Guild Wars 2

Solo pugging unranked is terrible right now because of all the new players that got GW2 for $10. Some of the things I’ve noticed:

1. Double capping home
2. Fighting in roads while 2-3 capped, opposite of spawn camping.
3. Killing animal at the beginning when enemy team has a thief. (when I tell my team not to)
4. Lord rush before 350 or while we are ahead.
5. Not calling targets or focusing targets, not stomping/reviving.
6. Zerging orb with 3-4 players while we get 3 capped. Ignoring advice to focus on holding points and treating orb as a secondary mechanic.
7. Complaining about needing the daily PvP achievement and not knowing their class.

Anyone else noticed the same thing.

It’s the nature of the beast whenever there’s a flood of new players into the game. Just (politely) point these new players to Hotjoin and tell them to get their feet wet there first.

hotjoin/practice is not the place where you learn to play. The only thing you do learn there is how to maipulate spectator mode and win/lose 4vs5.

That’s what unranked is for, you can’t fault them.

Harbinger.8637:

That’s what unranked is for, you can’t fault them.

No I believe that’s what hotjoin is for, there is no excuse for doing exactly what I advise them not to do because they’re clueless. I played 1500 hotjoin games before going to solo/team queue, someone should play at least 100 hotjoin matches before playing legit PvP.

XacTactX.6709:

Harbinger.8637:

That’s what unranked is for, you can’t fault them.

No I believe that’s what hotjoin is for, there is no excuse for doing exactly what I advise them not to do because they’re clueless. I played 1500 hotjoin games before going to solo/team queue, someone should play at least 100 hotjoin matches before playing legit PvP.

you made a mistake in doing that for so long, it prolly gave you aids ;[

personally the only thing i took away from hotjoin was the map layouts and a few basic dont-do-this’s that were blatantly obvious but did nothing to help me figure out what i should do. give the noobs a little direction instead of only telling them what not to do, cuz they wont know what to do if you tell them not to do the thing they were gonna do. ie… “they have a teef. dont do svanir. go mid.” 6 more characters to type for an infinite increase in the chance of them listening.

XacTactX.6709:

Harbinger.8637:

That’s what unranked is for, you can’t fault them.

No I believe that’s what hotjoin is for, there is no excuse for doing exactly what I advise them not to do because they’re clueless. I played 1500 hotjoin games before going to solo/team queue, someone should play at least 100 hotjoin matches before playing legit PvP.

Hotjoin is essentially the same thing as unranked. The only difference in being spectate and join in progress. Furthermore hotjoin teaches a lot of bad habits. I can understand players’ frustration when this happens in ranked, however it’s unranked.

It’s great that you played 1.5k hotjoin games before going into que, however times change. That’s when people only had the option of hotjoin and teamq, later soloq and customs. So telling players to start off in hotjoin was reasonable.

I’d much rather have new players go into unranked, where they can actually get some decent advice and play the game how it’s supposed to be played. Rather then them going into a hotjoin were people just abuse the spectator mode for an easy win.

Isn’kitten good thing more “noobs” are trying out unranked pvp?
Who wouldn’t want a bigger pvp population?
Help them out and give them advice and feedback!

Sampo.9678:

Isn’kitten good thing more “noobs” are trying out unranked pvp?
Who wouldn’t want a bigger pvp population?
Help them out and give them advice and feedback!

Yeah, exactly my thoughts. If we have a"massive increase in noobs" then we have good news.

Isn’t that what unranked is for?

Hmmm…

I am actually glad to see this new flood of new players. As a veteran player this enlightens my day and I make sure to let them know that I can aid them in learn this new part of the game.

It is now our duty as experienced PvP players to learn this new players how it is suppose to be done, so that they may stay and our community may grow.

Just try and take a break from ques and play with team mates so you won’t have to feel kittened off.

Everyone is a noob at some point and everyone needs to get experience and develop its own play style. Also , i find very irritating all those self proclaimed “pro” who entering with a solo team and suddenly start giving orders and go into a rage when you don’t agree with them ( giving advice is different than try to boss people ) . The funny think is that a lot of the time their “orders” leading the team to fail. Entering solo you need to accept that maybe the rest of your team have different play style/experience etc
Maybe try to make a team before you enter?

