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Premades are hurting pvp participation


ralphieceaser

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Given how bad the current design is with respect to social interaction, it might make sense to surrender to the way things are and go full solo. Just realize that that wouldn't be a design success so much as an aknowledgement of how badly the original design failed to do what it should have done.

 

The original design was flawed from the start. It should have always had 2 queues. One for premade’s and one for solos. So acknowledging that it failed is the most honest thing they could at this point.

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The original design was flawed from the start. It should have always had 2 queues. One for premade’s and one for solos. So acknowledging that it failed is the most honest thing they could at this point.

 

If the design is functional you shouldn't need separate queues, because doing the group content as a group will be so appealing that solo would be a barren wasteland as a result of player choice. Ie. basically the opposite of how SWTOR works.

 

So in terms of a few concrete examples of terrible social design in SWTOR:

 

Communication. Teamwork requires communication, especially in pick up teams. In SWTOR the communication tool is text chat. What's the problem? Well, since the game is a keyboard and mouse interface, in order to communicate you have to stop playing the game because your interface is locked up in communication mode. In PvP, you really need to be able to play and communicate at the same time. There are a bunch of options here: in game voice client, canned hotkeyable messages (ex: west node under attack, send help), or even working with a third party like Discord to have some sort of game integration where if Discord is running and you get a PvP pop it auto creates a channel for each team and auto invites all the queued players or something along those lines. The bar here is low, the communication just has to be a global positive, not a zero sum "choose to impair my team by not communicating or to impair it by not playing actively while communicating." Communication doesn't always pay off, so the clear incentive here in the base game mechanics is to discourage communication, because it competes in an exclusive fashion with active play, and active play is more reliably rewarding. It's terrible design.

 

Reward structure:

The reward structure is zero sum, and individual performance isn't worth anything unless the team as a whole wins. So the reward seeking strategy is to discern if you think your team has a good chance of winning, and if so make an effort, and if not to abandon hope and put out no effort, because you're not playing against the other team, you're playing against the other team and some portion of your own team. And people wonder why PvPers in SWTOR act toxic. How smart was it to set up a reward structure where your own team is easy to perceive as enemies? Not very. A reasonable alternative, one that incentivizes teamwork, is an additive reward structure. So set goals that reflect individual performance, and measure those. Give some reward for individual effort, and some reward for team average effort, and a bonus for actual victory. Now there's incentive for individual effort, incentive for group effort, and incentive for group success. If you're especially smart as a designer, you also target cooperative behavior as a specific area to reward, probably generously.

 

SWTOR's PvP isn't a toxic cesspool because that's what's players were hoping for, it's a toxic cesspool because there are a host of design features actively rewarding players for making it a cesspool and impairing any efforts to change that.

 

I don't think that the developers set out to design a deliberately dysfunctional unappealing PvP system. I think they just got told to build a near copy of Lich King to Cata era WoW PvP, and did exactly that without thinking about whether that was a well designed PvP system or not. I suspect that they were also thinking almost entirely about designing balance of abilities and design of maps, but not thinking about how social interactions and reward structures would steer player behavior, and how to steer it into a fun and rewarding experience.

 

Separate queues aren't a fundamental design problem, and they're therefore also not a design solution. Fixing the dysfunctional design features is what would fix things, and mostly need to focus on social interaction and reward incentives and the interaction of the two. Solve those, and most of the other issues become more tolerable, because even if there's still a lot of crap design in things like class balance, at least there's some prospect of having fun with the poorly designed systems. Conversely, suppose they got perfect class and gear balance for all classes and specs. PvP would still be a toxic swamp because it's not those mechanical balance issues that are causing the toxicity.

 

This is solvable stuff, reliable methods for solving it are out there in the design community it's not some sort of secret. It does however require some deliberation in terms of wanting to create an enjoyable experience for the players, and designing, or in this case redesigning, game systems to make that happen.

Edited by Ramalina
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If the design is functional you shouldn't need separate queues, because doing the group content as a group will be so appealing that solo would be a barren wasteland as a result of player choice. Ie. basically the opposite of how SWTOR works.

