Guild Wars 2

The concern I have regards losing pips to pre-made teams that you have chance no chance of beating if you solo queue. 80% of these matches end up being predetermined as they have a sound strategy, understanding of proper rotations, etc. Leading many on the team to afk as they know a pip loss is incoming.

As a person who has done majority of the matches solo queue , I can be the first to tell you I have no problem facing these teams with 4 other individuals as long as the system you have in place has lower expectations for a solo queue group.

I lost two pips this season to a pro league team and our team was entirely composed to solo queue players. ;-;

This is kittening dumb. This league is a joke.

http://i.imgur.com/zGvdWAQ.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/F4LMY5U.jpg

I’d like to understand how can one defeat a team 500 to 100 and the next game, get with people from that exact team you just “stomped” ? Win a pip then end up losing 2, and after that face premades to lose 2 over and over again.

Except frustration, I don’t get the point of this matchmaking just trying to ruin your winning streaks and your ascension.

Just lost another 2 pips for 4 premades against our 5 solo q’rs. Awesome.

Rastaaa.3752:

The concern I have regards losing pips to pre-made teams that you have chance no chance of beating if you solo queue. 80% of these matches end up being predetermined as they have a sound strategy, understanding of proper rotations, etc. Leading many on the team to afk as they know a pip loss is incoming.

As a person who has done majority of the matches solo queue , I can be the first to tell you I have no problem facing these teams with 4 other individuals as long as the system you have in place has lower expectations for a solo queue group.

I lost two pips this season to a pro league team and our team was entirely composed to solo queue players. ;-;

This happens to any soloq’er on a daily basis. But hey, Anet likes to dodge logical feedback.

yanniell.1236:

Just lost another 2 pips for 4 premades against our 5 solo q’rs. Awesome.

For u to face a premade u need to have higher MMR than them.

As much as i hate facing premade teams as solo queue, you cant really separate it without a player pool almost no game actually has unless you are prepared to spend a lot of time sitting in queue.

What needs to get balances is the expectation of victory in the sense that a bunch of solo players have a far lower chance of winning against a team with premade groups in it even if all other things are equal.

A bunch of solo queue players should not lose excessive pips facing a team that has grouped players in it.

I’ve had many matches where i have lost multiple pips in a match that i never had any realistic chance of winning. That is what needs to be taking into account and the rest wont matter that much

Floplag.4032:

As much as i hate facing premade teams as solo queue, you cant really separate it without a player pool almost no game actually has unless you are prepared to spend a lot of time sitting in queue.

What needs to get balances is the expectation of victory in the sense that a bunch of solo players have a far lower chance of winning against a team with premade groups in it even if all other things are equal.

A bunch of solo queue players should not lose excessive pips facing a team that has grouped players in it.

I’ve had many matches where i have lost multiple pips in a match that i never had any realistic chance of winning. That is what needs to be taking into account and the rest wont matter that much

The funny thing is…that this meta makes the difference between 5 random higher rated soloq players + a premade relatively small.

There is only a select group of teams that manages to steamroll higher end soloq players. The rest are surpringly close. Mostly due to a meta that requires very little coordination/rotations.

If they don’t want to sit in queues for a long time, just kitten solo queue. If u wanna play with your 5 kitten friends, then u’re gonna kitten wait in queue.

http://i.imgur.com/vSCbUQu.jpg

Waited almost ten minutes for this bs.

Locuz.2651:

The funny thing is…that this meta makes the difference between 5 random higher rated soloq players + a premade relatively small.

There is only a select group of teams that manages to steamroll higher end soloq players. The rest are surpringly close. Mostly due to a meta that requires very little coordination/rotations.

I disagree vehemently . Even if both teams have the exact same comp, and the same skill level, the increase in response times and coordination makes a huge difference in this or any game.
I have played too many of these kinds of matches to agree with your view that this is a small factor or that this isnt happening more than you think it is.

Starfleck.8392:

I don’t understand how placing players in teams with similar MMR ratings is fair. Ultimately, isn’t that just placing the top 5 MMR players on one side and placing the lower 5 MMR players on the other side? Assuming we’re talking about an average solo-queue Emerald game, for example, the system tries to place someone with others close to their rating, while simultaneously placing another person with others close to their rating on the opposite team. One is closer to the high-mmr players and gets a high-mmr team, while the other gets stragglers by default, resulting in lower-skilled teammates and earning a loss.

