Guild Wars 2

I decided to take the day off from ranked PvP to do some unranked with some guildies this afternoon. No big deal. Had a good time. Got on a roll, we had some fun, people took off, and I decided to try my hand at ranked again for a bit before I logged for the day.

I started today at 40 points with a 54-52 record. I’ve kind of accepted that as a solo-queuer getting points (and wins) will be an uphill climb, but what I experienced today just sent me over the edge.

My first match was set up against a 4-man (or 2+2) premade where the rest of my team were solos. We ended up losing, but the final score was close: we ended up getting close to or over 450 points, so I figured that, given we fought a near-full premade team, that I’d still walk out of that game with a point.

My second match was set up against another 4-man (or 2+2) premade where—yet again—the rest of my team were solos. We ended up losing that game as well, but again within 100 points. I was pretty irritated that my night started with two premade teams one after another, but I accepted that given the current system I should walk away with points regardless.

My third match was a bit more even, though there was a duo-queue on the opposing team. That in some sense might have resulted in their win, but in any case it was a relatively close match and I lost my third game 500 to 400+.

I decided to call it a night after that, as I usually do when I get into a losing streak. I logged out of the game, turned on the leaderboard to make sure I got my points, and lo and behold: I didn’t gain points for those games.

In fact, I ended up losing two points on the leaderboard.

I don’t know under what conditions I am expected to be successful on this leaderboard as a solo-queuer. I am regularly pitted up against premades and when I (expectedly) lose I actually end up losing standing on the leaderboards for it.

I would accept that under certain situations it might make sense that I lose points for the third match, that losing in somewhat even conditions should result in a loss of points. But to push against two premades, getting over 400 points? That doesn’t generate anything for your leaderboard? Please explain this to me.

I don’t know if this some machiavellian way of you pushing people into creating their own premades and only doing ranked with them, but the sheer number of games one must play on a daily basis to remain competitive only pushes us to solo-queue to keep up.

I just don’t see how this system promotes skill or fair play, and for that reason I’m not participating in ranked matches any longer until this system is fixed. I want that mini llama and all, but it simply isn’t worth the frustration when it feels like I’m fighting against your matchmaking system that repeatedly throws me into the meat grinder.

Welcome to soloQ hell!

If you are a solo player in Gw2 you have 2 choices:

1) You play hotjoin
2) You play unranked and stop caring about any competition.

Profit

That’s not exactly an elegant solution to the problem.

So, you lost three games, then expected to get points? I’m confused, why should they reward losing?? 2-2-1… and 1-1-1-1-1 isn’t that much of a difference… And if it is the case, the 1-1-1-1-1 could have had a higher MMR, so…

I can’t help but think it is working incorrectly. Some of the matches I have lost there is no way I should be favoured to win. Maybe the MMR gap or whatever is used to decide if you lose points or not needs to be wider so that games that are supposed to be really close don’t cause a team to lose points if they lose. Especially in games where the final score is like 450-500.

I am someone who only solo queues and currently has a win rate of just over 60% and with this new point system I don’t see myself gaining more than 2 or 3 points a day on a good day. The new system will mean the people in the top 100 before the change will likely stay there and the only people to move many ranks will be people in decent premades who can secure a 75% win rate smashing solo queuers.

I am going to keep trying to get that mini llama and for the most part I have actually had good matches this season so its not all bad. At the same time breaking the leaderboard even worse part way through a season is a little frustrating, at least to a solo queuer.

Solo queues in ranked can be quite punishing for most and I understand why it discourages them to play the game.

I however don’t look at it that way. I love to fight premades when I go play solo, adds challenge I want to get. If you end up winning versus the premade team, the feeling is pretty satisfying.

It can only make me a better player I tell to myself!

Highseaz.7581:

I’m confused, why should they reward losing??

I am not asking them to reward losing. I am simply asking them to use a points system that is sensible for everyone, especially when I am so regularly pitted against premade teams—both partial and full.

They assured us that by merging team and solo queue together they would make certain exceptions for solo players that end up facing premades (both full and partial) through the points system and compiled “odds of victory.”

A bigger breakdown can be found here.

