'Premades'

[darkzannah]

If you are not happy with the pvp system of swtor nothing prevents you from going to a game where the ranked is better represented because the mourners who complain make me want to vomit. Luckily bw turn the ranked is installed the pvp seasons it's more fun

[VegaMist]

3 hours ago, mjxzo said:

I disagree that 4 man premades in arenas is the main reason for people not queuing arenas, here’s why: 

I queue solo arenas all the time and hardly ever see 4 man groups in arenas but I see 4-8 man premades in almost every warzone I play.  

Removing ranked pvp made a large portion of arena enthusiasts quit the game, but the new pvp season rewards brought in lots of new players, and new players typically prefer warzones over arenas.  

So we lost arena players and gained warzone players and when new players dip their toes into arena they get absolutely destroyed by the remaining high level players even with no premades involved and either go back to warzones or keep queuing arenas and put no effort in since they will be rewarded for grinding losses anyway.

This makes arena games less fun and therefore less popular.   

If they weren’t rewarded for losing they would be incentivised to try to improve.  

I think another reason fewer people are queuing arenas is the crazy weekly requirement - some take one look at that 24 number and realize they won't have time/patience to finish it. Glad they came to their senses and are changing it for the next season.

[Bigfallenstar]

6 hours ago, zrrrrrkington said:

*whether.

 

their MM algorithm does work the way they say it does. it puts premades against opposing premades when they're available and queueing. the only time this doesn't happen is when there isn't an opposing premade queueing; working exactly as intended and exactly how bioware stated it was going to work.

 

1. that won't work and you know damn well why. rational people have literally told you and everyone else exactly why that won't work literally hundreds of times and so has bioware.

 

2. the people complaining about premades would be utterly dominated whether there was any premades or not. your points are utter strawmen as is every single one of your countless and ceaselessly repetitive posts. why they won't squelch spammers like you, i'll never know.

 

"i can't learn to play, so real pvp has to be ruined for all the actual pvpers". - every trixxie post ever.

Rational? You mean the people like Samcuu who believe in the slippery slope fallacy. Thinks that if premades got their own queue, that people in 332 gear is next, or that people will start asking for certain classes to be banned from warzones or nerfed into the ground. That doesn't sound like something a rational person would do, jumping to conclusions.

 

That cuts both ways. We've all heard the multiple posts about premades just being a group of friends being together and how it's helpful for players. And have this belief that inexperience players are going to ask the premade for pointers. How do you know that for sure? Do you have proof to back up that besides just repeating that and wild speculations? Because no one in favor of premades has shown evidence of either points. The reason I ask is because it just sounds like you guys need to be carried to get your win with all this vitriol coming from the pro-premade.

[Samcuu]

7 hours ago, Bigfallenstar said:

Rational? You mean the people like Samcuu who believe in the slippery slope fallacy. Thinks that if premades got their own queue, that people in 332 gear is next, or that people will start asking for certain classes to be banned from warzones or nerfed into the ground. That doesn't sound like something a rational person would do, jumping to conclusions.

 

That cuts both ways. We've all heard the multiple posts about premades just being a group of friends being together and how it's helpful for players. And have this belief that inexperience players are going to ask the premade for pointers. How do you know that for sure? Do you have proof to back up that besides just repeating that and wild speculations? Because no one in favor of premades has shown evidence of either points. The reason I ask is because it just sounds like you guys need to be carried to get your win with all this vitriol coming from the pro-premade.

I know for sure because I've done it. I'm in a large conquest guild where new players have started to pvp thanks to the seasons and the rewards. The plan by bioware is working to get new ppl into queue. There are a group of veteran pvp'ers in that guild including me who group with the new players. We've taught them how to gear, which stats to use, which tactical and set bonuses are best for their class. I've personally crafted sets of gold augs for ppl for free so they can be where they need to be stats wise. Grouping up for pvp is important for new players so they can learn from vets. It's happening, if you've excluded yourself from the pvp community then I'm not surprised you have no clue how much veteran players are willing to help new players get better so they enjoy the game mode. When more players are good it raises the level of the pvp for everyone. It's the way I learned from my friends when I was a complete noob at launch. The pvp community moves the game forward, there's no question about it.

I'm not the only person out there either as I've said I'm friends with vet players of both factions (I know most ppl play both factions these days but a lot of ppl still have their favorite factions). I know several pub side guilds who group up and teach new players and welcome them into their guilds as well. Again if ur distancing yourself from grouping up and being a part of the community you won't know this. Grouping is a very important part of mmos in general, even more so for a game mode that is competitive and you need an edge. 

