Can't get a real warzone to pop, nothing but arena. Queued 20 times, all 20 came up as arena, late afternoon on a Saturday on the Star Forge server. I hate arenas.

getting that many arenas would be a dream come true in regs 70 for me.. arenas are tough and aren't for all.

This morning on DM I got at least 10-12 arena pops.

getting that many arenas would be a dream come true in regs 70 for me.. arenas are tough and aren't for all.

 

This morning on DM I got at least 10-12 arena pops.

They just aren't fun. If I wanted to arena, I would play them "competitively" at max level or play a game with a larger population.

Its pretty much the same on the DM, arena after arena....

I've never seen the bracket like this, I thought it was a bug at first.

Can't get a real warzone to pop, nothing but arena. Queued 20 times, all 20 came up as arena, late afternoon on a Saturday on the Star Forge server. I hate arenas.

That’s because there aren’t enough people in the queue. I’ve had two 8v8 matches in Mids in the last 3 weeks. But about 60 arenas and a similar number in lowbies. Only level 70 seems to pop 8v8 matches.

Nobody will play it until Bioware give people a reason to play Mids and lowbies again.

There's no reason to queue lowbies anymore except that you prefer PvP to PvE over all other factors or the alternate meta where different classes are op. That's a very small percentage of an already low population.

It’s the only way I level up new Alts

Enjoy it while it lasts, pretty much all my alts are 70 now and I get an arena every 15th queue or so

Besides that mainly huttball and opg... ugh!

I'd love to have a checkbox where I tell the game what it should or shouldn't queue me for

An idea I posted in part of the gen section

Bioware should open up restrictions on F2P for lowbie and mid pvp due to lack of participation and only popping arena’s 90% or the time, even during primetime. This is not something many subs are participating in and those that want to are severely limited because there aren’t enough people playing it. Allowing F2P unlimited lowbie and mid access would be healthy for that level of pvp and would greatly help paying subscribers better playing opportunities in those brackets.

IF you get Arenas it pretty much just means that there arent enough players in that bracket, and I know arenas suck while leveling cause they giver pretty bad exp, but atleast it make finishing the dailies go faster.

I don't think it's so much not enough people queing for mids, but that the timer to pop an arena is way too low. I was getting arena's popping inside of 5 minutes when I tried going mids while running a new alt through the class story. If they're popping every 5 minutes, then there are a reasonably high number of people in the que.

The problem is that I (and similar-minded players) don't like arena's and just stop queing when they are all that pop. Which means the number of people in que will keep getting smaller as those who hope for a warzone to pop only get arenas.

I also predict that you will end up with an increasing percentage of deathmatchers to objective players as new players who try out pvp will only stick with it if they like the deathmatch arenas. Objective minded players will give up on swtor pvp as the lowbie/midbie experience is all deathmatch, all the time.

I don't think it's so much not enough people queing for mids, but that the timer to pop an arena is way too low. I was getting arena's popping inside of 5 minutes when I tried going mids while running a new alt through the class story. If they're popping every 5 minutes, then there are a reasonably high number of people in the que.

 

The problem is that I (and similar-minded players) don't like arena's and just stop queing when they are all that pop. Which means the number of people in que will keep getting smaller as those who hope for a warzone to pop only get arenas.

 

I also predict that you will end up with an increasing percentage of deathmatchers to objective players as new players who try out pvp will only stick with it if they like the deathmatch arenas. Objective minded players will give up on swtor pvp as the lowbie/midbie experience is all deathmatch, all the time.

I agree, I would rather sit a few minutes more and get warzones instead of arenas (doesnt matter if its low/mid/high level pvp) cause alot of times "reg" arenas are just a very boring experience, like 2 healers on one team or 4 randoms vs full premade and it just sucks.

I queue regs to get warzones, not arenas and I think especially in low/mid level PvP that arenas should be removed from rotation.

