Guild Wars 2

ResJudicator.7916:

Fivedawgs.4267:

ResJudicator.7916:

Fivedawgs.4267:

ResJudicator.7916:

Jourdelune.7456:

ResJudicator.7916:

Ithilwen.1529:

@ Evan Lesh

You are confusing elite with prestigious. The elite in this case being formed by pre made team groupies who are willing to stack specific classes and builds.

The majority of matches favor one side and most of those who have risen to high rank have done so by being on a team rather than by individual skill. This doesn’t result in prestige, it results in a caste of haves and a caste of have-nots.

Everything you wrote is demonstrably false.

There are plenty of players who reached legendary via solo-queue. Heck, some guy posted a thread where he solo-queued to legendary running core necro (NOT REAPER) on a brand new free-to-play account (so no MMR advantage). Some other dude posted a thread with screenshots of each of his solo-queue matches to legendary.

How did they accomplish that? By being more skilled than you. Don’t pretend otherwise.

Sorry… but a TOP player having a fresh new account will not have difficulties because the new player account is AVG MMR (or better).

If the MMR was fixed to 20% for new account, TOP players would find it more harder to SOLOQ in the last tier of the player base.

All this because they choose to put MMR for your team but not for the opponent

Either remove MMR or do MMR vs MMR. The actual system is a joke that let TOP player trying to let you think they are better than all because they win matches on second account, but it’s false since their many account are old and got MMR in the top 20%. (and if completely fresh 2016 account, they start at AVG MMR and have the skills to make it goes higher… starting in HELL (20% bottom) would be a different story.

This is bad because many TOP players are really the best of the WORLD but the League and is MAtch Making remove that value since the system give them EASY rides.

How does one go from average MMR to below-average MMR? By repeatedly losing to players who had lower MMR than you, or at least similar MMR. Your MMR barely changes if you lose to a team that had a much higher MMR, so it’s not your blow-out losses to the Abjured Premade that caused your MMR to tank. It’s losing all those games where you were actually favored to win.

And how does one go from average MMR to a high MMR? By repeatedly beating players who had higher MMR or similar MMR.

The real problem here may just be that there aren’t enough weak players to go around. If there’s only 5 weak players in late Sapphire / early Ruby queuing up at a particular time, then they’ll all go on one team and won’t be able to find an equally weak team to play against. None of their matches will be fun. Their MMR won’t change much from the resulting blowout losses, but they’ll continue to lose any vulnerable pips.

One solution would be to let the weak players drop down tiers so that they wind up in a bigger pool of weak players, but that would just lead to more frustration with respect to progress.

The better solution would be to attract more players, so that there are enough weak players to form a 5v5. To that end, letting us queue outside HOTM would go a really long way. Also, making the reward tracks more meaningful would also help.

Both of your bolded statements have to be backed up, or you are just spewing hot air. Here what Anet says ( I know the information is dated but there is nothing else out there for us to rely on). I’ll highlight the important variable for you.

<Ratings period=“3d” max-periods=“20”> <Rating default=“1500” min=“100” max=“5000” ( display the max,lowest and avearge MMR possible) max-change=“300” profession-ratio=“0.25”/>
(Now here is the deviation, that’s is how much it changes upon win/loss) <Deviation default=“350” min=“30” max=“350” /> <Volatility default=“0.06” min=“0.04” max=“0.08” system-constant=“0.5” /> </Ratings> <Ratings type=“Ranked” reset=“2013-11-26T08:00:00-08:00” partial-reset=“2015-01-27T16:30:00-08:00”/> <Ratings type=“Unranked” reset=“2013-11-26T08:00:00-08:00” partial-reset=“2015-01-27T16:30:00-08:00”/>

Based on this, it’s pretty clear that the other team MMR does matter, but to an extent, when it comes to your rating. You can lose/gain between 350 MMR point or 30 MMR point per games. Let’s say going up against the abjured resulted in a 30 MMR point loss; after 10 losses you be around 1200 MMR if you were around 1500. So, how are these numbers not significant?? I could be wrong though.

In Glicko2, the “Deviation Default,” “Deviation Min,” and “Deviation Max” values are multiplied by a function of your volatility to determine the actual change in your rating. (See http://www.glicko.net/glicko/glicko2.pdf, starting at page 4). I can’t copy/paste the actual formula so I’ve provided a link instead. (Note: It’s not a straight up multiplication, but the volatility factors into the final ratings change). So the actual ratings changes are going to be lower than what you provided.

Also, there’s nothing wrong with your MMR going down by a meaningful amount if you lose 10 times in a row (even if it’s to the Abjured). But if you lose to the Abjured twice, then win vs. a team that’s closely matched to yours, then you could have a net MMR increase (using the information you provided). So again, the primary impact on your MMR is going to be all of the games where your MMRs are relatively close. This goes back to my earlier point about how “MMR hell” is an issue only when there aren’t enough weak players to form a competitive 5v5 (see above for suggested solutions).

Also like someone stated below me, MMR is only taken into account to match you with similar folks. So losing 10 games in row, might be a thing depending on which side of the MMR you ended up in. Because there is no corralLatin between your team MMR and the opponent.

That’s a separate point, and I agree with it. If your MMR is below-average relative to other players in your pip-range, then you’re going to lose more often than win. Just like if I became an NBA player, whatever team I join is going to lose more often than win (assuming that they’re forced to field me, rather than keep me on the bench).

But let’s be real here: the people still stuck in emerald/sapphire/low-ruby are not going up against the Abjured in unwinnable matchups. Using your own logic, all of the high-MMR people should already be in diamond/legendary by now.

theres the idea. every team gets 6 players. choose who doesn’t git fielded. you can tag them in after you are downed, or don’t

theres some new game play options

Jaxom.7310:

ResJudicator.7916:

Fivedawgs.4267:

ResJudicator.7916:

Fivedawgs.4267:

ResJudicator.7916:

Jourdelune.7456:

ResJudicator.7916:

Ithilwen.1529:

@ Evan Lesh

You are confusing elite with prestigious. The elite in this case being formed by pre made team groupies who are willing to stack specific classes and builds.

