Oh boy, reading comprehension truly isn't your strong suit, and neither is looking at context. Is that an exact and literal statement that reads that it occurs "literally 24 hours a day, 7 days a week"? Obviously not. Since you keep clinging to "I don't know how to use that link, therefore you're a liar," let's take a look at how it works. Here are a few streamers I looked up from different parts of the world who primarily streamed ranked: channel 1, channel 2, channel 3. If you don't like these links, then go find your own channels to back up your point about 15 viewers for solo ranked streams, but you won't do that since backing up your own points is too hard for you. Again, my point about these stands. In the window of 2020-2021 that I was talking about, average viewers are mostly in that 30-50 range if not even higher, and max viewers reached 100+ for some, just like I said in my previous posts. And no, I didn't answer your question about BioWare's intentions prior to ranked's end because the most we can do is speculate on why they might not have cared then but do care now. Changing culture due to employee turnover? Changing culture around the gaming industry in general? Change in priorities for BW's stakeholders? Who knows? Since you're such an expert on logical fallacies, you should know that speculation without evidence falls into that category (just like your supposed "ranked data" lmao). We have concrete reasoning for why BW decided to remove ranked, and the fact that BW also removed the functionality of ranked flags as others have pointed out adds to the point that toxicity was a major factor. Did I say that it was the sole and only reason? No, but again, reading comprehension hasn't been your strong suit. Sorry buddy, but you're going to have to do better than that to claim "victory." And if you're really bringing up subscriptions here, you're stuck with regs and companion date night too lmfao. Better luck next time. A post by BW showing their intentions on ranked is much more than some mystical "data" that he has totally seen and has been completely unable to back up. You don't get to just assume you know what it says.

You've been attacking that strawman the whole time, but if you actually stop to read my posts, nowhere have I ever stated that solo ranked quite literally popped 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The most I've said on that front is that between two servers (SF and DM), if solo ranked wasn't popping on one of them, it was probably popping on the other server. I've made points about Twitch numbers, and given you a link where you can look up any given solo ranked streamer for any given server, and you'd find that the numbers are consistent with what I'm saying, especially in the 2020-2021 window. This was in response to you talking about the current state of SWTOR Twitch with streamers struggling to break 15 viewers and you trying to use that as an argument that the current state of SWTOR Twitch is the exact same as it was years in the past. If you don't know any solo ranked streamers from back then, it's not my fault you're trying to argue a point you don't know about and are instead pointing to that strawman of ranked popping very literally 24/7, which again is never something I stated in my own arguments. So you're right, I'm not defending that claim because I never made it in the first place. And if we're talking about moved goal posts, that's on you again. You made a claim that ranked did not end because of toxicity, I showed you where BioWare clearly said that it was a factor ("positive and engaging PvP experience"), and now you're backtracking by saying that it actually has been a problem for years, but they didn't care about it back then. That probably is true that they didn't care about it for years, but that's a different point entirely than arguing about whether or not they cared about toxicity at the end of ranked. You can keep arguing if you want, but as you said, it wouldn't be a great look after you've been debunked by BioWare. Please continue to assume you know what the data says when the devs themselves say otherwise.

Evidence for your original point. The "trust me bro, I've seen the data for why ranked ended, and it had nothing to do with toxicity." https://www.swtor.com/info/news/article/20221209 "Our goal is to create a positive and engaging PvP experience for all players by increasing the overall participation and quality of PvP matches and offering new incentives that benefit everyone who participates in PvP." If we look at what the devs have actually said here about the removal of ranked, they do make a note that they intended to create a more positive and engaging experience (whether they've succeeded or not is a different issue entirely). One would think that there was an issue of toxicity if they felt the need to include something about that, especially when they're pointing to the quality of matches as an issue. Yes, I can see that they did have an issue about getting more people engaged when they're talking about participation since it again was that core group plus a few others here and there, but saying that ranked ending had nothing to do with toxicity and then claiming "gaslighting" to any dissenting point even when the devs have made a point that it was a factor is really something. "lol"

So you can't give any evidence for your own points, can't do the bare minimum for a search, but I'm the one gaslighting? Ok dude.

Then by all means, feel free to link your ranked data Mr. Developer. My whole point was about Twitch streams. You can literally search up just about any solo ranked streamer you can think of with that link, and the numbers are pretty consistent with what I was saying.

Wow congrats dude, you have me beat by a whole three months. That's so much of a difference, wow! https://twitchtracker.com/. Here you go since we're talking about data. Look up any solo ranked streamer that comes to mind. Have fun!

I have no idea how you could completely miss what it was like unless you weren't playing solo ranked or watching twitch streams of it back then. Saying there wasn't a core community of like 30-50 people who watched it consistently with higher numbers for streamers who crossed over into casual audiences could not be farther from the truth. If it wasn't popping on DM, it was probably going on SF and vice versa.

SWTOR Twitch is in a very sad state now, but you used to be able to hop on and find someone streaming solo ranked at just about any time. There was also a solid community there who pretty much always showed up to watch any given solo ranked stream. The 15 viewer cap you're seeing now didn't exist back then. Some people would legitimately get 100+ viewers whenever they streamed solo ranked. Still not a lot compared to more popular games, but it was far from what we see now.

