Shaogin.2679

The vast majority of players in this game vehemently reject anything that requires forming a team. So no, I don't think most players here would use voice chat. I mean, just look at raids, ATs, Ranked team queue, and even Strikes lately. As for the players that would use a voice chat, most of those would be straight up trolls.

This is precisely why I recommend having the current ranked match making system moved to unranked but just hidden from view. The current Ranked queue is in no way any less toxic. Toxicity will always exist in an environment where you are not choosing your own teammates. The only reason these toxic players can act the way they do is because there are no consequences. No matter what they do, they can queue up again and Anet will will force some unlucky group to team up with this toxic player. Currently in Unranked you can queue up with groups of any size, and they have this nice feature where if you enjoy playing with your random team, you can group up and keep playing together. It really is a nice system, it just requires people to actually use it. The issue with Ranked though is that there is no option to team up with other players, giving you no option at all to prevent toxic players from ruining your match. However, in Ranked, ruining your match also means ruining your rating, which adds another level of toxicity. As for being a competitive environment, it is not even good at that. It places a ranking on an individual in a 5v5 team matchup. While this is not completely ridiculous in an environment where rules are better enforced, it is quite silly here. Between queue dodging, match manipulation, bots, afk players, and trolls, it just isn't an environment conducive to competitive ranked gameplay. This is why ATs are such a better place for this. Unranked should remain as a place for casual games and, with a match maker system, would end up being a better introduction to PvP and a way to transition into doing ATs.

Your individual reward and rank gain/loss is based on how the team performs, so there is no downside to going afk, and no way for Anet to definitely determine that a player is afk unless they literally stand there doing nothing. Even if you force them to leave spawn, they can just auto run to their death over and over. You can't stop this in any way in a solo queue environment. Adding a surrender button just gives more power to the afk player and makes it easier to manipulate matches. This will 100% be abused. Have you met the PvP players here!?

🤔 The people voting No seem to have a common theme going for them...😆

If you are counting ATs as a queue then we currently have 3 queues. ATs are on a schedule and not always available.

Well yeah, that is why I suggested moving the match maker to Unranked. As for a solo queue AT, that defeats the whole purpose. Solo Queue has too many issues to be a truly competitive environment. If you want a team for AT, you simply form a group in LFG or chat.

lol. If only there was an option to change your vote.

On the premise of afks and bots moving to Unranked, I don't think this will necessarily be the case. Sure, in any scenario where it is not a strict 5v5 team queue, bots, afk players, trolls and whatnot will exist. This is simply because the system facilitates this. It is the only way they can exist. No one is willingly accepting these players on their team. However, with ranks, badges, titles, and league tickets all being in ATs, there should at least be a reduction in afks and bots that would even bother to move to the new Unranked. Also, with the new Unranked you could simply queue as a team to avoid having any placed on your team in the first place, which is something that can't be done in our current Ranked game mode. The only thing I can see that we really lose is the Ranked leader board. But again, if actual competitive PvP is what you want, then we already have ATs for that. If you enjoy the actual gameplay of the current Ranked system, you would still get that same quality of gameplay (if not better due to condensing the populations together) in the new Unranked. The only difference is that there would be no leaderboard.

I'm sorry, so off topic, but did anyone else read this as "buff butt nerf"?

Yeah, I'd have to say this isn't really a P2W issue, it's a balance issue. It may look P2W since most of the core specs are at a severe disadvantage against elite specs that are behind an expansion pay wall, but this isn't the result of some nefarious plan to sell the expansion. This is the result of core classes being nerfed into the ground in their attempt to balance the elite specs.

Yeah, that is how competition works, the better teams win. Telling people they can't play together because they are better than others is just silly. ATs allow players to come together and choose their team, put together a decent comp, formulate a plan, and communicate and improve. You don't lose because Anet forced you to team up with some troll that wants to rage quit and berate everyone. You don't win because you got lucky and Anet forced 1 or 2 players to carry you. It is an actual competitive environment. And with more participation, there would be more teams of equal skill to face off against. I don't know how your ATs have gone, but when I played we would win the first 1 or 2 matches before being defeated, and it was fun nonetheless. Hell, we even managed to win the entire tournament one day. It was a crazy close match and some of the most fun I've ever had playing PvP in GW2. And if people still want to just play random matches, the new Unranked would still allow for that, and give solo players a pure solo queue that they haven't had before.

I am genuinely curious on the opinions of those opposed to this change. Perhaps there is a downside to this that I am overlooking?

What do you enjoy about Ranked that would make the new proposed Unranked mode undesirable?

So I am getting the impression that you didn't actually read my original post at all. I actually already addressed a lot of that. Also, Automated Tournaments are in fact available to all. And in Unranked, there is no rank or titles or badges to compete for, thus removing the need to game the system.

Because Ranked PvP is where the biggest issues are, the system is constantly exploited, and it wouldn't allow for other game modes such as Stronghold and what not. Automated Tournaments are the best form of actual competitive PvP in GW2, and they should focus on that.

For those voting no, is there a reason you don't want the change?

I don't know, in all my time raiding I've never run into people like that.

Yeah, for those I just ask when I join to get a feel for the group. Not going to waste my time with a group that I'm not going to enjoy.

On my Deimos training runs I normally explain both strategies and let the group vote on which they want to do. For Goresval, we just take a look at how the group's dps is doing to determine if we are going to bother with updrafts or not. In just about every Gorseval kill we get, updrafts are completely unnecessary.

If anything I would just like the option to purchase a level 80 boost for 80 Tomes of Knowledge. That way I don't have to deal with all that pointless loot that comes with leveling up level by level.

