Guild Wars 2

Josh Davis.6015:

So, here’s a question (purely for discussion):

If you had to choose one, would you prefer RANKED Solo Arena, or UNRANKED Team Arena? I’d imagine unranked team arena would still allow you to queue up by yourself or with 1-4 friends much like the rated version does now.

Thoughts?

I believe this choice might be biased towards one side over the other.

Competitive team arena players would want an unranked team queue to experiment builds. Non-competitive players would want an unranked queue to substitute hotjoin, and if that meant to remove solo queue, so be it. And competitive solo players would lose their will to pvp if you took that out of them. That’s a 2-1 in favor of unranked team.

Ultimately, an unranked team arena is not competing with solo arena’s space, but with hotjoin instead. In fact, we can pretty much say that an unranked team queue would be a “better version of hotjoin” in almost all aspects. And so it’s hotjoin that would need to be replaced, and not solo arenas, which fill a much different purpose.

I think Anet should embrace the idea that solo arena is, for a portion of the playerbase, the pvp’s endgame. Despite the flaws behind a solo leaderboard, despite the fact that in anet’s view, only team arena should be the pvp’s endgame, despite that an unranked team arena is a very important step to bridge players to team arena/ competitive play, and thus for anet to acchieve their dream goals, players will still desire a competitive solo arena, or any variation (say, solo/ duo) as long as solo queueing would not be an obstacle to reach the top.

I would say that an unranked team queue is a “Quality of Life” change, much needed to improve this game’s state of pvp, as it would prepare players better than hotjoins. It should therefore substitute hotjoin.

Meanwhile, the removal of solo arena would leave a hole in the game, where part of the competitive playerbase (those who don’t, can’t or do not desire to have a team) would be left unsatisfied and stop pvping.

I can understand that something needs to be replaced, that there shouldn’t exist too many arenas. But it’s hotjoins that should be targetted, imo. And by hotjoin, I’m not talking about custom arena servers, of course, just the official anet’s servers.

Current structure:
1. Hotjoin + Custom servers;
2. Solo + Team queues.

My proposal:
1. Unranked queues (the default option);
2. Competitive queues (be it as it is now, or replaced by a League or Tournament systems) – One option for solo (or solo/ duo), another for team;
3. Custom servers.

But if I had to choose, solo arena. I like being competitive, but I don’t have the time nor the will to dedicate myself to a team.

so like… youre proposing… a queue system like league of legends for summoners rift (the usual map). 1 for ranked, 1 for blind pick normal, and 1 for draft normal. but maybe only 1 of those normal queues.

yeah thats a kittening great system and it works awesome and i love it, please do it ASAP.

in my opinion, you need to have all the hotjoin people in the normal queue system, even if they dont really take anything seriously, and anet should really consider merging hotjoin with solo queue OR solo queue with team queue. you really need larger player pools and as few separate queues as possible to shorten queue times and help stratify the playerbase to better prevent poor matchmaking.

unranked TQ would be healthier for the game IMO

Phaeton.9582:

unranked TQ would be healthier for the game IMO

How would a slightly better Hotjoin be better for the game?

Solo Arena is a great place for people to improve without having to waste time looking for a team. It also helps you with your awareness as you have no one on TS to explain to you where the opposing players are etc.

Dahkeus.8243:

Ranked solo q can already pretty much be replaced by team q since you can always queue by yourself. I don’t think getting rid of it would really make that big of a difference.

Really really wrong. A pug team will not beat a premade team unless the premade team is horrible.

Josh Davis.6015:

So, here’s a question (purely for discussion):

If you had to choose one, would you prefer RANKED Solo Arena, or UNRANKED Team Arena? I’d imagine unranked team arena would still allow you to queue up by yourself or with 1-4 friends much like the rated version does now.

Thoughts?

Grouch – remember TA in GW1? That’s exactly what would happen with an unranked Team Arena. Basically, if you earned rank points from this format of play, it would become broken, especially as the higher ranked players begin to hit those exponentially steep progression curves. You’d see teams of 5/5 65+ ranked players farming the low levels to quickly gain rank points. If this concept were to be implemented, there would need to be a substantial upgrade done to the matchmaking system, and it would need to be utilized for this format. (ie: not LB driven.) There would have to be a rank range separation implemented to reduce the amount of farming done through this format.

style.6173:

Dahkeus.8243:

Ranked solo q can already pretty much be replaced by team q since you can always queue by yourself. I don’t think getting rid of it would really make that big of a difference.

Really really wrong. A pug team will not beat a premade team unless the premade team is horrible.

