Let's Talk About PvP - Podcast ft Snave, Shek'shas, N1ghtrain and Krea

[zhezvya]

Good podcast, watching it atm.

Thanks Snave & Company.

[merovejec]

What about qsyncers?

'Cause I know for a fact that one of them was qsyncing his way in solo ranked for quite some time.

Just sayin'.

 

Ooh guys...you are the problem. How can you not see your own hypocrisy?

 

I finnaly watched the whole thing. This stream reminded me very much of the politicians in our country how they use the media to cover some topics, but avoiding some of the core problems. Some good points were indeed covered and mentioned but lets go over it.

 

The stream was way too long, you spent nearly 40 min introducing each other and talking about when you played etc. That was not really that necesary.

 

What made me laugh is how Shek saw the situation with mats in TR. Saying that its a win-win situation was silly cause the PVPers got their rating farming farmers and the farmers got mats....... how is that display of skill? Many got Top 96 from TR this way, also by que dodging other good teams, simply taking turns in farming farmers and the groups that played TR to try to farm farmers too. Thats just silly.

 

After 1 hour into the video you said there is no illuminaty PVP group, but you kept on saying how everyone knows everyone and as the guys said there are discord channels where people sit and ...... well you get the picture. You just used the stream to make this sound silly again.

 

You mentioned organizing those guild challenges for 8v8 so that you will show Devs that this is wanted by players so they act on it. Then you said there is just not enough people to get a 4v4 together so how is it then?

 

There was a lame attempt to get back the 90cc transfers, I wonder why you would want that, probably transfers to French server or Tulak Hord.

 

Again the streamers tried to point out how Top 3 is irrelevant and meaningless and that everyone knows that if you have top 3 you probably cheated, yet still they strive for those titles every seasons and also get them (even on last day of season like season 10)! So why? If they are meaningless? Or do you want to discourage people in getting them so you keep them for yourself? This is so stupid and you guys call yourselfs influencers? You put on your top 3 from season 10 and tell on stream its irrelevant...... It was said on stream that most of the players in the game (I would guess as much as 90%) only play the game for RP, dress up and other similar activities, they dont care about NiM ops, ranked PVP, so to them that title could mean something as they do not know what goes on in that part of the game. I am in my countries community now and no one knows about this stuff (its hundreds of players). So by saying this you openly discourage players from getting Top 3!!

 

You said that people only go to PVP forum to complain, yet you make a 4 hour video about what is going on there?? I do not really get the point then. You went point by point the stuff that was on forums. I really do not see the difference between reading forums and watching your video. You just presented yourselfs as influencers, mocked illuminaty theories, said what suits only you and your community and thats all.

 

As people in the thread said, you stated you exploited too, made billions. They want perma bans for cheating but they do it themselves. The PVP discord, which the PVPers are part of, has been the biggest source of all kinds of exploits. They had the credit exploits there and also issues where you can bypass bolster and other similar things. That PVP community is the biggest problem there is in this game and its mainly due to the fact that its so small. There is maybe 30-50 players and the rest is just cannon fodder for them. They sync que, que dodge, throw and much more. That is this wonderful community, you can stream what ever you want, but thats how it really is.

 

You mentioned wintraders, but you didnt go into specifics. How does that work? You mentioned bots, but that is by far not the core problem. The core problem is people being on discord together and rigging matches in their favor. People swaping to alts to lose and throw. People leaving matches, declining que in favor of their friends etc. This is also wintrading, but you dont mention that do you? For me this video only showed what they wanted people to know.

 

In order not to be just a critic, I will state some good idea mentioned.

 

- remove Top 96, great idea, should solve a LOT of issues

- Gold, Silver, Bronze ques, would be great if the population can keep up with it

- making classes more unique and really make utilities count that same class can pose differently

- when dps guards he gets debuff like lower dps

- pvp/pve utilities and PVP/PVE gear

 

To sum it up the PVP community is acting on video and telling the players what suits them. Fact is that the population for ranked PVP is small and people are simply farmed by many methods of this PVP community. They constantly say "they know everyone" so there is no avoiding them. They share all info via Discord channels. With this they can manage ratings on all their toons with what ever means necessary. Apart from this we have individual cheaters who mostly work by themselves, but those face the difficulty of going agains the Devs and this community so they have no chance. You can play ranked for fun and even go up with rating if you happen to be inthe teams that are "meant to win" but thats about it.

 

No offense guys, you did the stream, took the time but the stuff covered......the very best of the stream was the last 20 minutes of talking about points from forums, just before talking about the arena maps. Maybe do only that next time.

