Upcoming Changes for PvP League Season 2

Upcoming Changes for PvP League Season 2

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Posted by: Izanagi.9830

Izanagi.9830

A message from the PvP team:

Beginning with Season 2, matchmaking for Ranked matches will use your placement in your current league division as your primary matchmaking consideration and pair you against players who are placed in the same point range as you, regardless of the skill level (MMR) of the other people in that point range. While we’ll be using divisions to match you against your immediate opponents, we’ll still use your MMR to place you on teams with similarly skilled players (from your division point range) to help ensure that you’re not forced to play with individuals that are of a much higher or lower skill than you. Ultimately, this means that the new matchmaking changes will make PvP Leagues much more reflective of your actual skill, and each division will be progressively more difficult to compete in.

does that mean in seasons 2 i will get matched with scrubs who are diam and or legendary because they did exploit the system in season 1?

thats a bad idea.

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Posted by: Agemnon.4608

Agemnon.4608

“The analogies you’re making don’t apply here; individual improvement is irrelevant as league progression is based on relative improvement against the entire rest of the player base. If leagues are moved to a place where they’re truly reflective of player skill, some significant portion of the player base will struggle to be able to get into, much less out of, Ruby because no matter how much time they put in their rate of advancement will only match if not lag that of everyone else. They won’t be able to make that up by playing more.”

Since diamond is intended to be analogous to League of Legends’ platinum rank (Top 1.5%-0.1%) then obviously it isn’t for everyone. If you do have those diamond-tier skills then you’ll be paired with players of similar skill and reach that tier.

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Posted by: Chaith.8256

Chaith.8256

Another note: We’re making some changes to allow high division players to get matches faster to help combat the long queue times.

Hopefully this issue is still addressed properly in light of:

  • Divisions becoming more of a hard determinant of the pool of people to play with.
  • A legend in a group takes an opponent group full of legends too before a match can begin.

Seems like a recipe for infinite queues with hard limits on who you can face in high divisions.

MMR expands in the search for opponents. So far, divisions have proven to be totally static and not able to expand.

There had better be some big behind the scenes tweaks, or queue times for legend in season two will be an all-time level of unplayable.

Forum Lord Chaith
Twitch.tv/chaithh
New Twitter: @chaithhh

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Posted by: Mikuchan.7261

Mikuchan.7261

Very nice changes, thank you, they will do wonders.
It’s like christmas!

But when is the next season and how many seasons will there be on a year?

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Posted by: Eolirin.1830

Eolirin.1830

“The analogies you’re making don’t apply here; individual improvement is irrelevant as league progression is based on relative improvement against the entire rest of the player base. If leagues are moved to a place where they’re truly reflective of player skill, some significant portion of the player base will struggle to be able to get into, much less out of, Ruby because no matter how much time they put in their rate of advancement will only match if not lag that of everyone else. They won’t be able to make that up by playing more.”

Since diamond is intended to be analogous to League of Legends’ platinum rank (Top 1.5%-0.1%) then obviously it isn’t for everyone. If you do have those diamond-tier skills then you’ll be paired with players of similar skill and reach that tier.

Yes, which is fine, except that the tier 4 achievement that you need to get the Legendary back piece requires having four league division progressions in a single season. You cannot complete the wings if you can’t get into diamond.

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Posted by: Interpret Interrupt.3824

Interpret Interrupt.3824

Now I worry about my guild mission teams. My guild has 2 diamonds and other ruby, sapphire, and emerald players.
We like to do the guild missions together for the rewards.
But having them effectively scaled up to diamond is going to make this pretty difficult to do missions.
I guess I will have to get an alt account for guild missions.
Or I will not be able to participate in the missions for the sake of skill level.

I do not know how to address this, but now I am worried.
Will guild groups still consider the team rating or will the group have a division?
Or is this just treated like any other premade still?

K Pop
The Warrior, The Necro, The F1 Connoisseur
http://www.twitch.tv/interpretinterrupt

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Posted by: jessiestiles.9437

jessiestiles.9437

There’s a paradoxical problem with matchmaking in that if games were perfectly matched it would be impossible to progress. Win a pip lose a pip. Most people wouldn’t win higher than 50%. So how are you expecting people to have a win streak like this unless you are expecting matches will be designed to be biased or is designed with a loophole for creating match bias. I’ve gone for 30 games at a time with a 65% win ratio and never had a win streak like you are suggesting. You must be stacking the decks for premades over solo Q while trying to appear fair and transparent.

I’m sure a large percentage of us couldn’t care less about your stupid premade stomping bunker league. We don’t enjoy it and have told you repeatedly. We’re only doing it for the rewards. Don’t screw us over with having to play 100s of unfair matches just to get this legendary backpack.

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Posted by: Spartacus.3192

Spartacus.3192

A message from the PvP team:

Shopping for Ambers

…..

