Guild Wars 2

I like GW2 PVP, I play it quite a bit, but there’s a big problem I have with it.
I played League of Legends for quite some time, and while I don’t play as much any more something I really enjoyed about it was knowing how good I was. When I was in bronze, I knew I was bad. When I got to silver, I knew I was still bad but that I was getting the mechanics down. I knew what I was doing. As my friends and I started to get to silver 1/gold 5 and above, we felt improvement, but mostly because we saw actual numbers rising and our ranks changing. In Guild Wars 2 I don’t see any of that. The Leaderboards don’t tell me anything, I’m not even sure how they work. How good am I, am I a gold GW2 player or a bronze or maybe a platinum? my leaderboard % is 92-94 usually, but so what? Does that mean I’m around silver?
I’m not asking for the bronze-diamond rank system, I just want to know where I am in terms of skill. I really wish rabbit-dragon was an mmr thing, and that way if I was pheonix or something I’d know I was really good, while being dolyak would make me mediocre. Is there any way to tell? Thanks in advance.

Unfortunately the only way is yours and your friends or other players (who can be objective) judgement about how you play. I am glad that you are not using leaderboards as a meter of skill since it really does not tell about your actual knowledge of the game anything. You will meet a lot of players who think their personal score in the match, or their LB rank is a meter of how good you are, however, just ignore their opinions and stay positive, if you wanna survive.

ANet has said some (loooong) time ago the league system will be implemented, and i am not sure if it is coming any soon or if it is something being prepared for GW3, but yea, it might happen once..

I’ve never played LoL, but I do like what the OP is talking about. Something like that would be cool.

That’s a good question, because I’d like to know the same.
I have 3k tournament games played, champ title on all professions but guardian.
Been from as low as 50s on solo que leaderboard but now am 90% due to an unusual series of losses due to bad matchmaking.

One thing I did just notice is that StarCraft has a system where you get to meet everyone and talk to them in chat room before match, also pick which team you want to be on too. Promotes people interacting with each other and sense of feeling worth being somebody in that game. I think LoL does same thing, you join some game server, pick which team you gonna be on wait two mins in chat before game starts.

GW2 however, you do solo que, you have no idea whose on your team, you could be paired with somebody you flamed last game, hardly any interaction, and you don’t feel like somebody, you just feel a grind.

I think the population of PvP is too small to be talking about tiers, because if I can get to rank 50 on leaderboards and then next day get smacked all the way to 90%, than obviously I shouldn’t ever gotten that high up on leaderboards or obviously the matchmaking system was not in my favor.

If anyone can tell how good you are, do the same for me too.

The leaderboards dont mean anything. I tought they meant something until I discovered that some people actually pay members on opposite team to Afk so they can win the game.

Team Q leaderboards are also not a big deal because premades are allowed to farm pug groups for an easy win.

So yea both leaderboards are kittening stupid.

glock.6590:

The leaderboards dont mean anything. I tought they meant something until I discovered that some people actually pay members on opposite team to Afk so they can win the game.

Team Q leaderboards are also not a big deal because premades are allowed to farm pug groups for an easy win.

So yea both leaderboards are kittening stupid.

Funny, how developers are OK with there leaderboards perceived as not meaning anything, and that they’re OK with pvp rank perceived as not meaning anything.

Before any developer comes in here and tells me off, lemme say this, pvp rank didn’t mean anything before you made it easier to make rank, making it easier to make rank only made PvP rank mean even more less than what it was before. So if your making something more meaningless that means your OK with the rank system being perceived as meaningless.

I know in StarCraft, if you had a good ladder rating, IT MEANT SOMETHING. I’m pretty sure if LoL has some rating system and if you was high on it, IT MEANT SOMETHING.

GW2, I hear people say everyday, rank don’t mean kitten, leaderboards don’t mean kitten. GW2 esports? aint kitten because nothing about pvp means kitten.

uberkingkong.8041:

glock.6590:

The leaderboards dont mean anything. I tought they meant something until I discovered that some people actually pay members on opposite team to Afk so they can win the game.

Team Q leaderboards are also not a big deal because premades are allowed to farm pug groups for an easy win.

So yea both leaderboards are kittening stupid.

Funny, how developers are OK with there leaderboards perceived as not meaning anything, and that they’re OK with pvp rank perceived as not meaning anything.

Before any developer comes in here and tells me off, lemme say this, pvp rank didn’t mean anything before you made it easier to make rank, making it easier to make rank only made PvP rank mean even more less than what it was before. So if your making something more meaningless that means your OK with the rank system being perceived as meaningless.

