Guild Wars 2

EDITED 4th Jan 2017
Quick glance at the forums and you realise much of the community believe Anet don’t’ care. We need to make them care! After receiving feedback, I’ve divided the following suggestions into “Agreed”, “Discussion Needed” (for further development & improvement) and “Optional/QOL”. These suggestions relate to Ranked arena only.

(I’ve done my best to collate similar suggestions and opinions. Please send me a PM if you believe I’ve made a glaring error and I will fix asap.)

AGREED

1/ No match to commence without all 10 players being connected
Players to be returned to queue

2/ Player code of conduct.
To be based on fair play and sportsmanship, stiff penalties to eradicate match manipulation. Particular emphasis on AFK and repeater DC;s. Code of Conduct could be displayed on “Instructions screen” pre-match. (Discussion required regarding format & implementation)

3/ Remove daily achievements from Ranked

4/Fix dishonour bug. Eg Overtime, party members

5/ Leaderboard Gaming and Manipulation
Refer to suggestions in Discussion Needed

DISCUSSION NEEDED

1/ Invalid Matches
Invalidating matches for a DC. Game to close out after”x” mins/seconds, no win/loss for either team

2/Solo q (1 man only) and group q (2,3,5 man).
Most agree this needs to happen, implementation and queue times may be an issue. Alternate suggestion is to have only 1man queue & 5man queue. Those who wish to queue as 5man can then either wait for queue or opt out and join solo queue individually

3/ Individual Skill Rating
General consensus is w/l is not accurate (or fair measure) of individual skill. Of most concern is the accuracy and application of any metric to indicate individual skill.

Visible team MMR

4/ In Game Communication
Stacked mini-map icons, unclear and cumbersome map pings, all warrant mention.

5/ Skill Gating Ranked/Tutorial
A divisive topic, but generally it seems most would like to see players entering Ranked with a better basic understanding play.

6/ Class stacking.
Opinions remain divided. Some argue it is a population issue, others that it is a MM flaw. Input from Anet would be most helpful as to how MM treats classes.

6a/ Class balance or lack thereof

7/ Ranked-only rewards
Needs to smoothed out, in particular Ascended Shards of Glory. They should be rewarded for continued play in ranked, not stop after you reach some threshold

Giving reward pips on losses undermines the spirit of ranked (= competitive). Attach reward pip gains to the points reached in a match like you get 1 pip per 100 points reached and +5 for the victory. A blowout below 100 gives nothing.

8/ Match tracking & reporting
Better tracking/reporting for when a match doesn’t count. We have constant forum posts where ANet explains why wins + losses != games played.

9/ Decay system.
Decay doesn’t need to exist at lower ratings. At higher ratings, decay needs to be permanent and require more than one game every three days.

10/ End-of-Season lock.
To prevent smurfs from flooding the top of the leaderboard on the last days of the season, lock leaderboard access a week or so before the end so only players who have completed placement before then can appear on the leaderboard.

11/ Leaderboard Requirement
Add # of games played requirement to show up on leaderboards (say, 100 or so)

12/ Motivating players to continue match despite loss. Eg. Less rating loss for close games (Multiple suggestions)

13/ Matchmaking remains a controversial topic

14/ Code of Conduct
What should it include? How is it implemented and/or enforced?

Optional/QOL
Ability to save builds for easy swap pre-match

Terrible ideas imo

Lordrosicky.5813:

Terrible ideas imo

What do you suggest?

No offense but I gotta agree. Those changes are terrible and unnecessarry…
There are so many other and more important things to fix.
Besides your ideas are not fitting I mean a resign option sounds terrible and not needed do you know how many comebacks are in this game and how easy you can comeback? You shouldnt be able to give up…

Deathok.2914:

No offense but I gotta agree. Those changes are terrible and unnecessarry…
There are so many other and more important things to fix.
Besides your ideas are not fitting I mean a resign option sounds terrible and not needed do you know how many comebacks are in this game and how easy you can comeback? You shouldnt be able to give up…

I ask you the same thing…. What do you suggest?

Look at the forum lol there are tons of issues mentioned to fix your issues just ain’t that important

Deathok.2914:

Look at the forum lol there are tons of issues mentioned to fix your issues just ain’t that important

Geez, what part of “starting point for discussion” did you not understand? These suggestions were collated from reading the forums.

Do you think ranked pvp is fine the way it is? Does it need no improvement or change at all?

My issues with the state of pvp are irrelevant for the purpose of this thread. We can keep making individual threads complaining about:
Divisions/MMR
Toxicity
Lack of Tutorial
Match Manipulation
Match Making
Lack of Balance
and the list goes on.

Or… the community can have a discussion and push Anet to move forward in direction we as players want.

Alternatively, if you’re only purpose is to troll. Sorry to say, swing and a miss.

Giving points for top stats would kill the game outright.

Lordrosicky.5813:

Giving points for top stats would kill the game outright.

Don’t see that in the list anywhere, but it’s a good point.

I think the OP has some really good suggestions. I would support all of them.