Not always the case. I’ve played countless 3/5 matches where our 2/5 p/us are skilled players and rocked a premade. Also, if you consistently solo join in tPvP, you basically see the same individuals again and again. I have several people I play with that I just run into in solo joins and know their capabilities, what builds they run, their typical tactical preferences, etc…

Obsidia.5127:

Phaeton.9582:

unranked TQ would be healthier for the game IMO

How would a slightly better Hotjoin be better for the game?

Solo Arena is a great place for people to improve without having to waste time looking for a team. It also helps you with your awareness as you have no one on TS to explain to you where the opposing players are etc.

Because it would provide MMR matchmaking in a casual environment/allow people to duo+trio queue without fear of losing ranks. You could not use TS in this type too, in fact that would probably be common..

I’m wondering if really nobody likes the idea of a Guild Queue? I know at the beginning it is pretty hard since there are not many sPvP guilds at the moment. And that’s kind of sad. There are many PvE and WvW guilds out there, but due to the Solo and Team Arena only few people created a PvP guild.

I know other successful games like LoL don’t have that either. But it is not comparable to a MMO. In LoL probably even most diamond player don’t have a team (since ranking games are only Solo and Duo Queue). But in MMOs one of the first things people do is to find and join a guild, represent the guild with the guild tag etc.

I would love to see a Guild Queue with some nice rewards for guilds. Let’s say a season which lasts about 2 months, and at the end, the top 15 guilds get a bronze, silver and gold cape (only example, other rewards like that are fine as well). I think that many people would try to create a pvp guild and even some pve/wvw guilds would maybe recruit pvp people for such rewards.

On the other hand a leaderboard for solo player is not useful in my opinion. A look at LoL again: It focuses on Solo and Duo Queue. But it doesn’t have a leaderboard. It has these bronze, silver, …, diamond leagues. And this is the only incentive for people there to get into one of these higher leagues. This is a great idea for GW2 as well, but I think that the PvP population is too small to have such leagues at the moment.

Mythoryk.7984:

You’d see teams of 5/5 65+ ranked players farming the low levels to quickly gain rank points.

Because such scenarios are so tremendiously uncommon in the current tpvp situation, rite.

I would love to see a Guild Queue with some nice rewards for guilds. Let’s say a season which lasts about 2 months, and at the end, the top 15 guilds get a bronze, silver and gold cape (only example, other rewards like that are fine as well). I think that many people would try to create a pvp guild and even some pve/wvw guilds would maybe recruit pvp people for such rewards.

You have some good ideas here, I like the concept of rewards designed to benefit guilds the most, but not the specific participating player. F.e. like a special statue for a guild-home-instance.
Still there are some unanswered questions. In the end you only need five people to participate in those tournaments / seasons. Whats with the other guild members?
F.e. can every player participate as long as he is in a group full of players from the same season, and farm up his position, but in the end only the position from the guildmember with the highest ranking is taken into account to determine the rewards?
Can I invite members just for the purpose of the tournament, which could just end up as a new market to rent top players for the tournament?

On the other hand a leaderboard for solo player is not useful in my opinion. A look at LoL again: It focuses on Solo and Duo Queue. But it doesn’t have a leaderboard. It has these bronze, silver, …, diamond leagues. And this is the only incentive for people there to get into one of these higher leagues. This is a great idea for GW2 as well, but I think that the PvP population is too small to have such leagues at the moment.

First of all leagues are leaderboards, just dived up into different leagues, and similar to our leaderboard, you can take a look at them everytime you want: f.e. on http://www.lolking.net/leaderboards/#/euw/1

Btw: the Devs already told us, that they are restructuring our leaderboard to a league system. The league system proves will hopefully help new players to start at a better position then they currently are. The league system will also help to determine your skill level better, since the you have to play more games prior getting positioned at the top 100. Currently a new players can get pretty lucky in the first 3 games, and end up in a position where he should not belong, and therefore screws up the whole elo system.

Different leagues will also help with the reward structure and therefore a new incentive for players to climb up the ladder. (f.e. lol has new summoner icons, ward skins and a champion skin at the end of the season for you depending on your league position.)

I have already talked about the leaderboard in my first post in this thread. The unranked queue will also has a leaderboard, but not a visible one. You need the elo / mmr system to determine the players skill, and from them you get your placements (that’s how currently the gw2 leaderboard works). (Sidenote: You can take a look at the mmr graph from titanfall at http://www.titanfall.com/news/titanfall-matchmaking-update )
Players just don’t like to be able to see where there current position is, because they fear competition or comparison to other players.
Also to mention the wish to have the option to play without loosing their current leaderboard position.

But for a functioning TPvP-Scene you need a ranked SoloQ. Most teams will once get to the position, where they need new players (either to fill up their already existing team roster or to form a new team), but where do you get those players?

