On Friday, BioWare posted in-depth information on how the Ranked Warzones will work.
Here’s how the rating system will work…
In Game Update 1.2, any level 50 player will be able to queue up for Ranked Warzones by themselves or in a group of any size up to eight players. Performance will be tracked on every player who participates, as a rating that will be adjusted with every match won or lost (leaving counts as a loss and prevents you from re-queuing for several minutes) considering the ratings of all other players in the match. In other words, if the enemy team has an overall much higher rating than you and your team, your rating would only go down a small amount if you lost. Players will have a separate Solo and Group rating, meaning only the rating for which the player queued will be affected by each match.
…so the rating system is similar to WoW’s Rated Battleground system – i.e. rating is attached to each player not to a team. I’m glad to see that there is no requirement to create a team with a roster. Of course, players can form teams if they want, but it’s not enforced by the game itself.
As far as solo vs group queuing…
However, in order to ensure that players won’t have to wait too long for a match to occur, the system will become more ‘flexible’ over time. Solo and group queued players might be pulled together after a while if needed to launch a match.
…I don’t like this at all. I was looking forward to queuing solo for Ranked Warzones to play with and against 15 other people who queued solo. It’s the ultimate competitive PUG. Having solo players face a premade for Ranked Warzones makes no sense, because it’s unfair matchmaking.
But there’s more…
If a match cannot be made for extended periods of time, then Normal and Rank queued players (except those who queued as a group of five or more) might be pulled together to launch a ‘mixed’ match
…yikes. I’d rather wait for a longer queue pop than fight with or against players who are not queuing for the same kind of match that I am. The whole point of Ranked Warzones is to create a competitive context where you get matched up against opponents of roughly the same skill level.
At least it sounds like “flexible” and “mixed” matches will be temporary…
We know that the flexible matchmaking and mixed matches are not ideal. They are only in until cross-server queuing is available and are the primary reason Ranked Warzones in Game Update 1.2 are Pre-Season, along with the opportunity to collect data and refine various systems in preparation for Season One.
How do you avoid these issues for group Ranked Warzones during Pre-Season? The solution is to queue as a full premade of 8…
Note, Rank queued players will never be prompted to backfill a match. So you’ll never be placed in a match that is about to end that could cause you to suffer a negative rating adjustment. Additionally, the Group rating is adjusted regardless of the size of group you queued up with and groups of five or more players are never called into mixed matches. So for complete control over the fate of your group rating, we suggest you queue up with your seven closest buddies that are good at PvP!
As far as buying the new War Hero gear…
Ranked Warzone Commendations in tandem with the equivalent Battlemaster piece can be used to purchase pieces of the brand new set of PvP gear called War Hero. There are no other requirements for purchasing or equipping this gear.
…the key thing to note: in order to buy a War Hero piece, you need the equivalent Battlemaster piece. Some of us have been min-maxing by mixing different BM set pieces. E.g. I am currently using the Trooper healing (Combat Medic) implants, which have Crit/Surge instead of Power/Surge, because my goal in 1.1.5 is to get to ~400 Crit Rating. So in 1.2 I’ll need to buy the Battlemaster Eliminator (DPS) implants if I want to upgrade to the War Hero Eliminator implants.
There is a 2nd set of War Hero gear…
Additionally, there is a set of Rated War Hero Gear and mounts which do have Highest Rating requirements to purchase and wear. Rated War Hero Gear has the same stats as regular War Hero Gear, except with a more prestigious appearance.
…and thankfully this gear won’t provide a stats advantage.
The rewards at the end of the match are based on team and individual performance…
The final score for your team at the end of a match now always directly affects the rewards of all players on your team. So, high scoring games will reward more. Thereby better preserving reward meaning for continued good team performance – even if it looks like your team is losing. Experience reward is an exception to this. It will be a factor of time in the Warzone and participation.
Players who earn few to no medals will have their overall rewards reduced. For example, if a player goes ‘AFK’ for some reason and gains no medals, they will receive no rewards.
