it's nice to have some communication in regards to pvp, it's been pretty rare for the last few years

Thanks for the update. It's good to hear that vote kick trolls are being looked at. Vote kick has no use in content where there's no replacements for players who leave (by choice or not).

Some really good stuff in here and it's good to know that ranked pvp hasnt been completely forgotten about, but this season has by far been the worst season ever especially with throwers and trolls in the solo queue especially on darth malgus, my question is can you do more to stop these trolls from Queuing in the first place for example adding a 306 gear requirement it wouldn't solve every problem but it will help combat people who queue ranked without any gear and die in 5 seconds, it will also stop banned accounts from making a new account and farming valor 25 after a few regs and throwing straight away.

 

My other questions are when can we expect season 12 to end and also when do you guys plan to make ranked legacy tokens legacy bound because its limiting the characters I play to about 1 or 2 and it would be nice to have legacy y bound tokens so I dont feel like I have to just stick with 1 or 2 classes.

Thanks for the update. It's good to hear that vote kick trolls are being looked at. Vote kick has no use in content where there's no replacements for players who leave (by choice or not).

 

Removing vote kick will do a lot more harm then good especially on darth malgus, there are lots of throwers and trolls and vote kick allows us to remove them from the match and stop them from queueing again fir a short amount of time.

So every thing we did for trying to make Team Ranked alive again was 100% useless, we're not even going to have an adjustment of wins, you will just erase totally the team ranked, and killing it more and more. A lot of ppl will say its a good thing, but I dont think so, its really sad to see our Team Ranked gone like that.

Are you going to do something for team ranked ?

Is removing top3 from team ranked a good idea ?

 

Reach 200wins is perfectly impossible in team ranked. Why not simply making it attractive again instead of removing every rewards from team ranked due to a low activity ?

 

Even 100 wins for gold is just gonna be very hard. Now you must gain reward only througth solo ranked and its toxicity.

 

Please just reduce the requirements of this season in team ranked to 50 wins (which is already very hard to reach)

Don't remove the win requirement for Team Ranked this season. Instead, increase the incentive to queue Team Ranked again starting with next season, and then the requirements will be possible to reach.

 

Anyway, 100 for Top3 should be enough. 200 is "safer" but a bit overkill.

 

Thanks for communicating and adressing Ranked as a whole. IMO it's better to have more frequent communication with more specific info, even if the post might be just 2 sentences. Something like: "we banned 2 accounts today that have been heavily abusing xyz over the last weeks" is already good enough.

Alright, so you guys had the idea of rating decay before. I think this is a good idea and once brackets are reached there should be a limit on how far you can decay. Like once you hit silver you cannot decay under 1300 then Gold you can't go below 1400 from decay, but still allow them to lose under these thresh holds. This would be nice to keep people playing instead of them immediately getting what they want and sitting on it all season.

 

Then next, yes the win requirements are quite absurd but, if the incentive to queue was increased and what I mean by that is for Group ranked. While I feel solo ranked needs fewer incentives and better matchmaking.

Mat farming for group ranked not only kept it sort of active it also brought new teams into the queue. It made both high, mid, and low tier teams queue which is more than what currently queues. While mat farming may not be the best idea anything to promote queuing even as average players would be helpful for the population as a whole.

 

Now for solos, vote kick is abused and often times not abused but people still complain. It's a toxic feature as a whole but you also have to realize it's often used to get rid of toxic individuals too. I think matchmaking should just be improved in the first place to prevent this kind of behavior as a whole. Increase the requirements to queue for Solo Ranked, make set bonuses and tactical a requirement to even queue up. The difference between a good and bad player when they're both geared is nowhere near the difference when neither are geared or one isn't geared. I don't think the realization of how important tactical and set bonuses are now has set in with a lot of the community.

 

Also, the valor requirement is a joke. While it's easy to get it's not an indicator of anything what so ever, along with that people have alternate characters, a lot of them usually. So that valor requirement becomes even more silly, I would love to see a revamped legacy wide valor system. It'd be pretty cool in general I'm sure there's tons of ideas for that.

