Guild Wars 2

streaming is another point, no one wants to watch unranked streams.

Simple fix: Only freeze the ladder/pips/legendary achievement but keep everything else (aka ranked queues/matchmaking)

^ This

Evan Lesh.3295:

I feel like 24/7 ladder would create a lot of burnout. Plus there wouldn’t be time for big balance patches to settle before the season starts.

Regarding matchmaking, it seems that two camps are developing. What about ranked matchmaking do you prefer over unranked?

I agree with you in regards to burnout if ladder was 24/7. But I wanted to answer as to why many of us prefer ranked.

1) There is a different player mentality in ranked. More people are using proper builds, conducting rotations, and the level of play on average is often much higher. This is not a built in feature, but rather an adaptation the community has come to. You practice in unranked and you play your real games in ranked. Without ranked, there is only practice.

2) This is related to the map pool, which has been arguably greatly improved with this patch. I enjoy spirit watch now, and even after 3 days I still haven’t been able to get into skyhammer. However, ranked has always offered a place to play specific maps that many players prefer.

I think keeping the mode open between seasons would rock, but honestly, with the changes to the old maps this patch, I want to check them out and play them. So this is the first off-season I’m not missing ranked. I also have finals, so its a little easier to play for fun than be serious in a game. However, I know there are still many players that want more competitive matches.

Ranked is as much of a joke as unranked with the current balance of condi vs. power (im)balance. And another league season should not be considered until the imbalance is addressed for condi v. power. People get tired of watching condi spambots, let alone playing it or against it.

Bring back SoloQ and tPvP separation from the old days. And get rid of that ranked Stronghold crap; or better yet, lets have ranked Stronghold be a map in the ESL map rotation.

Ellie.5913:

brannigan.9831:

Ellie.5913:

I think most people who are complaining are the ones that got teamed in ranked with the best players because of high mmr & against full newbie player teams which they steam rolled and had no kinda challenge, and got a little bit too used to that. Now you can see how it feels to be put with new & not so great players sometimes, its harder to win. But like everyone was saying to me when I complained about horrible matchmaking in ranked….. if you l2p you can carry and win. >.<

Nonsense and stop feeling sorry for yourself and envious. Those two emotions cause 99% of the world’s problems.

Whoaa now no raging plz, what the heck would I be envious of… I find unranked very easy to win and stress free since there’s newbies and not too experienced players on both sides (most of the time)and not just gathered all up and put on 1 side to fight an entire team of experienced players like in ranked S2. And why would I feel sorry for myself….. I don’t get your unlogical logic. Too many silly accusations. Besides I’m lmao at this entire thread >.< funny stuff. (Oh and I think scientists cause most of the worlds problems with all their filthy toxic disease causing chemicals)

We don´t know if your problems in last season were because of bad matchmaking or your own fault. In my experience most players complaining about bad team-mates weren´t better than them. That may not apply to you.
The matchmaking wasn´t good to begin with in unranked (I wrote it earlier, matchmaking on how many games played is silly).
“Too many silly accusations.” Well, that happens when there isn´t enough information. Have you tried recording your matches?

Btw, scientists the source of most problems? Without “scientists” we would still sit in our caves. Not me actually, without antibiotica (one of the most important discoverys in medicin history) I probably wouldn´t have survived my first year (Pneumonia). Its not about the inventions, its about how they are used by mostly other people.

Evan, would it be possible to freeze everyone’s old ranked MMR from Pre-leagues and re-enable that along with the old ranked matchmaking after every league season?

I think that’s what most players are asking for.

It’s not just because unranked has bad matchups from decayed or volatile MMR. It’s also a human nature issue from player perceptions. Unranked games typically have a more casual mindset, and as such people don’t really take the games as seriously.

Evan Lesh.3295:

We can create a new MMR that is used during off season, but it’d have the same problems as unranked in that it is dormant 8 weeks at a time. If we continued to use ranked MMR, would that be a problem for when the new season begins? Would people try to tank their MMR in the off-season to try and get easier matches?

I mean, consider it as 3 separate modes with separate MMRs independent of each other. Unranked, Ranked, and Leagues.

During League seasons, disabled Ranked and freeze everyone’s MMR and start using Leagues matchmaking system. Replaced the "Ranked’ button with “Leagues”. After Leagues, re-enable “normal” Ranked queues with the frozen MMR from before.

It’d also give you data to compare the MMR of players who play ranked regularly and the MMR from Leagues.

Evan Lesh.3295:

bloodpyrope.8630:

Evan Lesh.3295:

We can create a new MMR that is used during off season, but it’d have the same problems as unranked in that it is dormant 8 weeks at a time. If we continued to use ranked MMR, would that be a problem for when the new season begins? Would people try to tank their MMR in the off-season to try and get easier matches?

I mean, consider it as 3 separate modes with separate MMRs independent of each other. Unranked, Ranked, and Leagues.

During League seasons, disabled Ranked and freeze everyone’s MMR and start using Leagues matchmaking system. Replaced the "Ranked’ button with “Leagues”. After Leagues, re-enable “normal” Ranked queues with the frozen MMR from before.