We’re still waiting for an answer as to whether the above is how matchmaking will work.

This is what I want from an MMR system:

I want to play with and against players who are at my skill level.

I want to play PuGs vs Pugs or Teams vs Teams, no mixing.

What I don’t want:

I dont want a forced 50% win/loss ratio.

ATTENTION EVERYONE

I’m super worried, guys Hopefully, one of the devs or Gaile can clear this out for me? You won’t change the amount of PvP League Tickets one gets from crossing division thresholds, right? I understand that The Ascension shouldn’t be a super easy item to acquire; only through hard work and dedication should players be able to get it, and I’m totally fine with it. But please, and I do stress this, don’t make Wings of Ascension (the precursor which you get by combining all 4 Wings of Glory) incredibly hard to get and out of our reach. All I need to do is complete Amber next season, and I’ll be able to buy the third pair of wings for 30 tickets. Once I’m done with Emerald and Sapphire I’ll finally be able to get the fourth one, and thus, the precursor. Please don’t change the amount of PvP League Tickets one gets from crossing division thresholds

In short, I’m fine with not getting The Acension, but one of the great things about PvP Leagues is that you feel like you’re getting a lot of great rewards as you progress, namely those 4 awesome wings, and subsequently, the precursor by combining all 4. Please don’t put it out of our reach, ArenaNet

Wait a minute. So the division we’re in is what’ll be taken into account when selecting oponents for us, and MMR for selecting team mates? So MMR won’t influence any thing when it comes to the system choosing our oponents? But that means we’ll end up getting paired against people that can have a much higher MMR than ours, right?

Avectius.3271:

Wait a minute. So the division we’re in is what’ll be taken into account when selecting oponents for us, and MMR for selecting team mates? So MMR won’t influence any thing when it comes to the system choosing our oponents? But that means we’ll end up getting paired against people that can have a much higher MMR than ours, right?

I think this is how it’ll work:

Let’s say you have an MMR that puts you in the 90th percentile so the system tracks that you’re better than 90% of players out there and the system would track and seed you to mid ruby where you’ll get crushed by those with diamond (98th percentile-top 1,000) and legendary (top 500?) MMR until they rank out, then you’ll start facing equals.

Avectius.3271:

Wait a minute. So the division we’re in is what’ll be taken into account when selecting oponents for us, and MMR for selecting team mates? So MMR won’t influence any thing when it comes to the system choosing our oponents? But that means we’ll end up getting paired against people that can have a much higher MMR than ours, right?

Exactly, so if you have a high mmr you will likely face and win lower mmr teams and so move forward to higher divisions until you face people of the same skill, and if you have low mmr you will likely get matched with teams with higher mmr and so lose and stay on that division until your mmr is better than the average mmr of the division

didn’t you say that “engineer survival” had to be toned?

Thank The Six! I had begun to believe that ANET deliberately built an exploit track into the tournament. This suggests that I was wrong. Hope it works out that way.

I certainly like the fact that exploiters will keep all their gains without any penalties.

I have been stuck in Division 4, Tier 4 for a week. I average 10 games a day, for those 7 days. My best position was 4.4. my worst has been 3.8. I have encountered very few named teams but sometimes the scores are wildly lopsided. From my own experience, it feels like the game doesn’t want me to progress. that’s reinforced when I read explanations like the one above dealing with MMRs. In the end, it is not fulfilling in the slightest. Worse, I know people who have lost 10 and 15 games in a row. Why even bother to play? These losses aren’t their faults. The teams lost but the teams were decided by the algorithms.

But again, playing 70 matches and moving up and down on tier 4 is not at all rewarding.

Weirdness Abounds.8924:

I have been stuck in Division 4, Tier 4 for a week. I average 10 games a day, for those 7 days. My best position was 4.4. my worst has been 3.8. I have encountered very few named teams but sometimes the scores are wildly lopsided. From my own experience, it feels like the game doesn’t want me to progress. that’s reinforced when I read explanations like the one above dealing with MMRs. In the end, it is not fulfilling in the slightest. Worse, I know people who have lost 10 and 15 games in a row. Why even bother to play? These losses aren’t their faults. The teams lost but the teams were decided by the algorithms.

