Guild Wars 2

There seems to be an ongoing misconception that when playing PvP ranked you are entitled to move up to a new League division just by playing more often. Can’t count the number of post that say “lost a pip, gained a pip, lost three pips, gained two pips” or" won 10 in a row then lost 10 in a row", etc…

This isn’t suppose to be a PvE-like XP grind

In a system with good balance and working MMR, regardless of how many games you played, you would reach a point where you capped at your level of skill. At this threshold your wins/losses would balance out to about 50/50 and it would become very, very hard to progress. That’s horrible design I can hear some of your screaming. But really, it isn’t. In real world sports, not everyone who plays high school football makes it to a college team. Not everyone who players at college level gets drafted into the NFL. The league divisions separate skill level. There comes to a point where you cap out and improving becomes very slow. Then eventually you will arrive at your threshold of skill and progression stops altogether. Congratulate yourself, you made it as far as you could. This system is working now, it’s just got some major problems which have largely invalided it to the point that it can’t be taken seriously. GW2 MMR system is polluted by the followng

• Solo and premade queue mixed. Yes it is a problem. No it’s not as big of a problem as some people make you think it is.
• The tier lock-in for Amber-Ruby divisions giving players who reach a new tier incentive to loose on purpose to manipulate MMR
• A very unbalanced meta that is giving huge advantage in a random way to teams not running full premades. (e.g. oh look match making gave the opposing team two condi mallyx Herald’s and we got a Warrior and a burn Gurdian)

Which leads to the next point

Unfortunately they kind of made ranked PvP like a PvE XP grind
The tier lock-in system enables players who would have otherwise reached their cap in league divisions to progress further. Once a tier is locked-in then a player needs five more wins to secure the next. Given the always present luck-factor and also the three bullet points above factor in random chance of leverage, a player who should be locked in a lower division could climb all the way to Ruby though luck and game unbalance giving them wins they don’t deserve.

Once you get to Ruby and can no longer lock in tiers then the real challenge begins. Luck isn’t really going to lean heavy one way or the other, it comes down to skill.

The reality of League divisions

• Diamond and Legendary – for the best premades who take it seriously
• Ruby – last stop for good teams that just aren’t good enough for Diamond
• Amber-Sapphire – Exist to give the players who need to improve a lot (or play a lot more) a feeling of progression,.

Most of us just want to know where we stand. The current system makes that impossible until you reach Ruby. Then there is nothing between Ruby and Diamond.

You’re forgetting something. It is FAR to easy for any random player to pick up meta Revenent/Bunker mesmer build and pip grind. The fact is, these classes WILL propel much lower tier people into leagues they can’t compete in, then they whine when they go against 5 queues and pro-league players. This leads to a Lot of the forum hate for leagues.

SamTheGuardian.2938:

GW2 MMR system is polluted by the followng

• Solo and premade queue mixed. Yes it is a problem. No it’s not as big of a problem as some people make you think it is.
• The tier lock-in for Amber-Ruby divisions giving players who reach a new tier incentive to loose on purpose to manipulate MMR
• A very unbalanced meta that is giving huge advantage in a random way to teams not running full premades. (e.g. oh look match making gave the opposing team two condi mallyx Herald’s and we got a Warrior and a burn Gurdian)

I agree with you on the meaning of divisions, but wouldn’t you agree that the tier locking is somewhat of a safeguard against these flaws?

Chaba.5410:

SamTheGuardian.2938:

GW2 MMR system is polluted by the followng

• Solo and premade queue mixed. Yes it is a problem. No it’s not as big of a problem as some people make you think it is.
• The tier lock-in for Amber-Ruby divisions giving players who reach a new tier incentive to loose on purpose to manipulate MMR
• A very unbalanced meta that is giving huge advantage in a random way to teams not running full premades. (e.g. oh look match making gave the opposing team two condi mallyx Herald’s and we got a Warrior and a burn Gurdian)

I agree with you on the meaning of divisions, but wouldn’t you agree that the tier locking is somewhat of a safeguard against these flaws?

For non full premades that queue (i.e. most of those doing ranked PvP in GW2) it could work both ways. The bottom line is these three factors come into play along with the old luck wildcard and it makes so it’s often impossible to determine how much your skill and the skill of your team really contributed to the win or the loss.

When you get the Ruby the stakes are higher, tier-lock in is gone. The three corruption factors listed are still in play, but most will form a full premade at this point. Once running a full premade at the higher divisions most of these problems go away and it’s just a matter of skill that’s being measured. This sport (Ruby-Diamond) is where things get interesting and where we really should have a better break down of rank (maybe one or two subdivisions for Ruby, but of course without adding any tier lock-in to Ruby) to enhance progression.

Maybe have an additional rule in Emerald/Sapphire where if you at the start of a tier and lose 5 games in a row you will drop a tier. That will also help prevent some of the MMR tankers.

“The reality of league divisions” is SO wrong. The fact that people face their own mmr in the leagues makes it harder or easier for different mmr groups to raise their division. Only people that matter rly to look at where they stand is top tier aka high mmr players. In every mmr besides top tier, is a joke where they can get to ruby without an effort. If i actually continued with this league kittenz id be in ruby with just enough grind >.>

Thats why not many of us can take this thing serious. If the leagues had started with mmr reset people would actually take it seriously + if soloq was implemented.

sanctuary.1068:

“The reality of league divisions” are SO wrong. The fact that people face their own mmr in the leagues makes it harder or easier for different mmr groups to raise their division. Only people that matter rly to look at where they stand is top tier aka high mmr players. In every mmr besides top tier, is a joke where they can get to ruby without an effort. If i actually continued with this league kittenz id be in ruby with just enough grind >.>

Thats why not many of us can take this thing serious. If the leagues had started with mmr reset people would actually take it seriously + if soloq was implemented.