It’d also give you data to compare the MMR of players who play ranked regularly and the MMR from Leagues.

It’s a fine idea, I’m just cautioning that the volatility in matchmaking that happens during off-season will still be there with a third off-season ranked arena. It just maintains the barrier to entry and split queues.

Matchmaking will perform better with more people, and only having one arena helps that. Is there anything that could create a shift in perception with unranked that would solve these problems?

The perceptions that exist are based on player choices. I think it is out of control of the game.

I have an additional question. Couldn’t you use the off season to test out any new matchmaking tweaks? This could make leagues, which I really want to like, feel less like an ongoing beta test. Data could be gathered and additional tweaks can be made. This would be better if there was the ranked arena with the above suggestions.

Evan Lesh.3295:

Is there anything that could create a shift in perception with unranked that would solve these problems?

If I knew of a way to affect player perceptions, I’d be working at Riot :P

But generally, I don’t think it’s a good idea to mix together players with different goals. Casual and hardcore players just don’t enjoy playing with each other. That’s why so many games have separate queues of ranked and unranked, and why even in PvE there’s so much whining about toxicity and elitism.

Even if after a while, “hardcore” players raise their MMR to a point where they don’t get teamed up/against “casuals”, they still might want to take a break to learn a new class or test a build. They have no way of doing so without interfering with their “harcore” teammates goals. To avoid messing up their teammate’s games, they’d either have to go into a hotjoin zergfest, or just make a new account or something.

At least with 2 queues, they have the option of unranked.

Evan Lesh.3295:

bloodpyrope.8630:

Evan Lesh.3295:

We can create a new MMR that is used during off season, but it’d have the same problems as unranked in that it is dormant 8 weeks at a time. If we continued to use ranked MMR, would that be a problem for when the new season begins? Would people try to tank their MMR in the off-season to try and get easier matches?

I mean, consider it as 3 separate modes with separate MMRs independent of each other. Unranked, Ranked, and Leagues.

During League seasons, disabled Ranked and freeze everyone’s MMR and start using Leagues matchmaking system. Replaced the "Ranked’ button with “Leagues”. After Leagues, re-enable “normal” Ranked queues with the frozen MMR from before.

It’d also give you data to compare the MMR of players who play ranked regularly and the MMR from Leagues.

It’s a fine idea, I’m just cautioning that the volatility in matchmaking that happens during off-season will still be there with a third off-season ranked arena. It just maintains the barrier to entry and split queues.

Matchmaking will perform better with more people, and only having one arena helps that. Is there anything that could create a shift in perception with unranked that would solve these problems?

What’s wrong with only having a single queue?

Keep custom arena, merge the queues into a singular queue entitled “competitive,” and then the MMR rating system stays consistent unless you manually decide to do resets.

The focus is always on the “highly competitive” players changing their attitudes/philosophies to accommodate casual play, but really, there doesn’t seem to be any sort of middle ground available in the game, not to mention that it’s counter intuitive to play a competitive PvP mode so casually as to not believe it should “feel” competitive.

Having this suggested setup allows for casual offseasons to give players (and your system) that break you feel is important, while maintaining their MMR to at least get equal skilled matches, but also illustrates that the nature of a PvP game is in fact, competitive, with the onseason being a result of that, and then there will still always be custom servers to accommodate the “play how you want” people on one front, while the MMR ranking system handles them on another.

If players didn’t want to be ranked, didn’t want to be measured, or didn’t want to be judged by either a system or their peers, then they wouldn’t PvP at all. Your system already avoids embarrassing them with no division regression during onseasons and no way to quantify MMR otherwise, how is that not enough to maintain a happy medium between all of the player types?

Evan Lesh.3295:

We can create a new MMR that is used during off season, but it’d have the same problems as unranked in that it is dormant 8 weeks at a time. If we continued to use ranked MMR, would that be a problem for when the new season begins? Would people try to tank their MMR in the off-season to try and get easier matches?

Season 2 style matchmaking discourages that, does this mean it’s going back to trying to find even matches for season 3?

Evan Lesh.3295:

bloodpyrope.8630:

Evan Lesh.3295:

We can create a new MMR that is used during off season, but it’d have the same problems as unranked in that it is dormant 8 weeks at a time. If we continued to use ranked MMR, would that be a problem for when the new season begins? Would people try to tank their MMR in the off-season to try and get easier matches?

I mean, consider it as 3 separate modes with separate MMRs independent of each other. Unranked, Ranked, and Leagues.

During League seasons, disabled Ranked and freeze everyone’s MMR and start using Leagues matchmaking system. Replaced the "Ranked’ button with “Leagues”. After Leagues, re-enable “normal” Ranked queues with the frozen MMR from before.

It’d also give you data to compare the MMR of players who play ranked regularly and the MMR from Leagues.

It’s a fine idea, I’m just cautioning that the volatility in matchmaking that happens during off-season will still be there with a third off-season ranked arena. It just maintains the barrier to entry and split queues.