Edited May 27, 2023 by Samcuu

[Ramalina]

On 5/25/2023 at 10:41 PM, TrixxieTriss said:

Then why not give players the agency & system to do that in the game more easily. Ie, fix the challenge system bug that’s stopping that from happening or give them an 8 vs 8 queue option 🤷🏻‍♀️

Well, Bioware is probably, maybe, possibly? thinking of this in "game designer mode."

 

So from their perspective "premades suck, premades are unfair, premades make me cry, etc." may basically register as a an error not found situation.

The issue, is that WZs and Arenas are designed as organized group content.   Same as HM/NiM ops, and arguably MM FPs.   So for them, if premades that are playing smartly routinely utterly demolish random disorganized mobs of solo players, it is absolutely not a bug.   It's a feature.  The format is supposed to reward organized play.   So great, all the crying on the forums just goes to show that the system is working as intended right?

Right!

Oh, but wait a minute, what about customer satisfaction and customer retention?  There do seem to maybe be problems with those?

 

So what's the problem(s) then? (from a game design point of view)

 

Well, players motivated by PvP loot rewards don't seem to be sufficiently motivated by them to actually bother organizing into groups to improve their chances of success at doing group content.

If this is the view taken, then solo queuing starts to look like the problem.  You need to induce people to stop solo queuing and start grouping to queue.   Carrots in terms of loot?  Sticks in terms of penalties for solo queuing?   UI and UX revamps that address player objections to grouping for content and/or encourage social interactions that build community and willingness to group?   Hm, maybe all of the above, just need to look at the example of the last time BW successfully used game design implementation to get players to play the game the way BW thought that players ought to play it. . . .    er, yeah, we'll get back to you on that.

 

What if there's another problem though?  What if there are players that want PvP, want multiple opponents, but don't want any organization involved?   So what, like a PvP equivalent of Veteran FPs?   Yes, that!  Exactly that.

Seems a bit weird, want to do stuff with a group of people but not be in a group, but ignore that for a moment so we don't have a nervous breakdown about whether that's a paradox, and think about whether we could even do that.

Yeah, we could probably.   Make a separate reward track with either maybe 5-10 less irating or worse stat distribution, have less appealing PvP season rewards associated with it, or decrease the progression earned per activity compared to team PvP.   Also look at the encounter designs, so probably smaller terrains on average than WZs, Alderaan is probably about max size you'd want.    Drop Huttball entirely because that's so intrinsically team based that it's not worth trying to repurpose.   Oh, and in terms of objectives, we'll need to redo them a bit to be less team oriented.   So maybe: kill x number of opposing players in area y,  kill x number of opposing players in time t, heal z number of friendly players from 30% or lower to 70% or higher.   Possibly have some sort of shifting AOE buff or debuff mechanic to move players around the map a bit.   PvE bits, tricky because we want PvP but to spice it up and not just have pure deathmatch so: PvE that anyone can do, that doesn't depend on complicated team cooperation, that's rewarding, but doesn't turn it from a PvP to PvE match?   Maybe a short time limited DPS race to destroy at turret, door, other environmental object/NPC.   So can't spend too much time on it, encourages learning at least a DPS rotation, doesn't require actual teamwork to progress (though might be challenging without it), and players can spoil other side's effort by killing their DPSers so there's a PvP lane still available even if PvE objective is up.

 

Ok, there we go Veteran mode PvP, probably doable.  Yeesh, sounds like a lot of work though.

 

In my personal opinion, BW devs sometimes get a bit over-invested in game design aspirations they have.  There's this beautiful shiny ideal, that they don't quite have the time or budget or team to implement, that players fail to appreciate appropriately and just rampage through for the loot, and as it start to crumble and collapse, sometimes in flames, there's still a commitment to the shiny ideal and the hope that maybe with a few rolls of tape maybe it can be held together and work, "😍as intended🤩."   That can delay practical steps to address observed problems until all hopes of "as intended" are utterly crushed, and hope is a resilient little bugger. 

 

My view is colored by having started on a small PvP-RP server, where group PvP was pretty common, in WZs, in world PvP zones, and sometimes just spontaneously out in the world doing missions.   Group PvP works pretty well, if that's what the community expects and wants in sufficiently large proportions of the population.   I think BW is still trying to go for that with WZs and Arenas.  I don't think the existing populations have the level of social/cultural support needed to make that work though, and based on past performance I'm extremely skeptical about Bioware's ability to regenerate enough of a team PvP community to support that.