So this means that yes people can queue with lower division but unless its known that they can play at the level of the highest person, why would they want to? Especially if that person is in ruby or higher where a loss can be a major setback.

Thats the point tho. Diamonds were queueing with Ambers to game the system. Of course they used the excuse of “I want shorter queue times” or “i want to pvp with friends and play ranked” when really they wanted more pips on a win and lose less on a loss. Well let’s see how “strong” that friendship is when the diamond risks losing those pips for bringing his amber friend into ranked pvp.

IM betting there will be a lot less of that going on and suddenly those long queue times wont feel so bad after all and neither will unranked look so unappetizing.

NOTE: of course there really are some ruby/diamond players who want to queue with amber friends for “friendship” factor

Your typical average gamer -
“Buff my main class, nerf everything else. "

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Posted by: Interpret Interrupt.3824

Interpret Interrupt.3824

double posted. sorry.

@Chaith

What do you expect? As you go up there will be fewer players on your skill level. Surely you do not enjoy just rolling over groups as much as they do not enjoy being rolled upon.

While I understand you want to play the game, as do I, in this case, you may just be too highly ranked in order to get regular interval fair matches.

K Pop
The Warrior, The Necro, The F1 Connoisseur
http://www.twitch.tv/interpretinterrupt

(edited by Interpret Interrupt.3824)

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Posted by: Krysard.1364

Krysard.1364

While we’ll be using divisions to match you against your immediate opponents, we’ll still use your MMR to place you on teams with similarly skilled players (from your division point range) to help ensure that you’re not forced to play with individuals that are of a much higher or lower skill than you.

So this means you will be matched with and against same division players, but your teammates will have your same mmr?

Yep.

Yay!

M I L K B O I S

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Posted by: Mysticjedi.6053

Mysticjedi.6053

I like these changes thank you. Of course this does mean I’ll have to get good to progress

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Posted by: Mightybird.6034

Mightybird.6034

Now I worry about my guild mission teams. My guild has 2 diamonds and other ruby, sapphire, and emerald players.
We like to do the guild missions together for the rewards.
But having them effectively scaled up to diamond is going to make this pretty difficult to do missions.
I guess I will have to get an alt account for guild missions.
Or I will not be able to participate in the missions for the sake of skill level.

I do not know how to address this, but now I am worried.
Will guild groups still consider the team rating or will the group have a division?
Or is this just treated like any other premade still?

Do them in unranked?

There is nothing that states you have to play ranked league seasons when you want to play with friends or guildys or do missions.

If you are playing ranked be ready to compete, simple as that.

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Posted by: Silverwing.8750

Silverwing.8750

Please bring back solo queue!

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Posted by: Interpret Interrupt.3824

Interpret Interrupt.3824

Now I worry about my guild mission teams. My guild has 2 diamonds and other ruby, sapphire, and emerald players.
We like to do the guild missions together for the rewards.
But having them effectively scaled up to diamond is going to make this pretty difficult to do missions.
I guess I will have to get an alt account for guild missions.
Or I will not be able to participate in the missions for the sake of skill level.

I do not know how to address this, but now I am worried.
Will guild groups still consider the team rating or will the group have a division?
Or is this just treated like any other premade still?

Do them in unranked?

There is nothing that states you have to play ranked league seasons when you want to play with friends or guildys or do missions.

If you are playing ranked be ready to compete, simple as that.

You know I did not realize unranked counted for the mission. I believe that would solve the problem.

K Pop
The Warrior, The Necro, The F1 Connoisseur
http://www.twitch.tv/interpretinterrupt

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Posted by: WilnerGW.3275

WilnerGW.3275

I dont care for queue time, as long as we get FAIR matchs.
I would like just to make a sugestion:
Why dont u let ppl stay in PVE while in queue waiting for a match( like it was in 2013 or 2014 i dont remember).

I know that keeping ppl in Heart of the Mists while waiting for a match may increase the “accept match” rating(since ppl will not doing anything else, just waiting for the match) but you can just punish ppl that deny so many matchs in a row (League of Legends does it, just as an example)

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Posted by: Eolirin.1830

Eolirin.1830

There’s a paradoxical problem with matchmaking in that if games were perfectly matched it would be impossible to progress. Win a pip lose a pip. Most people wouldn’t win higher than 50%. So how are you expecting people to have a win streak like this unless you are expecting matches will be designed to be biased or is designed with a loophole for creating match bias. I’ve gone for 30 games at a time with a 65% win ratio and never had a win streak like you are suggesting. You must be stacking the decks for premades over solo Q while trying to appear fair and transparent.

I’m sure a large percentage of us couldn’t care less about your stupid premade stomping bunker league. We don’t enjoy it and have told you repeatedly. We’re only doing it for the rewards. Don’t screw us over with having to play 100s of unfair matches just to get this legendary backpack.