I can’t argue with what you said. All true. Best advice I can give is really stop giving a kitten about your League division. Solo or duo queue exclusively and every time you enter a match think of it like a trip to the casino. Play your best but don’t take the outcome any more serious than you would loosing a hand of black jack. This mentality will let you keep the game from sucking you in and deflect all the negativity in the community right now.

It’s not really a ranking system though, and it’s not really a progression system. It’s frustrating because it’s a little bit of both.

Amber division, for instance, is purely a progression system. Amber doesn’t tell you anything about a player’s ability, only that they haven’t played very much.

Emerald and Sapphire are this kind of hybrid system, where the division ratchet allows everyone to progress eventually. Weaker players will progress through these divisions slowly (the win one, lose one drag) while stronger players will blast through faster, but the rub is that everyone will eventually grind through it. Also, it gets easier to move through these divisions over time, as better / more regular players move into the higher divisions and Emerald / Sapphire are filled only with casuals. Hence, the first week or so Emerald and (particularly) Sapphire are meaningful ratings, but as time goes on they are closer to Amber grind divisions.

Ruby is the first real rating division. You can only progress through Ruby if you are performing, hence your position in Ruby is actually saying something about your ability. The problem is that the bottom of Ruby is the end point of the grind divisions – anyone, with enough time and dedication, will eventually hit Ruby. Hence, by the end of the season in January, Ruby will no longer be a meaningful rating division, but will be a big mix of ‘I am pretty good at this game but do not play a ton’ and ‘I am bronze tier MMR but grinded the hell out of this game’; it’s the serious about PvP badge but doesn’t indicate any amount of skill.

Diamond and Legendary tiers are the only actual rating tiers. Those are the ones that, at the end of the season, will indicate real ability at the game. At least in theory – this is getting diluted by the matchmaking problems of queuing with Amber accounts, meaning that Diamond, at least for season 1, is going to be more indicative of knowing how to game the matchmaking system than of performance. Still, you need to perform well above average for that trick to work, so Diamond and above show some real rating.

TL;DR – divisions are not a rating system, but a hybrid rating / grind system. Amber means you tried sPvP; Emerald means you showed up, while Sapphire and Ruby are indicators that you’ve spent some time grinding out ranks. Only Diamond and Legendary tiers are real indicators of performance.

Ensign.2189:

It’s not really a ranking system though, and it’s not really a progression system. It’s frustrating because it’s a little bit of both.

Amber division, for instance, is purely a progression system. Amber doesn’t tell you anything about a player’s ability, only that they haven’t played very much.

Emerald and Sapphire are this kind of hybrid system, where the division ratchet allows everyone to progress eventually. Weaker players will progress through these divisions slowly (the win one, lose one drag) while stronger players will blast through faster, but the rub is that everyone will eventually grind through it. Also, it gets easier to move through these divisions over time, as better / more regular players move into the higher divisions and Emerald / Sapphire are filled only with casuals. Hence, the first week or so Emerald and (particularly) Sapphire are meaningful ratings, but as time goes on they are closer to Amber grind divisions.

Ruby is the first real rating division. You can only progress through Ruby if you are performing, hence your position in Ruby is actually saying something about your ability. The problem is that the bottom of Ruby is the end point of the grind divisions – anyone, with enough time and dedication, will eventually hit Ruby. Hence, by the end of the season in January, Ruby will no longer be a meaningful rating division, but will be a big mix of ‘I am pretty good at this game but do not play a ton’ and ‘I am bronze tier MMR but grinded the hell out of this game’; it’s the serious about PvP badge but doesn’t indicate any amount of skill.

Diamond and Legendary tiers are the only actual rating tiers. Those are the ones that, at the end of the season, will indicate real ability at the game. At least in theory – this is getting diluted by the matchmaking problems of queuing with Amber accounts, meaning that Diamond, at least for season 1, is going to be more indicative of knowing how to game the matchmaking system than of performance. Still, you need to perform well above average for that trick to work, so Diamond and above show some real rating.

TL;DR – divisions are not a rating system, but a hybrid rating / grind system. Amber means you tried sPvP; Emerald means you showed up, while Sapphire and Ruby are indicators that you’ve spent some time grinding out ranks. Only Diamond and Legendary tiers are real indicators of performance.

Pretty much hit that nail on the head. Well written.

SamTheGuardian.2938:

There seems to be an ongoing misconception that when playing PvP ranked you are entitled to move up to a new League division just by playing more often. Can’t count the number of post that say “lost a pip, gained a pip, lost three pips, gained two pips” or" won 10 in a row then lost 10 in a row", etc…

This isn’t suppose to be a PvE-like XP grind

Actually IMO anet have devised the system exactly along those lines, and it doesn’t work how you say about players finding their level, it is quite clearly possible to get stuck in emerald with bad teams making it harder to progress if you are mainly soloqing. Eventually you will make it out but it has the feeling of a grind.

“The league divisions separate skill level.”

I totally agree that it should be that way, but in practice it isn’t due to the bad MMR system.

“You’re forgetting something. It is FAR to easy for any random player to pick up meta Revenent/Bunker mesmer build and pip grind.”

I personally have a better time on my druid although I’m getting the hang of revenant. It’s all about energy management so you don’t blow it all on Mallyx condition apply to everyone in your presence. You’ll burn out and need to regenerate for some boon stealing or Shiro form superspeed for the times that’s tactically called for.

SamTheGuardian.2938:

In a system with good balance and working MMR, regardless of how many games you played, you would reach a point where you capped at your level of skill. At this threshold your wins/losses would balance out to about 50/50 and it would become very, very hard to progress.

Yes. You are right. Where you are wrong is in assuming it has anything to do with league divisions. It has not.

