The Feast

[Praesul]

Edit: In relation to the unranked / bronze not understanding what's going on. I feel like SE wants high ranking players to the inexperienced how to PvP with how it's currently set up. Problem is you're given 1 min before the gates open to explain the plan to everyone. Most of the time w/ more experience players much doesn't need to be said. Inexperienced players need more coaching and guidance which is complicated to fit into that 1min. 1/2 the time players aren't even loading until 20~30 seconds. You also can't teach someone their class and it's extremely obvious when a healer isn't up to par.

People in gold have hundreds of matches of experience, probably more from previous season and from playing in Frontline, and it's like SE expects people to cram all that experience into new players within a minute.

It's insanity.

[Februs]

I've received plenty of comments from players similar to "xD why do you care, it's just PvP".

I was always under the impression that Aether had the 'better' PvP community, but some of the stories I've heard from your data centre make me very happy to be on Primal ... >.>

Regardless, I understand your frustrations, but that's no reason to shoot queues in the foot. You might be happy to have a 30+ minute wait time in order to avoid the bronze and unranked tier, but SE has to consider the community as a whole. They can't base matchmaking solely on the whims and wants of the elitists, especially when the actual point of the game is to just play the game. If matchmaking is too restrictive, then you end up with stagnant queues. Stagnant queues create an exclusive and stagnant ranking system. We already saw how that worked in season 1, and it was awfully boring until the failure of Shatter brought people back to Feast. Even then, untested players were still a problem. It's just that the buck of dealing with them was passed down to silver ranked players instead of gold.

Don't get me wrong here, I do agree, wholeheartedly, that there is a certain level of play that should be upheld in a ranked game mode. I just don't think that overly restrictive matchmaking is the answer. An un-ranked game mode sounds good on paper ... but, quite frankly I don't think anyone would queue for it, so it would be a pointless gesture on SE's part. I'm inclined to think that some kind of qualification system should be in place. I just don't know how it should be implemented, especially when SE took pre-seasons off of the table ...

[Kaiyoko]

It's pretty sad when I see even the best players on the leaderboard struggle to climb, and quite a few of them LOSING points some days, especially with how good their winrates are. Top 30 or so on Aether is a clown fiesta because matches are being decided solely on who gets more bronze/unranked players in their party, and it's showing. Everyone's progress this season is really slow, and a lot of top players aren't even queuing anymore, or only queuing at certain times just to avoid the insane RNG swings.

Yeah this is definitely how I feel. I was in top 10 on Aether for a week and then I started getting non-stop bronze/unranked, lost a ton of points due to 2-3 dc's and 2-3min matches with bronze / unranked and just don't feel like dealing with it anymore.

Regardless, I understand your frustrations, but that's no reason to shoot queues in the foot. You might be happy to have a 30+ minute wait time in order to avoid the bronze and unranked tier, but SE has to consider the community as a whole. They can't base matchmaking solely on the whims and wants of the elitists, especially when the actual point of the game is to just play the game. If matchmaking is too restrictive, then you end up with stagnant queues. Stagnant queues create an exclusive and stagnant ranking system. We already saw how that worked in season 1, and it was awfully boring until the failure of Shatter brought people back to Feast. Even then, untested players were still a problem. It's just that the buck of dealing with them was passed down to silver ranked players instead of gold.

The thing is they have more people available for bronze / unranked to give people experience playing with players that are closer to their skill level that is more regularly available. I've been matched with all variations of roles, so I know the people are available in queue. They're matching the golds+ w/ those people just because of our spot in queue and what seems to be how their match making takes 1~2 golds per team 2~3 bronze / unranked. They would only be dramatically slowing the queues for Gold+ if it actually followed what they said in the patch notes.

[Praesul]

Yeah this is definitely how I feel. I was in top 10 on Aether for a week and then I started getting non-stop bronze/unranked, lost a ton of points due to 2-3 dc's and 2-3min matches with bronze / unranked and just don't feel like dealing with it anymore.

I fell out of gold THREE TIMES because soon after I get to gold, I get strings of games with super inexperienced players. It's extremely disheartening, but I managed to muscle through and get back every single time. At this point though I don't think I'll keep going, it's just way too volatile.

