What about for fun and enjoyment?

That's asking for dead queues. The only reason solos has any action is because of monumentals and aug mats. Otherwise people would only queue when the devs announce that the end of the season is coming (which is how it was pre-5.10)

It all goes back to quantity vs quality matches. Pre-season is fine, but it can't be months long.

max bolster is good

 

7 months is a huge improvement over where things had been the previous couple seasons

I would not call 7 months down from almost year-long seasons as a "huge improvement". A polished turd...

I would not call 7 months down from almost year-long seasons as a "huge improvement". A polished turd...

some were literally more than a year long. it's a ~50% reduction in season length, an objectively large improvement in the right direction

if you want to have delusional expectations just to have something to complain about then I guess you've got it all figured out

https://ootinicast.com/2019/05/ootinicast-episode-361/

 

1:09.XX

 

It's more likely to be max bolster over expertise according to this dev interview

 

if you listen further to 1:13.xx they say ranked 12 will be 6.0 launch *after*

This isn't a dev interview, it's streamers and cosplayers talking about a dev interview.

The actual dev interview they're talking about is

The real interview mentions max bolster as a means of testing things, not as how pvp is going to pan out at 6.0 goes live.

It's neither max bolster or expertise. It's item level counting as less, and set bonuses and tactical items counting as more. It's the gearing system from ESO, where mix and matching set bonuses determine playstyle.

It's about the 41 minute mark where they start talking gearing for pvp.

Good to see nothing's changed around here. It's just the same four "group think" people replying to every thread, drowning out actual information with their agendas. It's sad, because all these people were talking about how naive other people were, but no one bothered to fact check the opening post in the thread.

2 pieces of advice mike. activate your forum DMs, and consider 6.0 wz bolster to be 4 rating above max gear rating. just trust this is what we want.

Just gonna leave that there in case you think there's no agenda there.

That's asking for dead queues..

That’s a sad state of affairs if people “only” pvp when they get rewarded. I pvp for the enjoyment of it. If I didn’t enjoy it, I wouldn’t play it even for rewards and because I play for enjoyment, I don’t need rewards to get me to play

But that’s just me, I play regardless.

That’s a sad state of affairs if people “only” pvp when they get rewarded. I pvp for the enjoyment of it. If I didn’t enjoy it, I wouldn’t play it even for rewards and because I play for enjoyment, I don’t need rewards to get me to play

But that’s just me, I play regardless.

Just want to clarify for myself, it's not about rewards. It's about good competition. You yourself have documented repeatedly how frustrated you get when people on your regs teams aren't trying to win. That's what arenas would be if you took away rating (such as an extended preseason would). The enjoyment I get out of it would go away. There's satisfaction in beating other people that are actually trying and then having your rating reflect it.

There's very little satisfaction or enjoyment for me in beating up on regs teams, because most of the time they have no clue what they're doing and they have nothing to lose, so who cares? And I understand preferring objective pvp, I also play objectives heavily whenever I play regs, but it's the lack of anything at stake that just makes it stale for me. I don't play quickplay in overwatch or casual in cs:go for the same reasons.

Just want to clarify for myself, it's not about rewards. It's about good competition. You yourself have documented repeatedly how frustrated you get when people on your regs teams aren't trying to win. That's what arenas would be if you took away rating (such as an extended preseason would). The enjoyment I get out of it would go away. There's satisfaction in beating other people that are actually trying and then having your rating reflect it.

 

There's very little satisfaction or enjoyment for me in beating up on regs teams, because most of the time they have no clue what they're doing and they have nothing to lose, so who cares? And I understand preferring objective pvp, I also play objectives heavily whenever I play regs, but it's the lack of anything at stake that just makes it stale for me. I don't play quickplay in overwatch or casual in cs:go for the same reasons.

On that we 100% agree. It’s such a shame though that other people need a reason to try and win besides getting a reward or rank. Where’s the actual thrill of the hunt and the enjoyment of just winning.

I have to admit I have difficulty not trying with everything I’ve got to win. Even when I know the match is gone and my wife says just relax”, I can’t give up. I either try till the end or I leave in frustration.

I’ve been teaching her to pvp for a few months now and sometimes we go into a HB and I say, “I’m just going to do what all these other clowns are doing and kill ****”. But sure enough, 30secs into the match and I’ve got the ball and I’m scoring or I’m chasing the ball carrier by myself and swearing at the screen because I’m the only one on them.

