Rim. Word has it that anyone brave or foolish enough to seek an audience with these swoop-riding cutthroats need only reach out to "Queelo Brothers' Scrapyard" in the wastes of Tatooine or one of several swoop garages from Nar Shaddaa to Mos Ila. OOC Info: Who are we? The Black Hole Gang has been a small family guild since the launch of TOR on Ebon Hawk. We've only recently begun immersing ourselves in the RP community here, but our experience RPing in other MMOs is extremely extensive. While we are presently few in number in terms of players, we have numerous distinct characters available for criminal RP of all kinds. We tend to enjoy PvP (a lot), and it's likely we'd be better recognized in that aspect of the game than any other---but we've always been RPers first and foremost, and are eager to become more involved in that part of the game. What can we offer? As rough-and-tumble swoop bikers, we're game for just about any criminal activity you can conceive. Need a couple extra enforcers / bodyguards / muscle for a shipment, meeting, party or other function? We're happy to oblige, and game to partake in any form of conflict resolution that may arise. Need suppliers of premium deathsticks? The Black Hole Gang has recently come to the market with an extremely pure derivative of the balo mushroom, one that has customers begging for more. Need an enemy or nuisance taught a lesson? We have goons just itching for a fight. Need a small shipment of guns, spice or other commodity transported at speed planet-side? Those bikes aren't just for show. What are we looking for in a potential member? Historically the Black Hole Gang has been a small guild that partakes in PvP, PvE and RP with equal enjoyment. We're self starters who are happy to throw ourselves into any aspect of the game. As we've become more involved with the RP community, we've finally decided to open recruitment to others with a similar frame of mind. What we're looking for are mature adults who enjoy all aspects of the game and are eager to RP a rowdy, tough-as-nails swoop biker. While we do try to run regular RP outings ranging from exchanges with other criminal guilds to dealing deathsticks at high traffic hotspots to stand-alone episodic events and gang meetings, we're also happy to simply get together and engage in social hijinks amongst ourselves at the drop of a hat. It's important to point out that as players, we also greatly enjoy the game's PvP and PvE content and so we'd ideally want players of a like mind. While we will provide RP content as much as possible, we can't promise to hold everyone's hand on an hourly basis. We're not aiming for a huge guild where the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. What we hope to have is a relatively small, tight-knit group of scum and villains that regularly interact and are quickly recognizable. Candidates MUST own a black swoop bike (ideally a Lhosan Manta or Hyrotii Racer, but any black swoop bike is acceptable) and your character must wear some mix of black and/or dark gray. Vests/jackets/swooper gear is ideal, but we're open to anything that looks cool. Contact Us: If you're interested in employing the Black Hole Gang or reaching out to us to inquire about possible membership, the Gang owns several legitimate front businesses that can be contacted, per above. Simply send a tell to one of the following characters (your choice if you want to commlink us IC or inquire OOC) and we'll go from there: Gorax, Rotor, Z-Flare, Vor-Voon, Julilla, Velshia, Longspur. Alternatively, you can post here and we'll follow up with you in-game.

