Guild Wars 2

If i go solo in to a ranked game i want to be able to play with other solo players and not with and vs a half team. It really sucks because my power necro build doesnt even work vs a team with teamspeak. They can just perma cc or stealth teamgank me. In soloq it allways worked fine. Pls dont force us to play teamq anet. (i know you allways hated soloq but there were players that liked it) pls bring back the option to play vs random teams!

Agreed. I just queued solo and had an instant pop against a 5-man premade. Nothing is working the way you said it would ArenaNet.

Sort it out.

I agree! My main is an engineer, and if power necros realize that their build is incredibly lame, they’ll go back to playing condi. We don’t want that. Imo, power necro popularity is one of the reason engineer was so good in the late soloq.

Ya but people that duo, trio, or quadro want a place too.

What if you had a friend? You’d think differently.

I never thought I’d say that I miss the old system, but wow. This new system was NOT ready for prime time. It is not fun.

I queued with my friend probably about 5-10 games, and every game I asked in map and team chat seeing how many were queuing together. There was maybe one or two 3 man team, and the rest were either 2 mans or solos. For me it worked great, and I love this feature because now I don’t have to find 4 other people to queue with efficiently. Not sure if this feedback helps Justin, but I really appreciate you putting yourself out there on the forums, really means a lot.
-Shnicky

“Ya but people that duo, trio, or quadro want a place too.

What if you had a friend? You’d think differently."

I do sometimes play with 1 or two friends. But the old system was fine for that. We queued in teamq and got 2 or 3 randoms that wanted to play solo teamq.
But i never liked playing alone with a team. So i never did it but now im forced to do when i play ranked pvp.

I’m actually the opposite. I want to play Team Q by myself with like minded individuals rather than Solo Q people who only likes to kill people. Most of the time I solo Q TPvP so that I can learn better tactics but now that window of opportunity has been shut down

This should be EXACTLY LIKE DOTA2 DOES IT!!

Possible combos are ONLY::

2/2/1, 1/1/1/1/1, 3/2, 5

You have to stop people Qing with 4 because its always going to be unfair and not fun for the solos.

Justin ODell.9517:

style.6173:

I never thought I’d say that I miss the old system, but wow. This new system was NOT ready for prime time. It is not fun.

Can you elaborate? We have plenty of things we can tweak to improve matchmaking now, so qualitative feedback is useful.

Well, I’ll give you my example. In my guild, we usually play together, 5 man teams, but we’re pretty casual. No huge discussions on builds pre-game, no anything. We go in to have some fun, kill some people, be killed and have a laugh (mixed with a few curses in between).
Today we only faced really high ranked people (or at least experienced, since we saw a lot of dragon finishers) while most of us aren’t even close to that rank. I don’t even know what MMR they are, but the fact we got absolutely destroyed on nearly every match was ridiculous. And we ended up playing against the same people, over and over. Knowing our chances were pretty slim, we still had to endure 4 matches in a row against the same people.
It’s disheartening, to say the least.
Now, I know some people will say “oh but you can just grind to dragon!” and I’m sure you can. But you’ll learn bits and bobs along the way, wether you realize it or not. When we’re being massacred repeatedly by the same people with obvious higher skill rank than us, something is wrong. If it weren’t for the usual banter and laughs in TS, if I was in say, solo queue, I’d have given up after the second match, since it was basically pointless. I don’t mind being paired every so often with higher skill people, since I’ll learn something from them (or try to anyway), but all those matches in a row?
Please fix this. Since the update, it’s been the matchmaking from hell.

Justin ODell.9517:

style.6173:

I never thought I’d say that I miss the old system, but wow. This new system was NOT ready for prime time. It is not fun.

Can you elaborate? We have plenty of things we can tweak to improve matchmaking now, so qualitative feedback is useful.

We did a lot of attempts today in unranked and ranked queue.

In unranked queue we queued in 2-3 and 4 and we met basically no premades against us.

In ranked queue we queued in 5 and we met a lot of mixed team. They hadn’t any chance to beat us and indeed the match wasn’t fun.

We noticed that queue starts very very fast, i think it’s better for the game if premade NEVER meet mixed team.

I know with the new leaderboard party composition are considered in ladder points so if a mixed team lose against a premade probably don’t lose points on leaderboard but it’s basically a no fun match.

I dunno if people prefer to meet a premade (and no loosing points if they lose) instead of nothing (infinite queue) or similar team sized but with a lot of difference in skill (same, no fun match).

It’s a delicate point, considering how much tiny is spvp population.

