Guild Wars 2

Edit: I need help from others to gather more data on matches so we can have a more accurate understanding. Instructions below.

Method: At the start of the match during the prep time, I add everyone in the match to my friend’s list with a quick nickname like r1,r2,b1,b2 ect, so that way I can quickly look at the Friends/Guild Leaderboard and see the mmr of everyone in the match and know what team they were on. I then screen shot the scoreboard, then screen shot every page on the Friends/Guild Leaderboard. Then at the end of the match I again screen shot the scoreboard (since now it has the score and who was in a group) and screen shot the leaderboard again (so I can see how much mmr they gained/lost to see how volatile their rating was). This method will tell you exactly how the match was set up. The more help I get with this, the more we can accurately understand how the matchmaking is currently affecting matches and maybe cut down on some myths and maybe answer questions people are having.

So I am trying to stay positive here, some of my matches have been very fun and close matches. However, the majority of my matches are complete blowouts and, win or lose, that is never fun. It kinda just sucks the joy out of you when you wait around for the match to start and then spend the entire match fighting an uphill battle wondering how your teammates could possibly be this much worse than the enemy team.

Now let me clear up one thing before the QQ comments come in. I am no expert. I play decently, apparently Anet says I’m an average player currently at 1,303 rating. If that is where I belong then so be it. If that is the spot that will give me good matches then I gladly welcome it. The problem I’m having, is I’m hardly ever getting those good matches.

So my first thought of course is that the season just started and everyone hasn’t settled into their proper mmr’s yet and things will be chaotic for a bit. But these one-sided matches kept bothering me, so today after one such match I added everyone to my friend’s list to look at their mmr. I was very confused by the results.

Red

• Me – 1,303
• Player 2 – 1,229
• Player 3 – 1,275
• Player 4 – 1,267
• Player 5 – Unranked
• Average – 1,268

Blue

• Player 1 – 1,310
• Player 2 – 1,319
• Player 3 – 1,268
• Player 4 – 1,289
• Player 5 – 1,320
• Average – 1,301

Now just looking at it I can’t understand why this match was even put together this way. Why set me up like that? Why assume I can carry? I’m just an average player looking for fun matches, I can not carry a team against an enemy team around my own skill level. I mean, granting there is missing info from our unranked guy, my team’s average mmr is equal to their lowest guy’s mmr.

Now the only thing I can hope and assume, is that maybe everyone’s scores are still adjusting by +/- 30 points or more still. If that is the case, which I hope it is, maybe the match was more balanced before the mmr changes hit at the end of the match. So, I’m gonna keep up my project here and take note of mmr’s before a match starts as well and try to pinpoint what is going on. If the problem is that everyone’s mmr’s are just too volatile right now, then I guess the best course of action is just to stop playing for a few weeks. It sucks, but what else can I do?

So had a few good matches, both wins and losses, but still the majority of my matches are pretty one-sided. Most recent match 500-280, very easy win. So again I looked up everyone’s mmr, this time before the match started and after.

Red 1323/1321/1295/1289/1288 Average 1303
Blue 1314/1285/1250/na/na Average 1283

Blue lost of course. Then after mmr adjustments…

Red 1333/1331/1306/1300/1299 Average 1313
Blue 1301/1273/1230/na/na Average 1268

So looking at the info that is available it looks like my team was favored to win from the start. The only other explanation I can presume is if the other two guys on blue team who are still in their placement matches were assumed to be better than they are because their mmr is still erratic.

But even if that is the case, red team got stacked with higher mmr players and blue team got two players still in their placement matches. Again, this match was incredibly easy to win, and not entertaining at all. And I’ve been in their shoes, and it wasn’t fair nor fun for them either.

Still, I have had some good matches, more so than previous seasons. So I’m still holding out hope that all of this will settle down and work itself out eventually. In the meantime, is anyone else getting crazy matches like this? If so, just add everyone to your friends list before the match starts and give them a quick nickname like red or blue, maybe followed by a number, then screen shot the guild/friends leaderboard before and compare it to results after. I’d like to see what other people are getting.

Another issue I’m running in to actually, anyone know why someone would not show up on your friend leaderboard when you friend them? It’s been very inconsistent for me. At first I thought maybe it just didn’t show some people because they were in placement matches, but I’ve tried adding people that have their badges already and sometimes it shows them on the leader board and sometimes it doesn’t. The whole thing is just very inconsistent. Anyone got an answer to this?

Shaogin.2679:

Another issue I’m running in to actually, anyone know why someone would not show up on your friend leaderboard when you friend them? It’s been very inconsistent for me. At first I thought maybe it just didn’t show some people because they were in placement matches, but I’ve tried adding people that have their badges already and sometimes it shows them on the leader board and sometimes it doesn’t. The whole thing is just very inconsistent. Anyone got an answer to this?

You have to pay attention and look through all pages on the tabs, and yes it won’t show people that haven’t placed.

For me matchmaking didn’t change at all. I am sweating like mad to play to the fullest, I do all that I have in my power.
I know that I am a good player and I can do better, I know how to rotate, I played with those who said that I know what to do and how to fight, yet… is this how my roll is going to look like? few matches won, few matches lost in a row despite the furious effort I put in the fight?
I don’t mind losing, but matches with a skill gap where I can’t handle the enemy team with my own mates on a steady groud is truly dissapointing.
I appreciate the work of PvP devs because it is not easy feat to balance this game, but it still has some crucial things that require work.

I’m having exactly the same problem. It’s incredibly frustrating being placed into a team of people that really have no business in ranked matches. They die so fast and frequently that I wonder if they even know it’s pvp. Ive had many of them tell me theyre only here for the ascended armors and they’ll stop playing. I dont care about loot, or ranks, or divisions or any of that, but if it’s gonna be total domination or total destruction I honestly want no part of it. I dont want to have to play every game like a madman just to scrape a win, I want a fun even game. Please tell me it’ll get better in weeks ahead, I dont want to abandon another season.

It’s not neccessarily about your teammates not being strong enough, it’s mostly about the opposing team that consists of too many too good players, this is unbalanced.

