Guild Wars 2

So it seems at this point its better to play with a premade team then to try to solo…

Granted not everyone can do that, but in the meantime I need to get my team in gear and start getting those rank points!!

It seems that every time I am entering solo, I go against a premade. It seems like it is actually trying to put me against premade groups instead, the exact opposite of what is suppose to happen…

Justin ODell.9517:

I’m really curious as to how you guys are figuring out if the other team is a pre-made. <——————-
Is it just match quality being bad? Are you just recognizing player names?

By seeing 4 people with the same guild tag for example?
For a pvp dev you sure are oblivious.

Handy way #1; Same people on the same team with the same tag, more then once; PROBABLY a premade.

Handy way #2; Handy invite to party and notice that everyone is in a party on the opposing team, while on your team you can invite 3-4 people.

Handy way #3; Just ask.
Probably the easiest way. most people won’t lie.

Justin ODell.9517:

I’m really curious as to how you guys are figuring out if the other team is a pre-made. We don’t tell you, and looking at the data there are very few party rosters compared to solo.

Is it just match quality being bad? Are you just recognizing player names?

When the game starts it will say a person or it will say a guild group vs another person or guild group. For example, “Big Teddy Guild” vs. “Hopikins.” Clearly the second team is not a pre-made guild team.

why are you trying to hide if teams are pre-made? wanna force us to ask?

Swagginator.3246:

why are you trying to hide if teams are pre-made? wanna force us to ask?

Exactly my thoughts on reading his response.

It isn’t about fairness, it’s about not letting you know.

GOSU.9574:

Swagginator.3246:

why are you trying to hide if teams are pre-made? wanna force us to ask?

Exactly my thoughts on reading his response.

It isn’t about fairness, it’s about not letting you know.

also thought this was a bit sketchy.

I feel like these complaints against fighting pre-mades are a bit unwarranted due to the fact that “even if you lose to a pre-made you don’t lose rating unless you have a 100% chance of beating them” but you know, I may be wrong there. May be there is something to it in the algorithm.

It’s not just about mmr score / ladders.

Losing again and again feels bad. Not fun especially when I realize that each match is against a premade and I barely have any chance of winning. And in addition to the feeling, this is still (a) loss of rewards vs winning ~50% matches (tracks, rank up rewards), (b) loss of rank progression for people who are not r80 yet, © loss of time for people who work toward profession achivements.

So even if the algorithm is OK and doesn’t take a single point off my score, constant randomVteam fights are not good.

edit : and (d) it ruins stats in the pvp window.

pitting premades against soloers kills games. ive seen it before in a game called global agenda. its also kinda common sense. you need to empower everyone. not just one demographic.

Dirame.8521:

I feel like these complaints against fighting pre-mades are a bit unwarranted due to the fact that “even if you lose to a pre-made you don’t lose rating unless you have a 100% chance of beating them” but you know, I may be wrong there. May be there is something to it in the algorithm.

I dont care if i gain rating losing to a premade. I play to win and have a fair chance at it, being put against a premade team is basically an instant loss and gives me no incentive to even try. Losing a match feels bad no matter what they do to compensate the unfair balance.

Team play and solo play are basically two different game types/modes. Mixing the two just doesnt make sense, of course team queue players will enjoy it because they get free wins now and then against solo players. Us players that queue solo are punished with automatic losses when facing the premades.

Now some will say, oh just make a team. Well if i wanted to play team queue don’t you think i would have done so in the past 2 years? Team queue and solo queue just have two very different play styles and some of us prefer solo queue. Now it has been stripped from us and we are forced into team queue. I don’t see how taking options for players away is a positive thing.

I opened a more specific topic about rostersize

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/MatchMaking-RosterSize/first#post4601399

Losing stings and will reflect in your stats, which is something many people care about.

Just because you have “a chance of beating a full premade” and “won’t lose rating if you lose to them”, the system still isn’t good.
Not losing rating when you lose is, to put it bluntly in a language most older pvp players should understand, a carebear attitude. Please don’t promote this.

DaveGan.8065:

Justin ODell.9517:

I’m really curious as to how you guys are figuring out if the other team is a pre-made. We don’t tell you, and looking at the data there are very few party rosters compared to solo.

Is it just match quality being bad? Are you just recognizing player names?

So I just queued unranked arena match after coming back from work.

