Guild Wars 2

They Pip system is not working. The matches are more balanced that is true. But there is no real way to gauge your skill. the “good” players are doing fine and progressing. the average player is a non mover. I’ve seen many player in game and on the forum complaining of not being able to win more that 2 matches in a row. They have also said they are in the same place now as they where at the start of the league. There has been no progression for many.

Now I know people are not entitled to progress, but if you do not see some movement people are going to get frustrated and not play. This is a fact. if a game frustrates you, you’re not going to enjoy it, and not going to play it.

What we need is the following.

A pre season. where you gain points per game you win, over say 3 days. once those days are over, ANet then places people in divisions based on there points score. When the league starts, you stay in that division till the end, the only thing you gain is points. so rewards could be handed out with ever 5 wins or so. At the end of the season. Those who are in the top end of there league move up a division. The people in the bottom end move down one. this way wins count for something, and skilled players end up where they belong. that way non movers with in a division know they are where they belong.

Of course the higher the division you are in the bigger the rewards. but with rewards handed out after so many wins, people get a sense of progression. What those rewards are and how they are done is ANets job not mine, all number work in fact.

I know the current achievement system will not work with this format, but again. that’s for ANet to fix, as I feel the current pip system is just to demoralizing.

I don’t agree. If players are stuck in the same league all season then its for a reason. Not everyone is good enough to reach Legendary, or even Diamond, league. Its just a fact.

I will say this, I hate PvP, have always hated PvP, have never wanted to play PvP at all, but I played through the first two league seasons because they made it the only way to earn the Ascension wings. I’m now towards the beginning of the forth achievement tier, but have yet to win two matches in a row this season. If things have changed in a way that prevent me from reaching Ruby this season and next, preventing me from getting the wings I’ve been working on for several months now, then I will flip the kitten out.

Do not change the rules on people in the middle of a race. Do not let people advance at a certain pace until the halfway mark, and then halt their advancement completely.

OriOri.8724:

I don’t agree. If players are stuck in the same league all season then its for a reason. Not everyone is good enough to reach Legendary, or even Diamond, league. Its just a fact.

He is talking about the beginning of the season and he has a good point. If people have to wait a month to even have a chance at progressing, they’re very likely to just quit. And no I’m not saying that everyone is entitled to progress, I’m saying that if 90% of your playerbase is stuck in Sapphire for days and probably weeks that means something’s not right.

Surely if the average player is a non-mover then the matchmaking system is working? Checkpoints, winstreaks and losestreaks will still protect you on your way to Ruby.

yes some much fun running into 2/3 ppl party who are pro league players.

vlad.4871:

yes some much fun running into 2/3 ppl party who are pro league players.

This. I dont mind getting matched against PL, but it sucks to be soloqing and get matched three times in a row against the same premade.

Burn.5401:

OriOri.8724:

I don’t agree. If players are stuck in the same league all season then its for a reason. Not everyone is good enough to reach Legendary, or even Diamond, league. Its just a fact.

He is talking about the beginning of the season and he has a good point. If people have to wait a month to even have a chance at progressing, they’re very likely to just quit. And no I’m not saying that everyone is entitled to progress, I’m saying that if 90% of your playerbase is stuck in Sapphire for days and probably weeks that means something’s not right.

If the bottom 40% belong in Amber and Emerald then something isn’t right when 90% of the playerbase is Sapphire indeed. Upper Emerald through lower Ruby should correlate to LoL Silver.

I’m already through Emerald in around 40 games, despite being absolutely kittened over in about 20 games in the last two tiers of Emerald with rampantly terrible teammates.

My issue isn’t progression-based, but that progression is stymied because the system intentionally favors one team, and stacks the other with terrible players. I mean, you can grind through it, but it’s definitely frustrating.

Also, close games still don’t exist. So, there’s that.

Kayberz.5346:

All you guys are doing is crying because your not getting instant gratification, as if you expected to reach your final standind in the division in the first week, AND ITS ONLY BEEN 3 DAYS out of 6 WEEKS.

Yerp, people need to settle down. It’s nothing new. If you want to grind against the brick wall of first week league with an unsettled meta, you shouldn’t expect much progress if you aren’t good at buildcrafting/playing.

you guys said the SAME EXACT THING at the start of both season 1 and 2, claiming that you couldn’t progress at all the first few days and that it would be too late if you waited for the divisions to spread out to progress, and SURPRISE SURPRISE you ended up having plenty of time to eventually get to the division you belong in.

So you’d think they’d learn some lessons about how to avoid this sort of situation, but apparently not. Maybe it will take care of itself over the next couple weeks, but if not, they’d better have contingencies planned well before the end of the season.

All you guys are doing is crying because your not getting instant gratification, as if you expected to reach your final standind in the division in the first week, AND ITS ONLY BEEN 3 DAYS out of 6 WEEKS.

I don’t think that’s true. It’s certainly not true for me. I don’t expect to be at Ruby by now, or even by Sapphire. I do wish that I were out of the FIRST tier of Emerald though, I think that would be nice. I’m currently sitting at two pips, which are the first two pips I’ve had in a row since the season started, and which I fully expect to be gone by this time tomorrow.

