Saving PvP: Implement Mega or X Server. Get rid of Solo Q Ranked.

[revcrisis]

• Remove Solo Ranked from the game, or have Team Ranked be allowed to match up against Solo Q players. The second option is less desirable because the solo Q players will almost certainly lose, but that is their choice, just like it is in regular warzones.
  
• Cross server or Mega server needs to be the next big thing that get's implemented. It needs to happen to foster proper competition and to determine the true best players. It will also remove things like queue syncing and win trading from the game.
  

I have a lot of respect for you Aluvien, but you're wrong here. When the Elo system works, Solo Ranked is a LOT of fun. There were times in Seasons 1~3 where the Elo system was fully functioning because enough high rated players were queueing up. We had Solo matches where all 8 of us in the Arena were rated 1700+. These matches are fun. Period. There's no weak link, there's no crappy player getting globaled, no keyboard turners or clickers, no backpedalers. Everyone carries their own weight and the team that strategizes better or focuses better wins. I've lost my share of these and won my share of these and I can say they were all fun, competitive matches. I don't rage in these matches because they were fun. I tell others, that was a great game, let's Q again. Solo ranked also becomes infinitely more fun when Tanks and Healers are in Q. I've had absolutely amazing Solo Ranked games where it's a Tank, Healer, 2 DPS matches.

 

HOWEVER, when the Elo system does not work due to population size and not enough people in Q, it matches low rated players onto your team. You could be rated 2,000, and the system will put someone that's 900 on your team. You don't want that guy on your team, but he is, because of the dwindling ranked population. This is where my frustration and negative solo ranked experiences stem from. The 900 rated player gets instantly globaled because he's 39k and wearing Rishi blues. You are now effectively playing a 3v4 with no chance of winning. This is when I rage because these could be competitive matches but instead become one-sided blowouts.

 

I'm with you on group ranked. I love it - it's the highest competition the game can offer. Unfortunately this is another case of elo not working due to population. Group ranked has a very negative image in the community right now because there is always 1 or 2 teams that are a cut above the rest. Average and even above average teams stop Qing when the best are in Q. Because no one likes to get farmed. Perhaps if there are megaservers, the Elo system will work better and match the best teams in Q together on a consistent basis. Unfortunately the damage is already done and many new players and teams are discouraged because it's a damn massacre when they face the good teams. A few weeks ago a new team was super excited to try out group ranked. They wanted to make a run at the Nexu mount and asked us to Q. Round 1 ended in 10 seconds flat where our initial burst killed all 4 instantly. Round 2, one of our DPS sat out, and it still ended in 45 seconds. They didn't Q again that night and they haven't formed up since. It's experiences like these which make group ranked fail. It's the same reason casuals leave warzones. Everyone wants to be carried, no one likes losing.

 

Tl;dr: Many high rated players enjoy Solo Q when their main team isn't on to Q 4s. If my tank or healer can't make it that night, we might not Q up. In this case, I do want to try Solo Q and have fun. But as you said, Megaservers need to happen so proper matchmaking can occur and make my Solo Q experiences positive. Megaservers need to occur so average teams don't get massacred in group ranked and never Q again.

Edited June 5, 2015 by revcrisis

[Aluvi]

I have a lot of respect for you Aluvien, but you're wrong here. When the Elo system works, Solo Ranked is a LOT of fun. There were times in Seasons 1~3 where the Elo system was fully functioning because enough high rated players were queueing up. We had Solo matches where all 8 of us in the Arena were rated 1700+. These matches are fun. Period. There's no weak link, there's no crappy player getting globaled, no keyboard turners or clickers, no backpedalers. Everyone carries their own weight and the team that strategizes better or focuses better wins. I've lost my share of these and won my share of these and I can say they were all fun, competitive matches. I don't rage in these matches because they were fun. I tell others, that was a great game, let's Q again. Solo ranked also becomes infinitely more fun when Tanks and Healers are in Q. I've had absolutely amazing Solo Ranked games where it's a Tank, Healer, 2 DPS matches.

 

HOWEVER, when the Elo system does not work due to population size and not enough people in Q, it matches low rated players onto your team. You could be rated 2,000, and the system will put someone that's 900 on your team. You don't want that guy on your team, but he is, because of the dwindling ranked population. This is where my frustration and negative solo ranked experiences stem from. The 900 rated player gets instantly globaled because he's 39k and wearing Rishi blues. You are now effectively playing a 3v4 with no chance of winning. This is when I rage because these could be competitive matches but instead become one-sided blowouts.