As you can see according to the chart provided, under no condition should a player lose any points when you manage to score 400+ points. And in the case of where your odds of victory are between 0-39%, you may potentially get 1-2 points for playing a close game. This was, as we understood it, the exception made for solo-queuers given the fact that fighting premades every 3-4 matches isn’t exactly all that desirable.

In essence, solo queuers only will lose points against premades when there is a definitive win. And yet none of my losses were definitive tonight and I ended up -2 on the evening. I am not asking to be rewarded for losing, but the MMR penalties on solo-queuers seem awfully severe if not egregiously misleading; it implicates the idea that as a solo-queuer I should be expected to win every match I play regardless of how many players on the opposing team are premade. If they insist on keeping solo queue and team queue together, this simply has to change.

As Josh Davis explains in another thread they’ve since adjusted the system from the chart above so that we “move towards a ladder algorithm where an emphasis is placed on winning games, rather than just playing games.” This within itself is fine. Remove the pity points if needed. But under no condition should a team of solo queuers lose points facing premades—especially when pushed to a 500-450 result.

The problem is that whatever they are using to form teams and calculate “odds of victory” is complete garbage. Broken as hell, and we are all now seeing this in a measurable way for the first time.

The mmr system jacks up the rating of people in premades in an effort to combat the issue. If you are facing a premade it is likely that 1) the MMR of the individual players of your team is far higher than the other team or 2) the other team has been waiting in queue for 6-10 min.

Regardless, expecting not to go down in rank after losing 3 times is wrong.

Losing 3 matches for sure requires a thread!
As for the ladderborsd it kinda shows the mentality you have!
“Gotta farm them rankings for llama!”

All is vain. I’m ALMOST done as well. hahaha

robertul.3679:

Losing 3 matches for sure requires a thread!
As for the ladderborsd it kinda shows the mentality you have!
“Gotta farm them rankings for llama!”

It’s not just the past three matches. It’s actually been the entire season that I’ve been getting matched up frequently against premades as a solo-queuer. And now that we’re losing points against fighting premades, I think it’s important to ask here what ArenaNet’s direction is for Guild Wars 2 by removing the solo queue and then turning around and putting solo players at the disadvantage.

Is that really the right direction this game should be going?

As I said before: if this is some deceitful way of pushing people to make their own premades this would be fine, but ranked arena isn’t “team queue” and the amount of points one must compile every day to remain competitive within the top 500 requires you to pretty much solo queue.

All I’m asking for is fairer match-ups and removing the penalty for losing by 40-60 points to a premade team.

BurningMelon.7631:

Losing in rank, can be quite frustrating I can understand, but you can’t blame
it all to the system.

So, what? I should blame myself and other teammates instead for not winning against a premade team?

As a solo-queuer, I should expect almost all of my games to be against other players that are solo-queuing. When they removed the solo queue entirely they established the exception that solo queuers who get matched up against premades and nearly win don’t lose points (and potentially gain some) upon losing. They wrote up a blog post in November fleshing all of this out, and now that exception has seemed to have been removed.

You don’t have to personally experience that to understand this game’s PvP has taken a serious step backward with such an implementation.

The only thing that needs fixing is to make MMR individual. Meaning that winning or losing should not matter in regards to your MMR, only performance should matter. If you are carrying a team where people have no clue on howto play against a team thats mediocre but you can kill them pretty easy in 1v1s for example. I dont understand why they make you lose points if you lose. If you are in essence the better player of the entire game. The only issue with this is. How does it actually calculate you did the best in your group. Because the ingame leaderboard favours roaming decappers more then anything.

People should lose point after a lose, always, the carebear approach can only make this ladder worse.

Solo vs premade, i understand your frustration and Anet should bring back soloque because currently it’ just broken, but in general if you lost a match you should lose points too.

I hear you Poe. This is why the leaderboards are still not a good way to show pvp prowess. The ranking system does not accurately take into account premades vs solo q.

The people who say “losing a match means loss of points”, that would be fair IF the matches were fairly put together. Constantly putting a JV squad up against Varsity squads is not going to help the situation. It should ultimately be a wash with neither a gain nor a loss in points. It’s the electronic equivalent of a scrimmage game. The system should try to place people together and if it can’t (meaning it must find the best match without Q times being long) then the points shouldn’t matter.

