My thoughts about the new PVP changes

[alasamaya]

Before writing anything, I dont pretend this topic to be a war between people "cheering" that ranked was removed and ranked players. Is not where Im pointing my ideas.

First of all, I was a ranked player. The only reason kept me suscribing to this game for around 9 years was solo ranked. I loved the gamemode, because of two reasons: It allowed me to improve as a player, I learnt my classes through it. And second, the specific mode wasnt present in any aspect of the game. When people complained that in regs you can queue solo and face a premade...well, that issue never happened in solos -appart of some buggy moments when the other team could have support and you did not-. Solo Ranked -and group ranked- was like a solution for the unbalance that happens in regular warzones: You are either by your own versus other 7 players by their own, or with a full group vs another full group. That "content" wont be in Star Wars anymore, and if someone is "cheering" for that content to be removed from YOUR GAME, should be ashamed of called themselves Pvpers.

Being said that, I want to point some issues that the gamemode had:

- No transition between regular warzones and ranked ones: Regular warzones doesnt have any kind of "balance". You can be in a full dps team against a healer/tank one. You couldnt actually try to prepare for ranked doing the regular warzone content, since the playstyle is quite different. New players that got into ranked had to face the ones playing it for years, without any chance of practicing arenas. You never had an option to queue only regular arenas, in order to prepare for ranked, which caused a lot of frustration for them. And before someone says "oh but they are including that option again" presenting it as new content, let me remind you that anybody could queue for ranked arenas before, grouped and solo. So it was "balanced". Now you can queue solo and be against a premade. Dont let the devs fool you, this is just a removal of content. This isnt new content.

- Toxicity? I cant deny ranked had a few guys -believe it or not, was just a few guys, not the majority- that would tell you "dont queue ranked ever again" or harass you in whispers. But my overall experience was the contrary. I received lot of advice when I first got into ranked, which made me improve a lot. And if its toxicity related, are we going to remove the Imperial Fleet cause excess of toxicity? I have never seen more toxicity in fleet that in any other aspect of the games. Oh, and also the amount of whispers I received for playing regular warzones were WAY MORE than all my years playing ranked. I never saw more drama in there than anywhere else.

-Throwers: People have been throwing matches in ranked for years. The best example is the famous thrower on the server Satele Shan, which I believe I cant name -I will do some crime like naming Voldemort, and might be banned from forums-. Is the "ranked player" fault that this guy has been allowed to throw matches for years? There is a post from 2013 about him, and yet he came back to play ranked season after season. This issue, that people still use to say "ranked is a joke", is something that didnt get fixed from the Devs end. Players have nothing to be with it. We reported, reports got ignored.

-Wintraders: I think wintrading was an issue. There are always cheaters in any game. But was that big? I dont think so. At least, for the people doing solo ranked -I wont speak about team ranked for now, since it was big time exploited by the so called "big guilds" to get their conquest done- the matches were fun, and indeed were wintraders, but it wasnt the majority of the people. I played for 9 years and never asked a friend to throw a match for me. I wanted to do solos for fun, for the joy of having a balanced system -or at least more balanced than regular warzones-. And trust me when I say this. I reported more wintraders than anybody in this game. I used to make videos of it, send to the godly PVPreports email. And guess what. Everytime I sent a video, viewers never increased. They didnt care. Is that, then, a playerbase problem? Or was the judge in charge-devs-. If a sport is full of anabolic users that take advantage of it, is all of them fault? Or is the the judges fault? The evidence was provided, they didnt do anything about it.

- Mats as rewards: When Ossus was introduced to this game, PVPrs -or ranked ones- were complaining that introducing mats in Group Ranked was a bad idea. It would only encourage big guilds to wintrade. There is a difference between encourage healthy participation than encourage cheating. I have videos and videos of big guilds wintrading. Taking gear off to make it faster or just /stucking.

And again, evidence was provided, no action was taken. Devs, afterwards, recognized was a bad idea and removed them....to reinstall them in 6.0?! With the Rpm creation linked to ranked, most of the so called big guilds started to wintrade for them again. We pointed this issue back then, yet they did what they wanted. And is not only a mat issue. Conquest also gives you many points for group and solo ranked weekly, which is also and incentive for these guilds to do the same thing. Again, I sent reports of big guilds doing this, yet devs didnt care or take any action. Ranked NEVER had to be related with any kind of reward more than leaderboard or cosmetics, in my humble opinion. 

