Increasing rated participation

[KamujinKravshera]

The idea.

1) Remove the conversion of regular WZ comms to rated comms.

 

2) Compute team rating from the top 6 players in the group. This is to minimize the benefit of gaming the matching algorithm.

 

3) Attempt to match with another team of similar rating in queue.

 

4) If an uneven match is the only match available AND if the difference in computed team rating is greater than 400, give the team with the lower rating the choice to decline the match without penalty.

 

Rational

A) High ranked teams should gain rank from beating other high ranked teams. Not by farming low ranked teams.

 

B) Low ranked teams should be able to face other low ranked teams to develop their skill level. I'm thinking minor league baseball here.

 

 

... That's it. Flame on.

Edited April 1, 2013 by KamujinKravshera
Correct an error.

[Werdan]

While I'd agree on the IDEA of having high rated teams facing other high rated teams, this scenario could possibly lead to longer queues or none at all if 2 closely rated teams aren't queuing at the same time. Also, removing the trading up of comms has nothing to do with this issue. If anything I'd get rid of rated comms altogether and keep EWH gear (soon to be Conquerer) purchasable with regular comms. Team/player rating could still be used to buy the exclusive patterned shells, crystals, and whatever other items need ratings for.

[Crawelc]

I think it might actually work. If a team could que up for the first time and know they have no chance of facing a top rated team untill they had 15-20 games under their belt it might be the incentive needed to get rateds popping. The higher ranked teams might be left out of the games for a while, but the number of teams playing would mean that 1-2 weeks down the line the higher rated teams would have more people to play against on a regular basis.

[Jadescythe]

Point 3 resolves all of the other issues you have listed if there were groups queuing. The problem is the extreme barrier to entry that is team size.

 

Check the forums, many threads complain about 4 man premades in regulars and cite not being able or having the time to get a 2 or even 3 man group together themselves. You also have to consider that team composition becomes a factor (even at mid or low ratings) as you don't want to auto lose by bringing no healers or 4 tanks. There are only two things that will increase participation in rateds:

 

1) smaller team sizes available (confirmed as a possibility by devs)

 

Allow people to queue with smaller teams and you get some of the smaller guilds being able to queue more often and the larger ones being able to field more teams.

 

2) increase the number of competitive people willing to do competitive PvP (not in a reward based way)

 

Simply offering better rewards for rated games or only allowing ranked comms for rated games will only encourage players to queue, not to compete, which defeats the purpose of the queue. It also puts anyone who prefers to queue solo or duo at a complete disadvantage, regardless of how much time they put in. Unless 2.0 makes the game population skyrocket or someone finds a way to change the way someone's brain works, I don't see this being possible.

[TUXs]

Wouldn't get me to queue.

[cashogy_reborn]

I think it might actually work. If a team could que up for the first time and know they have no chance of facing a top rated team untill they had 15-20 games under their belt it might be the incentive needed to get rateds popping. The higher ranked teams might be left out of the games for a while, but the number of teams playing would mean that 1-2 weeks down the line the higher rated teams would have more people to play against on a regular basis.

 

this. you have to think long-term with a competitive system like this. the majority of players, and unfortunately the devs, are only interested in short term fixes that have made no impact after 2-4 weeks.

 

and you need more incentive than just facing similarly skilled players.

there needs to be a faster way to get into RWZ. the 8 man group limit is one of the biggest limiting factors. imo, the entire RWZ idea was not designed well. it could do with a major overhaul before we go into Season 1.

Edited April 1, 2013 by cashogy_reborn

[LarryRow]

4) If an uneven match is the only match available AND if the difference in computed team rating is greater than 400, give the team with the lower rating the choice to decline the match without penalty.

 

The first fresh idea on the pvp forum that I've heard in a while, and - shocker - it's a good one. +1 for you.

[KamujinKravshera]

No one likes losing, but it's a lot more fun to lose a close match against people at a similar level than it is to get destroyed by the best 8 players online at the moment.

