Guild Wars 2

Not bashing the game. Not bashing the developers.

Overall a great experience for a lot of game time hours. I can’t justify supporting the game expansion being a solo pvp player.

Please, hotjoin is not an option.

MMO games aren’t Single Player games.

Tao.1234:

MMO games aren’t Single Player games.

A solo PvP player doesn’t mean single player. Solo players team up with random strangers on the Internet, making it a multiplayer game.

Tired of the “MMO isn’t a single player” argument. It’s made by those who don’t understand what solo pvp means. Team =/= premade.

If you think the pvp community is big enough to split with solo que then you’re crazy. The team and solo queues would surpass even 30 min.

Hammerguard.9834:

If you think the pvp community is big enough to split with solo que then you’re crazy. The team and solo queues would surpass even 30 min.

That would mean that GW2 has less of a PvP population than GW1. Which I don’t think is true.

Hammerguard.9834:

If you think the pvp community is big enough to split with solo que then you’re crazy. The team and solo queues would surpass even 30 min.

guess u prefer the alternative, which is solo players to just stop playing?

Hammerguard.9834:

If you think the pvp community is big enough to split with solo que then you’re crazy. The team and solo queues would surpass even 30 min.

I’ll play the devil’s advocate here and say that the sPvP population will never grow unless solo queue is reintroduced. “Why didn’t it grow before, back when there was a solo queue?” I hear you ask. Because the implementation back then was garbage with a leaderboard that was a non-permanent decay exploit fest and a match making system that, at first, produced stacked teams and never managed to address the 4vs5 issue of leavers and AFKers. Not to mention that you got to play Lolhammer the vanilla version, which was just a trolling contest to see how many stealth pulls you could do in one game. Solo queue did not fail because the concept was bad, it failed because the implementation was utterly lacking.

A joint queue with premades and solo players thrown together is never ever going to produce the same playing experience as a dedicated solo queue. Anet are fooling themselves if they think otherwise. They also seem to think that the current setup is, at this point in time, an acceptable compromise, which, again, I think is a misguided line of thinking. Anet need to go big and really start catering to the competitive player base, instead of combating the churn by enticing PvE folks over by offering PvE rewards for doing PvP.

For the umpteenth time – competitive players want to compare themselves to others and track their progress and be rewarded for their relative standing. This requires visible MMR, ladders to climb and leagues for different skill brackets, with seasons. Implement visible MMR with a single ladder first and go from there. Meaningful rewards at a season’s end are gravy, but I would settle for the ladder alone at this point. That would give Anet more time to realise that PvE boxes with more PvE boxes inside them are not proper PvP incentives.

TL;DR version: A dedicated solo queue is a must-have part of a functional PvP game’s infra, along with a visible MMR and ladders & seasons. Not having one is an impediment to population growth.

^ 100% that and the rest of Aereniel’s post. Lumping together premades and pugs does almost nothing good for either party. The soloqueuers get stomped (if the premade is decent), get frustrated and start complaining/stop playing. The premade gets an easy victory they didn’t really have to work for or deserve, so they may end up getting bored or won’t get better.

Soloqueuers don’t want to go up against premades and premades don’t want to fight soloqueuers. The exception here is casual guilds or friends wanting to group up, and I’d be okay with two people queuing together in soloqueue, but something’s gotta give to make pvp enjoyable for the majority (solo (un)ranked players).

Most modern and serious competitive games (think MOBAs and FPSs) have soloqueue because it works and it’s what most of us want. Solo queue needs to return if we want the average pvper to stop being jaded and start enjoying the spirit of competition again.

Aereniel.7356:

Hammerguard.9834:

If you think the pvp community is big enough to split with solo que then you’re crazy. The team and solo queues would surpass even 30 min.

TL;DR version: A dedicated solo queue is a must-have part of a functional PvP game’s infra, along with a visible MMR and ladders & seasons. Not having one is an impediment to population growth.

I’ll play the role here as well then. First of all, not every game has visible MMR and that didn’t stop them from growing (but I agree completely about the need of Ladders and Seasons!)

I have my own thoughts about Solo Queue. It has good points and bad points.

• “Supposed” fairness (because everyone is Solo).
• Last one has to be backed by a strong Match making system.
• Last one depends heavily on the population pool playing at every moment.
• The depended fairness comes also from the game systems (lack of pings fault of ANet, lack of team chat communication fault of players).
• Splitting the Community.

