Guild Wars 2

Hey, guys. I’m Leman. I’ve been around since always. I’m an active Solo Arena EU player and the current sweg-massktochen for one of the best PvP teams that have ever existed.

Today I had a horrible PvP match streak infested with people that clearly weren’t matched properly. After one match I decided to check out how well the matchmaking was working and here are the results;

I included tpvp experience as well to try to gauge the actual skill of all players better. Don’t mind the rank though – it doesn’t count towards solo queue matchmaking and it may have decayed (it certainly did in my case since I last played).

How am I supposed to enjoy this game when this happens to me? Not to mention I then just flame my team for their disability, but it’s not their fault…

I really hope there are fixes and changes coming, because in this state this game is bloody unenjoyable and outright infuriating.
Quoting Mike O’Brien, the CEO of ArenaNet:

Creating fun is an uncertain business: sometimes things work out and sometimes they don’t (…)

It’s pretty obvious that in this case things aren’t working out and it needs to change.

Special bonus for the Devs that are reading this topic – there were huge lag spikes and rubberbanding during today’s matches (everyone was complaining) and as you can see on the screenshot – I was respawned in the water under the map.

This is just another perfect example why i try to avoid Solo Q.
This is not fun and frustrating , there is no way to enjoy more than one game. Only tryhard solo Q synch’s are able to make it fun to play , because otherwise you end up like you can see it on the screenshot.

I don’t know if Anet doesn’t try or care, but for the future I’m gonna avoid soloq due to this reason , it’s not enjoyable for me at all.

While this happens often and I can attest to it myself as I play solo Q way more than I should I think I am at 2k games now lol

It just is not really proof it is just one instance – even though it happens often and the more you play the more you see it

Here is the problem – new players are constantly rotating into pvp and most do NOT stick around
They get roflstomped and quit – they constantly get 4v5 and quit – cheese/meta makes them quit too

In the end there are constant rabbits circulating into and out of solo q with only a few of us veterans still playing solo q – most are forming teams and going to team q now – esports

Solo Q needs a few things to fix it – eliminate 4v5 by having a “ready up” button and then we eliminate the leaderboards and create a hidden MMR which probably does not work anyway

New Leaderboard for team q is by TEAM only and we eliminate this individual rank garbage – reset leader board every 3 months – profit

This is the issue IMO

Isn’t that mainly the case when there simply aren’t any closely ranked people waiting in queue?

One could of course question if people would rather have to wait for 10+ minutes in order to even start a match?

WAUW

leman.7682:

Not to mention I then just flame my team for their disability, but it’s not their fault…

This is one of the reasons SoloQ is so frustrating, people raging and insulting their own team. This is not necessary and totally under your control, so stop it.

Narkodx.1472:

It just is not really proof it is just one instance – even though it happens often and the more you play the more you see it

Here is the problem – new players are constantly rotating into pvp and most do NOT stick around

Of course it’s only one instance, and it proves nothing, but there were hundreds of topics on this saying people are getting uneven matches. I myself have experienced it multiple times, it is a common situation.

In my view, such matches as the one I posted about, should never be allowed to happen. It is bad for me, it is bad for the newbs, it is bad for the community.

phoenix.3465:

This is one of the reasons SoloQ is so frustrating, people raging and insulting their own team. This is not necessary and totally under your control, so stop it.

It works both ways – give me a fair match, so it doesn’t happen.

lordkrall.7241:

Isn’t that mainly the case when there simply aren’t any closely ranked people waiting in queue?

One could of course question if people would rather have to wait for 10+ minutes in order to even start a match?

Well counting the big amount of players leaving pvp i think people prefer to not play at ALL rather than deal with this match up system… Well, not that the word “system” is the best word to descrive gw2 match up.. “garbage” suit it better

lordkrall.7241:

Isn’t that mainly the case when there simply aren’t any closely ranked people waiting in queue?

One could of course question if people would rather have to wait for 10+ minutes in order to even start a match?

The two teams in the screen shot could have been split up evenly on both sides, but for some reason aren’t. Not sure if that’s because of the number of games each player has played, or if there is a phantom rank that takes into account as well. Either ways, everyone who plays YoloQ religiously knows that the rank is no where near the competitiveness of most MMO’s. where skill is measured.

That and strategies are hardly ever talked about. No one shows up a minute before game starts and talk strategies. SoloQ should automatically draft players from each team after 20-30 seconds, imo

It’s because no one plays. Drop the conquest and let’s get more players

so… whats new?

I had multiple matches like this as well, where I knew the names of everyone on the other team (they were decent, or top players), and my team seemed completely random/new-ish players :/

leman.7682:

phoenix.3465:

This is one of the reasons SoloQ is so frustrating, people raging and insulting their own team. This is not necessary and totally under your control, so stop it.

