Guild Wars 2

As outlined here, the current league system has lots of issues. So let’s think what could be done better.

A proper system should have three properties: First, matches should be fair with equal chances for both sides. Second, league position should represent a players skill. Third, people should be allowed to improve. No system that handles MMR and league position separately is ever going to fulfill those goals. If games are fair, good players are fighting other good players and we have the season 1 issue. If good players are allowed to rise faster, matches have to be imbalanced. This is what we have now.

Some trade-offs between these goals exist. This includes placement matches. But even then we need to balance between those objectives later on.

So instead of keeping MMR and league position separated, they should just use a system similar to chess. Every player has an elo number (= MMR). This is translated into a description like Candidate Master or Grandmaster. It’s a little more complicated, but this basic idea can be used for GW2 as well: Translate a players current MMR into a league position. Say your current MMR is 1359 for example. This means your are in Emerald, tier 3, pip 3. Now as your MMR is updated, so is your league position.

For this to work, further adjustments are necessary:

• All safeguards in the leagues have to be removed. You can just as well go back from Emerald to Amber as you can from Legendary 2 to Legendary 1.
• The tiers and pips in leagues should be normalized. For example, every division could have 5 tiers and every tiers could contain 5 pips.
• While MMR should not be completely reset between seasons, it should become more volatile and decay.
• Rewards should be given out at the end of the season based on the current league position. To get them, however, a certain amount of games has to be played during a season. If less games are played, the rewards are proportionally lower.

I’m certain there are more details that need to be considered, but those are hopefully the most important ones.

Appendix: This also allows for meaningful usage of the time between seasons. During this month people could be matched exclusively against players of their current (fixed) division to determine the best player in this division. Based on the final rating bonus rewards could be given out.

Ignavia.7420:

As outlined here, the current league system has lots of issues. So let’s think what could be done better.

A proper system should have three properties: First, matches should be fair with equal chances for both sides. Second, league position should represent a players skill. Third, people should be allowed to improve. No system that handles MMR and league position separately is ever going to fulfill those goals. If games are fair, good players are fighting other good players and we have the season 1 issue. If good players are allowed to rise faster, matches have to be imbalanced. This is what we have now.

Some trade-offs between these goals exist. This includes placement matches. But even then we need to balance between those objectives later on.

So instead of keeping MMR and league position separated, they should just use a system similar to chess. Every player has an elo number (= MMR). This is translated into a description like Candidate Master or Grandmaster. It’s a little more complicated, but this basic idea can be used for GW2 as well: Translate a players current MMR into a league position. Say your current MMR is 1359 for example. This means your are in Emerald, tier 3, pip 3. Now as your MMR is updated, so is your league position.

For this to work, further adjustments are necessary:

• All safeguards in the leagues have to be removed. You can just as well go back from Emerald to Amber as you can from Legendary 2 to Legendary 1.
• The tiers and pips in leagues should be normalized. For example, every division could have 5 tiers and every tiers could contain 5 pips.
• While MMR should not be completely reset between seasons, it should become more volatile and decay.
• Rewards should be given out at the end of the season based on the current league position. To get them, however, a certain amount of games has to be played during a season. If less games are played, the rewards are proportionally lower.

I’m certain there are more details that need to be considered, but those are hopefully the most important ones.

I agree with you on the safeguards. Taking a soccer analogy, this is called RELEGATION. Typically, in the soccer leagues, the bottom three teams are always up for relegation to the division below them. To get back up, they have to get to the top 3 of the lower division for PROMOTION back to the top where they were.

Let’s suppose the system works as planned. If you fall from say emerald, you would fall to last tier of amber. In that situation, it wouldn’t be as tough to get back since there would constantly be a supply of new players coming in.

However, the most important thing, is that the matches are FAIR. Every game, from online to real sport segregates their beginners, intermediates, veterans and pros. That is IF they want any sort of legitimacy.