Also, you have to question the players bias. I’m sure that in a hypotetical game with an infinite number of players of all skill levels, people would still complain about the lack of Solo Queue, even though the system will always pair 5, 5, 5, 5, 5 vs 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, (infinite number of same skill players/SoloQueuing because the system is fair). System works completely fine, it’s fair, but the player will still complain because he’s biased.

“Oh, this is not SoloQ, it must be a premade or someone who was way lower than me/someone who was way stronger than me”. This good be the typical reasoning. With this I’m not telling that Guild Wars 2 matchmaking is perfect, but in my opinion the Guild Wars 2 playerbase is heavily biased.

Maybe this “false sense” of fairness that SoloQ can bring sPvP can be the solution to make population growth skyrocket. Or maybe it can decrease game quality and make people leave rather than keep playing. It’s not like SoloQ is a God or something like that. :P

Also, don’t missunderstand me, in the state of the game, Solo Queue would be better. But if there were seasons/ladders AND rewards, there would be a motivation for players to keep… playing the game. When those lack, SoloQ brings that motivation due to its “rougher” nature.

TL;DR: In my opinion SoloQ has both positive things and drawback things. It’s not a must, given certain infrastructures in-game.

Poliator.7021:

I’ll play the role here as well then. First of all, not every game has visible MMR and that didn’t stop them from growing (but I agree completely about the need of Ladders and Seasons!)

I have my own thoughts about Solo Queue. It has good points and bad points.

• “Supposed” fairness (because everyone is Solo).
• Last one has to be backed by a strong Match making system.
• Last one depends heavily on the population pool playing at every moment.
• The depended fairness comes also from the game systems (lack of pings fault of ANet, lack of team chat communication fault of players).
• Splitting the Community.

Also, you have to question the players bias. I’m sure that in a hypotetical game with an infinite number of players of all skill levels, people would still complain about the lack of Solo Queue, even though the system will always pair 5, 5, 5, 5, 5 vs 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, (infinite number of same skill players/SoloQueuing because the system is fair). System works completely fine, it’s fair, but the player will still complain because he’s biased.

“Oh, this is not SoloQ, it must be a premade or someone who was way lower than me/someone who was way stronger than me”. This good be the typical reasoning. With this I’m not telling that Guild Wars 2 matchmaking is perfect, but in my opinion the Guild Wars 2 playerbase is heavily biased.

Maybe this “false sense” of fairness that SoloQ can bring sPvP can be the solution to make population growth skyrocket. Or maybe it can decrease game quality and make people leave rather than keep playing. It’s not like SoloQ is a God or something like that. :P

Also, don’t missunderstand me, in the state of the game, Solo Queue would be better. But if there were seasons/ladders AND rewards, there would be a motivation for players to keep… playing the game. When those lack, SoloQ brings that motivation due to its “rougher” nature.

TL;DR: In my opinion SoloQ has both positive things and drawback things. It’s not a must, given certain infrastructures in-game.

I see where you’re coming from, and I agree on a lot of points (as well as with Reicta’s points). You brought up an important issue, which is the perception that an individual player has about the fairness of the match making system. I’m guessing (and this is really just conjecture, I have zero inside info) that when Anet looks at sPvP metrics, the overall picture is that the vast majority of matches are balanced in terms of MMR. However, from an individual player’s point of view, even a single match against a premade invalidates the match making system by creating a strong feeling of unfairness and resentment. This is the player bias you were talking about, and I truly believe that Anet is underestimating its importance. Even if, statistically, these solo vs. premade match-ups are inconsequential fringe cases, from an individual emotional point of view they become a very real force of demotivation. “What is the point of tryharding solo if I will hit a glass ceiling anyway? Why play at all?” I really believe that this feeling of unfairness is the key challenge for Anet if they wish to get people engaged again and have players genuinely care about tryharding in sPvP. And as we have learned from other competitive games, the players who tryhard in solo queue are the ones that eventually go on to form teams and ensure a healthy population for the team queue.

Currently, as Reicta pointed out, teams are not happy because ranked queue is a waste of time since you can potentially toss away an evening stomping partial PUGs and not get any competitive matches, while solo players are equally unhappy because they get to enjoy the exquisite pleasure of getting curb-stomped by premades. Not a single competitive player I have talked to cares about the current leaderboard because the queues are together, nor will they as long as the current queue iteration stands. I truly believe that separating the queues is the right call to make, but it needs to coincide with ladders to really entice people to care again.