The entire basis of the League is a bad one. You should gain progress for wins, and lose nothing for losses. Losing pips just makes people feel bad.

Agree totally.
The pipe system should go, and the MMR system needs a complete make over, but Anet wont do that things, so i suggest a really fast and easy way which could be solved this problem:
-No defeat streaks at all.
-One defeat only removes the win streak(if u had any) but not a pipe.
-Two defeats in a row removes one pipe.
I think it could give a chance for progress even with this Very BAD MMR system.

I see most people saying everything is fine as is are the ones who are getting some movement. As I said, I know full well.people are not entitled to progress, and yes, nit everyone belongs in the higher ties. If you had bothered reading my OP you would see I accounted for this. That’s why I said we should have a pre season, one a year. Sort the “good” from the “bad”. You are then in your own league with other players who belong there. Then only after every “season” do people move up or down a division, based on bow well they did.

This way people who don’t belong in a division move out of it. The players play against players of there own skill. That way they improve. ANet want people to get better at PvP. The current system dose not encourage this at all. If it did, we would not be talking about grinding divisions. But you guys already knew that right?

Sarrs.4831:

Surely if the average player is a non-mover then the matchmaking system is working? Checkpoints, winstreaks and losestreaks will still protect you on your way to Ruby.

While you have a point, this is the problem with the pip system. Now image you’ve played say for the sake of argument, 30 games. You have won 15 of them. But you are still on zero pips. Why would you keep playing? Sure last 2 season by now you could be out of amber and working your way through emerald. You could argue players are no better off at the moment, as they are there already. But they had seen progression. They had the feeling they are getting somewhere. Currently people are not feeling that. That is a problem. As I said in my OP. If players get frustrated they stop playing. A league only works if you had players. Last season saw a massive drop off after 4 weeks. People where in queues of over 10 minuets for ruby. Some reported way longer. This showed the league failed to keep people interested to the end. We all know this to be true. Weather we want to admit it or not.

The problem i see mostly is that ppl treat pvp as pve,if i join i must get rewards,i must move foward,i see ppl with less than 300 ranked matches complaining about pvp,i bet that most pvpers go in pve and dont have a clue about many pve events and best ways to do them…..its kind of funny really…..

What i would like to see is next to each persons name on the forum the ranked matches played and mmr,that would make more clear some things…..

rian.9708:

The problem i see mostly is that ppl treat pvp as pve,if i join i must get rewards,i must move foward,i see ppl with less than 300 ranked matches complaining about pvp,i bet that most pvpers go in pve and dont have a clue about many pve events and best ways to do them…..its kind of funny really…..

What i would like to see is next to each persons name on the forum the ranked matches played and mmr,that would make more clear some things…..

So you feel unless someone has X amount of games under there belt they have no right to an opinion?

As for the PvE comparison. I’ve seem many legendary rank PvP players leading PvE events, so that is not true. Also PvE events are simple, follow one of the zurgs.

if you cant progress through divisions right now, stick to only playing 3 games a day to get your daily ranked player progress for the next couple of weeks while all the people better than you win their way out of your division.

leagues/divisions are a poor measure of skill and are a grindfest, but it can be played around to get your legendary and get out.

While you have a point, this is the problem with the pip system. Now image you’ve played say for the sake of argument, 30 games. You have won 15 of them. But you are still on zero pips. Why would you keep playing? Sure last 2 season by now you could be out of amber and working your way through emerald. You could argue players are no better off at the moment, as they are there already. But they had seen progression. They had the feeling they are getting somewhere. Currently people are not feeling that. That is a problem. As I said in my OP. If players get frustrated they stop playing. A league only works if you had players. Last season saw a massive drop off after 4 weeks. People where in queues of over 10 minuets for ruby. Some reported way longer. This showed the league failed to keep people interested to the end. We all know this to be true. Weather we want to admit it or not.

Exactly. I’d probably still be in Amber without the auto-bump, but I’d at least be halfway through Amber by now, even assuming an identical win/loss record, whereas now I’m only two pips from where I started and confident I’ll hit zero pips again before I hit five.

The problem i see mostly is that ppl treat pvp as pve,if i join i must get rewards,i must move foward,i see ppl with less than 300 ranked matches complaining about pvp,i bet that most pvpers go in pve and dont have a clue about many pve events and best ways to do them…..its kind of funny really…..

Your argument doesn’t matter. Those players are just as entitled to have an enjoyable experience as players with thousands of matches under their belt. If ANet can’t provide low-match-count players with a fun experience, then how do they expect to retain them long enough to have high-count players?

I would say its more like entitled players like ohoni that are bad at the game and have little to no pvp skill are expecting to receive the same rewards and level of progression as actual pvp players who are actually winning games.

I’m winning games, TONS of games, it’s just that the other people on my team tend to lose them, and since we have a shared score, I get negative pips. Nothing I can really do about that. I mean if I’m sitting there 1v 2ing and 1v3ing players on the only point we hold for several minutes at a time, and the rest of my team can’t manage to hold even ONE other point, then what am I supposed to do about that?