That’s not what happens if match making is only looking at division, and it has nothing to do with soloQ vs premade (though, as an anecdote, I’ve had 5+ game win streaks in solo and duoQ this season, so it definitely happens even with the current system). Games will be dramatically less balanced until you hit the appropriate division for your mmr, because the game will be happily matching high mmr teams against low mmr teams, while pairing high mmr players with each other, and low mmr players with each other, if they’re in the same division; streaks will be a lot bigger initially, but things will settle down as the better players rapidly move out of the lower divisions.

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Posted by: Nightshade.2570

Nightshade.2570

A message from the PvP team:

Matchmaking Changes

Shopping for Ambers

In addition to the changes above, we’ll also be adjusting the way that parties are scored in our matchmaking algorithm based on the overall division spread of a team’s makeup. It is important to us that anyone can play with their friends regardless of league standing, but in doing so, we also want to ensure that teams aren’t gaining an unfair advantage in match difficulty based on their rosters. An example of this would be two friends: one is in Diamond and the other is in Amber. For Season 2, these two players will still be able to team up and play together, but they’ll be placed into Diamond level matches based on the highest division player in the party. This means that forming a party with players in a higher division than you will always bring you up to their level for matchmaking and prediction, rather than adjust to compensate for party members at lower divisions. This specific change will go into effect in our next scheduled release (prior to the end of season 1).

Hi Gaile!

This was such good news, please tell that PvP team these are great changes. I only am concerned about the change I listed above. I am concerned because I often help new players in PvP. Guild leaders, and Guilds often help lower level PvPers learn PvP and insulate them in a team to learn. What worries me is that once they begin PvPing its going to hurt them greatly based on the system you outlined above to go with anyone other then other new PvP players.

Now, I don’t want the loophole to remain that Higher league players exploit lower league players for easy matches. I agree something needs to be done about Shopping for Ambers However is there anyway that if an amber player did go along with higher leagued players there could be some sort of compensation for that player?

I just worry greatly about guilds and how this will affect the teams to teach and play together. Yes I know, everyone starts out in unranked but New PvPers want to succeed in ranked to, they would like a backpack to, and while I am strongly against using new players for easy matches it hurts the new player and thier friends to be fighting in matches that are way above thier league. Just so they can play with friends.

Maybe I am understanding it wrong, but its something I hope the PvP team keeps in mind when making this very crucial decision.

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Posted by: Tahm.8290

Tahm.8290

Since diamond is intended to be analogous to League of Legends’ platinum rank (Top 1.5%-0.1%) then obviously it isn’t for everyone. If you do have those diamond-tier skills then you’ll be paired with players of similar skill and reach that tier.

Since there’s 3 divisions higher then Plat (Diamond, Master and Challenger), I dont quite think that our Diamond and their Plat is similar.

~Basil Starshower~
~Worst Tempest NA~
~Skritt Kings~

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Posted by: Azure The Heartless.3261

Azure The Heartless.3261

Good work.

/15ReadingthisinScarlet’svoice

Resident Disgruntled, Coffee-drinking Charr.
Zarin Mistcloak(THF) Valkyrie Mistblade(WAR) Kossori Mistwalker(REV) Durendal Mistward(GRD)
I used to think (build op, pls nerf) like you, but then I took a nerf to the knee.

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Posted by: Spartacus.3192

Spartacus.3192

Unless I am reading this wrong, this sounds horrible for casual/low mmr players who will have to face high ranked players at the start of the season, thus putting them off pvp altogether. It sounds like it is best not to play in the first week of the season at all……. I won’t be.

Exactly. If you are a casual/low mmr player i would highly recommend missing the first week of season 2. That way the better players will have moved several tiers already and you wont have big losing streaks on day 1.

Your typical average gamer -
“Buff my main class, nerf everything else. "

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Posted by: Lishtenbird.2814

Lishtenbird.2814

I still see a problem in the daily profession win achievements. People have played classes they do not know to get the rewards for a long time; but when there’s a PvP league with achievements, they’ll combine both types in one go – play ranked and on classes they do not know.

My suggestion is: change the profession win dailies to a daily profession win in unranked, or a daily win on any profession in ranked, like this:

  • Win an unranked match as Elementalist or Mesmer, or win a ranked match as any class.
  • Win an unranked match as Guardian or Ranger, or win 2 ranked matches as any class.

This will effectively work with the current non-exclusive achievement system and allow 2 achievements for both options.

20 level 80s and counting.

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Posted by: Mightybird.6034

Mightybird.6034

So how quickly can we start season 2? Can we have a mulligan already?

