Should they end the season on 3.3

[Aviars]

instead of 3.35? The top 100 of all datacenters seem to be stagnating with people more interested on sitting on their rating than actively playing, same applies to the top 10. Whenever I que it pretty much always the same 10 or so people being cycled over and over again with little variety and with the new frontlines coming out I can only imagine how more disinterested people may become to the feast.

It's hard to think that The Feast will be worth doing for another 2 or so months until 3.35 when a lot of people are just hunkering down for the ranked rewards and playing frontlines instead. TBH I think it would be better to have shorter seasons, we'll have the best of competition for rank in the beginning of the season and right when you would start to see a slowing down in a longer season(now) it would instead have more activity of people trying to get in or people trying to keep their spot due to it being near the end of the season.

There just doesn't seem to be a reason for people to play, especially when currently the end is months away.

[Yawnie]

I feel like it's always like that with PvP.
It's like a shiny new thing when it comes out and people rush to do it, get what they want/need and that's it.

Then when something comes out it'll get active for a while and then die out.

Rinse and repeat.

[Dimitrii]

Idk I kinda was under the impression 3.35 would be 2 weeks after 3.3. But perhaps I'm wrong. Granted I only assumed that since feast started (or at least was supposed to start) 2 weeks after 3.2. So I kinda assumed the season would end 2 weeks after the next major update. Anyway I doubt the seasons end is 2 months away.

[Aviars]

Idk I kinda was under the impression 3.35 would be 2 weeks after 3.3. But perhaps I'm wrong. Granted I only assumed that since feast started (or at least was supposed to start) 2 weeks after 3.2. So I kinda assumed the season would end 2 weeks after the next major update. Anyway I doubt the seasons end is 2 months away.

We have a little under 2 weeks until 3.3 from what everyone else thinks. The difference between 3.2 and 3.25 was about 5 weeks. So there is probably a little less than 2 months left in this season assuming the same pattern.

[Zojha]

There just doesn't seem to be a reason for people to play, especially when currently the end is months away.

Seems like a good thing to address in the meantime, no?

As it is, the Feast ranking meta is to solidify your rating until you qualify for reward X, then play the absolute minimum amount needed to keep that reward. Those are the incentives set by the ranking based rewards. The top 100 right now have literally no reason whatsoever to keep playing, because they only risk losing the reward and they can get their PvP fix elsewhere.

People who are not currently in the top 100 do have reason to play, namely to get in there for the rewards and with the RNG nature of solo queue, the more time you have, the better. Except many know they won't qualify for rewards (in time), so there's no reason to bother at all in the first place.

Whether short or long season, you'll see that exact same pattern for as long as you keep the reward structure the same.

[aeoncs]

Whether short or long season, you'll see that exact same pattern for as long as you keep the reward structure the same.

Exactly this. What really surprises me is why this is even a thing - pretty much every other ranked system I know of, and this is especially true for solo queue, punishes you for not playing at least somewhat regularly.
They really need to fix this in the upcoming season.

[Zojha]

Exactly this. What really surprises me is why this is even a thing - pretty much every other ranked system I know of, and this is especially true for solo queue, punishes you for not playing at least somewhat regularly.

And even that doesn't help much, because people will still only play whatever SE sets as minimum requirement. One game a month? One a week? Both are common activity requirements. And they only really change something for the people at the bottom who might fall out due to that one game per X. LoL has had such an activity requirement ever since, that never stopped people from buying elo boosts and getting their diamond reward.

One would be inclined to base the reward on the highest achieved placement so people only have something to gain but nothing to lose by playing, but that just invites "trading" in a small PvP community such as FFXIV's:"I got rank 1 already, I'll lose games for you now so you can get there as well."

Doing extrinsic motivation right is haaard. And as you notice, I'm not making much of suggestions, because I don't have an answer I couldn't pluck apart myself either.

[aeoncs]

And even that doesn't help much, because people will still only play whatever SE sets as minimum requirement. One game a month? One a week?

Honestly? I would say at least ten games a week; anything less than that would probably change nothing. But I'm also 99% sure that they would never do this and I really can't think of a fail-proof and permanent solution.

[Nalien]

And they only really change something for the people at the bottom who might fall out due to that one game per X.

Tie it to rank; Right now Gold is where the stagnation is, so introduce rating decay at Gold. That forces everyone on the top 100 to actively participate, arguably people would just do their X/week or whatever and stop, but lets not forget why they stopped queuing in the first place... If they lose they're going to need to play more than those "required" games to earn their place back...

That's really only part of the problem though... The rewards, the rating and matchmaking system, even basic PvP mechanics are arguably part of the problem... The current combat dynamics are turning a lot of healers away, for example... Matchmaking is a tough one, we don't have to population to make it really tight, but when it's this loose we end up with matches that are simply unfun, thus people turn away... Same thing with rating, when I get -31 for losing and +19 for a win it enforces "Get a high rating and stop", not to keep playing... The rewards are arguably the worst though... The trophy for first place is pathetic, can't even really be shown off... The crown for the top 10 is lackluster, the gear for the top 100 is the real reward, I think very few people care about anything beyond that, thus people stop once they're in the top 100... The accessories for rank are not only pathetic in concept, but we've not even been shown them... Who is going to push for Diamond for a bleedin' accessory? Personally, I'd have gone with rank based trophies, top 100 get full gear except the body, top 10 get the body, top 1 gets a token to exchange for a unique weapon...

[Zojha]

That's really only part of the problem though...

Iiindeed.

I don't quite get what you're trying to achieve with gating the more desirable rewards behind a higher rating. You only make people lose interest because let's face it: Only very few people have what it takes to get into the highest rankings and people who realize they are not part of these few quickly lose all incentive to keep playing. The reward will only lure those people who consider it within their reach, everyone else will just not bother, so chances are you'll reduce rather than increase participation if you put the carrot too far away. I'm, uh...not sure that's what you want, all things considered.

It's all pretty tricky. To be perfectly honest, I find the idea of ranking based rewards quite cute in the first place, because if anything, trophies for active participation would be needed, not for high level play. But I hear JP datacenters got quite the active PvP scene, so I dunno. Might work out for them somehow.