 

I'm with you on group ranked. I love it - it's the highest competition the game can offer. Unfortunately this is another case of elo not working due to population. Group ranked has a very negative image in the community right now because there is always 1 or 2 teams that are a cut above the rest. Average and even above average teams stop Qing when the best are in Q. Because no one likes to get farmed. Perhaps if there are megaservers, the Elo system will work better and match the best teams in Q together on a consistent basis. Unfortunately the damage is already done and many new players and teams are discouraged because it's a damn massacre when they face the best of the best.

 

Tl;dr: Many high rated players enjoy Solo Q when their main team isn't on to Q 4s. If my tank or healer can't make it that night, we might not Q up. In this case, I do want to try Solo Q and have fun. But as you said, Megaservers need to happen so proper matchmaking can occur and make my Solo Q experiences positive.

 

Solo ranked IS a lot of fun, still even - as long as you play Sorc, PT, or Sin. Any other class? Well.. better hope the rest of your team is Sorc, PT, and Sins. And yet, I only feel that they are overpowered in a match that doesn't have tanks and heals in it. Why? Self healing, superior dps, ease of play, and better defensive cooldowns. Those are those classes strengths. They do have weaknesses, but those weaknesses are very hard to exploit in a 4 dps vs 4 dps scenario. PT is a good example. They don't have a "hard damage stop", like marauders (undying rage), Sorcs (barrier), Juggs (heal2full), and other classes do. Yet, they make up for it by having crazy burst damage and being able to stay alive long enough to dish out as much as they take. This is due to their cooldowns being healing and damage reduction based. Those cooldowns are less effective against a trinity team, where healing and guard are present. Versus a trinity team, hard damage stops become MUCH more attractive.

 

But, we're getting into meta game issues here, and I feel that it is beyond the limits of most players game knowledge, and a bit beyond the scope of this thread. I think you bring up some good points though, I certainly can see where you're coming from, but I respectfully disagree.

 

Honestly... they could just get rid of arenas all together and I wouldn't be sad about it, but we all know that current population can't support 8v8 ranked, and even when it did, a few teams rose to the top and everyone else quit. Those teams need to be the minority, not the majority, for 8v8 to actually work. Again, going off on a tangent here.

[iamnotshrek]

this is silly. soloQ has its place. it's broken atm but could easily be fixed simply by enforcing the trinity system around which all class balancing outside of soloQ is (predominately) based.

 

it's not going to be fixed because, as sithbracer pointed out, BW cares more about number of matches than quality. but that's also why Aluvi's proposed solution will never happen, because the total number of players willing to participate in grp ranked, even if it's the only option, will always be considerably smaller than those willing to play solo ranked.

 

and quite frankly, while there's definitely some overlap, the "casuals" to whom Aluvi refers to in his first post and blames and insults (but then apparently retracted) would never participate in grp ranked anyway. the proof of this is the failure of 8v8 ranked. casuals played that for LESS THAN A MONTH. they got farmed. they got destroyed. they stopped Qing. their participation in solo rather than grp ranked has had and will have NO EFFECT ON THE SUCCESS OR FAILURE OF GROUP RANKED.

 

8v8 ranked didn't fail because casuals got farmed and stopped queueing. It failed because up to and throughout the mode's existence, Bioware managed to alienate the game's PvPers at every possible opportunity. If Bioware delivered on even half of the PvP related promises they made at the guild summit (cross server ranked, solo queue 8v8 ranked, 24/7 pvp tournaments , guild vs guild challenges, ilum overhaul, rewards for open world pvp, etc.) then there would have been more than enough players and teams to have a sustainable skill based matchmaking system that would have kept casuals queueing. Instead, we got the year long preseason with recycled PvE rewards and the "figure out what bolstered pve gear is bis this patch" minigame.

 

Besides that, I pretty much agree with you. Even with megaservers, I doubt that removing solo ranked would do much to improve 4's. If anything, it would probably just piss off much of whats left of the community. Its completely broken in its current iteration, but I'd say that in general, things are looking up. The changes being made in season 6 can only help, as would the introduction of either megaservers, which I highly suspect that they are actively working on. Hopefully, Bioware will continue to pay attention to PvP, and with any luck, Season 6 and beyond may very well be not terrible!

