Guild Wars 2

So I just got matched with a brand new player, just over 800AP. I even asked him if this is an alt account and how many games he played. He responded MUCH later(obviously being unfamiliar with the chat system) that this is his second PvP game.

Now tell me anet, how the hell does a brand new player get matched like this?
No wonder new players don’t enjoy pvp, they literally can’t even contribute to the match in any way.
This isn’t fun for him, or for his team, hell i doubt it is any fun for the enemy team either.

Sure, this doesnt happen often to the longstanding players, but ALL new players are effected by this idiotic matchmaking.

EDIT : No he wasn’t partied with someone. There is no excuse that I could find for him being matched like this.

Evan Lesh.3295:

This is a problem of rating confidence. New players start with an MMR very close to the average of the player base, but their rating is much less confident than someone who has average MMR and 1000 games played. There are three avenues I see that can be taken:

• Care more about games played than we already do. This functionality was actually added recently and replaced rank consideration, but it’s not a very accurate indication of skill.
• Care more about rating deviation. This number is meant to track with rating confidence, and is higher for new players. We could use this for matchmaking, but it’s already being considered in the ratings formula…
• Let the rating system handle itself. Rating deviation is meant to move players quickly to a more accurate rating. Since this player had only played 2 games, you can be sure that his rating deviation is high and his rating dropped dramatically after that game. You may never see that player again.

I prefer the last route as we let the Glicko algorithm do what it does best. We can’t avoid every single bad match up. As you said in your post, it could have been an alternate account. There is no way for the system to know how good a player they are unless they play, and that means a some guesses have to be made along the way.

I am ok with this.

Evan Lesh.3295:

There are three avenues I see that can be taken:

I have a fourth avenue for you.

New players start with an MMR very close to the average of the player base

Don’t let new players start so close to the average of the player base.

I just thought today that could there be some kind of tutorial for new players?

Evan Lesh.3295:

This is a problem of rating confidence. New players start with an MMR very close to the average of the player base, but their rating is much less confident than someone who has average MMR and 1000 games played. There are three avenues I see that can be taken:

• Care more about games played than we already do. This functionality was actually added recently and replaced rank consideration, but it’s not a very accurate indication of skill.
• Care more about rating deviation. This number is meant to track with rating confidence, and is higher for new players. We could use this for matchmaking, but it’s already being considered in the ratings formula…
• Let the rating system handle itself. Rating deviation is meant to move players quickly to a more accurate rating. Since this player had only played 2 games, you can be sure that his rating deviation is high and his rating dropped dramatically after that game. You may never see that player again.

I prefer the last route as we let the Glicko algorithm do what it does best. We can’t avoid every single bad match up. As you said in your post, it could have been an alternate account. There is no way for the system to know how good a player they are unless they play, and that means a some guesses have to be made along the way.

While I think this is good in the long run, creating a buffer MMR bracket for new players is a great 4th alternative. They can progress through this bracket REALLY fast if they full fill certain win/loss and other glicko requirements that you would know more about.
Dropping people into an average MMR is super frustrating for all parties involved.

Why do we make then start with an average MMR and wait for them to lose and the system takes them down?

Why don’t we make them start with a low MMR and wait for them to win (if they win) and the system takes them up?

Has there ever been any suggestions as to introducing a “training league” of sorts?

Open up a third tournament type:

Training – Open only to (lets say) players with under 100 games played
Unranked – Speaks for itself (in between Training/Ranked)
Ranked – Speaks for itself

I think this is a huge issue. I agree 100% with OP, i think a lot of players are discouraged by being destroyed in their first couple of games. You’re right in the fact that the algorithm will eventually sort these players out, but even 2-3 really crappy games could ruin pvp for a lot of people.

I think you guys are forgetting just how awful the average player is in pvp.

Nitrosiili.5628:

I just thought today that could there be some kind of tutorial for new players?

I’ve never seen a tutorial in my life that is even remotely adequate for teaching any kind of PvP.

doesn’t the one tutorial island teach the basics when you log into pvp for the first time…?

Do people still start there? You used to be able to take the portal back to it, but the last I checked, it no longer works.

IDK if they still start there, but I’d like it if that portal worked again, it was entertaining to watch swaths of npcs get finished by lightning bolts from the sky

1) Cant new players start low, or does it need to be the average for glicko to work?

