How to make group ranked more active

[FerreusSteelTip]

I was sitting, ranting to my girlfriend (who loves me very much to let me talk on endlessly about an MMO) and in the middle of said rant - which was about Mercs in 3.0 - an idea struck me. It's one I've had before, one I've heard people talk about before. But in just generalized scenarios.

This is more specific.

 

The reason why 8v8 ranked was more popular than 4v4, and easier to get going - that is until the numbers declined - was because focus was taken off everyone. More specifically, TANKING.

Let's be honest. The amount of available tanks in general are low. No real surprise. One of the toughest roles to nail, and one that offers little satisfaction OR appreciation.

You can get 500k+ protection, and never get any votes. Always to dps.

but I digress.

Low population of tanks and even lower DECENT tanks means that teams of 4 will be incredibly hard to make up. Because the competitive teams will HAVE tanks.

 

but lets again be honest. A team of 3 dps and a healer can be just as effective, so long as the composition is there with a mix of classes and people know how to kite. Which can be taught and learned.

They just would falter under the strain of not having a guard.

 

So here's what bioware should consider:

 

Now I've been told by players that since mercs/mandos make up only a small fraction of the community, the devs don't care as much about them. I'm not sure I agree with that logic, but I mention it so those that flame me - and there will be those that flame me - already see that their argument against this is invalid. Because if mercs are such a rarity, then tanks may as well be Unicorns.

 

Remove the main benefit of the guard. Change it to this. 5% dmg reduction, and 15% defense chance. Since Bioware is already determined to make everything have a chance at missing.

Sorc for example has an innate 10% defense chance, last I looked. So an added 15% would make it 25.

This way, it all comes down to the rolls. It helps but isn't OP.

YES this dumbs down the game a bit. Guard swaps and the need for tanks in ranked not as dire. BUT this would allow for teams comprised of 3 dps and 1 healer, OR even 4 dps to be competitive WHILE making it ok to bring in a tank as well if you have one. They'll just have to work harder on the peeling.

A more diverse team range will make it so more guilds will be willing to field teams. Sure as hell would make recruiting for a team a helluva lot easier.

 

I dunno about everyone else, but I'm tired of solo ranked. I'd LOVE to do team ranked. Just, even if I gathered up enough for a team. There are so few others that the pops are insanely long.

I'd almost want bioware to remove solo ranked altogether, make ranked ONLY for teams. So that way if people want the rewards, they have to get teams going. Avoid the whole roll of a dice teammate scenario.

 

Hopefully this gets attention. Hopefully bioware sees it, sees the simplicity of it, and MAYBE if they don't take the idea as it is, it'll give them their own ideas about how to fix this.

To be honest. I only stay with the game because I enjoy the PvP. This would draw in so many more people. The guild I ran on LOTRO was 500+ and most came over to SWTOR at launch, but left soon after. If they fixed it so the PvP was a BIG focus, I could draw those people back. And not just them. I know of plenty of other guilds that miss the animations, the combat of SWTOR. Miss their toons. But don't want to invest money or time in it unless it's for a good reason.

A solid ranked division would act as that reason.

 

Because i don't care what any PvEr or RPer says. There are more PvPers out there than anyone. Which you can see by the MULTITUDE of PvP centric games that flood the market each year.

And you can see the passion of PvPers. YES it's us that complains. You see Pvers upset all the time. "It's because the Pvpers complained that now, my spec is different"

as long as PvErs get new areas to explore and monsters to down, they're happy. As long as RPers get new clothes to wear and emotes to do, they're happy.

It's us PvPers that find out where classes lack. It's us that help fine tune the combat. We are competitive, and we are invested. There are no casual PvPers. You're either casual in general, or you're a PvPer. AND WE want ranked to be OUR domain.

Just like Operations are for the PvE bunch, and cantinas are for the RP bunch.

 

Fix our ranked. Make it fun.