"No One Escapes a Black Hole." If your travels take you to the sort of seedy spaceports frequented by petty gangs scrabbling for turf, where the value of a sentient life is often little greater than a bent credit chit, you may have heard the rumble of black Lhosan swoops heralding the passage of the Black Hole Gang. Always clad in black riding leathers covered in stitched-on patches, members of the Black Hole Gang swooper club prominently display the symbol of a jagged black spiral with a stylized vrblther skull at the center. Though few in number, members of the gang are notorious for being unusually violent and unusually willing to handle even the most rotten task. Previously implicated in running blasters to several separatist factions within Republic space, the Gang swiftly found a place on numerous Republic watch lists. Once a considerable nuisance for law enforcement and military authorities on several Outer Rim worlds, the Black Hole Gang recently suffered a setback following an SIS sting---many of the lower level soldiers and some fully patched members were arrested, and the though the Gang's leadership and chief muscle escaped direct implication, their illegal pipeline of low-grade blasters dried up. Other petty gangs said the Black Hole had vanished... swallowed up by the void. But a new brand of premium, high-grade deathsticks recently hitting the market on Nar Shaddaa, Tatooine, Hutta and even sporadically in Imperial space have been linked to these resourceful bikers. Rumor has it that the Gang has found a new specialty trade, one far less likely to end up on Republic radar---though the brains behind these high quality deathsticks remains a mystery to all but a few. "They're Mean as Gundarks and Twice as Likely to Charge if You Make Eye Contact." Though the gang's few remaining members have been struggling to keep a low profile following the string of arrests, they remain easily recognizable by their swooper patches and black bikes. Feelers have gone out into the underworld looking for buyers and distributors for their new brand of deathsticks, and some of the more notoriously violent members of the Gang remain available for hire as expensive muscle. The gang's leadership has been hesitant to recruit new patch members and prospects of late, fearing that should any of their currently jailed associates turn 'womp rat', then informants or undercover SIS could be right around the corner. But recent power struggles and setbacks in attempting to move their new product have convinced some that its worth the risk----the gang now always has its eyes open for the right sort of swoop-biking scum to carry their colors. The Gang's 'public' facades, intact for almost a decade, remain known to underworld contacts across the Outer Rim. Word has it that anyone brave or foolish enough to seek an audience with these swoop-riding cutthroats need only reach out to "Queelo Brothers' Scrapyard" in the wastes of Tatooine or one of several swoop garages from Nar Shaddaa to Mos Ila. OOC Info: Who are we? The Black Hole Gang has been a small family guild since the launch of TOR on Ebon Hawk. We've only recently begun immersing ourselves in the RP community here, but our experience RPing in other MMOs is extremely extensive. While we are presently few in number in terms of players, we have numerous distinct characters available for criminal RP of all kinds. We tend to enjoy PvP (a lot), and it's likely we'd be better recognized in that aspect of the game than any other---but we've always been RPers first and foremost, and are eager to become more involved in that part of the game. What can we offer? As rough-and-tumble swoop bikers, we're game for just about any criminal activity you can conceive. Need a couple extra enforcers / bodyguards / muscle for a shipment, meeting, party or other function? We're happy to oblige, and game to partake in any form of conflict resolution that may arise. Need suppliers of premium deathsticks? The Black Hole Gang has recently come to the market with an extremely pure derivative of the balo mushroom, one that has customers begging for more. Need an enemy or nuisance taught a lesson? We have goons just itching for a fight. Need a small shipment of guns, spice or other commodity transported at speed planet-side? Those bikes aren't just for show. What are we looking for in a potential member? Historically the Black Hole Gang has been a small guild that partakes in PvP, PvE and RP with equal enjoyment. We're self starters who are happy to throw ourselves into any aspect of the game. As we've become more involved with the RP community, we've finally decided to open recruitment to others with a similar frame of mind. What we're looking for are mature adults who enjoy all aspects of the game and are eager to RP a rowdy, tough-as-nails swoop biker. While we do try to run regular RP outings ranging from exchanges with other criminal guilds to dealing deathsticks at high traffic hotspots to stand-alone episodic events and gang meetings, we're also happy to simply get together and engage in social hijinks amongst ourselves at the drop of a hat. It's important to point out that as players, we also greatly enjoy the game's PvP and PvE content and so we'd ideally want players of a like mind. While we will provide RP content as much as possible, we can't promise to hold everyone's hand on an hourly basis. We're not aiming for a huge guild where the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. What we hope to have is a relatively small, tight-knit group of scum and villains that regularly interact and are quickly recognizable. Candidates MUST own a black swoop bike (ideally a Lhosan Manta or Hyrotii Racer, but any black swoop bike is acceptable) and your character must wear some mix of black and/or dark gray. Vests/jackets/swooper gear is ideal, but we're open to anything that looks cool. Contact Us: If you're interested in employing the Black Hole Gang or reaching out to us to inquire about possible membership, the Gang owns several legitimate front businesses that can be contacted, per above. Simply send a tell to one of the following characters (your choice if you want to commlink us IC or inquire OOC) and we'll go from there: Gorax, Rotor, Z-Flare, Vor-Voon, Julilla, Velshia, Longspur. Alternatively, you can post here and we'll follow up with you in-game.

