I mean neither of us has any data to back up our claims, however my assumption that realistically on average players have roughly a 50/50 win rate is a lot more reasonable of an assumption than your claim of that an average PvP player will lose all their warzones, at least that is what you are alluding towards.

 

Sure there are premades but in most cases they face another premade

 

Empirical observation says that you are incorrect. That's how it used to be but not with this new system.

Empirical observation says that you are incorrect. That's how it used to be but not with this new system.

 

As ellie says, observation from here, the pvp forums, and in game, it seems a lot of people have given up on pvp, because they are having such a high loss rate , due to many factors, cheating, bad matches, trolls, and yes, not being good enough. With the current system, people are discouraged to even try to get better., at least in the old system, you still got a reward, and encouragement to keep trying. Every fp that gets finished gets a reward, not every person in the FP contributed as much as others, but they still get the reward. It should be the same with pvp, it's not like people are asking that the winners and losers get the same, just that, even if you are stuck with any of the above, at the end of the day, you still get the daily and weekly, yes make it a longer grind for losing, but make it something.

I mean neither of us has any data to back up our claims, however my assumption that realistically on average players have roughly a 50/50 win rate is a lot more reasonable of an assumption than your claim of that an average PvP player will lose all their warzones, at least that is what you are alluding towards.

The difference is that you make sweeping generalizations and I don't. I was talking about the people who could hardly win a match since this change. I know that they are out there as I spoke to some of them. However, I never made claims on how many people are in that boat. That's the difference.

 

Sure there are premades but in most cases they face another premade and just like there are lots of good players there are a lot of bad players as well, just like there are a lot of objective focused players there are players just numberfarming. Much like one of the devs typed in a discussion about Ranked PvP, it all balances itself out in the end after enough games.

And here you go making unsubstantiated claims again. And as for averages...they are exactly that: averages. That doesn't mean that that's the experience of most or all players. And I'm talking about those people who are at the lower end. If one group of players wins 90% of the time and another group 10% of the time, that still averages out to 50/50.

 

So please stop arguing averages and numbers that you cannot back up. You may not believe that there are players out there that can hardly win a match, but I never claimed this was any type of majority. Just that they exist. You go well beyond that will your numbers and I find that disingenuous.

A lot of it also comes down to what time you play, on what server and what pvp bracket. The slower pop times are the worst for matchmaking because there aren’t enough people around to average it out.

 

Which means you could be a good to average player in normal prime time, but out side of prime time in a low pop environment or in a lower lvl bracket, all of a sudden you are the best person in the queue. When this happens and arena is popping, the match making puts the 3 worst players on your team for you to carry against 3 - 4 average players.

 

It doesn’t matter how good a player you are, it’s nearly impossible to carry 3 under skilled players against 4 average players. You then end up with matches that are essentially 1v4 because after a few matches the other 9 or so people in the queue work out who the best player(s) is and they get focused first. (And when I say good vs under skilled players I mean the good players doing 1-3 mill per round and the bad players not even breaking 400k the whole match)

 

The same thing happens even when it’s popping 8 v 8 in low pop situations, it doesn’t take long for the better players to get sick of losing due to the bad matchmaking and being expected to carry people. So they end up banding together in a premade just so they can get their dailies done. I know this because I’m being forced to premade more and more just so I can finish mine.

 

I’ve come to know most of the players around my skill lvl or above at the times I play in lowbies, Mids and lvl 75. There aren’t many of us around and while there is some rivalry at times, most of us end up together in a group because there aren’t many of us and we get sick of a system that expects us to unfairly carry people in unbalanced matchmaking situations.

 

Sadly, once that happens the queue starts to die because we dominate it. I personally would prefer to not premade and to run solo. But the matchmaking is so poor that sometimes I find myself playing 10 matches in a row and losing each one because of it. At that point I either want to quit playing or I find someone to premade with just to finish the missions, at which point we kill the queue.

 

It’s catch-22. You try and play solo and can’t win and have a terrible time or you premade to get the missions done and end up killing the queue and it stops popping.

 

The issue is more complex than the deserter timer or the lack of progressing missions if you are losing. It also comes down to low player numbers to average out a poor matchmaking system. Add them altogether and it’s a perfect storm and it’s driving players away, which is making the situation even worse and causing a snow ball affect. And any new or returning players queue up and instantly have a bad time and decide to forgo pvp in the future.

With the new rule that you don't get credit for losses, BW has finally managed to finish the job it started years ago - to ruin PvP to the point it is unplayable.

