Pugging carnage or Fury Marauder without heals on a losing team, 300-400k damage can happen. If you are pulling that with a solid healer or a dominant team, you do need assistance. But where you place on the final scoreboard matters more than the actual total though, because that is the context you played in. I like Siris's guide for carnage above, has been good for me. (will wait for your anni one with interest).

They reskin daily zones as "content". Reskinned warzones would be nice.

It's true, but no one bothers asking for it. Because if they award top 96 across servers - even though there's no cross-server - there's no hope in hell they would factor imbalance between classes into awards.

Forcing everyone to play teams - already not working cos of balance and skill gaps, faction imbalance. Sounds like you prefer a dead horse to a broken horse. People won't queue to be farmed. That's the number 1 issue with the game. Just need a silver queue and a gold queue,.Lesser rewards for silver. For solo and team.

I'd be keen to run my pubs with you Domi. I'm not sure we're usually on on the Harb at the same time tho.

You're right about the issues we're trying to fix, flop. I guess I just believe there is a vast pool of players - a whole faction on most servers - with radically different goals from the top players. I honestly think the queues will stay as are for gold, and you'd open the door to a whole lot more in silver. Yes, a small group will go silver for high rating - but they would be top of the "silver" league, so their rewards and epeen would be small. If the seasons stay short, 6-8 weeks, i don't see the harm. Certainly not worse than current. But yah, we all know, these forums are full of people raising good issues and fixes for ranked. but no gold post, probly not read. No huge fix is coming. It seems a simple fix like this would be worth a go.

I believe my suggestion means more people would play ranked. People don't play because of trolls/being farmed/being stuck with someone not up to their level. Self-selecting what level you want to play at would mean more would queue.

For PVP, I'd like the saber-throw to proc the crit bonus as well. Hate jumping in and having to ravage early, I'd rather be moving. Great idea, thank you.

This comment misses the point. "If you're a good player"? The point is most people want to get better; they want to play for rewards; they want to play for ranked comms. They don't want to be farmed or trolled. Look at DomiSotto's stats: about half of toons entered in a season do not complete the daily. These are not trolls. These are players who are dipping into the current ranked queues and not enjoying it. Not because they are bad, but because the gulf of experience between them and most of those queuing is too vast and frustrating for both. For instance, my server, Harbinger, has been colonised by some of the best players in the game. They play in my times slots, streaming, for hours on end into my (Australiasian) evening. In voice. I can play arenas, I enjoy them ,and want to get better, but it will be no fun queuing with them. And you can see the odd not-so-hot player popping into queue against them, but they vanish quickly. Same for most pubs who try queuing against them. They have made their own gold queue; the rest of us need a silver one. It's like you didn't even read my post. As above: "Gold" is already popping on the Harbinger. I want a silver queue for the off-faction and everyone else in the game. The majority of players are being shut out of solo and team ranked because of the vastly more experienced players; unless they are trolls or just enjoy being farmed (it happens). Anyone who rates their epeen won't queue silver for "easy rating" when that won't count for anything compared to the top players queuing for top prizes in gold. There's no reason the new queue couldn't be a form of ranked. I understand most forum posters thinking my focus is on cleaning the ranked queue so the best can play - most who play here are probly serious pvpers; but getting that serious takes time. My suggestion would make it clear that gold queue is for the serious pvpers; silver for everyone wanting to get better, for ranked comms, for lesser rewards. What we have right now is that people not at their level are trying ranked, which they are entitled to, but being shut out by the best, who just farm/abuse/get rightfully frustrated with their (our, because this is me too) decision-making ,which will be nowhere near elite standard.