The majority of matches favor one side and most of those who have risen to high rank have done so by being on a team rather than by individual skill. This doesn’t result in prestige, it results in a caste of haves and a caste of have-nots.

Everything you wrote is demonstrably false.

There are plenty of players who reached legendary via solo-queue. Heck, some guy posted a thread where he solo-queued to legendary running core necro (NOT REAPER) on a brand new free-to-play account (so no MMR advantage). Some other dude posted a thread with screenshots of each of his solo-queue matches to legendary.

How did they accomplish that? By being more skilled than you. Don’t pretend otherwise.

Sorry… but a TOP player having a fresh new account will not have difficulties because the new player account is AVG MMR (or better).

If the MMR was fixed to 20% for new account, TOP players would find it more harder to SOLOQ in the last tier of the player base.

All this because they choose to put MMR for your team but not for the opponent

Either remove MMR or do MMR vs MMR. The actual system is a joke that let TOP player trying to let you think they are better than all because they win matches on second account, but it’s false since their many account are old and got MMR in the top 20%. (and if completely fresh 2016 account, they start at AVG MMR and have the skills to make it goes higher… starting in HELL (20% bottom) would be a different story.

This is bad because many TOP players are really the best of the WORLD but the League and is MAtch Making remove that value since the system give them EASY rides.

How does one go from average MMR to below-average MMR? By repeatedly losing to players who had lower MMR than you, or at least similar MMR. Your MMR barely changes if you lose to a team that had a much higher MMR, so it’s not your blow-out losses to the Abjured Premade that caused your MMR to tank. It’s losing all those games where you were actually favored to win.

And how does one go from average MMR to a high MMR? By repeatedly beating players who had higher MMR or similar MMR.

The real problem here may just be that there aren’t enough weak players to go around. If there’s only 5 weak players in late Sapphire / early Ruby queuing up at a particular time, then they’ll all go on one team and won’t be able to find an equally weak team to play against. None of their matches will be fun. Their MMR won’t change much from the resulting blowout losses, but they’ll continue to lose any vulnerable pips.

One solution would be to let the weak players drop down tiers so that they wind up in a bigger pool of weak players, but that would just lead to more frustration with respect to progress.

The better solution would be to attract more players, so that there are enough weak players to form a 5v5. To that end, letting us queue outside HOTM would go a really long way. Also, making the reward tracks more meaningful would also help.

Both of your bolded statements have to be backed up, or you are just spewing hot air. Here what Anet says ( I know the information is dated but there is nothing else out there for us to rely on). I’ll highlight the important variable for you.

<Ratings period=“3d” max-periods=“20”> <Rating default=“1500” min=“100” max=“5000” ( display the max,lowest and avearge MMR possible) max-change=“300” profession-ratio=“0.25”/>
(Now here is the deviation, that’s is how much it changes upon win/loss) <Deviation default=“350” min=“30” max=“350” /> <Volatility default=“0.06” min=“0.04” max=“0.08” system-constant=“0.5” /> </Ratings> <Ratings type=“Ranked” reset=“2013-11-26T08:00:00-08:00” partial-reset=“2015-01-27T16:30:00-08:00”/> <Ratings type=“Unranked” reset=“2013-11-26T08:00:00-08:00” partial-reset=“2015-01-27T16:30:00-08:00”/>

Based on this, it’s pretty clear that the other team MMR does matter, but to an extent, when it comes to your rating. You can lose/gain between 350 MMR point or 30 MMR point per games. Let’s say going up against the abjured resulted in a 30 MMR point loss; after 10 losses you be around 1200 MMR if you were around 1500. So, how are these numbers not significant?? I could be wrong though.

In Glicko2, the “Deviation Default,” “Deviation Min,” and “Deviation Max” values are multiplied by a function of your volatility to determine the actual change in your rating. (See http://www.glicko.net/glicko/glicko2.pdf, starting at page 4). I can’t copy/paste the actual formula so I’ve provided a link instead. (Note: It’s not a straight up multiplication, but the volatility factors into the final ratings change). So the actual ratings changes are going to be lower than what you provided.

Also, there’s nothing wrong with your MMR going down by a meaningful amount if you lose 10 times in a row (even if it’s to the Abjured). But if you lose to the Abjured twice, then win vs. a team that’s closely matched to yours, then you could have a net MMR increase (using the information you provided). So again, the primary impact on your MMR is going to be all of the games where your MMRs are relatively close. This goes back to my earlier point about how “MMR hell” is an issue only when there aren’t enough weak players to form a competitive 5v5 (see above for suggested solutions).

Also like someone stated below me, MMR is only taken into account to match you with similar folks. So losing 10 games in row, might be a thing depending on which side of the MMR you ended up in. Because there is no corralLatin between your team MMR and the opponent.

That’s a separate point, and I agree with it. If your MMR is below-average relative to other players in your pip-range, then you’re going to lose more often than win. Just like if I became an NBA player, whatever team I join is going to lose more often than win (assuming that they’re forced to field me, rather than keep me on the bench).

But let’s be real here: the people still stuck in emerald/sapphire/low-ruby are not going up against the Abjured in unwinnable matchups. Using your own logic, all of the high-MMR people should already be in diamond/legendary by now.

theres the idea. every team gets 6 players. choose who doesn’t git fielded. you can tag them in after you are downed, or don’t

theres some new game play options

Hm, what about random Bob gets red card for flaming? xD

Evan Lesh.3295:

What would make legendary players happy to keep playing the game? Is it just quicker queue times? What if you could do other things while waiting? What if there was something other than leagues all together like unranked arena that legendary players could go to until more players make it to legendary?

First of all thx for answer.