I know in StarCraft, if you had a good ladder rating, IT MEANT SOMETHING. I’m pretty sure if LoL has some rating system and if you was high on it, IT MEANT SOMETHING.

GW2, I hear people say everyday, rank don’t mean kitten, leaderboards don’t mean kitten. GW2 esports? aint kitten because nothing about pvp means kitten.

Yea I think the only thing that matters are the tournaments at this point. If a team wins a tournament I know for sure that they are good. But if some1 is rank 1 on the leaderboards you dont know how he got there because we have no proff. Maybe luck or got carried or multiple 4v5’s or paid the enemy team to afk etc.. Maybe plays turret engi lololol

So there’s no way to look at your actual MMR? That’s too bad, especially since the leaderboards don’t take into account what rank you are in game. I dolyak ranked player could be higher on the list than a dragon. I hope they implement some kind of actual ranking system soon.

This is a good post my friend . . . Developers should take notes on this.

Having no clue of your progression is really underwhelming.

Playing solo Q unfortunately doesn’t give you a very good proxy of how good you are because so many other variables come into play. Best way to see how your doing is to join a competitive team and play team ranked matchs.

And I think players DO have an elo rating, its just not displayed. Since the leaderboards basically rank people based on an elo.

The leaderboards have value, but only as a semi-rough estimate.

Also the number of games played is also worth considering. Its currently not factered and should not be main factor, but at end of day players should always be encouraged to play more.

Hope they surprise us someday with ladders and seasonal rewards based on ladder placement

I also want to know how good I am without the wretched leaderboard. I’ve recently learned that ranks are only for finishers which really disappointed me and solo Q is more for luck. For team Q, I do not like to lose so I usually go with guild group using ts3, which also doesn’t really tell my skill since other team could be just random people as well. 1 v 1 always comes down to whoever has the most experience/correct build and other modes require great coordination and team effort, I am lost to where I am now.

Even if the leaderboards were an accurate portrayal of one’s skill, they don’t really tell me how good I am. Nothing like the elo system some other games have.

Leaderboards are a rough approximation, they are not highly accurate. But they are not ‘meaningless’. Find someone who is ranked high on the leaderboards, especially extremely high (top 25) and odds are they are a good player.

Remember the leaderboard rankings are based on MMR. Or elo, or glicko, or whichever way you want to call it.

Actually for quite some time the person who was at the very top of the leaderboards had played I think 15 games? Needless to say I don’t believe that this player was the best player in Guild Wars 2, because there’s no way 15 games could gauge that. That’ s my problem with the leaderboards.

Capitol City.4856:

Actually for quite some time the person who was at the very top of the leaderboards had played I think 15 games? Needless to say I don’t believe that this player was the best player in Guild Wars 2, because there’s no way 15 games could gauge that. That’ s my problem with the leaderboards.

There is now decay. 2ndly to get that high that fast he probably Qued with other high MMR people to start with , so he was facing top teams, overwhelming odds it was someone known with a new account.
But because of decay u cant just afk off an account and sit on a high rank.

daydream.2938:

Capitol City.4856:

Actually for quite some time the person who was at the very top of the leaderboards had played I think 15 games? Needless to say I don’t believe that this player was the best player in Guild Wars 2, because there’s no way 15 games could gauge that. That’ s my problem with the leaderboards.

There is now decay. 2ndly to get that high that fast he probably Qued with other high MMR people to start with , so he was facing top teams, overwhelming odds it was someone known with a new account.
But because of decay u cant just afk off an account and sit on a high rank.

See, this is the problem. Using LoL as an example again, you couldn’t play 15 games on your new account with a few pros and become the highest ranked player in the game. you actually have to play enough games to prove your skill. In GW2 this is apparently not the case. And I have to agree with some of the other forum posts I’ve seen, the decay needs to occur a little quicker and a little more steeply. There are just too many people on the leaderboards (solo queuer’s, so not teaming up with a team of high ranked players) who have played less than 30 games who are higher than players who are actually better but have played enough games to even their score out a bit

yes I agree the leaderboards could use some work on this front.

leaderboards are strange. I win some games and go up from 148 to 111. If I lose some games I go from Top 150 to 3xx.

Lets say you play 1000 games and you win 550 and lose 450. Maybe you are at top 200. If you lose now 5-6 game in a row you drop out of top 1000.

