Hi everyone!
After experimenting with a lot of ideas, I think Anet is finally finding its path regarding the competitive system. A lot of the problems of season 1 are behind us (party MMR, terrible balance), and Anet is slowly going back to an MMR-based match-making. In season 5, they even plan to search for games in the entire player pool instead of just the pip range. I think this is great, because for me nothing was ever more frustrating in my GW2 experience than the 30 wins in a row I had to play in season two to catch up to players I could have a decent game with.
However, I think we can go even further in season 5. The problem with season 1 is that many people felt that they had an equal chance of climbing than worse players, since everyone was given fair matches. Also, since your MMR was stable, you would end up gaining pips and losing pips seemingly at random, which doesn’t feel really good for a progression-based system.
So here is my suggestion: make a pure MMR-based league system. I’ve been playing a lot of a recent popular FPS team-based game lately, which plays a lot like GW2 (emphasis on team work and composition, lots of people solo queuing even though the game plays better in a group), and I think they got it very right regarding their competitive system. Basically, the idea is to have MMR-based leagues. Their initial ranking occurs after playing a couple of placement matches, but it might not even be necessary with Glicko 2, which is more volatile.
If you reach a league once during the season, even if your MMR drops massively after for whatever reason, you conserve the icon of the highest league you reached. So you still have that bragging right of having reached a high league, but you’ll be mostly matched with people of lower leagues from that point.
Also, another good idea that I would take from that shooter is their system of competitive points. You can earn points either by winning a lot of games, or by placing very high in the season. You could then spend it on exclusive rewards in the end of the season. This system would allow both good players and grinders to get exclusive rewards. In addition, you could add some achievements that anyone can obtain relatively easily, as well as some exclusive rewards (titles, skins, icons) for the top players, in the highest league.
The good thing with this idea is that it goes in the general direction of what Anet has been doing lately, and it fits the current UI: just use the pips as an indicator of your current MMR. This way, your true MMR remains hidden to other players (they can still see your league though), but you can see it to see where you stand exactly and how close you are to the next league. I really hope to see something like this, I believe most players would like it more than a progression-based system, which is in theory a good idea for an MMO but can easily become frustrating. With a pure MMR system, there is no surprise, and what you see is what you get. Please tell me what you guys think.
tldr: Pure MMR-based system
Your league icon corresponds to the highest league you reached
Rewards based on both how much games you won and how high you got in the leagues, to cater to both good players and perseverant players
The pip UI is used to display where you stand MMR-wise