I will say this, there is one exception to all this premade vs solo queue. I’m in EG as well with Poe and when I asked for a group to pvp with, I didn’t find anyone. So I hopped into unranked for solo q. I found some pugs to play with and we formed a 3 man team for 1 hour. We ended with a record of 4 and 1. We only used team chat. We didn’t have TS and didn’t practice together. So how should we be categorized?

There is no perfect solution but at least the leaderboard rewards aren’t great. If they were, people would be whining more. That’s why I solo q in unranked. I can get the same rewards without the frustration.

of course I’m stupid and still optimistic that ANET will try to do different today and hear out people’s cry of leaderboard mistake. so I tried my luck again doing rank and this is the matchup.

If I had to guess the majority of the leaderboard is solo queuers because at least where I am ranked the board has been pretty stagnant since the change. Solo queuers are very likely to always be around 50 percent win rate based of the match up system and with the change if you go 50/50 there is a good chance you will not gain a point.

I have already explained that I don’t really find this system fair in a match making system that matches solos vs teams at times but it also means nobody is catching the people that got early jumps on the leaderboard because it is now extremely difficult to gain any points unless you always queue with a team

Phineas Poe.3018:

I decided to take the day off from ranked PvP to do some unranked with some guildies this afternoon. No big deal. Had a good time. Got on a roll, we had some fun, people took off, and I decided to try my hand at ranked again for a bit before I logged for the day.

I started today at 40 points with a 54-52 record. I’ve kind of accepted that as a solo-queuer getting points (and wins) will be an uphill climb, but what I experienced today just sent me over the edge.

My first match was set up against a 4-man (or 2+2) premade where the rest of my team were solos. We ended up losing, but the final score was close: we ended up getting close to or over 450 points, so I figured that, given we fought a near-full premade team, that I’d still walk out of that game with a point.

My second match was set up against another 4-man (or 2+2) premade where—yet again—the rest of my team were solos. We ended up losing that game as well, but again within 100 points. I was pretty irritated that my night started with two premade teams one after another, but I accepted that given the current system I should walk away with points regardless.

My third match was a bit more even, though there was a duo-queue on the opposing team. That in some sense might have resulted in their win, but in any case it was a relatively close match and I lost my third game 500 to 400+.

I decided to call it a night after that, as I usually do when I get into a losing streak. I logged out of the game, turned on the leaderboard to make sure I got my points, and lo and behold: I didn’t gain points for those games.

In fact, I ended up losing two points on the leaderboard.

I don’t know under what conditions I am expected to be successful on this leaderboard as a solo-queuer. I am regularly pitted up against premades and when I (expectedly) lose I actually end up losing standing on the leaderboards for it.

I would accept that under certain situations it might make sense that I lose points for the third match, that losing in somewhat even conditions should result in a loss of points. But to push against two premades, getting over 400 points? That doesn’t generate anything for your leaderboard? Please explain this to me.

I don’t know if this some machiavellian way of you pushing people into creating their own premades and only doing ranked with them, but the sheer number of games one must play on a daily basis to remain competitive only pushes us to solo-queue to keep up.

I just don’t see how this system promotes skill or fair play, and for that reason I’m not participating in ranked matches any longer until this system is fixed. I want that mini llama and all, but it simply isn’t worth the frustration when it feels like I’m fighting against your matchmaking system that repeatedly throws me into the meat grinder.

do you know about we are still in beta? yes , after 3 year we are still in a horrible spvp beta… now go to buy gem with real money plz.

I think your mistake is caring about the leaderboard. You had 3 losses, some were close. Doesn’t sound so bad.

witcher.3197:

People should lose point after a lose, *always*, the carebear approach can only make this ladder worse.

Carebear? I ask for a system that’s fair, not a system that’ll get me carried. I would prefer they just bring back solo queue and end this madness.

And if points should always be deducted for a loss, why have points in the first place?

Phineas Poe.3018:

…why have points in the first place?

Ahhhh! The million dollar question!

Wahoo! Bye frands!

Basket of Boxes.1976:

If I had to guess the majority of the leaderboard is solo queuers because at least where I am ranked the board has been pretty stagnant since the change. Solo queuers are very likely to always be around 50 percent win rate based of the match up system and with the change if you go 50/50 there is a good chance you will not gain a point.

