Bring back Ranked PvP

[A-Hero-Falls]

So competitive players have something competitive to play against 

[Wolvel]

Sure ranked gets put back but granked and solo ranked get put in the same queue cause premades are not the problem

[krackcommando]

11 minutes ago, Wolvel said:

Sure ranked gets put back but granked and solo ranked get put in the same queue cause premades are not the problem

anecdotal evidence is anecdotal, but the one premade I ran into in 6 matches today lost to my pug team (each team had a sorc healer). they also had the only gold flair in the match. for w/e that's worth.

I do appreciate the post though. it's an excellent twist of the screw. (seriously!) I couldn't get a WZ the one night I wanted to (to practice after a few weeks off). 😄

[Darkestmonty]

On 9/12/2023 at 8:59 PM, A-Hero-Falls said:

So competitive players have something competitive to play against 

all the premade groups aren't looking for competitive. If they wanted competitive they would play arena where everyone has the same goal, to kill the other players. Instead they play Warzones so it's them playing against a objective oriented players who aren't going to chase them all over the map ignoring defense like they are.

Premades know if they run away at least a portion of the people they were fighting will stay behind to keep guarding objectives mean while they will heal up and pick another target.

There is nothing competitive about PvP in SWTOR anymore.

[SentinalMasterWW]

I recommend watching this Video by Cease, about half way through he talks about Ranked PVP. 

Short story, Not enough played Ranked and it became more so a Participation mode, with players win trading, cheating, etc. 

I'd welcome some form of actual competitiveness back to PVP, but bringing back ranked Arena's isnt it. 

[septru]

10 hours ago, SentinalMasterWW said:

I recommend watching this Video by Cease, about half way through he talks about Ranked PVP. 

Short story, Not enough played Ranked and it became more so a Participation mode, with players win trading, cheating, etc. 

This is not true. 

 

A lot of people hated ranked because it was a "toxic cespool" or filled with wintraders or cheaters. This is was all exaggerated. This has been explained over, and over again. Ranked was only toxic if players entered ranked without any understanding of the game mode, or overwise provided 0 contribution. This is no different than PvP Seasons right now. I've seen multiple people use every slur in the book if their team loses a node. Honestly, regs has become much more toxic than ranked ever was. Wintrading too, is exaggerated much more than it was in actuality. Wintrading only really occurred for the Top3. The number of people that actually wintraded is probably the same number of players that AFK. 

 

The first 3 months of a solo ranked season was extremely popular. On populated servers like SF and DM, solo ranked usually had 4-6 instances during prime time. It was only during the next months of the season, where participation would drop significantly. Despite, Eric Musco promising to keep ranked seasons to an average of 3 months, ranked seasons typically exceeded a year. It's no wonder why participation dropped significantly. This is literally the same thing that happens to the current PvP Seasons. After the season, or even after most people have finished the season, PvP Season's participation drops significantly too. 

 

Granted, Group Ranked was much less populated than Solo Ranked. But this has long been documented to a failure to properly reward Group Ranked. For example, in late 5.0 at the end of Ranked Season 9, BioWare provided exclusive crafting material needed to create high end augments in ranked pvp and operations. It also allowed players to make progress on their Group Ranked Weekly and gain this crafting material by losing (at about 12x slower). Because of this change, Group Ranked had the highest participation levels ever. Everyone was playing group ranked. Non-pvp casuals forming up groups on fleet to grind crafting mats (much like how they grind PvP Seasons atm) but eventually learned to improve to beat each other, low-tier pvpers that beat the casuals, mid-tier pvpers that beatthe low-tier pvpers, and the top 1% pvpers that finally had more competition than just themselves. The problem previously with group ranked was that no one likes to constantly lose. But the introduction of crafting materials, incentivized and allowed everyone to win. After s9, BioWare removed crafting mats from Group Ranked, and it went back to dead. Again, this is no different than the current PvP Seasons. Without rewards, no one plays the game mode. If properly rewarded, the game mode has high levels of participation. 