These new strikes seem to be well implemented though. The story and lore is already there when the player does the fight in their personal story. Then you do the strike for a more challenging version of that fight, and then the CM for even more challenge. I feel like this is a great method for appeasing to all GW2 players. No one misses out on story content, and the players seeking more challenge get access to it. As for this, that is up to those groups. If that is how they want to play let them. Joining an "All are welcome" group is a good suggestion, but that isn't all that is out there. You also have your "Casual/Chill" and "Semi-Exp" groups. That is the beauty of our LFG system, you can find or form a group that is looking for the exact same thing as you. This actually goes a long way into cutting down toxicity. I feel like a lot of the "elitism" people face comes from them trying to join groups that they shouldn't be joining.

So give this a read before voting. Most of the complaint threads in the PvP forums stem from Ranked PvP. It is honestly quite a mess right now due to a plethora of issues such as balance, AFK players, bots, trolls, match manipulation, solo queue vs team queue, and so on. Discussions on these topics never make much progress due to the vastly diverse player base all wanting their own thing and not wanting to compromise on their position at all. One thing is certain though. In its current state, Ranked PvP is a joke and is not retaining players. So here is my proposition. Remove Ranked PvP Queue entirely. We already have Unranked if you just want to jump in and enjoy some games, and we have Automated Tournaments if you want a competitive environment. Now obviously some changes will need to be made to accommodate this change due to what we would be losing by removing Ranked PvP Queue. We would need to reallocate the rewards and badges/titles gained from playing Ranked PvP. So first, let's focus on the new Unranked game mode. Now that this will be the only game mode outside of ATs, it should see an increase in population. To satisfy the solo players and the team players, it should have two separate queues. The first queue would be a pure solo queue. The second queue would be a team queue that allows players to queue up as solo players or teams of any size. Basically the team queue would be what we have now in Unranked. There should be a hidden ranking system so that the match maker will attempt to match teams of equal skill level, similar to what we currently have in Ranked PvP now. Then of course you should be able to select what type of match you want to queue up for, such as Conquest, Stronghold, 2v2, 3v3 etc. This would essentially be the main hub for playing PvP games when not participating in Automated Tournaments or private matches. As for the rewards, there should be a new reward track for Legendary Armor. Essentially this reward track would be the new way for obtaining Shards of Glory and Ascended Shards of Glory. Honestly there is no issue with this since, again, Ranked PvP is already a joke and can be farmed, and legendary armor from WvW is also just a participation prize. Also, to encourage participation in the team queue, Anet could grant increased reward track progress or something along those lines for playing in the team queue. So this new Unranked PvP mode would consolidate all our remaining players into a central PvP queue hub, and provide the options for team queue and solo queue to appease both crowds while providing some incentives for players to step into team queue as a sort of stepping stone for progressing into Automated Tournaments, without invalidating the solo queue. Now for the Automated Tournaments. First off, these should become more frequent to increase accessibility. It doesn't have to be drastic, we could start off with a small increase in frequency, see how it works with the new system, and adjust from there. All badges and titles should be rewards for playing in ATs and awarded at the end of the month. The badges would be displayed on your character for the following month, and then expire. PvP League Tickets required for legendary armor should be exclusively obtainable in ATs. You would get some simply for participating, and gain bonus tickets depending on how your team performs. This encourages players seeking the legendary armor to try out Automated Tournaments, without preventing their progress on their legendary armor if they don't perform well. This makes Automated Tournaments the go-to place for competitive PvP in GW2 (I mean, it honestly already is) and, with the removal of Ranked and an increase in frequency, it might see an increase in participation as well. Honestly, I think this is the best solution to appease all the different PvP crowds, and might also sort out some of the common issues plaguing PvP currently. So, cast your vote, let me know what you think, keep things civil, and be open to other opinions.

I mean, honestly, ranked is a joke at this point and should be done away with. I mean, I get the appeal of it. You can farm legendary armor and other nice rewards. You do not have to socialize at all or even participate for that matter. You can join matches while putting in 0 effort and never have to worry about getting better. And if you are losing, you can be as disrespectful as you want to your team with 0 repercussions at all. It is the perfect environment for many of the GW2 PvP players here. As far as actual competitive gameplay and ranking goes though, Ranked PvP is just bad. They should just consolidate the Ranked and Unranked modes into a single mode, and then focus on the Automated Tournaments as the actual competitive scene in GW2. This actually helps to address the population issue since they are at scheduled times, though they should probably increase the frequency of ATs. As previously suggested, move badges over to AT. You can leave legendary armor rewards in the new Unranked as a reward track or something, and if you want you can place some of the required components as AT participation rewards. This way, you don't have to win in ATs, but it would encourage the demographic of people wanting legendary armor to try out ATs. As for the new Unranked mode, it can have all the various game modes in it, and you can give it a pure solo queue and a mixed team queue. You could probably do something like giving increased reward track progress for using the mixed team queue. Since it is Unranked, it wouldn't matter, it would just be for fun/practice and to give people something to do between ATs. I mean, would there be any objections to this? I see this as a win for everyone involved really.

Actually, the Mines remove boons. They can in fact remove boons.

At this point, core Engineer will never see the light of day. Still amusing that they do stuff like this but when they nerfed a core Guardian trait because of Firebrand, they made it so the trait was only nerfed when you equip the Firebrand traitline so as to not nerf core Guardian. Then they also decided core Guardian wasn't performing well enough and actually buffed it. Meanwhile, core Engineer has been getting worse and worse all in the name of nerfing the elite specs. It is just mind boggling really.