Then you should go back and reread what the skill actually does before making that kind of a comment. Yes, it has offensive properties and is used rotationally, but you're completely wrong if you think it has no defensive properties. It's also not uncommon for AP PTs to run EP/Supercommando to give Power Yield even more defensive utility, particularly when solo queuing arenas.

I think you need to play the spec more. It's honestly pretty tanky with defensives like Power Yield and Energy Shield, and it gets even tankier when tanks and healers are around since it gets CDR on Energy Shield. Leth has a ton of DR and off heals, and it has great damage, so I really don't see that. Can't speak to Conc though just because I haven't played it much this expansion. I think it does have some solid burst damage from what I've seen, and its roll also adds some survivability. Anyone who actually knows what they're doing is doing all these things. Taunts also don't take a GCD, so there's no reason not to use them unless all the damage is directed at you. In 8v8s, it can be a risk putting guard on a player you don't know since you could be taking a ton of damage through guard if your teammate doesn't know how to use DCDs. In 4v4s, you absolutely should be guard swapping to everyone though, and you can and probably should have focus target set up to make swaps easier and faster. There'd still be little reason to run tank gear even with your suggestions on a damage cap (even then, I think the issue lies more with specific utility choices in the skill trees rather than tank damage as a whole) since tank stats just don't do all that much in PvP, especially against internal/elemental damage. Even if you are tankier, people can still choose not to hit you. It also helps to actually be able to put out some pressure as a tank instead of only being a 2k DPS guard bot.

Yeah, I never see it happen either, and when I do play in a "damage farming" or "kill farming" premade, we end up playing the objective anyway since we're already playing in the objective area. It's better for us too since we want to go up against those other premades and better teams that queue rather than PUGs who don't have the same coordination.

This is huge. As a tank main, it can be extremely rough to solo queue sometimes. Since guarding someone redirects damage coming at them to me, guarding someone that does not know how to position or pop defensives well will cause me to die a lot more too. It can be a gamble guarding someone you don't know because of this since you won't know how well they can survive. It really helps to have people to play with where you know exactly how they play, and it makes queuing as tank so much more fun. I don't play healer as much as tank or dps, but it still is so much more fun playing healer with people you know rather than solo since you can actually depend on them to play like they know they have a healer with them rather than running off to pick fights they can't win. If 8s were split into different queues, the number of people who would queue up on tank and healer would likely drop significantly, especially when the group queues wouldn't really pop all that much without coordination between groups. Just look at what happened with group ranked before it got removed. There were only a handful of teams that actually were there to play the game rather than mat farm or win trade.

I still think this sounds like an issue with picking the right target(s). Agreed that specs like Arsenal can deal with tank armor and defensives pretty well, as can cleave specs like Pyro and Leth, but otherwise you're probably going to have to change your strategy up to deal with them. Tanks and healers aren't unbeatable by any means, but how you can best deal with them depends on the tool kit of whatever class you're playing. A PT's carbonize for example can seriously help with securing kills.

Why on earth would you tunnel a healer through guard and expect that to work unless you're a cleave spec?

Yeah, you probably won't be able to go through a full PvE rotation in PvP, but you absolutely will play better if you have some kind of order or priority system in which you use your abilities. There are definitely some occasions where you'd use a skill outside of your main "rotation" to play around what someone is doing, but I don't think anyone would consider that button smashing.

There could be any number of reasons outside of just gear why those players are beating you. If you're completely geared up through PvE with augments on everything, that should honestly be fine. The big difference with gearing from PvE to PvP is that DPS no longer need 110% accuracy in PvP, and tanks tend to run DPS gear instead of tank gear. Here are a few other things to consider that might help though. Are you cycling your defensives properly? Generally you start with ones that are on shorter cooldowns before ones that are on longer cooldowns, but there can be exceptions (you also don't want to stack them up in general). Knowing what your defensives do against other classes' damage also helps you pick the right one to use at any given moment. Are you positioning well with kiting/line of sight? Depending on what you're playing and what you're fighting against, you can really help your own survivability by doing these things so that your opponent can't just PvE parse on you. Are you hitting your big damage into their defensives? This one takes a bit to learn when you're just starting to get into PvP since you need to know the kits of every class and how to handle them. For example, hitting single target damage into a Mercenary using Responsive Safeguards will heal them up and reflect your damage back at you. Because of this, you also won't get a ton of PvE parses on your opponents since you'll have to be target swapping in many scenarios unless you can kill someone through defensives or cleave off of them to hit other opponents. Are you using your interrupts well? Interrupting certain casts on classes can really mess with their damage or healing. Hope some of this helps out.

I'd love to hear your definition of "win trading" since there's literally nothing to win trade for anymore in this game. No special flairs or titles are tied to Elo rating anymore, no expensive crafting materials are tied to missions that only progress from winning, and no leaderboards are up anymore either to check people's progress relative to your own.

Stealth in the endzone doesn't really do anything if your team doesn't control mid, and if you just hide out there the whole time, your team is going to have a harder time winning mid because they're essentially down a player.

There was still some pretty blatant wintrading going on in S14 such as from two team ranked deception assassins trading all the way up to top 3 on SF, hopping out of queue the moment any semi-skilled team logged on. I've recently seen one of them walking around with a plat flair from that season.