I think it would be better for everyone if they just made some kind of league system. I agree, the leaderboards are very strange, I definitely don’t completely understand them :P

If anything is confusing (and meaningless) to new players its leaderboards. At the very least the soloq ones should go. Can you imagine trying to convince a LoL player that gw is esports only to have to explain that rankings are still useless 2 years into the game? If theres no time/money to fix it at least get rid of it temporarily.

Well rank used to mean something till anet decided to get rid of that and make ranks easier to obtain. Like many aspects of the game, they used to be a challenge and with the completion of that challenge, a sense of acompliment. But anet has continuously lowered the challenging aspect of the game more and more until the acompliment becomes meaningless.
They need to go back to their roots. Make ranks something that takes not only time but serious effort to obtain. They need to really figure out their leader boards, make team que rank by actual teams and not just individuals.
But make sure to make pvp much more rewarding. No one wants to work kittenly to achieve mediocre compensation.

The thing to consider in gw2 on the matter of skill level is that there are two different kinds of skill.
Mechanical skill
And game mode skill

Mechanical skill can be further broken down into two category’s

Class skill: how well you know and can play a particular class( such as knowing rotations, combos, cd management, bursting, surviving) being able to identify how well you do these in 1vX situations is a way to measure part of your skill level.

General skills: skills that are not particular to a certain class.( dodging and kiting)
Dodging in particular is a critical measure of a good player. Being able to predict and dodge skills crucial to another classes burst rotation is essential in staying alive and defeating your enemies. Also being able to kite multiple enemies around an area to Los damage is an indicator of a good player.

Secondly there are game play skills

Even if a player has achieved a high level of mechanical skill, if the player lacks game play skills they are lacking as a player.

These skills include:
Map Rotation
Positioning
Focusing
Downstate

Map rotation is critical to being a good player, and for many the hardest skill to master. One must remember that in gw2 pvp is a 5v5 capture point system. Knowing where to be when can be the difference between winning and losing an objective. Map awareness is key, be able to quickly identify where your teammates are fighting , the number of enemies at the fight and the stays of the fight( winning/ losing). Rotating into a fight where three of your teammates are fighting 2 enemies and winning is a bad rotation, odds are somewhere else on the map you could be more useful. It’s being able to make quick correct rotations that mark a good player.

Focusing is a crucial part of winning team fights. Being able to choose a target and keep your teams main cc and damage on the target til it does is important . Also being able to identify who on your team is taking focus and assisting them is crucial to winning a team fight as well.

Positioning: this is key in group fights. Knowing where to be within a fight can make the difference between dying or living. If you are a class that will die to aoe or focus quickly, then it makes no sense to run face first onto the point or into a group of multiple players. Often sides will develop in a team fight, there will be more survivable players tanking it out through aoe trying to gain ticks on the point, and other players further back casting or ranging to the fight, and finally players trying to get through to the back line players to kill them. Positioning all depends on your build.
As a survivable built player(d/ d cele ele, bunk guard, warrior, ect ) your job is to prevent the point from being captured or if that role is taken is to be a frontline into the opposing sides back line. If you are a back line player( engi, necro, ect) your job is to pressure the target and to provide the main source of damage without over extending to your target and leaving yourself open to the other side. Then there are thieves and similar built bursty/ mobile classes. These are back line players who can put immense pressure out on a target but if caught will die very easily. Positioning is very important for all players but essential for these players.

Finally there is downstate. Knowing when to cleave a body down or to stomp it is important, especially when there are two players down (an enemy and a teammate) handling this wrong can quickly turn a fight. Calling out stomps and saving cool downs for stomping can help increase the chance of a good stomp. Also knowing that the other team will try to revive their fallen, having everyone stomp or just leave a stomper can end badly, bodies are good chances to land massive dps on readers who will be still for the duration of the stomp. Also, be prepared to revive your fallen teammates as soon as they drop. If you are going to drop call it out to your team and position yourself so your team can save you easily.

uberkingkong.8041:

I think the population of PvP is too small to be talking about tiers

it is proven in many studies that people will play for rank. and when achieving that rank is clearly laid out (as in the ranking system makes sense) you will attract more people to compete. alot of the games that do well have a pretty easy to understand ranking system, no ELO type garbage.
so implementing a sensible type of ranking system will actually draw people to want to play.
and even if it is a small community, you can still separate people into tiers you just have less tiers and more mobility. the key is to not let your best players sit in queue for long periods.
i dont think any MMORPG has figured it out yet, i also dont think that any MMORPG out there really cares at all about making pvp something…they might just be finally figuring out that the real money is in making PVPers and not PVEers happy. i’ve had far too many convos with devs that dont understand the reason that their pvp community is small is because the pvp of their game is bad. and if they focused more on that then making another dungeon that gets old in 2-3 runs they would have a higher player retention. im hoping the the emergence of esports might open their eyes.