[Enlial]

I think, everything considered, the change I'd most like to see is something along the lines of "upon a loss, lose rank based on the lowest ranked member of your party. On a win, gain rank based on the rank of the highest ranked member of your opponents party." It certainly isnt perfect, but I dont think there is a perfect solution. If we had things working that way I think it'd blunt a lot of the rage towards newer players ("gdi what a horrible loss, oh but thank god we had this unranked player on our team so we only lost 10 points". Would make ppl much less apt to rage against said unranked player). Yeah it might make things more grindy since we'd probably see a higher net gain of points over more matches played, but thats pretty much been established as a necessary evil. Exploitativeness wouldnt really be any worse or better than it is currently, as far as I can see, but if eventually enough people start queuing, well, less predictability would cut down on a lot of it.

[Noutaja]

how hard is it to add unranked mode 4v4 for practice? i would participate in that mode more than the ranked mode just for fun lol, for when i would be saving my rank XD. 4v4 unranked mode shouldn't give eso or give minimum like 5 eso . so we don't have to deal with eso farmers :P

Exactly this. Infact I bet unranked would be even more popular, and It wouldnt hurt the amount of ppl participating in the ranked season, ranked for the serious business when everyone is playing their best and are experienced enough.

[Februs]

The thing is they have more people available for bronze / unranked to give people experience playing with players that are closer to their skill level that is more regularly available.

I get you. I'm just a little more concerned about the later end of the season. Back in season 1, golds and higher flat out stopped queuing near the mid to late season just to protect their rank, and the system rewarded them for doing that. They didn't have to worry about losing their spot because there wasn't enough activity to generate any movement in the rankings. The top 100 barely budged an inch for the last month (until the last week, when people started to scramble for last minute points). Personally, I don't think that's a good thing, because I don't believe anyone should feel 'safe' about their rank in a game mode that is supposed to be competitive ... and it's just plain boring when that happens.

I mean, I HATE losing a match because of a crummy team. My losing streak from last night made me want to punch myself in the face and bring down the ban hammer on everyone who contributed to it, but when I remember the utter boredom of not playing PvP at all I get the totally different attitude of being as inclusive as possible. It's a very strange tug-o-war ...

[Koltik]

I get you. I'm just a little more concerned about the later end of the season. Back in season 1, golds and higher flat out stopped queuing near the mid to late season just to protect their rank, and the system rewarded them for doing that. They didn't have to worry about losing their spot because there wasn't enough activity to generate any movement in the rankings. The top 100 barely budged an inch for the last month (until the last week, when people started to scramble for last minute points). Personally, I don't think that's a good thing, because I don't believe anyone should feel 'safe' about their rank in a game mode that is supposed to be competitive ... and it's just plain boring when that happens.

tbh Primal's gold/plats were more active at the end of S1 than mid S1, so not sure what was going on at other DC's.

[Februs]

Exactly this. Infact I bet unranked would be even more popular, and It wouldnt hurt the amount of ppl participating in the ranked season, ranked for the serious business when everyone is playing their best and are experienced enough.

That's a very optimistic outlook ... but realistically it would really depend on how SE handled rewards.

The problem is that this is a MMO. People never queue for something if there isn't an incentive. That's the same for PvP as it is for PvE. Ranked matches have an added incentive just by the nature of them being ranked. SE would have to offset that in some way for an un-ranked game mode to make it appealing. The first, readily available, option is a greater tome bonus ... but we've seen that before. It turned FL and the early first season of Feast into a cluster f*** of tome farmers. It was anything but enjoyable and queues actually suffered as a result. Yet, without that incentive, people might not queue at all, because, historically, no one wants a game mode in a MMO that doesn't offer them at least something for their time.

[Dimitrii]

I'm just a little more concerned about the later end of the season. Back in season 1, golds and higher flat out stopped queuing near the mid to late season just to protect their rank, and the system rewarded them for doing that.

It will be interesting to see if this problem is mitigated somewhat due to the participation of some players from the top 100 of last year. Since SE has given no indication of us getting new rewards this season compared to last season the people in the top 100 now who were in the top 100 last year won't have any real incentive to sit on rank anymore. I personally just queue now when I'm bored and wanna PVP but don't care about my rank nor being in the top 100 and several other players I've talked to from last season's top 100 say the same thing. That being said though losing still pisses me off and even though I no longer care about my rank I still wanna win every match I'm in.