[JackNader]

Let's be honest here. The reason PvP ranked failed is because Bioware thinks quantity is worth more than quality. This was made abundantly clear with the snave vs musco stream. The lack of quality is what is driving away all the hardcore players (myself included.) Bioware does not differentiate between casuals and hardcore players. All they see are the numbers. They figured they needed to bolster the declining warzone numbers and the best way to do that was to encourage casuals into queuing up through ****** stronghold rewards and incentives. This approach degraded the quality even further, driving even more hardcore players away. Queues are more or less dead now.

 

The backbone of all MMOs are the elitist / hardcore players. These players form the framework which is necessary for a quality experience for ALL players (casuals included.) Imagine you're queuing up for a group finder raid and every single person in the raid group is a complete scrub. Their isn't a single competent person who is capable of taking charge and coordinating the group. That raid is going nowhere and every single person involved is going to feel pretty frustrated with the experience. It's your hardcore players who coordinate raids. They are the players who form the framework and provide the leeway for casuals to learn and grow.

 

The fastest way to kill an MMO is for developers to troll their hardcore / elitist players. Bioware has been trolling since launch and they still don't seem to realize the fallacy in their approach. Keep on prioritizing quantity over quality and the queue's will continue to decline.

Edited November 21, 2014 by JackNader

[KalElc]

I always said in the past, Tank in GR have the most important job. There is a problem there as its less reward full maybe? a lot of people prefer to dps and if not heal as their role.

 

This is one of the reason i consider sacrifice myself for s4 to Start Tanking for GR as there is almost none decent Tank players out there. i have a vital role especially in hard switch comp need to have train eye for this. only place u can truly practice PvP tank is by doing Group Rank. its another field of Awareness not the same as u playing dps or Healer.

 

Also consider in the past why don't when have our own Skirmish queue for Team Rank so people can queue and practice without concern of getting crushed and Drops of rating. These are people's concern a lot want to queue but they are afraid or not motivated to go and queue to get wrecked by top teams just to play to have fun or to improve.

 

But i guess implementing something like Skirmish Group Rank arena will consider a bit resource heavy and not in the priory i think but would love to see in the future

[HaLeX]

Remove any visible rating loss below 1200 for group rated. This way those who wish to participate but don't have their perfect team on can jump on alts, take in ranked noobs like me and have some fun. Sounds like a minor thing but its not. You need teams to que and right now there really aren't anyt, or if there are you already know if its a w or l before the match starts and who you'll be matched against. Then you can worry about heals or tanks. Edited November 21, 2014 by HaLeX

[alexsamma]

Pvp tanking is one of the few things that separates SWTOR pvp from any other MMO, removing the usefulness of tanks (no one is going to bring a rng dependent tank...) would be a horrible move at this point, although I do understand your point.

 

Frankly, if BW wants competitive pvp to be a "thing" in this game they need to get off their asses and implement cross server pvp, promote group ranked with better rewards/titles/etc, and then find a way to double/triple their current population (might also want to improve the engine, no one likes to lose a match because their tank leaps and ends up falling through the floor...).

[madtycoon]

I agree that guard and tanks make it a lot harder to form teams. Like the above poster said, one of the only bright spots about this mmo is that they made tanking pvp viable with its own unique role. Unfortunately guard and how it affects damage and healing in scenarios where people don't have a tank real hurts the vast majority of pvp.

 

No way this would ever happen, but I think ranked arenas should be lowered to 3v3. Tanks, healers and dps should be balanced around four different comps being viable. Triple dps, healer/dps/tank, double dps/tank and double dps/healer. Unfortunately this would take a lot of balancing and isn't really practical. But just think if the game was set-up like this. How much better not only group ranked would be, because you could almost queue anything, but also solo ranked. I think one of the biggest issues people have with solo ranked is that one player doesn't have much control over a fight that involves seven others.