P.S.
After 5 matches lost in a row I’ve just won in a blowout, about 350 points gap… it feels like a loop, not a challange.

Hm, that looks like the season 2 algorithm where the matchmaker stacked teams. Maybe it is pulling from the queue of available players and placing all highs on one team and lows on another. That would explain how it accurately found the best, top 20, players.

This would explain why queuing off hours can be punishing…

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Shaogin.2679:

Another issue I’m running in to actually, anyone know why someone would not show up on your friend leaderboard when you friend them? It’s been very inconsistent for me. At first I thought maybe it just didn’t show some people because they were in placement matches, but I’ve tried adding people that have their badges already and sometimes it shows them on the leader board and sometimes it doesn’t. The whole thing is just very inconsistent. Anyone got an answer to this?

You have to pay attention and look through all pages on the tabs, and yes it won’t show people that haven’t placed.

Yeah, I am going through all the pages but for some reason some people just don’t show up, even if they have a placement badge already.

In my opinion this would be a whole lot easier to see if anet would just show everyone’s mmr with a (+/-X) by each player’s name on the scoreboard at the end of the match. At the end of the match, everybody already has a general impression of their teammates and enemies worth, and the blame is already being thrown around for anet creating unbalanced matches.

If anet showed mmr’s at the end of the match, and players are being matched properly, then that would let players know that they were properly matched. This could cut down on a ton of negative forum posts (not all of course). The only reason I can see for not showing mmr’s at the end of a match is if anet doesn’t want us to see how the matchmaking set us up, and I would really hope that is not the case.

Shaogin.2679:

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Shaogin.2679:

Another issue I’m running in to actually, anyone know why someone would not show up on your friend leaderboard when you friend them? It’s been very inconsistent for me. At first I thought maybe it just didn’t show some people because they were in placement matches, but I’ve tried adding people that have their badges already and sometimes it shows them on the leader board and sometimes it doesn’t. The whole thing is just very inconsistent. Anyone got an answer to this?

You have to pay attention and look through all pages on the tabs, and yes it won’t show people that haven’t placed.

Yeah, I am going through all the pages but for some reason some people just don’t show up, even if they have a placement badge already.

In my opinion this would be a whole lot easier to see if anet would just show everyone’s mmr with a (+/-X) by each player’s name on the scoreboard at the end of the match. At the end of the match, everybody already has a general impression of their teammates and enemies worth, and the blame is already being thrown around for anet creating unbalanced matches.

If anet showed mmr’s at the end of the match, and players are being matched properly, then that would let players know that they were properly matched. This could cut down on a ton of negative forum posts (not all of course). The only reason I can see for not showing mmr’s at the end of a match is if anet doesn’t want us to see how the matchmaking set us up, and I would really hope that is not the case.

This may be a bit … problematic. If they showed everyone’s rating on a match by match basis, there’ll inevitably be a lot of finger pointing.

Instead, average team MMR is probably enough. The bulk of the matchmaking process makes a list of 10 players relatively close to each other’s rating (within a certain range) and then balances the team to make sure the average ratings are close. If the average team MMR’s are closer, then matchmaking worked to make the match as even as possible. If it’s significantly different, then it failed (likely because that’s the closest possible difference between team MMR’s).

Personally, I want to see both my own skill rating and rating deviation (measure of uncertainty). I would also like to see my own rating adjustment in the match history.

Rashy.4165:

Shaogin.2679:

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Shaogin.2679:

Another issue I’m running in to actually, anyone know why someone would not show up on your friend leaderboard when you friend them? It’s been very inconsistent for me. At first I thought maybe it just didn’t show some people because they were in placement matches, but I’ve tried adding people that have their badges already and sometimes it shows them on the leader board and sometimes it doesn’t. The whole thing is just very inconsistent. Anyone got an answer to this?

You have to pay attention and look through all pages on the tabs, and yes it won’t show people that haven’t placed.

Yeah, I am going through all the pages but for some reason some people just don’t show up, even if they have a placement badge already.

In my opinion this would be a whole lot easier to see if anet would just show everyone’s mmr with a (+/-X) by each player’s name on the scoreboard at the end of the match. At the end of the match, everybody already has a general impression of their teammates and enemies worth, and the blame is already being thrown around for anet creating unbalanced matches.

If anet showed mmr’s at the end of the match, and players are being matched properly, then that would let players know that they were properly matched. This could cut down on a ton of negative forum posts (not all of course). The only reason I can see for not showing mmr’s at the end of a match is if anet doesn’t want us to see how the matchmaking set us up, and I would really hope that is not the case.

This may be a bit … problematic. If they showed everyone’s rating on a match by match basis, there’ll inevitably be a lot of finger pointing.

Instead, average team MMR is probably enough. The bulk of the matchmaking process makes a list of 10 players relatively close to each other’s rating (within a certain range) and then balances the team to make sure the average ratings are close. If the average team MMR’s are closer, then matchmaking worked to make the match as even as possible. If it’s significantly different, then it failed (likely because that’s the closest possible difference between team MMR’s).

Personally, I want to see both my own skill rating and rating deviation (measure of uncertainty). I would also like to see my own rating adjustment in the match history.

Let’s be honest though, there is plenty of finger pointing with or without mmr’s being shown. And an average may be fine, but wouldn’t really show if average is being offset by someone’s higher mmr who is expected to carry the team.

Shaogin.2679:

Rashy.4165:

Shaogin.2679:

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Shaogin.2679:

Another issue I’m running in to actually, anyone know why someone would not show up on your friend leaderboard when you friend them? It’s been very inconsistent for me. At first I thought maybe it just didn’t show some people because they were in placement matches, but I’ve tried adding people that have their badges already and sometimes it shows them on the leader board and sometimes it doesn’t. The whole thing is just very inconsistent. Anyone got an answer to this?

You have to pay attention and look through all pages on the tabs, and yes it won’t show people that haven’t placed.

Yeah, I am going through all the pages but for some reason some people just don’t show up, even if they have a placement badge already.

In my opinion this would be a whole lot easier to see if anet would just show everyone’s mmr with a (+/-X) by each player’s name on the scoreboard at the end of the match. At the end of the match, everybody already has a general impression of their teammates and enemies worth, and the blame is already being thrown around for anet creating unbalanced matches.