Matchmaking will perform better with more people, and only having one arena helps that. Is there anything that could create a shift in perception with unranked that would solve these problems?

I don’t quite understand how everything works in programmer land, but what about this idea… It builds off of what I quoted…

3 Queues… Unranked, Ranked, League (This would be ideal)…

Let’s say we are in an active League Season… So that would leave Unranked and League open to queue into, both with their own MMR ratings working as they are designed… and Ranked would be unavailable.

Now the League Season ends, closing League queues and reopening Ranked. Why don’t you just carry over the League MMR rating into Ranked play to continue giving competitive players the competitive/more serious games they are looking for? Think about it like Ranked and League queues are playing HoT potato (see what I did there) with player’s MMRs when seasons end and begin.

Unranked MMR would stay in Unranked and that’s where it would live. As it’s been discussed previously… Ranked and Unranked players are two totally different types of people, and the only time this could potentially cause problems is when Unranked players decide to make the leap into Ranked/Leagues. They would just need to “settle in” so to speak, which is what we all have to do EVERY League Season anyway…

I realized that after typing this slurry of thoughts that I could’ve just said create the 3 queues I mentioned… Give Unranked its own MMR, and let Ranked and League share their own seperate MMR rating… Oh well I’m leaving it all in case this last part doesn’t explain things thoroughly enough, haha.

Evan Lesh.3295:

ronpierce.2760:

Evan Lesh.3295:

What about Ranked do you want?
Is it standard models?
The type of matchmaking?
Is it the map selection? Now that the maps are updated, is this still an issue?
Do you want to climb the ladder until the the season resets?

The ladder and match making would be nice.

I feel like 24/7 ladder would create a lot of burnout. Plus there wouldn’t be time for big balance patches to settle before the season starts.

Regarding matchmaking, it seems that two camps are developing. What about ranked matchmaking do you prefer over unranked?

Other competitive games push constant (every 2 weeks or less) balance patches during competitive season with an ever-present ladder. It’s not a problem. Or rather, any problems created are vastly inferior to the problem of killing any sense of community by turning off the only competitive queue for almost a month. turning off the ladder destroys any sense of progression and causes people to stop playing the game. It’s far, far, far more difficult to get people to come back to a game they’ve stopped playing than it is to keep someone playing a game.

My advice: stop going in for huge balance patches every 3 months, switch to a cadence of bi-weekly or monthly minor balance patches, and don’t turn off the ranked mode + ladder ever

;Evan Lesh.3295:

Because of the way division cutoffs work, I would not want to open ranked arena during the off-season and keep the league-style of matchmaking. We would need to switch it to the old unranked matchmaking which would just be pre-leagues ranked arena.

Can’t you compensate this by leaving ranked open during the offseason but freezing MMR?

How are we here discussing this in offseason after league 2 when people were already so vocal and not getting anything during last break,that you (Anet) can put us through 2 ranked seasons, AFTER two test ladder seasons, and not doing anything to prepare for this break? Season 2 just lasted 10 weeks or whatever and you knew all ranked players hated the last break, but here we are again…

The break is destructive and gives your pvpers nothing else to do, and you see that because most your ranked pvp players on stream etc start to play other games. No, i will not set foot in unranked in offseason (as the only rated arena you get complete newbies stumbling around like headless chickens).

I would very much prefer if matchmaking rules reverted to the pre-league configuration during offseason, with the same MMR kept. If anything it would give people who think their MMR was skewed unfairly by the previous league system a chance to get it back near its true value. Even if that’s not done, having ranked queue open is still 100% preferable to only having a single queue, and it means people who prefer competitive matches don’t have to quit the game for a month and go play something else.

Evan Lesh.3295:

ronpierce.2760:

Evan Lesh.3295:

What about Ranked do you want?
Is it standard models?
The type of matchmaking?
Is it the map selection? Now that the maps are updated, is this still an issue?
Do you want to climb the ladder until the the season resets?

The ladder and match making would be nice.

I feel like 24/7 ladder would create a lot of burnout. Plus there wouldn’t be time for big balance patches to settle before the season starts.

Regarding matchmaking, it seems that two camps are developing. What about ranked matchmaking do you prefer over unranked?

I’ve been playing a lot of League of Legends lately, and they have a really developed update/balance cadence which I think would be worth taking a look at as a potential model.

The ladder is constantly “on” with big changes being previewed on their Public Beta Environment, which is always 1 step ahead of the “live” patch. Competitive play lags behind slightly (for example, the current live patch is 6.8, which just dropped – while the LCS finals were on, the pros played on 6.6 while the rest of the live game was on 6.7).

I simply mention this because I think some sort of staggered patch structure like this would be one way to address your concern about metas developing. On the other hand, constantly having a reason to give your best may help the meta settle faster; as it is now, unranked really isn’t worth playing because of rewards and the pool of players is really small, so there’s very little variability in the sorts of matches you get (either you get stomped or run away with the win).