I agree, I would rather sit a few minutes more and get warzones instead of arenas (doesnt matter if its low/mid/high level pvp) cause alot of times "reg" arenas are just a very boring experience, like 2 healers on one team or 4 randoms vs full premade and it just sucks.

I queue regs to get warzones, not arenas and I think especially in low/mid level PvP that arenas should be removed from rotation.

At the very least, let us choose to not play arenas or something.

At the very least, let us choose to not play arenas or something.

There is a choice. Don’t queue if it’s only popping aren.

I agree, I would rather sit a few minutes more and get warzones instead of arenas

Exactly. I despise PVE on this game, but on a new merc I made I been doing FPs more than anything for XP.

I play my 70s, so luckily the leveling via FPs is only 2-3 a day and I am in no hurry to level my new merc up.

My point is, 4v4s are not enjoyable to me. If I enjoyed 4v4s, I'd do ranked non-stop and never queue regs. I like 8v8 maps and gameplay. Period.

Used to be, if not enough players were in the lowbie/mids queue you just had to wait till enough people started queing. Now, it's popping nothing but 4v4s as soon as it can fill them.

What this has caused is I never queue for lowbie/mids PVP now. So if they were trying to discourage players like me to avoid queing for lowbies/mids by making the only thing pop be 4v4s, they succeeded.

I got a Master's Datacron staring me in the face and it's taking all my will power to not use it.

Worst case scenario, double XP starts soon so I can suffer through FPs and get my merc to 70 in half the time when that begins.

Mids queue broken and won’t pop 8v8??

We’ve 19-20 people in the queue and it’s just popping two 4v4 at nearly the same time.

People are ready to stop queueing because of it, 9 arenas in a row when you have enough for 8v8 is bad.

At what point does the queue say there aren’t enough and revert to 4v4?

Worst case scenario, double XP starts soon so I can suffer through FPs and get my merc to 70 in half the time when that begins.

Lhancelot, just go to Balmora during the double xp, ask in chat who is farming bugs, get an invite to the ops group and do the bug hunt for 2 hours and you’ll level to 70.

Lhancelot, just go to Balmora during the double xp, ask in chat who is farming bugs, get an invite to the ops group and do the bug hunt for 2 hours and you’ll level to 70.

ah yeah I forgot lol thank you. Someone else mentioned this too. It's sad that a part of the game has diminished when once it flourished. RIP lowbies and mids PVP.

ah yeah I forgot lol thank you. Someone else mentioned this too. It's sad that a part of the game has diminished when once it flourished. RIP lowbies and mids PVP.

It is sad. We used to play together in lowbs and mids all the time. I re-subscribed, but now I am having second thoughts with the current state of the game. I guess maybe I should level one of my characters to 70 and see what that is like before I give up.

It is sad. We used to play together in lowbs and mids all the time. I re-subscribed, but now I am having second thoughts with the current state of the game. I guess maybe I should level one of my characters to 70 and see what that is like before I give up.

I miss being able to lvl that way

It is sad. We used to play together in lowbs and mids all the time. I re-subscribed, but now I am having second thoughts with the current state of the game. I guess maybe I should level one of my characters to 70 and see what that is like before I give up.

Yeah. It's better to check out 70s, and see how you like it. 70s pvp is more like old days lowbies/mids, it constantly is active.

TBH there are so many abilities you get now that lowbies is really gimpy on most classes. They have spread out abilities better though I noticed, I mean you don't have to wait to 65-70 to get some of the more fun abilities you usually get most by 40-50s.

If you live in nostalgia you will not be happy with swtor. To enjoy what it offers you are going to have to view it as a different game now because honestly, it is.

I find running FPs not too bad now, and I still like to make outfits, I like to craft, and I like 70s PVP. So I have things to do without becoming bored.

Lowbie PVP is not even in consideration though, it's not even an activity I consider worth mentioning because it has regressed that much.

If you still enjoy sorc dots/dps Madness is fine especially once you put the time into getting gears and augs on it. I'd suggest getting to 70 and trying PVP. Also, I can craft anything you need for augs - just let me know!

