alexsamma
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Posts posted by alexsamma
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No, it only speaks volumes about luck and/or wintrading in the first two weeks of a season when no one has an accurate rating so matchmaking doesn't work properly.
Luck works both ways Alex, you can get a good night or two of queuing and pick up 100-200 (or more) rating.
When you have a system that has any many layers of RNG as solo ranked does you're never going to eliminate the luck aspect.
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That's not true tho. I reached 3.3k rating at my peak and continued to play and fell back to 2.8k and still got top 3 in season 4. I could have sat on 3.3k rating when I had acquired it only 2 months into the season and come back 6 months later and been top 3. And Season 4 was one of the most active seasons.
Regardless, to fix it, the devs should:
*Remove the games played requirement for all tiers below Top 96.
*Introduce Rating Decay.
I think rating decay would be a better system than the win requirements since it would keep the required number of games relative to your general competition, ie: if all of the top 3 spots for shadow ended with ~120-130 games played then the fight for top 3 shadow would be competitive and rating decay would ensure that everyone had to keep playing (at least enough to to not drop out).
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I agree that this hurts people who play multiple classes when it comes to gold. I think that they should probably have just implemented this change for top 96 only, since you should be focusing on that class to be rightfully be considered the best amongst all others playing that class.
If we assume that solo ranked is a proper indication of skill and a medium where a player has enough agency to overcome the RNG inherent in the system then it's safe to say that any good player will, eventually, rise to the top; can we agree on this?
If you agree with the above then it's also safe to say that if a player achieves a top 3 rating in 50 games, then stops playing, eventually he/she will be forced to start playing again if there other highly skilled players of the same caliber that are still playing?
The whole concept here is that if there are people who are capable of challenging someone's rating and they have the willpower to do so then they will eventually push high enough to unseat the player at the top and that player will be forced to resume playing in order to safeguard/re-earn their spot; this was a generally true statement in past seasons (esp. before s9) unless you played an under-performing class (such as mando back in s4/5).
If someone can sit on a top 3 spot with ~20/30/40 wins for an entire season (esp. one as long as s11) and no one rises up to challenge them I think that speaks volumes about the state of solo ranked.
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That's because the current most efficient tactic for a Top 3 is to camp on a specific rating. Why would anyone play more games when they are currently at top 3, if it means risking their rating?
This change is amazing because now people can't camp until they reach 200 games played. And by the time you get to 200 games, your rating will be where it needs to be in regards to your skill level.
This is a good change for people who like to play one character and a terrible change for people who like to play multiple characters.
Regardless of how many games you play your rating is, simply, your rating; if the system has enough competitive players then you should be surpassed if you stop playing, if the system does not have enough competitive players then the point is mute.
You've played long enough to know that sitting on rating, unless you were excessively higher than anyone else (which usually didn't happen on a "competitive" class unless you played a solid amount of games) did not work in more active seasons.
Personally I don't care about top 3 titles, but when I look at some of the players that would have "earned" a top 3 title last season simply due to games played I think it's sad.
I do think the change to gold is annoying, as someone who enjoys pushing multiple characters to gold and can generally do so in much less than 100 games played (much less won) this is a huge turn off.
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S4 bastion memes ftw.
At least solos were still (sometimes) fun back then.
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these changes for season 12 not 11. season 11 will have all the same as it was before
Obviously, my point is that most of the top 3 players would not qualify in either group or solo ranked for their top 3 titles; instead the you would be giving a top 3 title to the #24 or #27 or #77 player of that class...
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True, but I do think it's telling that they'll buff any part of Pyro before addressing Superheated Fuel (personally I think that tactical is the issue not Meteor Brawler).
No way dude, neither PT or leth Op are an issue:
Double VG + Ruffian Scoundrel:
https://www.twitch.tv/aqrius/clip/StrongPiliableMooseSquadGoals
Leth Op tactical shenanigans:
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If you look at the solos leaders board from last season this is going to be an issue in both solos and group ranked.
Looking at solos:
Snipers:#24 sniper in solos would get a top 3 title.
Jugg: #27 Jugg would get a top 3
Sin - #35
Sorc- Actually one of the top 3 would get a top 3!
