The vast majority of solo ranked rewards were not wintraded for. Stop spreading misinformation.

This is also wrong. There is a "system" that does it for them, hence all the mistakes: https://forums.swtor.com/topic/921087-top-96-pvp-rewards/?do=findComment&comment=9701096 "The system is built in a way where it is intended to give out 6 Top 96 rewards for each Advanced Class, 3 going to qualified Solo Ranked characters and 3 going to qualified Group Ranked characters. For the sake of simplicity, I’m going to reference Guardians in the following example to explain how characters could appear to be “skipped” when rewards were issued. Let’s say that I qualified for a Guardian Top Reward because I met the number of minimum wins required for Solo Ranked. However, for Group Ranked no other Guardian qualified because they did not meet the minimum required wins or were otherwise ineligible to qualify. There are now unclaimed rewards. So the system will look to reward the next highest rated Guardian who has obtained the minimum requirement of wins/is active to backfill for the unclaimed reward.If I've played some Group Ranked matches during the season, I would be eligible to receive these unclaimed Group Ranked top rewards, whereas a higher rated Solo player (that did not play any Group Ranked matches) would not."

You're conflating team ranked and solo ranked, which is just stupid. Team ranked has been a dead, irrelevant game mode for quite some time. Solo ranked had plenty of people to fill out top 3 rewards. Bioware completely botched handing out top 3s by handing them out to some players that didn't earn them and skipping some players that did. There is no excuse for it. You are literally making up facts to suit your narrative here. Repeating it doesn't make it any less wrong. You're completely missing the point. A properly functioning ranked system would indeed need resources put into it, but Bioware did not put any resources into maintaining it for the last few years, hence the unbanned speedhackers and throwers and the botched top 3 rewards. Bioware made the calculation that it wasn't worth putting anything into it, and that's that.

Yeah, those "resources that ranked required" haven't been spent on ranked for years. They already allocated those resources somewhere else, and they've hardly made any balance changes regarding ranked in years either (arsenal merc was only fotm long ago in 5.x). It's silly to think that this change will lead to improvements to other parts of the game. I just think leaving ranked in a totally unmoderated state was an embarrassment for them, like a homeowners association leaving a totally dilapidated house standing. Sure, technically someone can still live there, but it's an eyesore and a safety hazard.

If it were up to me, I would love Bioware to reinvest in ranked. Start moderating it for cheaters/throwers, add new rewards, have more frequent seasons and balance changes, etc. I enjoyed playing solo ranked as much as anyone, proven by how much I played it. I largely find regs boring as well. But with that being said, I don't think ranked was worthy of existence if it continued exactly as it was, and I think the devs recognized that. When you get to the point that you have literal speedhackers like solow not getting banned, and Bioware is so incompetent that they hand out top 3s to the wrong people, what exactly is the point anymore? And so faced with these realities, Bioware just pulled the plug on it, because they just don't want to spend ANY resources on ranked anymore. The really shameful part, in my opinion, is not that they removed ranked, but that they allowed it to fester in an unmoderated, uncared for state for the last few years. Don't get me wrong, this decision sucks for a lot of people, including me, but the only viable alternative would be to convince Bioware that ranked is worthy of development time, and good luck with that.

There are certainly people that have had legitimate gripes about ranked. There were certain people that were excessively toxic in ranked (like nikana used to be), and some of the forum complaints were about them. Completely legitimate. I witnessed other times where racist/sexist idiots (like canu for example) harassed people. I've also witnessed throwing (moophy, holymind, etc), and have been thrown on. In the last season there were blatant speedhackers not getting banned. I have never said that ranked was a perfect experience or that there weren't toxic elements to it. What I have said, is that the majority of generic "wah, someone said i'm bad in ranked, it's so toxic!" posts were nonsense, which they were. And I absolutely have explained why. Most of those people complaining were wholly unprepared for ranked and were arrogantly, selfishly ruining games. They were, in many cases, the ones at fault, not victims. You have no basis to even disagree with me, because you didn't see all of this first hand like I did. You'd rather believe random forum posts than direct observation, which is the crux of the issue here.