Main goal for the legendary division should be offer the best quality/balanced game.
I mean, when people hit legendary division, the general feeling should be “finally I’m legendary and I can have really good games, with very good people and balanced games”

But it doesn’t happen

This is because the matchamking faults in Legendary are really evident:

1) Balancing professions on both sides. This needs to be the main goal. Because in high tier a sustained team vs a no sustained win always win, so 2 thieves + 1 war against ele scrapper druid can’t win. And people don’t always want to reroll or they don’t have the same skill on every builds. There should be a system to consider a meta build for each profession in the matchmaking. And balancing around it.

2) Premade vs soloer. If you put a duo queue of legendary pro league player + another pro player against full simple “legendary” soloers, the game will result unbalanced. This can be worst if there is another profession unbalance (read point 1). It’s always a premade vs soloer issue but in legendary the gap is higher.

The good news is if you can fix it, you can fix the game at every level and the matchmaking would be really really better for everyone.

For now it’s simple not fun to play legendary in solo. And this is a shame because the entire progression is to reach the legendary division.

Mogar.9216:

In theory the system should have settled in the first week . I really do not think there is a huge wave of skilled pvper joining season late to explain the large amount of blowouts this late into the season. The honest answer has to be that mmr is not a good enough reflection of skill.

Anybody who has studied statistics and understands mathematics and algorithms, understands personal MMR can be a highly inaccurate measurement of skill for multiple reasons:
A) your MMR doesn’t take account of your personal contribution into final score, but it is purely based on the success of your team. Team has 5 players, one player is just 20 % (40 % at best ;-) )
B) There is no solo queue and partial or full premades have a huge advantage assuming equal skill level, due being able to use TeamSpeak
C) The player base is very small, especially outside prime time

Thus you might end up matched with the same players again and again. If you are lucky you get good players to your team and you ride the wave of success to next divisions fast. Then your MMR might be indicating an overly positive result of your personal skill.

On the other hand, if you are unlucky, you get matched with the same inexperienced/bad players again and again (they are in your team), thus having almost no chances to win, despite your contribution. Of course I haven’t have access to large enough data, but I get the hunch that the downward MMR spiral is really happening for many players and not just imaginary.

The current match making algorithm is a very sure way to drive off a large percentage of the spvp population due completely unfair games (aka stuck in low MMR hole) and cause long loss and win streaks, no matter how well or bad you play.

The old system wasn’t perfect, but it was better.

If you have kasparov with a std chess setup vs a good chess player with all queens + 1 king, kasparov will lose.

This mean you can’t only consider division and mmr in your matchmaking, you need to consider builds and meta builds and matching them on both sides with a right mix of sustained/dps criteria.

Without that matchmaking will be always random with random games, most of all decided by beginning

And this issue in legendary division is really big because people have a decent skill so it’s really different from lower division where basically setup doesn’t matter because there are a lot of players with really low skill and game knowledge and 1 good player can make really the difference in this environment (and this is why many good players have huge win streak in lower divisions).

Same with the premade vs soloer issue, a coordinated esl player duo+ can make a huge difference in the game if you don’t have the same combination on your side. It’s too much the skill, the profession setup and the coordination you can have at higher level if it’s not balanced on the other side. And this is always why is really more difficult to win against premades at higher level than lower level.

Considering all this, + the fact no one really care about prestige (main goal for everyone is to reach legendary) and you have longer queue…..probably legendary division is the worst division to play and have fun.

And It’s really a shame.

Who cares for queue times in legend, when most of the legend players actually play their alts in lower tiers?

Evan Lesh.3295:

In season 1 every match was trying to be even, but this allowed players to grind through the ladder. Season 2 is the opposite of this, but players are clearly experiencing matches that are too volatile. Once players reach a division relative to their skill, the only blowout matches that should be happening would be from people coming late to the season. I feel there may be balance between the two styles of matchmaking that maintain prestige, but avoid an abundance of blowouts.

Would´t it be easier, more accurate and less grindy to make divisions based completely on MMR treshold?

Like Amber 0-500 MMR, Emerald 501-1000 MMR, etc.

Then the matchmaking will simply need to grab 10 players with similar MMR and sort them in the 2 teams. For new players create placement matches or something but don´t let them get over certain MMR just from the placement matches.

That system will also probably increase the population in the higher tiers but will keep the “prestige”

For the rewards, make a repeatable reward track for each division, and the higher the division the better the rewards from the rewards track. And of course you make it so you can only advance those reward tracks playing ranked games.

For everyone blaming premades for poor match quality, or a loss of prestige in hitting legend, _did you even play through the league content?_

I’ve solo queued to legend on multiple fresh and my old accounts, in both season 1 and season 2, and season 2 progression _might as well not be influenced by premade groups at all_ . My progress has never once been blocked by unbeatable premades in season 2. And I’ve not seen any screenshots like the abundance of premade vs. Pug games from season 1. Any one have any evidence to the contrary, or more experience in climbing the ladder, or are all the dissatisfied players theory crafting why it’s unfair they are failing at the learning curve?

The ladder is more or less completely solo or duo in S2. It hurts my brain to see so much harping on this issue when the League is so casual that practically nobody even bothers 5 man grouping.

Chaith.8256:

For everyone blaming premades for poor match quality, or a loss of prestige in hitting legend, did you even play through the league content?

I’ve solo queued to legend on multiple fresh and my old accounts, in both season 1 and season 2, and season 2 progression might as well not be influenced by premade groups at all . My progress has never once been blocked by unbeatable premades in season 2. And I’ve not seen any screenshots like the abundance of premade vs. Pug games from season 1. Any one have any evidence to the contrary, or more experience in climbing the ladder, or are all the dissatisfied players theory crafting why it’s unfair they are failing at the learning curve?

The ladder is more or less completely solo or duo in S2. It hurts my brain to see so much harping on this issue when the League is so casual that practically nobody even bothers 5 man grouping.

Very true, but you are assuming that everyone runs scrapper/ core engi ( one of the opest class atm). And you can test their theory by purposely losing 20 or 30 games in row, I wonder if that ll help you better understand their perspective.

Finally, a fresh account MMR can be better than a vets MMR.

