Guild Wars 2

This message is sort of a shout out to Anet and anyone considering this game for its PVP. While i will say that i adore the mechanics of the pvp in this game. I have grown tired of its lackluster matchmaking.

So as someone with a 50% winrate this is what i put up with.

1. Certain matches i’ll get someone who has literally never touched pvp before.

2. Many game’s are so lopsided that- win or lose these games are just boring. And it’s not the fact that player’s are not trying to work together, its that you can be matched against AN ENTIRE PRE MADE TEAM while searching alone.

PS: If you can’t figure out how to match players on skill and experience then FOR THE LOVE OF ALL KITTTENS please change it so you can’t be matched against pre-mades while alone. This is the single most devastating flaw of matchmaking and regardless of skill this is a MAJOR problem. I don’t think i need to go into detail why… (teamspeak)

Thats why I roam when my teammates are not arround.

eggzackerleeeeeeeeee

This seems to be more appropriate in the PvP sub forum.

That being said – and I’m not saying this is the norm – but there’s something oddly satisfying about having a pug team that barely communicates stomping a guild team hard. Had that happen yesterday, don’t think I’ll ever see it again, but I’ll keep that warm, fuzzy feeling to my grave.

Or until the next shiny comes aloOoohshiny-

So, wait. The company that produced Team and Random Arenas in GW didn’t do the same for GW2? Please forgive my ignorance, but that’s… amazing.

It doesn’t matter how many matches you’ve played.

It doesn’t matter how many matches you’ve won.

It doesn’t matter whether or not the other team is a pre-made and yours isn’t.

If you join an arena match solo, you have extremely high chances of getting saboteurs on your team. In my experience, more than 1 player out of 2 is going to either pretend to be playing, or blatantly screw you over.

They couldn’t care less about PvP, they just want the rewards, and if your team begins to lose, they will make sure the match ends as quickly as possible.

As long as PvP continues to give PvE rewards, if both teams aren’t parties of 5 players each, matchmaking will make no difference whatsoever. It simply cannot.

Huh. When you say “extremely high” I have to contrast that with my experience of maybe 2 completely clueless teammates in the last 125 matches.

My win ratio is a smidgeon better than 50/50, so maybe I’m just getting paired with a smidgeon better class of player?

IndigoSundown.5419:

So, wait. The company that produced Team and Random Arenas in GW didn’t do the same for GW2? Please forgive my ignorance, but that’s… amazing.

u right jack… no random arenas, tis sad truth

I have been new for a bit, maybe 50 games under my belt but I have yet to come across a saboteur. I have seen other new people for sure, but never anyone who actively tried to screw things up.

I do miss Random vs. Team queues though…it sucks seeing a team with all the same clan tag just before they pound your face into the ground.

Today on the internet: PvP in a game is kitten when you play solo!

I’m extremely new to PvP, 20ish games played. Started off in unranked queue, got tired of people not knowing how to play their class or even what the rules of the game were. I at least looked up a build+class basics and common sPvP strategies before going in. So I switched to ranked queue. All of my last 5 ranked games began with 3 teammates sitting on the home point, which meant the one teammate and I who went mid died to their whole team. What are you doing in ranked queue if you don’t even know how the game mode works?

I have 1k solo games in a mixture of hotjoin and spvp… never even touched tpvp lol, yet it’s still my favourite thing in this game and all i do.

Only on forums do you find people who think they know how others will react to things, and think they speak for everyone. I only solo queue and enjoy it quite thoroughly. Sure there are lopsided games, but there are lopsided games in every other matchmaking system I’ve ever played in (Starcraft, MOBAs, FPS).

zapv.8051:

Only on forums do you find people who think they know how others will react to things, and think they speak for everyone. I only solo queue and enjoy it quite thoroughly. Sure there are lopsided games, but there are lopsided games in every other matchmaking system I’ve ever played in (Starcraft, MOBAs, FPS).

>>>>>>>>>>>
Yes I solo Q close to 100% I don’t hate it at all . I would say I have fun 80% of the games even the ones I lose . Lopsided ones too as long as I played well . I think people who want a 70%+ win rate solo Q are the ones who will hate it. I get 50% win rate and I’m good with that.

