Guild Wars 2

New article on Ten Ton Hammer discussing the failings of the current Leaderboard system, with a possible fix proposal.

http://www.tentonhammer.com/editorial/guild-wars-2-spvp-leaderboard-failings

Don’t like the solution. With such a system I could only play if all of my four friends are around, where I have the max winning chance. I could not use subs or just play with two of them.
In such a system it would also be best, if I just played with all of them at around 6am where I get no other teams, and can farm soloqer all day long.

Anyone know what other esports games do?

The reality to me is there is no way to know how good you are in solo queueing unless you play a lot of games.

I always thought other esports games do the same. To be high rank in solo queueing you have to play a lot of games. Since there is too many things to factors, such as how good your teammates or other teams are.

For team fight, it is totally different, since it is much easier to determine. So you only need to play a few games every week/month.

Correct me if I’m wrong. If someone knows much about esports maybe they can share what’s happening on other games ladder.

I also think it is a test season so everything is shortened. You probably don’t need to play that many games everyday in a full season.

Teutos.8620:

Don’t like the solution. With such a system I could only play if all of my four friends are around, where I have the max winning chance. I could not use subs or just play with two of them.
In such a system it would also be best, if I just played with all of them at around 6am where I get no other teams, and can farm soloqer all day long.

Perhaps they could provide users with a choice when they queue for Ranked, selecting either Season Leaderboard or Ranked Leaderboard. Alternatively, you could just play Unranked, as it was intended.

Lewis Burnell.2493:

Perhaps they could provide users with a choice when they queue for Ranked, selecting either Season Leaderboard or Ranked Leaderboard. Alternatively, you could just play Unranked, as it was intended.

Since from the last information I got the profession MMR is not live yet, I have to use unranked for messing around with twinks/funny specs I’m not so familiar with to not interfere with my other MMR, when I at least try to play serious

F.e. I play unranked with a Static Discharge Engi.

I don’t like the idea of having two leaderboards, that is weird and not useful. The number of games and pvp “rank” (wolf, bear, dragon, etc) already do the job of a experience/farm meter.

The question is: what is the BEST meter of player skill? A simple MMR isn’t good, because with a too little number of games you can reach the top of leaderboard. The number of games MUST be relevant to your position on leaderboard. My only concern with the current system is the little impact of lost games, implying in a rising and limitless farm of points.

A simple adjust on odds of winning fixes this issue, to grant less or even zero points for lost games where is not supposed to win.

klarkc.3754:

I don’t like the idea of having two leaderboards, that is weird and not useful. The number of games and pvp “rank” (wolf, bear, dragon, etc) already do the job of a experience/farm meter.

The question is: what is the BEST meter of player skill? A simple MMR isn’t good, because with a too little number of games you can reach the top of leaderboard. The number of games MUST be relevant to your position on leaderboard. My only concern with the current system is the little impact of lost games, implying in a rising and limitless farm of points.

A simple adjust on odds of winning fixes this issue, to grant less or even zero points for lost games where is not supposed to win.

I suppose technically, with this proposal, there would only ever be one active Leaderboard per player. Season, then once you’ve finished Season it would turned to Ranked.

Regardless of farm board or whatever…. MMR needs to be a part of the ranking…

As it stands you can be in the lowest MMR bracket and still be at the top of the leaderboard… Honestly all that needs to change is have it like the last system… Based on MMR and add a requirement of 100 games per season or whatever…. At least on the last leaderboard, the best players were at the top…..

I actually think a farm board is a great idea… It incentivized bad players to play more… So maybe the farm board should give them like a few copper??? And then the big boy leaderboard can be based on my first paragraph

laokoko.7403:

Anyone know what other esports games do?

In other games the points you gain depends on how close you are to your MMR.

The simplest solution, and the solution I’d currently recommend is from World of Warcraft.

Our old ladder system just ranked us depending on our MMR, but it was possible to reach the highes MMR with a lucky 3 games win streak. With a point system, where you first have to farm up points very slowly, you are not put onto the front page after 3 wins, it will take some time to climb up the ladder. And in the meanwhile your MMR will adjust, and the first 3 lucky games will count less.