 

Yeah, beginning to agree with you there. I play all aspects of the game but when It comes to WZ's it's getting more and more frustrating due to the number of losses.

 

I agree the winners should receive a big prize for winning, but giving nothing to the losers is most discouraging. I used to be able to complete the weekly every week but now it's taking 2 weeks or longer because it's no longer play x number of games, it's win x number of games, and if you get constantly put on the losing team, after a while it seems like just a waste of time to participate if there is nothing you get in return.

 

Yesterday, I played 5 wz's. Was on the winning team 1 time and losing team 4 times. Even though I personally had either the highest dps rating or highest points, it didn't matter, the team lost. So I lose. I get nothing for all the time I invested. I still need 9 more wins just to get the weekly. /ugh

 

Wish Bioware would go back to 'play x number of games' for weekly. Keep the 'win x number of games' but with greater reward.

 

Edit: mind you I'm talking unranked wz's.

Edited December 1, 2020 by Banthabreeder

I’ve suggested in other threads that they could return to the something similar to the old points system of wins and losses.

And instead of it being 2 points for a win and 1 point for a loss (2:1) counting towards mission completion, they make it a 4:1 ratio of 4 points for a win and 1 point for a loss.

There would still be an incentive for trying to win and still allow some small recourse for people who are on a losing streak.

Of course 4:1 is just my suggestion. But if 4:1 is still to much, they could try 3:1 and experiment to get the best outcome for player enjoyment and game quality.

I can only answer for me I've stopped que'ing altogether and won't ever again unless this losses not counting change gets reverted. I don't speak for everyone but I can guarantee many others feel like me and I've been hearing people complaining about PVP que times on station chat. Premades will likely be the only thing left in que soon and then can have fun fighting each other rather than being able to farm pugs.

I certainly understand the frustration. WZ's seem to be rather streaky now. Meaning, one day I will win 4-5 straight, the next, loose 3 out of 4. I find myself logging quickly now during loosing streaks, to avoid the annoyance, and try again at another time.

 

Just an observation though: During the win streaks, most players seem to understand the concept of team and can push decent dps. During those loosing streaks, it almost the exact opposite.

 

So I ask? Is it the current newly implemented pvp system or is winning or loosing a match determined more by the luck of the draw? I think it has more to do with the later.

 

Because I generally pug every WZ I play and can finish the weekly on 2-3 different toons a week, I guess I have a different opinion about things. I really don't think it as bad as some of you make it out to be.

Edited December 2, 2020 by Nickodemous

They've killed off pvp for me at least. I'm only a casual pvp and used to que for a dozen or so wz a week. I queue'd solo since I don't chain-queue for warzones. It's one warzone, take a break, then do another one if I feel like it.

 

Even with the lockouts, you still get backfills. It used to be that you could backfill into a (losing) game and at least get some credit for it. Now? Nothing.

 

Or the ever lovely 4 dps vs the pre-made t/h/2dps if you queue during the quieter times.

 

Bioware's mistake, I think, was in giving regs the same penalties as ranked. There is no place for casual, solo pvp'ers anymore.

 

Or, to clarify, no place for casual, solo pvp'ers who like doing the objective maps properly. If you're just in it for the deathmatching and the numbercrunching then you might be able to have enough fun to offset the numerous times you won't advance the daily/weekly.

I used to do PvP for the Socialite conquest points and the weekly prize. Now considering I can spam Kuat DY and get my Socialite CQ points AND guarantied weekly prize for running it 5 times why would I want to PvP?

I mean, I'd rather a system where people who don't want to PvP don't have to. I can understand and agree with arguments that the no-rewards-on-loss system is a bit much, but at the same time, why do you care if PvP is "dead" if you don't enjoy with it and only engage with it for social points?

If that last one is directed to me ...

I used to love PvP (even Huttball sometimes). Matches were competitive although sometime you got stomped it equaled out with easy wins. The daily rewards weren't the incentive or even the weekly although the weekly was nice to get.

 

Now I'm stuck on teams that don't guard objectives (I mean that's basic right?) or get slaughtered by a team made up of players that have fine-tuned their gear and proficiencies to optimize gang-stuns, resisting CC, healing from 10% to 80% immediately, invunerable armor and 3 shot kills. And those teams are either psychic or have a Discord server. Don't get me wrong. For hard-core PvP players that is awesome and yes I'm a little jelly of them. But take it to Ranked and leave unranked to the casuals that want a diversion from PvE.