Fivedawgs.4267:

Chaith.8256:

For everyone blaming premades for poor match quality, or a loss of prestige in hitting legend, did you even play through the league content?

I’ve solo queued to legend on multiple fresh and my old accounts, in both season 1 and season 2, and season 2 progression might as well not be influenced by premade groups at all . My progress has never once been blocked by unbeatable premades in season 2. And I’ve not seen any screenshots like the abundance of premade vs. Pug games from season 1. Any one have any evidence to the contrary, or more experience in climbing the ladder, or are all the dissatisfied players theory crafting why it’s unfair they are failing at the learning curve?

The ladder is more or less completely solo or duo in S2. It hurts my brain to see so much harping on this issue when the League is so casual that practically nobody even bothers 5 man grouping.

Very true, but you are assuming that everyone runs scrapper/ core engi ( one of the opest class atm). And you can test their theory by purposely losing 20 or 30 games in row, I wonder if that ll help you better understand their perspective.

Finally, a fresh account MMR can be better than a vets MMR.

No, not assuming people play Engineer, as 66% of the professions have zero handicap hitting legend.

And I’m not sure sure I agree with your assessment of ‘core engi OP!’

Plus, what class one plays doesn’t have anything to do with my point which was that premades are simply the fall boy for some who would rather be stuck on that, than implement good advice. Same as having a worse than starting MMR. It’s not like people are just randomly awarded those

And no, I’ll not throw 30 games thanks, pretty sure my teammates would not enjoy that.

Chaith.8256:

Fivedawgs.4267:

Chaith.8256:

For everyone blaming premades for poor match quality, or a loss of prestige in hitting legend, did you even play through the league content?

I’ve solo queued to legend on multiple fresh and my old accounts, in both season 1 and season 2, and season 2 progression might as well not be influenced by premade groups at all . My progress has never once been blocked by unbeatable premades in season 2. And I’ve not seen any screenshots like the abundance of premade vs. Pug games from season 1. Any one have any evidence to the contrary, or more experience in climbing the ladder, or are all the dissatisfied players theory crafting why it’s unfair they are failing at the learning curve?

The ladder is more or less completely solo or duo in S2. It hurts my brain to see so much harping on this issue when the League is so casual that practically nobody even bothers 5 man grouping.

Very true, but you are assuming that everyone runs scrapper/ core engi ( one of the opest class atm). And you can test their theory by purposely losing 20 or 30 games in row, I wonder if that ll help you better understand their perspective.

Finally, a fresh account MMR can be better than a vets MMR.

No, not assuming people play Engineer, as 66% of the professions have zero handicap hitting legend.

And I’m not sure sure I agree with your assessment of ‘core engi OP!’

Plus, what class one plays doesn’t have anything to do with my point which was that premades are simply the fall boy for some who would rather be stuck on that, than implement good advice. Same as having a worse than starting MMR. It’s not like people are just randomly awarded those

And no, I’ll not throw 30 games thanks, pretty sure my teammates would not enjoy that.

I watched you climb through the ladder with condi engi on your EU account or is that not considered core?

And also, in amber you don’t lose any pips, hence why I suggested it.
True people earn their MMR, there is obv. nothing wrong with that. The problem begins when the system thinks a diamond player, tried to get to legendary last season, with a 500 MMR has the same skills with an amber of the same MMR, or that a new players with a 1000 MMR is more skilled than the diamond player aforementioned.

Dont think ive seen a single 5man premade this season. some 4man which i treated as just some friends queueing together, nothing too tryhard

Chaith.8256:

I’ve solo queued to legend on multiple fresh and my old accounts,

I have a question. Are you doing this just because or do you feel you have to to be able to have fun because of lack of incentive to continue playing in Legendary after reaching it?

@resjudicator. BTW dude you input might be helpful on this thread,
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/Your-Top-5-Suggestions-to-ANET-sPvP/page/5#post6047622

You seems to know what you are talking about.

@EvanLesh

To preface your overall questions before I answer them so you know where my opinion is coming from : I’m a strict solo queuer and I got legend very quickly. I even made a post a few weeks ago about my 50 win streak getting there (d5 I think before I lost my first game, played over the first few weeks not the first couple days). Afterwards, I basically instantly stopped queuing into ranked after 1-2 games with 10+ min queue times. The reasoning was initially that yea, it was just the queue times and I had to take a break from burnout, but then the removal of the average queue time estimate makes me not even want to queue up at all when I log in because I can’t tell if it’ll take me 10 minutes or an hour to queue. The chance isn’t worth.

Now:

What would make legendary players happy to keep playing the game? Is it just quicker queue times? What if you could do other things while waiting? What if there was something other than leagues all together like unranked arena that legendary players could go to until more players make it to legendary?

For me personally, I have a several suggestions:
I would start by just re-adding the average queue timer. If I KNOW the queue times are lower than average, than its likely the legend queues are reasonable (the legend queues were always much longer the the time showed, but you could make an educated guess to how long you would be waiting.)

Quicker queue times in general would be great incentive, but that requires a higher population to pull from. You mentioned earlier that theres a balance between s1 and 2 where the game could make more balanced games while still separating at the top players, and I think this would be a big help in the overall experience and therefore overall population. Coming from experience, had I not climbed ultra quickly from ridiculously lopsided games for my first ~40 games, I would have queued up for more overall games. Even if I’m matched with poorer players on my team for the sake of a more balanced match, I’m ok with this because the games are more enjoyable overall if they are close games. Say I had a 60% win rate climbing up, not a 100% win rate it could have taken me 3-4x as many overall games to get to legend.

On your last question, what about alternative things to do in the wait time, I would be most interested in just playing pve while in queue, but as thats not an option, perhaps hotjoin. If I could work on my reward tracks by playing 2 games in hotjoin or unranked I would be much more interested in queuing up for legend because I can do something instead of afk for 30 minutes to miss the popup and get 5 minutes of dishonor (this happens to me too much) I think this is a a good suggestion overall.

On that note, give me another 10-15 seconds to click join on the popup!

