What's your favorite era of pvp?

[nzologic]

Since 7.x seems to be a literal disaster zone when it comes to pvp, what patch did ya'll actually enjoy/hate the least?

Edited June 8 by nzologic

[septru]

This is actually a hard one... 

 

Honestly out of all of it, I have to say the end of 5.0 duels. At the beginning of 5.0 the player population had just spiked. There was a lot of interest in duels, and a lot of people were taking various tournaments very seriously. The amount of training, preparation, theory crafting, and general tryharding had made duels an actually competitive environment. Dsync was also not as bad as its current state. I remember, I used to have a dueling arena in my Manaan stronghold. I had given practically every PvP player on SS a key to the stronghold, and we used to duel in between que pops. It was always cool when random people would show up asking to duel. Sometimes we would have nearly 15 people in the stronghold at a time.

 

...good times. 🥲

[Wulfurkin]

I think it was better when the game had a ranked mode. It was a containment zone for the most toxic players in the game. Also could have been a way to prevent the lopsided kill farm matches we mostly have now by blocking ranked players from q ing  for regs. This was the patch the game needed but never got.

[supertimtaf]

11 hours ago, nzologic said:

Since 7.x seems to be a literal disaster zone when it comes to pvp, what patch did ya'll actually enjoy/hate the least?

for me it was 4.0
4.0 had easy pvp gearing, performance wasn't that bad in most warzones, class were somewhat balanced (hello sorc). Ranked wasn't that popular but it was decent. And since there wasn't much else to do, everyone was playing PvP.
5.0 was meh at best. Gearing made worse, balance being utter trash, ranked being not that great with really bad rewards...
Everything after 4.0 was trying hard to be 4.0 but failed at it imo

[supertimtaf]

7 minutes ago, Wulfurkin said:

It was a containment zone for the most toxic players in the game. Also could have been a way to prevent the lopsided kill farm matches we mostly have now by blocking ranked players from q ing  for regs.

These people always existed in regs. You'd be surprised at how toxic some regstar players actually were (and still are). Besides, if I don't like the current people queing in ranked, I'd queue for regs instead. I'd still farm you along with objective. One-sided farm games happen because the average player has gotten worse. Not the opposite way 😕 

If there always were ranked players in warzones before, how do you explain that it was less one-sided before than it is now...!  

[Wulfurkin]

17 minutes ago, supertimtaf said:

These people always existed in regs. You'd be surprised at how toxic some regstar players actually were (and still are). Besides, if I don't like the current people queing in ranked, I'd queue for regs instead. I'd still farm you along with objective. One-sided farm games happen because the average player has gotten worse. Not the opposite way 😕 

If there always were ranked players in warzones before, how do you explain that it was less one-sided before than it is now...!  

What makes you think youd farm me just like that XD? Thats not the point i was making though, its the issue with broken matchmaking that could have been prevented when the game still had two separate environments. I dont feel like the matches were nearly as bad back then.

[supertimtaf]

1 hour ago, Wulfurkin said:

I dont feel like the matches were nearly as bad back then.

Because people were overall better back then. Back when medals impacted a bit of the overall rewards you'd get at the end of a warzone (yes that was a thing), or simply because people were more eager to play as groups or get good in solo. Right now you have either terrible players or "okay players but in a group" and that's what's making this so unbalanced.

Until the devs manage to make people want to learn how to play, make for easier gearing (so there's no such massive imbalance between geared and non-geared) and fix mid-lvl pvp so that noobs can keep learning PvP as they level up (instead of getting farmed by all the bad players in full lvl 75 gear with all augments), this will stay that way. 

Other things to fix are :

- Make premades (including three or four players) wait for longer between each games rather than forcing a warzone pop as soon as there are 16 players in a queue (right now it doesn't really check for long enough).
- Reduce the max team size to four players again (No one actually queues as 8 but still that'll ease up most of the angery people here)

[meddani]

all of 1.X , 2.X , 3.X and 6.X were my favorites , didn't like 4.X because they introduced the mastery stat because people were too dumb to figure out each class main stat and the changes to crit/surge lol

[supertimtaf]

20 minutes ago, meddani said:

all of 1.X , 2.X , 3.X and 6.X were my favorites , didn't like 4.X because they introduced the mastery stat because people were too dumb to figure out each class main stat and the changes to crit/surge lol

I'd say that mastery did more overall good than bad to the game in the end. Less stats to worry about means PvP is more reliant on skill than number crunching. That's all good in my book. And it showed too, we had less people badly geared in 4.X than in the rest of the game too. So more people who could actually learn from their mistakes.

I just miss my full strength Sorcerer

Edited June 8 by supertimtaf

[Liarrrra]

4 hours ago, Wulfurkin said:

I think it was better when the game had a ranked mode. It was a containment zone for the most toxic players in the game.