 

As Trixxie pointed out, it is a positive-reinforcement problem. This change drove out some casual players and that caused issues with pop times and PUGs vs Marvel abattoirs. So more casuals left, so the problems increased and so on into a death spiral.

 

 

Time to call out the CM. It would be nice for Bioware to talk with us on their goals in changing unranked warzones to this system and garner feedback on

1) Are they accomplishing their goals?

2) If so, at what cost?

3) What do the players want from unranked warzones.

If that last one is directed to me ...

I used to love PvP (even Huttball sometimes). Matches were competitive although sometime you got stomped it equaled out with easy wins. The daily rewards weren't the incentive or even the weekly although the weekly was nice to get.

 

I'm going to accuse you of either having rose tinted glasses or playing on some incredibly gifted server in the past. I've played since launch, and these problems -- not guarding objectives, not properly using abilities, CC, etc. -- have been endemic since the first day.

 

And I also find it a little odd that you used to love PvP, but you think that stunlocking is some new problem, and also one that can't be worked around with proper positioning and timing.

 

I'm a relatively casual PvPer. The last time I did PvP hardcore was around DF/DP and those days. I can't say I really feel like I lose more often than before.

 

All of this just seems... Confusing. You like PvP, but it's the reward structure that drove you away, yet you just said that the rewards weren't the incentive. You used to PvP a lot, but you don't even know how to handle mind maze while guarding an objective. You used to love PvP, but you don't even know how Hydraulic Overrides works.

 

I'm going to sound pretty confrontational here, but I don't really regret it. There are a lot of legitimate criticisms to be had for PvP, but this more just feels like you're latching on to everything and shifting around and, mostly, just venting because you've had bad luck with losing WZs and also aren't the most experienced with your toolkit.

 

At the end of the day, it's not feasible or reasonable to expect BW to ban more experienced PvPers from 8v8 WZs. You say that ranked is an option, but that's only 4v4, and the flow, gameplay, and tactics are really quite different, so I can see why even the most hardcore PvPers might want to do WZS, and I'm not sure I can envision the best way to fix issues that come down to player skill and player care. You can't optimize or scale those away, at least not in a way that also preserves what makes PvP... well, PvP.

Whether the change to "win only" in regular warzones was generally good or bad for the game, I can't say. For me personally, it was a bad idea, because republic pugs are the worst, and unfortunately I don't like playing on imperial side. So I quit PvP completely for now. If you think that this is, because I'm a bad player or an AFK'er, so be it. I won't try to change your mind.

 

You know that WZs are cross-faction, right?

 

Empirical observation says that you are incorrect. That's how it used to be but not with this new system.

 

Your personal experience with W/L rates in warzones is actually the opposite of empirical observation; it's anecdotal evidence.

Edited December 2, 2020 by jedimasterjac

I certainly understand the frustration. WZ's seem to be rather streaky now. Meaning, one day I will win 4-5 straight, the next, loose 3 out of 4. I find myself logging quickly now during loosing streaks, to avoid the annoyance, and try again at another time.

 

Just an observation though: During the win streaks, most players seem to understand the concept of team and can push decent dps. During those loosing streaks, it almost the exact opposite.

 

So I ask? Is it the current newly implemented pvp system or is winning or loosing a match determined more by the luck of the draw? I think it has more to do with the later.

 

Because I generally pug every WZ I play and can finish the weekly on 2-3 different toons a week, I guess I have a different opinion about things. I really don't think it as bad as some of you make it out to be.

 

It’s poor matchmaking causing the losing streaks a lot of the time for me.

I used to do PvP for the Socialite conquest points and the weekly prize. Now considering I can spam Kuat DY and get my Socialite CQ points AND guarantied weekly prize for running it 5 times why would I want to PvP?

 

You can get socialite from doing uprisings too

 

And you get a heap of rewards from gear drops at the same time.

 

Reward vs time spent vs frustration vs enjoyment = uprisings 1, pvp 0

 

I’ve zero reason to step into lvl 75 pvp ever again to farm conquest socialite points when I can get the guaranteed result for my time spent doing an uprising.

Edited December 3, 2020 by TrixxieTriss

 

And I also find it a little odd that you used to love PvP, but you think that stunlocking is some new problem, and also one that can't be worked around with proper positioning and timing.

 

All of this just seems... Confusing. You like PvP, but it's the reward structure that drove you away, yet you just said that the rewards weren't the incentive. You used to PvP a lot, but you don't even know how to handle mind maze while guarding an objective. You used to love PvP, but you don't even know how Hydraulic Overrides works.