If anet showed mmr’s at the end of the match, and players are being matched properly, then that would let players know that they were properly matched. This could cut down on a ton of negative forum posts (not all of course). The only reason I can see for not showing mmr’s at the end of a match is if anet doesn’t want us to see how the matchmaking set us up, and I would really hope that is not the case.

This may be a bit … problematic. If they showed everyone’s rating on a match by match basis, there’ll inevitably be a lot of finger pointing.

Instead, average team MMR is probably enough. The bulk of the matchmaking process makes a list of 10 players relatively close to each other’s rating (within a certain range) and then balances the team to make sure the average ratings are close. If the average team MMR’s are closer, then matchmaking worked to make the match as even as possible. If it’s significantly different, then it failed (likely because that’s the closest possible difference between team MMR’s).

Personally, I want to see both my own skill rating and rating deviation (measure of uncertainty). I would also like to see my own rating adjustment in the match history.

Let’s be honest though, there is plenty of finger pointing with or without mmr’s being shown. And an average may be fine, but wouldn’t really show if average is being offset by someone’s higher mmr who is expected to carry the team.

There will also be more finger-pointing if everyone’s skill rating was visible. Right now, unless you go to extra lengths (adding to friends list, etc), people finger-point without knowing people’s skill rating. It will be much worse if it were visible without much effort.

Rashy.4165:

Shaogin.2679:

Rashy.4165:

Shaogin.2679:

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Shaogin.2679:

Another issue I’m running in to actually, anyone know why someone would not show up on your friend leaderboard when you friend them? It’s been very inconsistent for me. At first I thought maybe it just didn’t show some people because they were in placement matches, but I’ve tried adding people that have their badges already and sometimes it shows them on the leader board and sometimes it doesn’t. The whole thing is just very inconsistent. Anyone got an answer to this?

You have to pay attention and look through all pages on the tabs, and yes it won’t show people that haven’t placed.

Yeah, I am going through all the pages but for some reason some people just don’t show up, even if they have a placement badge already.

In my opinion this would be a whole lot easier to see if anet would just show everyone’s mmr with a (+/-X) by each player’s name on the scoreboard at the end of the match. At the end of the match, everybody already has a general impression of their teammates and enemies worth, and the blame is already being thrown around for anet creating unbalanced matches.

If anet showed mmr’s at the end of the match, and players are being matched properly, then that would let players know that they were properly matched. This could cut down on a ton of negative forum posts (not all of course). The only reason I can see for not showing mmr’s at the end of a match is if anet doesn’t want us to see how the matchmaking set us up, and I would really hope that is not the case.

This may be a bit … problematic. If they showed everyone’s rating on a match by match basis, there’ll inevitably be a lot of finger pointing.

Instead, average team MMR is probably enough. The bulk of the matchmaking process makes a list of 10 players relatively close to each other’s rating (within a certain range) and then balances the team to make sure the average ratings are close. If the average team MMR’s are closer, then matchmaking worked to make the match as even as possible. If it’s significantly different, then it failed (likely because that’s the closest possible difference between team MMR’s).

Personally, I want to see both my own skill rating and rating deviation (measure of uncertainty). I would also like to see my own rating adjustment in the match history.

Let’s be honest though, there is plenty of finger pointing with or without mmr’s being shown. And an average may be fine, but wouldn’t really show if average is being offset by someone’s higher mmr who is expected to carry the team.

There will also be more finger-pointing if everyone’s skill rating was visible. Right now, unless you go to extra lengths (adding to friends list, etc), people finger-point without knowing people’s skill rating. It will be much worse if it were visible without much effort.

There could also be less finger pointing if they see that their teammates are at an appropriate mmr. We shouldn’t avoid implementing a useful feature just because we’re afraid of rude players. Rude players are rude, they need no reason to act that way.

So this just happened to me today? Not sure what happened, but for some reason I didn’t lose any rank points for this match. Anyone else had this happen? Maybe somebody d/c’d and I didn’t notice?

Shaogin.2679:

So this just happened to me today? Not sure what happened, but for some reason I didn’t lose any rank points for this match. Anyone else had this happen? Maybe somebody d/c’d and I didn’t notice?

IIRC, if someone on your team DC’d and you lost, you wouldn’t lose ratings, but it would still count as a match played.

Rashy.4165:

Shaogin.2679:

So this just happened to me today? Not sure what happened, but for some reason I didn’t lose any rank points for this match. Anyone else had this happen? Maybe somebody d/c’d and I didn’t notice?

IIRC, if someone on your team DC’d and you lost, you wouldn’t lose ratings, but it would still count as a match played.

Oh ok, that’s cool. And wow the pvp forums have been blowing up! Only 8 hours and this post has gone from the top of page 1 to middle of page 2!

I felt this was a good page to put this on.

So these are some pictures of the matches i had today. Ill start it with i was platinum 2 days ago and after today i fell below 1600. Either way thats not the issue, the issue is match making. I will point out that i am not making any of the comments even though the names are blacked out, i have the original pics if anyone wants to see them.

First picture is a game where a team mate is complaining about a necro. He capped home and sat, after that he ran to points we owned and sat. At the very bottom you will notice he has just died and he was in a 1 vs 1 vs another necro. This is a issue because he was rotating poorly and losing fights.

2nd picture was bad off the start. We have 3 DH’s on our team 1 thief and i played ele. I was thinking decent comp. All 3 DHs start to say they are bunkers and there was only like 15 sec left in the time to change. I didnt risk it, the 3rd DH switched to power warrior but he came in 30 sec after the start. We ended up winning a mid fight but after winning home and mid they chased off point (as bunkers) got decapped and 2 pushed far and 2 came back mid. From that point the game was over because we had no damage.

3rd picture was pretty fun. I took a pic after the match but our thief was playing d/d condi- venom shares. He did not +1 and he did not cap far, simply decapped it and ran to a fight to dodge/3 all over the place.