 

So in terms of a few concrete examples of terrible social design in SWTOR:

 

Communication. Teamwork requires communication, especially in pick up teams. In SWTOR the communication tool is text chat. What's the problem? Well, since the game is a keyboard and mouse interface, in order to communicate you have to stop playing the game because your interface is locked up in communication mode. In PvP, you really need to be able to play and communicate at the same time. There are a bunch of options here: in game voice client, canned hotkeyable messages (ex: west node under attack, send help), or even working with a third party like Discord to have some sort of game integration where if Discord is running and you get a PvP pop it auto creates a channel for each team and auto invites all the queued players or something along those lines. The bar here is low, the communication just has to be a global positive, not a zero sum "choose to impair my team by not communicating or to impair it by not playing actively while communicating." Communication doesn't always pay off, so the clear incentive here in the base game mechanics is to discourage communication, because it competes in an exclusive fashion with active play, and active play is more reliably rewarding. It's terrible design.

 

Reward structure:

The reward structure is zero sum, and individual performance isn't worth anything unless the team as a whole wins. So the reward seeking strategy is to discern if you think your team has a good chance of winning, and if so make an effort, and if not to abandon hope and put out no effort, because you're not playing against the other team, you're playing against the other team and some portion of your own team. And people wonder why PvPers in SWTOR act toxic. How smart was it to set up a reward structure where your own team is easy to perceive as enemies? Not very. A reasonable alternative, one that incentivizes teamwork, is an additive reward structure. So set goals that reflect individual performance, and measure those. Give some reward for individual effort, and some reward for team average effort, and a bonus for actual victory. Now there's incentive for individual effort, incentive for group effort, and incentive for group success. If you're especially smart as a designer, you also target cooperative behavior as a specific area to reward, probably generously.

 

SWTOR's PvP isn't a toxic cesspool because that's what's players were hoping for, it's a toxic cesspool because there are a host of design features actively rewarding players for making it a cesspool and impairing any efforts to change that.

 

I don't think that the developers set out to design a deliberately dysfunctional unappealing PvP system. I think they just got told to build a near copy of Lich King to Cata era WoW PvP, and did exactly that without thinking about whether that was a well designed PvP system or not. I suspect that they were also thinking almost entirely about designing balance of abilities and design of maps, but not thinking about how social interactions and reward structures would steer player behavior, and how to steer it into a fun and rewarding experience.

 

Separate queues aren't a fundamental design problem, and they're therefore also not a design solution. Fixing the dysfunctional design features is what would fix things, and mostly need to focus on social interaction and reward incentives and the interaction of the two. Solve those, and most of the other issues become more tolerable, because even if there's still a lot of crap design in things like class balance, at least there's some prospect of having fun with the poorly designed systems. Conversely, suppose they got perfect class and gear balance for all classes and specs. PvP would still be a toxic swamp because it's not those mechanical balance issues that are causing the toxicity.

 

This is solvable stuff, reliable methods for solving it are out there in the design community it's not some sort of secret. It does however require some deliberation in terms of wanting to create an enjoyable experience for the players, and designing, or in this case redesigning, game systems to make that happen.

 

Part of SWTOR issue is that the devs listening to the loudmouths on the forums have contributed to making regs worse. Where do you think the "win-only" points for dailies and weeklies in regs came from? It came from endless whiners complaining people no OBJ or people only deathmatch so this way people are now FORCED to play obj. WRONG. People gona play how they want period regardless of what the outcome is. Isn't that Bioware's motto? Play your way?

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If the design is functional you shouldn't need separate queues, because doing the group content as a group will be so appealing that solo would be a barren wasteland as a result of player choice. Ie. basically the opposite of how SWTOR works.

 

So in terms of a few concrete examples of terrible social design in SWTOR:

 

Communication. Teamwork requires communication, especially in pick up teams. In SWTOR the communication tool is text chat. What's the problem? Well, since the game is a keyboard and mouse interface, in order to communicate you have to stop playing the game because your interface is locked up in communication mode. In PvP, you really need to be able to play and communicate at the same time. There are a bunch of options here: in game voice client, canned hotkeyable messages (ex: west node under attack, send help), or even working with a third party like Discord to have some sort of game integration where if Discord is running and you get a PvP pop it auto creates a channel for each team and auto invites all the queued players or something along those lines. The bar here is low, the communication just has to be a global positive, not a zero sum "choose to impair my team by not communicating or to impair it by not playing actively while communicating." Communication doesn't always pay off, so the clear incentive here in the base game mechanics is to discourage communication, because it competes in an exclusive fashion with active play, and active play is more reliably rewarding. It's terrible design.

