So I first mentioned this in another thread but decided to flesh it out here for more details. Basically, the rewards would be based on how many matches you won and not your highest rating:

 

• Tier 3: Win 20 rated matches
  
• Tier 2: Win 50 rated matches
  
• Tier 1: Win 100 rated matches
  

(Numbers can vary of course, these are just examples)

 

Advantages:

• Players need to play more than 10 matches to be eligible for the rewards. This means players will be queueing for longer than just the first days.
  
• Casual players who don't do too much PvP have a reasonable chance at the lower tiers. The rewards work similar to PvE rewards - you can just repeatedly wipe on a boss and will eventually get the loot.
  
• You can always queue, no matter what players are currently online. Even if you get unlucky and lose three matches in a row, you don't have to fear that your ELO got so low you can never recover; you'd still get comms to buy better gear even if you lose.
  
• There's less reason to win trade because there are more players in queue, and maybe even win traders will think it'll be easier to play normally and not risk getting banned, when the rewards are in reachable grasp.
  
• Even bad players with no PvP gear will profit. Since they need to play so many matches, they'll soon know all four arena maps and get better at ranked. They'll also receive comms to buy gear.
  
• Throwing matches no longer means you get the lowest tier since you actually have to win. Yes there will always be trolls but this will be mitigated with a larger queue size.
  
• This is actually possible with SWTOR's engine and does not require any complicated solutions like cross faction or cross server queue.
  

 

Yes, this means that the rewards will be easier available and not so exclusive anymore. But as long as win traders and luckers can get Tier 1 in one freaking evening, I don't see why we should exclude legitimate players with willingness to learn and improve from the rewards.

And even then, the rewards are not easily available. A good player will easily get Tier 1 within a week, but as a more casual player, getting 100 wins in 12 weeks is quite difficult, but they would be able to get Tier 3 or even Tier 2.

 

And no, I don't want to change rewards for the 48 highest rated classes and group rated. Those can still be based on ELO. Maybe you could even separate solo and group rewards, so group rated players can receive a reward that solo queuers can't.

 

Any problems with my suggestion that I missed? I just can't for the life of me find any disadvantage.

Sorry if this has been posted before, I don't read the PvP forums too much.

Edited February 14, 2015 by Jerba

I have another thread that I started today discussing the problems with the rating system in solo ranked. I think I like your idea. I keep trying to think of significant disadvantages, but I am having trouble thinking of any. Obviously, it could discourage some marginal players from putting forth max effort. But all that will do is make it even harder to get said reward. It could discourage players that lose a lot of matches consecutively. But the ELO system does that as well.

Okay, my bad, this has indeed been proposed before: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=784371

TezMoney's suggestion is very similar, except he has both a minimum # of wins and the ELO score as the tier brackets, and he got only positive replies, so this really is a good idea.

Maybe, you could use my suggestion for solo rated, and TezMoney's suggestion for group rated?

Let's just hope the devs read this and think the same about the idea.

 

The main problem about rated PvP is the steep learning curve and hostility toward newer players. You need a lot of PvP gear before you even have a chance to win, you need to know all classes and arena maps and will immediately be called a noob if you don't know those because you'll be the reason the group loses.

I believe with these suggestions, we could make solo queue more entry-friendly, allowing players to get their rated PvP gear and some rewards to then face off in group rated where the real challenge always has been.

 

 

Edit: There is one problem:

Only thing I DONT LIKE about this idea is it basically screws you over if you play more than one toon in ranked.

 

I don't have a tremendous amount of time to play as it is, but I manage to get 1-2, maybe 3 of my toons in full ranked and get them a decent rating. Putting a minimum wins requirement makes it much more time-consuming if I want to get a couple of alt toons into a decent tier when I may prefer to just play 1 toon overall. Everything else I'm all for it.

You could possibly fix that by counting all wins legacy wide instead of per character, or making the rewards bound to legacy. Already, the weapons can be sent over to alts, so this is the same thing really. You could even include it in the Collections system, which means you only need to earn the mount once and can then unlock it to all chars - which in turn would mean more CC spent: profit!

Yes I know they only want players to be able to show off a cool reward if that player actually participated in rated PvP. For this, you could use the group rated rewards; only add solo rewards to the collections. And rewards like the title would be character bound anyway and not legacy wide.

Edited February 14, 2015 by Jerba

So I shared my suggestion with the German PvP community, and the only serious feedback I got was that they don't want to open up the rewards to non-PvP players.

Like I said, as long as there is a lot of win trading going on and winning/losing depends on the match-up more than the skill, you can't claim that Tier 1 is only for elite PvPers. If they change the rewards a little, like make them legacy-wide and add separate rewards for Group Rated only, then the elite PvP players will have rewards even more exclusive than what we have now.

 

The main complaint, that casual players could get Tier 1 rewards, is not an issue IMO. If we keep at the 100 wins number, it would mean you'd have to play anywhere from 200-700 matches, depending on skill. Casual players who are not good at arenas would have to play more than 5 matches each day, and given that they'll mostly do flashpoints/operations, they won't have much time left to do that much rated PvP, but they could still get the Tier 3 rewards, and if they put in enough effort, the Tier 2 rewards as well.

Meanwhile, the pro PvP players will have 100 wins in one week if they are determined.

 

It would be great if more players could comment on what they think of this suggestion. Solo Rated is broken, and I believe this suggestion of changing the rewards will fix nearly all issues with it.

Please tell me if you find there is a serious reason why this suggestion would not work.

 

 

Edit: Oh well, I can think of a disadvantage: Losing a match no longer means anything because ELO is not so important anymore. So when you don't have time to take an invite, you just decline. Or when you lose the first round, you just leave the arena instead of trying to play the second round.

On the other hand, having a 3v4 match is also no longer as bad as it is now. Since the other three players don't lose their chance at the rewards, they just need to queue again.

Eventually, players will realize that in order to get the rewards, it's better to accept invites and not leave a match once they realize what happens when they want to win and but are abandoned by a teammate.

Edited February 15, 2015 by Jerba

I like. I'm not going to be able to get rewards for this season if today has been any indication. PUG players have been terrible, and it's really not fair that other people playing terribly when I play well is ruining my chances at getting rewards that should be within reach.

I like. I'm not going to be able to get rewards for this season if today has been any indication. PUG players have been terrible, and it's really not fair that other people playing terribly when I play well is ruining my chances at getting rewards that should be within reach.

Yeah, the ELO is too much dependent on the group composition. Yesterday, I won five games in a row, today I only lost because bad players were in queue.

While the usual suggestion of "quit queueing after 2 losses" or "put every troll on your friends list" works, it is gaming the system and no better than win trading; if we really want the rewards to mean something, it needs to be based on more than luck.

Edited February 16, 2015 by Jerba

Yeah, the ELO is too much dependent on the group composition. Yesterday, I won five games in a row, today I only lost because bad players were in queue.

While the usual suggestion of "quit queueing after 2 losses" or "put every troll on your friends list" works, it is gaming the system and no better than win trading; if we really want the rewards to mean something, it needs to be based on more than luck.

 

Agreed. It's really frustrating, and as someone who has just got into doing ranked stuff today (spent ages gearing and auging so that I wouldn't be a hindrance when I finally started ranked) I can say it's a colossal turn-off watching my rating plummet because the pugs are terrible. The PvP community will never grow if this is how the devs reward hard work and effort.

 

My rating should only be affected by MY actions :'(

Edited February 16, 2015 by Mevan