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Remember when you had a variety of opponents in PvP? Pepperidge farm remembers.


Craydingus

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I may be a couple years late in addressing some of these problems, as most of what this post is about is from the "skill-based matchmaking" implemented in 5.9.2. However, it's the mixture of that with some of the newer addenda to PvP that is making for some real problems.

 

First off, anecdotally, I'm not convinced the matchmaking system is coming anywhere close to fulfilling its stated goal. I started PvPing in 4.0.3. From that point until 5.9.2, it seemed like close, hard-fought matches were the norm and ROFLStomps were anomalies. There were brief times when that maybe was less true, like right after the server merges, but that was the overarching trend. For the past two years, that's basically been flipped, where one-sided matches are a frequent occurrence and close fights stand out. So strike one for this update not even doing what it was advertised to do.

 

Next point is what this post is titled for. Ever since 5.9.2, it seems as though the pool of players that you can possibly get teamed up with or pitted against has drastically shrunk. Now this would make sense if people are grouped based on a skill bracket, but what even goes into determining said skill bracket? Why are decided number-farmers in the same bracket as players who focus almost solely on objectives, and why is either in the same skill bracket as people who AFK whole matches and only do anything to avoid being vote-kicked? Winning or losing, IMHO, it gets stale to play with and/or against the same players in nearly every PvP match that I go into. Variety is the spice of life. You know what everyone's play style is if you've been PvPing for any length of time, and while pvp matches are rarely 100% predictable, the fewer options of who you can play with and against certainly makes it more so than it was before the range of opponents/teammates was limited by 5.9.2

 

Conversely, as a consequence of this, it's next to impossible to avoid queuing into certain players. There was a time in this game where you could wait a few minutes and leave a rotation if you didn't want to play with or against a certain team. Not anymore. Don't wan't to play with that zerg team again? Too bad. Now, if you wait a few minutes to queue again in hopes of getting out of an unfavorable or boring rotation, you'll actually end up waiting 10-15 minutes for the next most ball-busting or repetitive team comp the game can find based on this narrowly-defined tier it's shoehorned you into. That's ridiculous. As others have emphasized on this forum in different contexts, this is REGS, not RANKED. Queue-dodging doesn't merit any consequences.

 

Related to the previous point, because the game formulates regs matches based on these very specific skill brackets, pop times have been on average much slower since 5.9.2 than they were before it. On its own, this is already not a good thing. People who only have so much time to game aren't able to get in one last match they wanted to play because it took an eternity to pop. Mix that in with the LEGACY-WIDE Deserter lockout and loser-gets-nothing mission rewards (Either one of these things without the other would be justifiable, together they're ridiculous) and you have some not good stuff. Mind you, plenty of people get booted from matches because of shoddy ISP's. I know the game has no real way to distinguish a genuine disconnect from a ragequit, but this is a little draconian. I'm sure at least several of you reading this have at least one night of PvP in a week where you're stuck on the same losing team match after match, you make zero progress on your weekly, your pop times aren't even that quick, and of course, you can't quit the match lest you be locked out so your only choice is to sit there and take the beating.

 

Something has to give. Whether it's the drastically-reduced variety of other players an individual PvPer will get to see on a weekly, nightly basis, the loser-gets-skunked mission rewards, the slow pop times, or the legacy-wide "F*** you" for leaving a match, the current landscape is making a staple of this game a test of patience for many players.

Edited by Craydingus
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I may be a couple years late in addressing some of these problems, as most of what this post is about is from the "skill-based matchmaking" implemented in 5.9.2. However, it's the mixture of that with some of the newer addenda to PvP that is making for some real problems.

 

First off, anecdotally, I'm not convinced the matchmaking system is coming anywhere close to fulfilling its stated goal. I started PvPing in 4.0.3. From that point until 5.9.2, it seemed like close, hard-fought matches were the norm and ROFLStomps were anomalies. There were brief times when that maybe was less true, like right after the server merges, but that was the overarching trend. For the past two years, that's basically been flipped, where one-sided matches are a frequent occurrence and close fights stand out. So strike one for this update not even doing what it was advertised to do.

 

Next point is what this post is titled for. Ever since 5.9.2, it seems as though the pool of players that you can possibly get teamed up with or pitted against has drastically shrunk. Now this would make sense if people are grouped based on a skill bracket, but what even goes into determining said skill bracket? Why are decided number-farmers in the same bracket as players who focus almost solely on objectives, and why is either in the same skill bracket as people who AFK whole matches and only do anything to avoid being vote-kicked? Winning or losing, IMHO, it gets stale to play with and/or against the same players in nearly every PvP match that I go into. Variety is the spice of life. You know what everyone's play style is if you've been PvPing for any length of time, and while pvp matches are rarely 100% predictable, the fewer options of who you can play with and against certainly makes it more so than it was before the range of opponents/teammates was limited by 5.9.2

 

Conversely, as a consequence of this, it's next to impossible to avoid queuing into certain players. There was a time in this game where you could wait a few minutes and leave a rotation if you didn't want to play with or against a certain team. Not anymore. Don't wan't to play with that zerg team again? Too bad. Now, if you wait a few minutes to queue again in hopes of getting out of an unfavorable or boring rotation, you'll actually end up waiting 10-15 minutes for the next most ball-busting or repetitive team comp the game can find based on this narrowly-defined tier it's shoehorned you into. That's ridiculous. As others have emphasized on this forum in different contexts, this is REGS, not RANKED. Queue-dodging doesn't merit any consequences.