Edited June 5, 2015 by iamnotshrek

[Kakisback]

I would be happy if they removed yolo "ranked", but they never will. They know they'd get bashed for removing content again. And like someone else said, their metric for ranked success is number of participants, not quality of competition -_-. It's more practical to push for different rewards for solo and group (idga-flying-f about rewards but recognize that many people do).

[foxmob]

8v8 ranked didn't fail because casuals got farmed and stopped queueing.

 

yes it did. the second ranked became available, every guild on my server (which was considerably large then -- Canderous Ordo) put a team together. that lasted less than two weeks. two weeks is not enough time for all of the shortcomings that you rightfully reference. but it is proof enough of what I said: people got crushed. . things stratified very quickly, and only the handful of teams (at best!) who were capable of fielding competitive teams kept in the queue.

 

I could count them from CO on one hand:

• LD50
  
• Infidels
  
• Bloodline
  
• Watchmen (with pugs)
  
• random pugs who never won except against other pugs
  
• in-house ranked (or win trading)
  

 

that was the situation by week three when the population was relatively healthy.

 

solo Q isn't a matter of "please carry me." it's a matter of "I don't have to face the same team that's guaranteed to wreck my face. so why bother Qing?" I'm cool with aluvian being the best mara in the game. I don't need him to prove it at my expense every pop.

[DarthMaulUK]

There's simply not enough players left to justify the cost of X-server. Look at all the 'light' servers currently. That gives you an idea of how bad things are. Its time to move everyone on to one server for US and one for EU.

 

PvP died after 'no' gate and these inbound changes wont do a thing to save it. If all you do is PvP, you probably will be F2P and are limited to a handful of warzones a week, which is where the real issue is. Paying a sub if all you do is PvP is pure madness considering just how many content PvP has seen in 12 months.ZERO

Edited June 5, 2015 by DarthMaulUK

[Jadescythe]

There's simply not enough players left to justify the cost of X-server. Look at all the 'light' servers currently. That gives you an idea of how bad things are. Its time to move everyone on to one server for US and one for EU.

 

PvP died after 'no' gate and these inbound changes wont do a thing to save it. If all you do is PvP, you probably will be F2P and are limited to a handful of warzones a week, which is where the real issue is. Paying a sub if all you do is PvP is pure madness considering just how many content PvP has seen in 12 months.ZERO

 

If you think PvP died after "no" gate, you think it lasted a year longer than it really did. Unless you're referring to casual PvP, which still isn't dead.

[DarthOvertone]

Every class can do well with a specific comp in team ranked. Almost every spec as well. The problem is that this game was never intended to be balanced around Solo Ranked PvP, yet because of casual players that don't want to take the time to make friends, put together comps, and actually play a MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER game with other people - they'd rather just hit solo Q, we end up with an end game pvp mode that can never be balanced.

 

This assessment is spot on. Yolo balance is whacked due to the trinity comp dynamic in this game and the fact that most Yolo matches are DpsvDps.

 

However, Group Ranked 4s is not the easy answer to the problem and I think you understate the effort required to make Team Ranked even happen. I spent almost the entirety of the four Ranked seasons trying to assemble a group of four for matches and it was nearly impossible to not only do so, but to hold that team together in the face of adversity.

 

First you have to find four peeps that have a desire to do Team Ranked. In this casual PvP game, that is no easy task. After you find some like-minded individuals, you then have to fill the roles required with toons that are properly geared (and nobody is EVER fully geared, like ever) and somewhat competent. And when I say "properly geared," I just mean min/max tier two gear like Exhumed. You would be surprised at how many peeps don't even have that much accomplished on their toons. If you manage to get that far, you can actually play a match. So at the outset, in even the best of cases, you enter a match somewhat undergeared, with only a minimum of tactical know how, and without having developed any team chemistry whatsoever.

 

Finding an opponent to play is then the next fun challenge. You can usually stir up something, but it can take hours, and sometimes days, to setup a match. I was always able to find an opponent for my team matches, but of course, the opponent was always one of the best teams on the server or comprised of Group Ranked veterans. So at the start, you usually aren't playing a team equal to your caliber and you end up losing almost every match. Two or three consecutive losses are more than enough to blow up most teams that I put together. After two or three losses, one person will usually drop off, maybe two, and you will likely never speak to them again or even see them login.

