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Topic: Why The Death of Ranked is a Good Thing

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Manhattan
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Why The Death of Ranked is a Good Thing

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If 3 ops are unkillable, what about arenas will suddenly make that go away? People are still going to use cheese comps, in fact comps will probably be cheesier than ever. My prediction: Smaller teams and no objectives will highlight class balance issues. Things that didn't seem that bad before are going to suddenly look OP as fuck, things that were OP as fuck are going to be downright game breaking, and the comps you'll be facing will be full of that. This can be a good thing if BW stays on top of balancing the game, or a bad thing if they a) ignore pvp as they always have or b) listen to forum whiners when balancing the classes.

 

I think you guys should get ready for a class balance rollercoaster ride =)



-- Edited by Kamdus on Wednesday 14th of August 2013 08:01:38 PM

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Xinika the Omnispawna
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I've been playing Ranked Warzones since launch across multiple servers. Like many others that were excited for competitive PvP, I was happy to step foot into something incentive. However, within the first month, I quickly noticed that was not the case and found the mode itself rather dull and stagnant. As a matter of fact, it's not even real PvP. It feels like a PvE zergfest with little to almost completely non existence 'clutch' factors. There are few and minor cases here and there such as good chained-linked CCs but they are so far and few between on both losing / winning team that the mode itself is just horrendously boring and laced with bugs.


Exclusiveness
This is arguably the biggest issue why ranked was doomed to fail. The state of this game's health is realistically not the best. When 1.2's ranked setback was announced, a great deal of subs dropped. Then those of us that stayed waited it out only for a not so healthy number to actually queue up. So what's the problem here? For one, setting up 8v8 is hardcore. You need to have dedicated players willing to do so as often as possible. That automatically ices out the casual player from getting a shot at competing with the big leagues, save for the kickball or pug group they get into only to be stomped by organized teams which discourages said player(s) from participating any further.

Let's be realistic. Even if this game had 400k subs, 40k per server and you have roughly 30 teams q'ing on a 'ranked-healthy' server, that number isn't even making it to 1% of the player population. Ranked is so exclusive to those who can afford it that it eventually tires out the same people who are constantly going at it. Again, stagnation even in its design.


Tiresome Concept
There is nothing special about 3 operative healers being unkillable. There's nothing unique about scoring a ball or setting up CC in mid. There's nothing impressive about using your little autoclicker to outclick the enemy team. It's absolutely boring sitting at a node waiting for action to come. Do you see where this is going? The objectives themselves are just... not fun. It is possible for successful siege PvP to exist in games but I do not agree with it for this one.

What's so awesome about defending a door for 7 minutes? Nothing. The only thing *fun* about ranked is that it's the closest thing we have to organized PvP and getting in there with an organized team is indeed fun. Setting up certain calls can be rewarding. However, that concept stays the same. It never really changes. Even if you push the envelope to try something different - what difference are you really achieving? The state of ranked is so tediously same-old, boring and frankly unskilled that I sometimes wonder if I'm doing old PvE content.


Bugs, Exploits and Disconnects
Another major factor adding to the demise of this mode is none other than the stability of the game's performance, coupled with players abusing the system for their team's benefit. I hate to say it, but this is one of the reasons that I cannot help but giggle at ranked being promoted as a 'true' form of PvP. Have you tried ranked huttball lately? Better turn on your autoclickers and hope for the best. Or if you're in the goal line, better hop on that 'glitched' pole so that you won't be pulled. Let's add to that - let's use lagbots to avoid people actually seeing us from capping until we're about 90% complete. 'Where did that guy come from? Didn't see him capping the door!'

What's that? You stepped into a certain spot and now you're suddenly in an invisible box and can't get out? Ouch. Let's not forget the random disconnects or heck, sometimes it even goes up to 2 disconnects per game. Just stuff like this. Especially when one person can alter and change an entire team's strategy, offensive or defensive output. I mean, what are you going to do if your jugg tank dcs? Or your node guarder's gone? Or both your healers are no longer in game?


Lack of Actual PvP

I can't explain how many times I've cringed inside when I heard the following statements

'Just peel, all we have to do is delay and we win.'
'Spec tanks / heals, hold em' here.'
'Throw grenades, stall them, delay them. That's all we have to do.'


I mean what exactly is ranked? A stallfest? Where's the actual PvP? Yeah you can have your focus targets, but let's just be real here. Once you cap that node in Novare or once you score the ball, what do the high end teams do? They just... stall. Are we really playing PvP here? Or is this just some bland stallfest?


Drama
Although if one were to make a conscious effort to block out drama, it can be avoided easily. Such is not the case for the majority. This is another aspect that few take the time to look over. 8 players mean most likely, it is going to be sponsored by a guild. Guilds sometimes tend to talk trash to each other under the nonsensical banner that this promotes 'friendly competition' which is highly untrue in a dying game.