But again, playing 70 matches and moving up and down on tier 4 is not at all rewarding.

Seems to me like you reached your max level of play, unless you start getting better in terms of carrying such teams that is probably where you will stay.
Regardless, you gain as many rewards from those matches as you would have gotten from plain simple unranked ones.. you should not be rewarded extra stuff just for playing said ‘ranked’ games if you dont progress. And it is completely fine not to progress in a mere week of play.
Depends on your will to adapt to your situation and learn from it, you should not expect getting to legendary in a matter of weeks. When you do get better I believe you will reach your ‘rightful’ place in diamond or beyond.

Question: due to the fact that is allowed to sell dungeon runs ( sell a reward to a player for golds ), is it legit too sell spvp games carrying the one who pay?

ShadowHunter.5173:

Weirdness Abounds.8924:

I have been stuck in Division 4, Tier 4 for a week. I average 10 games a day, for those 7 days. My best position was 4.4. my worst has been 3.8. I have encountered very few named teams but sometimes the scores are wildly lopsided. From my own experience, it feels like the game doesn’t want me to progress. that’s reinforced when I read explanations like the one above dealing with MMRs. In the end, it is not fulfilling in the slightest. Worse, I know people who have lost 10 and 15 games in a row. Why even bother to play? These losses aren’t their faults. The teams lost but the teams were decided by the algorithms.

But again, playing 70 matches and moving up and down on tier 4 is not at all rewarding.

Seems to me like you reached your max level of play, unless you start getting better in terms of carrying such teams that is probably where you will stay.
Regardless, you gain as many rewards from those matches as you would have gotten from plain simple unranked ones.. you should not be rewarded extra stuff just for playing said ‘ranked’ games if you dont progress. And it is completely fine not to progress in a mere week of play.
Depends on your will to adapt to your situation and learn from it, you should not expect getting to legendary in a matter of weeks. When you do get better I believe you will reach your ‘rightful’ place in diamond or beyond.

I have issue with this, but you do bring up a valid point shadowhunter. My issue is that this league pretends to reward players for their skill, when in actuality it is rewarding then for knowing how to play the cheapest or most overpowered builds at the moment and for having good luck in getting assigned to a team that counters the other team well.

That being said I know that there is definitely skill required, you need to know how to play your class and your spec (even if it is cheap) and how to adapt to deal with your teams weaknesses and play style vs the other team … but there is only so much you as a player can do.

i.e. if one of your teammates has given up because they are tired of being rag-doll knocked around (without enough stability to counter it (which frankly who does … which brings up another issue I’ll address in another post)) Then you’re basically playing a 4v5 at that point and it’s not necessarily about your skill, but a numbers game. Sure this doesn’t happen that often and you should be able to recover from it in the next game, but it still is someone else affecting your score and it not a true indication of your skill but rather an indication of your bad luck to get put on a team with a quitter.

This gets me to a main point. I feel that a lot of what is barring good players from progressing is gross balancing issues which will never be fully worked out. Don’t quote me on this because I don’t play, but someone told me League of Legends goes through and balances every couple weeks or so. Gw2 is however different in that it has PvE and WvW to deal with as well and as much as Anet may want it to be so things will never be balanced. There will always be the cheap builds of the current game build it’s just the nature of having 2 different skill sets vs each other.

So I’m dealing with the issue right now of whether to continue to play the builds I enjoy (that are only mildly cheap (otherwise I’d not even stand a chance)) or to conform to whatever the current game build meta is which, shadow hunter is in essence what you are suggesting to Weirdness Abounds (That is if he doesn’t play meta builds already … which I don’t believe he does (we are in the same guild after all)) just to get the points that are needed to get a piece of a Legendary (which again is another issue I’ll address in another post because this one is getting long.

Ok! Stability vs Ragdoll.

Yeah so I’m sure most people who have played in this tournament and probably PvP in general in Gw2 recently know that right now one of the more frustrating things is getting caught in dragonhunter traps and mesmer wells and necro pulls and stuns and knockbacks and knockdowns an push/pulled until you are dead with no real way to counter it.

