Guild Wars 2

I decided to test the decay system by not que’ing for a few days and got to -160 before I que’d my first match. My first match was a loss and it resulted in the normal -skill points(21) but what suprised me was that I got +100 back from my decay which resulted in me getting 79overall rating. So currently if you get your max decay(-700) you will get right back to your skill rating in just 7 games regardless of wins/losses, and it won’t affect your skill rating whatsoever.

If this is true, then wouldn’t decay actually make it easier to gain rank? If you’re ranked 2000, for example, and get seven days worth of decay, your first game will then be against rank 1300 players (on average). You’ll play an easier game and get +100 rank at the end of it. Repeat 6 more times and just make sure you don’t have any decay accumulated at the end of the season…

No your skill rating doesn’t change and that determines matchmaking, all it means is if you get 2k+ you can sit on that all season and then que at the end for your title. Thus making the whole point of the Decay system worthless. It’s suppose to keep people que’ing.

fluidmonolith.3584:

If this is true, then wouldn’t decay actually make it easier to gain rank? If you’re ranked 2000, for example, and get seven days worth of decay, your first game will then be against rank 1300 players (on average). You’ll play an easier game and get +100 rank at the end of it. Repeat 6 more times and just make sure you don’t have any decay accumulated at the end of the season…

Your effective rating (skill rating – decay) isn’t used for matchmaking. You’ll still be matched up against rank 2000 players, but your effective rating goes up as decay reduces.

Got it, thanks for clearing that up.

this is a broken system if the above is true. Decay should cause those accounts to lose the rating permanently, not get it restored just for playing x games.

The point of rating to decay is to stop people from being able to sit at the top of the leaderboard until the end of the season. It’s not intended to hurt anyone else.

The idea behind it is that the people at the top have to play every few days. If they got there with luck or binging early in the season (when rating is more volatile), later games may hand them a loss and knock them down the leaderboard. It also is intended to address the related problem of “almost top” stagnation where there isn’t enough rating to boost players higher later in the season because the higher players have hoarded it.

Wha…So, basically you get rewarded for NOT playing. Is that what you’re trying to tell us, OP? If so….lol.

I did not know about this. Decay is broken as well, then.