Guild Wars 2

I’m curious as to what others think of the matchmaking because there were always people complaining every season. I havent seen much difference btw seasons personally and did not complain at all.

Gaile Gray.6029:

A message from the PvP Team:

… but making rewards more accessible for casual players and making divisions prestigious and a more accurate indicator of skill are among our highest priorities.

Looking forward to this.

Did you guys at least implement a method to prevent the MMR-tanking strategies many players used to get to legendary in S1?

I skipped that season completely due to the terrible match-making and this tanking thing, so am glad I only have a few days of participation to finish my back-piece and not care about PvP, esp. since eles are still so boring.

It’s a shame that you guys can’t just match people based on pip-range alone. Its so simple, it might just work!

BlackBeard.2873:

Did you guys at least implement a method to prevent the MMR-tanking strategies many players used to get to legendary in S1?

I skipped that season completely due to the terrible match-making and this tanking thing, so am glad I only have a few days of participation to finish my back-piece and not care about PvP, esp. since eles are still so boring.

It’s a shame that you guys can’t just match people based on pip-range alone. Its so simple, it might just work!

It doesn’t reflect skill so you’d still get roughly the same results.

Haven’t been motivated to play since the condi revamp. I don’t have GW2 installed anymore for the first time since launch and I don’t really miss it. There’s so much condi stacking and not an equivalent amount of clears, there’s no counter for condis. I can put every single condition in the game on someone as a single person at high stacks and high timers and unless they’ve given up their entire spec to clearing they can’t do anything about it. And that’s just 1v1, if there’s 2- 5 condi players on a team (which is every team every game) every player has too many condi on them at all times. There’s not enough dodges and clears in the game to deal with it. If you toned down condis 6 months ago your pvp would still be salvageable. It’s just not fun, interesting, or skillful anymore. You balanced to make the lowest skill playstyle basically the only viable DPS and suppression, choking the life out of any actual fun builds.

Gaile Gray.6029:

A message from the PvP Team:

With the start of Season 4, we’ll be returning to Season 1’s style of matchmaking which focuses on creating the most balanced teams from the players queueing within your pip range.

So, your solution is to going back to the “less” broken matchmaking?! Well, thanks for the effort.

Gaile Gray.6029:

During Season 2 and 3 we added two league features that greatly impacted your ability to climb: start-of-season division placement based on previous season performance and win/lose streak pips, and both of these features will remain enabled for Season 4.

You noticed how this feature add weight on an already horrible pvp system and you let them enabled.

GGWP

Grouch, just tell me. Is this system will be dope? I don’t have time to investigate.

Ayrilana.1396:

It doesn’t reflect skill so you’d still get roughly the same results.

People trying to tank their MMR would drive their pips down into Amber. Having a separate number determine matches means that pips do not correlate with skill. If pips determined match-making they inevitably WOULD reflect skill (at least without lock-ins). Just think about it.

Gaile Gray.6029:

making rewards more accessible for casual players and making divisions prestigious and a more accurate indicator of skill are among our highest priorities.

Isn’t that a contradiction? It’s already nothing but a reward track, how could Anet possibly make it both even easier to obtain rewards yet harder to climb?

And if you choose to make a ladder that represents skill how do they plan to keep the casuals who can’t be kitten d to improve (which is like, 99% of GW2’s population)?

This change may widen the skill range of players in each division, but we feel that increased match quality is worth the trade-off of reduced prestige for this season

Another line that makes no sense. How do you increase match quality by making even more bad players advance to higher divisions and how would that give it more prestige?

Anet’s pretty much saying “we’re going to make it even less skill based and less prestigeous, because making it prestigeous is a top priority” – excuse me, what?

NotASmurf.1725:

Gaile Gray.6029:

making rewards more accessible for casual players and making divisions prestigious and a more accurate indicator of skill are among our highest priorities.

Isn’t that a contradiction? It’s already nothing but a reward track, how could Anet possibly make it both even easier to obtain rewards yet harder to climb?

And if you choose to make a ladder that represents skill how do they plan to keep the casuals who can’t be kitten d to improve (which is like, 99% of GW2’s population)?

Translation of Gaile’s comments:

“We want to make it so the rewards are grind-based, while division-placement can be completely skill-based.”

So don’t expect any “exclusive, skill-based” skins, but you can look forward to having a little icon next to your name that says “pvp-hero” if you so choose.