I think Season 5 is the worst season so far. Winning and loosing should not be the only thing that affects your MMR in a team game.

@OP

You can’t just pick stuff from the forums. A lot of it is the same nonsense spouted from people who can’t accept that they aren’t as good as they think they are.

Good Ideas

• Strong, exponential penalties for repeated DC’s. Restrictions lasting days for repeat offenders. If your connection sucks, you need to think about not playing ranked.
• Invalidating matches for an early DC. Anyone in the DC’ing player’s party gets a loss to prevent abuse.
• Fix bug when you win with a DC on your team and it counts as a loss.
• Better tracking/reporting for when a match doesn’t count. We have constant forum posts where ANet explains why wins + losses != games played.
• Better decay system. Decay doesn’t need to exist at lower ratings. At higher ratings, decay needs to be permanent and require more than one game every three days.
• End-of-Season lock. To prevent smurfs from flooding the top of the leaderboard on the last days of the season, lock leaderboard access a week or so before the end so only players who have completed placement before then can appear on the leaderboard.

Bad Ideas

• Split solo and team queue. Population isn’t enough.
• Replacing current rating/division system.
• Class restrictions. It will hurt queue times and lead to worse games. If one class is being stacked for an advantage, it needs fixed with balance changes. If stacking it is seen as a disadvantage, then players should be swapping for a better comp if they really want to win. Otherwise, they should lose and lose rating.
• Gating ranked access. There’s already a PvP rank restriction to ensure a base knowledge level. After that, let rating dictate matches; that’s its purpose.
• Solo/Duo only queue. Teams need to be able to compete in a team game. Anyone blaming duo queue for losses is making excuses by people who can’t be bothered to function as a team and should be rated lower.

Debatable

• Tweak rating adjustment for win/loss. ANet hasn’t stated exactly how they do it (there are a couple options – some better than others). However, no current rating system in any game excels at rating people in random teams. Coming up with a better system requires a lot of research, and ANet could probably spend their time more productively elsewhere.

One more

Good

• Smooth out ranked-only rewards – in particular Ascended Shards of Glory. They should be rewarded for continued play in ranked, not stop after you reach some threshold.

I’m collating all of this in a Word doc. Once we get some more input I’ll start making amendment to initial post.

MissCee.1295:

Anyone who has played Ranked this season, indeed played pvp at any time in the past 12mths, knows it’s in a sorry state.

I disagree. Sure, it has some issues, but it’s probably the best it has ever been.

MissCee.1295:

Quick glance at the forums and you realise much of the community believe Anet don’t’ care.

People are always going to complain no matter what. That people are whining isn’t really an indication of anything, it’s just a constant of the universe. The fact that ArenaNet changed so many things for this season is an indication that they do care and do listen to feedback.

Pakkazull.6894:

People are always going to complain no matter what. That people are whining isn’t really an indication of anything, it’s just a constant of the universe. The fact that ArenaNet changed so many things for this season is an indication that they do care and do listen to feedback.

There will always be crybaby posts on the forum, that is obvious to any village idiot. However there are some issues which, like the complaints, have been a constant for way too long. Eg, Match Manipulation (dc/afk) never addressed adequately. Currently there are genuine concerns regarding manipulation of the leaderboard (NA Server).

Anet don’t have a good track record with addressing issues in an expedient manner. There communication skills are also lacking. After more than 4yrs from release the state of Ranked PVP should be in a much better place.

I agree pvp is better now than it has been. But why should we settle for mediocrity? Why shouldn’t Anet be striving harder towards genuine quality?

MissCee.1295:

There will always be crybaby posts on the forum, that is obvious to any village idiot.

I could interpret that as you calling me a “village idiot”, but I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt.

MissCee.1295:

Anet don’t have a good track record with addressing issues in an expedient manner.

Can’t really argue with that, they’re slow as kitten when it comes to PvP.

I’d change/add the following things:

• Add # of games played requirement to show up on leaderboards (say, 100 or so)
• More aggressive decay in higher divisions
• Voice comms (yeah, not going to happen)
• Better incentive to keep playing after you’ve finished the Byzantium chest (i.e. additional league tickets and ascended shards, even if the yield is very low)
• Build templates (not specific to PvP. A man can dream, right?)

Some feedback on previous suggestions:

MissCee.1295:

No match to commence without all 10 players being connected

Good suggestion.

MissCee.1295:

Solo q and group q (2,3,5 man). There needs to be an in-game option for competitive teams and protect solo q’ers from being “farmed”

I kind of agree and disagree at the same time. In my opinion, ranked league play should be kept to solo/duo queue as it is now, and alternative, separate venues should be introduced for competitive team play (such as automated tournaments).

MissCee.1295:

If players are going to be rated individually some metric must be included to measure individual contribution. An individual’s rating cannot solely be tied to a team win/lose outcome.

I don’t really see how you could make a system that accurately measures individual contribution, especially one that can’t be gamed (which could result in undesirable behaviour), nor do I belive it is feasible for ArenaNet to develop such a system.