Ohoni has already gone on record multiple times saying he doesnt care about pvp at all and is only doing it for the legendary back piece, and that he prefers blowout matches where he wins by a landslide over actual close games where he wins by less than 50 points because all he cares about is the reward.

Totally.

These are people who have no business discussing pvp, because they dont care about making a competitive system better, their motive is to make getting their shinnies easier, thats it

Yeah, except, I play GW2, and I’m just as entitled to be happy as you are. Your argument would only hold merit if they had kept PvP and PvE COMPLETELY SEPARATE. That’s how the game launched and it was MAGICAL. The very best PvP system on the market, because it was 100% optional. And not that b-kitten “optional” where “you don’t have to do it, but you’ll totally miss out on rewards if you don’t,” it was REAL optional as in “you could do it, or not, and it will make absolutely ZERO difference to your PvE characters.”

That was perfect, but they ruined it, so here we are.

And where we are is, PvP is NOT for PvPers anymore. It has to be for everyone, especially for players that hate PvP, because they’ve locked PvE rewards behind PvP activities, and PvEers outnumber the PvPers. Don’t like that? Put pressure on ANet to put things back how they used to be, where nothing you earn in PvP can be used outside of the Mists. Until then you’re stuck with us, neither of us likes that, and no amount of whining that we shouldn’t count will make any difference.

Sarrs.4831:

Now image you’ve played say for the sake of argument, 30 games. You have won 15 of them. But you are still on zero pips. Why would you keep playing? Sure last 2 season by now you could be out of amber and working your way through emerald. You could argue players are no better off at the moment, as they are there already. But they had seen progression. They had the feeling they are getting somewhere. Currently people are not feeling that. That is a problem. As I said in my OP. If players get frustrated they stop playing. A league only works if you had players. Last season saw a massive drop off after 4 weeks. People where in queues of over 10 minuets for ruby. Some reported way longer. This showed the league failed to keep people interested to the end. We all know this to be true. Weather we want to admit it or not.

That’s what happened right now to me, balancing is ‘good’. I’m losing, I’m winning, losing, winning and so on, it doesn’t matter if i go ranked or unranked, it’s the same.

What makes me feel quit again from Gw2 and PvP is the condition meta, the enemy team: Minion Necro, Condition Necro, Condition Thief, Condition Warrior, Condition Mesmer. I’m currently playing Dragonhunter and there’s no chance to cleanse, even if you have killed them or they’re in downed you will die on conditions. In the past, as i started playing pvp after release condition was something for the beginning, easy to handle, easy to play and effective. After i have become better i played supporter classes/ builds or beserker. And now everyone is playing condition, some classes don’t have to move at all they’re just spamming random keys. Sorry, but theres no decent evidence if a player is good or not, even that people who already reached last division, it says nothing about how good the are they just invest more time, beeing lucky with teams or grinding in a group.

Some people in the forum said: “If you’re not playing conditions builds(meta builds) you will be a handicap of your team, you need to move on.”
- that what happens is not that players moved on, they moved back years ago. The PvP became too casual, you could took any player, who never have played PvP before, from ‘Cursed Shore Map’, give him a condition bunker build – here we go he will be good as everyone else nowadays.

Wish we could back to the meta who everybody laugh at condition builds, making tactics before the match starts, where people were glad to have a bunker class for holding points a time where players had skill. All you need now is to: go to metabattle, grab your fav. class, get a condition build and you will do very fine by spamming half-brained random buttons. Congratulations.

All people who still playing beserker or support builds without condition, keep that. Well done!

Silversteen.1360:

Sarrs.4831:

Now image you’ve played say for the sake of argument, 30 games. You have won 15 of them. But you are still on zero pips. Why would you keep playing? Sure last 2 season by now you could be out of amber and working your way through emerald. You could argue players are no better off at the moment, as they are there already. But they had seen progression. They had the feeling they are getting somewhere. Currently people are not feeling that. That is a problem. As I said in my OP. If players get frustrated they stop playing. A league only works if you had players. Last season saw a massive drop off after 4 weeks. People where in queues of over 10 minuets for ruby. Some reported way longer. This showed the league failed to keep people interested to the end. We all know this to be true. Weather we want to admit it or not.

That’s what happened right now to me, balancing is ‘good’. I’m losing, I’m winning, losing, winning and so on, it doesn’t matter if i go ranked or unranked, it’s the same.

What makes me feel quit again from Gw2 and PvP is the condition meta, the enemy team: Minion Necro, Condition Necro, Condition Thief, Condition Warrior, Condition Mesmer. I’m currently playing Dragonhunter and there’s no chance to cleanse, even if you have killed them or they’re in downed you will die on conditions. In the past, as i started playing pvp after release condition was something for the beginning, easy to handle, easy to play and effective. After i have become better i played supporter classes/ builds or beserker. And now everyone is playing condition, some classes don’t have to move at all they’re just spamming random keys. Sorry, but theres no decent evidence if a player is good or not, even that people who already reached last division, it says nothing about how good the are they just invest more time, beeing lucky with teams or grinding in a group.