I’ve a really big competitive streak and I hate to lose. It doesn’t matter if it’s ranked, regs or clearing a pve faster than someone else. For me, wnning or at least doing everything I can to win is what pvp is about. It’s one of the reasons I get annoyed when people say regs don’t count. For me, regs or ranked are the same to me. I want to win and that’s it.

If people don’t try, they may as well not play pvp.

I guess for me, I’m a purest. My enjoyment is of all types of pvp. OWPVP, ranked, arena, lowbies, regs and even dueling to win is all that counts in that moment I’m fighting. I treat all with the same seriousness. Rewards mean nothing to me in the big scheme of things and neither do rankings or ELO. If we had none of that, I would still play for the thrill and enjoyment.

Sadly, I fear you are right about people needing something extra. It’s why most pvp in this game turns into a farce because people don’t care enough about winning or pitting their skills against others in a competitive way unless they are rewarded for it.

That’s a sad state of affairs if people “only” pvp when they get rewarded. I pvp for the enjoyment of it. If I didn’t enjoy it, I wouldn’t play it even for rewards and because I play for enjoyment, I don’t need rewards to get me to play

But that’s just me, I play regardless.

That's good you feel that way, but virtually all content in all MMOs understands that people like rewards.

Imagine if nothing in the game gave you rewards. No monumental crystal for Ossus bosses. No gear to obtain. No decos. No attractive cosmetics. No credits at the end. No command crates. No actual sign you actually finished the the Heroic mission, flashpoint or operation. Just your character, abilities and the content. I don't think that would go over very well, lol.

I guess for me, I’m a purest. My enjoyment is of all types of pvp. OWPVP, ranked, arena, lowbies, regs and even dueling to win is all that counts in that moment I’m fighting. I treat all with the same seriousness. Rewards mean nothing to me in the big scheme of things and neither do rankings or ELO. If we had none of that, I would still play for the thrill and enjoyment.

I understand your perspective, but I still want to push back a bit. Do you think that pro teams try just as hard in the preseason as they do in the playoffs? Do you think they get the same rush from a victory in the preseason as they do in the playoffs? As the stakes ramp up, and there are real costs to winning and losing, the pressure mounts, people up their games, and the joy and pain of victory and defeat increases. That's what I'm talking about when I say that ranking matters.

I used to play a lot of Counter-Strike:Source. There was no matchmaking in that game. Before cevo and esea were a thing, you had to go into custom irc channels to find scrims with other teams. My friends and I would do these scrims all the time. There was absolutely no rewards or ranking or anything, but we did them for fun, and because usually the other teams still tried and the competition was usually pretty decent. So that's pretty much what you're talking about, playing for the actual fun and competition. I can respect that.

But, once CS:GO came out and added in matchmaking with ranks, it's really another level of competition. Each game really feels meaningful in a way that it didn't when you just scrimmed in source, because your rank is on the line. It elevates the competition for everyone involved. When you win, you're really happy about it, and when you lose you're not. Not to mention, scrims would frequently involve teams just leaving when they were losing, and the matchmaking prevents that from happening the vast majority of the time.

When I play regs, I also am always trying to win. You'll never find me just giving up sitting at a node for minutes at a time waiting for the game to end. So I understand the desire to win. But it's undeniable that losing in regs just doesn't matter all that much, because there's no cost to it. So I might have a mild annoyance at my team or something, but it's quite easy to move on to the next one. Pretty much same thing with a win.

Maybe you are the rare person, like say Russell Westbrook if you're familiar with the NBA, that is just so competitive that you really do try just as hard in the preseason as you do in the playoffs. And maybe that preseason win means just as much to you. But I think that is an extremely rare attitude, and not necessarily a better one. In all competitive environments, I think you want there to be higher leverage situations that force people to step up their game, and that can only happen when there are real consequences to winning and losing.

In ranked, dead queues were a huge problem before cross faction queues, server merges and rare mats/crystal rewards were introduced to solos. In no particular order, here are some things I have noticed over the years, plus a thing or two that I think need to be changed:

• Dead queues encourage win-trading.
  
• Dead queues create even deader queues (why queue when you know it's not going to pop?)
  
• Dead queues encourage backfill cheater/exploiters by lack of player pool (i.e. if only 9 ppl are in the queue, then the 9th player will always be the backfill for a quitter).
  
• Players are unable to queue ranked and regs at the same time, which further breeds dead queues.
  
• The fewer players in queue helps noob-farmers (this is not as much the case since cross faction queue).
  