You can thank the character tokens for this drought in the 41-69 bracket. In the past when people re-rolled to the new flavour of the month they had to level the whole way. Also they had to actively participate in PVP to acquire the old PVP tokens needed to purchase the expertise gear. Now they just buy a token and go straight to 70 where they use saved up unassembled components to gear up to 248 right from the start. Thus you are left with a dearth of PVP players in the lower brackets.

Did I miss anything?

You can thank the character tokens for this drought in the 41-69 bracket. In the past when people re-rolled to the new flavour of the month they had to level the whole way. Also they had to actively participate in PVP to acquire the old PVP tokens needed to purchase the expertise gear. Now they just buy a token and go straight to 70 where they use saved up unassembled components to gear up to 248 right from the start. Thus you are left with a dearth of PVP players in the lower brackets.

 

Did I miss anything?

Yeah nailed it.

I am guessing this was no mistake and purely by design on their behalf although I don't quite understand the logic behind it.

That being said, I didn't see the logic behind changing the gearing system with 5.0 to RNG nor did I see the sense in removing the majority of the repeatables for conquest when so many players voiced their unhappiness with all of these changes.

/shrug

Yeah nailed it.

 

I am guessing this was no mistake and purely by design on their behalf although I don't quite understand the logic behind it.

 

That being said, I didn't see the logic behind changing the gearing system with 5.0 to RNG nor did I see the sense in removing the majority of the repeatables for conquest when so many players voiced their unhappiness with all of these changes.

 

/shrug

From all my years playing this game, it’s obvious that Bioware don’t understand basic logic or cause and effect. They are checkers players and not chess players. It’s probably why objective pvp has deteriorated into death match because Bioware don’t encourage strategy or tactics. Look at this latest change in HB where you can not stun if you have the ball. That is a totally illogical and dumb decision. What’s even more illogical is they tested the new map and didn’t test the change, they just added it after the fact. Once again, not understanding the cause and effect.

Let’s look at the gear change in 5.0. They may have had a goal of making people grind longer to play longer. But let’s look at the cause and effect. It made people unhappy, made the game less enjoyable and caused people to quite.

The change to conquest, which wasn’t needed or asked for, actually made conquest less enjoyable and didn’t fix the problem of larger guilds dominating smaller guilds. Players left the game even after tonnes of negative feed back was given and Bioware wouldn’t change most of it back. Once again, they illogically assumed people would just accept it and Bioware didn’t understand that not fixing it would make people leave. If it’s not fun, people won’t play. How hard it that the grasp?

The change to WZ matchmaking was the last straw for a lot of pvpers, it’s poorly implemented and they are totally secretive about how it is supposed to work, so we can’t even tell if it’s working correctly or poorly implemented. It makes constructive feed back on the system impossible except to say it’s crap. Many people have given feed back and it’s fallen on deaf ears. Bioware refuse to get that being silent on serious issues makes people leave because they’ve lost confidence that Bioware are listening or will ever do anything. Again, cause and effect. By staying silent, they lose more people than they would have.

Let’s consider class balance. They just don’t listen to what the actually problems are with classes. They totally ignore the dedicated pvpers in the game in favour of some made up dps out put goal for each class. It’s never worked and after 6 years they should understand that. It’s totally illogical to continue using a system that doesn’t work to balance the classes. People lose faith and leave, especially when balance isn’t done on some classes for 2 years and they let others be OP and dominate for that period of time. Again, cause and effect. People leave because of it.

Look at lowbies and Mids. They remove any incentive to play it and put a massive carrot and a stick at level 70 to get people to play it. The grind for gear alone is long and tedious, so people want to get there fast and then they get locked into the grind and have no time for Alts. Then they make it even easier to get to 70 by adding instant lvl tokens. This has effectively kill lowbies and Mids and Alts. And again, cause and effect. Did they think this one out? Who knows, but probably not.