Sure all classes have some access to stability, but with all the CC effects added in HoT (even in PvE) is there really ever enough. Well true there shouldn’t be because some of the CC should land and is a very useful and vital to some builds. However at this point I believe there is a bit too much of it without reliable counter. Games should always involve moves and counter moves i.e. the very classic game of chess. True there are situations where you will have used up your counters (perhaps foolishly, perhaps not) and be susceptible to getting hit with a CC. However there should be few instances where you become a punching bag with no means to make it otherwise.

In honesty, it’s really not fun for either party the ragdollee or the ragdoller. Sure the ragdoller may think they are dominating or that the other player is just bad, but the issue is there is no skill required in denying the other player even the means to counter and without the push and pull of a real challenge it can get boring and/or unfun for both parties.

My point and suggestion is to add more access to stability in the game as a form of counter, just as condition cleansing is to conditions. Sure you will still get pushed or pulled or knocked down or stunned, and if nothing else it will interrupt the skill they were trying to use, but at least they will be able to get up from it and keep playing (unless maybe they are zerker … then they are kind of asking for it).

Faster and more prevalent access to stability I think is the key. I love on my Ele to start overloading my attunement to get the stability to break out of a stun or CC, but that is only available as a Tempest and only if you select that exact trait, otherwise there is are a couple traits in earth or a utility skill with a really long cooldown and a short duration (which mind you I don’t think the duration on stability should increase, just the access to it) and other than that if I don’t choose a build that has stability … it’s pretty hard to come by … CC on the other hand is not.

Sooo tired of typing >_<

The legendary backpack for PvP:
Looking ahead to the Year of the Ascension Part IV (season 4) achievements – for anyone who hasn’t noticed it yet.

One of the 11 requirements to get the Hymn of Glory (which you are supposed to combine with the 3 other pieces from the other seasons to create the gift of the competitor which is undoubtedly used to make the legendary version of the PvP backpiece) is:

“League Elite – cross 4 league division thresholds during a PvP season” which, in essence, means you need to get to Legendary rank it at least one of the 4 seasons or oops, sorry bout your luck, no legendary for you and with all the bugs still being sorted out in the first season (not to mention the holiday event to distract you if you PvE at all), if you didn’t get it, then hopefully it will be a little easier in other seasons.

I’m sure I’m not the only person who feels they put a lot of effort to hit the exactly 11 requirements (which was deceiving at first glance because all of the class based achievements appear like they would count toward the 11 actually only count toward 1 of the 11 … I didn’t notice this until I got 3 of them done and it did not advance me any further) to get “The Thrill of Battle” piece this season and even with the distraction that was Wintersday. I’m proud to say I still got to Ruby rank (and my Winter’s presence (snowstorm) shoulders. However I do really want to get the Legendary backpiece for PvP and I’m afraid that the time required strictly on PvP may be a bit much for me to maintain a normal life and still get everything I want out of PvE (ugh and WvW … when I can find time to do that … stupid legendary precursor).

My main point is I’m gonna be sick if I put all this effort into all 4 seasons and miss 1 piece of the Legendary because of 1 requirement. I feel that the requirements are not clear and are too harsh for a time gated event in a game that has various modes of play and other conflicting time gate events. In essence I want to be able to do it all, but I fear the limitation of time my make it impossible.

My suggestion is then to either add requirements that are not as restrictive or to make it available in some other way after the season. Such as a reward track next season or purchasable with extra PvP league tickets or such … but also to communicate that this will be an option so people know they are not just out of luck if they missed something, otherwise people will be upset, which is fine if that is what you want, but I think your goal should be to make it a challenge but not make it impossible for those willing to put in the work but may not have the skill or may not want to conform to meta norms in order to achieve … which I believe cheapens the victory more than putting in time and valiant efforts.

Definitely separate solo and team queues! And definitely make it possible to lose divisions. Those two are the fundamental flaws that make the supposedly competitive mode not competitive but exploitable. It’s a very simple solution to make it actually earn it’s name as a league.

King xiuras.3615:

Thank you Anet, i am really happy with this! But what about the dc-system. Will players not lose pips when someone is dcded during a match? Will be there changes for maps like the lords from legacy of foefire? And will be there class nerfs before league season 2?

Greetings.

Agree. This needs fixing. I was in a match 4v5 and we almost won and we still lost a pip.

Someone know when the second season will start?

See this is why we PVPers get so angry. The elephant in the room here is why being a solo player immediately puts us at a disadvantage by matching us against premades (and by giving premades such a huge advantage themselves). And yet despite your glued eyes to the feedback on forums and social media websites, you continue to ignore what the community sees as a very serious problem.

