Frogdogs score!

[Fordel]

The Gearing system is fucked, but his argument for it is also shit.


It would be like if I argued getting honor was too hard in WoW if I decided to only use wintergrasp honor token turn ins. Purposefully going out of your way to do it wrong, then bitching that it sucks isn't going to win any arguments with me.

[amiable]

Honestly I have fun in the warzones unless it is a blowout either way.  And I play what is generally considered a gimp spec (healing operative). 

Ilum is beyond shit though.  It makes me yearn for the fun times of the entenmoors.

[Threash]

Yeah Ilum is just plain broken, the warzones would get old but empires gets 9 out of 10 huttballs so at least that keeps it entertaining.  The random bag system isn't very good but at least they throw bags at you fast enough that even with RNG it doesn't take very long to gear up, it really sucks when you are trying to get that last one or two pieces you really want specially if they are weapons.

[caladein]

Healing animations aren't cool enough. I facepalmed at that one. We've yet to actually get into anything pvp, and I'm hearing about animations and knockbacks. He goes into ability delay which the universe agrees is shitty. Camera snap, I didn't think about that much, but I agree that it's not a good thing for pvp users. Nameplates. I have no idea what he's referencing here that is different in WoW other than the fact that he has mods? Can someone explain? The raid frame bug sounds awful for healers tbh if that's a true percentage. Ilum's a shithole. Yep. You'll find almost nobody who agrees that they did that well at all. What he didn't mention is they patched it and fucked it up further, which I would have piled on about. Gear comes down to time invested? Oh duh, it's a fucking MMO.

Now we get into the stuff that's truly insane. He goes on for a while about how there's no skill in healing in SWTOR, that you're just playing whack-a-mole, and that you never manage any cooldowns which is somehow the crux of pvp skill. He really doesn't go into how healing is different from WoW other than the lack of cooldowns. He points out that SWTOR actually has cooldowns, but they are "garbage" so cooldowns are non-existant. Granted I have no pvp experience at the high end, so I don't know if pvp skill in WoW comes down to cooldowns, but perhaps someone can fill me in on that.

The operations frames and nameplates are still crap compared to say, Grid and TidyPlates Neon respectively, but they've been working fine for a few weeks now.

I can sort of get the cooldown thing, as it's satisfying to be able to go up a gear to match the situation.  The thing is, SWTOR has that kind of play baked in with variable resource regen for the throughput cooldowns and everyone instead of just tanks and healers having major defensive ones.

Instead of pressing a button to make punches harder, you just press more (or more damaging) punches when it's really important that you do so, and then deal with that choice down the line.  When it works, I find it much more dynamic and satisfying than asking "Is my CD up?"  That said, adrenals and on-use trinkets are plentiful so it's still there to an extent.

the warzones would get old but empires gets 9 out of 10 huttballs so at least that keeps it entertaining.

I disagree with you completely.

[Nebu]

I agree that the stream-of-consciousness talking and constant apologizing gets old.  I just happen to think that he hit on a few things that bugged me that I couldn't really nail down.  The ability to pan and act is one, the fact that jumping slows you down is another, and the constant knockbacks make me rage on my melee toons.  He doesn't have the luxury of playing melee and having things like the animation go halfway and the ability not work because lag prevented a positional. 

Anyway, I love this game but am finding the pvp to be more and more frustrating rather than fun.  Sadly, there isn't much else to do but level and pvp after your toon is geared.  I'm on my 4th alt now.  

[tmp]

Coming with the mindset of "Like, I know perfection; perfection is Warcraft" probably does make this game seem irritating at every corner to someone.

[Nebu]

Coming with the mindset of "Like, I know perfection; perfection is Warcraft" probably does make this game seem irritating at every corner to someone.

True.  I found plenty of things wrong with WoW pvp.  I did appreciate the fact that there were class-defining abilities that were unique, fun, and effective.  I almost feel that SWTOR suffers some of the same blandness that Rift did.

[tmp]

Ilum is beyond shit though.  It makes me yearn for the fun times of the entenmoors.

There's something in the ability to play the warg, spider or orc that's utterly endearing. Think the character models and animations had a big part there, they're fun to even just watch and emote with.

