SFNL

So I am confused on your statement -- as presumably there are "paying" players on both sides how and why would WG rig this? Also without any evidence not sure how we can assume your assertion is correct; ps toxic is correct just as likely win as many in a row as lose...

I think I would feel better if there was some kind of discussion about the stacking and bans -- I mean does anyone really want to relive the Kleber or Aki season?

Well thanks @Hapa_Fodder for being open to feedback and the entire WG team. I think first let's acknowledge this was always stated as a test season. Judgement shouldn't be rendered yet, but some observations: 1. The current brackets / gating == herds spammers to gold league. (this is contrary to the stated phrase "increasing player skill in progressive leagues") 2. Unless you rank out silver is easier, faster, and less salt than gold to farm rewards 3. The flag is for ranking out bronze? / and the rewards are anemic. (meaning ranking out gold should have a better reward) -- and motivate people to rank out gold 4x in a season now -- the tokens are meh. If you rank out gold 4 times in a season -- its kind of the red badge of courage award. I mean you suffered through and made it 4. The gates between leagues don't promote team player or skill since there is in skill bar there just the usual spam bar. If you at least made it base XP instead of stars there would be a harder challenge for folks. It would also promote team behaviors. THanks to WG for taking this seriously.

If you can't muster 500 XP on a win that doesn't seem fair to a losing player that can make that...

I looked at the guy at the top of the leaderboard games I had with him. 17 games, and zero above 500 XP even on the winning side...so XP bar might be the way t go.

This is depressing in so many ways. The idea of Bronze, Silver, and Gold isn't to just be a unicum hideout, but it also should gate out those who just spam games. I mean that fellow with 500+ games I know is in gold, and I would imagine if he is on your team you lose more often than not from that leaderboard. The OP's XP bar is very interesting, and might get more people to play beyond the first 3 weeks. As it is right now I probably won't play past this sprint much. I mean it was 50 games to Gold, and I am past 50 games IN gold where its the dd on my team dies, and its just a loss. I think an XP bar eleviates this problem -- even IF IT WAS ONLY applied in QUALIFIERS it would help a LOT.

Well said Ducky...well said.

I think the new system has merit, but the additional points folks added I think are interesting: 1. 1 week sprints (opposed to perhaps 2 week sprints?) (currently 6 sprints of 1 week) -- yeah pretty grindy but without dockyard would it be ok? 2. I like the XP bars that another poster put in (rewards people who contribute on both sides) 3. Yeah a lot of folks grinding dockyard in ranked (although that doesn't excuse sub par play with basic fundamentals in gold (i.e. ohios and gk's pushing mid and first to die) I do not think that this is clan battles in ranked. Similar but not the same -- the bigger issue I have and will re-iterate is the helplessness one feels from when you watch your dd die first consistently and your team just auto-loses. A restriction on number of ships classes per match might help. 4 dds per side regularly is a bit much for 7 v 7

Losing the save a star would help, but doesn't necessarily fix the quality of play.

Well divisions do help, but I suspect most top clans also look at solo win rates, tier, and class. I doubt that it is as black and white for most clans. Yes I agree its a lot of time, but the stated goal from WG was increasingly competitive and skilled players in each league. Being a player who can spam 500 games in week 3 to get to gold league isn't necessarily the definition of skilled. It isn't fair to them nor is it fair to other folks in that same bracket. There will always be a certain factor of luck, but when players feel like LUCK is all you have what is the point in playing the mode? Then it is just 7v7 solo queue randoms with increasingly worse and worse players. Anecdotally it appears the team with the first DD death consistently loses (no stats to back it up) just an anecdote. Also see a lot of very odd game play in new ranked you wouldn't see previously -- BBS running down the middle unchecked, open water moskva/stalins at beginning, etc. A side effect is that there really is alot less thought on tactics and strategy, and just playing like it is a random. You have all the problems of random in a small microcosom of gated players who may or may not be skilled.

The other unfortunate side effect is the level of toxic chat has increased in gold. Anecdotally on a personal basis, and by another clan mate who has observed the same behavior. I have replays I can send in where people have had entire games of toxic chat from beginning to end. This isn't to support an elitist position, but these are not the usual suspects you would normally think would be toxic.

While I applaud WG for trying a new system for ranked -- I think if the goal was to increase the quality of players successively from bronze to gold it has been a failure. Similar in randoms to players who fail their way to Tier X without learning the basic fundamentals -- gold league does not have sufficient skill-based gating to prevent players of lesser skill from advancing. IN the old system the sheer number of stars needed to get to the 2-5 bracket meant that a number of lower-skilled players would take much longer to get to that bracket. With fewer stars needed to get into each bracket, and each bracket being pretty much irrevocably means you've enabled bad players to live in the semi-permanently in the gold league. If the goal is to have increasingly higher skill and quality in each league this really isn't the system there has to be some kind of XP bar or another qualitative measure to prevent just spammers from making it. As it stands now I suspect a lot of good players will just stop playing and gold will just be randoms with people who think they are good but by any qualitative metric are bad at the game. The current meta in gold where your influence based on your skill level is worse than the old system due to the number of bad players being promoted based on spamming and with fewer games needed to spam makes the current test a miserable experience for many.

I gave up and cancelled ticket. I guess WG wins this one, but golly this was poor client services. I can't recall if I spent any of the items I got, but two weeks response time seems quite poor.

Bourgogne being tortured by CV...it was fun losing half my HP to CV...

This seems very anecdotal. I think players who die early generally get blamed. In addition CV is the most influential class as shown by WG's CC summit in russia, and so its loss is felt deeply. I am not sure talking crap does anything, but I am not so sure I'd care. I mean you had fun? Then who cares. @Hapa_Fodder has accurately pointed out people play for different reasons. I think you focus on what you are doing, and just let it go.