 

Reward structure:

The reward structure is zero sum, and individual performance isn't worth anything unless the team as a whole wins. So the reward seeking strategy is to discern if you think your team has a good chance of winning, and if so make an effort, and if not to abandon hope and put out no effort, because you're not playing against the other team, you're playing against the other team and some portion of your own team. And people wonder why PvPers in SWTOR act toxic. How smart was it to set up a reward structure where your own team is easy to perceive as enemies? Not very. A reasonable alternative, one that incentivizes teamwork, is an additive reward structure. So set goals that reflect individual performance, and measure those. Give some reward for individual effort, and some reward for team average effort, and a bonus for actual victory. Now there's incentive for individual effort, incentive for group effort, and incentive for group success. If you're especially smart as a designer, you also target cooperative behavior as a specific area to reward, probably generously.

 

SWTOR's PvP isn't a toxic cesspool because that's what's players were hoping for, it's a toxic cesspool because there are a host of design features actively rewarding players for making it a cesspool and impairing any efforts to change that.

 

I don't think that the developers set out to design a deliberately dysfunctional unappealing PvP system. I think they just got told to build a near copy of Lich King to Cata era WoW PvP, and did exactly that without thinking about whether that was a well designed PvP system or not. I suspect that they were also thinking almost entirely about designing balance of abilities and design of maps, but not thinking about how social interactions and reward structures would steer player behavior, and how to steer it into a fun and rewarding experience.

 

Separate queues aren't a fundamental design problem, and they're therefore also not a design solution. Fixing the dysfunctional design features is what would fix things, and mostly need to focus on social interaction and reward incentives and the interaction of the two. Solve those, and most of the other issues become more tolerable, because even if there's still a lot of crap design in things like class balance, at least there's some prospect of having fun with the poorly designed systems. Conversely, suppose they got perfect class and gear balance for all classes and specs. PvP would still be a toxic swamp because it's not those mechanical balance issues that are causing the toxicity.

 

This is solvable stuff, reliable methods for solving it are out there in the design community it's not some sort of secret. It does however require some deliberation in terms of wanting to create an enjoyable experience for the players, and designing, or in this case redesigning, game systems to make that happen.

 

Lots of good points 👏🏻

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As for the anti-social argument, that's a bunch of rubbish at it's foundation. Social primates are deeply social animals to the point that lack of social interaction causes physiological stress that is clinically measurable.

Then tell me, why has solo que grouping been such a success in getting people to touch content they wouldnt otherwise do? And by solo que I am clearly referring to the system where you click a button and get a group to do a dungeon you want, you know the thing that almost all major mmorpgs have these days because many people didnt want to socialize, just to do group content and a solo que removes the obstacle of socialization.

That pre solo que era where people had to talk with others to do a dungeon was a disaster no matter how nostalgic you specifically might feel, that is why that design didnt survive.

 

Tell me, why do most groups that solo que through group finder, get in an MM FP and barely ever talk other than a "hi" at the start and just go ahead and focus on clearing the dungeon

 

Or the fact that organized grouping is always done by a minority, it isnt like people dont want the rewards behind said organized group content because solo que proved that false, people want the reward, they just dont want to socialize.

 

You might not like reality, but the fact that the majority of players see socialization as an OBSTACLE, and suddenly do content once that OBSTACLE has been removed, solo que systems proved that.

 

So maybe it is time for you to adjust your views based on reality rather than force your belief on socialization one everyone else.

 

Many of us here are playing because we enjoy the gameplay and competition offered by an MMORPG, not because we like being social

Edited by ralphieceaser
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Then tell me, why has solo que grouping been such a success in getting people to touch content they wouldnt otherwise do? And by solo que I am clearly referring to the system where you click a button and get a group to do a dungeon you want, you know the thing that almost all major mmorpgs have these days because many people didnt want to socialize, just to do group content and a solo que removes the obstacle of socialization.

That pre solo que era where people had to talk with others to do a dungeon was a disaster no matter how nostalgic you specifically might feel, that is why that design didnt survive.

 

Tell me, why do most groups that solo que through group finder, get in an MM FP and barely ever talk other than a "hi" at the start and just go ahead and focus on clearing the dungeon

 

Or the fact that organized grouping is always done by a minority, it isnt like people dont want the rewards behind said organized group content because solo que proved that false, people want the reward, they just dont want to socialize.

