Guild Wars 2

Even if you start to promote this game with tournaments, no one is going to aspire to be these players if the tournament system housed within the game is an arduous grind. I think, hey why not give GW2 a shot again after not playing for a month and see how things have improved. After contacting my bro and queuing up, we were excited to play the game after such a hiatus.

A couple games later after playing against full blown teams and pugs with teammates that lack the basic fundamentals of how to actually win we logged off pretty disappointed. Some examples involved teammates trying to kill the forest monster right at the start of the match leaving an uneven fight in any ensuing engagement or two separate matches that involved a mesmer trying to solo the mob only to die(!!!) to it while the rest of our team dies in outmatched fights. I don’t really see a reason to come back. I’m sick and tired of having to fight the game to have a good time simply because I want to log on and play with a friend or by myself after work.

The gameplay is still fun, and I would play far more if there were options for players like me not feel completely frustrated. Splitting queues will obviously impact wait times, but there won’t be room for this game to grow simply because players reach a point where the game simply throws them to the sharks.

So seriously, when are we getting solo queue?

tpvp would be fine if the matchmaking would not put a solo queue team with a premade EVER, so premades could only fight premades.

Anet is pandering to a small number of premades, driving away solo queue folks that might have evolved into making a team.

Xom.9264:

Anet is pandering to a small number of premades, driving away solo queue folks that might have evolved into making a team.

pretty much this. if u have a good team the matchmaking is gna put u against other good teams. if none of u r on the leaderboards or ur solo qing ur gna get kittenty teams most the time, n vs better teams most the time.

condiments.8043:

Even if you start to promote this game with tournaments, no one is going to aspire to be these players if the tournament system housed within the game is an arduous grind. I think, hey why not give GW2 a shot again after not playing for a month and see how things have improved. After contacting my bro and queuing up, we were excited to play the game after such a hiatus.

A couple games later after playing against full blown teams and pugs with teammates that lack the basic fundamentals of how to actually win we logged off pretty disappointed. Some examples involved teammates trying to kill the forest monster right at the start of the match leaving an uneven fight in any ensuing engagement or two separate matches that involved a mesmer trying to solo the mob only to die(!!!) to it while the rest of our team dies in outmatched fights. I don’t really see a reason to come back. I’m sick and tired of having to fight the game to have a good time simply because I want to log on and play with a friend or by myself after work.

The gameplay is still fun, and I would play far more if there were options for players like me not feel completely frustrated. Splitting queues will obviously impact wait times, but there won’t be room for this game to grow simply because players reach a point where the game simply throws them to the sharks.

So seriously, when are we getting solo queue?

The entire community, even those with regular teams, is pitching in to try to convince Anet that solo queue is the most important feature and should be next in the priority list. There are other issues, but I don’t know of any forum threads in the last few months that have named any other issue as the most important (except for a couple of QQ nerf threads).

These seems like an OK thread to dump some of these in. They’re pretty recent. I know MM isn’t around PvP rank, but it should incorporate it a little more. I realize people like to say that rank doesn’t equal skill, but if you’re >10 it does mean you probably don’t know how to move around & do basic kitten very well.

Also, if you have 4/5 decent people, like in the 106 pic, you shouldn’t get a lvl 5 for your 5th.

I hope the screenies help you realize to incorporate ranks a little more into your MM formula. Or, if you can be pro coders – incorporate tournaments played.

I gave up making those screenshots.
Get your act together Anet and give me the pvp game you promised.

Matchmaking and Solo queue only.

Queing has always been a catastrophe in the game.
I think they forgot they don’t have to try to innovate everything, even stuff that is already working… in this case when they decided on SPvP servers…
Terrible solution to an already simply solved problem…

A ‘que now button’ that matched people based on glory rank… with possibly a ‘competitive/not’ toggle or slider (1->10), they could sick their code monkeys on, since they seem to have a fancy for giving the illusion of competitive/esportness.

After a month or two, they then could release weekly tournaments that required a number of ‘competitive wins’ to be able to enter.
Having tournaments as the base gameplay ruins any sense of ‘tournaments’ that a game could have… it turns them into casual queing not ‘OMG I can try to make a name for myself now!!’