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Posted by: brz.1509

brz.1509

Congrats! In general I’m really excited about these changes and I hope it’ll lessen the need for a separate solo Q (the thing I really want). That said…

While we’ll be using divisions to match you against your immediate opponents, we’ll still use your MMR to place you on teams with similarly skilled players (from your division point range) to help ensure that you’re not forced to play with individuals that are of a much higher or lower skill than you.

If match prediction is based on division/pip count within a division, this is going to create situations where low MMR players end up with extraordinarily long loss streaks based on the fact that the bad players in a match will end up on one team. This is especially true at the start of each division and it’ll be exacerbated in times of low player population.

This can be mitigated if match prediction uses MMR to prevent low MMR players from losing pips when facing a much better team. From the sounds of the above descriptions match prediction may be using division + pip counts instead, which would be a mistake.

You bring up very good points. And the answer is two-fold:

Low MMR players losing more often is the same high MMR players winning more often. This will help the ladder better represent skill.

Because of how matchmaking is changing, the prediction can now use MMR instead of ladder position. This will create a more accurate prediction, and is actually required for players to distribute properly over the season.

Thanks for the reply! It’s true that low MMR players lose more, but it’s important that losing MMR is the result of losing many matches and not the cause. Ultimately a players true MMR cannot be determined if they can’t be placed in enough evenly-matched games.

I’m glad to hear that MMR can be used for win prediction, it sounds like season 2 will strictly be an improvement over season 1

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Posted by: Operator.6523

Operator.6523

im so excited, if the balance patch is as good as these changes

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Posted by: Eolirin.1830

Eolirin.1830

Unless I am reading this wrong, this sounds horrible for casual/low mmr players who will have to face high ranked players at the start of the season, thus putting them off pvp altogether. It sounds like it is best not to play in the first week of the season at all……. I won’t be.

Exactly. If you are a casual/low mmr player i would highly recommend missing the first week of season 2. That way the better players will have moved several tiers already and you wont have big losing streaks on day 1.

I’m not sure it’ll take a full week, given the way the win streak works, though it depends on how many extra pips they get too, but yeah. At the same time, you’re still much more likely to be facing the middle of the distribution rather than the tail, so it depends on how bad you are. The longer you wait, the more Amber and Emerald will only be low MMR players though. There’s a perverse incentive to delay playing as a high MMR player, in that you’ll win streak a lot more once the divisions are more stable.

But it’s all temporary disruption. You’ll plateau in the same places.

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Posted by: jessiestiles.9437

jessiestiles.9437

Oh so you had to tank in a load of games to get the MMR to swing in you favor. There’s the match bias I was talking about. Get rid of can lose tiers and problem solved.

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Posted by: Spartacus.3192

Spartacus.3192

I still see a problem in the daily profession win achievements. People have played classes they do not know to get the rewards for a long time; but when there’s a PvP league with achievements, they’ll combine both types in one go – play ranked and on classes they do not know.

My suggestion is: change the profession win dailies to a daily profession win in unranked, or a daily win on any profession in ranked, like this:

  • Win an unranked match as Elementalist or Mesmer, or win a ranked match as any class.
  • Win an unranked match as Guardian or Ranger, or win 2 ranked matches as any class.

This will effectively work with the current non-exclusive achievement system and allow 2 achievements for both options.

you can get daily wins in unranked right? (correct me if im wrong)

Or do you mean they want to save time by doing a diff class and in ranked? Well i dont think its Anets job to make life easier for those players just cos they are lazy.

Heck if they are really lazy they can get quick dailies done in those dedicated custom arenas on a class they dont know. They dont even need to do anything other than cap a node.

Your typical average gamer -
“Buff my main class, nerf everything else. "

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Posted by: Demonoid.1974

Demonoid.1974

Overall I am satisfied with these system changes. Though won’t the newly added title “Primordial Legend” always feel like a tainted accomplishment due to the fact that it was acquired by many players through a flawed division system, aka Amber Shopping? It would be awfully nice if you guys just waited until season 2 to allow players to acquire it.

http://www.twitch.tv/demonold/profile
-complain less, train harder-

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Posted by: Firebird.8324

Firebird.8324

My only concern with these changes is that they may make completing the league progression achievements impossible for too large a portion of the playerbase. Having to get out of Ruby to get tier 4 is difficult enough as it is. Will you re-examine that particular set of achievements in light of this change?

No, they finally have an exclusive PVP item that Only hardcore pvpers can get, there is no reason it should be handed out to the masses like candy. There are SO MANY awesome looking PVE skins that I will never have by spending all my time in PVP, so let us have this one item, and get back to killing random mobs.

Over Powered Necro [dk] (Bird of Fire)
One spam to rule them all!
Mains Power Necro for team Radioactive[dk]

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Posted by: Agemnon.4608

Agemnon.4608

Since diamond is intended to be analogous to League of Legends’ platinum rank (Top 1.5%-0.1%) then obviously it isn’t for everyone. If you do have those diamond-tier skills then you’ll be paired with players of similar skill and reach that tier.