Edited September 16, 2023 by septru

[ZUHFB]

4 minutes ago, septru said:

This is not true. 

 

A lot of people hated ranked because it was a "toxic cespool" or filled with wintraders or cheaters. This is not true. This has been explained over, and over again. Ranked was only toxic if players entered ranked without any understanding of the game mode, or overwise provided 0 contribution. This is no different than PvP Seasons right now. I've seen multiple people use every slur in the book if their team loses a node. Honestly, regs has become much more toxic than ranked ever was. Wintrading too, is exaggerated much more than it was in actuality. Wintrading only really occurred for the Top3. The number of people that actually wintraded is probably the same number of players that AFK. 

 

The first 3 months of a solo ranked season was extremely popular. On populated servers like SF and DM, solo ranked usually had 4-6 instances during prime time. It was only during the next months of the season, where participation would drop significantly. Despite, Eric Musco promising to keep ranked seasons to an average of 3 months, ranked seasons typically exceeded a year. It's no wonder why participation dropped significantly. This is literally the same thing that happens to the current PvP Seasons. After the season, or even after most people have finished the season, PvP Season's participation drops significantly too. 

 

Granted, Group Ranked was much less populated than Solo Ranked. But this has long been documented to a failure to properly reward Group Ranked. For example, in late 5.0 at the end of Ranked Season 9, BioWare provided exclusive crafting material needed to create high end augments in ranked pvp and operations. It also allowed players to make progress on their Group Ranked Weekly and gain this crafting material by losing (at about 12x slower). Because of this change, Group Ranked had the highest participation levels ever. Everyone was playing group ranked. Non-pvp casuals forming up groups on fleet, low-tier pvpers that farmed the casuals, mid-tier pvpers that could farm the low-tier pvpers, and the top 1% pvpers that finally had more competition than just themselves. The problem previously with group ranked was that no one likes to constantly lose. But the introduction of crafting materials and casuals, allowed everyone to win. After s9, BioWare removed crafting mats from Group Ranked, and it went back to dead. Again, this is no different than the current PvP Seasons. Without rewards, no one plays the game mode. If properly rewarded, the game mode has high levels of participation. 

I agree with all of this. All of it are objective truths. All hail prum 🥰

[septru]

13 hours ago, Wolvel said:

Sure ranked gets put back but granked and solo ranked get put in the same queue cause premades are not the problem

I think the best way to bring back ranked is to add it IN ADDITION to the current PvP Seasons.

 

Keep PvP Seasons just as it is, to incentivize casuals to PvP. Bring back ranked for arenas with an option to opt-in to the old ELO ranking system. Anyone that plays arena will be put in the same matchmaking pool. Players that want to see their ELO can opt-in. Players that don't want to worry about their ELO can opt-out.

 

Leave group and solo que combined, BUT use the current matchmaking algorithm that prioritizes premade v. premade. Every now and then, a premade might vs pugs. But they will gain significantly lower ELO if they win (+2 to +5), than they would gain if they went against another premade (+ 10 to +15). If solo players really hate losing an insignificant game against premades, they can form their own premade.

 

If wintrading is such a concern, remove Top3 rewards. Instead, reward exclusive flairs and additional PvP Season Tokens for gold, silver, bronze placement. A leaderboard would be great too. It could easily account for combat styles by listing both advanced classes the player has unlocked. 

 

These changes would both incentivize casuals to try PvP with PvP Seasons participation based rewards, and motivate them to improve and compete for performance based Ranked rewards. It would be a win-win.