But once you have play ~50 matches, your score points should be near your MMR. And since the points rewarded depend on your current MMR, once player might end up on the ladder with 1700 points, and another with 1900, depending on how good he was.

Other games take those points, and place them in a league system. Instead of just earning points, you are placed in a division, and to jump from one division to the next one, you also have to have a certain win chance while facing opponents at around your current division level.

The league system should be the end goal, since it offers small goals for the players. It is far more encouraging to climb up a single division and to just earn another “100 points”, but for starters, the obove mentioned system from WoW would be nice too.

Teutos.8620:

laokoko.7403:

Anyone know what other esports games do?

In other games the points you gain depends on how close you are to your MMR.

The simplest solution, and the solution I’d currently recommend is from World of Warcraft.

Our old ladder system just ranked us depending on our MMR, but it was possible to reach the highes MMR with a lucky 3 games win streak. With a point system, where you first have to farm up points very slowly, you are not put onto the front page after 3 wins, it will take some time to climb up the ladder. And in the meanwhile your MMR will adjust, and the first 3 lucky games will count less.

But once you have play ~50 matches, your score points should be near your MMR. And since the points rewarded depend on your current MMR, once player might end up on the ladder with 1700 points, and another with 1900, depending on how good he was.

Other games take those points, and place them in a league system. Instead of just earning points, you are placed in a division, and to jump from one division to the next one, you also have to have a certain win chance while facing opponents at around your current division level.

The league system should be the end goal, since it offers small goals for the players. It is far more encouraging to climb up a single division and to just earn another “100 points”, but for starters, the obove mentioned system from WoW would be nice too.

I really like the sound of that.

Lewis Burnell.2493:

Teutos.8620:

laokoko.7403:

Anyone know what other esports games do?

In other games the points you gain depends on how close you are to your MMR.

The simplest solution, and the solution I’d currently recommend is from World of Warcraft.

Our old ladder system just ranked us depending on our MMR, but it was possible to reach the highes MMR with a lucky 3 games win streak. With a point system, where you first have to farm up points very slowly, you are not put onto the front page after 3 wins, it will take some time to climb up the ladder. And in the meanwhile your MMR will adjust, and the first 3 lucky games will count less.

But once you have play ~50 matches, your score points should be near your MMR. And since the points rewarded depend on your current MMR, once player might end up on the ladder with 1700 points, and another with 1900, depending on how good he was.

Other games take those points, and place them in a league system. Instead of just earning points, you are placed in a division, and to jump from one division to the next one, you also have to have a certain win chance while facing opponents at around your current division level.

The league system should be the end goal, since it offers small goals for the players. It is far more encouraging to climb up a single division and to just earn another “100 points”, but for starters, the obove mentioned system from WoW would be nice too.

I really like the sound of that.

my suggestion:
steal the system from hearthstone http://hearthstone.wikia.com/wiki/Ranked_Play

You should always lose at least a point for losing. Sounds harsh but might fix things in conjunction with tightening up the matchmaking some to make very unfair matches (solos verus groups) extremely rare. Would make it much harder to grind your way to the very top with an average win rate just by playing a ridiculous amount of games.

brannigan.9831:

You should always lose at least a point for losing. Sounds harsh but might fix things in conjunction with tightening up the matchmaking some to make very unfair matches (solos verus groups) extremely rare. Would make it much harder to grind your way to the very top with an average win rate just by playing a ridiculous amount of games.

I think so too. It’s bizzare that you don’t, really. It’s very generous and it does help solo queuers however. The Hearthstone Rank system looks really great actually.

World of Warcraft, at least when I was very active in PvP (Wotlk, Cata) had some inherent flaws (for example, so said “season rush” when most dedicated PvPers would reach certain level of MMR within the first days of the season to get the specific MMR rewards <<2k-2,2k+>> and then sit at it, barely playing, which was devastating for teams aspiring for higher rankings later, as at some point we were constantly put against top gladiator teams of 2,7k MMR for example, with the slight elite weapon advantage).

