Some honest truths

So this will take a bit of a dent my pride, but I don't give a **** because I've cancelled my subscription and I'm not planning on playing this game anymore.

I played 400 games last season, I won 200 but lost 200. My highest ever rating at one point was 1,222.

So I got absolutely *********** nothing for my participation.

I lost games due to the vent bug several times. Also lost many times because of the instant death bug on the drop down. I made mistakes, but not very often. I never disconnected or left a game early.

So frustrating not to get any form of recognition for my efforts. Yes I'm not the best player in the world admittedly, but I know how the game works and respected the ranked community. I made full gear (min max adept r-20 and lethal r-2) with gold amps on every part, before I even bothered queing

I then spent endless evenings preparing for ranked by skipping pile up games and participating in more node 3V3 or 4v4 games. I spent hundreds of hours running through content I genuinely found uninteresting but did it in order to gear.

I sold everything I made directly into the amplifier slot machine system. I saved all my 359/369 mods and spent 200k unless I got a gold featherweight amp. Until I had 9 gold 359/369 mods. My gear reflected my effort.

As expected I started the season slowly, but as I gained experience I found I was getting more wins in a row 4,5 even 6 win streaks. My dps was getting relentless, I was averaging 10-12k dps most games and remember doing 19.8k dps one particular tank/healer game.

But with the introduction of the force bound set. I found my melee heavy character started to lose more often sometimes it would reverse itself and I lose six games back to back against teams of 2/3 force bound users.

Then you would get the throwers, 260 gear rating players or players with little interest who would just repeatedly queue for their dailies.

My rating fluctuated between 1150 and 1220 all season.

But I still persisted and I put up with it, thinking that at the end of the season I get a nice little reward and I'll try again this season. But I got absolutely nothing. 400 games, hundreds of hours preparing through content I didn't like. Grinding creds and what did I get. A mail in game. That's it

Roll on season 13. Well, this season has been an absolute joke so far. An absolute lottery with matchmaker. My team of 4 dps vs their team with 3 dps, and offguard and a healer. Teams with two offguard vs my team with zero. More players running force bound and more sub 306 gear rating players who die and then leave.

My elo rating is already embarrassing , so low that I'll probably have to roll another character and hope for better luck. I ask myself, what's the actual point.

There is literally no address on class balance for PVP. In fact every single change that has occurred within the last few months has been down to PVE changes, that have impacted the PVP community.

No response, not even a single word of encouragement from the development team suggest they're working on class balance for pvp.

Why should I hang around and expect to play against:-

Force Bound Mara/sentinels. (cc'd then miss/miss/miss/miss/miss)

Offguarding shadows/sins in stealth

Operatives with 3k self heals, 200k burst and 8s of hard stuns.

Or be matched with :-

260 irated jug

306 rated Odenerion guy with no set bonus and no tactical

Organised thrower

It's not worth the effort to be honest. It's not worth the hundreds of hours farming content I don't enjoys it's not worth the ball ache of re rolling best mods and dumping them. It's not worth the time.

Gold flairs, titles and the rest. You can't have a solo ranking that depend on others carry the weight. Simply aweful and I'm done.

Solo ranked is just stupid. It is a very stupid concept compounded by the fact that it is poorly implemented. You pointed out some of the reasons.

Why would you quit over such a moronic style of game play? Solo ranked rating means nothing.

-RNG comp based.

-Players can easily throw games.

-People purposely queue at the same time hoping to be placed on the same team. For example, its much better for a jugg to play with healers so wait till you can get a handful to queue and manipulate the system.

-No brackets. Top rated players can farm noobs which keeps people from even doing ranked.

I get why they have Solo ranked. Low ranked player population, but its not a good fix. There are a lot of people that pvp in reg WZ. If you could modify group ranked to attracted these people pvp would be a lot healthier.

Solo ranked is moronic honestly...

But all thing considered , it's the best form PVP this game has to offer IF you are looking for some challenging competition against more skilled players.

Your biggest mistake which ultimately led to your doom was the fact that you expected something in return .... when in reality, you should be playing because you like a challenge and want tot test yourself vs better players.

I was more or less in the same boat as you. My rating was all over the place, in the end I managed to get a bronze rating, after 2 seasons of silvers. I am not the type of player who will obsess over getting top 3 or gold, I just qued because I like the experience it offers me and have zero expectations when It comes to rating and rewards. I am not deluding myself.

As for rewards for taking place in ranked, I was happy with the season 4 replica weapons. That was rewarding enough for me .for my games played.