There are twelve new objective medals awarded for thresholds of objective offense and defense points which are earned for various objective accomplishments and participation (e.g. help defend a door in Voidstar, passing for score and scoring in Hutball, heal allies near an objective in Alderaan, etc.).
…and this is the way it should be. One of the things that I found most irritating in WoW was the mentality of “let them win, it’s faster Honor” when things weren’t going well in the first minute of a battleground. The game mechanics should not encourage intentionally losing matches. And one of the most gratifying experiences is turning around a match.
And finally, we’ll be able to vote to kick AFK players…
Players will be able to vote to kick AFK players out of a Warzone. Any player can vote to kick a player through the group context menu. This will not initiate a vote prompt, but rather must be actively sought out by multiple players. Once a player has received several votes they will receive a prompt indicating that they’ll be kicked from the Warzone in a few seconds if they do not engage in combat or defend an objective. A player who is kicked from the Warzone in this manner will be returned to their original location before they queued, and will not be able to queue up again for several minutes.
…although I don’t recall seeing players on my server (Ajunta Pall) on either faction who were chain-AFK’ing matches. But I do understand it’s an issue on other servers, so the addition of this functionality is a good thing.
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So happy they’re isn’t a requirement to participate in these things. Loved the idea of having a rated battleground, but then learning you needed at least a 10 man team was heartbreaking!
I accidentally a word.
I like the idea of Solo Queue Ranked Warzones, but not if the solo queue people are going to get matched up against Premades that are queueing for Group Ranked Warzones.
Most of this is really cool! I can’t wait to play some ranked warzones.
However I’m worried that the gear adquisition for newer players will be even harder. As it is right now, a fresh 50 would need to farm non-stop with dailies and warzones, for more than two weeks in order to get semi-decent gear. It will be still quite squishy though. With War Hero gear, I think it may even be more complicated and tedious.
On another note, I’m worried about the mixed Warzones. The way I think it should be:
Level 50 -> Normal Warzones for gearing up -> Ranked Warzones with higher end gear.
It already causes me frustration to play against fully BM Geared players as a fresh 50. In my ideal situation described above, players with better gear will be running Ranked Warzones, and I would be gearing up prior to face them (that is, if they don’t take normal Warzones to ‘pwn nubz’). Now, with the model by BioWare, any fresh 50 will still have a slight chance of being put up against a competitive player, and even probably with a competitive group! It won’t be fun at all, and that fresh level 50 player will most likely drop the match.
Another thing I’m worried is that there won’t be any gear requirements for Solo Queueing. I guess most PvP oriented guilds or groups will need to get a full 8 player roaster in order to not get gimped by a random fresh 50 that decided to try out ranked warzones.
I would have preferred a model in wich ranked warzones players get all the same gear, maybe top tier or the lowest tier possible. That way it would be a fair match. I knew this wouldn’t happen, but it would be still be cool to try!
Anyway, really nice article, Taug! See you in the battlefield!
My understanding is that it will be easier for a fresh 50 to get baseline PVP gear in 1.2. Right now the only way to get PVP gear is via Champion bags.
In 1.2, my understanding is that you can purchase a full set of PVP gear with credits.
You will need to run Normal Warzones to gear up with BM gear.
I agree it doesn’t make sense.
I am in support of the vote to kick feature, I worry about its abuse, but such is the nature. Hopfully they system functions mostly as intended, and isn’t used to kick that guy who only has 13k health out of your warzone while he’s rezing.
The rewards for score system I had a little experience with in Beta from 10-30. I found it to be … unpleasent. Under the current system you are awarded for your time in game with a bonus given to the winning team. In a leveling game (1-49) this totals at 100 commendations for a win in a full duration match if you have at least 4 medals. The downside of this sytem is that the victory reward does not outweigh the time reward, which is why when you are losing you tend to get farmed…but take heart, you’ll still walk away with ~80 commendations. But there are other situations where a game goes to its full duration. A 1/0 huttball, or a Voidstar where neither team gets to the core. Under this new system a 1/0 huttball rewards poorly for both teams, awarding the losers only for their medals earned and the winners with 1 point worth of commendations and their nominal winning bonus. Personally, I think that stinks, because the reality is that the game was hard fought on both side, and both teams deserve to be fairly rewarded for their efforts.
