Guild Wars 2

I have just started ranked pvp as of yesterday and am struggling to understand how the rating gain corresponds to how I play. I went 7-3 in my placement matches which put me in silver 2 I then went on to win 5 more matches gaining 31, 31, 29, 26 and finally 24 rating. My understanding of most rating systems is that if you do well it keeps your rating gain high to put you where you need to be as soon as possible (roughly).

However playing tonight I gained 18 for a win then lost 19 and then gained 16. I am currently 18-6 and yet there are many people with worse win/loss ratio at a higher rating. Am I missing something? Is this rating system extremely different to the others that games with ranked pvp modes use?

Thanks for any input.

First, the outcome of your placement matches depends entirely on who you play against. Everyone starts close to 1200, and depending on who they face and how their matches end up, their rating could swing very widely.

What you’re seeing now though, is decreasing volatility. As you play more matches, the system becomes more certain of your true skill, so your rating doesn’t change as much, assuming of course, you’re still facing opponents close to your skill rating. Even if your volatility was minimal, facing much stronger opponents (and somehow winning) will also result in a high rating gain.

W/L ratio has nothing to do with your rating changes. Rating change depends on these factors: your own rating, your team’s average rating, the opposing team’s average rating (the last 2 lead to an expected outcome of the match, which aims to be 50-50), your rating deviation (which is a measure of uncertainty), and an additional volatility constant (which can also change due to certain factors).

Thanks for your reply @Rashy.4165

This is what doesn’t make sense to me though. I understand that the more I play then less I will gain (and lose) for a win or a loss but I’ve been consistently winning so I cannot understand why the rating gain is dropping off so much. In other games with this kind of rating system, if you have been consistently winning your rating gain stays higher to try and get you to where your skill level is faster and once you start losing more your gains reduce.

I realise that win/loss has nothing to do with actual rating change all I was trying to get across was the fact I’ve been winning a lot more than losing and yet my rating gain is decreasing dramatically.