MissCee.1295:

“Qualifying” division below Bronze for all new players to Ranked

I don’t see the point to be honest.

MissCee.1295:

No class stacking.

Depends on how it’s implemented, but my initial reaction is “no”. Better solved through balancing and players switching.

MissCee.1295:

But why should we settle for mediocrity? Why shouldn’t Anet be striving harder towards genuine quality?

Since the purpose or intent aswell as the main reason is to innovation; i second the notion.

Pakkazull.6894:

MissCee.1295:

There will always be crybaby posts on the forum, that is obvious to any village idiot.

I could interpret that as you calling me a “village idiot”, but I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt.

MissCee.1295:

Anet don’t have a good track record with addressing issues in an expedient manner.

Can’t really argue with that, they’re slow as kitten when it comes to PvP.

I’d change/add the following things:

• Add # of games played requirement to show up on leaderboards (say, 100 or so)
• More aggressive decay in higher divisions
• Voice comms (yeah, not going to happen)
• Better incentive to keep playing after you’ve finished the Byzantium chest (i.e. additional league tickets and ascended shards, even if the yield is very low)
• Build templates (not specific to PvP. A man can dream, right?)

Some feedback on previous suggestions:

MissCee.1295:

No match to commence without all 10 players being connected

Good suggestion.

MissCee.1295:

Solo q and group q (2,3,5 man). There needs to be an in-game option for competitive teams and protect solo q’ers from being “farmed”

I kind of agree and disagree at the same time. In my opinion, ranked league play should be kept to solo/duo queue as it is now, and alternative, separate venues should be introduced for competitive team play (such as automated tournaments).

MissCee.1295:

If players are going to be rated individually some metric must be included to measure individual contribution. An individual’s rating cannot solely be tied to a team win/lose outcome.

I don’t really see how you could make a system that accurately measures individual contribution, especially one that can’t be gamed (which could result in undesirable behaviour), nor do I belive it is feasible for ArenaNet to develop such a system.

MissCee.1295:

“Qualifying” division below Bronze for all new players to Ranked

I don’t see the point to be honest.

MissCee.1295:

No class stacking.

Depends on how it’s implemented, but my initial reaction is “no”. Better solved through balancing and players switching.

“Village idiot” was certainly not directed at you. I’m waiting on a few more response so I can amend OP.

>400 views and no one has anything to say? I find that very hard to believe. Speak up folks. If don’t at least try to make Anet listen, we have no one but ourselves to blame for a lack of improvement.

I really like the code of conduct idea. I’m playing counterstrike for all of my online life and “afk’ing” matches is almost no issue because of punishment for violating the coc.
It is not a bad thing to ban people after a number of warnings for afk’ing or blowing a match or going full kitten on other players. You still get your warnings, but after a second warning you are out for a week (or sth) – and of course this should apply to connected accounts too.

I’ve moved on and see spvp as practice for wvw now.

I agree with most points, thought some changes can do more harm than help if not properly implemented. Like the individual scoring system – it needs to be VERY accurate and take many aspects of each match into account. I’m highly doubtful if we’re ever going to see a good implementation of this. A reasonable start would be to encourage players that have “top dmg/top point presence/top resses etc.” with a small bonus to their rating after the match. The win/loss can remain the main factor but still it will be a nice way to compliment people that did exceptionally well with a small boost.
Another thing I’d add is gating the top250 in some way. For example a minimum amount of 50 ranked games is required before a player can appear on the leaderboard. This prevents sniping the top spots on alt accounts and match manipulation in a sense.

First: This season is the best his year. The system has greatly improved using pips for rewards and a leaderboard. Also the division system is good now.

But there are flaws. Mostly the same we had.

1.) MMR: Measuring it only on win/loss from a team effort (even worse a random team without com) is basically flawed. It not easy to find a way to measure personal contribution and modify the result so maybe we should just live with that. The result is that the system needs longer to settle MMR. I don´t know a fast way to make MMR more accurate without opening manipulation options. Such a system would be complicated due to humans searching for a way to abuse it.

2.) MMR per account. This makes it quite inacurate for players that swap classes. I would change the system to block class swaping after map roll and use per class MMR.
Then I would set a barrier to play a class in ranked so you need 30 class conquest victories to use it.
This will increase MM accuracy and match quality.

3.) Placement matches. I think there was the main fault. Without it setting players from bronze to gold depending on PvP rank would have been better. Then let glicko work.

4.) Class stacking: Removing it could be a problem in MM due to class usage inbalace and is not needed. The following things should be done: No duo Q with the same class. Matchmaker should try to even out classes in a match for both sides. If there is 1 DH on one and three on the other it should make 2:2 swaping similar(most closest) MMR.

5.) Rewards: While i understand why and find it good, giving reward pips on losses undermines the spirit of ranked (= competative).
I would key reward pip gains to the points reached in a match like you get 1 pip per 100 points reached and +5 for the victory. A blowout below 100 gives nothing.

6.) Rewards per class (daily and legendary): Not an issue if Nr 2 is done. Otherwise it´s just bad and also undermining competative play.