Edited March 22, 2019 by merovejec

[Sertar]

Thanks for organizing and executing this podcast! I also found it refreshing and watched all of it. I'd also appreciate another episode, there are certainly enough topics to talk about.

snave's an excellent mod, krea was a good listen, nightrain was a bit "blink twice if you're speaking under duress", shek i just find insta irritating. i'm sure its me not him (its him)

 

four old school pvpers agreeing with each other that things were better back in their day isn't going to set out a positive direction to attract new pvpers.

I have to agree with these points though. The main conversation was happening between Krea and Snave which was good, Nightrain seemed tired but also probably didn't see a reason to interrupt the other two, Shek's comments were sometimes indeed irritating and I'd say the main "source" for getting off-topic. But I guess he hasn't done something like this too often so far, so it's all good. Next time he'll know better.

 

And yes there was way too much talk about "the glory days of S8". As you all know S8 had even worse problems (jeezee, q-sync on pub, ...) which are fixed now. Not saying it wasn't better than current season but in retrospective you forget about the bad things a lot.

 

What i want to say: why do you think, Bioware should listen to convicted exploiters? Why do you demand perma bans for ranked cheaters, while you got away with a 14 day ban? „it was ONLY a economy bug, pve bug...that isn't so important like ranked“...really? That is your justification?

good point! although the quote + comparison doesn't quite fit. On the one side you have a person that finds himself with people he was trying to avoid, on the other side you have actual credit exploiters. Rather than saying "everyone is involved" I'd say "everyone is affected". This fits for both rating manipulation and economy manipulation.

[limenutpen]

Thank you Snave. I have not see the whole lot (damn it a movie length) but your work for the PvP community is greatly under rated.

 

You should get the SWTOR PvP Influencer role in my book. You deserve it for your long standing up to the PvP community. Hope Musco or someone important from BW is reading this.

 

As for cheating and win-trading go, I think the correct punishment would be to not allow the player to compete (play) in that part of the game for long, longer, longest time Account wide.

If you cheated in ranked you have a ban (in ranked) for whole two weeks, and after that a whole season account wide ban in ranked.

Both cheats should be account and person wide (same cc).

If you cheat in other parts of the game it should be more or less the same.

[Sertar]

That PVP community is the biggest problem there is in this game and its mainly due to the fact that its so small. There is maybe 30-50 players and the rest is just cannon fodder for them. They sync que, que dodge, throw and much more. That is this wonderful community, you can stream what ever you want, but thats how it really is.

 

They share all info via Discord channels. With this they can manage ratings on all their toons with what ever means necessary. Apart from this we have individual cheaters who mostly work by themselves, but those face the difficulty of going agains the Devs and this community so they have no chance.

Here we go again. I think you didn't really get my point last time. I agree with you in the assumption that there are groups of people that try to manipulate games in their favor by trying to get into the same games, on specific roles, with specific characters. And yes they probably sit in Discord channels. Now the difference is:

 

I say these are groups of like 2-4 individuals, let's say members of the same guild or just people that have been playing together for some time. And yes there are probably a bunch of these groups, to go with your example let's say 30 people in total (wintraders and their partners in crime).

 

You say these 30 people would organize on a global scale to have like a schedule or a plan of who gets which title from the very beginning.

 

Now.. you know people. People are human. Humans are full of envy and rivalry. How do you think 30 people can possibly work together, I'll say it again, TOGETHER, on this? Don't you think person 16 doesn't want person 4 to get title X and rather have person 18 there? But then you have person 8 who wants 4 titles for himself, so person 5 would get none, also person 6 hates person 22 so much that they would never talk to each other. And so on... And if I understand your post correctly, you are implying that all 4 individuals of the podcast are part of that? That's a bold call..

 

There are certainly small groups of people that throw games for each other, and yes they are a problem, yes they should be punished. But they are also hard to detect.

There are also people with rivalry that goes so far, that if on the same team, one would leave the game so the other person loses too. And yes they are also a problem, yes they should also be punished, and they are actually easier to detect.

 

These people are ruining ranked for everyone, for people that never wanted to take part in this show because all they did was queueing for Solo Ranked. But instead of trying to convince the naive forum reader that there is a conspiracy going on that's just playing it's dirty game with you 24/7, you might rather give advice for how to react and report when witnessing obvious wintrading.

Edited March 22, 2019 by Sertar

[TrixxieTriss]

Why they don't pvp?

 

If they don’t pvp already, how are they going to add value to a discussion about pvp?

[Jinre_the_Jedi]

-snip-

 

I'm actually impressed at how well you were able to not only blatantly lie about certain topics in the video, but that you were also able to construct a fully erect strawman and then knock it down in one swoop. Well done.