 

Lastly, regards to resetting players in ranked, letting them queue on that 0 rated character IS abusive. It messes up matchmaking and really screws up ratings half the time. These characters should be barred from queuing because if they're half decent they can go on very long winning streaks because they're so low rated the matchmaking system gives them another good player. (at least sometimes, not everyone with rating are good.)

 

On the note of unranked whether someone is afking or throwing in regs? Throwing .. in regs? how would you even know? Some people like to just kill other players, it's a player versus player mode, of course, they're gonna fight other players. I feel this is a waste of time, however, better matchmaking for regs would be great.

Two tanks per team in regs is too many, tanks have to fight over guarding people and if one tank isn't good they leave inactive out of range guards on people while the other tank has to watch people die. Being unable to guard them, it's just not right. Limiting it to one unless it's premade groups would be great. Another thing is that most healers aren't on the same level or even healing anybody but themselves. At least allowing three per team at max would be great for making up the lack of healing and lack of player ability sometimes.

Then the ability to leave as a healer or tank support role - Those roles having a much larger impact on the game outcome get no penalties for leaving. They get backfilled by DPS nearly every single time leaving the match unbalanced almost every single time. It not only kills the experience for new players but makes it rather unfun for experienced players too. No one should have to go against two to three healers with zero of their own.

Whether you cut the no punishments for them leaving as support or just provide better matchmaking AKA map selection so they won't leave in the first place it would help tremendously for the experience of all players.

Hey All,

 

As we approach the end of the current PvP season, I wanted to share some of the things we’ve seen so far this season compared to last, give an overview of the actions we’ve taken, talk a bit about some of the changes we’ve made (or are discussing), and ask for your thoughts or feedback. Lots of bases to cover, so let’s dive in.

 

 

Last Season vs This Season

 

Although we have searched for and actioned cheating behavior at roughly the same cadence as prior seasons, I haven’t been posting these reports nearly as often as last season. I’ll dig into how often you’d like to see these reports below, but I wanted to call out some higher level contrasts that we’ve seen so far.

 

The majority of the cheating behavior we saw last season was aimed at securing top 96 rewards as quickly and easily as possible, through a number of different avenues. In an attempt to discourage anyone trying to cheat those rewards, and to instead reward players who played fairly and consistently throughout the season, we added win requirements. We’ve seen some evidence that this has worked as we’d hoped, but we won’t have the full picture until the season has ended. The win requirement numbers this season will not change, however we may tweak them for next season based on the final data.

 

While there are clearly still attempts to cheat ratings, what we’ve seen and heard more about this season has been a bit different. What we’ve seen is an increase in trolling, griefing, and other abusive behaviors, often centered around vote kicking. We’re discussing a number of different ideas as to how we could combat this, including potentially removing vote kicking altogether. We know this is a frustration point, we are bringing as many ideas as we can to the table, and I’ll share any further details on this front as soon as we have them.

 

 

Actions Taken

 

So far this season, we have banned nine accounts for cheating or hacking in PvP, and we have locked an additional eleven accounts from being able to participate in ranked PvP at all.

 

We’ve received reports indicating that accounts locked out of ranked PvP have just gone into unranked PvP to continue throwing, griefing, afking, etc. so we are in the process of expanding this lockout to include all PvP rather than just ranked. All accounts that are locked out of PvP will also have every character’s rating reset and will not be eligible for end of season rewards.

 

I’ve seen several folks here on the forums and in emails to PvP Reports express frustration at the perception that we unban accounts often, and I’d like to address that as directly as I can. We do not ban or unban accounts lightly. I cannot speak to actions taken or reversed many years ago before my time, but no accounts that were banned this season or last season have been unbanned.