Justin ODell.9517:

style.6173:

I never thought I’d say that I miss the old system, but wow. This new system was NOT ready for prime time. It is not fun.

Can you elaborate? We have plenty of things we can tweak to improve matchmaking now, so qualitative feedback is useful.

I’m really impressed that you guys do not know, but I’ll try be as clear as I can.

There are casual players, there are the “not hardcore yet experienced players”, and there are hardcore players that play pretty much 24/7 and are in elite guilds (PvP mode in this case)

If you merge soloq with teamq, most of the matches will be filled with hardcore people, that have perfect class match-up, are using Teamspeak, and have excellent team communication, going up against random pugs, that might be experienced, but can’t match an organised pre-made group.

It will eventually happen what happened in SWTOR and many other games that had a system like that. Solo players will join less and less because none likes non-competition faceroll, queque times will increase since it’s less and less people playing, and even elite guilds will decrease over time since the population will have been dropped dramatically.

It is somewhat of logic to forsee this, even if it has been the issue in so many recent-day MMO’s…

Keep the system as it is now, design wise etc, but seperate it to solo ranked Q and team ranked Q.

Justin ODell.9517:

style.6173:

I never thought I’d say that I miss the old system, but wow. This new system was NOT ready for prime time. It is not fun.

Can you elaborate? We have plenty of things we can tweak to improve matchmaking now, so qualitative feedback is useful.

I don’t see how you don’t understand this.

If you have a team of 5 people, chances are they are organized. They cover each others builds and may be on TS together. Now this very organized build is facing 2 groups of 2 man teams and a solo player. Sure even if the 2 man groups are perfectly synchronized together, they don’t know whats going on with the other 3 people on their teams. The 5 man team has a huge advantage….

Not super experienced in TPVP so please correct me if this is wrong but this is how I see the problem at least….

sendaf.8375:

Justin ODell.9517:

style.6173:

I never thought I’d say that I miss the old system, but wow. This new system was NOT ready for prime time. It is not fun.

Can you elaborate? We have plenty of things we can tweak to improve matchmaking now, so qualitative feedback is useful.

Not super experienced in TPVP so please correct me if this is wrong but this is how I see the problem at least….

No it’s not wrong, it is exactly how it is. It is a move from their part aimed to make it easier for teams to find matches to play, but it is a huge mistake, since you will lose a huge amount of soloers.

Mark my words, if the system stays as it is now, expect a massve population drop in pvp, just in the mext 15-30 days. History does not lie … It happened in so many games…

We’ve been here before. Have we been here before? I am getting the strangest sense of déjà vu…

Why does the system need to cater to a solo player joining a ranked 5v5 conquest match? Can’t we just have RA and TA back?

a great solution would be a checkbox for solo players to say if they mind getting matched with a team.
And if these solo players who want to get matched with a team are rare they should only be used for teams with 4 players.

Solo q should have stayed seperate from team q’s. Id say adding duo Qing to it may have been okay if only one duo would get in per team, per match. Solo Q just has a different style of play then team Q. When your placed against premades of 3+ its just frustrating and un-fun. You cant rely on enemy lack of coordination or out playing a uncoordinated team by yourself, your now forced to sit and lose to premades whenever your placed against them as a solo q player. I want a ranked solo Q back with the leader-boards how they were. You guys changed things that didn’t need changing and ruined the game for a lot of people.

Sebastian.4610:

Id say adding duo Qing to it may have been okay if only one duo would get in per team, per match.

Better idea imo is to just have an unranked and ranked version of TA while keeping RA separate. The question becomes is the population too small to stretch it over 3 queues plus hotjoin?

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

sendaf.8375:

Justin ODell.9517:

style.6173:

I never thought I’d say that I miss the old system, but wow. This new system was NOT ready for prime time. It is not fun.

Can you elaborate? We have plenty of things we can tweak to improve matchmaking now, so qualitative feedback is useful.

Not super experienced in TPVP so please correct me if this is wrong but this is how I see the problem at least….

No it’s not wrong, it is exactly how it is. It is a move from their part aimed to make it easier for teams to find matches to play, but it is a huge mistake, since you will lose a huge amount of soloers.

Mark my words, if the system stays as it is now, expect a massve population drop in pvp, just in the mext 15-30 days. History does not lie … It happened in so many games…

Your wrong dude sorry. This was needed because they need to support duo/trio queue.

As for “getting farmed by premades”, just no. In duo/trio queue there is a chance to win (depends on team mates) easily vs all but the top 5/6 teams in the game. Its not that kittenly the very best teams will have such coordination that you can’t win.