[MikeBradley]

Thanks for this, I am a sucker for constructive feedback. I should have time this weekend to get through all of it, I'll chime back in next week to prove it.

 

...or maybe I'll record a few hours of my thoughts for you to watch / listen to...

 

nah, I'll just make a post

 

<3 the 🅱️

[MackPol]

Thanks again Snave for getting community together to do something to help with current state.

Also seems we got a response maybe something constructive can come out of it.

Any plans acting on some of the ideas discussed, like pvp guilds, help others , challenges even if just for training ?

There was a lot of ppl watching so hopefully it will have a positive impact overall.

[Bullyabass]

If they don’t pvp already, how are they going to add value to a discussion about pvp?

 

They can talk about why they don't pvp. Did they try it and give it up? Has the rep of the community put them off from even trying? Would a "story mode" pvp where they can learn the basics help? Would larger group pvp create a safer space for them to learn the ropes? Your idea here.

 

The podcast was well intentioned, well made and the people on it all made good points (excl Shek obviously). However everyone was talking from a very similar place; highly invested "top 10%*" pvpers. If you want to grow the PVP community then you have to hunt down the 90%* who PVP sporadically and those who don't PVP at all and find out what would make them participate more bigly. If you don't want to grow the community, all good, I hope you enjoy your first class seat by the pool of the Titanic with it's intimate view of nature's greatest wonders.

 

Expertise is a nice example. All the participants pretty much took it as read that bringing expertise back would be A GREAT THING. They openly scoffed at the idea that it might not bring joy to the hearts of all who witnessed its advent. Scoffed. Live on stream. Live stream scoffing. Which sounds like a Britishified version of ASMR. Breathily snorting disdainful mockery of your "soft'n'smooth" Spotify playlist into an elaborately sized microphone.

 

And expertise is a great idea; if you only pvp and mostly on just one class. Your grind has turned to blown dust as Spiderman in Tony Stark's arms. But I am a proud, cross-classing, non-binary PVX player so, for me, expertise simply means more grind. A lot more grind. It also means PVP tanks in flashpoints and PVE node guards in warzones. And carrying two sets of gear. Four if I like to dibble in swapping from heals to dps. And I do like to dibble.

 

And for the beginner who skips wide eyed and shiny faced into a warzone in their spinky new PVE gear? Three (four? five?) weeks of being crushed, roasted and humiliated before they can even START to be competitive. Jack, what is that ominous shape looming out of the inky Atlantic night? Jack? Where are you going with that door? JACK!!!!!

 

It was a really good podcast, it just cant claim to convey the feelings of the entire PVP community

 

* - Statistics have only been invented where required to support my opinion

Edited March 22, 2019 by Bullyabass

[Lundorff]

And expertise is a great idea; if you only pvp and mostly on just one class. Your grind has turned to blown dust as Spiderman in Tony Stark's arms. But I am a proud, cross-classing, non-binary PVX player so, for me, expertise simply means more grind. A lot more grind. It also means PVP tanks in flashpoints and PVE node guards in warzones. And carrying two sets of gear. Four if I like to dibble in swapping from heals to dps. And I do like to dibble.

 

I swear some people have expertise-PTSD in this game...

 

Look, I am just going to quote myself here:

1) Easy accessible PvP gear through legacy comms that is granted at all levels of PvP, including low -/midbies. Would work flawlessly for for anyone doing PvP with any regularity.

 

2) Bolster that WORKS. Unless some have 14 pieces of PvP gear they are auto-bolstered based on class to default PvP set 1 (e.g. default bolster to 204 back in the day). Casual PvP-players don't have to bother with PvP gear at all.

 

If they did it like that and they got it right e.g. no accuracy on sorc etc., then everything would be glorious.

[Jinre_the_Jedi]

They can talk about why they don't pvp. Did they try it and give it up? Has the rep of the community put them off from even trying? Would a "story mode" pvp where they can learn the basics help? Would larger group pvp create a safer space for them to learn the ropes? Your idea here.

 

The podcast was well intentioned, well made and the people on it all made good points (excl Shek obviously). However everyone was talking from a very similar place; highly invested "top 10%*" pvpers. If you want to grow the PVP community then you have to hunt down the 90%* who PVP sporadically and those who don't PVP at all and find out what would make them participate more bigly. If you don't want to grow the community, all good, I hope you enjoy your first class seat by the pool of the Titanic with it's intimate view of nature's greatest wonders.

 

Expertise is a nice example. All the participants pretty much took it as read that bringing expertise back would be A GREAT THING. They openly scoffed at the idea that it might not bring joy to the hearts of all who witnessed its advent. Scoffed. Live on stream. Live stream scoffing. Which sounds like a Britishified version of ASMR. Breathily snorting disdainful mockery of your "soft'n'smooth" Spotify playlist into an elaborately sized microphone.