It works both ways – give me a fair match, so it doesn’t happen.

It’s harder to give fairer matches if the population is low.

Flaming other players isn’t going to encourage them to stick around and increase/maintain a reasonable population.

Yes, there is a lot that ANet should be doing to improve PvP, but don’t pretend for a moment that being a flangewrangler is okay. People can’t l2p – and so add to the pool of competent players to get matched against – if they leave because you whine like a child when you’re losing.

#92-385
#skyhammer
#uneven match
#drowning in pixels under the map

This is so perfect.

cheese.4739:

leman.7682:

phoenix.3465:

This is one of the reasons SoloQ is so frustrating, people raging and insulting their own team. This is not necessary and totally under your control, so stop it.

It works both ways – give me a fair match, so it doesn’t happen.

It’s harder to give fairer matches if the population is low.

Flaming other players isn’t going to encourage them to stick around and increase/maintain a reasonable population.

Yes, there is a lot that ANet should be doing to improve PvP, but don’t pretend for a moment that being a flangewrangler is okay. People can’t l2p – and so add to the pool of competent players to get matched against – if they leave because you whine like a child when you’re losing.

1st the game fill team A with people of similar rank\mmr (example around 100 ladder)

2nd the game fill team B with people of other similar rank\mmr (example 9k+ ladder beginners)

3rd there are tons of teams like team B but only a few of teams like team A. So whenever a random team A doesnt find another team A to fight against, then the match up system put team A vs team B to avoid long wait.

So we have a full high rank team vs a full noob team.

Result: Full experience team vs full noob team.

Low population is a thing, bad game design is another thing.

This is just bad design.

For yoloqueue a totally random match up system would give more fair match up than this garbage, but we will never have any change, cause anet motto seem to be “we cant, its hard”

Isn’t it sad that the MMR of a top-100-ranked player and a non-leaderboard player are so close together? Because that’s the explanation for this phenomenon and why it’s so common. Just as the OP said – everyone who plays soloQ for any amount of time experiences matches such as this. SoloQ desperately needs a bracketed ladder system and seasons. There need to be other factors that separate players besides just MRR based on win/loss. The current soloQ match making system is so rudimentary it’s beyond insulting, and the customer experience sucks donkey dinkey. No wonder the churn among PvPers is so huge.

Mrbig.8019:

#92-385
#skyhammer
#uneven match
#drowning in pixels under the map

This is so perfect.

#One AFKer
Even more perfect

I’m guessing those four guys on your team played one game, they all won, and the MMR shot up to accomodate.

Would at least have been nice if the game split the players tho.

cheese.4739:

they leave because you whine like a child when you’re losing.

Them leaving is mostly caused by being matched unevenly, regardless of experienced players’ approach. Arguing doesn’t help, but I have a feeling that you are derailing from the main issue here, even after I ignore your offensive wording.

Sarrs.4831:

I’m guessing those four guys on your team played one game, they all won, and the MMR shot up to accomodate.

Would at least have been nice if the game split the players tho.

People have been suggesting this for years now. From simple fixes like not allowing players without certain rank to play Solo Arena (a bad solution) to more comprehensive ones of changing the hotjoin system into an unranked arena with matchmaking where people can improve and test things against closely-matched opponents (another invisible rating just for hotjoin arena) without affecting the leaderboards.

Not like I care that much about leaderboards, we know how abysmally bad their are at what they’re supposed to do, but I absolutely hate losing matches like the one above.

One of the things which freaking me out are 4on5s on skyhammer. The last days I had a 4on5 rate on this map by 60% (I played 100s of matches the last days). The people see its skyhammer and just ragequitting the game with alt+f4. Since its known that they dont need to fear any kind of penalty, it became very famous the last months and this wave is still getting bigger and bigger.
I dont play many different games outside of gw2 but be very loyal to ones which I decided to play like this. But in those cases (I had 3 or 4 skyhammer 4on5ers in a row) its frustrating me on a level where even I quit the game for days, weeks or months.
Im basicly an extremely introverted player who dont like to comunicate that much but since Im playing very active in solo q Im just flaming around and often stop in the middle of the game just to insult my teammates when I see them at the minimap running around like headless chickens, leaping solo to a point which is currently defended by 3 opponents and die for no reason. At the end of the day I currently enduring my 3rd temporary ban (I just bought a second acc, lol) for unacceptable behavior since Im not able to calm down when I see so many people just mistaken hotjoin with a ranked game mode. And I cant stand still when some of my teammates following me on close, standing the point wait for the capture just to grap 10 points and simply ignore the fact that I said before that Im moving to close and also move straight to this point (in 95% of every case Im in front of those kind of players). At this case I really need to ask myself why are no requirements to join solo q because newbs just lacking experience even at the basics.

