Guild Wars 2

To begin I’m a bad player. I’m terrible at PvP just ask anyone who has played with me. I sometimes get lucky and win some games against better players but overall I’m pretty terrible at the game and S2 showed me just how bad I am and I am glad for that because previously I didn’t know how I ranked up. Oh well. I’m old and had no preconceptions about being a pro. I just like playing competitive games and try to learn from mistakes and take advice from people better than me. I don’t blame my teammates or MMR, I blame myself for my failures. Despite saying that I’m sure someone will still post that I think I’m better and stop blaming my teammates but what can you do about bad reading comprehension.

After S1 (which was all ‘bout dat grind and not dat skill) and the failures of S2 I have moved on from this game. GW2 just doesn’t do it for me anymore. I’m not mad I just moved on to other things. However on a day off I opened up the forums here and looking at some posts something struck me about the current season. There is this remark that I keep seeing that makes me think, “Really, is that really the right answer?”

That remark is “This is where you belong.”

The reason I have a problem with that statement is not that I think everyone should be Legendary. I think the divisions should separate by skill and that “MMR hell” is a thing but not in the way so many think it is. In fact it should be referred to as “Division hell”. Let me explain…

People go along winning games at some rate to progress and then suddenly BAM! They hit a wall. The wall of “this is where you belong”. The wall where suddenly people go on 60 game losing streaks. This really makes no sense to me. Now before someone goes on about saying this is where they should be and that Leagues isn’t a ladder I agree with the latter. Leagues isn’t a ladder. At this point things should have settled, though, and if this is where those players belong shouldn’t the matches be more like S1 where they settle into a 45-55% w/l ratio instead of going from a ratio that is greater than 50% to a ratio closer to 0%. To me this indicates a player is *not*where they belong and is in fact in a place higher than where they belong thus indicated by the huge turn in their win/loss ratio instead of settling down to 50/50. Instead of adding weight gradually to the balance beam scale until it is balanced it’s like suddenly someone just shoved all the weights to the end and it’s not balanced out and that is not how it should be. This is what Division Hell is. This makes people want to quit.

If a player is stuck in a place with a W,L,W,L,W,L type of scenario then they are where they belong and though it may be frustrating to not make any progress at least there is some hope and the players get to have some fun. All around players get the division by skill and the 50/50 matchmaking kind of deal. This what ANet should be aiming to create and should be focusing on for S3.

Thank you for reading and flame away as I am sure many of you will do.

This post summarizes well the problem and the reason for those sudden loose streak:

Fay.2357:

Ultimately, experiences like this are the fault of Anet in their design of the league system.

GW2 is a casual game, and they almost always try to make new stuff palatable to causal players. The leagues are no exception, and the hybrid compromise between casual and competitive leaves everyone unhappy.

Amber through sapphire are all easily passed by even the worst players if they play enough games. This is the concession to casual players; being able to progress at least to ruby without having an ounce of skill.

However, ruby suddenly is having none of their kitten, and smacks down people that aren’t able to consistently pump out wins. This creates the massive wall that players like OP are crashing face-first into. Since everybody gets to ruby, there is no competition or challenge up to that point. Once you enter ruby, you’re suddenly exposed to the full and unmitigated challenge of having a massive range of skills all scrunched into one division.

If Anet had made every division equally difficult to progress through, you’d get a more even settling curve where some settled in emerald, some in sapphire, some in ruby, and some in diamond. If Anet had gone full casual and made it equally easy to progress through diamond, there would be no settling and everyone would end up at the top end. By making this compromise system, they’ve simply caused a massive traffic jam to occur in ruby that catches everyone up in it, regardless of skill level.

Silverkey.2078:

This post summarizes well the problem and the reason for those sudden loose streak:

Fay.2357:

Ultimately, experiences like this are the fault of Anet in their design of the league system.

GW2 is a casual game, and they almost always try to make new stuff palatable to causal players. The leagues are no exception, and the hybrid compromise between casual and competitive leaves everyone unhappy.

Amber through sapphire are all easily passed by even the worst players if they play enough games. This is the concession to casual players; being able to progress at least to ruby without having an ounce of skill.

However, ruby suddenly is having none of their kitten, and smacks down people that aren’t able to consistently pump out wins. This creates the massive wall that players like OP are crashing face-first into. Since everybody gets to ruby, there is no competition or challenge up to that point. Once you enter ruby, you’re suddenly exposed to the full and unmitigated challenge of having a massive range of skills all scrunched into one division.

If Anet had made every division equally difficult to progress through, you’d get a more even settling curve where some settled in emerald, some in sapphire, some in ruby, and some in diamond. If Anet had gone full casual and made it equally easy to progress through diamond, there would be no settling and everyone would end up at the top end. By making this compromise system, they’ve simply caused a massive traffic jam to occur in ruby that catches everyone up in it, regardless of skill level.

That is not really true. Fay’s post basically says anyone can get into Ruby. That is not true but lets just say that is.
So Ruby is amber + x number of games played. If that is the case then Ruby should sort out itself very quickly. The best players in Ruby should win streak to top and the bad ones stuck at lower tiers and the somewhat skilled in the middle. So if you are IN ruby already you should get to where you belong very quick and settle there with 50% win rate. The ONLY people who should hit a wall are the very worst players who just enter ruby and belong to the bottom 10% . The fact is people are hitting mmr wall at all tiers of ruby. A lot are hitting the wall at t5/6. That should not happen unless something else is screwed up.