You can reach your skill cap at any point of the league progression – what is worse, you can reach it before the league season even starts. The moment you reach that point, your league progression stops (assuming good balance and working mmr of course, this league season has severe problems with both). Now, the system doesn’t stop you at the moment you reach division that is appropriate for your skill level, because, again, league divisions are completely disassociated from your mmr. If you are a fast learner, or an experienced player, you may reach that point in Emerald. If you are a really slow learner, you may easily make it into higher divisions before your skill growth stops. Notice, that in both those cases mmr doesn’t care at what level your skill level caps – it’s interested only in whether you continue to improve or not.

That doesn’t sound like a properly designed system to me.

Each division will have a spectrum of players in it due to the dependency of Matchmaking on MMR. You can think of it as a probability problem of flipping coins.
2nd tier is made up of 50% players who don’t belong.
3rd tier is made up of 25% players who don’t belong.
4th tier is 12.5%
diamond will be less than 10%, 6.25% approximately
And then legendary being sub 5%. Hence why there are the number of tiers that there are.

Even in Ruby I notice there’s still a lot of luck of the draw in terms of what teams I get placed on or against. I will say that the games have generally been more even though.

Teamspeak and sync with guildies you know is one hell of an advantage so they really need to bring back soloQ.

It’s freaking idiotic, yes, idiotic to even consider that you may not be able to progress further based on your skill, and that Divisions is in any way, shape or form are supposed to actually reflect how good you are at playing the objectives. Matchmaking will pair you up with complete imbeciles at times, those losses counts into your MMR and further matchmaking. You are but 20% of the team, 1 out of 5. If the rest of the team is absolutely rubbish, you are not going to be able to carry them when/if the other team is anywhere near remotely decent. So no, it actually seriously matters a HUGE freaking deal that there is no Solo- and Group Queue separation. It also ruins my fun, and I am certain it ruins a whole lot of other players fun as well. I refuse to go premade, which I want to do mind you, unless I know I ain’t going to be on a team that steamrolls people who queued up Solo. I don’t want free pips, I want to actually earn them. I also hate facing premades when I queue Solo, so I ain’t going to be a hypocrite and do the same to others.

I will never take this game seriously as a e-sports game, unless they have such basic things taken care of and covered. At the end of the day, I am simply kittenized off, and I sure as a kitten is fluffy don’t feel like watching more Guild Wars 2 at that point. I often loathe the game as I calmly log out, until the next day where the cycle repeats. It seems as if this really straight forward principle, flies straight over ArenaNet’s heads. You need to please the average player, so that they want to see more, when they are not playing. That is how you get your “e-sports” badge. If Leagues is supposed to be a way to reflect on a players skill level outwards, then you sure shouldn’t give premades practically free wins against randoms. That only serves to make the Solo player feel like their only purpose is to feed premades, and this makes the Solo player salty, and rightfully so. 1+1+1+1+1 should face 1+1+1+1+1, and otherwise people can queue solo into Group Queue to fill 4+1, which then face other 4+1, 3+2 or 5 player teams. Simple—fair.

Fact is; Being able to communicate with voice chat, knowing how your team plays and having a tailored set of professions and builds to compliment one another, is a massive freaking advantage over those who wish to roll the dice and just queue up with randoms.

Spartacus.3192:

Ensign.2189:

It’s not really a ranking system though, and it’s not really a progression system. It’s frustrating because it’s a little bit of both.

Amber division, for instance, is purely a progression system. Amber doesn’t tell you anything about a player’s ability, only that they haven’t played very much.

Emerald and Sapphire are this kind of hybrid system, where the division ratchet allows everyone to progress eventually. Weaker players will progress through these divisions slowly (the win one, lose one drag) while stronger players will blast through faster, but the rub is that everyone will eventually grind through it. Also, it gets easier to move through these divisions over time, as better / more regular players move into the higher divisions and Emerald / Sapphire are filled only with casuals. Hence, the first week or so Emerald and (particularly) Sapphire are meaningful ratings, but as time goes on they are closer to Amber grind divisions.

Ruby is the first real rating division. You can only progress through Ruby if you are performing, hence your position in Ruby is actually saying something about your ability. The problem is that the bottom of Ruby is the end point of the grind divisions – anyone, with enough time and dedication, will eventually hit Ruby. Hence, by the end of the season in January, Ruby will no longer be a meaningful rating division, but will be a big mix of ‘I am pretty good at this game but do not play a ton’ and ‘I am bronze tier MMR but grinded the hell out of this game’; it’s the serious about PvP badge but doesn’t indicate any amount of skill.

Diamond and Legendary tiers are the only actual rating tiers. Those are the ones that, at the end of the season, will indicate real ability at the game. At least in theory – this is getting diluted by the matchmaking problems of queuing with Amber accounts, meaning that Diamond, at least for season 1, is going to be more indicative of knowing how to game the matchmaking system than of performance. Still, you need to perform well above average for that trick to work, so Diamond and above show some real rating.

TL;DR – divisions are not a rating system, but a hybrid rating / grind system. Amber means you tried sPvP; Emerald means you showed up, while Sapphire and Ruby are indicators that you’ve spent some time grinding out ranks. Only Diamond and Legendary tiers are real indicators of performance.

Pretty much hit that nail on the head. Well written.

And the reason why? I believe it all leads back to ArenaNet making sure their PvP design caters to their PvE crowd. They never forget sPvP in GW2 is a side-line aspect of the bigger MMO. If they made it so right after Amber your skill level at PvP was really made so apparent so quickly (no tier lock-in starting in emerald) the PvE crowd would probably be very, very unhappy.

Many who PvE in GW2 like to come over to PvP for the occasional match. Sure they should just do unranked, but if you’re going to put a League system in the game you have to make sure it offers something to your primary base. Is this fair to those who just PvP in GW2?

No. But it’s what you deal with when your favorite PvP is imprisoned in an MMO. Imagine if ArenaNet gave us a PvP game separate form GW2 that utilized the play mechanics, with balance entirely around PvP. New maps, Old maps, New PvP mini-games, multiple progression paths, etc….. I think if they really did it right and put work into properly polishing and balancing it would dominate the Twitch charts…. I can dream.