Chaith is also right in that there are almost 0 premades in s2, which is AMAZING compared to season 1 in my opinion where every match as a solo queuer you end up against an esl team and you might as well afk after you sat through a 20 mintue queue, but this effect is a result of long queues and casualness in s2, nothing else. Bring solo q back and perhaps introduce automated tournaments like starcraft 2 introduced where groups can sign up for with additional rewards. Solo queue gives a pyschological effect on players where they feel the game is fair, even if the games were ALREADY fair. But that FEELING is IMPORTANT.

Edit: This was a mouthful, but your questions seemed targeted directly at me based on your criteria. I hope you find this helpful! I look forward to seeing what you can come up with in s3!

KreatE.7612:

@EvanLesh

To preface your overall questions before I answer them so you know where my opinion is coming from : I’m a strict solo queuer and I got legend very quickly. I even made a post a few weeks ago about my 50 win streak getting there (d5 I think before I lost my first game, played over the first few weeks not the first couple days). Afterwards, I basically instantly stopped queuing into ranked after 1-2 games with 10+ min queue times. The reasoning was initially that yea, it was just the queue times and I had to take a break from burnout, but then the removal of the average queue time estimate makes me not even want to queue up at all when I log in because I can’t tell if it’ll take me 10 minutes or an hour to queue. The chance isn’t worth.

Now:

What would make legendary players happy to keep playing the game? Is it just quicker queue times? What if you could do other things while waiting? What if there was something other than leagues all together like unranked arena that legendary players could go to until more players make it to legendary?

For me personally, I have a several suggestions:
I would start by just re-adding the average queue timer. If I KNOW the queue times are lower than average, than its likely the legend queues are reasonable (the legend queues were always much longer the the time showed, but you could make an educated guess to how long you would be waiting.)

Quicker queue times in general would be great incentive, but that requires a higher population to pull from. You mentioned earlier that theres a balance between s1 and 2 where the game could make more balanced games while still separating at the top players, and I think this would be a big help in the overall experience and therefore overall population. Coming from experience, had I not climbed ultra quickly from ridiculously lopsided games for my first ~40 games, I would have queued up for more overall games. Even if I’m matched with poorer players on my team for the sake of a more balanced match, I’m ok with this because the games are more enjoyable overall if they are close games. Say I had a 60% win rate climbing up, not a 100% win rate it could have taken me 3-4x as many overall games to get to legend.

On your last question, what about alternative things to do in the wait time, I would be most interested in just playing pve while in queue, but as thats not an option, perhaps hotjoin. If I could work on my reward tracks by playing 2 games in hotjoin or unranked I would be much more interested in queuing up for legend because I can do something instead of afk for 30 minutes to miss the popup and get 5 minutes of dishonor (this happens to me too much) I think this is a a good suggestion overall.

On that note, give me another 10-15 seconds to click join on the popup!

Chaith is also right in that there are almost 0 premades in s2, which is AMAZING compared to season 1 in my opinion where every match as a solo queuer you end up against an esl team and you might as well afk after you sat through a 20 mintue queue, but this effect is a result of long queues and casualness in s2, nothing else. Bring solo q back and perhaps introduce automated tournaments like starcraft 2 introduced where groups can sign up for with additional rewards. Solo queue gives a pyschological effect on players where they feel the game is fair, even if the games were ALREADY fair. But that FEELING is IMPORTANT.

Edit: This was a mouthful, but your questions seemed targeted directly at me based on your criteria. I hope you find this helpful! I look forward to seeing what you can come up with in s3!

Bolded statement, newflash you can only check for pre made at the end of the game. So I don’t know where you are getting your data. What I have noticed is that the number of pre made have increased, since it’s the only way to level up.

Fivedawgs.4267:

Edit: This was a mouthful, but your questions seemed targeted directly at me based on your criteria. I hope you find this helpful! I look forward to seeing what you can come up with in s3!

Bolded statement, newflash you can only check for pre made at the end of the game. So I don’t know where you are getting your data. What I have noticed is that the number of pre made have increased, since it’s the only way to level up.[/quote]

Data is from my own experience, and as someone who is familiar with enough of the top players to immediately recognize a good team by players alone, I can tell you (as Chaith has), that no top teams are queuing this season. ANYONE in legend will tell you as much. I can’t say as much for the lower divisions because I’m not in them, but any teams NOT in legend are 100% beatable. As Evan Lesh even said, when he queues up with his friends, he still plays like a solo queuer. Unless its in legend, you can overcome teams with personal skill.

KreatE.7612:

Fivedawgs.4267:

Edit: This was a mouthful, but your questions seemed targeted directly at me based on your criteria. I hope you find this helpful! I look forward to seeing what you can come up with in s3!

Bolded statement, newflash you can only check for pre made at the end of the game. So I don’t know where you are getting your data. What I have noticed is that the number of pre made have increased, since it’s the only way to level up.

Data is from my own experience, and as someone who is familiar with enough of the top players to immediately recognize a good team by players alone, I can tell you (as Chaith has), that no top teams are queuing this season. ANYONE in legend will tell you as much. I can’t say as much for the lower divisions because I’m not in them, but any teams NOT in legend are 100% beatable. As Evan Lesh even said, when he queues up with his friends, he still plays like a solo queuer. Unless its in legend, you can overcome teams with personal skill.

[/quote]

First don’t speak for chaith, here is what chaith said :

Chaith.8256:

For everyone blaming premades for poor match quality, or a loss of prestige in hitting legend, did you even play through the league content?

I’ve solo queued to legend on multiple fresh and my old accounts, in both season 1 and season 2, and season 2 progression might as well not be influenced by premade groups at all . My progress has never once been blocked by unbeatable premades in season 2. And I’ve not seen any screenshots like the abundance of premade vs. Pug games from season 1. Any one have any evidence to the contrary, or more experience in climbing the ladder, or are all the dissatisfied players theory crafting why it’s unfair they are failing at the learning curve?