 

You might not like reality, but the fact that the majority of players see socialization as an OBSTACLE, and suddenly do content once that OBSTACLE has been removed, solo que systems proved that.

 

So maybe it is time for you to adjust your views based on reality rather than force your belief on socialization one everyone else.

 

Many of us here are playing because we enjoy the gameplay and competition offered by an MMORPG, not because we like being social

 

I would also like to add. Why is the ranked solo queue more popular than the group queue if people are social animals?

If you follow some of the other arguments, then by right, the solo ranked queue should be the one that’s dead and not the premade group queue (which is deader than dead). And why did BioWare need extra incentives (augment mats) to get people to play group ranked or even NiM Ops?

 

The whole premise that people should have to form groups to play pvp is outdated. BioWare should have either fixed the matchmaking system so that it “ONLY” puts premades vs premades or add another queue for solos. People that have argued against that are disingenuous because it shows what that really want is an unfair advantage against other players.

 

Sadly, we no longer have enough players to have 2 queues. So that argument is moot because it wouldn’t work. But BioWare can make the matchmaking system work better. And they could reduce the premade sizes to a max of 2 man, which would allow the matchmaking to work better (or at least not be strained to breaking so easily).

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If you follow some of the other arguments, then by right, the solo ranked queue should be the one that’s dead and not the premade group queue (which is deader than dead). And why did BioWare need extra incentives (augment mats) to get people to play group ranked or even NiM Ops?

 

Exactly, these activities are avoided so much by the majority of the playerbase, even putting bigger and bigger behind them doesnt make the popular.

 

This seems to be a common mmorpg design mistake, history has shown that no matter how huge of a reward you put behind high end organized group content you never manage to make it a popular activity.

 

And it isnt like people dont want the rewards, who wouldnt want the best rewards in the game, but the problem is the obstacle of socialization for many is a deal breaker, no matter how much they might want something, if it is gated behind socialization they ll either quit or never do that content because of the barrier that they will never overcome,

Solo que group finder systems fixed that problem by removing said barrier for most people, thus suddenly you got a lot of people doing group content(though with the solo mindset, I am here to clear the dungeon for myself and get rewards, not be social) they wouldnt have otherwise done, so the demand is there, it is up to the devs to remove the obstacle.

Why you ask?

Well i assume you want players to spend more time in your game doing content, if you put a social barrier behind many parts of a game and rewards suddenly the amount of time they ll stay will be far less because both content and rewards that dont suffer from the obstacle of socialization are far less, thus less to do.

Plus some will quit simply because of the fact exclusive rewards are gated behind content they dont like doing so they ll never get to enjoy the game like the other players since the devs have not deemed them special enough for said reward in their type of content.

 

 

Mmorpgs definitely need to start focusing on the more casual side of the playerbase because they are by far the majority, this outdated philosophy of "we need to seriously incentivize group content" needs to stop.

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By making the weekly require wins only to count, we have seen an increased amount of premades farming quick wins since premades are always more organized and focused, often times literally steamrolling the enemy team to the point everyone realizes it is pointless and afk.

 

Worse though is the fact that when people keep seeing the same names in the enemy team steamrolling them they are starting to stop quing because it is never fun to have a pug vs premade and there is no point getting destroyed.

 

The premades are causing such a big problem that people stop queing to avoid them

 

And we go from 8v8 warzones to suddenly non stop arena matches on high activity times, either let losses count or ban premades from queing together.

 

crying about premades in MMO game is like crying about hot temperature while being on vacation at the beach in Egypt. Besides, say thanks to developers that they ruined team ranked and players simply can't get any pops for team ranked matches which means that they have no choice but to queue unranked pvp since...well there is no other group pvp activities left....

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Why is the ranked solo queue more popular than the group queue if people are social animals?

 

Because only 2 teams play group ranked and ppl don't like getting farmed by the same team over and over again. That's it. It's not about being social or not. Most solo ranked players are in discord or twitch anyways.

 

And why did BioWare need extra incentives (augment mats) to get people to play group ranked or even NiM Ops?

 

Because BioWare wants to incentivize casuals who complete the story in 1 week to keep paying their sub and try/grind harder content.