Vanguard: #77....
Mando: #28
Operative: One top 3 would actually get top 3, then we jump to #8 and #11
Most players on the front page of each class are no where near 200 wins.
Maybe we should just change it to: "Top 3 spammers."
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Do you even PvP, bro?
No, Grizz taught me how to Mando RP so that's all I do now o.O
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1943 with 10 or more wins was just on Star Forge. It's 7679 game-wide. And your definition of "extremely low" is arbitrary. In prime time, solos popped regularly throughout the season. At high points there were multiple games going at once.
OK, but not 19 times more participation lol. You're just grasping at straws and denying the facts before your very eyes.
Let me give you an example of what an alive group ranked scene would look like. In season 1 there were 9027 characters with 10 or more wins in solo ranked, and 3077 characters with 10 or more wins in group ranked. So solo ranked was about 3 times as active. That seems reasonable.
Now during season 11, solos are roughly 19 times more active on SF, 19.5 times more active on DM, 14 times more active on SS. Those ratios paint group ranked's death pretty clearly.
It's almost like you have zero reading comprehension skills, I literally started this whole conversation about solo vs grouped ranked by stating that you need a massive pool of players for solo ranked ELO to simply work due to the extreme RNG nature of the mode.
Now let me respond to your example, S1 was the best season by far but that was more to do with the fact that teams/players could hide on smaller servers and avoid getting crushed by the "big dogs;" by the end of S1 group ranked on Bastion was dominated by 1-3 teams and most people queue dodged them, POT5 was dominated by 1-2 teams that most people dodged... then low and behold 2 of the bastion teams transferred to POT5 and literally farmed the server to the point that most nights it was those two bastion teams playing vs each other... Solo ranked on POT5 started off with a bang, but very quickly went to **** as a majority of the player base abandoned the game; hell after ~11pm if you queued imp side you were almost always going to be paired vs a pub side queue sync with a hybrid tank and hybrid healer, it was a literal **** show; on some smaller servers by the end of the season it became a struggle to get consistent solo ranked pops... and this was in the most active season the game has ever experienced.
Swtor's ranked scene has always had low participation levels, from pre-season ranked 8's to season 11, and this has always hampered the ability of the ELO system to properly function; there were barely enough consistently active players in one pool for the ELO system to function properly in S1, do you really think it's functional now when you have 250-1000 non-consistent players in a given ranked pool?
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Yes I can, with the simple assumption that most players aren't playing on more than a handful of toons. Let's say on average people are playing on four toons in solos, which I think is on the high side, since many only play on one. That would mean roughly 500 unique players with at least 10 wins on Star Forge. Even if you want to up that to 8 toons each, that's still about 250. Either way, hundreds on SF, and thousands game wide, is a very safe estimate.
Also remember that the main point is comparing solos to group ranked. Group ranked only had 102 characters with 10 or more wins on Star Forge. 1943 vs 102. But sure, they're both equally 'dead."
I think you just made my point for me... 1943 unique players "actively" (and getting 10 wins is a pathetic baseline for being "active") participating in solo ranked would be an extremely low amount of players, 250-500 is literally the game mode on life support.
Edit: Yes, they're both equally dead because it takes zero organization or social skills to queue for solo ranked; you should never expect participation in organized group content to remotely equal participation in ad hoc ad content.
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Never said it did, that's why I used the word "characters." Characters are what have elo, not players. And players have different skill levels on different characters. Neither of us have any evidence for it either way, but I'd be willing to bet most players only play on a handful of characters in ranked, some play only on one, some play on a lot.
You can't reference character participation data and use it to make an argument for how alive/dead a game mode is when multiple characters can represent one player.
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Snip
Characters does not equal players...
I had 70 max level characters in 5.0 across three servers.... with how easy it is to alt in this game you simply cannot equate character participation to player participation.
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This is just groupthink hogwash. A few EU players spread the myth that NA has lower quality matches and now everyone believes it. There is no distinguishable difference between NA and EU players.
Some of your criticisms are valid. Yet your conclusion does not follow. The word "dead" in this context clearly means that something is inactive, or isn't played. For example, when people say "this place is dead" they are referring to its population, not the quality of the people there.