Group challenges are a thing. Not that anyone uses them though.

[DarthEndonae]

You're gonna get replies from people with nostalgia goggles on. This expansion has some role balance issues driven by struggles to make mitigation tanks stand out. They exacerbate some of the problems with maps and match quality degradation resulting from low population, but intra-role balance is pretty great right now in PvP. Some specs are stronger than others, but it comes across as some specs being too weak rather than the other way around. On the whole, PvP balance has improved significantly with each expansion, and there are more maps than ever before.

[varietasplus]

I put my vote on the era of Solo Ranked for severeal reasons:

- it let classes shine that otherwise were inferior in either Team Ranked or warzones

- it pushed players to their limits both in terms of dps/hps, kiting/survivability that otherwise could have not been achieved via warzones or NiM operations

- it kept the number farmer premades (ignorant of objectives) from playing warzones, making warzones a more relaxing ground to improve for new/mediocre/fresh max level players

[Wulfurkin]

1 hour ago, Liarrrra said:

Group challenges are a thing. Not that anyone uses them though.

Ive never seen this option used in a public setting. The only times i remember was in a guild i used to be in that used this to run team pvp tournaments.

Edited June 8 by Wulfurkin

[meddani]

2 hours ago, DarthEndonae said:

 On the whole, PvP balance has improved significantly with each expansion

you sure you're on the right forum for the right game?

[septru]

Not to derail the thread... but I'm not sure why people are talking about class balance in 7.0. Class balance means literally nothing against players of unequal skill. And 7.0 has by far the largest skill gap in game history. 

[sithBracer]

The end of 2.X had the best balance and the most fun games. The gearing was terrible compared to 4.X but everything else was perfect.

Lol at people saying 5.X.  That was the worst expansion in this game's history. It was so terrible that they had to replace ben irving with keith; that is what a miserable failure it was.

 

INB4 but but but the end of 5.X was good right? lol, yeah I remember it. Not only was balance terrible, they introduced those horrible new super expensive gold augments, making the gear gap 10 times worse than it ever was. Yeah ... super fun ... 5.X started as trash, was trash the entire time, ended as trash. Gods was the only good thing that came from 5.X.

[meddani]

14 minutes ago, sithBracer said:

The end of 2.X had the best balance and the most fun games. The gearing was terrible compared to 4.X but everything else was perfect.

Lol at people saying 5.X.  That was the worst expansion in this game's history. 

1. disagree about the gearing , you only need 2 tokens at the time, warzone and ranked ones (the latter one you can trade for warzone ones)

2. worse than what we have now? compared to now 5.X looks like a masterpiece lol

edit: agree about the augments, they introduced like 2-3 new tiers of augs

Edited June 10 by meddani

[sithBracer]

2 minutes ago, meddani said:

1. disagree about the gearing , you only need 2 tokens at the time, warzone and ranked ones (the latter one you can trade for warzone ones)

2. worse than what we have now? compared to now 5.X looks like a masterpiece lol

1. Yeah but there was no mastery at the time so you couldn't share gear, and you couldn't share relics/earpiece/implants since they were locked anyway. That made the grind soooooooooooooooo long. I guess it wasn't that terrible since you could still do just fine by min/maxing second tier gear and just getting a first tier MH/OH and relics, but come on are you really going to say it wasn't terrible compared to 4.X? It actually wasn't so bad when we could abuse bolster with the MH/OH to avoid paying 4500 ranked comms (that is 18000 regular comms) for 1 MH/OH, but then l-randle ruined everything by tattling. I really hate that person.

2. True, but I really don't consider this an expansion since the game is in maintenance mode. Also the biggest issue right now is that too many people left and the skill imbalance is worse than it ever was, which is not the expansion itself, it is the end result of years and years of neglect and terrible decisions which all started in 5.X. The actual class balance, gearing system, gear gap is much better now than it was in 5.X.

INB4 but what about 8 man premades. While I agree more than 4 person premades should not be a thing, please lets not pretend that a 4 person premade wouldn't dominate the current player base just as bad. I queued with 2 friends and we destroyed everyone just as easily as if we were in a 6 person. Skillgap is the biggest issue today.

[septru]

3 hours ago, sithBracer said:

Lol at people saying 5.X.  That was the worst expansion in this game's history.

Yes 5.0 was a generally terrible expansion. Horrible class balance. The creation of Vandin and Yavin pvp maps. The emergence of dsync. A 1.5 year long ranked PvP Season... etc. 

 

But there were some gems. Like I mentioned, dueling was great. Team ranked was also perhaps its most populated expansion with crafting mats as rewards. And there was a general healthy balance in the meta. Cleave comps, hardswaps, and hybrid pressure were all viable comps in team ranked. Unlike what you saw in earlier and later expansions where team ranked was far less populated and the meta favored pure cleave or hardswap. 