The strongest point for a ranked SoloQ is, that there are many many players out there, who have fun participating in this queuing system, and I think once the new reward system is established (and once TeamQ is not the better option for players to queue alone) we will for sure see a new flood of players participating in the SoloQ.

Teutos.8620:

First of all leagues are leaderboards, just dived up into different leagues, and similar to our leaderboard, you can take a look at them everytime you want: f.e. on http://www.lolking.net/leaderboards/#/euw/1

Ok, you’re right. But lolking leaderboards are not the official leaderboards, are they? But actually, my point of that was that people in LoL don’t care about their position in a leaderboard but rather only the league (so gold, plat, diamond etc.).

Teutos.8620:

Different leagues will also help with the reward structure and therefore a new incentive for players to climb up the ladder. (f.e. lol has new summoner icons, ward skins and a champion skin at the end of the season for you depending on your league position.)

I have already talked about the leaderboard in my first post in this thread. The unranked queue will also has a leaderboard, but not a visible one. You need the elo / mmr system to determine the players skill, and from them you get your placements (that’s how currently the gw2 leaderboard works). (Sidenote: You can take a look at the mmr graph from titanfall at http://www.titanfall.com/news/titanfall-matchmaking-update )
Players just don’t like to be able to see where there current position is, because they fear competition or comparison to other players.
Also to mention the wish to have the option to play without loosing their current leaderboard position.

But for a functioning TPvP-Scene you need a ranked SoloQ. Most teams will once get to the position, where they need new players (either to fill up their already existing team roster or to form a new team), but where do you get those players?

The strongest point for a ranked SoloQ is, that there are many many players out there, who have fun participating in this queuing system, and I think once the new reward system is established (and once TeamQ is not the better option for players to queue alone) we will for sure see a new flood of players participating in the SoloQ.

I totally agree with that.
My concern is that it shouldn’t be focus on many leaderboards. Better, it should only be focused on one leaderboard. And this should be, in my opinion, on a guild ladder.
Also in LoL, there are only two different main types: Unranked and ranked.

So switching over to GW2, I think besides the Guild Queue there should be also just an unranked Queue with a hidden elo for matchmaking. But in this unranked queue, you can join solo, duo, but also with 4 or 5 people. But the matchmaking should only match other teams with the same mix. So e.g. a team made up by 3 solos and one duo should be matched with another team of 3 solos and one duo (and similar elo of course).

Still, you are right that a ranking is needed for recruiting by guilds. My thoughts are that the current rank system is ok (not good, but for beginning it is okay). You still earn rank points for your unranked matches (unranked only in terms of no official leaderboard). Most people will say it doesn’t say anything about the skill. But if the current hotjoin is kicked out and a proper matchmaking system is introduced, those rank points are more worth then farmind rank points in hotjoin.

And as incentive for people who don’t want to take part in the guild leagues, you could introduce the emote system of GW1. So e.g. every 20 ranks you get an emote which you can spam around everywhere. And add some other good titles of course…

Oh and one last point. As I mentioned in another thread, a observer mode for the top ranked guild matches would be so great. When I remember back in GW1, many people spend hours to watch top guilds playing. And in my opinion, GW1 started to be really competitive when the observer mode was introduced, because many people could learn the strategies, tactics and builds of those guilds. This is also especially good for new people interested in sPvP. You can have a first look how to play the different maps efficiently and additionally copy some builds. But also for the top guilds it is kind of rewarding, if a bunch of people watching your games.

Josh Davis.6015:

So, here’s a question (purely for discussion):

If you had to choose one, would you prefer RANKED Solo Arena, or UNRANKED Team Arena? I’d imagine unranked team arena would still allow you to queue up by yourself or with 1-4 friends much like the rated version does now.

Thoughts?

+1 for unranked team arena, people yolo in TPvP anyway.

KarlaGrey.5903:

Mythoryk.7984:

You’d see teams of 5/5 65+ ranked players farming the low levels to quickly gain rank points.

Because such scenarios are so tremendiously uncommon in the current tpvp situation, rite.

I’m totally OK with a team of 60s facerolling everyone. They’ve eared it with how much they’ve had to play to get to 60.

sonic.7592:

my point of that was that people in LoL don’t care about their position in a leaderboard but rather only the league (so gold, plat, diamond etc.).

You are right, and once we have leagues, everybody here will also only talk about leagues. Actually, I’m not sure, if really anybody here cares about their actual ladder position, and not about their approximate placement (f.e. top 1000, top 100)

My concern is that it shouldn’t be focus on many leaderboards. Better, it should only be focused on one leaderboard. And this should be, in my opinion, on a guild ladder.