So participation numbers are directly relevant to whether solos are "dead" or not. And they clearly aren't dead, because they pop regularly during the season. How else could I play thousands of solos matches the past two seasons? Meanwhile, people that think group ranked is important literally haven't played group ranked in over a year outside of preseason. They are not even comparable at this point. Your argument is just silly.
Funny, I played roughly a hundred group ranked matches on NA last season and that was with a 5 month break to play FF14, many of my friends who stayed longer played more and I know for a fact that the Lukewarm group played hundreds, if not into the thousands of group ranked matches; I also played solo ranked on SS, SF, and DM (before I swapped ISPs), solo ranked on both NA servers was a joke outside of the first 1-2 weeks.
For a ranked game mode to be relevant, esp. one that uses an ELO system to match two 4 man teams comprised of individual players, you need an exceptionally large pool of potential players for the "ranked" portion of game mode to have meaning ; if you filter out the passer-bys, the conquest players, the trolls, the auto global newbs who never get better, and the win-traders/bots/throwers you're going to end up with an extremely small and pathetic population of actual solo ranked players on both NA servers.
Getting high rating in solo ranked has more to do with how willing you are to throw yourself into the meat grinder repeatedly than it does with how skilled you are... ranked should be a reflection of skill, not games played... unless you think that a clicking, keyboard turning meme of a mara/sentinel that got farmed so hard in a single night of attempting to play group ranked that they never tried again legitimately deserves to even have a chance to get a top 3 title....
DM is considered the last bastion of solo ranked because it has enough relevant players that you can actually get decent games when people are not trolling; hell I would say that many of the "top tier" solo players on NA would get stomped by the mid-tier players on EU and I am 100% an NA player (my ping is extremely unstable on DM, even with a VPN).
Finally, none of this has anything to do with topic on hand; regardless of how PT players perform in quad dps solo ranked matches (and if you look at my initial posts I specifically stated that pyro's performance in 4 dps matches would be extremely comp dependent) the brawler set bonus still needs to be nerfed/re-worked.
TLDR::
Solo ranked is as irrelevant as group ranked
NA solo ranked is literally an inbred extremely small group of players
Participation numbers are extremely padded by non pvpers
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Solos pops regularly on Star Forge during actual seasons, and it likely will during this upcoming season as well. Go look at the leaderboards and compare solo ranked with group ranked. Look specifically at the number of characters and also the number of wins. You will notice that solos is far, far more active than group ranked.
Also, many players think solos are decided before the match is played. And they are often wrong. The amount of times I've been in games where someone says: "this is a loss" and we've ended up winning is staggering. I've certainly been wrong myself plenty of times as well.
There is a small amount of games on the NA servers that are actually competitive/high quality matches, the majority of matches are determined by which team the worst/most amount of window licking pve players who might as well be throwing; I won't comment on the amount of people who were suspended/reset last season for attempting to set matches during fringe hours and if I could name and shame I would make mention of some of the players that were "contending" for top 3 in solos last season because frankly that says everything that needs to be said about the quality of solo ranked in season 11.
I am in no way, shape, or form arguing that team ranked is alive or healthy, I'm simply stating that solo ranked is just as dead despite the "participation" numbers that you can link me on the leader boards.
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uh, lol?
Solo ranked is the only endgame pvp that matters, because group ranked is dead. Unless you want to use regs, you are stuck with solos.
Solos are end game huh, you mean the mode that barely pops on either NA server and is often filled with trolls on DM during the regular season.... let's not talk about the fact that with how terrible the average player is combined with the RNG nature of match making means that most solos are decided the moment the players load in.
The simple fact is that neither team or solo ranked is healthy in the current game, but that doesn't change the fact that there is simply too many variables in solo ranked for the devs to truly balance anything for solos.
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Alright, well if you want to watch his twitch you'll see those clips are the 'perfect' scenarios. Normally he gets focused down really hard, really fast. And it doesn't matter if he has a guard and healer.
Bottom line, not FOTM material. More like glass cannon or one trick pony.
PT was a glass cannon in 5.0, it is not a "glass cannon" in 6.0...