But I’d welcome very similar system in GW2. Team rating, self MMR.

Like with Churchill’s opinion on democracy. It’s bad, but we don’t have anything better for MMO.

Copying Over my post from reddit on this one:

This whole article is complaining about something that ArenaNet have already confirmed won’t be staying. The new LB are only there while they transition to Leagues, they’ve gone on record saying this multiple times now.

The real focus should have been on the matchmaking, because that will be staying, and I can’t play the game right now because of it. Anyone with even a remotely high rating is literally forced to play with a premade group or get stomped by one, or play a troll build like turret engi or tank ele and hope to god you can stall opponents long enough for your team mates to actually do something. Even worse is the timing of this patch. They released this extremely experimental system which was tested using only internal and normal unit testing methods (This patch once again should glorify the absolute necessity for a public test server), and then took a 2-3 week vacation, leaving the game in a virtually unplayable state for any solo players with a remotely decent MMR that doesn’t play turret Engi.

9/10 top NA players won’t even play the game unless you have a premade now, everyone is either playing CS:GO or Smite.

BLUna.7928:

Copying Over my post from reddit on this one:

This whole article is complaining about something that ArenaNet have already confirmed won’t be staying. The new LB are only there while they transition to Leagues, they’ve gone on record saying this multiple times now.

The real focus should have been on the matchmaking, because that will be staying, and I can’t play the game right now because of it. Anyone with even a remotely high rating is literally forced to play with a premade group or get stomped by one, or play a troll build like turret engi or tank ele and hope to god you can stall opponents long enough for your team mates to actually do something. Even worse is the timing of this patch. They released this extremely experimental system which was tested using only internal and normal unit testing methods (This patch once again should glorify the absolute necessity for a public test server), and then took a 2-3 week vacation, leaving the game in a virtually unplayable state for any solo players with a remotely decent MMR that doesn’t play turret Engi.

9/10 top NA players won’t even play the game unless you have a premade now, everyone is either playing CS:GO or Smite.

Agree with everything you said. Worst part is I don’t think anet realise the damage they have done to pvp with their last patch. Needs big changes imo. Game is unplayable really. Everybody seems to have quit of vastly reduced their playing hours above a certain threshold. As in any semi-competent (and better) players have just had pvp more or less destroyed by the new system.

When was the last time a proper team went into team queue at a decent level? I doubt it has even happened because the system is so broken that if CM queue it won’t wait 10 minutes to find them a match (which gives 10m for some other top team/pug to queue and get matched with them) but it will instead just pop after 5 minutes vs a total bunch of randoms.

Same with solo queue. When a top player solo queues the system doesn’t wait to put them in a match with other top players to have a fun 5v5. Nope. Instead it just chucks you in with 9 other random pve ers and there really is no fun or challenge behind stomping pve ers and 1 shotting them all with 1 simple rotation. WHilst you are doing this the rest of your team is also playing like hotjoiners and so the game is super close. But it isn’t fun as the closeness is just an illusion. Just because its 500-490 doesnt make it competitive for a highly skilled player because they are just running around farming everyone whilst not even trying.

As for limiting the number of game. Worst solution ever. Literally the worst. I bought this game to play when I want and how I want. I don’t want stupid restrictions placed on my play in a game I paid for.

Generally though I don’t mind the leaderboards. As BLUna says, its the matchmaking and things like having to sit in HOTM which made pvp unplayable. The leaderboard should reward play tbh.

Lordrosicky.5813:

Same with solo queue. When a top player solo queues the system doesn’t wait to put them in a match with other top players to have a fun 5v5. Nope. Instead it just chucks you in with 9 other random pve ers and there really is no fun or challenge behind stomping pve ers and 1 shotting them all with 1 simple rotation.

I really do not want to paired with top solo q’er.
That’s sad ‘coz climbing up the ranks doesn’t gives you better players/matches.
So I want to have a good match – how could I achieve this?
Going solo is senseless, going full premade is senseless too since I dont think that winnig 100% of matchesz like 500-200/100 makes any progress to team (in terms of skill).

nvm
#LeaguesOrRiot

I agree with you but at the same time i think that is possible to fix the matchmaking to guarantee a good experience to soloers and team.

