PVP in SWTOR is collapsing.

[SentinalMasterWW]

I wanted to make a post addressing where I think the current state of PVP is in SWTOR. We are about 3/4 of the way through Season 3 of PVP Seasons. I already Finished the track and just need Arena Wins for the Achievement of completion. 

I can tell you right now that PVP is dying more and more each day. 

Q's are getting longer for any modes, and There are so many issues plaguing this mode.

Controversial Take: But the Dev's have shown they do NOT Care about their PVP Community. To them PVP is an after thought mode, Why put effort into fixing it when they can make Knockoff Cartel Sets off of TV shows for the Space Barbie players.

PVP has always had issues, but they have been worsened by poor Dev Decisions. 

The Dev's don't really care about the PVP community, for example there are Zero SWTOR  PVP "content Creators" anymore. The Influencer program right now is just full of yes men, telling the Dev's what they want to here. Biggs and a few others existed but have left the game, cause it no longer held any interest for them. 

These are the most common things I see bringing down PVP IMO

Broken Stealth Meta: Hope you enjoy playing Hide and seek for 5 minutes 

Stealth meta has always been a thing in SWTOR, but in 7.0 with the pruning of abilites it became much more of a pain to counter them. 

For Sins/Shadows, its two Cloaks tactical, This tactical is completely broken in PVP, especially arenas. It turns PVP fights into where's waldo as they go run off and hide somewhere. Its even more broken on classes like Deception with CC (More on that later). Two cloaks IMO should be removed or reworked like Defel was. If it were to be re-worked remove the 2nd free charge and instead rename two cloaks and have it reduce the cooldown on cloak out when attacked. 

Another solution to stealth Meta, is in Arenas. Whenever matches go into sudden death mode, Pop all stealthers out and disable Cloak out, Its Sudden Death runoff, not run around for 5 minutes int the arena looking for the stealth hiding somewhere. 

Sorcs/Sages: Broken at everything 

I guess we can make a good guess on the Dev's favorite class, Sorcs are so annoying to fight for various reasons. 

#1. The Constant cooldown on Force speed is a massive offender, It hard to fight a sorc when they can pop force speed every 10 Secs. I've talked with some PVP players who have been playing since launch and they think that Force speed should be nerfed to a 30 Sec baseline ability, and that the passive would reduce Force Speed cooldown but would only happen every 2-3 Secs. It also acts as a nerf for Gathering Storm. 

#2. Lightning Sorcs stormwatches literally kill peoples framerates, When you have a premade of Light. sorcs, Your PC will slow down. I have a beefy rig, and my game slows down because of all the Stormwatches. 

#3. Madness and its EZ mode gameplay, Madness is just Mindless easy to play compared to other specs. You get self healing on Dots', Barrier, And force leach, not to mention off healing abilities. Combine that with Issue #1 and you have a spec that can kite everyone in the game. 

#4. Roots on Overload, this goes in hand with Sins/Shadows and their overload, but the root should be removed as a baseline. If there should a be root, it should be something they have to spec into for and give up an ability/Passive for. Root on overload is completely obnoxious. 

#5. Nerf/Remove CC Passive on Barrier, as someone who enjoy dipping their toes into melee specs, This ability is annoying beyond belief, It barely fills up whitebar, and trying to fight a sorc abusing it is stupid beyond belief. 

I know it sounds like I have a vendetta against sorcs, but they in their current state are way to Overpowered in PVP, They have CC, Roots, Defensives, DMG, Mobilty, etc. They really don't have a CON right now to playing them. Even just doing say #1, already makes fighting them less of a headache. I've played every spec in the game, and Sorc/Sage is definatly way Overperforming compared to its peers.  

CC Meta: Enjoy getting it every 3 secs. 

One of the ideas behind pruning in 7.0 was to limit CC's and CC Spam. I can tell you that flopped horribly, While it is true there are Less CC's in the game. What happened is that everyone migrated to specs with a ton of CC, like Jug Skank tank, Deception, etc. Basically everyone is going to move over to the Specs with a ton of CC that they can Spam. While I don't main Deception because its the meta sweat spec, I can tell you, Low slash is the most broken ability in the game. It has a 30M range, and stuns for 4 secs, and is on a 12 Sec cooldown the shortest CC in the game. Honestly at this point Give everyone their CC's back, There is no point saying "Well that would undo our hardwork to fix it." You mean you played Favorites in who gets CC's and who doesn't. 

PVP Seasons: Its Pointless 

PVP seasons from what I and perhaps others have observed is not the saving grace that will keep PVP alive. The only Reason PVE'rs are doing it, is Space Barbie. I have played so many Arena's and WZ's with them that they think its PVE and don't pop defensives, or have no idea what their Class rotation is. It's not entirely their fault, They just want Space Barbie armor. Some actually do care about getting better, but a majority see no purpose in getting better at PVP. 