7.) PvP class balance: While class balace is in a good shape diversity is extreamly low. In an MMORPG diversity and unique player characters (also skill wise not only optical) is the key for long term exitement. GW2 mixes modes and in PvP diversity is less important but still is key binding players. Diversity makes games more exiting by being less predictable. This basically means an overhaul of a lot of traits and skills.

8.) AFK/disconnect or intentinally throwing matches. Somtimes hard to measure. I don´t know too much about the current dishonour system. It should be used much harder giving dishonour to players identified as “Grievers”. One option could be a button that will dishonour a player when all four other teammates vote for it. This might be dangerous and open a way for abuse, but i don´t think that four players will agree on dishonour for no reason other then grieving. If thats regulary the case all is lost anyway …
This button should lead to a self regulation system where players with bad habits feel the comunity punishment.

9.) Motivate to fight: Loosing a match 400+ should get less rating loss. Something about 20% less. Currently i encounter – 13-15 poins on a loss but only 10-12 for a victory and i loose a lot over 400 points. My winrate is still above 50% and i am climbing but it slows progress and matches are more decided by team composition then personal skill which makes higer rating loss then gain absurd.

Class restrictions. It will hurt queue times and lead to worse games. If one class is being stacked for an advantage, it needs fixed with balance changes. If stacking it is seen as a disadvantage, then players should be swapping for a better comp if they really want to win. Otherwise, they should lose and lose rating.

Only if a class is unbalanced or got a low skill flor (both are problems on their own)

And i gladly wait a minute longer if that means no class stacking

I think that keeping solo q as it is and premade to fight premade is the best solution.
The community of PvP’ers is not that wide as we think it is. Instead of quantity, we should focus on quality so that the matches we play are more balanced in the sense that both your team and enemy team knows what to do and how to do.

I think that expanding the tutorial level before entering serious play should be added into the the whole thing. If ranked games were more strict just like @Exedore mentioned, that might raise the feel of seriousness. If something is serious then it also has better quality.
Players who wish to join ranked should be firstly warned with some sort of information that this is a much more respectable mode that requires cooperation and knowledge of tactics, professions, rotations and with his own skill they should respect the efforts and time of those who step into the ranked arena. In short, they should be prepared for what they will be dealing with.
If someone plays for giggles, dailes, practice, go ahead and have fun in unranked.
However competitive is for serious, honourable fights that we would like to enjoy with a bit of thrill, all that to measure our true skills and capabilities with devoted team mates and enemies.
I had many matches when I lost by a tiny bit, many comebacks and twists on both sides. These lost matches I cherish as a token of a well fought encounter.
When I win a game that has the same situation as above, then I feel proud of my team and of my own skill, as well as being pleased with the opposing team for providing a remarkable challange.

If we focus on educating people, show them that unranked and ranked are almost two different things. The one is for happy fun times, and the other for serious games, then we might see a raise in quality of games played.
I suggest that ranked option in game’s interface should be equipped with a little detail that is “Ranked compendium” that would consist of basic terms, tips and knowledge regarding those things that are most cruicial in ranked play (as well as in unranked). I think that those elements should be covered:

- Rotation
- Target Focus
- Mob (Svanir, Chieftain)
- Far, Mid, Close/Home
- Lord
- Point capture mechanics
- Mini map (it is also a very important part of rotation)
- Chat box and its perks through communication before the match starts
- Auto run that can be used to move your character to your destination and write in the chat box for some tips or suggestions, while not losing time standing idly.

And a totally fancy idea of mine that I don’t think it would ever be added, but I’ll share anyway

Do you know how to play?
A short set of information that pop up when someone enters ranked for the first time. It would consist of questions and answers, (this is the best part) that would be submitted by the playerbase who played at least an X (considerable) ammount of games in both unranked and ranked. These informations could be placed on gw2 sub-site, where those who log in can participate in this project. But only experienced players who already have their fair share of games on their account, could have the right to submit questions/answers and vote for them.

The only one I probably agree with is daily achievements in ranked queue.

Another fix more to the boards than ranked itself is set a minimum games before leaderboard rewards

Overall, I think PvP has been improving. Not perfect, but getting better.

MissCee.1295:

Immediate

• No match to commence without all 10 players being connected

No brainer. It dosen’t happen often, but i’ve been in matches were all 10 players got dishonor because of server side issues. Also get rid of all bugs related to dishonor including getting it for winning an overtime match.

MissCee.1295:

• Introduction of player code of conduct based on fair play and sportsmanship, stiff penalties to eradicate match manipulation. Particular emphasis on AFK. Code of Conduct could be displayed on “Instructions screen” pre-match.

Agree, but without in game officials, it would be very difficult to prevent abuse of this. People would just be getting reported because someone didn’t like a play they made.

MissCee.1295:

• Resign option to be available upon occurrence of a DC mid-game.

Disagree. People should play through it. I would suggest finding a way to give people “partial credit” for wins/losses based on point differential. Good players will consistently be able to keep matches closer than lesser players.