As old as Guild Wars 2 is (almost 4 years!), the competitive scene is really just getting started, and I think it’s worth ANet’s while to look at some successful esports games to get an idea of how to work around this problem. sPvP has huge potential to be fun and interesting imo, but it currently feels lacking; I think some of it has to do with population and numbers, and some of it has to do with the fact that the established cadence relies on this “turning off ranked” period which I think most players agree isn’t good for the game’s growth as a potential esport.

As an aside, not related to ranked vs unranked, most of the esports I find interesting always have an element of persistence between matches that makes games and matchups interesting. In League of Legends, it’s the pick & bans of the draft mode where a metagame really flourishes over the course of a series. In Counter Strike, it’s the economy and how it becomes an important focus over the course of 15 rounds. DotA2, Overwatch, etc all share these elements. Currently, Guild Wars 2 lacks something like this “series metagame” as all teams blind pick what they want to play (with some idea as to their matchup) and just go at it. The series metagame potential is fairly low, imo, and as a spectator that might not be deep into the game, the choices players make seem to be related more to a developer dictated meta, rather than due to the matchup or series ahead. Part of this, I think, has to do with the fact that the trait system is fairly obtuse for players that aren’t already fairly engaged in the game.

The only constructive idea I had that might move GW2 this way (and it’s super not hashed out) is to simulate a sort of “Draft” mode for teams going into a match “lock-in” one member at a time that the other team can see – this way there is much more potential for a series metagame to evolve – which would probably mean a Bo5 series might make more sense than Bo3. I think this approach does a better job of surfacing the importance of traits and builds and makes it a central part of how a team builds for the match ahead. As I said, it’s not very well thought out, but a start.

Evan Lesh.3295:

What about Ranked do you enjoy more than Unranked during off-season?

Is it that you prefer climbing a ladder all the time? Or are there other particular reasons.

Haha hello Evan.

I didn’t think this thread would get that much traction. Didn’t mean to leave you hanging mang.

I think the main takeaway is unranked’s algorithm…whatever it is, spreads out the “better” or “higher mmr” players per team rather than stacking them all on one team like ranked does. However, ranked has the added benefit of the climb, people take it more seriously, and usually late in the season people are usually where they belong skill-wise.

It’s also a lot easier to play with 10 people in your skill bracket and test things to see how the meta is without having to be on a team or scrim etc. The quality of the players are higher even if the distribution of the teams aren’t as balanced as unranked.

That’s the main thing for me. Unranked could have 1 or 2 good players on a team and 3 sporadic random MMR players while ranked late in the season evens out everyone’s skill level for the most part. So, you’ll have 10 players that you can play against and winning and losing seems to be more in your control than not.

Also, this is more towards feedback, but I think resets shouldn’t reset people’s ranks back to Amber every season if it’ll be such a short season. I think there should be something like 5 placement matches and the system places you anywhere it thinks you belong (not Legendary) at the start.

I also think win streaking and getting +1 pip every time is a bit much, maybe winning 3 in a row gains you 1 additional pip, but not after ever 3rd win. It should be like 3, 6, 9, 12 etc. will you net you 1 additional pip.

Also, I feel like people should be able to be demoted out of Divisions starting from Ruby back down to Sapphire, Legend 1 to Diamond etc. but that could be a bit much. The other suggestions are probably more important imo.

I think once you have good, competitive, fun matches for the most part then the end of season rewards can be put into perspective. As of now disabling ranked Qs isn’t doing anything significant in terms of end of season rewards because most everyone is getting the same thing. It’s not like I’m hype about my 5 gold and eggplants for being Legend.

To be honest I would just like ranked available 24×7- even if there is no leaderboard/progression.
The matchmaking for ranked would have tighter MMR (for matching teams) during off seasons and ensure a bit less volitity when going into the next season.

Not sure it would work at the moment – as you are going to change the match making for ranked again prior to the next season starting.
Once you’ve fixed whatever the matching algorithm is (eg not all high MMR vs medium MMR)- this would be welcome.

Half a dozen unranked games and I’m sick of off-season already. Let’s get some sort of ranked arena back please.

Unranked is basically hot join. At least that’s how it seems to be played.

Evan Lesh.3295:

What about Ranked do you enjoy more than Unranked during off-season?

Is it that you prefer climbing a ladder all the time? Or are there other particular reasons.

- The Map Selection for starters. That’s the biggest reason honestly. No one likes playing Skyhammer and Spirit Watch. Doesn’t matter what you do to them. The mechanics are too easily abused.

- Fewer new/casual players in the queue. There are players who play Unranked specifically to avoid the people in ranked. Not so coincidentally, the inverse is true as well. You’re forcing players who are trying to avoid one another to play together.

- Finally, what else is there to do? There’s no other facet of PvP to fall back on during offseason. Just a worse version of the Ranked queue we’d rather have. PvP is not exactly an expansive game mode. Turning off ranked is like turning the game off for many of us. It just doesn’t make sense to turn off Ranked or limit the ladder to seasons. There’s surely a better way.