They are trying to support all players with this system. The majority are people who probably play with 1/2 other people and finally we are getting supported. It had to happen and it did happen and its a great change which will boost population.

Lordrosicky.5813:

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

sendaf.8375:

Justin ODell.9517:

style.6173:

I never thought I’d say that I miss the old system, but wow. This new system was NOT ready for prime time. It is not fun.

Can you elaborate? We have plenty of things we can tweak to improve matchmaking now, so qualitative feedback is useful.

Not super experienced in TPVP so please correct me if this is wrong but this is how I see the problem at least….

No it’s not wrong, it is exactly how it is. It is a move from their part aimed to make it easier for teams to find matches to play, but it is a huge mistake, since you will lose a huge amount of soloers.

Mark my words, if the system stays as it is now, expect a massve population drop in pvp, just in the mext 15-30 days. History does not lie … It happened in so many games…

Your wrong dude sorry. This was needed because they need to support duo/trio queue.

As for “getting farmed by premades”, just no. In duo/trio queue there is a chance to win (depends on team mates) easily vs all but the top 5/6 teams in the game. Its not that kittenly the very best teams will have such coordination that you can’t win.

They are trying to support all players with this system. The majority are people who probably play with 1/2 other people and finally we are getting supported. It had to happen and it did happen and its a great change which will boost population.

duo/trio really has no place in ranked pvp. 5v5 premade and solo Q should be the only two options, i can see duo’ing maybe…. in soloq aslong as its 1 duo per team.

Amstel Steel.2058:

Sebastian.4610:

Id say adding duo Qing to it may have been okay if only one duo would get in per team, per match.

Better idea imo is to just have an unranked and ranked version of TA while keeping RA separate. The question becomes is the population too small to stretch it over 3 queues plus hotjoin?

Yes. That seems to be why they combined them.

Best solution I’ve seen so far is to try (very hard) to ensure premades faced only other premades, and restrict partial queueing to 1/2/3 people.

Perhaps if the system cannot pair premades with another premade, a loss for the non-premade should count as an unranked arena loss (wins by either and loss by the premade would be unchanged).

I think system can be forced to have a premade vs premade and other stuff vs other stuff

Justin can say this better, now the system is very more flexible and this fix shouldn’t get weeks or months to be addressed.

Justin ODell.9517:

sendaf.8375:

If you have a team of 5 people, chances are they are organized. They cover each others builds and may be on TS together. Now this very organized build is facing 2 groups of 2 man teams and a solo player. Sure even if the 2 man groups are perfectly synchronized together, they don’t know whats going on with the other 3 people on their teams. The 5 man team has a huge advantage….

Not super experienced in TPVP so please correct me if this is wrong but this is how I see the problem at least….

We understand that perfectly, which is why the new system takes party size into consideration. How much it does this is configurable. It seems people want it to be stricter. I’m cool with making that change, I just don’t want jump the gun and knee jerk some values based on initial reactions that could be because by unknown expectations.

Well for starters a person queued alone should NEVER be placed against a 5 man premade.

honestly best option is to make solo Q separate again.

Justin ODell.9517:

style.6173:

I never thought I’d say that I miss the old system, but wow. This new system was NOT ready for prime time. It is not fun.

Can you elaborate? We have plenty of things we can tweak to improve matchmaking now, so qualitative feedback is useful.

1. The matchmaking. It is not good. Teams are unbalanced in terms of skill level.
2. Team vs pug. This seems to be happening a lot more than the past. I thought the whole intent of this was for solo people to play together and team people to play together.
3. Lack of solo only play. I’ve yet to see 5 pugs vs 5 pugs. In the old system, I saw that all of the time in solo queue (obviously) and probably 50-75% of the time in team queue.
4. Courtyard. Due to the team vs pug issue I mentioned before, it just snowballs quickly
5. Spirit watch/skyhammer. I did team queue in the past just so that I never saw those maps. Now they are forced on me. I have 2 options: play something that isn’t fun or get dishonor. Bad choices
6. Integrated leaderboards. Will benefit team players more than solo players. There is no way to avoid that. Integrated = bad.
7. On some characters (this one for example), I can’t even queue for maps. I need to log into a different account to even play. I get some error code

Hope that helps.

You are all being EXTREMELY short-sighted

Merging solo q and team q is better for us ALL – PvP population is not large

Courtyard/Deathmatch should simply be thrown out this game is not made for that type of play especially when the opposing team sits outside of your spawn farming you as you jump in one by one

You’re all typical mob mentality going nuts over the first few games you joined – wait till the fairweathers leave the shiny new toy and things will be fine

Narkodx.1472:

Merging solo q and team q is better for us ALL – PvP population is not large

wait till the fairweathers leave the shiny new toy and things will be fine

Maybe this is why the population isn’t large. Maybe the system should be more welcoming and accommodating?