 

Because there is no real matchmaking in Group Ranked, as no teams queue, the cycle above is near endless. Assemble a team of somewhat geared, semi-competent peeps with an interest to run Ranked. Get summarily beaten. One or two players bail after a couple losses and the team you strived to put together never queues again.

 

Now I'm totally down for taking my lumps to learn and get better, but a lot of players simply aren't even when they express a desire to play Group Ranked. In Season One, my toons had a losing Group Ranked record. In Season Two, my toons broke even. Season Three my toons had a losing record. It wasn't until Season Four that my toons actually ended up with a winning record. So that was essentially three seasons of consternation and losses, to finally sort of punch through in a positive way in the fourth. Sorry, but most players aren't going to have that type commitment to making things happen.

 

s. Queue syncing and win trading are both very real. In fact, most (but not all) of the top 10 players are win traders. Will they be punished? Maybe. But while it is a crappy thing that they do, the blame rests with BioWare for not preventing it by simply implementing cross server or mega server.

 

Cross-Server is never coming. Mega-Server would only be a temporary fix, since once the pecking order for who the top teams are is established, the lesser teams will stop queuing just like they did in the past. Cross-Faction queuing would be a better solution for combating Q-Syncing. Busy Qs are the only way to stop win trading.

 

There will be a lot of casuals here that will strongly disagree with me, because they just want a system where they can hit "solo q", face mash their keyboard, and claim their pitiful "rewards" at the end of the season. The real players want to play against the best of the best and win glory for themselves and their team.

 

All that's left PvPing in this game are casuals and Star Wars fans. That's who Bee-Dubya targeted, and that's the audience they have. I used to play this game 3-4 hours every night. Because of the neglect to PvP in this game I now login maybe 2-3 times a week for an hour or two late at night after doing my real PvP in BF4. The "real" PvPers already bailed on this game long ago or player other, better PvP games. The casual audience that disagrees with you is all you have left.

 

Removing Yolo from this game is a bad idea. It's the most successful Ranked format, whether you like it or not. With the new changes in 3.3, I actually think the competitive nature of Yolos will improve. While it is true that Yolo is mainly a three class show at this time, that could change quickly after any new balancing sweep. Players just need to accept the situation for what it is, and if they are having problems or are unhappy with the balancing, roll a FotM class to compete. Bee-Dubya has made it stupid easy to level toons now, and gearing in 3.3 will be just as easy.

 

Casual PvP is casual.

Edited June 5, 2015 by DarthOvertone

[kissingaiur]

I think your post revolves around the assumption that everyone in this game is completely into Team Ranked. Also that if you removed solo everyone will just magically do team ranked. Would be nice if this was the case but it isn't. I will estimate probably 50%+ loss of players from ranked in general if this happened which isn't a lot of players to begin with.

 

I don't like defend solo ranked because it has many flaws but like a lot of SWTOR content it has its niche.

 

The only people who play group ranked in this game is high end pvpers which is a handful of players. No one else really fits into this pool because of how cutthroat it is. Solo ranked is always going to be more successful because it allows players no matter their schedule to hop in and play a few matches with no strings attached. Team ranked requires a lot more thinking, strategy, motivation, team work and drive to be remotely successful which is why majority of players pick solo over teams. Solo caters to more of the PvP community than Team ranked; don't fix it till it's broken.

Edited June 5, 2015 by kissingaiur

[DomiSotto]

Populating the queue will helps solo to mitigate ELO loss more than it will help the teams, because the ELO is calculated on the individual basis not for a permanent group comp. That’s unless you suggest people lock in their teams for the season with a room for 2 or so substitutes/trades and earn a true team ELO.

 

The more people are randomly available to build random teams, i.e. x-server and x-faction both turned on, the better matched comps will become both within and against the opposing team.

 

If a low rated player (LRP), group up with the high rated players (HRP), the rating loss will be higher than when an LRP groups up only with the LRPs. So, in a populated solo queue, ELO loss adjustments will work, in the group where you can force a comp with rating disparity, it won’t unless all team-mates are sporting similar rating.

 

I also have a feeling that the truly competitive groups and guilds won’t be picking classes and/or players that need a lot of support to thrive. By now, everyone of talent knows pretty much everyone else of talent.

