Follow-ups on PvP in 7.2

[Nee-Elder]

19 minutes ago, Whiskey_jak said:

 You got rid of leaderboards because you added a feature to the game nobody asked for?  I don't remember ever hearing anything about secondary specs until Bioware announced the change. Who asked for this change?

No one likes to hear this but:  BioWarEA  can do whatever they want with their game , whenever they feel like it.   And, as players, we all agree to these terms upon 'signing' the EULA.  In other words, you/we  pay for them to change the game at will.

Think about that for a sec.

Then speak with your wallet$ and/or ub-sub accordingly.

Or, simply accept & adapt.

23 minutes ago, Whiskey_jak said:

You guys didn't want to figure out a workaround for leaderboards to be [remain] viable  ?

i agree  the irony is disappointing, in that  BioWare created their own 7.0 problem (which is now the 7.2 problem of small but important Ranked 'community' ) by introducing  combat-styles  without considering (or caring? ) the inevitable reprecutions.

31 minutes ago, Whiskey_jak said:

 No human being in this world has been involved in more solo ranked matches than myself. 

Then you & the other "hardcore" Rankers should probably go read this: https://forums.swtor.com/topic/925871-72-pvp-feedback/page/5/#comment-9731574

[JackieKo]

On 12/8/2022 at 1:24 PM, EricMusco said:

Hey folks, 

 

Adding onto Musco's original post, we published a PvP Revamp article that encompasses all of the info relevant to the changes coming to PvP in 7.2. I will also update Musco's post to include the article link to keep as much info together as possible. 

[septru]

Firstly, @EricMusco thank you for responding.

 

It's clear that you made up your mind, and there's no point to argue or care. You want to "encourage positive play" and "invite more players to participate in PvP." In other words, you want to make PvP more casual and you cannot accomplish this without completely removing competitive play or allowing any incentives for skill.

 

I think most logical human beings understand that it doesn't have to be an "either/or" situation...  You can both create participation rewards for new casual players while also rewarding skill. But, it wouldn't be the SWTOR dev team if there were any logical human beings, right? 

 

Either way, we are done arguing about it. Your changes will lead to the death of competitive PvP, and we have all come to accept that fact. Just don't lie with comments like: 

On 12/8/2022 at 2:24 PM, EricMusco said:

This is Season ONE of the PvP revamp. We know it won’t be perfect but that is always the benefit of a live service. It gives us the opportunity to read feedback, see player data, and more to continue to improve the system, its rewards, and even consider additional features to support our goals for PvP.

 

We both know you won't make any changes anytime "soon." If 7.0 has taught us anything, it's that you don't have enough resources to "improve the system." In 5 years, by the time you "consider additional features" or "analyze the player data", the game will be completely casual. And that's what you want. Don't worry, the pvp community understands. "We get it." And we are leaving. Goodbye.  

Edited December 9, 2022 by septru

[krackcommando]

4 hours ago, Whiskey_jak said:

To be honest nobody cared much, however. We loved the new arena format for ranked. 

WTH are you smoking? every PvP guild I knew of (10+) disbanded and quit the game (many also ran regular OPs, but that end game was DOA long before rated WZs were nixed).

[krackcommando]

Quote

Additionally, with 7.2, the 8v8 queue will also allow full 8-player premade groups to queue up.

this is absolutely insane. if you think players whine about premades now, just wait until this happens. honestly, this would be reason enough to keep playing just to kill the queue with an 8m ranked team. and given how quickly BW reacts to things, they might get around to fixing this incredibly bad idea (for "casual" pvp) in about 12 months.

[Prapcaster]

4 minutes ago, krackcommando said:

this is absolutely insane. if you think players whine about premades now, just wait until this happens. honestly, this would be reason enough to keep playing just to kill the queue with an 8m ranked team. and given how quickly BW reacts to things, they might get around to fixing this incredibly bad idea (for "casual" pvp) in about 12 months.

This blew my mind too. They're really banking on people not remembering the game past 6.0. In 5.0 there was 8 man premades and it was the worst pvp in swtor history. It was just healers and skank tanks queue syncing to get on the same team. The lockout won't stop this because they'll just keep declining pops until they get it right. The age of the solo player is dead and gone.

[krackcommando]

7 minutes ago, Prapcaster said:

This blew my mind too. They're really banking on people not remembering the game past 6.0. In 5.0 there was 8 man premades and it was the worst pvp in swtor history. It was just healers and skank tanks queue syncing to get on the same team. The lockout won't stop this because they'll just keep declining pops until they get it right. The age of the solo player is dead and gone.

if I were BW, I'd be more worried about destroying casual game play here than killing rated. this is why 8v8 queues were dead. once teams like LD50 and then Uncensored established themeselves. the queues dried up because every night they saw someone in the queue, they jumped in and murdered everyone. this is what happens in team arenas as well. I'm not throwing shade on these ppl. I'm saying there's no way casuals are going to keep queuing if they're going to run into organized play like that. 

