Guild Wars 2

Josh Davis.6015:

a ladder algorithm where an emphasis is placed on winning games, rather than just playing games.

This change still does not go in the right direction. The ladder should reward players with a high MMR and not just for spending time.

With the Matchmaking system, you SHOULD have around 50% win chance IF you are matches correctly.
That leaves the following scenarios:
1.) Players rated too low (maybe just started in ranked; maybe farmed looses in the previous season) will have higher win chance than 50% →he get’s rewarded for playing, after that the will become a #2 player (see below).
2.) Players correctly rated, maybe getting a bit better over time → around 50% win chance → the more he players, the higher he is placed. It still does not matter which MMR he has. (as long as there are enough players around him to play with and against, to not get farmed from players with a higher MMR)

Tl.DR.: Ladder is still only for farming, we need an influence of the MMR.

Josh Davis.6015:

Hi all,

Thanks to your participation in the current Ladder Test Season we have been able to identify and correct a few issues that were preventing players from losing ladder points in certain scenarios.

After looking at the data we have collected over the past week, we have also decided to make a change to the scoring matrix that will now cause players to lose ladder points in match-ups where they were favored to win and did not.

We believe the changes outlined above will help us move towards a ladder algorithm where an emphasis is placed on winning games, rather than just playing games.

We will continue to make changes to the leaderboard as needed throughout this test season. Thank you for continuing to help us test our algorithms as we work towards building a better ladder system.

We’ll see you in the Mists!

PS: These changes are live as of 6:30pm PST.

U SUCK OMG 1 win = +1 point | 1 lose = -1 point = rage quit, flame and lamers, gg

Automated tournaments.

asap.

stop this ladderboard joke, it’s noy funny anymore

DiogoSilva.7089:

As someone who does not understands very well how ladder systems work, can anyone enlighten me on what is the difference between the current testing ladder and, say, for example, League of legend’s ladders?

In league of legends, your MMR is directly tied to your points gained per win and loss. If I was in silver V with a silver I MMR I may gain +30 for winning vs +18 if my MMR was in the silver IV range.

Because of this a person with a 50% win rate vs Silver I players (and a Silver I MMR) will move towards that division because they will gain more points for winning while their rank < Silver I and will lose more points if their rank > Silver I.

The GW2 ladder pretty much gives a point for winning and nothing for losing. A functional ladder should have abjured/radioactive/dod/etc etc in the top 100 rather than game grinders who people consider free wins when facing in ranked.

@ Grouch , can you answer this please sir . Is it Ok to switch class before match starts , and not get penalized ?

Better not have lost points for any of the last three matches you people put me in. kitten .

Good changes IF the matchmaking was good.

Now only matchmaking needs to be fixed, so I don’t need to face oRNG or other top teams at evening.

Thank you

Lexiceta.4156:

Wins and skill are two different matters, if you wanna win based system that’s easy most wins —-- wins But that seems to be be why everyone is complaining, So skill based system, gl on that since there is no measure of skill. So i get the feeling everyone wants a win % system that should be easy, although the already small community will become even smaller as full team will be required to achieve the top ranks,

1. Wins/Losses when you’re getting constantly matched against and with people outside of your skill range are inaccurate.
2. An MMR system works better, because it provides more fair matchups. The current system doesn’t reward players with high MMR at all, quite the opposite. I have a friend that made a new account and is currently at about 50 wins and 10 losses in top600. He can’t pass the 50% win ratio on his main account.
3. Teams will be required, yes – that’s why everyone wants a separate solo queue leaderboard like before.

now show us our MMR please.

It still boggles my mind that they are trying to recreate the wheel again.

Talk about screwing up something that’s been done time after time again because… eSports? Get real.

Lachanche.6859:

insanemaniac.2456:

Readymade.1672:

Just a simple little question you may have overlooked: Aren’t high MMR players favored to win more often? (In fact that’s the only way to get high MMR is to win often…)

So, you’ve simply encouraged the same practice that currently gets people to the top of the farmboards.
Step 1: Play constantly.
Step 2: Win around 45-50% of your games.
Step 3: Glorious Hero’s Armor???

yes, the only way to get to high mmr is to win more than you lose… but to maintain high mmr you only need to win 50%. unless youre constantly getting poor matches against much worse opponents.

uhm no, if all games have the same weight and you keep winning half of them your mmr will get closer and closer to 50% the more games you play. The only way to keep an mmr of 70% (for example) winning 50% of the games is if the games you win are 70% more important toward your score than those you lose.

do you know what mmr is and the difference between it and win rate? i dont think you do, from your post.

