Here's how to fix PVP...

[lothloriaa]

Copy Warcraft's PVP system.

2v2, 3v3 random (cannot join as a group/team), rated.
2v2, 3v3 TEAMS (grouped), rated.
Bump 8v8 to 10v10 random (cannot join as a group/team, unrated)
Bump 8v8 to 10v10 TEAMS (rated)

PVP is extremely popular on Warcraft and they have a system that keeps players subscribing.  How SWTOR hasn't figured this out yet (or do not care) is astrounding. You have a great platform that COULD rival WOW, but you won't put in the minimal effort to do so.

The only thing offered in 4v4 and 8v8, which does not stop groups from ROFLSTOMPING other teams.  That is why people are leaving. There is no fairness in this game, why pay for it?  If I want to get punched in the mouth and pay for it, I'd go back to kickboxing or hockey.

[Samcuu]

Wow pvp is not extremely popular, it's mmo pvp which isn't popular at all these days, it's dead in most games.  Pops take a long time on wow. Splitting the queues up in swtor for a game that already has matchmaking issues due to the low population would be a death sentence for pvp in this game. Things definitely need tweaking but not like you've proposed. Btw the devs have already said they prioritize fast queue times over anything else, and your proposal of splitting the queues will just make the queue times even longer. 

The premade thing has been debated ad nauseum in the pvp section so I'm not gonna get into it here btw. 

[lothloriaa]

1 hour ago, Samcuu said:

Wow pvp is not extremely popular, it's mmo pvp which isn't popular at all these days, it's dead in most games.  Pops take a long time on wow. Splitting the queues up in swtor for a game that already has matchmaking issues due to the low population would be a death sentence for pvp in this game. Things definitely need tweaking but not like you've proposed. Btw the devs have already said they prioritize fast queue times over anything else, and your proposal of splitting the queues will just make the queue times even longer. 

The premade thing has been debated ad nauseum in the pvp section so I'm not gonna get into it here btw. 

I didn't see that on WOW.  Random 2v2/3v3s popped FAST.  Had a lot of fun. The admins though, darn near Germany, circa 1941.  I didn't play rated, but BGs popped fast, 2v2, 3v3 was fast.  PVP seems popular here too, just not the way SWTOR has it functioning. 

Millions of WOW players. What does SWTOR have now?  Subscriber wise? A few thousand?  Because I see the same premades in WZs and 4v4 all day long.

Edited May 10 by lothloriaa

[Samcuu]

1 hour ago, lothloriaa said:

I didn't see that on WOW.  Random 2v2/3v3s popped FAST.  Had a lot of fun. The admins though, darn near Germany, circa 1941.  I didn't play rated, but BGs popped fast, 2v2, 3v3 was fast.  PVP seems popular here too, just not the way SWTOR has it functioning. 

Millions of WOW players. What does SWTOR have now?  Subscriber wise? A few thousand?  Because I see the same premades in WZs and 4v4 all day long.

Pops on swtor don't take a lot of time either unless ur queueing in a big group and that's by design. Also WOW has cross server queueing, which swtor does not. It would make it easier on matchmaker to make better games if we had it, and you'd also not see the same players all the time. Which I do think you are overstating it. There's a ton of players that play during the day for me that I never see because of my time zone. 

[lothloriaa]

So you're kind of making my point.  Why not cross realm PVP? Why not 2v2, 3v3?

[SteveTheCynic]

5 hours ago, lothloriaa said:

If I want to get punched in the mouth and pay for it, I'd go back to kickboxing or hockey.

If you're getting punched in the mouth doing kickboxing (or almost any other martial art(1)), you're doing it wrong.  I can't speak for hockey, nor even for the bizarre North American variation of hockey that happens in ice-skating rinks, mind you...

(1) I personally favour jujitsu, but whatever.  The cardinal rule of all martial arts is "don't get hit".

[Samcuu]

1 hour ago, lothloriaa said:

So you're kind of making my point.  Why not cross realm PVP? Why not 2v2, 3v3?

I'm not disagreeing with everything you said, only that the queues shouldn't be split. The game definitely needs a different bracket and rewards for players who are more competitive ie a ranked mode. And I also agree that 2 v 2 and 3 v 3 is a much better model than 4 v 4. Although 4 v 4 with a tank/healer on both teams are insanely fun matches.

Also I've been advocating for cross server queues for a while now. Mainly because with more ppl in the pool to draw from the easier it is for matchmaker to make fair matches. Of course matchmaker needs to be fixed first regardless. 

[lothloriaa]

10 hours ago, Samcuu said:

I'm not disagreeing with everything you said, only that the queues shouldn't be split. The game definitely needs a different bracket and rewards for players who are more competitive ie a ranked mode. And I also agree that 2 v 2 and 3 v 3 is a much better model than 4 v 4. Although 4 v 4 with a tank/healer on both teams are insanely fun matches.