I've already explained this multiple times. Most of the negative experiences people whined about on these forums were absolutely their fault. That is a fact that you would readily accept if you ever actually played ranked. The fact that you refuse to accept observable facts makes you the one in denial by the way. And I'll reiterate, people like you directly contributed to ranked having less players through your lies, which is something you should be really ashamed about. It continues to amaze me that the complaints about ranked "toxicity" are still more toxic than ranked itself. It's also really hilarious that you treat me as if I'm one of the toxic players that ruined ranked for other people considering all I did to stop excessive toxicity, especially vote kick abuse. Often my actions were quite unpopular with the ranked community, but I did it anyway because it was the right thing to do. But because I expose your nonsensical narrative regarding ranked, I must be a villain I guess lol

I remember having this exact same conversation with you where you admitted that you only played a handful of ranked matches. Stop lying lol I'm not "denying" anything. I'm telling you the truth based on what actually happened in solo ranked, because, you know, I actually played it, unlike you. It's all pretty straightforward. And again, "this" has nothing whatsoever to do with why they don't put resources into it. They just don't care about competitive pvp or maintaining its integrity, mainly because not enough of the player base played it. The reality is, people like you posting nonsense on the forums kept people like the OP of this thread from playing ranked, which is really shameful.

I never said it didn't happen. I said that when it did happen, it was usually because the person wasn't prepared for ranked in any way. Certainly not always. There were a handful of excessively toxic people, but that wasn't the norm. There was also the vote kick era, where vote kick was abused heavily. That behavior was unacceptable, and I fought against it in every way that I could. But there is a massive difference between actually vote kicking someone and just telling them that they're bad and don't belong in ranked.

I played as much solo ranked as anyone over the past few years (excluding this preseason). I saw the toxicity that was there, and I understand what fueled it. The fact is, if you came into ranked properly geared, at least somewhat knowing your class, and were willing to follow directions and listen to advice, you faced very little toxicity. In some cases, I actually saw the full progression: people come in and ruin a series of ranked matches by getting globaled, arrogantly asserting that they pay a sub and know what they're doing, and then proceed to post on the forums with nonsense about ranked "toxicity." In other words, my opinion is based on direct observation, having played thousands of solo ranked matches. What is your opinion based on? Playing a literal handful of ranked matches and reading forum posts. Also, you'll notice that this poster didn't actually play ranked. He was just scared off by the "horror stories," the vast majority of which were simply nonsense. That's why I tried to set the record straight as much as possible here over the years. Finally, none of this has anything to do with them removing ranked. They didn't want to expend resources to moderate it, so given that they did the only logical thing they could do.

This is a shame, because those "horror stories" were almost all untrue, or at best lacking context. It was usually players entering ranked with bad gear, no concept of how to play their class and an unwillingness to listen to advice. They whined that the experience was too "toxic" while being wholly unprepared for ranked themselves. But it's all a moot point now I suppose.

The problem is that Bioware completely stopped moderating ranked pvp, and they were clearly unwilling to expend ANY resources to start moderating it again. Obviously I would much rather have ranked and rewards that need to be earned. The fact that anyone can earn the new season "rewards" makes them worthless. But these changes make sense. Bioware stopped caring about pvp long ago.

Changing defel spliced genes is one of the only good decisions Bioware has made in years.

A map filter is the only thing we can be reasonably sure will be included in 7.2. It'll probably be just about the only thing if we're being realistic. Also, 5am wintrading in team ranked (or even in solo ranked like Educated Squad did), is only part of the problem. Bioware also didn't ban blatant speedhackers and throwers (with video evidence). The only thing Bioware occasionally bans people for is account sharing and using slurs in chat. They stopped monitoring ranked entirely for cheating and throwing. That's why I'm saying any changes to ranked are meaningless without proper moderation. And if they refuse to do that, they should just remove ranked as a whole.

None of the issues mentioned will make any difference to ranked as long as wintraders aren't getting banned. I'd still like to know why Mike B stopped his monthly posts and stopped monitoring the pvpreports email. I'm assuming Bioware made the calculation that expending any resources policing ranked was a waste and stopped entirely. They literally don't even read the reports, let alone do any investigations or hand out any punishments. As a result, blatant wintraders with video evidence and/or screenshots as proof are getting top 3 rewards. Not to mention Bioware botched handing out top 3 rewards worse than they ever have before. And for those that inexplicably think wintrading isn't a big deal (whether due to apathy, self-interest, or some other garbage reason), Bioware also stopped banning blatant throwers that more directly ruin the ranked experience for everyone. Nothing else matters until these issues are appropriately addressed. Bioware has banned wintraders in the past, usually slower than people would like, but they did at least take action, proving that it is indeed possible. There should be no feasibility concerns here.