oneply.9586:

uberkingkong.8041:

I think the population of PvP is too small to be talking about tiers

it is proven in many studies that people will play for rank. and when achieving that rank is clearly laid out (as in the ranking system makes sense) you will attract more people to compete. alot of the games that do well have a pretty easy to understand ranking system, no ELO type garbage.
so implementing a sensible type of ranking system will actually draw people to want to play.
and even if it is a small community, you can still separate people into tiers you just have less tiers and more mobility. the key is to not let your best players sit in queue for long periods.
i dont think any MMORPG has figured it out yet, i also dont think that any MMORPG out there really cares at all about making pvp something…they might just be finally figuring out that the real money is in making PVPers and not PVEers happy. i’ve had far too many convos with devs that dont understand the reason that their pvp community is small is because the pvp of their game is bad. and if they focused more on that then making another dungeon that gets old in 2-3 runs they would have a higher player retention. im hoping the the emergence of esports might open their eyes.

Well hold on, I like PVE, I’m not saying that should draw most of their attention away from that. I don’t think that they’d need to lessen the content of their PVE to create some sort of rank system that would give that sense of achievement that players obviously want. Honestly, if there’s anything players have been asking for in the PVE realm, it would be more party instances, so I’m not sure if not implementing dungeons would be the right approach either :P although I agree with you that devs shouldn’t be confused as to why their pvp community is shrinking if it’s just not on par with the rest of their content. I like GW2 PVP, I just don’t feel like I’m getting anywhere, even if I am. Or heck, more importantly, I don’t even KNOW if I’m getting anywhere.

Capitol City.4856:

Well hold on, I like PVE, I’m not saying that should draw most of their attention away from that. I don’t think that they’d need to lessen the content of their PVE to create some sort of rank system that would give that sense of achievement that players obviously want. Honestly, if there’s anything players have been asking for in the PVE realm, it would be more party instances, so I’m not sure if not implementing dungeons would be the right approach either :P although I agree with you that devs shouldn’t be confused as to why their pvp community is shrinking if it’s just not on par with the rest of their content. I like GW2 PVP, I just don’t feel like I’m getting anywhere, even if I am. Or heck, more importantly, I don’t even KNOW if I’m getting anywhere.

i dont mean negate pve all together. i mean instead of it being 70/30 in favor of pve, make it 70/30 in favor of pvp. most mmorpgs are balanced for pve which doesn’t always work out very well when applied to pvp.
instead if you design and balance the game around pvp and then add pve to that content that matches the balance and combat of the pvp i think the game would turn out better and more challenging for both aspects.

daydream.2938:

Leaderboards are a rough approximation, they are not highly accurate. But they are not ‘meaningless’. Find someone who is ranked high on the leaderboards, especially extremely high (top 25) and odds are they are a good player.

Remember the leaderboard rankings are based on MMR. Or elo, or glicko, or whichever way you want to call it.

Well if they have played a couple hundred of games and hold/float around the top yes they probably are good player. That is why to an extent the leader is a reflection of skill.

vincecontix.1264:

daydream.2938:

Leaderboards are a rough approximation, they are not highly accurate. But they are not ‘meaningless’. Find someone who is ranked high on the leaderboards, especially extremely high (top 25) and odds are they are a good player.

Remember the leaderboard rankings are based on MMR. Or elo, or glicko, or whichever way you want to call it.

Well if they have played a couple hundred of games and hold/float around the top yes they probably are good player. That is why to an extent the leader is a reflection of skill.

Right, its too an extent, taking leaderboards with a grain of salt, they are a rough appromixation of skill.

some good players, who play solo a lot and q for team matchs might be a bit under represented.

Even with working leaderboards there isn’t enough players in spvp to properly tell whether you are good or not. The system in GW2 lets you eventually get placed with players far below your ranking or not ranked at all cuz it takes so long to get someone on similar MMR. As far as I understand it anyway.

How to fix this? First we need new game modes that are competitive and more fun to play/watch than conquest (cough, GvG, cough), then once we have enough players ANet needs to implement a way to ONLy get matched with players of your ranking.

Most people have given up on this games pvp so idk if that could ever happen. I’d expect 30 minutes queues lol. In GW2.. you either rek the other team or they rek you. There is rarely any good matches, you only see those on the tournaments.

It is a very sad state of affairs… but at the pace this game is moving, we’ll never have decent pvp or pve for that matter. By then we’ll have all moved on and forgotten.