 

Another positive side effect is that it will help punish the queue dodging that no one admits to doing but every top team does.

[mrekxxx]

The idea.

1) Remove the conversion of regular WZ comms to rated comms.

 

2) Compute team rating from the top 6 players in the group. This is to minimize the benefit of gaming the matching algorithm.

 

3) Attempt to match with another team of similar rating in queue. (Already in place)

 

4) If an uneven match is the only match available AND if the difference in computed team rating is greater than 400, give the team with the lower rating the choice to decline the match without penalty.

 

Rational

A) High ranked teams should gain rank from beating other high ranked teams. Not by farming low ranked teams.

 

B) Low ranked teams should be able to face other low ranked teams to develop their skill level. I'm thinking minor league baseball here.

 

 

... That's it. Flame on.

 

good ideas

[Pistols]

3) Attempt to match with another team of similar rating in queue. (Already in place)

 

Heya Kam, not sure if I read this right, so gonna comment on this part as you wrote "already in place".

 

Currently, there is no match-making system in place in RWZ's, but the above was announced by a Dev that it will come with Season 1. If I read that wrong, sorry, still on coffee #2.

 

[Pistols]

Essentially a ladder based system, where the RWZ finder appropriately matches teams according to team rating, is sorely needed. With something like this in place, more teams would be willing to give the Ranked scene a try knowing that a system is in place to help adjust teams according to team rank. Sadly, there has not been any word in regards to Rankeds or Season 1 from any CS Rep/Developer in many months. I fear it's not even on their radar. Edited April 1, 2013 by Pistols

[j-cart]

Current class balance aside, change the PvP Weekly to "Participate in X amount of RWZ" and introduce a monthly "Win X amount of RWZ".

 

Of course we shouldn't have to give out quests for people to PvP, but currently each server is having a RWZ drought. It is at the point right now on The Bastion server for other Rated teams to hop into our TeamSpeak asking us to do a Ranked Match. They shouldn't have to ask, it should just be enough for people to want to queue.

 

Unfortunately, there is a HUGE gap in team performance. A randomly formed PUG team does not have a very good chance against a regularly formed Rated team. The problem is not that these PUGs are not skilled (they could very much be very talented players) the problem is that they do not have team experience with one another. Having the Weekly turned into a "Participate in X amount of RWZ" encourages more people to play and understand how RWZs is much different than just regular WZ games. Hopefully this will get more people to want to play together and that is what I want to see happen.

 

Winning is the icing on the cake and having a Monthly "Win X amount of RWZ" is to give something to strive for. Not to mention that the pool of people that can ever participate in RWZ is subjected only to subscribers and even then the amount of people that PvP is smaller in scope aswell. I love RWZ in the game, I have yet to experience a game that does a very well job keeping class roles in an 8v8 setting. Would love to see more ways for people to get into RWZ!

[DarthOvertone]

4) If an uneven match is the only match available AND if the difference in computed team rating is greater than 400, give the team with the lower rating the choice to decline the match without penalty.

 

I think this change alone would go a long way to encouraging more teams to run Rated. Poor Matchmaking is really the issue that killed Rateds for the most part.

 

New and lower rated teams need time to develop proper team chemistry before going against the heavyweights of their server. It's not that they should never play these teams, but that they should have a choice when they do if there is a wide disparity in rating.

[TUXs]

Essentially a ladder based system, where the RWZ finder appropriately matches teams according to team rating, is sorely needed. With something like this in place, more teams would be willing to give the Ranked scene a try knowing that a system is in place to help adjust teams according to team rank. Sadly, there has not been any word in regards to Rankeds or Season 1 from any CS Rep/Developer in many months. I fear it's not even on their radar.

 

I haven't played a game with a "ladder" type system that I'm aware of, but I've played other games that gave players "ratings" - wouldn't a ladder system just lead to people gaming the system? They'd lose a few matches intentionally just to stay ranked low so they could roll a few matches for lulz? I've seen it happen far too much in other 'ranked' games that I fear it'd happen in this system too.

