Guild Wars 2

As we’ve heard, Season 2 of ranked PvP leagues is unfortunately not fun for everyone.

What’s going on in Season 2:
1) Many players are experiencing huge loss streaks, which are discouraging.
2) Most highly-skilled players are shooting up the leagues as intended.

Why might this be occurring?:
1) New PvP’ers start with average MMR and are put on the same team with more experienced players that also have an average MMR. If this team fights any other team (with similar or greater MMR but lacking in new players), it will usually result in a loss.++
2) The league season is still fresh and match-ups will be chaotic` until league positions stabilize.

How it can be fixed:
1) Start new players with a below-average MMR. This one simple modification might allow the current Season 2 ranked system to work as the developers intended.

Caveat
1) If we on the forums are overestimating the number of new PvP’ers playing in Ranked, this solution won’t work. It would imply that people on losing streaks (of presumably average MMR) aren’t losing due to being paired with new players, but perhaps due to the inherent chaos expected during the start of Season 2. We won’t know this until (and if) a developer shares this kind of data.

++This also means that the influx of MMR complaints on the forum didn’t actually “reveal bad players”, but instead is showing us players who are average or bad (the two can’t be separated by this criteria alone since they are being matched together, and are losing together).

I’m going to quote someone else who put the issue in very clear terms:

Thiefz.3695:

New players are given an average rated MMR so if you are Average you will be matched with new players. So matchmaking is throwing average players and new players together on a team (because they share the same MMR) and then getting placed against teams that are +/- 15 pips. So, the issue at the moment is that the average team MMR is not actually pairing people with the same MMR as explained by Evan. So the expectation that you, as an average MMR player, will be matched with like minded or experienced PvP’ers is not true. So the expectations that people are being matched with like minded pvp’ers is mistaken. Now, all those average people have to adapt to a lower team rating than they were used to. I would say that it’s a valid complaint. Now that average players have a handicap, you add on that you are facing worse or better opponents is further different than unranked or season one matchmaking and it makes for more salt.

What I have been reading across all these forum posts is that people with higher and top MMR don’t see that the issues they have last season of carrying lower tiered players to legend is impacting average players this season. If you didn’t like having to carry lower MMR people last season then you should have some sympathy for average players this season who have to do the same thing.

I think you are mixing MMR and PIPS. For season 2, MMR is being ignored and you are instead being matched with others who are at a similar PIP level as you.

In the PIP model, you can have a newcomer to ranked being matched with a pro league player at the beginning of the season. That’s the cause of the issues. It will eventually get better, but the beginning is painful.

style.6173:

I think you are mixing MMR and PIPS. For season 2, MMR is being ignored and you are instead being matched with others who are at a similar PIP level as you.

In the PIP model, you can have a newcomer to ranked being matched with a pro league player at the beginning of the season. That’s the cause of the issues. It will eventually get better, but the beginning is painful.

Your teammates are matched through division and rating

style.6173:

I think you are mixing MMR and PIPS. For season 2, MMR is being ignored and you are instead being matched with others who are at a similar PIP level as you.

In the PIP model, you can have a newcomer to ranked being matched with a pro league player at the beginning of the season. That’s the cause of the issues. It will eventually get better, but the beginning is painful.

Your match making rating is used to pair you with teamates +/- 5 pips away from you.

style.6173:

I think you are mixing MMR and PIPS. For season 2, MMR is being ignored and you are instead being matched with others who are at a similar PIP level as you.

In the PIP model, you can have a newcomer to ranked being matched with a pro league player at the beginning of the season. That’s the cause of the issues. It will eventually get better, but the beginning is painful.

it wont get better. My mmr was driven down abysmally that first day. I played against pros, and no one told me to not hot join that day. no one told me that my mmr would be driven down abysmally and that losses, by coding, would beget more losses. I didn’t know to stop playing. I played more than 12 hrs that first day trying to recover. little did I know I was just sinking myself further. I am now at the bottom of the barrel, playing against clueless ppl and newbies. I am stuck there forever, and my pvp gaming experience is ruined forever, as I cannot get out of 1st tier emerald, because on the final pip I am matched against organized teams, while my solo q teammates from amber stand around 1v1ing mid map. Time wont sort this out or heal it. There is no way to recover from the damage done, and my gaming exp has been ruined (along w/ my ability to ever play a decent player again). After about 600 games or more played this new season since that 1st day, I am still at tier 1 emerald (where I was driven that day by organized pro teams). You just don’t understand the damage done.

The pros are enjoying their league match-ups off of my back. I am “carrying” newbies by spending 10 hrs a day “teaching them” how to play spvp. Wanna watch that on twitch?

Salamander.2504:

……..
2) Most highly-skilled players are shooting up the leagues as intended.
……..

The big problem here is that those ‘Highly Skilled Players’ are the people who got to have a decent winning streak from the offset. However when the majority of them experience the inevitable losing streak they are not going to drop in division because going down division isn’t possible.