How does enforced 50/50 winrate work together with loss and win streak bonus? Seems like progressing boils down to luck at that point.
at least also bring back -3 to +3 pip system from season 1 to reward trying hard against clearly better teams

NotASmurf.1725:

Isn’t that a contradiction? It’s already nothing but a reward track, how could Anet possibly make it both even easier to obtain rewards yet harder to climb?

And if you choose to make a ladder that represents skill how do they plan to keep the casuals who can’t be kitten d to improve (which is like, 99% of GW2’s population)?

It’s not a contradiction simply removing the division threshold requirement could already fulfil that.

Another line that makes no sense. How do you increase match quality by making even more bad players advance to higher divisions and how would that give it more prestige?

Anet’s pretty much saying “we’re going to make it even less skill based, because making it prestigeous is a top priority” – excuse me, what?

They are saying that “We know that match quality has been bad, we can’t deliver a solution that improves matchmaking AND keeps divisions prestigious right now. Therefore we are focusing on match quality while we delevop a new system.”
Seasons 1 matchmaker was a derivative of the matchmaker they have been using since release. It’s still used in unranked (without pips) and is decent at making fair matches.

Inb4 “mmr hell” threads appear.

S1 was one of the bigger “suck in a division” complaints we’ve had vs S2 and S3. Anet would really need to cater for players who belong in these divisions. Perhaps it takes # of games played, won, or time limit and gives rewards appropriately based on these.

Other than that, we can just speculate how the Devs implement it.

BlackBeard.2873:

NotASmurf.1725:

Gaile Gray.6029:

making rewards more accessible for casual players and making divisions prestigious and a more accurate indicator of skill are among our highest priorities.

Isn’t that a contradiction? It’s already nothing but a reward track, how could Anet possibly make it both even easier to obtain rewards yet harder to climb?

And if you choose to make a ladder that represents skill how do they plan to keep the casuals who can’t be kitten d to improve (which is like, 99% of GW2’s population)?

Translation of Gaile’s comments:

“We want to make it so the rewards are grind-based, while division-placement can be completely skill-based.”

So don’t expect any “exclusive, skill-based” skins, but you can look forward to having a little icon next to your name that says “pvp-hero” if you so choose.

That’s exactly what they’re trying to do and I have no issues with this. Heck, it was like that from day 1; a handful of people already knew the League system was going to be that way from the get-go.

They need to change the way you advance in leagues.
Just win/loose is a terrible way and get people stuck or carried over…

There needs to be added bonus/penalties by individual performance.
– caps, decaps, defense, dmg, healing, finishers, ress…

There needs to be a way to climb if you are consistently better than your team, even if you loose the match, and to fall if you are consistently pulling your team down even if they are winning.

Why can’t you make the pip gain the same as season 1 as well?

If you combine the matchmaking from season1 and pip gain from season 2/3, this will definitely be the most grindy season for players who want to reach legendary.

The only plus side is that Helseth’s stream will be very fun this season, watching him frustrated on carrying bad players.

I never thought I’d see so much blatant disrespect against the competitive community with these “ranking” systems.

I’ve seen so many posters here and on reddit go through great efforts analyzing the system and its flaws. They came up with nearly perfect solutions and all have been declined based on some weird fetish for the less competent.

correct me if im wrong, u wanted to make pvp prestigious but also going back to season 1 MM? if any of u know season 1 match making forces players into a 50/50 W/L ratio. u might say whats wrong with that? well for starters anyone can grind to legendary even the very bad players. remember those players posting SS of 200+ or 400+ games and doesnt even made it to legendary? well imagine all those guys will now be in legendary. a former guildie of mine who’s somewhat horrible at pvp made it to legendary during season 1 through sheer number of games played. but during season 2 and 3 he get stuck in lower diamond. ur now saying i have to play with all these players who keep saying they in MMR HELL? you should stop playing once your in legendary is what i get in this post.

Lord Hammer Hand.4815:

correct me if im wrong, u wanted to make pvp prestigious but also going back to season 1 MM? if any of u know season 1 match making forces players into a 50/50 W/L ratio. u might say whats wrong with that? well for starters anyone can grind to legendary even the very bad players. remember those players posting SS of 200+ or 400+ games and doesnt even made it to legendary? well imagine all those guys will now be in legendary. a former guildie of mine who’s somewhat horrible at pvp made it to legendary during season 1 through sheer number of games played. but during season 2 and 3 he get stuck in lower diamond. ur now saying i have to play with all these players who keep saying they in MMR HELL? you should stop playing once your in legendary is what i get in this post.

You didn’t read carefully.

They say they want closer games over prestige this season. So enjoy trying to carry those bad players this season. It is a prestige in itself being able to carry bad players game after game.