New players are picking up GW2 and learning PvP. You have two choices:

Be a decent human being and give helpful tips when welcome (so many people miss that last part)…

…or…

…flame new players for being new and then complain when you’re queue takes forever due to a low population of PvP players.

If there’s a new player on your team, then there’s a fair chance that there’s one on the opposite team as well. So in order to win, you need to make use of yours (depends on the class obviously, if it’s a thief then suggest they start with an easier class :P )

Tim.6450:

hotjoin/practice is not the place where you learn to play. The only thing you do learn there is how to maipulate spectator mode and win/lose 4vs5.

This.

You will get absolutely NO practice whatsoever in 90% of the “Practice” game mode matches. It’s a place where people go to abuse team joining/spectator/autobalance mechanics to quickly get their daily achievements done. It’s also the place where dragon ranks go to team stack and take a dump on noobs for just the fun of it.

Unranked is the lowest tier where you can actually practice getting better in sPvP. Play ranked or improve your MMR if you can’t stand people who are trying to get better. Or better yet, whisper them with helpful tips to improve their gameplay. You might even help your team win by making them understand basic Conquest mechanics and tactics.

idc as long as they stick with unranked and hotjoin and not ranked.

Tom Gore.4035:

Tim.6450:

hotjoin/practice is not the place where you learn to play. The only thing you do learn there is how to maipulate spectator mode and win/lose 4vs5.

This.

You will get absolutely NO practice whatsoever in 90% of the “Practice” game mode matches. It’s a place where people go to abuse team joining/spectator/autobalance mechanics to quickly get their daily achievements done. It’s also the place where dragon ranks go to team stack and take a dump on noobs for just the fun of it.

Unranked is the lowest tier where you can actually practice getting better in sPvP. Play ranked or improve your MMR if you can’t stand people who are trying to get better. Or better yet, whisper them with helpful tips to improve their gameplay. You might even help your team win by making them understand basic Conquest mechanics and tactics.

That’s not totally true. Sure you won’t learn a thing about teamplay or winning matches, but you will at least learn how maps are built and their secondary mechanics, as well as learning what sort of things to expect from enemy players (e.g. dodging hammer and mesmer shatters), all of which are beneficial to new players.
I imagine that the majority of players including myself started in hotjoin before playing actual arenas.

XacTactX.6709:

Solo pugging unranked is terrible right now because of all the new players that got GW2 for $10. Some of the things I’ve noticed:

1. Double capping home
2. Fighting in roads while 2-3 capped, opposite of spawn camping.
3. Killing animal at the beginning when enemy team has a thief. (when I tell my team not to)
4. Lord rush before 350 or while we are ahead.
5. Not calling targets or focusing targets, not stomping/reviving.
6. Zerging orb with 3-4 players while we get 3 capped. Ignoring advice to focus on holding points and treating orb as a secondary mechanic.
7. Complaining about needing the daily PvP achievement and not knowing their class.

Anyone else noticed the same thing.

You can’t expect players to know all this, neither can you expect that they’ll blindly take your advise (if they even understand).

I’m sorry, but this will only fix when you get players who know what they’re doing on your team, not everyone is so devoted to PvP that they’ll go on the forums / internet to search for tactics etc.

Why don’t you play in ranked instead of unranked, then?

butch.8136:

Why don’t you play in ranked instead of unranked, then?

As he’ll encounter the same things there, and he’ll probably will be even more annoyed because it’ll hurt his ranking.

Guardian of Angels.9867:

butch.8136:

Why don’t you play in ranked instead of unranked, then?

As he’ll encounter the same things there, and he’ll probably will be even more annoyed because it’ll hurt his ranking.

Then go with a team. If you don’t have a team, grab pugs into your team and you can just kick people you don’t like until you get a team. Add them as friends. Repeat until you have enough friends to always be able to get a team. Or just join a pvp guild.

If new players bother you so much, then this will be worth the effort.

Unranked is for people who have the intention to learn the gamemode.

Hotjoin is for PvE people who farm reward tracks and daily achies.

So try to tell the newbies how they should play (politely), and if they tell that they do not care, then direct them to hotjoin.

Guardian of Angels.9867:

butch.8136:

Why don’t you play in ranked instead of unranked, then?

As he’ll encounter the same things there, and he’ll probably will be even more annoyed because it’ll hurt his ranking.