Poliator.7021:

Aereniel.7356:

Hammerguard.9834:

If you think the pvp community is big enough to split with solo que then you’re crazy. The team and solo queues would surpass even 30 min.

TL;DR version: A dedicated solo queue is a must-have part of a functional PvP game’s infra, along with a visible MMR and ladders & seasons. Not having one is an impediment to population growth.

I’ll play the role here as well then. First of all, not every game has visible MMR and that didn’t stop them from growing (but I agree completely about the need of Ladders and Seasons!)

I have my own thoughts about Solo Queue. It has good points and bad points.

• “Supposed” fairness (because everyone is Solo).
• Last one has to be backed by a strong Match making system.
• Last one depends heavily on the population pool playing at every moment.
• The depended fairness comes also from the game systems (lack of pings fault of ANet, lack of team chat communication fault of players).
• Splitting the Community.

Also, you have to question the players bias. I’m sure that in a hypotetical game with an infinite number of players of all skill levels, people would still complain about the lack of Solo Queue, even though the system will always pair 5, 5, 5, 5, 5 vs 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, (infinite number of same skill players/SoloQueuing because the system is fair). System works completely fine, it’s fair, but the player will still complain because he’s biased.

“Oh, this is not SoloQ, it must be a premade or someone who was way lower than me/someone who was way stronger than me”. This good be the typical reasoning. With this I’m not telling that Guild Wars 2 matchmaking is perfect, but in my opinion the Guild Wars 2 playerbase is heavily biased.

Maybe this “false sense” of fairness that SoloQ can bring sPvP can be the solution to make population growth skyrocket. Or maybe it can decrease game quality and make people leave rather than keep playing. It’s not like SoloQ is a God or something like that. :P

Also, don’t missunderstand me, in the state of the game, Solo Queue would be better. But if there were seasons/ladders AND rewards, there would be a motivation for players to keep… playing the game. When those lack, SoloQ brings that motivation due to its “rougher” nature.

TL;DR: In my opinion SoloQ has both positive things and drawback things. It’s not a must, given certain infrastructures in-game.

But right now, people can easily see who’s in a team and who’s not. Just right click on their names in the “B” panel. If it says “Invite to party”, the player is solo. If it says “Join party”, the guy’s in a team.

So that takes out the question of “perceived” fairness. There’s no mistaking who’s in a team and who isn’t.

Yeah, that’s one of the problems. It’s hard to determine what a premade (be it 2 or 5 players) is worth of. Some premades are just guildmates chilling around, while other premades are competitive players (that want to reach the top of the MMR).

Parting from the idea that ANet will not introduce Solo Queue back anytime soon, I think that first of all, good Leaderboards and season should be added to the infrastructure, this will create more incentive to play i.e. increasing the playerbase. Along with this, to aleviate the problems about the premade vs PUG issue, an in game voice communication system or a really simple “ping” in map system would be a great benefit.

Eventually, everything should even out.

Also, top teams are condemned to do scrims on Custom Arenas against others. There’s a point where queue times would get insane for them leading to unfair matches/boring waiting time. :P

Let’s hope the announcement they will make at Gamescome the WTS day (Saturday 8th) will be about Ladders and Guild Teams. It can be huge.

bhagwad.4281:

Poliator.7021:

Aereniel.7356:

Hammerguard.9834:

If you think the pvp community is big enough to split with solo que then you’re crazy. The team and solo queues would surpass even 30 min.

TL;DR version: A dedicated solo queue is a must-have part of a functional PvP game’s infra, along with a visible MMR and ladders & seasons. Not having one is an impediment to population growth.

I’ll play the role here as well then. First of all, not every game has visible MMR and that didn’t stop them from growing (but I agree completely about the need of Ladders and Seasons!)

I have my own thoughts about Solo Queue. It has good points and bad points.

• “Supposed” fairness (because everyone is Solo).
• Last one has to be backed by a strong Match making system.
• Last one depends heavily on the population pool playing at every moment.
• The depended fairness comes also from the game systems (lack of pings fault of ANet, lack of team chat communication fault of players).
• Splitting the Community.

Also, you have to question the players bias. I’m sure that in a hypotetical game with an infinite number of players of all skill levels, people would still complain about the lack of Solo Queue, even though the system will always pair 5, 5, 5, 5, 5 vs 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, (infinite number of same skill players/SoloQueuing because the system is fair). System works completely fine, it’s fair, but the player will still complain because he’s biased.