So we are going back to the every match is hard system, but without the -3 to +3 spread.
This does not sound like it will be any fun. Just work.

lLobo.7960:

They need to change the way you advance in leagues.
Just win/loose is a terrible way and get people stuck or carried over…

There needs to be added bonus/penalties by individual performance.
– caps, decaps, defense, dmg, healing, finishers, ress…

There needs to be a way to climb if you are consistently better than your team, even if you loose the match, and to fall if you are consistently pulling your team down even if they are winning.

There is no efficient algorithm to measure individual skill in a match. There would have to be a lengthy equation to calculate all of this…

…blocks, blinds, damages mitigated from all players, timed cc during a stomp, Was it effective? Half effective? Heals given. Heals were effective but that was all you offered…?

I could write a 50 page novel on what items needs to count, tallied up points using a metric system, mix some boolean in there and slap its rear end and call it good. But… too much coding work for something that may or may not be 100% efficient because after all that work, you’ll always miss some strategy that’s effective but isn’t added in the algorithm

It’s so easy to say “just do it”.

This is just embarrassing at this point. It makes me laugh in a sad sort of way.

S1 matchmaking was horrible. PiP range + balance MMR on teams would have been way better.

Saiyan.1704:

lLobo.7960:

They need to change the way you advance in leagues.
Just win/loose is a terrible way and get people stuck or carried over…

There needs to be added bonus/penalties by individual performance.
– caps, decaps, defense, dmg, healing, finishers, ress…

There needs to be a way to climb if you are consistently better than your team, even if you loose the match, and to fall if you are consistently pulling your team down even if they are winning.

There is no efficient algorithm to measure individual skill in a match. There would have to be a lengthy equation to calculate all of this…

…blocks, blinds, damages mitigated from all players, timed cc during a stomp, Was it effective? Half effective? Heals given. Heals were effective but that was all you offered…?

I could write a 50 page novel on what items needs to count, tallied up points using a metric system, mix some boolean in there and slap its rear end and call it good. But… too much coding work for something that may or may not be 100% efficient because after all that work, you’ll always miss some strategy that’s effective but isn’t added in the algorithm

It’s so easy to say “just do it”.

They will need a sophisticated machine learning system to figure out how to judge individual performance. Just like alpha go…

SneakyTouchy.6043:

I’ve seen so many posters here and on reddit go through great efforts analyzing the system and its flaws. They came up with nearly perfect solutions and all have been declined based on some weird fetish for the less competent.

Many of those solutions were great, but they only focused on match quality or prestige of reaching a division level. That’s fine and all, but Anet tied the legendary backpiece reward into the achievements based on 4 seasons with no division loss. Drastically changing how divisions work would’ve just resulted in endless complaints about Anet breaking the promises they made on acquiring the backpiece.

I don’t claim to be awesome at PvP. I’m average at best. Out of seasons 1/2/3, I found the matchmaking the best within season 1. I rarely ran into people who were tanking their MMR. So I think matchmaking similar to season 1 is the best we can hope for, at least until season 4 is over and Anet has more flexibility in completely redoing the system. I’ll look forward to year 2.

- 3 and + 3 is just horrible.

both the match making (determines how many low MMRs you get in your team) and match prediction (determines if you get -3 or +3) are just horribly kittened.

at least make it

- 1 and + 5

Hallelujah at this change. Thank you anet.

Malediktus.9250:

How does enforced 50/50 winrate work together with loss and win streak bonus? Seems like progressing boils down to luck at that point.

But we repeatedly get told that if a player is any good that they can carry a team.

All you had to do was remove pip checkpoints and the system would stop sucking so bad. Stop making this so hard for yourself, Anet.

Back to the good ol 50/50 where one or two players on either team is going to drag experienced players down all for the sake of matchmaking. If I recall correctly, the first time we had S1 matchmaking, complete fresh players were rising in ranking extremely quick, meanwhile more experienced players were taking a longer time to climb because their matches were really close (this made amber+ a nightmare in s1, but we have earlier division placement now). Good change for the casual, slight annoyance/frustration for more experienced people (the exact opposite of s2 and s3 matchmaking) I don’t have any faith that anet will implement a middle ground anytime soon.

i want to play ranked to be ranked based on skill, not pve grind my way through it. very disappointing

Fortence.8617:

i want to play ranked to be ranked based on skill, not pve grind my way through it. very disappointing

None of the systems used this year have been based on skill. They are hamstrung by the league system essentially being a reward track and the achievement requirements for this whole year. Given what Gaile has said I think they are aware of this and next year will hopefully see the system not be a reward track.

