PvP Medals and Matchmaking Feedback Thread

[JackieKo]

Be sure to read this post first before jumping onto the PTS and submitting feedback in this thread! 

Alderaan Warzone Map:

• Is it easier to obtain Attacker and Defender points?
• Do you feel like you can earn 8 medals even if you do not win matches?
• How many medals did you earn per match per win/loss?

General PvP matches:

• Were matchups fair?
• If you participated in a match, please describe the makeup of your group and the group you were paired against.  
• Feel free to leave general feedback of your experience with matchmaking.

Please only leave feedback if you participated in a PvP match. 

EDIT: Added additional medals feedback question. 

[TrixxieTriss]

@JackieKoit is near impossible to test these changes on the PTS as there are never enough people on it to make this work. 

The only way to test this properly is to make the changes live & put them straight into the game next week.

But at the same time, you guys need to understand one basic fact that ALL competitive pvpers understand quiet simply. 
Premades should NEVER be placed against solo players.

The obvious solution to this is to split the queues into solo players & group players. The same as you had setup for ranked pvp.
But maybe the group queue for Objective maps could require people to queue in the following combinations, 2,4,6,8 or make the requirement be 4 or 8 man player squads. This way there are no odd numbers & solo players wouldn’t be needed to form group teams. 
For a group arena queue, it should only allow people to queue in 4 man squads.

Otherwise all it takes is one group of the best players forming an 8 man group & then dominating all solo players in the queue. There is no matchmaking that can ever be applied to make that game fair. It doesn’t matter how good you make your matchmaking algorithm, while ever it has an option that allows premades to go against solo players to give them faster pop times, there will be matches like that.

You either need to close the algorithmic loop hole that allows premades to go against non-premades if they are having slow pop times OR you need to split the queues. Those are the only 2 options if you want the matchmaking to have any chance of working properly & you want solo players to continue playing pvp.

Anything less will turn people off pvp & work against your set goals of building up the pvp community numbers.

Edited February 10, 2023 by TrixxieTriss

[Stradlin]

Include GSF to pvp rewards track, or give it one of its own. It is the most fun form of pvp TOR has.

 

If you want people to actually test pvp on TC, bribe them with a cartel pack or something. 

 

Splitting queues to premades and non premades would make matches pop less, people divided to two pools that way. In practice though, the group pool would never have enough people to keep matches going, it'd dry up immediately.

It'd be a bold and controversial move to ban grouping for pvp( GSF included ) entirely. It'd piss lots of people off. Quality of matches would likely improve greatly. Less one sided stompfests.

 

Edited February 10, 2023 by Stradlin

[TrixxieTriss]

19 hours ago, Stradlin said:

Splitting queues to premades and non premades would make matches pop less, people divided to two pools that way. In practice though, the group pool would never have enough people to keep matches going, it'd dry up immediately.

It'd be a bold and controversial move to ban grouping for pvp( GSF included ) entirely. It'd piss lots of people off. Quality of matches would likely improve greatly. Less one sided stompfests.

 

That’s not entirely true.

If there are two queues, one for mixed premades & one for solo’s, they should pop about the same amount as if matchmaking worked the way Bioware always states it should. Premade vs premade. Solo vs solo.

But because matchmaking doesn’t work properly in the game, we have premades vs solos constantly.
This isn’t a fair situation for anyone. And if BioWare can’t write the Algorithm properly to stop this happening, they should just split the queue so ALL players have a choice to have fair matches.

If the premade queue is made up of people who can queue as 2,4,6,8 man, then people who actually want to premade against other premades can do so & people who want to play solo against other solo players can do the same.

If the solo queue pop starts to slow down too much, players have the option to either stop queuing for a bit or form 2+ man teams to get into the group queue if they so choose. 

OR 

If the premade queue pop starts to slow down, people can disband their groups & queue solo to get faster pops. 

This puts the choice into the players hands & not some algorithm that never works out to the benefit of solo players (which are the majority of pvpers by the way & BioWare have that data to double check & confirm or deny it. If it’s not true, tell us).

Bioware have choice to make.

They can keep pandering to the smaller premade crowds wishes to ROFLSTOMP solo players & drive existing solo players & new players away.