Some people in the forum said: “If you’re not playing conditions builds(meta builds) you will be a handicap of your team, you need to move on.”
- that what happens is not that players moved on, they moved back years ago. The PvP became too casual, you could took any player, who never have played PvP before, from ‘Cursed Shore Map’, give him a condition bunker build – here we go he will be good as everyone else nowadays.

Wish we could back to the meta who everybody laugh at condition builds, making tactics before the match starts, where people were glad to have a bunker class for holding points a time where players had skill. All you need now is to: go to metabattle, grab your fav. class, get a condition build and you will do very fine by spamming half-brained random buttons. Congratulations.

All people who still playing beserker or support builds without condition, keep that. Well done!

The “Meta” is.not the problem. I also play power ranger, and can kill people way quicker than conditions can kill me. Same for DH, go bow and stay back, once points are clear lay traps. Go off point and wait for enemy players to try and cap and hit them while they are caught in the traps. Easy as that.

I agree the match making is balanced. You have a 50/50 chance of winning. You just have to hope you make less mistakes than your enemy.

The league system is flawed for a very simple reason:

win, loss, win, loss, win, loss = 0 pip change
win, win, win, loss, loss, loss = +1 pip change

Both scenarios have 50% win rate. Match-up order just favored the second.

How can a system where scoring is based partly on luck ever reflect skill?

I think the main issue ArenaNet is really using the wrong motivation combined with the most frustrating reward system to get ppl to PvP. I mean lets face it, aside from the rewards and fancy name plate stickers, has leagues added to the PvP experience?

The pip system doesn’t gauge skill or placement. It is a reward track to assign rewards to players on there progress. It has become that double sided joke where if you are stuck you are bad and deserve to be there, yet so few people hold the value of being in diamond or legendary as being skilled because so many simply grinded there.

People’s motivations for entering PvP are not good for the experience. We have a bunch of players in ranked that are not here to enjoy sPvP, they are here to get their rewards and get out. For a “competitive” mode this is probably the worst thing you can do. Before leagues it was rare to see people just straight up give up or just sit there and rage when things slightly go wrong. AFKs, giving up, raging at your team has becomes ever so common in ranked because people are not here to play there best and have fun. They are here for the shinnies, not to compete, not to get better, and not here because they enjoy pvp. There is no punishment for just giving up just like there is no motivation to keep pushing, keep trying, to minimize your loss like there was in season 1.

The system of progression through win streaking only serves to frustrate the hell out of the majority of players. It tosses all other aspects of playing out the window except winning, not even winning, but winning consecutively. Something that rarely happens enough to a player of average skill to get anywhere. It makes it easy for people to be frustrated that spend hours getting no where, which only farther promotes the behavior detailed above.

I have been playing all pvp modes since Guild Wars 1 came out. They are repeating mistakes they made in one in 2 now. Ranked is an absolute cancer of an sportsmanship environment now. The quality of matches are at its worse it has been since the game came out. If you are not winning, you are not making progress, you are not having fun, and people quit playing your mode. This happened in Guild Wars 1, while it was great initially for the high end players it soon turned to less than a handful of teams playing each-other in HoH wondering why it took hours for them to be matched with an opponent.

While all this might be genius for ArenetNet’s metrics to have people spend hours and hours in a mode they don’t really want to be playing, it is really only going to be a short term gain for them. They have given up on a quality experience to promote the illusion of competitive eSports. I am sure participation is skewing downward this year as more and more ppl are getting the rewards they want and getting out. I for one know I wont be returning for season 4 after I complete the AP out for all the classes. It isn’t fun like it used to be when people played it for fun.

This just isn’t a competitive environment like ArenaNet has claimed. They need something the resembles an actual competition than this grindy reward track they call leagues. They need to attract players that actually want to compete in a format you actually need to compete to get rewards.

BrotherBelial.3094:

While you have a point, this is the problem with the pip system. Now image you’ve played say for the sake of argument, 30 games. You have won 15 of them. But you are still on zero pips.

I’ve played 33 and won 16 (was pushing my league professional so I sucked at them, + new meta warriors punish my necro). I am at 10 pips- in Sapphire, too, so I don’t have checkpoints as frequently as Amber/Emerald players.

You can say this as a hypothetical, but it’s my actual experience, and I’m progressing. If you’ve made absolutely no progress and you’re in this position, you are very unlucky from a statistics point of view. While being unlucky can suck, understanding why you’re doing poorly or doing well is important.

BrotherBelial.3094:

Why would you keep playing?

Because PvP is fun. If you don’t enjoy PvP don’t expect to progress in the season because chances are you aren’t very good at it, either on a theorycrafting/buildcrafting side or on an actual play side.

BrotherBelial.3094:

Sure last 2 season by now you could be out of amber and working your way through emerald. You could argue players are no better off at the moment, as they are there already. But they had seen progression. They had the feeling they are getting somewhere. Currently people are not feeling that. That is a problem.

Again… This is entirely the problem with looking at the leagues after 3 days. You built that headstart during the middle and later days of last season and now you’re coming into the start of this season and expecting it all to be hunky dory. People haven’t spread out into the leagues yet. Take a chill pill.