Since there’s 3 divisions higher then Plat (Diamond, Master and Challenger), I dont quite think that our Diamond and their Plat is similar.

Challenger is reserved for the top 200 only while master works differently from bronze through diamond. Legendary is likely intended to reflect LoL’s diamond (top 0.1%) if not master and challenger.

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Posted by: Silverwing.8750

Silverwing.8750

Unless I am reading this wrong, this sounds horrible for casual/low mmr players who will have to face high ranked players at the start of the season, thus putting them off pvp altogether. It sounds like it is best not to play in the first week of the season at all……. I won’t be.

Exactly. If you are a casual/low mmr player i would highly recommend missing the first week of season 2. That way the better players will have moved several tiers already and you wont have big losing streaks on day 1.

I’m not sure it’ll take a full week, given the way the win streak works, though it depends on how many extra pips they get too, but yeah. At the same time, you’re still much more likely to be facing the middle of the distribution rather than the tail, so it depends on how bad you are. The longer you wait, the more Amber and Emerald will only be low MMR players though. There’s a perverse incentive to delay playing as a high MMR player, in that you’ll win streak a lot more once the divisions are more stable.

But it’s all temporary disruption. You’ll plateau in the same places.

We want to encourage new players to try the league (so we have a higher player population and shorter queues) – if they start off being trampled by high ranked players, game after game, it will be a horrible experience for them, and they won’t come back!

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Posted by: Safari.3021

Safari.3021

Personally I have no idea how good or bad I am, I’d like to think I do ok.

If I’ve managed to get to Diamond this season by soloqing, do these changes mean I’ll have an easier time getting diamond next season? I found sapphire more of a struggle than ruby

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Posted by: Firebird.8324

Firebird.8324

I appreciate that Arenanet has laid out some of the planned changes in the upcomming season, I hope they also release balance notes early as well. I Really like the simple and elegant solution to the Amber Shopping issue and the transparency as to how you got or lost that pip.

Now please find a way to handle a person DCing and I’m only so-so on the whole win streak idea, I see massive rage in the future when that’s lost to a DC or some other problem

Over Powered Necro [dk] (Bird of Fire)
One spam to rule them all!
Mains Power Necro for team Radioactive[dk]

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Posted by: Mysticjedi.6053

Mysticjedi.6053

Personally I have no idea how good or bad I am, I’d like to think I do ok.

If I’ve managed to get to Diamond this season by soloqing, do these changes mean I’ll have an easier time getting diamond next season? I found sapphire more of a struggle than ruby

I’m curious about that too. I’m excited to see where I stack up. I might be a little off, but this also hopefully means the changes mean I’m more likely to see more familiar faces. I know pvp has had a lot of problems, but I really liked early days where it felt like I queued with about the same group of people every night as a soloq. It was fun to challenge each other and get better together.

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Posted by: Aomine.5012

Aomine.5012

A message from the PvP team:

Five weeks ago, we launched the first season of our “PvP League system”, and since then we’ve been talking to many of you in-game and keeping our eyes glued to our forums, reddit, Twitch, and other social platforms in an effort to take in as much of your feedback as possible. Now that we’ve had time to fully digest your thoughts and contextualize it with the heaps of data that we’ve collected, we’d like to kick off the New Year by discussing the changes that will be coming to PvP Leagues for Season 2.

Matchmaking Changes

The matchmaking system in Season 1 uses a blend of both your current division placement in Leagues as well as your individual matchmaking rating (MMR). This means that you’ll generally get paired with and against players in your division that are of similar skill levels. Unfortunately, what this also means is that from day one you’re going to have difficult matches, and because of the way MMR works in Ranked play, you’ll have a very difficult time maintaining enough of a win-streak to progress through tiers and divisions. This is especially true as you climb into divisions such as Ruby where you can lose points as well as tiers. While this system helps ensure that your matches are always as competitive as possible, it does mean that it’s also more difficult to get to the division where you actually belong based on your skill – for example, as a top tier player, the difficulty of your matches in Amber would actually be fairly close to what you’d experience in Ruby and beyond. After analyzing your feedback, we’ve decided to shift toward having your division standing in PvP Leagues be even more reflective of your personal skill level than it currently is.

Beginning with Season 2, matchmaking for Ranked matches will use your placement in your current league division as your primary matchmaking consideration and pair you against players who are placed in the same point range as you, regardless of the skill level (MMR) of the other people in that point range. While we’ll be using divisions to match you against your immediate opponents, we’ll still use your MMR to place you on teams with similarly skilled players (from your division point range) to help ensure that you’re not forced to play with individuals that are of a much higher or lower skill than you. Ultimately, this means that the new matchmaking changes will make PvP Leagues much more reflective of your actual skill, and each division will be progressively more difficult to compete in.