 

What we have seen an increase of this season is individuals creating several different accounts to evade new or existing bans, and coming back to resume cheating, hacking, botting, or abusing. I understand that this has fueled the perception that we unban accounts frequently or easily, but I think it’s important to underscore that this isn't the case. We are updating and adapting our detection methods to match the behavior that we’re seeing and that is being reported to us.

 

I want to thank everyone who has taken the time to send us a report, either in game or to the PvPreports@swtor.com email. I recognize that it’s not something that anyone wants to do, and that it can be additionally frustrating to not get a clear response, or to not see immediate action taken. Our response times on reports, both with messaging and action, are not always where we’d like them to be and they’ve been even more strained throughout these last two months.

 

 

Communication

 

As I mentioned above, the cadence of our actions hasn’t significantly changed from last season, but the frequency of my reports has, and I’m curious to ask anyone who reads this forum if you think these reports are helpful in any way. Last season was my first being involved directly with PvP, and I wanted to report frequently in an attempt to shed the most amount of light onto what we do, when, and why. As much of that hasn’t really changed, I didn’t feel that I had too much new info to share this season, but we have been watching and reading as much as we can.

 

My goal with these reports has always been to increase transparency around our actions in PvP. I don’t know the degree to which they have or have not been effective towards that goal, and so I would be very curious to hear how frequently (or infrequently) you all would like to hear from me going forward. I want to make sure that my communications have real information in them and I feel this has been going well so far even when it means potentially communicating less.

 

If you can help me understand how often you want these reports, or what topics you’d like to hear more about, I can do a better job planning and scheduling them at predictable points throughout future seasons.

 

Until next time...

 

 

Nice to read this! However, there are few details left to check:

1. you wrote that we approach the end of the current PvP season. But when exactly do you plan to end it??In few days, weeks or months???Considering previous updates, there was decided that pvp seasons will last 6 months which means the season must end soon but we still need specific date.

2. I hope you are not planning to "Tweak" the win requirement for team ranked since many players are concerned about team ranked even more than for solo ranked due to inability to see if those 10-50 wins team ranked players have is legit and rewarding players for only 10-80 wins with gold/top 96 rewards would be unfair, especially considering the obvious fact that most of team ranked participants engaged into fights against their friends and cheated their wins and rating. Tweaking the win requirement for team ranked is same as helping cheaters to get undeserved rewards.

While there are clearly still attempts to cheat ratings, what we’ve seen and heard more about this season has been a bit different. What we’ve seen is an increase in trolling, griefing, and other abusive behaviors, often centered around vote kicking. We’re discussing a number of different ideas as to how we could combat this, including potentially removing vote kicking altogether. We know this is a frustration point, we are bringing as many ideas as we can to the table, and I’ll share any further details on this front as soon as we have them.

 

It's almost as if Mike B is confirming what I've been saying here all season, hmmmm.....

 

Vote kick should be removed. On SF this season, the vast majority of the time it's used is inappropriate. Or, at least make it so that you need 3 votes, not 2. Regarding vote kicking actual throwers/trolls, etc. It only gives them a lockout of 5 minutes anyway. The few legitimate uses there are does not make up for all of the abuse that happens.

 

Also, on the communication bit, I think more frequent communication is better, even if you don't have much to say. When devs don't post for months on end, it gives the impression to many that you're not doing anything. That may be wrong and unfair, but it definitely happens. More frequent communication will give people more confidence that some of the important issues are being worked on.

 

So every thing we did for trying to make Team Ranked alive again was 100% useless, we're not even going to have an adjustment of wins, you will just erase totally the team ranked, and killing it more and more. A lot of ppl will say its a good thing, but I dont think so, its really sad to see our Team Ranked gone like that.

Is removing top3 from team ranked a good idea ?

 

Reach 200wins is perfectly impossible in team ranked. Why not simply making it attractive again instead of removing every rewards from team ranked due to a low activity ?

 

Even 100 wins for gold is just gonna be very hard. Now you must gain reward only througth solo ranked and its toxicity.

 

Please just reduce the requirements of this season in team ranked to 50 wins (which is already very hard to reach)

 

Found the team ranked wintraders who were hoping for easy top 3s lol.