Eventually, custom arenas could be nifty, for things like scrimmages if the game was getting competitive, while bringing dueling to others.
But they by no means should be the main form of casual queing.
They don’t do anything casual queing needs.

That blarb it took me like a few minutes to come up with and write out, yet would have solved a major problem and kept the hemorrhaging PvP population a lil bit more stopped up over these last months.
(Allot of people still don’t like, see much potential in, the game’s gameplay, so it’s by no means a fix all to the game’s “esport” dilema…)

It was said somewhere else already but there is one thing that Anet dont want to understand and I am kind of puzzled why. They say that splitting queue to solo only and premade only is a bad step becouse there is not enough people playing tPVP. But the longer they maintain current system, the more solo queuers they alienate and more people will rage quit making the playerbase even smaller.

I much rather have a longer waiting times and meanwhile go zerg in hotjoin or just wait while doing something else rather than keep getting matches PUG vs. premade over and over and over again.

Awe.1096:

I much rather have a longer waiting times and meanwhile go zerg in hotjoin or just wait while doing something else rather than keep getting matches PUG vs. premade over and over and over again.

Because it is a bad idea.
Plain and simple.

Being a premade doesn’t give much of an advantage in this game.
At best it lets you group together individually strong players so you aren’t stuck with a few scrubs on your team, few people use Voip in this game to any advantage in combat, I mean more than what marking a target could do.

It is an issue that can generally be fixed with just basing matches on glory rank and a very rough MMR’esque factor.

garethh.3518:

Awe.1096:

I much rather have a longer waiting times and meanwhile go zerg in hotjoin or just wait while doing something else rather than keep getting matches PUG vs. premade over and over and over again.

Because it is a bad idea.
Plain and simple.

Being a premade doesn’t give much of an advantage in this game.
At best it lets you group together individually strong players so you aren’t stuck with a few scrubs on your team, few people use Voip in this game to any advantage in combat, I mean more than what marking a target could do.

It is an issue that can generally be fixed with just basing matches on glory rank and a very rough MMR’esque factor.

By “premade” I mean people with same guild tag. I dont ask “are you a premade” at the start of every match. But then I see they have 4 or 5 people with same guild name and that is what I call a premade (and yes, I know there can be a premade with people from different guilds). And I am being spammed by those matches when I queue solo. Sure sometimes I win in a PUG vs a premade from same guild. Sometimes those premades are awful like having thieves unloading their entire initiative spamming heartseeker while immobilized. But most of the times they get a free win over a PUG. Some sort of organization and voice comm > PUG.

garethh.3518:

Awe.1096:

I much rather have a longer waiting times and meanwhile go zerg in hotjoin or just wait while doing something else rather than keep getting matches PUG vs. premade over and over and over again.

Because it is a bad idea.
Plain and simple.

Being a premade doesn’t give much of an advantage in this game.
At best it lets you group together individually strong players so you aren’t stuck with a few scrubs on your team, few people use Voip in this game to any advantage in combat, I mean more than what marking a target could do.

It is an issue that can generally be fixed with just basing matches on glory rank and a very rough MMR’esque factor.

Listening to people like this is why Anet is failing at pvp.

No solo que = no growth

No real later system = no reason to make a group

Game needs solo que matchmaking, premade groups need to wait in que until another group shows up.

Xom.9264:

Listening to people like this is why Anet is failing at pvp.

No solo que = no growth

No real later system = no reason to make a group

Game needs solo que matchmaking, premade groups need to wait in que until another group shows up.

We are all just people who think they see the world better than they do…
But throwing away attempts at seeing clearer for inflamatory gross generalizations won’t get you any closer to anything, but, of course, aimless conflict.

Awe.1096:

By “premade” I mean people with same guild tag. I dont ask “are you a premade” at the start of every match. But then I see they have 4 or 5 people with same guild name and that is what I call a premade (and yes, I know there can be a premade with people from different guilds). And I am being spammed by those matches when I queue solo. Sure sometimes I win in a PUG vs a premade from same guild. Sometimes those premades are awful like having thieves unloading their entire initiative spamming heartseeker while immobilized. But most of the times they get a free win over a PUG. Some sort of organization and voice comm > PUG.

