It's time for Diamonds to play with Golds again and Platinums with Silvers

[Aviars]

I also want to add that the fact that golds don't play with bronze and silvers don't play with unranked makes unranked and bronze dead as can humanly be possible. Literally the whole system we have in place right now kills ques across the board.

[BloodRubyXII]

I also want to add that the fact that golds don't play with bronze and silvers don't play with unranked makes unranked and bronze dead as can humanly be possible. Literally the whole system we have in place right now kills ques across the board.

Silvers do play with unranked. Can confirm as I suffered almost 150 games of it this season.

[Nalien]

I also want to add that the fact that golds don't play with bronze and silvers don't play with unranked makes unranked and bronze dead as can humanly be possible. Literally the whole system we have in place right now kills ques across the board.

Honestly, while it would negatively impact the balance at unranked to Silver matches, I think SE should just throw people who queue for the training option in the ranked queue as unranked players... No rating gain/loss if you queue training, but you end up in the ranked queue at the lowest level... Still balance the teams, if a Platinum player decides to queue for training and is thus thrown in unranked matches, still balance around the fact they're Platinum, for example, 1 Platinum 3 unranked vs 4 Silvers... Would be nice if training queue had an actual purpose, and you'd potentially boost activity in low tier unranked matches... Veterans might end up teaching people in unranked tier as a result too, and boost retention of new players... Or it might just create an even more toxic environment and drive people away... Who cares at this point, throw sh*t at the wall and see what sticks...

At the end of the day, I don't think unranked to Silver matches really matter... Nobody in those matches is on the leaderboard and anyone who really wants to climb is going to get to Gold, if not Platinum anyway, at which point the negative impact of putting potentially Diamond players in unranked via training mode is gone. All it would do is give us training mode as an option to queue for finally, and boost activity in unranked matches to help mitigate the "Feast never pops" mentality that goes around mid/late season? I think the positives outweigh the negatives, personally... Unranked, when it's active enough to pop, is already apparently hell, what's throwing one more match on going to do? At least it could be more active and allow people to climb out faster...

Only major aspect that would need to be balanced would probably be the duo queue for training... That'd probably need to be removed, even though I gather people like that... Duo queue and a training queue that never pops, or no duo queue and an active training mode? Hard call...

[BloodRubyXII]

SNIP

There's so much focus on getting new people into Feast. It isn't that, they need to get people into PvP and that starts from Frontlines. I mean most Arena players in WoW didn't get into PvP from starting in Arena (which has no ranked solo queue option and up until recently it didn't even have a training option unless anyone counts war games which doesnt rly work), they'd gotten into it from Battlegrounds. I liked PvPing in BGs, the objectives are fun, but I got tired of curbstomping randoms in BGs and Arenas for me was the next step (and then RBGs when they came out). If the PvP is fun, then even if Feast still isn't super active at least Frontlines will be more enjoyable and popular, which sooner or later has a chance to rub off onto feast.

[Nalien]

If the PvP is fun, then even if Feast still isn't super active at least Frontlines will be more enjoyable and popular, which sooner or later has a chance to rub off onto feast.

The problem is, if it's not active why queue up for it? They need to at least give unranked tier some regular activity all season long to mitigate the reddit style "nobody does feast" complaint. Doesn't matter if you drum up interest in the game mode if people are met with long queue times due to late season inactivity. People with a passing interest who need to be hooked aren't the ones who'll sit in queue for long, only the veterans are that mad. Potential new players see the 30m+ wait time and assume the worst, then move on. SE needs to do something about that and hopefully increased activity at unranked trickles up to more players at higher ranks.

Of course, I say that, but rather than SE doing something to improve that situation, they're planning to make it much worse with the data center split, so whatever I guess... Feast wont be getting much new blood and the small pool of veterans will slowly bleed away, "Nice Job!"

[BloodRubyXII]

SNIP

Hammer -> Nail

The first season I queued feast was S4, I got 2 queue pops in an entire evening as DRK but that was because queueing for an activity on a game that doesn't pop was a foreign concept to me, you can pop a ranked arena game on WoW at 4am server time without an issue. I couldn't figure out why ranked wouldn't pop and because I was so determined to PvP I found a discord and learned they were in what I now know as blind week, and thus the ladder at the bottom was practically dead (and probably not the best at the top too). Because I knew this, I queued again from the start of S5 and loved it.