Why did arenas and ranked fail so catastrophically?

[Ottoattack]

I saw some posters blaming the community. Nothing works without a system. There are many reasons ranked fail (at least IMO):

 

1- Lack of match making system. This is even a problem in unranked WZs. Many games are a total mismatch, which discourages the lower team/players from trying, since there is no learning ladder.

 

2- Probably match making could have been implemented with cross server ques. Add to that, most populations on servers are not that big (especially PvP wise). Again, no match making plus long ques do not foster good PvP experience.

 

3- Lack of class balance. Lets face it, healer is ops, tank is PT hybrid and dps is marauder and PT, with some occasional sniper, sorc (only 1 tree) or sin (only 1 tree). Your main is merc? Sry no place for you. Same for jugg, ops dps, sorc healers (or lightning), etc... All arenas did is highlight weak specs, that are completely uncompetitive in arenas much more than in WZs.

 

4- Death match game play is really boring (at least IMO). There is no real strategy beside rotating on enemies. It is a button smashing contest. There no change in objective or scenery, because you get trapped in a 30 meter range for the entire battle.

 

5- People do not like change. When 8v8 was removed many people decided to either quit the game.

 

6- No incentives for doing ranked what so ever.

 

7- Rank leader boards mean little when people across servers can't play against each other.

 

8- lack of communication from devs.

 

9- Lack of monitoring of ranked arenas. 2.6 balance changes do not indicate that the devs have clue what goes on in arenas. Aside from PT change, everything else was either out of place (buff to ops dps instead of survivability) or weak changes that will barely change classes performance.

 

10- Probably lack of monitoring is due to GSF launch, which is not considered PvP. It just separates player base and devs attention. It would have been nice if there was a solid PvP and PvE populations, and PvP and PvE are in great positions. Of course this is not the case, thus all it does is further separates devs attention and ques.

Edited January 12, 2014 by Ottoattack

[Vikassi]

Class Balance, Match Making, and Lack of Cross Server Queue.

 

This my friends, is why your ranked arena's are a failure.

 

Tying up resources on Galactic Starfighter was a complete waste in my mind, but I'm not blaming that for Arena's being bad, I'm just saying .. GST is horrible ..

[Raazmir]

Lack of cross server preventing enough participants to have the matchmaking system be effective coupled with transfers decimating all but like 3 servers pvp population followed by the removal of 8v8 ranked soon after leading a lot of players to feel like they'd been cheated by bioware because they'd transferred as a guild to do 8v8 ranked on those servers.

 

BC at least was on the cusp of developing a half decent ranked scene before transfers.

 

The expectations of bioware and the playerbase that organized 8v8 ranked pvp should just be a que up and go situation in a game without the pvp population to sustain it. If there'd been cross server and no transfers 8v8 probably would have been fine and there may well have been enough teams around and queing to make the matchmaking system they have work.

[Orenprax]

There's also the fact that this game's PvP has been balanced around objective based 8v8 since its creation. To throw in 4v4 death match in such a system only serves to further highlight what used to be minor class imbalances, and make them far more of a problem—go ahead and run your PT Hybrid in huttball, not gonna give you an advantage. And your concealment OP will be far more useful in any objective map. The death matches were an iffy idea at best, and a stab by Bioware at what they thought the community wanted—I think they missed the mark (both Bioware and the community). The worst part was removing the objective based ranked all together, and I wouldn't be surprised to see it come back. One can hope anyway.

[Vikassi]

There's also the fact that this game's PvP has been balanced around objective based 8v8 since its creation. To throw in 4v4 death match in such a system only serves to further highlight what used to be minor class imbalances, and make them far more of a problem—go ahead and run your PT Hybrid in huttball, not gonna give you an advantage. And your concealment OP will be far more useful in any objective map. The death matches were an iffy idea at best, and a stab by Bioware at what they thought the community wanted—I think they missed the mark (both Bioware and the community). The worst part was removing the objective based ranked all together, and I wouldn't be surprised to see it come back. One can hope anyway.

