Mine

16-man NiM Nefra 224.85 DPS

I think it'd be more practical to let sorc/sage cleanse all CC than let them dispel opposing heals. It would be a drastic change to the meta doing what you propose. Letting them cleanse a flashbang on the tank would go a long way to helping the healer that's most dependent on guard. I know our propositions are kind of apples and oranges but I wanted to offer something besides "no".

I have no problem with noobs, or people that are trying to learn. You can coach bad teammates during that 30 seconds in between rounds. At least if you lose then you know you did what you could to win. When someone leaves it just takes away any spirit of competition that the games had.

Another benefit I realized would be that if you got legitimately DCed you could get back into your match. It might be a stretch, but it's conceivable that if you win round 1, DC round 2, you could get back in time for the start of round 3 if your team stalls a bit while you log back in (more doable in team with speech communication to let people know you'll brb).

Whenever you quit a ranked arena, you can only get back into that game as long as it is still active. That way there is no deserter's penalty, or any other nasty stuff; but there is also no incentive to leave as you can't get into a different game until it ends. Or better yet, 24 hour lockout if you leave more than 3 games within 24 hours. I doubt that would get implemented, but I stand by the first suggestion as a good alternative.

Players are the content for PvP, not the maps. It doesn't matter how many maps are out, if I can predict what my opponent will do because I've played against them that many times then I might as well be doing PvE. The effort to create new warzones would be infinitely better spent on creating ways to get more players into the existing warzones. Finding a way to fully integrate FTP characters into normal and ranked warzones would be the best thing you devs could do for PvP at this time (IMO of course).

This is what I'm worried about with it being a real transfer. You'll get dropped from your guild, and friend lists and stuff like that. Seems a bit harsh for a server that I'm suggesting can't host instances for any form of anything that isn't ranked PvP.

I actually think having it just be a copy would be best. IMO, having everyone able to max their ranked gear before joining would be better than having people in PvE gear. Just think, if you have enough comms to buy a weapon on live, you could transfer your character enough times to min/max without having any team suffer you on their team undergeared. It would also address the issue of having a "merger". How do you do the merger, all west coast servers together and all east coast servers together? All PvP servers together? Let people keep their choice of server intact, but let people from EVERY server copy to the ranked server in order to maximize the number of people that want to do ranked in one place. Edit: This server also would eliminate the biggest problem with doing ranked on the PTS, the 25gb download. Presumably, the ranked server would be running the same patch as the live servers.

Here's an attempt to solve some PvP problems, a way to fake cross-server if you will: There was a suggestion in the live stream last Thursday to leave the PTS up all the time for ranked PvP. Eric commented that it was an interesting proposal, but that the PTS doesn't operate the same way as the rest of the servers and wasn't sure if it would be possible. HE SEEMED OPEN TO THIS IDEA, I think it would be our best chance at getting something good for the ranked community to push them for this. Create a separate server for ranked PvP. It doesn't need to be a large server capable of having multiple instance of all the planets / flashpoints / raids. It just needs to be able to hold a few instances of fleet and a bunch of arenas. - Allow free character transfer from live servers to this server - Update rating on live servers every 24 hours or so (the leaderboards already track characters that change servers)

Think outside the box. I'll still be raiding and doing GSF after ranked dies again (just like when 8v8s stopped popping), so finding ways to boost the PvP population is concerning to me. I would rather not have to pay a second subscription to a different game to get enjoyable PvP elsewhere. If you've reserved yourself to "waiting for wildstar", then nothing Bioware does will fix it for you because they can't make it release any faster.

Can we all agree that population is the problem? I don't mean population as in the players that are queuing now, I mean population as related to the number of people required for successful matchmaking (see League of Legends). Best solution: Cross-Server Queuing Unfortunately, the best solution has been deemed to be unworthy of development time / resources. So even if you disagree with my above alternative solution to increasing the population, how would you try to improve it?

The new war storyline would be a good way to introduce some form recurring PvP event. Perhaps integrating GSF and conventional PvP. - GSF portion focusing on a raging assault of the opposing factions fleet. - Ground portion focusing on capturing strategic portions of the fleet. - Add a PvE section somewhere on the fleet that the opposing faction had unleashed some horrible monster (raid boss) Then alternate each month which faction was attacking / defending. This came from ~5 minutes of thinking, imagine what BW could come up with if they DESIRED to add some PvP content.