So how does that discrimate between queing with 4 people verse queing with 4 people in the same guild?
Would they go into different que systems??

Because, as I threw out there, being in a premade doesn’t tend to give a massive advantage in less-than-pro-que, unlike in other games.

At least for me, if I am fighting other evenly skilled players in GW2 it tends to end in good matches regardless of premade verse not.

I for one am thankful that ranks have zero impact on matchmaking. sPvP had almost no redeeming qualities before leaderboards/spectator/custom arena, and it wasn’t worth playing. Now that it is here, why should I be matched lower than a bunch of MLG tryhards because they forced themself into an undesirable grind (whilst probably complaining about it the whole way)?

Newsflash: if you’re matched with people who are terrible, one of two things happen:
-You’re matched up against a team with an equal amount of terrible and duke it out.
-Or, if the player pool is limited, you may be matched up unevenly. Luckily Glicko takes care of that 100% and you lose very little rating if youre matched against a vastly superior team (or win very few points for beating a vastly inferior team). Ever wonder why other bads on the forum complain about going 3-1 and losing rank? That’s why.

Get a clue. lulz @ my rank? lulz @ your score.

Celeras.4980:

I for one am thankful that ranks have zero impact on matchmaking. sPvP had almost no redeeming qualities before leaderboards/spectator/custom arena, and it wasn’t worth playing. Now that it is here, why should I be matched lower than a bunch of MLG tryhards because they forced themself into an undesirable grind (whilst probably complaining about it the whole way)?

Massive gloating derail.
If you can’t see beyond ‘look I am good, matching by rank is not perfect!!’ then go make up dummy arguments to fight somewhere else…

Rank was never meant to be perfect, but to an extent it is good enough.

Celeras.4980:

I for one am thankful that ranks have zero impact on matchmaking. sPvP had almost no redeeming qualities before leaderboards/spectator/custom arena, and it wasn’t worth playing. Now that it is here, why should I be matched lower than a bunch of MLG tryhards because they forced themself into an undesirable grind (whilst probably complaining about it the whole way)?

Newsflash: if you’re matched with people who are terrible, one of two things happen:
-You’re matched up against a team with an equal amount of terrible and duke it out.
-Or, if the player pool is limited, you may be matched up unevenly. Luckily Glicko takes care of that 100% and you lose very little rating if youre matched against a vastly superior team (or win very few points for beating a vastly inferior team). Ever wonder why other bads on the forum complain about going 3-1 and losing rank? That’s why.

Get a clue. lulz @ my rank? lulz @ your score.

As a point holder, having more points means you’re not doing your job right. Lets say that ranger was holding his home point the whole game. He got neutralized minimal times, so he didn’t get recap points. He didn’t lose the point, so he didn’t get capture points. Score in pvp doesn’t mean much, having a high one doesn’t mean you did good.

the lack of a solo Q is brutal.

Shanks R Us.2489:

Celeras.4980:

I for one am thankful that ranks have zero impact on matchmaking. sPvP had almost no redeeming qualities before leaderboards/spectator/custom arena, and it wasn’t worth playing. Now that it is here, why should I be matched lower than a bunch of MLG tryhards because they forced themself into an undesirable grind (whilst probably complaining about it the whole way)?

Newsflash: if you’re matched with people who are terrible, one of two things happen:
-You’re matched up against a team with an equal amount of terrible and duke it out.
-Or, if the player pool is limited, you may be matched up unevenly. Luckily Glicko takes care of that 100% and you lose very little rating if youre matched against a vastly superior team (or win very few points for beating a vastly inferior team). Ever wonder why other bads on the forum complain about going 3-1 and losing rank? That’s why.

Get a clue. lulz @ my rank? lulz @ your score.

As a point holder, having more points means you’re not doing your job right. Lets say that ranger was holding his home point the whole game. He got neutralized minimal times, so he didn’t get recap points. He didn’t lose the point, so he didn’t get capture points. Score in pvp doesn’t mean much, having a high one doesn’t mean you did good.