I did not get any time with this at max level, so I don’t know how it effects the battlemaster gear grind, or the ranked commendation grind.
Finally my thoughts on the blended queues. I feel like this is a server population issue conflicting with a evolution of game issue. To get a good ranking system going I think you need 200+ active players to pull from. Anytime you have people queueing when there are too few players activly seeking pvp the ranking is going to fall apart. And you’ll end up with a group of solo queues lumpped together and forced to play the server’s most dedicated pvp guild. Obviously the answer is cross server matches. Until then will ranked pvp be fun? Is it going to be fun when your 8 man warhero group gets pitted against some poor group of fresh faced 50’s who are trying to collect their battlemaster gear? Is getting rolled by those top ranked groups because there are not enough players of your rank to play going to discourage less skilled players from playing? Will that break down PVP into a hardcore or not at all activity like raiding?
I feel like they should have waited to add this new level of seperation to the community until they had the technology implimented that would allow a population to support it.
Also…if this steps on anyone elses toes I appologize, I’ve been typing off and on between calls. over the last hour. :)
True, but in 1.2 with ~300k credits you can buy a full set of Recruit PVP gear. I would do it for any fresh 50 character of mine, but I’m sure there will be some people too lazy or cheap to buy it, and they’ll basically need to be carried by their team mates.
Agree 100%.
That’s partly why I think they should not create the “flexible” and “mixed” solutions for Ranked WZs, as what they’re really trying to address is the low-pop server issue.
Not a fan about their idea of ‘flexible’ queue times. Depending on how often it starts to mix queue types it could be a recipe for disaster.
I think this is all steps backwards. Their low pop servers and this mixed queuing will just lead to frustration. The fact that they preface this with its Pre Season should tell us that this is a beta build of ranked until they can get their cross server queues in place. Pre season football is trivial much like this. Unfortunately it might lead to another mountain of frustrated pvp problems and perceptions for SWTOR
This is going to be intresting.
They are clearly trying to keep the regular guy playing whilst keeping the more hardcore player in the loop.
Mixed and flexible solutions is a good thing to keep the que timer down on low-pop servers and if they are going to introduce cross-server PvP, yikes…shared feelings about that one. Generally I am againt cross-server FPs and WZs because it kills the community in the same way as free transfer and server transfer does, BioWare’s SW:Tors forums has no intention on having serverforums, so how are they going to solve this?
This is also something they are going to have to solve without being a copycat from other MMOs and all i say is give BioWare a month or two before flaming them straight down and see how they handle this after gathering the necesassary data needed.
If they want to fix low-pop servers, they should do something about that issue specifically.
I don’t understand why they are spending time building short-term (aka throwaway) code for “flexible” and “mixed” matchmaking, when neither of those matchmaking schemes will create a good solution. I’d rather see them invest in long-term solutions to fix the real issue: low-pop servers.
This could be one step of many to solve few issues. Alot of people was storming to get Battlemaster rank and gear just to go AFK from the game in the wait of something new. Ranked matches will bring few people back along with the chance of getting new gear, but it’ll last till the same people have maxed out again.
Yes, I agree that BioWare should adress this more pin-pointed but all know that PvP is a backbone of every game, an MMO without any PvP will not sell that good.
What worries me more is that they are trying to make the game easy, adjusted for kids. Easier to get gear? it’s easy enough already, 2.5 weeks to get viable PvP gear? I spend 3-4 hours per day for one week to get full Cent/champ gear which in my eyes are viable enough to face BMs.
It’s in my eyes not fair against those who have spent 40 hours per week and more getting the battlemaster rank and complete gear to do this.
Well, I’m full BM-geared, and I welcome the addition of purchaseable Recruit PVP gear, so that fresh 50s aren’t cannon fodder while trying to gear up.
I don’t want to have a huge advantage over fresh 50s or people wearing Centurion gear, which is what I have now.
They are trying to make it easy, adjusted for kids?
Who else has 40 hours per week (and more) to play video games?
Taugrim? Thurston Howell? Retired senior citizens?