 

this is a pretty good analysis .. i think you have it right .. especially about the community not knowing what they want .. i could have sworn i heard all of them BEG for arena's, only to not play them. LOL

[PloGreen]

Whilst Ranked might be slow on most servers due to a myriad of reasons, foremost among them being players are sooks and can't handle thatt hey are not top dog, the arena format by itself is far from a failure.

 

Regardless of what the small vocal minority whingers here on the forums will tell you, everyone I play with in game doesn't mind them. They may not love them exclusively, but they don't mind them as another format.

 

I've probably notched up an easy 200+ arenas in regs, if not many more and I'll let you in on a secret, I've only ever had a 3v4 once and that was only in the 2nd round and it wasn't even on my team.

 

The only fail around here is the so called "competitive community". There are some great players doing thier part and playing the game mode and being amazing at it, streaming, making vids etc and proof is in the pudding. Thier are high rated players of every class which also shows that it can be done regardless of class and that whilst the % numbers aren't consistent, the game is balanced around high level play and the next couple of patches are IMO perfect balance patches for where the game currently is.

 

The rest of the community acts like a spoiled brat. Bunch of them leave or whinge tht 8v8 ranked got taken out, a game mode they likely never played anyway and the rest whinge that they don't like TRM or LMS and leave the moment they load in, leaving thier team short and compounding the problem.

 

The PvP community here sucks, the game is fine.

 

Maybe they just don't like them? Ever thought of that? There is no competition that's the whole point. Game mode might be fun for what 20 people? But fact remains 8v8 removal lost alot of the competitive pvpers. That's why there's not many people playing anymore.

Edited January 12, 2014 by PloGreen

[madtycoon]

Why I have no interest in SWTOR arenas:

 

No cross-server queues. Small player base. Low skilled player base.

 

4v4 instead of 3v3 or 2v2.

 

Tanks. Guard in its current form. Hybrids.

 

Stupidly high constant unpreventable burst damage. AoE damage. Relatively weak healing to damage.

 

Not enough CC/utility. Poor interrupt, cleansing and control meta-game. Too much melee mobility.

 

Poor game play. Not enough counters. Lack of clutch plays. No sense of outplaying people. SWTOR's best meta (kiting) is discouraged.

 

No movement. No spacing. Positioning and ranging weak. Too clumped up.

 

Healer Balance. Operative/Scoundrel healers design is garbage. Not fun to play with. Not fun to play against. Not encouraging heavy cast based healers.

 

Casting output too low. Instant output too strong. No real penalty for getting interrupted (Madness sorcs). Pushback and unreasonable cast times. 2.0-2.5 second casts when you can take 15k damage in that time frame? really?

 

Maps are horrible. Poorly thought out pillars. Too much aesthetics and crap all over the place. No clean geometry. Not enough space in between obstacles. This isn't a shooter. We don't need catwalks and huts. Simple maps are better.

 

Game is overall too retard friendly. Too forgiving to mistakes. No real separation in skill reward once you learn your rotation and use defensives.

 

Too much RNG in output and hit and miss mechanics. RNG proc relics. Defense stat.

 

No macros. Poor focus frame. No arena targeting 1-4. No focus 1-4. Non-synched party frames.

 

Classes are too similar. Little uniqueness. Little to no penalty for stacking classes. Double operative healer. 3 vanguards. Not fun.

 

Vanguard and Marauder class design. Lacking utility. Too much mobility. Retard friendly defensives and damage (smash). Too faceroll.

[Ifolad]

stop asking for cross-server que's for anything, BW already said it and i quote "CANNOT HAPPEN WITH HERO ENGINE"

 

I wish it could as I would love xserver que's but i digress, hero engine can't/won't handle it.

[Twin]

stop asking for cross-server que's for anything, BW already said it and i quote "CANNOT HAPPEN WITH HERO ENGINE"

 

I wish it could as I would love xserver que's but i digress, hero engine can't/won't handle it.

 

And again: No they didn't say that. They said it would be a big undertaking and would take time, so please stop saying it can't be done.

