Thinking some more on this, I've come to the conclusion that if getting comms to gear your 50 is slow, you're more likely to stump up the cash for the expansion so you can ignore classic comms for the rest of the game. Well played, Bioware, well played.

Have you actually reached 51? You can gain xp, but only until you're 1 away from hitting 51 then you'll stop again

Don't forget that not everyone is going past 50. I preordered too late to get early access, and only hit 50 last week so didn't have a lot of gear, but looking at the loot in the couple of fps i ran last night, even though i didn't have any drops for myself, it looks like running enough fps could get you some nice gear anyway

This is going to make it harder for fresh 50s to get geared up, but otoh I've found that hm flashpoint loot has improved so there's still free gear progression from running them even if we're missing out on comms. It is a very low cap though, i hit it in a couple of hours thanks to 2 unassembled Columi pieces and a couple of fp runs

i traded in unassembled coumi stuff earlier. just be aware that you can only tade it 2 per week due to the 200 limit on earning classic comms (which is ridiculous)

oh, just logged in, cover your eyes everyone on voidstar!

just tried to log in after installing the (2+gb) update to find the server list empty. now it won't even go past the rothc screen. maybe they decided they didn't want so much nakedness in their warzones and are fixing it. i wanted to pvp naked

I'm actually laughing out loud at the fact that being naked is better than ewh gear. In fairness i think it could be an unintended fix pre 55 to encourage fully geared pvpers to hit the level cap rather than stomping on everyone else, but at55 there really shouldn't be a bolster at all

i could write a book on bad groups and i've only been playing a couple of months. i remember my very first run through taral v on my shadow tank and after a couple of fights (which went smoothly) the guardian "dps" asked if he could tank. being fairly new at that point i said sure, if the other members of the group agreed. anyway, we made it to the bonus boss fight (the guy with the lightning) and we must have wiped 10 times. by this point it was about 2am and he actually proposed that the sentinel tank and he could respec as a dps. i'd already said 3 tries before that i'd try once more before going to bed for work, so i pleasantly asked him to consider the wisdom of a dps exclusive class tanking, while a tank specced shadow dps'd, while i was asleep. before i'd even quit the group the other two guys had told him what they thought and quit. i've never been kicked, but i've left a few groups where people have been just plain ignorant. last night for instance when another "dps" guardian asked the tank guardian if he could tank in maelstrom while playing my healer. it took us over a minute to take down one of the big droid dudes, so i asked if either of them were actually specced as dps as that took a really long time. they ignored me. then we took on the big droid boss (the first one who pulls you in then sort of explodes every 20 seconds or so) and we took him down pretty quickly so i said "great, that went better" and one of them said "stop f****** moaning and get on with it" i don't get mad, i just leave, they were still waiting when i queued again half an hour later. but i would NEVER kick or leave a group due to one bad member or due to people not being familiar with it. i enjoy helping new, or even experienced players through if they don't actually know the ins and outs of the boss fights. tl;dr - bad guys are everywhere, fortunately i've found it's 95% good in general

i really don't see how your gameplay could be slowed that much if one of the many options put forward here were put into place. cross server queues would lead to a more likely matchup between two groups of premade groups, so you would actually pop quicker. even if the queues were split into 2 or 3 (which i'm not convinced on), particularly with the 3rd option of "queue for anything" i think it could still improve the situation. you can't think that if a premade group is playing all night and cleaning house that people are going to keep going back for more. people will play their two matches for the daily and begone. however if there are close matches with good players on both teams, people will be more likely to immediately requeue. and i see a lot of people saying that the bad players want to avoid the good groups of players who are better than them. well so what? why do good players want to face bad players just to stomp them? are your lives so fruitless that you have to win at an online game so bad? let the bad players play other bad players where they can win occasionally, let the better players play the better players where they can also win occasionally. EVERYONE is entitled to get enjoyment out of the game, bad players and good players. if there are plenty of bad players, let them pvp together, why is it so important that they be thrown to the wolves of the uber pvpers?

you can't really "combine" them. cover breaks stealth, which is kind of confusing. it would be awesome if we could stealth in cover. and yeah, cover is awesome solely for the no jump/pull benefit, which also (the jump part anyway) doesn't really make a lot of sense, but meh.