Edited September 16, 2023 by septru

[krackcommando]

1 hour ago, septru said:

But the introduction of crafting materials, incentivized and allowed everyone to win.

yeah. no. this was terrible. I agree that you need to incentivize ppl to queue, but doing it with better gear that can then be "better" in parts of the game that don't grant access to that gear...particularly when it's pvp...that was a terrible combination.

it's like saying there's reg gear and rated gear. rated gear is better than reg gear and can only be obtained via rated, but you can take that rated gear into regs and enjoy the additional stat benefits.

look man, I realize average rated player doesn't need the additional stat benefit to overcome average reg player. but you have to see the inequity of it all. as convoluted as gearing is now (and bad), the basic idea that it limits the viability of gear sets (regardless of ilvl) based on the instance activity is a good thing.

and fwiw, the win trading in groups went up exponentially to get those gold augs. except you only got half the mats from grp, which was ironically easy to win trade b/c the queue was so empty.

my point is this:

1. incentivize with cosmetics not materially better gear (unless the usefulness of that gear is restricted to the format in which it is earned). the basic concept is good.
2. but at the end of the day, if you grant these rewards the same way seasons does it (grinding deaths gets it for you just not as quickly) then you end up with the same issue as pvp seasons, no? AFKing and win trading.

I just don't think you can offer meaningful rewards that can be achieved by hamster wheel achievements.

edit:

51 minutes ago, septru said:

I think the best way to bring back ranked is to add it IN ADDITION to the current PvP Seasons.

snipped. this is for the whole 2nd post....

this is all fine and dandy. but I have to be honest, there was never anything wrong (imo) with solo rated other than BW didn't police it. as you said, most of the rage monkey stuff goes on in regs too. take nikana out of the equation, and solo was probably less "toxic" than regs. but it was a lot more intense and difficult, which means a much smaller population. for w/e that means.

 

Edited September 16, 2023 by krackcommando

[septru]

45 minutes ago, krackcommando said:

yeah. no. this was terrible. I agree that you need to incentivize ppl to queue, but doing it with better gear that can then be "better" in parts of the game that don't grant access to that gear...particularly when it's pvp...that was a terrible combination.

it's like saying there's reg gear and rated gear. rated gear is better than reg gear and can only be obtained via rated, but you can take that rated gear into regs and enjoy the additional stat benefits.

In 5.9, BioWare introduced CMTs (a rare crafting material kind of like RPMs and OEMs that could only be obtained via NiM operations or Group Ranked. Completing a group ranked weekly mission granted 5 CMTs iirc. Loses counted as 1 game and wins counted as 4 games; players must complete 12 games to finish the weekly. Many casuals played Group Ranked to grind these CMTs and then sell them on the GTN. You did not have to PvP to obtain these materials. Most people played Group Ranked to make easy credits. 

 

But more importantly, CMTs were an incentive for casuals to try PvP. CMTs worked as a similar reward as the PvP Season rewards work now. They were a participation reward. The only difference was, back then there was a secondary performance based reward that players could work towards. I'm the best example of this. Before 5.9, I had hardly done any group ranked. CMTs were the only reason I got into group ranked. But by the end of it, I realized I loved the game mode and began to try to improve and earn gold in group ranked. 

 

45 minutes ago, krackcommando said:

and fwiw, the win trading in groups went up exponentially to get those gold augs. except you only got half the mats from grp, which was ironically easy to win trade b/c the queue was so empty.

This is not true. It is difficult to wintrade in a populated que and the Group Ranked que was extremely populated when they introduced CMTs. Sure there were material farmers that tried, but this is no different than all the players that currently AFK to progress PvP Seasons atm. 

 

But all of this detail is really beside the point. The point I am trying to make is that CMTs, PvP Seasons, and really any other participation rewards are an important part of the PvP food chain. Casuals might suck as PvP, but are willing to try it out because they are guaranteed a reward for their time and effort. But without casuals, there are 0 new players that are trying PvP. Which resulted in nobody wanting to play it because they would likely be farmed by the top 1% group ranked teams with nothing to show for their time or effort. 

 

I'm not advocating for the reintroduction of CMTs, just using it as an example for how important participation rewards are. But participation rewards, CMTs, PvP Seasons cannot be the only rewards. There has to be additional, performance based rewards that incentivize competition. Otherwise players quit after they achieve their participation reward. 