Queue pops in 15 seconds (good)
Courtyard, Kyhlo, and Temple. I vote Temple.
…6 votes for Courtyard (gg premade)

See attached screenshot for result

Epic team comp, thanks Obama!
Going off of the PvP titles I saw on teammates/opponents I presume at least MMR was okay.
Only one person on blue got any rank points, and that was because I brought warbanner.

What should be done? Maybe we can start with one or more of these:

• Ensure premades never face non-premades, and perhaps also eliminate a party of 4 from queueing
• Remove Courtyard from the map selection, at least when it is premade vs non-premade
• Give each party exactly one vote (so a party of 4-5 has only one vote for a map)

tl;dr—Matchmaking evidently failed, as it took about 15 seconds to match a solo queue with a premade (or near full premade)

Courtyard + premades spawncamping ensured my 4 teammates got zero rank points for playing.

Eliminate premade vs non-premade, remove Courtyard, or give each party exactly one map vote

Dude stop whining, its unranked, which is what ‘Practice’ really is. Hotjoin is ‘Fun’, if its any practice its 1v1 practice. Unranked is like the ‘Team Practice’.

Maybe you just had a team full of people testing things out and you was the one really trying.

This is an MMORPG you gotta play with others, make friends with others.
You can talk about how you enjoy playing solo and bs, but fact is, you would rather play with friends, you just aint got any and refuse to even try even though its much more fun playing with friends.

Yall need to stop soloing all the time and invite good players to que again with you and invite more good players to que with you until you have a full party and if people leave then invite good players to que up with you and eventually youll have an active pvp friendlist and wont worry about queing solo.

I’m glad there is some kind of advantage of queing with others, you should get an advantage, it should get people to want to party with one another and actually make pvp fun.

Only thing that needs to hold its own is the leaderboards. The developers need to get those preppy popular kids to keep playing as well. The developers need to make losing less harsh, as in if you lose you go down 33% of the way, if you win you go 100% of the way. This way people are more inclined to CONTINUE playing when they have a good leaderboard spot rather than STOP playing due too, ‘I might face good players and not look good anymore… since I got lucky to get this far.’. Making losing less harsh is a good thing.

Lol real spectacular matchmaking. Lets take the premade of three, put them with the premade of two. Then just throw the other team full of pugs.

uberkingkong.8041:

DaveGan.8065:

Justin ODell.9517:

I’m really curious as to how you guys are figuring out if the other team is a pre-made. We don’t tell you, and looking at the data there are very few party rosters compared to solo.

Is it just match quality being bad? Are you just recognizing player names?

So I just queued unranked arena match after coming back from work.

Queue pops in 15 seconds (good)
Courtyard, Kyhlo, and Temple. I vote Temple.
…6 votes for Courtyard (gg premade)

See attached screenshot for result

Epic team comp, thanks Obama!
Going off of the PvP titles I saw on teammates/opponents I presume at least MMR was okay.
Only one person on blue got any rank points, and that was because I brought warbanner.

What should be done? Maybe we can start with one or more of these:

• Ensure premades never face non-premades, and perhaps also eliminate a party of 4 from queueing
• Remove Courtyard from the map selection, at least when it is premade vs non-premade
• Give each party exactly one vote (so a party of 4-5 has only one vote for a map)

tl;dr—Matchmaking evidently failed, as it took about 15 seconds to match a solo queue with a premade (or near full premade)

Courtyard + premades spawncamping ensured my 4 teammates got zero rank points for playing.

Eliminate premade vs non-premade, remove Courtyard, or give each party exactly one map vote

Dude stop whining, its unranked, which is what ‘Practice’ really is. Hotjoin is ‘Fun’, if its any practice its 1v1 practice. Unranked is like the ‘Team Practice’.

Maybe you just had a team full of people testing things out and you was the one really trying.

This is an MMORPG you gotta play with others, make friends with others.
You can talk about how you enjoy playing solo and bs, but fact is, you would rather play with friends, you just aint got any and refuse to even try even though its much more fun playing with friends.

Yall need to stop soloing all the time and invite good players to que again with you and invite more good players to que with you until you have a full party and if people leave then invite good players to que up with you and eventually youll have an active pvp friendlist and wont worry about queing solo.

I’m glad there is some kind of advantage of queing with others, you should get an advantage, it should get people to want to party with one another and actually make pvp fun.