Javonovich.5280:

See this is why we PVPers get so angry. The elephant in the room here is why being a solo player immediately puts us at a disadvantage by matching us against premades (and by giving premades such a huge advantage themselves). And yet despite your glued eyes to the feedback on forums and social media websites, you continue to ignore what the community sees as a very serious problem.

Im of 2 minds about this, first you are completely right in what you stated, on the other hand i just dont think this game is popular enough to support 2 queues, as a profesional programmer my self i can tell you that separating the queues is trivial technically if the soft has any cense to it (which given anets track record is a big if), so its not a matter of whether they can do it, but whether the population can support it.

Apolo.5942:

Javonovich.5280:

See this is why we PVPers get so angry. The elephant in the room here is why being a solo player immediately puts us at a disadvantage by matching us against premades (and by giving premades such a huge advantage themselves). And yet despite your glued eyes to the feedback on forums and social media websites, you continue to ignore what the community sees as a very serious problem.

Im of 2 minds about this, first you are completely right in what you stated, on the other hand i just dont think this game is popular enough to support 2 queues, as a profesional programmer my self i can tell you that separating the queues is trivial technically if the soft has any cense to it (which given anets track record is a big if), so its not a matter of whether they can do it, but whether the population can support it.

I get the logistical problems of it. The irony here is that Anet is on an uncomfortable spiral. Most people want soloq, which Anet has staunchly opposed for a while now because there aren’t enough players. Yet most pvp players play soloq, so in its absence they leave the game after being wronged by bad matching algorithms. Then with fewer players overall matchmaking worsens for everyone, PVPers complain more, and Anet ignores them on the issue of soloq because there aren’t enough players (who Anet alienated to begin with). As a result, more players leave… Etc.

So I get it—not enough players increases queue time and there are all kinds of problems with undermining teams of 2 and 3, as well. But to be honest, it’s hard to tell if they are being transparent with the problems of soloq. Anet has a history of staunchly defending some of the worst of pvp, including Skyhammer. It was only until people cried about it on the forums 12x daily that we finally saw something done. So honestly, idk if this is a genuine problem with soloq or another example of ANET’s bullish stubbornness to admit they were wrong.

Either way, they’ve failed to handle the community’s responses/concerns on this issue, and that’s bad for all PVPers because we need a united community with a strong player base.

Feedback summary: after 4 days of season two I’m spitting mad.

I got diamond season one queueing solo with a roughly 50% win rate. In about 50 season two matches, I’ve won maybe 5. I constantly am queued with the exact same players that lost to an obvious team of necros and dragonhunters, only to play yet another match, often against exactly the same team.

Your matchmaking is annihilated. Season one was great, with most matches within a hundred points. These matches are crushing defeats, with minimum 250 points difference. If you didn’t know there wasn’t the slightest chance I could win a single one of those, your matchmaking is way, way off.

In fact it’s so bad it can only be specifically punishing solo queuers. You need us to balance out the smaller teams, but you are repeatedly punching us in the face. We will quit and the queue times your bean counter was so pleased with will skyrocket.

Please fire the bean counter that made the season two decisions in such a way that he will never work on another game I play. Bring back the team that did season one. Beg them if you have to.

Just abandoned a game against, not kidding, four dragonhunters and a necro. I saved my solo queuing brothers a loss. What are you gonna do? Take away a pip? Your punch in the face matchmaking means I can’t get one anyway.

#soangry

Head shot the zombie thread.

I just love the original post and the system we have now. Clearly something went wrong when the game reverted to a broken state! I guess some ppl quit and now there is no need to improve the system anymore since there is not enough qq.

The Ace.9105:

I just love the original post and the system we have now. Clearly something went wrong when the game reverted to a broken state! I guess some ppl quit and now there is no need to improve the system anymore since there is not enough qq.

When in doubt about your pvp game mode… When you find yourself in dark places, when all lights go out and all hopes begin to fade… When you just don’t know what to do, then…

… Just bring back SAB.

I’m saying this a joke of course. There is so much potential with the game, if only build variety and balanced gameplay could be back on the menu along with the WvW overhaul then it would be amazing. And with a GvG mode it would be outstanding.