… Except that the pictures you posted earlier then mean nothing if all they are just pictures of level 1 players playing in tourney matches.

The issue is that neither rank nor score show how good a player is. For example, I’m a rather low level 15 PvP player, and that’s not considering that I’ve only really started PvPing in the past week. That being said, I’ve clocked well over 300 hours on my thief, have been a buildcrafter for a good while now, and had a major focus on WvW before I came to PvP. Furthermore, as a WvW thief who almost never had more than 10g across all toons, and after at least 100 hours of WvW still doesn’t have complete exotic gear (and the gear that I do have is completely inconsistent within itself), and as a solo roamer who shadowed enemy groups and zergs, I’ve faced many battles where I had a clear disadvantage stats-wise to my opponents. You don’t get that in PvP; you’re always guaranteed to be on the same footing as your opponents if you want to be so.

The point is, in spite of my level 15 PvP rank, I would say that I’ve been through a lot on my thief that half of the people on this forum never have and never will experience.

So, if points don’t matter (which you’re right, they don’t), then all you can say from those previous pics is that rank does matter. Except that you can’t differentiate between a rank 1 PvPer that just got the game and a rank 1 PvPer that played WvW for hundreds of hours and has mountains of experience with buildcrafting and tactics.

Points definitely don’t matter in tpvp, Rank to a certain extent don’t matter as well.

There is no definitive way to say that someone who is rank 50 is better then someone who is rank 10 other then the person who is at rank 50 has about 100 times more experience – given that both people only play tpvp because hotjoins don’t really count. Experience doesn’t always equate to being a better skilled player but it does mean the person is wiser and should know how to react better to situations. Still if given a blind test I would always choose a rank 50 over a rank 10, or rank 40 over 20 because knowing where to be at the right time means everything in tpvp.

And on the question of e-sport, hell no. Wheres the depth in this game to even suggest such a thing? There is hardly any opportunity to play mind games with your opponents, and strategy wise it is rather so straight forward and plain. I don’t think this will ever get to the point of e-sport, its more or less developed to much of a negative reputation to make this happen, however they could do so much more to increase the depth and ‘fun’ of this game for casuals and hardcore players alike.

4 things I hate
1. instant que (prefer it to be within 10-30 seconds)
2. 4v5 games
3. low ranks
4. going against high ranked premades (as you saw in a twitch video like 2 days ago, team sleepy r40s DESTROYED super pug team aka solo q team (rank 50s, best players in GW2 pvp). If the best players play together they still cant be a premade and team Sleepy proven it.

They should make it so when you que, you goto a queing zone, and when a team is formed it gives you 10 second heads up that its ready to put you in a match (none of this instant ready to go match), so in that time you can look around and make sure all 5 of you are there, and if someone isn’t there it gives you a chance to disband the group before you get into a stupid 4v5 game. Also make it show peoples level by there pvp level, so if you got some low rank in your solo q, you can disband or kick him out of your que.

^ No one should have the right to discriminate against players based on rank. I really think everyone should just get over themselves with regards to playing with low ranks. Also most of the screenshots above seem to indicate that the entire team lost because, low and behold, a rank 1 joined their pug. Unfortunately, those teams would have probably lost regardless.

You want to play with only r50 and above, don’t enter by yourself. If you’re worried so much about your leaderboard rank and want to always win, play with premades whom you trust to pull you through.

Seriously, the general idea behind GW2’s matchmaking is pretty much identical to most online competitive games. You join a server, and if you do so by yourself it’s up to the luck of the draw of who you are playing with.

Solo que’s don’t just discriminate against low level players, but players of all levels as it places ranks together based on an average of rank meaning that high level players can struggle to get into games too because they are too far outside the median.

I think the whole problem stems from the fact that you can join tournies solo. But that at the moment that sort of thing is needed because the mists prep area is split between servers so players cannot interact and form proper teams beforehand. Really what should be done is to add a new waypoint in the mists to go to an exclusive prep area for tounies whereby everyone in NA or EU servers are able to interact with each other character to character (the whole mists should have been like that anyway).