    I think that there's a strong case that the bulk of the PvP population today is in a place where Veteran mode PvP is basically what they're after.   Solo queue, yes, but not just solo queue.  Also a format that supports opt-out of team play better than the WZ and Arena formats do.   I don't know, call them Skirmishes instead of Warzones?    Quicker, easier, less investment, lower reward rate.   Done well I suspect something like that might pretty much kill off both the WZ and Arena queues, or at least make pops really slow.   I also suspect that BW is still at least a year or two away from giving up on some shiny platonic ideal of perfect team PvP, and then, assuming they do a good job of design for Veteran mode PvP, probably at least another year to make the maps and code the format and scoring.   Purpose built solo-queue PvP content is where I think BW should go if they really want to serve their existing customer base for PvP.   They probably won't, but they should.

[Sappharan]

The developers continue to win hearts and minds with their reticence.

[TrixxieTriss]

Let me be clear so that there is no confusion as to my position on premades & solo players. 

Premades can have an important role to play in improving PvP. Just not how it’s setup up now. 

I just think solo players should have a choice wether they want to play with or against premades. 

That’s all I’m advocating for. Is that BioWare implement a system that give players choice. 

[TrixxieTriss]

On 5/24/2023 at 4:08 PM, TrixxieTriss said:

Sure, BioWare is probably looking at data that says PvP has lots of people playing it since seasons started. But are they deep diving to find out how many veteran pvpers are leaving & how many new pvpers are staying for the long haul 🤷🏻‍♀️. I’m guessing they aren’t or something would have already happened to stop us. 

What I believe will happen if BioWare don’t make some changes before season 3, is that more & more veterans will leave & less & less new pvpers will continue

Who could have predicted that season 3 wouldn’t be a hit if they didn’t make some changes to the pre-made situation 🤷🏻‍♀️

https://steamcharts.com/app/1286830#1m

Edited July 26, 2023 by TrixxieTriss

[Prapcaster]

13 hours ago, TrixxieTriss said:

Who could have predicted that season 3 wouldn’t be a hit if they didn’t make some changes to the pre-made situation 🤷🏻‍♀️

https://steamcharts.com/app/1286830#1m

Most people will argue to death that steam isn't accurate so this is a website that calculates steam and the swtor site launcer. Byt the looks of it in the past 3 months nearly half the population has shrunk. https://mmo-population.com/r/swtor#:~:text=How Many People Play Star,total player base of 12%2C096%2C995.

[TrixxieTriss]

1 hour ago, Prapcaster said:

Most people will argue to death that steam isn't accurate so this is a website that calculates steam and the swtor site launcer. Byt the looks of it in the past 3 months nearly half the population has shrunk. https://mmo-population.com/r/swtor#:~:text=How Many People Play Star,total player base of 12%2C096%2C995.

How does it pull non steam swtor launcher data / server data? Pretty sure BW removed that API from the website. 

[Prapcaster]

7 hours ago, TrixxieTriss said:

How does it pull non steam swtor launcher data / server data? Pretty sure BW removed that API from the website. 

combination of subscribers and social media from what I've gathered. They read the algorithims for every game.

[TrixxieTriss]

1 hour ago, Prapcaster said:

combination of subscribers and social media from what I've gathered. They read the algorithims for every game.

But how does it obtain said propriety info unless BW/BS/EA is giving it to them? Otherwise it’s suspect. That’s why we use steam a gauge fluctuation trends because that info is publicly available & trusted. 

[Prapcaster]

1 hour ago, TrixxieTriss said:

But how does it obtain said propriety info unless BW/BS/EA is giving it to them? Otherwise it’s suspect. That’s why we use steam a gauge fluctuation trends because that info is publicly available & trusted. 

That's how analytics work. It combines twitch viewership,steam,social media and other areas. It's not an accurate count it's an estimate. I'd say about 60% of the games population probably uses the website launcher since they got rid of bitraider or whatever it was called. That's the only reason I used to use steam.

[TrixxieTriss]

8 minutes ago, Prapcaster said:

That's how analytics work. It combines twitch viewership,steam,social media and other areas. It's not an accurate count it's an estimate. I'd say about 60% of the games population probably uses the website launcher since they got rid of bitraider or whatever it was called. That's the only reason I used to use steam.