Also I've been advocating for cross server queues for a while now. Mainly because with more ppl in the pool to draw from the easier it is for matchmaker to make fair matches. Of course matchmaker needs to be fixed first regardless. 

Agreed. Problem with the queues are groups. One team gets 2 dps, healer, tank, Ine team gets 4 dps.  Gear between teams can be very fast. With a PUG, we end up, almost always, with someone severely undergeared and dead in 2 shots.

There's also a bug somewhere in the game, I see these 336/337 geared players doing more damage than people in 343 gear.  This shouldn't be happening, but it is.

[lothloriaa]

11 hours ago, SteveTheCynic said:

If you're getting punched in the mouth doing kickboxing (or almost any other martial art(1)), you're doing it wrong.  I can't speak for hockey, nor even for the bizarre North American variation of hockey that happens in ice-skating rinks, mind you...

(1) I personally favour jujitsu, but whatever.  The cardinal rule of all martial arts is "don't get hit".

Been a while since I took Jujitsu, but you never forget.  As for the punched in the mouth comment, it's an analogy.  You're paying money to play a game and not being put on an a fair/equal level. The best comparison is paying for food at the best restaurant and getting lousy table service and less than average meals.  Happened to me a few months ago, I won't go back there.  Not sure why came back here either.

As for Hockey in the US, its the same around the world. Not sure where you are from, but we have Russian, Swedish, Finland, Norway, Canadian, etc hockey players. Wherever hockey is played, they want to come to the US in the best league on the planet.  Heck, its the same game played in the olympics.

[SteveTheCynic]

4 hours ago, lothloriaa said:

As for Hockey in the US, its the same around the world. Not sure where you are from, but we have Russian, Swedish, Finland, Norway, Canadian, etc hockey players. Wherever hockey is played, they want to come to the US in the best league on the planet.  Heck, its the same game played in the olympics.

I said "North America" rather than "the US" because of all the Canadian *teams*.

And when/where I grew up (the UK, in the 1970s), hockey was played on grass, and the game the North Americans call "hockey" was called "ice hockey".

[tsteenburg]

9 hours ago, lothloriaa said:

There's also a bug somewhere in the game, I see these 336/337 geared players doing more damage than people in 343 gear.  This shouldn't be happening, but it is

Not a bug, gear is capped in pvp at 336, so people who have pure pvp toons keep their gear at 336 because they can be exact in their stats rather than subject to reverse bolster.

 

That being said, I fully agree that at the very least solo pvp queue people should have a check box or selector to allow them either to opt out of matchmaking with premades entirely or set a personal wait period before accepting premade matchmaking.  Premades have a role and value for the way some people play the game, but solo players have no obligation to be your bait. 

[lothloriaa]

20 hours ago, SteveTheCynic said:

I said "North America" rather than "the US" because of all the Canadian *teams*.

And when/where I grew up (the UK, in the 1970s), hockey was played on grass, and the game the North Americans call "hockey" was called "ice hockey".

Yeah yeah and your football is not the same as our football.    A few really good things came out of the UK.  Monty Python, Benny Hill and Top Gear with Clarkson, Hammond and May.  Oh and Kate Beckinsale.

15 hours ago, tsteenburg said:

Not a bug, gear is capped in pvp at 336, so people who have pure pvp toons keep their gear at 336 because they can be exact in their stats rather than subject to reverse bolster.

 

That being said, I fully agree that at the very least solo pvp queue people should have a check box or selector to allow them either to opt out of matchmaking with premades entirely or set a personal wait period before accepting premade matchmaking.  Premades have a role and value for the way some people play the game, but solo players have no obligation to be your bait. 

Yep.  I believe the thought process behind 2v2, 3v3 with Warcraft was because it would make matches pop faster. Rated matches will always queue slower than random, that's a fact, and it will always be that way.  So why punish those who are not in a group by making them face coordinated teams?  WOW understood that 2v2, 3v3 with random matchmaking (they would not add a healer to a one team and not another.  Either both teams had a healer or neither did) and that seemed to be more fun/active.

Also, I looked up the daily player count for both WOW and SWTOR. By the numbers, SWTOR is dead and that's why BioWare sold it.  On average there are only AT MAX, 6000 players in the game.  Usually around 3-4k ACTIVE, daily players (some graphs say 100k, we all know that is bunk).  WOW? At least a million every day.

WOW total player count: 140 Million.
SWTOR total player count:  12.2 Million.

Both do not count duplicate accounts.  So maybe that is why the new owners aren't going to change anything. I guess they're happy with the low subscriber base and using the cartel market to bring in $.   It's not the logical way to do things, but eventually the players are going to just leave.  Maybe I'll try Baldur's game.  Someone has to make a MMORPG where the playing field is equal and only skill matters.

Edited May 12 by lothloriaa