Edited by septru
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I used to feel the same way about premades in regs but then I realised people are just queueing with their friends because queueing alone isn't fun. It's the same for games like cod or apex man. You're gonna have a tought time with solo matchmaking and you'll probably rage quit because a group of friends will dominate the match. And like what others have said about granked. The few teams that queue for it have most likely been doing it since 4's started so there's no point queueing up to get melted.
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crying about premades in MMO game is like crying about hot temperature while being on vacation at the beach in Egypt. Besides, say thanks to developers that they ruined team ranked and players simply can't get any pops for team ranked matches which means that they have no choice but to queue unranked pvp since...well there is no other group pvp activities left....

 

But how did they ruin group ranked so much that people don’t play it? Seriously, if group is the preferred method of pvp by the ranked community, why don’t people play it?

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Because only 2 teams play group ranked and ppl don't like getting farmed by the same team over and over again. That's it. It's not about being social or not. Most solo ranked players are in discord or twitch anyways.

 

LMAO, seriously, if you want to use that argument, then it’s no it’s no different to people saying they don’t want to get farmed by premades when they are solo in regs.

 

What’s good for ranked should be good for regs. If regs have to have a stupid deserter timer and win only requirements because ranked needs it, then regs should also have a solo queue the same as ranked.

 

You ranked guys with your double standards. Always going on over the years how regs doesn’t matter is why it’s such a s**t show now.

 

This whole thread and argument boils down to a few points when you sweep away all the Bull s**t rhetoric.

 

1. Making seperate solo and premade queues for regs would mean the premade queue would hardly ever pop. Because “only 2 teams would play group and ppl don't like getting farmed by the same team over and over again”

 

2. Some people need to premade to have an unfair advantage to farm solos so that they feel superior. Removing premades from solos would mean they would have to play other premades. Refer to point 1.

 

3. Most solo players would prefer solo vs solo so that the games are more fair and balanced.

 

4. Premades vs solos reduces the amount of people queuing which makes the matchmaking worse and more unbalanced. Premade players don’t really care cause they can roflstomp solos easier.

 

5. Matchmaking is broken ASF and with less people queuing, it will only get worse. Premades vs solos is only accelerating the demise of reg pvp faster.

 

That’s the gist of the all the arguments. Sadly, some people would prefer to see reg pvp die if they can’t have an unfair advantage.

Edited by TrixxieTriss
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I've been playing swtor since beta and basically have done nothing but pvp over the years. I don't even remember the last time I went on a Operation. Anyway Pre-mades... are they fun to fight against? Obviously no it's not. Is it an issue the Devs have to fix? No... why you may ask? Well SWTOR at the end of the day is in fact a MMORPG so if you're playing an MMO to not socialize at all you're playing the game wrong. These que systems are generally disliked and to some outright hated systems that MMOs keep putting in because it's easier to make a que system then to moderate chat rooms for finding groups. People can almost get away with saying anything in general chat and never get banned because it's most likely not moderated in the slightest.

 

It's almost a learn to play issue as well and I'll tell you why. Two very skilled players and most certainly destroy a 4 man team of average players. My friend and I did it and still do to this day.

 

I will say this however, the skill gap on players vary wildly You'll generally be considered either a "good player" or a "bad or noob player".

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People blame Solo que for there failures in regz PvP. But they are the failure.

 

On DM most premades are usually farming so winning the game if you use common sense is fairly easy.

Yet when I try to guide the game to win, what do solo-noobs do, they let themselves be farmed even more.

 

Its really easy to win these games if you use your brain. Most people shot themselves in the foot in this game, they do not call, thinking they are good for a 1vs1, and let themselves be farmed.

Having an AH versus a premade spread the game split the pylons and forget mid. And spread it near the pylon as much as you can. Same as VS fight away from doors stick all to one side easy cap. Etc etc

 

People blame premades, but its not like most premades are trying to win, they are just farming and with that easy win. Two/three in a team with an objective sense will thrash a farming premade. If you have a premade with an objective sense then you need 5/6 working objectives players and do a very defensive game to win it.

With current player base at least on DM that is difficult, and yes it burns you out.

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Because only 2 teams play group ranked and ppl don't like getting farmed by the same team over and over again. That's it. It's not about being social or not. Most solo ranked players are in discord or twitch anyways.

 

 

 

Because BioWare wants to incentivize casuals who complete the story in 1 week to keep paying their sub and try/grind harder content.