BioWare made a mistake at launch by continuing to open servers. If I remember correctly they were still opening them up around New Year’s. I don’t remember when they finally stopped.
It’s a shame merging servers comes with such a negative connotation. It really is the simplest solution to address low pop servers. Instead they’re stuck with elaborate band-aids for the short term until cross-server queues become possible.
Although I suppose it’s entirely possible they didn’t have the ability to merge servers at the time, and may still not currently be able to so.
Yes, sometime in the last week of December they added about 20+ new servers. I thought it was a mistake at the time given that the existing servers were not all Heavy / Full in terms of pop.
The latter point is an interesting one. At the point where they can merge servers, it would mean they likely have the backend tech to transfer characters.
Im not sure they are building anything new, I seems they just took the current matchmaking system and repurposed it for ranked warzones as a temporary solution, until the infra-structure for cross server queing is ready to go, and as Amatangelo said, they want to launch season 1 with cross server ready to go, so they are adressing the problem in both long term and short term.
Once Pre-Season is over, the “flexible” and “mixed” matchmaking are supposed to go away.
That is by definition a temporary solution, and they work differently than what will happen after Pre-Season.
I agree with you that it is a temporary solution, but I’m going to agree with Chaz, I don’t think it involves a lot of wasted code. I see it more of an iteration on what they want. Like the cooldown timers. They are building to something, but they seem to do more iterating on the live servers than most games do.
The possibilty of mixed solo/prequeued and normal /rated is a bit of a disaster really . On my server Frostclaw this will mean that the few pvp guilds , mostly Empire will faceroll the opposition even more with an 8 man premade rather than a 4 man.
I don’t fancy solo queuing against those sort of odds. I think the only way forward will be to group up in fleet with other solo regulars and share comms details . This would have been the best course all the way along i know but 1.2 changes are going to push this to be essential .
I think unless grouping gets going pretty quickly , solo queing players are going to get demoralized out of L50 pvp pretty quickly and play sub 50 until cross server queuing comes in.
Many players i know are trying GW2 when it arrives, most of them intend to play both games but i fear for swtors pvp future if rated wz’s fail to provide competitive and fun pvp by the time GW2 is released.
I think some people are blowing this totally out of proportion, the que system they are proposing is not that much different than the current system we already have for normal warzones, besides you will only be playing with people from your server, Its only a preseason chill the f*ck up.
Also, to think that someone will just go to another game just because he doesnt like how the que works? lolwat? 1st of all you should establish why GW2 pvp will be better than Swtor PVP.
Keep in mind that BioWare lost some credibility with the PVP community with Ilum. There’s no kind way to spin it. They need to demonstrate that they can implement Ranked Warzones well, because RWZs is the one thing that is keeping some PVP players around.
Well, maybe some expectations are kind of high, Real rated wz will start with season 1, this is just warm up, so we need to keep that in mind.
Ilum had some poor implemented changes, sure, at one point empire players could just get into the republic base and farm valor, but that issue only ran for one day, Gamebreaker took those news and and ran with them for weeks.until their own viewerbase had to tell them to cut it off with the Ilum stuff.
At least in your podcasts pvp on Ilum looks fun, in my server the players that care about open world pvp keep going there even when its not necessary.
Here’s what is going to happen on my server and probably many others that have low-medium population and gross faction imbalance.
Us rebs are going to be lucky to have 2 full premade 8 man teams running at any given time. The Imps on the other hand will probably have 3 times that many. At least 5 full premades.
So… their 8 mans are going to take turns feasting on solo queued ranked players or, even worse, regular/non ranked WZ puggers. All the while they’ll be getting full ranked rewards (rating and ranked comms.)
This is going to be the pre lvl 50 bracket PVP all over again. The faction imbalance is going to have the over-saturated side far out pacing the other. Good news is the rated gear isn’t any “better” but it’s going to be frustrating for the side being left behind none the less.
So yes. People are worried about this “preseason” even tho it means nothing in the long run. It looks to be more disappointment in the fact that they’re not addressing the real issues. Server populations and, to a lesser sense, faction imbalance.