 

Of course guard and tanks would have to be completely revamped. Giving guard an rng stat like defense wouldn't be a good idea. I get how that's part of what the developers are all about, but I think anyone who wants to have control over the outcome of a match would rather have as little rng out there as possible.

[JackNader]

Meh. If they change guard at all it should be to an aura effect. Say anyone near you gains a 10 - 20% DR bonus. (Yes, I hate guard swapping.) Tank taunts should be buffed to 50%.

[Foambreaker]

No, ranked is dead because of rewards.

 

It used to be in order to get ranked gear you needed a rating, now anyone can get the gear.

 

The end of season rewards are useless because they don't announce them until too late and don't advertise them in game.

 

Go to /2 and ask who is working on the walker with flames, half the people won't even know what it is.

 

If they put SM drops in NIM ops how long would people run NIM?

 

/common sense

Edited November 21, 2014 by Foambreaker

[Vodrin]

No, ranked is dead because of rewards.

 

It used to be in order to get ranked gear you needed a rating, now anyone can get the gear.

 

The end of season rewards are useless because they don't announce them until too late and don't advertise them in game.

 

Go to /2 and ask who is working on the walker with flames, half the people won't even know what it is.

 

If they put SM drops in NIM ops how long would people run NIM?

 

/common sense

 

Not really. The only people rewards bring in to ranked are casual, undergeared, and PvE centric players that worsen the experience for all the players who truly enjoy ranked. Rewards are not the issue.

[L-RANDLE]

Reasons why group ranked is bad has zero to do with rewards, or lack of tanks, etc etc...

 

It's two fundamental issues

1. Human Nature. Good team dominates and some players/team get their feelings hurt and stop queuing because they are being "farmed".

 

2. There are too many cookie cutter specs/comps, and the lack of OBJECTIVE BASED RANKED is such that the remaining teams get board with it, and superque regs/Yolo.

 

 

Solution: get a real performance metric to try to balance matches, otherwise handicap the match, add objective based back, have two ques (ranked and Regs/lowbie), implement cross faction.

[DomiSotto]

There is no incentive to play it for an average player, and without it, you won't get the numbers, and you won't get the players that will raise over the average to lead the average.

 

I don't think you can make people play what they don't want to play by marginalizing the role that is perfectly enjoyable in the unranked setting where most players get their PvP jollies without the pressures and toxicity of the ranked. You make people play by making it fun.

 

BioWARE made an attempt to attract more players into ranked by offering an enticing participatory reward for S3. Did the ranked community welcome it?

 

Are there active PvP guilds on the look out for potential players routinely? Advertising like the big PvE guilds for ranked progression?

 

Are there posts on this forum that talk about how fantastic the ranked PvP experience is and how much fun it would be to try the ranked PvP?

 

Are there training matches? Are there teams organized to simply learn with no regards to the rating? Is there an active pre-season community, having non-faction dependent matches allowing a willing newb to figure stuff out without imposing on the invested player's ratings and find partners to play with?

 

Well, are there?

[AFTOHSIX]

You all bring up some very good points but I'd like to add an additional perspective.

 

I'm a player who has recently taken a more active interest in getting a team together in my guild for Ranked PVP. We've spent time getting ourselves into full Obroan, we've got myself tanking, 2 DPS and a healer.

 

Tonight we were finally ready and we queued up. Our very first match we got beat fair and square 2-0 (but it wasn't a trouncing, they had to work for it.)

 

At the end of the match what do we see in /say? "Win trading ******* (bundle of sticks)."

 

Two of my players didn't want to play after that, opting to do unranked instead. We're a group of four that wants to get better but:

 

#1 - queues pop so infrequently it's hard to get practice in a ranked setting in

 

#2 - the community is toxic and elitist as hell. You guys refuse to take any responsibility in the bad state of PVP in this game, choosing to put all the blame on Bioware. Do you ever stop and ask just how many players people like my potty mouthed friend from my match tonight chase away? The serious PVP players in this game don't do enough to police the bad apples in their own guilds or the ones they see in Regs. If that sort of BS talk was made known to be in bad form and unacceptable PVP may be a more welcoming place for many newer players.