Edited June 10 by septru

[nzologic]

On 6/9/2024 at 8:31 AM, septru said:

Not to derail the thread... but I'm not sure why people are talking about class balance in 7.0. Class balance means literally nothing against players of unequal skill. And 7.0 has by far the largest skill gap in game history. 

Nah you're 100% right, skill gap is by far the biggest issue in 7.0. I was hoping to spark a little subjective discussion more so than a full on debate about class balance between updates.

Edited June 10 by nzologic

[sithBracer]

4 hours ago, septru said:

But there were some gems. Like I mentioned, dueling was great. Team ranked was also perhaps its most populated expansion with crafting mats as rewards. And there was a general healthy balance in the meta. Cleave comps, hardswaps, and hybrid pressure were all viable comps in team ranked. Unlike what you saw in earlier and later expansions where team ranked was far less populated and the meta favored pure cleave or hardswap. 

 

Dueling is fun in any of the expansions, from 1.X all the way to now. Especially if you are having fun with your friends. I doubt 5.X was the exceptional one there. Maybe that was the time you started doing it more, so it is more special to you?

Well yes, team ranked was populated because of the mats farmers. I guess mats farmers being easily beaten by teams was better than season's farmers being beaten up by premades today? Sorry you're going to have to explain this one to me. How was that different than warzones are today other than you don't have to have those people on your team ....

Unfortunately the side effect of this horrible system was that the gold augments became so expensive, it widened the gear gap significantly creating 2 tiers of haves and have nots and started the horrible inflation which we are still suffering from. But you got to beat up on pugs in arenas, so yay?

And 2.X had a lot more group ranked. The most viable comps were hard switch and tank tunnel. There were also a few fun comps that people did like the doncleave, 4 mercs or 4 deception sins, but those weren't really viable against good players. Derp (oops I mean "pressure", sorry), didn't really become popular until after 3.X when DoT spread was introduced.

[TrixxieTriss]

My favourite era was between 3.x & 4.x 

[septru]

3 hours ago, sithBracer said:

Well yes, team ranked was populated because of the mats farmers. I guess mats farmers being easily beaten by teams was better than season's farmers being beaten up by premades today? Sorry you're going to have to explain this one to me. How was that different than warzones are today other than you don't have to have those people on your team ....

Unfortunately the side effect of this horrible system was that the gold augments became so expensive, it widened the gear gap significantly creating 2 tiers of haves and have nots and started the horrible inflation which we are still suffering from. But you got to beat up on pugs in arenas, so yay?

The side effect of lots of matt farmers grinding a high value reward reward was an actually populated que. 5.0 team ranked has many teams at various skill levels: pug matt farmers, pvers, reg stars, solo ranked one tricks, and competitive team ranked teams. Very rarely did the competitive team ranked teams fight pug mat farmers, because the que was simply populated. 

 

As a side, this is why 7.2 PvP Seasons is so upsetting. PvP Seasons had the potential to be so good. It could have attracted the same low skill level players with its equivalent grindy participation rewards. The population could have been just as good as 5.0 team ranked. But the removal of skill based rewards gutted the top and middle skill tier population, to the point where you are left with the massive skill gap. 

 

Yes, at the lowest levels you had mat farmers stucking for rewards or reg stars que dodging better teams. But ironically, you can draw direct parallels to 7.0 AFKers and regs que dodgers. At least in 5.0, ranked matchmaking actually matched teams of the same level against each other. You need a whole new thread to list all the various reasons why matchmaking doesn't actually work in 7.0. 

 

Lastly, regarding the cost of augments. Yes, they were very expensive. But if you were a PvPer, you should have loved it. 5.0 team ranked was the first time I ever considered myself rich. For the first time ever, just doing PvP could get you so many credits. 

[Liarrrra]

6 hours ago, septru said:

For the first time ever, just doing PvP could get you so many credits

What a time to be alive

[supertimtaf]

9 hours ago, septru said:

At least in 5.0, ranked matchmaking actually matched teams of the same level against each other. You need a whole new thread to list all the various reasons why matchmaking doesn't actually work in 7.0. 

I remember my ranked experience in 5.0

I was playing sin tank, and at that point I had two opponents.

Either a random bad tank that I farmed for ez elo

Or Sheksas who actually bullied me into oblivion.

So idk, for me 5.0 wasn't that good when it comes to matchmaking because we were only three tanks in queue. Only on special roles though. Dps it was fine.

Same issue with group ranked though.

Mats farmer were another thing, and while I noticed a bunch in the french server, there wasn't a lot on DM (or Red Eclipse) at the time. So idk if 5.0 was that much more healthy in ranked for team composition. It worked fine in unranked though ! Better than now !