I've said it elsewhere and I'll say it here: solo ranked is fine; arenas are the issue. Arenas cannot be balanced -- not difficult to balance, impossible. What solo needs are objective war zones. They're far more balanced than arenas and often come down to strong individual performances, individual plays.

I'm sorry but I cannot accept either of those points. Concerning classes this is not a MOBA or a fighter or an FPS: if you pick a weak character you cannot just reroll the next game and pick up where you left off with a new character. Each character at endgame represents a commitment of dozens if not hundreds of hours. You cannot tell someone who has put that much work into their character that their class is inappropriate for endgame content and they need to start over from scratch. It's not just incompetent design it's ethically wrong. As for population, first of all on Shadowlands I see enough random names in regs to convince me that there are enough players to support objective solo ranked -- and we are not the most populated server. Maybe not at all hours of the day but certainly at prime time and that's really what matters. Second, let's not pretend for a minute that ranked arenas are popping regularly at all hours of the day. Even during weekend prime time on Shadowlands pops can run between five to ten minutes, especially now that interest has cooled down. Between people who don't like arenas and those who can't compete, there simply isn't enough interest in arenas to maintain viability. Third, I'm still proposing a mixed queue. While I would love to shove arenas off into their own queue and never have to deal with them again I understand they serve a purpose: to create matches when there aren't enough players to create 8v8s. Of course, that's also their function in the general queue and I'm optimistic that objective ranked will draw in enough people to make it a nonissue.

I had so hoped that they would add objective war zones to ranked this season. It would have been the perfect time too with OPG since both factions would be able to participate. Arenas are such a lost cause; so much time and effort trying to fix something that is fundamentally broken.

It's reactionary. There's a tendency for the pro-solo argument to come off as advocating the removal of premades from general. I reiterate: that is morally, ethically, and objectively wrong; people have the right the game with PUGs or with friends, the same way they have a right to play the game as whatever class they choose. Unfortunately, people also have a tendency to react emotionally, in this case flippant and dismissive. That, in turn, comes off as pro-group players saying that solo players are playing the game wrong and should just find a group.

Entrench, ED, Shroud, and Reflect either make the player damage immune or CC immune. Not both. Stealth is actually less broken in this context and it doesn't count toward the cap.

They're also the same team that designs and tests war zones. This is likely why balancing updates have been … sparse lately. Also, they tend to balance around arenas because that's the only form of ranked and therefore the only form of PvP that matters. That makes it difficult since balancing arenas is completely, utterly, and absurdly impossible.

That's why I advocate this solution. People have the right to play with their friends; I think the devs would be crazy to deliberately impede that. However, I also believe that people have the right to solo -- the devs would be just as crazy if they removed all solo capability from PvP and forced people to play in organized groups. However, long term those groups are just not compatible with each other: playing in a group offers certain advantages and PUG players are going to be frustrated by that. Saying solos should just deal with it or find a group is like telling someone who plays an underpowered class that they should just reroll. At the same time, putting limits on groups is a bit like preventing people who play an OP class from queuing. The beauty of this solution is that it does not favor or penalize: it accommodates. Truth be told, this is the system we need in place regardless. Everyone, regardless of play style or class, should eventually move on to ranked but the numbers don't support that and it's all to obvious than arenas are the culprit. This is a change that's been a long time coming. The fact that it helps resolve tensions between group and solo players is just one of several benefits.

While I'm not sure about groups, I'm quite confident there are enough solo players to populate a solo queue. I'm sure there are a lot of players who max out their gear and don't want to (or can't) play ranked arenas or who stop queuing when they realize that conditions are "unfavorable." Now that there's a cross-faction war zone (and assuming new and existing WZs get similar treatment) faction isn't really an excuse anymore either. As for regs, I'm sure there will always be enough players looking to, do dailies, conquest, or complete the companion quests to keep that queue popping.

Then they can stay in regs. Solo players who prefer objective warzones would have a ranked option to pursue. That is what I want at the end of the day. More than anything, more than premades, I'm sick and tired or arenas being the only option for ranked and I don't think I'm the only person who feels that way. I see people complaining about premades and I know that this solution helps us both.

So I see that the premade issue has reared its ugly head again. I'm not here to place blame; I firmly believe everyone has the right to play the game the way they prefer -- with friends or with random people. I've said this before and I'll say it again: the only solution that is fair and equal to everyone would be the establishment of solo and grouped ranked objective warzones. Ranked arenas clearly aren't fulfilling this need -- if they were then PUGs wouldn't be clamoring for restrictions on premades, they would be playing solo ranked where they are not an issue. And now that there is a cross faction warzone there really isn't an excuse for objective matches to be excluded from ranked. What I propose are two, maybe three ranked queues. For solos, ranked and arena mixed -- arenas will spawn randomly or after a set amount of time if there aren't enough players to support an 8v8 match. For groups, I see several possibilities. The first is to have a mixed queue with groups of four being paired together to create teams of eight to fill out objective matches with arenas being generated in a similar fashion to solo. Alternatively, there can be two queues dedicated to group arenas and group 8v8s. Yes, I know 8v8s failed in the past but that was before the addition of leaderboards and seasonal rewards -- I think more people would be willing to give them a try now. Ideally, I would see four ranked queues (solo arena, solo 8v8, group arena, and group 8v8) but I understand that there is concern that too many queues dilutes the player base too much. General would remain unchanged: a mix of solo and group players. No additional restrictions would be applied to it.