It’s offseason, who cares about ranking?
Even when it’s season, who cares about ranking? The leaderboard is still a grind atm. Until they change that it doesn’t matter that much.

I thought there is a r10 (or 20?) req to queue ranked? Not sure about it though.

butch.8136:

Guardian of Angels.9867:

butch.8136:

Why don’t you play in ranked instead of unranked, then?

As he’ll encounter the same things there, and he’ll probably will be even more annoyed because it’ll hurt his ranking.

It’s offseason, who cares about ranking?
Even when it’s season, who cares about ranking? The leaderboard is still a grind atm. Until they change that it doesn’t matter that much.

I thought there is a r10 (or 20?) req to queue ranked? Not sure about it though.

Some players expect skilled folks in Ranked, so it matters to some.

No there’s no rank requirement to Ranked so far, believe they’ve said they’re thinking on introducing some sort of system.

XacTactX.6709:

Harbinger.8637:

That’s what unranked is for, you can’t fault them.

No I believe that’s what hotjoin is for, there is no excuse for doing exactly what I advise them not to do because they’re clueless. I played 1500 hotjoin games before going to solo/team queue, someone should play at least 100 hotjoin matches before playing legit PvP.

Translation
Everyone should do what I did cause otherwise youre a dumb noob.

I went straight to soloq when I started playing PvP. Took about 2 minutes into the match to realize what was going on and start contributing. its not complicated. if you want to avoid noobs then man up and play ranked. or do you not have 1500 unranked matches yet? smh

also, all the time people are kittening about the lack of people in the pvp community, yet every time there is an influx of new players some bleep comes on here and complains about them. how about instead of being a jag, you try to NICELY help guide them. that doesn’t mean yell at them to go to hotjoin and “figure it out” it means tell them nicely why you dont double cap home, what rotating between points is, focusing down players, etc etc. contribute to the community and you’ll feel rewarded when there are more competent players.

Zaxares.5419:

It’s the nature of the beast whenever there’s a flood of new players into the game. Just (politely) point these new players to Hotjoin and tell them to get their feet wet there first.

nice advice

We can block ‘noobs’ from unranked right after we block anyone over rank 20 from joining practice mode.

GrandmaFunk.3052:

We can block ‘noobs’ from unranked right after we block anyone over rank 20 from joining practice mode.

And what happems when a rank 21 wants to learn a new class in pvp?

I like to roll with elite players.

I don’t mind playing with noobs, its unranked after all. But has anybody else felt like there was a massive increase in leavers and afkers and people flaming the crap out of a match before it even started? There were games were people were literally insulted before the game even started and things like “If you leave, I’ll kitten you and I’ll kitten your mother” and the like was said. What the hell?! This is not fun. Fun is what a game is supposed to be. Stop it.

I just don’t want them in ranked. All I do is ranked cause leaderboard has nothing for unranked.

Random Weird Guy.3528:

GrandmaFunk.3052:

We can block ‘noobs’ from unranked right after we block anyone over rank 20 from joining practice mode.

And what happems when a rank 21 wants to learn a new class in pvp?

fine, make the limit per-class once they’ve won 25 games with that class.

the point is that players new to PvP need a relatively safe space to learn the mechanics of the mode, and figure out semi-effective builds. If you want to block them from unranked so that they don’t ruin the experience of the more advanced players, it stands to reason that we offer them an equivalent area safe from “elite” players looking to farm and abuse noobies.

XacTactX.6709:

Solo pugging unranked is terrible right now because of all the new players that got GW2 for $10.

I’ve had some great times in Unranked since the sale with a team of 3-4. Sometimes our soloQ team member(s) know what they’re doing, and sometimes they’re new. If they’re new, we help them out, as a team. And they get to learn some map based and profession based strategy.

If you’re able to assemble a full team, you’ll have a better chance at winning in Unranked. But if you have a partial team or soloQ, you have a great opportunity to be cool to the newbies and help them out.

We’ve all been new before. Hotjoin/practice might have been okay for learning at some point, but it isn’t now. I remember using hotjoin to learn the layout of the maps, but it was constant zerging and abuse of the autobalance mechanics and not at all fun. Unranked is structured enough for a new player to actually learn something useful.