I haven’t played this game seriously in a very long time, but I still liked to hop in and queue some matches every so often. With this patch I’ve had nothing but 5 man premades curb stomp me. I get the idea that it’s good to bring the community together, but this change felt more like a desperation for teamQ to have a bigger populace (probably because teamQ top teams have like 10+ minute queue times) by adding soloQ cannon fodder as opposed to a change that is for the benefit of the entire community. Really just feels like a top-down change where casuals like myself get dumped on - too much frustration to even bother.

On a separate note; death match anyone? 3v3 queue death match all day, yes? RIP game modes mentioned 1 1/2 years ago that were just demo maps from beta.

Narkodx.1472:

You are all being EXTREMELY short-sighted

Merging solo q and team q is better for us ALL – PvP population is not large

Courtyard/Deathmatch should simply be thrown out this game is not made for that type of play especially when the opposing team sits outside of your spawn farming you as you jump in one by one

You’re all typical mob mentality going nuts over the first few games you joined – wait till the fairweathers leave the shiny new toy and things will be fine

I play solo, i want to play against other solo players. I don’t want to be put against teams of 3+, it changes how the game is played and is not enjoyable for a solo player. Now you might argue the system isn’t designed for this to happen often, but the fact is it should NEVER happen. Solo Q was fun and fine, sometimes you would get a new player with an adjusting MMR in your games and lose, but generally it was still fair and everybody was solo.

Justin ODell.9517:

style.6173:

1. The matchmaking. It is not good. Teams are unbalanced in terms of skill level.
2. Team vs pug. This seems to be happening a lot more than the past. I thought the whole intent of this was for solo people to play together and team people to play together.
3. Lack of solo only play. I’ve yet to see 5 pugs vs 5 pugs. In the old system, I saw that all of the time in solo queue (obviously) and probably 50-75% of the time in team queue.
4. Courtyard. Due to the team vs pug issue I mentioned before, it just snowballs quickly
5. Spirit watch/skyhammer. I did team queue in the past just so that I never saw those maps. Now they are forced on me. I have 2 options: play something that isn’t fun or get dishonor. Bad choices
6. Integrated leaderboards. Will benefit team players more than solo players. There is no way to avoid that. Integrated = bad.
7. On some characters (this one for example), I can’t even queue for maps. I need to log into a different account to even play. I get some error code

Hope that helps.

Thanks. Follow up questions. Anyone else feel free to answer as well.

1) Is this something you’ve noticed primarily in one arena vs the other?
2, 3) Are you willing to wait longer for a match if it greatly reduced the odds of this happening?
7) Does it only happen on just one account, or does it just happen more frequently on that account?

1) Well yea, it’s going to be unbalanced on the occasion because there is no leader board system out right now, but you as 1/5 of the team can really make a huge impact pushing the chance of winning into your favor.

2,3) I have yet to have a bad experience with this yet so I wont comment.

4) I personally like courtyard, although I can understand why some people wouldn’t.

5) I don’t really like either of them as well, but hey at least now are voting has some impact (I have noticed that the lower number of votes always seem to win? Has anyone else experienced this?)

6) Find friends, or carry your team, you have to remember.. it is relatively balanced when you enter a game, play your part.
- Shnicky

Lopez.7369:

I would bet that almost every single person queueing solo is willing to wait longer for queues if it means not facing premades all the time.

How are we having this discussion again? This is literally a two-year-old discussion for this game. It’s why you guys added solo queue in the first place.

lol, this was my exact thoughts. Talk about full circle, huh?

Is unranked arena as painful as ranked atm? I haven’t been able to test it yet. (so “play”, not “practice”)

I only had 1 match but it was rough, our team 5 solo ques and there team full 5. We had 2 thieves a necro and 2 mesmers vs a premade 2 engineer and 2ele and 1 ranger team. We got washed, also i dont know how the ranking things have gone but ive either had lose by 300 or win by 300. I blame the community for that but there is only 1 button for ranked fighting.

I’d be willing to wait 2-3 minutes for a quality match, just saying

cranos.5913:

Is unranked arena as painful as ranked atm? I haven’t been able to test it yet. (so “play”, not “practice”)

That Courtyard screenshot I just posted was from unranked.

I suspect rank 80 teams may begin to populate unranked arenas as a faster way to farm PvP reward tracks.