 

Don't remove the win requirement for Team Ranked this season. Instead, increase the incentive to queue Team Ranked again starting with next season, and then the requirements will be possible to reach.

 

Anyway, 100 for Top3 should be enough. 200 is "safer" but a bit overkill.

 

200 wins is easy to get to (at least when ranked is popping regularly).

Edited May 5, 2020 by JediMasterAlex

please make ranked tokens legacy-wide, the system as it is right now with the win requirements and character-bound tokens really discourages people from playing alts

also win requirements for top 3 make sense, but they should be eliminated for bronze through silver (again, for making playing alts bearable)

It's almost as if Mike B is confirming what I've been saying here all season, hmmmm.....

 

Vote kick should be removed. On SF this season, the vast majority of the time it's used is inappropriate. Or, at least make it so that you need 3 votes, not 2. Regarding vote kicking actual throwers/trolls, etc. It only gives them a lockout of 5 minutes anyway. The few legitimate uses there are does not make up for all of the abuse that happens.

 

Also, on the communication bit, I think more frequent communication is better, even if you don't have much to say. When devs don't post for months on end, it gives the impression to many that you're not doing anything. That may be wrong and unfair, but it definitely happens. More frequent communication will give people more confidence that some of the important issues are being worked on.

 

 

 

Found the team ranked wintraders who were hoping for easy top 3s lol.

 

 

 

200 wins is easy to get to (at least when ranked is popping regularly).

 

Team ranked Wintraders came earlier than i thought

Team ranked Wintraders came earlier than i thought

 

indeed.

Hey All,

 

As we approach the end of the current PvP season, I wanted to share some of the things we’ve seen so far this season compared to last, give an overview of the actions we’ve taken, talk a bit about some of the changes we’ve made (or are discussing), and ask for your thoughts or feedback. Lots of bases to cover, so let’s dive in.

 

 

Last Season vs This Season

 

Although we have searched for and actioned cheating behavior at roughly the same cadence as prior seasons, I haven’t been posting these reports nearly as often as last season. I’ll dig into how often you’d like to see these reports below, but I wanted to call out some higher level contrasts that we’ve seen so far.

 

The majority of the cheating behavior we saw last season was aimed at securing top 96 rewards as quickly and easily as possible, through a number of different avenues. In an attempt to discourage anyone trying to cheat those rewards, and to instead reward players who played fairly and consistently throughout the season, we added win requirements. We’ve seen some evidence that this has worked as we’d hoped, but we won’t have the full picture until the season has ended. The win requirement numbers this season will not change, however we may tweak them for next season based on the final data.

 

While there are clearly still attempts to cheat ratings, what we’ve seen and heard more about this season has been a bit different. What we’ve seen is an increase in trolling, griefing, and other abusive behaviors, often centered around vote kicking. We’re discussing a number of different ideas as to how we could combat this, including potentially removing vote kicking altogether. We know this is a frustration point, we are bringing as many ideas as we can to the table, and I’ll share any further details on this front as soon as we have them.

 

 

Actions Taken

 

So far this season, we have banned nine accounts for cheating or hacking in PvP, and we have locked an additional eleven accounts from being able to participate in ranked PvP at all.

 

We’ve received reports indicating that accounts locked out of ranked PvP have just gone into unranked PvP to continue throwing, griefing, afking, etc. so we are in the process of expanding this lockout to include all PvP rather than just ranked. All accounts that are locked out of PvP will also have every character’s rating reset and will not be eligible for end of season rewards.

 

I’ve seen several folks here on the forums and in emails to PvP Reports express frustration at the perception that we unban accounts often, and I’d like to address that as directly as I can. We do not ban or unban accounts lightly. I cannot speak to actions taken or reversed many years ago before my time, but no accounts that were banned this season or last season have been unbanned.