2) If it needs to be that way, could we copy a “Placement matches system” , so when someone with zero games joins, "he is just told his next 5 or 10 games will measure his mmr for future games?

Even better – you dont even do anything, just a formality warning. An illusion to not discourage them when placed against an average player.

Sunshine.5014:

Why do we make then start with an average MMR and wait for them to lose and the system takes them down?

Why don’t we make them start with a low MMR and wait for them to win (if they win) and the system takes them up?

Because that would be a sensible, logical thing to do

Just out of curiosity is it a median mode or a mean?

Edit: math terms.

Evan Lesh.3295:

This is a problem of rating confidence. New players start with an MMR very close to the average of the player base, but their rating is much less confident than someone who has average MMR and 1000 games played. There are three avenues

Really? Well…on my other account i hadnt played any unranked matches before and i got put into people who 5man one node together all the time. Is that supposed to be average mmr? So the average pvp’er 5man cap a node while the rest is empty? xD Ohboy…I thought that was hamster league, like the very bottom pvp bracket.

sanctuary.1068:

Evan Lesh.3295:

This is a problem of rating confidence. New players start with an MMR very close to the average of the player base, but their rating is much less confident than someone who has average MMR and 1000 games played. There are three avenues

Really? Well…on my other account i hadnt played any unranked matches before and i got put into people who 5man one node together all the time. Is that supposed to be average mmr? So the average pvp’er 5man cap a node while the rest is empty? xD Ohboy…I thought that was hamster league, like the very bottom pvp bracket.

This does not surprise me tbh, think of all the pve’ers who played 1 pvp game only. There are probably more of these people than there are consistent pvp’ers and they all bring the average down.

Evan Lesh.3295:

Why start people at the average MMR? Because that’s where most players belong. It is the most accurate rating for the majority of players.

Have you taken a look at just the new players? How is their MMR-journey on the bell?
I highly doubt, most of the new players are staying in the middle. I guess, most of them either drop at the start or get farmed have such a bad playing experience, that they leave the pvp forever.

On a sidenote: A few month ago (maybe already a year?) you posted, that “new players will now start at a lower mmr.” Does that mean, that till that day, they started inside the top 50%?

Evan Lesh.3295:

Fluffball.8307:

Just out of curiosity is it a median mode or a mean?

Edit: math terms.

It is the mean. The player base distributes into a bell curve like such:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_deviation

We place people right in the middle.

Why dont these numbers relate-able to League rank distribution?

There are way to many legends to fairly say That it’s also on a bell curve.

Evan Lesh.3295:

WuGzaGenius.5684:

Evan Lesh.3295:

Fluffball.8307:

Just out of curiosity is it a median mode or a mean?

Edit: math terms.

It is the mean. The player base distributes into a bell curve like such:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_deviation

We place people right in the middle.

Why dont these numbers relate-able to League rank distribution?

There are way to many legends to fairly say That it’s also on a bell curve.

The league is more like half a bell curve because everyone starts at the beginning and don’t all play the entire season. The lack of backwards progress in the divisions also changes the distribution.

That’s really interesting. Out of curiosity, what percentage of PvPers made it to legend in S1? It seems, from anecdotal lobby observation, that about 5% made it. From what you said, it would make one think about 20-30% made it?

Should we expect more or less to be legendary in S2?

Edit: or did I misunderstand? I think I was picturing the wrong side of the bell the more I think about it…

Less if the players can’t abuse pvp system anymore. So a lot s1 legendary players i think will stuck somewhere in ruby as there are a lot of s1 legendary players that only have like weak medium skill and understanding of the game and teamplay.

I also was in a match with a 300AP ranger who everyone thought was a bot cos the poor person stood in the middle of a fight doing nothing but rotating around using buttons “d” and “a”, taking 2 steps forward and standing still till either they were killed or we won the fight (ie shall we say admiring the scenery). The whole team were reporting the player (and asking opponents to report the player) for botting until I checked the AP and realised it was a relatively brand new player!

What kind of a rating system allows for this!? Ok, it is unranked but my goodness do not place such a person with experienced people… isn’t that common sense? Or is common sense not common anymore? And people wonder why PvP is so salty… when players are in such a situation it is so easy to misjudge and become salty not really realising that the poor player is new and in a wrong match not due to their fault but rather an implementation of a system that does not work!