 

Now, all these issues that have happened in the game, like I pointed, arent a playerbase creation. Obviously cheaters and trolls has to be banned. But who does that? The generic issue with the gamemode was a Developer/customer service issue. Is not our fault they didnt read the reports. Players are being punished in a double way: 1)Devs didnt ban the cheaters/throwers, so we had to deal with them and 2) Now they are removing the mode. These issues can happen now in regular warzones also. If you include materials in reg pvp weekly, guilds will continue to "let their other guildies group win" to get them faster. Is this encouraging a healthy community? The more known ranked throwers will be throwing now in regs -good luck seeing them AFK in your matches-. What im pointing is this: These issues wont be solved by removing content from the game. They will be solved when the devs actually do something about them. 

 

One more thing about the removal: SWTOR  on twitch normally has 200 viewers, meanwhile some ranked streamers were holding around 70-90 viewers. With pvp tournaments, numbers could go to 400-500. I dont think anybody should be happy if those viewers will be basically gone or just watching another competitive games.

Just to finish, is sad that what made me change regular warzones to ranked was the will to improve in PVP and how unbalanced in terms of composition regs are. I found that balance in ranked and I was happy doing it. I remained as a sub for so many years just for the sakes of doing ranked, did some PVE content also but just in moments that ranked wouldnt pop. Content creators are leaving because of this, players are leaving. And again, this was never player base fault. Was your fault, Bioware. We pointed it for years, and you did nothing.

 

 

Edited November 15, 2022 by alasamaya

[RikuvonDrake]

ranked removal is overall a positive thing for the game, very tiny community with very high demand of developer resources both for class balancing and for control to prevent cheating, its simply not worth the money and it caused issues for the rest of the community when devs felt forced to nerf classes due to their performance in ranked which spilled over on also being a nerf for the casual playerbase, arsenal merc being perhaps the best example

i agree being happy its removed isn't great, but on the other hand anyone can understand why it did, and a couple of people leaving isn't a big deal if those resources that ranked required can be used to enhance/create other types of content that will bring in/ensure more player stay, which considering the small ranked playerbase, isn't that unreasonable to expect

Edited November 13, 2022 by RikuvonDrake

[Mycroft-Tarkin]

28 minutes ago, alasamaya said:

 

Very well said and something that the entire ranked community can resonate with

 

 

  

17 minutes ago, RikuvonDrake said:

those resources that ranked required can be used to enhance/create other types of content that will bring in/ensure more player stay, which considering the small ranked playerbase, isn't that unreasonable to expect

I guess you didn't read, the issue with ranked is exactly that bioware dedicated exactly "ZERO" resources to it. Not a single report was read, there wasn't ANY moderation whatsoever, all rewards are just reskinned since YEARS (sometimes not even reskinned, literally just changed a number)

Edited November 13, 2022 by Mycroft-Tarkin

[JediMasterAlex]

25 minutes ago, RikuvonDrake said:

i agree being happy its removed isn't great, but on the other hand anyone can understand why it did, and a couple of people leaving isn't a big deal if those resources that ranked required can be used to enhance/create other types of content that will bring in/ensure more player stay, which considering the small ranked playerbase, isn't that unreasonable to expect

13 minutes ago, Mycroft-Tarkin said:

I guess you didn't read, the issue with ranked is exactly that bioware dedicated exactly "ZERO" resources to it. Not a single report was read, there wasn't ANY moderation whatsoever, all rewards are just reskinned since YEARS (sometimes not even reskinned, literally just changed a number)

Yeah, those "resources that ranked required" haven't been spent on ranked for years. They already allocated those resources somewhere else, and they've hardly made any balance changes regarding ranked in years either (arsenal merc was only fotm long ago in 5.x). It's silly to think that this change will lead to improvements to other parts of the game.

I just think leaving ranked in a totally unmoderated state was an embarrassment for them, like a homeowners association leaving a totally dilapidated house standing. Sure, technically someone can still live there, but it's an eyesore and a safety hazard.

[septru]

31 minutes ago, RikuvonDrake said:

very tiny community with very high demand of developer resources both for class balancing and for control to prevent cheating

 

Please see the following... 

 

21 hours ago, septru said:

The misconception that both of you guys rely on, is that BioWare devoted any resources to Ranked PvP. They didn't. 

 

-All of their rewards were reskins of past rewards. 

-There hasn't been any moderation or bans in 2 years. 

-At the end of the season, they supposedly "investigate" people's accounts. But there's no evidence that they actually investigated because last season many legitimate players did not get their rewards, and illegitimate players got their rewards. 

