What if you DIDN'T lose points in Feast?

[Stormfur]

Remember when desynthesis was first released, and in order to level one particular DoH class, you would sacrifice points in another -- and how they scrapped that part because it was ridiculous and cumbersome (not to mention the players found a workaround quickly).

Or an even bigger example -- remember how in 1.0 if you died you lost a boatload of experience points? It was frustrating and made you seethe with rage, right? Made you never want to touch the game again.

Let's face it - nobody likes to lose. So here's an idea --

What if you didn't lose points in Feast when you lost a match?

All you'd be out would be your time. This means if you get a brand new healer (and let's face it, healers can make or break a match), it's really not that big of a deal because even if you do get raked over the coals by the other team, you're out what -- 8 minutes?

This would solve a lot of the current issues in Feast - namely:

• Less toxicity. No more spamming "Nice job!" or wanting to punch a wall because you just lost your platinum promotion
• Beginners can continue to learn even if they're matched with veterans
• Less need to sit on your rank because you wouldn't lose points - only gain when you win

You might say "no risk, no reward" with a system like this -- but you're actually penalized in Feast the better you are. See also: Heavy Medal. As you go through Platinum and Diamond rank, you lose more points than you gain.

Of course, for those that make it into the ranks even with this kind of handicap, it's an AMAZING achievement - no doubt.

But if you read others posts in this forum, you'll see how much they stressed over it and devoted nearly all their playtime to ranking up in Feast to the exclusion of everything else.

This is a game! You're not supposed to stress over it! It's one thing to work toward a goal -- but another thing to force yourself to spend every waking moment queued for a match because you know after the first 3 weeks or so it's going to turn into a dead zone.

So - what would be the downsides of a change like this? Would love to hear your thoughts!

[Vivi_Bushido]

Personally I'm sick of Feast Seasons. I wish they would do seasons for Frontlines and Rival Wings instead.

As for your suggestion. the only thing is; is that wouldn't losing points for a lost make things easier for others to get the rewards for being able to overtake you? If you have more wins versus someone who just begun the season, your spot would be pretty much secure even if you lost a few a now and then.

[Emstidor]

On the one hand, this would make the PVP seasons a lot more grindy since someone who gets on and plays matches every day would eventually be able to overtake you no matter how bad they were, so you'd feel that extra pressure to log on and grind matches just to keep up, and that doesn't sound fun at all. I feel like this would just make the top 100 people the ones with the most time, rather than necessarily the best.

On the other, I think its perfectly arguable that the current system which rewards getting promoted and then absolutely not playing to avoid damaging your score is pretty counter-intuitive, and people might be justified in saying that if you only PVP for the first two weeks out of the season you don't really deserve a top spot versus someone who's willing to work at it season-round.

I'm honestly pretty conflicted, but I agree something needs to be changed.

[Shihen]

While I see where you're coming from with this idea, implementing it would likely introduce a botting problem. Win count would become the new experience point and Diamond rank the new level cap.

Unfortunately, this situation and stress in general is present in virtually all competitive video game scenes. Nobody likes being ranked below someone else, dealing with the fear of loss, or the stress of how challenging a win can sometimes be, but that is what competition is. It doesn't have to be stressful or difficult, but you don't have to be diamond either. The rewards are for people that decide to go through that in order to get them. Everything isn't always easy or chill, and sometimes that's fine.

[Stormfur]

I mean, competition is great. Please don't read into it that I don't want there to be any competition. I love it. I love anything in a game that takes a good, honest effort and rewards you for working toward a goal -- but doubly so if you attain it.

I agree wholeheartedly with seasons for Frontlines and Rival Wings too! But first they need to deal with the botting problem and the balance issues in those respective modes. I didn't imagine this suggestion would encourage bots in Feast, but I suppose if it can be botted, it will be botted.

I guess there are just so many wide open issues with Feast mode that I was trying to think of other ways beyond "bring chat back" to make it better. We've asked for that until we are blue in the face.

My biggest problem with Feast is that it really doesn't encourage cooperative teamwork like a true team mode should. And if one person is less experienced (even more-so if they're a healer), EVERYONE loses points because they don't know what they're doing. It's not entirely their fault though -- the game doesn't really teach them what to do, either.

Imagine a PVE system where you lost experience because someone in your party died in a dungeon. Would that not make you rage?! Of course it would! Punishing everyone for one or two people's actions just breeds animosity and malice. Not losing points because of a loss would help numb that sting a bit. The whole botting thing is an over-arching issues that goes beyond just pvp modes.

I seem to remember someone asked YoshiP in an interview once about the bots -- and rather than punish them entirely -- he said that the team looks at "why people bot" in the first place and sees what they could do to change that.