The ladder is more or less completely solo or duo in S2. It hurts my brain to see so much harping on this issue when the League is so casual that practically nobody even bothers 5 man grouping.

So chaith isn’t saying that the amount of premade this season is less than the previous one, his point is no pre made was able to hamper his progress this season; one thing come to mind (no bunker mesmer).

Second, legendary doesn’t represent the bulk of gw2 players; idk if you are new on the forum but the consensus around these water is that you progress better with pre mades. So, unless you check the scoreboard at the end of each game, you are just spewing hot air; As I have pre made 10 times more this season than the last one. And I don’t believe I am part of the minority cause of you have to do is stand in HOTM, it won’t take 2 min for you to see : ele emrald t4 looking for group.

@Fivedawgs.
You are replying to the posts, but I’m not sure you actually read them.

I solo queued every game through the divisions. And despite what you may believe, I didn’t just happen to be on the team with the 4 man queue 50 times in a row. And yes, I know how to check who was part of a team after the game. I do so every game. I won vs the few premades I played on the ladder. If a premade is in diamond, or ruby or even sapphire. They are there FOR A REASON. If they win games they’ll climb out until the reach a point where they balance out or hit legend. As I’ve said, there are no teams once you get to legend so all teams actually queuing ARE BEATABLE by solo queuers.

And again, I’m not saying there are fewer premades overall, I’m saying there are drastically fewer AT LEGEND (which is where it has a much stronger affect on the outcome of a game.)

Although, again, I am lead to believe there is fewer overall premade because like chaith said
And I’ve not seen any screenshots like the abundance of premade vs. Pug games from season 1.

I never said you were in a premade; the fact are in the current meta, your chances of progressing are better in a pre made. Your or my experience doesn’t represent the bulk of gw2 players.

People don’t premade in legend because there is no incentive to. Just like people start trying build in legends because it’s the end game, I watched pro streamer on twitch and what I have noticed is that as soon as they reach legendary, they no longer take the game seriously. So they don’t premade in legend because there is nothing to strive for, it’s not because solo q er can beat 5 man premade.

Once again chaith didn’t say there were fewer premade overall. Check the post above.

About the screenshot, I have seen my share this season, also the map chat pretty much confirms my suspicion. Ele ruby t2 looking for a group every 2/3 min.

Fivedawgs if it wasn’t implied when I said that premades are no obstacle, yes, there are way fewer premades for a solo queuer’s climb to Legend from Amber, as in, practically none. The ones I do encounter are only some casual friends who are just as often speedbumps to my solo/duo queue team.

It’s insanely casual at the moment. Since premades are so unpopular, and getting wrecked their fair share, I even question how matchmaking treats them, but have no first hand experience because never once have I team queued in S2. Does anyone have even some bad anecdotal evidence to support premades wrecking people, like there normally is? I haven’t seen a lick of it.

It’s so insanely easy to solo queue to Legend if you are actually a strong player, this is why premades are not born out of necessity for the strong. Everyone is naturally falling into a solo/duo playstyle.

Any premades that form as kind of like a coalition of people who are tired of being stuck in ruby, I have a very sinking suspicion that they get wrecked by Diamond/Legend solo queues very hard if they were to stay together.

In isolation they aren’t a huge problem. But with matchmaking the way it is randomly putting people with higher mmr against lower mmr. Teams with players that are tired and frustrated with having lost 10 games in a row. Profession stacking, profession imbalance. People throwing games. DCs. Pros on alt accounts. There’s a lot of barriers for the people who aren’t pro without a high mmr to getting the winstreak needed to go up a tier.

Chaith.8256:

Fivedawgs if it wasn’t implied when I said that premades are no obstacle, yes, there are way fewer premades for a solo queuer’s climb to Legend from Amber, as in, practically none. The ones I do encounter are only some casual friends who are just as often speedbumps to my solo/duo queue team.

It’s insanely casual at the moment. Since premades are so unpopular, and getting wrecked their fair share, I even question how matchmaking treats them, but have no first hand experience because never once have I team queued in S2. Does anyone have even some bad anecdotal evidence to support premades wrecking people, like there normally is? I haven’t seen a lick of it.

It’s so insanely easy to solo queue to Legend if you are actually a strong player, this is why premades are not born out of necessity for the strong. Everyone is naturally falling into a solo/duo playstyle.

Any premades that form as kind of like a coalition of people who are tired of being stuck in ruby, I have a very sinking suspicion that they get wrecked by Diamond/Legend solo queues very hard if they were to stay together.

Before I go any further, allow me to make two assumption, the first being that’s 15% of gw2 players are either Top of the food chain or upper average; Consequently the remaining 85% are average and below.

First bolded statement, true premade across division are getting wrecked but that’s what Anet wanted to fix, ergo a new type of pre made has emerged; although I am still getting crushed by some amber in premades and vice versa. The new type of premade is between division, and the propensity for the 85% to pre made is about 90%; I gage an anecdotal example above. So, what the system did here is lower the incentive of the 15% to premade while increasing the propensity of others. I ll further explain below.

And the reason why it’s easy this season for a strong player to climb to legendary “insanely casual” (aka not competitive) are two folds.

First, there is no need for pro players to premade since the system already designed better premade for them. Before I go any further, I ll admit that most strong players ( not all) have high MMR; with this S2 algorithm grouping HIGH MMR players against LOW MMR players. It’s pretty much make sense why Strong players are having a easy ride to legendary, because the system is favoring/catering to their needs, hence made sure that’s those pro players, the epitome of gw2, are all group together against low MMR players. And as a defense mechanism, average or strong players on the other side of the hill with low MMR have develop a defense mechanism whereby players wouldn’t even attempt to rank without a premade ( referring to my diamond example above).

The second one, is the lack of incentive…. I literally seen pro players stop taking rank seriously after getting their legendary wings, like what else is there for them to get. Some of these pro players pre made their way to legend last season, but this season they won’t even bother because they got all they wanted and are challenging themselves to make it there by solo ing.