-The past couple ranked seasons (and preseasons) have been years long, despite BioWare promising to keep them to 3 months. 

 

But besides that, like I said in other threads. BioWare had the perfect opportunity to redesign ranked/regs without minimal resources. They can bring back leaderboards, make them opt-in, and give out a flair to anyone that achieves over a 50% win rate with 100 games played. All of this could be automated and require no moderation. 

[RikuvonDrake]

thats just being in denial, look at the most recent season, there weren't even enough eligible characters to give out all the rewards to, say bioware release a new operation and 3-4 months later there aren't even 100 players that have cleared it, you wouldn't see another operation released

ranked pvp costs way too much resources compared to what it brings in, its a sign of sound and good business practice for bioware to get rid of it and reallocate the resources previously dedicated to ranked into other projects, the seasons idea worked great for pve and will more than likely work well for pvp, certain people not liking that is largely irrelevant since its more a case of looking at it through rose tinted glasses and nostalgia rather than looking at reality

[Prapcaster]

1 hour ago, RikuvonDrake said:

thats just being in denial, look at the most recent season, there weren't even enough eligible characters to give out all the rewards to, say bioware release a new operation and 3-4 months later there aren't even 100 players that have cleared it, you wouldn't see another operation released

ranked pvp costs way too much resources compared to what it brings in, its a sign of sound and good business practice for bioware to get rid of it and reallocate the resources previously dedicated to ranked into other projects, the seasons idea worked great for pve and will more than likely work well for pvp, certain people not liking that is largely irrelevant since its more a case of looking at it through rose tinted glasses and nostalgia rather than looking at reality

Could you post a source showing that there weren't enough people to give out all the rewards? Because what actually happened was top 3 players got skipped and people that weren't even top 20 got top 3 rewards.

[septru]

1 hour ago, RikuvonDrake said:

ranked pvp costs way too much resources compared to what it brings in

Rather than repeating a general, unsupported claim that BioWare spends too many resources on ranked. Try naming one specific thing BioWare has done in the past 2 years that required BioWare resources. 

 

I think a lot of times, people come to these forums to defend preconceived opinions. "I heard from my brother's dog's friend's cousin's best friend that ranked pvp is toxic, so that means all ranked pvpers must be assholes." But maybe instead, try listening to what other people say. Who knows? We might be able to actually agree with eachother.

 

 

Edited November 13, 2022 by septru

[septru]

27 minutes ago, Prapcaster said:

Could you post a source showing that there weren't enough people to give out all the rewards? Because what actually happened was top 3 players got skipped and people that weren't even top 20 got top 3 rewards.

I think what @RikuvonDrake is talking about is S14 team ranked top3s. And he's right, there weren't even enough eligible characters for BioWare to give out season 14 tr top3s. 

 

But even if they got rid of team ranked, or top3s, or both, that's still not a reason to get rid of ranked altogether. Ranked, especially solo ranked, had a lot of eligible characters earning rewards. 

 

Moreover, top3 rewards do not require BioWare resources. It's an automated process. Each season, eligible top3 players receive a flair and flag. These rewards are almost exactly the same as the ones from the previous season. 

Edited November 13, 2022 by septru

[Prapcaster]

10 minutes ago, septru said:

I think what @RikuvonDrake is talking about is S14 team ranked top3s. And he's right, there weren't even enough eligible characters for BioWare to give out season 14 tr top3s. 

 

But even if they got rid of team ranked, or top3s, or both, that's still not a reason to get rid of ranked altogether. Ranked, especially solo ranked, had a lot of eligible characters earning rewards. 

 

Moreover, top3 rewards do not require BioWare resources. It's an automated process. Each season, eligible top3 players receive a flair and flag. These rewards are almost exactly the same as the ones from the previous season. 

Even so. It's not like they're just holding those rewards in a guild bank hoping that enough people queue. They code them into the game when the season ends. I don't understand where this resources argument is coming from. I feel like people saw one guy who doesn't understand coding say it then people jsut repeated it to try to reach for any point at all.