 

What we have seen an increase of this season is individuals creating several different accounts to evade new or existing bans, and coming back to resume cheating, hacking, botting, or abusing. I understand that this has fueled the perception that we unban accounts frequently or easily, but I think it’s important to underscore that this isn't the case. We are updating and adapting our detection methods to match the behavior that we’re seeing and that is being reported to us.

 

I want to thank everyone who has taken the time to send us a report, either in game or to the PvPreports@swtor.com email. I recognize that it’s not something that anyone wants to do, and that it can be additionally frustrating to not get a clear response, or to not see immediate action taken. Our response times on reports, both with messaging and action, are not always where we’d like them to be and they’ve been even more strained throughout these last two months.

 

 

Communication

 

As I mentioned above, the cadence of our actions hasn’t significantly changed from last season, but the frequency of my reports has, and I’m curious to ask anyone who reads this forum if you think these reports are helpful in any way. Last season was my first being involved directly with PvP, and I wanted to report frequently in an attempt to shed the most amount of light onto what we do, when, and why. As much of that hasn’t really changed, I didn’t feel that I had too much new info to share this season, but we have been watching and reading as much as we can.

 

My goal with these reports has always been to increase transparency around our actions in PvP. I don’t know the degree to which they have or have not been effective towards that goal, and so I would be very curious to hear how frequently (or infrequently) you all would like to hear from me going forward. I want to make sure that my communications have real information in them and I feel this has been going well so far even when it means potentially communicating less.

 

If you can help me understand how often you want these reports, or what topics you’d like to hear more about, I can do a better job planning and scheduling them at predictable points throughout future seasons.

 

Until next time...

 

 

Hi MikeB, thanks for the update!

 

I am curious if you guys ever think about revamping/updating ranked PVP?

 

Mostly I mean with ELO as being the main determinant for top rewards. With such a small population, I find it hard to believe you guys believe the ELO in ranked is truly a real representation of that player's skill. With so many variables now that cause a player to lose ELO, variables that are at no fault of the player themselves, it's hardly an effective way of determining a player's real skill. That being the case, why use ELO?

Also, have you guys considered granting more conquest points and rewards in general for completing PVP WZs?

 

The time allotted versus the rewards is highly lopsided with PVE being essentially the only way to efficiently gear up now. People are spamming Hammer Station, because it's the least disliked and fastest to complete in a PUG... But that's not right!

 

Why not make it so people can actually use PVP as a way to gear up, just as those who love FPs and OPs can do their favorite activities for gears why is this option not as efficient and enjoyable for those who love to PVP? Can you guys consider improving this part of PVP which is the reward system?

 

PVP really could use some incentives including adding rewards for lowbies and mid tiers; that would increase activity in those tiers, too.

 

Take care MikeB! Hopefully you are safe, your family is safe, and you guys at BW stay safe. Truth is, the game provides a lot of fun for a lot of people, and right now during these dark days I think it's great you guys are plugging along still. I think we take for granted pleasures like gaming, etc., with little regard for those making it all happen so I just want to say thanks.

Its nice to see some care for the PvP community. Honestly the lack of communication as a whole sometimes makes many of us feel like we're quite simply not being heard.

 

I would like to say a few things in this regard.

Ranked has various issues. You can find people cheating live on streams, people that have been cheating in arena since the bane of their existence.. and they are still doing it. They might've eventually gotten banned but the effort needs to be intensified because it's really way too slow. Going after cheaters is like a cat and mouse game. But if you let the mouse win.. it's going to create a much bigger problem.. one which a single cat will no longer be able to solve.

 

 

You have to keep coming down on these people hard. And maybe ban people a little quicker than you have done in the past. I get that it's not a small thing to tell a player they can no longer come to play.. but really, if this one player is ruining the experience of ten others then it's totally worth the 10 to 1 trade.

 

It just really feels like you value a cheater too much as a customer without thinking about what this means for your other players that do want to play the game in a legitimate manner.

 

And honestly the same goes for issues with the game. Especially in regard to desync and ghost GCDs. These are very real issues that are literally making or breaking someones match and they have been a problem since forever.

