Guild Wars 2

Been there, seen it.
After this season and with experiences in season 3 and 4 I’m pretty sure there is a “state of mmr” which can be called “ruby hell”, “mmr hell” or “bronze hell”.

To be more specific. Here are the numbers of my two accounts from this season (with some statistics from my last seasons)

1. Account (North America servers)
   Started in “Platinum 1”
   Games played: 297
   Games won: 127
   League Rating: 984
   Most games played on: Warrior (switched between GS/M+Sh and LB/M+Sh depending on opposing teams setup)

Old seasons: Season 2 Ruby, Season 3 Ruby, Season 4 Ruby, Season 5 Sapphire – all seasons I played around 300 game, except for season 5 where I played around 10-15 games.

1. Account (European servers)
   #Started in “Silver 1”
   Games played: 116
   Games won: 68
   League Rating: 1349
   Most games played on: Warrior (switched between GS/M+Sh and LB/M+Sh depending on opposing teams setup)

Old seasons: Season 4 Ruby – only played season 4 with around 80 games.

As the statistics show I’m at below 50% win rate at NA and dropped from Platinum into Bronze where I worked my way up to Silver, back to Bronze, back to Silver, back to Bronze.
On EU i started in Silver, dropped to Bronze, worked my way up into Gold and my winrate is positive.

NA last 10 games:
351:500 L
500:230 W
500:435 W
390:500 L
500:310 W
210:500 L
457:501 L
159:501 L
482:501 L
501:273 W

EU last 10 games:
500:465 W
501:438 W
501:394 W
500:406 W
501:396 W
369:500 L
398:507 L
500:485 W
500:215 W
515:465 W

As you see, the NA matches are more likely to be strongly lopsided, while the EU matches are mostly close.

So, what’s the difference between NA and EU pvp? I play the same classes with the same builds and still my “skill” is very much different in the pvp environments.
Obviously it is much harder to carry people on NA and – that’s even more important – you often get teams you can’t carry at all and create a downward spiral in the matchmaking.
What does that mean? There has to be an algorithm that puts the teams together based on variables like “mmr”, “class”, “in a group” and “games played” (or something like this)
With the experiences from season 3 and 4 where I couldn’t ever get out of ruby (after being in diamond some times) I’d say this algorithm is broken somehow.
Back in S4 I got matched up pretty often vs full groups with no group on my team (see picture below). 5 random players vs. a group of 5 (or 5 random players vs. group of 3 or 4). After maybe 50-70 games reaching the end of ruby, and losing 3-5 games in a row again, I got into a horrible losing streak. I think I lost 32 games in row back then.

So, how can this happen? Yes, you sometimes play bad, everyone makes mistakes in a game, less or more, really grave mistakes or light ones, but it’s not about errors it’s about the sum of errors your team makes. The team that makes less errors most likely wins the game.

So, back to the question how you end up on gold and bronze on two different accounts?
The only unknown factor is the matchmaking and I guess that’s the problem which leads to a “ruby hell” or just a point where you can’t work yourself out.
The matchmaking seems to still put players on losing streaks into teams vs. people on winning streaks and this carries a “tainted” mmr over the seasons into every season you play.
Let’s say there are 20 people in your mmr range in queue.
If you are on a tainted mmr it will most likely put you into the team with same bad mmr while you have to face a group with a normal one. The same goes for groups.

So if you end up on a losing streak and often fail to carry your team because there is no way these guys win a 4v2 at mid, you are basically kittened.
The only way out of this bad matchmaking is to find a friend to queue (and who is at least on your skill level). Otherwise you will carry that “tainted mmr” into the next season and you most likely end up in a downward spiral like many people do – and that’s why my “clean” EU account has the far better games and I can make it into gold on my own.

What does this mean for you? You maybe a mediocre player. As many mediocre player your place is in the mid of the ranking system. If you are newbie or just unexperienced you don’t belong in the mid of the ranking system. To end up where you belong you need to play.

Disclaimer:
If you are pvp player your number one goal is to get better and try to minimize your errors while playing.
Everyone makes errors while playing – even the top 5 players – but you can work on that and get better.

tldr: Bronze Hell exists, but not everyone is in Bronze Hell

Not to poke holes in your vent, but your pic shows a 3 man premade…. (and even old stat system)

You can’t compare EU and NA ratings since they’re different regions with different population player density.

So, NA is much harder to play? Wait.. that’s completely different to what I hear everyday!

sephiroth.4217:

Not to poke holes in your vent, but your pic shows a 3 man premade….

Yeah, haven’t found a screenshot of any of those teams except one from amber in s3 where the 5 man team lost, but I think you get the idea.

shagwell.1349:

sephiroth.4217:

Not to poke holes in your vent, but your pic shows a 3 man premade….

Yeah, haven’t found a screenshot of any of those teams except one from amber in s3 where the 5 man team lost, but I think you get the idea.

Are you American? That would make much sense. In that case I try to help you out.
Playing vs. a full team is most likely a loss as playing vs. a 3 or 4 man group. That’s the intended thought behind this:

Back in S4 I got matched up pretty often vs full groups with no group on my team. 5 random players vs. a group of 5 (or 5 random players vs. group of 3 or 4)

And sorry, that I don’t keep all of the old screenshots and for your educational system.

edit: and you really played 7300 hours in pvp? That’s about 1/5 of the existence of guildwars. Go read a book !

shagwell.1349:

Are you American? That would make much sense. In that case I try to help you out.
Playing vs. a full team is most likely a loss as playing vs. a 3 or 4 man group. That’s the intended thought behind this:

Back in S4 I got matched up pretty often vs full groups with no group on my team. 5 random players vs. a group of 5 (or 5 random players vs. group of 3 or 4)

And sorry, that I don’t keep all of the old screenshots and for your educational system.

edit: and you really played 7300 hours in pvp? That’s about 1/5 of the existence of guildwars. Go read a book !

I’m sorry I can’t hear you over my Freedom that lets me get all my Legendaries via PvP only.

Also:

No, there can’t. “Ruby Hell” existed because of how flawed the S1-S4 pip system worked.

Player skill is not really a fixed number, but a range which includes their current rating value. That rating number can move around in that range. The way you got “Ruby Hell” was because you couldn’t fall out of Ruby and prior divisions had safeguards every few pips. When a player had a good day, they progressed and passed a boundary, so they couldn’t go back on their bad days. But once those safeguards are removed, they can’t progress at all because their bad days would cancel their good days.

Sure you can. What is the difference between pips and getting +12 for a win and -12 for a loss. It’s basically the same problem, it’s just dropping you down to a lower tier until you get up again and drop again.