Even the ones who are good at PVP, don't bother trying to win, they just DM at the center of the map. There is no special reward for performance, or trying to get better at PVP. I've suggested a system that rewards top performing players 

Quote

Seasons can work as I have suggesting handing out rewards to top Healers, Tanks, DPS, etc in a specific season. They could even track the top players Win % for a season handing out custom flairs like ranked had for the top Performers in a season, and giving more PVP tokens.

I could even see creating new Custom Armors/Weapons that would only be given out to the players that fall in that in top % category.

It seems pointless, but in the longterm, it makes players want to get better for that exclusive content. It also give the more hardcore PVP community something to work towards in being in that Top %. 

Premades: Mixed Bag 

Premades have been controversial for a long time since they announced 8 man Premades could be a thing. I get why some people support it, I enjoy playing with my Guildes in Discord and getting Weeklies done faster. It's easier and better to play with a team that you know can PVP well compared to rando's I get it. 95% of the time I Q solo, I can hold my own in 1v1's and don't need others carrying me. The issue is when you run into those people, It ruins 1v1s and the skill out of them. It's not fun fighting someone and having them call a horde of horrors to CC lock you to death. Its also not fun fighting Pocket healers and tanks, even moreso when its both. It's why I really don't Q Arenas too much compared to WZ's, too many Premades relying on others to carry them. 

Honestly, just limit it down to 4 Man Premades Max. That is enough to fill out an a arena team, and half a WZ team. It also means Q's go faster, as they don't have to match one big premade versus another. 

There is honestly A LOT MORE, I could say, but I'd end up writing a thesis paper on why SWTOR's PVP is terrible right now. If you want more "Core" issues, go check out Cease's Post on it. I want to clarify, I speak up as someone who enjoy's PVP in this game, as do others. Faltun, Trixxie, Me, Etc. We all speak up because we care about the game mode, its a really solid PVP mode compared to other MMO's. We don't do this because we hate it, or hate the game, Far from it, we constantly bring up these topics and others because we want the game to get better. 

I know the title is over dramatic but it speaks some truth, Q times are getting longer and longer nowadays. Less people are playing PVP, their tired of dealing with Issue after issue, and bugs after bugs that have been ignored.

[septru]

Can't disagree with anything, except that this is "shocking" or "contraversal."

 

On the contrary, this is the foreseeable result of removing content and replacing it with a meaningless hamsterwheel. 

Edited September 5, 2023 by septru

[krackcommando]

6 hours ago, SentinalMasterWW said:

Another solution to stealth Meta, is in Arenas. Whenever matches go into sudden death mode, Pop all stealthers out and disable Cloak out, Its Sudden Death runoff, not run around for 5 minutes int the arena looking for the stealth hiding somewhere. 

uh. when time runs out everyone takes a dot. they can only stealth for like a second between dot ticks. possibly more if they have shroud up. which is fine since it's a remaining dcd that prevents certain types of dmg (not sure the gas is that kind of dmg)

this feels about right:

6 hours ago, SentinalMasterWW said:

One of the ideas behind pruning in 7.0 was to limit CC's and CC Spam. I can tell you that flopped horribly, While it is true there are Less CC's in the game. What happened is that everyone migrated to specs with a ton of CC, like Jug Skank tank, Deception, etc. Basically everyone is going to move over to the Specs with a ton of CC that they can Spam. While I don't main Deception because its the meta sweat spec, I can tell you, Low slash is the most broken ability in the game. It has a 30M range, and stuns for 4 secs, and is on a 12 Sec cooldown the shortest CC in the game. Honestly at this point Give everyone their CC's back, There is no point saying "Well that would undo our hardwork to fix it." You mean you played Favorites in who gets CC's and who doesn't. 

although WZs have been full of juggs since forever, so it doesn't feel like a change so much as still getting cc'd by deception, op, and jugg.

Edited September 5, 2023 by krackcommando

[meddani]

no point in complaning, it's crystal clear the devs don't care anymore, this was apparent when they ignored the pts feedback yet launched this travesty of an expansion anyway.

oh and it's not pvp that is collapsing (it already has), it's the whole game .

[merovejec]

If you people dont like it just quit, thats the only way they will notice something is wrong.

[Beyrahl]

Adding in the obligatory complaint about sorcerer/sage.
 

Quote

• Torturous Tactics / Staggering Stratagem replaces Force Mobility as a level 51 utility choice. 

  • Torturous Tactics / Staggering Stratagem - Lowers the cooldown of Electrocute / Force Stun by 10 seconds. In addition, targets stunned by your Electrocute /Force Stun deal 25% less damage for 10 seconds when Electrocute / Force Stun wears off.