 

And expertise is a great idea; if you only pvp and mostly on just one class. Your grind has turned to blown dust as Spiderman in Tony Stark's arms. But I am a proud, cross-classing, non-binary PVX player so, for me, expertise simply means more grind. A lot more grind. It also means PVP tanks in flashpoints and PVE node guards in warzones. And carrying two sets of gear. Four if I like to dibble in swapping from heals to dps. And I do like to dibble.

 

And for the beginner who skips wide eyed and shiny faced into a warzone in their spinky new PVE gear? Three (four? five?) weeks of being crushed, roasted and humiliated before they can even START to be competitive. Jack, what is that ominous shape looming out of the inky Atlantic night? Jack? Where are you going with that door? JACK!!!!!

 

It was a really good podcast, it just cant claim to convey the feelings of the entire PVP community

 

* - Statistics have only been invented where required to support my opinion

 

 

I can try to tackle the point of expertise from multiple different view points. First off, let's address gearing as a whole. When expertise was a thing, the gearing system had been revamped so that a full set of optimized PvP gear could be acquired for roughly 4k~ comms and you could get unoptimized base gear just for the set bonus for cheaper. This translated to about 2-3 days of grinding out warzones considering you won 100-200 wz coms per game, depending on medals and if you won. The difference between ranked gear and regular gear was only about 5-7% DPS, so all you really needed to be competitive was an optimized set of basic gear.

 

Comparing this to PvE at the time, you had to use green gear from grinding your story, move to regular FPS> Hardmode FPS > Story Mode Operations > HM Operations > NiM Operations. This took multiple weeks due to the way the lockout system works for PvE to get a full set of gear. So naturally, gearing for PvP was much faster than it was for PvE. So to hear you state that PvE players had to spend a long time in the queue's getting slaughtered is disingenuous when you take your exact same argument and compare it to what it takes a PvP player to get up to par in PvE. It's not a fair comparison.

 

__________________________________

 

Now the reason that expertise was suggested is because it's the easiest way to separate PvE gear from PvP gear in such a way that allows for PvP gear to be obtained quickly so that players aren't getting "slaughtered in the queue's" for weeks, while also allowing PvE to remain the gear treadmill that it was designed to be. Now, the current gearing system is definitely a positive for hybrid players who wish to participate in PvE and PvP, since they can essentially do any activity and get the gear they need for all activities they participate in. It's also a positive system for purely PvE players, because they can queue ranked and just /stuck it and get the materials they need to craft better gear at no real consequence, because they don't actually care about their rank anyway. This leaves pure PvP players left in the dust, which seems ironic to me, because it creates a situation where pure PvP players are shafted when trying to gear through their primary means of gameplay.

 

So to better clarify my personal statements on stream, I would like a better gearing system, *regardless of whether it is with expertise or not*, however, expertise was a proven system that worked to separate PvP and PvE gear enough that it allowed each respective game mode to have a gear grind that matches the requirements of the aforementioned content. To clarify, if the devs are able to recreate the cheap/efficient gearing system for PvP while also not effecting PvE progression and without expertise as a stat, I will fully support that.

 

I don't know where you got the idea that I was scoffing at the advent that some players don't like expertise, I personally rewatched the VOD to see where I did such a thing as that would be considered questionable behaviour because I recognize that my views do not fully reflect the views of the masses. I also state multiple times throughout the podcast that *my views are my personal views only and not representative of the majority of the playerbase*. I emphasized that point whenever I brought up a controversial topic for the very reason that some players might try to claim that I was projecting my thoughts onto their own, which I would never do. Sorry if it came off that way, and hopefully I cleared up any misconceptions about my thoughts on expertise.

 

 

TLDR - I fully support a gearing system without expertise that is able to recapture the gearing system for PvP/PvE back in 4.0. However, I promoted expertise because it was a system that worked well enough for ALL players involved, without fully shafting the primary participants of PvP when they attempted to gear for PvP.

 

 

Edit - Also, if you watched the entire podcast, I actually promote the idea of having *no gear* in PvP and equalizing all stats via bolster. This eliminates the gear grind completely and allows PvP as a game mode to focus *solely* on the important aspects of excelling at PvP, which is mechanics, techinical skills and execution. Unlike PvE, PvP does not have hard coded DPS checks, so the gear treadmill system is not as enticing as it is in PvE.

 

 

And expertise is a great idea; if you only pvp and mostly on just one class. Your grind has turned to blown dust as Spiderman in Tony Stark's arms. But I am a proud, cross-classing, non-binary PVX player so, for me, expertise simply means more grind. A lot more grind. It also means PVP tanks in flashpoints and PVE node guards in warzones. And carrying two sets of gear. Four if I like to dibble in swapping from heals to dps. And I do like to dibble.