Only thing that needs to hold its own is the leaderboards. The developers need to get those preppy popular kids to keep playing as well. The developers need to make losing less harsh, as in if you lose you go down 33% of the way, if you win you go 100% of the way. This way people are more inclined to CONTINUE playing when they have a good leaderboard spot rather than STOP playing due too, ‘I might face good players and not look good anymore… since I got lucky to get this far.’. Making losing less harsh is a good thing.

i queue solo for a reason, i dont want to play premade games. Solo and team queue have two different play styles, i preferred solo queue by far to team queue.

For me at least forming a premade team is just not fun, i like to log on and queue by myself and play against other plays that are by themselves. If i wanted to play team queue i would have already been doing it for the past how many months/years its been available.

Justin ODell.9517:

I’m really curious as to how you guys are figuring out if the other team is a pre-made. We don’t tell you, and looking at the data there are very few party rosters compared to solo.

Is it just match quality being bad? Are you just recognizing player names?

First of all… How did you get this job… I really want to be nice but… Are you stupid? People like you who obviously don’t have a clue on whats going on in pvp should not reply on a pvp topic…

Now on topic:

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

1 question to Anet: Are you serious or simply have no idea of what you are doing?!

Are the game developers simply cut-off from the rest MMo world out there? If this game had something in it’s pvp, it was that you could not run as solo, and get massacred by a premade team, that’s organised, using TS etc… You either go solo and fight alongside random players, or you get a full team and fight against a full team.

I mean seriously, did you guys just change random stuff?! I’m sorry but changing this system, while the game is already 2 years old, is the greatest mistake I’ve ever seen in an MMO… No offence but seriously what the…

100% Agree…. 10 matches today vs 9 pre-mades… Lost 9 (ofcourse) -.-

I really love the new UI… And Anet did a really awesome job on the 4vs5 garbage plan… But common guys….

I normally do not post stuff on forums but… If I look back on how pvp was 1½ years ago, you developers/creators should just put your heads down and be ashamed… This is just bad, really bad

uberkingkong.8041:

Dude stop whining, its unranked

Is that a guarantee that the same result would never happen in ranked?

Because I partial queued ranked later last night when friends came on, and I recall every match except maybe 1 or 2 was lopsided one way or the other.

uberkingkong.8041:

Bunch of non sequiturs on a level similar to creationist Americans

No point trying to use logic with people who don’t use logic. Good luck in GW2 PvP and keep having fun getting carried by your friends.

@Justin ODell: This debate is about perception, not statistics.

It is very clear that the matches the past few days have been badly unbalanced. I cannot prove why.

This is not a debate over numbers. It is over subjective experience. In my opinion, the experience of PvP has suffered badly because the skill levels are blatantly unbalanced.

The “good” PvP players need to remember that new blood keeps a game rolling. In politics we talk about protecting minorities from the “tyrrany of the majority.”

Ayn Rand style attitudes of let the chips fall where they may and “good” players “deserve” rewards works in theory only. In the real world it leads to a shrinking elite and a dead game.

Not losing MMR means exactly nothing emotionally when you get steamrollered.

I think that the major ques are these:

Seeing the same (winning) group of players repeatedly.

Seeing groups entirely or mostly composed of one guild.

Coordination in a team that makes it clear that they are on voice or otherwise highly experienced.

Admittedly; This last cue could represent a group of random high skill players or an organized group. The effect is the same either way.

I think not factoring MMR is as big a mistake as factoring it only. The game should factor MMR and other statistics.

Here’s a suggestion for you:

New factoring rule; Unless a group is a designated team, no more than 2 of a group may be on the same side in a subsequent match.

Justin ODell.9517:

Ithilwen.1529:

@Justin ODell: This debate is about perception, not statistics.

This is not a debate over numbers. It is over subjective experience. In my opinion, the experience of PvP has suffered badly because the skill levels are blatantly unbalanced.

This is exactly why I asked the question. I wan’t to know what ques people are picking up on that are leading to this perception. There could be something else going on, maybe if we gave players more information it would help, etc.. There could also be a disconnect between the data, which I’ll need to look at and see if we can make improvements.

Not losing MMR means exactly nothing emotionally when you get steamrollered.

Agreed, which is why we moved away from the old matchmaking that only factored for MMR.

I am a solo player and was confused about the way this was working.

