Low and missbalanced pops on Darth Malgus

[merovejec]

So it seems that as soon as the PVP season ended there are 20 min wait times in que for arena pops on Darth Malgus, even on reset Tuesday!

I have been going for the pvp achievements and it suddenly stop going as there are far less pops and if there are any they are far off from balanced. We have 2d 2h vs 1t 3d and so on. I even had a game of 1d 2h 1t vs 4d. It would seem like the player base has declined sharply or the interest in PVP went down with the fact that the PVP season ended.

[Headstylez]

This is happening on Star Forge as well.  Personally, I used to play PVP a lot more during off-season because I at least had a goal of getting better for the next ranked season to work towards.  The participation-based rewards of most recent season already felt hollow.  With it over, there’s really nothing to work on and there will be nothing to show for it anyway, so PvPing feels especially pointless now.

[merovejec]

Well then its sad that the players only find the will to play for the sake of rewards in form of PVP season. They I sadly do not see much hope for the game.

[SilverChap]

20 minutes ago, merovejec said:

Well then its sad that the players only find the will to play for the sake of rewards in form of PVP season. They I sadly do not see much hope for the game.

It's only arenas that are unpopular, warzones still pop all the time.

And Season 2 will probably start next week, that should help with arena pops.

Edited March 24, 2023 by SilverChap

[merovejec]

1 hour ago, SilverChap said:

It's only arenas that are unpopular, warzones still pop all the time.

And Season 2 will probably start next week, that should help with arena pops.

Yeah I have just seen it, thank god! That should keep the people playing for a few weeks! But they must be desperate if they give same rewards to F2P. Thats actually silly that they need to encourage the F2P to play PVP so that the paying customers have someone to play with!

[TrixxieTriss]

On 3/24/2023 at 8:32 AM, merovejec said:

So it seems that as soon as the PVP season ended there are 20 min wait times in que for arena pops on Darth Malgus, even on reset Tuesday!

I have been going for the pvp achievements and it suddenly stop going as there are far less pops and if there are any they are far off from balanced. We have 2d 2h vs 1t 3d and so on. I even had a game of 1d 2h 1t vs 4d. It would seem like the player base has declined sharply or the interest in PVP went down with the fact that the PVP season ended.

Part of the problem is no solo players want to play against pre-mades in Arena. And while ever that’s an option, Arena will become more & more like the old Ranked group Queue, dead, especially when pvp seasons end. 

Many of us have been trying to warn BioWare that putting pre-mades against solo players will drive solo players from the queue & may even kill the queues. 

Now you’re seeing first hand what is happening. The only reason it was popping at all was for the season. Until BioWare remove pre-made vs pugs in both formats, they will continue to drive solo players from the pvp game, especially outside of seasons.

The simplest solution is to remove pre-mades for Arena entirely. It was never popular for ranked & it was a dead part of the game. And they should split the WZ queue into pre-made & solo. Until that happens, you can watch how pvp & possibly the game continues to bleed out PvP players.

[krackcommando]

1 hour ago, TrixxieTriss said:

Part of the problem is no solo players want to play against pre-mades in Arena. And while ever that’s an option, Arena will become more & more like the old Ranked group Queue, dead, especially when pvp seasons end. 

Many of us have been trying to warn BioWare that putting pre-mades against solo players will drive solo players from the queue & may even kill the queues. 

Now you’re seeing first hand what is happening. The only reason it was popping at all was for the season. Until BioWare remove pre-made vs pugs in both formats, they will continue to drive solo players from the pvp game, especially outside of seasons.

The simplest solution is to remove pre-mades for Arena entirely. It was never popular for ranked & it was a dead part of the game. And they should split the WZ queue into pre-made & solo. Until that happens, you can watch how pvp & possibly the game continues to bleed out PvP players.

this is so myopic. the biggest problem BY FAR is most players don't like arenas. THAT'S why the queues are empty. SF rarely has a 4m in it. rarely. and I'm queued arenas all the time. then I go into WZs and see all sorts of new names. a few nights ago, I was sitting in a late night AHG that was 4v5 after just finishing a YCW that was 4v4 for almost the entirety of the match. I complained that we should be doing arenas and EVERY SINGLE PLAYER ON MY TEAM shouted me down b/c they hate arenas and as long as there's an even number, you can play any WZ. meanwhile, I'm listening for crickets because there are two people guarding nodes and two ppl fighting at mid. and literally nothing to do for 10 minutes while the score moves as slow as possible from 600 to 0 because both teams only have 1 turret and there aren't enough players in the WZ to kill anything. it's just dumb. but far be it from casual swtor player to queue an arena! lmao. premade. there weren't but 9 ppl pvp on the server, and no one was in a premade. they just can't do straight TDM. or they think arena is a dirty word that's code for "toxic ranked."