 

No offense i hope but I feel like this is a little bit of a copout.

If all the people that wanted to or should be doing group queue, actually queued, this wouldn't be the case.

There are multiple groups in regs every night, if they shifted to ranked, feels a little like problem solved? You might get that monster group every few matches but hoesntly how is that any different than those groups obliterating regs?

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But how did they ruin group ranked so much that people don’t play it? Seriously, if group is the preferred method of pvp by the ranked community, why don’t people play it?

 

Reasons why it happened doesn't matter. IT is a fact. First of all, you need to understand that even when team ranked was alive - premades still were out in unranked. Most of premades you see in unranked aren't formed of RANKED players. They are same unranked players who decided for whatever reasons (new lockout sanction, bad queue, just for fun) to queue together. If you are interested why team ranked died there are many threads and posts revealing the reason - https://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=980799&page=3

https://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=969345

https://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=974660

 

short answer: the chain of bad teams>learning teams>decent teams>top teams was ruined by removing mats from team ranked AND providing "only-win quests". These two factors resulted into stagnation of team ranked. Bring back same quest system we had in seasons 9-10 and i guarantee that team ranked will be revived.

 

YEt, once again - even when team ranked was active and alive, unranked still had tonnes of active premade groups. Death of team ranked brought in only few additional groups to it....

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No offense i hope but I feel like this is a little bit of a copout.

If all the people that wanted to or should be doing group queue, actually queued, this wouldn't be the case.

There are multiple groups in regs every night, if they shifted to ranked, feels a little like problem solved? You might get that monster group every few matches but hoesntly how is that any different than those groups obliterating regs?

 

Not quite sure what you mean by copout? Which part?

 

There are a lot of people that group to play with their friends, but there are also a lot of people that would otherwise typically lose in regs that group so that they can dominate. This is where I agree with you and TrixxieTriss.

 

My point has been, and always will be, that the response to getting dominated by premades shouldn't to be whine about it, but to make your own premade. Because 1) premades encourage group play 2) group play provides a space to learn and ask for tips from your teammates 3) (and this is more a BioWare argument than anything else) players that have friends in the game are more likely to continue paying their sub.

 

TrixxieTriss argues that people shouldn't be forced to group up to have a fair chance of competing, which I fundamentally disagree with for the above reasons. They (she?) also argue that the lack of population in group ranked is indicative of how players are by nature "not social." Moreover, they argue that since ranked has two formats, so should regs. My comments about group ranked were meant to demonstrate that the assertions they make about ranked are incorrect and on the whole irrelevent.

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Not quite sure what you mean by copout? Which part?

 

There are a lot of people that group to play with their friends, but there are also a lot of people that would otherwise typically lose in regs that group so that they can dominate. This is where I agree with you and TrixxieTriss.

 

My point has been, and always will be, that the response to getting dominated by premades shouldn't to be whine about it, but to make your own premade. Because 1) premades encourage group play 2) group play provides a space to learn and ask for tips from your teammates 3) (and this is more a BioWare argument than anything else) players that have friends in the game are more likely to continue paying their sub.

 

TrixxieTriss argues that people shouldn't be forced to group up to have a fair chance of competing, which I fundamentally disagree with for the above reasons. They (she?) also argue that the lack of population in group ranked is indicative of how players are by nature "not social." Moreover, they argue that since ranked has two formats, so should regs. My comments about group ranked were meant to demonstrate that the assertions they make about ranked are incorrect and on the whole irrelevent.

 

Instead of commenting eternal premade cries better help me to figure out this matter - https://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=999923

 

thanks

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Not quite sure what you mean by copout? Which part?

 

There are a lot of people that group to play with their friends, but there are also a lot of people that would otherwise typically lose in regs that group so that they can dominate. This is where I agree with you and TrixxieTriss.

 

My point has been, and always will be, that the response to getting dominated by premades shouldn't to be whine about it, but to make your own premade. Because 1) premades encourage group play 2) group play provides a space to learn and ask for tips from your teammates 3) (and this is more a BioWare argument than anything else) players that have friends in the game are more likely to continue paying their sub.

