Of course they don't. It's not about me. I'm exposing their lack of credibility to anyone reading this thread. This isn't rocket science.

If someone is trying to claim that they have firsthand experience to offer, then they should have no issue with offering their experience. I suspect the person in question never played a ranked game in their life based on everything they've said so far. It's not a question of what I'm entitled to, it's simply a question of credibility. Again, for the third time, refer to my analogy of the doctor vs the patient that uses google. It encapsulates this situation entirely.

You misunderstand. The players that faced the most "toxicity" were not merely "inferior," they were fundamentally unprepared for ranked pvp. They ruined the games and arrogantly refused to listen to advice. I saw it firsthand many, many times. Those that entered ranked with the proper gear and a good attitude were rarely ridiculed, even if they performed poorly for a time. Those are the facts. Even in the case of the unprepared, most ranked players did not leap immediately to "toxicity." Usually it was, "hey, you should be using x tactical in ranked," or "when you get netted, you have to break before you can barrier," and other extremely basic advice. It was only when the player continually queued with the wrong tactical and kept getting globaled with net that people rightfully got angry.

If you were good enough to be 1200-1300, you're almost certainly not the kind of player I was referencing there. It sounds like your attitude was good and you had fun, which is honestly what counts the most. The people that didn't belong there were just losing nonstop and never having fun.

Most ranked players welcomed new players into ranked that came in 1. properly geared, and 2. prepared to listen to advice and improve. There are many cases of new players joining ranked and improving. There are also many cases of new players coming into ranked with bad gear, the wrong tactical, no conception of how to play their class, and an entitled "I pay a sub I can play how I want" attitude. Those are the people that ranked players yell at after they get globaled repeatedly, and by and large those are the people that cry about ranked "toxicity" on the forums.

More lies and misinformation. You're acting more toxic in this thread towards ranked players than the vast majority of ranked players have ever been. That's the truth. I honestly don't know what your point is. Your posts are so jumbled, but I can try to respond. Ranked players are not a separate species. They're as entitled to group up and play regs as anyone else. I have no idea what you mean about people not wanting to play with ranked players. Do you mean in ranked itself? We're talking about solo ranked, not group ranked.

You say all of that stuff happens in regs, but the great thing about ranked was that it actually sorted people based on winning. There was no subjective judgment necessary. You can play a bunch of regs matches and rate yourself highly based on whatever criteria you want to, but there's nothing objective to measure your performance from match to match. Ranked assigned you elo. Surely you can see the difference there. Many regs players make great claims to being as good as ranked players, but the problem is that they cannot prove it, so of course such claims are treated with great skepticism, as they should be. As for ranked players just not wanting regs players to have rewards: it's just not true. Prum and I have both addressed it. Regs players getting more rewards has nothing to do with removing ranked, or removing skill-based rewards more broadly. In other words, they could implement increased rewards for regs while still including a system to sort players and reward the best among them.

It's still a completely absurd generalization that you have no evidence for. I cannot fathom deliberately spreading lies and having the gall to call other people "toxic," but apparently that's your thing.

There were already a lot of players better at ranked than me, but sadly no one will do it after me now...because they're removing ranked lol I wish I could say it's been a pleasure, but really it's been rather disappointing. I always thought people advocating for participation trophies were a myth.

I have already explained this...what is the point in responding if you're not going to bother to read my posts? Obviously you need practice and determination, but the point is that those things alone are not enough. You also need some degree of innate skill, which applies to gaming as well, and you need to actively develop skill. If you honestly believe that "anyone can do it if they put their mind to it," I honestly don't even know what to say to that lol. But as I've already said, when it comes to ranked in this game, there are tons of examples of players that played a ton of ranked, they fulfilled the "practice and determination" piece, and they still came up short. Proper competition rewards the winners the most. That is not toxic, that is how it's supposed to work! I don't know what this means. Bioware may have a target for how many people they want to have certain rewards, but there's technically no limit to how many people can get there. And again, being "determined" is clearly not enough. Go sort the leaderboards by wins. You'll notice that very few of the people with a large amount of wins have high elo. That is clearly the calculation that they made, yes. If they just outright said that, and didn't mix in gobbledygook, I'd have less of an issue. You're speaking from ignorance again. I genuinely can't imagine doing what you people do on the forums: talking about something with such confidence that you clearly know so little about. It's astounding. Go look at the leaderboards. They're public. You can see for yourself how many characters participated in ranked.

But ranked also offered flairs and titles, which could only be earned via elo and win requirements...That is the major difference. This is utterly baseless speculation on your part, and I've already said that it is wrong. Are you really saying if you just play a lot of tennis, you can be as good as Nadal or Djokovic? If you just put in the hours on a basketball court you'll be as good as LeBron? There's a reason that the best ranked players ended up at the top of the leaderboards season after season. If it was so easy for anyone to get gold, then why did only 1-2% of the ranked population get gold? Again, stop spreading misinformation. Also, ranked only popped during prime time hours the vast majority of the time, so your point about only jobless people succeeding is equally facile. I can't speak for all ranked players, but I am not at all upset that regs players are getting more rewards. I couldn't care less either way about that. What I do care about is that there's nothing new and nothing worthwhile to play for now. There is nothing to foster competition. No elo, no leaderboards, no sorting of players in any meaningful way. It also remains to be seen whether we can play arenas like we used to. Again, if the matchmaker does not mirror roles like ranked did, arena play will be worthless.