Simple solution
Work out a system that places such a person with other new players and players slightly (within a 10% margin) above them so they can battle at their own pace, rather than let down a whole team full of exp players!

Also second point#
I was amazed to see a barely 2k AP legendary division player who was new to the game, not a secondary account, and also only knew some aspects of dragon hunter and no other class. Is this really legendary? This does not give any confidence whatsoever about the league system at all. Do not get me wrong. I am a big fan of what Anet Devs are trying to install (ie PvP leagues) but work out a way to sieve out unskilled and inexperienced players rather than let them be carried through be it rating/mmr system or abuses of MMR system.

Evan Lesh.3295:

WuGzaGenius.5684:

Evan Lesh.3295:

Fluffball.8307:

Just out of curiosity is it a median mode or a mean?

Edit: math terms.

It is the mean. The player base distributes into a bell curve like such:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_deviation

We place people right in the middle.

Why dont these numbers relate-able to League rank distribution?

There are way to many legends to fairly say That it’s also on a bell curve.

The league is more like half a bell curve because everyone starts at the beginning and don’t all play the entire season. The lack of backwards progress in the divisions also changes the distribution.

Why not have backward progress? Allow players who perform poorly to drop divions / leagues. The Whole idea of someone being able to obtain a rank then just “kitten ” the next 50 games without it affecting his rank seems a bit outlandish. Like whats the reason behind this?

IMO it will never really seem like a true representation of skill until this is achieved.

I don’t have problem that players can keep their Division. If every Division have it’s skill level. Low-med skilled shouldn’t be able to abuse get to highest divisions.

I’ve made Diamond s1 and been 3 pips away from Legendary solo at the end of the season. ( only played necromancer ranked )

It’s a joke how easy to kill most of these Legendary players. I shouldn’t be able to kill Legendary players that easy in a good system if i only got to Diamond div solo. The bad thing is the pvp titles are missleading. There are better players stuck in Diamond than most Legendary players. Very little % of Legendary players are actually good players.

I hope the pvp system in s2 will work a bit better.

Rolisteel.1375:

I don’t have problem that players can keep their Division. If every Division have it’s skill level. Low-med skilled shouldn’t be able to abuse get to highest divisions.

I’ve made Diamond s1 and been 3 pips away from Legendary solo at the end of the season.

It’s a joke how easy to kill most of these Legendary players. I shouldn’t be able to kill Legendary players that easy in a good system if i only got to Diamond div solo. The bad thing is the pvp titles are missleading. There are better players stuck in Diamond than most Legendary players. Very little % of Legendary players are actually good players.

I hope the pvp system in s2 will work a bit better.

I totally agree!

Evan Lesh.3295:

Why start people at the average MMR? Because that’s where most players belong. It is the most accurate rating for the majority of players. For every player we start with a lower rating that needs it, there is a skilled player that has to fight their way out.

I have a hard time understanding how the bold part is the problem? If that’s a skilled player, the player would be enjoying a streak of win to get out of the low MMR. If it’s a bad player, they would be matched with bad players, so no problem too.

The key here is to meet the expectation. People when they first start, they expect to have easier match. If a skilled player has easier match, they won’t complain much. However, if a completely newbie gets matched with decent players, they feel frustrated and quit after a few games. You don’t want to make people quit. It’s for the health of the game.

Sunshine.5014:

Evan Lesh.3295:

Why start people at the average MMR? Because that’s where most players belong. It is the most accurate rating for the majority of players. For every player we start with a lower rating that needs it, there is a skilled player that has to fight their way out.

I have a hard time understanding how the bold part is the problem? If that’s a skilled player, the player would be enjoying a streak of win to get out of the low MMR. If it’s a bad player, they would be matched with bad players, so no problem too.

The key here is to meet the expectation. People when they first start, they expect to have easier match. If a skilled player has easier match, they won’t complain much. However, if a completely newbie gets matched with decent players, they feel frustrated and quit after a few games. You don’t want to make people quit. It’s for the health of the game.

the only type of new player who is going to have a good match with average MMR is someone who has been playing a lot of WvW. gw2 PvP and pve are just so different tactically that any other type of new player will just get farmed. especially when you put them up against people with hundreds of games.

give them low MMR because nearly all of them are going to be awful players.

