The right solution would be to tweak the existing warzones. Not throw them out. This is a solution that I guess is better then what exists now, but it's not the "right" decision. Nor do I see the harm in leaving 8 man in place. Especially when they clearly knew this would take place, and didn't "lube" people up to the prospect. Finally, a nice bait and switch for all the people who transferred from their dead ranked servers to Bastion and Pot5 for actual competition. EA says "Thanks for the money, suckers!". Do you not think if folks knew 8 man was being phased out, that these people would have still left their communities? When, in October, they can freaking ranked solo queue for arenas? Don't get me wrong, I'm ecstatic to have all of these great pvpers come over and make my server (and me) a better player...but I say this knowing I didn't drop 20-50 bucks on getting here.

Still LF open world PvP content

Pretty much, this is the dumbing down of PvP. Say hello to 'Voidstar" 24/7. Still, accessibility to ranked PvP will be great now...and the fact they are including matchmaking based on rating is huge. It's not all bad, but some of it is just...meh.

RIP 8-man's...RIP

Thing is, you can be casual and still get geared. I'm casual. I play 10-20 hours a week (20 being the absolute max). I got full conqueror in about 2 months. I've been using it for a couple months now. Sure, you can't gear 4 characters, thats for powergamers. Pick your favorite character and stay within your rl limits. Finally, stop being lazy. ANY casual can level any fresh 55 to near full partisan within a week or so. You can get to about 11/14 within a week if you save some comms. Just go work on it, stop being lazy/whiners.

I really don't think most people realize this enough, especially against snipers not leth. Ranged classes CAN kite snipers if entrenched, and even if not entrenched to a lesser degree. They can't really out DPS them in an open field per se, but many warzone situations allow a sorc or merc (or pub equivilant) to kite a stationary sniper. and yes, 'good' carnage marauders really pack a wallop done right.

Hey now. Sometimes they do survive both. If they have more then 28k health LOL

Yes, yes it is.

Indeed, the market is pretty saturated right now. I could literally play a different MMO for free each night of the week if I wanted to.

line of sight, like Stupidsyrup mentioned, is your best friend. Even melee can use line fo sight somewhat. Although lethality/dirty fighting snipers have a good bit of mobility/and dots. Snipers don't really want to leave their entrench, if you can force them out then you've got an edge. Ultimately though, if the sniper is patient enough, and willing to ignore the actual warzone objective to kill you instead, he's going to win - even if you get into melee range which isn't that tough to do. A lot of times I end up losing to melee because they get in range and I've used my CD's in more important situations. Better for me to die after saving a door cap/node cap because two other puggers are idiots and not paying attention. Dying is meaningless in the grand scheme of the warzone, most of the time.

Maybe they pick a less terrible game engine? It's not the PvP itself that's awful. It's an acquired taste to be sure, but this game is more balanced pvp wise then most others....its the engine itself. It's forced actual PvP to exist only in warzones. Lame.

I'd be ready to move on. I'm not sure that anyone can design an open world pvp experience any worse then these guys have.

Win trading only seems to take place on the minor league servers.

I was thinking they'll just add a new rating for arenas...what will that have to do with 8 man's?

Bolded is EXACTLY where I'm at mentally. The "inches by inches" that they are now (read: the cc coordination fest) is honestly just unexciting, win or lose. You get far more dynamic PvP in normals, oddly enough - especially if the teams aren't heavy healing and reasonably equal. Of course sometimes your team is so bad you can't do anything...but not every solo queue is awful. The irony of TOR PvP (in my view) is this: Let's say hypothetically we reduce healing effectiveness. That could potentially promote more dynamic conflicts with more folks being killed in ranked. HOWEVER....normals would be a TTK tragedy. So this can't happen. 95-98% of all pvp matches are normals. Perhaps reducing tanking effectiveness? Hard to say without hard testing, no one would want to see the tank's role rendered worthless either. I'm honestly not sure what a solution could be, that would make ranked more dynamic without destroying normals. I'm not sure if different (or even larger) maps are the answer - because regardless of the map, the best ranked teams will develop the simplest strategy and everyone else will copy. Civil War has a fair distance between objectives (at least, side to side) and that just promoted the mid zerg. You summarized all 5 maps well Alex. - Huttball, drilled down to RNG and macro ball grabbing. The coolest map in perhaps all of MMO PvP, neutered. -Civil War, determined largely in the first 2 minutes of the entire (potentially 30 min) match. Someone screws up an assignment AT THE START, and the match is basically over. That just sucks, and barely passes for quality PvP in my view. That's like a single turnover in football costing that team 21 points, not a worst case 7(well, 8). - Voidstar , no objectives get completed, ever. Why hasn't BW changed the 8 sec bomb to (3) 3 sec ones instead? ineptitude, or Indifference? - Novare, similar to Civil War, but not nearly as extreme/bad, as the fact mid/south is on a hill allows for more effective CCing (knockbacks down the hill, etc). - Hypergates is about the only warzone that looks interesting, they took out the meat grinder in the middle, and now you have fights on each side. An improvement, yes, however even then teams are surviviable enough to, in some cases, go double digit rounds without activating a single pylon. To me, that's just nuts.

18 months of 90% failures/being ignored will grate on even the most hardcore star wars fans.

EA not wanting to pay for servers has nothing to do with my statement. My statement about BW incompetence has to do with their productivity and ability to fix bugs since release - going forward even through today. Their PvP content continues - 18 months later - to be grossly lacking. Even after 2.4, it'll still be lacking.

Yeah, which - especially after seeing a few rated matches, and watching a few more on twitch, I've lost the will to log in. My end game is boring (to me)

I predict FLOP (at least, more FLOP then WIN). Unless, along with it, they introduce matchmaking based on rankings. That would change things. Mostly because the problems that affect 8-man ranked PvP will only be accentuated by reducing it to 4-man. Although the one unquestionable benefit to arenas will be this - everyone will be ABLE to participate. Getting 4 people together in a half-decent configuration is easy for most to do, unlike 8. For literally a year, I was unable to find a steady 8 man ranked team. When I originally did, they subsequently moved to GW2 for good ><. Then Fatman merged into Pot 5 and it was like starting all over again. Now I have one finally again (only to lose interest in ranked, oh the irony!) I would have never had this issue if arenas had been in sooner.

You know...like Bioware actually doing their job, and supporting their game?

Good summary. Actually, I enjoy an occasional blowout against me. I like trying to see what I can do, in the face of insurmountable odds. Typically, not much, but it ends up being more then the rest on my team of 'specials'. Still, after a couple of these match types in the same night, I'm over it.

There's this thing called botting. Even without it, the vote to kick system is fundamentally flawed, because it doesn't punish truly terrible/afk players. I can literally, if I choose, sit and be in another window or watch TV 12 feet away while I afk a node...never getting kicked because I'll 'move' every 90 seconds..

maybe you should find another game you might not stink at so much??

I just want to add, that I'd like to know who his pot5 characters are now.

I'm currently playing around in TERA somewhat...and they have the 30 min deserter penalty. I'm not high level enough to participate yet, but I'm guessing they just have the afk camper problem...versus the quitter problem.