[RikuvonDrake]

bronze, silver and gold are sent automatically, top 3 are done manually by bioware staff, lets stick with what we know from developer communications, same with top 3 titles, we know that there weren't enough eligible characters... dont make up random facts to suit a narrative

everything requires resources, ranked pvp isn't an exception to that and it does demand that bioware puts dev hours as well as allocate resources to maintain it, if it was just a mode they could put "out there" that require no cost for maintenance or upkeep they wouldn't remove it as it would be stupid from a business perspective. however as we know, ranked pvp isn't "free" for bioware, and they wanted to revamp it and reallocate resources, utilize the battlepass/seasons system that worked well in pve and has done great in other games, this required something to be scrapped and ranked got removed since it costs more than it brings

there isn't much more too it honestly, i get the "feelings" argument tho that you feel like it shouldn't be removed and you will miss it, shame not enough people feel that way or it would stay

Edited November 13, 2022 by RikuvonDrake

[septru]

11 minutes ago, RikuvonDrake said:

top 3 are done manually by bioware staff,

See below...

On 11/12/2022 at 2:03 PM, septru said:

-At the end of the season, they supposedly "investigate" people's accounts. But there's no evidence that they actually investigated because last season many legitimate players did not get their rewards, and illegitimate players got their rewards. 

 

[TmoneyTime]

At the end of the day, The biggest problem that 7.0 going forward has had is still the same with all these changes.

The changes are not geared toward players that have been around for years. Almost all the changes made after 7.0 has been in favor of trying to bring in a more casual audience like the FF14 crowd.

This then gets compounded because SWTOR doesn't have the investment that the bigger games have. Bioware has chosen that they would rather bet on brining in new casual players that will spend a few dollars on the cartel market. Then on the players that have been playing for years.

 

From a business perspective alone it's the right move in a vacuum. They only problem is those players never stay. They will give a quick revenue increase then be gone. I'm 100% sure this is the direction they are going in because they don't believe that there will be a mass exodus. Any one leaving will be more then replaced by the new money the casual crowd will bring in. They consider their core hooked on the game and will continue to spend cash regardless.

 

I've given this some thought after what was announced. Most decisions are made from a business perspective not a consumer perspective. That's what's really going on.

Edited November 14, 2022 by TmoneyTime

[JediMasterAlex]

6 hours ago, RikuvonDrake said:

thats just being in denial, look at the most recent season, there weren't even enough eligible characters to give out all the rewards to, say bioware release a new operation and 3-4 months later there aren't even 100 players that have cleared it, you wouldn't see another operation released

4 hours ago, RikuvonDrake said:

bronze, silver and gold are sent automatically, top 3 are done manually by bioware staff, lets stick with what we know from developer communications, same with top 3 titles, we know that there weren't enough eligible characters... dont make up random facts to suit a narrative

You're conflating team ranked and solo ranked, which is just stupid. Team ranked has been a dead, irrelevant game mode for quite some time. Solo ranked had plenty of people to fill out top 3 rewards. Bioware completely botched handing out top 3s by handing them out to some players that didn't earn them and skipping some players that did. There is no excuse for it.

6 hours ago, RikuvonDrake said:

ranked pvp costs way too much resources compared to what it brings in, its a sign of sound and good business practice for bioware to get rid of it and reallocate the resources previously dedicated to ranked into other projects, the seasons idea worked great for pve and will more than likely work well for pvp, certain people not liking that is largely irrelevant since its more a case of looking at it through rose tinted glasses and nostalgia rather than looking at reality

You are literally making up facts to suit your narrative here. Repeating it doesn't make it any less wrong. 

4 hours ago, RikuvonDrake said:

everything requires resources, ranked pvp isn't an exception to that and it does demand that bioware puts dev hours as well as allocate resources to maintain it, if it was just a mode they could put "out there" that require no cost for maintenance or upkeep they wouldn't remove it as it would be stupid from a business perspective. however as we know, ranked pvp isn't "free" for bioware, and they wanted to revamp it and reallocate resources, utilize the battlepass/seasons system that worked well in pve and has done great in other games, this required something to be scrapped and ranked got removed since it costs more than it brings

You're completely missing the point. A properly functioning ranked system would indeed need resources put into it, but Bioware did not put any resources into maintaining it for the last few years, hence the unbanned speedhackers and throwers and the botched top 3 rewards. Bioware made the calculation that it wasn't worth putting anything into it, and that's that.

[JediMasterAlex]

4 hours ago, RikuvonDrake said:

bronze, silver and gold are sent automatically, top 3 are done manually by bioware staff, lets stick with what we know from developer communications, same with top 3 titles, we know that there weren't enough eligible characters... dont make up random facts to suit a narrative

This is also wrong. There is a "system" that does it for them, hence all the mistakes: https://forums.swtor.com/topic/921087-top-96-pvp-rewards/?do=findComment&comment=9701096

"The system is built in a way where it is intended to give out 6 Top 96 rewards for each Advanced Class, 3 going to qualified Solo Ranked characters and 3 going to qualified Group Ranked characters. For the sake of simplicity, I’m going to reference Guardians in the following example to explain how characters could appear to be “skipped” when rewards were issued.