In my mind unranked = solo-q for me. At least that was how I “thought” it was supposed to work with the new system.

Some of the things that I experienced can be posted here:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Fighting-too-many-premades-in-unranked-arenas/first#post4602210

Solo-Q, while people hated it on the forums, was a necessity in game. It gave solo-players the ability to avoid premades while still allowing for matchmaking that didn’t completely ruin the spvp experience like hotjoin does by allowing people to just leave a match whenever they want with no penalty.

Now Solo players are essentially forced into team merged games where we are just getting steamrolled by organized players.

Certain 2-3 man combinations in Gw2 can easily tip the balance of a game.

a 1-1-1-1-1 is going to lose to just about anything because one ele+sword thief combination organizing on vent can seem like a 5 man premade due to how effective even just a 2 teamspeak pairing with certain classes is.

I think this is what players are experiencing.

You’ve literally created a system where ALL solo players are effectively reduced to cow feed for just about any type of premade combination ranging from a 2 man bunker/killer team to anything above.

Naturally solo players (which are the casual majority of SPVP players) are going to reject the experience.

I feel like at this rate, the system is close to if not already failed.

To fix the system the only choice you really have is to slot 1-1-1-1-1 in their own group, which is essentially what solo-q was and why it worked. This pretty much undos the entire purpose of the new system is is really want solo players want.

I really feel for all the work that went into this matchmaking system, I just wish more was divulged to us before release. I feel like so much work went into this for nothing.

Thank You. I believe that’s the first time a Dev has responded to something I said. It changes my attitude for the better.

Justin ODell.9517:

youre not factoring in some things, such as:

average knowledge of pvp strategies, rotations, and roles
the power of 3rd party communications
average player skill
what a 2 player premade can do
a timeline (impossible as of now) of larger premades vs smaller ones
team composition in a pick up group environment
what all of these things can do for a team when they are in sync

Justin ODell.9517:

FOX.3582:

100% Agree…. 10 matches today vs 9 pre-mades… Lost 9 (ofcourse) -.-

This is why I asked the question. Player perception doesn’t always match the empirical evidence. I pulled up your match history since we launched the new servers.

5 vs 4+1
2 1+1+1 vs 2+1+1+1
1+1+1+1+1 vs 2+2+1
5 vs 4+1
5 vs 1
2+1+1+1 vs 1+1+1+1+1
5 vs 3+1+1
1+1+1+1+1 vs 4+1
5 vs 2+1+1+1
3+1+1 vs 2+1+1+1
1+1+1+1+1 vs 2+1+1+1
1+1+1+1+1 vs 1+1+1+1+1
2+1+1+1+1 vs 1+1+1+1+1
2+1+1+1 vs 1+1+1+1+1

Only 3 of those were matches that were stacked against you.
5 vs 1
1+1+1+1+1 vs 4+1
5 vs 2+1+1+1

I’m want to improve things so even those don’t happen, but sometimes things just don’t happen the way we perceive them to have happened.

This is interesting, i think in general “5vs not 5” shouldn’t happen and i think They were the worst matches in his case

I’d like to know the score for 3-1-1 vs 2-1-1-1 and 5vs 4-1 i think it’s not a good combination. Same for 2-2-1 vs 1-1-1-1-1

I applaud the PvP developers for really trying hard to create a good matchup for everybody.

You can only measure what is truly accurately measurable.

I think this is a really tough problem because different factors may not combine in a smooth, linear fashion. There may be step functions and leaps when some things come together. 1 plus 1 = 4. Or 10!

A good pattern matching algorithm sifting the game data might be able to tease out some correlations that are not readily apparent. They may be non-intuitive once you see the correlations.

It may be that ANY group vs 5 solos has a much bigger advantage than we suspect. If so, then the expected win calculator MUST know that or the ladder rankings will be all “off”. Perhaps they may be essentially random if you are not careful.

The “expected win algorithm” is everything. It determines the rewards for ranking and it MUST be accurate in assessing a team.

Are you guys validating the “expected win algorithm” against actual games, then?

If there is not a very strong correlation, i.e. “80% of the predictions come true”, then there is a real problem.

Right?

I can understand that there were improvements that could be made to the matching algorithm but did this require also the merging of SoloQ and TeamQ. Not sure how this was supposed to help but it surely hasn’t.

