Guild Wars 2

Let’s begin with the concept of what Ranked Arena should be. Ranked Arena should be the place reserved for competition. If you’re queuing ranked you want fun competition that pushes your skills as a player. You are here for the competition and that alone, not the fancy rewards that have been attached to this game mode. That being said if you are a 4 or 5 man team looking for competition in this current system you rarely find it. Most of the time you will just roll every single team that isn’t a 4 or 5 man. Maybe 1 in 10 games you will find another premade that is actually on a level playing field with you. If you are a team looking for competition you should be skirmishing other teams near your skill level, entering amateur tournaments (AG Cups), and pushing yourself and your team’s ability to work together. Not steamrolling through a bunch of randoms for a free ride to Legendary. The current system isn’t really bad with the whole pugs vs. premade thing, the problem lies with the fact that players trying to form new competitive teams have no way of finding good players in this system (short of posting on the forums and hoping for the best).

Before when Solo & Team Queues existed (possibly the healthiest PvP has ever been in this game) competitive teams could simply look at the Solo Q leader boards pick someone in the top 50 and expect them to be better than average at the game if they needed to fill spots on their roster. This was great for teams looking to get competitive but didn’t quite have the manpower for it.

This is why we are pushing so hard right now for solo/duo queues. This system if implemented correctly would eliminate the current team leaderboards that have the same 10 teams every season and actually give the good players a chance at being in the spotlight, combine this with the proposed matchmaking changes and Season 5 might actually be one of the best PvP seasons this game has seen in a very long time. Where you see someone in Legendary and can tell yourself with confidence “They are probably a good player.”

If you are that guild group of 5 people who just wants to play PvP “for fun” and doesn’t care about competition. I’m sorry to shatter your reality but that just doesn’t belong in Ranked. And if you’re a premade who actually wants competition and think you will find it random queuing ranked you need to retake your statistics course.

Case in point, every single ESL team is skirmishing each other not queuing ranked and hoping they will just happen to get queued against some other team that can fight them.

That’s the end of my rant, feel free to discuss.

As a player, who has been playing 95% of my time in team, I am saying you are just making assuptions without any experience.

• “Most of the time you will just roll every single team that isn’t a 4 or 5 man” NOT TRUE. This is valid when we are speaking about bad players against us, when matchmaking isn’t settled up for us yet. After it’s settled, we have to actually win against 5 invidually more skilled players than us. EVERY GAME. Matchmaking is setting our team skill level where our best player is and then rising the level who are coming against us. This means we have to have equally skilled players or we are doooooomed. Good players know the basic things what to do; do a good rotation, look the map, don’t be stupid. 5 man premade doesn’t mean auto-win.

• Go unranked. I can say we aren’t bad players invidually and we play semi-competitively, mostly for fun. If we go unranked, it’s a joke. Either we stomp everyone there or we get ESL -level players against us. It’s not fun in a long run and we can’t improve ourselves there. Also there’s lot of maps we don’t want to play (Spirit Watch, Sky Hammer, Colosseum, Capricorn). I can’t say there would have been any like really good games in unranked where we could lose and still say that was a really good game. We have had those in ranked where we had to admit we lose to a better team and we played well still.

Personally I don’t think the problem is different group sizes, it’s the forgiving pip-system. If it would be more brutal (losing divisions at earlier divisions etc.) the matchmaking would be more balanced just by that. Then it’s just determined with actual skill and not how (un)lucky you are. Also if every player would get pips how well they did in the game and not how the outcome was.

Pip system is not the main culprit. It´s MMR measurement. It sets a personal skill by a team effort and also doesn´t reflect diffrent skill levels with classes. This is a bad base to build on top …

But now we don t have the option to choose like the old system. We just get either solo/duo q or team q. I just want both options like back in the days.

Five man premades win rate is something like 48% or 52%. It’s not exceptionally high. That changes at extremes, such as ESL players queuing as a team, but the MMR boost given for queuing as a team generally does compensate for the increased levels of communication. There are teams trying to build that do find good matches in queues; they aren’t yet ready for the AGs. However, they can find just as good matches in Unranked. The problem some people run into is that Unranked has a separate MMR that decays if you don’t play it. I don’t disagree with your conclusion that we should get rid of premades in ranked (primarily to stop the kittening around it), but your reasoning for it is flawed at best.

OlrunTheBlade.1486:

There are teams trying to build that do find good matches in queues; they aren’t yet ready for the AGs. However, they can find just as good matches in Unranked.

Such great matches in unranked! Loved seeing Sunfish and Zeromis last night on condi and ventari rev. Great competitive matches yeah?

Get real, no one tries in unranked. You might as well go ask people to practice in hotjoin.

If they can make unranked not god kittening awfull. To the point that the imbalance would be even worse. then yes playing in unranked would be a viable argument. But since they are not many premades to begin with. The problem has only shifted.

Wouldn’t surprise me if the forum gets flooded with complaints on how unranked players are getting 500-13’d, 630-20’d etc.

Any team running into Sunfish or Zeromis on any build is going to get good practice, so I don’t really see that point as valid. You see the same builds in ranked. And if people aren’t trying in Unranked, then your team’s MMR will climb until you hit players that do give you good practice. Are you steamrolling people with your 5 man premade, or are you just complaining about things you know nothing about?

OlrunTheBlade.1486:

Any team running into Sunfish or Zeromis on any build is going to get good practice, so I don’t really see that point as valid. You see the same builds in ranked. And if people aren’t trying in Unranked, then your team’s MMR will climb until you hit players that do give you good practice. Are you steamrolling people with your 5 man premade, or are you just complaining about things you know nothing about?

unranked is where peope go to test builds. in case you didnt know.

And in hot joins and in ranked. Regardless, there’s nothing wrong with practicing against unconventional builds. As long as you aren’t stomping or getting stomped, it’s good practice for both mechanics and rotations.

OlrunTheBlade.1486:

And in hot joins and in ranked. Regardless, there’s nothing wrong with practicing against unconventional builds. As long as you aren’t stomping or getting stomped, it’s good practice for both mechanics and rotations.

stomping someone constantly makes you comfortable with what your doing. and its more often than not just noob stomping. premades deserve a high level of competition too. not just solo players.

You’re assuming they’re constantly stomping people. They’re not. Their winrate sits right around 50% until you get to the very top tier where there’s no PUG that can stand against you anyway.

OlrunTheBlade.1486:

You’re assuming they’re constantly stomping people. They’re not. Their winrate sits right around 50% until you get to the very top tier where there’s no PUG that can stand against you anyway.

so basically your saying people are complaining about beating premades half the time? wow. its almost like they have no reason to complain

sophiewhite.3149:

so basically your saying people are complaining about beating premades half the time? wow. its almost like they have no reason to complain

Hammer nail head.

OlrunTheBlade.1486:

Five man premades win rate is something like 48% or 52%. It’s not exceptionally high.

^ This. According to statistics released by ANet 5 man premades vs. 5 PUGS won 48% of the time. That means the 5 soloqers beat full premades 52% of the time.

Also the matchmaker is set so that if your premade looks like this: 5,5,5,5,5
You will be matched against: x,x,x,x,x ; x > 5