Grats on listening to the whiners. Now we will have even more people in diamond and legendary that don’t know the basics because they got carried there. Seriously what can be more fair then being grouped with people of your own skill level? So instead we are going back to forcing higher mmr solo players to be stuck with garbage half the time. So when I duo with antoher player of high MMR ill get three morons for help and the other team will be all average players and we’ll lose. This will lead to just as many compaints and you’ll change it again. But thanks for reducing the prestige aspect of pvp i mean its not important at all to be considered skilled or good. Lets just make everything available for everyone thats willing to put x amount of time. This company has zero guts.

morrolan.9608:

Hallelujah at this change. Thank you anet.

Malediktus.9250:

How does enforced 50/50 winrate work together with loss and win streak bonus? Seems like progressing boils down to luck at that point.

But we repeatedly get told that if a player is any good that they can carry a team.

But if 1 team gets a player that can carry and the other team doesnt it isnt a fair 50/50 matchup anymore

How is that possible that we could come full circle? The devs declare something is not working well enough and go away from it with totally different matchmaking and then come back to it? WTF? This is just going to punish higher mmr solo, duo, and trio players by forcing them to group with much worse players to make teams even out MMR wise. Can we even get an actual pvp dev, not the forum pr flack, to explain why this is more fair and better then what we had in season 2 and 3? And why the better players experience should be degraded to prop up the performance of worse players in leagues which are supposed to be about skill and prestige? This is a joke.

can someone sum this up? will it be easier to climb in divisions starting tomorrow?

Lithril Ashwalker.6230:

can someone sum this up? will it be easier to climb in divisions starting tomorrow?

It’s the opposite. It’ll be more grindy, skill level will be less relevant.

Lithril Ashwalker.6230:

can someone sum this up? will it be easier to climb in divisions starting tomorrow?

It will if you are a new act or new to pvp, but more experienced acts will sit at stand stills longer due to the total games played vs MMR, and the above average MMR new acts get.

Lithril Ashwalker.6230:

can someone sum this up? will it be easier to climb in divisions starting tomorrow?

Prepare to spend 500+ games to get to legendary division unless you find a loophole in the system or have a very skilled premade team. In season 1 you could actually get -3 to 3 pips per game (3 was possible even for a loss), but anet is only taking s1 matchmaking with s2 pip system. So it will be hell to progress.

Thanks for the heads up! time to loose some games to drop my MMR. Also please reset everyones MMR or it will be hell to start out..

With this change you may as well just acknowledge that sPvP is intended to be 100% grind, and not at all indicative of player skill.

Skilled players will once again have to compete in 50/50 matches against the best players in the game to progress, while bad players can make the same progress by defeating far worse competition. What a joke. If you want it to be a grind then quit the charade. Nobody is fooled.

To be honest, the bunker Rev, Ele & Mesmer meta during S1 didn’t give that season’s matchmaking fair credibility.

Tournaments were utterly ridiculous and stacking either 3 meta bunker classes on a team skewed matchmaking badly.

This was also during the time Thief & Wars were bad.

• Thieves were like pin balls, going from point to point, hitting brick walls or were forced to play a “bunker” build. No one wanted him on a team.
• Wars were… not Warriors.

These two got the short end of the powercreep stick until Anet fixed them. It’s why i’m like, “meh, why not”.

So I can boost ambers to legend with my squad for ez gold again since it gonna be harder now? Kappa JK don’t ban me plox EleGiggle

Joking aside idk what the fuss for at this point in the game if you at the top getting legend is trivial. Same thing ever season. People complain but still get it in the end. It so easy

Pretty lazy and lame solution. There’s a reason changes had to be made from Season 1 to Season 2.

Instead of coming up with a better solution, the answer is to go back to what has already PROVEN to be unacceptable by Anet’s own actions.

I feel like the only problem is it’ll be a long grind and I’ll have to ‘carry’ bad MMR players (who are probably bad players) in order to climb up myself, especially if I have high MMR (I’m not sure I do).

If it’s anything like unranked and I get 2 × 5 signet warriors and a zerk staff ele vs 5 average players I’m pretty much gonna be sadface

Can’t wait to win 1v3 in hot join level games and still lose 450-500. Only thing worse than s1 matchmaking is s1 meta.

Varezenem.2813:

Lithril Ashwalker.6230:

can someone sum this up? will it be easier to climb in divisions starting tomorrow?

It’s the opposite. It’ll be more grindy, skill level will be less relevant.

It will be less grindy if you are an average player.