Listen man, you should just stop. You're on the wrong end of this gun. You're not a graphics professional if you don't understand the difference between a wide gamut display and an SRGB display (and seem to have no knowledge of the issues suffered by users of the former when it comes to content designed strictly for the SRGB crowd). Google the issue and you'll discover everything you want to know about it in ten minutes. It's a real thing.

As another person pointed out, my display is a professional setup with calibration hardware/software that handles this for me, and does so with pinpoint accuracy. I'm not going to manually sabotage that and risk creating inaccurate images in my work just to accommodate a bad graphics change in one game. Fortunately BW left us that nifty escape clause in the setup files so we can have our cake and eat it too. Why do you care?

I actually wondered if this might be the culprit in my case as well. I'm a professional illustrator and have a calibrated wide gamut display and had to do a ton of research when I first got the thing to figure out why certain apps, OS, browsers, etc tended to show images with insane saturation/contrast. Having finally done the homework on that, the new change in TOR reminded me very much of it. This could certainly explain why some are not seeing a huge difference on default while others are getting their retinas drilled out. Thankfully, I was able to reset to the original preferred color scheme. To each their own.

I wholly disagree with this. The original more drab palette was a stylistic choice I agreed with for a gritty setting---and honestly it isn't the colors that irritate me so much as the jacked up contrast. I turn my character away from a light source and his shadowed side basically vanishes into black. Way too stark, old way was better.

Hrrrm... in my client settings file, there is no listing for the color remap. Anyone hazard a guess as to why? Also, can I simply add the option and set it to false myself?

Yeah, on a solid display with settings at max this change is an eyesore. It's so dark on the fleet I feel like my character should be stumbling around, the level of contrast on previously brightly lit planets is horrid, and the new 'vibrant' colors are way oversaturated. This is Star Wars, not WoW. Will definitely be attempting to turn that setting off per the suggestion above. Thanks!

You've made your points on how realistic the matchmaking idea is, but they remain naive. You're gunning for a highly theoretical pie in the sky solution that BW's present devs not only couldn't accomplish, but are not likely to TRY and accomplish any time soon. Let's keep the bar low. Our chances of getting a minor change (an on/off button) are a whole lot better than a sweeping reconstruction of the guts of the queuing system and the addition of visible/invisible player stat tracking on numerous variables that may or may not even BE a good indicator of player skill/experience (not to mention all of those variables would probably start at 0 and require a lot of time to build up any useful data). If BW decides to sink a lot of money and man-hours into a system to help PvP balance, I think everyone is agreed we'd much rather see them put that effort into X-Server development instead.

God, that is well said. This is why I'm dying for new maps with the innovation of Huttball (but not just Huttball) where the best players don't have to spend 75% of the match with thumb squarely up ***. Objective PvP is fun, but there are a lot of ways to do it that don't require turning one or more players into glorified security guards reading a magazine at the desk.

I bolded one of your comments above because both you and Doom used a similar statement in attempt at rebuttal of this point. It's sort of... conveniently naive for two people arguing hard for the most pragmatic, practical solution to suddenly rely on the notion that BW could deliver on a complex matchmaking system when all evidence points firmly to the contrary. There's nothing practical about blind, unsupported faith. I love TOR, but you'll never catch me relying on the idea that the BW devs will figure out the Hero engine they cobbled together or that EA will decide to start putting resources into complicated ideas that don't immediately yield a bottom line. We all know that's not likely to happen (though I'd be giddy to be proven wrong on this point), and being a realist doesn't make me less of a TOR supporter than anyone else. Simple changes are (somewhat) within BW's ability to implement without many resources spent or possibility for game breaking bugs. Mathematically complex systems demanding a lot of resources and tons of variables are a train wreck waiting to happen. Let people play the way they want to.