 

This totally misrepresents what I said.

 

Let's assume there are people I call pros that build toons for PvP that maximize stunning and escape CC.

They form teams with similar pros.

They curbstomp any PUG they face.

 

Stunlocking was always an issue but it is worse now that there are more premade pro teams in WZ. People here are, "you suck in PvP Ellie. Learn yer toon." which makes my point for me. I am a casual player. I used to like PvP. The rewards didn't make the difference for me. But ... (and read carefully)

 

Removing the participation rewards has (unintended consequence) driven away many casual players.

As they do, more premade pros take their place.

This results in Pros vs PUGs

This causes more casuals to leave

Thus the problems get worse

 

I myself now hate PvP because I'm tired of being team-stunlocked until I die.

 

But know yer tewn. Learn to play PvP right. Get proficiencies to break lock. Get proficiencies to add stuns. Etc. Great advice if I want to play Ranked PvP. I don't. I just want to drop into a casual unranked PvP zone and have some fun.

 

Oh and to say that my observations are anecdotal not empirical, the definition of empirical evidence is

Empirical evidence is the information received by means of the senses, particularly by observation and documentation of patterns

Edited December 3, 2020 by EllieAnne

In science, definitions of anecdotal evidence include:

 

"casual observations or indications rather than rigorous or scientific analysis"

"information passed along by word-of-mouth but not documented scientifically"

"evidence that comes from an individual experience. This may be the experience of a person with an illness or the experience of a practitioner based on one or more patients outside a formal research study."

"the report of an experience by one or more persons that is not objectively documented or an experience or outcome that occurred outside of a controlled environment"

 

Your claims are anecdotal. They are not empirical.

 

More to the point of the argument:

 

In what world is it a realistic expectation that one should be able to go into an 8v8 environment, do nothing to prepare their character for that mode of content, have no intent to cooperate, and that person should then succeed?

 

Whether you’re doing ranked or casual PvP, you ought to at least know your class and some basic utilities. You can do just fine in an 8v8 without “meta” utilities and builds, but even casual players ought to go into content with the intent to play it adequately and well.

 

Let’s assume BioWare bans premades. How is your central complaint then gone? You could still easily, regularly, wind up with teams full of players with the right utilities and who know how to use their abilities, and you’re still going to lose, because you think you shouldn’t know how to properly play the content you want to participate in.

 

Like I don’t get your point. There is not an inherent dichotomy between playing PvP casually and, at the same time, trying to play PvP well.

 

And quite frankly, I don’t want an iteration of PvP where the people who don’t want to do the bare minimum can still win.

 

No one’s saying you need to be bis or meta. I’m certainly not. You do need to be willing to put in a bare minimum amount of effort.

Edited December 3, 2020 by jedimasterjac

You guys are kinda moving away from the core problem with the semantics discussion.

 

I personally feel like less people playing due to the change, which puts more pressure on the poor match making system. Now that’s just my perspective, but I dare say there are enough people saying similar things.

 

I would love to know what Bioware’s data is showing them with player participation in pvp and are they even investigating it? There is more to this than just the deserter timer or the mission completions. How many players doing pvp are we losing because of it?

 

1. Has there been a drop in the total number of players doing pvp. And if so, how many regular pvp participants stopped or reduced the amount of pvp they were playing.

2. How many people are leaving matches vs how many were leaving before.

3. How many matches start and end early due to players leaving

4. How many players complete their weeklies now or daily missions per day. What’s the win loss ratio.

5. How many complete the conquest pvp achievements

6. What‘s the percentage of arena pops vs 8 man, compared to before (to determine if primetime is shrinking)

7. What is the average wait time between pops during primetime and what is the average wait time outside of primetime. This could include what the longest wait time was.

8. What’s the average amount of matches needed to be played to get the weekly or dailies done

9. How many people are queuing premades vs solo

10. I’m sure there are other data points too that I haven’t thought of that should be considered.

 

The point is, these could all be applied to every pvp bracket, including ranked to get a picture of what’s actually happening.

 

My own experiences at the times I play, on the server I play and the brackets I play, tells me there are less players participating or playing for as long as they used too. Which doesn’t bode well for the vitality of pvp.

 

I think we can all agree when there are less players, the matchmaking system (as bad as it is) doesn’t stand a chance of working properly and actually brakes down to the point that even full pug games aren’t remotely balanced (taking premades out of the equation). The Premades is its own side issue to the bigger issue which is lower player numbers and bad match making.