[Nebu]

Ilum should be a 25 on 25 match, in a smaller area, with a 3 battle field objectives; near, mid, far.  Scoring goes near < central < far.  Team with the most points wins.  One thing I never liked about Wintergrasp was the attacker/defender thing.  Anything that promotes one team turtling in ruins the fluidity of play.

Alternatively, these games could learn a LOT from WoT.  Play until you are killed kind of matches force you into better and more strategic decision making.

[Threash]

Wouldn't that just be another warzone? Ilum is supposed to be open world pvp, because this kind of game has to have everything for everyone no matter how little sense it makes.

[Nebu]

Wouldn't that just be another warzone? Ilum is supposed to be open world pvp, because this kind of game has to have everything for everyone no matter how little sense it makes.

Open world pvp is a pipedream unless you remove any reward system that adds to player power.  Today's gamer will exploit any system they can to speed the power curve.  I think that WoW really focused gameplay on the reward rather than the fun of the game itself.  Now gamers are hyper-focused on this or any reward system and how it can be manipulated to their best advantage.

[Paelos]

The biggest problem keeping regular people out of PvP as it stands right now is that the regular person has absolutely no idea:

1 - What they win if they win
2 - How to work together in the zones
3 - How to improve their character for it

[Threash]

Yeah i've had to explain the whole "turn warzone comms into mercenary comms then buy a bag" thing to practically every single member of my guild.

[Paelos]

And that's because it makes no fucking sense.

I still don't know where Battlemaster stuff comes from? Why are there 3 tiers already? Wouldn't it make more sense to just have 2? Are there two? I have no idea what's going on and I play the game enough to have a 50 and a 25.

[Sjofn]

I am terrible at PvP in this game, that's the main thing I've learned! 

[Fordel]

Three matches is not a proper sample size Sjofn.

[Paelos]

My experience so far is that serious pvpers seem to pick the "evil" side, while all the people I play with hate that. So I end up on the side that can't find their asses with both hands (Alliance and Republic).

[Threash]

My experience so far is that serious pvpers seem to pick the "evil" side, while all the people I play with hate that. So I end up on the side that can't find their asses with both hands (Alliance and Republic).

True of every single game i've played so far.  Guardians in Rift were pathetic, heroes in DCUO sucked, even in something like warhammer where everyone technically should be a pvper the good side got crushed more often than not.

[Sjofn]

Three matches is not a proper sample size Sjofn.

It's totally a proper sample size!

[UnSub]

You'll only know if you're good at PvP after 100 matches of having your face ground into the dirt.

At that point you'll start having fun. Or so I'm told.

[Nebu]

Being good at your class and pvp is only part of the equation.  Good players stuck on bad teams can be equally frustrating... or so I'm told.

[Sjofn]

You'll only know if you're good at PvP after 100 matches of having your face ground into the dirt.

At that point you'll start having fun. Or so I'm told.

Perhaps I should just say I am terrible at PvP on my assassin. I'm sure I'd be fine healbottiing as my sage. 

[Ingmar]

I think jumping slowing you down is the greatest thing ever for PVP purposes. Die bunny hoppers die.

[MisterNoisy]

I'm going to miss playing in the sub-50 brackets on my Sniper.  For the last 2 weeks or so, I've been avoiding leveling outside of PvP, but I'm getting to the point that I can't avoid it any more (40K to 50).  I'd even come to terms with Huttball, but I'll be damned if I slog through their bullshit post-50 PvP gear grind.

[Fraeg]

5 pairs of champion shoes.   


thank you that is all.

[Zetor]

5 pairs of champion shoes.    


thank you that is all.

That's why you roll a trooper, so you can outfit all your companions (except for Forex, but even he uses trooper gear in the non-robot slots) with your extra pvp gear!

[Furiously]

Yea all my companions are rocking pvp bracers. I did get gloves once. 

Level 56 just seems a bit high. Talk about a good way to discourage new people from trying pvp.

[Njal]

In a week or so of 50 pvp I've got my op mostly outfitted in Champion gear. Now that I'm somewhat decently outfitted (exp 400 or so) I don't roflstomped any more. If I'm in a decent group I do quite well, if I'm in a crap group ...

I'm not worried about Battlemaster gear, as long as I can compete. It's fairly easy to get 2 bags a day in an hour or so, longer if you want to finish the weekly but each weekly gets you 3 bags. It can certainly take a while if you need to get a weapon for 72 comms but I've been getting about 1 in 3 bags have a piece of gear.