Ok so this can eaily be me just complaining but when i was on my warrior im winning my 1 vs 1 fights. In top pic i 1 vs 1 ranger and DH and killed them both pretty quickly. Simply put im not good enough to win that fight and sustain another fight coming right after. So i would win my fight and another player from the enemy team comes over and engages a fight i wont win.

Im sorry but i need to see other players ranks Anet, this matches are happening with players supposedly above average. Here is the thing im not even the one pointing this out.

Obviously both teams are probably having this issue with 1-2 players but every game 1 player on my team always seems to be out of place. Like the High School basketball player who goes to a NBA camp and trys to run with the Pro’s. Im not saying im a pro but im saying the level difference is incredible between the players in the matches i am having.

Wow, I feel bad for ya there. Yeah, it should be clearly obvious those players do not belong in platinum. So either you got matched with lower ranked players, or the system failed to rank them where they belong. But without being able to see other player’s mmr and gain/loss at the end of the match, it’s just confusing and frustrating.

And omg “I’m clerics”. Like seriously? Your heart had to sink a little as that match was starting.

After a reasonable ammount of matches it seems that MMR stops me from climbing any further. W-L-W-W-L-W-L-L-W-L-L-W-W I’ve got something like that right now, soooooo… I belong in gold then?
Meh, works for me I can say that I am decent enough.

Shaogin.2679:

wondering how your teammates could possibly be this much worse than the enemy team.

…they aren’t. That’s a really small gap, especially considering that everyone on your team just dropped 10-15 rating and the opposing team just gained 10-15 rating. We’re complaining about team MMR differences of 20 points and within team MMR differences of 100 points now? 100 points is, like, really close to the standard error on your MMR in a 5v5 team game.

Ensign.2189:

…they aren’t. That’s a really small gap, especially considering that everyone on your team just dropped 10-15 rating and the opposing team just gained 10-15 rating. We’re complaining about team MMR differences of 20 points and within team MMR differences of 100 points now? 100 points is, like, really close to the standard error on your MMR in a 5v5 team game.

100 points gap is okay to handle, it also happens when enemy team gets two kills on mobs or mix ToTSS buffs. Now it is a bit more underwhelming if you get over about 200 points or more, then a losing team is quite outmatched if they easily die in combat and they are getting picked like flies, outrotated easily. Not to mention 400 points gaps that happen after a win streak of 5+ matches, this is the system’s way of telling us to “Yo, you had your streak, now get back to feeling like a scrub no matter how hard you try.”

Rodzynald.5897:

Ensign.2189:

…they aren’t. That’s a really small gap, especially considering that everyone on your team just dropped 10-15 rating and the opposing team just gained 10-15 rating. We’re complaining about team MMR differences of 20 points and within team MMR differences of 100 points now? 100 points is, like, really close to the standard error on your MMR in a 5v5 team game.

100 points gap is okay to handle, it also happens when enemy team gets two kills on mobs or mix ToTSS buffs. Now it is a bit more underwhelming if you get over about 200 points or more, then a losing team is quite outmatched if they easily die in combat and they are getting picked like flies, outrotated easily. Not to mention 400 points gaps that happen after a win streak of 5+ matches, this is the system’s way of telling us to “Yo, you had your streak, now get back to feeling like a scrub no matter how hard you try.”

Something like this?

Kaburro.4712:

Something like this?

Close to this one, the gap is easily seen. Although it depends on how long it lasted, if the gap was for the whole length of the game then it turned out that one team was outmatched.
As I mentioned once, temple combo that may heavily boost point receive rate and make a huge difference. Also foefire lord might have been killed but with such a gap it means that your team was at a disadvantage to begin with.
There are too many cases where the system forces us to lose just so it can place us. There are dummies in platinum and legendary that somehow made it there.
Let’s not forget about diamonds in the rough, stuck in bronze or silver, gold as I have a friend who knows how to play and he fights kitten well, yet he has a similar case to mine. I can hardly believe that his skill resembles silver.

We can sometimes handle it with premades and duos but sadly I am not able to do so due to unstable times during which I can play.
I also attach the pic of what I deal with now. I am fighting my heart out, giving tips and listening to tips as well, I have nothing to say in defense against matches that were lost with lower than 100 points gap, those were close calls, balanced and well done.
However those rounds that were forced through the system to make me and my team lose… this is just hard to describe without using unpleasant words.

Shaogin.2679:

Wow, I feel bad for ya there. Yeah, it should be clearly obvious those players do not belong in platinum. So either you got matched with lower ranked players, or the system failed to rank them where they belong. But without being able to see other player’s mmr and gain/loss at the end of the match, it’s just confusing and frustrating.

And omg “I’m clerics”. Like seriously? Your heart had to sink a little as that match was starting.

Wow its like you knew, yeah i kind of dropped.

here is the thing at 1 point we had home and mid and the bunkers chased to get a kill and didnt get it (obviously) and we got decapped. I shouldnt say this but i quit mid match at the mid point because the 2 DH wouldnt leave each other.

At 1 point we had 4 home me sitting mid looking looking at 1 on the ledge and running around to our lord and we couldnt win that home fight.

Im seeing these players in Gold 3 and platinum 1. I dont know what to do.

The matchmaking makes little sense. Just duo qeued and faced the #2 player. Thanks to matchmaking he got 2x duo q on his side while i got only my own duo q.

Idk why the system supports highly unbalanced matches.

Ensign.2189:

Shaogin.2679:

wondering how your teammates could possibly be this much worse than the enemy team.

…they aren’t. That’s a really small gap, especially considering that everyone on your team just dropped 10-15 rating and the opposing team just gained 10-15 rating. We’re complaining about team MMR differences of 20 points and within team MMR differences of 100 points now? 100 points is, like, really close to the standard error on your MMR in a 5v5 team game.

If everyone was at their proper placements this probably wouldn’t be as big of an issue, but that currently isn’t the case. My issue is more with understanding why the matchmaking would stack one team with lower mmr and other team with higher mmr instead of balancing it out. Whether the mmr’s are close or not it just makes no sense to do that.

Other issue is getting matched with people that still have volatile ratings or that are still in placement matches, because most often they are not where they belong yet and can have negative impacts on the match for others. Now on that there isn’t really much that can be done to fix it aside from assuring one team isn’t getting stuck with 2-3 volatile players while the other team has all stable players.