Quote

A quick explanation of why this is bad and how it used to work and likely will work if re-added into the game. -25% Reduced damage works separately from other damage reduction in the game, it'll take 25% off of your damage before anything like Damage reduction & taunts, amplifying the power of this talent & ability. Making it one of the best abilities in the game when used well shutting down a specific player even further with ease. For example, using this with high alacrity on Lightning/Telekinetics which is easy to achieve, and throwing in polarity you hit around a 30-something-second CD. Hard stuns scale with alacrity and the reduction is flat, so the alacrity reduction counts from 50s CD. Now when this is stacked which is already incredibly oppressive when this class is stacked it'll be yet another reason why players will complain sorcerers are OP. 

Mind-blowing to me that they'd rather add in the most oppressive utility sorcerer had instead of giving something back that required thought like Pull DR. It's almost like its intentional. 

Edited September 5, 2023 by Beyrahl

[sithBracer]

3 hours ago, krackcommando said:

uh. when time runs out everyone takes a dot. they can only stealth for like a second between dot ticks. possibly more if they have shroud up. which is fine since it's a remaining dcd that prevents certain types of dmg (not sure the gas is that kind of dmg)

this feels about right:

although WZs have been full of juggs since forever, so it doesn't feel like a change so much as still getting cc'd by deception, op, and jugg.

Lol, they can't stealth, they can't CC, they can't fight according to this person. What are they allowed to do except stand there and die to his precious merc who has 9 lives?

[Samcuu]

49 minutes ago, Beyrahl said:

Adding in the obligatory complaint about sorcerer/sage.
 

Mind-blowing to me that they'd rather add in the most oppressive utility sorcerer had instead of giving something back that required thought like Pull DR. It's almost like its intentional. 

How significant do u think the skank jugg nerf is? Doesn't seem like much to me...

[sithBracer]

4 minutes ago, Samcuu said:

How significant do u think the skank jugg nerf is? Doesn't seem like much to me...

 

Completely insignificant. It won't even be noticed.

[Beyrahl]

8 minutes ago, Samcuu said:

How significant do u think the skank jugg nerf is? Doesn't seem like much to me...

I haven't even been running that talent lately. Still pulling similar or higher damage. The class is fine with the node being completely removed honestly. 

[sithBracer]

6 hours ago, septru said:

Can't disagree with anything, except that this is "shocking" or "contraversal."

 

On the contrary, this is the foreseeable result of removing content and replacing it with a meaningless hamsterwheel. 

 

Are you still complaining about solo ranked being removed?

Edited September 5, 2023 by sithBracer

[krackcommando]

23 minutes ago, sithBracer said:

 

Are you still complaining about solo ranked being removed?

i mean...the hamster wheel is the main point, no?

anyway, the only positive is that they added an arena queue. but that move was severely undercut by removing the rated arena queue at the same time. just so incredibly frustrating to finally get a realistic place for ppl to learn and improve arenas just to have the reason for learning and improving ripped out from under you.  it's as nonsensical as flooding pvp with hamster wheeling players with no skill or desire to improve but then inviting premades to go full 8m and just butcher the n00bs like fish in a barrel. two very contradictory...nonsensical moves done at the same time. iunno. I'd love to be a fly on the wall for the meetings where that set of give and take was ultimately approved b/c they appear from my perspective to be very antithetical.

edit: at least with the pruning I could see what they were trying to do.

Edited September 5, 2023 by krackcommando

[sithBracer]

1 hour ago, krackcommando said:

i mean...the hamster wheel is the main point, no?

anyway, the only positive is that they added an arena queue. but that move was severely undercut by removing the rated arena queue at the same time. just so incredibly frustrating to finally get a realistic place for ppl to learn and improve arenas just to have the reason for learning and improving ripped out from under you.  it's as nonsensical as flooding pvp with hamster wheeling players with no skill or desire to improve but then inviting premades to go full 8m and just butcher the n00bs like fish in a barrel. two very contradictory...nonsensical moves done at the same time. iunno. I'd love to be a fly on the wall for the meetings where that set of give and take was ultimately approved b/c they appear from my perspective to be very antithetical.

edit: at least with the pruning I could see what they were trying to do.

 

Well, the entire game is a hamster wheel of some sort.

As for rated arenas, while I personally don't agree with their removal (I don't agree with removing content), but I understand why they did it. Not enough people were playing it to make up for the cost of keeping it going, as low as they tried to keep it. 

As for 8man queue ... I agree, no idea why they did that or why they thought it was a good idea. Even the most hard defenders of premades are in favor of keeping it to a maximum of 4 people. They already have the data from the illum event. It started dying more when they changed the limit of groups inside the PvP area. So, I guess they don't even look at numbers like they say they do.