[Raazmir]

stop asking for cross-server que's for anything, BW already said it and i quote "CANNOT HAPPEN WITH HERO ENGINE"

 

I wish it could as I would love xserver que's but i digress, hero engine can't/won't handle it.

 

Without cross server ques pvp will always be lackluster. That's just the long and short of it, you need a significantly large playerbase to have matchmaking work properly and individual servers don't really have that. Even in a game with three times the population of tor at its peak WoW needed battlegroups in order to make ranked anything with matchmaking work. ToR might have the population for it, but they're spread out all over a dozen servers.

[Makavelithug]

The PvP community here sucks, the game is fine.

 

^

That and a bag of chips.

 

Here comes the truth and most of you this day of age in a mmo don't think this way, but here it goes.

 

1. The mmo community are spoiled rotton kids and adults, this generation wants everything handed to them. Nobody wants to work for gear, rating, or pride. And the moment they face a unmovable object they fold and cry.

 

2. A arena isn't about gear or incentive, they are made for team work put together comps. The fact that this generation thinks incentives should be involved proves that these kids are lazy.

 

3. This community for most part are scared to lose face and wants Bioware to cater to them every move.

 

I have come to find out coming from 8 years of Warcraft that no mmo will ever get it right when it comes to arena, I love arena and wish this generation of kids could appreciate a organized event where a premade can face another premade and whoever wins learns new organized skills they never had before.

 

Arena in Warcraft taught me to be a better PVPer, and I am grateful for it, but you won't hear anyone here saying they are grateful for arena here.

 

Here also what is funny, I keep seeing these guys wanting 8 vs 8 back, well isn't that another form of organized PVP?

 

Haha, people will cry about that too, it amazes me how much crying goes along in mmos anymore....

Edited January 12, 2014 by Makavelithug

[Carter_Mathis]

I saw some posters blaming the community. Nothing works without a system. There are many reasons ranked fail (at least IMO):

 

1- Lack of match making system. This is even a problem in unranked WZs. Many games are a total mismatch, which discourages the lower team/players from trying, since there is no learning ladder.

 

2- Probably match making could have been implemented with cross server ques. Add to that, most populations on servers are not that big (especially PvP wise). Again, no match making plus long ques do not foster good PvP experience.

 

3- Lack of class balance. Lets face it, healer is ops, tank is PT hybrid and dps is marauder and PT, with some occasional sniper, sorc (only 1 tree) or sin (only 1 tree). Your main is merc? Sry no place for you. Same for jugg, ops dps, sorc healers (or lightning), etc... All arenas did is highlight weak specs, that are completely uncompetitive in arenas much more than in WZs.

 

4- Death match game play is really boring (at least IMO). There is no real strategy beside rotating on enemies. It is a button smashing contest. There no change in objective or scenery, because you get trapped in a 30 meter range for the entire battle.

 

5- People do not like change. When 8v8 was removed many people decided to either quit the game.

 

6- No incentives for doing ranked what so ever.

 

7- Rank leader boards mean little when people across servers can't play against each other.

 

8- lack of communication from devs.

 

9- Lack of monitoring of ranked arenas. 2.6 balance changes do not indicate that the devs have clue what goes on in arenas. Aside from PT change, everything else was either out of place (buff to ops dps instead of survivability) or weak changes that will barely change classes performance.

 

10- Probably lack of monitoring is due to GSF launch, which is not considered PvP. It just separates player base and devs attention. It would have been nice if there was a solid PvP and PvE populations, and PvP and PvE are in great positions. Of course this is not the case, thus all it does is further separates devs attention and ques.

 

11- People really can't handles losses.

Edited January 12, 2014 by Carter_Mathis

[Megatfx]

^

That and a bag of chips.

 

Here comes the truth and most of you this day of age in a mmo don't think this way, but here it goes.

 

1. The mmo community are spoiled rotton kids and adults, this generation wants everything handed to them. Nobody wants to work for gear, rating, or pride. And the moment they face a unmovable object they fold and cry.

 

2. A arena isn't about gear or incentive, they are made for team work put together comps. The fact that this generation thinks incentives should be involved proves that these kids are lazy.