Yet nobody really seems to care on the developing side. People are tired of the BS. Just put some effort into fixing it for one or admit you havn't got a solution whatsoever. Don't toss around false hope with "we're aware of these issues and investigate blahblah" nobody needs to hear that.

1) Communication:

 

Communication with the devs is imperative. Transparency is great, but more than anything, PvPers want to know that there is someone that is paying attention. No one reads these forums, except you. So show us that you are paying attention. Even if you don't have anything to say, let us know what you are thinking. Let us know that you are paying attention to issues raised. A simple response "Thank's for the great feedback. Keep up the great discussion in this thread" from you would go a long way. Even if it is not about banning in ranked, if it has anything to do with PvP, let us know what you think. Honestly, more than anything else, pop in and say hello. Your communication with the PvP community should not be limited to just monthly reports on ranked. Talk to us. Hell, you can even ask questions. If I was working your job, I'd love to get a status report of the players themselves that spend their time in the game. Anyways, I love that you are communicating with us on discord and hopping in some twitch streams. That's great! Keep it up. We want to know someone is paying attention, regardless of how detailed that attention is.

 

2) Ban Evading:

 

At this point there have been multiple players that have merely created new accounts to evade bans to their initial accounts. I can list three players that que ranked practically every day on their new accounts that had their main accounts banned. Typically ranked pvpers make sure that emails are sent out to pvpreports@swtor.com to let you know that this player is back. But the trouble for us is that we don't know their previous account name. We merely know them by their main name/ character name. For example my account name is "septru" but most if not all players know me by my main character name "prum". If I was to get banned, then evade the ban through a new account, players would send reports to you by telling you "prum is back and cheating." We can try to let you know about players that evade account bans, but typically we will reference those players not by their accounts. I don't know of any solution to this. I guess just keep banning the accounts and things should work out.

 

3) Vote Kick in Solo Ranked:

I will be the first to admit that I have vote kick in ranked. At this point, I think the majority of ranked regulars have vote kicked players. But please, do not take away vote kick without replacing it with another system to regulate the ranked que. Vote kick is is used frequently to grieve other players. In these instances vote kick is abused. In other instances, however, vote kick is used justly. On Darth Malgus solo ranked, vote kick was used for the month and a half that it took you to ban notorious hacker Jeezee. On Satele Shan the other day, vote kick was used to kick out a player that would consistently que without any gear pieces at all and just stand there and throw on other players.

 

I agree, vote kicking has gotten out of hand. But it can not be removed entirely out of the game without a replacement. I personally do not believe 306 gear is enough. It is too easy to que in 306 gear, and still throw, hack, or cheat. At the same time, it is clear that vote kick needs to be changed. Players are abusing it way to often.

 

I see two possible solutions:

 

1) Classify abuse of vote kick as a bannable offense and moderate it as you would cheating. This would be extremely difficult on you as a moderator, to regulate and monitor all the vote kicking. I suspect there would be more cases than you could check. Ultimately, if you did classify it as a bannable offense however, most ranked players, myself included, would think twice before vote kicking for grief. If you say you will regulate it, however, you must regulate it. If you don't follow through on your word, ranked players will realize it and just continue to vote kick for grief.

 

2) Change the vote kick system from 2 to 3 required votes. This is the least work for you. I think it makes it harder to vote kick, which will in return makes vote kicking for grief more difficult. I am speculative of how effective this will be however.

 

4) Team Ranked:

As an active season 12 team ranked player, I am personally distraught that you will not change the win requirements, but ultimately I agree. Changing the win requirements for group ranked would be, on the whole, a bad move. It would set the precedent that the win requirements will shift to the demand of the players. Furthermore, team ranked more than solo ranked perpetuates cheating. It is easier to wintrade and farm bad teams in team ranked than it is in solo ranked because in solo ranked there are simply more factors.