OR

Bioware can choose to build up the PvP community numbers again by implementing fairer systems than just making queues pop faster for people who want to premade.

As it stands, having premades vs solo’s is off putting to every new solo player who comes across it. That means they are less likely to stay or come back to pvp (it doesn’t matter how good the rewards are if it’s not fun). It’s also off putting to veterans like myself & others who frankly, have had enough of the situation. 

Other competent pvp games don’t generally put premades against solo players because it’s not fair. Even BioWare recognised this when they originally set up ranked into 2 queues. 

If BioWare’s (and premade players) only requirements are to have pvp pop faster instead of being semi competitive & fair as well as fun, then the game will continue to have serious problems in attracting new pvpers & building up the pvp community. It will keep bleeding players & have an even bigger player turn around & the quality of pvp will degrade even more.

Edited February 11, 2023 by TrixxieTriss

[Glower]

On 2/9/2023 at 5:16 PM, JackieKo said:

• Were matchups fair?

How can you even ask that question with a straight face?

Just dont allow 8-players* premade to meet with random solo queue players. Especialy without bolster (i hope you guys remember that you removed bolster... and that was a really big mistake by itself). I repeat - not just "reduce" the probabilty, but do not allow this to happen at all, like never.

*It should not be not allowed to queue even as 4-players premade against random solo players, but hey, lets deal with one problem at a time.

And no, no one need to play on PTS with a negligible number of players in the queue to tell you about this problem.

[Stradlin]

8 hours ago, TrixxieTriss said:

That’s not entirely true.

Please don’t use that old argument just because you want to have an unfair -

In your own lust to argue and imply  things, you kinda missed how we don't even really disagree on this.

It'd prolly lead to better matches if premade groups got axed from GSF and ground pvp alike.  Wanting to group up with friends and guildies is just about the most natural thing in an MMO, so removing that would be controversial and piss some people off, even if GSF/ground stuff itself benefitted. These things are  pretty undeniable imo.

Two seperate pools is an option, but it inevitably leads to matchmaker having less people to work with.  Could be I'm wrong tho in assuming it'd not pop: Now that they've lowered amount of people required to make a pop happen might be you'd see some 4 vs 4 stuff taking place. 

 

 

Edited February 10, 2023 by Stradlin

[Screaming_Ziva]

I've completed four Alderaan WZs on the PTS now and medals seem to be much better for defenders.  However, attacking medals are still very low.  I think this should be changed:

From:

"When within the control zones of a turret controlled by the opposing team, you will receive 500 attacker points for every player you defeat. "

To:

"When within the control zones of a neutral turret or turret controlled by the opposing team, you will receive 750 attacker points for every player you defeat. "

It is much easier to defend and get kills than it is to attack and get kills ... especially when the defending team has a healer with them.

I played one match where each team had a turret and we had pretty much a 6 on 6 battle in mid for probably 5 or 6 minutes and nobody was able to capture the turret.  Technically we were both attacking but not getting any kill points (maybe not even attacker points) because the opposing team wasn't controlling the turret (neither team had it).

 

[JackieKo]

Hi all, 

Appreciate everyone testing out the Warzone matches today. We're getting a lot of good feedback and data. One thing that the team would like to know is how many Medals you earned per match per win/loss. I'll be updating the OP with this question. 

Thanks!

[Siita]

28 minutes ago, Screaming_Ziva said:

I've completed four Alderaan WZs on the PTS now and medals seem to be much better for defenders.  However, attacking medals are still very low.  I think this should be changed:

From:

"When within the control zones of a turret controlled by the opposing team, you will receive 500 attacker points for every player you defeat. "

To:

"When within the control zones of a neutral turret or turret controlled by the opposing team, you will receive 750 attacker points for every player you defeat. "

It is much easier to defend and get kills than it is to attack and get kills ... especially when the defending team has a healer with them.

I played one match where each team had a turret and we had pretty much a 6 on 6 battle in mid for probably 5 or 6 minutes and nobody was able to capture the turret.  Technically we were both attacking but not getting any kill points (maybe not even attacker points) because the opposing team wasn't controlling the turret (neither team had it).

 

I'm pretty sure I was in this match with Ziva.  I echo what Ziva is saying here.