Ilum is boring except when an even fight breaks out about 2-3 times a week and needs a serious makeover.

/rambling

[Threash]

Yeah, the system is idiotic but it doesn't really take very long to gear up.

[Khaldun]

I'm still stubbornly sticking to the heal spec on my scoundrel, I dunno why. Because in PvP, not only do I have to stand still to deliver my most effective heals while staying fairly close and LOS to my heal-targets, pretty much any enemy team worth its salt sees me healing and I have six Sith on me in seconds. Unless I'm on a really good team, nobody's guarding me, nobody knows to CC the people dogpiling the healer, so I go down constantly. Meantime the Jedi healers rack up the healing numbers because they have way more survivability.

I'm starting to like Huttball better though--once you understand the map, it's a bit easier to make smart tactical decisions that are class based about where you can do the most good. The other two are entirely dependent on the gear levels and non-idiocy of teammates in a way that is brutally unfun when either or both of those factors are subpar. The number of times I've almost had the bomb on a door planted after stealthing to it and then get hit by one shot from the one Sith who has noticed what's going on, while two or more of my teammates beat on the Sith without using an available CC *before* he shoots me...

I had my first fun in Ilum--two big groups on either side being smart, pretty even fight, good leadership and group discipline. Both sides kept using the smuggler/operative ability that cloaks large groups for a short moment to spring surprises--you'd send a vanguard forward that looked easy to smash, but they'd have a big cloaked squad or two in their midst and suddenly you'd be deep in the middle of the enemy zerg. Lasted about an hour before the Republic, to my surprise, started being so coordinated that we smashed several rushes very effectively and the Imps sort of gave up and went back to doing something else.

Most of the time Ilum is just a horrible, boring slog. Either you're cruising around in a circle like an animal in the zoo along with six or seven others and occasionally ganking the shit out of an opposing faction player who just wants to get a few armaments, or you're the one being ganked because you just want to get a few armaments. It's a terrible design and it's kind of unforgiveable because by this point they should know better. That's my beef with the whole game: they were so focused on voice acting and character narratives that they forgot they were making an MMO and then just stuck in some ramshackle shit that might have seemed like a decent idea six years ago before we found out why it wasn't a good idea.

[Outlawedprod]

Anyone see this warzone exploit happen?
http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=2350970

[Zetor]

I have seen something like that happen once back when there were no brackets... we had 11 people in a voidstar, and about 4 of those joined very shortly before the game ended. It may be related to people getting DC'd, but their spot still being 'reserved' so if they log in and requeue they get put back in the warzone - even if a replacement has already been found in that time?

Only semi-related to that, but I stopped soloqueuing for WZs altogether 2 days ago. Republic on Lord Adraas ALWAYS (and I mean always) starts with at least 1-2 people down, and it either stays that way until the end, gets worse (because some people leave after they see we're outnumbered), or we get some extra people at the late midgame where it doesn't matter anymore. Missing 2 people in an 8v8 warzone is brutal, especially if the other side has a partial premade (and they often do). I just wait until there's a premade (with a 4man premade we can win even 6v8), or log and do something else.

I suspect it's due to republic only having enough people queuing to fill one WZ at a time, and several republic characters who join WZs instantly leave. (one of them also keeps rejoining only to instantly leave again, or sit in a corner doing 0 damage). I've seen them do this a few times, they are also getting reported when they do it, but... yeah.

[Furiously]

I'd imagine if you were a real pvp'er you would think seriously about pvping on an empire dominated server. Lots more warzones. Instead of endless huttball.

[Zetor]

Well, I do play republic on an empire-heavy server (not 4:1, but something like 7:3), and being the underdog is not really fun... even though I get instant queues and almost always get alderaan/voidstar. Ilum is pointless, and - as I posted above - my side only has enough 50s to almost-fill one WZ, leading to being constantly outnumbered in supposedly-even-size warzones. Mix that up with the number of battlemasters / war heroes (what rank is that, 80?) and 'elite pvp guilds' on imp side vs. republic side... yeah.

[Bandit]

Anyone see this warzone exploit happen?
http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=2350970

This happened to me once yesterday after getting in a match that appeared to be half way done already - although a message came up (didn't see it properly) and booted me out with my stats showing up as 0's.  It looked like it booted a few other people out as well.