Edited September 16, 2023 by septru

[krackcommando]

2 hours ago, septru said:

This is not true. It is difficult to wintrade in a populated que and the Group Ranked que was extremely populated when they introduced CMTs. Sure there were material farmers that tried, but this is no different than all the players that currently AFK to progress PvP Seasons atm. 

you know, the guild I was last in during 6.x...i think you joined it at one point (villains and rogues or some such)....aello was in it; he's on your dischord I think(?). we were playing gr kickball games within the guild. we weren't building ELO as we kept switching up the teams, but...yeah. that was farming mats. just a generic SM conquest guild and players. a weekly pvp night. sometimes they hit the WZs en masse. sometimes make a few rwz grps. we were the least of the "offenders." so yeah. that was happening. I assume ppl were selling the parts as I'm certain no one in that guild was doing NiM content. I mean...I was healing. 😄

2 hours ago, septru said:

The point I am trying to make is that CMTs, PvP Seasons, and really any other participation rewards are an important part of the PvP food chain.

yep. I agreed. just...not for prizes that give a material advantage. /2cents

Edited September 16, 2023 by krackcommando

[TrixxieTriss]

7 hours ago, septru said:

I think the best way to bring back ranked is to add it IN ADDITION to the current PvP Seasons.

 

Keep PvP Seasons just as it is, to incentivize casuals to PvP. Bring back ranked for arenas with an option to opt-in to the old ELO ranking system. Anyone that plays arena will be put in the same matchmaking pool. Players that want to see their ELO can opt-in. Players that don't want to worry about their ELO can opt-out.

 

Leave group and solo que combined, BUT use the current matchmaking algorithm that prioritizes premade v. premade. Every now and then, a premade might vs pugs. But they will gain significantly lower ELO if they win (+2 to +5), than they would gain if they went against another premade (+ 10 to +15). If solo players really hate losing an insignificant game against premades, they can form their own premade.

 

If wintrading is such a concern, remove Top3 rewards. Instead, reward exclusive flairs and additional PvP Season Tokens for gold, silver, bronze placement. A leaderboard would be great too. It could easily account for combat styles by listing both advanced classes the player has unlocked. 

 

These changes would both incentivize casuals to try PvP with PvP Seasons participation based rewards, and motivate them to improve and compete for performance based Ranked rewards. It would be a win-win.

The only thing I would add to this idea is the leader board only shows the top 100-200, but only once per class, per legacy.
So even if someone has 20 of the same class, they can’t dominate the top 20 places for that class on the leaderboard.

[TrixxieTriss]

6 hours ago, septru said:

The point I am trying to make is that CMTs, PvP Seasons, and really any other participation rewards are an important part of the PvP food chain

 

4 hours ago, krackcommando said:

yep. I agreed. just...not for prizes that give a material advantage. /2cents

Agreed.

But like Krack said, as long as it’s not crafting materials or higher spec’d gear people can use in other pvp areas.

With a caveat. Unless said gear is also available to grind in other non OPS parts of the game. Ie, flash points, uprisings or plain old story. But that obviously defeats the purpose of incentivising people to PvP. 

Im all for having an incentive. But it should always be a non performance boost type of incentive. Like empty armour shells, mounts, flairs, bling, etc.

 

Edited September 16, 2023 by TrixxieTriss

[Wolvel]

8 hours ago, septru said:

 

Leave group and solo que combined, BUT use the current matchmaking algorithm that prioritizes premade v. premade. Every now and then, a premade might vs pugs. But they will gain significantly lower ELO if they win (+2 to +5), than they would gain if they went against another premade (+ 10 to +15). If solo players really hate losing an insignificant game against premades, they can form their own premade.

That would just mean that groups run the "ranked" queue. Since there is no way solo qued players could win against a tank/heal 2 granked meta dps games.

Thats not even mentioning the massive skill gap of a a group of people that would feel confident enough to go toe to toe with people who've been playing ranked since its inception.