I really thing a lot of people are trying too hard to make this problem look bigger than it is., If the population is imbalanced the Imps will probably be fighting each other in one of the same faction vs same faction maps more than anything.
One of the things that could fix the problem is cross server queing, I remember Daniel Erickson saying that the infrastructure for that is not yet ready but its coming,
Yeah, some of those Imp groups are going to play each other, but if there is ever a “mixed match” the odds are it’s going to be their 8 mans getting them.
And yeah, cross server is going to fix a lot of it, but I’m afraid of how many aren’t going to wait after this new batch of frustration sets in.
I hope it’s not as bad as I think it will be. We’ll see.
Lets actually have the system in place and experience it first hand for a few days before we draw conculsions on it. I doubt it will be any worse then the current chance of running into a premade team. But seriously, lets give the system a chance before predicting the end with gloom and doom talks.
i love all the changes except for the to ensure queue times arent too long, some solo queuers will be placed against group queuers
my feelings are rated WZs shouldnt of been released until they had cross server warzones implemented. i say this because group teams on vent will have a clear advantage via voice communication and better class compositions than the solo queuer.
also, i wonder if some groups will ‘exploit’ this system. what i mean is on my server (the fatman) there are probably maybe a solid 3-6 pvp guilds republic side and maybe a solid 6-8 imperial pvp guilds that will get together a full 8 man premade. now say said guild on imp side knows none of the republic pvp guilds are online (say 3am on a weekday) and they queue knowing they will be faced against solo queuers / normal players. thus giving them a high rating.
so ya i feel this system wont truly work until the cross server comes into play. again, its just preseason so hopefully by season 1 they can have most of the kinks worked out. overall im very satisfied with the changes. love the additional medals for defending doors, passing, scoring etc. as it should be. i always hated the “oh damn, we are losing, just let them win so we can requeue”. always pissed me off in WoW, Rift, WAR, and even in ToR.
thanks for all you do.
In your scenerio, those premade teams of Imps queuing in the off hours hoping to get solos will instead get other premade Imps. That is unless they are the only premade online at the time. In that situation, nothing can really be done about that until cross server queing happens.
Personally I’m not too worried about running into permades as solo because it shouldn’t happen very often and going against better players will just improve your own skills as a pvper.
With the new recruit gear, new level 50s will have a much easier time competing then in the past. Bioware seems to be correcting some of the concerns that people have had with pvp in general. But it is also foolish to think that Bioware can stop all the compliants completely.
There are other implications to consider. Namely that 8 people in Vent have a *huge* coordination advantage over 8 solo-queued RWZ PUGs who have to read/write in chat.
Assuming equal skill and gear, the 8-person premade should win consistently over 8 solo-queued PUGs. There’s a huge difference between talking in real-time while fighting vs having to type in chat and hope someone(s) reads it in time to help.
And this will widen the gap in gear between the 8-person premade and 8 solo players, given that the winning side wins more commendations which are used for buying War Hero gear.
The only thing I can say for those players like yourself, is to not join in a ranked warzone and instead do the unranked ones until your ready for them.
I think you are making it sound worse than it is. Keep in mind that in 1.2 fresh 50s can already have full recruit set (which gives more expertise than Cent and Champ gear) and even one or two pieces of BM gear, getting gear is getting easier and easier.
Sure, there is a gap, but its small, with the RNG removed you can gear yourself up in maybe a week if you are a dedicated PVPer. if you are a casual that just solo que, well, your pvp trackrecord is not going to be that good regardless of gear.
I am a big proponent of the new Recruit gear, because I think it will create more fair and balanced gameplay.
Man I wish SWTOR had an in-game voice chat (like EVE or DDO…). It should now come standard in the industry.
I agree, that’s a much cleaner solution than the temporary solution they are planning to implement.
I got into PVP rather late on my server, and while I have managed to crawl though the ranks and get at least a full set of gear, Its nearly impossible to win a match against the many PVP guilds that the republic has on my server. I look at this new system and it worry’s me that this will only drive a much bigger gap between those who have PVPed from day 1 and never stopped, and those like myself who enjoy to raid and PVP on the side.