I have already explained that I don’t really find this system fair in a match making system that matches solos vs teams at times but it also means nobody is catching the people that got early jumps on the leaderboard because it is now extremely difficult to gain any points unless you always queue with a team

I don’t really understand your point. can you elaborate more? are you saying that soloq’ers had a better chance in winning?

He’s implying the early birds got the worm.

3 losses and -2 points lost seems pretty fair to me. The current system is flawed but not because of what you just outlined.

I think you are over reacting, so you lost 3 matches so what?

as u know im pro.

brannigan.9831:

3 losses and -2 points lost seems pretty fair to me. The current system is flawed but not because of what you just outlined.

So you think it’s fair that a full solo group loses points on a 500-450 loss vs a 4-man premade?

If conditions like these don’t merit a 0 point loss, then what does?

So here’s the question though Poe, what handicap would you give (points wise since that’s all we can really use due to MMR being hidden) to a pug team vs a premade team?

Thiefz.3695:

So here’s the question though Poe, what handicap would you give (points wise since that’s all we can really use due to MMR being hidden) to a pug team vs a premade team?

I think most people would be fine with just not losing points in those situations. I don’t think people should be given points for losing unless its an extremely close match when they are obviously outmatched. Losing points for close games against premades as a pug is absurd.

Phineas Poe.3018:

I don’t know under what conditions I am expected to be successful on this leaderboard as a solo-queuer. I am regularly pitted up against premades and when I (expectedly) lose I actually end up losing standing on the leaderboards for it.

Look at the current leaderboard and compare their win/loss ratio with yours. Now look at the # of games they won.
If your win/loss ratio is like theirs, then you’re fine.
Now play that many games to get rated.

This leaderboard was made for solo players. What you should be complaining about is, “I can’t fit that many game’s a day!”

No other leaderboard in the history of leaderboards will ever say that about their system.

Saiyan.1704:

Phineas Poe.3018:

I don’t know under what conditions I am expected to be successful on this leaderboard as a solo-queuer. I am regularly pitted up against premades and when I (expectedly) lose I actually end up losing standing on the leaderboards for it.

Look at the current leaderboard and compare their win/loss ratio with yours. Now look at the # of games they won.
If your win/loss ratio is like theirs, then you’re fine.
Now play that many games to get rated.

This leaderboard was made for solo players. What you should be complaining about is, “I can’t fit that many game’s a day!”

No other leaderboard in the history of leaderboards will ever say that about their system.

Well with the change that is no longer the case, most of those guys at the top would have maybe 20 or 30 points if the system was like this from the start but they changed it half way through. The problem is nobody can catch them now because its way harder to gain points. I was never going to make the top 100 but even getting into the top 500 now is harder because unless I play 10 games a day and win 60% of them I am going to just sit where I am.

I am glad they are finally making it so you can’t just spam games to win but punishing people for losing matches they had no chance to win is silly, especially when they refuse to separate solo queue and team queue. All they had to do was make it so you didn’t gain points for losing matches and you only lost points for matches your team was highly favoured to win. It seems now that you almost always lose points for a loss.

Basket of Boxes.1976:

Saiyan.1704:

Phineas Poe.3018:

I don’t know under what conditions I am expected to be successful on this leaderboard as a solo-queuer. I am regularly pitted up against premades and when I (expectedly) lose I actually end up losing standing on the leaderboards for it.

Look at the current leaderboard and compare their win/loss ratio with yours. Now look at the # of games they won.
If your win/loss ratio is like theirs, then you’re fine.
Now play that many games to get rated.

This leaderboard was made for solo players. What you should be complaining about is, “I can’t fit that many game’s a day!”

No other leaderboard in the history of leaderboards will ever say that about their system.

Well with the change that is no longer the case, most of those guys at the top would have maybe 20 or 30 points if the system was like this from the start but they changed it half way through. The problem is nobody can catch them now because its way harder to gain points. I was never going to make the top 100 but even getting into the top 500 now is harder because unless I play 10 games a day and win 60% of them I am going to just sit where I am.

I am glad they are finally making it so you can’t just spam games to win but punishing people for losing matches they had no chance to win is silly, especially when they refuse to separate solo queue and team queue. All they had to do was make it so you didn’t gain points for losing matches and you only lost points for matches your team was highly favoured to win. It seems now that you almost always lose points for a loss.