Coronit.9432:

Ellie.5913:

brannigan.9831:

Ellie.5913:

I think most people who are complaining are the ones that got teamed in ranked with the best players because of high mmr & against full newbie player teams which they steam rolled and had no kinda challenge, and got a little bit too used to that. Now you can see how it feels to be put with new & not so great players sometimes, its harder to win. But like everyone was saying to me when I complained about horrible matchmaking in ranked….. if you l2p you can carry and win. >.<

Nonsense and stop feeling sorry for yourself and envious. Those two emotions cause 99% of the world’s problems.

Whoaa now no raging plz, what the heck would I be envious of… I find unranked very easy to win and stress free since there’s newbies and not too experienced players on both sides (most of the time)and not just gathered all up and put on 1 side to fight an entire team of experienced players like in ranked S2. And why would I feel sorry for myself….. I don’t get your unlogical logic. Too many silly accusations. Besides I’m lmao at this entire thread >.< funny stuff. (Oh and I think scientists cause most of the worlds problems with all their filthy toxic disease causing chemicals)

We don´t know if your problems in last season were because of bad matchmaking or your own fault. In my experience most players complaining about bad team-mates weren´t better than them. That may not apply to you.
The matchmaking wasn´t good to begin with in unranked (I wrote it earlier, matchmaking on how many games played is silly).
“Too many silly accusations.” Well, that happens when there isn´t enough information. Have you tried recording your matches?

Btw, scientists the source of most problems? Without “scientists” we would still sit in our caves. Not me actually, without antibiotica (one of the most important discoverys in medicin history) I probably wouldn´t have survived my first year (Pneumonia). Its not about the inventions, its about how they are used by mostly other people.

Hmm well if you think that I belong on a complete team of noobies in ranked & put against a complete team of non noobies (Which makes no sense since I’ve been playing this crap for 3 years non stop & used to have a pretty high win rate before all the MM changes so I’m definitely not a noobie ) Then I think you deserve to be put on a team of noobies in UNranked & against a highly organized experienced premade. The irony is hilarious >.<

And yea scientists are our worlds biggest problem, they are slowly killing everything and everyone, there’s no way to escape the chemical apocalypse . The world was clean and pure and natural in the beginning then scientists come along and invent chemicals then everything becomes poisoned and toxic. The air the land the water food everything. I don’t think most humans lived in caves in the beginning anyways, I’m sure they were smart enough to make some type of a shelter/home.

Evan Lesh.3295:

Is there anything that could create a shift in perception with unranked that would solve these problems?

Visible and transparent MMR ratings. When it is a complete black box to players, there is no way around massive perception problems.

Even though I genuinely want to believe that the matchmaker is doing a passable job 80% of the time, the other 20% seriously makes me doubt it completely. The other day I got a match where it really was like a band of natives with bows and arrows up against an enemy riding around in Abrams tanks with Patriot missiles – it was during prime time NA shortly after reset and was under a minute queue time for me. That that kind of match is even possible makes me serious doubt all functions of how matches are put together.

If I can see my actual MMR rating, and the rating of my teammates and enemies, and how they change after a match, it would go a long way to trusting the system. But right now, it seems to me that it’s a black box that produces highly anomalous results a significant fraction of the time. And I’ll never trust such a thing.

Evan Lesh.3295:

ronpierce.2760:

Evan Lesh.3295:

What about Ranked do you want?
Is it standard models?
The type of matchmaking?
Is it the map selection? Now that the maps are updated, is this still an issue?
Do you want to climb the ladder until the the season resets?

The ladder and match making would be nice.

I feel like 24/7 ladder would create a lot of burnout. Plus there wouldn’t be time for big balance patches to settle before the season starts.

Regarding matchmaking, it seems that two camps are developing. What about ranked matchmaking do you prefer over unranked?

Yo, no offense, but this is why other games have Public Test Realms for players to test all the big balance patches out before the season starts.

I’m hard pressed to think of a game that has this long of a gap between seasons. Hearthstone has zero gap. LoL has zero gap. Competitive PvE Seasons in Diablo 3 and PoE has week to two week gaps. WoW Arena seasons ended every major patch and started back up a week after the patch happened.

If get burnt out, than I just choose to skip a season; Anet doesn’t need to be my parent for that.

That leaves the issue of the balance patches which really amounts to you forcing an obligatory long testing period on the PvP population instead of supporting a PTR where the people interested can check out the changes and figure out new builds.

I feel like the problems with unranked are problems with the behaviour of people in unranked, not with the match format itself… A better report/reputation system would go a very long way towards solving those problems, and I think that’s where ANet should focus their efforts.

How about introducing a “low priority queue” for people who’ve been the subject of too many reports within a certain period of time? That would allow you to segregate the more problematic members of the community and put them in a kind of ghetto where they’d only get to play with each other (they would only get matched up with normal priority queue teams if the matchmaking system has been forced to broaden its parameters due to lack of good matchups or too long spent in queue), without forcing ANet to have GMs going through every report manually.