Keep queing and enjoy it .

Can I have your stuff?? just kidding.

Yes, you have pointed out what most people experience in this mode. This is why cheating very very much encouraged in this mode since if you have a few friends you can turn those matches to your advantage very easily. There are a few people, its always the same people really, who always manage to get the top stuff regardless of others having the issues you describe.

I dont want to go into these theories again, but just poiting out how it is. Its just about luck whether you get into the team with these people or not. They play pretty much 24/7, you will always find someone from them in the que. The only thing that people are left with now is to simply farm the PVP coms to buy the rewards. Rewards are now available to anyone who plays enough. If you gather hundreds of thousands of coms you are able to buy rewards even with a rating of 1100, so thats what most do now.

Solo ranked is just stupid.

Solo ranked is moronic honestly...

Yet here we are playing it

Have to throw any expectation of keeping your sanity out of the window when q'ing solos

Luck runs both ways, good and bad

Long winning streaks, long losing streaks - it's a rollercoaster

Best strat I've found is to queue day 1 of the season and get the highest rating possible so you don't end up in the sub-1200 slop games

Best strat I've found is to queue day 1 of the season and get the highest rating possible so you don't end up in the sub-1200 slop games

The thing now is that you actually need the number of wins for the gold, silver..... tiers. But yes, if you manage a high rating at start then you can just drop to 900 but you need to keep playing to get them 80 wins for gold with whatever rating as you got to 1500 for example at start.

Another way is to also reset your rating. They changed the rating reset when server transfering, before your rating was reset when you servertransfered with a rating over 1200, now you reset with having any rating. So if you end up with a rating of 1050 after the first 10 matches you can just server transfer and start from 0. This way you can keep on trying your luck, but also spending CC.

I tend to play some games and if its a couple loses I usually stop.

The game is made by humans, sometimes I under perform and sometimes it is others who do the same.

Games are quite good at the moment on DM to say the truth, the same problems still exist and that is to peeps to follow strats and switching to secondary targets (unguarded and when some shields are up).

People not following strats really makes me go nuts especially if it is a close competitive game, and it is like we agreed on start.... If you want a different strat just say it and we discuss

Take it is a game, and have fun. I have the same fun also in some Regz, but I like the high competitive aspect of ranked that is why in some way or another I end always finish doing it.

So it sounds like you got a ton of experience in your first season. I would consider that a success. Now use that experience and set a goal of achieving high bronze or silver in season 13.

You clearly took ranked seriously and was considerate to get good gear before entering. With your attitude you will steadily improve and hopefully get the experience to consistently carry games or do well enough that you get those rewards you want.

You just have to accept that experience matters a lot in ranked, and the goal for your first season should've been to get as much of it as possible.

Take it is a game, and have fun.

This is the most important statement here. Its just a game and its meant to be fun. Dont bother much with the leaderboards, in the end the cheaters will cheat themselves to top spots, nothing you can do about it.

Just enjoy the game. What I like about ranked is that its the only mode in the game which is really random. You do not have that in PVE. GSF is a bit different cause there its up to premades and various other things. Regs are just simply regs where you get a lot of bad players and also premades. In ranked its just you and the other 3 people and it can go many ways and thats what I like about it. Sure I try to win, but winning is not the main reason to play.

OP, how many ranked tokens did you earn? Just curious. That seems like an awful lot of games. If you earned a fair number of tokens you’d have access to rewards that will be going away in the future. I’m not saying that’s proportionate compensation for your efforts, I just want to understand what your concept of “nothing to show” is. I’m speaking solely as someone who hasn’t done ranked since season 4 and hasn’t really pvp’ed regularly since 4.x (the gear gap in 5.x and currently being the main source of my reluctance). I have only two ranked rewards I am mildly interested in, neither of which have shown up yet, but together will require nearly 250k tokens by my best estimate.

FYI it was 195 days between 6.0.2 on 12/12/19 and 6.1.2 on 6/24/20, so that means one would have played at least 2 games a day assuming they started at the beginning of the season to have 400 matches at the end.

Some honest truths

 

So this will take a bit of a dent my pride, but I don't give a **** because I've cancelled my subscription and I'm not planning on playing this game anymore.

 

I played 400 games last season, I won 200 but lost 200. My highest ever rating at one point was 1,222.

 

So I got absolutely *********** nothing for my participation.

 

I lost games due to the vent bug several times. Also lost many times because of the instant death bug on the drop down. I made mistakes, but not very often. I never disconnected or left a game early.

