New matchmaking system is a failure

[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.

[SuperZay]

They need to prioritize unranked vs unranked, bronze vs bronze and so on

There aren't enough players for this which will result in hours long ques and dead mode in the end. Season 1 died for different reason, there was no incentive to que for higher rated players, but with new rating system they pretty much have to play the whole season or they'll drop from Top100.

[Enlial]

I cant really see upsyncing happening not only would having all job abilities thrust upon you at once be overwhelming but I think it'd detract from the experience of slowly unlocking them.

The problem with level 30 wolves den was primarily, I think, that wolves den is a more hardcore mode that isnt going to have appeal to a broader casual playerbase looking for an alternative means to level up. So yeah I'd rule out fold/feast, but nobody in their right mind takes frontlines too seriously. I leveled characted almost solely in battlegrounds back when I played wow so I can definitely see a low level synced mode offering the equivalent xp of low level roulette working. There'd need to be balance adjustments for sure though (adlo was obscenely overpowered in 30 WD iirc). It might be fun to screw around pvping on "non-jobs" xD

As far as splitting the playerbase, I dont know. Ultimately, though, we really have to get more players attracted to pvp. Something like GC restriction removal is just putting a bandaid on cancer. Even if it does make queues pop more frequently, pvp'ers will still be an extreme minority seen as deserving one or two updates per expansion. I'd much prefer that whatever dev resources get spent on us go towards finding ways to get more people to play (and in turn justifying greater attention towards pvp)

[Rose-Wild]

The new system is terrible and needs to go away. To have this system you might as well make the matchmaking be 100% random. Because right now it does the oposite of what's it's ment to do.

You go higher on rating thinking you will scape the new players and find more balanced matches to find out that it's even worst than before because the system will see you are high and usually give you 1 or 2 new players wich is pretty much a free loss specially if it's a healer. If the game can't handle a rating system just remove it or give us 4v4 training wich is really way more needed than 8v8.

[Aviars]

What's worse is the system right now gives people free rating up to bronze, some people actually deserve a negative rating, just the way it is, some people just can't be helped.