BrotherBelial.3094:

As I said in my OP. If players get frustrated they stop playing. A league only works if you had players. Last season saw a massive drop off after 4 weeks. People where in queues of over 10 minuets for ruby. Some reported way longer. This showed the league failed to keep people interested to the end. We all know this to be true. Weather we want to admit it or not.

Analyze long term trends all you want it doesn’t make a lick of sense when you’re analyzing 60 days of league play and then trying to compare it to the 3 days we’ve seen so far.

BrotherBelial.3094:

….

A pre season. where you gain points per game you win, over say 3 days. once those days are over, ANet then places people in divisions based on there points score. When the league starts, you stay in that division till the end, the only thing you gain is points. so rewards could be handed out with ever 5 wins or so. At the end of the season. Those who are in the top end of there league move up a division. The people in the bottom end move down one. this way wins count for something, and skilled players end up where they belong. that way non movers with in a division know they are where they belong.

….

You want me to gamble a 2 months season on 3 dayz? Season 1, I had 10 dayz off on vacation… So, I would be what in the system you propose?

Then… grinding POINTS is not about skill. Why promoting people to grind points? It don’t show if you can win versus the best of the game.

The system need to be able to:

1- Identify who is the best.
2- If you win versus the best, you should be brought into their rank.
3- If you lose versus the best, but not by much, you probably will raise your rank anyway.
4- If you lose completely, you should lower the rank.

If you got +1 on rank, somebody not playing right now got -1.

This was our Skill based system into the 2013 and 2014.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/Skill-based-or-Grind-based-rank-system/first#post6098296

They replaced it for a grind based system in trying to convert PVE casuals into PVP hardcore.

This is not working. This is a mess. QQ is at TOP. Because PVE casuals don’t like PVP.

They should had tried to cater to hardcore PVP player based and created their spvp platform into a format to compete into this crowd, so it can gain more people playing it.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/sPvP-needs-its-own-business-model/first

But they missed the boat.

Nobody sane enough will grind this game and be happy about it. Nobody will think you are good because you are Legendary in the Divisions ranking. This is a bad Myth.

If you are Legendary in the divisions, it means you played 100 to 500 games and had lucky wins. It don’t show skills like it was, it show you are dedicated for a game mode.

The league system is a joke because of the grind involved that don’t consider the quality of the players you are beating.

Winning versus new players or people with 100 or less games is so easy, it should not give me a Legendary places in the division.

#soloq
#1hour queues

Kayberz.5346:

I would say its more like entitled players like ohoni that are bad at the game and have little to no pvp skill are expecting to receive the same rewards and level of progression as actual pvp players who are actually winning games.

Entitled PvE player? Yes. But Anet is the one who decided their strategy to get people into PvP was not to make it fun, balanced and competitive; but instead to give rewards that PvE can’t resist.

Jourdelune.7456:

BrotherBelial.3094:

….

A pre season. where you gain points per game you win, over say 3 days. once those days are over, ANet then places people in divisions based on there points score. When the league starts, you stay in that division till the end, the only thing you gain is points. so rewards could be handed out with ever 5 wins or so. At the end of the season. Those who are in the top end of there league move up a division. The people in the bottom end move down one. this way wins count for something, and skilled players end up where they belong. that way non movers with in a division know they are where they belong.

….

You want me to gamble a 2 months season on 3 dayz? Season 1, I had 10 dayz off on vacation… So, I would be what in the system you propose?

Then… grinding POINTS is not about skill. Why promoting people to grind points? It don’t show if you can win versus the best of the game.

The system need to be able to:

1- Identify who is the best.
2- If you win versus the best, you should be brought into their rank.
3- If you lose versus the best, but not by much, you probably will raise your rank anyway.
4- If you lose completely, you should lower the rank.

If you got +1 on rank, somebody not playing right now got -1.

This was our Skill based system into the 2013 and 2014.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/Skill-based-or-Grind-based-rank-system/first#post6098296

They replaced it for a grind based system in trying to convert PVE casuals into PVP hardcore.

This is not working. This is a mess. QQ is at TOP. Because PVE casuals don’t like PVP.

They should had tried to cater to hardcore PVP player based and created their spvp platform into a format to compete into this crowd, so it can gain more people playing it.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/sPvP-needs-its-own-business-model/first

But they missed the boat.

Nobody sane enough will grind this game and be happy about it. Nobody will think you are good because you are Legendary in the Divisions ranking. This is a bad Myth.

If you are Legendary in the divisions, it means you played 100 to 500 games and had lucky wins. It don’t show skills like it was, it show you are dedicated for a game mode.

The league system is a joke because of the grind involved that don’t consider the quality of the players you are beating.

Winning versus new players or people with 100 or less games is so easy, it should not give me a Legendary places in the division.

From your opening paragraph you seem to not understand. The pre season is for the whole year. Sure you could grind out games, but if your not that good, you’ll not move up. If your bad you’ll. Get kicked out of your division because you where not wining games. I don’t see how this is a grind based system. You still have to be good to win matches. So good players will win more matches, bad players will win less. Most sports have leagues where teams can get promoted and demoted at the end of a season. If we want a true skill based system this is how it needs to happen. The pip system offer nothing in reliance of true skill. As you can just play enough games to get the wins. And grind your way up.