@OP:

If you are seeing an increase in noobs, it means one of 2 things:

1. Your MMR is at the lower end and so you see more of the noob players
2. Matchmaking is broken

Everyone should be allowed to play in unranked and ranked PvP. That’s a good thing. What is broken is the when the matches are not even and the range of MMR is too great.

be happy there are more players in pvp

— Hotjoin is a mess
— Look up unranked in the dictionary
— Blame terrible matchmaking

Now, it could be that they’re just not enough people around but I doubt developing such hostile attitudes helps.

As a side note, I’m frankly of the opinion that if you don’t have a premade team, then you’re just gambling. And that’s the truth of any game I’ve played with team matchmaking.

I feel like this applies to ranked que even more, I cannot find one decent team solo quing in ranked. Unranked games have been fine for me

My stance is that if you’re new, you should stick to Hotjoin. Yes, there’s lots of Spectator Wars and 4v5’s going on there, but Hotjoin is still the best place to:

1. Learn the layouts of the maps and what the specific mechanics are. If I see you in Unranked, my expectation is that you at least know what running the Orbs do, what sorts of attacks Svanir/the Chieftain have, and what Tranquility does. If you do not know any of these, you do not belong in Unranked.

2. Practice your build, get familiar with rotations and how to utilize your build on various maps. While I am comfortable bringing my Mesmer, Ranger, Ele, Warrior or Necro into Unranked, I would not do the same with my Guardian, Thief or Engineer, because I’m still learning how to use those professions.

Once the above two criteria are met, THEN players should move up to Unranked and practice how to play in a competitive environment. And once Unranked starts becoming too easy (if you can carry your team), then it’s time to move up to Ranked.

Don’t get mad in unranked for new players making mistakes. That is what it is for. Try hard and expect the same in Ranked. Help beginners in unranked.

Xac probably rages at matchmaking and then complains about new players! Sure they are new now, but give them time, and they’ll become our challenging foes of tomorrow! I hope you kept your thoughts to yourself: we want them to stay around. Play ranked till their MMR lowers enough.

Unranked has no affect on leader board so its best to use that to learn anew class with. Don’t go into ranked with a class you can barely use.

I really am not sure how MMR is even used in unranked when there is no visual standings for it. I do have an idea how it is used in ranked so any class i can’t use effectively or consistently, I’ll stick to unranked with.

I understand all the maps by now however.

How I see the modes being used:

Hotjoin/Custom: beginners only that have no idea how to pvp or haven’t mastered any classes. Good for learning maps.

Unranked: Suitable for middle of road players that know the maps and rotations but haven’t grasped much of any of the 8 professions. Least impact for anyone. This is where I’ll be taking my mes, thief, engi, ranger, or necro for the most part.

Ranked: only when you have a very firm grasp of profession mechanics for at least one profession and can rotate around the map effectively, communicate, and whatever else do; you go to this mode. MMR and Leader Board are fully active, and you have to win to get better.

My ele and guardian are the ones that pvp in this.

Ohhhh…… I didn’t put two and two together to realize that’s whats been happening with my queues. My brain has been hurting because of the matches recently. I understand vets trying new professions or builds, that always happens. But the new players should have requirements imo because its not fair for the other vets because at that points its no different than an outnumbered game.

Not that it matters anymore because its too late, but I agree to the above that there should be a requirement to do arena’s (ranked and unranked). Ex:

Unranked Unlock Requirements:
• Attain Rank 10 PvP
• X Total Matches played
• Complete a special one time reward track

Ranked Unlock Requirements:
• Attain Rank 15-20
• X unranked matches played
• Win X unranked matches
• Complete a special one time reward track

Etc…. this way people are forced to have atleast a little bit of experience before going right into the arenas. Those people who go through something like the above I have no problem helping them because I know they have some experience.

Honestly, I don’t blame the new players for queing arena’s day 1 of getting the game either. If thats the case, I’m sure they came from other games with pvp arena’s that they do all the time and wanted to do the same expecting to be able to jump into it. Unfortunately, GW2 is pretty unique compared to other games and has a learning curve.

Well, thats my 2 cents… and goodnight all

Edit to Add: But if you do something about custom arenas before adding restrictions to arenas: Please fix custom arena matches. I personally only do them to test stuff out, but its ridiculous and not fun if you actually try to play the match. People leave when their team is losing, and people always spam click to swap to the winning team. I’ve watched a game turn into a 5v1 before it auto swaps people, then people who get swapped to the losing team leave >< It’s near impossible to get a good game in one of those.