In other words it’s complete guess work.

I’ve looked at their charts & they are basically clones of the steam charts. So it’s more than likely all they are doing is pulling the steam charts & guessing the rest. 

Edited July 27, 2023 by TrixxieTriss

[ZUHFB]

On 5/27/2023 at 8:09 AM, darkzannah said:

If you are not happy with the pvp system of swtor nothing prevents you from going to a game where the ranked is better represented because the mourners who complain make me want to vomit. Luckily bw turn the ranked is installed the pvp seasons it's more fun

yeah, i did

[Lord_Malganus]

On 5/27/2023 at 3:26 AM, Bigfallenstar said:

Rational? You mean the people like Samcuu who believe in the slippery slope fallacy. Thinks that if premades got their own queue, that people in 332 gear is next, or that people will start asking for certain classes to be banned from warzones or nerfed into the ground. That doesn't sound like something a rational person would do, jumping to conclusions.

 

 

Pre-mades have the Q as it stands. SWTOR Pvp is designed around it.

Solo players are the one without their own Q.

[Darkestmonty]

On 5/25/2023 at 8:12 PM, sharpenedstick said:

As long as you support getting premades out of normal queue, any other ill-informed beliefs you hold are absolutely irrelevant.

Welcome to the cause!

"No, not like that... "

I agree, let them have their own queue since they definitely 100% want to fight other premades.

 

[TheVoyant]

On 8/19/2023 at 7:52 AM, Lord_Malganus said:

Pre-mades have the Q as it stands. SWTOR Pvp is designed around it.

Solo players are the one without their own Q.

 

16 hours ago, Darkestmonty said:

"No, not like that... "

I agree, let them have their own queue since they definitely 100% want to fight other premades.

 

This is really it in a nutshell...

What happened is they didn't actually remove Ranked, they removed Casual.

You see ranked style teams in every mode vs. just specific ranked arena now. There is no matchmaking or balance at all. 

I have a premade 4 man group, when we Q warzones we prefer to just split up and go have fun bc thats what it was for. We love using underperforming specs, and not taking it too serious. That was the point of Warzones... Casual fun play. 

At this point though unless you legitimately treat it like Ranked was treated, you won't have a good time. 

I can't Q with new players to teach them like I used to bc they just get demolished and quit the mode. No one enjoys playing against the 6 Madness sorc group or all Marauder premades, not because they're great players, but because the devs have given them a way to troll & grief the base. There are two premade groups on Starforge that actively discourage and kill the mode that play this way. Get any of em one on one and you crush them bc they're awful. They just spam 20 thousand dots that no one can overcome, no matter how fast you cleanse or heal. People having 6-11mil damage taken is just not fun for anyone. 

It was nice when we had these two separate, a fun go at your own pace mode prone to solo one on ones or just pure chaos & then a more serious mode for more coordinated play. I don't mind a premade in a 4v4, but its like people forgot the point in Warzones...

To have casual fun.

#bringbackcasual

 

Edited August 22, 2023 by TheVoyant

[septru]

27 minutes ago, TheVoyant said:

I don't mind a premade in a 4v4, but its like people forgot the point in Warzones...

I know your post is mostly about premades. I think the obvious answer that almost everyone will agree, limit premades to 4ppl. 

 

But you also mention the fact that some of these people ignore objs. The problem is that if you do objs, you start getting punished because your win rate becomes too high and que times increase significantly once you get to the 80% range. I never do objs now, and I maintain around a 65% winrate in warzones. More importantly, I can finish my seasons without ever needing to do objs or win a game.

 

Again, it always comes down to the lack of competitive PvP. If I needed to actually do objs to get the rewards, I would do them much more. But instead I'm actively punished for playing the warzone as intended. No wonder no one cares to do objs anymore. 

[TheVoyant]

51 minutes ago, septru said:

Again, it always comes down to the lack of competitive PvP. If I needed to actually do objs to get the rewards, I would do them much more. But instead I'm actively punished for playing the warzone as intended. No wonder no one cares to do objs anymore. 

It is noticeable a lot of people have given up on the mode like this yeah. But if I encounter a group that isn't playing objective I'll just leave the match as those are worse then troll style premades imo. 

Warzones are for objective.

Arenas are for kills.

Now having 8v8s that is just pure Deathmatch in the rotation would be fine too, replace Huttball with those and everybody wins. 