Or alternatively, the problem is that premades beat too easily soloQ players, because of shrine camping builds/stratégies..
The average soloQ team i get is about 3 melee DPS, whilst the average premade i face( if not all premades) is ranger + guardian + ele + engineer. Matchs would in my opinion be much more closer and fair if the most players from a team on a shrine = that team has the shrine.

IMO, the problem is that good tPvP players who learned to actually play the game, are playing a different game in a sense than your average hotjoin sPvP player. I’ve been complaining since BETA that there is no reward system in place to reward people for actually playing the game in the correct sense, so instead, hotjoin often becomes nothing more than people farming glory in group zergs, or solo mesmers/rangers housed up in a duelist build waiting to take on new players and smash them 1v1.

8v8 actually handicaps developing new skill, there is no viable reward of glory for defending a point, there is no viable reward for actually winning the match, the bonus glory for winning is terrible. They have rules set up to keep ‘bots’ from farming glory in a game… where glory = purely aesthetic rewards, aside from dyes.

And so new players come into the game thinking “okay, this is how you PvP, I’m killing players now, so I’ve got the hang of this” only to join a tPvP match and have absolutely ZERO concept of team fighting, point defense, point control, or map control. Anet has built a game that is directly counter-intuitive to what the average beginner experiences in PvP, and so that means the community starts to split… you’ve got your good tPvP players bored from lack of competition, and newer players discouraged because they know how to PvP, and they can defeat other players, but those skills and builds are not desired or viable in an average tPvP match that’s actually competitive.

Just my two cents. IMO, this issue hasn’t changed since BETA.

Neare.9703:

^ No one should have the right to discriminate against players based on rank…

[because]
-losses with a rank 1 joining their pug. Unfortunately, those teams would have probably lost regardless.

[so]
-don’t enter by yourself.
-don’t want to win

Seriously, the general idea behind GW2’s matchmaking is[n’t] pretty much identical to most online competitive games [all mobas are different, all other MMOs have base lvls to go through]. You join a server, and if you do so by yourself it’s up to the luck of the draw of who you are playing with.

Solo que’s don’t just discriminate against low level players, but players of all levels as it places ranks together based on an average of rank meaning that high level players can struggle to get into games too because they are too far outside the median.
[the game is that dead???]

I think the whole problem stems from the fact that you can join tournies solo.
But that at the moment that sort of thing is needed because the mists prep area is split between servers so players cannot interact and form proper teams beforehand. Really what should be done is to add a new waypoint in the mists to go to an exclusive prep area for tounies whereby everyone in NA or EU servers are able to interact with each other character to character (the whole mists should have been like that anyway).
[skill is still more a factor than being in premade in this game]

Abazigal.3679:

Or alternatively, the problem is that premades beat too easily soloQ players, because of shrine camping builds/stratégies..
The average soloQ team i get is about 3 melee DPS, whilst the average premade i face( if not all premades) is ranger + guardian + ele + engineer. Matchs would in my opinion be much more closer and fair if the most players from a team on a shrine = that team has the shrine.

I’m leaning towards that being unlucky pugging. I’ve never noticed that sort of consistent massive divide, at least around the 85%->60~ on leaderboard.
Other games cause unwinnable matches by comp alone, while in GW2 pugging just gives a bit of a disadvantage at worst.
One that individual player skill tends to be able to outweigh.
(its hard to go into more detail on that… dang)

aydenunited.5729:

IMO, the problem is that good tPvP players who learned to actually play the game, are playing a different game in a sense than your average hotjoin sPvP player. I’ve been complaining since BETA that there is no reward system in place to reward people for actually playing the game in the correct sense, so instead, hotjoin often becomes nothing more than people farming glory in group zergs, or solo mesmers/rangers housed up in a duelist build waiting to take on new players and smash them 1v1.

I think that might help.
It’d stop such zerg based glory farming in SPvP, which would translate over to them actually learning to play the game in it, which would ease them into TPvP.