[Pistols]

I haven't played a game with a "ladder" type system that I'm aware of, but I've played other games that gave players "ratings" - wouldn't a ladder system just lead to people gaming the system? They'd lose a few matches intentionally just to stay ranked low so they could roll a few matches for lulz? I've seen it happen far too much in other 'ranked' games that I fear it'd happen in this system too.

 

I guess it's possible for a team to lose a few to just play someone else, but I think it would more trouble that what it's worth, as they simply could sub 1 or 2 players with no ranking at all (alts with gear) and do the same. Understand though, the match-making system will pit teams with similar ratings against one another, if the system is unable to find a suitable match, they did say it's possible a 2500 ranked team could face a new team. However, I believe with this type of system in place, more teams would fill the queue, and would be a non-issue.

 

Furthermore, it would be even more fun if an 8 man team could /challenge another 8 man team...and bypass the system altogether. Of course, this opens up the possibility of farming, but it could be something along the lines of guild warring someone...or as close to it as possible.

Edited April 1, 2013 by Pistols

[KamujinKravshera]

Heya Kam, not sure if I read this right, so gonna comment on this part as you wrote "already in place".

 

Currently, there is no match-making system in place in RWZ's, but the above was announced by a Dev that it will come with Season 1. If I read that wrong, sorry, still on coffee #2.

 

 

Probably a misunderstanding on my part. I thought the current RWZ queue system would try to match teams with similar ranks. How does it work now?

[Pistols]

Probably a misunderstanding on my part. I thought the current RWZ queue system would try to match teams with similar ranks. How does it work now?

 

There is no match making system in place at all; it simply goes in the order that your team que'd.

 

Thus, why the ladder system is needed.

 

[Crawelc]

I posted in a rated thread with out saying Scripts, Fixed.

[Illyean]

I think the goals of PvP players are probably way beyond the abilities and budget of the dev team now and the very best that can be hoped for is small incremental changes to improve the broken systems or introduce the missing ones in small enough to implement chunks.

 

Matchmaking is very much needed in PvP, ranked and non ranked. taking into account queued group size and geared level (maybe no longer required with new blaster) for non ranked and rating for ranked (as two obvious examples of matchmaking requirements) - however this could very easily just backfire and further stall already slow queues.

[j-cart]

I think the goals of PvP players are probably way beyond the abilities and budget of the dev team now and the very best that can be hoped for is small incremental changes to improve the broken systems or introduce the missing ones in small enough to implement chunks.

 

 

This more than exactly correct. How do you save PvP when there is barely a team to save it?

 

Cross-server queues is not something that can actually be done with the current staff and money working on SWTOR. The best simple fixes, would be to entice people to play RWZ by the means of quests. This would not be an end all fix, but it would at least generate more people willing to play RWZ. The gear grind is already extremely fast, might as well give those that have never tried incentives to play RWZs.

[KamujinKravshera]

I think coding a cross server queue is a pretty difficult thing to do.

 

I think coding a dialog box that allows you to refuse a matchup with a much higher ranked team is a trivial thing to do.

[dcgregorya]

The first fresh idea on the pvp forum that I've heard in a while, and - shocker - it's a good one. +1 for you.

 

Yes. Ability to "turn down" a ridiculous match would get me queuing into RWZ. No question about that. I'd PUG it, if I had the option to turn the match down at least - if I had to.

Edited April 1, 2013 by dcgregorya

[Crawelc]

Solid ideas here from a very good source. Lets get some feedback bioware.

[KamujinKravshera]

I didn't want to make the original post too complicated, but I would like to add that I think the following formula would be preferable to a hard coded value like 400.

 

Optional Match = ABS( LN( ratingTeamA ) - LN ( ratingTeamB ) ) > 0.30

 

This basically says, in a symmetrical way, that if the team ratings are more than 30% different, the match is optional.