The most remarkable element here is that it took Anet a mere 5 days to respond to a well articulated criticism of their system despite having planned on taking 60 days to even consider which changes to make.

Surely, this nimble response would never have been attempted if the criticism hadn’t come directly from a member of a tournament winning PvP team. I could be wrong; but, I doubt it.

This situation would seem to emphasize a lack of decisiveness in design and programming leadership coupled with an inability/unwillingness to truthfully analyze game issues and act accordingly. I say this because the discrepancies described by Chaith in his “The Reality of New Leaderboard Algorithm” thread were quite obvious to anyone reading the numbers on the leaderboards.

It would be striking if Arenanet would begin to reward players, in all areas of the game, for effort expended during play (skill) rather than frequency of play (grinding/zerging).

Replay value of all parts of the game would increase if overcoming great odds was rewarded more than repeatedly rushing through specific elements of the game according to a “meta recipe” ad-nausem. It seems that this is all that high MMR players are asking for.

Leaderboards are meaningless anyways if there are no seperate team and solo queue.

I actually prefer it to be meaningless untill the seperate team leadersboards come in the expansion.

Teutos.8620:

Josh Davis.6015:

a ladder algorithm where an emphasis is placed on winning games, rather than just playing games.

This change still does not go in the right direction. The ladder should reward players with a high MMR and not just for spending time.

With the Matchmaking system, you SHOULD have around 50% win chance IF you are matches correctly.
That leaves the following scenarios:
1.) Players rated too low (maybe just started in ranked; maybe farmed looses in the previous season) will have higher win chance than 50% ->he get’s rewarded for playing, after that the will become a #2 player (see below).
2.) Players correctly rated, maybe getting a bit better over time -> around 50% win chance -> the more he players, the higher he is placed. It still does not matter which MMR he has. (as long as there are enough players around him to play with and against, to not get farmed from players with a higher MMR)

Tl.DR.: Ladder is still only for farming, we need an influence of the MMR.

Will never get to the point with ture 50% match probability in every match. Not large enough player base not enough people grouping. To have that you would have to have an unlimited supply of players of all skill levels and ranges and group sizes in queue at any time. Never mind the fact that sometimes the game says its 50% and its not because while the team MMRs are similar how they got there is wildly different. One team with two really good players and three bad ones would probably lose to a group of five decent players yet the MMRs are comparable. People have to get it into there heads that while this system can surely be improved it will never be that close to perfect especially if they continue with the merged queues.

Brown Fang Thump.9482:

The most remarkable element here is that it took Anet a mere 5 days to respond to a well articulated criticism of their system despite having planned on taking 60 days to even consider which changes to make.

Surely, this nimble response would never have been attempted if the criticism hadn’t come directly from a member of a tournament winning PvP team. I could be wrong; but, I doubt it.

This situation would seem to emphasize a lack of decisiveness in design and programming leadership coupled with an inability/unwillingness to truthfully analyze game issues and act accordingly. I say this because the discrepancies described by Chaith in his “The Reality of New Leaderboard Algorithm” thread were quite obvious to anyone reading the numbers on the leaderboards.

It would be striking if Arenanet would begin to reward players, in all areas of the game, for effort expended during play (skill) rather than frequency of play (grinding/zerging).

Replay value of all parts of the game would increase if overcoming great odds was rewarded more than repeatedly rushing through specific elements of the game according to a “meta recipe” ad-nausem. It seems that this is all that high MMR players are asking for.

Quoted for truth. This message needs to be put out there to the Anet devs. This is so true, not only for PvP but for all aspects of the game.