So I managed an 8 win streak (not including a loss in there since there was a d/c and we didn’t lose any rank). Half of these games were good, challenging matches. The other half were easy wins that felt like they were just handed to us. Still having trouble using the friends list to monitor people’s mmrs. Either I’m going against people in their placement matches, or something is very inconsistent with that system. The first match I get I can normally see everyone’s mmrs by adding them to my friend list, but then for the rest of the matches that night it’s pretty hit or miss, mostly miss.

Well after my win streak I was pretty sure that any game now Anet was gonna hit me with some crazy match to bring me back down. And sure enough, on game 9 I was sent into a slaughter. Score was 500-190. We only scored 190 because they let us have our home. I had one other decent player on my team that was trying to help me pull things together, but our team would just charge right in to things like an army of aoe damage at mid, just 1 by 1, and just keep feeding them kills. They couldn’t win 1v1’s, they couldn’t rotate, it was just a complete slaughter.

So I’m looking at the leaderboards and I can’t find anyone from that match on there. So I decided to take a break and leave everyone on my friend’s list until they showed up, because I was really curious as to how these two teams were stacked. Well today they showed up, and here is where they are currently at:

Red Team 1369/1369/1358/1326/1316 Average 1347
Blue Team 1346(me)/1311/1303/1283/1128 Average 1274

Now obviously everyone’s ratings were a bit different when our match started, but I just can’t help but to see a trend here. I look at this and can’t help but feel like the matchmaking takes 10 players somewhat close in mmr, then places the 5 higher mmrs of those 10 on one team then drops the rest on the other team, or something very close to this.

Guess I’ll just continue to monitor the situation for now.

So I’m noticing that playing during the off hours is yielding more chaotic results. So far I have seen the matchmaking consistently stack one team with higher average mmr players than the other team. However, when the player pool is large, this isn’t as noticeable due to smaller variances between the mmr of the selected 10 players. When the player pool is small though, the variance can be much larger, and then at that point stacking one team with the higher average mmr players can pretty much guarantee who will win the match.

I was placed in such a match just recently. No work today, so I decided, what the hell, I’ll play a bit of pvp, despite it being early on a Monday morning. The first match I had 3 Dragonhunters and a Warrior on my team. These Dragonhunters were completely oblivious to pvp mechanics. I would call target on enemy Necro, they would move the called target to some random enemy Dragonhunter. They would rush into mid alone and die in a wave of aoe damage against 3+ players, and then start whining that nobody was reviving them. Like kitten , even with “Search and Rescue”, there was just no saving these guys. They also couldn’t hold a point, focus targets, or win any 1v1 on side points. The match just felt horrible to be in. But regardless, I did my best and tried to pick up the slack, but ultimately the enemy team won.

Well later on I decided maybe that was just an unlucky match due to being paired with so many DHs, which are generally less skilled players (now before you attack me for this remark, I’m simply referring to DH being the bandwagon class with low skill floor that every noob in the game is flocking to. I realize you can be a decent player and play DH and I do not think DH is OP). So my next match we get a pretty even split of classes, and the match-up doesn’t look so bad.

Before the match started I made sure we had someone going to get home, and I stressed that someone needs to watch home or else the enemy Thief will surely steal it all match. Well of course no one watched home. And our Thief, instead of taking far and capping open points or +1 fights, he felt he was most needed in the zerg fights happening on mid at clock tower. My Ele felt he should push far on several occasions, despite being unable to take a point in a 1v1 and neglecting to provide support to our team on mid. Nobody apparently knew how to focus a called target. So this leaves me, a Shoutbow Druid, with the job of defending home, supporting my team in fights they can never seem to win, and capping open points hoping to spread out the enemy team more. I watched in horror as I was defending home in a 1v2 waiting on my +1 to come help me……no, my entire team rushed home to come help, giving up mid point in the process.

So at this point, I am naturally curious as to the mmr gap of these two teams. So far, from what I’ve noticed, I can only check the mmr of one group of players per day or so using the friend method. I decided this match would be a good use of my daily mmr check. Not gonna lie, was pretty upset with the results.

Red Team MMR 1490/1408/1330/1294/1203 Average MMR 1345
Blue Team MMR 1367(me)/1363/1199/1130/904 Average MMR 1193

Now again, this was after the match, after everyone had gained/lost their mmr. However, despite mmr gained/lost, this was not a fair match-up at all. I just can’t understand why matchmaking would not make an attempt to balance out the average mmr of both teams instead of stacking one team with a higher average mmr of the other team. I feel like my team was set up to lose this match, and then we got punished for doing just that! Matches like these are not fun, they are frustrating. Even if I had managed to overcome my team’s weaknesses and carry us to a win, the match would not have been fun.

Now furthermore, the 904 guy on my team was in a group with one of the 1100 guys, don’t remember which one. Now maybe, just maybe, matchmaking couldn’t make a more even comp due to those two being in a group, and I just got screwed because of it. This could be possible, but I can’t know for sure because the scoreboard at the end of the match doesn’t tell me the mmr of the players that were in the match and how much they gained/lost for the match. But if this is the case, then at this point you’re telling me that I just got screwed cause somebody wanted to duo queue with his low ranked friend to try and help him rank up? Do you not see how this can cause issues for your matchmaking? I have and always will stand by my opinion that ranked matches need a pure Solo Queue and a pure 5v5 Team Queue, anything outside of that will only cause more problems.

If someone from Anet could swoop in and tell me that I’m wrong in my assumptions that matchmaking is stacking one team with a higher average mmr than the other team instead of making the effort to ensure both team’s average mmr is as even as possible, that would be a great relief. Because, again, I can’t effectively monitor the mmr of the other players in my matches before/after the match. So from my viewpoint, all I am seeing are these horribly organized matches that are costing me rank.

I will say though, the majority of my matches during peak hours have been very enjoyable and challenging and this is still the best season so far.

I was going to say I’m stunned to see the stats you’re providing here, but then I remembered the previous seasons and decided I’m not really that surprised at all.

