8v8 Solo Ranked

[Raansu]

BW should give regular war zones a hidden ranking and enable matchmaking. This would solve many issues like missing healers and premades vs. PUGs.

Only the top 100 players of every server should be visible on the leaderboard, the rest should stay hidden.

If a valid matchmaking is not possible, a random grouping would be ok, but the game should not count for the ranking (except of a penalty for quitting).

I would guess, that the number of balanced matches would increase and people would have a chance to compete with none FotM classes.

 

That would literally make things worse. I have no interest in waiting 30+ minutes for a queue pop for reg warzones.

[Tharianus]

Highly unlikely.

 

You Played 8vs8 ranked??

if no then you do not have a clue ;-)

 

During 8vs8 Period there were a Lot more viewers on twitch streams and almost twice as much ppl Who Played ranked pvp.

Sry for you but Eric Musco said that on Cantina Tour in cologne ;-)

 

2 years ago we had a Petition thread "do not remove 8vs8 ranked" it was the largest thread on the Forums After BW deleted it.

 

So just a hint for you: please get some more Information if you Talk about things you do not know exactly.

[Raansu]

You Played 8vs8 ranked??

if no then you do not have a clue ;-)

 

During 8vs8 Period there were a Lot more viewers on twitch streams and almost twice as much ppl Who Played ranked pvp.

Sry for you but Eric Musco said that on Cantina Tour in cologne ;-)

 

2 years ago we had a Petition thread "do not remove 8vs8 ranked" it was the largest thread on the Forums After BW deleted it.

 

So just a hint for you: please get some more Information if you Talk about things you do not know exactly.

 

I did do 8v8 ranked and while it was much more popular than 4v4 group ranked it was still pretty dead until server transfers and most servers consisted of kickball games. That said, you're high if you think those people that left over two years ago would come back to this game. PvPers don't return to games they abandon. They move onto the next big game and rarely come back.

[TheJollyRogers]

First of all - I want to thank anyone who disagrees with this idea but left more than just "you're an idiot" or "lol no." Even if you don't like the idea, talking about why you don't is more helpful for me, people who agree with it and any devs who manage to glance over the thread.

 

I did do 8v8 ranked and while it was much more popular than 4v4 group ranked it was still pretty dead until server transfers and most servers consisted of kickball games. That said, you're high if you think those people that left over two years ago would come back to this game. PvPers don't return to games they abandon. They move onto the next big game and rarely come back.

 

We come back to games all the time? My friends and I have participated in PvP in this game at launch, in season 2, and came back for season 4-6. I've returned to several other games to see how PvP has changed over time.

 

There's all kinds of problems with solo queue, which leads back to my original stance. I don't think solo ranked should exist, ESPECIALLY 4v4 solo ranked. It 100% does not work and never will work. Ranked should be groups only. I wouldn't mind if 8v8 solo ranked existed but I would still overall feel that solo ranked shouldn't be a thing.

 

This - however, I think we're on the same page. The main reason I'm unhappy with the game's PvP at the moment is that the class I enjoy, Mercenary, just has no place in it. I can't play solo ranked. Group ranked requires convincing that "hey, you know - Mercenary isn't that bad - honest!" I don't feel like a crutch in 8v8. I feel like I actually help the team win. Why am I not allowed to be apart of ranked unless I play other classes that are more powerful but I don't enjoy as much?

 

This last patch made a good step forward. I can actually get the best gear through 8v8. But, still - I'll never see the season rewards on my Mercenary. I'll never be in a position where 8v8 doesn't have 3-4 players who still gear in PvE gear. I want to feel like my contribution actually matters while having an environment where things are even and people care about winning.

Edited August 2, 2015 by TheJollyRogers

[DerTaran]

That would literally make things worse. I have no interest in waiting 30+ minutes for a queue pop for reg warzones.

Not necessarily, if 'If a valid matchmaking is not possible, a random grouping would be ok, but the game should not count for the ranking (except of a penalty for quitting).' is implemented seriously.