Right now, Guild Wars 2 is Grind Wars 2 because people don’t get rewarded for their level of skill but for how much/often they play instead which makes GW2’s endgame very dull and grindy. Maybe we could/should further discuss this in the “Grind is still Grind” thread but I just wanted to say that this post is absolutely spot-on.

well as things are now the only way you can raise is by farming with a premade. let’s say half your games are against another premade then it’s an even fight. the remaining half is against pugs and it’s an autowin. so with an estimate win rate of 75% you raise as a team.
an estimate win rate of 50% (solo) will get you nowhere anymore regardless of how much you play. i’ve played 6 hours today and barely moved at all. hopefully playing by night will bring me easier matchups.

Now I know why they stepped back on showing whether the game thought you would win/lose a match. BECAUSE IT IS CONSISTENTLY WRONG.

This should be fun, everyone watch, because all those games where you think, “there’s no possible way the game thought these matches would go well”, they definitely did. MMR HELL.

LucosTheDutch.4819:

Brown Fang Thump.9482:

The most remarkable element here is that it took Anet a mere 5 days to respond to a well articulated criticism of their system despite having planned on taking 60 days to even consider which changes to make.

Surely, this nimble response would never have been attempted if the criticism hadn’t come directly from a member of a tournament winning PvP team. I could be wrong; but, I doubt it.

This situation would seem to emphasize a lack of decisiveness in design and programming leadership coupled with an inability/unwillingness to truthfully analyze game issues and act accordingly. I say this because the discrepancies described by Chaith in his “The Reality of New Leaderboard Algorithm” thread were quite obvious to anyone reading the numbers on the leaderboards.

It would be striking if Arenanet would begin to reward players, in all areas of the game, for effort expended during play (skill) rather than frequency of play (grinding/zerging).

Replay value of all parts of the game would increase if overcoming great odds was rewarded more than repeatedly rushing through specific elements of the game according to a “meta recipe” ad-nausem. It seems that this is all that high MMR players are asking for.

Quoted for truth. This message needs to be put out there to the Anet devs. This is so true, not only for PvP but for all aspects of the game.

Right now, Guild Wars 2 is Grind Wars 2 because people don’t get rewarded for their level of skill but for how much/often they play instead which makes GW2’s endgame very dull and grindy. Maybe we could/should further discuss this in the “Grind is still Grind” thread but I just wanted to say that this post is absolutely spot-on.

This is because right from the start they decided on a game model that discourages elitism. Thats why there is no hardcore pve content, no gear progression beyond ascended, etc… If there is a more difficult PvE content that takes many hours of dedication and practice even from a skilled and coordinated group, then there will be players who will lack the skill and the gear to be a competent member of such a group. Therefore wont be accepted and will be called ‘low-geared’, ‘noob’ and such… But Anet does not want that. They want to make as many people as possible ‘special’ and ‘fully geared’ and whatnot…

Same goes for pvp. Except from some shiny finishers and armor, there is nothing more a player can be outstanding by. No gear progression, no nothing… just grind, grind and grind in order to avoid making the less skilled players feel inferior. Basically its an online babysitting organization for over-sensitive wannabe superstars.

But you can still get permanent gathering tools that give you a nice animation when harversting a node…

brannigan.9831:

Teutos.8620:

[…]end up at about 50% win ratio[…]

Will never get to the point with ture 50% match probability in every match. Not large enough player base not enough people grouping. To have that you would have to have an unlimited supply of players of all skill levels and ranges and group sizes in queue at any time. Never mind the fact that sometimes the game says its 50% and its not because while the team MMRs are similar how they got there is wildly different. One team with two really good players and three bad ones would probably lose to a group of five decent players yet the MMRs are comparable. People have to get it into there heads that while this system can surely be improved it will never be that close to perfect especially if they continue with the merged queues.

I disagree. With a low number of games played, you are right, but after you played a few dozen games, you should end up with 50%. The chance, that a bad player ends up on your opponents team are higher, than on yours (if you consider yourself a good player tho).
But regardless of my personal opinion, I’d love to hear you point on topic.
How does your opinion now influence the ladder?
How should the ladder get changed in consideration of your opinion?

Sorry Josh, but this does punish high MMR. The higher your MMR, the more likely you are to be favored.

This leaderboard punishes good players and rewards bad ones, the opposite of what it is supposed to do.

