Guild Wars 2

So I started pvp YESTERDAY, I’m rank 15 and i keep getting matched with people that have dragon/phoenix finishers. I have 19 wins out of 50 games.

Dear anet does mmr even exist in your “COMPETITIVE” game?

Yes, MMR exists in both ‘Play’ and ‘Compete’; not in ‘Practice’.

The MMR system has to first place you right, with a lot of new players it might have a difficult time to do so. Your matches should get better.

On a side note: PvP Rank has nothing to do with how good you are; it only indicates how experienced you are.

I constantly and consistently get matched with people at the very least twice my rank this is torture.

You don’t understand how MMR works. Learn a bit about it, and then blame the system when you understand it better :P

- Rank is not an indication of MMR. A person can have a high rank due to many games played, but a poor MMR because they suck.

- You’ve only recently started PvP. Your MMR has a very high “uncertainty” which means you will be matched with a wide range of players, good or bad. As you win and lose, the system will learn your skill level, and your MMR will settle down to a low “uncertainty” value. And it will match you with people close to that MMR.

- It’s all moot anyways, because this is a low population game. The system will try to create fair matches with similar MMRs, but if there aren’t enough players it will just create matches with the players available.

- In a situation with perfect matchmaking, your win rate should be 50%, since you’ll always be matched with people of your skill level. Since you are just started PvP, you’re being matched with a wide variety of players. And since I assume you’re not very experienced yet, that means you’re below average in skill, and thus can expect to lose more than you win. Just stick with it and it will settle down.

Stoaga.8190:

So I started pvp YESTERDAY, I’m rank 15 and i keep getting matched with people that have dragon/phoenix finishers. I have 19 wins out of 50 games.

Dear anet does mmr even exist in your “COMPETITIVE” game?

Dude, I feel for you. Props for hanging in there for as many games as you have and voicing your experiences here. I don’t know if it’s any consolation at this point, but a more refined player bracketing system has been proposed to Anet several times. Brackets would allow completely new accounts to learn the maps and the mechanics with similarly inexperienced players, as opposed to being thrown to the wolves straight out of the gate, as is the case now. Currently, as a solo player, you can be matched up with players who have thousands of games under their belts, not to mention full five-man teams, during your first couple of evenings of PvP.

I don’t remember if Anet has commented on the lack of a bracket system directly, but if they did, I’d imagine the reasoning would be something along the lines of not wanting to split the player base further. And before you ask, no, it’s not worth pointing out that brackets are a prerequisite for organic player base growth – that line has not worked with Anet during the past 2.5 years, so it’s unlikely to work now. Hence we have a new player experience that resembles waterboarding.

All I can advise is that if you enjoy the gameplay and the combat system, try to team up with at least one or two likeminded players and queue together. The PvP in this game is much more bearable when played in at least a partial group.

Until mmr is displayed, any sort of sense of achievement in pvp will not exist. Current leaderboards are entirely pointless (devs I hope you’re reading this) because they uprank people who play more, not those who are more skilled.

Also without mmr we can’t tell what bracket we’re in. We can’t acknowledge that a 3k mmr player defeated a 7k mmr player, so again, there is no sense of achievement and we have nothing to talk about. Well, I can say I defeated ostrich or caed in a 1v1, but that’s about it. And there is no real point in playing ‘better’ instead of more, or trying ‘harder’ to improve your game. There is nothing to strive for, as the current leaderboards reward average players who simply have more time on their hands.

So no mmr = no real pvp. Simple as that.

This may not address op’s l2p concerns, but it does point to the fact that we need accurate mmr bracket and we need to know which one we’re in!

I like how MMR ties to the win loss rate which can be completely out of an individual player’s control ie teammates in deathmatch mentality playing GW2 PVP conquest.

They can be extremely skillful and can win majority of 1v1s (off-point) but dont understand capping nodes (in some matches the bonus objective) contributes more to the score and hence determines win/loss.

P.S I am not a PVP player. I am only grinding out wins for the Champion title. If people want to be casual about win/loss is fine by me, I am not a hardcore player. I only ask that the teammates that I am paired up with knows the mechanics of conquest. Don’t think MMR helps in that regard whatsover.

Khal Drogo.9631:

I like how MMR ties to the win loss rate which can be completely out of an individual player’s control ie teammates in deathmatch mentality playing GW2 PVP conquest.

They can be extremely skillful and can win majority of 1v1s (off-point) but dont understand capping nodes (in some matches the bonus objective) contributes more to the score and hence determines win/loss.