I’d still rather have a base rank based que thrown in first, it’d help the problem a lil more, just because ability to play the game is a larger factor, and so many rank 1->10s just aren’t good at making/playing specs.

garethh.3518:

Neare.9703:

^ No one should have the right to discriminate against players based on rank.

Ugh.

This isn’t rasism, it’s creating even matches.
The issue isn’t skill verse rank, its very new players against not.
For the first dozen or so ranks players should be pitted against other new players instead of into rank 35+ groups.
Without having a sort of LoL style ‘here is your team, choose your role’, it doesn’t work… mismatching rank 1-40s in games. Whichever high ranks run better solo-hero builds instead of team based high level competitive ones (since if you rely on a rank 1~, you lose) has a massive advantage.

That can easily be fixed by easing people into the game mode before throwing them to the MMR…
If that makes sense…

aydenunited.5729:

IMO, the problem is that good tPvP players who learned to actually play the game, are playing a different game in a sense than your average hotjoin sPvP player. I’ve been complaining since BETA that there is no reward system in place to reward people for actually playing the game in the correct sense, so instead, hotjoin often becomes nothing more than people farming glory in group zergs, or solo mesmers/rangers housed up in a duelist build waiting to take on new players and smash them 1v1.

I think that might help.
It’d stop such zerg based glory farming in SPvP, which would translate over to them actually learning to play the game in it, which would ease them into TPvP.

I’d still rather have a base rank based que thrown in first, it’d help the problem a lil more, just because ability to play the game is a larger factor, and so many rank 1->10s just aren’t good at making/playing specs.

Yes, a rank base queue would be good. I think there are enough people playing tpvp that you could cordone off the newbies to about rank 10-15 and without killing the queue times. It would help. Would it be a cure all of course not there is no cure all. The arguements against easing in the newbs do not stand up against any kind of scrutiny, they are all based on radom anecdotes involving bad high rr players, the only one with merit is possibly unacceptable queue time increases which we won’t know until its tried and then if that happenes you can just remove the queue. Even if they put in a solo queue soon they will still need to do something like this if population can support the stratification. It’s just common sense the complete novice to pvp needs to be eased in. I would have appreciated it in my early ranks and I did many hours of WvWvW and played many other pvp MMORPGs for 1,000’s of hours before I played 1 minute of a tournament. There IS a 5v5 conquest style tpvp learning curve.

Rank doesn’t say anything, when will you ever learn.

I eg play on 2 other accounts for soloq, because i dont want to lose rank on my mainchar, do i play worst because the other 2 accounts are low rank right now?

I doubt it.

They only need to seperate solo from team queue and the game would ROCK !!!

lvis.3824:

Rank doesn’t say anything, when will you ever learn.
I eg play on 2 other accounts for soloq…

Not saying everything isn’t the same thing as not saying anything.

The leaderboard is a whole nother issue.

As a sidenote:
que times are terrible in this game.
I decided to log in after a few weeks off, thinking it would at least be picking up after the ‘big ole tournament deal’… not falling to off and on 20~ min que times… where quick pops are against most of the same people…

in EU there are qtimes of ~ 2 mins max, most of the time instant invite.

Chances of a rank 10 knowing where to be at and how to contribute 10%. Chances of a rank 40 knowing where they should be at and how to contribute 90%.

When your rank 40 you can predict movements, but when your rank 10 your pretty much doing whatever because you haven’t experienced enough games.

When a job looks at your record the person with 5 years of experience with no college degree (rank 40) will get the job over someone with a college degree and zero experience (rank 10), thing is the experienced guy has been playing enough to know what to do, the inexperienced guy does too much thinking, instead of knowing what to do.

Another thing, not everyone has a second account, so there is only a fraction of a chance that the low rank guy is actually a high rank on another account. If everyone had a second account there would be no complaining about MMR.

Why should a non twink acc player who is rank 10 come in the same bracket as rank 40 players ?

Given the fact that MMR is working correct ?

Makes no sense.

So basicly , if you have a battle of red team with 5 r30 players, and blue with 4 r30 and 1 rank 5 you can be sure that the r5 player is a twink account.
Or MMR is bugged.