Celeras.4980:

With this change you may as well just acknowledge that sPvP is intended to be 100% grind, and not at all indicative of player skill.

Where have you been? Every league season this year has been like that. Its the underlying league system not the matchmaking.

Celeras.4980:

Skilled players will once again have to compete in 50/50 matches against the best players in the game to progress, while bad players can make the same progress by defeating far worse competition. What a joke. If you want it to be a grind then quit the charade. Nobody is fooled.

Oh those poor legendary players <nopity>

Gaile Gray.6029:

We’re not at a point where we’re able to discuss the changes we’ll be making to PvP Leagues for future seasons, but making rewards more accessible for casual players and making divisions prestigious and a more accurate indicator of skill are among our highest priorities.

Even more accessible than they are now? So that they don’t reflect neither dedication nor skill? Seems like the perfect approach to appeal to the PvP fanbase.

In the meanwhile, legendary armor is gated behind weeks and weeks of raiding (which I think it’s perfectly fine). But apparently PvP rewards should be awarded just for logging into the PvP lobby.

You should fix the division system so it purely reflects your skill level, and then gate the rewards behind divisions, so people are encouraged to improve, not to brainlessly farm PvP games.

But you cannot seriously pretend to turn GW2’s PvP into an eSport while rewarding in similar ways hardcore and casual players. Either you create a casual-friendly reward system and then abandon the eSport adventure (which is quite dead anyways tbh), or you gate rewards behind skill level to encourage competition/improvement, even if that means losing casual players in this particular game mode.

Not to mention the first 3/4 of the seasons diamond and above players could group with ambers reducing the groups mmr and easily get wins to further climb the ladder.

So season 1 had terrible balance and easy match manipulation. Of course now thru all the seasons everyones. MMR is pretty messed by now. So who knows how good or bad the changes will be.

brannigan.9831:

How is that possible that we could come full circle? The devs declare something is not working well enough and go away from it with totally different matchmaking and then come back to it? WTF? This is just going to punish higher mmr solo, duo, and trio players by forcing them to group with much worse players to make teams even out MMR wise.

Presumably if you group with higher mmr players your mmr will still be that of the higher mmr player. This anti smurfing mechanism is independent of the matchmaking.

As for coming full circle the issue is not just the matchmaking its the structure of the league and the achievements. They are essentially hamstrung by that structure until this year is finished. The fact is the S1 matchmaking is fairer for all players in this league system.

SlimChance.6593:

Not to mention the first 3/4 of the seasons diamond and above players could group with ambers reducing the groups mmr and easily get wins to further climb the ladder.

The mechanism to stop that is independent of matchmaking and will presumably still be active.

Well said

/15 chars

brannigan.9831:

How is that possible that we could come full circle? The devs declare something is not working well enough and go away from it with totally different matchmaking and then come back to it? WTF? This is just going to punish higher mmr solo, duo, and trio players by forcing them to group with much worse players to make teams even out MMR wise. Can we even get an actual pvp dev, not the forum pr flack, to explain why this is more fair and better then what we had in season 2 and 3? And why the better players experience should be degraded to prop up the performance of worse players in leagues which are supposed to be about skill and prestige? This is a joke.

The thing is, why should high MMR players get easy matches (getting the best teammates and all that)? They are supposedly great by the virtue of their skills and yet get the easiest matches all things being equal. You do not prove you are skillful by getting easy matches.

What merit do you have to triumph when you get optimal conditions more often than not? If you are that good and can carry that much why should you care who you are paired with? Others will have to face similar opposition if they soloq. Nobody should expect to have a free ride to legendary just because of a rating that basically has next to no value. If your rating mean anything show it by carrying better than others can instead of expecting your MMR to do all the job for you.

I’m sorry but I can’t be bothered having any pity for the pvp MMR elite the way the previous seasons were engineering self-fulfilling prophecies.

Arkarian.1679:

Gaile Gray.6029:

We’re not at a point where we’re able to discuss the changes we’ll be making to PvP Leagues for future seasons, but making rewards more accessible for casual players and making divisions prestigious and a more accurate indicator of skill are among our highest priorities.

Even more accessible than they are now? So that they don’t reflect neither dedication nor skill? Seems like the perfect approach to appeal to the PvP fanbase.

In the meanwhile, legendary armor is gated behind weeks and weeks of raiding (which I think it’s perfectly fine). But apparently PvP rewards should be awarded just for logging into the PvP lobby.

They could gate rewards behind less skill based achievements and still be grindy just like raids (which aren’t skill based either).