 

TrixxieTriss argues that people shouldn't be forced to group up to have a fair chance of competing, which I fundamentally disagree with for the above reasons. They (she?) also argue that the lack of population in group ranked is indicative of how players are by nature "not social." Moreover, they argue that since ranked has two formats, so should regs. My comments about group ranked were meant to demonstrate that the assertions they make about ranked are incorrect and on the whole irrelevent.

 

Actually the gist of my whole argument is BioWare need to fix regs so that it’s a more balanced and fair experience for the masses. While ever it is so totally unbalanced and unfair, less people will play it. I referenced the rank system to show the inconsistencies between BioWares approach to regs and ranked.

 

If the matchmaking worked better and balanced the team compositions with premades and player skills properly, then having premades mixed in with solos wouldn’t be as big a deal (how it wasn’t in the past). Like you and I have both said in this exact thread, the issue is the matchmaking system and lack of population.

 

Sadly, we all know BioWare can’t improve the population drastically. They might get a small bump with the expansion of 7.2 patch. But we know ChrisS’s statements about improving population is a pipe dream. It will never happen because BioWare don’t have the right mind set or the right people or enough money/resources to make it happen.

 

Which means matchmaking will never work as well as it should or could. And when you add premades to the mix, the matchmaking literally breaks because there just aren’t enough people in the queue at anyone time to balance out premades vs solo teams.

 

Add all the other problems that the “whole of pvp” has and it makes less people wanting to play it and that is why regs is such a s**t show and why pvp as a whole is dying in this game.

 

We need to stop arguing about why we shouldn’t change somethings if it means that we get more player participation. At the moment everyone is transfixed on telling solo players to make groups and solo players are saying they shouldn’t have to premade to have an enjoyable pvp experience. Both points are relevant.

 

Sadly, this game doesn’t cater to both points of view because BioWare are unwilling to compromise. It’s BioWares lack of vision and absolute dumb arse decision making over the years that have led to this situation. Half of which were pointed out by me and others at the time and predicted this very scenario would happen.

 

Getting rid of pvp gear and comms killed the Lowbie brackets entirely. That is where people should be learning to pvp, but they don’t because BioWare made it so unappealing to play lowbies. So you have people trying to learn pvp at max level.

Myself and others saw what this would do to pvp in general and wrote many threads and posts with ideas to reinvigorate lowbies. BioWare of course totally ignored it.

 

Just about everything myself of others have suggested to BioWare over the years on how to improve the pvp echo system and regs has also be derided by the ranked community to the point of telling BioWare and every non ranked player that regs and any non ranked pvp, doesn’t matter. Sadly, BioWare chose to listen to the ranked community and now the rest of pvp is a s**t show. Players also stopped caring along the way and stopped trying to play properly or get better.

 

The only way to move forward is for BioWare and some elite players to stop being so rigid in their thinking when it comes to pvp outside of ranked. That means the time of 4 man premades vs full pug teams has run its course. The matchmaking can’t support it and neither can the game population. If you want pvp to continue for much longer, somethings have got to change.

Edited by TrixxieTriss
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ngl this game is on its way out. Its completely stale and the devs only efforts are going into making a new character creation screen and other mindless low effort>short term reward corporate think dev game development tactics is gona maybe earn them a few thousand bucks in Cartel Market sales then these new players are gona be back out the door once they hit max level and get bored. Maybe its just because there is an expansion near but I have never seen regs so dead. When ranked is popping faster at night then you know there is a problem and I can see why people don't wana queue. Your average SWTOR pvp player doesn't like actual PvP. They get no satisfaction out of destroying other players but what does tickle their fancy is that "Victory" screen after successfully juggling Giradda's big sweaty Huttballs across the map. Even if that victory screen is associated with themselves being absolutrly murdered and spending half the match running back mid from spawn. The Victory screen gives them the same adrenaline spike one who actually can put out numbers or take on multiple players at a time by themselves might get. Now why are there less people queueing? Well given the fact that the average SWTOR player who pvp's hates pvp now they are no longer able to finish the dailies or weeklies in a reasonable time they just stop queueing. They see no Victory screen and those grey loot boxes are a slap in the face to anyone who cares about that stuff. Personally I just vendor them or delete them. I have unlimited stacks of WZ adrenals/medpacks and don't have the time to nor desire to open them. Now look at rank. You lose rank you get a blue lootbox. Weekly gives you a gold one and wins give you a purple. You basically get more from losing rank then you get from winning a regs or losing like 50 regs because the grey lootbox has nothing in it. When did devs get so fixated on all this lootbox casino nonsense with the galactic renown bar and this weird left side drop down menu that shows me there is a cash shop and ridiculous and useless login rewards. What is this game that used to be SWTOR lol....God I cannot wait for February. NEW MMO TIME FINALLY BABY. Its obvious that this is no the game I remember and its also obvious the devs dont care. Like I have been ranting about before they removed the suggestion box because they got tired of reading it. Now we have a pvp forum echo chamber where devs who are most likely much too busy plotting the next weird UI change to sneak in some more images of cartel market clickables to engage the playerbase on said forums.
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Uhhh..... The average time it takes to finish the weekly is about 4 hours give or take depending on RNG or how sweaty your playing. Honestly I usually finish it in about 2-3 hours queuing solo. (If you don't believe I stream on twitch every now and then.)