SamTheGuardian.2938:

I think if they really did it right and put work into properly polishing and balancing it would dominate the Twitch charts…. I can dream.

Except the formula to create a hyped “e-sports” game is to make it easy to grasp, harder to master, whilst being accessible for your average “casual” players. To separate Solo- and Group Queues (or at the very least only match 4+1, 3+2 and 5). This game could easily get to that point, but ArenaNet doesn’t seem to understand that when the players are frustrated, when the players feel like they lose unfairly (Randoms vs. Premade), they aren’t going to be interested in going to Twitch to watch more—who goes to watch streams of games they are not hyped about due to frustration? You simply can’t feasibly grow your viewing community, when you fail to make the game feel fair on the very basic level. A whole lot of people are requesting Solo- and Group Queue separation. They should listen to these requests. It would at least make the League feel a tad bit more fair and balanced, class balance aside.

I think if they really did it right and put work into properly polishing and balancing it would dominate the Twitch charts…

That would be very cool. Especially if there were a ton of maps, with some maps rewarding thinking/strategy and not so much mechanical/twitch and encyclopedia knowledge of all class abilities and “tells”.

sanctuary.1068:

“The reality of league divisions” is SO wrong. The fact that people face their own mmr in the leagues makes it harder or easier for different mmr groups to raise their division. Only people that matter rly to look at where they stand is top tier aka high mmr players. In every mmr besides top tier, is a joke where they can get to ruby without an effort. If i actually continued with this league kittenz id be in ruby with just enough grind >.>

Thats why not many of us can take this thing serious. If the leagues had started with mmr reset people would actually take it seriously + if soloq was implemented.

^ This man totally gets it.

Yeah, I’d take you seriously if I didn’t get 1 pip away from ranking out of emerald, and then face nothing but guild teams. Kinda takes away from your whole theory there. I mean unless you’re trying to say that my skill level needs to be matched against full premades…

This is mostly true.. except that you didnt mention that leagues did not start us off on fair ground. We did not get an mmr reset and calibration. Hence, people with high mmr from the start will have a much harder time climbing up divisions as compared to people with low mmr.

Which leads to people tanking mmr. Otherwise, leagues and mmr are a pretty good indicator of skill level.

SamTheGuardian.2938:

There seems to be an ongoing misconception that when playing PvP ranked you are entitled to move up to a new League division just by playing more often. Can’t count the number of post that say “lost a pip, gained a pip, lost three pips, gained two pips” or" won 10 in a row then lost 10 in a row", etc…

This isn’t suppose to be a PvE-like XP grind

In a system with good balance and working MMR, regardless of how many games you played, you would reach a point where you capped at your level of skill. At this threshold your wins/losses would balance out to about 50/50 and it would become very, very hard to progress. That’s horrible design I can hear some of your screaming. But really, it isn’t. In real world sports, not everyone who plays high school football makes it to a college team. Not everyone who players at college level gets drafted into the NFL. The league divisions separate skill level. There comes to a point where you cap out and improving becomes very slow. Then eventually you will arrive at your threshold of skill and progression stops altogether. Congratulate yourself, you made it as far as you could. This system is working now, it’s just got some major problems which have largely invalided it to the point that it can’t be taken seriously. GW2 MMR system is polluted by the followng

• Solo and premade queue mixed. Yes it is a problem. No it’s not as big of a problem as some people make you think it is.
• The tier lock-in for Amber-Ruby divisions giving players who reach a new tier incentive to loose on purpose to manipulate MMR
• A very unbalanced meta that is giving huge advantage in a random way to teams not running full premades. (e.g. oh look match making gave the opposing team two condi mallyx Herald’s and we got a Warrior and a burn Gurdian)

Which leads to the next point

Unfortunately they kind of made ranked PvP like a PvE XP grind
The tier lock-in system enables players who would have otherwise reached their cap in league divisions to progress further. Once a tier is locked-in then a player needs five more wins to secure the next. Given the always present luck-factor and also the three bullet points above factor in random chance of leverage, a player who should be locked in a lower division could climb all the way to Ruby though luck and game unbalance giving them wins they don’t deserve.

Once you get to Ruby and can no longer lock in tiers then the real challenge begins. Luck isn’t really going to lean heavy one way or the other, it comes down to skill.

The reality of League divisions

• Diamond and Legendary – for the best premades who take it seriously
• Ruby – last stop for good teams that just aren’t good enough for Diamond
• Amber-Sapphire – Exist to give the players who need to improve a lot (or play a lot more) a feeling of progression,.

Most of us just want to know where we stand. The current system makes that impossible until you reach Ruby. Then there is nothing between Ruby and Diamond.

Lots of sweeping statements in here. Generalization often begets inexperience. The divisions should replace the algorithm that attempts to force people to 50% wlr. Instead we have two systems trying to ‘work together’, but lacking entirely an objective point of view in which to make a call based on how fair it would be stacking; 3 engi,1 guard, 1 theif vs 3 mesmer, 1 rev, 1 warr.

Also alot of careful formatting and idea grouping for so little spell check. Overall seems to be 94% opinion, 4% inferred hot air, 1% QQ, and .9% fact.

Agemnon.4608:

“The league divisions separate skill level.”

I totally agree that it should be that way, but in practice it isn’t due to the bad MMR system.

The MMR system works reasonably well. It has some (glaring) issues with handling premades (particularly ones containing players with big differences in rating) and there’s an utter lack of smurf detection that’s getting it into trouble (hint hint: 4 diamonds + an amber is probably 5 diamonds with one on a smurf), but these are issues without a solution you can pull out of a box to fix. It’s not something I would expect to see solved without some serious resources thrown at it.

