[This is why we hate PvP]

I'm so tired of entering Voidstar or team match that is 70% over on a team that has no chance of winning. How is this supposed to be fun. If the game is so lopsided that players are leaving in droves or one team doesn't have enough to make the match competitive, don't start the game. Or maybe recognize there's a problem with your format.

 

<Update> Literally today I have twice logged into a 4v4 match to lay dead in round 2 and watch my team lose. I took a loss for simply attempting to pvp. No attack made. Not even able to move onto the battlefield.

[Matchmaking is getting worse.]

It's not by accident. It's why they shift all concerns about pvp to the forums. They're focused on incremental story content. What was the last pvp update you remember? Odessen Proving Grounds. Pvp is an afterthought.

[New PvP Daily Weekly Requirements]

You really shouldn’t be personally attacking them solely based on that because that’s not necessarily the players fault if the matchmaking puts you with the 7 worst players in the queue. It also doesn’t take into account premades (if there were any).

 

Bioware have stated in the past that the whole premade is rated at the same lvl as their best player. So even if they have a terrible player, that player gets rated as high as the best on the premade.

But what happens when all the players on the premade are close to each other in rating? So close in fact that any could be considered the best in the premade?

 

My experience is it puts one better player on the other team with a bunch of bad players vs the premade with a bunch of bad players.

The thing is one player can’t carry 7 people. But 4 can carry 4 players against one good player and 7 bad or even a average.

 

A lot of matches are luck of the draw on class composition as well as this hidden matchmaking. You can have lucky runs where you win 20 in a row, but you can also theoretically have runs of losing 20 in a row.

 

Class stacking is way too rampant to be ignored as a major factor sometimes. I had so many matches yesterday that were all ranged vs all melee or all stealth vs all non stealth.

This gets amplified if a premade decides to class stack. Ie, how about 4 operatives, 4 sins (bad, but not so much now) or 4 Powertechs combined burst dps on you is enough to rip a hole into the seventh circle of hell (I’m sure I saw a flaming face there a few times yesterday).

And those guys don’t even need to be in a premade. Most of them weren’t, it was random class stacking. But then you see others who do it on purpose.

 

It’s entirely possible to lose 20 matches in a row even if you are the best player in the game because of who is put on your team. The only way a player can mitigate that is to form a premade with 3 other really good players. And then we run into “that other” issue of premades vs full pugs.

 

Until Bioware fix the match making and class stacking and premades vs full pug teams (that aren’t balanced), then this argument that it’s the players fault they lost is a solid as liquid water.

 

If they just told us how the matchmaking is supposed to work, then we could test it and offer suggestions or show them what needs to be fixed. But I honestly don’t think Bioware care because it’s regs and they think only ranked ELO needs to work. What they don’t get is this broken reg matchmaking and the other changes to deserter debuffing and no mission advancement for losing, is making pvp less enjoyable and more people will stop playing it.

 

Well said.

[Remember when PvP was fun?]

More and more unneeded abilities were added without checking their power in PvP.

 

More abilities started to do two things at once.

 

More CC came into the game.

 

Alacrity was reworked to actually function and it scaled with a good amount of CC's so CC's got a lower CD.

 

Slows started coming out above 50% outside of force crush which was the strongest for a very long time.

 

Powertechs got a silly utility that slows for 75% for 15s, on a 30second CD. Which is yellow & AoE. Often a DPS boost too, so tons of reasons for them to use it. It can completely negate the movement buff from predation every time it's up.

 

Tacticals got introduced, there's no way to properly bolster these bad boys and probably never will. These should either be cheaper or fundamental for anyone trying to PvP.

 

Set bonuses got changed and take quite a while to get and for some unreasonably pricey so they may not even bother. Bolster cannot make up for the giant gains players now get from set bonus, it's just not possible without breaking bolster.

 

Bolster while it was good preamplifiers, new set bonuses that are extremely good and tacticals. Now it's a baseline courtesy that can't even come close to allowing a new player to be competitive with a veteran that's at least geared.