[Technohic]

I would love for there to be a matchmaking 8v8 mode of some sort that would include both groups and soloers in the same Q but match accordingly and with rating included.

 

Since that likely will never happen again; would be ok with getting rid of solo-ranked all together so we can balance around 8s and let groups worry about what they do and don't do.

[Vashadan]

4v4 solo rank is a tragedy. Only a handful of classes are represented properly and almost every match-up is some form of 4 dps vs. 4 dps. The leaderboards don't matter because no one takes solo seriously anymore.

 

So let us solo queue for ranked objective warzones. I can actually attempt to win games on my Mercenary if it's Novare Coast or Civil War. It's much easier to pull off wins when I'm not shoved into a small ring with Rocky Balboa-powered classes. I can kite people away from points, stop caps and plant bombs.

 

Have a separate leaderboard if you need to. Especially now since tokens just let us get a bunch of meaningless titles and aesthetic changes. The main reason I'd want to do ranked 8v8 is because it still requires people to wear 2018 gear.

 

More people would queue if their classes weren't completely worthless in the current rendition of solo ranked. At least let us have fun if we happen to enjoy a class that can't compete.

 

There is no need to change much towards this idea. There are already statistics for regs like matches played, wins, MVP votes, kills etc.

If BW would give ppl some form of reward for 8vs8 it would most likely kill off 4vs4, even more so if they gave the same rewards deathmatchers get, and not to confuse ppl...I am talking about ranked.

I wrote some time ago my views on why 8vs8 ranked was abandoned by BW.

I still stand by my assumption that they wanted ppl not to complain about population, the engine, lack of wzs and the class/spec balance around them...not that the balance around 4vs4 is perfect, far from it.

BW will not go along with this idea, and I am certain no form of 8vs8 ranked will happen in a long time, or ever....

PvP is a minigame for BW, live with it or move on.

[Floplag]

As much as i think it would be fun, there are serious pros and cons, but its moot at this point as there are no longer enough people to even support 4

 

Then again nothing matters till they fix balance which isnt happening anytime soon so by the time they do pvp in this game will be non existent.

 

ive given up until the devs on this game give even a single F%$& im choosing not to either. Spending my time and probably very soon my money elsewhere.

[Raansu]

ive given up until the devs on this game give even a single F%$& im choosing not to either. Spending my time and probably very soon my money elsewhere.

 

Ya I still enjoy pvp in this game despite all the problems but if the new battlefront is good I'll probably be going there and dropping swtor.

[HuaRya]

This could easily happen if they encouraged the max geared (currently 174's) to no longer play unranked. So instead of squirreling away comms for another toon they could be getting some kind of new comms (ranked) for ranked items.

 

Imagine a ranked comms vendor that sold mounts/weapons/shells/crystals from past season rewards giving anyone the ability to grind the matches out for those items. That can only be had in ranked matches.

 

The caveat would be that group queues would be allowed in ranked but not in unranked. Why? Double premades farming solo pugs in lesser gear is doing nothing for generating an interest in pvp. Especially on smaller population servers where you basically have to wait for the premades to get bored and then get your dailys in.

[SlightlySychotic]

As much as i think it would be fun, there are serious pros and cons, but its moot at this point as there are no longer enough people to even support 4

 

Then again nothing matters till they fix balance which isnt happening anytime soon so by the time they do pvp in this game will be non existent.

I'm sorry but I just don't this is necessarily true.

 

I think you're underestimating the number of people who don't do ranked exclusively because they don't like arenas. I've seen threads on the general forum go on for pages about how people would do ranked but won't (not to mention all the threads on this forum where people request that arenas be given their own queue). You also have to consider that most mercs and snipers don't even bother because they perform so poorly in arenas; that's another quarter of the PvP population. At the very least I think we can say that 50% of the players who would queue ranked aren't because they don't like arenas -- and I think I'm lowballing that estimate.