I was on the losing team and ended up with over 9 million heals and ended up with only 4 medals in the effort to capture that last node.

[SilverChap]

6 minutes ago, JackieKo said:

Hi all, 

Appreciate everyone testing out the Warzone matches today. We're getting a lot of good feedback and data. One thing that the team would like to know is how many Medals you earned per match per win/loss. I'll be updating the OP with this question. 

Thanks!

15 medals for a win.

[kekrot]

I played an Alderaan warzone a few hours ago, and had 9 medals just when the match was about to end (we were winning so I got 3-4 more medals when it finished). We won with most of the time having 2 nodes. I was glad to see attacker/defender points gains when defeating an enemy near the capture points, but I don't think the other team had as many kills though, I didn't pay attention to the enemy teams' medals but I would think they had less than 8

[Grindnmosh]

I am curious about medals for healers and tanks myself

[Grindnmosh]

1 hour ago, Stradlin said:

In your own lust to argue and imply, things, you kinda missed how we don't even really disagree on this.

It'd prolly lead to better matches if premade groups got axed from GSF and ground pvp alike.  Wanting to group up with friends and guildies is just about the most natural thing in an MMO, so removing that would be controversial and piss some people off, even if GSF/ground stuff itself benefitted. These things are  pretty undeniable imo.

Two seperate pools is an option, but it inevitably leads to matchmaker having less people to work with.  Could be I'm wrong tho in assuming it'd not pop: Now that they've lowered amount of people required to make a pop happen might be you'd see some 4 vs 4 stuff taking place. 

 

 

I agree kill premade groups let everyone queue solo maybe we would get a better balance in WZs and GSF making it more enjoyable overall. like was said this would be controvertial and anger some.

[Exly]

From what I saw, people on the winning side were getting at least 8 medals, but those on the losing side were still getting 3 to 4 medals on average.

I did 3 warzones, and the 1st and 3rd had active participation from the losing side throughout the entire match, while the 2nd one was a romp and people on the losing side gathered around the turret that they controlled when their loss was made obvious, and the winning side let them be until the match ended.  

The most medals that I saw anyone get was 16, and that was due to extra defender and attacker points, and to the extra points granted for winning in X minutes.

I do think this is an improvement over live, but I don't think it will encourage people like those on the losing side in the 1st and 3rd match that I played to want to do more pvp.  They put in a real effort, but the matches were all a little one sided with one team stacked with better players, and the other one struggled even when they had greater numbers to get kills or to survive attacks. 

[Darthjantom]

I did 5 matches today on PTS on Alderaan:

First Match: Win - 8 Medals (Screenshot) I was mostly fighting at middle turret this match.

Second Match: Win - 12 Medals (Screenshot) I was fighting mostly at middle turret again, also captured turret.

Third Match: Loss - 9 Medals (Screenshot) Some turrets switched hands a lot but ultimately we were unable to keep them.

Fourth Match: Loss - 6 Medals (Screenshot) A really bad loss with enemy team taking all 3 turrets and us unable to capture and hold a turret for very long.

Fifth Martch: Win - 12 Medals (Screenshot) I spend this whole matching guarding west turret, occasionally killing some enemies who tried to steal turret.

Outside of that one match where we got steamrolled, the other matches did feel relatively evenly matched.

It does feel like an improvement over how it currently is in 7.2 for this turret map at the very least. But i am curious to see what changes can be done with other warzone types, especially huttball.

Edited February 10, 2023 by Darthjantom

[Exly]

22 minutes ago, Grindnmosh said:

I am curious about medals for healers and tanks myself

 I did look at healers in two of the matches. 

In one, the healer on the winning side did 4.1MM in heals and got 13 medals, and the healer on the losing side did 1.7MM and got 4. 

In the other match the losing team had two healers on that did 4.7MM and the other got 3.9MM.  The one with 4.7MM got 4 medals and the other one got 3. 

I did see some dps that got protection numbers, but no tanks.  One of those dps on a losing side did get 8 medals, so I assume some of those were for protecting allies.  Others got medals in line with other players on the team.