Second bolded statement, that’s up for discussion; I have had ruby’s game which were better than legendary, of course as a whole most legebdary player would be able to trump them, still the corolation isn’t linear.

Finally, I want to touch on the f2p accounts, I think what’s being left out by f2p alter is that theit account have a pretty high MMR. It’s not like most of the f2p legend made an account at the start of the season then leveled it up to rank 20 and started pvp ing; and even then they would still end up with a higher MMR than some vets. If anything the f2p accounts are proving that core are still op par with elite specs but the topic for another discussion.

Funny enough, I know of at least 5 pro player who duo ed this season in amber/emerald, wierd indeed.

Chaith.8256:

Fivedawgs if it wasn’t implied when I said that premades are no obstacle, yes, there are way fewer premades for a solo queuer’s climb to Legend from Amber, as in, practically none. The ones I do encounter are only some casual friends who are just as often speedbumps to my solo/duo queue team.

It’s insanely casual at the moment. Since premades are so unpopular, and getting wrecked their fair share, I even question how matchmaking treats them, but have no first hand experience because never once have I team queued in S2. Does anyone have even some bad anecdotal evidence to support premades wrecking people, like there normally is? I haven’t seen a lick of it.

It’s so insanely easy to solo queue to Legend if you are actually a strong player, this is why premades are not born out of necessity for the strong. Everyone is naturally falling into a solo/duo playstyle.

Any premades that form as kind of like a coalition of people who are tired of being stuck in ruby, I have a very sinking suspicion that they get wrecked by Diamond/Legend solo queues very hard if they were to stay together.

If anything, this season highlighted group play as being overvalued by the matchmaker. I totally agree, even if I am only diamond, soloQ all the way there and have seen almost no grouping at all.

Poor players blame the system or their teammates (aka the system) for their inability to get out of Emerald or Sapphire. If that thread the other day of someones gameplay after complaining is any indication, than most people deserve to be in those lower brackets.

Bringing a handicapped F2P account to Legend does not suggest that it’s not handicapped after all.

It suggests that the important part lies elsewhere, I would suggest teamwork & flawless rotations can overcome a mechanical handicap.

How much better is starter MMR than the veteran’s MMR you speak of? You really think starter MMR carries people? That, i’m not sure if I believe. I think any legend can take any tanked, 30 loss streak account to legend.

Chaith.8256:

Bringing a handicapped F2P account to Legend does not suggest that it’s not handicapped after all.

It suggests that the important part lies elsewhere, I would suggest teamwork & flawless rotations can overcome a mechanical handicap.

How much better is starter MMR than the veteran’s MMR you speak of? You really think starter MMR carries people? That, i’m not sure if I believe. I think any legend can take any tanked, 30 loss streak account to legend.

About your first statement, you said above only 66% of the profession had a shot at legendary but excluded it in your reply, or have you had a change of heart? True, it’s an handicap, but how much weight would it have on your team when most of your teammates have higher MMR than your oponents?

Second, although outdated these are the only numbers we cantrust:

<Ratings period=“3d” max-periods=“20”> <Rating default=“1500” min=“100” max=“5000” max-change=“300” profession-ratio=“0.25”/> So, if 1500 is the default and you get to ruby by mostly grinding and to diamond with kitten or 60% winrate I wouldn’t be surpirsed if a veteran had a lower MMR than a new player ( 1500 MMR).

<Deviation default=“350” min=“30” max=“350” /> <Volatility default=“0.06” min=“0.04” max=“0.08” system-constant=“0.5” /> </Ratings> <Ratings type=“Ranked” reset=“2013-11-26T08:00:00-08:00” partial-reset=“2015-01-27T16:30:00-08:00”/> <Ratings type=“Unranked” reset=“2013-11-26T08:00:00-08:00” partial-reset=“2015-01-27T16:30:00-08:00”/>

Evan Lesh.3295:

In season 1 every match was trying to be even, but this allowed players to grind through the ladder. Season 2 is the opposite of this, but players are clearly experiencing matches that are too volatile. Once players reach a division relative to their skill, the only blowout matches that should be happening would be from people coming late to the season. I feel there may be balance between the two styles of matchmaking that maintain prestige, but avoid an abundance of blowouts.

I disagree.

Season 2 is completely grindable. Reason being is that people do not drop down division. With that said, eventually, people of all skills level will reach ruby. Then, the people in those region will begin massacring each other and then step on top of each other to reach diamond. This process will keep repeating itself until finally, the bad skill players will reach legend. The fact that teams of lower division beating a team of higher division already proven that s2 is completely grindable and not only that, bad players with great stroke of luck getting carried up the ladder on the earlier stage.

I’m not sure what you’re trying to say with About your first statement, you said above only 66% of the profession had a shot at legendary but excluded it in your reply, or have you had a change of heart?, but he just means that 2/3s of the professions are better than the other 1/3 and that you’ll have an easier time getting to legend with them then the bottom third. No matter what class you are playing, playing a f2p class (w/o specializations) is a significant handicap, even if its in the good 2/3. Hugely significant in terms of a single individuals ability to affect the outcome of an overall game.

Its significant enough that I would MUCH prefer to run a specialization to win the game than having myself be on the ‘statistically better’ mmr team.

You are trying to say that the team with the higher overall mmr is hugely advantaged, and this was the case at the start of the season, the majority of good players are already out of these ranges and you’re not having 5 legends playing against 5 ambers anymore. Maybe 1 legend playing an alt account occasionally, but one guy isn’t going to shut out entire teams. Knowing how to cooperate with his teammates and rotating probably is going to win the games.

My point being, weeks into the season, differences in mmr are no longer the deciding factor of a person’s ability to win games. Actually being better than your opponents is going to get you to win.

Again, any legend player on a tanked mmr account is not going to have a problem with winning games and getting back to legend. Helseth proved this when he took a viewers 18 loss streak account and won 8 straight games on it in solo queue.

The reason some veterans have have ratings lower than the starting mmr is because they deserve to be there based on their performance in the previous season. It may be very frustrating to not achieve the same division as before, but the goal of s2 was have division more directly reflect skill. Which is showing some hard truths on the below average pvpers.