 

With regards to balance, objective matches are WAY more balanced that arenas right now (and always will be IMHO). Yes, you have one or two OP classes but they also tend to be squishy and aren't going to survive the barrage of six plus DPS for very long. Meanwhile, each and every class is viable for objective matches. I've put up gold medals on an ungeared merc. Snipers are also very strong. As poorly as Juggernauts perform in ranked they do that much better in war zones. The balance isn't perfect, sure, but it's night and day compared to the farce that is ranked arenas.

[TheJollyRogers]

The population is too small to do 8v8.

 

I'm curious, because regs 8v8 is doing perfectly fine. Reg pops all day and night on the Bastion.

 

The reason why ranked 4v4 isn't played by many people is because unless you're a Powertech, Assassin or Sorc, you aren't capable of reaching the top tier. If you play a Sniper, Mercenary or Marauder, you don't have any hope to play at a competitive level. I will never queue solo ranked on my Mercenary or Sniper ever again.

[Raazmir]

Yeah people have to give up the whole "population is too small for 4's much less 8's" People outside of the handful of loudmouths left on the forums wildly prefer objective pvp. Bring 8v8 back as ranked, make group queue for ranked only 4 instead of 8 so that the gradual absorption of all the good pvpers into 1 or 2 guilds that proceed to stomp all the competition til it gives up entirely ceases to be as much of an issue. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the people who exodused away after 8v8 was removed came back.

 

If certain warzones (novare) are causing matches to go too long pull them out of the ranked queue and relegate them to regs or solo queue only.

 

Arenas were a crap idea for ranked pvp to begin with.

[Zoom_VI]

Who knows what their reasoning was but that's certainly a possibility, but at the same time it comes across to me as a why bother situation. Not really making money off of 90cc transfers and if you're going to merge anyways why does it matter where people go?

 

Interest gauging. The forums only tell them about who is unhappy with the current server situation. They have no way to gauge how many people like the current server situation. The 90cc transfers give them a way to see how much o the population is/was unhappy with their server.

It also allows them to gauge how much server designations mean to people, especially since they will have to deal with merging different type servers.

[Raansu]

Interest gauging. The forums only tell them about who is unhappy with the current server situation. They have no way to gauge how many people like the current server situation. The 90cc transfers give them a way to see how much o the population is/was unhappy with their server.

It also allows them to gauge how much server designations mean to people, especially since they will have to deal with merging different type servers.

 

Well we all know that its mostly harbinger people are going to and the rest is the small groups of team ranked players bouncing from server to server every week lol.

[Icykill_]

Two years too late to the party. They tried that, claimed "Not enough people played".

 

They never tried a solo queue for 8 man ranked... It was always team... You only need to look at the participation of solo 4 man ranked vs team to see that a majority play solo ranked...

At least trying 8 man solo ranked would show what people prefer or at least give people who hate arena a chance to play a higher lvl of objective pvp... It would also allow a higher participation of ALL classes in ranked... As it stands only the FOTM classes play ranked or the participation of the other classes is so low as to show how unviable they are except in the hands of pvp gods...

Bio, please introduce ranked 8 man solo... If it has any traction consider teams,,, but at least try it... A lot of us are sick of arena or annoyed that we can't play our preferred class in it... Not all of us want to play FOTM classes

[Icykill_]

Those changes are pretty simple to do and take little effort. 8v8 ranked on the other hand would require a massive amount of work because now they have to balance classes around pve, 4v4,8v8.

 

You also have to consider the practically dead pvp population on every server except harbinger and even them team ranked is barely existing. BW has pretty much no reason at all to waste time bringing back a format that they considered a failure to begin with. If they didn't feel that way we wouldn't be stuck with 4v4 right now and they wouldn't have removed 8v8.

 

Its not going to happen.

 

No more work than starting another queue... Most of the other classes are already viable in 8man... You can see this when you have 2 good teams of usually ranked players on each side with a mix of classes...

As far as balancing goes... They are currently having issue with arena, so I'm not sure how much harder it would be for 8 man considering it is less restrictive and more forgiving than arena, especially as most classes are already viable as is...

Have you ever thought that ranked isn't popular in arena because people are sick of it and sick of not being able to player other classes... That plus the toxic behaviour on a lot of the pvp servers has contributed to the drop in pvp population...