I disagree. I would prefer to play against good players even if they are using VOIP. You can ALWAYS play better and make that “unviable” build work. Just got to have good awareness, positioning, and teammates.

Eurantien.4632:

I disagree. I would prefer to play against good players even if they are using VOIP. You can ALWAYS play better and make that “unviable” build work. Just got to have good awareness, positioning, and teammates.

uh… no

DaveGan.8065:

cranos.5913:

Is unranked arena as painful as ranked atm? I haven’t been able to test it yet. (so “play”, not “practice”)

That Courtyard screenshot I just posted was from unranked.

I suspect rank 80 teams may begin to populate unranked arenas as a faster way to farm PvP reward tracks.

Except top teams don’t care about reward tracks (tbh who does?), they play for a) rank b) practice c) fun (jk no one plays for fun)

Eurantien.4632:

I disagree…Just got to have good awareness, positioning, and teammates.

…wat

MystikaLsmuRF.7150:

Except top teams don’t care about reward tracks (tbh who does?), they play for a) rank b) practice c) fun (jk no one plays for fun)

I said rank 80 teams, not top teams.

Eurantien is right guys, don’t be so rude he is just stating his opinion anymore. All the SPvP is when it comes to Ranked play is rotations, sure running meta builds make it easier, but if you are always in the right place, you will win.

I played around 20 games tonight, my group was always between 2-4 people, and we only faced a full premade once. Rest of the time it was against soloq players. It really wasn’t fun for anyone. Every Courtyard ended 500-0, and all the other matches where around 500-150.

DaveGan.8065:

I said rank 80 teams, not top teams.

Oh, thought you meant rank 80 as in leaderboard ranks.

But still, since when does rank matter ? And I seriously doubt anyone plays pvp for the reward tracks as they’re 100x slower than PvE and there isn’t anything great to get from them either.

Harbinger.8637:

I played around 20 games tonight, my group was always between 2-4 people, and we only faced a full premade once. Rest of the time it was against soloq players. It really wasn’t fun for anyone. Every Courtyard ended 500-0, and all the other matches where around 500-150.

How you can say they wasn’t a duo/trio but only soloqueue players?

Once the system actually places everyone I imagine this will get alot better. Alot of people are being partnered against others with higher or lower ability. With teams and against teams. Itl spread back out as time goes though and im willing to bet the only people whining on hte forums at that point will be people who were convinced of there own skill level and they cant understand why they seem to get partnered with people they view as less than capable. (Time to look in a mirror for those types)

MarkPhilips.5169:

Harbinger.8637:

I played around 20 games tonight, my group was always between 2-4 people, and we only faced a full premade once. Rest of the time it was against soloq players. It really wasn’t fun for anyone. Every Courtyard ended 500-0, and all the other matches where around 500-150.

How you can say they wasn’t a duo/trio but only soloqueue players?

I asked the players because I wanted to know personally. A majority were soloqers.

Justin ODell.9517:

style.6173:

1. The matchmaking. It is not good. Teams are unbalanced in terms of skill level.
2. Team vs pug. This seems to be happening a lot more than the past. I thought the whole intent of this was for solo people to play together and team people to play together.
3. Lack of solo only play. I’ve yet to see 5 pugs vs 5 pugs. In the old system, I saw that all of the time in solo queue (obviously) and probably 50-75% of the time in team queue.
4. Courtyard. Due to the team vs pug issue I mentioned before, it just snowballs quickly
5. Spirit watch/skyhammer. I did team queue in the past just so that I never saw those maps. Now they are forced on me. I have 2 options: play something that isn’t fun or get dishonor. Bad choices
6. Integrated leaderboards. Will benefit team players more than solo players. There is no way to avoid that. Integrated = bad.
7. On some characters (this one for example), I can’t even queue for maps. I need to log into a different account to even play. I get some error code

Hope that helps.

Thanks. Follow up questions. Anyone else feel free to answer as well.

1) Is this something you’ve noticed primarily in one arena vs the other?
2, 3) Are you willing to wait longer for a match if it greatly reduced the odds of this happening?
7) Does it only happen on just one account, or does it just happen more frequently on that account?

1. Both ranked and unranked
2/3. I averaged about 3-4 minutes for a queue before. I am fine with that if it gives me a good match. At the very least, there should be logic that a premade of 3 or more should never face a group of 5 pugs.
7. I haven’t been able to play a game on this account yet. I click on compete or play and nothing happens. A few seconds later, I get the message “the game client is unable to gain access to the log-in server…..” It happens every time on this account. It does not happen on any of my other accounts from the same computer.