I'm not sure which part of Junkie's stream you are trying to reference, the first few matches are literally junkie face tanking quad dps solos and not getting instantly deleted like a "glass" cannon should in that situation...
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Ok, so PT is a semi decent threat now in the hands of a top player?
That's great I guess. Still easy to focus down though, so there's not really a problem.
How you could read this thread and come to this conclusion is impressive.
The whole point of this thread, and the supporting clips that more than one individual has linked (including the amazing pyro clicking god Junkie himself) is that this set bonus is brain dead and retarded (translation: low skill).
Two notes:
-Neither spec is easy to focus down, they both have heavy DR abilities on extremely low cool-downs (providing that the pt is being hit) that they can cycle... power yield's addition insures that a PT will almost always have a cool-down available (note: AP is much easier to burn through than pyro due to how strong kolto DR is)
-Solo ranked is probably the worst environment to gauge how strong/OP a class/spec/set bonus/tactical is... there are way to many variables that can affect the out come; for example, concealment OP is broken in all dps solo ranked matches, but their face roll burst combo and strong off healing is easy to counter in a trinity match up so they are simply "good/decent" in trinity matches. Pyro PT is going to fall in a similar boat as concealment OP in that it will dominate in melee heavy and trinity matches, but in triple/quad dps matches it may (depending on comp) not fair as well as more utility laden classes/specs.
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I never claimed getting all "I'll get even" wasn't toxic. In fact... yep, I'm pretty toxic right now. Fully agree.
Well at least you own it.
For real though, your posts up until now have displayed a fairly positive experience, don't let this one negative experience ruin it.
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Nope, just 1 time. It's just bullies kicking kids off "their" playground. If that's the way "we" want it, fine. I'm very good at sucking even more in ranked matches.
A prime example of toxicity, at least in my opinion.
[sarcasm]Of course it's valid since you haven't said anything spiteful and you feel vindicated since someone vote kicked you from a match. [/sarcasm]
I'll once again re-iterate two points:
Toxic behavior and attitudes are just as bad, if not worse, than toxic comments in chat.
We all have our own definition for what qualifies as toxic.
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I realize many of us aren't bothered by "toxic" behavior, but that doesn't make it less toxic.
For many people childish insults and what we seem to understand as toxic behavior discourages them and others from participating in PVP because not everyone is of the mentality that it's ok to call people *******s who need to uninstall the game and go die.
It's irrelevant that long time PVP players and/or vets might not care about this type of behavior but many people are offended by it and don't want to read/hear it.
I understand the frustration and been there myself but recognize by expressing my spite or anger at someone especially in open channels is not acceptable. I am not bothered by angry manchildren yelling at me, but many people don't react well to insults whether it's aimed at them or someone else openly.
This is being toxic when our behavior perpetuates negativity which is all ranting and raging at someone openly does.
The point I was trying to make is that everyone has a different definition for what is Toxic, we're both "older" players who get along with each other and we have very different thresholds for what we consider toxic.
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Let's not play semantics here, the word "toxic" and what it means to us gamers is pretty clear to reasonable mature adults. As such, "toxic" behavior is not justified no matter what circumstances occur.
So, is telling someone that they are **** "toxic?"
I don't think telling someone that they are horrible/****/terrible/etc is toxic, though I will agree that it's immature.
Is queuing for solos for mats toxic, is queuing for solos as healer when you struggle to break 4k hps toxic, is queuing as a tank when you don't understand how to guard swap toxic; I think all of the above could be considered toxic but I also think many people would disagree.
Another example is that a lot of "old school" pvpers accept that a certain about of brow beating or trash talking is simply a part of pvp and is perfectly acceptable; this used to lead to open world pvp, guild "wars," or one group challenging another to ranked, now people just get upset and consider any form of brow beating or trash talking as toxic.
I'll extend this beyond ranked, let's look at what happens when someone queues for group finder as a tank but is actually dpsing or has such horrible gear that he/she is going to be a handicap to the group and then gets kicked... is the player who queued up for a role they were not ready to undertake toxic or is the players who kicked the person toxic (and we both know different people are going to respond differently here).
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I agree with you. No matter what, toxicity is not acceptable. When I had this guy dropping matches for pals last season, as much as I hated it, and as much as I was irritated I never once sent him any tells or said anything to him.