[Chryptyk]

i was just in a match and without really trying, i had the most medals (13) and kills (20).  i died twice i think.  i had my first 7 by attacking mid and capturing it and then the last 6 by defending.  we barely won, something like 16-0 at the end of the ACW.  so it was close, trading off grass and snow, but i got almost half my medals in the first couple minutes.  i did notice the rest of my team had significantly less medals than i did though, but i don't know why.  after we lost grass, we captured snow and held that for a while, but then i went back to mid and just guarded that with a couple other people until the end of the match.  we did also lose snow, but by that point, we had enough of a lead that holding mid was all we needed to win.

Edited February 10, 2023 by Chryptyk

[CristinRobin]

Taking part of the Test today, I found that my team (mostly premade with all DPS and 2 stealth) it was much easier to obtain the medals.  It felt like what I was doing to contribute to my team by actively participating in the objective and not medal farming was being rewarded.  In the current live server, even if my team wins, unless there are several victory bonuses, it is often difficult to obtain the necessary 8 medals by participating in the objective of the warzone and not attempting to just farm the medals.  I often times feel like if a team has a good strategy, currently, obtaining medals is difficult.  As far as I know everyone on my team today on the PTS was able to get 8 medals and we were able to execute our strategy well.

[Grindnmosh]

There is no flag or cheevo pop showing you completed the requirement. How is the mount reward being monitored? 

[Achnaattwo]

earned no medals, still no server to select

[AelonFive]

Fair warning, I only played one match on the PTS so far, but I think the changes had a noticeable effect even in that one match. Will edit this comment if I play more and have fuller thoughts. For perspective, I'm a casual PVPer but I've been playing this game for a while (almost 10 years):

• Is it easier to obtain Attacker and Defender points?

Absolutely, and I think the reasons for this are twofold:
1) You can get defender points for more than just standing at the node AND "just standing there" gets you more points per tick.
2) People are actually incentivized to fight on the nodes for selfish (i.e. medal) reasons rather than fighting in no-man's-land

Both of these felt like noticeable improvements when I played. I like the changes.

• Do you feel like you can earn 8 medals even if you do not win matches?

Hard to say. The one match I was in, we won. Based on the medals I got though, I still think it would be tricky to get 8 medals unless you were part of an attack that captured a node at least once in the game. This doesn't always happen if you have a weak team, or are sitting on defense. But it would definitely be better than the current system. Before the latest update I could hit 8 medals no problem whether winning or losing. Since the update, even when winning, I've struggled to get 8 any time - think it's only happened 4 times in ~12 matches? Maybe I need to just "git gud", but right now it feels like a drag, especially with some of the existing CQ objectives having the same (45) medal total as before.

A brief aside while I'm here and I'm reasonably certain a dev will read this: what's the deal with why the WZ weekly takes so much longer to complete than the GSF one? I can get the GSF weekly done in 30 min flat on a good day, 45 on average...the WZ weekly feels *a lot* longer, minimum of 1-1.5 hours. Wasn't there supposed to be some balancing here? This is especially hard given the changes in the last major update to make weekly progress not carry over week-to-week. Anyways...

• How many medals did you earn per match per win/loss?

In the once match I played, I got 12 medals playing as a Shadow Tank. Also, this could totally be psychological, but I felt like I was doing better damage, even in Tank spec. Maybe people just copied over weaker toons.

• Were matchups fair?

Again, only one match, but it seemed so? We won by about 100 pts in the end but it was back and forth at the beginning.

• If you participated in a match, please describe the makeup of your group and the group you were paired against.  

Not a lot of data points here so far. I queued solo about 4:30 pm CST. Didn't notice anything special about the makeup of our group or the opposing one.

• Feel free to leave general feedback of your experience with matchmaking.

N/A. Queue did seem to pop relatively quickly for PTS, but that's probably b/c you told everyone to play WZs.

[TrixxieTriss]

6 hours ago, Stradlin said:

In your own lust to argue and imply  things, you kinda missed how we don't even really disagree on this.

It'd prolly lead to better matches if premade groups got axed from GSF and ground pvp alike.  Wanting to group up with friends and guildies is just about the most natural thing in an MMO, so removing that would be controversial and piss some people off, even if GSF/ground stuff itself benefitted. These things are  pretty undeniable imo.