I would never have loved pvp as much as I do without a solo ranked queue. I feel like others should have the opportunity to learn in a environment that prevents stomps because it is a solo queue.
 

[Lord_Malganus]

1 hour ago, Wolvel said:

11 hours ago, septru said:

Leave group and solo que combined, BUT use the current matchmaking algorithm that prioritizes premade v. premade. Every now and then, a premade might vs pugs.

 

The reality is that would change nothing from the way it is now.

IF Ranked were brought back, it needs a Q specifically designed for Ranked.

[BlackSilverDawn]

   

On 9/12/2023 at 7:59 PM, A-Hero-Falls said:

So competitive players have something competitive to play against 

-1 Opposed, Not Signed, & ^cringe~.  No way - ranked was the problem in the first place.  Many players won't pvp with the [notorious] super toxic atmosphere of ranked, and don't forget about its wintrading, extreme trolling, and old boys club - *CRINGE*.

 

The current pvp system is great, and it prevents such (long time) corruption.  Devs should totally ignore this gross thread and such exploitative notions that utterly hinder pvp for the rest of us.

[krackcommando]

Players did that since s1. We even had a server wide teamspeak(?). When the q popped, you’d go to a team channel. The population was small. There were always randoms who didn’t join, but you can’t make ppl join. I didn’t play but one season after the final server merger (SF), so I can’t speak to claims of 4-6 simultaneous pops. But when I played a lot everyone knew each other anyway. 
 

honestly, what blows my mind is cease recently saying he never watched or knew about Star Wars lore before playing this game 

Edited September 17, 2023 by krackcommando
Cease

[septru]

19 hours ago, Wolvel said:

That would just mean that groups run the "ranked" queue. Since there is no way solo qued players could win against a tank/heal 2 granked meta dps games.

Thats not even mentioning the massive skill gap of a a group of people that would feel confident enough to go toe to toe with people who've been playing ranked since its inception.

These issues are exactly what an opt-in combined arena que would solve. Honestly, if you loved solo ranked before ranked was removed, then this is your dream come true because a combined arena que would finally be populated enough to have proper matchmaking. 

 

 So if you're a casual that is only queing for the PvP Season rewards and dont want the stress of watching your ranking, you can opt-out of the leaderboard and ELO ranking system and your game play will be no different than it is now. You will likely go against other players who are similarly only there for a casual time.

 

But if you've gotten the hang of PvP, having fun PvPing, and want to try improving, competing, or something a little more challenging... You can easily click the opt-in button and try to climb the rankings. As you climb, you will fight against similarly skilled players because the que is populated enough to support proper matchmaking. 

 

As for premades, I guarantee 99 out of 100 games will be against other solo players. Because, again, matchmaking would finally work. But in the odd chance that you get against a premade.... imagine having a similarly skilled tank and healer on your team. Half the time you fight premades, the problem isn't their premade. It's your teammates. Well, again, in a populated que the matchmaking system would ideally put premades v premades. But if it couldn't, then it would find competent teammates to help you beat the premade. 

Edited September 17, 2023 by septru

[Lord_Malganus]

41 minutes ago, septru said:

As for premades, I guarantee 99 out of 100 games will be against other solo players. Because, again, matchmaking would finally work. But in the odd chance that you get against a premade.... imagine having a similarly skilled tank and healer on your team. Half the time you fight premades, the problem isn't their premade. It's your teammates. Well, again, in a populated que the matchmaking system would ideally put premades v premades. But if it couldn't, then it would find competent teammates to help you beat the premade. 

I doubt most here have any confidence in the dev team to be able to program it to actually work.

[Wolvel]

1 hour ago, septru said:

Honestly, if you loved solo ranked before ranked was removed, then this is your dream come true because a combined arena que would finally be populated enough to have proper matchmaking. 

They couldn't do it before in solo/group ranked with elo, they cant do it now with a group/mini-groups/solo que, why do you think they could magically make a granked/solo ranked an elo/group based matchmaker work?

