Here is a set of gripes I have against practice PvP set-up. All of these can be addressed with relatively simple fixes with minimal impact on gameplay. I hope this can be part of a larger discussion on the overhaul of PvP to a more player-friendly format.
What? Only 4 matches per page? *ugh* There should be more match slots on each page, perhaps 8-10. No one likes scrolling through 20 pages to find an open match. Players sometimes miss open matches because of all the scrolling and refreshing you have to do.
People do not know what 'Friends Only' means There are always a ton of matches that will never begin. The chief reason for this is because people toggled the 'Friends Only' option. That's a waste of space and bandwidth that could be going to helping players find matches that actually will start a match and play it through. So, two suggestions here: (1) a warning message that clearly explains that Friends Only is set to 'ON', and what that means, and (2) If a Friends Only match has been sitting idle for 10 minutes with no one joining it should be automatically deleted, and anyone waiting in queue notified ("This match was automatically deleted due to inactivity.")
WHY won't people confirm? If someone fails to confirm a match by clicking "Go to Arena," that player needs to be booted from the match, booted out of queue, so that everyone else can resume and get a new partner who will confirm. Particularly in 3v3 and 4v4, there's a tendency for people in queue to go away from keyboard and disappear. I don't know why all the sandwich runs need to happen right before a 4v4 match, but the fact is the match can't start because the AFK players won't confirm the match. That is irritating to all other people who were ready to go to the Arena. Why signal that you want to join a match if you don't intend to stay? (This suggestion also applies to Pet Derby, which is plagued with similar issues.)
Require a specified level limit on all matches, to discourage bullying Hapless noob players create matches all the time that don't specify any level limits. This can be fine in theory, when all the joining players are about the same level and ability. It's disgusting when it's Level 5 vs. Level 90, which happens more than you think. Sometimes these high level players join through the QuickJoin feature, but there are also a fair number of bully Prometheans who love to come in and destroy everything in one hit. To fix this, all players should have to specify their level limits before they can create a match. On top of that, red warning text should appear if the creator's level is more than 30 levels below the top allowable level in the duel. It wouldn't be a pop-up, so no clicks are needed to dismiss this message. It just lets the creator know that the odds of winning against 40 levels higher are particularly slim. None of this should affect the functioning of the QuickJoin feature.