Win Streaks

Since the new matchmaking changes may make matches more volatile at the very beginning of the season (since everyone will be starting in the same division), we’re also planning to introduce a “Win Streak System” into PvP Leagues that will help more skilled players climb through early league divisions and get them into the divisions that they belong. On your third consecutive win (and for every win afterward), you’ll automatically earn extra league points toward your division progress for as long as you can keep the streak going. But keep in mind that a loss while on a win streak will reset your win streak status back to zero, and you’ll need to start another win streak in order to begin gaining extra points again.

Point Confusion: Fixes & Clarifications

If you’re not familiar with the more detailed workings of our match prediction system, then we realize that there’s still some confusion as to why you earned or lost points at the end of a match (for example, “Why did I gain 1 pip for having won a close match, but lost no pips in a blowout?”). With Season 2, we’ll be displaying a postmatch breakdown for you at the end of each game, which will include items such as the win probability that our algorithm determined for your team and an explanation of why your points changed the way that they did.

Shopping for Ambers

In addition to the changes above, we’ll also be adjusting the way that parties are scored in our matchmaking algorithm based on the overall division spread of a team’s makeup. It is important to us that anyone can play with their friends regardless of league standing, but in doing so, we also want to ensure that teams aren’t gaining an unfair advantage in match difficulty based on their rosters. An example of this would be two friends: one is in Diamond and the other is in Amber. For Season 2, these two players will still be able to team up and play together, but they’ll be placed into Diamond level matches based on the highest division player in the party. This means that forming a party with players in a higher division than you will always bring you up to their level for matchmaking and prediction, rather than adjust to compensate for party members at lower divisions. This specific change will go into effect in our next scheduled release (prior to the end of season 1).

Wrapping Things Up (For Now)

There are a few other things coming that will impact the next season of PvP Leagues (namely our next balance update) that will be discussed separately – so keep an eye on our forums and on Guildwars2.com for updates.

We’d like to encourage all of you to please keep sharing your constructive thoughts with us so that we can continue to make PvP Leagues (and PvP in general) even better together. From all of us here on the PvP team, we wish you all a happy New Year and we’ll see you in the Mists!

I love the change for “Shopping for Amber”

This is exactly what I suggested before! Matchmaking should take on the highest division player rather than average them out to lower ones since there’re so many ways to abuse this system. (Especially wiht alt accounts.)

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Posted by: Cynz.9437

Cynz.9437

still no soloq -_-

All is Vain~
[Teef] guild :>

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Posted by: mimijimi.8537

mimijimi.8537

My only concern with these changes is that they may make completing the league progression achievements impossible for too large a portion of the playerbase. Having to get out of Ruby to get tier 4 is difficult enough as it is. Will you re-examine that particular set of achievements in light of this change?

No, they finally have an exclusive PVP item that Only hardcore pvpers can get, there is no reason it should be handed out to the masses like candy. There are SO MANY awesome looking PVE skins that I will never have by spending all my time in PVP, so let us have this one item, and get back to killing random mobs.

it’s my understanding that you don’t need to complete the achievment in one season, so instead of getting into diamond in one season you can get into ruby in 2 seasons and still reach the same goal, the hardcores will be able to get the skins sooner but the casuals will still have a chance, it’ll just take alot longer

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Posted by: Artaz.3819

Artaz.3819

This still does not fix the issue with premade teams versus solo PUG players. Where in the PIP scoring formula is a benefit given to solo PUG versus premade?

i.e. I am on a solo PUG team of 5 individuals and go against a premade team of 4 others + 1 PUG. Our MMR (average) is roughly equivalent, our rank ladder amount is roughly equivalent. In this instance, the premade of 4 + 1 PUG clearly has an advantage and can continue to exploit this advantage (voice communication) over and over for coordination/battles/information and will most assuredly win.

Where in the formula is there a + or – a 50 point adjustment for every teamed member on yours versus opponents side? i.e. I have 2-person team on my side (3 random PUGs) against a 4-person team (1 PUG) on their side. Currently, I score 400+ points versus 500+ opponent and I still lose a PIP versus no change/draw. Reverse team size, I would expect to have at least a 100 point advantage (our team of 4 * 50 points less their team of 2 * 50 points).

This doesn’t discourage teaming (the bigger team still wins but the PIPs gain/loss becomes more balanced)

This change would be a huge step in the right direction. It’s the current reason why so many are so frustrated (besides the 4 diamond + 1 amber team composition – which sounds like it is being addressed next season – good change).

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Posted by: Forestgreen.7981

Forestgreen.7981

So your telling me people who solo q are still getting screwed over? Why not add a perk where solo q’ers get additional pips on wins. Solo q’ers are playing at a disadvantage due to unrealiable match making, so we deserve at least an incentive at the very least.