It’s basically having issues with people doing things that deliberately break it, which to some extent is inexcusable because people will try to break it, but on the other hand…outside of those edge cases it works just fine.

Astralporing.1957:

You can reach your skill cap at any point of the league progression – what is worse, you can reach it before the league season even starts. The moment you reach that point, your league progression stops (assuming good balance and working mmr of course, this league season has severe problems with both).

Kind of. It works in a strange way due to the ratcheting and the way everyone has to climb from zero every time.

Basically, the system tries to matchmake you based on both your MMR rating and your division. If there was an infinite player pool everyone would perpetually be climbing at the same rate, as matchmaking would always be able to find you a perfect match and you’d always have a 50% win-rate.

What happens though is the player-pool is finite, and the divisional matching is effectively a partial reset of your MMR – if you have a really high MMR, that only counts half as much as usual and you get paired with weaker players than you are used to, while if your MMR is really low you’ll be paired against better players than normal (since you are all in the same division), so your win rate will deviate from 50%, and better players will climb out of amber (and then emerald, then sapphire) faster, until they’re in a player wave where they are matched with their peers. Once the better players have zoomed ahead, the rest of the pack will be matched against each other, and the next tier of players will move ahead, and so on. If you’re a good but not great player, climbing out of emerald is going to be hell on day 1 (when the only people there are full time players) but will be a cakewalk on day 45 (when the only players there will be bads and filthy casuals).

The difficulty is that there’s a very strong games played component to your rating, and when you play those games in the season matters quite a bit. That makes interpreting your rating, and what it means for your league progression, really difficult.

I wish there was more transparency about how this works, because it’s really non-intuitive – amber/emerald/sapphire are essentially training divisions that may take hundreds of games to get out of, and then you get dropped into the bottom of a ladder where ruby is something like bronze+silver, diamond here is gold+platinum, and legendary is your diamond+challenger tiers – and there’s no placement matches you don’t even know if the guys in bronze are really bronze baddies with lots of games or someone that just came in hot. It’s not completely dissociated from skill and MMR, but it’s a weak signal at best.

However, if you are better than players in your division, you will climb up divisions – and as other better players climb divisions, your job will only become easier. Personally, I’m just messing around learning builds for now and will make my push later in the season once things have settled better and climbing is easier, to minimize the frustration of losing points in the training divisions.

SamTheGuardian.2938:

And the reason why? I believe it all leads back to ArenaNet making sure their PvP design caters to their PvE crowd. They never forget sPvP in GW2 is a side-line aspect of the bigger MMO.

It absolutely needs to cater to the PvE (or more broadly, the filthy casual) crowd. If you don’t have a huge casual player base, then you have a huge barrier to entry for any new players, and then your game doesn’t grow. I don’t care if they’re all chum running around with bleed thieves and axe warriors, the more of those people you have the healthier your game is, and you absolutely want to put incentives into place to make that work.

Friday Night Magic is a cesspool of filthy casuals in most parts of the world. It’s also the backbone of professional Magic play – competitive play is a pyramid, and if you don’t get people involved on the bottom you can’t support the top.

I despise the fact that someone can have a lower MMR than me but have a higher division/tier. It’s like having the little league win a match in baseball and giving them the rewards of a pro league team. They’re both playing under the same system with the same progression. MMR should have more meaning to the league system other than (trying to) creating even matches.

The problem with divisions is that, right now, they don’t represent MMR. This makes it just as easy for a terrible player to climb up to diamond as it is for a pro, at least for solo queue. For teams, climbing to diamond and beyond doesn’t necessarily imply skill, either.

What this system does measure is improvement. You are required to get better as a player or team in order to beat the 50% odds of winning consistently, but already being better nets you no advantage. This is why MMR tanking exists, of course.

If you want divisions that measure skill, then we would need to change divisions so that they are a reflection of MMR – not something separate.

Astralporing.1957:

You can reach your skill cap at any point of the league progression – what is worse, you can reach it before the league season even starts. The moment you reach that point, your league progression stops (assuming good balance and working mmr of course, this league season has severe problems with both). Now, the system doesn’t stop you at the moment you reach division that is appropriate for your skill level, because, again, league divisions are completely disassociated from your mmr.

Elyndis.2130:

The problem with divisions is that, right now, they don’t represent MMR. This makes it just as easy for a terrible player to climb up to diamond as it is for a pro, at least for solo queue. For teams, climbing to diamond and beyond doesn’t necessarily imply skill, either.

What this system does measure is improvement. You are required to get better as a player or team in order to beat the 50% odds of winning consistently, but already being better nets you no advantage. This is why MMR tanking exists, of course.

If you want divisions that measure skill, then we would need to change divisions so that they are a reflection of MMR – not something separate.

Hammerguard.9834:

I despise the fact that someone can have a lower MMR than me but have a higher division/tier. It’s like having the little league win a match in baseball and giving them the rewards of a pro league team. They’re both playing under the same system with the same progression. MMR should have more meaning to the league system other than (trying to) creating even matches.

This exactly. This is all you need to know right here to explain why this system is utter kitten.

Hmm i don´t know. Sure, Diamond/Legendary players are mostly good players.

But u can´t say that soloQ emerald/sapphire/ruby are bad ones. For me, i´m not in a guild nor in a group, purely soloQ. If i´m ruby now? Do i play good or not? I don´t know this as long as we can´t see our mmr/elo.

And even if we see this mmr, i don´t think it will show everything about u.

I doesn´t show the moments logging into a ranked game as soloQ to see that u have a Warrior/thief in it one pip before u progress to the next division and the opponent has 2 ele, 2 mesmer and rev for example.

We will lose even if we are slighlty better players but because of the initial biased class selection its lost from the start.

I would like to see a match of Diamonds playing Thief,Ranger,Warrior … against Sapphire/Ruby players using Revs,Tempests,Chrono and so on. I couldn´t say who would win although u considered Diamonds as clear better players.