 

So frustrating not to get any form of recognition for my efforts. Yes I'm not the best player in the world admittedly, but I know how the game works and respected the ranked community. I made full gear (min max adept r-20 and lethal r-2) with gold amps on every part, before I even bothered queing

 

I then spent endless evenings preparing for ranked by skipping pile up games and participating in more node 3V3 or 4v4 games. I spent hundreds of hours running through content I genuinely found uninteresting but did it in order to gear.

 

I sold everything I made directly into the amplifier slot machine system. I saved all my 359/369 mods and spent 200k unless I got a gold featherweight amp. Until I had 9 gold 359/369 mods. My gear reflected my effort.

 

As expected I started the season slowly, but as I gained experience I found I was getting more wins in a row 4,5 even 6 win streaks. My dps was getting relentless, I was averaging 10-12k dps most games and remember doing 19.8k dps one particular tank/healer game.

 

But with the introduction of the force bound set. I found my melee heavy character started to lose more often sometimes it would reverse itself and I lose six games back to back against teams of 2/3 force bound users.

 

Then you would get the throwers, 260 gear rating players or players with little interest who would just repeatedly queue for their dailies.

 

My rating fluctuated between 1150 and 1220 all season.

 

But I still persisted and I put up with it, thinking that at the end of the season I get a nice little reward and I'll try again this season. But I got absolutely nothing. 400 games, hundreds of hours preparing through content I didn't like. Grinding creds and what did I get. A mail in game. That's it

 

Roll on season 13. Well, this season has been an absolute joke so far. An absolute lottery with matchmaker. My team of 4 dps vs their team with 3 dps, and offguard and a healer. Teams with two offguard vs my team with zero. More players running force bound and more sub 306 gear rating players who die and then leave.

 

My elo rating is already embarrassing , so low that I'll probably have to roll another character and hope for better luck. I ask myself, what's the actual point.

 

There is literally no address on class balance for PVP. In fact every single change that has occurred within the last few months has been down to PVE changes, that have impacted the PVP community.

 

No response, not even a single word of encouragement from the development team suggest they're working on class balance for pvp.

 

Why should I hang around and expect to play against:-

 

Force Bound Mara/sentinels. (cc'd then miss/miss/miss/miss/miss)

Offguarding shadows/sins in stealth

Operatives with 3k self heals, 200k burst and 8s of hard stuns.

 

Or be matched with :-

 

260 irated jug

306 rated Odenerion guy with no set bonus and no tactical

Organised thrower

 

 

It's not worth the effort to be honest. It's not worth the hundreds of hours farming content I don't enjoys it's not worth the ball ache of re rolling best mods and dumping them. It's not worth the time.

 

Gold flairs, titles and the rest. You can't have a solo ranking that depend on others carry the weight. Simply aweful and I'm done.

Hey man. I really appreciated your thread you created, I just got to read it busy IRL yada yada aint read the forums a few days... I didn't even read comments here yet.

Everything you say, I assumed was the case, I just never had the fortitude to go through what you did to test the theory that "as long as you keep playing eventually your wins will even out and you will have good ELO, if you are decent..."

Well, you are decent I know for a fact you are. And you did everything to an OCD level of meticulousness preparing for ranked! Yet, the entire system of ranked (as I have written ad nauseum about) has so many flaws and problems it's just not worth the effort or time!

Last year, I spent 1-2 weeks of my life in ranked. My history is, in past years I played ranked quite a bit, solo ranked. Enough to get some pixels, and to experience the mode. It was alright, never did I prefer it over 8v8s though or 8v8s ranked. I like objective maps better...

Anyway I was already max geared mind you, and honestly speaking I am an average player on sorc/sage heals, that being said after less than 20 matches I had more matches lost not because I did anything wrong, it was due to win traders, match throwers, and other shenanigans.

Last year every match that popped, I first wondered if 4 would actually fight because so often one would drop the match after it began leaving us short... Then, if we actually had 4 stay, amazing, then the next thing was if we lost the first round, how many would rage and leave the match? That happened a few times... It was just a revolving door of BS that players created.

I quit very quickly last season I had no patience to put up with it, or to even give it 1/100 the chance you did. I commend you for that. But, I also feel very content knowing that I made the right decision not wasting my life in ranked on this game. What a *********** joke!

***I always like to add, thanks Bioware for making SWTOR worse and worse over the years. You have effectively helped me get over my MMO addiction.

I always like to add, thanks Bioware for making SWTOR worse and worse over the years. You have effectively helped me get over my MMO addiction.