Casual players cannot repel that kind of firepower!

edit: and I'm pro-premade. but...like...wow. allowing a full 8m team? gawd. we had that. it was rated WZs. you gave up on that one.

also, obligatory statement: you need to ramp down player movement abilities and dcds to make these WZ maps viable again. the maps are cool, but your engine sucks. this it just does. you can still work around this, but it requires playing to the engine's strengths and avoiding the weaknesses. one glaring issue is level changes and leap/roll desync. seriously. that's a MAJOR issue on half your maps.

Edited December 10, 2022 by krackcommando

[septru]

41 minutes ago, krackcommando said:

this is absolutely insane. if you think players whine about premades now, just wait until this happens. honestly, this would be reason enough to keep playing just to kill the queue with an 8m ranked team. and given how quickly BW reacts to things, they might get around to fixing this incredibly bad idea (for "casual" pvp) in about 12 months.

hahaha I just saw this. regs are going to be such a mess. casuals are gonna be crying so hard 

Edited December 10, 2022 by septru

[SaerethDL]

I for one welcome the changes, reading through this mess you can see just how toxic it was and they wanted that lifestyle, that cesspool of filth to remain undisturbed. The fact is the ranked community didn't welcome new players into ranked, they cussed them out and made them feel low when all they wanted was to get a chance to improve. You created your bed toxic players now lye in it. 

Regardless of just the toxicity, unranked needed to be more rewarding for the effort put in. Some people like myself are very good pvp players but stay out of ranked, now I feel like we are finally be rewarded for being skilled and just having plain fun. 

Good decision devs, I resubbed even though pvp is free now, and I guarentee a lot more people will be pvping now for sure. We are in for some good times! 

edit: I have to admit allowing 8man premades to queue with solo casual players will be a travisty. Make it so only grouped teams can play with each other. or allow a solo only 8v8.

Edited December 10, 2022 by SaerethDL

[Toraak]

59 minutes ago, krackcommando said:

this is absolutely insane. if you think players whine about premades now, just wait until this happens. honestly, this would be reason enough to keep playing just to kill the queue with an 8m ranked team. and given how quickly BW reacts to things, they might get around to fixing this incredibly bad idea (for "casual" pvp) in about 12 months.

I'll admit I was planning on doing a lot more PvP before I read that as well. Now I'll probably focus on other aspects of the game. I only solo queu when I do Unranked now, so no chance I'm going to want to queu Vs full 8 man premades.

[BallisticKaine]

@EricMusco @JackieKocan we get full clarification on the full 8 man premade que as group? During stream you stated that premades would be facing premades. So on that logic if there isn't another 8 man premade in que that there should be no pop for the full 8 man premade, right? 

Also if that is not the case then you need to seriously remove the lockout from PvP. Making a PUG group go up against a full 8 man premade is not encouraging positive play or non toxic behavior 

Edited December 10, 2022 by BallisticKaine

[BallisticKaine]

4 hours ago, Prapcaster said:

My third and final rant is please have a chat with your formerly departed dev who's shooting his mouth off on discord servers about not only the subscribers but also about you guys. We've all seen the screenshots of his and I know all the devs have too. It's unbelievably unprofessional of him and honestly disheartening to see how much a former developer hates the fanbase that looked to him for future changes.

I take it this former DEV is the one that enforced the unranked PvP lockout, goes by the name nighguy.

[Prapcaster]

11 minutes ago, BallisticKaine said:

I take it this former DEV is the one that enforced the unranked PvP lockout, goes by the name nighguy.

Yep that's him. He's been trashing the players and devs ever since he quit. Which makes me think it wasn't a voluntary departure.

[Raazmir]

2 hours ago, krackcommando said:

WTH are you smoking? every PvP guild I knew of (10+) disbanded and quit the game (many also ran regular OPs, but that end game was DOA long before rated WZs were nixed).

This is exactly true.  A ton of guilds even organized cross server from small servers and paid to transfer their entire guilds to one big server to ensure ranked had the largest participation pool since they weren't allowing cross server.   Then they got their hopes crushed by arenas,  most of them quit, and whats left are remnants of a remnant of a once healthy pvp environment where people could join a guild and learn to pvp with veterans who would explain specs, gearing, and strategy.  

[Nee-Elder]

46 minutes ago, Prapcaster said:

Yep that's him. He's been trashing the players and devs ever since he quit. Which makes me think it wasn't a voluntary departure.