• "Quality" matches are like unicorns with dead queues, with "quantity" you have a higher chance of a competitive, fun match.
  
• Trinity solo matches usually come down to tank skill (or sometimes one team has an awful healer), which is why I prefer all dps matches.
  

On that we 100% agree. It’s such a shame though that other people need a reason to try and win besides getting a reward or rank. Where’s the actual thrill of the hunt and the enjoyment of just winning.

I don't know about you, but how many times can you play the same warzones over and over and over, and still get the same enjoyment? More often than not, when you solo queue regs, you get pitted against a high-powered premade, and/or you get queued with trash that get globaled in 2 seconds.

When I do regs, I try to win, but sometimes a loss is inevitable. At that point, I just try to slow the other team down, without care for my number of deaths. Sometimes you just have to stop the other team's momentum to encourage your own team to step up.

That's good you feel that way, but virtually all content in all MMOs understands that people like rewards.

 

Imagine if nothing in the game gave you rewards. No monumental crystal for Ossus bosses. No gear to obtain. No decos. No attractive cosmetics. No credits at the end. No command crates. No actual sign you actually finished the the Heroic mission, flashpoint or operation. Just your character, abilities and the content. I don't think that would go over very well, lol.

I’d still play, but that’s just me

I don't know about you, but how many times can you play the same warzones over and over and over, and still get the same enjoyment? More often than not, when you solo queue regs, you get pitted against a high-powered premade, and/or you get queued with trash that get globaled in 2 seconds.

 

When I do regs, I try to win, but sometimes a loss is inevitable. At that point, I just try to slow the other team down, without care for my number of deaths. Sometimes you just have to stop the other team's momentum to encourage your own team to step up.

I still enjoy matches if I lose, but only if my teams try to win by playing properly and aren’t just number farming.

Sadly, that rarely happens anymore. Premades are usually the worst with this because that’s all they do.

I’d rather be against a premade with 2 other people on my team playing the objective. More often than not you can win because the premades are too concerned with grinding on the other 5 people in your team.

The only maps I don’t enjoy are OPG and Vandin. OPG because it’s poorly designed and people have zero idea how to play it, Vandin because it’s buggy as hell and too much desync.

I enjoy every other map when there is no desync. I have my favs, but it doesn’t matter how many times I’ve played them before, I don’t get sick of them unless they are the only map popping all day.

After 7 years, I must have played all the older maps over 10,000+ times each. The newer ones would be less of course. But I did do a time played on all my Alts a while back and it was over 18,000 hours played across 2 accounts. It would be more now

I mainly pvp, so most of that is pvp hours.

That’s a sad state of affairs if people “only” pvp when they get rewarded. I pvp for the enjoyment of it. If I didn’t enjoy it, I wouldn’t play it even for rewards and because I play for enjoyment, I don’t need rewards to get me to play

But that’s just me, I play regardless.

This is like saying "“It’s such a shame that other people need a reason to get up and go to work such as getting paid, why can’t they just work without getting paid for the thrill and enjoyment of their job”

It's not realistic and it's not how people play the game.

This is like saying "“It’s such a shame that other people need a reason to get up and go to work such as getting paid, why can’t they just work without getting paid for the thrill and enjoyment of their job”

 

It's not realistic and it's not how people play the game.

If you are playing a game and it’s a Job... you are doing it wrong

If you are playing a game and it’s a Job... you are doing it wrong

Google what an analogy is and read the definition carefully

I find games do reward me, if they did not I'd not play them.

Now, perhaps some of the pixel rewards BW dangles from ranked doesn't become the major motivator to participate for some, but for the majority these rewards do allure many to play ranked. But, that's not the only rewards offered...

I can see how people might say that they only play for the fun of the game, and not specific rewards, but when I play, the experience is the reward and that is sometimes far more enticing than any pixel reward.

The fighting in the WZ, the very unique battle we may have in the WZ and the fun a good battle can create are in my mind direct results of PVPing and these results are actual rewards for me.

If the fights were constantly awful, never enjoyable, never offered unique situations that couldn't be found anywhere else, basically if PVP offered no rewards of any kind I personally would not play.

So in a nutshell, I think it's important to give the word "rewards" some context here.

I agree I need no special pretty pixel rewards from contests to want to play, however I do feel rewarded in other ways which is why I continue to play SWTOR. When it reaches a point I feel like I am not being rewarded for my time, and the game is no longer fun I stop playing it/take a break.