I can tell you 99% of the folks don’t care about rank, they only care about the backpiece. Reason they need to move up in rank is to get the rank cross achievement needed and tickets. Lower the requirements for the achievements as you’ve now made it harder to move up in ranks.

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Posted by: brannigan.9831

brannigan.9831

Great so now maybe Ill see the actual level of play increase going from Amber to Diamond. Also, good-bye to all the greedy smurfs.

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Posted by: style.6173

style.6173

So your telling me people who solo q are still getting screwed over? Why not add a perk where solo q’ers get additional pips on wins. Solo q’ers are playing at a disadvantage due to unrealiable match making, so we deserve at least an incentive at the very least.

I can tell you 99% of the folks don’t care about rank, they only care about the backpiece. Reason they need to move up in rank is to get the rank cross achievement needed and tickets. Lower the requirements for the achievements as you’ve now made it harder to move up in ranks.

That is correct. ANET is still being incredibly stubborn about solo queue.

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Posted by: style.6173

style.6173

So do I get to keep my Legendary badge for the next season?

Badges stay until the next season starts. So enjoy your badge during the current season and the time between seasons, but once the new season starts all badges will be reset.

ANET really needs to rethink this entire system. I don’t want to see PvP rank outside of heart of the mists. Make it more content specific:

1. In hearts of the mists, show PvP level
2. In PvE, show the mastery level
3. In WvW, show the WvW rank

I don’t care about someone’s PvP rank when I am in WvW and it is just screen clutter.

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Posted by: Jiggawattz.2697

Jiggawattz.2697

A message from the PvP team:

Five weeks ago, we launched the first season of our “PvP League system”, and since then we’ve been talking to many of you in-game and keeping our eyes glued to our forums, reddit, Twitch, and other social platforms in an effort to take in as much of your feedback as possible. Now that we’ve had time to fully digest your thoughts and contextualize it with the heaps of data that we’ve collected, we’d like to kick off the New Year by discussing the changes that will be coming to PvP Leagues for Season 2.

Matchmaking Changes

The matchmaking system in Season 1 uses a blend of both your current division placement in Leagues as well as your individual matchmaking rating (MMR). This means that you’ll generally get paired with and against players in your division that are of similar skill levels. Unfortunately, what this also means is that from day one you’re going to have difficult matches, and because of the way MMR works in Ranked play, you’ll have a very difficult time maintaining enough of a win-streak to progress through tiers and divisions. This is especially true as you climb into divisions such as Ruby where you can lose points as well as tiers. While this system helps ensure that your matches are always as competitive as possible, it does mean that it’s also more difficult to get to the division where you actually belong based on your skill – for example, as a top tier player, the difficulty of your matches in Amber would actually be fairly close to what you’d experience in Ruby and beyond. After analyzing your feedback, we’ve decided to shift toward having your division standing in PvP Leagues be even more reflective of your personal skill level than it currently is.

Beginning with Season 2, matchmaking for Ranked matches will use your placement in your current league division as your primary matchmaking consideration and pair you against players who are placed in the same point range as you, regardless of the skill level (MMR) of the other people in that point range. While we’ll be using divisions to match you against your immediate opponents, we’ll still use your MMR to place you on teams with similarly skilled players (from your division point range) to help ensure that you’re not forced to play with individuals that are of a much higher or lower skill than you. Ultimately, this means that the new matchmaking changes will make PvP Leagues much more reflective of your actual skill, and each division will be progressively more difficult to compete in.

Win Streaks

Since the new matchmaking changes may make matches more volatile at the very beginning of the season (since everyone will be starting in the same division), we’re also planning to introduce a “Win Streak System” into PvP Leagues that will help more skilled players climb through early league divisions and get them into the divisions that they belong. On your third consecutive win (and for every win afterward), you’ll automatically earn extra league points toward your division progress for as long as you can keep the streak going. But keep in mind that a loss while on a win streak will reset your win streak status back to zero, and you’ll need to start another win streak in order to begin gaining extra points again.

Point Confusion: Fixes & Clarifications

If you’re not familiar with the more detailed workings of our match prediction system, then we realize that there’s still some confusion as to why you earned or lost points at the end of a match (for example, “Why did I gain 1 pip for having won a close match, but lost no pips in a blowout?”). With Season 2, we’ll be displaying a postmatch breakdown for you at the end of each game, which will include items such as the win probability that our algorithm determined for your team and an explanation of why your points changed the way that they did.