Frankly it does the opposite. It discourages others from participating in a deteriorating community. The fact that arenas will allow solo queue is one of the best things BW has ever done for PvP on a whole. You are finally allowing people with no-ties, no-commitments to enter without being harassed by association. Now Arena might not solve drama issues, I'm sure there may still be trash talk here and there - but it will be far less scaled down than guild v guild idiocy which has more of a punch to the community than little 4 man teams.


Closing

Although I am smiling ear to ear writing this, knowing the fact that Ranked will be removed - I cannot say it is the wisest idea to lessen your options of playability in the game. I'm sure there are some who may enjoy this atrocity, and that's fine, no matter how small the number is. I strongly believe more options are better, but it is also understandable if this mode cannot be supported. Overall, even if Ranked WZs are removed in favor of Arena, the game will be looking forward to a much healthier state.

I do want to give you a thumbs up. BW, you are moving in the right direction.



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Xinika the Omnispawna
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Repost from here...
www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php

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Cheetah Defender
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As soon as ranked came out and it needed 8 people to accomplish, I knew it wouldn't be popular for very long.  The main problem that I had predicted is what had happened on the servers.  Since the population was so low, one ranked team on each server rose as a dominant force, destroying the morale of all the other teams that wanted to queue.  The many teams that at first queued for ranked dwindled down to a few teams, and then when all the other teams but one realized they couldn't be the #1 team on that server, it dwindled down even further to 1-2 teams.  I knew that would happen.  Cross-server queues might've solved this problem temporarily... 

 

However, as we've now seen from Pot5, even the number of teams queueing even on this server has dropped dramatically from the first week.  Probably cut in half at least.  It was the same thing... These teams either realized they could not be #1 on the server, or they simply got bored of ranked.  

 

Ranked is also bad in my opinion because you have to rely on 7 other people to play up to par.  If one of them makes a mistake it could cost you the game through no fault of your own.  This could happen in arena too don't get me wrong... but with only 4 people the chance of this is cut in half.  

 

Arena is simply more fun to me, as it gets the adrenaline pumping.  Ranked has rarely done this for me.  At this point, we know how ranked works.  It's PvE mixed with some PvP, which is the main problem.  You can lose in huttball to a team that can not put out nearly as much damage or healing as yourself simply because they keep getting the ball first in middle(autoclickers anyone?)  PvE tactics can win some of these PvP warzones.  In arena it will be pure PvP.

 

As for bugs and exploits, surely these will pop up in Arena as well, and certain comps will become clearly powerful over the rest.  I can only hope the devs keep up to date on bug fixes and balance changes.  Despite how some may disagree with the inclusion of solo queue arena, I think this is an amazing idea.  This makes arena accessible to everyone, and if arena is popular enough they will be matched with and against people of similar rating, without having to wait around looking for teammates to play with.

 

All in all, I'm pretty stoked about arena coming, and while I don't quite think they should've removed ranked, it may have put a strain on their resources to keep it in, so I'm fine with that choice.



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Manhattan
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Well written and highlights pretty much all of the faults of RWZs and why they were never really successful/fun.

With that out of the way, let's hope that Arenas get a better treatment and more support from Bioware. Simply putting them in the game won't be enough. We need rewards and incentives (ladder perhaps?) to keep everyone going, and to have a definitive ranking system to cut down on this drama.

Good post, +1.

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Kix
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You guys can be surprisingly articulate when you want to be ;)

Very nice posts. I agree with you guys totally and can't wait for the end of ranked bullshit. For me the only reason to do ranked is for the team aspect/feel of it -- the actual matches are tedious as hell and are often decided by bad luck, 1-2 mistakes, disconnects, or exploits. Death match arenas will hopefully be more dynamic and fun, though I'm a little concerned that class/spec balance issues will be a problem.

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Watchman
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im looking foward to the drama

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Watcher
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Kamdus wrote:

If 3 ops are unkillable, what about arenas will suddenly make that go away? People are still going to use cheese comps, in fact comps will probably be cheesier than ever. My prediction: Smaller teams and no objectives will highlight class balance issues. Things that didn't seem that bad before are going to suddenly look OP as fuck, things that were OP as fuck are going to be downright game breaking, and the comps you'll be facing will be full of that. This can be a good thing if BW stays on top of balancing the game, or a bad thing if they a) ignore pvp as they always have or b) listen to forum whiners when balancing the classes.

 

I think you guys should get ready for a class balance rollercoaster ride =)



-- Edited by Kamdus on Wednesday 14th of August 2013 08:01:38 PM


 

 

Exactly my feelings, and pretty much exactly how it went down in WoW. All these years later small class balance issues in WoW still stand out as big issues, and they've had a very hard time keeping things even close to balanced there. With this game's balance guy (don't even think there's a team, is there?), it's a recipe for total disaster. 

 

Also, anyone else think it's extremely stupid that they've suddenly decided to implement a reasonable solo queue ranked system for ARENA? WHY was this never put in for ranked WZ's? With the whole role selection and everything, it would have given ranked wz's a chance to be a real thing. In an arena format where precision CC and communication is huge, they put it in, but in a ranked WZ where general things like peeling, positioning, and attention to the node were more important, it wasn't an option?



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