You mean this dude? --> https://forums.swtor.com/topic/907101-should-we-just-join-the-private-discord-channel/?do=findComment&comment=9597184

[Prapcaster]

17 minutes ago, Nee-Elder said:

You mean this dude? --> https://forums.swtor.com/topic/907101-should-we-just-join-the-private-discord-channel/?do=findComment&comment=9597184

that's the guy

[Mycroft-Tarkin]

1 hour ago, BallisticKaine said:

@EricMusco @JackieKocan we get full clarification on the full 8 man premade que as group? During stream you stated that premades would be facing premades. So on that logic if there isn't another 8 man premade in que that there should be no pop for the full 8 man premade, right? 

Also if that is not the case then you need to seriously remove the lockout from PvP. Making a PUG group go up against a full 8 man premade is not encouraging positive play or non toxic behavior 

They never said that, they said matchmaker would prefer premade vs premade, but if that isn't possible it will prioritise creating a match even premade vs pug

 

That's the same how regs matchmaker works now and has worked for a long time, only change is group size limit goes from 4 to 8

[Weswhitebore]

2 hours ago, SaerethDL said:

I for one welcome the changes, reading through this mess you can see just how toxic it was and they wanted that lifestyle, that cesspool of filth to remain undisturbed. The fact is the ranked community didn't welcome new players into ranked, they cussed them out and made them feel low when all they wanted was to get a chance to improve. You created your bed toxic players now lye in it. 

The ranked community and the amount of ranked players that do use these forums are tired of your misinformation and anti-ranked propaganda. There have been quite a few individuals like Alex who have stayed on these forums to try to correct this misinformation, often proving many people wrong, but there is only so much one man can correct. It's easy you to try and beat down on the Ranked community because they don't speak out like the others do or listened to like the PVE community. The most toxic people that ranked has ever known were all part of hate groups that harassed people. They found like-minded degenerates and played together. As for any singular players and degenerate stragglers, if they weren't taken care of, it was Bioware's fault for failing to provide proper moderation, as I assure you, they were reported and not supported by other non-toxic players of the community, which there are many of. I've seen many Ranked players help and train people up to join the community, some of the most famous examples being Biggs, Prum, Vehirt, Cryptic, and Kogass. So your whole little theory about the toxicity of the ranked community as a whole has very little fact that is based or rooted in reality, the roots you do have are not well kept. In other words, your garden is overgrown and your cucumbers are soft!

2 hours ago, SaerethDL said:

Regardless of just the toxicity, unranked needed to be more rewarding for the effort put in. Some people like myself are very good pvp players but stay out of ranked, now I feel like we are finally be rewarded for being skilled and just having plain fun. 

Why should decent play in a casual environment that is not competitively viable to any set standard what so ever need to be rewarded with something as exclusive as a ranked reward in an environment filled with far more toxicity than Ranked? An environment full of damage farmers, objective andys, GS farmers who couldn't care less, the door/ node afkers, and those who keep getting 5-6 vs 3ed at a pylon.....and the 5-6 aren't winning.  Oh, even better, Huttball, which is just dominated simply by playing an Operative and an Assassin. Huttball, where my teammate instead of being my teammate easily can become my enemy or work against me, they can be standing right there to receive the ball, and still never uncloak to actually receive the ball. Huttball where instead of running towards the endzone they run towards another man or woman not on their team. Don't forget my favorite mode, Huttball, where players don't look up and where the game is bad at verticality. Map is so much about height that Obi-wan would love it, so much high ground. Shoutout to Huttball, where the goal is to avoid actual combative PVP and just get the ball in the end zone, utility PVP, which is less fun and full of standing around. Lastly, Huttball, where D-Sync is a major problem and players magically disappear for like 3 seconds, all leading to an mode that creates almost nothing but frustrating play experiences. Yes, surely that type of environment deserves outstanding rewards.

[SaerethDL]

2 hours ago, Weswhitebore said:

The ranked community and the amount of ranked players that do use these forums are tired of your misinformation and anti-ranked propaganda. There have been quite a few individuals like Alex who have stayed on these forums to try to correct this misinformation, often proving many people wrong, but there is only so much one man can correct. It's easy you to try and beat down on the Ranked community because they don't speak out like the others do or listened to like the PVE community. The most toxic people that ranked has ever known were all part of hate groups that harassed people. They found like-minded degenerates and played together. As for any singular players and degenerate stragglers, if they weren't taken care of, it was Bioware's fault for failing to provide proper moderation, as I assure you, they were reported and not supported by other non-toxic players of the community, which there are many of. I've seen many Ranked players help and train people up to join the community, some of the most famous examples being Biggs, Prum, Vehirt, Cryptic, and Kogass. So your whole little theory about the toxicity of the ranked community as a whole has very little fact that is based or rooted in reality, the roots you do have are not well kept. In other words, your garden is overgrown and your cucumbers are soft!