 

Also, how is it *less grind* now if you play multiple classes? Are you not getting the 248/258 set bonuses for each class you play and instead playing with like, a sniper set bonus on a jugg? Because if you play multiple classes, that means you need multiple set bonuses. PvP gear took 2~ days to get a full set optimized, including the set bonus, doing that for all 8 classes would take roughly 2 weeks. There's 0% chance you have fully optimized set bonus gear for 8 toons with the current gearing system in 2 weeks.

Edited March 22, 2019 by Jinre_the_Jedi

[Jinre_the_Jedi]

Thanks for this, I am a sucker for constructive feedback. I should have time this weekend to get through all of it, I'll chime back in next week to prove it.

 

...or maybe I'll record a few hours of my thoughts for you to watch / listen to...

 

nah, I'll just make a post

 

<3 the 🅱️

 

Thanks for taking the time to review our thoughts Mr. 🅱️. I will reiterate that while we clearly don't speak for the entire community, the main objective was to open a productive dialogue between the developers and players so that all players, regardless of their personal opinions on what the correct way forward for PvP might be, can express their thoughts and feel like their opinions and ideas are at least being heard.

[snave]

Adding on to what Krea said about expertise / gearing.

 

If you want to pvp and pve (somewhat dependant on class) you'll need over 1 set of gear anyway. I main operative which needs 10% accuracy for pve, 0% for pvp. This means I still need to grind multiple same slot drops but now it takes me weeks.

 

Expertise allows for mass, quick gearing. That's the point. No one is ever, or has ever, suggested you use this current gearing system but also add in ANOTHER set of gear.

[TrixxieTriss]

I swear some people have expertise-PTSD in this game...

 

LoL, that made me laugh hard. Best quote every to describe how people continue to misunderstand what an expertise system brings to the gearing system... “expertise-PTSD”

[TrixxieTriss]

Adding on to what Krea said about expertise / gearing.

 

If you want to pvp and pve (somewhat dependant on class) you'll need over 1 set of gear anyway. I main operative which needs 10% accuracy for pve, 0% for pvp. This means I still need to grind multiple same slot drops but now it takes me weeks.

 

Expertise allows for mass, quick gearing. That's the point. No one is ever, or has ever, suggested you use this current gearing system but also add in ANOTHER set of gear.

 

I would like to add to Snaves and Krea’s points.

 

Under the old pvp gearing system with expertise, you could still wear entry lvl pve gear that would bolster with full expertise while you obtained your pvp gear.

The set you needed was the 190 green items from the lvl 65 vendor who is still there on the fleet. You could go buy it all at once for 10-20k (I’m not 100% sure on the cost, but if you go to vendor you can check)

The only difference between the entry lvl pve gear and the entry lvl pvp gear was set bonuses. All the other stats were basically the same.

 

The only hurdle at the time was Bioware didn’t advertise how to this worked. That left it up to pvp community members to try and educate players. This was done on the forums and there were 2 stickied threads to explain the system. The other way was to try and explain it to people in matches. This is where it really broke down because people from my experience were unreceptive to the advice and would often yell at you for trying to help them.

 

If Bioware do introduce another expertise system, all they need to do is have a pop-up to tell players what lvl pve gear to wear to get full expertise while they are gearing up for the pvp gear. That should not be overly difficult to do. Even if they put it on the load screen before each match.

 

I hope my added info helps to clear up some other misconceptions people seem have about the old expertise system.

 

Here is an example of an expertise thread : http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=795518&highlight=Expertise

Edited March 23, 2019 by TrixxieTriss

[Taerrik]

Just a question on the matchmaking side of things

 

How about when folks load in, they dont load on separate frog/rot sides, but in a common loading area until the timer starts, as soon as the timer starts folks get sorted into 2 sides, to help stop ppl leaving before timer (also helps in regs to make 3v3s instead of 4v2s)

[TrixxieTriss]

Just a question on the matchmaking side of things

 

How about when folks load in, they dont load on separate frog/rot sides, but in a common loading area until the timer starts, as soon as the timer starts folks get sorted into 2 sides, to help stop ppl leaving before timer (also helps in regs to make 3v3s instead of 4v2s)

 

That’s actually an excellent idea

[limenutpen]

Just a question on the matchmaking side of things

 

How about when folks load in, they dont load on separate frog/rot sides, but in a common loading area until the timer starts, as soon as the timer starts folks get sorted into 2 sides, to help stop ppl leaving before timer (also helps in regs to make 3v3s instead of 4v2s)

 

This is a super idea for SR. You can also expand on it in many ways, in order to reduce win trading, when people que together etc. Also if the system has intelligence it can also reduce similar classes being all stacked in one team. Currently its the meta of Mercs and Commandos.