I think in gw2 the most important leaderboard is the teamQ anyway. Regarding the TeamQ there is a lot, we could talk about f.e. do we want fixed teams?
But in the end, it is a ladder rewarding the players themselves, and not only rewarding the guild behind them.I think that’s the only reward structure which can work in a long period.
I really like the idea of a guild bases tournament with some prestige rewards for the guilds, but it should by no means displace the ranked SoloQ.

Also in LoL, there are only two different main types: Unranked and ranked.

Ok, if you want to divide it up that way, gw2 draws equal. We have unranked in the form of hot-join and ranked in the form of SoloQ or TeamQ. I don’t think, that our current system are the best choices, but if (and only if) the choice is between ranked SoloQ or unranked TeamQ, I definitely choose the ranked SoloQ.

So switching over to GW2, I think besides the Guild Queue there should be also just an unranked Queue with a hidden elo for matchmaking. But in this unranked queue, you can join solo, duo, but also with 4 or 5 people.
Still, you are right that a ranking is needed for recruiting by guilds. My thoughts are that the current rank system is ok (not good, but for beginning it is okay). You still earn rank points for your unranked matches (unranked only in terms of no official leaderboard). Most people will say it doesn’t say anything about the skill. But if the current hotjoin is kicked out and a proper matchmaking system is introduced, those rank points are more worth then farmind rank points in hotjoin.

You are addressing two core points, I also think are very important. The current hot-join system is a problem, and I’d also prefer an unranked TeamQ with hidden MMR instead, but unfortunately that is not an option grouchs hypothetical question gave us.

If we talk about ranked, almost all the time we are referring to your current ranking on the leaderboard or position in an upcoming league system. The glory-rank is only a farm ranked, and should get renamed asap (f.e. Glorylevel, maybe I should open a new thread on that topic)

And as incentive for people who don’t want to take part in the guild leagues, you could introduce the emote system of GW1. So e.g. every 20 ranks you get an emote which you can spam around everywhere. And add some other good titles of course…

Now I really got confused. Personally I diver between TeamQ and a possible GuildQ.
TeamQ = current system, rewarding the players with incentives for the participating players. There are many things we could talk about like fixed teams, or teamnames etc., but this system does not has to be coupled with the guild system. In a guild multiple teams can exist.
GuildQ = interesting system with rewards for the guilds, and not the individual members. The rewards are designed to get the interest of every guild including PvE and WvW guilds. Due to the fact, that this system is completely new and only purely hypothetical, our wishlist is not limited to the teamsize or the current maps.
[f.e. How about a Warplot system similar to Wildstar? Your Guild builds a fortress with guild influence, and once 20 or 40 players are online, they can queue up with their fortress for a massive battle against a guild with a similar fortress? (A fortress on each side of the map, a pool of different paths between the two fortresses, maybe an option to build siege equipment?)]

Oh and one last point. As I mentioned in another thread, a observer mode for the top ranked guild matches would be so great.

Totally agree, would be awesome

What if by playing a different class you were attributed a different rating?

I might very well be a top thief in SoloQ but if I grab my Elementalist I’m being matched agaisnt people of my Thief’s skill level. That hardly seems fair to me and to my teammates.

Having a separate MMR for each profession would solve this Unranked Queue issue, because if you were going to try a class, you could start that class’ ranking from fresh.

Quickfoot Katana.8642:

What if by playing a different class you were attributed a different rating?

I might very well be a top thief in SoloQ but if I grab my Elementalist I’m being matched agaisnt people of my Thief’s skill level. That hardly seems fair to me and to my teammates.

Having a separate MMR for each profession would solve this Unranked Queue issue, because if you were going to try a class, you could start that class’ ranking from fresh.

Its not a bad idea. If I had to try and find a counterpoint. Do you think a high rated elementalist veteran of the ranks plays his/her Engineer for the first time, is going to be comparable to a virgin Ranger who has started pvp?

I think there should be unranked queues and hotjoin should be removed.

draven.4796:

Its not a bad idea. If I had to try and find a counterpoint. Do you think a high rated elementalist veteran of the ranks plays his/her Engineer for the first time, is going to be comparable to a virgin Ranger who has started pvp?

There will always be a difference due to experience in positioning map rotations etc. Mechanically im pretty much on par with a beginner if i play my ele though. So i whont drag my team down if i play at the MMR i usually play at (top 100-200 on the ldrboards).

Direct result is that i only play a select number of classes in rated games, eventho i would love to play more.

I get where you are coming from I think.

/aside
When people say when LFT must know map rotations! What do they mean? that rotations occur? or the maps layout themselves?

The only reason I don’t experiment more with classes is because my rating is pretty high, in the range that I’m not allowed to experiment stuff if I want to stay there.