This could be remedied easily by keeping the current matchmaking, but only considering the difficulty of your opponent (not the strength of your own team) when deciding how to award points.

the new system is horrible i keep running into asdf full premade and i lose points every time we lose as a full solo queue team vs a premade, this is extremely dumb aka kittened how am i supposed to solo farm when i lose points losing to a premade ? losing to a premade is 100% going to happen if you have a pug group why do i lose points for something that i have no control over.

the system should go like “ok there is no one queuing let’s throw this premade group vs solo queuers but at least those suckers won’t lose any points because they are 100% going to lose so at least they have that going for them which is nice”.

as it is right now it is like “kitten these 5 players in particular they will play a match they have no chance of winning and they will lose points in the process”

done and over with it. this leaderboard system only gives priority to premade groups. soloq’ers don’t stand a chance. sorry but anet cannot think enough to balance things

Lachanche.6859:

the new system is horrible i keep running into asdf full premade and i lose points every time we lose as a full solo queue team vs a premade, this is extremely dumb aka kittened how am i supposed to solo farm when i lose points losing to a premade ? losing to a premade is 100% going to happen if you have a pug group why do i lose points for something that i have no control over.

the system should go like “ok there is no one queuing let’s throw this premade group vs solo queuers but at least those suckers won’t lose any points because they are 100% going to lose so at least they have that going for them which is nice”.

as it is right now it is like “kitten these 5 players in particular they will play a match they have no chance of winning and they will lose points in the process”

The leaderboard hasn’t been updating for me since this change so I am unsure of how my points have been effected but it does say you should only lose points when you “lose matches that you are favoured to win”. If full groups of solo queuers are getting stomped by premades shouldn’t they not lose points then?

I won about half the matches vs premades but the ones we lost were stomps and the ones we won were extremely close games, if I am losing points for those squash matches where half the team goes afk in the first two minutes there is something wrong with the system.

leader board either need to be change…i play well on maps decaping winning 1v1 and 1vs2 but my team just suck half of my match so even if i play good and keep point contested or mine i will have a pug with less then50points that pretty much lost the game for us

i appreciate the work that the team is doing for the leaderboards. i do however think that solo/team queues need to be separate. I want to be able to jump on and play a few matches without having to put a team together. I want to play in ranked against other like-minded solo-queuers.

This is the equivalent of having RA and TA in GW1 and queuing in RA and going up agaisnt TA queue. We used to have to win like 10 matches in a row before that happened.

It’s a bad system that pits soloers vs. team comps.

This is silly seriously while solo and team queue are still combined.

I don’t care about the pts but I have to say it seems I’m getting – pts when my team are getting blown out like 500 – 169. I’m not sure how I am favored to win these matches …

It doesn’t screw high MMR players at all, they simply have to let their MMR adjust, something they refuse to do, so yea if they never solo que yes the MMR stays high and they can complain how unfair it is that they are not on top by default, Truth is MMR is not static if they soloed more and got matched with low MMR players they would lose, adjusting their MMR and leading to better matches for all. Basically high MMR players are trying to have their cake and eat it too.

Lexiceta.4156:

It doesn’t screw high MMR players at all, they simply have to let their MMR adjust, something they refuse to do, so yea if they never solo que yes the MMR stays high and they can complain how unfair it is that they are not on top by default, Truth is MMR is not static if they soloed more and got matched with low MMR players they would lose, adjusting their MMR and leading to better matches for all. Basically high MMR players are trying to have their cake and eat it too.

I do not think for a second any high-rated players in this thread believe that their rating should be handed to them. The problem is, and has been for a while now, that the PvP system internally categorizes players and matches them based with one system and then visually represents players on the leaderboard with another.

We know that matches are made according to multiple factors: rating, rank, party size, profession, and leaderboard position. But we are not, to my knowledge, aware of how much each of these things play a factor in matchmaking nor are we aware of how much they influence their nebulous “odds of victory” condition that determines how many points are doled out (or taken away) at the end of the match to both teams.

The problem is, to me, that the system casts far too wide a net in favor of low queue times. As a mid-range PvPer, I have been put up against tournament-grade premades as a solo-queuer in one match and put up against fresh accounts in another. I had one night where I regularly queued up against Noob Engi when he was the top-ranked player on the leaderboard while I was still in the 89th percentile.

While I understand that many factors as stated above go into the matchmaking system, and perhaps my MMR and rank allow me to match-up against top-100 players somewhat regularly in spite of my leaderboard position, it seems as though so many variables are included—making match results fluctuate so wildly—in that everyone kind of just ends up playing everybody and renders the whole internal (and thereby external) system meaningless.