There would have to be safeguards of course. Low priority status would wear off after a time (and be extended if you got more reports). Nobody would get put in the low priority queue unless they’ve received multiple reports. If they’ve received reports from people both on their team and on the opposing team, those reports should be weighted more heavily, as there’s clearly a strong consensus that this person was ruining the fun from everyone, and ditto if they’ve received reports from multiple matches. Reports originating from people in the low priority queue themselves should get lower weighting, as reporting someone for no good cause could be used in retaliation for someone reporting them. Finally, a single strike should land you in the lower priority queue for only about half an hour or so assuming you don’t receive further reports,, and people shouldn’t be aware of having been put in it.

I don’t expect this to work as well in GW2 as it does in games like lol or dota2, where there’s millions of people queueing for a match, so the low-priority queue is more effectively segregated, but it’ll help a bit. Nor should it replace the current reporting system (I assume you still investigate people who get reported a lot), it would just be an automated way to make people who behave badly stand in the corner for a bit. They still get to chat with the other people standing in the corner, but they’re not ruining matches for the rest of us.

Personally I never get matched with people who set out to lose a match so to me that just sounds ridiculous and VERY exaggerated, my teams and my opposing teams always try…..

I don’t PvP much, certainly didn’t during this past season, however, perhaps that is why it is so obvious to me why the match making works better in ranked than it does in unranked.

That is, of course that because of how the season two iteration of leagues worked it would funnel people in the same bracket to play against each other and it would not be easy for skilled people to stay in brackets that shall we say are not congruent to their actual skill level.

However, pre-leagues matchmaking for ranked, even if restored during off season, could never in my opinion reach the same quality of matchmaking that the leagues can potentially reach because of how pips and divisions affect matchmaking in leagues.

But like some others have pointed out, the concept of off season isn’t really necessary at all… there are other potential solutions for the problems that you are trying to address with a gap between seasons.

To tell the truth ideally the matchmaking for seasons could somehow be applied to off seasons, if we absolutely have to have them, because to me it is just silly to have potentially three (unranked being the third) different kinds of matchmaking in the game to begin with. Just stick to the one that works the best… which at the moment, for ranked play is league matchmaking.

The cool thing about unranked it is not formulaic like ranked. If you want to just run points you can or just bunk a point or only go for secondary objectives. Sometimes both teams forget there are capture points and have an all out brawl in the middle of skyhammer map. If it wasn’t like that I probably would never have played PvP at all. I suspect other people would give up too. There’s times of the day when premades make unranked unplayable so you have to quit and try at another time.

The good thing about ranked is it offers more challenging matches and there are specific goals you can set for yourself.

You can’t compare ranked and unranked. They are two completely different games. They both have their place and are both necessary.

Lock progression after every season, keep everyone on their current rating untill the next season. It’s simple.

Evan Lesh.3295:

ronpierce.2760:

Evan Lesh.3295:

What about Ranked do you want?
Is it standard models?
The type of matchmaking?
Is it the map selection? Now that the maps are updated, is this still an issue?
Do you want to climb the ladder until the the season resets?

The ladder and match making would be nice.

I feel like 24/7 ladder would create a lot of burnout. Plus there wouldn’t be time for big balance patches to settle before the season starts.

Regarding matchmaking, it seems that two camps are developing. What about ranked matchmaking do you prefer over unranked?

Burnout agrument makes no sense at all. If you individually want to stop playing for a few weeks you can just do so and start ranking up later in the season. Is arenanet trying to tell players when they should take a break? Like how do you even come up with that?? Balance patches are usually flawed anyway. I would rather play ranked with broken balance until you can hotfix it than this unranked garbage.

I seriously cannot bear unranked. You make me quit. Said this last season (actually a huge part of the competitive scene did) and I don’t get how you changed nothing.

playing with/against total noobs makes u burnout and giving a reason to not queue.

In every sport, teams use the off-season to practice, assemble, recruit, learn new tactics etc. They also do practice games and scrims with other teams.

But, if ANET decides to turn ranked play on 24/7 to make a minority of hardcore competitive players happy then there is a better way to do it.

I propose adding the options Unranked Play and Solo-Q Ranked 24/7 and then a Team-Q Ranked option only playable during seasons.

This, because one of the most frustrating things about current ranked play is being part of a group of soloQ players and get matched against premades with voice comm etc… There’s no sense of fairness or true competition in that. And at the end of the day, the vast majority of the player base prefer soloQ anyway (see the snowball?)

I was sooo confused and sad when S1 started and there was no Ranked. I always felt that Unranked was poorly matched and I hate hate hate Skyhammer. But, I am between camps right now. I feel like Unranked out of seasons gives you an opportunity to try new things without being set on by your team mates being called ‘noob’ all the time when they don’t know you or your skills from Adam. But, if you’re being placed with unbalanced teams, you can’t accurately determine any new builds well. So there are fors and against already.