This is because the old soloqueue basically was an hard filter, it means only 1-1-1-1-1 vs 1-1-1-1-1-1. The impossibility to put this hard filter in the old matchmaking, created a separate queue for soloers, splitting the community in two big parts (1-1-1-1-1 vs 1-1-1-1-1 and the others in team queue).

Now matchmaking is different, it has more parameters so it’s possible to put filters in matchmaking formula and splitting ranked matches is not really necessary. 1-1-1-1-1 vs 1-1-1-1-1-1 is a big limitation filter, soloers can be matched with organized group if there is the same composition on the other side (like 3-1-1 vs 3-1-1 or 1-1-1-1-2 vs 1-1-1-1-2 etc.). This helps the queue length because more filters you use —> longer queue.

I think the only reasons because anet didn’t already used hard filters in matchmaking formula is because they don’t want to force immediatly the system (with a possible queue length problem) so they’re trying different ways to do this (like matching soloers against a premade only if there is a big skill difference). i don’t know if it’s the best way or it’s a waste of time, honestly i’d use immediatly filters because the actual state of spvp is really poor and really many players don’t play now.

One month later, still an unmitigated disaster.

Fix the queue bugs and allow queuing from outside of HotM to start. Then sort through the rest of the mess you made.

P.S. Won’t leagues just divide the PvP playerbase again? How is that not ridiculous and how would it promote growth? Think carefully here about the real circumstances of Gw2 PvP and its population. Stop thinking in some e-sports vacuum where everything is great and you can all be millionaires from winning some tournament.

Leagues can’t divide the pvp player base because is basically only a different leaderboard reorganization. A good matchmaking should prioritize people of your league but there will be always the chance to face people of other leagues. Starcraft has the same system, you can face people of other leagues so it’s basically a leaderboard reorganization(people spread by rating and results) + rewards dedicated for each leagues.

MarkPhilips.5169:

Leagues can’t divide the pvp player base because is basically only a different leaderboard reorganization. A good matchmaking should prioritize people of your league but there will be always the chance to face people of other leagues. Starcraft has the same system, you can face people of other leagues so it’s basically a leaderboard reorganization + rewards dedicated for each leagues.

So basically it is another attempt at improving the leaderboard then? The previous one only had a few flaws. The new one has an incredible amount of flaws, and maybe the league leaderboard will be better? Idk.

Celtus.8456:

MarkPhilips.5169:

Leagues can’t divide the pvp player base because is basically only a different leaderboard reorganization. A good matchmaking should prioritize people of your league but there will be always the chance to face people of other leagues. Starcraft has the same system, you can face people of other leagues so it’s basically a leaderboard reorganization + rewards dedicated for each leagues.

So basically it is another attempt at improving the leaderboard then? The previous one only had a few flaws. The new one has an incredible amount of flaws, and maybe the league leaderboard will be better? Idk.

The actual lB is a test, like BLU said, it’s not the definitive version and it’s a mid step for a league system.

Celtus.8456:

MarkPhilips.5169:

Leagues can’t divide the pvp player base because is basically only a different leaderboard reorganization. A good matchmaking should prioritize people of your league but there will be always the chance to face people of other leagues. Starcraft has the same system, you can face people of other leagues so it’s basically a leaderboard reorganization + rewards dedicated for each leagues.

So basically it is another attempt at improving the leaderboard then? The previous one only had a few flaws. The new one has an incredible amount of flaws, and maybe the league leaderboard will be better? Idk.

It’s funny, because all the last leaderboard really needed was to remove ‘decay jumping’ (make decay permanent) and it would have been quite accurate. That combined with Map Selection was all we really needed for this patch, but now we have all this extra stuff that has screwed everything up.

BLUna.7928:

The new LB are only there while they transition to Leagues, they’ve gone on record saying this multiple times now.