What is the priority order for grouping warzones ? will same faction premade groups be fighting each other before the system resorts to adding in solo rated or unrated warzone player?.
I don’t think the “playing against premades solo will make me a better player ” argument holds up too well . So many posters like to chat about how awesome they are but i’m afraid against a decent premade , with no coms on your side and typical pug co ordination you will be hitting the dirt pretty fast. It is hard enough now against a semi competent 4 man pre made group , with an 8 man it will be twice as bad , and if you are a very good player and start annoying the other team you’ll get a nice target put over your head and be focus fired out of the game .
Yes you can play and yes you can earn some medals but you will be earning coms a lot slower than the premade and the game certainly will be a lot less satisfying.
To be honest a better solution , all considering, would be if they didnt implement the 8 man group option until cross server queuing became available but implement the other changes. New players have an easier time in the unrated games , other players can work towards war hero in rated games and solo players will be not much worse off than they are now if they get drawn against a rated premade.
Oh, yeah, totally forgot about that little detail! I will make sure to have a lot of money piled up. I’ve been saving up for magenta and white lightsaber crystals… Guess most of that money may go into gear. I barely did any professions leveling to save up money.
And WZs leveling ain’t that rewarding experience/credit wise. It provides a really fair ammount of experience in the PvP Metagame and other classes mechanics. But I’d still love to see PvP leveling buffed up so that I’m not gimping myself by skipping planet content.
Agreed.
Playing with/against another 15 solo ranked players of a rank with myself will make me better. Win or lose
My 8 man playing another similarly ranked 8 man will make us better. Win or lose
Queuing rated, solo only to get thrown into a “mixed” (regular wz pugs included) match against a full 8 man team? We get rolled or, even worse, farmed…That’s not going to make me or anyone on our side better. It’ll be extremely frustrating for us, and a good tune up for them with full rated rewards (comms/rating)…
I understand the feelings about mixed matches but I think it’s a lesser evil for now. Segmenting warzones between 50s and non-50s already greatly increased the time it takes to join a match. If Bioware segments them further amongst 50s rated vs non-rated, I see a lot of people waiting forever just to play.
I think the real solution is in cross-server queuing, which they plan on doing (hopefully soon). Also, I read somewhere that pre-season means nothing as far as rating goes. When season 1 gets released, all ratings will be reset.
So my whole feeling about this is we’re in Beta testing.
this. this is more or less what i was trying to say in my first post. i love the ‘oh playing against a premade will make u better” argument. the best player solo cant do a whole lot versus a whole premade team if the premade team is any good. they will have a good team composition (1-2 tanks guarding and taunting for their 1-2 maybe even 3 healers. solid dps focusing down / peeling the opponents healers, if they even have 1one). not to mention vent to call out focus targets / ccs / where they are in huttball for passes etc etc.
remember in pug groups, they rarely work together. maybe it will be better in a rated situation but typically a pug game has more than half the team all shouting out different instructions on which is the best strat. even if they are working together, they have to type in chat instead of the luxury of vent / mumble / TS. thats hard to do in battle and alot of people even miss the chat if they are fighting.
its very hard to down a healer in this game without coordination. a pug group simply cannot do it against an organized team. odds are there will be 2-3 heals on the premade side. the pugs, without any vent, will have split dps, wont be able to streamline ccs/interrupts, overall it will be very frustrating.
granted, i am also sure that alot of guilds will form up 8 man premade teams and be terrible. i can think of more than a few guilds on my server that are so called “pvp guilds” and they lose almost every match they premade against pugs. they are more or less a glorified pug group. even with vent, they dont know more than “2 left rest mid” type of strats. so my hope is, it wont be all that bad. there will probably be the typical 2-4 “powerhouse” teams on each side that i hope will only go against the other “powerhouse” teams.
i still stand by that 1.2 should of been more about class tweeking, adding LFG finder for pve, adding the new WZ and then left rateds and cross server queuing for 1.3.
I think there is a LOT of overreaction going on here. First and foremost, a group of >4 that q’s for ranked will never be matched against unranked, so everyone saying that full 8mans will be farming their fresh 50s, stop.