Elyndis.2130:

The problem with divisions is that, right now, they don’t represent MMR. This makes it just as easy for a terrible player to climb up to diamond as it is for a pro, at least for solo queue. For teams, climbing to diamond and beyond doesn’t necessarily imply skill, either.

What this system does measure is improvement. You are required to get better as a player or team in order to beat the 50% odds of winning consistently, but already being better nets you no advantage. This is why MMR tanking exists, of course.

If you want divisions that measure skill, then we would need to change divisions so that they are a reflection of MMR – not something separate.

Untrue. Ruby is the noob filter. If you’re bad you won’t get past ruby. Also, mmr accounts for 50% of matchmaking.

ReaperJr.5967:

Elyndis.2130:

The problem with divisions is that, right now, they don’t represent MMR. This makes it just as easy for a terrible player to climb up to diamond as it is for a pro, at least for solo queue. For teams, climbing to diamond and beyond doesn’t necessarily imply skill, either.

What this system does measure is improvement. You are required to get better as a player or team in order to beat the 50% odds of winning consistently, but already being better nets you no advantage. This is why MMR tanking exists, of course.

If you want divisions that measure skill, then we would need to change divisions so that they are a reflection of MMR – not something separate.

Untrue. Ruby is the noob filter. If you’re bad you won’t get past ruby. Also, mmr accounts for 50% of matchmaking.

Untrue. Ruby is the luck, grind filter. Apart of that, it’s pretty much a cake walk, if you tanked mmr like a boss. So nah, Diamond is not a start point where the skill is measured.

Kek.

Arcade.8901:

ReaperJr.5967:

Elyndis.2130:

The problem with divisions is that, right now, they don’t represent MMR. This makes it just as easy for a terrible player to climb up to diamond as it is for a pro, at least for solo queue. For teams, climbing to diamond and beyond doesn’t necessarily imply skill, either.

What this system does measure is improvement. You are required to get better as a player or team in order to beat the 50% odds of winning consistently, but already being better nets you no advantage. This is why MMR tanking exists, of course.

If you want divisions that measure skill, then we would need to change divisions so that they are a reflection of MMR – not something separate.

Untrue. Ruby is the noob filter. If you’re bad you won’t get past ruby. Also, mmr accounts for 50% of matchmaking.

Untrue. Ruby is the luck, grind filter. Apart of that, it’s pretty much a cake walk, if you tanked mmr like a boss. So nah, Diamond is not a start point where the skill is measured.

Kek.

Uh.. sure mate. Everything is a luck grind filter by your logic then. I’m gonna attribute 30 pips to luck grinding, sounds about right.

Lmao.

ReaperJr.5967:

Arcade.8901:

ReaperJr.5967:

Elyndis.2130:

The problem with divisions is that, right now, they don’t represent MMR. This makes it just as easy for a terrible player to climb up to diamond as it is for a pro, at least for solo queue. For teams, climbing to diamond and beyond doesn’t necessarily imply skill, either.

What this system does measure is improvement. You are required to get better as a player or team in order to beat the 50% odds of winning consistently, but already being better nets you no advantage. This is why MMR tanking exists, of course.

If you want divisions that measure skill, then we would need to change divisions so that they are a reflection of MMR – not something separate.

Untrue. Ruby is the noob filter. If you’re bad you won’t get past ruby. Also, mmr accounts for 50% of matchmaking.

Untrue. Ruby is the luck, grind filter. Apart of that, it’s pretty much a cake walk, if you tanked mmr like a boss. So nah, Diamond is not a start point where the skill is measured.

Kek.

Uh.. sure mate. Everything is a luck grind filter by your logic then. I’m gonna attribute 30 pips to luck grinding, sounds about right.

Lmao.

Sure, if you gone full elitist after scoring diamond, while i, being in the same situation as you are, still see the flaws of the leagues, and know how lucky i was, bad enemies, good team mates, 2 pips for win, 0 for the loose, but ! If you want to overvalue your achievement xD Good luck with it.

Arcade.8901:

ReaperJr.5967:

Arcade.8901:

ReaperJr.5967:

Elyndis.2130:

The problem with divisions is that, right now, they don’t represent MMR. This makes it just as easy for a terrible player to climb up to diamond as it is for a pro, at least for solo queue. For teams, climbing to diamond and beyond doesn’t necessarily imply skill, either.

What this system does measure is improvement. You are required to get better as a player or team in order to beat the 50% odds of winning consistently, but already being better nets you no advantage. This is why MMR tanking exists, of course.

If you want divisions that measure skill, then we would need to change divisions so that they are a reflection of MMR – not something separate.

Untrue. Ruby is the noob filter. If you’re bad you won’t get past ruby. Also, mmr accounts for 50% of matchmaking.

Untrue. Ruby is the luck, grind filter. Apart of that, it’s pretty much a cake walk, if you tanked mmr like a boss. So nah, Diamond is not a start point where the skill is measured.

Kek.

Uh.. sure mate. Everything is a luck grind filter by your logic then. I’m gonna attribute 30 pips to luck grinding, sounds about right.

Lmao.

Sure, if you gone full elitist after scoring diamond, while i, being in the same situation as you are, still see the flaws of the leagues, and know how lucky i was, bad enemies, good team mates, 2 pips for win, 0 for the loose, but ! If you want to overvalue your achievement xD Good luck with it.

Elitist? Hardly. This is just how mmr and leagues work in general. If you’re good you progress, if you’re not you don’t. Luck is a factor, sure, but not a deciding one. And definitely not enough to account for 30 pips. I’m not saying the league isnt flawed, but if you got to diamond through luck you are definitely an outlier.

Personally, i got there with a consistent 60% winrate so..