 

Without the solo queue, a talented new entry (let alone an average one!) will have no venue to show that rare ability to win and, as a consequence, find a group.

 

You want support in a solo queue as a DPS? Cultivate tanks and healers, instead of telling them not to queue again when one does queue in and you lose an arena.

 

One can’t go and make assumptions about the rest of the player base, except that everyone wants to win games, but 90% won’t, no matter the format. If one can’t accept that you are likelier to be in 90% than in 10% than you need to finally discover that “everyone can be anything if they only try hard enough” is not entirely true. Drive and resilience are great qualities, but an outstanding success always requires talent/genius as well.

 

I really hope that the changes BioWARE proposed will bring more LRPs into the queue, so the HRPs who queue the most won’t end up mixed and matched with the LRPs in the same groups. It does nobody any good. HRPs get angry, LRPs get burned for daring to try.

[Zoom_VI]

That was my point exactly. If you remove Solo Q as an option, players will go to 4s. In 4s, a lot more classes and comps become viable.

 

No they will go to regs because group ranked is too hard.

 

Effort too stronk.

[Zoom_VI]

yes it did. the second ranked became available, every guild on my server (which was considerably large then -- Canderous Ordo) put a team together. that lasted less than two weeks. two weeks is not enough time for all of the shortcomings that you rightfully reference. but it is proof enough of what I said: people got crushed. . things stratified very quickly, and only the handful of teams (at best!) who were capable of fielding competitive teams kept in the queue.

 

I could count them from CO on one hand:

• LD50
  
• Infidels
  
• Bloodline
  
• Watchmen (with pugs)
  
• random pugs who never won except against other pugs
  
• in-house ranked (or win trading)
  

 

that was the situation by week three when the population was relatively healthy.

 

solo Q isn't a matter of "please carry me." it's a matter of "I don't have to face the same team that's guaranteed to wreck my face. so why bother Qing?" I'm cool with aluvian being the best mara in the game. I don't need him to prove it at my expense every pop.

 

This needs to be bumped. The sheer thickness of the rose-colored glasses that people use when looking at 8v8 ranked is staggering.

[Lafay]

[*]Cross server or Mega server needs to be the next big thing that get's implemented. It needs to happen to foster proper competition and to determine the true best players. It will also remove things like queue syncing and win trading from the game.

 

[iamnotshrek]

yes it did. the second ranked became available, every guild on my server (which was considerably large then -- Canderous Ordo) put a team together. that lasted less than two weeks. two weeks is not enough time for all of the shortcomings that you rightfully reference. but it is proof enough of what I said: people got crushed. . things stratified very quickly, and only the handful of teams (at best!) who were capable of fielding competitive teams kept in the queue.

 

I could count them from CO on one hand:

• LD50
  
• Infidels
  
• Bloodline
  
• Watchmen (with pugs)
  
• random pugs who never won except against other pugs
  
• in-house ranked (or win trading)
  

 

that was the situation by week three when the population was relatively healthy.

 

solo Q isn't a matter of "please carry me." it's a matter of "I don't have to face the same team that's guaranteed to wreck my face. so why bother Qing?" I'm cool with aluvian being the best mara in the game. I don't need him to prove it at my expense every pop.

 

I dont disagree with you that casuals not wanting to get rolled was a major factor in people not wanting to do ranked, and maybe im taking this wrong, but I get the feeling that you view the scenario that occurred was unavoidable no matter what, and I just don't think is the case. If the entire player pool was able to play against eachother on the day 1.3 came out, ratings would have settled out in the first few days, and teams would be playing against relatively equal competition.

 

Maybe I'm crazy, but I feel that if cross/megaservers are put in place, and Bioware is serious about continuing to make improvements to PvP, that there's still a window of opportunity for ranked pvp, both solo and 4s, to be successful.

[Lalainnia]

Pts is up let the actual QQ begin

[L-RANDLE]

I've said it many times. From the perspective of increasing participation, you have to have one pool for ranked (and regs for that matter) to implement a system where it doesn't matter what class you play, or what the group composition is..

 

Sounds difficult?

 

Not really. This current system is fully capable of making assumptions based on those things already. The answer is handicapped matches. It works two fold, it keeps casuals engaged and not discouraged. It keeps the queue loaded for the leet to separate themselves from the pack.

 

The only real problem is BW doesn't do meaningful things to make PvP enjoyable for everyone.