After playing 100 matches in this new season, it feels as though I am at a loss of where exactly I stand within the community because there’s no rhythm to the quality of players I’m paired up with (and against) nor am I ever even remotely perceptive of what my odds of victory are or what is realistically expected of me.

I’ve come away certain nights where I’ve gone 7-5 over 12 games and gotten 8 points. I’ve also come away certain nights where I’ve gone 7-5 over 12 games and only gotten 4 points. I imagine this in many respects leads back to the fact that point-margin determines my standing as explained here, but I can’t help but feel cheated by the fact that I can win the majority of my matches in a given night and still somehow feel penalized for it. Whether or not this is the system working as intended, it is very aggravating because I continue to lose points despite still competing with (and oftentimes beating) players that are far above me on the leaderboard.

I came into this season with a relatively good win percentage of 58% between ranked arena, solo queue, and team queue. I don’t consider myself a particularly lights-out player, but I do have fairly in-depth knowledge of the class I play to the point where I have written guides on it in the past. I also understand PvP as a gametype as well, having for a long time developed my sense of map awareness, what the well-traveled lanes are, what common strategies are, and when to push secondary objectives. I watch weekly tournaments on Twitch and maintain fairly rigorous attendance between Reddit, Guild Wars 2 Guru, and these forums to keep up to speed on the PvP, PvE, and WvW meta.

Regardless of where I stand in MMR, I’m a player that is invested. But it feels like I am so regularly paired up with players that aren’t, that have no idea what they’re doing, that aren’t willing to communicate, and have no business of being in ranked PvP.

I just recently played a match on Battle of Kyhlo. I called out that I was going home, but apparently 3 other people felt the need to follow me. The entire match was a complete disaster, with players improperly rushing points alone or overloading their presence to leave us back-capped. One player picked up the repair kit, ran it around aimlessly near home, and dropped it in a corner; he didn’t seem to quite understand where he was to take it or what it did, and the fact that I’m thrust into these matches—and that I lose points in the standings for it—just sours my desire to continue supporting PvP and pushing my scrublord PvE guildmates into it.

I think it is pretty simple you don’t solo que enough the MMR is matching with low MMR players your MMR is artificially high for solo. Solo requires a lower MMR, as your MMR diminishes the quality of teammates rises. Many games have two MMR or ELO one for team and one for solo for just that reason. Conversely as solo player almost exclusively I find on the rare occasions i do queue with a full team I find the games way to easy.

Lexiceta.4156:

I think it is pretty simple you don’t solo que enough the MMR is matching with low MMR players your MMR is artificially high for solo.

“Artificially” high? In what sense?

Your Team MMR is higher than your solo MMR since this game combines them. The resulting MMR is higher than the solo MMR would be if it were a separate calculation.

Lexiceta.4156:

Your Team MMR is higher than your solo MMR since this game combines them. the resulting MMR is higher than the solo MMR would be on it’s own.

This can’t possibly be the case. The vast majority of my played matches in ranked (and unranked if that matters) come from solo queuing.

Majority? OK well i give up, i must be wrong, I know my rate is about 100 solos for every 1 team que be that 2 3 4 or even 5 . I refer to solo as exactly that- solo.

game would be more balanced with no poision debuf……this game all focus on dps. and a little cc …33% is to much

Lordrosicky.5813:

Good its an actual test then. But people are not going to respect any other than an mmr type leaderboard. And if people dont respect the leaderboard nobody will make premades and no teams will form.

This

Zodian.6597:

I mean you’re basically just sorting by # of wins with this point system anyways. Why not sort by mmr and let the ppl that care about points the option to sort by wins. I went out of town with my gf after grinding points for like a week and fell from rank 700ish back down to 90%. It’s kinda dumb. Looks like the cap for points is like +3 per game, how about making this scale to the amount of points on the other team? Eg; if you queue into someone with 100 points and win, you get their points – your points /2 or something?

If we don’t go for leagues, sorting by plain MMR seems like the best idea for me. Similar to WoW Arena Ladders, sorted by sheer MMR which decreases in time if you don’t play for weeks.