Myself and a few of my friends have been complaining to each other about this same issue, though we haven’t done the digging that you have. It seems like I can win a couple of matches (varying between blowouts and well-fought ones) and then I’m 100% certain that my next few games are going to be losses – and most of the time I’m right. Win, loss, loss, win, win, loss, win, loss… Etc etc etc. Most of the losses are because I get dumped on teams with 2-3 god awful players, and many of my wins are because the other team has them.

My placement matches were pretty awful. 4 losses straight off the bat, the first 3 being total blowouts due to poor rotations, stacking thieves, a thief using P/P and trying to team fight instead of decapping, bad DHs, going against teams with good support eles and Druids whilst my team has none… Sigh. Then I won 6 in a row that were mostly blowouts as well I think, with at least 3 of those being due to the other team having an AFK or D/C. Boring.

I got placed in silver 2, fairly quickly got up to gold 1, and then the blowouts started. Granted I don’t consider myself a particularly great player, but I don’t instadie in teamfights, I don’t charge into 4v1s at mid expecting to win, I don’t lose all of my 1v1s, I don’t ignore targets and I don’t double cap, or even TRIPLE cap, empty points while the rest of my team gets slaughtered at the other 2.

So why am I consistently getting to Gold 1, being put with a team that does ALL of those things, and then getting kicked back down into Silver 3 just to do it all over again? I was wondering if matches are stacking one team with the “best” players, it certainly seems that way based on my experience, yours, and many others on this forum.

So this was the team mmr value when the match started of my most recent match. Wish I knew mmr of blue team’s 5th guy but it was unavailable.

Red – 1350/1360/1414/1413/1350 Average 1377

Blue – 1367(me)/1365/1352/1352/na Average 1359

So again here, average team mmr is stacked against me. Really confused as to why, in a match where all the players are ranging from 1350-1370, Red team got to have two 1400+ players. Also noticing this trend looking back on the results I have posted in this thread, I seem to always have the highest mmr on my team.

Something tells me I’m going to be facing a bit of a losing streak now, which will cause me to drop to about the bottom of silver three, at which point I will miraculously start on a winning streak again, until I hit mid-high gold 1 again. If it happens this way, it should be interesting to see the mmr of my matches during the win streak. Really hoping I don’t find what I’m expecting to find…

So I’ll edit my main post and add this to it, but I could really use some help investigating just how matchmaking is working. Anet seems to have a limit placed on how many people’s mmr you can see per day through the friend’s list method. Due to this, I could get a much larger sample size and more data to draw better conclusions on this if others joined me on this thread posting their own results from matches.

Basically what I do is, at the start of the match during the prep time, I add everyone in the match to my friend’s list with a quick nickname like r1,r2,b1,b2 ect, so that way I can quickly look at the Friends/Guild Leaderboard and see the mmr of everyone in the match and know what team they were on. I then screen shot the scoreboard, then screen shot every page on the Friends/Guild Leaderboard. Then at the end of the match I again screen shot the scoreboard (since now it has the score and who was in a group) and screen shot the leaderboard again (so I can see how much mmr they gained/lost to see how volatile their rating was). This method will tell you exactly how the match was set up. The more help I get with this, the more we can accurately understand how the matchmaking is currently affecting matches and maybe cut down on some myths and maybe answer questions people are having.

You keep using the arithmetic average of your team’s mmr. ANet has stated they use the geometric average. You won’t see a difference most of the time unless you have wildly different ranges, for instance in one of your examples:

Arithmetic average: (1367,1363,1199,1130,904) = 1192.6

Geometric average: (1367,1363,1199,1130,904) = 1179.4

Just something to keep in mind.

NeXeD.3042:

so i won a few games and the i lost a few games but i think i should have won them so i should get points because am good player and enemy bad player i know they win but i win so i win because im good player so anet make me legendary because they bad players and i good player so i am good at this while they are bad

This pretty much.

To me the heart of the issue is the 10 game placement system. It simply isn’t enough to even semi-accurately place players. This leads to players of unequal skill levels being paired fairly regularly. For the higher tiers, where the player numbers are less, this should resolve itself in a decent amount of time. Unfortunately in lower tiers, there are enough incoming players to keep this an issue.

Everything else seems to be relatively on par for the usual.

Essence Snow.3194:

To me the heart of the issue is the 10 game placement system. It simply isn’t enough to even semi-accurately place players. This leads to players of unequal skill levels being paired fairly regularly. For the higher tiers, where the player numbers are less, this should resolve itself in a decent amount of time. Unfortunately in lower tiers, there are enough incoming players to keep this an issue.

Everything else seems to be relatively on par for the usual.

which is why a soft reset was done. The MM will get better when the people who grinded the kitten out of previous seasons to reach divisions they did not belong in get bumped down and it will happen Some of them will attempt to only play one or two games a day to keep their rating but it wont last forever. Its those same people that seem to hate the new system because you can lose more points for a loss than you gain for a win.

This will even out and people need to stop freaking the kitten out because they arent in the division they thought they should be in….. 99% of the players in this game are terrible at self skill evals.

If your owning everyone you will move up, if everyone is owning you, you will move down.

There are outliers on both sides and you will get some bad games deal with it.

Also to everyone that reads these forums please remember that the complaints are the Vocal Minority no need to panic for every person posting here about how they should be legendary but are bronze theres 20 people perfectly content to have fun PLAYING A GAME

NeXeD.3042:

Essence Snow.3194:

To me the heart of the issue is the 10 game placement system. It simply isn’t enough to even semi-accurately place players. This leads to players of unequal skill levels being paired fairly regularly. For the higher tiers, where the player numbers are less, this should resolve itself in a decent amount of time. Unfortunately in lower tiers, there are enough incoming players to keep this an issue.

Everything else seems to be relatively on par for the usual.

which is why a soft reset was done. The MM will get better when the people who grinded the kitten out of previous seasons to reach divisions they did not belong in get bumped down and it will happen Some of them will attempt to only play one or two games a day to keep their rating but it wont last forever. Its those same people that seem to hate the new system because you can lose more points for a loss than you gain for a win.

This will even out and people need to stop freaking the kitten out because they arent in the division they thought they should be in….. 99% of the players in this game are terrible at self skill evals.