ReaperJr.5967:

Arcade.8901:

ReaperJr.5967:

Arcade.8901:

ReaperJr.5967:

Elyndis.2130:

The problem with divisions is that, right now, they don’t represent MMR. This makes it just as easy for a terrible player to climb up to diamond as it is for a pro, at least for solo queue. For teams, climbing to diamond and beyond doesn’t necessarily imply skill, either.

What this system does measure is improvement. You are required to get better as a player or team in order to beat the 50% odds of winning consistently, but already being better nets you no advantage. This is why MMR tanking exists, of course.

If you want divisions that measure skill, then we would need to change divisions so that they are a reflection of MMR – not something separate.

Untrue. Ruby is the noob filter. If you’re bad you won’t get past ruby. Also, mmr accounts for 50% of matchmaking.

Untrue. Ruby is the luck, grind filter. Apart of that, it’s pretty much a cake walk, if you tanked mmr like a boss. So nah, Diamond is not a start point where the skill is measured.

Kek.

Uh.. sure mate. Everything is a luck grind filter by your logic then. I’m gonna attribute 30 pips to luck grinding, sounds about right.

Lmao.

Sure, if you gone full elitist after scoring diamond, while i, being in the same situation as you are, still see the flaws of the leagues, and know how lucky i was, bad enemies, good team mates, 2 pips for win, 0 for the loose, but ! If you want to overvalue your achievement xD Good luck with it.

Elitist? Hardly. This is just how mmr and leagues work in general. If you’re good you progress, if you’re not you don’t. Luck is a factor, sure, but not a deciding one. And definitely not enough to account for 30 pips. I’m not saying the league isnt flawed, but if you got to diamond through luck you are definitely an outlier.

Personally, i got there with a consistent 60% winrate so..

It’s definitely enough, due to variables which decide your win/loss rate. Team comp, premade/solo q, brainless/veteran spvpers. Etc.

Especially in this meta of low skill play.

And no, i m not outliner, my friends feel the same way. With MMR tanking, there are loads of diamonds who doesn’t even belong there.

So no, this leagues, is a joke and to be honest, alot of people on wrong divisions right now.

You need luck, skill and a lot of persistence to get through every division. Also good timing. Avoiding top tier premades is half the battle.

I think that over enough time and with enough effort and good fortune that most people can eventually get to legendary.

The problem that I personally run into is rage control. I get so angry playing this game now that even when I win I’m not usually having fun which makes it hard for me to keep at it. I just don’t know if I care enough about a stupid backpack to suffer the system through however many games it will eventually take me to reach diamond and then legendary.

Ensign.2189:

However, if you are better than players in your division, you will climb up divisions – and as other better players climb divisions, your job will only become easier.

It might be true of you were facing only players from you own division, but you aren’t. Additionally, the system will still try to get you to 50% win chance within the division – and if it cannot do so by finding you enemies on your level, it will compensate by giving you noobs as allies. No matter how good you are, it’s really hard to advance when you play in truth 1v5 games, and lose 2 pips on every defeat.

For your first point I’ve seen this idea tossed around:

1. Solo and duo queuers should be prioritized to encounter a combination of solo/duo/triple and should never encounter a premade, unless they have a 3 or 4 player party in their team.

2.Tripe queuers should be able to encounter any combination.

3. The 4 and 5 premades should encounter only queues that contain at least a 3 or 4 player parties, but should be prioritized to encounter 5 player premades.

This will probably result in a higher queue time for premades, but it would be less than separating queues.

Astralporing.1957:

Ensign.2189:

However, if you are better than players in your division, you will climb up divisions – and as other better players climb divisions, your job will only become easier.

It might be true of you were facing only players from you own division, but you aren’t. Additionally, the system will still try to get you to 50% win chance within the division – and if it cannot do so by finding you enemies on your level, it will compensate by giving you noobs as allies. No matter how good you are, it’s really hard to advance when you play in truth 1v5 games, and lose 2 pips on every defeat.

Yes and perhaps more importantly the game only cares about wins and losses not what actually happens during the games themselves. So you could win every 1v1, rotate properly, get resses, decaps whatever but if your team still loses it just assumes you played poorly. On the other hand you could individually play very poorly during a match but if your team still wins it assumes you played well.

ReaperJr.5967:

Untrue. Ruby is the noob filter. If you’re bad you won’t get past ruby. Also, mmr accounts for 50% of matchmaking.

Ruby is not the noob filter there isn’t any filter cause 80% of the games are like this in ruby, players taking alt accounts to have easy matches and climb. I Remember the time when anet say facing premade is really a small part of the matches… what a joke

Hammerguard.9834:

I despise the fact that someone can have a lower MMR than me but have a higher division/tier. It’s like having the little league win a match in baseball and giving them the rewards of a pro league team. They’re both playing under the same system with the same progression. MMR should have more meaning to the league system other than (trying to) creating even matches.

That would not have been an issue if they had reset MMR. Starting with a clean slate allows for a faster “sorting” to occur. The only drawback is even more unbalanced matches near the beginning of the league, lots of 500-0s.

The pairing should be based on the person ability. (a formula to determine this would be w/l ratio 75% + 25% some algoritm that somehow detemines if the person helped his team more than the others, including bunkering tactics)

Than reset everything and remove all check-points (you could leave Amber checkpoints on tiers for the starters)

We need to look at a diamond and know that player is a diamond ability player, right now I see a diamond player and think: ’’look! some ruby paired with a amber guy and ripped though the leagues! cool system!"

Chaba claimed: resetting our MMRs at the start of the league means "allows for a faster “sorting” to occur. "

I disagree.

The system would randomly place people in games. Your MMR would be dependent on the random actions of 4 other people. So much faulty “data” would be computed that has nothing to do with your play. Get good luck? You get a higher MMR. Bad luck = lower MMR. It would take hundreds of games for your ability to be sorted out from all the random events and crazy teams you would be place don.