As for people saying unranked brings more ‘chilled’ players. I agree that if they ’don’t care’ about their team/winning then it is less competitive, but if they aren’t shouting at one another causing horrendous team morale which is more likely to yield a big loss is not a bad thing. People in ranked during the season would say things like “well I’ve no pips to lose, I don’t care, I go AFK” so although that’s bad sportsmanship on their side, its a similar situation for the rest of the team and is certainly not fun for those who CAN lose pips. I felt things dramatically change as I went on an incredible win streak through Ruby. I felt it was more fast paced, fewer bust games either side, more supportive team mates, more communication – BECAUSE you have more to lose in Ruby. So, in fairness I don’t genuinely feel like much would change player mindset-wise should Ranked be there off-season.

I also don’t understand what people are saying about rewards? How are rewards different for ranked vs unranked? I still progress through the same reward track and still work towards my achievements and titles…

I am therefore undecided. But, simply due to match choices, I’d definitely still just play Ranked off-season if it was available, and would play Unranked for trying new builds, which is how it should be anyway, imo.

Cyanon.1928:

In every sport, teams use the off-season to practice, assemble, recruit, learn new tactics etc. They also do practice games and scrims with other teams.

But, if ANET decides to turn ranked play on 24/7 to make a minority of hardcore competitive players happy then there is a better way to do it.

I propose adding the options Unranked Play and Solo-Q Ranked 24/7 and then a Team-Q Ranked option only playable during seasons.

This, because one of the most frustrating things about current ranked play is being part of a group of soloQ players and get matched against premades with voice comm etc… There’s no sense of fairness or true competition in that. And at the end of the day, the vast majority of the player base prefer soloQ anyway (see the snowball?)

I didn’t think solo queuers could be matched with a full premade now?

Trying out new builds and practicing is not the problem. You can do that and still try to play the right way. Like half the people in unranked are complete beginner level players that don’t know the basics. Thats main problem half your teammates not knowing what they are doing dieing in ten seconds and putting you in uneven fights all match long. You can’t even really practice because fights are so awful on average you win in 10 seconds or die in ten seconds not even good for practice. Need to have a place for the more serious player that expects a minimum level of compentency to practice in offseason.

Evan,

I feel it’s a shame you would delete an entire set of ideas just because of one word. So edited version.

Rather than asking yourself why people prefer ranked to unranked you should be asking yourself: What can we do during off-season in order to keep the players interested and not massively leaving the game?

Simple fix: Only freeze the ladder/pips/legendary achievement but keep everything else (aka ranked queues/matchmaking)

Harder fix: From what i hear many people like 2v2 format (and ESL has 5v5 format AND 2v2 format). So when 5v5 ranked season ends, instead of making an off-season and shutting everything down, make a 2v2 ranked season begin. This, in addition to pvp diversity, could also be an opportunity for different rewards. This, obviously, takes a little bit of work from Anet and i’m not sure you guys are willing to put the effort in. Just remember that GW1 had HoH, GvG, RA, TA and even codex towads the end…that’s 5 different pvp formats!

PS 1: Also you have to consider that the problem with nothing happening during off-season is not only players massively leaving, it’s also an entire month where you can’t clearly see the meta (even though most people would have an idea…) and therefore can’t fix broken builds before a new season.

PS 2: Is 2v2 ESL streamed? I don’t see anything… and if not why? Again i think many players would be interested in watching that and it would promote that format.

Celine.6857:

Cyanon.1928:

In every sport, teams use the off-season to practice, assemble, recruit, learn new tactics etc. They also do practice games and scrims with other teams.

But, if ANET decides to turn ranked play on 24/7 to make a minority of hardcore competitive players happy then there is a better way to do it.

I propose adding the options Unranked Play and Solo-Q Ranked 24/7 and then a Team-Q Ranked option only playable during seasons.

This, because one of the most frustrating things about current ranked play is being part of a group of soloQ players and get matched against premades with voice comm etc… There’s no sense of fairness or true competition in that. And at the end of the day, the vast majority of the player base prefer soloQ anyway (see the snowball?)

I didn’t think solo queuers could be matched with a full premade now?

According to patch notes, u should not, but I have been matched against full pre-mades in Diamond division many times while having a full solo team.

Either way, If you are soloQing u should never ever be matched against a premade, even if the rest of ur team is on party.

Ranked is great if you hover with a true performance team all of the same skill level, who grow at the same pace or if you are able to play only with others of your actual skill level.

Ranked is a problem if you have many friends/guild mates who are of mixed skill levels. During S2, no one wanted to play with each other. It was advantageous for high MMRs to avoid low MMRs and vice versa, for the sake of positive match making results and pip gains. This was detrimental to the community player base.

Unranked has been great again so far since S2 ended:

• Everyone is playing together again. Mixed MMRs can group together.
• People are playing more frequently, Players are coming back to the pvp scene.
• Players don’t judge each other “so much” in unranked.
• Everything is more viable in unranked. = having fun playing different builds
• Que times are much lower in unranked with population combined.

During ranked seasons we have an effect going on where competitive players stay and less competitive players go away to find something else to do because the avid player base that keeps the casuals interested in pvp, doesn’t have a single encouraging reason to even communicate with less competitive players during ranked seasons, let alone form a team with them. This effect is purely negative on spvp guilds.

I love ranked seasons but I also love unranked down time so that I can actually play, teach and have fun with friends & guild members who would never otherwise be able to compete in a premade legend division team.