Mogar.9216:

Silverkey.2078:

This post summarizes well the problem and the reason for those sudden loose streak:

Fay.2357:

Ultimately, experiences like this are the fault of Anet in their design of the league system.

GW2 is a casual game, and they almost always try to make new stuff palatable to causal players. The leagues are no exception, and the hybrid compromise between casual and competitive leaves everyone unhappy.

Amber through sapphire are all easily passed by even the worst players if they play enough games. This is the concession to casual players; being able to progress at least to ruby without having an ounce of skill.

However, ruby suddenly is having none of their kitten, and smacks down people that aren’t able to consistently pump out wins. This creates the massive wall that players like OP are crashing face-first into. Since everybody gets to ruby, there is no competition or challenge up to that point. Once you enter ruby, you’re suddenly exposed to the full and unmitigated challenge of having a massive range of skills all scrunched into one division.

If Anet had made every division equally difficult to progress through, you’d get a more even settling curve where some settled in emerald, some in sapphire, some in ruby, and some in diamond. If Anet had gone full casual and made it equally easy to progress through diamond, there would be no settling and everyone would end up at the top end. By making this compromise system, they’ve simply caused a massive traffic jam to occur in ruby that catches everyone up in it, regardless of skill level.

That is not really true. Fay’s post basically says anyone can get into Ruby. That is not true but lets just say that is.
So Ruby is amber + x number of games played. If that is the case then Ruby should sort out itself very quickly. The best players in Ruby should win streak to top and the bad ones stuck at lower tiers and the somewhat skilled in the middle. So if you are IN ruby already you should get to where you belong very quick and settle there with 50% win rate. The ONLY people who should hit a wall are the very worst players who just enter ruby and belong to the bottom 10% . The fact is people are hitting mmr wall at all tiers of ruby. A lot are hitting the wall at t5/6. That should not happen unless something else is screwed up.

Well his post is a simplification.

You start fighting ruby when you get to the last tiers of emerald and start fighting diamond at the last tiers of ruby, meaning that the wall can hit earlier. But the fact remains that you can pass a threshold (whether it is a “unlosable” tier or a division) on a lucky streak (which statistically are bound to happen) and then end up among people you are not meant to fight.

Because this analysis assumes a “rare” event (you on a lucky streak), there is enough occurrences to flame the forums, but not enough to establish a large population which would eventually push the better up and keep the worse down. So you end up a small number of overranked ruby among people actually belonging to ruby. The few overranked get consistently bad games, while the many well-ranked are still pretty much on a 50-50.

Overall, while his post is simplistic (on purpose I assume), the fact remains that the threshold while feeling very nice for the players at first, may actually contribute to giving him consistently bad matchmaking.

well I cant get into ruby

Mogar.9216:

Silverkey.2078:

This post summarizes well the problem and the reason for those sudden loose streak:

Fay.2357:

Ultimately, experiences like this are the fault of Anet in their design of the league system.

GW2 is a casual game, and they almost always try to make new stuff palatable to causal players. The leagues are no exception, and the hybrid compromise between casual and competitive leaves everyone unhappy.

Amber through sapphire are all easily passed by even the worst players if they play enough games. This is the concession to casual players; being able to progress at least to ruby without having an ounce of skill.

However, ruby suddenly is having none of their kitten, and smacks down people that aren’t able to consistently pump out wins. This creates the massive wall that players like OP are crashing face-first into. Since everybody gets to ruby, there is no competition or challenge up to that point. Once you enter ruby, you’re suddenly exposed to the full and unmitigated challenge of having a massive range of skills all scrunched into one division.

If Anet had made every division equally difficult to progress through, you’d get a more even settling curve where some settled in emerald, some in sapphire, some in ruby, and some in diamond. If Anet had gone full casual and made it equally easy to progress through diamond, there would be no settling and everyone would end up at the top end. By making this compromise system, they’ve simply caused a massive traffic jam to occur in ruby that catches everyone up in it, regardless of skill level.

That is not really true. Fay’s post basically says anyone can get into Ruby. That is not true but lets just say that is.
So Ruby is amber + x number of games played. If that is the case then Ruby should sort out itself very quickly. The best players in Ruby should win streak to top and the bad ones stuck at lower tiers and the somewhat skilled in the middle. So if you are IN ruby already you should get to where you belong very quick and settle there with 50% win rate. The ONLY people who should hit a wall are the very worst players who just enter ruby and belong to the bottom 10% . The fact is people are hitting mmr wall at all tiers of ruby. A lot are hitting the wall at t5/6. That should not happen unless something else is screwed up.

It is true since I can get to Ruby solely by pressing my auto attack and get carried by the rest of the team. The problem with Ruby is that there’s now a mix of all skill levels. This means that your teammates may not actually be on the same skill level as you. This can put your team at risk of losing if the other team comprises of more skilled players.

What Anet should do is just remove the pip/tier safety nets. This way the unskilled players will remain in the lower tiers for the most part and the matches will become more competitive the higher up you progress.