Guild Wars 2

Fay.2357:

Ultimately, experiences like this are the fault of Anet in their design of the league system.

GW2 is a casual game, and they almost always try to make new stuff palatable to causal players. The leagues are no exception, and the hybrid compromise between casual and competitive leaves everyone unhappy.

Amber through sapphire are all easily passed by even the worst players if they play enough games. This is the concession to casual players; being able to progress at least to ruby without having an ounce of skill.

However, ruby suddenly is having none of their kitten, and smacks down people that aren’t able to consistently pump out wins. This creates the massive wall that players like OP are crashing face-first into. Since everybody gets to ruby, there is no competition or challenge up to that point. Once you enter ruby, you’re suddenly exposed to the full and unmitigated challenge of having a massive range of skills all scrunched into one division.

If Anet had made every division equally difficult to progress through, you’d get a more even settling curve where some settled in emerald, some in sapphire, some in ruby, and some in diamond. If Anet had gone full casual and made it equally easy to progress through diamond, there would be no settling and everyone would end up at the top end. By making this compromise system, they’ve simply caused a massive traffic jam to occur in ruby that catches everyone up in it, regardless of skill level.

I agree with the description, and I think it would help if you could already loose tiers in emerald. In a sense this just means the wall will come earlier, but this would be a much lower wall. From what Evan (I think) said, the average player will be between emerald and ruby, so the “slightly above average” would be already in ruby while only the “below average” are in emerald. Emerald would thus be reasonably even-matched for most players.

The problem you folks appear to be missing is this: If tiers could be lost earlier it would stick a lot of players in Amber/Emerald. This would have two very bad effects;

It would cause higher tier players to troll back through the lower ranks on alt accounts. There wouldn’t be enough upper division players to support matches. Besides, the general trend in the game is to exploit. Why play hard matches in Diamond when you can alt and laugh while stomping in Amber?

It would cause a lot of players to quit altogether.

Ithilwen.1529:

The problem you folks appear to be missing is this: If tiers could be lost earlier it would stick a lot of players in Amber/Emerald. This would have two very bad effects;

It would cause higher tier players to troll back through the lower ranks on alt accounts. There wouldn’t be enough upper division players to support matches. Besides, the general trend in the game is to exploit. Why play hard matches in Diamond when you can alt and laugh while stomping in Amber?

It would cause a lot of players to quit altogether.

This concern has validity, but I think I can fairly safely say that it wouldn’t be an issue.

In the current system, legendary players only have ~5m queue times. If they allowed tier dropping all the way to emerald, those queue times would probably increase a bit, but not enough to cause players to smurf on new accounts.

Remember, in a competitive system, your progress is the achievement. The top players aren’t playing just to stomp noobs, they’re playing to extend their kitten as long as possible, and that means sticking it out at the top end with tough matches to progress farther. Some people probably would smurf, but I don’t think it would happen in large enough numbers to matter.

In response to those questioning my low damage output in some of those matches – take a closer look at my healing, boon distribution, and damage absorption. In fact, look at the screen shots again – in some matches my damage/defense/support numbers are much higher.

To further assist Mesmers, I’ve decided to outline my build at MetaBuild. You’re welcome to analyze it, try it, and decide for yourself if it’s the right fit for you.

http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Mesmer_-_Phantom_Menace

Guess Anet wanetd to kick me in the balls for no reason: http://i.imgur.com/uvvvKrU.png

decent decision! deleting my post for something i CLEARLY did not write. where have i mentioned that i quit the GAME???? i told u i quit sPvP. Or "what remains for me: 1v1 and GvG&&scrims " this is excluded from your game? guessed so couse it still got 0 support since eternity.
I got legend and the peac?ck backpiece (http://i.imgur.com/sORyBX6.jpg ; http://i.imgur.com/8kY8XJV.jpg), i see no reason for anyone including myself to play this broken gamemode. (also i don’t think censoring words like peac?ck with o is necessary couse it refers to this majestic animal http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/blue-peakitten-14934585.jpg and not a D)
Deleting this post of mine indicates that you are going to follow the usual ostrich-politics. Well played.

Anomaly.7612:

Yeah, let’s have the OP upload a vid so all you wannabe pros that came here to troll can line up like a firing squad. Yeah, right.

I agree with the OP. Whether they’re a “good” player or not is not for me, or any of you, to judge. What they say is true though. The balance of the game is completely awful. Just take a look at the current pro series. Mirror matches? That’s not fun at all.

Exactly what I’ve been thinking, each and every time I see people post that response of “post a video for us”. This of course comes from the players who rode a high MMR directly out of the kitten list of players on day one and didn’t need to deal with the ruby hell face to face, where matches won are more about a gamble of "does my team get the W, DH and Thief or does it get the Rev, Tempest, Reaper?

I was also thinking that it would be great to rather ask these amazing paragon players to record their own video. You know one where they demonstrate how to carry a team of DH, DH, W, T who are bad players against Rev, Rev, Tempest, Reaper, Mesmer who are at least average players that understand rotations.

Hey someone needed to suggest it! I hear a lot of feedback on carrying matches but never do I see it happen when the attempted carry is done with a team full of a kitten stack comp.

~ Welcome to Ruby division, play it or go to a casino. Same thing.

Syric.1936:

In response to those questioning my low damage output in some of those matches – take a closer look at my healing, boon distribution, and damage absorption. In fact, look at the screen shots again – in some matches my damage/defense/support numbers are much higher.

To further assist Mesmers, I’ve decided to outline my build at MetaBuild. You’re welcome to analyze it, try it, and decide for yourself if it’s the right fit for you.

http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Mesmer_-_Phantom_Menace

I’ll be be blunt: This build is pretty bad, and is a large part of why you’re losing now.