I'll tell you how they wouldn't, they would just get enough people for a group of 8 and throw then together because in swtor's mind any match is a good match and that's just not true. SWTOR will do the least amount possible and in this case the most we could ask for in the sake of a balanced queue is a solo or grouped queue. There will never be a magic elo, group, role based matchmaker to make your dream of granked in the solo ranked queue possible.

Just look up Trials of Osiris in D2 (3v3 competitive vs swtor's 4v4 competitive), solo queue weekends are the biggest draw for new players and veteran players. The solo queue was fine even on SS in s14 and s13 (think I got 500ish games s14 playing casually) during prime time it was around 10 minutes a pop
 

 

1 hour ago, septru said:

As for premades, I guarantee 99 out of 100 games will be against other solo players. Because, again, matchmaking would finally work. But in the odd chance that you get against a premade.... imagine having a similarly skilled tank and healer on your team. Half the time you fight premades, the problem isn't their premade. It's your teammates. Well, again, in a populated que the matchmaking system would ideally put premades v premades. But if it couldn't, then it would find competent teammates to help you beat the premade. 

We both know the population of swtor does not and will not support what you are saying, if it didn't support the gamemode to your standards back then with 10,000 + standalone then it certainly wont now with 6000 + standalone. The reality is that there wouldn't be enough people in queue and it would just be one skilled premade on a low pop server stomping that's how it was before on low pop servers and that's how it would be again except now it would also be the solo queue.

[septru]

24 minutes ago, Wolvel said:

They couldn't do it before in solo/group ranked with elo, they cant do it now with a group/mini-groups/solo que, why do you think they could magically make a granked/solo ranked an elo/group based matchmaker work?

I guess we can agree to disagree...

 

How many premades do you face when you que solo in arenas, atm? Is the population currently healthy enough to support a mixed que? Now add a bunch of returning players to that mix...

 

Ya the population is going to be just fine if they brought back ranked. 

Edited September 17, 2023 by septru

[Wolvel]

1 hour ago, septru said:

How many premades do you face when you que solo in arenas, atm?

Nearly all of my 4's matches on SS during prime time are against some team during PST prime time.
 

1 hour ago, septru said:

I guess we can agree to disagree, but I recommend using logical nextime instead of making a nonsensical rant. 

Let me be more clear, in past ranked seasons you would have people who where grinding top 3 in matches against people doing their first matches. So the matchmaker they made then failed and doesn't meet your expectations for same skilled solo players vs group ranked players.

Currently the matchmaker throws anything together and calls it a match. So it fails your expectation of pitting groups vs groups and solo's vs solo's.

And you want a game that has failed to care at all for ranked to make a brand new matchmaker that pits granked and solo's in the same queue. Now that is nonsensical.

Edited September 17, 2023 by Wolvel

[Darkestmonty]

when the population was bigger they couldn't even give away all the rewards to the last ranked PvP season. There is absolutely no way this game has the population to support ranked PvP now.

Ranked PvP is dead and was dead before Bioware officially ended it.

Edited September 17, 2023 by Darkestmonty

[Beyrahl]

On 9/16/2023 at 9:45 AM, septru said:

Ranked was only toxic if players entered ranked without any understanding of the game mode, or overwise provided 0 contribution.

We both know that's not completely true, but I am not really making a response to specifically you but rather the topic. I just wanted to point this out because many players dealt with toxicity but that's merely the surface level of issues with it. While I may only have experience with S3, S4, and S8-S13 with the most in S10-S12, none of the seasons were any less toxic, arguably just as bad in their own ways. While it is true the frequency of toxicity was much higher IF you did meet the said criteria. 