Let’s say that I qualified for a Guardian Top Reward because I met the number of minimum wins required for Solo Ranked. However, for Group Ranked no other Guardian qualified because they did not meet the minimum required wins or were otherwise ineligible to qualify. There are now unclaimed rewards. So the system will look to reward the next highest rated Guardian who has obtained the minimum requirement of wins/is active to backfill for the unclaimed reward.If I've played some Group Ranked matches during the season, I would be eligible to receive these unclaimed Group Ranked top rewards, whereas a higher rated Solo player (that did not play any Group Ranked matches) would not."

[illgot]

6 hours ago, septru said:

Rather than repeating a general, unsupported claim that BioWare spends too many resources on ranked. Try naming one specific thing BioWare has done in the past 2 years that required BioWare resources.

GSF has had zero updates since 5.9. That was 5 years ago. GSF generates more revenue than ranked PvP.

You may think the devs spend very little time on ranked PvP, fine, but the fact that they spend any time on ranked PvP which brings in less revenue than GSF is seen as a deficit for Bioware/EA.

As someone stated in another thread, the new combat class system released in 7.0 may have been the axe to finally kill off the ranking system. Why bother spending any time going through code that is over 10 years old to fix something that very few people play anymore.

You may consider the development time for ranked seasons worthless, but apparently the devs disagree.

I wish the devs could leave ranked PvP in even if they didn't have seasons anymore, but I suspect it is not as easy as GSF.

Edited November 14, 2022 by illgot

[Mycroft-Tarkin]

34 minutes ago, illgot said:

GSF has had zero updates since 5.9. That was 5 years ago. GSF generates more revenue than ranked PvP.

 

?

How does GSF generate any revenue? You can literally create an F2P account at lvl 1 on Tython and finish 100% of GSF. What nonsense is that lol

The mistake here is assuming bioware used any logic in their decision making process. Removing a sub-only activity and making the rest of pvp f2p does NOT make any business sense at all. They still did it anyway, because err...... I guess they expect steamcharts to stop showing them losing 10% of their playerbase every month? 

[illgot]

22 minutes ago, Mycroft-Tarkin said:

?

How does GSF generate any revenue? You can literally create an F2P account at lvl 1 on Tython and finish 100% of GSF. What nonsense is that lol

The mistake here is assuming bioware used any logic in their decision making process. Removing a sub-only activity and making the rest of pvp f2p does NOT make any business sense at all. They still did it anyway, because err...... I guess they expect steamcharts to stop showing them losing 10% of their playerbase every month? 

GSF has 6 ships you can buy, cosmetics, and the ability to pay CC to transfer your ship requisition to fleet requisition for upgrades.

Removing ranked PvP when a very tiny portion of your player base not only demands balance changes which effect the rest of the game, rewards, tracking progress, answering Customer Service tickets because of "cheating", and dealing with toxicity driving new players away was probably more than enough reason to cancel ranked PvP. Plus it may have been too much trouble to root through the code and get the new dual spec combat classes to work with the old ranking system.

No matter why they finally canceled ranked PvP, GSF has more options for generating revenue than ranked PvP.

GSF is pretty much it's own self contained part of SWTOR that has zero effect on the rest of the game yet still generates revenue for Bioware.

 

Edited November 14, 2022 by illgot

[mfourcustom]

Regardless of how people feel about ranked pvp removing content from a game that is already lacking content in all facets is not a good sign at all. I think that is all that needs to be said. 

[Nee-Elder]

25 minutes ago, mfourcustom said:

Regardless of how people feel about ranked pvp removing content from a game that is already lacking content in all facets is not a good sign at all.

I think that is all that needs to be said. 

It definitely isn't, since  what you "said"  is actually wrong lol

BioWare isn't  "removing content" .  They are  merging content, in the hopes of  yielding better content for more players.