P.S I am not a PVP player. I am only grinding out wins for the Champion title. If people want to be casual about win/loss is fine by me, I am not a hardcore player. I only ask that the teammates that I am paired up with knows the mechanics of conquest. Don’t think MMR helps in that regard whatsover.

True about MMR being less about individual skill, but since it applies to everyone and randomly, it suck less.

Khal Drogo.9631:

I like how MMR ties to the win loss rate which can be completely out of an individual player’s control ie teammates in deathmatch mentality playing GW2 PVP conquest.

They can be extremely skillful and can win majority of 1v1s (off-point) but dont understand capping nodes (in some matches the bonus objective) contributes more to the score and hence determines win/loss.

P.S I am not a PVP player. I am only grinding out wins for the Champion title. If people want to be casual about win/loss is fine by me, I am not a hardcore player. I only ask that the teammates that I am paired up with knows the mechanics of conquest. Don’t think MMR helps in that regard whatsover.

if someone does not understand capping nodes, you cant qualify them as “good” at conquest, and their mmr SHOULD be low to average. you earn high mmr by mastering all aspects of play, not selected aspects.

Rieselle.5079:

You don’t understand how MMR works. Learn a bit about it, and then blame the system when you understand it better :P

- Rank is not an indication of MMR. A person can have a high rank due to many games played, but a poor MMR because they suck.

- You’ve only recently started PvP. Your MMR has a very high “uncertainty” which means you will be matched with a wide range of players, good or bad. As you win and lose, the system will learn your skill level, and your MMR will settle down to a low “uncertainty” value. And it will match you with people close to that MMR.

- It’s all moot anyways, because this is a low population game. The system will try to create fair matches with similar MMRs, but if there aren’t enough players it will just create matches with the players available.

- In a situation with perfect matchmaking, your win rate should be 50%, since you’ll always be matched with people of your skill level. Since you are just started PvP, you’re being matched with a wide variety of players. And since I assume you’re not very experienced yet, that means you’re below average in skill, and thus can expect to lose more than you win. Just stick with it and it will settle down.

I dont think YOU understand how video games work.

I get matched with people that are at least 40 ranks higher than me, pretty much all the time, constantly and consistently.

You cant possibly play enough to be rank 80 and then suck at the game as much as a brand new pvper such as myself, most of the time i get matched with higher ranks and they do not suck, hence i get kitten d.

As for low playerbase, I usually have 2-3 minutes queues which means it doesnt even try long enough to match people at the right mmr. I used to play league, dota and csgo ranked, every time i got high rank / played during dead hours / played when game wasnt popular i had 10 minutes +. For example in league it takes about 20 minutes of queue time to get a game where ranks are all over, here in gw2 it takes 2 minutes of queue time to get a clusterkitten of a match when brand new players are matched against people that have been pvping for 2 years.

Stoaga.8190:

You cant possibly play enough to be rank 80 and then suck at the game as much as a brand new pvper such as myself

Sure they can.
Consider:
Player A normally plays speed run dungeons/roaming a lot in WvW, and has a lot of experience in GW2, but he has not played PvP a lot, therefore his PvP Rank is very low, but he still might be a good player there.

Player B has played a PvP, and has a high PvP rank, BUT that was 1 year ago, so this old experience does not help him a lot.

Player C has played a lot of Hot-Join or participated in rank farms. He has a high PvP rank, but has almost non experience.

Player D has a lot of PvP experience and a high PvP rank, but he is just bad…

most of the time i get matched with higher ranks and they do not suck, hence i get kitten d.

That is a problem. Please consider, that the MMR takes time to place you in the right position, as does it for everybody else.

Please let us know, if the problem exists, once you have played more games.

Anecdotal evidence of the day:

While in solo queue I notice a player with no guild and in starting armor. I asked in team chat if they were new and they said they played at launch and are just coming back. Another player chimed in and said it was the same for them. Our enemy team had at least 3 rank 80’s and were doubled guilded.

Why is this a thing? If they were going to match new players with experienced players because of a lack of other players to choose from, why not do it evenly? Or put new players on the same team as a 3-member premade. It seems so obvious.

Bear in mind that the other teams may have inexperienced/new players as well as their verteran players. Their vets could just be more of a game-face on than the vets you’re paired with. Not ALL of your matches couldn’t have been either 100% newbies or 100% experienced on a team! Keep at it and get that game count above 100 and you’ll start seeing a more fair playing field.

But also remember, nothing is stopping a very skillful, very hardened player from grouping up with a newbie, thrilled that their friend is giving GW2 a chance and playing their very best to give their buddy a good first impression of PvP.

