Guild Wars 2

I’ve started documenting all my matches, classes, party sizes win/loss rate etc.

Gonna be fun to throw some facts out!

So I played quite a few games tonight, my experience was still fairly bad. I didn’t really run into many full premades, I believe, duo and tri was the most I saw. However, players’ skill levels were all over the place. Also there was a lot of class stacking still (dual thieves, mesmers, and rangers). However, I guess most of this can be blamed for the time period. I played from 1 am to 6 am pst, so the already small pvp population was even smaller.

Harbinger.8637:

So I played quite a few games tonight, my experience was still fairly bad. I didn’t really run into many full premades, I believe, duo and tri was the most I saw. However, players’ skill levels were all over the place. Also there was a lot of class stacking still (dual thieves, mesmers, and rangers). However, I guess most of this can be blamed for the time period. I played from 1 am to 6 am pst, so the already small pvp population was even smaller.

Player skill is all over the place. Within individual games there is too high a discrepancy in player skill. It is probably the main issue.

Archaon.9524:

U freaking serious anet? 5 pugs vs 4que gg

I’m not familiar with MMR as I went away from spvp for a bit while most of the changes were being made. am I missing something from your screenshot that shows if you’re up against a premade or not? the only way I’ve been able to tell is after the game starts I look at enemy nameplates as we’re fighting and see if multiple players have the same guild acronym. This doesn’t seem practical especially if they’re not in the same guild. Is there some indication on the team list that shows this that I’m not seeing?

Also to chime in on the OP throughout this month that I’ve started spvp again I felt like my win ratio was reasonable a little over 50%, but like others have stated this last week I really feel like I hit a wall and continually end up in horrible matchups. Last night I think I even had a game where I didn’t kill anyone. not even stomping another players kill.

It seems like they’re doing something right to me, because I’ve gotten a LOT less blowout maches than I did 2 weeks ago. I solo ‘compete’ though so idk if most of these complaints are from play, practice, or compete lol.

I have noticed two things, though. First, there have been a lot of disconnects and 4v5/3v5 matches. Second, I’ve been lagging a lot and seeing a lot of other players complain that they’ve been lagging a lot, too.

I have had a lot of pug vs premade matches still, but they weren’t like the 500-0 losses from before, lol. I know that my experiences don’t reflect those of the entire community, though, so it could be a lot different for other players.

rajule.8054:

Archaon.9524:

U freaking serious anet? 5 pugs vs 4que gg

I’m not familiar with MMR as I went away from spvp for a bit while most of the changes were being made. am I missing something from your screenshot that shows if you’re up against a premade or not? the only way I’ve been able to tell is after the game starts I look at enemy nameplates as we’re fighting and see if multiple players have the same guild acronym. This doesn’t seem practical especially if they’re not in the same guild. Is there some indication on the team list that shows this that I’m not seeing?

Also to chime in on the OP throughout this month that I’ve started spvp again I felt like my win ratio was reasonable a little over 50%, but like others have stated this last week I really feel like I hit a wall and continually end up in horrible matchups. Last night I think I even had a game where I didn’t kill anyone. not even stomping another players kill.

Sometimes when you recognise all the names on the other side it’s a safe assumption they’re a premade. That team has Blackmoa, PHD, Amsterkitten in it and Got Gruntled and Henry are no slouches either.

You can also right click them and see if you can add them to party. If you can’t, they’re queueing with at least 1 other person. If you can’t add anyone it’s either a 5 man or a 3+2.

got matched against the same 5 man premade like 4 times in a row. justin pls

Bumping to share my experience!

It took me 80 games to finally break a 50% w/l, this was all soloq. It seems like it has been getting better, however there are still blowout games. 4v5 aren’t really prevalent anymore, which is a good thing. Also I tend to play the same players over and over again, kind of annoying, however this is just due to the small pop size. Class stacking is still an issue, a lot of duo and tri classes on the same team.

Morwath.9817:

Ofc I don’t remember name of each character of each player in TCG, because such things aren’t worth memorizing.