Two things are constant on the Internet. The first is that no matter how great or small your accomplishments, someone will hate all over them. The second is, of course, ****. Yes, in that order. Map looks fine to me so far. Ideally, you would want two to four people guarding set locations and the rest of the team roaming as needed. They also might want to change force bubble so that it works like stealth: any player currently bubbled in a capture area should not count toward control.

Arenas are an abomination. The nature of class-based competitive gameplay focuses on counter-class and contextual superiority -- that certain classes are weak to other classes or in certain situations. Arenas are a single situation, a single context. They will never be balanced -- it is impossible. Certain classes will always be underpowered while others are overpowered -- there is no middle ground. "Skill" is an illusion in the face of that. THAT IS THE TRUTH.

OR we can just bar tanks from PvP altogether. That would be less insulting than crippling us because other players can't recognize that you shouldn't focus the player with the big shield around them. The issue is damage: it's too low. They need to revert the burst nerfs before even thinking about crippling the one feature that makes it worth bringing a tank into a match.

The major issue is damage. Healing is high (and could afford maybe to be curbed a bit) but the bigger issue is that damage is way too low. Last Sunday I died twice on my tankernaut over the course of five matches. We didn't have a healer for one match (some off heals, an Anni Mara I think) and I didn't die at all. That's absurd. They need to revert the burst nerfs ASAP.

Wait, where are they cutting costs? The new story content is higher quality than anything they've released before, and by a good margin. Sure, they've cut multiple unique class stories but, again, that seems to be so they could focus on a single, high quality story. They haven't released a new Operation in a while but it seems like those will tie to the story. PvP … has been neglected from the word go sp I'm not even going to dignify that with an explanation. It seems to me you're confusing focusing on what works with going cheap.

Or it means they actually monitor those forums and close or merge multiple threads about the same topic. I swear if they merged every thread asking for cross server they'd cut that number in half.

I forget, but it's either /sit or /chair when you're close to one.

This. It happens so infrequently it's not really worth fixing.

Probably the better option. A flat nerf to healing in general is going to hurt classes that aren't over performing. Best bet would probably be to hit their survivability in ways that really isn't going to hurt PvE. Removing interrupt immunity is a great place to start. I could go on but I don't want to go too crazy.

Since presumably every companion will be made available to all classes over the coming months, it's going to start to look silly if every single one of them share the same face. Unfortunately, every companion customization that can be purchased from a vendor is bind on pickup so you can't purchase a customization on a Republic character and mail it to an Imperial one. The only BoE customizations are connected to the Cartel Market so the only way to get cross-faction customizations is to check the GTN and hope there's one you like that's reasonably priced. (Also, I'm not even sure those customizations can be acquired anymore now that older packs are permanently retired, meaning those prices will quickly become astronomical.) What I'm hoping is that vendor sold customizations might be made bind on equip instead of BoP. That way you'd be able to transfer companion customizations to cross-faction characters so you wouldn't feel "stuck" with the vanilla version of a given companion. Alternatively, I suppose they could just make all customizations available from vendors but I see that becoming a bit bloated over time.

3.3 wasn't even four months ago. Huge PvP mechanics upgrade based largely on things we had requested. Remember? The whole game is bugged right now. PvP isn't any different.

OK, trying to wrap my head around this: You say you had a 46, a 41, a 26 . . . and? Did you only have three people? I can see that being an issue since companions don't bolster and they really should. That being said, why didn't you just queue for a replacement? Did you not have a healer? I can see that being an issue as well since I recall that boss has a mechanic where healing and cleansing is vital. It shouldn't be as bad for a tactical since, at it's original level, cleansing wasn't really necessary. It could be that that specific boss needs some adjustments if you can't keep a party alive with health stations alone. (You were using health stations prudently, right?) However, I need to point something out: Hammer Station was a level 19 FP. You said your lowest level was 26; he more than had the skills and abilities to carry that fight. Did you ask him if he knew the mechanics or did you just jump in? Because if he was new and didn't know the fight then that is entirely your fault for not prepping him. Takes thirty seconds to describe pretty much any FP boss, not counting some of the later ones.

To be blunt, I don't believe for a second that this new Alliance is permanent. It also needs to be pointed out that the WZs don't seem to be occurring at the same time as the new content (for spoileriffic reasons). So in order to maintain immersion and context those maps need to remain at least superficially same-faction. Now, to be fair, the Girada themed maps -- arenas and Huttball -- have no such shortcoming. Those maps are already as loosely tied to the canon as possible and there's really no good reason players from both factions can't be teamed together. BW could probably convert these into cross-faction without story concerns. The concern, however, is that these would quickly become the only maps that ever pop (see Huttball at launch). Now, BW could probably create Girada themed variants of the existing maps. Of course, that turns it back into a long term project and I still think neutral avatars would be a much better approach.

Cross-faction? I believe that's where they are eventually going to have to end up. The thing is, there is a correct way to do cross-faction and an incorrect way, and just throwing players from both factions on to the same team without cause is the wrong way. The right way will take time -- they need to create a neutral avatar system that will allow players to appear as either a member of the opposite faction or a neutral party when they enter into a cross-faction occasion -- and I'm willing to wait for that.

He's blowing steam … but everyone knows that they're going to do this in a few months, right? One companion is already tied to World Bosses; it's only a matter of time before we start seeing companions tied to Flash Points and Operations, right? And when it's all said and done, how many companions do you think will be tied to PvE in comparison to PvP?