But there's a huge list of things to do, first fix all the mistakes of 7.0's horrid balance philosophy, second add matchmaking, & balance the teams..  But we don't even get so much as a lazy "we hear you" these days. 

So zero expectations this gets fixed. 

[krackcommando]

6 hours ago, septru said:

gain, it always comes down to the lack of competitive PvP. If I needed to actually do objs to get the rewards, I would do them much more. But instead I'm actively punished for playing the warzone as intended. No wonder no one cares to do objs anymore. 

i think there are a lot more reasons. ppl trying (and having a clue how) to win WZs has been a thing for a very very long time.

the biggest thing I've noticed...really since the abandoning of RWZs, is that heavy premades show zero interest in "winning" the WZs. you would never see a player from a top pvp guild node guarding in a reg WZ, but you would absolutely see them breaking off to help when called. the good players in this game, particularly the good premades, stopped "trying" around that time RWZs were cancelled (I mean half of them rage quit the game, but that's where I trace the first massive disinterest in winning regs started).

^this just reiterates your point that taking away the major league kinda turns the minors into mush.

Edited August 22, 2023 by krackcommando

[septru]

42 minutes ago, krackcommando said:

you would never see a player from a top pvp guild node guarding in a reg WZ, but you would absolutely see them breaking off to help when called. the

This is not completely true. For example on SF there are two longtime top3 team ranked players, Shadowshot and Kanaba, that will do anything to win objs including defend a node. For some reason they get on each week to complete the PVP Seasons even though they already have all the rewards from the vendor. But they don't enjoy PvPing so they try to finish their Seasons as quickly and in as few games as possible. Which is why they do objs religiously.  

 

Those two guys are a good example of what PVP Seasons could have been. If each game mattered, if winning actually meant something, you would see a lot more people try at objs, including old ranked players. But instead you have a participation based system where all the rewards can be entirely grinded. For most of us, me included, it doesnt matter if I finish my weekly PVP seasons in 20 games or 200 games. 

Edited August 22, 2023 by septru

[septru]

1 hour ago, TheVoyant said:

But there's a huge list of things to do, first fix all the mistakes of 7.0's horrid balance philosophy, second add matchmaking, & balance the teams.. 

I'm genuinely confused. 🤣

 

You just said that deatchmatching was a big issue. I told you the reason why it's an issue. And then you said there are other things you would rather fix first?????

 

I know this is a little pedantic at this point, but I'm actually shocked how you and a lot of other people on the forums still dismiss the lack of competitive PvP as a relatively minor issue. 

Edited August 22, 2023 by septru

[krackcommando]

1 hour ago, septru said:

This is not completely true. For example on SF there are two longtime top3 team ranked players, Shadowshot and Kanaba, that will do anything to win objs including defend a node. For some reason they get on each week to complete the PVP Seasons even though they already have all the rewards from the vendor. But they don't enjoy PvPing so they try to finish their Seasons as quickly and in as few games as possible. Which is why they do objs religiously.

😄 yeah. fair.

I was thinking more along the lines of Stalkuh. in RWZ, he was left guarding the off door cuz stealth. and he'd be bored to tears, but he did it, cuz he's playing to win. in regs, he was never guarding. but he'd be attacking the off node. delaying/occupying 2-3 enemies. or he'd be in the mid scrum laying down heavy dps to take mid. that's like the prototypical "great pvper" back in the day, particularly when in grps.

by 5.x, you'd have 2 high caliber sins go mid all day. and they would do nothing but farm dmg as much as possible with no interest or regard for the map.

anyway, that was my experience. /shrug

[TrixxieTriss]

3 hours ago, TheVoyant said:

Now having 8v8s that is just pure Deathmatch in the rotation would be fine too, replace Huttball with those and everybody wins. 

Here’s a thought I just had. It’s not fully formed yet as I’m still semi asleep & on some strong meds. BUT here goes :

We all know that Quesh ball is so intrinsically broken now & I doubt they’ll every fix the maps bug’s & horrendous desync. So why not just turn that map into a 8v8 death match Arena? Remove the ball & scoring functions. Remove any of the leap & pull restrictions into the goal area. 

Then people get an 8v8 death map that some have been asking for. And we go back to having just 2 Hutt Ball maps in the rotation. 

As for determining the mechanics & how you win, Ive some thoughts. But I’d like to hear what others think first.