 

3. This community for most part are scared to lose face and wants Bioware to cater to them every move.

 

I have come to find out coming from 8 years of Warcraft that no mmo will ever get it right when it comes to arena, I love arena and wish this generation of kids could appreciate a organized event where a premade can face another premade and whoever wins learns new organized skills they never had before.

 

Arena in Warcraft taught me to be a better PVPer, and I am grateful for it, but you won't hear anyone here saying they are grateful for arena here.

 

Here also what is funny, I keep seeing these guys wanting 8 vs 8 back, well isn't that another form of organized PVP?

 

Haha, people will cry about that too, it amazes me how much crying goes along in mmos anymore....

 

You have no rating on all 6 of your toons in your signature.

[MidichIorian]

Just repeating what others have posted:

 

1. The majority of people find it to be an incredibly boring gametype.

 

2. LMS is too unforgiving for a game as casual as this so even if you happen to like Arena you're going to get frustrated by the idiots in the yolo queue.

 

3. This is the most casual game I've ever played and with the lowest average skill so there's simply not enough good people to go around for more than a handful teams per server. It's easier for people to take a loss and continue playing if it isnt against the same team every time. There's a population threshold for when people will "fight on" and this game is nowhere near that threshold.

 

4. Class viability. Some specs are down right a liability while others require very specific team builds. Both are excluding people from participating.

 

5. People are not forced to queue ranked since they get to play it in the cluster**** that is Arena Normals. Arena Normals are never good so force people to queue for ranked instead if they wish to play it and take out Arena from the normal queue.

 

6. Various QoL reasons; Doesnt count toward daily, no extra incentive etc etc.

 

7. It's a really repetitive gametype in a game like this. In an FPS it might have worked because you actually use the maps there. There's no such thing as map control in a MMO so every map could have been a blank canvas, people are going to zerg in one spot anyway.

Edited January 12, 2014 by MidichIorian

[Gnoblesse]

In the past 9 months since my guild was formed, only 4 active players have quit the game permanently (or for an extended period), not even one of them did because of the changes to Ranked. Currently there's some 15k players on the leaderboards. Ranked 8v8 had a fraction of that playing them.

 

Is your guild primarily a PvP guild? And did your guild queue for 8v8 ranked regularly? Many guilds which were built primarily around 8v8 were absolutely gutted with their removal - including mine. (Of the 15-16 people who would often be on Mumble and played regularly, only around 4 of us still play.)

 

Also, about those 15k people....I suspect a decent number of those 15k people are people who tried arenas a few times and never went back. I went into the solo queue rankings, sorted wins low to high, and it took me 110 pages to get through the number of people with 0 wins. 173 (out of 366) to get through the number of people with just 1.

I'd be kind of surprised if those people are even still queuing.

 

Number of pages it took me to get to people with 10 wins - 284 (of 366)

Number of pages it took me to get to people with 20 - 319.

 

For group ranked, it took me 93 pages (out of 174) to get past people who had either 0 or 1 wins. Again, I don't think those people are still queuing.

[Twin]

1. The mmo community are spoiled rotton kids and adults, this generation wants everything handed to them. Nobody wants to work for gear, rating, or pride. And the moment they face a unmovable object they fold and cry.

 

I can agree with this. There are way too many folks just wanting everything served on a silver platter, and sadly BW does everything in their power to cater towards that attitude.

 

2. A arena isn't about gear or incentive, they are made for team work put together comps. The fact that this generation thinks incentives should be involved proves that these kids are lazy.

 

This might be true for many or even most that doesn't play Arenas. Personally however, i would like incentives to do ranked for 2 reasons:

 

1. I allready do ranked every night, but the honest truth is that i would do it even more if there was something i really wanted that i was working towards. That means probably more players would as well = more pops and better matchmaking.

 

2. The biggest reason is that you're right, many are lazy instant gratification craving kids - and the only way to get them to queue at all is by incentive. Like it or not.

 

But like i said, most of those who actually DO play ranked are probably not the right folks to aim that criticism towards...it's those who don't who are the reason queues are failing.