MissCee.1295:

• Remove daily achievements from Ranked

I think there is enough of an incentive to win matches now that this shouldn’t be an issue, but I won’t complain if they remove it.

MissCee.1295:

• Solo q and group q (2,3,5 man). There needs to be an in-game option for competitive teams and protect solo q’ers from being “farmed”

I’d get rid of the duo and make it full solo queue. Then at the end of the season, or even a couple times a season have a “team” hat (randomly drawn from your division) tournament. Where you know ahead of time who you get to play with so you can organize as you wish.

MissCee.1295:

• If players are going to be rated individually some metric must be included to measure individual contribution. An individual’s rating cannot solely be tied to a team win/lose outcome.

People will stop playing to win and play to get stats. Never underestimate people’s desire and ability to exploit the system. The math for the current system works. The only change I would agree to is point differetial. Good players will be able to consistently keep matches closer than the poor players. However, you would also have to penalize close wins.

MissCee.1295:

• In the absence of in-game voice chat, there needs to be clearer communication with map pings. Not sure about everyone else, but I find the current ping items a bit confusing. I presume the Yellow Triangle is “caution/danger”, Green Tick is “All Good”, the original Red Target I use to indicate where we need someone. Have no idea what that green squareish thing represents.

I would bin this as nice to have. Fixing the mini map so icons don’t stack would be a better use of time IMO. I agree the current map tools are hard to work, and almost impossible while being pressured. It would require more keybinds, and i think only a small set of people could use it effectivly.

MissCee.1295:

• “Qualifying” division below Bronze for all new players to Ranked

I think there needs to be a way to separate people who’s rating is not know from those who’s is, but not sure of a good way to do it. Maybe don’t penalize/reward people as much if they have high volitility people on their team.

MissCee.1295:

• Skill/Knowledge gating to access Ranked Arena

The community could really step up here to help improve peoples knowledge of the game. I don’t see it as something anet could fix with limited resources.

MissCee.1295:

• No class stacking. While I believe if daily achievements were removed from Ranked we would see a drop in class it does not address the abuse of FOTM classes, which as we know lead to unbalanced and unenjoyable matches.

I think better players will be able to more effectively deal with this either on their team, or an opponents. I wouldn’t complain if they got rid of it though. Matches against 2MM & 2ele teams aren’t fun if no one on your team can MOA.

MissCee.1295:

Optional/QOL

• Ability to save builds for easy swap pre-match

This should be manditory. It is very hard to do a major build change without making a mistake in the time it takes to start a match.

my only beef with season 5 is its horrible Match making. i shouldnt get massive win streak then massive lose streak if im in the division im suppose to be. people keep saying give it time wtf 1 more month and season over what else need to be seen at this point? they have 4 years! anet cant even split the duoQ equally between 2 teams. the massive rating gaps between players. my alt at freaking gold t2 playing against legendary 2000+ rating wtf anet smoking. since 1 pvp dev left already maybe they should all fired or let the rest of pvp dev leave anet. i have to problem playing against other class for if you really like pvp you will know the ups and downs of each class, how u react and fight them. lots of players are blinded for asking nerf for diff. class instead of asking for better MM hence better pvp experience. also DuoQ next season got to go. i cant even imagine how even horrible pvp with losing rating with ESL 5 man premade running around. its only half bad when every ESL players duoQ atm.

Lord Hammer Hand.4815:

my only beef with season 5 is its horrible Match making. i shouldnt get massive win streak then massive lose streak if im in the division im suppose to be. people keep saying give it time wtf 1 more month and season over what else need to be seen at this point? they have 4 years! anet cant even split the duoQ equally between 2 teams. the massive rating gaps between players. my alt at freaking gold t2 playing against legendary 2000+ rating wtf anet smoking. since 1 pvp dev left already maybe they should all fired or let the rest of pvp dev leave anet. i have to problem playing against other class for if you really like pvp you will know the ups and downs of each class, how u react and fight them. lots of players are blinded for asking nerf for diff. class instead of asking for better MM hence better pvp experience. also DuoQ next season got to go. i cant even imagine how even horrible pvp with losing rating with ESL 5 man premade running around. its only half bad when every ESL players duoQ atm.

FINALLY, somebody with some sense around here.

As long as you have mixed queues with premades (duo, 3-man, etc), matchmaking problems will always exist. MMR hell will always exist.

You need SEPARATE queues of full solo and 5-man only. You didn’t have all these unbalanced matches back then like you have today when you had those in place.

Thanks for the comments guys. I will work on amending the OP asap.

EDIT OP Amended to include all comments prior to this post.

Game absolutely shouldn’t start until all 10 players are connected, BUT what happens when 1 player simply won’t connect? Do you cancel the game altogether after a certain time period? Do you simply have to wait or quit?

CoC is a nice idea in theory but you’re relying on Anet actually enforcing it…. which, given track record, I think is unlikely. It’d be nice though.