I am sure all the work on the algorithm is worth it just restore SoloQ as an option. Most major issues improved instantly.

Justin ODell.9517:

The shortest version of that story is that we believe there is more value in having an unranked place for people to play.

I suppose time will tell on that, as ultimately what is valuable has to be a decision for the players to decide. It is entirely possible there are many players who want a competitive game, but don’t want to spend time forming teams, yet don’t like getting steamrolled either. If that is a large group (who previously made up a core part of the SoloQ community, which seems likely) and they give up playing (not unlikely after my recent experiences) then your hypothesis about value may be flawed.

Justin ODell.9517:

Jak Shadow.2864:

I can understand that there were improvements that could be made to the matching algorithm but did this require also the merging of SoloQ and TeamQ. Not sure how this was supposed to help but it surely hasn’t.

I am sure all the work on the algorithm is worth it just restore SoloQ as an option. Most major issues improved instantly.

The shortest version of that story is that we believe there is more value in having an unranked place for people to play. Part of that choice includes the fact we can now modify the servers much more easily and make changes faster.

That does mean we’re ignoring what people are saying about solo vs premade.

But did that unranked play have to come at the price of subjugating all solo players to months if not an entire year of being curbstomped so you can build metrics?

The current state of pvp is going to drive all but the most serious pvp players from the game. Unranked matches are going to turn into a reward farm for organized teams to climb the R80 ladder. Even fewer still are actually going to play at the level envisioned for ranked team matches.

As a solo player you have three choices. Either become a virtual loot bag for organized teams, be forced to play hot joins where players have no penalty for leaving and have misaligned matches, or get serious about pvp and dedicate yourself to an organized team (which comes with all sorts of unenjoyment for people who aren’t serious pvp players).

So you have to ask yourself, as a metrics guy. What is the majority of your playerbase? Organized pvp players? Solo joiners?

If you want to drive people towards organized play only, with no step ladder to get there, then you have to consider: How many people are going to just leave pvp altogether (possibly even guildwars if the experience is bad enough)?

I’m interested to see what your metrics are going to look like. If less people will be playing PvP under these new rules or if there will be more. I for one, as a solo queuer with bear rank will be quitting PvP unless forced until this new system is fixed or proven to have value. So there’s a -1 to your metrics right there.

It’s unfortunate that the soloplayers have the pay the price for this experiment. From what I understand, the soloplayer/semi-casuals are are pretty large playerbase.

Some people, like myself, just want accessible pvp with decent rewards. SoloQ made that happen. Yes, people screamed and moaned about SoloQ, but the bottom line was most people I know played it.

I’m hoping there was some good metric reason for you to remove it, and I hope you consider the fact that most people boycotted SoloQ because of skyhammer and not because the queue itself was broken.

Justin ODell.9517:

I hope unranked will fill this place for you. I understand what you’re saying, and we are paying attention.

I seriously hope that if you are even entertaining the idea of possibly reintroducing YoloQ, that you wouldn’t replace any of the new ones with it, but rather add it as yet another option.

RIP Solo queue. I’ve came across the same 5 man team multiple times in the past few hours. I believe 2 people each time were grouped together the other 3 including myself were solo. It should only do 5v4+1 maybe 5v3+2 at the most.

Justin ODell.9517:

lordhelmos.7623:

But did that unranked play have to come at the price of subjugating all solo players to months if not an entire year of being curbstomped so you can build metrics?

I’m guessing you’re expressing skepticism here, but its only been 2 days… give me a bit more time. I’ll consider it a personal failing if I can’t resolve the issue after a year.

lordhelmos.7623:

Unranked matches are going to turn into a reward farm for organized teams to climb the R80 ladder. Even fewer still are actually going to play at the level envisioned for ranked team matches.

Unranked will not have a ladder, so maybe you meant ranked? The goal is to make it far more likely that high skill level teams are paired against each other.

lordhelmos.7623:

If you want to drive people towards organized play only, with no step ladder to get there

We choose unranked because it acts as a stepping stone. We expect the more organized players to gravitate toward ranked arena for the additional ladder rewards.

lordhelmos.7623:

Some people, like myself, just want accessible pvp with decent rewards. SoloQ made that happen.

I hope unranked will fill this place for you. I understand what you’re saying, and we are paying attention.