Again, a pure MMR leaderboard is fine (once you fix the old leaderboard issues) but you still have to cater to 70% of the solo players that make up pvp. Their 400w 350L season should still count in comparison to, say, a players 100w 5l season.

I don’t understand why both can’t be equal in rank points through their own ratios. Fix the kitten algorithm pls.

Didnt u make some secret changes last night??

In last 4 hours i lost 12 points (winrate like 10%) and dont tell me its cause i sux, cuz its impossible to have such performance drop. GJ Anet with ur matchmaking. Not only leaderboard is a farm, but also people are getting trolled, actualy why cant i even check how many points did i get for a single match and how they were decided?

Keep trolling ppl more and you will see how many ppl u will have in spvp.

Basically the new leaderboards mean nobody is happy lol. The boards are still a jokr as far as showing the best players. And all the grinders wont bother playing because they lose points for playing. So the current system is the worst they have had imo

So, this sucks. Now, I’m losing points when my team gets utterly destroyed by things that they don’t even try to counter—turret engis, power necros/lich form. kitten, this morning, I was on a team where a medi guard let a ranger pet rez to full instead of finishing him off. Yet, during primetime I’m matched with OE and Caed ’n kitten.

There’s no accounting for what you’re going to get for a team if you soloqueue, I can’t carry terribles, but I sure as hell hate getting farmed when the difficulty curve goes from those terribles to literally the best players in the game. I feel like there’s no winning, and it’s incredibly frustrating.

Still loosing (-14)

If same story will continue tomorrow I quit. Pvp and season were already underwarding in comparison to efforts, but now when playing even drags u down, its loosing point at all.

I will just try to get Liama from twitch, better than hundreds of games for few crafting mats and tons of rage ^^.

btw changing stability was BAD idea. Demotivates even more

In general ranked matches were better before test season started, cause even if i lost it didnt feel like a problem

Aaaa already noticed today that in prime time queue is longer, so i guess its taking effects.

so basically all the low mmr noobs who didnt care what was happening to me has the same thing hapepning to them now and are upset gg

Lexiceta.4156:

OK well i give up, i must be wrong

omg no way, you must continue your brazen, stubborn ignorance

NEVER GIVE UP
NEVER SURRENDER

Sendi.3426:

Still loosing (-14)

Pvp and season were already underwarding in comparison to efforts, but now when playing even drags u down, its losing point at all.

I would like to second this sentiment. I understand it’s a test season, but I really don’t care for minis, and there is no actual pride to me for GH armor, it’s ugly and you can barely tell the difference between it and its regular armor anyway.

I really hope once you guys start ‘real seasons’—if we can ever get LBs to work—you’re going to make it more lucrative. A start would be like 5 full reward tracks worth of pvp potions.

I have to say I don’t think they implemented this change the way it was phrased. I finally saw my newly updated points from yesterday and it looks like I am either the same or maybe even -1 after going 6 and 5, losing most of those 5 to premades with 4 other solo queuers on my team. Why are we losing points for those matches we are obviously not favoured to win? I highly doubt my team was favoured when we get stomped 500-120 by a full team.

Whatever the kitten you guys did on this it also completely screwed me over. Haven’t won a single kitten match all weekend. CONGRATS on kittening up both good players and bad players in a single move, then kittening leaving the office.

Should i even bother with inb4 you tell me again that having a series of 10 CLOSE losses is good enough?

Basket of Boxes.1976:

I have to say I don’t think they implemented this change the way it was phrased. I finally saw my newly updated points from yesterday and it looks like I am either the same or maybe even -1 after going 6 and 5, losing most of those 5 to premades with 4 other solo queuers on my team. Why are we losing points for those matches we are obviously not favoured to win? I highly doubt my team was favoured when we get stomped 500-120 by a full team.

Because, boxes, this formula was always broken. The prediction of which team should win a match and what constitutes a balanced team once players have been found was quite possibly the most broken thing they have. And now we can see that for what it is.

I think the new changes are great! It’s unfortunate however that some players got a 200 point head start..

Please please please stop making teams where players have much different mmr. It is “bad” assumption that game will be ok if average mmr of party is ok. Better player CAN’T carry no skill player, this game will never work in that way. You need party of 5 people that have similar mmr.