Dont take vote kick away.

Yeah, I think I suggested that several years ago to BioWare.

You of all people know that valor means nothing in terms of PVP skill...

The only thing it can be indicative of is that the person having 100 valor might not be totally clueless about PVP mechanics in this game.

Thats not the point. The valor requirement to queue for ranked should mean something. With Double XP being applied to gain Valor at 2x rate, that "valor requirement" is meaningless because any keyboard faceroller can get to valor 25 in a few hours during the event.

True.

Valor rank should be one of several requirements to queue for ranked matches not the only requirement if nothing else just to make it mean something again. It proves a certain amount of participation in PvP, that said with the double XP influence the valor requirement should probably be 80+ or just straight 100.

Combine that w/ 306 gear minimum and a third requirement that requires some type of test of skill, a qualifier of some sort.

I still think it will hit Ranked queue times hard but I get the frustration of losing to others because your team mates didn't bother to put in the effort to be competitive.

Vote kick though..that needs to go...People can't be trusted to be honest, understanding, helpful...any of that.

Any form of direct player control over another players game experience should be removed from all aspects of the game.

An option with valor might be to up the total to 200 valor and remove ALL valor boosting mechanisms in the game besides normal play time.
Split valor into legacy valor (which is taken from the highest lvl Alt’s valor rank) and class/character valor.
Then make the requirement to get into ranked be based on having 80-100 legacy valor and 40-50 class/character valor (or some such system). This would also slow down the cheaters making new Alts if theirs gets banned.
And to get everyone ready for the next season, they can have preseasons of 3-4 weeks and not implement the valor requirements until the seasons starts.
Throw in a gear gate requirement of some sort and a 10 min deserter buff and you have the basis for a new system.
At the same time they could change how the points system works better.

None of these solutions help with the problem which is "vote-kicking." Vote kicking ought to be removed and all other options should be considered when it comes to how to improve ranked PVP.

No disagreement here...Vote kick should have never made it into multiplayer games of any kind.

Anyone who has logged into the internet for 5 mins knows that if people are given the opportunity they will react like complete Nerf Herders 90% of the time. Anonymity removing any consequences is too much for many to handle.

Yes, let's give MORE power and tools to those who already like to cheat, win-trade, match throw, and probably more I don't know about, let's give THESE guys another tool to abuse, a vote system so they can further manipulate their teams roster with! Brilliant.

I'd like to present an example of how out of control kicking has become.

Last night in solo ranked on Star Forge, there was a guardian tank queueing. He had 306 gear, was using the Descent of the Fearless set bonus and the Rancor's Tail tactical. We all know by now that Force Bound and Grit Teeth are the preferred items (especially grit teeth), which I told him, but he had clearly put at least some effort into being geared for ranked.

In terms of actual gameplay, he wasn't terrible. He swapped guard, though not as quickly as he could have. His damage output wasn't very good, but I've seen worse. He was using his dcds. He never got globaled, or anything close to globaled.

The problem that he ran into was that all of the tanks that he was queueing against were better than him (and they also all used grit teeth, which itself is a big advantage). As a result, he lost a majority of his matches.

Ultimately, he was kicked from a match later on. After we lost the first round, one of the players on my team said "can we kick this tank." The other replied "yes." I replied "no," and argued forcefully against kicking him. Unfortunately, it only takes two to kick, so they did it anyway. Part of their argument was that the tank was losing every game all night, but I had won matches with the tank on my team earlier. Furthermore, the person who said that had actually lost to that tank twice that night. It was as unjustified a kick as I've seen this season. This player came into ranked geared (even if he didn't have the ideal gear) and ready to play, and he did fine for a ranked novice.

If anyone doubts any of this anecdote, you can view a lot of it on this stream vod: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/624430653

23:50 for a match the guardian tank won.
47:40 for another match the guardian tank won.
2:07:45 for the match the guardian tank was kicked.