Whu???? I solo q all the time and have a great time.

As someone who does ranked queue almost exclusively solo while maintaining with about a 65% win rate, I do occasionally get bad match ups like the OP mentioned, but they’re few and far between.

Considering how often people make kittenumptions about enemy team premades and how infrequently people notice when they have a partial premade on their own team, I would recommend people use critical thinking when confronted with these passionate arguments.

Invoker.5462:

This message is sort of a shout out to Anet and anyone considering this game for its PVP. While i will say that i adore the mechanics of the pvp in this game. I have grown tired of its lackluster matchmaking.

So as someone with a 50% winrate this is what i put up with.

1. Certain matches i’ll get someone who has literally never touched pvp before.

2. Many game’s are so lopsided that- win or lose these games are just boring. And it’s not the fact that player’s are not trying to work together, its that you can be matched against AN ENTIRE PRE MADE TEAM while searching alone.

PS: If you can’t figure out how to match players on skill and experience then FOR THE LOVE OF ALL KITTTENS please change it so you can’t be matched against pre-mades while alone. This is the single most devastating flaw of matchmaking and regardless of skill this is a MAJOR problem. I don’t think i need to go into detail why… (teamspeak)

I solo join ranked every night and get good people on my team on a regular basis. Yeah, occasionally I go against a premade team here and there, but that’s okay because sometimes my solo pug group beats them.

Matchmaking seems fine to me.

Dahkeus.8243:

Whu???? I solo q all the time and have a great time

The exception that proves the rule

To me, SoloQ-ing has wielded the same kind of aggrovating matches as many others here voice… Now, I would not say that yours are invalid, but I do think that the majority of the matches (by my own experiences and from talking to others) are just not well balanced…

Sometimes I do have good matches, but the ones that feel whack are just really whack – either completely in my favour or in the enemies… Some other things are like matches that seem close in numbers, but are played with a level that are simply depressing (double capping, 6 Rangers etc.)

Granted, it is not unknown to us that the PvP devs are working on it, but trying to motivate yourself to play gets harder and harder…

IndigoSundown.5419:

So, wait. The company that produced Team and Random Arenas in GW didn’t do the same for GW2? Please forgive my ignorance, but that’s… amazing.

Can’t tell if serious or not o_o

Almost every gaming company will have different directors, programmers, artists, etc. when making a sequel. Especially if that sequel took 3 years or more to produce… Employees will change jobs and game directors will transfer.

Diablo II and Diablo III is a prime example. I thought that game’s PvP was amazing but Diablo III didn’t even adopt dueling/pvp until about 1-2 years later. That blew my mind. Now that it has, almost every aspect about it has changed and it’s very much unbalanced compared to DII.

The same happened to GW1 > GW2. It’s not that the PvP is bad.. because it isn’t, they’re just taking a different route. I personally love it… just wish they extended the game’s PvP experience further.
1v1, 2v2, 3v3, registering teams in game, numerous leaderboards, etc. Pretty much what every Esport mmorpg has

I too have had a fantastic time in pvp and I soloq like 90% of the time….. I don’t think any of us are the exception. I think the people who don’t enjoy are more likely to whine one the forums than people are to come on the forums and say how wonderful it is =)

NeXeD.3042:

I too have had a fantastic time in pvp and I soloq like 90% of the time….. I don’t think any of us are the exception. I think the people who don’t enjoy are more likely to whine one the forums than people are to come on the forums and say how wonderful it is =)

I wish I could say the same, but I seriously do not think I am as good as the people from 55HP Monks, or as bad as people duo/tripple capping

Yet the matchmaking seems to think I am… It’s confusing, and sometimes downright frustrating… I don’t want to spend an entire match either lying on the ground, or picking people off… And the strangest thing is, whenever I do play within say a three-man party or more, this seems to be way less prevalent than Solo-ing (but this may have to do with the frequency of which I Solo compared to Teaming up)

GoogleBrandon.5073:

Dahkeus.8243:

Whu???? I solo q all the time and have a great time

The exception that proves the rule

To me, SoloQ-ing has wielded the same kind of aggrovating matches as many others here voice… Now, I would not say that yours are invalid, but I do think that the majority of the matches (by my own experiences and from talking to others) are just not well balanced…

Sometimes I do have good matches, but the ones that feel whack are just really whack – either completely in my favour or in the enemies… Some other things are like matches that seem close in numbers, but are played with a level that are simply depressing (double capping, 6 Rangers etc.)