 

LOL "Not rooted in fact." The statement from bioware in the OP says otherwise. I guess you know more facts than their metrics and all the reports they received on toxic player environment. I'm not beating down the ranked community at all but I bore witness to their toxic environment throughout many seasons, not just torwards me but towards other players.. it's just an objective truth at this point and bioware confirmed it. I watched kogass stream, they were toxic to kogass on a daily basis my man. They even went to his stream to troll him. You are in a stage of denial, let it pass.

Why should ranked get all the cool rewards and regs nothing at all? I play just as hard as you do in regs and I've honed my skills. I shouldn't have to put up with such toxicity of ranked just to earn some cool rewards for my participation and efforts.  I never said the rewards had to be as good as ranked rewards but regs were so unrewarding as it was. Under the new system if people refuse to put in effort they wont progress as fast as good players so it will definitely give them some incentive to play better.  You guys had the gravy train so long and now it's over.. can't wait to earn them sweet, sweet, rewards! 

Edited December 10, 2022 by SaerethDL

[Raazmir]

26 minutes ago, Prapcaster said:

If you actually gave a damn about toxicity in this game you would be putting this witchhunt energy into fleed chat where ped ophiles and racists run rampant 

Kind of a sad and silly attempt at deflection here.   Fleet chat isn't the subject under discussion.

[Prapcaster]

5 minutes ago, Raazmir said:

Kind of a sad and silly attempt at deflection here.   Fleet chat isn't the subject under discussion.

Not a deflection at all this guy is clearly just trolling the forums and the fact that you can't see that is kind of disappointing. 

[slowdude]

The bitter truth is that SWTOR never had a ranked mode. 8v8 was never popular, was completely closed to most players, had no matchmaking, and as a result, the dominant team(s) predictably killed the mode. It is the same with group arenas after a short period of initial activity.

Were solo arenas competitive? Cheats, exploits, wintrading, qsync, using voice communication, bugs. But this is not what makes the mode uncompetitive, but the lack of matchmaking. If a team can have a bronze and a diamond player (by rank names in other games), if the presence of one bad tank or healer in q makes the system vulnerable to manipulation, then players in any other game would refuse to participate in this, regardless of the name "ranked mode", which poorly corresponds to the essence. SWTOR ranked players  just liked to sit in their swamp with a small number of ppl, where everyone knew each other, enjoy the ranked player status and cosmetics. So no need to talk about how the ranked community sought to attract new players. This is all not true.

But the negative impact extended to warzones as well. The regs don't matter, I'm here for a deathmatch, the arenas are not active, so I'll collect the premade and destroy the casuals/bads. It all comes from ranked players, who at the same time constantly declare themselves as some kind of representatives of the "pvp community", which no one really chose.

 

 

[JediMasterAlex]

1 hour ago, SaerethDL said:

LOL "Not rooted in fact." The statement from bioware in the OP says otherwise. I guess you know more facts than their metrics and all the reports they received on toxic player environment. I'm not beating down the ranked community at all but I bore witness to their toxic environment throughout many seasons, not just torwards me but towards other players.. it's just an objective truth at this point and bioware confirmed it. I watched kogass stream, they were toxic to kogass on a daily basis my man. They even went to his stream to troll him. You are in a stage of denial, let it pass.

The answer is easy: Bioware is lying to you. They have no conception whatsoever what ranked was really like, because they stopped moderately it entirely several years ago. They stopped reading the reports, and failed to ban the most blatant rulebreakers, including people that threw hundreds of matches. I understand that it makes sense to you to trust Bioware, especially when you're already biased against "toxic" ranked players, but we are telling you how it was.

There was always some toxicity in ranked, without question. The nonsense creeps in when people become hyperbolic and vastly overstate the degree and nature of that toxicity. Most ranked players, and most ranked matches, were not toxic. The vast majority of ranked games you'd load in, someone would call a strat and mark targets, and then you play the game. Win or lose, then queue again. Sometimes a gg, or nice job, sometimes people blaming teammates, sometimes the handful of toxic people went overboard (and there is an ignore feature, lest we forget). All of this was totally standard pvp behavior that you see in every single other competitive online game.

[_Miriya_]

The superqueue 8s group queue is only understandable if the matchmaking is going to work perfectly and guarantees being against another 8s group, or at least doble premade 4s. 

Is the matchmaking going to work like this? @EricMusco @JackieKo 😶

 

[limenutpen]

removing content is removing content - nothing positive can come out of it....

I have played Arenas since introduced in the game, but since BW could not fix them in ten years, possibly (and I am divided) it is better to remove them.  

Arenas could not be fixed and apart from players behaving how they should not and BW never acting concisely, even some wishes like class stacking, and trying to makes que work with rating never materialized.  

but then I say BW removed Ranked 8vs8 WZ which had a much better competitive content then Arenas ever had.... 

So should we be surprised....