Stoaga.8190:

As for low playerbase, I usually have 2-3 minutes queues which means it doesnt even try long enough to match people at the right mmr. I used to play league, dota and csgo ranked, every time i got high rank / played during dead hours / played when game wasnt popular i had 10 minutes +. For example in league it takes about 20 minutes of queue time to get a game where ranks are all over, here in gw2 it takes 2 minutes of queue time to get a clusterkitten of a match when brand new players are matched against people that have been pvping for 2 years.

The short queue time doesnt imply high population, though. All that matters is what the timeout period is before the matchmaker “gives up” and then does whatever.

Sure, you might prefer to wait 10+ minutes for a satisfactory match, but other people have expressed a preference for shorter queues.

I’ve made a suggestion previously that players should be able to set their preferred matchmaking timeout period, so both types of players can be happy. (although it might mean that players with long timeouts never get matches at all, since short-timeout players will constantly be getting into matches with each other quickly.)

I think the other problem is there’s a lack of transparency about the matchmaking results. I wish we could go to a website and access the logs of previous matches, the MMR’s of the players, whether they were in a party or not, whether the matchmaker gave up or thinks it’s a successful match, etc.
Then there would be a lot less suspicion, ignorance and complaints.

Geikamir.6329:

Why is this a thing? If they were going to match new players with experienced players because of a lack of other players to choose from, why not do it evenly? Or put new players on the same team as a 3-member premade. It seems so obvious.

From dev posts, it seems that’s what it’s trying to do. Premades are given a bonus to MMR so they’ll be matched with higher-MMR solos or given lower-MMR solo teammates to carry.

Also a previous change (before the current matchmaking) had the game form a group of 10 players first, and then try to sort everyone into the teams in a balanced way so the team MMR’s would match.
I don’t know if this feature is still active in the new matchmaking system though. They haven’t mentioned it much recently.

Rieselle.5079:

You don’t understand how MMR works. Learn a bit about it, and then blame the system when you understand it better :P

- Rank is not an indication of MMR. A person can have a high rank due to many games played, but a poor MMR because they suck.

- You’ve only recently started PvP. Your MMR has a very high “uncertainty” which means you will be matched with a wide range of players, good or bad. As you win and lose, the system will learn your skill level, and your MMR will settle down to a low “uncertainty” value. And it will match you with people close to that MMR.

- It’s all moot anyways, because this is a low population game. The system will try to create fair matches with similar MMRs, but if there aren’t enough players it will just create matches with the players available.

- In a situation with perfect matchmaking, your win rate should be 50%, since you’ll always be matched with people of your skill level. Since you are just started PvP, you’re being matched with a wide variety of players. And since I assume you’re not very experienced yet, that means you’re below average in skill, and thus can expect to lose more than you win. Just stick with it and it will settle down.

^^ best recap ever
i’d like to see a rework on bullet #3: i’d prefer wait a bit more and face opponents of my level, dunno at least ask if you want to join an imbalanced match, or something :-D

Gaaroth.2567:

Rieselle.5079:

You don’t understand how MMR works. Learn a bit about it, and then blame the system when you understand it better :P

- Rank is not an indication of MMR. A person can have a high rank due to many games played, but a poor MMR because they suck.

- You’ve only recently started PvP. Your MMR has a very high “uncertainty” which means you will be matched with a wide range of players, good or bad. As you win and lose, the system will learn your skill level, and your MMR will settle down to a low “uncertainty” value. And it will match you with people close to that MMR.

- It’s all moot anyways, because this is a low population game. The system will try to create fair matches with similar MMRs, but if there aren’t enough players it will just create matches with the players available.

- In a situation with perfect matchmaking, your win rate should be 50%, since you’ll always be matched with people of your skill level. Since you are just started PvP, you’re being matched with a wide variety of players. And since I assume you’re not very experienced yet, that means you’re below average in skill, and thus can expect to lose more than you win. Just stick with it and it will settle down.

^^ best recap ever

Also the best example of why software engineers should not be responsible for customer experience management. Does anyone here really think that PvP in this game is welcoming to new players? That “your MMR is volatile” is any consolation while you get the snot kicked out of you by superior players during your first evening of PvP? The churn in PvP is massive for many reasons that have been debated to death on these forums, such as the lack of proper infrastructure and rewards, but also because you have to be a colossal masochist to endure the new player experience and stick with PvP long term. For the life of me I don’t understand why this has never been a priority for Anet.

Solution : don’t play ranked if you’re new.

Play lots of practise, then do unranked.

Henrik.7560:

Solution : don’t play ranked if you’re new.

Play lots of practise, then do unranked.

Not even remotely a solution. I play almost exclusively unranked solo queue. The matchmaking there is awful.

Henrik.7560:

Solution : don’t play ranked if you’re new.