You want a honest answer,

No one is playing PvP. High level players are playing 1-4 matches for dailies and they might be doing it in private servers.

choovanski.5462:

Sunshine.5014:

Evan Lesh.3295:

Why start people at the average MMR? Because that’s where most players belong. It is the most accurate rating for the majority of players. For every player we start with a lower rating that needs it, there is a skilled player that has to fight their way out.

I have a hard time understanding how the bold part is the problem? If that’s a skilled player, the player would be enjoying a streak of win to get out of the low MMR. If it’s a bad player, they would be matched with bad players, so no problem too.

The key here is to meet the expectation. People when they first start, they expect to have easier match. If a skilled player has easier match, they won’t complain much. However, if a completely newbie gets matched with decent players, they feel frustrated and quit after a few games. You don’t want to make people quit. It’s for the health of the game.

the only type of new player who is going to have a good match with average MMR is someone who has been playing a lot of WvW. gw2 PvP and pve are just so different tactically that any other type of new player will just get farmed. especially when you put them up against people with hundreds of games.

give them low MMR because nearly all of them are going to be awful players.

Exactly!

We should optimize for the majority of the new players, who never tries PvP before. Many of them don’t even have a proper build. Putting them into the average MMR only cause misery for them, and for the team unlucky enough to have them.

On the other hand, for a new player, who happens to be amazing, getting a low starting MMR is just a minor inconvenience. Their matches are just easier until they win enough to face harder enemies.

We need a much lower starting MMR for new players.

Sunshine.5014:

choovanski.5462:

Sunshine.5014:

Evan Lesh.3295:

Why start people at the average MMR? Because that’s where most players belong. It is the most accurate rating for the majority of players. For every player we start with a lower rating that needs it, there is a skilled player that has to fight their way out.

I have a hard time understanding how the bold part is the problem? If that’s a skilled player, the player would be enjoying a streak of win to get out of the low MMR. If it’s a bad player, they would be matched with bad players, so no problem too.

The key here is to meet the expectation. People when they first start, they expect to have easier match. If a skilled player has easier match, they won’t complain much. However, if a completely newbie gets matched with decent players, they feel frustrated and quit after a few games. You don’t want to make people quit. It’s for the health of the game.

the only type of new player who is going to have a good match with average MMR is someone who has been playing a lot of WvW. gw2 PvP and pve are just so different tactically that any other type of new player will just get farmed. especially when you put them up against people with hundreds of games.

give them low MMR because nearly all of them are going to be awful players.

Exactly!

We should optimize for the majority of the new players, who never tries PvP before. Many of them don’t even have a proper build. Putting them into the average MMR only cause misery for them, and for the team unlucky enough to have them.

On the other hand, for a new player, who happens to be amazing, getting a low starting MMR is just a minor inconvenience. Their matches are just easier until they win enough to face harder enemies.

We need a much lower starting MMR for new players.

completely.

sometimes new players have to fight premades I’m in. it’s a joke trust me. we focus and farm the new players. they can’t be enjoying that.

Archon.6480:

Evan Lesh.3295:

WuGzaGenius.5684:

Evan Lesh.3295:

Fluffball.8307:

Just out of curiosity is it a median mode or a mean?

Edit: math terms.

It is the mean. The player base distributes into a bell curve like such:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_deviation

We place people right in the middle.

Why dont these numbers relate-able to League rank distribution?

There are way to many legends to fairly say That it’s also on a bell curve.

The league is more like half a bell curve because everyone starts at the beginning and don’t all play the entire season. The lack of backwards progress in the divisions also changes the distribution.

That’s really interesting. Out of curiosity, what percentage of PvPers made it to legend in S1? It seems, from anecdotal lobby observation, that about 5% made it. From what you said, it would make one think about 20-30% made it?

Should we expect more or less to be legendary in S2?

Edit: or did I misunderstand? I think I was picturing the wrong side of the bell the more I think about it…

Hes saying that about 5% are in amber / emerald whereas the larger half of the population is on the other side of spectrum, sitting in ruby – diamond – legendary.