I do, and I envy you. It’s amazing the amount of useless trivia the human mind can store.

I mostly Soloq but today has been THE WORST DAY EVER idk what is going on but it feels like I’m getting grouped with beginners. Been having games where people duo cap home or stay far all game! No rotation no nothing!! Did something change?! I had like a 3 game losing streak then from one second to the next the quality in teammates just feels like it dropped significantly….. Am I just having a run of bad game or is something going on?!?! I’d really appreciate some feedback because its really frustrating. Im really starting to miss soloq right now…..

Hello.

Map skyham, 1:45 am central europe. I just got paired in unranked with a lv3 warrior, 186 achievemnt point and he said "how to pvp? "

Can I please get my MMR checked?
Is it at least 90% in old terms?

I think my MMR is ok since i get paired with poeple in my guild often and sometimes more known poeple…
But a complete ZERO HOURS new player should never be matched with a “at least top1000” player in old terms.

We won easily so i wont ask what the other team had.

I just wish I knew my MMR and my teammates. I want to know if I’m getting the short end or I am the short end of the stick in matches. It’s frustrating to wait a while to play and then get destroyed.

Not sure if this would fix the problem, but I really think tiers would help because then the pool of people would theoretically be equal. If there aren’t enough people in your tier to play a ranked match then I would at least like a message asking if I wanted to move up or down tier in order to play.

I suspect the PvP population of more experienced players has dropped and you are being teamed with new people who have just bought the game.

Serezenith.3501:

While we’re looking into curiosities, is there any special reason why I keep getting matched against certain people? There’s one particularly handsome guardian the system keeps matching me against. This is troublesome. I am developing feelings for my darling K****r, and I’m forced to show my affection by rekking him.

They should call it matchbreaking, not matchmaking.

Ask him to meet you after the match behind the treb practice area.

Anyways, I also been seeing just terrible matches and like 1 win every 5 losses lately. I really wonder if its me or the really good people I paired with that were farming the Winterday track are now gone and I’m being shoveled into low end pug groups for solo q. If I do win, its mostly only going be by 50-100 and not any more than that. If I lose its anywhere from 300 behind to 50 behind.

Recently I’ve been getting (fairly) decent matchmaking, however this last match I had ~15 minutes ago on temple in unranked was filled with people who obviously did not know how to play (not watching minimap, double+ capping, double buff channeling, rushing into lost fights, etc). I waited over 6 minutes for the match too. I wouldn’t think there’d be population issues at 1PM on a tuesday in the US, but I guess so.

Tonight was quite odd, went 10-1 or something like that, lost track of it. I just find it peculiar every other day I struggled to go 50% when I soloq, yet tonight I hardly lost anything. Maybe nobody is playing idk.

I don’t know exactly how matchmaking works but it seems that lately I loose more games than I win ( it used to be balanced , ~48-52 when now I loose about2/3 of the matches) I play solo, I don’t think I came across full premades but it seems like the teams are not balanced. The opposite teams often have dragon ranks (I know that doesnt mean they are good but it can also mean they are too good)and they seem to be experienced and know what they doing and same time my team have people who seem to have no idea what to do, for example downing but not finish or follow you and then do nothing to help :/

I’m actually finding off hours (12am pst and later) to be much more enjoyable when it comes to soloq. Hardly run into premades and the teams are relevantly balanced, compared to primetime, which is just a terrible experience for me. Only downside is the que times tend to be a bit longer.

Justin ODell.9517:

Arietta The Broken.1875:

day no. 28 of horrible match ups vs full teams. \o/

In the last 7 days you’ve had 175 games played in unranked arena. That’s made up of 82 victories, 13 buys, 73 defeats, 6 forfeits, and 1 desertion… that’s 95 wins to 80 losses. Of the 175 games only 4 times were you stacked against pre-mades and did not have an equivalent pre-made on your team.