Play lots of practise, then do unranked.

Practice in awful to learn how to play for a new player and unranked has tons more full premades than ranked. Ranked is the only place to get proper practice.

Teutos.8620:

Stoaga.8190:

You cant possibly play enough to be rank 80 and then suck at the game as much as a brand new pvper such as myself

Sure they can.
Consider:
Player A normally plays speed run dungeons/roaming a lot in WvW, and has a lot of experience in GW2, but he has not played PvP a lot, therefore his PvP Rank is very low, but he still might be a good player there.

Player B has played a PvP, and has a high PvP rank, BUT that was 1 year ago, so this old experience does not help him a lot.

Player C has played a lot of Hot-Join or participated in rank farms. He has a high PvP rank, but has almost non experience.

Player D has a lot of PvP experience and a high PvP rank, but he is just bad…

most of the time i get matched with higher ranks and they do not suck, hence i get kitten d.

That is a problem. Please consider, that the MMR takes time to place you in the right position, as does it for everybody else.

Please let us know, if the problem exists, once you have played more games.

You can’ really believe those types of situations are common. I am on this board a lot and you are one of these guys that twist themsevles into a pretzel defending just about everything A-net does. Every post of your is defending or praising A-net. Don’t bring up outlier type situations to try to mount some ridiculous defense. The vast majortiy of rank 80 players are way ahead of your average newb to pvp. This has been discussed many times already new players start with too high of a MMR period end of story. It needs to change. Sure if he is willing to submit himself to possibly upwards of hundreds of unfun matches his MMR will adjust enough. Most players won’t wait for there MMR to adjust they will just quit. I complain about some rank 80’s being stupid as much as anyone but the reality of the situation is you don’t play 100’s of hours of something without learning somewhat even the worst cases of stupidity. The system as it is now can certainly be improved.

brannigan.9831:

I am on this board a lot and you are one of these guys that twist themsevles into a pretzel defending just about everything A-net does.

Maybe because I actually have fun playing the game AND I’m actually winning enough Maybe I’m good enough to carry some matches regardless bad teammates; maybe it is not the case, and I just don’t focus on the games I lost; anyway, I am having fun

The vast majortiy of rank 80 players are way ahead of your average newb to pvp.

I have fought enough players, that I know, that rank 80 means nothing.

Is the matchmaking perfect? Not at all. I have reported to Justin enough extremely uneven matches.

Still: (at least for me) it seems to be in a good place AND my statements are still true: MMR takes some time to place you; Rank has absolutely nothing to do with skill.

brannigan.9831:

Teutos.8620:

Stoaga.8190:

You cant possibly play enough to be rank 80 and then suck at the game as much as a brand new pvper such as myself

Sure they can.
Consider:
Player A normally plays speed run dungeons/roaming a lot in WvW, and has a lot of experience in GW2, but he has not played PvP a lot, therefore his PvP Rank is very low, but he still might be a good player there.

Player B has played a PvP, and has a high PvP rank, BUT that was 1 year ago, so this old experience does not help him a lot.

Player C has played a lot of Hot-Join or participated in rank farms. He has a high PvP rank, but has almost non experience.

Player D has a lot of PvP experience and a high PvP rank, but he is just bad…

most of the time i get matched with higher ranks and they do not suck, hence i get kitten d.

That is a problem. Please consider, that the MMR takes time to place you in the right position, as does it for everybody else.

Please let us know, if the problem exists, once you have played more games.

…. but the reality of the situation is you don’t play 100’s of hours of something without learning somewhat even the worst cases of stupidity. The system as it is now can certainly be improved.

This where you are wrong. It is only recently except for the occasional complaining from that Necromancer Lordwhocares, most of the rank discussion have died down because the people on this forum already know that rank doesn’t mean anything.

Anyways, before rank was taken away (and boost) a lot of people on this very forum would complain how they were a lot of noobs with rank 80. Some would go as far as to say that they would they had better luck playing with non-rank 80s than they did with some 80s. The point beingi you can play a lot of games and still be a terrible worthless player.

Leave current MMR as it is.
I hope PvP will die in a month or two at most.

Problem imo is that the PVP player base is so small that you need to play in a 2 hour prime time window to get sort of decent solo matchmaking. At least in EU. Off hours sucks so bad if you’re put in the wrong team.

Gambit.8425:

Problem imo is that the PVP player base is so small that you need to play in a 2 hour prime time window to get sort of decent solo matchmaking. At least in EU. Off hours sucks so bad if you’re put in the wrong team.

Yesterday took me over 4 hours of constant pvp matches to get a decent people in team to barely win and do daily on ranger alone.

Prime time my kitten .