Good ideas, should also show what roles are in queue as well. That way you can see if you keep getting passed over as a tank/healer in favor of 8 DPS games. Would definitely help pops I think since I usually wait 15 mins or so in ranked queue before dropping to queue regs, but if I could do both there'd be no reason to ever leave the ranked queue.

Wouldn't really require much dev time either. I can probably find pictures of 10 - 15 spots in game already that would be perfect for 1 v 1s if a simple wall was put up around them. Also, kind of off-topic, but since the way solo-queue is now puts 4 random people together, why couldn't it be putting 8 random people together for a ranked warzone instead of arena.

1 v 1 Makes far more sense than having a group of 4 randoms put together. Obviously, class balance would be significantly worse in 1 v 1 than 4 v 4. However, after enough time things would balance out as good players playing weaker classes get slightly less good players playing stronger classes as their opponents (assuming there's enough players for ELO to work). Then set the bar for end of season rewards differently for each class (so that the top 5%, or any other pre-determined amount) of each class is rewarded. Edit: I see lots of people complaining that the problem with solo rank is that it doesn't have any competitive meaning because of its nature, therefore it should be scrapped. After removing 8 v 8 (and seeing how appreciated that was), why not find a way to make it competitive instead of scrapping it.

Agreed. How do you propose they alter the maps to accommodate this? - Shrink the maps - Do nothing, people will move in to engage regardless of size - Something else

I don't understand why existing tech can't be used to Macgyver up cross-server functionality. - Use the existing character transfer system to copy players to another server (like the PTS) - *Caution, work required here* Find a way to make switching to the PTS be a loading screen (or don't, having to log out and over to the PTS wouldn't be a big deal) - Use the existing leaderboard tracking system to keep track of rating changes on the PTS and update the characters rating on live every 24 hours or so Why have a server that you aren't taking advantage of for months at a time. Make it the official ranked server, and seasons will fall naturally from the PTS being retaken for testing new patches every few months. Primary Drawbacks (that I see): - Additional 25 gigs required space to be able to PvP competitively - If no extra work is put in and only items 1 and 3 are implemented then there would be a few minute delay when switching from live to PTS and back - Possibly have to remove ranked from live servers at first to incentive using the PTS (although leaving 4v4s as something to queue for a skirmish would be nice)

Without cross-server, something needs to be done to increase the PvP population.

If they're "abusing" the queue, what stops you from "abusing" it too and getting yourself onto their teams (as it would now be 4 of them in queue and you, you know that all three of your teammates will be awesome every time). It's impossible to premade queue for solo...

I think we both agree that it's lame for a person to weight down a team by something well within their control to fix. We just seem to have different ideas about what's the best solution to that problem. Slightly off topic, if they just made a single PvP queue and made everyone get a rating then matchmaking would be more enjoyable for people at every level of skill. Being a ranked or regs player would be as simple as a checkbox on whether you would like to be on the leaderboards or not. Over a long enough time period it should seperate out so that good premades > good solo / average premade > average solo / bad premade > bad solo on the elo spectrum. Then everyone's games would be more engaging. Keep track of players rating that want to be kept track of, let them earn the ranked rewards, but keep everyone in the same queue so that matchmaking works optimally (within the constraints provided by the size of the PvP population). As difficult as it was to get two teams of 8 to queue by the end of preseason 1, competitive Hutball games were still the most fun this game has ever been.

Play toons both sides and switch if one side is dominating too hard at a particular time. It's impossible to premade solo queue... Pops were a bit slower today compared to usual though. Wound up logging after a 20 min wait at 5ish. #firstworldproblems

Lucky for us there's somebody at the entrance to the park selling corked bats (46s) for cheaper than regular ones. I'd say it's better to encourage them to pick up some cheap low level gear than ask them not to queue for a few weeks. Besides, the more that they queue while way undergeared, the more that their rating should fall (unless they're really good, in which case the gear isn't really as big of an issue) and the more they should be paired with others that win/lose about the same amount regardless of gear level. IMO L-Randle's suggestion to remove the PvP gear grind would be the biggest help that ranked could get. Less barriers to entry are certainly a good thing. I'd really like to see this situation delayed as long as possible by encouraging more people to queue instead of less. It's already started to slow down on my server and it's gonna be pretty lame when you have to sit in queue for 30 mins to an hour for a pop.

LOL, that does kind of hurt my argument. Touché