[TrixxieTriss]

8 hours ago, krackcommando said:

this is so myopic. the biggest problem BY FAR is most players don't like arenas. THAT'S why the queues are empty. SF rarely has a 4m in it. rarely. and I'm queued arenas all the time. then I go into WZs and see all sorts of new names. a few nights ago, I was sitting in a late night AHG that was 4v5 after just finishing a YCW that was 4v4 for almost the entirety of the match. I complained that we should be doing arenas and EVERY SINGLE PLAYER ON MY TEAM shouted me down b/c they hate arenas and as long as there's an even number, you can play any WZ. meanwhile, I'm listening for crickets because there are two people guarding nodes and two ppl fighting at mid. and literally nothing to do for 10 minutes while the score moves as slow as possible from 600 to 0 because both teams only have 1 turret and there aren't enough players in the WZ to kill anything. it's just dumb. but far be it from casual swtor player to queue an arena! lmao. premade. there weren't but 9 ppl pvp on the server, and no one was in a premade. they just can't do straight TDM. or they think arena is a dirty word that's code for "toxic ranked."

If that’s the case, then why was Solo ranked always popular & group ranked wasn’t. There have been many ex-solo ranked players saying they are turned off playing arena as it is while ever pre-mades are in the queue with them. You don’t have to take my word for is, just ask them to comment here. I’m happy to be proved wrong, but I don’t think I am 🤷🏻‍♀️
 

[Prapcaster]

4 hours ago, TrixxieTriss said:

If that’s the case, then why was Solo ranked always popular & group ranked wasn’t. There have been many ex-solo ranked players saying they are turned off playing arena as it is while ever pre-mades are in the queue with them. You don’t have to take my word for is, just ask them to comment here. I’m happy to be proved wrong, but I don’t think I am 🤷🏻‍♀️
 

If that's the reason they gave you then they lied to you for a joke. the reason solo ranked players preferred solo over granked is because it was easier to jump into then forming up a team. And the only reason solo ranked players hate what arenas are now is because how bad the match making is. In solo's prior to 7.2 you still ran into the risk of a group of friends on discord queue syncing to get on the same team. 

What was great about solo ranked is that if you wanted to queue as a dps you wouldn't have to worry about matches with you being fps then have 3 tanks on your team while they have a full meta comp with or without it being a premade. Ranked going away has never been the actual issue. Matchmaking going away was.

[krackcommando]

5 hours ago, TrixxieTriss said:

If that’s the case, then why was Solo ranked always popular & group ranked wasn’t. There have been many ex-solo ranked players saying they are turned off playing arena as it is while ever pre-mades are in the queue with them. You don’t have to take my word for is, just ask them to comment here. I’m happy to be proved wrong, but I don’t think I am 🤷🏻‍♀️
 

solo rated was suddenly popular now? convenient compartmentalizing of history to fit your current fixation. 😄

solo was popular when arenas first came out. it also experienced a brief spike in population for the first few weeks of a new season. had there only been two NA servers at the start of rated arenas, the population would have been phenomenal, but it was split across too many servers for too many seasons. so by and large, on every server, it's the same group of players who makeup no more than one or two simultaneous matches per night, and even then, it wasn't something regularly popping around the clock. in fact, it was about as popular as arenas are right now...in its mixed queue format.

do you think any rated player is happy about the current state of play in this game? do you think they WANT to play meaningless games with 306 and 324 randos who are there b/c there's a quest? do you think they EVER liked playing in matches with mismatched roles? get out of here. you're conflating half a dozen different issues and then reducing it down to SEPARATE SOLO QUEUE. GIVE US SEPARATE SOLO QUEUE. IT'S THE ONLY THING. blah blah blah.

[krackcommando]

1 hour ago, Prapcaster said:

Ranked going away has never been the actual issue. Matchmaking going away was.

nah man. the elimination of leaderboards and merit based rewards was a pretty brutal kick to the groin. I agree that matchmaking is huge, especially since most players are still afraid of TDM anyway. but don't undersell the elimination of merit based trophies/prestige.