My guess is that they'll remove top 3 entirely, and possibly add a plat tier based on elo as others mentioned. I was already in favor of removing top 3s for a lot of reasons (disparities in server/region, wintrading/throwing, underplayed classes, to name a few), but considering how badly they messed up handing out rewards this season, which was far worse than any such mistakes in the past, they really need to remove them as they undeniably are doing more harm than good for the game mode (and I say this as someone that has enjoyed competing for and getting top 3 the last two seasons). As for leaderboards, I think it's most likely that people's names will just show up twice if they play different combat styles on the same character. Or they might scrap the leaderboards too, because there wouldn't be much point to them without top 3s anyway.

I think you're wrong about role play being better on SF. This fanciful story you've spun here is a great piece of fictional propaganda. I've never seen a SF player write anything like it, so I'll give the edge to SS.

Is someone going to tell him the truth? I would do it, but I don't have the firsthand experience on SS that others have.

And what does it say about Bioware that this kind of communication is "widely appreciated?" That just speaks to how uncommunicative Bioware normally is. They shouldn't be getting any kind of credit for the absolute bare minimum. And I'm not sure this even meets that bar, because again, there has been no acknowledgment of wrongdoing, no apology, and nothing about applying a fix. Not to mention the explanation is *********** bonkers. She just states it as if people are supposed to shrug and go "okay, that makes sense." The more I think about it and type about it, the worse it gets to me. And if people look at my posts here and want to say something like "this is why they don't communicate with us," I'd say that they should be doing their jobs regardless of what I say or how I might make them feel. They are being paid to do this, not doing it out of the kindness of their hearts. I think it's important that they understand how badly they ****ed up. Being friendly doesn't get that message across at all clearly.

I did properly receive my top 3, and I'm still seriously considering quitting because of this debacle. This is a "dead" game. We all know that swtor ranked isn't as strictly competitive as other games because we lack the population, and all skill levels are lumped together. But even with that in mind, part of what makes ranked fun is that people are competing for elo and top rewards. And even if the rewards themselves aren't the most meaningful thing in the world, to me it's satisfying to set goals and achieve them. If you take that away, it becomes significantly more boring, at least to me. Bioware already has a history of not caring about ranked. This is just the most extreme example yet. And if they can mess up something this basic this badly, not apologize for it, and not make any attempt to fix it, what hope is there for them to ever do anything right regarding ranked again?

Presumably she has read the feedback in the forum threads and elsewhere. So she should have a good handle on what actually happened. She should also have a good handle on what the devs should be doing to fix it. Furthermore, do you think they explicitly barred her from including an apology? Or any kind of acknowledgment that this was a massive screw up? Okay. I have no interest in pretending someone is doing a good job just so they'll "respond well" (in this case at least, lol). Obviously a lot of the community would disagree with me on that. They see someone posting and think "finally, someone is paying attention! we must preserve them and not be mean to them!" as if sucking up like that will make any difference whatsoever. I don't think anything I've said has been unfair in the slightest. We are paying subscriptions for this game after all. Some people seem to pretend like the devs are volunteers doing us a favor by updating this game. They're professionals and they should act like it.

She's the community manager, not an unpaid intern. She is part of the Bioware team that maintains this game. She's not "just" a messenger. Obviously she's not primarily at fault in this situation, but she's also not blameless, especially when it comes to what she's posting here.

Let's say this is all accurate. No one at Bioware can see the problem with this? You're explaining it as if this all makes sense, when in reality it's ******* insane. You're randomly handing out what are supposed to be group ranked top 3s to solo ranked qualifiers that just happened to play some group ranked matches. And you're not saying it was a mistake. You're not apologizing. You haven't stated any intention to remove rewards from people that didn't earn them. I don't understand why others are even congratulating you on "communicating" when this is the quality of the communication.

They have the ability to take away top 3 rewards from people. They've done it before, so don't pretend as if that's not an option for them. You're just making excuses for devs that simply don't care about ranked pvp in their own game.

What "team" investigated this issue? Was it one person? Was it several? Did they even read any of the feedback about what actually happened here? If so, what methods did they use to investigate? I suggest you ask these questions internally, because the level of incompetence on display here is staggering. There are people at Bioware just straight up not doing their jobs. The fact that players are subjected to this nonsense as paying subscribers is nothing short of disgraceful. And to echo what prum said, if you want to whine about the player base being "respectful" in our feedback, you should seriously consider respecting the player base in the first instance. We are paying YOU, not the other way around.