I think that two months of season vs. a month or two of unranked is a perfect mix. It gives guild leaders & team leaders, time to organize and teach before the next season. This time is important for those who work with more casuals & intermediates.

Ah… so to narrow down what I’m saying:

• Ranked needs to be situated so that mixed MMR teams have some incentive to play together again.
• Unranked is fine as it is and is a crucial community glue that not enough players recognize.

Trevor Boyer.6524:

Ranked is great if you hover with a true performance team all of the same skill level, who grow at the same pace or if you are able to play only with others of your actual skill level.

Ranked is a problem if you have many friends/guild mates who are of mixed skill levels. During S2, no one wanted to play with each other. It was advantageous for high MMRs to avoid low MMRs and vice versa, for the sake of positive match making results and pip gains. This was detrimental to the community player base.

Unranked has been great again so far since S2 ended:

• Everyone is playing together again. Mixed MMRs can group together.
• People are playing more frequently, Players are coming back to the pvp scene.
• Players don’t judge each other “so much” in unranked.
• Everything is more viable in unranked. = having fun playing different builds
• Que times are much lower in unranked with population combined.

During ranked seasons we have an effect going on where competitive players stay and less competitive players go away to find something else to do because the avid player base that keeps the casuals interested in pvp, doesn’t have a single encouraging reason to even communicate with less competitive players during ranked seasons, let alone form a team with them. This effect is purely negative on spvp guilds.

I love ranked seasons but I also love unranked down time so that I can actually play, teach and have fun with friends & guild members who would never otherwise be able to compete in a premade legend division team.

I think that two months of season vs. a month or two of unranked is a perfect mix. It gives guild leaders & team leaders, time to organize and teach before the next season. This time is important for those who work with more casuals & intermediates.

Ah… so to narrow down what I’m saying:

• Ranked needs to be situated so that mixed MMR teams have some incentive to play together again.
• Unranked is fine as it is and is a crucial community glue that not enough players recognize.

Incredible well explained post. +1

This post is explaining very eloquently all the problems that metrics are unable to show.

Hah this thread is funny.

There is No diffrence between the “skill level” ive seen during this off season to when the league’s where playing. The only diffrence now is your enemy team is usually as bad as your’s. so it’s at least a bit better then league play.

Cyanon.1928:

Please, keep this discussion constructive, trying to discredit ppl who might actually have a great point, doesn’t make your viewpoints more appealing.

I was actually making the most important point that we as higher rated ppl have:

Unranked = lower quality matches overall for higher rated ppl = less enjoyable.

Hm, I like seeng my name on some sort of “leaderboard.” Maybe you could add an Unranked rating/leaderboard that is different than the Ranked pip board?

It would be a nice way to get players used to the idea of being ranked and rated.

Evan Lesh.3295:

As for skilled opponents, this is really just a perception problem as some players don’t feel comfortable playing in a ‘Ranked’ mode (Plus the rank 20 requirement). In a perfect world matchmaking would just handle people who don’t take unranked seriously by way of their MMR dropping, but I understand the barrier to entry of ranked acting as a sort of filter.

~“Our metrics say the unwavering impression of every respondent so far is wrong, regardless of their actual on hands experience in game.” XD

But let’s go with the “perception” way of thinking. If it’s just a perception thing then it’d make sense to remove unranked, and simply have a “Queue up and play” button. If you’re PvPing you’re pvping with the entire pvp community, off season, on season, and let the MMR sort everybody out.

oh boy, my turn for again!

FORUUUUUUUUUUM BUUUUUUUUG

Here’s another way of putting it, since we’re apparently so concerned about “protecting everybody’s gameplay experience.”

If I can’t retain my MMR from my ranked play or play in a ranked queue where I’m placed accordingly, I can’t report people intentionally ruining games for griefing, I can’t witchhunt those people in ANY outlet so that they can be punished in any sort of manner, and I can’t even avoid them on the forums when they come here and gloat that your current system is hurting my gameplay experience, then how exactly are you enhancing or protecting my gameplay experience?

Just some food for thought, Evan, along with my prior queue suggestion.

At the very least, give us the option to turn on standard models for unranked queues too, fighting asuras is a nightmare.

I think the demand is not for a ranking as such. It is rather for a differenciation between “test-mode” and “rank-mode”. unranked is test-mode. If a player is bad in ranked, he gets flamed with the words “go unranked”. Now all players are in unranked. How to flame the bad players now? Welcome to the core of the demand! In fact we are talking about matchmaking.

Matchmaking is difficult to understand and highly intransparent. I would suggest starting there instead of thinking about a 24/7/30/365 ladder. One option could be the demand from last season. Make mmr visible. Show the players how and why they are matched against/with certain other players.

Evan Lesh.3295:

What about Ranked do you enjoy more than Unranked during off-season?

Is it that you prefer climbing a ladder all the time? Or are there other particular reasons.

Would have thought it was obvious, better quality of matches. And wasn’t ranked live all the time prior to the move to seasons?