If anyone deserves toxicity, it's the shady players that ruin ranked by win trades and other shady behavior yet even for them, no toxicity should be thrown. Why?
Because all that does is breed the behavior and make it seem normal or acceptable which it's not. Toxic immature behavior isn't OK no matter what circumstances exist on a game.
Less skilled players or noobs don't deserve being treated toxic no matter how bad they may be or no matter how they seem incapable of performing better.
The supposed ELO system is supposed to sort players according to skill level anyway, so the chances of a pure noob getting placed with superstar ranked players is unlikely I'd think, right?
At worst maybe when ELO is getting sorted when the contests first begin a superstar might get placed on a team with a noob which ought to cause no issues seeing it's an infrequent occurrence if all is working right.
In a nutshell, there's zero place for toxicity on a game. The problem is this behavior has been the norm for some players for so long they don't even realize how bad they are.
I have to disagree with you Lhance, toxicity isn't simply words/text/speech, it's also actions.
When someone queues into solo ranked without a clue as to how to play their class that's "toxic".
When someone queues into solo ranked to get their weekly/monumental crystal/mats that's "toxic".
Telling someone that they are bad, that they're not ready for ranked, or that they should practice in regs isn't being toxic.
Someone once made an analogy to playing basketball at the local rec center:
When you go to the rec center there are multiple courts and it's fairly easy to distinguish the level of play on each court; most players are conscious of their own ability and will self regulate which court they choose to play on and if they find themselves in over their head they will (generally) step out without anyone saying anything to them.
For some reason in video games many people are not capable of gauging their own level of play, it often takes someone confronting them (and this often leads to an argument) for them to acknowledge that they are in over their head; furthermore, it is often the case that even the ones who are aware that they are not ready will often opt to not self regulate, using the excuses of:
-it's just a game
-I can only get better if I play ranked***
-blame Bioware for X (mats/cystals/cxp/etc)
-or they actually enjoy trolling others
*** At a certain point this is true, however understanding your rotation, your dcds, and having a solid foundation of how your class plays vs other classes is something you should learn in regs (I won't talk about the people who struggle to use abilities or move their characters).
Imagine if a person who couldn't dribble jumped into the serious full court match at the rec center and actually tried to play, what do you think the other players would do; do you think this would turn into a "toxic" situation, and if it did would you blame the other players?
I'm not promoting toxic attitudes or behaviors, but Bioware has designed a system with no controls and is totally dependent on individual players to self regulate their behavior, this has been compounded by adding participation based rewards that are useful outside of pvp, it's only natural that a system like this would lead to toxicity.
P.S. The word "toxicity" needs to go away, it has no set meaning and is almost meaningless to discuss since we all have an individual definition of what qualifies as toxic
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In regards to rating decay I hope you consider that with the small population of team ranked players this could actually be used to attack players by simply refusing to queue into them; queue dodging is already an issue and with rating decay it could become more of an issue (or, it could help address it).
I also think that rating decay should only count for top 3 titles, it should not affect your ability to obtain a tier (gold/silver/bronze) since many people enjoy playing multiple classes (the game has been punishing alt play way to much since 5.0 released).
In regards to adjusting point gained/lost I think you should concentrate on reducing points lost for a loss and consider not adjusting points earned for a win; currently it feels like you need to win 1.5-2 games to make up a loss, this needs to be re-tuned so that you can (generally) make up a loss with a win.
For solo ranked I would suggest significantly reducing points gained//lost for matches with support classes (healer/tank matches):
-These roles have such a huge impact on your ability to win or lose
-The discrepancy in skill is often-times mind blowing, which often leads to tank/healer roulette
-This prevents people from swapping to tank/healer to farm "bad" tanks/healers for easy rating
200 Wins for Top 3, Big Drama in Team Ranked
in PvP
Posted · Edited by alexsamma
Someone who has 400 wins and a 1600 rating, esp. on carry class like operative (or any tank/healer) is pretty much the opposite of a top 3 player... unless you think the RNG elements of solo ranked have such a huge impact on your rating that the RNG can greatly overwhelm your personal skill.