I’ll give you that. I’m also pretty sure your getting hammered by your corporate guys to turn SPVP into something like the League of Legends 29million viewer finals that pulled more attention than the USA NBA finals.

I will say that this is a very different kind of playerbase because every game system of guildwars 2 outside of a very small avenue of SPVP is geared towards casual play for people who work full time jobs, don’t want to be tied to a time-based subscription, and have limited playtime. This is what makes the game successful.

I will say while I applaud the effort, it will be very difficult to create a highly competitive environment with a game whose root systems are deeply tied to the casual player. Its almost like building a firing range for high powered rifles inside of a dance studio.

If you ask me, you should have focused on making SPVP more fun over competitive -and instead just engineered a side game like Blizzard did with Hearthstone to tap into the competitive pvp world. Guildwars 2 is really too complex of a game and doesn’t have the root systems needed to create balanced PvP play, there are too many moving parts. Esports games need to be simple (such as 1 fire button, 1 secondary fire button, a limited selection of guns but a wide variety of tactics on how they can be employed).

Guildwars has too many moving parts, too many traits, too many unique class mechanics with different dependencies, too many scripted AI-based abilities. It’s an absolute nightmare to balance for esports when compared to something like LoL, who’s heroes have like what, 3-5 skills and an ultimate.

I may have mispoke when I said “climb the R80 ladder.” I’m still not sure how ranking and points work in the new system, what I was referring to are organized teams dominating the large casual player base that is really just there to complete the spvp reward tracks, which are going to be incredibly painful to finish now.

I’m willing to give it some time. The real success to this is to see if:

A.) More people actually play PvP now and not less
B.) High skill players actually migrate to the ranked play.

I know I sound cynical but I really hope that whatever your doing, it works.

Wouldn’t more info actually stop people to report fake problems like “I’ve only faced premades as a solo queuer !” ?

I mean, show us the premade groups, show us the MMR/ranks/leaderboard IN GAME when starting the match. This would drastically lower the false reports that we have here, and avoid you take wrong decisions based on that.

We have the right to see who we are facing. There is nothing secret in this info. By constantly hiding this info you are yourself provoking those reactions. I mean I play Hearthstone and Starcraft a bit on the side, and why I play ranked there I see what rank my opponent has !

lordhelmos.7623:

Justin ODell.9517:

lordhelmos.7623:

But did that unranked play have to come at the price of subjugating all solo players to months if not an entire year of being curbstomped so you can build metrics?

I’m guessing you’re expressing skepticism here, but its only been 2 days… give me a bit more time. I’ll consider it a personal failing if I can’t resolve the issue after a year.

lordhelmos.7623:

Unranked matches are going to turn into a reward farm for organized teams to climb the R80 ladder. Even fewer still are actually going to play at the level envisioned for ranked team matches.

Unranked will not have a ladder, so maybe you meant ranked? The goal is to make it far more likely that high skill level teams are paired against each other.

lordhelmos.7623:

If you want to drive people towards organized play only, with no step ladder to get there

We choose unranked because it acts as a stepping stone. We expect the more organized players to gravitate toward ranked arena for the additional ladder rewards.

lordhelmos.7623:

Some people, like myself, just want accessible pvp with decent rewards. SoloQ made that happen.

I hope unranked will fill this place for you. I understand what you’re saying, and we are paying attention.

I’ll give you that. I’m also pretty sure your getting hammered by your corporate guys to turn SPVP into something like the League of Legends 29million viewer finals that pulled more attention than the USA NBA finals.

I will say that this is a very different kind of playerbase because every game system of guildwars 2 outside of a very small avenue of SPVP is geared towards casual play for people who work full time jobs, don’t want to be tied to a time-based subscription, and have limited playtime. This is what makes the game successful.

I will say while I applaud the effort, it will be very difficult to create a highly competitive environment with a game whose root systems are deeply tied to the casual player. Its almost like building a firing range for high powered rifles inside of a dance studio.

If you ask me, you should have focused on making SPVP more fun over competitive -and instead just engineered a side game like Blizzard did with Hearthstone to tap into the competitive pvp world. Guildwars 2 is really too complex of a game and doesn’t have the root systems needed to create balanced PvP play, there are too many moving parts. Esports games need to be simple (such as 1 fire button, 1 secondary fire button, a limited selection of guns but a wide variety of tactics on how they can be employed).