Edited June 5, 2015 by L-RANDLE

[L-RANDLE]

I'll also give an example.

 

"The premade problem".

 

If you que with a premade, and happen to get a full PuG as an opponent, the match scoring(end match ratings), should automatically give the premade a lower handicap to perform to. If the premade don't meet it(i.e. the PuG is competent and performs well), the system should decrease their rating accordingly.

 

The only issue is determining what goes into the handicapping, but valor(experience indicator), HPS/DPS/Mitigation(performance indicators), composition(balance indicator), and how you que are already compiled. You can go deep into how you want to approach those indicators, but this system will ensure that every player handicap number is a much better indicator or "skill".

[foxmob]

I dont disagree with you that casuals not wanting to get rolled

 

it's far deeper than that. infidels was an "all-star" guild of imps that culled the best players from all the decent imp guild (thus KILLING every other imp guild's ability to field a team). they did this ostensibly in order to challenge the dominant pub guild (LD50). they eventually defeated LD50 (once or twice, iunno the whole story) and quit that same week. So Infidels broke up. half of them left the game completely, and the majority of those that remained...rerolled pub and ended up on the LD50 roster. do you see what inevitably happens? it's impossible to maintain a middle or even "good" ground. the good players will constantly be culled from the good guilds into the elite guilds. thus the good teams will continually get rolled and become farm teams for the elite in every sense of the term: getting farmed for rating and becoming the developers of talent that will be stolen from them.

 

furthermore, now that we have 4s, those giant dominant guilds...who have the population and the talent to field FIVE teams all on their own...won't field more than one team if the specific 4 players aren't available to queue. W-T-F?

[DomiSotto]

The only real problem is BW doesn't do meaningful things to make PvP enjoyable for everyone.

 

I find that the PvP is perfectly enjoyable, win or lose. It's what people let themselves express when losing (and sometimes even when winning!) that I do not, tbh.

[AlrikFassbauer]

it's impossible to maintain a middle or even "good" ground.

the good players will constantly be culled from the good guilds into the elite guilds. thus the good teams will continually get rolled and become farm teams for the elite in every sense of the term: getting farmed for rating and becoming the developers of talent that will be stolen from them.

 

Interestingly, the *exact same* is happening - or has already happened - in U.S. economy ... Patterns repeat themselves ...

 

U.S. economy - as far as I know - entirely consists of

 

- mega-companies (monopolies to oligarchies)

- tiny to little companies (lots of creativity at the ground - only to be bought up by the bigger companies, like what EA did with so many game developers)

 

but nothing between both.

 

And that's why Intel, Microsoft, EA, Goldman Sachs and so many other huge companies are getting so much bigger and bigger and steamroll everything else.

Edited June 6, 2015 by AlrikFassbauer

[t-darko]

I've said it many times. From the perspective of increasing participation, you have to have one pool for ranked (and regs for that matter) to implement a system where it doesn't matter what class you play, or what the group composition is..

 

Sounds difficult?

 

Not really. This current system is fully capable of making assumptions based on those things already. The answer is handicapped matches. It works two fold, it keeps casuals engaged and not discouraged. It keeps the queue loaded for the leet to separate themselves from the pack.

 

The only real problem is BW doesn't do meaningful things to make PvP enjoyable for everyone.

 

I don't know, pvp is competitive gaming to it's point, I'm not sure a handicap system would do any good. Competitiveness ranks the participants, by rule and definition, and it's only one spot in the top of the pyramid. The real challenge is to motivate the masses to continue and to get those good enough not to roll over the masses, but rather compete with those in their own level of gameplay . . .

 

Valor rank measures some degree of experience, maybe there's a way to make that rank count so that we're only teamed up with people at the same level of experience . . .just a sudden thought while writing . . .

 

EDIT: almost forgot this in regard to OPs inquiry on Mega servers and Cross servers the issue is dealt with just read up on it and stop spamming the forums . . .

Edited June 7, 2015 by t-darko

[Aluvi]

EDIT: almost forgot this in regard to OPs inquiry on Mega servers and Cross servers the issue is dealt with just read up on it and stop spamming the forums . . .

 

Erm.. apparently BioWare has been testing mega servers since September... 2012?

 

http://games.on.net/2012/09/help-star-wars-the-old-republic-test-their-new-megaservers/

 

I know they did mergers, but we certainly don't have a single US mega server yet, or even a single east coast / west coast server for that matter.