I asked, "isn't this toxic according to you"......... That applies to the rewards on the vendors, though it would take an absurd amount of grinding for a bad ranked player to get them that way. It does NOT apply to the flairs and titles. You could not get gold or top 3 simply by grinding. There are players that played ranked for years desperately trying to get gold that simply could not, because they weren't good enough.

Um, isn't this "toxic" according to you? Or does the winky face nullify it? I don't know the rules. I enjoyed getting rewards insofar as I enjoy setting goals and achieving them. That is part of what made ranked fun. That being said, I played a lot of ranked, thousands of matches per season for the last several, and it was because it was fun to play. Unless you think i'm a literal masochist, you should believe me when I say it was fun for me lol. 7.2 will be significantly more boring. There is satisfaction in being able to do something difficult. What good is the goal of completing the season when literally anyone can do it? Plus, like I said, whether I play will almost entirely depend on arena matchmaking, so we'll see.

First, you know we get to keep our flairs and titles right? So even if that was a major concern of mine, or anyone's, you needn't worry. Second, I've barely played swtor since season 14 ended. I'm going to try out 7.2, but my stay will probably be brief, and I'll continue playing other games. As an aside, we still don't know if arenas will be role mirrored. If they are not, there will be no point in playing them whatsoever.

Now we're getting somewhere. Your definition of "toxic" is snide remarks, like some of my comments in this thread. That is very telling rofl

A great non-answer. You're confronted with evidence that directly contradicts your theories, but you don't let that stand in your way! Thanks for this response though. Your explicit support for participation rewards is making a lot more sense now.

OK, so explain your theory to me. What have I said here that you think is "toxic" and explain how you think that translates to my behavior in-game. Keeping in mind, I mostly played solo ranked and never belittled regs players in regs. I also like that you ignored everything I said. If you don't believe me, go look at my post history. You can see all the old threads about vote kick for yourself, and that should frankly be all the evidence you need about me.

I get it, this is your pet theory you've been holding onto for like 8 years and you think you're finally vindicated. That must feel great. That doesn't mean you're right though lol

Don't those games also have ranking systems though? I don't play any of them, so I don't know. But certainly many other competitive games like CS:GO, Overwatch, Valorant, etc have ranking systems... Battle pass systems have only been around for a few years. I would hardly call them a "staple," and I would put forward that they don't foster competition in any game. Earning the same participation rewards as everyone else faster will never be as motivating as winning a gold medal or its equivalent. You misunderstand me. If you knew me at all, and knew anything about my behavior in-game, you would know how ridiculous you sound right now. I'm someone that fought as hard as anyone to remove vote kick from the game when it was abused. I'm someone that actively called out cheaters and toxic losers even when it made me unpopular. I'm someone that is personally responsible (more or less) for one of the most toxic players on SF getting banned repeatedly. I was almost always patient with new players. I offered advice whenever it was asked of me. The rare occasions when I did express frustration, it was always targeted at whatever I thought the bad play was, not the individual. As to your point about "elitism" essentially, ranked players have you at a disadvantage. We've all played regs for years. We know what they are, and we know how they compared to ranked. There's no mystery there. It's not "toxic" to point out the obvious.

WOW is adding a solo queue on Tuesday. Not to mention your argument fundamentally makes no sense anyway. Solo ranked was fun, and it was competitive. People that were bad at it didn't have to play it if they didn't want to. Also, starting with 7.2, there will be no more "end game" pvp at all. So even though solo ranked was flawed in some ways, mainly due to Bioware's indifference, there is nothing taking its place.

So according to you, I'm toxic and part of the reason ranked is being removed, yeah? Do you have any evidence for how I behaved in game, or is this a fantasy you've constructed in your head?

I assumed my point was evident, but I'll make it again. Just being able to complete something faster will not foster competition. Competing for exclusive rewards does foster competition. It's not about "feeling special," it's about earning something meaningful (within the context of a game obviously, something Raazmir clearly can't comprehend). Frankly, it's rather incredible that I need to point these things out. Are you unironically in favor of participation trophies? Do you think people shouldn't be rewarded for their competitive efforts in anything? Should we do away with all sports as well? They foster the exact same "toxic" attitudes you're decrying here. I haven't seen anyone mad about it. It's simply obvious that you say that as a coping mechanism to make yourself feel better about your inability to play solo ranked well. It is utterly transparent.

Yet literally anyone that wants to will be able to finish the season track and get all the rewards they want by grinding mindlessly, regardless of skill. That is not "competition" in any sense of the word.

If you didn't play ranked, how on earth can you say how it was? If your answer is: random people on the forums that played one ranked game and complained about it, how can you not see the issue with that? You have people that had fun playing thousands of ranked matches telling you what ranked was actually like, but you'd rather believe made up nonsense just so you can feel better about yourself. People should be ashamed about spreading misinformation so freely. I would find it unbelievable if I hadn't seen it so many times on these forums.

So your position is that the entire ranked player base of over 1000 people are all horrible. What an enlightened opinion! What does any of this have to do with the 7.2 changes? What you're complaining about is what it going to happen now on a larger scale... You know what actually was fair the vast majority of the time? Solo ranked. You know what won't be fair at all? 7.2 pvp where premades will constantly be matched against solos lol