ArenaNet also previewed new maps / gamemodes, nothing happened.
They talked about a spec/build-safe-system … we still don’t have it.
We had a CDI about the Ranger and what would be nice to have / what should be done… nothing happened yet.
There are a lot of concerns regarding balancing, and not only the new one about the celestrial meta. We still f.e. have turrent engis with annoying turrets.
We have posts after posts about bugs, but f.e. I can still teleport myself into a wall.

Blue, why do you think the new LB will not stay for another year? Just because someone said so? I choose to be vocal about it, and hope that it will have an impact. The LB has to go, asap, and not in a few month or worse.

Edit: For me, the ladder is a BIG problem. The only reason that currently keep me playing are the dailys and the wintersday rewards track. Not sure what I’ll do, once it is gone.

Lopez.7369:

Again, we don’t need these complicated solutions. Every other game, from chess to World of Warcraft to WildStar to Starcraft 2, uses systems that gravitate your leaderboard rating to your matchmaking rating. There is no reason Guild Wars 2 can’t replicate this decades-old system.

Also, there’s no reason to believe this leaderboard point system, which is terrible, won’t stick around for leagues. The worry is that leagues will essentially be based on time and matches played, similar to the current system.

Does anyone know why they aren’t replicating these systems?

GW2 chose their own system because those other systems aren’t perfect either and have different matchmaking rules.

World of Warcraft requires players to set rosters, which have ratings, and you can only be on one roster at a type per game type. GW2 rates players and doesn’t require fixed rosters. WoW had problems with its matchmaking and still does. Initially they used Elo with a maximum change of 32 and starting rating of 1500. That didn’t work out well and they switched to a system where everyone starts at a rating of 0, but has accelerated gain early on. The big problem that WoW still has is top players sitting on ratings after they reach a certain level. This makes it extremely difficult for anyone getting a late start in the season to pass that threshold.

Starcraft2 is primarily geared toward 1v1 play (though it does support teams). With 1v1, you have a much larger matchmaking pool, which makes it easier to match players of similar skill. It also had issues with league promotion early on.

People are listing such bad games in this thread. Anet needs to copy cs go it’s that simple. By the end of this year most of you that have not tried it will. That’s how polished it is.

They both came out around the same time on market. Cs go / valve understand how important the average player game experience is. Many bads plays cs and they know it and don’t care. Instead of watching a leaderboard to base there skill they look at there rank. They’re not competing vs people who do it for a living but them selfs.

I’d remove the leaderboards in gw2 for now they a novelty and won’t change the state of the game.

Or…

Just scrap this point system and replace with an actual mmr based record. This system where any mediocre player that just farms PvE scrubs the most can end up at the top is absurd. What’s the point in ranking effort over skill/results in PvP?

Hooray for competitive PvP.

What makes this system very unfair to actual top players is the fact that having a very high MMR will mean that you are rewarded less for the same games with the same outcomes as players with low MMRs. I felt like the problem with the old leaderboard was that I could stay in top20 in solo Q leaderboards for a looong time by simply playing a maximum of 3 games a day (winning them cuz hambow op).
Now I feel like having high MMR (and therefore usually more skill) punishes you in terms of outcome expected. Me, playing my main, trying to carry endless games in which I am clearly the player with the highest MMR, against teams where the MMR is more balanced because they have semi-decent players to compensate for the high team-MMR accumulated through me dragging it up – this doesn’t seem like much of a problem, even if the outcome of games like this is purely in my hands. “If I don’t win the duel for this point fast enough I won’t be on time to mid, to banner my team mate that went down in a fight in which we outnumber the enemy.” Yet, even though I have to give it my best, becausw the system thinks that the match should have an equal outcome, should I fail to carry, (which happens a lot lately) I will lose points, while the enemy gains maximum score for steamrolling a game that’s balanced in theory.
For starters, I would add a bigger range of leaderboard points awarded for a game, possibly taking into account personal contribution (hard to calculate in this game due to multiple roles) or just adapt the system RIOT made for LoL, which is more like an MMR accumulated leaderboard, meaning if you are a player that’s skilled enough to be on top, you can make it on top, by playing a number of games and climbing, rather than having the issue of high MMR, low leaderboard ranking.
Also leagues!