However.
I want to comment a suggestion here where I think its basicly a good intention but would end in a very negative way: The ranking reset.
I personally think it would be very motivating to do it. But here is the point:
I think a reset would show how much player really still playing this content. I have my doubts that 1000 different players would be ranked in period of 2 weeks just because the player base is too small for it.
Im often playing 50-100 matches a day (when Im playing) and after 10-15 games I feel like I know about 50% of the player pool which currently playing solo q. I see the same names over and over and the pool of individual players in this game mode over the whole day is about 200-300.
Well, thats embarassing for a game which was sold 2million times (afaik) and shows very well that the pvp content has extrem weakings, even after 2 years. And I didnt even mention some absurd balancings as like D/D cele ele.

Narkodx.1472:

While this happens often and I can attest to it myself as I play solo Q way more than I should I think I am at 2k games now lol

It just is not really proof it is just one instance – even though it happens often and the more you play the more you see it

Here is the problem – new players are constantly rotating into pvp and most do NOT stick around
They get roflstomped and quit – they constantly get 4v5 and quit – cheese/meta makes them quit too

In the end there are constant rabbits circulating into and out of solo q with only a few of us veterans still playing solo q – most are forming teams and going to team q now – esports

Solo Q needs a few things to fix it – eliminate 4v5 by having a “ready up” button and then we eliminate the leaderboards and create a hidden MMR which probably does not work anyway

New Leaderboard for team q is by TEAM only and we eliminate this individual rank garbage – reset leader board every 3 months – profit

This is the issue IMO

Rip PvP, Living story has all the resources.

Aereniel.7356:

Isn’t it sad that the MMR of a top-100-ranked player and a non-leaderboard player are so close together? Because that’s the explanation for this phenomenon and why it’s so common. Just as the OP said – everyone who plays soloQ for any amount of time experiences matches such as this. SoloQ desperately needs a bracketed ladder system and seasons. There need to be other factors that separate players besides just MRR based on win/loss. The current soloQ match making system is so rudimentary it’s beyond insulting, and the customer experience sucks donkey dinkey. No wonder the churn among PvPers is so huge.

The top 100 and non leaderboard players are not close together.
In order to get to top 100 from being 96% on leaderboard you’d have to win 10 games in a row (96%>900s>800s>700s>…>top100)
That glicko system they yap about, where if you beat someone at 50 on leaderboard and your not on leaderboard therefore you earn more than usual spots and the leaderboard person drops more than usual spots is all bullkitten, show me some proof if it aint.

Now, if your talking about the top 100 and non leaderboard players are close together because they are in same game together, its because the pvp community is in a decline and not many people are playing.
Another reasoning is that when people get on the leaderboard, if they don’t play they stay on the leaderboard, so they look good towards there friends (not like they checking your leaderboard rank) but also if you play another game due to solo que being so risky that you could easily drop off the leaderboard.
So most people when they make leaderboard they stop playing.
They need to encourage people to keep playing when they are on the leaderboards. Making a higher leaderboard rank isn’t good enough.

A nice incentive could be having the leaderboard rank next to your name. Ex. Uberkingkong 773 (773 on leaderboards), would also make people respect you more because you made it to leaderboards, but than again it wouldn’t encourage people to keep playing once they made it, I think that if they stop making losses so harsh it would encourage people to play more.
Rather than having win moving up 100 and loss moving down 100, it should be a win moving you up 100 and a loss moving you down 25. That way people who constantly play a lot of games would get rewarded and those people who get to rank 1 and stop playing would get knocked off. Having losses not being so harsh would get a lot more people to continue to tournament play when they are on the leaderboards. Also, closer you get to the highest spot on leaderboard you should have to win more games to move up, like instead of moving up 100 from a win it should be like 50 than 25 than 5, than like top 10 should be something like a win moves you up 1 spot a loss moves you down 5 spots. Nothing drastic like 100 spots down per loss. Maybe moving up 100 spots is too much, and should be 50 spots instead, in order to slow down other people knocking you off the leaderboards. But one must wonder how many different people play pvp, is there really 1000 active casual players?