For this system to ‘Settle down in time’ like many people keep talking about, it requires unrestricted movement DOWN as well as up.

Rank is as meaningless this season as last season.

I think it is kind of a blind assumption that only high skilled players are shooting up to leagues.

I know new players that never played a day of PvP that won streak all the way to mid sapphire. They had the appropriate MMR to be matched with decent players from the get go.

Leagues are a game of luck this season. You play and hope your wins and losses are ordered in a way that permits optimal pip progression.

IE. Take two players in a division that can lose pips.

Player one plays 10 matches, wins 5 in a row and loses 5 in a row, he is at +3 Pips.

Player two plays 10 matches but wins and loses alternately, he is at 0 pips.

Does that mean player one is more skilled than player two?

Player one stands to gain two pips from his next win while player two only stands to gain one. Whats player two doing wrong that player 1 is doing right? They both have the same ratio of wins while player one has way more progression.

The answer is winning and losing in the correct order. There is really nothing either player can do about that when MMR isn’t considered in opponent selection. It really is luck of the draw.

Doesn’t matter who you played, how you played, or how close the matches were. These were all things season 1 considered. They took a huge step back from Season 1.

Dirtyrascal.1023:

Salamander.2504:

……..
2) Most highly-skilled players are shooting up the leagues as intended.
……..

The big problem here is that those ‘Highly Skilled Players’ are the people who got to have a decent winning streak from the offset. However when the majority of them experience the inevitable losing streak they are not going to drop in division because going down division isn’t possible.

For this system to ‘Settle down in time’ kitten many people keep talking about it requires unrestricted movement DOWN as well as up.

Rank is as meaningless this season as last season.

You’ve got it all backwards. Those players who got to high leagues right off the bat won’t ever need to drop down divisions. In fact, no one needs to drop down divisions. Due to the way you can’t drop tiers until Ruby, the higher divisions (i.e., Ruby) will start to be filled with worse players through time as they grind their way through sapphire. So, if those players who shot up to Ruby quickly are better, they’ll move on to diamond. If they are not as good, they’ll stay in Ruby and fit right in because worse players will be joining Ruby constantly. So the net trend through the season is upward movement through the leagues. The system isn’t broken because you can’t drop divisions, that’s completely nonsensical. Rank is far more meaningful this season.

style.6173:

I think you are mixing MMR and PIPS. For season 2, MMR is being ignored and you are instead being matched with others who are at a similar PIP level as you.

In the PIP model, you can have a newcomer to ranked being matched with a pro league player at the beginning of the season. That’s the cause of the issues. It will eventually get better, but the beginning is painful.

Thanks for the response, but I’m not mixing up anything. Your teammates are paired with you based on similar MMR, and your opponents (who have a self-similar MMR) are paired with you based on a +/-15 pip range.

This means that a high MMR emerald team can fight a low MMR emerald team. The high MMR team should quickly leave emerald if these types of matchups continue. That’s all well and good, but anyone with an average MMR will be matched with new PvP’ers, so a team with “average” MMR might contain a mixture of average players and terrible players.

Now, keep in mind we don’t actually know if this is really what’s going on, but the idea has been raised on the forums a number of times so it warrants consideration. On the other hand, Evan Lesh has come on the forums and mentioned that playing ~20 games is enough to get an accurate representation of your MMR (i.e., it should happen in Amber). If this is the case, new PvP’ers with ~20 games should have low enough MMR that they aren’t getting paired on teams with average players. Then we’d have to go back to the drawing board and figure out what’s going on. But realistically, we want to separate each variable individually to see how they affect the system, so perhaps the first thing to do is to make new PvP’ers start with a lower MMR and see if that has any effect.

Mireles Lore.5942:

I think it is kind of a blind assumption that only high skilled players are shooting up to leagues.

I know new players that never played a day of PvP that won streak all the way to mid sapphire. They had the appropriate MMR to be matched with decent players from the get go.

Leagues are a game of luck this season. You play and hope your wins and losses are ordered in a way that permits optimal pip progression.
IE. Take two players in a division that can lose pips.

Player one plays 10 matches, win 5 in a row and lose 5 in a row you are at +3 Pips

Player two plays 10 matches but win or lose alternately you are at 0 pips.

Does that mean player one is more skilled than player two? Player one stands to gain two pips from his next win while player two only stands to gain one. Whats player two doing wrong that player 1 is doing right? Winning and losing in the correct order.

Doesn’t matter who you played, how you played, or how close the matches were. These were all things season 1 considered. They took a huge step back from Season 1.

It really doesn’t matter if a new player shoots up to sapphire on luck because sapphire is a perfect place for new players. Over time other players of varying skill will catch up to that player in sapphire, and the true test is whether they can advance further in Ruby or beyond.

Also, your supposition that they have never played a day of PvP in their life is patently false: you have to be at least rank 20 to even participate in the ranked league. And a new player with average MMR will be placed with others with average MMR.