Idk how I feel about the resign option. I’m absolutely opposed to having one all the time, but if someone has D/C’d… I’ve had games where someone on our team has D/C’d and then came back after a couple minutes and we ended up winning anyway. Resign option takes that possibility away (however small it might be). You might just D/C and then reconnect straight away (so maybe 30 seconds) and even though there wouldnt have been THAT much damage done so as to cause an outright loss, Resign option will make it so your team’s already resigned once you get back.

Agreed about removing dailies.

Seperate queues would be IDEAL but not in the current state of the game, not enough players. I think this is something that Anet would have to look at further down the line AFTER other substantial changes hopefully bring in more players. The alternative to this right now is like others have said; hold some sort of team tournaments or events or whatever several times during each season. The rest of the time? Solo/Duo as it is now.

Again, being rated based on my individual skill per game rather than win/loss rate is ideal but seems too difficult to do. Far too many variables to look at.

For the map…. I agree it’s frustrating to use. Often times I struggle to see who is fighting where because of all the overlaying. Pings are clunky to use especially if you’re in the middle of a fight already and you’re calling for help or something.

I don’t see the point in a qualifying division tbh, I guess the pvp level gate sorta serves as that already? Better option is to just vastly improve the tutorial sections. Nowhere near enough is covered in them.

Class stacking is a problem because of how Anet balances classes. If classes were properly balanced REGULARLY, we wouldn’t see as much of it. As frustrating as it is facing a team of 3 DH, or having 2 thieves on your team, most people switch in those situations anyway. If I’m the second thief on my team, I always switch. Solves the problem.

Build saving would obviously be great… if anyone ever used more than 1 build anyway, lol. But in all seriousness, yeah, Anet please give us more build diversity so that I can have 3-4 builds per class that I can easily switch to using a build saver.

Having Stronghold back. If people want to play that mode it doesn’t harm those playing Conquest.

Two suggestions:

I rarely see people swap into class stacks. Often the issue is where you see 4 people start out of the gate as a stacked set. I think 90% of players would happy to have a soft anti-stacking mechanism as long as it didn’t extend queues by that much. Queues are pretty quick at the moment, and you could always adjust the anti-stacking matchmaker to allow more stacking if the queue times got too long.

Another issue is the worry that top players will continue to be those with fewer matches played. 10 matches is required to place and people with 12 or 13 matches can end up much higher than if they kept playing. I’d suggest that a player with under 20 matches should have a -700 decay type rating that disappears after you reach 20 matches. Since “effective MMR” doesn’t actually change who you are matched up with this won’t place you with worse players, but it will prevent last minute padding of the leaderboard. I’d also implement a -200 decay for under 30 matches. That way, you have placed (10 matches), tested your rating (20 matches), and finally had an opportunity to climb or fall (30 matches).

Just a few questions from a relatively new person to pvp (dont worry, I will be back to WvW once I get the ascended rewards I cant get there).

How does the ranking system work?
If for instance you lose more than you win during those first 10 games, is that the sole defining criteria that is used to give you your ranking? Does individual performance play any factor into how you are placed?

I won 4 (or 5, cant remember) games of the 10 and was placed in gold division.
I am now sitting at around 1150 silver and its probably about where I should. (At least half of that drop was from decay I think).

Would I be wrong in saying that how people are ranked plays a big part in the problems that have arisen from this current season?
Would a few more ranking games and/or individual performance factors improve the criticisms that people have of the current system?

And personally, I think the rewards should stay.
It incentivizes people to actually play pvp.
Granted, alot of people will quit when they have what they want but I would imagine it will also bring new blood into the game mode that will stick around after the season has finished?

Malediktus.9250:

I think the OP has some really good suggestions. I would support all of them.

I think Season 5 is the worst season so far. Winning and loosing should not be the only thing that affects your MMR in a team game.

I agree.

Implement “There are a lot of necros queued currently, in order to get a balanced game, consider swapping to another class” Make it work like the volunteer system, give a bonus for swapping.

I’ve been in 2 games so far this season with 4 thieves on my team and none have swapped.

I did just read gold wit 4 or 5 wins in placement matches ?
I won 6 of my placement matches and had been placed low silver ?
They were more or less random and it felt like half of the people didn´t know how to PvP. And now i can´t get out of silver. My win rate in mostly solo Q is just a bit over 50% but it feels that 4 out of 5 oponents i encounter are easy to fight :-(.

Whew, there’s alot in your main post for my little cell phone to go through, so I’ll just hit up main concerns I have for now and go back over the rest later.

• Solo Queue and Team Queue I have always been in favor of this and always will. However, Team Queue must be 5v5 only. Having 2 and 3 man teams in there will only cause more complaints when they have to go up against a full 5 man team (much like how solo queuers are complaining about duo queuers right now) and it will further diminish the appeal of Team Queue. Team Queue should have a separate leaderboard and reward track, and rewards should be better for Team Queue to provide proper incentive to put in the extra work required to play Team Queue (for example, you don’t put in an extra tier of fractals but give no extra rewards and expect players to waste their time playing them).