Some of those matches were duo’s though weren’t they? Just because you face a two man group doesn’t mean you shouldn’t lose a point if you lose. I have no problem all solo’s versus three or more or multiple two man groups you lose you don’t lose points. But just because you face a two man group you shouldn’t get a free pass on a loss imo. Did he even check to see if had a two man group in any of those matches? People love to check the other side but never there group. Also, we act like no one ever benefits from the opposite and have partial teams on there side versus all solos. It does even out over time. Maybe not 10-20 games over time but 100’s of games it does.

Evan Lesh.3295:

You were favored in your first two matches, so you lost one point in both. The third match was even, but you got over 400 points so your ladder points didn’t change. This is working as intended, but it sounds like you think the match prediction should weigh premades more versus solo players.

This is another argument for VOIP ingame or plugin with a client that everyone can join and be in the proper channels with each other. Communication is huge and many premades have that. Thus increasing the odds in their favor. I know anyone can use VOIP but really a huge majority don’t. Make it convenient and available please! I made another forum post about this.

tronjeremy.5820:

Evan Lesh.3295:

You were favored in your first two matches, so you lost one point in both. The third match was even, but you got over 400 points so your ladder points didn’t change. This is working as intended, but it sounds like you think the match prediction should weigh premades more versus solo players.

This is another argument for VOIP ingame or plugin with a client that everyone can join and be in the proper channels with each other. Communication is huge and many premades have that. Thus increasing the odds in their favor. I know anyone can use VOIP but really a huge majority don’t. Make it convenient and available please! I made another forum post about this.

Communication will not compare to abusing braindead specs like Turret Engi and then calling it skill though.

The game depends the most on spec, rotations, and mechanics in that order. Pretty much why a premade can definitely lose to a pug.

tronjeremy.5820:

Evan Lesh.3295:

You were favored in your first two matches, so you lost one point in both. The third match was even, but you got over 400 points so your ladder points didn’t change. This is working as intended, but it sounds like you think the match prediction should weigh premades more versus solo players.

This is another argument for VOIP ingame or plugin with a client that everyone can join and be in the proper channels with each other. Communication is huge and many premades have that. Thus increasing the odds in their favor. I know anyone can use VOIP but really a huge majority don’t. Make it convenient and available please! I made another forum post about this.

They added Voip on other mmo’s and 2 out of 5 people used it. I definitely don’t want to listen to an elitest who thinks he has it all figured out. Neither will the majority of the casuals who only soloq for a few games.

@Evan
Premades of 5 are naturally more favored to win than a full solo team. I could have sworn Justin said that they were going to change the odds of victory in this case.

2+3 vs 1+1+1+1+1 should also have a “smaller” change in odds of victory as well.
2+1+1+1 vs 2+2+1 or full solos, shouldn’t change at all.
Imo…

Evan Lesh.3295:

You were favored in your first two matches, so you lost one point in both. The third match was even, but you got over 400 points so your ladder points didn’t change. This is working as intended, but it sounds like you think the match prediction should weigh premades more versus solo players.

Not entirely sure how the system works, but if i remember correctly when solos go up against premades usually the premades have people with lower mmrs than the solo qrs. This system makes sense on paper, but organization is much better than mmr. When i play in solo q if a match starts with a gap in points usually its difficult to come back when you cant easily talk to anyone. In a premade its much easier to climb back up through rotations and such. Also premades can create a better team comp which is extremely advantageous in this matchmaking system where for some reason 3 thieves can get paired with 2 mesmers against 3guardians, an engie and a war.

been having some of the worst experiences in solo q (err ranked no group queue) then I have ever had before this week. I’m being grouped with people, who, IMO are far below my level. (not all the time… but a good amount more than 50%). Then there is the matches where I have 2+ thieves on the same team…

I agree that having a duo or a trio on the enemy team isn’t that bad, but I have had matches where its either a team of 2 and 3 or a team of 5 vs all solos. Why aren’t one of the teams (if not a full premade) matched up with some of the soloers?

Assuming all players are equally skilled, being in a full or partial premade will give you considerable advantage over pugs. Don’t think the current match making system even accounts for it and if it does then not enough. Synergy of premade can be strong.