I don't disagree that separate queues will still end up with lopsided matches, that's common sense. But your odds of a lopsided match when all players (good and bad and average) are shuffled randomly is a lot lower than if the pugs are queueing against premades for hours at a time. Ideally, via good word of mouth about the addition of a solo queue/toggle, more casual pvpers would stick around, come back or try TOR out and the population would grow enough for a matchmaker to be of use in all brackets/ formats. Matchmaking helps servers with already healthy populations find more balanced pug v pug and premade v premade matches, but does nothing to eliminate the advantages of premade vs pug unless you successfully build a fabulously complex and clockwork-perfect set of criterion-----which simply will not happen. Come on guys, this is BW. Theorycrafting is one thing, but we need a simple solution so they won't bungle it. A solo queue is something casual pvpers and solo pvpers really, really want. They are a large population. Give a large population what they're asking for, and the game gets healthier. More PvP for everyone.

Despite my politeness you're starting to get a bit snarky and accusatory again, so this might be my last post in here for awhile. Some folks are okay with it in an intelligent debate, but to me it's wearying. I apologize if this observation offends. In any case: The probable complexity you describe in your purple section is... let's just say it, BW would not be able to handle that. We're in eternal preseason and there still hasn't even been mention of any kind of ELO system, ranked matchmaking, etc; BW manages to constantly introduce new bolster bugs while failing to fix the concept; age-old issues like the backfill bug continue to pop up with sad regularity; and in the WZ queue 3 healers are put on one team while none are put on the other. What you're describing is as likely to be within BW's capabilities as a preschooler doing calculus. Simple in this case may not be perfect, but it's better than another monstrously complex undertaking likely to fall on its face by the time it hit live. And in this case, the simple solution might yield immediate dividends (good word of mouth, upsurge in the number of casuals / soloers pvping and subbing again) while the far more complex matchmaking may yield no results at all unless a premade team is not around. Also, you only attempted to address one of my arguments against the lopsided matchmaking example. Voice chat is an advantage, but so is experience working with your teammates, and most importantly: the ability to set up an optimal comp in advance, which most competitive premades will do. Unless you're suggesting that this theoretical matchmaker should also sort puggers by roles, but I'd submit that would hurt queue times far more than any other option so far put forth. Your later passage about the distinction you think I'm implying between casuals/solo vs casuals honestly just confuses me. I figured it was common sense that I was talking about casual and solo pvpers in general: the majority who generally queue alone, generally don't enjoy playing against a stacked deck, and are the most likely not to continue playing if they aren't having fun. Those most likely to profit from a solo queue, and those most likely to be hurt by the lack of one. Your tone is obviously hostile and trying to paint me as mincing my words, but the point you're trying to make beyond that isn't at all clear to me. Apologies.

Given the disasters that are Bolster and RWZs, your faith in BW to design a working matchmaking system is... highly optimistic. Also, as I pointed out earlier in rebuttal, your links about Rift complaints come mostly from Premades stung by their increased queue times and the usual Pugger complaints that will happen no matter what steps are taken in any direction (lopsided matches and bad comps will happen even in the best of cases). That sucks for them, for certain, but given premades are in the minority and more happy casuals = more people pvping, I think it's a better sacrifice than continuing to allow casuals to get farmed by premades. End goal here is more people pvping and enjoying it.