 

I don’t think anyone really expects a free lunch when playing pvp. If you don’t try, you can’t win. If you aren’t willing to try and win then you shouldn’t get participation trophies for sitting there. But on the flip side, there are many things outside of the player’s control to winning, besides skill. And until all of those things are addressed, the players shouldn’t be penalised for losing due to poor matchmaking, backfilling matches, premades, trolls or broken dsync, etc.

 

We currently have no way to choose maps we like and I dare say it’s too late in the game’s life for that to work properly because we don’t have enough players for everyone to pick and choose what they want. The queue wait times would drastically increase, which is as bad as the losing more players. I honestly don’t think there is an easy fix to that conundrum. It would have been good years ago, but now, I think it would divide up the low population too much to work.

 

So with no way to choose the maps you like, there must be a better system to keep people from leaving matches and trying to win than whats been imposed (Legacy deserter timer and only wins counting). It has a place in ranked for sure, but not in lowbies or Mids and I dare say the legacy feature isn’t needed in lvl 75 either. They could keep the deserter timer in lvl 75 and revert back to it being per character.

Edited December 3, 2020 by TrixxieTriss

In what world is it a realistic expectation that one should be able to go into an 8v8 environment, do nothing to prepare their character for that mode of content, have no intent to cooperate, and that person should then succeed?

 

Whether you’re doing ranked or casual PvP, you ought to at least know your class and some basic utilities. You can do just fine in an 8v8 without “meta” utilities and builds, but even casual players ought to go into content with the intent to play it adequately and well.

 

Let’s assume BioWare bans premades. How is your central complaint then gone? You could still easily, regularly, wind up with teams full of players with the right utilities and who know how to use their abilities, and you’re still going to lose, because you think you shouldn’t know how to properly play the content you want to participate in.

 

No one’s saying you need to be bis or meta. I’m certainly not. You do need to be willing to put in a bare minimum amount of effort.

 

rational arguments and good logical points? best of luck trying in this echo chamber, it's like trying to argue in /r/t_d

What is the better system though? Beyond, say, banning premades, what's the system that makes matches more evenly balanced?

What is the better system though? Beyond, say, banning premades, what's the system that makes matches more evenly balanced?

 

There is none, I hate to sound cynical but a premade is almost always going to have the upper hand against people who opted to queue up alone. They can pick and choose who among their friends list or guild or whatever is going to be the best ********* in the arena, and even though the one who started forming the premade might turn out to be useless, they will still have a huge advantage. Not even mentioning prior access and use of voice chat and that they're most likely a pvp guild that's forming premades. TOR PvP plus Starfighter is just incredibly unfriendly when it comes to solo players just trying to break into the mode.

 

Those premades are a literal team, I have doubt that an amalgamation of solo players randomly piled into an arena can even be called that. if a solo player has delusions that they can ever do better doing their own thing than several players who work together of course they're going to lose. The solo queue should really just be for noobs trying to get a feel for the different arenas. I still think they shouldn't be punished with inevitable curbstomping every match they do where now it doesn't even give you a consolation prize of mission progress.

 

I'd like BW to completely segregate solo and group queues, where one player or group can't possibly matchmake unless the rest of the team and their opponents are of the same queue, but if that results in taking ages to find a battle at all, that just exposes how dead PvP is. I'd say imposing a stats penalty for every pre-grouped player on a team would be a good idea, but the balance is never going to be right and premade grinders will just howl till the end of the game about it. Banning either solo queues (so solos are forced to act like a team player that might do better) or premade group queuing (so they don't take advantage of solo players' weakness to pwn the whole opposing team) seems like the best solution.

Edited December 3, 2020 by MagicTerror

What is the better system though? Beyond, say, banning premades, what's the system that makes matches more evenly balanced?

 

That’s hard to say because BioWare refuse to be transparent on how the match making works in regs. At least in ranked we know how it works and we can tell them where the problems are to fix. But we can’t do that in regs if we don’t have all the facts.

I tried pvp the other day at 75, quite literally the most toxic and irredeemably unpleasant experience I've had in this game. Incredibly small, elitist community, nothing of value will be lost tbh.

And....we've managed to get off track. The issue isn't the toxicity of the PVP community, nor the prevalence of pre-mades.

 

The issue is that once again management has made a dumb decision. By removing the reward for losses from unranked, they've discouraged the causal. Which is, as we're already seeing, creating a spiral that's only going to get uglier as time goes on.