“Oh, this is not SoloQ, it must be a premade or someone who was way lower than me/someone who was way stronger than me”. This good be the typical reasoning. With this I’m not telling that Guild Wars 2 matchmaking is perfect, but in my opinion the Guild Wars 2 playerbase is heavily biased.

Maybe this “false sense” of fairness that SoloQ can bring sPvP can be the solution to make population growth skyrocket. Or maybe it can decrease game quality and make people leave rather than keep playing. It’s not like SoloQ is a God or something like that. :P

Also, don’t missunderstand me, in the state of the game, Solo Queue would be better. But if there were seasons/ladders AND rewards, there would be a motivation for players to keep… playing the game. When those lack, SoloQ brings that motivation due to its “rougher” nature.

TL;DR: In my opinion SoloQ has both positive things and drawback things. It’s not a must, given certain infrastructures in-game.

But right now, people can easily see who’s in a team and who’s not. Just right click on their names in the “B” panel. If it says “Invite to party”, the player is solo. If it says “Join party”, the guy’s in a team.

So that takes out the question of “perceived” fairness. There’s no mistaking who’s in a team and who isn’t.

Yeah, you can do so. But… what is the difference between a premade and a solo? They may be just two guildmates chilling around in sPvP. No voice comm, or anything, just playing because they decided too.

Keep in mind as well that Matchmaking tries to do its job even-ing it out. If there is a premade and the overal MMR is of 5, then the premade should be one 4 and the other 6. Or maybe even 4 both of them. In the end, as I said, the system tries to even it out. (I say repeatedly “try” because this is not always the case).

Moreover, this problem is the most obvious in high MMR matches (because the high MMR player has to either play with lower MMR teammates or wait a long time in queue to get good players) and also with newcomers to sPvP, this last because the initial settled MMR is generally always higher than it should be for the newcomer’s skill, this leads the new player to be paired with more experienced players leading to either stomp or get stomped.

So… even the Solo Queue perceived fairness is lost if there’s not enough population/newcomers. When I had barely 600 total games played I got matched repeatedly with top teams players (and that wasn’t fun for me. I hadn’t the level to play against them).

P.S.: When I say “Solo Queue” I’m not refering to Solo Queuing into the system we have right now, but in the past “Solo Arena”.

Poliator.7021:

bhagwad.4281:

Poliator.7021:

Aereniel.7356:

Hammerguard.9834:

If you think the pvp community is big enough to split with solo que then you’re crazy. The team and solo queues would surpass even 30 min.

TL;DR version: A dedicated solo queue is a must-have part of a functional PvP game’s infra, along with a visible MMR and ladders & seasons. Not having one is an impediment to population growth.

I’ll play the role here as well then. First of all, not every game has visible MMR and that didn’t stop them from growing (but I agree completely about the need of Ladders and Seasons!)

I have my own thoughts about Solo Queue. It has good points and bad points.

• “Supposed” fairness (because everyone is Solo).
• Last one has to be backed by a strong Match making system.
• Last one depends heavily on the population pool playing at every moment.
• The depended fairness comes also from the game systems (lack of pings fault of ANet, lack of team chat communication fault of players).
• Splitting the Community.

Also, you have to question the players bias. I’m sure that in a hypotetical game with an infinite number of players of all skill levels, people would still complain about the lack of Solo Queue, even though the system will always pair 5, 5, 5, 5, 5 vs 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, (infinite number of same skill players/SoloQueuing because the system is fair). System works completely fine, it’s fair, but the player will still complain because he’s biased.

“Oh, this is not SoloQ, it must be a premade or someone who was way lower than me/someone who was way stronger than me”. This good be the typical reasoning. With this I’m not telling that Guild Wars 2 matchmaking is perfect, but in my opinion the Guild Wars 2 playerbase is heavily biased.

Maybe this “false sense” of fairness that SoloQ can bring sPvP can be the solution to make population growth skyrocket. Or maybe it can decrease game quality and make people leave rather than keep playing. It’s not like SoloQ is a God or something like that. :P

Also, don’t missunderstand me, in the state of the game, Solo Queue would be better. But if there were seasons/ladders AND rewards, there would be a motivation for players to keep… playing the game. When those lack, SoloQ brings that motivation due to its “rougher” nature.