This is the position I now find myself in. BioWare are actually making it easier and easier to walk away from the game

BioWare are actually making it easier and easier to walk away from the game

Well some people just keep on staying, right Trixx?

Well some people just keep on staying, right Trixx?

True, but our game time is considerably less than before. So when something else comes along, it will be much easier to leave.

I use to spend 40-70 hours a week in swtor. Now it’s more like 2-4 hours on average

Well some people just keep on staying, right Trixx?

you're just swtor addicts who can't quit cause you'll relapse if you do

Right now, I actually rather talk to people on the forums than play the game tbh.

I keep a sub, but I am not playing. Been 4 days since I logged in. Only reason I log in that toon is I hope the guild dies and I can "inherit" it. I like the guild name a lot and would try to create a much better Guild Heraldry the one they designed is ufcking ugly as hell.

It's a tiny guild, I think there's a good chance it will die like 90% of the guilds do.

Then, who knows? Maybe a year from now the game will have gotten some much needed improvements... And be worth playing again.

I will keep a sub for you BW, out of loyalty and support in hopes you use the resources to make this game better.

For now, anyway.

Plus I enjoy the forum PVP, it's exhilarating dodging and avoiding banhammers that haters on the forums love trying to encourage the mods to throw at the more outspoken folk!

Right now, I actually rather talk to people on the forums than play the game tbh.

 

I keep a sub, but I am not playing. Been 4 days since I logged in. Only reason I log in that toon is I hope the guild dies and I can "inherit" it. I like the guild name a lot and would try to create a much better Guild Heraldry the one they designed is ufcking ugly as hell.

 

It's a tiny guild, I think there's a good chance it will die like 90% of the guilds do.

 

Then, who knows? Maybe a year from now the game will have gotten some much needed improvements... And be worth playing again.

 

I will keep a sub for you BW, out of loyalty and support in hopes you use the resources to make this game better.

 

For now, anyway.

 

Plus I enjoy the forum PVP, it's exhilarating dodging and avoiding banhammers that haters on the forums love trying to encourage the mods to throw at the more outspoken folk!

I definitely spend more time on the forums than in the game these days.

I hate to see players like you go, solo rank needs more players like you but I understand and sometimes feel your frustrations.

More ranked players would be here if it was not dominated by those manipulating it. Please Jedi, try to tell us how you are not! How great it is! Fun, not toxic?

True, but our game time is considerably less than before.

I do not think Bioware cares about play time. They just need you monthly sub money. But its true that ever since they have been making new content they have been achievements that are very grindy, so that they make sure people run the "new content" as much as possible, so that they can present good numbers like "look this event has a million played hours, people like it".

you're just swtor addicts who can't quit cause you'll relapse if you do

heh, not really my addiction is not to swtor as a game, but to the achievement system, which can be found in any other game, but thats a long story. I have been pondering to stop playing swtor anyway cause its getting a bit too much to go to work, take care of family and then play at night. I am not a youngster anymore

I do not think Bioware cares about play time.

In regards to PVP, the amount of play time can directly or indirectly affect subscriptions, depending on how you look at it.

If PVPers are getting sick of the grind or they don't like the current game changes from an update or a patch, then those players might start playing less and less which can affect the Que times for matches at any given time of day. Other players who didn't mind said changes could eventually get bored of waiting for WZs to pop ..i.e extended Que times. It's a domino effect, the game population might gradually start to become less and less. The amount of time someone plays the game can be linked to active subscriptions. So, i think BW does care somewhere in the back of their minds. I mean,why else would they make such grindy content?

More ranked players would be here if it was not dominated by those manipulating it. Please Jedi, try to tell us how you are not! How great it is! Fun, not toxic?

Admittedly, I have not experienced a huge amount of toxicity towards me specifically so it's easier to gloss over this issue. I know it exists because I've seen it but I think it's not as prevalent either. I get more frustrated with match making & the huge punishment for losses that are caused by factors out of your control. I already made a thread about it before I saw this one.

I like arena style pvp the best and can handle my own, I guess that's why I am able to still enjoy it despite the win traders, throwers, and trolls.

True, but our game time is considerably less than before. So when something else comes along, it will be much easier to leave.

 

I use to spend 40-70 hours a week in swtor. Now it’s more like 2-4 hours on average

I remember mocking you over this a couple years ago. But tbh I'm kinda in the same boat. The majority of my characters were made and completed several years ago, these days I manage 2 new characters per year at best. The game just isn't as appealing a trade off with irl stuff. Even with COVID.