In fairness though, as I myself pointed out a bit earlier, he does have a point. Matchmaking is better than no matchmaking, absolutely. I'll take it over nothing at all, but that's not the point. Why is it flawed and basically still a retention of the status quo? Because if you match up 2 teams of equally skilled players where one team has 4 people with an optimal comp, experience playing together, voice chat, etc and the other team's comp is entirely random and they have no such edge... the advantage still lies with the premade for obvious reasons. Simple math. Equal skill across the board, but one team has additional advantages. It's an argument for allowing premades to retain their inherent advantages over pugs, except that the inevitable losses will be less lop-sided. I'm not arguing for the sake of arguing. I'm arguing because I don't want to see BW think matchmaking is the solution to premade vs. pug, put resources into it that could have been put into something MUCH easier and less resource intensive (solo only toggle) or something much more desired if long-term (X-server) only to have us end up right back in the same place with the same player complaints. Matchmaking is a GREAT thing for MMO pvp to have, but it's not an answer to premade vs. pug. Letting casual, solo pvpers queue the way they want will allow us to retain more casuals and attract many back. Then the population gets bigger, and other options become available for pvp balance management.

Please help yourself next time. Posts like this are not necessary and not constructive, regardless of the reason or which side someone is on. When intelligent, thoughtful discourse is achieved, one's intent should not be to drag it back down into mudslinging. "He started it" or "eye for an eye" are not good enough justifications for rudeness, guys. If you want respect in life, take the high road whenever possible and reserve your sarcasm, anger and aggression for issues that really matter, or where they might make a difference.

98% agreed. I don't choose to partake in something unless I'm prepared to do my best at it, and learn to get better than I start out. I'm very competitive, I don't want to lose, but I'm okay with it as long as there's competition and fun involved. You often learn more from losses than wins, if you're paying attention to why you lost. I don't think any of these things are bad. In fact I daresay they're solid qualities in a human being as long as it doesn't go overboard. But I'm a realist. When I log in at random crazy hours, I want my queue to pop. If that means we need to bend a little (or even a lot) to accommodate folks who are either: a) lazy, b) try their best but will only ever be 'meh', or c) put their energy and attention into their work, family, another hobby, and only play MMOs for ***** and giggles, then I accept that it's a necessary evil to keep the PvP community sizable. The 2% I disagree with: Most of the complaints in this thread (at least the valid ones) are not about losing---they're about constantly getting crushed with no hope of scoring a single kill, much less a win. On smaller, premade-dominated servers, that is gradually starting to become a reality again like it used to be before ftp. Losing is fine with most puggers/ solo players, as long as the match is competitive and there's some back and forth. Also, seeking fairness is not necessarily about the bads trying to undermine the goods (though some certainly do feel that way). It's about getting people of equal skill level, coordination and commitment to play against other like-minded people. Forcing the ho-hum casuals to play on the level of the hardcores will never work. Hardcores should play hardcores, casuals should play casuals. Sadly, achieving that in a game where the devs don't seem to acknowledge their pvpers much and the population is already flagging is... unlikely, unless a great many things get fixed first. Especially since EA seems to have already put the cow on milking mode. 1. No more WZ bugs and exploits 2. Better AC balance 3. More PvP incentives and options (Open world, leveling, small-scale, more WZs, more innovation, a tangible sense of Star Wars with emphasis on the Wars) 4. More PvP devs and more transparency from those devs about what they're doing and what they think we want.

This is all accurate. People call Merc a faceroll class because it has a very, very, very simple dps rotation in a vacuum, but knowing how to position yourself, pick targets, kite, use your defensive/escape tools, offheal/cleanse, and so forth is a hell of a lot harder than many other ACs, and if you screw up or don't move your butt fast enough you're going to get locked down into oblivion.

What the others have said is (mostly) true. Pyro merc is arguably the absolute worst dps class in the game right now, especially after the nerf to Thermal Detonator. Arsenal merc is in a pretty decent place if you're talking about regs, but I won't lie to you and tell you we're on par with snipers in terms of damage, range, survivability or CC (no dps really is, though). In rateds? You might get brought along for the net if you're really good at the wheel of your merc, but there are much better options for ranged dps atm. YMMV, of course.