Guildwars has too many moving parts, too many traits, too many unique class mechanics with different dependencies, too many scripted AI-based abilities. It’s an absolute nightmare to balance for esports when compared to something like LoL, who’s heroes have like what, 3-5 skills and an ultimate.

I may have mispoke when I said “climb the R80 ladder.” I’m still not sure how ranking and points work in the new system, what I was referring to are organized teams dominating the large casual player base that is really just there to complete the spvp reward tracks, which are going to be incredibly painful to finish now.

I’m willing to give it some time. The real success to this is to see if:

A.) More people actually play PvP now and not less
B.) High skill players actually migrate to the ranked play.

I know I sound cynical but I really hope that whatever your doing, it works.

I agree on the many moving parts of the game, the huge AI system, and it having a complex pvp system in general. But Dumbfounding the game too much can have the same effect of >insert big mmo here<, ruining the diversity of how one toon can be played and ultimately ruining the pvp experience (for me) because of it’s more simplicit nature.
The meta guides are there for noobies to utilize solid builds while top teams will dominate as always.
In all honesty, AI’s and complexity can work if you have a solid system in place. Many people enjoy the diverse nature of the game while others have accepted it. It’s still one of the most balanced pvp games I’ve played.

Don’t get me started with Spvp… sure people love the fact that it’s solo play and not against premades. That it has a competitive aspect to it because of the fake rank system where moving up is based on 70% luck and 30% skill. If you didn’t win your first 10+ games then you’ll never be in the top 20 let alone top 50; earning rank due to pure skill after x amount of time invested never existed.

So, solo players that are not “serious pvp players” (I understand “pvp-only players”) should go to unranked ?

Here is my story, and I strongly believe I’m not alone : I mainly play GW2 toward goals. I enjoy the whole game (in which pvp is just a small part). My current goal in PvP, as I just reached r80, is to finish all profession achievements. That means, 200 ""tournament"" (now : ranked) wins (yes, 200. I know it was 150 tournament + 50 hotjoin but I preferred staying in solo queue up to 200 for game quality and rewards. Now I may as well go for 150 ranked and 50 unranked but that’s still mostly ranked). I still have a lot to do : currently have 104/200 on my 5th character (out of 8 ).

Which is why I immediately started playing Ranked after the update. For my next 3 characters I’ll probably play 50 wins in unranked so that I can master their builds then go for 150 more in ranked.

I had fun in solo queue. It was not perfect, there were often new players who didn’t know about hotjoin, some ragers … but the overall match quality was OK for me. Now in ranked arena, I face premade teams (btw I’d be very interested if you can get my data for yesterday) and there is no fun as I have no chance to win. In addition to that, my current goals became much longer : 200 victories with 30% wins = 667 matches take longer than 200 victories with 55% wins = 364 matches. And even more longer as my motivation to play PvP will decrease since I know that I’ll most probably face premades.

Second point : guilds. I feel that after discovering how the new system allows premades to farm, a lot of previous solo queue players decided to go premade. One of my enemy teams yesterday (a guild) openly explained that they are PvE players … but they also said that they got 37 wins out of 40 matches in the day : they just realized how farmable the new PvP is and went for a whole day of PvP (remember, they are PvE players). Not everyone is able to do that, and real solo players can only get farmed now. About my own case (this time I may be alone) : I don’t have a guild anymore. I have been playing alone for months now (my last real guild was destroyed, and the leader of the next one – that I joined just because it was the last EB guild in my server but was full of trolls – kicked me before switching server as he knew I would voice against that). And even in my previous guilds, I would not have been able to form PvP teams at the times of the day when I currently go to PvP.

Also, I don’t want to join a guild for PvP. I’m really happy about the solo queue playstyle and freedom. So I will not be among the ones who start making teams to exploit the new system.

The metrics you’re going to collect is going to start being less players in spvp before long. I hopped on to check out the new digs and got steam rolled in spvp so far. I compare this in my mind to 400 to 500 spread match norm before the changes. Watch the new point spread.

Ah i see what is happening here… This is the “Justin ODell Show”

So so soooo many players here on the pvp forums who had great ideas. In my opinion some of those ideas would have really helped balance the pvp section of this game. But no no no, the only thing you want now is to force feed us the “Justin ODell idea spoon” so you and your team can say “look what we did”…

Want to fix pvp? Listen to your players… Some posted ideas on this forum with scripts and explanations, and it was all for nothing.