Sarrs.4831:

BrotherBelial.3094:

While you have a point, this is the problem with the pip system. Now image you’ve played say for the sake of argument, 30 games. You have won 15 of them. But you are still on zero pips.

I’ve played 33 and won 16 (was pushing my league professional so I sucked at them, + new meta warriors punish my necro). I am at 10 pips- in Sapphire, too, so I don’t have checkpoints as frequently as Amber/Emerald players.

You can say this as a hypothetical, but it’s my actual experience, and I’m progressing. If you’ve made absolutely no progress and you’re in this position, you are very unlucky from a statistics point of view. While being unlucky can suck, understanding why you’re doing poorly or doing well is important.

BrotherBelial.3094:

Why would you keep playing?

Because PvP is fun. If you don’t enjoy PvP don’t expect to progress in the season because chances are you aren’t very good at it, either on a theorycrafting/buildcrafting side or on an actual play side.

BrotherBelial.3094:

Sure last 2 season by now you could be out of amber and working your way through emerald. You could argue players are no better off at the moment, as they are there already. But they had seen progression. They had the feeling they are getting somewhere. Currently people are not feeling that. That is a problem.

Again… This is entirely the problem with looking at the leagues after 3 days. You built that headstart during the middle and later days of last season and now you’re coming into the start of this season and expecting it all to be hunky dory. People haven’t spread out into the leagues yet. Take a chill pill.

BrotherBelial.3094:

As I said in my OP. If players get frustrated they stop playing. A league only works if you had players. Last season saw a massive drop off after 4 weeks. People where in queues of over 10 minuets for ruby. Some reported way longer. This showed the league failed to keep people interested to the end. We all know this to be true. Weather we want to admit it or not.

Analyze long term trends all you want it doesn’t make a lick of sense when you’re analyzing 60 days of league play and then trying to compare it to the 3 days we’ve seen so far.

This problem was apparent last season. It’s the same problem this season, I’m doing fine with my games. But as I said the pip system can not take into account skill when the match making is 50/50. The league needs a reformat, or take away the ability to solo queue and force people to make teams to play. At least then is a team is skilled and work well together ANet have there chance of turning GW2 into an Esport. As it stand 5 random players have a small chance of winning, unless they are all competent. And we’ve all had games with team mates who are just bad, and do there own thing even after you discuss a plan before the match starts, or try and have there own 1vs1 in an enemies AoE party.

Yes PvP is fun. I really enjoy it. But we can all agree, the match making and league lay out is still not right. I mean it is fun, but it’s not that much fun. S1 I didn’t enjoy all that much, I spent more time playing unranked and having better games than in ranked. S2 was a bit better, but after 4 weeks, with a whole week of floating around ruby. I went back to unranked as the losing streaks and blowouts killed the enjoyment. It was more to do with players just afking every time a fight didn’t end well. And its already happening this season, on day one.

A change in the way the league works could help eliminate this.

BrotherBelial.3094:

This problem was apparent last season. It’s the same problem this season, I’m doing fine with my games. But as I said the pip system can not take into account skill when the match making is 50/50. The league needs a reformat, or take away the ability to solo queue and force people to make teams to play.

I’m not going to bother reading beyond this.

If you want to win matches, you have to play better. This can mean getting better at the game, it can mean getting better builds and countercomping, it can mean recruiting better teammates. If you do this, you will get pips, you will break divisions, you will progress. This will help you even at this point in the season as people are already breaking into Ruby and Diamond.

If you think that everyone should need to make a team to play, what is stopping you from going out and finding a team to play with? You don’t like solo queue, fine, don’t solo queue. Go get some friends. Don’t force your position onto the rest of us just because you can’t control yourself.

Go get good and win at games. If you are winning a game for every game you’re losing, then the matchmaking is working.

This season is way better then last. I had to quit, mid ruby last season, because of MMR hell that was brutal. Now I’m actually progressing smoothly. Matches are closer than ever , with the occasional blowout that can go either way. This season I will hit diamond. Who knows maybe even legendary.

Sarrs.4831:

BrotherBelial.3094:

This problem was apparent last season. It’s the same problem this season, I’m doing fine with my games. But as I said the pip system can not take into account skill when the match making is 50/50. The league needs a reformat, or take away the ability to solo queue and force people to make teams to play.

I’m not going to bother reading beyond this.

If you want to win matches, you have to play better. This can mean getting better at the game, it can mean getting better builds and countercomping, it can mean recruiting better teammates. If you do this, you will get pips, you will break divisions, you will progress. This will help you even at this point in the season as people are already breaking into Ruby and Diamond.

If you think that everyone should need to make a team to play, what is stopping you from going out and finding a team to play with? You don’t like solo queue, fine, don’t solo queue. Go get some friends. Don’t force your position onto the rest of us just because you can’t control yourself.