The population isn't there to have a functional match-making system. Season 8 was our largest participation season out of every single season we had and that was quite some time ago. It also had external reasons as to why it was so popular, it was the height of 5.0 with news of mergers & a new movie coming or came out. Regardless, even the most active recent season we had was season 12. 
Even then we didn't have enough for a functional match-maker. How often do you see a gold+ s12 flair? Not often, why? Well, that's because there wasn't enough Elo to go around because we didn't have the players. There were only a handful of players who passed 1500 that season and that should be plenty enough sign to tell population is an issue. GW2 has a similar issue being plat is the top 1% in the game, that's not even the max rank. It suffers exactly the same issue, while it may be a lower-tier heavy issue it doesn't change the problem of population.
Mark Biggs has a video on ranked when he received top 3 that he didn't earn, it was given out rewards from group ranked to solo ranked players because they went unclaimed. Legitimately a made-up thing out of thin air on their part (not marks), if they were doing this s12 should have also seen it too, but it did not. They basically didn't police anything after s12's fiasco, to make things worse they handled s13 even worse. 
 

Another large issue is the lack of "fairness" plenty of issues throughout all the seasons, one being declining, another being role manipulating, backfilling, Leaving round 1, and generally queue manipulation. All of these things have happened and I need not say any names most already know. 

• How does declining mess up solo ranked? Well, players with higher ratings were in the queue for a long time. Including those players who are tank or healers can be filled in their place. This should be obvious as to the advantages of doing this. 
   
• Role manipulating what even is that? Well, have you ever been asked to play tank or heal in solo ranked before? Ever seen a random person you've never seen and someone sus is always against those random people in a support role match? Basically that, intentionally manipulating the roles when no one else is in queue to face lesser-quality players. This is a purely population issue. 
   
• Backfilling we all know it, how does it benefit someone? Well, sometimes it's a gamble and sometimes it happens by accident. But it's very much a thing for many seasons, as stated above it'll take whoever's been in the queue the longest and you can easily figure out how that can be manipulated. 
   
• Leaving round one, how does that mess with anything? I personally have at least 20+ games from s10 with +1, why is it +1? Because players left round one, I would like to think it's an anti-trading mechanic. But it really hurt some of the seasons by denying Elo to players who either deserved it or even didn't and basically deleting Elo from the game thus further causing issues with MM. 
   
• Queue manipulation, you sound crazy! Yeah, I get it, but people who cheat will go to any length to make it look like they're legitimate. It's much harder to do this one but we all used to know it as Q-Syncing, something much easier to do when it was faction versus faction. Outside of that, just throwing this in here, the obvious "playing bad" when playing on someone's team / suddenly playing good when on someone else's team. There was plenty of throwing that I need not remind anyone of. 

Now I am not trying to dog on the mode or say it was flawless nor am I trying to just point out its flaws. There were SOME competitive games and they were really fun, but in the nature of a low-population game, it's hard to get those. 

Instead of just being a downer, I want to leave you guys with some actual real suggestions which I have thought plenty of over the years as personally, I have never been happy with how ranked was done in this game. 

• Seasonal Group Ranked, much like PvP Seasons only running for a short time, maybe even only once a year. This would give incentive to play regular arena more, it would also promote grouping and non-grouping, making finding people to play with a prospect. It'd create a new social dynamic that's been missing from Solo Ranked for a very long time and part of why Group Ranked was originally so dead - it obviously had other issues too. It'd be a great stepping stone and give more population to the arena allowing for the matchmaker to actually function for both SoloQueue and Group players alike. 
   
• Seasonal SoloQueue 8v8 Ranked, much like PvP Seasons only running for a short time, maybe even once a year. This would give the incentive to play warzone objectives for those who usually don't and also enforce reasons for players to learn combat more. There's actually a jarring amount of map knowledge, shortcuts, and other niche uses all over the map that tend to go unused due to the fact either everyone is everywhere or just TDMing. To go along with that the ability to TDM and OBJ at the same time is something the majority of players can do, they just don't have to most times as OBJ will be free or TDM will be free - as in no one really opposing them, lots don't know how to play under pressure and it'd be a great stepping stone for ranked arena too. 
   
