Guild Wars 2

• Players can now drop in Division. If you try to tank your MMR in Sapphire Division, you will drop to Emerald if you do it enough.
• Remove Ranked MMR completely. Matches are now decided based on what division you are in. If you are in a division full of noobs, you will rise through the ranks quickly. If you are in a division full of no-lifers, you will fall off your division.

With this, Ranked becomes more about skill rather than grind. There will be zero reason to fight to lose. The only way you can fight Pro-league teams is if you are in a legendary tier.

The first few days will probably be even more chaotic than before because everyone starts on an even level, but people will be placed in their respective ranks eventually.

The next bullet points are necessary but they aren’t the foundation of fixing ranked arenas.

• Rewards for winning in higher divisions is increased. Rewards for gaining a tier/division will still be there as a carrot.
• Add a Legendary Backpack reward track- this is for players that aren’t Pro-league skilled players. They can simply grind in their respective division, but they will grind more slowly in the lower division. In the higher division, this reward track is completely unnecessary because they have all the components necessary for the Legendary Packpack by earning a division. Thus it will reward for skill vs. time. Also, this reward track will only advance in Ranked Arenas. Players cannot farm this reward track in Unranked or Hotjoin.
• Add solo queue because I do not want to play against pre mades.
• Merge/split division if necessary if the population isn’t high enough for a big split like this.

These are necessary for a competitive environment.

I made a post with a similar sentiment last night, although my suggestions are slightly different:

I think we both agree that there is no reason for divisions and mmr to both exist when they are trying to capture the exact same thing – namely how good a player is. However, rather than doing away with ranked MMR, I would keep the MMR system, reset it to some initial value at the beginning of the ranked season, and then have divisions be a representation of MMR. Matchmaking via MMR has been going on for some time with decent results, so I would rather keep MMR, and just have the divisions be an indication of your MMR. This means that if your MMR drops, your division/pips go down. If your MMR goes up, your division/pips go up.

My other suggestion was to separate rewards from MMR/divisions entirely. MMR/divisions have one job, and that’s matchmaking. There’s no reason to tie rewards to matchmaking, and doing so is what’s causing all of the problems we’re currently facing, because any attempt to fix one creates problems in the other. It seems that with the current division system, Anet is trying to reward players for trying hard, even if they don’t succeed. This means, giving awards to people who play a lot, but might not necessarily be top tier. That’s totally fine, but it should be done separate from divisions/mmr. Of course, if you want to have unique rewards for top tier players, as sort of a status symbol, that’s totally fine too. But the only way to get those rewards is to ACTUALLY BE GOOD AT PVP.

Basically, I think the main thing is:

1) It doesn’t make sense for both divisions and mmr to exist as they do in their current forms. There should be a single metric that describes how good you are, and that metric is used for matchmaking and determines your division.

2) Rewards should not be tied to divisions/mmr, and you should be able to get rewards without having to go up in divisions.

There is mainly one issue as I see it. Solo- and Group Queue, as these are not a thing and separated from one another. The game is literally trying to match 1+1+1+1+1, 2+1+1+1, 2+2+1, 3+1+1, 2+3, 4+1 and/or 5 players, on each side with a relatively equal MMR total to balance it out (and keep in mind that one low MMR player can pull higher MMR players totals down in the matchmaking). This results in matches where you have 1+1+1+1+1 of completely random players, facing off together against a combined equal-ish MMR (and Division) rating of someone who are grouped in some way or form, which is no matter what, and advantage. That are two or more tailored professions that can be favorable to one another. That are specific builds likely meant to compliment the other(s). That are two or more players who are likely communicating with one another rather well and/or that are well versed in how their friend(s) play (no communication required). It’s honestly not fair, and it’s not balanced.

MMR for matchmaking is fine, I have an average of 50 or so percent win rate since Leagues started, but at the same time I don’t think it’s fine as-is, when it matches us like this. Losing to an obviously better tailored team just leaves me salty. Where as if I lose to all randoms, as all randoms, I have no problems about it. I may question what my team was doing, as I am infallible (—please don’t take this seriously), but I am generally feeling far more alright with losing in those scenarios.

The system should match 1+1+1+1+1 with 1+1+1+1+1 and otherwise 2+3, 4+1 and 5 together, and that’s it. Keep in mind that there should be no reason why some players wouldn’t and/or shouldn’t be allowed to queue solo into Group Queue to fill 4+1 setups. But at least random 1+1+1+1+1 would be actually facing random 1+1+1+1+1 of equal-ish MMR rating (and Division) and not (repeatedly) get stomped by a team far better tailored than their own randomly distributed one. E.g., I love it when the matchmaking decides that 4 players of the same professions should be on one team. Those are great. 4 DH and a Herald anyone? Good Game, Matchamaking-kun! You so trolly and kawaii.

The details of matchmaking via MMR is a separate issue that can be solved independently of the two things listed here IMO.