 

For what it's worth I've got to find a new DPS and a new healer now because (they righfully think I may add) they want to enjoy their limited playtime without having to get slurred at because they're not as good as somebody who has done nothing but PVP in a PVP guild since the launch of this game.

Edited November 22, 2014 by AFTOHSIX

[Lanzend]

the trash talk can be a little heavy in the pvp community. while it would be better for it not to exist, it's not going away. My best suggestion is if somebody doesn't have thick skin for that kind of thing, have them disable gen chat and /say for PvP.

[DomiSotto]

And then you wonder why there are not enough people in your sandbox. Seriously, it's that hard to say nothing at all or "better luck next time?" What are you guys gaining by discouraging participation?

[L-RANDLE]

You all bring up some very good points but I'd like to add an additional perspective.

 

I'm a player who has recently taken a more active interest in getting a team together in my guild for Ranked PVP. We've spent time getting ourselves into full Obroan, we've got myself tanking, 2 DPS and a healer.

 

Tonight we were finally ready and we queued up. Our very first match we got beat fair and square 2-0 (but it wasn't a trouncing, they had to work for it.)

 

At the end of the match what do we see in /say? "Win trading ******* (bundle of sticks)."

 

Two of my players didn't want to play after that, opting to do unranked instead. We're a group of four that wants to get better but:

 

#1 - queues pop so infrequently it's hard to get practice in a ranked setting in

 

#2 - the community is toxic and elitist as hell. You guys refuse to take any responsibility in the bad state of PVP in this game, choosing to put all the blame on Bioware. Do you ever stop and ask just how many players people like my potty mouthed friend from my match tonight chase away? The serious PVP players in this game don't do enough to police the bad apples in their own guilds or the ones they see in Regs. If that sort of BS talk was made known to be in bad form and unacceptable PVP may be a more welcoming place for many newer players.

 

For what it's worth I've got to find a new DPS and a new healer now because (they righfully think I may add) they want to enjoy their limited playtime without having to get slurred at because they're not as good as somebody who has done nothing but PVP in a PVP guild since the launch of this game.

 

Your example is why you CAN'T necessarily blame players. The PvP environment is a direct result of BW not heeding the warnings from the community, and allowing such things to take place. There is one big bad Apple. Its the devs, who have refused to give little transparency, lolz ideas like removing content, and "forcing" players to attempt to manually balance an awful system. People are a part of their environment, so it's not surprising that the "toxic" is abundant because the foundation of PvP is broken, and their lack of insight, creativity, and resources, has led us astray...

[SeanFM]

Your example is why you CAN'T necessarily blame players. The PvP environment is a direct result of BW not heeding the warnings from the community, and allowing such things to take place. There is one big bad Apple. Its the devs, who have refused to give little transparency, lolz ideas like removing content, and "forcing" players to attempt to manually balance an awful system. People are a part of their environment, so it's not surprising that the "toxic" is abundant because the foundation of PvP is broken, and their lack of insight, creativity, and resources, has led us astray...

Whilst I really agree with you, that doesn't give people the excuse to act like d***s. If you want to play ranked and you want to have people to play against, encourage new teams. Don't put them off. What you say to the other team at the end of a game is 100% your responsibility, not the devs'.

[vennian]

Your example is why you CAN'T necessarily blame players.

 

 

Yes you can. Some people are just *****. This is not Biowares doing. There was NO reason for that /say

Edited November 22, 2014 by vennian

[L-RANDLE]

Yes you can. Some people are just *****. This is not Biowares doing. There was NO reason for that /say

 

Sorry, but you run across ***** everywhere, that fact is that IF BW actually had a decent foundation your encounters with such players would be few and far between. Also don't you think players being pissed about "win trading" has more to do with the players or BW having a ****ed up system?