Which is why no one can seriously take this game as an esport with a ranking system like that. I’d love it if they made it harder for people to climb / easier for people to get demoted and just made the seasons longer per average.

(I understand longer seasons means Anet is less inclined to balance as often but, my hopes n’ dreams are that they’ll realize that more frequent balance patches and longer seasons = hyper success rates)

Evan Lesh.3295:

This is a problem of rating confidence. New players start with an MMR very close to the average of the player base, but their rating is much less confident than someone who has average MMR and 1000 games played. There are three avenues I see that can be taken:

• Care more about games played than we already do. This functionality was actually added recently and replaced rank consideration, but it’s not a very accurate indication of skill.
• Care more about rating deviation. This number is meant to track with rating confidence, and is higher for new players. We could use this for matchmaking, but it’s already being considered in the ratings formula…
• Let the rating system handle itself. Rating deviation is meant to move players quickly to a more accurate rating. Since this player had only played 2 games, you can be sure that his rating deviation is high and his rating dropped dramatically after that game. You may never see that player again.

I prefer the last route as we let the Glicko algorithm do what it does best. We can’t avoid every single bad match up. As you said in your post, it could have been an alternate account. There is no way for the system to know how good a player they are unless they play, and that means a some guesses have to be made along the way.

I would argue that “number of matches played” is your greatest ‘indicator of skill’ for PvP match making. There is so much that has to be understood about the game – classes, maps, mechanics, roles, tactics, etc – before you can begin to play the game with any level of sophistication. For quite some time, game knowledge has been acknowledged as the distinct difference between players considered “good” and those who are not.

It may also be worth noting that as you learn the game and become more sophisticated in your play you gradually change the way you view and play the game. Which means you’re no longer playing it the same way as those newer players who might not have learned things yet, like: to avoid chasing down a Mob kill at the start of the match, or standing on an uncontested node while you’re team struggles to win a 4v5 for a second capture point elsewhere on the map. Which is one of the key frustrations with match making. Different expectations for players with different levels of experience.

Which is why I think your preferred method is not only not ideal for anything other than faster queue times (with the downside of poor match quality) rather than basing it on accumulated experience but also forces the more experienced players to endure the “sorting process” alongside the new or less experienced players who might land on your team at any given moment.

This notion that people could simply log in and be “good at the game” without any prior experience is beyond fictitious. That player doesn’t exist in GW2 and we should stop trying to make matches with them in mind.

Evan Lesh.3295:

WuGzaGenius.5684:

Evan Lesh.3295:

Fluffball.8307:

Just out of curiosity is it a median mode or a mean?

Edit: math terms.

It is the mean. The player base distributes into a bell curve like such:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_deviation

We place people right in the middle.

Why dont these numbers relate-able to League rank distribution?

There are way to many legends to fairly say That it’s also on a bell curve.

The league is more like half a bell curve because everyone starts at the beginning and don’t all play the entire season. The lack of backwards progress in the divisions also changes the distribution.

Is this serious?

First, what you’re describing isn’t “half a bell curve” and if it was it’d be called a skewed bell curve which again it isn’t really. Second, bell curves really only provide value if you have homogeneous examples to compare. You in no way have that. You built a rock paper dynamite game based around a factor(character class) you supposedly don’t include in your matchmaking algorithms. Any subsequent data ignoring that is about as valuable as randomly generating values. Yeah you could fit data to any distribution. Yeah that’s not going to make it meaningful.

You’re assigning a value to an account that has all kinds of sub-variance because you’re trying to put a series of DISTRIBUTIONS on a bell curve and say “hey person at the 98th percentile just got smashed by person at the 2 percentile that doesn’t make sense lets move them closer”. That really doesn’t make sense at all since they’re generally not comparable especially on individual levels.

Basically what you’re algorithm actually seems to do is say “hey this guy went on a winning streak lets balance him/her out with players who haven’t”. Great work. Pop the champagne. Though maybe he didn’t break a t-variable confidence interval subsequently requiring change not because of his personal skill but because you don’t have remotely homogeneous examples. Sure, a set number of players will go up and down but that doesn’t mean those are the players that should be moving generally unless substantially obvious.