[Shwarzchild]

While I did enjoy the stream. One comment here I disagreed with. I do believe it would have been beneficial to have someone new to ranked involved. While all of you are high level players, often times higher level players don't think about things that are issues mainly due to just not being able to put yourself backwards in time to a point where you were less skilled. If that person were involved I think you would have heard a few more interesting concepts worthy of discussion. Namely:

 

Ability to que just Arenas in regs to attempt to lessen the learning curve from regs to ranked.

Matchmaking issues (which you all did touch on to a degree). But, you'd get the perspective of someone who's trying to learn and grow.

The first 20 game ranking process. Although, I do really love the idea of "prequalifying" in a sense that a veteran pvp player doesn't start at 0 for the next season. As much as I like/ may want to play against better players so that I get better. I don't want to be against 3 superior players while I'm still getting my feet under me.

 

Other than that I hate rating decay. My rating sucks but I've worked my tail off for it. Krea's counter point is also true so there's probably a middle ground there that either was discussed in the stream which I may have missed (it was very long so I'm sure I missed a few things).

 

Totally ok with lockout timer. Class stacking totally agree that it needs to be fixed. Stop matches that are unbalanced absolutely agree.

[Jinre_the_Jedi]

Other than that I hate rating decay. My rating sucks but I've worked my tail off for it. Krea's counter point is also true so there's probably a middle ground there that either was discussed in the stream which I may have missed (it was very long so I'm sure I missed a few things).

 

I want to clarify, my suggestion was that rating decay would ONLY apply once you reach above gold. From Bronze to Gold, your rating would be in tact. Once you hit gold, you would begin to experience decay. This is because once you hit gold you will always get rewards for getting gold, regardless of if you drop from gold to silver, or gold to bronze. This is because end of season rewards are based on your highest earned rating. Top 96 titles are currently based on your current rating once the season ends. This means that you must continue to play beyond gold rewards if you want a top 96 title.

 

Adding rating decay after gold will NOT change anything for the every day ranked player. You will still progress from bronze to gold with no decay and will still earn end of season rewards based on your highest earned rank. Rating decay will only affect players specifically going for top 96 titles. It will prevent players from camping ranks and instead force them to actually be required to constantly compete for the top 96 titles. This system definitely has pros and cons to it as well, I won't lie, but it will change what having a top 96 title means going forward in the future. Generally, it will mean that in order to get a top 3 title, you will have to maintain a decent win rate throughout the whole season, instead of win trading for 20 games and leaving it at that.

 

The rate of decay could be experimented with. In my opinion, anywhere from 5-10 days of inactivity would suffice.

 

 

 

_______________________

 

 

Additionally, I propose that we change how Bronze - Gold is obtained. Instead of having visible ELO from Bronze to Gold, I propose that ELO still exists, but is hidden and used solely for matchmaking purposes. In exchange for visible elo, we move to a "points" system for Bronze - Gold.

 

For Example:

 

Bronze - 10 Ranked points

 

Silver - 30 Ranked points

 

Gold - 50 Ranked points

 

Points are accumulated by winning Ranked Matches. One win would offer one point. One loss would lose one point. Once you hit a new tier (I.E. Progress from Bronze to Silver) you can no longer fall below your highest earned tier. After winning at least two games in a row, you get a 'win streak bonus', meaning each win while on your win streak bonus gives 2 points instead of one. Here's an example of how this would work:

 

Player plays two ranked matches and wins.

Player accumulates two points.

Player plays and wins a third ranked match.

Player is now on a win streak and obtains 2 points for each win, until they lose a match, ending the win streak.

Player accumulates 10 points, reaching Bronze.

Player loses a match. Player is still at Bronze, since you can not demote below your highest earned tier.

 

Player progresses through the new ranked system, until gold tier.

Player achieves gold, qualifying them for top 96 rewards. Instead of a point system, they now have visible Elo, which can be seen on the leaderboards.

Winning or losing a match will grant either an Elo loss or Elo gain.

After 3-10 days (exact number subject to change) of inactivity in the Ranked Queue, decay begins at a rate of 10 points per day. Playing a game of Ranked will stop the decay and reset the decay timer back to 3-10 days, whatever the rate may be.

Decay would ONLY apply to Solo Ranked, NOT group ranked.