 

Resolve system, while I think it's fine I do think it needs tweaks. There's too many knockbacks and with that there's tons of 'extended' knockback versions of each one. Including roots, these things are extremely powerful and often a lower cooldown which makes it very frustrating when there's multiple when you're playing melee. I don't agree with auto root on a knockback if you can extend your knockback distance. Fundamentally to me you should have to take a utility to choose extended distance or root as most ranged classes now have roots available to them. (Missile blast, leg shot. While Lightning doesn't it's got an aoe root/slow tied to its main dps ability.)

 

Chain lightning, as stated previously this ability is AoE. Its roots and slows, it can be reset with elemental convection or even with force storm if you don't have the tactical. This tactical alone makes lightning absolutely insane against most classes in 1v1 due to how many roots you can spam on them while staying mobile. While I think sorcerer/sage needs something having an AoE root is causing mass desync and rather unfun experiences for all melee in PvP atm. It would be far more balanced if the root was removed to prevent desync but put the root on another ability like TB.

 

Diversion & Force bound two overpowered abilities that make no sense in the realms of balance.

Marauder has obfuscate its white damage accuracy reduce it's a higher reduction than diversion but only works on that single damage type. Diversion is AoE and works on both and is 45%. Force bound is AoE and comes into affect after intimidating roar is over giving max uptime of shutdown of 12s. This is 70% for 6s against yellow damage only.

These abilities aren't balanced in terms of the rest of the game and will always make both of these classes sought after in group play. Diversion was fine when it was a single target because it made it comparable to obfuscate.

Force bound was overkill and never needed, intimidating roar scales with alacrity. Immortal tanks can get it down to 39s! CD. Carnage can get it down to 30s with berserk! This is not okay!

 

Matchmaking for regular warzones. While in the beginning, it was great, it desperately needs to tweak more.

Realistically with a good tank, you do not need more than one. Most okay to decent healers don't do enough to cover good DPS, while yes it's part of their skill level is the problem it's also that some damage is unhealable. (meteor brawler still gets buffed by superheated fuel. Viral elements still hits main target twice destroying a tank in a single gcd.) I think the limit of healers should be set to 3, with 1 tank ONLY if the other team can match it. Two heals on one team needs to be more common as the amount of healers I see do nothing or get out hps'd by a DPS is way too high.

 

While against new players with meta specs you can still 1vx pretty easily it definitely doesn't feel fair for them even remotely. Here's a prime example https://clips.twitch.tv/CleanCovertGazellePhilosoraptor

Most of these players don't have either gear or tacticals let alone can afford amplifiers. Bolster literally helps them none in this situation other than being meat bags.

 

Can I give you a cookie for saying everything I wanted to say?

[Who would like to know how matchmaking works in regs?]

I don't care how it works. I just want it better.

[Change back the changes!]

No, the requirement to win is fine.

 

I like to play multiple toons. It sucks completing one daily in 15 min for one character and farming the next daily for 6 friggin' hours because his gear is 270. It's stupid and only serves to waste my time and let my membership lapse. The changes only serve to alienate casual players. Why? Ranked is already there for the hardcore pvpers. Why make things worse for the casual player?

[SWTOR has failed miserably and missed the mark with the most recent PVP patch]

I absolutely agree with the original post. Pvp is once more a chore and something worth avoiding. With regard to the punishment for early exit, it does nothing to encourage pvp play. Now if I'm in a match with tools win trading or who gave up at the beginning and are hiding in stealth, I'm punished. Sure, ideally, I could report them or kick them, but not in unranked where people become fixated on their task or kills in huttball when they should focus on the ball. I get it; it does suck when people drop. Can hurt a team. Or it can open a spot for another player. But now, all it does is causes me to hop to an alt. Usually people drop for a reason. They don't mesh with the team or they don't want to be pummeled by a team of 306 geared players camping right outside the pvp gate. You've had a punishment for early departure before, and we shouted it down.

 

What's most egregious is now you've deincentivized pvp for casual players. We can't just have fun casually slogging along (yes sucking because we're casual players) getting our weekly and dailies. Now we have to join a pvp guild if we want to casually play unranked? I get pvp is not SWTOR's strong suit, but why raise the barrier to enjoyment? The rewards for unranked dailies and weeklies weren't even high quality. Is this an Anthem situation where you think less reward and more grind is a good thing?