this. i only hit 50 on my main last week, and personally i've found the groups on hm the same as sm - mixed. most groups are grand, i explain i haven't been through before, even though i'm a tank someoe else leads. i **** up and die because i go off course, people laugh etc. in other groups, the uber freaks whine and complain that it's taking longer than 15 minutes to complete. likewise in sm there are the same guys "SPACEBAR!!!!!!!!" ing it the whole way through. no, i want to watch the cutscenes if it's my first time through. i can understand HM players wanting people to spacebar because there are alternative ways to watch the cutscenes, and hm players are running the same flashpoints much more often than sm players. but it works both ways - not only are there people who refuse to help, there are also people who refuse to listen to help and just run off and do their own thing (moreso in SM), and there are also just plain ignorant people. i usually just ignore if i can, leave the group and ignore if it's too big a problem. i tank and heal mainly so i'll usually get a pop pretty quick once my timer runs out. while i like to get my xp and gear quickly, i'd rather take twice as long and have fun doing it - i play the game and pay my sub to enjoy myself, not to get xp and l337 l007

i think he means the person being choked will hit the ground and fire off a few shots. haven't noticed it in pvp but i have noticed it in pve at times but i've always thought it was an animation issue more than anything since it's often so hard to tell what damage is being done and by who/what

Obviously not, but i have had nights where I've faced the same type of opponent 6 or 7 matches running. I don't keep track of names but you notice when you face a group equally split between inquisitors/warriors, or inquisitors/bounty Hunters. And during that time it's also noticeable that there are rarely, if ever, more than one or two others on my team in each match. Of course I've also had nights where I'm with an obvious premade, i just put that down to the good luck coming back. It's not a huge problem in terms of rewards because most of the time you still get healthy xp/comms but still, some people are more interested in winning. I like winning but only consider a warzone a complete waste of time if i don't get a medal, which never happens unless i join near the end

I don't think they should be made to queue separately, but they should be more likely to face other groups of the same makeup if possible. But as pointed out that would probably require cross server warzones.

why would it be a punishment to have a premade group more likely to face another premade group?

which part of that answers my question? i just see a lot of smiley faces and waffling.

So have your premade group more likely to enter awz against another premade group, and have pugs more likely to face other pugs. Why are people scared of that idea?

Can't disagree with any of that except that even in a 4/4 group i can still vice comm to warn of an attack which can then be relayed by someone else to the other members of the team (while waiting for entry for instance) while i hold off the attack. As my friend above called it, that is only one hypothetical scenario, but voice communications will always trump typed communications in a warzone. Of course you're right too that often good teams don't even need to communicate much. Tl;dr i agree

I didn't insult anyone except in self defence your honour. In fact i don't think i insulted anyone at all. Glad you're done, i have little time for people who can't have an intelligent discussion without feeling insulted that someone says something they don't understand/disagree with. You're welcome :-)

There's no crusade, the point is that people playing with certain advantages that come with setting up your own group should ideally be facing other groups who have those same advantages. Currently as a solo queuer there's no way to prevent yourself being in a group with no healers facing a group with 4 sorcerers/sages who can all communicate much more easily than your team. What is so difficult to understand?

i think cross server queues are probably the only way you'd get premade vs premade to work. obviously if i have 5 or 6 wz's in a row, always against a lot of the same players and never seeing more than one or two players in my team the same 2 games in a row, there simply isn't a premade on my side for the other team to face. i also agree that people shouldn't be punished for grouping with friend to pvp, but likewise people who do want to queue solo shouldn't be punished by being put up against a team much better than them match after match. there must be other pug groups to face. also if there was a "group" queue, or if the match making mechanics were just changed, i'd STILL want to go up against premades, just with equally skilled players on our team. i enjoy the challenge, and it's way more fun to play against good players with good teammates rather than continually be faced with 3 or 4 on 1 ambushes. the only consolation i have is that every 2 mins i can combat stealth and steal their kill.

no i haven't. i said it's more awkward communicating solely through ops chat. it's far from impossible, if it was THAT big a hassle i'd form my own group and use voice chat. but it IS an advantage to have voice comms (one of several that premade groups have, probably not even the biggest). maybe i did't communicate my meaning very well (another eason why i maybe think voice chat would be better, i'm possibly not a very good communicator) but, say, 2 stealthers were hiding at a certain point, with voice comms i could easily tell someone exactly where they were so they could aoe the area and break their stealth, or at least watch out for them. i also had a guy who was about to die in voidstar run to where i was hiding in stealth watching for ninjacappers last night, the marauder he was facing of course force leapt/smashed, breaking my stealth, stunning me, and making me his next target. i ran round the corner a bit and missed the ninja stealther i knew would be coming and he capped the door. now granted if i was in a group the guy probably wouldn't have come near me because he'd have realised my game, but it was going to take way too long for me to explain to him why i was there. voice comms would have made it pretty simple and quick to tell him not to come near me as i was hiding for a reason.

is it easier for me to type a message or to simply speak it?

i think you can run 8 man groups in ranked warzones can't you? i don't think groups should be banned from pvp, or even necessarily from the general queue, but when the same team is dominating every pug group thrown at them (for whatever reason) they should be put up against opposition better matched to them (ie other premade groups)