 

Again a ton of PvP angst is due to the actions or inactions from BW.

Edited November 22, 2014 by L-RANDLE

[HaLeX]

Sorry, but you run across ***** everywhere, that fact is that IF BW actually had a decent foundation your encounters with such players would be few and far between. Also don't you think players being pissed about "win trading" has more to do with the players or BW having a ****ed up system?

 

Again a ton of PvP angst is due to the actions or inactions from BW.

 

Pissed about win trading? Lmao. I can understand getting pissed about it if you lost rating becauae of it. However, those who think win trading is a big issue are upset because other people who he doesn't even know are getting digital rewards in a game where the system is completely broken. Those people need to seriously get a life. In real life you never worry about what others have, when it extends into a fantasy game your either a huge loser or you have mental problems.

[DerTaran]

#2 - the community is toxic and elitist as hell.

This, combined with the fact, that only a third of the classes are viable in ranked.

 

As long as ELO isn't working due to population issues, we need a bracket system like other PVP games to separate the elite from the average. Then Bioware can continue to encourage noobs and casuals to play ranked (e.g. Let loosing count for dailies/weeklies), rewards, bolster, housing, ftp, low level ...

 

Yes the bronze level will be the hell (like in other PVP games) but the elite can play against each other without a spoiled experience and the noobs/casuals/nonefotm players can practice till hey qualify for the next bracket.

 

And, you can even remove arenas (requested anyway by a lot of people) from the regular queue, because people can practice in ranked. And BW might even be able to unify group and single queues as well, the brackets will solve the quality differences.

Edited November 23, 2014 by DerTaran

[Alyssis]

Thread:

How to make group ranked more active

 

Answer:

Remove solo queue...

[Divona]

After doing some solo ranked pvp (i'm not active pvp'er since 1.2 i think) i pretty much saw why people dont like it. Various reasons actually. But main thing is that there are those who are hardcore pvp'rs and then starters who dont have good gear or idea how to play 4 vs 4.

Soon enough only those hardcore players will stay in queues and pops will diminish. Ranking matchup is borked and cant fix it unless a lot more people start playing ranked. Most people will never queue grouped matches.

Edited November 23, 2014 by Divona

[TonyDragonflame]

Only Huttball ranked league can save pvp in this game:rolleyes:

[vennian]

Again a ton of PvP angst is due to the actions or inactions from BW.

 

Misdisplacing guilt is not gonna alter the fact that player behaviour is caused by players. Some players are just *****, end of story. And those players makes other players not want to do ranked. OP have a point.

[DomiSotto]

Three years into the game, we have a divide so wide between those who had been there from the start and those who are just beginning that without training grounds ranking is a hopeless proposition for a new player.

 

I played my dailies each day, every day on a character to level 42, and you know how many arenas I got on him? Less than 10, for sure. At a normal levelling speed, I would get another less than 10 arenas. I think I might have seen all the maps. Maybe not.

 

In L55 bracket with another character, I've gotten even less arenas because the population is higher, so 8x8 do prevail because arenas are not pushed to forefront in the normal rotation. Providing the vagaries of everything, with all my 'advanced' experience through earnest, honest, happy PvP in unranked with now every character I have in my possession while levelling, I can honestly tell you one thing:

 

I have NO clue how to play arenas.

 

If competition format is arenas, we gotta have a chance to play a lot of arenas and figure things out without being harassed and aggravating others, with a full skill set in our possession and not in a 'once in a while' way.

 

I don't even have a chance to see the matches, since I can't queue as a spectator.

 

I dunno, maybe the top bracket of the unranked should become arenas only or something. Yeah, I know, everyone loves the 8x8 (yes, I do too!) but if Arenas is the competitive format there has to be a way to prep in a non-punishing, non-toxic environment.

 

I am sure there many ways in which a training system can be abused, and maybe people's pride is not going make it popular... who knows. It is hard to predict the consequences.

Edited November 23, 2014 by DomiSotto