This is going to be a post to vent. And in hopes that someone at Blizzard who cares will actually address this problem. Because honestly it doesn’t appear that Blizzard care’s enough, or at all, to fix the broken rating system for Rated PvP. It’s becoming more and more impossible to progress to the next tier of PvP rating (1600, 1800, 1950, etc). At least it seems that way in RBG’s. I’ve have discussed this with multiple players in game over the last at least month, and I know I’m not the only person who feels this way.
Nearly every loss is 12-14 points lost and a victory might get you 5-9. You essentially have to win 2-3 RBG’s to make up for one loss. That alone is a problem. Then there’s the fact that to make your PvP gear better you have to progress up to ranks that you can’t get to because, you know, every loss hurts waaaaaay more than any one win can make up for on its own. And the cherry on the top are the de-ranking carry groups. Groups that are in Rival 1 and Rival 2 gear, or even Duelist gear, de-ranking to carry people up. That inherently wouldn’t be a problem if it weren’t for the fact that in order to carry those people they have to fight against teams of people who are trying to legitimately rank up who are in significantly weaker gear. So the “legit team” (for lack of a better word) is bound to lose because their gear just can’t keep up to the “carry team”. And of course the “legit team” players then lose 12-14 points. Which just frustrates and discourages further PvP play.
Obviously rated PvP isn’t supposed to be easy or a cakewalk. It absolutely should be a challenge…but the way it is currently it’s terribly unforgiving and incredibly brutal. For the past two and half months I’ve personally been stuck between 1658-1724 just trying to get back to my highest rating this season so far (1757) all in hopes of trying get 1800. I don’t do “Yolo” groups. I only run in groups with some kind of voice communication. And I predominantly runs with people from the same 3-4 PvP focused communities, so it’s not like I’m constantly running with and depending on randoms all the time. And despite all this it’s impossible to progress upwards. Every loss literally cuts you at the knees and every win can’t keep up. And it’s compounded by the ridiculous amount of “carry teams” that are playing lower MMR groups in significantly better gear.
Now I’m no game designer or developer, so I won’t claim to know the perfect solution. But I would be remiss to complain and vent without offering a possible solution. The M+ IO system works pretty well, I run Keys very often as well, so I know it works. So why can’t rated PvP work too? Maybe cap the amount of points lost in a match at 5. Also how about for every level of 100 (1500, 1600, 1700, 1800, etc) you hit that you can’t de-rank below that level. That would prevent the “carry teams” from going against weaker “legit teams” as well as keeping the rated system still challenging. You can still lose points, but you won’t be kicked while you’re already down for any one loss.
I’m sure there will be plenty of people who tell me to be quiet and/or go peruse me in the armory to laugh at my stats, so be it. But none of that changes the fact there is a serious problem with Rated PvP in Shadowlands. And Blizzard needs to reign it in.
Just chill after reaching a breakpoint and upgrade your gear. If you are missing a bunch of conquest pieces then put emphasis on earning some conquest rather than pushing rating, THEN upgrading that gear before pressing on.
That’s what happens when you play below your mmr; the system favors you, and punishes you harder for losing. Like, because you’re in there playing versus worse players.
Also rbgs are all dead/deflated because nobody plays. Try again in Dragonlands.
My gear is as maxed as I can get it, which is 5/9 currently. Full conquest and PvP tier pieces and 2 291 legendaries. I literally cannot upgrade it anymore until I somehow manage to hit the next level of 1800. Which I said I can’t. Two and a half months trying to get back to where I was (1757) because of the broken rating system in this game.
And I don’t run in lower MMR groups either. Every group I run with we have are around the same rating. The only thing I cannot control is the fact that carry teams are allowed to de-rank down to lower rating, but still have much higher gear and because they have de-ranked they have lower MMR and are matched against team with players like who are desperately trying to get to the next level. But have no chance against teams 2-3 levels higher gear. No one should have to wait till the next expansion to attain a goal…especially when the goal and it’s rewards will no longer be attainable in a few weeks. Sorry, but it dosn’t seem like you even read the whole post.
If you’re losing a lot more then you’re gaining then you are playing in groups that are lower MMR than you. If I pop into a 1600 group on a 2050 char and lose 3 then it’ll absolutely crater me.
There is/was a Demo in 3s who reached top 5 on ladder at like 278 or something. 2-3 item levels make far less difference than you think, especially in rbgs.
I agree that rbg mmr seems a little weird right now but if you literally can’t break 1800 in any bracket after months of trying despite having both legos and full challenger 2, then the reason for that isn’t gear…
Yup, this “excuse,” if you want to call it that, was valid in earlier seasons when the difference between 1400 and 1800 was 13ilvl (now 6, 3 for 1600), but Blizz has squished down the ilvl gap to the point where it’s not as unfair.
Comp and player skill will influence the outcome of a game way more than minor gear differences.
I’m not saying I like the current system. I’m glad it’s going back to two sets of gear in DF. I just don’t like people putting a loss down to being “outgeared” when there were other reasons a game went the way it did.
stop defending what is indefensible ok? pvp is still a big crap until we get rid of the ridiculous borrowed powers and have back the real wod pvp system, not “similar”, not “almost”, not “like wod”, we need the real one.
This thread is about the matchmaking system, which is mostly fine.
I think that external stuff causes issues, yeah.
The wod system still had people with pve gear getting gy farmed by people in honor gear, and people in honor gear farmed by people in conq gear. They could put everybody in the exact same gear then it’d be entirely skill based and you’d still have the lesser team getting smashed.
I get that it’s an uncomfortable reality that sometimes the other play is just (much) better but that’s how it is, and no amount of gear fixes it.
I still think you are misremembering WoD. Or, at least how small and brief that gearing difference was.
Anyone in questing greens (or even whites or greys) was actually bumped up to within 30 ilvl of BiS and you were just showered with entry level PVP gear for a small boost.
You could have your entire honour set + a few conquest pieces in less than 10 hours /played of unrated PvP. That gave you closer than 15 ilvl to the BiS conquest gear. You could do it in less time via Ashran.
I never felt like I was getting trounced because of gear, aside from maybe a few bad matchups in the first few hours at max level. I had loads of alts all geared out and all I did was unrated PVP the entire expansion.
LFG is just a terrible tool that is super favourable to the creation of metas. There are some incredibly dominant classes in that game mode, and if you aren’t playing one of them, you’ll probably have a hard time once you start playing against people who slowly build a perfect team comp.
You should probably find a good rogue and queue some 2s.
You missed out, it was really damned fun levelling and pvp (even WPvP)
As for classes, shadow priest, WW Monk and prot warrior (of all things) were probably my favourites. The current iterations don’t hold a candle to them imo.