You only have to make pvp so that you can go solo (WITH OTHER SOLO PLAYERS), or you go with team (WITH OTHER TEAM MEMBERS).

You really did a great job on the balance issue! But now you want us to cheer, for something that should not have been here in the first place?!

Get a grip and just fix pvp without the show or nonsense…

Justin ODell.9517:

FOX.3582:

100% Agree…. 10 matches today vs 9 pre-mades… Lost 9 (ofcourse) -.-

This is why I asked the question. Player perception doesn’t always match the empirical evidence. I pulled up your match history since we launched the new servers.

5 vs 4+1
2 1+1+1 vs 2+1+1+1
1+1+1+1+1 vs 2+2+1
5 vs 4+1
5 vs 1
2+1+1+1 vs 1+1+1+1+1
5 vs 3+1+1
1+1+1+1+1 vs 4+1
5 vs 2+1+1+1
3+1+1 vs 2+1+1+1
1+1+1+1+1 vs 2+1+1+1
1+1+1+1+1 vs 1+1+1+1+1
2+1+1+1+1 vs 1+1+1+1+1
2+1+1+1 vs 1+1+1+1+1

Only 3 of those were matches that were stacked against you.
5 vs 1
1+1+1+1+1 vs 4+1
5 vs 2+1+1+1

I’m want to improve things so even those don’t happen, but sometimes things just don’t happen the way we perceive them to have happened.

This is brilliant, shows exactly how players will assume the odds are stacked against them when they lose! It’s only human, my brain does it too, but you guys have to remember it’s just a fallacy.

Justin, it’s great that you guys are monitoring and responding to people’s concerns, but I hope you won’t make any radical changes for at least a few weeks, because it won’t be obvious if the new system works until you’ve had enough data. If you need to make any adjustments, maybe increase the rating weight of party size slightly.

At all costs please don’t bring back solo queue. It was a toxic environment, and its existence was completely illogical in a game mode where teamwork was such a huge part of the game. Its population was tiny, and composed only of ill-tempered, kitten-talking people who only cared about their leaderboard ranking, plus a few people trying out builds they weren’t ready to bring into team queue. It was 3 parts playing, 7 parts smack-talk. And now that we have an unranked queue, it’s not necessary .

PS. To everyone trying the “invite to party” think: it’s not a fullproof indicator. The invitee might be in a full party WHO ALL DECLINED THE TOURNAMENT SIGNUP. So they could be in a full party but still playing on their own.

manveruppd.7601:

At all costs please don’t bring back solo queue. It was a toxic environment, and its existence was completely illogical in a game mode where teamwork was such a huge part of the game. Its population was tiny, and composed only of ill-tempered, kitten-talking people who only cared about their leaderboard ranking, plus a few people trying out builds they weren’t ready to bring into team queue. It was 3 parts playing, 7 parts smack-talk. And now that we have an unranked queue, it’s not necessary .

Do you think so? Bit of an over generalisation perhaps? Personally I made quite a few friends in the SoloQ. And I can tell you that I have never met as many abusive, smack-talking, body jumping players as I have in the last few days. Much, much worse than SoloQ.

You don’t like it fine. You don’t have to play it. Those of us who did now have less choice than previously. And I don’t see that “Unranked” offers the same choice at all – still able to get pre-made teams but added to that the potential for lots of people who just don’t care – so even more afk’ing in game or spoofing around generally.

Still don’t see the logic for the merger at all except perhaps there were not enough pre-made teams around to sustain the TeamQ. Personally I would rather wait (though not in the Mists) for a decent game against others who want to play on the same basis as me. That is what I had before and don’t now.

manveruppd.7601:

At all costs please don’t bring back solo queue. It was a toxic environment, and its existence was completely illogical in a game mode where teamwork was such a huge part of the game. Its population was tiny, and composed only of ill-tempered, kitten-talking people who only cared about their leaderboard ranking, plus a few people trying out builds they weren’t ready to bring into team queue. It was 3 parts playing, 7 parts smack-talk. And now that we have an unranked queue, it’s not necessary .

I have no problem with the removal of YoloQ, if they fix matchmaking.

Courtyard just now, us 5 solo players against a full premade, 0 points for our team, zero rank points, got farmed till 500-0.

QQ