The world you're calling for simply doesn't exist. There is a small percentage of people who want to be the best they can be at their hobby; the rest just don't care, or already think they ARE the best (they're not) and when things don't go right, they leave. I wish everyone who pvped was willing and able to learn. The sad truth is they just won't, and telling them to get better or get the hell out will yield precisely that----they'll leave, and queue times will get worse. I don't like that fact any better than you do. But it's where gaming is going, and sadly it's human nature for a lot of things. We need to accomodate those players in some way, because to them TOR is not worth being great at; it's just a silly game to screw around in, and the moment they perceive that they're being unfairly dumped in as bait for the sharks, they'll move on to something else. I'm like you, to a point. Back before ftp when endgame pvp was really active, I'd run into a practiced premade, try my hardest, get drilled into the ground while people quit all around me, get annoyed, and soldier on. But eventually (at least on my server) the premades stompings were 2 out of every 3 matches because no one but the seasoned premades were even bothering to queue at endgame anymore. I'm content pulling off the bandaid as you said, but when all you find underneath is another bandaid... you just stop queuing. Especially if you're only queuing for fun, not for gear grinding (which bolster has largely screwed up, but that's another subject). Now it seems like a lot of servers are going back in that direction again. And holding up server transfers to one of only 2 pvp servers as a healthy solution is just not going to work for a lot of reasons. Many (like me) simply don't trust BW enough to give them $60+ dollars to transfer all of our toons. And even if we did... remember the Fatman? We've seen where this road leads before. Abandoning the servers with smaller pvp populations (and populations in general) to suffer hour long or nearly infinite queues is not a smart business move.

On this post, we're in near complete agreement. At the end of the day, you are the kind of person I would enjoy pvping either with or against. Remember gang----I'm not saying "Boo matchmaking," or hell even "Yay separate queues!" What I'm saying is that for most of the servers out there, nothing but X-Server or general improvements to the pvp scene luring more customers back is going to do much to help. I still believe that a solo only toggle might lure more casuals and solo puggers back to the game, but you will never catch me saying it is an ideal solution. Because yes, I agree that it could sabotage the queue times for premades (if premades are given no other option) and then those players will leave instead. And on the very worst servers, it could make queues die outright as you indicated or just force the premaders to cheat the system. At this point, I'm just trying to drive home that casuals en masse have made their preferences clear in every MMO out there. Regardless of how you interpret Blizz's post on the subject, they and Rift have taken a very public stance on the matter which is obviously intended to placate those customers. My dream scenario is a healthy pvp population, X-server queues, an intelligent matchmaking system, AND the ability to opt out of playing against premades if that's what you want to do (without that causing anyone else to take a queue hit because there's a sustainable pool to draw from). While I'm wishing for all of that, I'd also like a pony. Matchmaking could work; it would be great if it did. Do I trust BW to design an intelligent, well-reasoned matchmaker that accounts for win/loss, valor, gear, comp, whatever? No, I really don't. Look at Bolster. BW has a track record of doing poorly with complex systems. Could they implement a solo toggle without screwing it up? Sure; that's monkey work. Is either a solution right now for most servers? Probably not. Therein lies the issue. And yes, my wife and I are usually very laid back in PvP even in the face of rampant stupidity on our team. We do our best to try and encourage, instruct, strategize, explain and educate the less experienced pvpers, but... results vary, as I'm sure any good player who solo queues knows (there are nightmare teams of puggers out there so bad they'd make Mother Theresa start dropping F-bombs). My idea of a solution at this point would be one of these: A) X-Server (I know... dead horse, but it's really that or bust) B) A dedicated PvP content patch that expands options for all flavors of pvper (fix all of the bugs/exploits, bring the ACs in line with others that perform the same roles, Ranked season 1 with incentives, objectives for areas like Outlaw's Den, a TON more WZs with fun, innovative gameplay like Huttball rather than four flavors of "I don't trust my teammates so I'm stuck defending all game", leveling areas that actually intersect cross-faction and encourage dynamic same-level pvp, etc). If BW put the resources into something like that and then shouted it from the rooftops, the pvp population would boom again and options like matchmaking, separate queues, etc could be implemented with much greater ease and a minimum of discomfort for all parties.