If your owning everyone you will move up, if everyone is owning you, you will move down.

There are outliers on both sides and you will get some bad games deal with it.

Also to everyone that reads these forums please remember that the complaints are the Vocal Minority no need to panic for every person posting here about how they should be legendary but are bronze theres 20 people perfectly content to have fun PLAYING A GAME

Just out of curiosity…did you read the part where I said it will sort itself at higher tiers due to number of players, but won’t at lower tiers due to constant influx of players?

I gave logic to back up what I said. I never said anything about myself not being placed accurately.

Essence Snow.3194:

NeXeD.3042:

Essence Snow.3194:

To me the heart of the issue is the 10 game placement system. It simply isn’t enough to even semi-accurately place players. This leads to players of unequal skill levels being paired fairly regularly. For the higher tiers, where the player numbers are less, this should resolve itself in a decent amount of time. Unfortunately in lower tiers, there are enough incoming players to keep this an issue.

Everything else seems to be relatively on par for the usual.

which is why a soft reset was done. The MM will get better when the people who grinded the kitten out of previous seasons to reach divisions they did not belong in get bumped down and it will happen Some of them will attempt to only play one or two games a day to keep their rating but it wont last forever. Its those same people that seem to hate the new system because you can lose more points for a loss than you gain for a win.

This will even out and people need to stop freaking the kitten out because they arent in the division they thought they should be in….. 99% of the players in this game are terrible at self skill evals.

If your owning everyone you will move up, if everyone is owning you, you will move down.

There are outliers on both sides and you will get some bad games deal with it.

Also to everyone that reads these forums please remember that the complaints are the Vocal Minority no need to panic for every person posting here about how they should be legendary but are bronze theres 20 people perfectly content to have fun PLAYING A GAME

Just out of curiosity…did you read the part where I said it will sort itself at higher tiers due to number of players, but won’t at lower tiers due to constant influx of players?

I gave logic to back up what I said. I never said anything about myself not being placed accurately.

Hopefully as the season goes on the influx of players will dwindle. The ascended farmers will get their stuff. The pve players who had their interest sparked will either leave or try to play to win (i.e. becoming pvp players which is the best option/intended effect), the bads will realize they’ll never improve beyond their level, blame the system then leave.

Maybe you will see a near constant influx though all the way through to the end of the season, but only for the middle of the pack which is the largest section so statistically speaking, you have less of a chance of meeting new players to ranked if you’re in the largest bracket.

Essence Snow.3194:

NeXeD.3042:

Essence Snow.3194:

To me the heart of the issue is the 10 game placement system. It simply isn’t enough to even semi-accurately place players. This leads to players of unequal skill levels being paired fairly regularly. For the higher tiers, where the player numbers are less, this should resolve itself in a decent amount of time. Unfortunately in lower tiers, there are enough incoming players to keep this an issue.

Everything else seems to be relatively on par for the usual.

which is why a soft reset was done. The MM will get better when the people who grinded the kitten out of previous seasons to reach divisions they did not belong in get bumped down and it will happen Some of them will attempt to only play one or two games a day to keep their rating but it wont last forever. Its those same people that seem to hate the new system because you can lose more points for a loss than you gain for a win.

This will even out and people need to stop freaking the kitten out because they arent in the division they thought they should be in….. 99% of the players in this game are terrible at self skill evals.

If your owning everyone you will move up, if everyone is owning you, you will move down.

There are outliers on both sides and you will get some bad games deal with it.

Also to everyone that reads these forums please remember that the complaints are the Vocal Minority no need to panic for every person posting here about how they should be legendary but are bronze theres 20 people perfectly content to have fun PLAYING A GAME

Just out of curiosity…did you read the part where I said it will sort itself at higher tiers due to number of players, but won’t at lower tiers due to constant influx of players?

I gave logic to back up what I said. I never said anything about myself not being placed accurately.

And i never said anything about you saying anything about not being placed accurately.

Yes i did read it. And i disagree with the 2nd part the lower divisions will stabilize as well WHEN THE PEOPLE THAT GRINDED TO HIGH MMR DROP BACK DOWN.

NeXeD.3042:

Essence Snow.3194:

NeXeD.3042:

Essence Snow.3194:

To me the heart of the issue is the 10 game placement system. It simply isn’t enough to even semi-accurately place players. This leads to players of unequal skill levels being paired fairly regularly. For the higher tiers, where the player numbers are less, this should resolve itself in a decent amount of time. Unfortunately in lower tiers, there are enough incoming players to keep this an issue.

Everything else seems to be relatively on par for the usual.

which is why a soft reset was done. The MM will get better when the people who grinded the kitten out of previous seasons to reach divisions they did not belong in get bumped down and it will happen Some of them will attempt to only play one or two games a day to keep their rating but it wont last forever. Its those same people that seem to hate the new system because you can lose more points for a loss than you gain for a win.

This will even out and people need to stop freaking the kitten out because they arent in the division they thought they should be in….. 99% of the players in this game are terrible at self skill evals.

If your owning everyone you will move up, if everyone is owning you, you will move down.

There are outliers on both sides and you will get some bad games deal with it.

Also to everyone that reads these forums please remember that the complaints are the Vocal Minority no need to panic for every person posting here about how they should be legendary but are bronze theres 20 people perfectly content to have fun PLAYING A GAME

Just out of curiosity…did you read the part where I said it will sort itself at higher tiers due to number of players, but won’t at lower tiers due to constant influx of players?

I gave logic to back up what I said. I never said anything about myself not being placed accurately.

And i never said anything about you saying anything about not being placed accurately.

Yes i did read it. And i disagree with the 2nd part the lower divisions will stabilize as well WHEN THE PEOPLE THAT GRINDED TO HIGH MMR DROP BACK DOWN.

Then why did you mention it twice?

So you’re saying player influx will cease, both new and alternate accounts to pvp?

Essence Snow.3194:

NeXeD.3042:

Essence Snow.3194:

NeXeD.3042:

Essence Snow.3194:

To me the heart of the issue is the 10 game placement system. It simply isn’t enough to even semi-accurately place players. This leads to players of unequal skill levels being paired fairly regularly. For the higher tiers, where the player numbers are less, this should resolve itself in a decent amount of time. Unfortunately in lower tiers, there are enough incoming players to keep this an issue.