I love it when he does that! People are coming on the forums complaining that all their matchups are terrible and they’re getting wrecked and Justin goes “nope, you’re winning about 50% of the time, here’s proof”. I don’t know what’s causing so many people to think they’re getting screwed over by the system when they’re clearly not. Could be:
a. their losses stand out more in their memory than their wins, so they think they’re losing more than they are, or
b. they have an accurate estimate of their wins/loss ratio, but they overestimate their own ability so think it should be higher, or
c. they attribute every win to their own awesomeness and every loss to bad matchmaking.
Either way, we’re all just being human, but people should really read about cognitive bias before coming on here to moan. Remember, however good you are at this game, you’re not special, you’re just a number! :p
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases

Just had a 5 pugs vs a 5 man guild. This should not be happening. I’m evening playing (just now) at a time where there are lots of players online compared to at after midnight when most people are sleeping.

I don’t understand why I’m having to be put up against a full partied team when I am going in solo.

I’m sure Justin or someone will say that the 5 man groups have to fight someone. Well it shouldn’t be against 5 random pugs.

I haven’t had a match up like this in a while but whenever I see it I instantly rage.

I’m also sure Justin may pop up with some statistics. About my win and loss rate (been winning quite a bit). I wouldn’t mind losing if I knew my enemies were also 5 random pugs but when put up against a full guild team, I just find that stupid.

manveruppd.7601:

I love it when he does that! People are coming on the forums complaining that all their matchups are terrible and they’re getting wrecked and Justin goes “nope, you’re winning about 50% of the time, here’s proof”. I don’t know what’s causing so many people to think they’re getting screwed over by the system when they’re clearly not. Could be:
a. their losses stand out more in their memory than their wins, so they think they’re losing more than they are, or
b. they have an accurate estimate of their wins/loss ratio, but they overestimate their own ability so think it should be higher, or
c. they attribute every win to their own awesomeness and every loss to bad matchmaking.
Either way, we’re all just being human, but people should really read about cognitive bias before coming on here to moan. Remember, however good you are at this game, you’re not special, you’re just a number! :p
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases

Or there are people like me, whose losses Justin admitted he had no explanation for. All I could tell from the matchups was that my teams were being overmatched by far better players, so I chalked it up to an aberrant spike in my MMR. But even winning roughly 50% of my games since the losing streak that prompted this thread, I have seen that a great number of my wins AND losses resulted from one team or the other having a ton of really inexperienced players on them, which is at the base of many complaints on the forum.

I’m no pro player, but I’ve been teamed repeatedly with people who don’t know basic map mechanics, run past downed teammates and uncapped points, afk if we’re down by 100 points, trickle into mid one by one to get rekt by the other team over and over again, simple things that don’t imply you think you’re any better than average, just that what you have to work with is far below that.

I’m hoping the partial MMR reset mentioned in another thread has started to correct this, as this morning I’ve had a ton of incredibly fun and close matches, and judging by LB point increase, my team was not predicted to win several of those. But the most important thing is that the players seemed on a pretty even playing field skill-wise. These are the kinds of matchups that are fun, that you can learn and improve from, and which keep you coming back to pvp, which at many points I’ve been just about to give up on altogether because of bad matchmaking. I’ve learned to take one set of matches with a grain of salt, but one can hope, right?

truthishly.9513:

Or there are people like me, whose losses Justin admitted he had no explanation for. All I could tell from the matchups was that my teams were being overmatched by far better players, so I chalked it up to an aberrant spike in my MMR.

He didn’t actually say that though, if he had noticed a spike in your MMR that would’ve been a possible explanation. He said he was at a loss to explain your losses, and specifically noted that premades weren’t consistently stacked against you. But since you’re back at roughly 50% now could it not have been just a fluke losing streak? That’s how randomness works, sometimes you’ll win 1, lose 1, win 2, lose 4, win 3, lose 1, win 8, lose 2 etc, while other teams you’ll just lose 77 games in a row and only get back up to 50% over a long period of time. He looked at the data, saw there were no abnormal matchups, so it was just a fluke.