Best bet is to go check things out for yourself on PTS--> https://forums.swtor.com/topic/925871-72-pvp-feedback

(and/or  go read  XamXam's  intel here: https://forums.swtor.com/topic/925904-72-the-removal-of-scoreboards/?do=findComment&comment=9728375 )

Edited November 14, 2022 by Nee-Elder
Reason: information is key

[Mycroft-Tarkin]

1 hour ago, illgot said:

Removing ranked PvP when a very tiny portion of your player base not only demands balance changes which effect the rest of the game, rewards, tracking progress, answering Customer Service tickets because of "cheating", and dealing with toxicity driving new players away was probably more than enough reason to cancel ranked PvP. Plus it may have been too much trouble to root through the code and get the new dual spec combat classes to work with the old ranking system.

 

Except...they did none of that for 2 years. which consequently led to the population of ranked becoming really small. Ranked used to pop all day some years ago. 

 

1 hour ago, illgot said:

GSF has 6 ships you can buy, cosmetics, and the ability to pay CC to transfer your ship requisition to fleet requisition for upgrades.

And Ranked requires a subscription. I'm sure GSF players aren't spending $15 on cc every month. Ranked players also VERY frequently server transfer to play on different servers, which costs cc. Ranked players also buy cc items etc. GSF being "more revenue" for bioware has to be one of the most ridiculous arguments ever.

[Mycroft-Tarkin]

39 minutes ago, Nee-Elder said:

It definitely isn't, since  what you "said"  is actually wrong lol

BioWare isn't  "removing content" .  They are  merging content, in the hopes of  yielding better content for more players.

Best bet is to go check things out for yourself on PTS--> https://forums.swtor.com/topic/925871-72-pvp-feedback

(and/or  go read  XamXam's  intel here: https://forums.swtor.com/topic/925904-72-the-removal-of-scoreboards/?do=findComment&comment=9728375 )

No, they are not "merging" ranked into unranked. The PVP on PTS has no competitiveness, no leaderboard, no incentive to actually improve or maintain a good winrate or any such thing. You get a fixed set of objectives a week, you can be an AFKER that took 500 games to finish those objectives, and you'll be at the same level as a skilled player who did them in 10 games. 

[Nee-Elder]

35 minutes ago, Mycroft-Tarkin said:

No, they are not "merging" ranked into unranked. The PVP on PTS has no competitiveness, no leaderboard, no incentive to actually improve or maintain a good winrate or any such thing.

hmm,  PTS testers are saying  there is indeed some new version of the 'leaderboard'  ( XamXam's  intel mentions the 'scoreboard' , no? ) . -- And hopefully BioWare will listen to feedback and implement a  server-wide  terminal on Fleet, like we have for Strongholds w/ 'prestige'  , so that any deserving player can  flex their e-peen in public.  ( i like showing off sometimes too, so  np there )

35 minutes ago, Mycroft-Tarkin said:

 You get a fixed set of objectives a week, you can be an AFKER that took 500 games to finish those objectives, and you'll be at the same level as a skilled player who did them in 10 games. 

True  'alpha' comes from within and the PVP cream always rises to the top  no matter what.   Your hypothetical example is a melodramatic exaggeration.   And besides  AFK'ers can get  *vote kicked* just like in GSF, no?

p.s. The other day i got my  R-4  Lady D  cleared cheevo in only 3 runs.  Does that make me  "at the same level" as an actual  hardcore RAIDER?

( hint: No. )

Edited November 14, 2022 by Nee-Elder
Reason: 2022 world = everything for everyone , even in MMO's

[illgot]

1 hour ago, Mycroft-Tarkin said:

Except...they did none of that for 2 years. which consequently led to the population of ranked becoming really small. Ranked used to pop all day some years ago. 

 

And Ranked requires a subscription. I'm sure GSF players aren't spending $15 on cc every month. Ranked players also VERY frequently server transfer to play on different servers, which costs cc. Ranked players also buy cc items etc. GSF being "more revenue" for bioware has to be one of the most ridiculous arguments ever.

Season 14 started last December and continued into 2022. There were specific rewards for that season and the devs tracked progress. The rewards for that season weren't amazing but it took dev time to create and organize. Tracking the different classes maybe a massive amount of work with the new class system we received in 7.0. That means more dev time than usual.

Plus how much of "class balancing" was done at the behest of ranked PvP results?

Ranked PvP requires a subscription to play and GSF is unlimited for FTP, but how many players are going to cancel their subscriptions once ranked PvP vanishes?

Meanwhile all the FTP players, preferred players, subscribers who play GSF are buying cosmetics and ships for GSF which requires zero dev time and has gotten zero dev time in the last 5 years.

 

[ZUHFB]

12 hours ago, RikuvonDrake said:

ranked pvp costs way too much resources compared to what it brings in

So does gods NiM - remove it too.