What you need is something with a lot of binomial trees that will break out the non homogeneous situations significantly better. Using any kind of bell curve to pull confidence intervals off of multiple distributions isn’t likely to provide valuable data. You could throw said data at some sort of boosted learning algorithm and it will likely lower the score variances which at this point are absurd.

What I’m trying to say is it’s kind of like graphing car and house prices together and saying hey this Ferrari is about average priced. Makes no sense right? Treating it like a middle of the pack car is going to mess up future predictions.

foogison.5067:

Has there ever been any suggestions as to introducing a “training league” of sorts?

Open up a third tournament type:

Training – Open only to (lets say) players with under 100 games played
Unranked – Speaks for itself (in between Training/Ranked)
Ranked – Speaks for itself

I think this is a huge issue. I agree 100% with OP, i think a lot of players are discouraged by being destroyed in their first couple of games. You’re right in the fact that the algorithm will eventually sort these players out, but even 2-3 really crappy games could ruin pvp for a lot of people.

There used to be the play now button that threw you into a random hotjoin match before they redid the UI. You can still get to it from the menu on the side but it was much easier for new players (like me when i started) to just click play now. As a new player now, if they just look at the UI they see 2 options to pvp unranked or ranked.

Why are people trying to engage in the details?

If a BRAND NEW player is placed right in the middle…that means that the assumed average of players already in pvp are that of a brand new player with 0 pvp experience. If that’s where, " they belong ", which they don’t since the have 0 pvp experience to maintain an average…—just…how does that remotely make any sense?

“You belong in the middle with no experience that’s relative to all those players…in the ‘middle’.”

No you don’t you belong on the bottom and as you gain more experience and exposure to pvp you then can move to the middle if that’s where your skills land you.

They should start low and climb until they can’t climb any more.
I’m not sure why the lot of people are trying to make sense out of something that makes no sense. Almost desperate just for the sake of speaking to someone on the anet team. Like they are going to sweet talk their ideas into the workings of pvp like a politician…please. It’s a poor system.

It’s the difference between 60 cars trying to go through a 2 lane roundabout and 60 cars at a typical 4 way intersection.

Taltevus.3289:

Why are people trying to engage in the details?

If a BRAND NEW player is placed right in the middle…that means that the assumed average of players already in pvp are that of a brand new player with 0 pvp experience. If that’s where, " they belong ", which they don’t since the have 0 pvp experience to maintain an average…—just…how does that remotely make any sense?

“You belong in the middle with no experience that’s relative to all those players…in the ‘middle’.”

No you don’t you belong on the bottom and as you gain more experience and exposure to pvp you then can move to the middle if that’s where your skills land you.

They should start low and climb until they can’t climb any more.
I’m not sure why the lot of people are trying to make sense out of something that makes no sense. Almost desperate just for the sake of speaking to someone on the anet team. Like they are going to sweet talk their ideas into the workings of pvp like a politician…please. It’s a poor system.

It’s the difference between 60 cars trying to go through a 2 lane roundabout and 60 cars at a typical 4 way intersection.

yeah, it’s even more brainless when you fight a first time player

it’s like tripple spirit weapon assassin amulet staff guardian keyboard turning at you hello anet this is not a threat

sigh* this is why devs don’t post on forums, because all you idiots immediately treat them as if they don’t know what their talking about. He is literally sitting in front of a graph of the entire thing, and you guys are being kittening kitten children

Evan Lesh.3295:

Why start people at the average MMR? Because that’s where most players belong. It is the most accurate rating for the majority of players. For every player we start with a lower rating that needs it, there is a skilled player that has to fight their way out.

No they do not. Take any player who has never PvP’d and throw them in PvP and the average player will probably trash them, let alone someone who is brand new to the entire game. They don’t know the right builds, even if they have the ability to play at a decent level, until they at least get some experience in what the heck is going on. They don’t know rotations, builds etc. They are NOT average. It’s a wonder that you guys can even develop for your own game sometimes…

I mean, average players rush beast at match start… at least they did in every match when I started off. You all are are overestimating the skill of the average player

Teutos.8620:

Evan Lesh.3295:

There are three avenues I see that can be taken:

I have a fourth avenue for you.

New players start with an MMR very close to the average of the player base

Don’t let new players start so close to the average of the player base.