The system sounds perfectly fair to me. Playing against a premade usually means that your side will have higher overall MMR, and thus hopefully player skill, than the premade. I’m 33-13 ranked right now, queuing only solo and I had my second ever loss to a premade last night. Losing to premades is either a skill issue or matchmaking screwing up but you shouldn’t expect anything other than losing points for a loss.

Here is the post where Justin describes how MMR is calculated for parties.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/FULL-SOLO-Q-PLS/page/2

Based on that comment. It sounds to me like the parties’ MMR was inflated to a higher MMR closer to Phin’s MMR but still lower. So by losing to a lower MMR party, he lost a point. So is the equation that Justin is using to pad MMR for parties actually working? You would have to do a data extract on :

Find party where MMR < Solo Q MMR & win = True. Divide that number by total matches where premade = True. That will get you the percentage of how often premades with low MMR win and if that is on the high side, you may want to increase the MMR rating.

I would like to offer this as well: Not all “pre-made” teams are good.

A lot of solo-queue players will blame most of their losses on “getting paired with bad players.” In turn, they will seek out guildies to form a pre-made team in effort to avoid pugs. If they are inexperienced players, being pre-made isn’t going to solve the problem completely.

I have solo-queued against many pre-made teams and still won.

It doesn’t seem right to me that if you are within 100 pts of the winning team, i.e.—400-500 or closer—that you should lose points. Especially if said team has at least one groupqueue in them. Even if their MMR/skill is lower, the communication factor is pretty huge.

Evan Lesh.3295:

You were favored in your first two matches, so you lost one point in both. The third match was even, but you got over 400 points so your ladder points didn’t change. This is working as intended, but it sounds like you think the match prediction should weigh premades more versus solo players.

First of all, do you realize how unclear this makes the outcomes of matches when we don’t know what the handicap is and how much we need to win/lose by?

Secondly, if “winning” is contingent on a point spread for either side then that information needs to be shown, as it can directly influence strategy on both sides.

Lastly, why are you guys choosing to handicap in the first place? Why not structure the queues to be less varied in skill level? That is what the players want. And yes it might make queue times longer at first, but at least it will improve the player experience which just might improve player retention. You guys are throwing away the player experience just for the sake of faster queues and it’s destroying the PvP population as a result. Do you see that?

Two days ago, i solo queued with my poor dolyak rank noobness, and when i realized i was against a streamer that plays the game since release with his 3 dragon rank buddies(i was watching him at the time.)

Things like this makes me want to never go back to HOTM.

Well this morning I played against Xerrex premade 5 times in a row, each time we all were randoms and got utterly destroyed. Matches like that are neither fun nor fair.

kirito.4138:

Assuming all players are equally skilled, being in a full or partial premade will give you considerable advantage over pugs. Don’t think the current match making system even accounts for it and if it does then not enough. Synergy of premade can be strong.

people say this, but i will queue with guildies on their first time in pvp. actually, most if the time i’m the strongest player in my premade and have to carry. it can just be pals doing pvp for fun and no a super serious squad.

i never blame losses on a premade. it’s either i goofed, or it’s that the people i have on my team would be better suited to sucking nutrients off the bottom of a fish tank.

While you’re here – how do we catch up to the people who ground a significant number of games out before the change?

It feels like such a significant change to the way points are earned should have been accompanied by a reboot of the ladder.

choovanski.5462:

kirito.4138:

Assuming all players are equally skilled, being in a full or partial premade will give you considerable advantage over pugs. Don’t think the current match making system even accounts for it and if it does then not enough. Synergy of premade can be strong.

people say this, but i will queue with guildies on their first time in pvp. actually, most if the time i’m the strongest player in my premade and have to carry. it can just be pals doing pvp for fun and no a super serious squad.

i never blame losses on a premade. it’s either i goofed, or it’s that the people i have on my team would be better suited to sucking nutrients off the bottom of a fish tank.

Read the bolded. Obviously you and your guildies who never really pvp won’t necessarily be as strong as a bunch of solo queue regulars.

I agree with one of the posters who said if our points are going to be assigned based on our chance to win we should probably know if we are expected to win or lose before the match begins. It would also probably clear up a lot of these posts.