 

However, while you should not change the win requirements for group ranked, incentivize group ranked like you did in season 9. It is not hard. Put legendary ember materials in the weekly/daily missions. Reward legendary ember materials for wins. A health team ranked gamemode is a health ranked community. More players in team ranked means less vote kicking in solo ranked. It means more players can try ranked without the usual toxicity that accompanies them in solo ranked. It means more players are centered towards group content. It is such an easy fix, I don't understand the hesitation on the part of the dev team. Incentivize group ranked, don't change the win requirements.

Edited May 5, 2020 by septru

Dear Mike,

 

I am happy to see you are still at work

 

Its no problem that you have decreased the rate of your reports. As long as you take proper action all is fine! Its obvious that the cheating has declined since last season so there was no need for reporting so much. Indeed it was more about trolling, throwing and harrasing this season rather than cheating. What really worked was the win requirement for the top3. Yet I have to say it made it also difficult to get the gold/silver tiers too, but thats fine.

 

As for the top3 here are the numbers of toons that reached the 200 Win requirement (solo ranked) so far:

4 Juggernaut and 1 Guardian

11 Marauder and 4 Sentinel

6 Assassin and 2 Shadow

16 Sorc and 6 Sage

2 Powertech and 1 Vanguard

13 Merc and 2 Commando

5 Sniper and 2 Gunslinger

12 Operative and 3 Scoundrel

 

As you can see the Imp classes have more players playing them. This naturaly leaves room for cheaters who are able to gain a top3 on republic characters just by getting their 200 wins. We are getting to the similar issue as with the PVP coms that if you play enough you are rewarded. For me, a person with a family, job etc I have no time to get 200 wins, but it seems that even with 200 wins and rating of 1100 I would get the top3 rating. I am not saying I do not like the system, its definitely has its plusses since it really made the people que to get their number of wins, but there are certain aspects which need to be considered.

 

Overall, I like where your changes are going, you have definitely done more work in the area of Ranked PVP than anyone so far! Just want to remind you that using automated tools to find cheating is and will be limited to the criteria that you setup and you also need to listen and investigate the player reports since the players see things that your tools do not!

 

Thank you.

Did you ever take in consideration to introduce 2v2 or 3v3 group ranked? This would really provide reward to skill and not just "luck in group making" of the solo ranked, it would avoid the mess is happening with this season in solo ranked due to people at 1700 rating being grouped with people much lower in rating and thus being heavily penalized not having the possibility to reach top positions cause of bad luck.

I understand that lowering the rating range of the match making would result in very long waiting to join the arena, for this reason 2v2 or 3v3 would be quicker, more personal rewarding/satisfaction and would push more and more people to join pvp.

Communication

...so I would be very curious to hear how frequently (or infrequently) you all would like to hear from me going forward.

 

I liked the more frequent reports, even if they are just a skeleton.

 

Why not make it so people can actually use PVP as a way to gear up, just as those who love FPs and OPs can do their favorite activities for gears why is this option not as efficient and enjoyable for those who love to PVP? Can you guys consider improving this part of PVP which is the reward system?

 

I will say, to hopefully further bind this to ranked PvP, that I probably would have tried out some more ranked this season, except I would not set foot in ranked without full 306 gear and a good set bonus and tactical. Also, I gave it a shot at gearing via PvE, and got so bored with it I uninstalled the game for a while. So ultimately, speaking for myself only, not being able to gear in a reasonable amount of time through PvP keeps me from even trying out ranked.

 

Vote kick should be removed. On SF this season, the vast majority of the time it's used is inappropriate. Or, at least make it so that you need 3 votes, not 2.

 

2) Change the vote kick system from 2 to 3 required votes.

 

I have a question... what about making it 7 out of 8? My thinking is that all the legit players want the akf'rs, throwers, etc. out of the queue, right? I mean, if "legit" people see a known thrower on the other team, hopefully they'd be honest (that's not quite the right word, but I can't think of the right word right now ) enough to help kick them, rather than just take advantage of it.