If a person wishes to climb the ladder, group queueing will not have as much of an impact as asking a higher rated player how to rotate so they improve themselves.

Chaith.8256:

Bringing a handicapped F2P account to Legend does not suggest that it’s not handicapped after all.

It suggests that the important part lies elsewhere, I would suggest teamwork & flawless rotations can overcome a mechanical handicap.

How much better is starter MMR than the veteran’s MMR you speak of? You really think starter MMR carries people? That, i’m not sure if I believe. I think any legend can take any tanked, 30 loss streak account to legend.

I want to support this statement, because I remember midway through season 1 I was on a insane loss streak and even made a forum post about my MMR being beyond repair.
But I made it to legendary then and I did it now too.
————
The rest of this post is not directed at Chaith

I am not one to chastise folks, but I do have to ask at some point, how much of this is exaggeration?

Do you realize that small mistakes can lead to large margins of victory? Maybe you lost 1 2v2 for example and your team could not recover. Went for a stomp/rez instead of the other way around and your team fight ended poorly?

How do you know that your team is not the high MMR team and the other team is the low MMR team just playing better than you? High and low are relative.
Actually this point is huge. Everyone claims to be on the low end of the spectrum. But you have no idea of the spread. High and Low could mean 1000MMR and 1050MMR average.

I must say, on some levels this MMR privilege argument parallels some real life stuff.
Its crazy to see RL problems mirrored in games.
I will not say that the MMR barrier does not exist. And I cannot say that if some can overcome said barrier that you can too. These are both probably poor over generalizations.
But, on some level, do you ever stop and say, this is a game. For every winner, there is a loser. Everyone cannot win all the time.

Even pro league, the top 100 or so players, trade games and wins/losses. They regroup and try to come back stronger, working on their individual flaws.

Regardless of whether or not the system is flawed, blaming the system does not increase your pips. Only you playing and improving can do that.

Do you know why I play warrior in this game even though it is perpetually terrible? Because its a game and its what I enjoy. If I outplay someone, it feels good. If I lose, I look to see what I can do better. But at the end of the day, the very end of the day, this is supposed to be your leisure outlet.
Please do not be consumed by it.

Chaith.8256:

How much better is starter MMR than the veteran’s MMR you speak of? You really think starter MMR carries people? That, i’m not sure if I believe. I think any legend can take any tanked, 30 loss streak account to legend.

There is the anecdotal evidence of several players with multiple accounts consistently getting better teammates and coming up against worse opponents with their new account compared to their main account.

Thought someone from the low end of the spectrum should chop in.

I am average at pvp, I know my classes and tactics and would probably end up inend sapphire or beginning of ruby.

My first match in this league as a soloQ was against a guild team, and my team was a bunch of randoms so we got steamrolled, next match I am with a worse team against one way above our team and again a loss. This kept happening only with a win after 3 losses then again until I managed to get to div 2.

Div 2 is still the same and at some points worse, we lost a match and got 0 points at a point when 4 of my team could not defend against 3 of them whilst I solo fought 2 good players and after prolonging the fight died.

Now I am being teamed up with div 1 people and me plus another from div 2 (all pug) and because of long matchmaking we had to fight a team where 2 where in a pre made team. So I gave up, why should I work so hard just to gt put down when others are practically handed wins?

I am thinking of moving on from gw 2 as I am struggling to find the game fun anymore, I am put down in pvp as I have mentioned above, wvw is basically dead and the HoT storyline is not great and I have sunk alot of money into this with little return.

I have been a supports since the original and this is Anets lowest point, there are issues they know about but are leaving them, allowing people in the league to exploit and get a win when they should have lost (this is about changing class mid match and say full healing the lord in stronghold or switching to a team of op meta builds) and each day I see less reason to join especially with nerfs in all classes which affect pve too because someone I abusing a class.

Evan Lesh.3295:

Ithilwen.1529:

@ Evan Lesh

You are confusing elite with prestigious. The elite in this case being formed by pre made team groupies who are willing to stack specific classes and builds.

You are correct. Though I am curious to know what is bad about pre-made teams that perform well reaching the top of the ladder. When I play with friends, we perform no better than solos :P

Finally, proof the devs are bad at their own game. I knew it for so long

Evan Lesh, I have a suggestion. Code the match making system so it works like normal and stop caving to players. Because here is the problem players cryed and asked for a flawed system so you implemented a flawed system to cater to them. Then they got free rides to legendary. Then once they got there instead of turning off the flawed system you let it run all season when its purpose was no longer needed and all it did was cause problems.

Any system that takes 10 solo players basically then picks a winning team and then picks a losing team is not only a terrible idea but it doesn’t work at all.

Just make the matchmaking balanced, as it is now you have very empty legendary rankings and after waiting the hour they get steamrolled, so they make an alt push down other potential legendary people and fill legendary with alts. And on the other side of the spectrum you have people who can’t even get out of div 1 to 3 because you set half your teams up to lose who then quit pvp and even the game itself meaning less people in ranked increasing wait times which again drives more people away.

In s1 you had 1 group of people with an issue (those who carried people to top div) but now you have everyone up in arms.

All I want are the 3rd wings but I keep gettin thrown in with the low mmr crowd which makes my mmr lower which causes me to get put with worse teams, I have given up as I am not getting anything for even trying especially when I have to work twice as hard as my opposing team to get the win.

I am not a bad player but the system only advances the team with high mmr and as I got unlucky my first few games I am doomed to being in the bottom divisions.

Queue times have gotten a lot better (at least for me) recently. I think due to the more players in legend later in the season. Just throwing that out there

Evan, you said something I mentioned in my other post (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/Stronghold-queue-time-feedback/first#post6044418), which is the possibility to do something more. Be doing stuff on Tyria or even playing a unranked match, like you mentioned.

I suggest an “infinite” courtyard map for everyone that is queueing. So you can go, kill people, try your build, get a “warm up” or whatever.