In short, playing ranked and arenas is desirable for many different reasons to different people. But because of population, ELO does not adequately group or match players - it does not account for class balance, play style and experience, casual or hardcore, gear or objectives (conquest, for example). And because people don't like this mess, they're not playing. Or hating it when they do. A simple change would be to allow us to SELECT what level of competition we want. How it goes: Pre-season would run as usual. At the beginning of each season, though, you elect to participate in Silver league or Gold league. SILVER league, once you choose it, that is you for the season. The % percentage threshold for the silver rewards with remain the same, but that is the top reward available. Participation crystals can return to this league, with a rating floor. This will be the "practice arena", practice to be competitive with the different roles, comps, etc without getting farmed or being discouraged or ruining pro rating. The place for pro non-fotms to carry arenas competitively, the place for casuals; for the "off-faction" on each server. To practice team ranked. Arenas can then be removed from the unranked queue, and you can queue silver and unranked at the same time. And maybe after a few seasons in silver, you join the contenders - you choose GOLD at the beginning of the season. This is where all those great players who have played hundreds/thousands of arenas, not just in SWTOR, come to strut their stuff. The gold league is just like the current ranked. The gold reward should be boosted a bit too (eg: season passes for character transfer for your toon, etc). This is where the Elite come to play. Those who are out of their league will learn it, and can retire to the silver league at the cost of their entire gold league rating; those who are out of their league and persisting to play there for whatever reason, can be watched more easily for trolling and wintrading. Silver would be the ranked for everyone; gold for the elite. No excuses for wandering into gold unprepared. (They could make silver success a gate to gold, but I think that's unlikely and unnecessary.) Mostly, though. people will choose what suits their gameplay. I think splitting the queue would increase pops. More people would participate in silver. The best players would queue in gold with more confidence, perhaps even bring players back to the game. With limited resources (apparently) for developing new content for PVP, it seems this is the best way to give more to the PVP community - from casual to the elite - while costing very little. Tl;dr: Making two ranked queues, one with silver as the top rewards, another just like present (gold) - and letting players choose which league to enter - would provide quality end-game arenas to PVPers of all levels. What do y'all think? It may even be better than cross-server.

This interview. The devs seem to speak OP's language.

Yeah, if the "pvp team" wants an easy win with the community, permanently raising comms, even 50%, would be great. Giving is better than taking away (comms transfer, solo ranked crystal).

Yeah, I'm not saying progression is necessary. Just recognising that that aspect is highly unlikely to change.

I think the shell requirement is a fair progression barrier, if you're gonna have progression. It's damn annoying we can't transfer wz comms anymore, but there's no compelling reason to change the shell system. More important, I think, is that once you've earned tier 1 gear, you should be able to upgrade to tier 1 without backsliding (so long as there's no missed tier in between). So when the next tier comes out after Season 5, we be allowed to trade any defunct exhumed shells (currently tier 1) as a straight upgrade (with no comm cost) to Dark Reaver gear (which will be the new tier 1). With all the alts and small pop, it's good for the game.

Yeah, and no sorcs extricating the ball carrier either, then. So OP.

They just need a short focus drop like force camo. Powered by supercharge. They slip away, but can't do anything while in stealth. Each second in stealth costs 1 supercharge and puts the ability on cool down. Reposition, rinse, repeat. Replace stealth scan for it, leave that for pts only. One the "Wall of We-should-really-try-this" it's way ahead of df dotspread and 30m lowslash. A ranged root would also make sense, but that's asking for miracles, it seems.

Carry harder.

I can see both sides of this. But it comes down to the relationship between devs and the community, which must be clear and consistent. Are they our friends, kidding around? It'd be nice - but 99.9% of their communication must be clear, professional, and on point of business. There are too many valid queries and points about gameplay that are met with dead silence for too long to think that a casual yellow post joke is an appropriate part of the relationship. I appreciate the gesture, but atm jokes should be left to Tait or whoever.

Exactly, yes! Same kb.

Dps ops can't spare the energy to keep an ops group up in HoTs. A good op will always assess whether it is vworth a spend though. In regs I look out for my melee buddy maras first, then mercs and slingers as a favour.

So many GCDs spent spamming kolto shots and suit FOE - only thing that keeps the merc-beast in check! #classbalance

Good follow up post, EM. Taking all the criticism and acting like that was what he meant all along. First step in fixing a problem is acknowledging there is a problem. Check. Then it is acknowledging the right problem - marauder utility and mobility vs other over-performing classes. Check. The right fix will be much trickier, and take time to balance; I think the community has very valid concerns about these. I especially feel for the PVE raiders , because this should be simpler for their sents and maras to be fixed. Like some sort of special utility valid only in PVE. It sucks that there is a push-me-pull-you between PVP and PVE class changes in this game.

Sniper's flashbang isn't aoe anymore, iirc. Most under-used: not enough cleansing of stuns and roots going on among pugs.

This is all true. PVPers only complained about the abuse of the buffed Force Storm (exacerbated by there being sooo many sages), and their uber-mobility against melee. Single target nerfs are all about BW's metrics, which, if you'll look at the "explanation" they gave to the marauders/Sents on dev tracker, is all they really look at. If numbers are dramatically behind slingers and mandos, you can be sure those will be nerfed in time soon.

Sums up my view.