The loss of lowbies participation has had another negative effect. Level 70 pvp has turn to crap because people don’t know their classes or how to pvp. This is a massive problem and the cause and affect is glaringly obvious, but Bioware continue to ignore it and stay silent. That is totally illogical when the effect of poor quality pvp is driving more people away.

How about adding farming mats into ranked pvp? It’s so easy to see in advance that was going to flood ranked with farmers who aren’t ready for ranked and therefore diminish the quality of ranked. It was obvious to a sight impaired person that ratings of ranked players were going to be negatively effected by these noobs. The cause and effect was so easy to see that it was illogical to even consider it because it made a mockery of ranked and drove even more people from the game.

It was totally illogical to even reintroduced a RNG gearing system for pvp after it dismally failed the first time and they spent 4.5 years perfecting pvp gearing and bolster, to just go and throw it out the window. It didn’t make pvpers play longer to grind. It made them leave the game.

Then we have Kotfe and Kotet expansions. Both of which turned the game from predominantly a MMO to a single player game in favour of a quick buck for the movie releases and get fly by night players to play while there was hype. There was no thought to the longer term. Just the next “checkers” move and in doing so they killed the MMO part of the game and it took them 2.5 years to realise the mistake and try and reverse course. Only it was too late by then, they had little money and they can’t produce enough to reverse the damage. Cause and effect. Drive your main player base from the game and it will fail. Logic is hard?

How about the desync? It gets worse with ever bit of released content. How logical is it to create a pvp map like a Hutt Ball one when the other HB maps already have the worst desync in the game. Why wouldn’t you fix the desync first? Why would you make another map with the worst desync in the game, What a complete waste of time and money when you already have so little to use. Why would you add more content before you fixed the desync and the ever expanding list of bugs. It’s totally illogical and the effect is making people leave pvp and the game.

We also have them spending valuable resources changing outfit pictures on the CM and in collections? Logic, maybe for a quick dollar. Illogical if it means you don’t have the resources to fix what’s making people leave the game.

Logically they should be polling the players base, listening to large and real focus groups of dedicated and experienced players. They should be listening and acting on player feed back of what’s fun and not silly spread sheet data that can’t tell them what’s fun. They stick their heads in the sand like ostriches when there is a problem and hope it will go away with time. That is totally illogical because it drives people away.

Moving the west coast servers to the east coast and expecting APAC and west coast players not to leave. Completely illogical if you want to keep the game going. It might have been logical to make a quick buck for that quarter, but not the long term. The same could be said with closing “all” the APAC servers and losing 90% of that player base.

They should be fixing the problems theyve caused by making the game less fun and with the bugs, and desync. It’s totally illogical to ignore all of that and the effect is people are leaving the game faster.

But they don’t look past their next idea and when they have an idea, they don’t look past the first move on how that idea will be received or what effects it might have on the rest of the game or player fun and retention. They never seem to implement anything properly and thought through to the proper conclusion to get it right.

The most illogical thing of all is Star Wars is the biggest IP in the world or it was till Disney got hold of it. This game should have been a massive earner over the long term. Instead they’ve continued to pull resources from it to save costs and the game has dimished. If they had made a real effect and tried not to save on costs vs quality and content, this game wouldn’t be in the situation it is now and they would have a healthy and vibrant subscriber base to make them more money than it probably is now.

If you try to put any of Bioware’s decision making in a logic box, the only conclusion you could make is -

a, They have no idea what they are doing

or

b. They don’t care.

or

c. They are trying to run the game into the ground.

or

d. Out for a quick buck

or

e. All of the above.

Nothing else makes sense.

I could go on and on about all the cause and effect blunders Bioware have done because they don’t think past their first “checkers” move. I’d be writing a book to document them all. They just don’t understand their players and what is fun and what’s not. They lose players because they don’t listen to feed back or act on it correctly and often not at all. It’s totally illogical to just let players walk away from the game, especially when the population continues to shrink at an alarming in rate.

There seems to be no real and thought out logic behind most of the things they do. If there was, things would be done differently.