But even winning roughly 50% of my games since the losing streak that prompted this thread, I have seen that a great number of my wins AND losses resulted from one team or the other having a ton of really inexperienced players on them, which is at the base of many complaints on the forum.

Yeah, that’s a separate problem and it’s a genuine one: it’s due to the big influx of new people from the sale weekend, and it’s not just a problem for us, it’s an even bigger problem for the beginners themselves who get matched up with and againt experienced players and get roflstomped. They’re all gonna quit pvp and never touch it again. I’ve made suggestions in another thread about why this problem is caused and how it could be fixed. The tl;dr is that it’s a basic weakness of the Glicko-2 algorithm, which calculates your MMR by bouncing you up and down the ladder in gradually decreasing jumps until you “settle”. The problem with it is that your first several dozen matchups are very likely to be bad ones.

manveruppd.7601:

He didn’t actually say that though, if he had noticed a spike in your MMR that would’ve been a possible explanation. He said he was at a loss to explain your losses, and specifically noted that premades weren’t consistently stacked against you.

That’s all I said that he said, I said I inferred that there was something going on with my MMR, which he later replied was probably ‘settling’ – from what, I have no idea. Maybe because at the time I was somewhat new to ranked? And while he addressed premades, I never said once that premades were an issue. Class stacking? Yes. Completely new players who should not be playing ranked? Yes. But not premades. I even defended the system in another thread as far as trying to prevent premades versus solo queuers and doing a reasonably good job at it.

My more general issue is that matches vary so much in terms of teammates it’s hard to figure out where you stand. Yesterday morning, nearly all my matches were extremely close and exciting, where everyone seemed fairly equal skill-wise. Then I teamed up with some friends later on and we continually got paired with a really inexperienced group that we trounced over and over again. Today, the matchmaking feels like it did a few days ago, some experienced players, some completely inexperienced players, usually overwhelmingly in one or the other team’s favor, and a ton of really imbalanced class stacking. Several times I’ve been on two or three mesmer teams while the other team has two thieves, or three guardians, etc. Only one of my several matches today has been close at all, and only because of a last second lord kill on Foefire.

I really think we need a combination of things to improve the pvp experience for everyone – leagues to create a hard threshold between players of different skill and experience level, matchmaking that takes class distribution into account and has some awareness of the prevailing meta, and greater transparency of the available data regarding our matches and mmr, all of this being aimed at creating better, balanced matchups for players, and serving as ways to inform and facilitate player progress. The excuse regarding queue times comes up quite often, but I think the effect of less balanced matches and the possibility of solo queue players going on long losing streaks due to ‘randomness’ is a hell of a lot more demoralizing and more likely to result in people leaving the game mode than waiting a few extra minutes for a better experience.

Justin, could you watch my game history please? I should have a decent MMR and well, lately almost all the games i played i really felt like i had no opponents or no team.
Yesterday between 10-12pm CET, i even encountered a guy with rank 10 while i were duoQ’ing with a mate with a high MMR also. How is this possible?
Two days ago I even went to play pve because there was more of a challenge to find there… ( it was at around 3am tough… but still.. you know what i mean).

I’m really getting tired of farming players with a lower skill level and if soloQ’ing having no chance of winning because some people on your team just dont understand anything of rotations.. ( f.e. me and Kida were in the same team with 2 thieves duoQ’ing with a strategy of killing chieftan and svanir first,.. and even getting both stolen… >2days ago). Yesterday i faced those guys again (on the opposite team) and it was just facerolling… which is not fun.. i want a challenge Justin

Edit: i did get Q’ed up sometimes with/against decent people, but that’s mainly only 1 or 2 people from the 10 people playing. The fact that there are people who have no clue whatsoever is more the problem i’m having

That’s quite the opposite to me. I didn’t check leaderboards for a week, but i was under the impression that i won almost all my games. The majority of matchs weren’t so bad, i never facerolled opponents 500-10.

But now i check it, and i feel i still have the same problem i had at the end of previous season, for some reason it seems like all my wins are giving me +1 point only…. And when i’m checking front page players, they don’t seem to get hurt by their loses….