 

I know the one time I got kicked, they kicked two of us. That time it was through the cooperation of all 6 other players, because the 4 on the other team agreed to leave the two maras alone until the kick went through. So it's possible to get both teams to agree. That time is was abuse anyway, but I have faith that if it had required an *active* kick by the other team they might have been more hesitant. I mean, actually clicking the button is different than just not doing anything about someone else clicking it, I think.

 

1) Classify abuse of vote kick as a bannable offense and moderate it as you would cheating.

 

I think it already is. I heard through the grapevine that the person who orchestrated the kick I mentioned above actually did get a ban for a while. Although I heard he was also a pretty bad abuser. So maybe more active monitoring and quicker banning? Maybe that's what you meant?

hello @mikebradley

 

i'm ayana, nayoko i just got banned from the classified queue a few days ago.

It is the first time that i have taken a ban on sr in 7 years of play, and i am completely sorry for my mistake which caused the ban.

Following this i will ask you mikebradley if you can cancel my ban. It will not happen again. I will be grateful to you.

 

 

Cordially

 

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

So i wonder why it took 6 months you to ban these players? You know how many games they ruined in 6 months? Do you know how many bots and throwers were in game in that long 6 months? Sorry but this is too little too late.

 

We are still waiting you too keep your promises about making ranked pvp a better place, class balance, better matchmaking and list goes on. Just yesterday an operative healer was in queue just to stay ask right outside of spawn. Without perma ban to accounts with a fast reaction time this will continue.

So i wonder why it took 6 months you to ban these players? You know how many games they ruined in 6 months? Do you know how many bots and throwers were in game in that long 6 months? Sorry but this is too little too late.

 

We are still waiting you too keep your promises about making ranked pvp a better place, class balance, better matchmaking and list goes on. Just yesterday an operative healer was in queue just to stay ask right outside of spawn. Without perma ban to accounts with a fast reaction time this will continue.

 

I agree that for punishment to be effective it has got to be quicker.

 

So much damage can be done by one player who decides to cheat/manipulate matches in ranked. Not only does it contaminate and kill the interests of legit players from trying to compete, it also serves as encouragement by others to cheat too when they see how many remain unpunished for weeks on end.

 

The truth is this.

 

If it's simply impossible to moderate ranked matches live and/or act swiftly to punish offenders, why is this system being used still? How many years will a broken scoring system that is easy to cheat remain in place?

 

Things to do for improvements in Ranked:

 

1. Improve rewards. Tech frags, Embers, crafting mats, all should be increased right now it's hardly a drop in the bucket when you compare rewards gained in PVE activities. Make it so PVP is a viable way to gear up!

 

 

 

 

 

2. Remove ELO loss on losses. To be frank, losses cost way too much and the variables involved in losing are so many. Far too much value is placed on this ineffective stat. In no way does it do what it's supposed to do, which is give an accurate representation of a player's skill on a particular character.

 

 

 

 

 

 

3. Remove vote kicking. It's only going to be abused, people have shown they have no scruples they cannot be trusted to "do the right thing" which is use vote kicking when it should be used. Players have proven they are incapable of being trusted with this kind of power, and will continue to abuse it if it is left in any capacity whatsoever. Just remove it. Period.

OK so you say, that the requirements wont change this season for team ranked and solo ranked.

If you guys keep it for solo ranked i think most pll will be fine with it. But if you guys keep it for team ranked then i guess there wont be any top 3 or maybe also even gold and when i startet to play ranked it was in season 10 it was great, you could play team ranked for some mats, with a tryhard team or you could just go into solo ranked. Now team ranked isnt like that anymore there are no mats farmers anymore or just guys who want to get some wins there are now allready some teams wihch try to make it alive again, but then to say it will still be 200 wins, thats just not cool for them who grinded for it then they just did it for no reason and just get nothing. So maybe put it to 50 or 75 for top 3 so some pll get a top 3 but not 200 because i think noone will get this seaeson 200 wins in team ranked.