It’s basically a questionable throwback to the bunker mesmer that got neutered before this season started, and it’s not going work against anyone competent.

You have essentially zero offense. You claim to have respectable damage, but this is a lie. With a clerics amulet, water runes, and zero offensive traits, you won’t be doing enough damage to make even the most fragile thief do more than snicker.

Your team support is incredibly limited. You claim to have healing, boon support, and condition removal support. Unfortunately, this is all close to non-existent. You have a tiny aoe heal from your runes, this is basically negligible. You have a fairly strong aoe heal from the healing well, but this requires your allies to stay in it, and won’t land on multiple people super often. You have no boon support, so not sure why you even mentioned it (no, altruism runes don’t count). Your condition removal is limited to the heal well (which I already mentioned will rarely have a large effect) and the phantasmal disenchanter.

Now that we’re on the topic of the phantasms, I’d like to point out that you’re using both the phantasmal disenchanter and the phantasmal defender. Aside from having monstrously long cast times, both of these phantasms have low enough hp (even with the trait you took) that they’ll squish nearly instantly in any fight large enough to need them. This removes your only good source of boon strip, your only source of team damage mitigation, and your strongest potential source of team condition removal.

So yeah. There is a problem with matchmaking, and there are issues with how the tier system works…but the fact that you even made it to ruby with this build is actually indicative of the opposite problem than what most people are complaining about. You should have been stuck back in sapphire at best, not hitting a wall in ruby.

You people are all delusional. The OP is stating something that isn’t even mathematically possible unless there’s a prob w/ the coding. Basic statistical math would indicate its almost impossible to sustain 65 losses in a row unless the system is skewed.

How do all of you explain that I had a 100+ losing game streak and got stuck at emerald tier 1 for 3 weeks, and tanked my mmr/win/loss ratio, and had to spend countless days teaching brand new players how to pvp while being pitted against pro league teams of 3 and 4 (I was solo q) on days 1 and 2 of seas 2. At that time, people told me, after years of pvping on gw, that I was in the tier/div I belonged – that I sucked, and I just needed to “get gud.”

I am now 3 pips from diamond, and have for the most part, gotten thru most of ruby w/o too much frustration. Tell me, am I where I belong now in ruby cuz of my skill, or was I stuck in emerald tier 1 w. a humongous losing streak for weeks cuz I’m really a tier 1 emerald skill level player?

Which is it, cuz it can’t be both! There’s another poster in the forums who has screen shots w/ proof he/she is both a legend player and a ruby player simultaneously. My skill alone cant explain both a rise to almost diamond (which I hope to hit before end of seas) and a huge losing streak that kept me near the bottom for weeks of very frustrating and demoralizing play.

There are many posts, including this one, which clearly show the system is designed to have losses beget losses, and wins beget wins ad infinitum. To punish losing players by stacking the deck against them is cruel. Even if we assume everyone at the bottom, or suffering a losing streak deserves it, the system penalizes them further.

It’s kinda like taking all the worst people (assuming ur all accurate), throwing them in a pit, throwing in potentially infinitely better opponents (according to all of you naysayers) and then tying anvils on the backs of the losers and telling them to fight their way out of the pit. Guess who’s gonna win? This is what people are complaining about in terms of the inherent unfairness of the coded system itself. Get a clue.

The system is coded to favor winners with more winners against winners and to pit losers with more losers against winners. Its pretty basic and pretty skewed, and it penalizes people who are losing so that they get even more demoralized. Also, how can they “get good” if they are perpetually assigned losers as teammates with anvils on their backs?

I suspect if the truth is that I must face the reality that I am not as good a player as I thought I was and I’m where I belong (emerald? or ruby? or diamond if I get there?), that each of you winners in ruby/diamond/legend may not be as good a player as you think u r. Perhaps the same skewed system that stuck me in emerald with more than 100 consecutive losses (mathematically impossible on a randomized basis) also placed u in ur higher divisions where u live the delusion that ur a better player than u really are. This would certainly explain the blowouts being experienced in ruby/dia/legend and would also explain the kittening many people are griping about as the same loss streak hits them in sap or ruby or dia or legend or wherever. Maybe its their skill and they’ve topped out – or maybe not. Maybe they don’t even deserve to be there in the first place [and I know this personally to be true in some instances, because some of the ppl posting in here I recognize and I have kicked their butts many times in pvp over the past 2 1/2 yrs (and before that in gw1)].

@Eater of Peeps.9062 Most of those who were killing you mercilessly have already moved up to the next tier, in this case Diamond, it can even be said, Diamond is the new Ruby, and Ruby is the new Sapphire.

Crimson Shi.5047:

@Eater of Peeps.9062 Most of those who were killing you mercilessly have already moved up to the next tier, in this case Diamond, it can even be said, Diamond is the new Ruby, and Ruby is the new Sapphire.

So? What’s your point? You were on a team and I was solo q? Or u caught the win train ride up? So. W/e man. So now the tiers u went thru are all garbage (but they weren’t when u went thru), and where u r now is not garbage and I’ll never get there? So I am grinding to my new emerald or sapp level (w/e u think ruby or dia is) but u blew thru those when they were good cuz ur good?

WTF man, do u even listen to urself? Pompous much? I suspect since the game is coded for winners to be paired with winners against losers, that ur not as good a player as u think u r.

@Eater of Peeps.9062 In my post I didn’t mention anything of my tier, or my progress or even made an inclination that I, myself was better then. Only to say that with the new progression this late in the season, and the grind that most of those are now in Ruby, and the old Ruby now moved on to Diamond or Legendary. Calm yo tatas bruh.