 

With this system, Bronze - Gold is easier to obtain for the average player and they can progress as slowly or quickly as they like with no penalty. The win streak system will give regular players incentive to keep queuing, as well as boosting players who are already Gold tier through the ladder at a quicker pace, preventing lower skilled players from playing them for too long in the lower brackets. Finally, rating decay above gold tier will reward top 96 rewards to the players who were both: active throughout the season and maintained a high win rate. Generally speaking, better players will maintain a higher win rate anyway, so nothing really changes as far as the requirements for top 96, other than no longer being able to get there in 10 wins because you must first progress through the points system before you are eligible for top 96 rewards.

 

Thoughts?

Edited March 24, 2019 by Jinre_the_Jedi

[Lhancelot]

I want to clarify, my suggestion was that rating decay would ONLY apply once you reach above gold. From Bronze to Gold, your rating would be in tact. Once you hit gold, you would begin to experience decay. This is because once you hit gold you will always get rewards for getting gold, drop from gold to silver, or gold to bronze. This is because end of season rewards are based on your highest earned rating. Top 96 titles are currently based on your current rating once the season ends. This means that you must continue to play beyond gold rewards if you want a top 96 title.

 

Adding rating decay after gold will NOT change anything for the every day ranked player. You will still progress from bronze to gold with no decay and will still earn end of season rewards based on your highest earned rank. Rating decay will only affect players specifically going for top 96 titles. It will prevent players from camping ranks and instead force them to actually be required to constantly compete for the top 96 titles. This system definitely has pros and cons to it as well, I won't lie, but it will change what having a top 96 title means going forward in the future. Generally, it will mean that in order to get a top 3 title, you will have to maintain a decent win rate throughout the whole season, instead of win trading for 20 games and leaving it at that.

 

The rate of decay could be experimented with. In my opinion, anywhere from 5-10 days of inactivity would suffice.

 

 

 

_______________________

 

 

Additionally, I propose that we change how Bronze - Gold is obtained. Instead of having visible ELO from Bronze to Gold, I propose that ELO still exists, but is hidden and used solely for matchmaking purposes. In exchange for visible elo, we move to a "points" system for Bronze - Gold.

 

For Example:

 

Bronze - 10 Ranked points

 

Silver - 30 Ranked points

 

Gold - 50 Ranked points

 

Points are accumulated by winning Ranked Matches. One win would offer one point. One loss would lose one point. Once you hit a new tier (I.E. Progress from Bronze to Silver) you can no longer fall below your highest earned tier. After winning at least two games in a row, you get a 'win streak bonus', meaning each win while on your win streak bonus gives 2 points instead of one. Here's an example of how this would work:

 

 

 

With this system, Bronze - Gold is easier to obtain for the average player and they can progress as slowly or quickly as they like with no penalty. The win streak system will give regular players incentive to keep queuing, as well as boosting players who are already Gold tier through the ladder at a quicker pace, preventing lower skilled players from playing them for too long in the lower brackets. Finally, rating decay above gold tier will reward top 96 rewards to the players who were both: active throughout the season and maintained a high win rate. Generally speaking, better players will maintain a higher win rate anyway, so nothing really changes as far as the requirements for top 96, other than no longer being able to get there in 10 wins because you must first progress through the points system before you are eligible for top 96 rewards.

 

Thoughts?

 

Yes this sounds decent. It would be harder to cheat which means less people will attempt to cheat, which means there will be less shenanigans and a better ranked scene overall.

 

My biggest issue personally is just the ease of cheating in ranked which makes it so rampant and seemingly common. Also the focus that a loss causes only creates that much more toxicity between the players.

 

Your ideas address what I view as the biggest flaws in the present scoring system for ranked.

[TrixxieTriss]

I want to clarify, my suggestion was that rating decay would ONLY apply once you reach above gold. From Bronze to Gold, your rating would be in tact. Once you hit gold, you would begin to experience decay. This is because once you hit gold you will always get rewards for getting gold, drop from gold to silver, or gold to bronze. This is because end of season rewards are based on your highest earned rating. Top 96 titles are currently based on your current rating once the season ends. This means that you must continue to play beyond gold rewards if you want a top 96 title.

 

Adding rating decay after gold will NOT change anything for the every day ranked player. You will still progress from bronze to gold with no decay and will still earn end of season rewards based on your highest earned rank. Rating decay will only affect players specifically going for top 96 titles. It will prevent players from camping ranks and instead force them to actually be required to constantly compete for the top 96 titles. This system definitely has pros and cons to it as well, I won't lie, but it will change what having a top 96 title means going forward in the future. Generally, it will mean that in order to get a top 3 title, you will have to maintain a decent win rate throughout the whole season, instead of win trading for 20 games and leaving it at that.

 

The rate of decay could be experimented with. In my opinion, anywhere from 5-10 days of inactivity would suffice.