Shopping for Ambers

In addition to the changes above, we’ll also be adjusting the way that parties are scored in our matchmaking algorithm based on the overall division spread of a team’s makeup. It is important to us that anyone can play with their friends regardless of league standing, but in doing so, we also want to ensure that teams aren’t gaining an unfair advantage in match difficulty based on their rosters. An example of this would be two friends: one is in Diamond and the other is in Amber. For Season 2, these two players will still be able to team up and play together, but they’ll be placed into Diamond level matches based on the highest division player in the party. This means that forming a party with players in a higher division than you will always bring you up to their level for matchmaking and prediction, rather than adjust to compensate for party members at lower divisions. This specific change will go into effect in our next scheduled release (prior to the end of season 1).

Wrapping Things Up (For Now)

There are a few other things coming that will impact the next season of PvP Leagues (namely our next balance update) that will be discussed separately – so keep an eye on our forums and on Guildwars2.com for updates.

We’d like to encourage all of you to please keep sharing your constructive thoughts with us so that we can continue to make PvP Leagues (and PvP in general) even better together. From all of us here on the PvP team, we wish you all a happy New Year and we’ll see you in the Mists!

So correct me if I am wrong, but technically you all are ignoring a huge glaring problem, just hoping it goes away and effectively changing the system to another kitten setup? Just making sure because the way I read it you intend to have team queue-ing. I don’t think you understand how competitive ladders work, but you cannot allow people to choose teams, they will team stack, period. They will always find a way to break your perception of a somewhat balanced team setup because you are too proud to say hey we kittened up, we need to have solo queue or duo queue max just like EVERY other successful competitive game. Either implement multiple queues, or remove team queueing all together, otherwise your game is and will continue to be a joke in the competitive community.

Though the way I see it, as somone who has played since day 1 of pre-release… you guys were never really good at biting the bullet when you were wrong.

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Posted by: Healingz R Us.7240

Healingz R Us.7240

This is all good and well, but what’s stopping a diamond tier group of friends from having one dude make an amber account? I’ll assume that you’re also changing the pip rewards then, making it so that it doesn’t matter if there’s a tier 1 amber with a clean MMR on the winning team.

Someone please clarify.

This is exactly the same thing that I was thinking while reading that paragraph.

If the pips loss/win depends on the higher div player of a team, than this change is good. If not, it will still not prevent some kind of abuse.

Match prediction is also based on the highest division player in the party.

I have a lot of friends that aren’t as high tier as I am. A lot of them have already shied away from playing with me due to my higher league and MMR. Now, I’m certain they will not be encouraged to play with me since they will be brought up to my league and MMR if we que together.

-Healy

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Posted by: style.6173

style.6173

The other big change that I’d like to see for season 2 is to remove stronghold from ranked. It is way too much of a cheese map at this point. It is good for unranked, but is not a competitive map in any way.

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Posted by: jessiestiles.9437

jessiestiles.9437

How many tiers are there in the League Elite achievement? Going by veteran (2 tiers) and Elite (3 tiers) then League Elite it would be 4 tiers? If so we’d have to cross 4 divisions four times. How many seasons will there be?

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Posted by: Cynz.9437

Cynz.9437

This is all good and well, but what’s stopping a diamond tier group of friends from having one dude make an amber account? I’ll assume that you’re also changing the pip rewards then, making it so that it doesn’t matter if there’s a tier 1 amber with a clean MMR on the winning team.

Someone please clarify.

This is exactly the same thing that I was thinking while reading that paragraph.

If the pips loss/win depends on the higher div player of a team, than this change is good. If not, it will still not prevent some kind of abuse.

Match prediction is also based on the highest division player in the party.

I have a lot of friends that aren’t as high tier as I am. A lot of them have already shied away from playing with me due to my higher league and MMR. Now, I’m certain they will not be encouraged to play with me since they will be brought up to my league and MMR if we que together.

do unranked :P

All is Vain~
[Teef] guild :>

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Posted by: brannigan.9831

brannigan.9831

The biggest complaint next season will be from all the brain dead bads that can’t grind there way past the first couple of league. Leagues were never meant to be grinded through. They are meant as gauge of your skill level. I might make it to legendary this season but if next season I can only to get to ruby as long as I feel like I’m not playing with complete nimords half the time and I don’t feel like 50% of people are exploiting a flawed system I’ll be perfectly fine with it.

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Posted by: Tamasan.6457

Tamasan.6457

A message from the PvP team:

Thank you for the updates! I think this addresses most of the problems, and I’m looking forward to season 2. With the combination of “team upscaling” and win streaks getting higher skilled players up the ladder faster, I think it will be a much better experience than season 1 has been.

(also, as there are already complaints in this thread, I disagree with much of the community about solo-queue. I do not think it is needed, so long as teams are correctly rated skill-wise, which I think you’ve covered with the upscaling to highest league division member.)

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Posted by: style.6173

style.6173

I’ve posted in other threads that I feel that party members should all take the mmr/division ranking of the highest played party member. I think this is a fantastic move ANET. I’m sure there are a lot of cheesers who are worried right now.