Second, BW never said what the timers are going to be like before it switches to looking for solo q’d players, then unranked. If it’s like 5 and 10 minutes? Sure that’s stupid. If it’s 30 and 60 minutes? It’s a stopgap solution for low pop servers. I’d be willing to bet it’s much closer to the latter than the former, and I don’t have a problem with that at all. Sure, they eventually need to do something to solve the low pop problem, but at this point, they’ve promised themselves into a corner. They can’t back out of ranked WZs in 1.2, and they can’t delay 1.2 until they have x-server. This solution at least insures that people qing for ranked on very low pop servers won’t go all day without a single queue pop.
Third, I know BW wants to kind of skirt around this, but pre-season is essentially the first actual test of ranked WZs. There just aren’t enough people on the PTR trying ranked matches (and I really doubt there would be even if they had character copies, based on my experiences with other games). They’re essentially going to be using high-pop servers as the PTR for ranked. Saying “oh it’s pre-season because we don’t have x-server q’s yet”, even though it might well be true, gives them an easy out when bugs inevitably pop up.
Couldnt agree more, but some people just like to blow things out of proportion.
Actually, I think the opposite would be true.
My guild would test RWZs on the PTS if we could copy our characters.
For many PVP fans and guilds, RWZs are the main thing that we’re really looking forward to.
PTS notes today indicate an increased time delay before the ranked queue pits 5+ groups against all pugs. Which is a good sign.
On Live servers you can feel the time delay they use before the system gets flexible. There is a 3-5 delay when it can’t find you a match with the other faction. (in 1-49 play there is a bit more while it tries to match you with people in your level range) Interestingly though, once you’ve crossed that line into same faction games, there isn’t a delay anymore. If there is a game to put you in when you come out of the game you are in regardless of faction it pops the queue. it will be a similar delay.
I’m with you on the other point though. They have to do what they have to do. With any luck they’ll get the infrastructure in quickly. I know they didn’t have it done for launch because they originally didn’t want to do it. But, situations change games adapt.
I’ll play devil’s advocate. Look at it from the non-solo perspective (this opinion coming from somebody who runs mostly premades). I want to face a greater challenge. I want to have a greater chance of running into another team full of people also able to communicate by voice. Recruit gear will help, and I’m really happy that there is no difference stat-wise between rated and normal War Hero gear, however, gear plays a minor role compared to coordination and awareness.
To those arguing that the issue of mixed queuing is getting blown out of proportion I kindly disagree. Teams of four players can completely dominate warzones in the current state of the game. Imagine how much more frequently games dominated by one side will occur when teams of 8 can group together. Another confounding factor is that your rating will be judged by your performance. Let us say for example that a competent group of 4 are in a warzone and than we flip a coin to see if we get good geared and competent people for the remaining 4. That leaves you 2 people that are not geared or otherwise do not play well. With the changes to ranking and reward based on performance you could, theoretically, attempt to hold off the premade for some medals. The penalty for going against a full 8 man premade would be arguably higher because you may not get a kill, plant a bomb, score in huttball, and so forth.
Now here is the counter argument to what I just said: In the current state without cross server queuing pitting only full 8 premades against each other is problematic. If I am running a full 8 premade and one person drops, do we all have to solo queue? What if I have just 5 friends online who want to pvp? If you are going to allow groups of any size to queue together, much less a group of 8, people who solo queued are required to fill in the numbers. Clearly not ideal, clearly solved by adding cross server queuing.
Calling this a “pre-season” changes nothing. The vast majority of people who will queue for ranked games are going to take it seriously. This is a game. None of it is important (in the grand scheme of things). So saying that “this part matters, but not this part” in a video game is trivial. None of it matters. People are going to take this “pre-season” as if it is the start of ranked pvp, because it is. Elitism is stupid, but it will be there.
[…] days before the Patch went live that RWZs were being delayed. That being said, as I wrote earlier, the planned temporary “flexible” and “mixed” matchmaking systems were unattr…, as they respectively paired solo-queued players against premades and RWZ-queued players against […]