Guild Wars 2

I did not notice any similar thread, so I made my own.

My impressions of the patch in the first day:

Good:
+Ready check button before match is created (though it doesn’t seem to work for all?)
+Map Voting
+Displaying queue-pop while tabbed out.
+End to pre-buffing with weapon sets/utilities that players did not intend to play the match with.
+Bank/TP in HoTM.

Undecided:
~Unable to swap characters
~Reinvented the PvP UI for the millionth time.
~Removal of Solo Arena.
~The matchmaking
~Leaderboards/ranking

Bad:
-Split the PvP population into more divisions (practice/unranked/ranked)
-Need to be in Heart of the Mists to queue and wait for matches
-All of the bugs…which I expect will be fixed.

P.S. To all the people who have always whined about matchmaking. The matchmaking before, as I knew it, was fine. The only problems happened from decay and how decayed players were treated like top-tier pros on the ladders and in their matchmaking.

In team arena you’d always get matched with the closest rank team that was also queuing. In Solo Arena, though the teams were a mix of varying skill levels, they were usually evenly distributed based on the current leaderboard position of all players queueing at that time.

Celtus.8456:

I did not notice any similar thread, so I made my own.

seriously? almost every thread on the front page is people QQing AKA giving their thoughts of the update

not that any of it is coherent well structured or readable which is the opposite of yours I will agree with your points

I agree with everything Celtus wrote, except I would say unable to switch characters is a good thing (for me, anyway), and pre-buffing change was bad (for me).

I also think the ready up button being meaningful now is cool, since it can start the match earlier.

Overall I’m on the fence about the matchmaking, I would like to see that tightened up a bit. I wouldn’t mind waiting another minute or 2 for better matches, but the more I played yesterday the better my matches were. But at first they were all landslides.

Celtus.8456:

Ready check button before match (though it doesn’t seem to work for all?)

this existed before the patch as well, just didn’t have the “look at me” value it does now.

The improvements are pretty huge, compared to the state the game was in before. Of course, some polishing needs to be done that’s for sure. But once the new leaderboards are up and running, we will have a pretty decent pvp infrastructure. Then they can finally focus on balance issues. Let’s hope Tyria won’t be entirely overrun by celestial monkey by then.

oneply.9586:

Celtus.8456:

Ready check button before match (though it doesn’t seem to work for all?)

this existed before the patch as well, just didn’t have the “look at me” value it does now.

Sorry, I meant the new ready-check used before the match is created to check for AFK people.

Celtus.8456:

Bad:
-Split the PvP population into more divisions (practice/unranked/ranked)

Undecided:
~The matchmaking
~Leaderboards/ranking

Will doing practice/solo ranked/team ranked not also divide the population?
I think the matchmaking is not working correctly right now.
Leaderboards will be going again after december 16th.

Really disappointed: Solo players are called solo players for a reason. They wish to compete in equal circumstance and prove themselves this way. Even with garbage leaderboards, there was a sense of pride when you achieved a high rank and fought with/against good players. Now, the balance for solo players is skewered. There are no equal circumstances anymore. A duo of friends in coms will always have an advantage over a single guy. A trio even more so. A 4man? Can win vs unorganized randoms on their own.
What this game lacks for this matchmaking to be somewhat worthwhile would be ingame coms or any way to actively communicate with your team, like the Chat Wheel in Dota2. But it doesn’t have that, and communication will always beat the lack of it.

Simple solution everyone has been spouting? “Get friends. This is a MMO.” – True, but the general notion of MMO (at least from the more popular games) is freedom to play content however you like it. Arenanet shouldn’t dictate the need to find other players to have a chance in pvp. If they do, they can expect another recession in player base. But I am sure they are used that by now.

Saddest part about this all? That this was announced after it had been in work as a somewhat secret project for a while, only giving us the finished product without asking us what we want and drawing a consensus what would be best. The things that were asked for, AFK/4v5/better matchmaking algorythm/fix skyhammer, have been added, but at the cost of the only “fair” environment for solo players to have fun.

Even worse is that this seems all so set in stone already. They announce a matchmaking combination not many even asked for, the thing already being completed, with all its flaws. And now they act like they are listening to community input. News flash: They won’t. This is such a common act across MMO games. Sure, they will tweak their little numbers until this garbage system is less garbage, and in their eyes it will be optimal. The chance that team and solo will be separated again are slim.