Everything else seems to be relatively on par for the usual.

which is why a soft reset was done. The MM will get better when the people who grinded the kitten out of previous seasons to reach divisions they did not belong in get bumped down and it will happen Some of them will attempt to only play one or two games a day to keep their rating but it wont last forever. Its those same people that seem to hate the new system because you can lose more points for a loss than you gain for a win.

This will even out and people need to stop freaking the kitten out because they arent in the division they thought they should be in….. 99% of the players in this game are terrible at self skill evals.

If your owning everyone you will move up, if everyone is owning you, you will move down.

There are outliers on both sides and you will get some bad games deal with it.

Also to everyone that reads these forums please remember that the complaints are the Vocal Minority no need to panic for every person posting here about how they should be legendary but are bronze theres 20 people perfectly content to have fun PLAYING A GAME

Just out of curiosity…did you read the part where I said it will sort itself at higher tiers due to number of players, but won’t at lower tiers due to constant influx of players?

I gave logic to back up what I said. I never said anything about myself not being placed accurately.

And i never said anything about you saying anything about not being placed accurately.

Yes i did read it. And i disagree with the 2nd part the lower divisions will stabilize as well WHEN THE PEOPLE THAT GRINDED TO HIGH MMR DROP BACK DOWN.

Then why did you mention it twice?

So you’re saying player influx will cease, both new and alternate accounts to pvp?

Nope i did not say that. I’m saying when the population of people who grinded to legendary with the old system will drop down stabilizing the lower divisions.

There will always be new players…. and they will place in the lower divisions…. unless they are some sort of prodigy…..

As far as the alternates….. I do think its kittenty that one ridiculously skilled player could potentially take the top spots on the leaderboard…. theres really not much we can do…. they paid for the acct. But the alts will probably place well in placement matches…. and wont effect division stability too too much.

Honest John.4673:

NeXeD.3042:

so i won a few games and the i lost a few games but i think i should have won them so i should get points because am good player and enemy bad player i know they win but i win so i win because im good player so anet make me legendary because they bad players and i good player so i am good at this while they are bad

This pretty much.

Maybe you guys should go find a complaint thread and troll there. I’ve been enjoying most of matches and have been having a great time in the mmr range I’ve been placed. This thread is simply to figure out what is going on in those crazy matches that pop up when you just win a match that wasn’t even a challenge or lose a match that felt hopeless.

I am making an attempt to use the tools available to me to better understand the system and ask questions in hope on getting clarification. So please don’t derail this thread with your trolling.

Honest John.4673:

You keep using the arithmetic average of your team’s mmr. ANet has stated they use the geometric average. You won’t see a difference most of the time unless you have wildly different ranges, for instance in one of your examples:

Arithmetic average: (1367,1363,1199,1130,904) = 1192.6

Geometric average: (1367,1363,1199,1130,904) = 1179.4

Just something to keep in mind.

Thank you, that should help a lot making sense of everything. I never noticed Anet put that bit of info out and no one ever brought it up. ^.^

The matchmaking system is quite perplexing to me too. In the legendary bracket i got put together with 4 pugs, none of which i’d ever heard of, and on the enemy’s team were 4 ESL players (two duo ques) and one player i knew were good. This exact scenario happened 3 times in a row, and my rating got kittened thanks to it.

I’ve been following this thread with keen interest. Shaogin brings to light some interesting numbers. Wouldn’t it be nice if all this was just available in game? Would save a lot of debate and controversy.

zalcs.9701:

The matchmaking system is quite perplexing to me too. In the legendary bracket i got put together with 4 pugs, none of which i’d ever heard of, and on the enemy’s team were 4 ESL players (two duo ques) and one player i knew were good. This exact scenario happened 3 times in a row, and my rating got kittened thanks to it.

How else are you supposed to feed the top ranked 5:1 win ratios?

No seriously, how else lol. It must suck to be ranked enough to meet the “elite” but not high enough to get more mixed rank fights.

Honest John.4673:

You keep using the arithmetic average of your team’s mmr. ANet has stated they use the geometric average.

Do you have a quote for that? Doing a geometric average would be…weird, to say the least. It makes the assumptions of the matchmaker inconsistent (and assumes that skill differences matter less at high rating play, which is inconsistent with how things work in pretty much every other multiplayer game).

What is relevant, however, is the duo queue effective MMR boost; having a duo queue on your team means the algorithm thinks you are more likely to win. I can’t tell you exactly how much since the wiki is out of date, but it’s a pretty substantial difference.

The matching has me quite suspicious lately as well.

I went through a 30 game losing streak (not purely, a few wins) in the past few days. It started to concern me because it wasn’t like that after I had placed. I was originally doing fine around 50/50 for my first 40 games. Then on the last game I played (during my losing streak) I had a disconnect on the enemy team. It was 5v4, should have been an easy win. We still ended up losing 350-500 but I had every top on my team. Max damage, most revives, most heal, most kills, everything. It was actually the first time I’ve earned this, but I typically always get 2-3 tops. I also have noticed that every time I lose a game, I lose 10 points, but every time I win I get 25+. This makes me further suspicious. Did they lie about the matching and leave in old or inappropriate considerations to bias particular players to a winning/losing side? I mean, how much gooder do I need to git?

I don’t think glicko is the problem. Something feels off with their matching system. I wouldn’t be surprised if next week I end up in a 30 game winstreak. Happened to me many times in every past season.

I have no idea how it works. Last time I played I won almost every game on both accounts. Today, couldn’t get any wins. Loss after loss. Games not even ballpark close.

They matchmaker is clearly stacking teams to win or loose at times (maybe all the time).

I have no idea how it works. Last time I played I won almost every game on both accounts. Today, couldn’t get any wins. Loss after loss. Games not even ballpark close.

The matchmaker is clearly stacking teams to win or loose at times (maybe all the time). I guess it’s kinda fun when you win everything. Kinda sucks when you can’t win anything.