[Aluvi]

I guess the one nice thing about 3.3 will be that you don't have to do ranked pvp anymore to get ranked gear (yes I realize you can get it now by doing only regs, but my god.. farming 7500 warzone comms to trade them in for a 2500 ranked piece is too painful, even for someone that has literally 10s of thousands of warzones played). I'll be honest, I don't think I'll ever do solo ranked pvp again on my marauder. It's not that Marauders are bad, it's just that there are 3 other classes that work so much better in a solo Q scenario. It's unfortunate, because I can definitely shine and do very well in both team ranked and regular warzones. The same goes for other classes like Mercenary and Sniper.

[foxmob]

I guess the one nice thing about 3.3 will be that you don't have to do ranked pvp anymore to get ranked gear (yes I realize you can get it now by doing only regs, but my god.. farming 7500 warzone comms to trade them in for a 2500 ranked piece is too painful, even for someone that has literally 10s of thousands of warzones played). I'll be honest, I don't think I'll ever do solo ranked pvp again on my marauder. It's not that Marauders are bad, it's just that there are 3 other classes that work so much better in a solo Q scenario. It's unfortunate, because I can definitely shine and do very well in both team ranked and regular warzones. The same goes for other classes like Mercenary and Sniper.

I find that soloQ on a merc is not so bad as long as one of two things happen:

1. heals/tanks/trinity are present
   
2. there are also other mercs, maras and snipers in the queue
   

 

the first one is kind of out of our hands. the second one, though...that can be addressed. and it's very noticeable. as long as there are multiple mercs in the queue, my merc isn't a handicap. the same goes for maras and snipers. of course, there's always the inevitable matchmaking fail that puts us all on the same team against a bunch of fotm classes, but that's just the same bad rng that plagues the soloQ for everyone. what I found fascinating was that my record improved quite a bit when a bunch of AP PTs entered the queue. they're fotm, but they also drop just as fast as mercs. but with both teams having PTs, they become somewhat more of a priority kill b/c they're going to burst faster.

[Aluvi]

I find that soloQ on a merc is not so bad as long as one of two things happen:

1. heals/tanks/trinity are present
   
2. there are also other mercs, maras and snipers in the queue
   

 

the first one is kind of out of our hands. the second one, though...that can be addressed. and it's very noticeable. as long as there are multiple mercs in the queue, my merc isn't a handicap. the same goes for maras and snipers. of course, there's always the inevitable matchmaking fail that puts us all on the same team against a bunch of fotm classes, but that's just the same bad rng that plagues the soloQ for everyone. what I found fascinating was that my record improved quite a bit when a bunch of AP PTs entered the queue. they're fotm, but they also drop just as fast as mercs. but with both teams having PTs, they become somewhat more of a priority kill b/c they're going to burst faster.

 

This is really flawed logic. Yes, Trinity comps will work for every class in the game. That is why group ranked is better than solo in terms of balance. The majority of the games that I get in solo Q are 4 dps though. The whole point of getting rid of solo Q would be to get more people into group ranked, where it is a much more fair game. Sorry but I won't just "gamble" on my group composition and pray that I get the right comp.

 

Your second point is even more flawed. You're saying that if the other comp is a mirror comp or close, ie, if they also have classes that suck in solo q, then it is more fair. But what if you were playing one of the 3 best classes for solo ranked instead of your merc? Then you would have a much larger advantage. And then what happens when your Merc + Sniper + Marauder + whatever comp goes up against a Double PT + Sin + Sage comp? Your team gets demolished in spectacular fashion, that's what happens. It's like saying that if you have two basketball teams, it's still OK to have players in wheelchairs so long as the other team has an equal number of players in wheelchairs. That's just flawed logic. The problem is that there are players in wheelchairs (aka the less self sufficient classes) at all. But again, asking BioWare to buff those classes specifically around an unbalanced game type (solo ranked) will probably make regs and other types of pvp (group ranked) unbalanced.

 

Betting on the other team having crappy players or crappy solo ranked classes so that you can play your own crappy solo ranked class is just silly. Balancing around an unbalancable game mode is silly. Solo Q for ranked should have never been implemented, and the train wreck of pvp balance woes that we have now are a direct result of that, along with developers not doing enough quality testing or listening to enough player feedback during the PTS period.