 

:)

Edited by TmoneyTime
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ngl this game is on its way out. Its completely stale and the devs only efforts are going into making a new character creation screen and other mindless low effort>short term reward corporate think dev game development tactics is gona maybe earn them a few thousand bucks in Cartel Market sales then these new players are gona be back out the door once they hit max level and get bored. Maybe its just because there is an expansion near but I have never seen regs so dead. When ranked is popping faster at night then you know there is a problem and I can see why people don't wana queue. Your average SWTOR pvp player doesn't like actual PvP. They get no satisfaction out of destroying other players but what does tickle their fancy is that "Victory" screen after successfully juggling Giradda's big sweaty Huttballs across the map. Even if that victory screen is associated with themselves being absolutrly murdered and spending half the match running back mid from spawn. The Victory screen gives them the same adrenaline spike one who actually can put out numbers or take on multiple players at a time by themselves might get. Now why are there less people queueing? Well given the fact that the average SWTOR player who pvp's hates pvp now they are no longer able to finish the dailies or weeklies in a reasonable time they just stop queueing. They see no Victory screen and those grey loot boxes are a slap in the face to anyone who cares about that stuff. Personally I just vendor them or delete them. I have unlimited stacks of WZ adrenals/medpacks and don't have the time to nor desire to open them. Now look at rank. You lose rank you get a blue lootbox. Weekly gives you a gold one and wins give you a purple. You basically get more from losing rank then you get from winning a regs or losing like 50 regs because the grey lootbox has nothing in it. When did devs get so fixated on all this lootbox casino nonsense with the galactic renown bar and this weird left side drop down menu that shows me there is a cash shop and ridiculous and useless login rewards. What is this game that used to be SWTOR lol....God I cannot wait for February. NEW MMO TIME FINALLY BABY. Its obvious that this is no the game I remember and its also obvious the devs dont care. Like I have been ranting about before they removed the suggestion box because they got tired of reading it. Now we have a pvp forum echo chamber where devs who are most likely much too busy plotting the next weird UI change to sneak in some more images of cartel market clickables to engage the playerbase on said forums.

 

You aren't far from the truth.

 

I took a serious brake from ranked this summer -autumn and for a few months from the game too . Coming back, I stopped doing regular PVP because it's so terrible . Farming players isn't fun , getting LAGBALL and Voidstar pops isn't fun either . By the way, the Ques garbage pit map is so bugged and dsynced again .

 

So ranked is the way to go. More challenging and frustrating at the same time, but worthwhile,despite it's flaws. You can buy nice gear, while in regs you get nothing.

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Uhhh..... The average time it takes to finish the weekly is about 4 hours give or take depending on RNG or how sweaty your playing. Honestly I usually finish it in about 2-3 hours queuing solo. (If you don't believe I stream on twitch every now and then.)

 

:)

 

That’s totally dependent on 1) what server you are on 2) what time you play 3) wether you get good RNG matchmaking 4) wether it’s premades vs solos.

 

Your experience or even my experience isn’t the same as the next players. You only need to read all the social media on different sites or apps to realise what you describe isn’t the norm for the majority of those posting on the web.

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I have not been in a premade since the great <Choatic Pixels> was around. I don't guild, it pointless, pvp guilds are a joke now. I win all the time though. This argument is old, crusty, and dumb.

 

Let me requote my last post in response

 

That’s totally dependent on 1) what server you are on 2) what time you play 3) wether you get good RNG matchmaking 4) wether it’s premades vs solos.
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