 

Related to the previous point, because the game formulates regs matches based on these very specific skill brackets, pop times have been on average much slower since 5.9.2 than they were before it. On its own, this is already not a good thing. People who only have so much time to game aren't able to get in one last match they wanted to play because it took an eternity to pop. Mix that in with the LEGACY-WIDE Deserter lockout and loser-gets-nothing mission rewards (Either one of these things without the other would be justifiable, together they're ridiculous) and you have some not good stuff. Mind you, plenty of people get booted from matches because of shoddy ISP's. I know the game has no real way to distinguish a genuine disconnect from a ragequit, but this is a little draconian. I'm sure at least several of you reading this have at least one night of PvP in a week where you're stuck on the same losing team match after match, you make zero progress on your weekly, your pop times aren't even that quick, and of course, you can't quit the match lest you be locked out so your only choice is to sit there and take the beating.

 

Something has to give. Whether it's the drastically-reduced variety of other players an individual PvPer will get to see on a weekly, nightly basis, the loser-gets-skunked mission rewards, the slow pop times, or the legacy-wide "F*** you" for leaving a match, the current landscape is making a staple of this game a test of patience for many players.

 

whats your point?

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Most of the issues like this (*) are likely arising because the algorithms put in place by the developers are constrained by the actual player characters queuing at any given time. These algorithms have to make matches using the available characters and are possibly doing the best they can.

 

(*) I have experienced them over the years. I don't PvP anymore due to the changes (only wins count, deserter penalty without option to choose preferred match types.)

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What's truly sad is there are certain people (and guilds) who queue on an almost daily basis with tank-heal combos in Force Bound gear, deathballing nodes against randos who pull 1-2k dps on average (which is the vast majority of people who q regs)

 

And then when you get a somewhat decent game, here comes a DC and a 15 min account wide lockout

 

I'm glad the devs really listened to the roaring demand on that little feature

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What's truly sad is there are certain people (and guilds) who queue on an almost daily basis with tank-heal combos in Force Bound gear, deathballing nodes against randos who pull 1-2k dps on average (which is the vast majority of people who q regs)

 

And then when you get a somewhat decent game, here comes a DC and a 15 min account wide lockout

 

I'm glad the devs really listened to the roaring demand on that little feature

 

The level of 75 regs is very close to rock bottom at the moment...

 

It's funny how I still remember the constant complaint about quitters on this forum. Well, guess what ? Bioware listened.. and now we are all angry ? How is that possible , when this is what we asked them to do. :cool:

 

I also noticed that que times are slightly slower so BIOWARE please remove this horrible feature from regs. Please... It should kept only in ranked !

 

I started PVP-ing around mid to late 4.0 and I don't remember PVP being this bad ....

Edited by DavidAtkinson
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I love getting backfilled into a losing match, it's really fun.

Jokes aside, not being able to even leave backfills is irritating.

 

I've mentioned so many times in the past how to improve match making, even others have had wonderful ideas.

I don't think they're open to listening or even care, mainly due to the lack of communication from them.

Edited by Beyrahl
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I love getting backfilled into a losing match, it's really fun.

Jokes aside, not being able to even leave backfills is irritating.

 

I've mentioned so many times in the past how to improve match making, even others have had wonderful ideas.

I don't think they're open to listening or even care, mainly due to the lack of communication from them.

 

Seems they only care about ranked player feedback. If it’s regs they don’t seem to take it seriously.

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The level of 75 regs is very close to rock bottom at the moment...

 

It's funny how I still remember the constant complaint about quitters on this forum. Well, guess what ? Bioware listened.. and now we are all angry ? How is that possible , when this is what we asked them to do. :cool:

 

I also noticed that que times are slightly slower so BIOWARE please remove this horrible feature from regs. Please... It should kept only in ranked !

 

I started PVP-ing around mid to late 4.0 and I don't remember PVP being this bad ....

 

There are other methods or even adjustments they could do to this system to make it less oppressive.

Edited by TrixxieTriss
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Seems they only care about ranked player feedback. If it’s regs they don’t seem to take it seriously.

 

I'm not even sure they care about that. Wish to all that was good and right in this world that they had NOT listened to the whiners regarding the deserter debuff. The toxicity is worse, the games are worse, and the waits are longer.

 

Used to be at the end of a game one team would GG the other team. Now...now you get derision and contempt. It's not a fun experience anymore.

Edited by Sappharan
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I'm not even sure they care about that. Wish to all that was good and right in this world that they had NOT listened to the whiners regarding the deserter debuff. The toxicity is worse, the games are worse, and the waits are longer.

 

Used to be at the end of a game one team would GG the other team. Now...now you get derision and contempt. It's not a fun experience anymore.

 

You can have a lock out and have it work fine “if” -

1. players have an option to choose what maps they play.

2. the matchmaking works 200% better than now

3. there is still a way to progress missions if you get losing sides

4. you don’t have premades vs pugs

5. you have a system that can tell if a player DCs or leaves

6. you have a mechanism in place so people can avoid trolls

7. you have a deserter buff that’s no more than 10 mins.

8. back filling should give you an option to leave with no penalty

 

Sadly, none of those things are available in swtor pvp, so for that reason, the deserter debuff is more detrimental then helpful.

Edited by TrixxieTriss
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I love getting backfilled into a losing match, it's really fun.

Jokes aside, not being able to even leave backfills is irritating.

 

Or a match where one side has a premade and several people on my team desert...at least 2 or 3 deserted. Every other time I looked at the team roster during the match it was alternately minus a player or full. I looked several times. Don't know whether the opposing team was a premade or not, but it felt like it. Worst pvp game I have had in years.

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