Bio have started to listen to our concerns... As other posters have pointed out bio have made changes that we considered were never going to happen... They don't want pvp die... If we don't express our desires for improvements or changes, no matter how out there they maybe... Then the Devs won't know what we want...

Being negative and saying it won't happen doesn't help our cause... Sure you may feel a bit let down from past experiences... But you need to turn that frown upside down

 

 

Edit: nvm.. I notice your other posts and your frown is now up the right way

Edited August 3, 2015 by Icykill_

[Psychopyro]

You only need to look at the participation of solo 4 man ranked vs team to see that a majority play solo ranked...

 

Well on my server it appears to be 0, so 8 man is only gonna make it worse. Waiting for several hours for 1 firggin pop is not worth it. And really the only reason, at least on JC, that I see people queue solo ranked is to sync queue a 4 man team for solo rating.

 

Honestly there really is no true solo queue. Most people I see sync and drop if they are against each other....

[Icykill_]

Well on my server it appears to be 0, so 8 man is only gonna make it worse. Waiting for several hours for 1 firggin pop is not worth it. And really the only reason, at least on JC, that I see people queue solo ranked is to sync queue a 4 man team for solo rating.

 

Honestly there really is no true solo queue. Most people I see sync and drop if they are against each other....

 

I can say on harbinger, where most of the U.S. Pvp server people have transferred to, that ranked solo pops regularly... But not much team ranked unless it's nearly the same teams over and over...

Solo 8 man ranked would do well on Harbinger...

If your server pvp population is so low, it might be time for a server transfer... With so many of the servers dying due to transfers, the writings on the wall for another group of server mergers soon...

[Jadescythe]

I can already taste the salty tears of people crying when they get horrible teammates in solo ranked 8v8. Good luck getting 7 remotely competent people on your side. Then we'll get even more QQ over the other team having 2-3 from the same guild on their side because chances are high that PvP guilds will have more players queueing and be more likely to end up together even if they aren't doing so intentionally. And we all know that many players will do it intentionally, especially on the unpopulated faction.

 

You still have all of the same issues from 8v8 ranked because all of the warzones need to be reworked. You can't have node guards, there is just too small of a population of players willing to do it and you become a complete nonfactor in your potential rating when you are twiddling your thumbs instead of fighting. There is no point in keeping one node if your team can never capture or defend the other.

 

There are too many warzones determined by one specific moment, typically a neutral node being captured or a team getting through the first VS door and getting ahead of the other team. The potential to comeback in these siutations only exists if your team did something stupid, but is far superior to the other team. You can protect a node with 1 player for 10-15 seconds easily, but need 2-3 more to take one back.

[Psychopyro]

I can say on harbinger, where most of the U.S. Pvp server people have transferred to, that ranked solo pops regularly... But not much team ranked unless it's nearly the same teams over and over...

Solo 8 man ranked would do well on Harbinger...

If your server pvp population is so low, it might be time for a server transfer... With so many of the servers dying due to transfers, the writings on the wall for another group of server mergers soon...

 

I transferred from Harb due to latency issues, regular server crashes, queue times to get in, lag spikes, and snotty attitudes by people. And while I live on the west coast, raid times on the west coast are not indicative to my schedule.

[foxmob]

I'm sorry but I just don't this is necessarily true.

 

I think you're underestimating the number of people who don't do ranked exclusively because they don't like arenas. .

 

you're wrong on this. at least for the reason quoted above.

 

on the other hand, arenas magnify the shortcomings of various ACs/specs. like...look at the number of mercs and snipers who even try to play 10 or more ranked arenas. that's not dislike of arenas. that's horrible "balance" for solo arenas. soloQ ranked WZs would get more varied specs/ACs to participate. but ranked 8's were always sparsely populated.

 

assuming you could get comms from them, I would never run regs again if there were a solo ranked queue just b/c I'm more likely to get role balanced matches. unfortunately, BW doesn't seem to want to allow us to dual queue (regs and ranked) anymore, so I don't think it would matter. I'm not going to stand around waiting for a ranked pop, especially a solo 8's queue, which I'm only interested in for the role-balancing anyway.