Please tell me where should the new players start. You want to put them with people who are just not as serious (much less than 50% winrate) about pvp as those who maintain 50% winrate (or more 60-70% for really good players and some kittenes with 90% Kappa).

New accounts need to start with the average rating, period.
If you put them with as you’d call them “baddies” they are going to be discouraged or will grow bored of free wins. It would be even worse than it is now.

Well i am the oposite example … I came to PvP after half a year WvW roaming.
I did get about 80% win rate in the first 100 matches (the losses were more because clueless about the map) ….then it kicked back getting premades and diamond/legenday in a row against me….

“..New players start with an MMR very close to the average of the player base..”

And i think this is the main problem since start of GW2 pvp.

This is not a new thing and i thought about it years ago when i started this game and was surprised why i was placed with truely more experienced players than me after my first couple pvp matches. I didn´t know anything about builds strategy and so on.

So, if we look at A-Nets description above. Why are new players average players? I would say they are bad players first and evolve then if they can so u have to climb the ladder.

And if new players who know nothing about pvp are average players what are the real bad players then? With this logic a new player A that starts his 1st fight is theoretically a better player as a player B who played 100-200 games but with a negative balance sheet. Is this right?

I can´t believe this because although Player B is formally the weaker player he has still more experience with builds and strategy and just playing the game. Maybe he lacks understanding comparing to better players but this 100-games-player , even with negative balance sheet, has definitely more understanding of the game as a new player.

But the system says Player A and B are on same level? I don´t understand this. This feels plain wrong.

What is the problem to place new player at 0 or below average?

Hope u can understand me

Here is a clear case of Anet over-thinking things that are obvious.

If they can’t even see the logic of putting a brand new player BELOW the average MMR, then I’m not sure why I’m commenting…it’s probably pointless to use common sense and rational thought processes in this discussion.

Almost NOBODY new to PvP will be even an average player. Not only do they have to learn their character’s abilities and synergies…they have to learn all the strategies related to capture the flag and the different maps.

If this were a simple game like Checkers, then MAYBE you could get away with that lazy argument of new players being average. Otherwise…To say that new players “belong” in the average pool is just insulting your own game’s complexity and/or embarrassing the logic of your decisions.

Forget about logic…from a financial standpoint, what is more likely to make someone quit the game?

a) A new player getting steam rolled and feeling useless to his team while being matched with much more experienced players who are also miserable?….or

b) An outlier new player with excellent skill still having to prove themselves with a little slower progression?

Most other games force you to level a character before even competing with experienced players in PvP. It’s great that GW2 doesn’t make you do that. However, denying that there is any learning curve justifying a lower than average MMR for new player is sheer folly.

I mean, when I was new, I came from PvE, and I gt curbstomped. Like, absolutely kittening destroyed. I left, assuming that I didnt know enough about the game, and I should come back after I it 80 and learned rotations and weapons. I was right. I came back, played dragonhunter, and had fun with my homemade build. I think that mst people who go int pvp have a general expectation that it will be harder and more complex than PvE, and im sure that the gains of people who try pvp and those who stick with it is quite high

nolasthitnotomorrow.8563:

Please tell me where should the new players start. You want to put them with people who are just not as serious (much less than 50% winrate) about pvp as those who maintain 50% winrate (or more 60-70% for really good players and some kittenes with 90% Kappa).

Please inform yourself how winrate and MMR works. Then we can talk like adults.

BTT:
If a new player is as good as the average pvp player, that would mean one of the following is true:
a) The ‘normal’ new player is not new to gw2, just hasn’t played unranked yet. Therefore, he has enough experience to play as good as the average pvp player.
b) The level 2 F2P player how has no clue how the game works, is as good as the average player. <- What does that tell you about the average gw2 player?
c) The MMR is completely broken, since new players are thrown in the middle, the average player ends up too often with a new player in his team, that he can’t leave the starting MMR.

Evan Lesh.3295:

Why start people at the average MMR? Because that’s where most players belong. It is the most accurate rating for the majority of players. For every player we start with a lower rating that needs it, there is a skilled player that has to fight their way out.

People with 2 games played should not be matched with or against players with 1k+ games played. Period. Doesnt matter what average MMR they get.

People with 2 games played should end up with other people with less than 100 games played, ESPECIALLY if they have only average mmr.