I dont think they will seperate Team and solo ques. There just isnt the player base for it. Remember TPvP? They killed it bc there just wasnt enough players to fill it. The problem i believe anet is having is how to populate games. If you start separating everything there will be players that cant get matches without going down a division to find them. 20 minute diamond ques anyone? It will only get worse. Not better. And ive come to discover that the divisions are screwy as all get out. How some players make it into ruby makes no sense to me. They dont know squat. Dont communicate, dont know it only takes 1 person to cap a point. Dont know that running into a 3v1 is bad etc. There is ZERO skill involved right now in leagues. Its all RnG on your teammates. Thats it . Period. End of discussion. I dont care how good you are. If you get bad teammates the game is over. Ive even watched pro players struggling to climb the ladders due to awful teammates.

Chaba.5410:

Hammerguard.9834:

I despise the fact that someone can have a lower MMR than me but have a higher division/tier. It’s like having the little league win a match in baseball and giving them the rewards of a pro league team. They’re both playing under the same system with the same progression. MMR should have more meaning to the league system other than (trying to) creating even matches.

That would not have been an issue if they had reset MMR. Starting with a clean slate allows for a faster “sorting” to occur. The only drawback is even more unbalanced matches near the beginning of the league, lots of 500-0s.

I don’t think this would work since the MMR would balance out faster than you can make it to the correct division. It would also cause some messed up matches at the start of the season. It really should just award more pips to those at a higher MMR.

except the ranking system is separate from matchmaking system, thus debunking your idea that it isn’t a grind fest. High mmr players will match with high mmr players whether they are in amber or ruby, while low mmr players will match with low mmr players. This doesn’t make sense because ranking should indicate the quality of players you face, and mmr should be based off that but it simply isn’t the case.

SamTheGuardian.2938:

In real world sports, not everyone who plays high school football makes it to a college team. Not everyone who players at college level gets drafted into the NFL.

Sorry, but in real world, in any real sport, you are not forced to team up with bad players just because you are good, or the opposite.

Death Aggro.9602:

I dont think they will seperate Team and solo ques. There just isnt the player base for it. Remember TPvP? They killed it bc there just wasnt enough players to fill it. The problem i believe anet is having is how to populate games. If you start separating everything there will be players that cant get matches without going down a division to find them. 20 minute diamond ques anyone? It will only get worse. Not better. And ive come to discover that the divisions are screwy as all get out. How some players make it into ruby makes no sense to me. They dont know squat. Dont communicate, dont know it only takes 1 person to cap a point. Dont know that running into a 3v1 is bad etc. There is ZERO skill involved right now in leagues. Its all RnG on your teammates. Thats it . Period. End of discussion. I dont care how good you are. If you get bad teammates the game is over. Ive even watched pro players struggling to climb the ladders due to awful teammates.

I totally agree with you about the teammate rng. I’m not so sure about there not being enough people to populate two queues though.

Arcade.8901:

ReaperJr.5967:

Arcade.8901:

ReaperJr.5967:

Arcade.8901:

ReaperJr.5967:

Elyndis.2130:

The problem with divisions is that, right now, they don’t represent MMR. This makes it just as easy for a terrible player to climb up to diamond as it is for a pro, at least for solo queue. For teams, climbing to diamond and beyond doesn’t necessarily imply skill, either.

What this system does measure is improvement. You are required to get better as a player or team in order to beat the 50% odds of winning consistently, but already being better nets you no advantage. This is why MMR tanking exists, of course.

If you want divisions that measure skill, then we would need to change divisions so that they are a reflection of MMR – not something separate.

Untrue. Ruby is the noob filter. If you’re bad you won’t get past ruby. Also, mmr accounts for 50% of matchmaking.

Untrue. Ruby is the luck, grind filter. Apart of that, it’s pretty much a cake walk, if you tanked mmr like a boss. So nah, Diamond is not a start point where the skill is measured.

Kek.

Uh.. sure mate. Everything is a luck grind filter by your logic then. I’m gonna attribute 30 pips to luck grinding, sounds about right.

Lmao.

Sure, if you gone full elitist after scoring diamond, while i, being in the same situation as you are, still see the flaws of the leagues, and know how lucky i was, bad enemies, good team mates, 2 pips for win, 0 for the loose, but ! If you want to overvalue your achievement xD Good luck with it.

Elitist? Hardly. This is just how mmr and leagues work in general. If you’re good you progress, if you’re not you don’t. Luck is a factor, sure, but not a deciding one. And definitely not enough to account for 30 pips. I’m not saying the league isnt flawed, but if you got to diamond through luck you are definitely an outlier.

Personally, i got there with a consistent 60% winrate so..

It’s definitely enough, due to variables which decide your win/loss rate. Team comp, premade/solo q, brainless/veteran spvpers. Etc.

Especially in this meta of low skill play.

And no, i m not outliner, my friends feel the same way. With MMR tanking, there are loads of diamonds who doesn’t even belong there.

So no, this leagues, is a joke and to be honest, alot of people on wrong divisions right now.

You don’t seem to understand how mmr tanking works and why it is highly unlikely to work past ruby. Nevertheless, I shan’t explain it to you as you seem to be adamant at defending this ‘luck factor’ of yours with blind faith, and will likely reject any logical argument. Good luck with your climbing to legendary.

If MMR was reset, tanking it wouldn’t even be an option. Everyone will start with a clean slate. While our MMR builds up, other metrics could be used to sort out matchmaking.

Despite the obvious flaws of this pvp platform, it’s really not that bad. It’s also not that great but at least it’s functional. I just hope that they are collecting data and plan on refining this product.

Pimsley.3681:

Despite the obvious flaws of this pvp platform, it’s really not that bad. It’s also not that great but at least it’s functional. I just hope that they are collecting data and plan on refining this product.

Lol, I guess for some waiting 3+ years for “functional” is OK. Good for you.