Granted, it is not unknown to us that the PvP devs are working on it, but trying to motivate yourself to play gets harder and harder…

Glad you’re familiar with the expression, but if you have some sort of data to back up whether the positive or negative experience is “the rule”, then I’d love to see it.

However, the best you’ll probably get is anecdotal evidence from a few angry posts on the Internet…well, I think that’s where productive conversation ends.

Sounds like EU maybe had population issues? I see people from high level teams occasionally as well and I even had some ranger that killed beast at begging of game then kittened at me after I abandoned him at mid because he was glass it was a 4v2. I ended up decapping far and holding a 2v1 for a minute before fgsing away.

I don’t hate pvp and the majority of my time is spent in soloq. The new system actually gives me close matches, rather than all the blow outs that happened back under the old system. Naturally, the system isn’t prefect and I’ve been at the receiving and giving end of blow outs. However they far and few between compared to the amount of matches I played.

For example this was the last game I played, and a majority of my games follow this trend.

Dahkeus.8243:

Glad you’re familiar with the expression, but if you have some sort of data to back up whether the positive or negative experience is “the rule”, then I’d love to see it.

However, the best you’ll probably get is anecdotal evidence from a few angry posts on the Internet…well, I think that’s where productive conversation ends.

I guess, it is indeed mostly following the trends of threads (granted, it is like NeXeD says, if it works then there is no reason to complain) – however, to me the experience is really quite awful, and far worse than it was…

I think ever since two weeks or something, my general experience dropped several feet, and it was also in this time where I suddenly had matches from people way beyond my league, as to people who were new – and for neither of these people is it a fun experience (Heck, I even call it out most of the times that I lack experience compared to others)

But, following NeXeD’s reply:

NeXeD.3042:

Sounds like EU maybe had population issues? I see people from high level teams occasionally as well and I even had some ranger that killed beast at begging of game then kittened at me after I abandoned him at mid because he was glass it was a 4v2. I ended up decapping far and holding a 2v1 for a minute before fgsing away.

This is actually a fairly interesting thing to me… I mean, I figure the Matchmaking uses the same metrics for NA as wel as EU – and maybe this is why we see a difference in experiences…

I know that it is difficult plowing through dishonest comments and people complaining for the sake of it, but I am genuinly put off most of the times due to being thrown from one end to another… If I would just be capable of “sticking” to one side, I would have less issues with it, but it being so irregular is putting me off…

If the difference is indeed that EU has a smaller PvP community, or whatever reason it might be that causes these irregular matchups, then it might help the Devs in their quest to get it straight for both sides of the Ocean…
Like I mentioned before, I did not have that many issues before a certain time, so I know it is possible for the matchmaking to properly work

Small edit;

Looking at the score at the end of a match is a good way to check for blow-outs, but I cannot say I have had many of those… It is mostly me feeling out of place, something I did not experience ever since a few weeks

@Invoker I would say that key to enjoy soloQ sPVP is to understand that it is random.
SoloQ never should be treated as Ranked that is for team play then it has sense.
I have wrote a topic after my share of struggle in solo Q not only here but in Swtor which is far worse. Link below.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/How-to-enjoy-Solo-sPVP-advices-and-video/

I have to say that new system where you can sign with friend is best option from all worlds. If you do not have full team you sign with as many members as you can and you have this option. Just treating soloQ too serious is root of all problems.

Ihave videos from soloQ ( do not have time to get proper team now) and you can have very fun matches even being solo or with friend. Check my youtube channel in my signature if you like I will keep adding more.
Solo Q can be enjoyable you have to understand that its 5v5 and your team could be simply much weaker then opposing team and you cannot do much about it.
I think Anet did pretty good job as far as SoloQ it is simple not much that can be done about it… Ranked is meant to be played in team vs team maybe 3vs3 would solve it or 2v2 mode.