[Prapcaster]

Just now, krackcommando said:

nah man. the elimination of leaderboards and merit based rewards was a pretty brutal kick to the groin. I agree that matchmaking is huge, especially since most players are still afraid of TDM anyway. but don't undersell the elimination of merit based trophies/prestige.

It was a combonation but I'd say removing even the slightest matchmaking was the nail in the coffin. Premades didn't kill 4's they just made them miserable.

[TrixxieTriss]

1 hour ago, Prapcaster said:

It was a combonation but I'd say removing even the slightest matchmaking was the nail in the coffin. Premades didn't kill 4's they just made them miserable.

I think we all agree it’s a combination that’s killed arena. And matchmaking can never work while ever pre-mades are in the queue & BioWare prioritise pop times ahead of proper matchmaking. 

[merovejec]

@TrixxieTriss i have to say that in the 700 matches I have played so far on DM very very few actually had premades. It happened from time to time, but wasnt really a fixed thing.

The issues is also this focus on Wins. They are necessary for achievements, faster weekly done and conquest points. Therefore what you experience in the game is that as soon as a players see that there is no point they just afk the match. Why even try if there is no point and you get nothing out of trying.....

I believe Bioware is getting the concepts tottally wrong.

[krackcommando]

21 hours ago, Prapcaster said:

It was a combonation but I'd say removing even the slightest matchmaking was the nail in the coffin. Premades didn't kill 4's they just made them miserable.

nothing has actually changed in the arena queue except they separated it from WZs. you could always form a full arena team (being only 4m). the matchmaking isn't as strict as it was in solo rated arenas, but it hasn't changed (much) from reg arenas (it's actually slightly better than reg arenas were by treating tanks and heals as equivalents).

and I have to say, putting together a 4m group is not a difficult proposition. it's much much much easier than putting together an 8m team. the biggest problem facing arenas is that most of the population is deathly afraid of them and they are more difficult.

those factors combine to make the arena player pool smaller. incidentally, that also makes the impact of a good premade much greater. it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. there's also the stigma that "arena" = "toxic rated community." so what ends up happening is that ~70-80% of the ppl who play arenas really are the leftover rated community b/c everyone else is afraid to queue.

[Prapcaster]

2 hours ago, krackcommando said:

nothing has actually changed in the arena queue except they separated it from WZs. you could always form a full arena team (being only 4m). the matchmaking isn't as strict as it was in solo rated arenas, but it hasn't changed (much) from reg arenas (it's actually slightly better than reg arenas were by treating tanks and heals as equivalents).

and I have to say, putting together a 4m group is not a difficult proposition. it's much much much easier than putting together an 8m team. the biggest problem facing arenas is that most of the population is deathly afraid of them and they are more difficult.

those factors combine to make the arena player pool smaller. incidentally, that also makes the impact of a good premade much greater. it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. there's also the stigma that "arena" = "toxic rated community." so what ends up happening is that ~70-80% of the ppl who play arenas really are the leftover rated community b/c everyone else is afraid to queue.

I never thought ot it that wasy I never think that there was still no matchmaking in the random arena you'd get while queueing for regs. So all they really did was completely remove a game mode.

[Monhnich]

RIP Darth Malgus, another casualty of premades. Now game is down to 4 servers instead of 5.  I predict that by 2024 game is going to be down to 3 servers or 2 at the most..

[merovejec]

On 3/27/2023 at 9:42 PM, Monhnich said:

RIP Darth Malgus, another casualty of premades. Now game is down to 4 servers instead of 5.  I predict that by 2024 game is going to be down to 3 servers or 2 at the most..

I cant imagine how Leviathan can even function.

[DWho]

Just now, merovejec said:

I cant imagine how Leviathan can even function.

Leviathan is actually quite nice to play on during evening hours in the US if you are interested in the RPG portion of the game.

[merovejec]

8 minutes ago, DWho said:

Leviathan is actually quite nice to play on during evening hours in the US if you are interested in the RPG portion of the game.

Well thats a surprise.

[TrixxieTriss]

On 3/31/2023 at 6:26 AM, DWho said:

Leviathan is actually quite nice to play on during evening hours in the US if you are interested in the RPG portion of the game.

I’d assume the GTN market doesn’t have a lot of items & prices are much higher?