• Seasonal Ranked Arena SoloQueue, while I hate to think it'd just be copied and pasted, some things changing would simply improve the experience. For example, removing the option to decline it puts the player in question in the match and if they AFK out lockouts and bans can actually be applied correctly. A gear requirement to Queue along with at least 20 regular arenas completed, while more could be great I think really it becomes an issue for alts. A tighter Elo range when in the queue for a long time, or even a warning to let you know no one is online in your Elo range so queue times are going to be long. Queue estimates are there for a reason, whether they can get them to function with Elo is a different story. Ultimately role issues would never be resolved, my only thought is enforcing every game to be tank heal to force more players to want to play said roles instead of letting them be one-sided gambles. 

In all, I want to see better for the game like everyone else but all it's doing nowadays is cannibalizing itself. What's left of the PvP community can't agree on anything and have hopes for better. Meanwhile, the game seemingly ignores them and ends up buffing madness again. Out of touch would be putting it lightly, one could say it started from season one, another Quesh, OPG, whichever it was for you I would love to be proven wrong, and so would everyone else. It sucks being jaded about your favorite game and I am sadly not the only one.

Also, quick side note, far too many cry wolf about premades when in fact it's not the case. Giving up at the first sign of opposition is legitimately killing what's left of PvP, if you're a defeatist, please just leave the match or go find something better to do with your time instead of grieving 6-7 other players. Sincerely, everyone who still tries to enjoy themselves. 

Edited September 18, 2023 by Beyrahl

[Prapcaster]

On 9/16/2023 at 7:45 AM, septru said:

This is not true. 

 

A lot of people hated ranked because it was a "toxic cespool" or filled with wintraders or cheaters. This is was all exaggerated. This has been explained over, and over again. Ranked was only toxic if players entered ranked without any understanding of the game mode, or overwise provided 0 contribution. This is no different than PvP Seasons right now. I've seen multiple people use every slur in the book if their team loses a node. Honestly, regs has become much more toxic than ranked ever was. Wintrading too, is exaggerated much more than it was in actuality. Wintrading only really occurred for the Top3. The number of people that actually wintraded is probably the same number of players that AFK. 

 

The first 3 months of a solo ranked season was extremely popular. On populated servers like SF and DM, solo ranked usually had 4-6 instances during prime time. It was only during the next months of the season, where participation would drop significantly. Despite, Eric Musco promising to keep ranked seasons to an average of 3 months, ranked seasons typically exceeded a year. It's no wonder why participation dropped significantly. This is literally the same thing that happens to the current PvP Seasons. After the season, or even after most people have finished the season, PvP Season's participation drops significantly too. 

 

Granted, Group Ranked was much less populated than Solo Ranked. But this has long been documented to a failure to properly reward Group Ranked. For example, in late 5.0 at the end of Ranked Season 9, BioWare provided exclusive crafting material needed to create high end augments in ranked pvp and operations. It also allowed players to make progress on their Group Ranked Weekly and gain this crafting material by losing (at about 12x slower). Because of this change, Group Ranked had the highest participation levels ever. Everyone was playing group ranked. Non-pvp casuals forming up groups on fleet to grind crafting mats (much like how they grind PvP Seasons atm) but eventually learned to improve to beat each other, low-tier pvpers that beat the casuals, mid-tier pvpers that beatthe low-tier pvpers, and the top 1% pvpers that finally had more competition than just themselves. The problem previously with group ranked was that no one likes to constantly lose. But the introduction of crafting materials, incentivized and allowed everyone to win. After s9, BioWare removed crafting mats from Group Ranked, and it went back to dead. Again, this is no different than the current PvP Seasons. Without rewards, no one plays the game mode. If properly rewarded, the game mode has high levels of participation. 

It's really interesting how all the excuses unravled from people. For years they said ranked was toxic and needed to be deleted. Now that ranked is gone they have the same excuses. Eight mans are an issue but they're hardly killing pvp. What's killing pvp is the same thing that's been killing it since 8v8 ranked existed. Care bears that demand they're pandered to or they'll burn everything down.

Edited September 18, 2023 by Prapcaster