TL;DR: In my opinion SoloQ has both positive things and drawback things. It’s not a must, given certain infrastructures in-game.

But right now, people can easily see who’s in a team and who’s not. Just right click on their names in the “B” panel. If it says “Invite to party”, the player is solo. If it says “Join party”, the guy’s in a team.

So that takes out the question of “perceived” fairness. There’s no mistaking who’s in a team and who isn’t.

Yeah, you can do so. But… what is the difference between a premade and a solo? They may be just two guildmates chilling around in sPvP. No voice comm, or anything, just playing because they decided too.

Keep in mind as well that Matchmaking tries to do its job even-ing it out. If there is a premade and the overal MMR is of 5, then the premade should be one 4 and the other 6. Or maybe even 4 both of them. In the end, as I said, the system tries to even it out. (I say repeatedly “try” because this is not always the case).

Moreover, this problem is the most obvious in high MMR matches (because the high MMR player has to either play with lower MMR teammates or wait a long time in queue to get good players) and also with newcomers to sPvP, this last because the initial settled MMR is generally always higher than it should be for the newcomer’s skill, this leads the new player to be paired with more experienced players leading to either stomp or get stomped.

So… even the Solo Queue perceived fairness is lost if there’s not enough population/newcomers. When I had barely 600 total games played I got matched repeatedly with top teams players (and that wasn’t fun for me. I hadn’t the level to play against them).

I think this all hinges on the question of how large the PvP player base is. Obviously we have no statistics, but we can compare it to GW1 which had a solo Q and was easily one of the most popular game modes throughout its history.

I think GW2 has a larger player base than GW1. Not sure why I think this, but I feel it’s true. And Random Arenas (RAs) had very decent wait times. So I’m not sure why GW2 can’t do it if the population is more than that of GW1.

This entire argument of mine falls apart if GW2 is less popular than GW1. The only stats I can find are sales numbers. After 4 years, GW1 had sold 6 million units. And after only 6 months, GW2 had sold 3 million copies so I’m guessing that the GW2 population is far higher.

You will never hear this from ArenaNet, and this post may even get removed, but Solo Queue was removed to improve overall queue times for a dwindling PvP community. We don’t have it because they can no longer afford to give it to us. If you want thrive in PvP, start adding other PvP players to your friends list.

bhagwad.4281:

I think this all hinges on the question of how large the PvP player base is. Obviously we have no statistics, but we can compare it to GW1 which had a solo Q and was easily one of the most popular game modes throughout its history.

I think GW2 has a larger player base than GW1. Not sure why I think this, but I feel it’s true. And Random Arenas (RAs) had very decent wait times. So I’m not sure why GW2 can’t do it if the population is more than that of GW1.

This entire argument of mine falls apart if GW2 is less popular than GW1. The only stats I can find are sales numbers. After 4 years, GW1 had sold 6 million units. And after only 6 months, GW2 had sold 3 million copies so I’m guessing that the GW2 population is far higher.

Not everyone who bought the game plays the game right now OR not anyone that plays the game plays/enjoys sPvP.

This will be a rather easy thing to check out when expansion comes out. There will be a population increase for sure. This will lead at first to bad matches as new players will have to get their initial rating settled but after some weeks, if the overall experience has not improved, then it might not be a population problem, but a matchmaking logarythm problem.

I agree with all that ladders/seasons crap but honestly, if Anet were to start putting the same number of premades on both teams what would the difference be between that and solo queue? Both teams are equivilant in premades and pugs and it would feel equivalent to a solo queue match. It would make matches more balanced while keeping the queues short.

Hammerguard.9834:

I agree with all that ladders/seasons crap but honestly, if Anet were to start putting the same number of premades on both teams what would the difference be between that and solo queue? Both teams are equivilant in premades and pugs and it would feel equivalent to a solo queue match. It would make matches more balanced while keeping the queues short.

I guess I wouldn’t really care if a 3-person premade on one team = 3-person premade on the other team + 2 solo queuers. That would even things out theoretically.

There’s some premades that aren’t bad because they are just friends/casual/pve-based, even though they’ll still probably be good with zerg, +1 and rezzing. The real demoralization comes when you see three, four or even five of the enemy team with the guild tag [tpvp] or [OP] or [HERO] or something that indicates tryhard pvpers. (Tryhard pvp guilds are cool and fine and good for the pvp population, obviously, it’s just solo players generally despite fighting them).