[TheJollyRogers]

I can already taste the salty tears of people crying when they get horrible teammates in solo ranked 8v8. Good luck getting 7 remotely competent people on your side. Then we'll get even more QQ over the other team having 2-3 from the same guild on their side because chances are high that PvP guilds will have more players queueing and be more likely to end up together even if they aren't doing so intentionally. And we all know that many players will do it intentionally, especially on the unpopulated faction.

 

This doesn't stop 4v4 from happening, though? There's tons of 4v4 matches where everyone blames everyone else for being awful, and people cry queue sync because guildies get put on the same side. This problem is completely independent of 8v8 - it's a PvP problem in general.

 

You still have all of the same issues from 8v8 ranked because all of the warzones need to be reworked. You can't have node guards, there is just too small of a population of players willing to do it and you become a complete nonfactor in your potential rating when you are twiddling your thumbs instead of fighting. There is no point in keeping one node if your team can never capture or defend the other.

 

There are too many warzones determined by one specific moment, typically a neutral node being captured or a team getting through the first VS door and getting ahead of the other team. The potential to comeback in these siutations only exists if your team did something stupid, but is far superior to the other team. You can protect a node with 1 player for 10-15 seconds easily, but need 2-3 more to take one back.

Rating changes would definitely have to be based on role and objectives, I'd think. They already have a medal system that can tell when you're guarding, taking orbs, putting the bomb on Voidstar, ect.

 

For example, if your team wins at Voidstar, and you personally put the bomb on one of the doors, you'd get a higher rating increase than someone who didn't put any bombs on.

 

On the other end, if you lost the game, you'd lose less rating if you were guarding the whole time and defused a bomb.

Edited August 3, 2015 by TheJollyRogers

[Jadescythe]

This doesn't stop 4v4 from happening, though? There's tons of 4v4 matches where everyone blames everyone else for being awful, and people cry queue sync because guildies get put on the same side. This problem is completely independent of 8v8 - it's a PvP problem in general.

 

 

Rating changes would definitely have to be based on role and objectives, I'd think. They already have a medal system that can tell when you're guarding, taking orbs, putting the bomb on Voidstar, ect.

 

For example, if your team wins at Voidstar, and you personally put the bomb on one of the doors, you'd get a higher rating increase than someone who didn't put any bombs on.

 

On the other end, if you lost the game, you'd lose less rating if you were guarding the whole time and defused a bomb.

 

It's not a problem limited to 8v8, but when you double the size of the team, you double the liklihood of getting matched together. You double the liklihood of getting bad players on your team. The more players there are on your team, the less you count for. The less accurate your rating is. I can play really well and make up for 1 mediocre player on a 4 man team, I can't make up for 3 of them.

 

As to tying medals or objectives to your rating, that would be horrible. You can't reward the person who gets a 4 man Awe on the other team spawning to allow someone to plant the bomb. Your ability to right click and stand still for 8 seconds or whatever really doesn't need to be rewarded at all. Just like your contribution of picking your nose at off node because they never attack it is far lower than the contribution of someone who solo holds the node against multiple stealth attacks. And yet they'll both have the same amount of defender medals.

 

You can't base rating on anything more than winning or losing at a suitable ratio based on the ally and enemy ratings. If you do, then the system will be gamed in unintended ways. Too many players defending for easy points and hoping the team carries them to a win. Players passing the HB back and forth to rack up attacker points. If you base rating on winning, then players will take the actions necessary to win. But you still need design that rewards players for participating in order to win, not standing around waiting for something to happen.

[Aikon]

Have 8 on 8 ranked be group/ops group ranked, or allow groups of 4 to also queue for the 8 on 8 ranked (2 pre-mades).

 

Also throw in a little disclaimer if someone wants solo queue for 8 on 8 ranked that there is a possibility (alright, a high possibility) that they will be up against grouped of players, so they have the opportunity to un-queue/not queue before actually queuing up.