New matchmaking system is a failure

[Februs]

I suspect they've scheduled for 3 Feast seasons before kicking it into the same ditch as Secure et al... 3.25~3.35, 3.35~3.45, 3.45~3.55, then 4.0 takes us to Lv70 and all current content passes peacefully into the night... No time for pre-seasons with that schedule...

I really hope that's not the case ... Personally, I'd rather see Feast become the much needed anchor of PvP, rather than see it replaced as soon as the next expansion comes out. For all of it's problems, which really aren't that terrible, it's still one of the best and most consistent PvP game modes that we have. It's also a closed environment that is easy to adjust and build upon, if SE would just put in the effort to do it. Instead of a whole new game mode at 4.0, I'd rather see them use the massive patch time to completely overhaul the game mode we currently have, give Wolves Den Pier a face lift, adjust and expand the vendors, re-spec our PvP menus, etc. Wolves Den was a disaster, so it's no surprise that it was tossed into a bin, but Feast isn't nearly as bad. There's nothing so broken about it (including the debated matchmaking) that it needs to be swept under a rug and replaced.

As for your progression idea, I'm not sure I agree with it. Honestly, it seems a little overly complicated when they could just simply re-scale all of the PvP game modes up to 60 and re-evaluate the rewards to make them equally competitive. Personally, I'm fine with PvP being an end-game thing, because no one really wants to play with only half their skills. The Front Line Roulette would also benefit greatly from having every FL game mode be on equal footing. As for Feast, that's simple. Pre-seasons and preliminary matches (probably via a token system) would solve that problem, or at least ensure that players have at least some experience with the game mode before they start queuing for Ranked matches.

[Nalien]

As for your progression idea, I'm not sure I agree with it. Honestly, it seems a little overly complicated when they could just simply re-scale all of the PvP game modes up to 60 and re-evaluate the rewards to make them equally competitive.

I don't think that helps grow the playerbase... It locks PvP behind the current expansion and a significant PvE grind... OK new players are going to suck if boosted to the current cap, but so long as they're kept out of competitive I really don't care, most people in Frontlines (and sadly, Feast) already suck regardless... There's also situations where new players may be interested in PvP, but quit during the PvE grind to even get there, that's just limiting PvPs growth... The mechanisms for boosting players to the cap already exist in Palace of the Dead, it shouldn't be too hard to transpose them to PvP... There's potentially a large pool of players that PvP could be opened to (I recall the census data having some shockingly low levels), which is only a good thing IMO, their skill level is fairly irrelevant to me... Like I said, just keep them out of competitive (which needs some form of gate as is anyway) and I'm fine with it...

It would do little for competitive, with that in mind, but I would hope that getting people into PvP earlier would both help with non-competitive queues and boost result in better players in general... That's going to pay off in competitive in the long run... As it is I don't think a non-competitive Feast option is particularly viable... The only issue I really see is that, from the perspective of a newb, suddenly getting Lv60 skills is going to be confusing, although it's not like Lv1s would be queuing up, there would have to be a sensible minimum level, IIRC Grand Companies are locked behind Lv20 so thats the starting point given Frontlines... Regardless of minimum level though, it is still potentially confusing and that's why Palace of the Dead builds players up to 60, if they want to address that it's going to be slightly more complicated to implement, but they can easily address it with something we want them to implement anyway; Some form of PvP tutorial... Slap in a quest upon joining a Grand Company that sends you off to the Wolves Den to make players aware of PvP, then have a Hall of the Novice style introduction that also lets new players play with their Lv60 skills...

Done, PvP is less hidden away and opened up to a much large portion of the playerbase, that's only going to be good for PvP in the long run... How skilled they are ultimately doesn't matter to me, I want the PvP community to grow, and locking it behind the current level cap doesn't help that... That's only going to get worse over time as the level cap rises, unless SE opts to implement level boost potions, but then what's really the difference?

[Februs]

The mechanisms for boosting players to the cap already exist in Palace of the Dead, it shouldn't be too hard to transpose them to PvP...

I'm just wrestling with how this would actually work, in practice. I'm not sure I'm following what you mean by 'boosting.'

As far as I know, PoTD resets everyone to lvl 1 when they start, and you have to work back up to 60 within the palace itself. Then you get a portion of the exp you earned within PoTD when you leave. The thing is, a carbon copy of that wouldn't work in PvP, because PvP'ing at lvl 1 would be just plain silly. Even if they started at lvl 20 or 30, there'd still be a problem with divided queues. The original Wolves Den had a similar issue back when there was a lvl 30 queue option. Eventually, the more dedicated PvP'ers get to cap, and the queue times for the more casual crowd at lower levels becomes astronomical. If we want to be as inclusive as possible, then this kind of system doesn't really work. It would seem fine on the first day, when everyone is reset and starting from scratch, but after a week or two there would be a huge divide in the player base and what level of matches they were getting into.

The alternative is just boosting everyone up to 60 within PvP content (which I think is what you're suggesting?), but I'm not sure that would work either ... Even with a tutorial, new players would have a ridiculous learning curve when setting up their hotbars and trying to figure out what all of their lvl 60 moves did. There are some things that only come with experience. Hotbars and specific move usage/utility are two of them. No amount of tutorials will solve that. The system would be much simpler and inclusive, but the actual player experience would be far more complicated and might intimidate new players, especially when a sizable amount of old-time PvP'ers already know what they're doing.

Increased lvl caps only compound that issue, because players who opt out of buying expansions will be left to awkwardly juggle a hotbar that has moves which they only have access to in PvP content. SE has FINALLY allowed us to store action points separately, but they have yet to allow PvP gear-sets to act independently from PvE gear sets, so there is no way to save a PvP hotbar separately from our PvE loudouts. Even if you have 'Pld' set up with two different gear sets (PvE and PvP) they share the same hotbars. Making changes to one, currently, changes the other as well. As things are, that's fine, because we only have PvP moves to worry about. However, if we allow non-expansion players to play at 60 in PvP they'll not only be adding PvP moves to their hotbars, but also all of the PvE additions from 50-60. That can seriously screw with their hotbars, as many of the lvl 60 moves are part of pre-existing combos or rotations. Without being able to save them separately, it would almost not be worth it to even try PvP, because they'd have to reorganize their hotbars depending on what kind of content they want to play that day.

I'm definitely not against the idea itself, I'm just not sure it would work smoothly. SE would have to make a lot of concessions and adjustments to implement it, and I'm sad to say that I just don't trust them to handle it without causing more people to be afraid of PvP, rather than open to trying it.