I wish so bad this game could get some development going, are the devs even there???

Capitol City.4856:

bronze-diamond rank system

A system like this could only work in gw2 if there was an official 1v1 death match arena.

Team matches with secondary objectives like capture and hold mechanics plus additional wild cards like canons/trebs/lord-kills make individual skill hold a lot less value than other factors. This way it is not just impossible to tell who is skilled by looking at their leaderboard rank, but it’s also not really important. A lot of players are successful in tpvp and have a high MMR because they have a decent map awareness and are being carried by their allies in team fights, but they wouldn’t win a single 1v1 against some other players with a much lower rating on the leaderboards, or even – whisper it – against a wvw player.

I agree, the lack of feedback on personal progress is kind of a bummer. But will it ever change? Probably not.

The league system would work off win/loss ratio, like any other game with ranks.

1v1 and GvG pvp modes would make a huge difference. q times with 1v1 would be fast too. is there even a mmorpg that does that?

Too many other accounts and leaderboard not rating/ranking as it should be to tell.
Take for example :
1 prop.4721 Aleph Null 13 3 81.25% Henge of Denravi
3 Mushhhh.7453 Mushhh 29 48 37.66% Jade Quarry
11 timeframe.8069 Ace Bacardi 16 7 69.57% Tarnished Coast
19 Silver Fox.5632 Parasitic Fox 23 9 71.88% Sea of Sorrows

Than you have someone who actually deserves to be in the top 25 like
9 Celtus.8456 Josre 1550 851 64.56% Crystal Desert

The current GW2 system is NOT based on ELO.
Because if it was, Aleph Null would have had to beat top 25 leaderboard players in order to take there spot.
The Current GW2 system, you just need to win a game and you go up in the leaderboards, regardless if any good players are playing.
If your rank 700 and you beat a bunch of ranks 90%. You go up around 100 spots. FACT.

Also, you mentioned decay?
Doesn’t apply to ranks 1-100 as harshly as it does to others.
If your rank 700, in 3 days youll be in the %.
If your rank 1-100, most likely you wont even move for a good week or maybe month.
It goes based off of the W/L system I mentioned earlier. If you don’t play, the people who are playing and make it past you push you down. (As you notice in screenshot, that one guy pushing down leaderboard rankers 10-25 while 1-8 remain. I’m assuming if one of those people on the top 25 play and lose, than they get knocked off, so the incentive is, when you get to the top 25, don’t play anymore PvP).

So why don’t they have a system based off elo then? Is there any particular reason?

It is based off ELO. Just not enough players and games to make ELO accurate. You get matched with who is available in the queue at the moment.

In this game u dont know.

The settings for rated play are so loose that new players will literally get thrown in to top rated games within their first 3 games. I can mention several low budget f2p games that have better rated gameplay modes and settings.

2 secs ago a game with

1 x thief with 200 ach points + never been on the leaderboards + faboying over “omgash they have cheese mode player”.

1 x ele that died vs the cleave dmg of the engi i was fighting …while i was winning my 1v1 vs that same engi. His max rank was 700, while im top 40

1 x necro that sat afk on home all game while shouting ill ping if need help. He had 18 games played in total and was max rank 600.

Its so bad….u cant even name it rated play.

Silentshoes.1805:

You get matched with who is available in the queue at the moment.

I was going to play some tpvp last night, but that’s when nothing but good players play and I didn’t feel like losing 15 games in a row because this game matchmaking wouldn’t set me up with a fair game and let me win for once.

Very sad, when you want to play a game, but you know you’ll lose many games and get angry or frustrated so you end up not playing the game at all.

The state of the game for PvP is in a pretty bad state when you are constantly thinking about stuff like that. Where you want to play, but you know it will make you frustrated and angry.

Should be something to prevent early fast rank gains, even if its an artificial cap of some sort. Because people who win a few in a row get thrown way over there head.

daydream.2938:

Should be something to prevent early fast rank gains, even if its an artificial cap of some sort. Because people who win a few in a row get thrown way over there head.

Everyone sees that besides that devs.

You can literally grab 3 random strangers off the street and theyll see it….and the devs dont.

The entire point of an MMR system is to seperate vets from new players. Placing those together will create frustration and hatred. Anet doesnt seem to care.

I don’t want an MMR system to separate me from the better/worse players, I understand that their may not be enough players on at once to do that. I don’t care. I want to know how much better/worse I am than the good/bad players. That’s all I’m asking for. League systems do very nicely in that regard.