Go get good and win at games. If you are winning a game for every game you’re losing, then the matchmaking is working.

You failed to understand what I was getting at, I didn’t read past the get good comment. As you clearly do not understand. As I said, I’m winning matched and progressing nicely. The current pip system dose not encourage people to.play to the end of the season. The current system is not a reflection of skill. I’ve been in matches where I’m personally.more skilled than the enemy team, but they play better as a team. When you can take out 2 enemy players, but the rest of your team can’t handle 3, this effects your progression, and is not a reflection of your skill.

People keep telling other players to get good, when in a team based game one good player can not win a game on his own. So each of us is at the mercy of the other 4 members of our team. If they are having a bad day, or one loss away from braking a loosing streak pip, you could lose the match through no fault of your own. You could play a blinding game, it could be the game.of your life, but it was all for nothing.

The league needs to be set up to reward pips to individual players based on there skill, or make it so you can only play ranked matches in premade teams. As other said, last season good players ended up in MMR hell. Good players need a way to get away from the bad.

I’m not saying I’m a good play I know I’m not high end league.

Stop acting like pvp is anything other then luck and grind for a soloquere. You look like clowns. This is an mmo we are talking about.

It’s supposed to be a rank system, it’s not a reward track… Why does this need to be explained? What do you expect the ranks to represent? I am not able to understand why the RANKED LEAGUE should be just some legendary wing reward track for you guys…

IF they would change the league, they should make it possible to lose divisions and pips even in amber. Atleast that way the ranks would actually stand for something.

A ranked system in which your personal skill is 90% effected AND decided by other people. A good judgement of your personal skill i say and the only deciding factor which dictates where in MMR u are and what ppl u party with..ultimately how many losses u get.

Let’s take an example. I keep hearing this “git gud” thing on the forums. Let’s do an experiment. If i go on and join teams, intentionally afking, theoretically if i have 4 good ppl with me they should win right? Let’s see the % of those wins. How much “guder” should they git if 1 person in their party is a net loss…either afk or just dies constantly. Is that still a way to judge the other 4 people’s skill?

Rebound.3409:

A ranked system in which your personal skill is 90% effected AND decided by other people. A good judgement of your personal skill i say and the only deciding factor which dictates where in MMR u are and what ppl u party with..ultimately how many losses u get.

Let’s take an example. I keep hearing this “git gud” thing on the forums. Let’s do an experiment. If i go on and join teams, intentionally afking, theoretically if i have 4 good ppl with me they should win right? Let’s see the % of those wins. How much “guder” should they git if 1 person in their party is a net loss…either afk or just dies constantly. Is that still a way to judge the other 4 people’s skill?

While I’d love a 1v1 ranked league it would in practice simply boil down to scrapper vs. scrapper at the highest levels.

Kaijantoo.5796:

It’s supposed to be a rank system, it’s not a reward track… Why does this need to be explained? What do you expect the ranks to represent? I am not able to understand why the RANKED LEAGUE should be just some legendary wing reward track for you guys…

IF they would change the league, they should make it possible to lose divisions and pips even in amber. Atleast that way the ranks would actually stand for something.

But it’s a rank system that means very little, as you can get to ruby with no real skill. As long as you spend enough time playing you will get to ruby. That why I suggested a points system. Good players will always win more matches than average players. A points system also encourage people to.play to the wire. As those points could move you up or keep you in your division. As many have said the ability to not drop divisions means there is a bottle neck at the start of each division. As it stand the only divisions that mean anything are diamond and legendary. My suggestion would make every division mean something.

Exedore.6320:

The league system is flawed for a very simple reason:

win, loss, win, loss, win, loss = 0 pip change
win, win, win, loss, loss, loss = +1 pip change

Both scenarios have 50% win rate. Match-up order just favored the second.

How can a system where scoring is based partly on luck ever reflect skill?

This so much. Once you get to Emerald, it’s purely luck in pulling team comps and matchups.

Kylden Ar.3724:

Exedore.6320:

The league system is flawed for a very simple reason:

win, loss, win, loss, win, loss = 0 pip change
win, win, win, loss, loss, loss = +1 pip change

Both scenarios have 50% win rate. Match-up order just favored the second.

How can a system where scoring is based partly on luck ever reflect skill?

This so much. Once you get to Emerald, it’s purely luck in pulling team comps and matchups.

Yes this is also a problem.

Kylden Ar.3724:

This so much. Once you get to Emerald, it’s purely luck in pulling team comps and matchups.

‘luck in pulling team comps’

assuming you’re solo queuing, you can queue as a group you know

Agemnon.4608:

Rebound.3409:

A ranked system in which your personal skill is 90% effected AND decided by other people. A good judgement of your personal skill i say and the only deciding factor which dictates where in MMR u are and what ppl u party with..ultimately how many losses u get.

Let’s take an example. I keep hearing this “git gud” thing on the forums. Let’s do an experiment. If i go on and join teams, intentionally afking, theoretically if i have 4 good ppl with me they should win right? Let’s see the % of those wins. How much “guder” should they git if 1 person in their party is a net loss…either afk or just dies constantly. Is that still a way to judge the other 4 people’s skill?