 

 

 

_______________________

 

 

Additionally, I propose that we change how Bronze - Gold is obtained. Instead of having visible ELO from Bronze to Gold, I propose that ELO still exists, but is hidden and used solely for matchmaking purposes. In exchange for visible elo, we move to a "points" system for Bronze - Gold.

 

For Example:

 

Bronze - 10 Ranked points

 

Silver - 30 Ranked points

 

Gold - 50 Ranked points

 

Points are accumulated by winning Ranked Matches. One win would offer one point. One loss would lose one point. Once you hit a new tier (I.E. Progress from Bronze to Silver) you can no longer fall below your highest earned tier. After winning at least two games in a row, you get a 'win streak bonus', meaning each win while on your win streak bonus gives 2 points instead of one. Here's an example of how this would work:

 

 

 

With this system, Bronze - Gold is easier to obtain for the average player and they can progress as slowly or quickly as they like with no penalty. The win streak system will give regular players incentive to keep queuing, as well as boosting players who are already Gold tier through the ladder at a quicker pace, preventing lower skilled players from playing them for too long in the lower brackets. Finally, rating decay above gold tier will reward top 96 rewards to the players who were both: active throughout the season and maintained a high win rate. Generally speaking, better players will maintain a higher win rate anyway, so nothing really changes as far as the requirements for top 96, other than no longer being able to get there in 10 wins because you must first progress through the points system before you are eligible for top 96 rewards.

 

Thoughts?

 

 

I really love the whole idea and concept. It’s a great way for everyday ranked players to feel they are achieving something and it combats win trading at the same time.

The top 96 players get to duke it out and we actually get to see who are the better players and not the win traders.

It would actually put some validation back into the whole ranked system.

Edited March 23, 2019 by TrixxieTriss

[TrixxieTriss]

Interesting article about reinforcing positive player behaviour

http://gamasutra.com/view/news/339159/Overwatch_saw_40_less_disruptive_behavior_with_the_endorsement_system.php

[Lundorff]

I want to clarify, my suggestion was that rating decay would ONLY apply once you reach above gold. From Bronze to Gold, your rating would be in tact. Once you hit gold, you would begin to experience decay. This is because once you hit gold you will always get rewards for getting gold, regardless of if you drop from gold to silver, or gold to bronze. This is because end of season rewards are based on your highest earned rating. Top 96 titles are currently based on your current rating once the season ends. This means that you must continue to play beyond gold rewards if you want a top 96 title.

 

Adding rating decay after gold will NOT change anything for the every day ranked player. You will still progress from bronze to gold with no decay and will still earn end of season rewards based on your highest earned rank. Rating decay will only affect players specifically going for top 96 titles. It will prevent players from camping ranks and instead force them to actually be required to constantly compete for the top 96 titles. This system definitely has pros and cons to it as well, I won't lie, but it will change what having a top 96 title means going forward in the future. Generally, it will mean that in order to get a top 3 title, you will have to maintain a decent win rate throughout the whole season, instead of win trading for 20 games and leaving it at that.

 

The rate of decay could be experimented with. In my opinion, anywhere from 5-10 days of inactivity would suffice.

 

 

 

_______________________

 

 

Additionally, I propose that we change how Bronze - Gold is obtained. Instead of having visible ELO from Bronze to Gold, I propose that ELO still exists, but is hidden and used solely for matchmaking purposes. In exchange for visible elo, we move to a "points" system for Bronze - Gold.

 

For Example:

 

Bronze - 10 Ranked points

 

Silver - 30 Ranked points

 

Gold - 50 Ranked points

 

Points are accumulated by winning Ranked Matches. One win would offer one point. One loss would lose one point. Once you hit a new tier (I.E. Progress from Bronze to Silver) you can no longer fall below your highest earned tier. After winning at least two games in a row, you get a 'win streak bonus', meaning each win while on your win streak bonus gives 2 points instead of one. Here's an example of how this would work:

 

 

 

With this system, Bronze - Gold is easier to obtain for the average player and they can progress as slowly or quickly as they like with no penalty. The win streak system will give regular players incentive to keep queuing, as well as boosting players who are already Gold tier through the ladder at a quicker pace, preventing lower skilled players from playing them for too long in the lower brackets. Finally, rating decay above gold tier will reward top 96 rewards to the players who were both: active throughout the season and maintained a high win rate. Generally speaking, better players will maintain a higher win rate anyway, so nothing really changes as far as the requirements for top 96, other than no longer being able to get there in 10 wins because you must first progress through the points system before you are eligible for top 96 rewards.

 

Thoughts?

 

Totally, all of this. It is very close to my proposal, so naturally I support this