And believe me, Cash----I pray you're right about the new arenas and BW somehow gets it right where Blizz couldn't. I desperately hope enough people can play in that pool without getting roflstomped back to regs that the hardcore competitive pvpers gradually separate from the casuals in regs so both populations can have their fun the way they want. Hell, I'll do it myself if they get it right and gimmicks/ comps don't become the deciding factors. Maybe arguing about this subject is entirely pointless at the end of the day, because many servers have likely already passed the point where any kind of separation or matchmaking is going to make a difference. I just hate the thought that in order to get a PvP fix everyone is going to have to cram onto one of only two servers. It reminds me of the Fatman clamor the last time around, and everyone knows where that was headed before ftp bailed some of the water out.

I understand your frustration bud, but you have to look at both sides to see the whole picture. In the end it doesn't really matter why people are clamoring for a fix to the curbstomping issues---it only matters that they are. In life, people take their business elsewhere due to their own perceptions and opinions. If that big a segment of a population perceives a problem in a business model, they will stop giving you money unless you do something about it. Trying to convince them they're wrong for X reason isn't going to change anything. Hell, I agree with you about bad players. It irritates me to no end when I'm solo pugging or queueing with my wife and everyone else on our team is playing whack-a-mole against one tank so far from every objective that they may as well be on a different map. But those players don't try to get better, they don't come to these forums, they either have fun or they leave the game. You say no one is reading your arguments, but I could accuse you of the same because you keep holding up the "let's do matchmaking" sign without recognizing that on many servers this simply won't change anything. Bastion and Pot5 are probably the servers least in need of a fix for this (though there are still plenty of complaints there) and those are really the only two servers that matchmaking might work on in the present state of the game. Look, I'm not one of the rabid "premades are evil" guys here. If people want to group with friends or even just group up for tactical reasons, they have that right. I would never presume to suggest that they don't deserve that right. Sure, there are some real a-hole premades out there that truly piss in the swimming pool and ruin it for everyone (like the guy saying he happily exploits the crap out of rollbang against regs), but I would never assume that he represents ALL premaders. We all want the same thing, bottom line. A healthy pvp experience. Until BW sucks it up and gets to work on X-Server, it's up to us to try and make the pvp a little more accomodating for the casuals / soloers who are getting frustrated and leaving. Is that likely to happen? Probably not, because most humans don't care about the other faceless guy behind the monitor and will continue to club baby seals happily until there are no more seals to club. Ergo, if you can't twist the casuals' arms to make them improve, then the goods need to split up so the weight of all that bad is distributed more evenly. And you're right----beating a coordinated premade while solo pugging is a glorious feeling, and when you get more than a couple of solid players on a pug team it really can happen. But you MUST remember----not everyone plays games like these to be the best, or hell, even to be good at it. Some folks just want to relax after a crappy day and shoot at stuff, catassing around without a care in the world. There are a LOT more of those guys than there are of us. Drive those guys away from the game, and TOR loses money, our queues get longer, and we start to leave too. We may get pissed off every time some bad ignores a capper, doesn't call inc, allows himself to be a jump-post for the enemy ball carrier or a million other things, but without that population to pad out the numbers pretty soon we'll be trading blows against the same 8 guys for a few hours a day like it was back before FTP and Makeb----and then those guys will eventually be gone too. Is this as impending a problem on POT5 and Bastion? I don't believe so, and it may never be. But not everyone who's serious about PvP enjoys PvP servers (I don't, but that's a whole different discussion). And on those other servers, the problem is already serious and matchmaking is not going to change a thing when there aren't enough people to get even a single match to pop regularly.