While I’d love a 1v1 ranked league it would in practice simply boil down to scrapper vs. scrapper at the highest levels.

What i am overall trying to say is that there is absolutely NO judgement of personal skill in this game as a soloquer. It all boils down to luck (getting a decent team). There cannot be any such type of “ranking system” in a system that doesn’t actually do ranking all in all because of those very reasons.

So people saying git gud and you are not playing right and whatever….i honestly pity them.

“Seasons” in any mmo always boils down to luck & grind. Only a handfull of ppl (as a team) go far….but 90% don’t

assuming you’re solo queuing, you can queue as a group you know

The only difference between solo queuing and being in a group is that in the latter you’re more likely to face a pre-made 5-man, assuming that you don’t know the other players in your group. I’ve had decent luck grouping up with people in the past, but the hard part is finding skilled players to group with in the first place.

It’s kinda like poker, each hand you’re given five random cards, maybe you’re dealt a winning hand, maybe not. If you happen to get a few good cards, you can hold onto those and have the rest filled with randoms. If you go into a hand with 1-2 unknown players, it’s like going in with two face-down cards, you still have no idea whether they would be better or worse than the two randomly dealt to you.

Ohoni.6057:

assuming you’re solo queuing, you can queue as a group you know

The only difference between solo queuing and being in a group is that in the latter you’re more likely to face a pre-made 5-man, assuming that you don’t know the other players in your group. I’ve had decent luck grouping up with people in the past, but the hard part is finding skilled players to group with in the first place.

It’s kinda like poker, each hand you’re given five random cards, maybe you’re dealt a winning hand, maybe not. If you happen to get a few good cards, you can hold onto those and have the rest filled with randoms. If you go into a hand with 1-2 unknown players, it’s like going in with two face-down cards, you still have no idea whether they would be better or worse than the two randomly dealt to you.

That’s why it’s more beneficial to form a team. In the end ANet want people to form teams “git gud” and play in the pro league. That’s the point of the league. But everyone I know solo or duo queues. Some guildies and myself made a 4 man last season. We won a few. Then ended up having the same guy as the 5th man 5 games running who just Akitten for every match. Didn’t talk just walked around respawn and used skills to he didn’t get kicked.

Ohoni.6057:

The only difference between solo queuing and being in a group is that in the latter you’re more likely to face a pre-made 5-man, assuming that you don’t know the other players in your group. I’ve had decent luck grouping up with people in the past, but the hard part is finding skilled players to group with in the first place.

maybe you should just queue in with friends and have fun

maybe you should just queue in with friends and have fun

It’s impossible to have fun, it’s PvP. PvP is about grinding your way through the queues until you get the wings. The only way PvP could be fun is if you could get it all taken care of in a few minutes so you’d have more time to do other things.

Ohoni.6057:

maybe you should just queue in with friends and have fun

It’s impossible to have fun, it’s PvP. PvP is about grinding your way through the queues until you get the wings. The only way PvP could be fun is if you could get it all taken care of in a few minutes so you’d have more time to do other things.

maybe you should get the fractal wings instead since you hate pvp.

Leagues need solo queue back, even from duo.

maybe you should get the fractal wings instead since you hate pvp.

The fractal wings look different than the PvP wings.

and also I hate Fractals.

nah it is
maybe you are just not good at having fun

Different people, different tastes.

they arent trying to push you into them. theyre offering rewards you cant get by doing what youre doing,

Exactly my point. If I want the reward in question, then I MUST engage in PvP. You try to argue that I can just forever give up on getting that item, but that’s not a positive result either. You can’t present two bad paths and then say it’s my fault that I’m dissatisfied with either option.

Ohoni.6057:

they arent trying to push you into them. theyre offering rewards you cant get by doing what youre doing,

Exactly my point. If I want the reward in question, then I MUST engage in PvP. You try to argue that I can just forever give up on getting that item, but that’s not a positive result either. You can’t present two bad paths and then say it’s my fault that I’m dissatisfied with either option.

yes i can, and i did. it is your fault. i dont particularly like conquest as a pvp mode, but im not constantly complaining that anet should let me have the special skin they offer for playing pvp by doing anything but pvp. and the same for the other special things that mark you as someone who did a certain thing. if you dont want to do a special thing to be special, then dont be special.

Ohoni.6057:

Exactly my point. If I want the reward in question, then I MUST engage in PvP. You try to argue that I can just forever give up on getting that item, but that’s not a positive result either. You can’t present two bad paths and then say it’s my fault that I’m dissatisfied with either option.

then you’re gonna have to pick the path that is least bad for you

in the meantime, stop trying to ruin a system that is not designed for you

i dont particularly like conquest as a pvp mode, but im not constantly complaining that anet should let me have the special skin they offer for playing pvp by doing anything but pvp.

And if that works out for you, then that’s fine, but it does not work out for me, and that it works out for you does not mean that it should work out for me, because we are separate human beings.

then you’re gonna have to pick the path that is least bad for you

That is a poorly designed system. Players should not have to choose between “least bad alternatives,” they should have actually good paths available to them.