• Class Stacking Preventing class stacking in Solo Queue will always be a tricky situation that will negatively affect queue times. However, with queue times being so fast, I feel as though they could at least put in an effort to reduce class stacking to a certain extent. Also, if Team Queue were to be introduced, Anet could simply disable class swapping for Team Queue and only allow teams that have no stacked classes to queue up. Also, when people hear about class stacking they automatically think it’s bad due to some op class, but this isn’t the case. It’s bad because some classes have a single viable role in the game and having too many stacked on your team can be a problem if players don’t want to or can’t switch (such as too many Eles or Thieves and whatnot).

• Disconnects and Resign I am against a resign option. There are just too many situations where my team has been able to come back from what seemed like a hopeless match, even in the event of a d/c. I feel that not being penalized for the match if you lose when a teammate that isn’t in your group d/c is good enough. And I agree that if the match is starting and not all players are present, the game should kick everyone out of the match but keep them in the queue and place them in the next available match.

• Visible Team MMR I know Anet says they’re against this because it could cause more toxicity, just as they said the same thing about showing us our own mmr. Yet here we are, seeing our own mmr, seeing division icons next to player names, and being able to see someone else’s mmr by friending them, and yet I just don’t see a change in toxicity. Rude players are still rude, kind players are still kind, block list still works. What I would like to see at the end of every match, right on the scoreboard next to the player’s name, is their mmr when they were put in the match, with a number next to it to show how much they gained/lost for the match. This gives me a better idea of how the match was set up and how everyone progressed in the end (also let’s me know if someone in the match still has a volatile rating). It could also cut down on some forum complaints claiming they were stuck with all crap players while the team got all god players if they could see for themselves that it wasn’t the case.

That’s all for now. Also OP, your main post feels a bit disorganized to read through. Maybe tidy it up a bit? =)

Sinmir.6504:

Having Stronghold back. If people want to play that mode it doesn’t harm those playing Conquest.

Nope. You can’t have a ranked system where some people don’t meet others because of mode selection. If it came back, it would have to be a map choice alongside conquest maps.

Problem is, stronghold is terribly implemented and was never fixed despite mountains of player feedback during beta weekends. It’s just a PvE race.

MissCee.1295:

Lordrosicky.5813:

Terrible ideas imo

What do you suggest?

For you to stop posting terrible ideas.

But to clean up your thoughts…

Any disconnect within x seconds/minutes should close out the match and not count for a win or loss.

Class limitations need to be enforced in ranked

Having personal score amount to a small portion of positive or negative MMR. Win/loss still amounting to the majority of points gained or lost.

Placement ranking should not put anyone at the very top of the rankings. It needs to be hard capped and playing games will advance a player if they win.

Wolfric.9380:

I did just read gold wit 4 or 5 wins in placement matches ?
I won 6 of my placement matches and had been placed low silver ?
They were more or less random and it felt like half of the people didn´t know how to PvP. And now i can´t get out of silver. My win rate in mostly solo Q is just a bit over 50% but it feels that 4 out of 5 oponents i encounter are easy to fight :-(.

Ye, that is how it went.
That is why I was asking if there was any information as too how the placement matches work. Any factors other than your win/loss ratio.

Draeyon.4392:

Wolfric.9380:

I did just read gold wit 4 or 5 wins in placement matches ?
I won 6 of my placement matches and had been placed low silver ?
They were more or less random and it felt like half of the people didn´t know how to PvP. And now i can´t get out of silver. My win rate in mostly solo Q is just a bit over 50% but it feels that 4 out of 5 oponents i encounter are easy to fight :-(.

Ye, that is how it went.
That is why I was asking if there was any information as too how the placement matches work. Any factors other than your win/loss ratio.

The average mmr could be used of the other team? Easiest way to find out – get a few placement matches (maybe ask a PvE guy out of your guild) and check the ranks of the 10 placement games – I asked in some (saddly not all) and the answer was always “we are in bronce”)

OP edited to reflect latest feedback. We need ideas and comments on validity and/or how to implement some of the points in “Discussion Needed”.

It would also be extremely helpful to get a yay or nay on some those as well.

Exedore.6320:

Sinmir.6504:

Having Stronghold back. If people want to play that mode it doesn’t harm those playing Conquest.

Nope. You can’t have a ranked system where some people don’t meet others because of mode selection. If it came back, it would have to be a map choice alongside conquest maps.

Problem is, stronghold is terribly implemented and was never fixed despite mountains of player feedback during beta weekends. It’s just a PvE race.

Does it really matter which mode people rank up in? It’s not like players are going to get into Legendary then switch modes anyway. All the time I’ve played Stronghold in ranked I’ve never intended to go into Conquest in a higher division. I don’t like Conquest.
How about if instead of it being a random map to be selected Stronghold had it’s own rank and leaderboard. If the pips stay the same in season 6 as they are in 5 have it that they are the same track so that people can’t go through one mode, switch and go through the pip track and get the rewards twice but your rank in Stronghold is different from your rank in Conquest. A player could be top of the Conquest leaderboard, accidentally enter a Stronghold match and think that he can get through the gate by hitting it like in Foefire. Or top of the Stronghold leaderboard and want to help by Duo capping close in Conquest. A player could be legendary in one mode and Bronze in the other.
So keeping both modes in ranked, separate but the ranks are also separate.