Or the people queuing is so low that the system uses whatever it has, even if it knows that they shouldn’t play against them.
No Matchmaking system can make up for a low playerbase, and that’s probably the reason why they didn’t split the queue between solo and premade.

lvis.3824:

Why should a non twink acc player who is rank 10 come in the same bracket as rank 40 players ?

Given the fact that MMR is working correct ?

Makes no sense.

So basicly , if you have a battle of red team with 5 r30 players, and blue with 4 r30 and 1 rank 5 you can be sure that the r5 player is a twink account.
Or MMR is bugged.

MMR is basically a short duration win/loss ratio in GW2.
For what you want, it can’t be ‘not bugged’.

garethh.3518:

Awe.1096:

I much rather have a longer waiting times and meanwhile go zerg in hotjoin or just wait while doing something else rather than keep getting matches PUG vs. premade over and over and over again.

Because it is a bad idea.
Plain and simple.

Being a premade doesn’t give much of an advantage in this game.
At best it lets you group together individually strong players so you aren’t stuck with a few scrubs on your team, few people use Voip in this game to any advantage in combat, I mean more than what marking a target could do.

It is an issue that can generally be fixed with just basing matches on glory rank and a very rough MMR’esque factor.

If you don’t know why competent premades will stomp/overcome pugs within this gametype I don’t know what to tell you. Being an individually competent asset in team fighting is only half of what will win you games, the rest is being able to synchronize with your team as you dance between battles, rally after spawns, and force superior numbers. Individual skill will only get you so far against well oiled premade rotations that can put you at a numbers disadvantage every time unless you somehow intuitively gel together with your pug teammates, which almost never happens. Most of the time premades react better tactically with voice chat, move as a team better, and take advantage of rotational sloppiness that exists between players who don’t usually play together.

Back when I played more I carved my way up to leaderboard rank 112 with friends and other strong players I’ve teamed up with. It is just flipping awful now to be at that rank range and get put together with pugs that don’t check their map to move with their teammates, don’t read chat for instructions, etc. I feel bad for all these players that shackled with me as my friend and I take a beating simply because we had the audacity to queue up solo/duo with this current system at my current freaking rank.

Its not fun to push middle at the beginning only to get your backline bull rushed by the other team because your teammates ignored chat when you said to AVOID THE FOREST MONSTER AT THE START OF THE GAME and help in team fights. Its definitely not fun when your teammates don’t know how to gather after respawns which result in continuous beatdowns by some premade blob because everyone wants to solo hero to their points. I’ve been in great pugs that have beat premades before, but that certainly doesn’t necessitate commingling either group together is a good idea. Especially for new players who won’t understand why they’re constantly fighting higher odds, failing to get decent fights or learn anything. Good rotational strategy, and team movements is the difference in conquest between a close fight, a slightly close fight, and a curb stomp. There isn’t that huge of a grey area.

Even though it might hurt the game in the short run, this game deserves solo queue to create a hospitable environments for its new and casual players. I enjoy this game a lot, but why is it still so often a pain to play?

Competitive premades should have a high MMR, so with a working MMR system (and decent population) won’t be fighting casual pugs.

Moving between battles, rezzing, spiking, look at the map/health bars to kitten battles is all individual skill based stuff that any pug can do.
Yes being in a premade lets you do it better.
No it isn’t a gamebreaking advantage.

I’ve fought premades with pugs.
You obviously haven’t played any other MMO.
Those matches end in ‘have to afk spawn camps’ in them… in GW2 it just caused a few lobsided teamfights I am forced to avoid/fall back from (because of comp)… but it still tend to end in at least a few good fights…

Yes its bad that competitive players get thrown in with much worse players at times.
Yes its bad that ranking isn’t really relative to anything but your premade.
Yes its bad that rank 1→10s get randomly chucked into matches.
Yes its bad that some people don’t really focus on winning.

Solo que verse premade won’t fix any of that though.
I mean short of ranking, but that should have been toon specific/toggle-able and from the getgo.

For real, this is plain unfair
!http://i.imgur.com/wDbtZoF.jpg?2!

huehue