Thing is, this top 1000 leaderboard isn’t accurate and faster people move up and not get penalized drastically for losing games will weed out the inactive players and make it seem more real so that spread wont seem to be so far apart because there is a lot of inactive people on the current leaderboard, well 1 game a week type people or something like that. (rank 200, let 7 days go by, get to 900, win a game due to it being a week, now at 150 or whatever, if a loss now at 300, went from 900 to 300) That kind of stuff needs to be looked at too. To me it incentifies holding your rank and not risking any losses but wait a week and let decay happen than play another game and retain your rank. Not very competitive at all, just cheaply using the system to me.

uberkingkong.8041:

Aereniel.7356:

Isn’t it sad that the MMR of a top-100-ranked player and a non-leaderboard player are so close together? Because that’s the explanation for this phenomenon and why it’s so common. Just as the OP said – everyone who plays soloQ for any amount of time experiences matches such as this. SoloQ desperately needs a bracketed ladder system and seasons. There need to be other factors that separate players besides just MRR based on win/loss. The current soloQ match making system is so rudimentary it’s beyond insulting, and the customer experience sucks donkey dinkey. No wonder the churn among PvPers is so huge.

The top 100 and non leaderboard players are not close together.
In order to get to top 100 from being 96% on leaderboard you’d have to win 10 games in a row (96%>900s>800s>700s>…>top100)
That glicko system they yap about, where if you beat someone at 50 on leaderboard and your not on leaderboard therefore you earn more than usual spots and the leaderboard person drops more than usual spots is all bullkitten, show me some proof if it aint.

You are partially correct – the playerbase is indeed very small, and in order to make queue times bearable the match making algorithm allows for more MMR deviation quite quickly when pairing people. However, a common misconception is that the difference in match making rating is substantial between a player who is on the top 1000 of the leaderboards and a person who is not on the leaderboard at all. This is incorrect, developer confirmation here:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Leaderboard-rating/first#post4487517

On a general note, Anet is very aware of the changes that are needed to improve the soloQ player experience – they merely lack implementation. PvP queues need brackets accompanied by appropriate reward structure, and a seasonal reset cycle where players have the chance to improve their game and aspire to reach the upper brackets. Include capes in the top bracket rewards and see how the floodgates open as PvE heroes froth at the mouth to participate.

Ladders and seasons would bring attainable short- to mid-term goals and much-needed incentive to soloQ, which is currently just a grind with no goals of any kind attached to it. Nobody in their right mind puts any stock to the current soloQ leaderboard. It’s not a yardstick for anything, except perhaps the obstinacy of people and their incredible ability to carve out meaning in the most trite and trivial things. Or if you want to be positive about it, perhaps the fact that people are willing to participate in the current soloQ iteration can be seen as proof of the exceptional quality of the combat system.

That person said the person in top 100 and a non leaderboard player is close together.
The deviation I currently see is 100 difference.
In order for a rank 96% player to get to top 100 is 10+ wins (consecutive wins) like I said, that’s nowhere near close (or easy to do).

Yes in general 96% tile being people 1100-1300 (not listed on leaderboard) is close to top 100, but to get to top 100 the gap with the deviation of 100 is pretty dang longshot.

Also, ask yourself how many active continuous/casual PvP’ers the community has, do you really think there are 1000 active continuous/casual PvP’ers out there?

By the discussion I’m seeing, it seems based off peoples observation (playing with same pool of 20 people constantly, stuff like that), it seems off that observation that there is nowhere near 1000 active casual pvp’ers out there (not as a whole, but on NA, or only EU, not both combined).
If there is 1500 total active pvp’ers out there, than being 96% tile is like being all the way to the other side of a normal distribution curve, because 96% is 1100-1300 (in theory of moving up and down by deviation 100 ranks, which is happening currently).

So you are wrong bud, that’s a huge gap, not a narrow gap.
Its just that my theory of way not many people play once on leaderboards, and abusing decay to continue to look good on leaderboards (get to top 100, let decay 10 days to off leaderboard, play 1 game, back on top 100 or if lost you are in top 200 (which is still a good leaderboard rank)).

Like I said, they need to get rid of there stupid fake decay and get a real decay, they need a new system (leaderboard ranking system) because this current system is being abused to the max, just show the real rating and not this fake rating. Pay big bucks to starcraft and use the rating the have, pay big bucks to some mathematician to figure out your problem.
Also make losing less harsh to encourage people to keep playing.

Such wall of text, wow. A simple solution would be to modify the ranking with another aspect of glicko:

The RD itself decreases after playing a game, but it will increase slowly over time of inactivity.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glicko_rating_system

Meaning the rank would sink without activity.
So it would force the top rankers to continue playing this game or just accept that they slowly sink out of the ranking. This would be a way better solution as a full reset.
Also players with under 50 games should not be listed to filter lucky knights out.

A ranking which is worth it to work for top 100 is motivating imho. I would expect more activity then especially from top rankers.

Kudos to Justin for answering most of our questions in this thread, which is similar if not the same as yours.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Leaderboard-rating/first#post4487517

In short they are very aware of the issues revolving around soloQ’s ranking and team placements prior to the match. I really hope it improves because soloQ IS declining because users who invest a great deal of time are not partaking as much.