Not penalizing the group for the actions of a few is a start. Letting us gain experience or rewards based on the effort we put into it is another.

[Paladinleeds]

On the other, I think its perfectly arguable that the current system which rewards getting promoted and then absolutely not playing to avoid damaging your score is pretty counter-intuitive, and people might be justified in saying that if you only PVP for the first two weeks out of the season you don't really deserve a top spot versus someone who's willing to work at it season-round.

This is why some other games (like League of Legends) have "Rank decay" - if you don't play for a while, you lose rank, and I believe it can decay all the way down to Bronze 5 (lowest rank) from Diamond 1 (one of the highest ranks). This could be a counter for it. Including a trough you have to get out of if you join in late (so you have to work extra hard in the shorter amount of time vs someone who's been at it all season). That could potentially work too?

Imagine a PVE system where you lost experience because someone in your party died in a dungeon. Would that not make you rage?! Of course it would!

Been in those games in the past, no I didn't rage over it.

[Stormfur]

Been in those games in the past, no I didn't rage over it.

WHAT game does that in this day and age? I need to know so I can stay away from it.

[Paladinleeds]

WHAT game does that in this day and age? I need to know so I can stay away from it.

They were older games. But heck, if they were to reintroduce it in an MMORPG, I'd be happy with it. I'd be willing to play the game.

[Zojha]

I have to ask: What do you think is the point of a rating system like ranked in the first place...?

Normally in competitive games, rating exists for one reason: To accurately reflect your skill level, so that you can then use that rating as proxy for skill in matchmaking in order to match people of the same skill into the same game so that the games are always as close and of a high quality as possible. Simple enough concept, right?

In order to accurately reflect your skill level, naturally losses need to subtract from the rating, because a loss means your team was worse than the enemy one. And the gain/loss needs to be entirely dependent on the rating discrepancy between the teams alone - that's very intuitive. If your team lost to one the matchmaker rated higher than yours in the first place, yours shouldn't lose as much, because that was the expected outcome from the get-go. If yours lost to one the matchmaker rated lower, yours needs to lose a lot more and theirs gain a lot more because the matchmaker apparently overrated your team, or underrated the enemy team and needs to correct that error. And in full teams, that's fine and dandy and non-controversial because the team works as a unit.

It's the idea of ranked solo queue that is problematic. Naturally, the game doesn't change between Solo queue and Premade queue, so the ranking of the individual is still determined by the performance of the team, but the team is no longer a unit - the players change every match and can be treated as RNG noise factors that distort the rating. As a result, it requires much larger sample sizes to achieve an accurate ranking for an individual, but it 'can' still work over large sample sizes, as you are the only common denominator in all the games and thus, have the most overall influence in the total distribution of games played. So much for competitive games in theory.

And now to Feast in particular.

Feast throws every competitive sense out of the water by making rating gain/loss only marginally dependent on team rating differences - the majority is based on your own rank, unranked can't lose points, bronze loses 5, silver 10, gold 15 etc, winning is around 25 +- 5 depending on matchup. That goes directly against the point of having a ranked system in the first place, because it awards rating by grinding, rather than skill. And so does the suggestion of the OP.

Moreover, since the player pool is low, it draws from a huge range of ratings in order to make matches based on 'average' team rating. By itself, that isn't an issue so long as the average is identical and every player has an equal amount of influence on the match, i.e. the jobs are balanced, because then the skill impacts are going to cancel each other out perfectly. It is an issue because roles aren't balanced in the slightest and a diamond ranged doesn't weigh as heavy as a diamond healer, making for highly lopsided and frustrating matches in spite of a 'technically' fair matchup. This can be fixed by balancing roles, but people, healers in particular, are highly averse to the idea for obvious reasons.


That all said: We already have a system much akin to the one suggested by the OP: PvP experience. You can simply add rewards to the ranks and maybe add some additional ranks and that would serve the same purpose - Grind based rewards. You can also rename it to Feast XP and make it exclusive to Feast if that's your fancy or/and make them seasonal, it doesn't matter because it's the same thing either way.

[Canadane]

Or an even bigger example -- remember how in 1.0 if you died you lost a boatload of experience points? It was frustrating and made you seethe with rage, right? Made you never want to touch the game again.

Perhaps you're thinking of XI.

But anyway, this suggestion would only give the people with the most free time the champion spots.
There's supposed to be risk and reward, this is pvp, not everyone is a winner and it's not supposed to be stress-free. Getting though and past these highly stressful moments is exactly what makes each match so fun.

Though I do think there should be a degradation to points for anyone just sitting and not playing matches. The top 100 kinda just stalls to a halt after so long.