[TrixxieTriss]

6 hours ago, merovejec said:

If you people dont like it just quit, thats the only way they will notice something is wrong.

Which is why PvP is collapsing because more & more people are quitting. At some point, this attitude of just quit if you don’t like it has become the catch phrase to defend poor design choices instead of demanding the devs fix the issues. Sadly, I think the devs themselves have the same attitude as you & it’s why the game is in the state it’s in. 

[Lord_Malganus]

54 minutes ago, TrixxieTriss said:

 Sadly, I think the devs themselves have the same attitude as you & it’s why the game is in the state it’s in. 

No doubt.

[krackcommando]

3 hours ago, sithBracer said:

Well, the entire game is a hamster wheel of some sort.

yes. that was the point. pvp wasn't a hamster wheel before. now it is. that was how they "fixed" pvp. 😄

[merovejec]

7 hours ago, TrixxieTriss said:

Which is why PvP is collapsing because more & more people are quitting. At some point, this attitude of just quit if you don’t like it has become the catch phrase to defend poor design choices instead of demanding the devs fix the issues. Sadly, I think the devs themselves have the same attitude as you & it’s why the game is in the state it’s in. 

The pops takes longer and longer and even at prime time or after resets or with pvp season on. Its very noticable and so much more irrateting when after waiting 25 min you get a match where you see in the first 30s that its a loss.

[TrixxieTriss]

58 minutes ago, merovejec said:

The pops takes longer and longer and even at prime time or after resets or with pvp season on. Its very noticable and so much more irrateting when after waiting 25 min you get a match where you see in the first 30s that its a loss.

So why are you telling people to stop playing if they don’t like what the devs are doing. Because all that does is remove more people from the queue & make them longer. 

Edited September 6, 2023 by TrixxieTriss

[merovejec]

54 minutes ago, TrixxieTriss said:

So why are you telling people to stop playing if they don’t like what the devs are doing. Because all that does is remove more people from the queue & make them longer. 

Its worth it to let it burn so they realize there is a problem here.

[TrixxieTriss]

2 hours ago, merovejec said:

Its worth it to let it burn so they realize there is a problem here.

And at the same time you come here to whine about the situation that you’re promoting. If you keep jumping the fence, you’ll end up with splinters 😂

4 hours ago, merovejec said:

and so much more irrateting when after waiting 25 min you get a match where you see in the first 30s that its a loss.

 

[darthscotty]

2 hours ago, merovejec said:

Its worth it to let it burn so they realize there is a problem here.

The problem is once those people decide that pvp is not worth it they never come back. You might not like what they are doing with pvp seasons but I know a lot of people that started queing for pvp because of seasons. It might be more helpful if you reached out to those players who are new or not good and helped them become better at pvp instead whining on the forums about it.  

[meddani]

6 minutes ago, darthscotty said:

You might not like what they are doing with pvp seasons but I know a lot of people that started queing for pvp because of seasons. 

yes, those great pve players that immediately go afk on the turret/base or after getting one goal on huttball. season was on of the worst things that happened to pvp...i can't wait for the season to be over 

[sithBracer]

10 hours ago, krackcommando said:

yes. that was the point. pvp wasn't a hamster wheel before. now it is. that was how they "fixed" pvp. 😄

Well technically anything in a game is a hamster wheel, PvP just didn't have any motivation to run through it, except for those who just wanted to run through it for fun. 

I'm sorry I don't understand what your complaint is. PvP has had a severe decline in interest for the longest time. Group ranked was completely dead. Solo ranked was on a feeding tube, and regs was dying a slow death. BW did what they thought was the best solution at the time. They pulled the plug on ranked and tried to revitalize regs. Years of mismanagement by people like ben irving brought the game to this state, they didn't really have any real options at that point.

[merovejec]

1 hour ago, darthscotty said:

The problem is once those people decide that pvp is not worth it they never come back. You might not like what they are doing with pvp seasons but I know a lot of people that started queing for pvp because of seasons. It might be more helpful if you reached out to those players who are new or not good and helped them become better at pvp instead whining on the forums about it.  

I am fine with pvp seasons, like you said it makes people que, but the problem is the balance in the game. Its sounds crazy but i would rather go back to the previous system of random roles in the team as now you que a premade of a tank, healer and 2 dps (mostly PT tank, merc heal and 2 opers or sins) and they are paired with a solo healer, tank and dps. Then its a loss for the nonpremade team.

[merovejec]

1 hour ago, TrixxieTriss said:

And at the same time you come here to whine about the situation that you’re promoting. If you keep jumping the fence, you’ll end up with splinters 😂

 

What i would really want is that you cannot que groups in pvp, seperate que for solo, then get rid of the class balance (tanks in both teams, healers in both teams) just make it random as before. That would fix a lot of things.