Two seperate pools is an option, but it inevitably leads to matchmaker having less people to work with.  Could be I'm wrong tho in assuming it'd not pop: Now that they've lowered amount of people required to make a pop happen might be you'd see some 4 vs 4 stuff taking place. 

 

 

Sorry if I came across a bit strong. I was tired & misread what you’d actually wrote, it was 3am here, no excuse, just a reason. I sincerely apologise.

If BioWare would actually remove the part of the Algorithm that forces solo & pugs into matches together to just speed up the pops, we wouldn’t need 2 queues. 

But I don’t think the matchmaking algorithm can work properly with solo & premades in the same queue anyway. Obviously I can’t confirm this, but I would guess that the algorithm BioWare had for Solo ranked matchmaking was different to the one they setup for Group ranked (happy to be told by BioWare if I’m wrong). Trying to run 2 different matchmaking algorithms in the same queue could be problematic & why it’s never worked properly 🤷🏻‍♀️.

There is also something you may not have considered regarding pop times if they spit the queue. Since 7.2, non Subscribers (F2P & Preferred) now have unlimited access to pvp matches. Where they were restricted before. This alone would have increased the numbers in the queue. 

But allowing premades, especially 8 man premades to be matched against solo pugs is actually driving lots of solo players from pvp.
By splitting the queues, those people will likely stay & others come back. It should actually increase the pvp population to allow better pops for both queues. 

As for lowering the number requirement to make a pop happen (which is good, but can be bad), they should delay the match 30 secs until both sides are even & then lock backfills unless someone leaves. Otherwise you have matches that start as 3v3 & one team inevitably gets 1 extra that tips the balance. 
Allowing pops with less than a full team also alleviate any slower pop issues during quiets parts of the day. 

But I’d also like to be able to play 3v3, 4v4 or even 6v6 in objective maps or GSF. The times where the system has done that over the years have been some of the most fun games I’ve had. I once had a 1v1 match with someone in the Alderaan 8v8 map. It was very entertaining. 

Edited February 11, 2023 by TrixxieTriss

[Gwena]

I jumped on the PTS for a WZ match today, and let me preface this post by saying that I am an awful PvP'er. Though I have done some PvP in the past, I haven't queue'd up for several years, so my best was probably pretty lousy. But I figure even a little feedback might be helpful, I hope?

Medals earned: 6, for a loss. I played a Sage healer. Honestly, I think if I was a better player I could have gotten more medals.

My team didn't do that great, but I don't think it was bad matchmaking. I suppose I haven't enough experience with matchmaking to really comment, though.

[Cheshirekatten]

I played 4 WZ yesterday. 3 wins and 1 loss.  In total I got 44 medals, with 13 in one single match as the highest number. 

In the loosing match I got 7 medals, I was basically only capture and defending grass and no enemy tried to capture it. With this i didnt recieve any defender medalls, only the guarding the captured object ones. In the match where I got the most medals I captured two objects and was fighting in the mid as well, which earned me both defender, attacker and guarding medals.

In general I feel more medals was given out then during a normal WZ, especially when I was on the loosing team. 

Since Im more of a defensive player, these changes support my playstyle better then the current one.

Edited February 11, 2023 by Cheshirekatten

[streunekatze]

Alderaan Warzone Map:

• Is it easier to obtain Attacker and Defender points? - Yes, very much so, we got Medals a lot faster. It felt so much better.
• Do you feel like you can earn 8 medals even if you do not win matches? - can't really say, we won everytime, but when I checked the other team, there was only one with 8 medals. But I'm not sure if they played well or had the gear. It seemed like they were either not very good or not trying or something.
• How many medals did you earn per match per win/loss? - only had wins and it was between 9-13 Medals

General PvP matches:

• Were matchups fair? - Well... My teams were much stronger than the other team, we had both heals and all.... hard to say.
• If you participated in a match, please describe the makeup of your group and the group you were paired against.  - Both teams were a mix of dps, heal (and tanks) it seemed balanced witht he classes
• Feel free to leave general feedback of your experience with matchmaking. - We were so much stronger than the other team everytime, but I don't know if it was because of the make up of the team. Seemed to me, they were not very good, experienced pvp players.

I might try again and leave/edit feedback if there is more to tell.