 

Here also what is funny, I keep seeing these guys wanting 8 vs 8 back, well isn't that another form of organized PVP?

 

Yes, well me personally again - i don't really like Arenas too much. I can enjoy a few every now and then (Well i could with a functional matchmaking system) but in the end of the day i find objective gameplay much more entertaining. Whats so funny with me wanting 8vs8 Ranked Warzones?

[Makavelithug]

You have no rating on all 6 of your toons in your signature.

 

And yet I speak the truth.

 

Its amazing that someone without a rating actually knows what they are talking about.

 

Do you think throwing that (You don't have rating) proves my point about this community?

 

I think it does.

 

Good day.

[cashogy_reborn]

RWZ failed b/c this game stopped pretending to be 'hardcore PvPer' friendly back in January 2012.

 

This is a 'casual' PvP game. There is no competitive scene anymore.

[Twin]

And yet I speak the truth.

 

Its amazing that someone without a rating actually knows what they are talking about.

 

Do you think throwing that (You don't have rating) proves my point about this community?

 

I think it does.

 

Good day.

 

Except the fact that as i pointed out above, you're talking to the wrong crowd. These are the ppl that currently DO play ranked. The ones that doesn't are the problem and the reason why ppl like myself is asking for incentives.

 

Tell me, what would it take to get you to queue then? What if that was the only way to get "That item" you really want?

[DkSharktooth]

Why did arenas and ranked fail so catastrophically?

-laissez faire BW Approach

-No rewards announcement yet. Probably might entice people to que more again once reward levels are released so people can grind for them (if they aren't ugly recolors of the blurg mini pet)

Edited January 12, 2014 by DkSharktooth

[Makavelithug]

Except the fact that as i pointed out above, you're talking to the wrong crowd. These are the ppl that currently DO play ranked. The ones that doesn't are the problem and the reason why ppl like myself is asking for incentives.

 

What incentives do people want besides a rating and pride?

 

Cause atm if you are doing ranked, you gain respect, pride, gear, and learn how to beat different comps.

 

What else could this community WANT so they can do arenas?

 

A fluffy teddy bear?

 

One billion credits?

 

A real life Jawa?

 

Dead serious this crowd of egotistical players are asking for too much, and are not happy what they get.

 

People complain about balance, and premades, and want nerfs and buffs.

 

People also are scared to lose to good players, and don't want that cloud over them.

 

The ego in this community sucks, and everyone in it is greedy.

 

/end thread

Edited January 12, 2014 by Makavelithug

[DkSharktooth]

What incentives do people want besides a rating and pride?

 

Cause atm if you are doing ranked, you gain respect, pride, gear, and learn how to beat different comps.

 

What else could this community WANT so they can do arenas?

 

A fluffy teddy bear?

 

One billion credits?

 

A real life Jawa?

 

Dead serious this crowd of egotistical players are asking for too much, and are not happy what they get.

 

People complain about balance, and premades, and want nerfs and buffs.

 

People also are scared to lose to good players, and don't want that cloud over them.

 

The ego in this community sucks, and everyone in it is greedy.

 

/end thread

With that point of view you must be working with bioware. You are totally ignoring the entitlement generation of gamers that are your customers right now. You don't have to like them, but the customers are always right. If they are telling you what they want in order to stay as customers, and you cannot deliver as a company, you wont be able to keep them for long.

[PloGreen]

RWZ failed b/c this game stopped pretending to be 'hardcore PvPer' friendly back in January 2012.

 

This is a 'casual' PvP game. There is no competitive scene anymore.

 

Bingo.

[Vikassi]

What incentives do people want besides a rating and pride?

 

 

 

A real life Jawa?

 

 

 

/end thread

 

I would play ranked if that was the reward.

[MidichIorian]

respect, pride,

The lack of these two is the main reason to why I'm not overcoming my hate for the gametype and simply get a rating. The pride and respect is pointless in a game with around 100 competitive players. It's like bragging about winning a LAN at your house, silly. The again, if you've never had a top rating in games with a couple of 100K participants in ranked it might mean something to you, to me it doesnt . Edited January 12, 2014 by MidichIorian