Thanks, your post is much easier to read now. ^.^

MissCee.1295:

Deathok.2914:

Look at the forum lol there are tons of issues mentioned to fix your issues just ain’t that important

Geez, what part of “starting point for discussion” did you not understand? These suggestions were collated from reading the forums.

Do you think ranked pvp is fine the way it is? Does it need no improvement or change at all?

My issues with the state of pvp are irrelevant for the purpose of this thread. We can keep making individual threads complaining about:
Divisions/MMR
Toxicity
Lack of Tutorial
Match Manipulation
Match Making
Lack of Balance
and the list goes on.

Or… the community can have a discussion and push Anet to move forward in direction we as players want.

Alternatively, if you’re only purpose is to troll. Sorry to say, swing and a miss.

The people you are trying to convince just don’t care. They enjoy their privileged life of ANet sheltering them for these issues, and giving them free wins. The people that are very adversely effected and bothered by this has either moved on or don’t play PvP in GW2 any more. I do agree with your list but you are only preaching to the choir at this point. I’m going to just put this here. Probably get infracted or removed but at this point I don’t think I can care any less then I do right now about the PvP in GW2 or for that matter really GW2 at all. I tried to reason with that, that can not be reasoned with, and to no surprised at my self have failed. But since you sent me a private message to respond to that ANet refuse to let my respond to you privately. I’ll put that message here FOR YOU MissCee.1295

I used to be interested in trying to get ANet to work with us to fix PvP. Everyone of my serious posts got shot down by both the trust fund thank you for the free placement community, and the ANet moderators. I have came to terms that there is nothing that I will be able to say or do to get ANet to even attempt to make PvP meaningful, good, competitive, or fun in GW2 again.

In respond I can honestly say until ANet stop being shown up by new baby gaming companies. Until ANet decicide to put full effort into either PvP or WvW better yet both. Until ANet stop setting people up for failure in lop sided matches. Until Anet stop allowing for their white knights to bash people on the forums with no recourse, but instead infract people who defends them selves against such players. I personally will leave GW2 uninstalled on my computer. I have at long last giving up all hope on trying to deal with ANet and it’s privilege club. I have moved on to bigger and better PvP games that are dedicated PvP games.

On the flip side, if you do decide to stay in GW2. I wish you the best of luck in all of your endeavors in GW2. To put it simple I am just beyond fed up. There is very little at this point ANet can or even be willing to do to get me to install GW2 back on my PC. Good Day.

A tutorial is needed, badly. I fond half the time people rage in matches are because there are people on there team who don’t have a basic understanding of:
How maps work.
How to call a target.
How to focus a target.
Fighting off point.
Changing people around the map.

Some on my points are not ANets fault, and there are a lot of bad players being dragged up the divisions by alt accounts, that then kitten over other players when they get these players who are cleary out od there depth and you end up losing a match because people are where they should not be. This add frustration to everyone involved.
The people who are food enough fall backwards, the bad people believe they are better than they really are.

But then the forums respond from the self proclaimed “pros” is the over used “get good”, “carry more” any many more snappy quotes that mean nothing, but hay what do we know right? It’s not like we play the game too, It’s nit like our feed back is any less valid.

But then by ANets own admission, they look at peoples MMR when looking at feed back to see how much they play PvP. So unless you are the chosen few, you’ll get no response from them. But hay E sports right? What a joke.

@Reaper Alim.4176
I will confess, starting this thread was a last roll of the dice for me. There was some very small part of me that hoped; maybe, just maybe, we could work together. Unsurprisingly, that didn’t happen. I’m not quite at the point of uninstalling, but I certainly haven’t been playing as much. Who knows how much longer farming gold in PVP will keep me interested?

@BrotherBelial.3094
The stats shown in this thread illustrate exactly where/who the populates PVP: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/GW2-Efficiency-now-has-PVP-statistics-Page/6456753

However it does seem as you say, that Anet are not interested in catering to the majority of its players.

IMHO
What I see happening in the future, is more lavish incentives to PVE players, increasing numbers of players with no understanding of basics, increasing player frustration, anger and departure from PVP.

It shouldn’t matter if you are Bronze or Legendary, matches should be balanced and include 10 people who have a “clue”.

For the foreseeable future, I am done with PVP, done with GW2, done with the forums and done being at the mercy of Anet’s disinterest and ineptitude.

Peace, over & out.

BrotherBelial.3094:

(…)
But then by ANets own admission, they look at peoples MMR when looking at feed back to see how much they play PvP. So unless you are the chosen few, you’ll get no response from them. But hay E sports right? What a joke.

That means they only listen to people that who would ask stuff to improve their rank lol and get stuf more easy or with less effort.

Did they even manage to make different ladder and ranks for solo queue and team queue? like other pvp esl games have or its all one huge gimmick grind?

Gw2 pvp is not a respectable game under esport every one laugts about it…

./fixforumbug