I solo queue quite often and still have fun. It’s not like I don’t have guildmates to queue with either, there’s always people in my guild looking to team up and communicate on teamspeak.

While many matches may be rather one sided, it’s not without close battles either. I had more games where we managed to pull off a come back and narrow victory of 1-10point differences during solo than team.

Getting new players who have no idea what they’re doing is indeed a downfall, though we all have our bad beginner days. With some luck, you might never see them again in the same match.

I’m playing solo 90% of time and I’m usually getting quite fair matches, sometimes is quite one sided but I don’t really remember when I got a match which would end up like more than 300 points for one side as it used to be long time ago… so I think current matchmaking works good

GoogleBrandon.5073:

Dahkeus.8243:

Glad you’re familiar with the expression, but if you have some sort of data to back up whether the positive or negative experience is “the rule”, then I’d love to see it.

However, the best you’ll probably get is anecdotal evidence from a few angry posts on the Internet…well, I think that’s where productive conversation ends.

I guess, it is indeed mostly following the trends of threads (granted, it is like NeXeD says, if it works then there is no reason to complain) – however, to me the experience is really quite awful, and far worse than it was…

I think ever since two weeks or something, my general experience dropped several feet, and it was also in this time where I suddenly had matches from people way beyond my league, as to people who were new – and for neither of these people is it a fun experience (Heck, I even call it out most of the times that I lack experience compared to others)

But, following NeXeD’s reply:

NeXeD.3042:

Sounds like EU maybe had population issues? I see people from high level teams occasionally as well and I even had some ranger that killed beast at begging of game then kittened at me after I abandoned him at mid because he was glass it was a 4v2. I ended up decapping far and holding a 2v1 for a minute before fgsing away.

This is actually a fairly interesting thing to me… I mean, I figure the Matchmaking uses the same metrics for NA as wel as EU – and maybe this is why we see a difference in experiences…

I know that it is difficult plowing through dishonest comments and people complaining for the sake of it, but I am genuinly put off most of the times due to being thrown from one end to another… If I would just be capable of “sticking” to one side, I would have less issues with it, but it being so irregular is putting me off…

If the difference is indeed that EU has a smaller PvP community, or whatever reason it might be that causes these irregular matchups, then it might help the Devs in their quest to get it straight for both sides of the Ocean…
Like I mentioned before, I did not have that many issues before a certain time, so I know it is possible for the matchmaking to properly work

---

Small edit;

Looking at the score at the end of a match is a good way to check for blow-outs, but I cannot say I have had many of those… It is mostly me feeling out of place, something I did not experience ever since a few weeks

I could see a smaller population playing a role. For what it’s worth, I play on NA.

If you play on off peak hours you could also be a lot more likely to have a bad experience due to a smaller amount of players online.

But I soloQ all the time and I still have fun. There are bad days, but good ones too.

i legit have 0 idea how anet thought having a full 5 man premade facing a full pug was a good idea. This is what happens when a full premade faces a full pug(note this was during primetime)

The only thing I hate is that I often end up in dual thief/mes/nec teams vs perfectly balanced teams. Idk why you would place 3 of them same class in 1 team and 0 of them on the other when neither of the teams is premade. It is just dumb and unfun. Might as well afk/leave those matches as most of themare decided by the team comp and nothing else.
edit: also remove the stupid daily class win thing or change it so that differen people have different dailies. It is just stupid in general.

the range of people’s level and dedication is very high in ranked arena, so basically
range of FUN that you can have in pvp IS HUGE
PLAYERS HAVING FUN=DOLLARS (got the point ; )
….one day i can be ranked with low expirience peopleor those who doesn’t want to communicate even on start, sometimes it goes very good and decent matches.

the matchmaking system need some fixes though.
- more rewards for your efforts? so people will take ranked arena moer serious? tweaking it in the way that for ex-le more silver coins for win (50) and less for loss (5) while keeping unrakned arena the same, so people wn’t just go ranked to try to farm there.
- delete some premade combinations from matchmaking like 1112vs5 or 11111vs5 for ex-le, i know it can affect queues alot, BUT…there is a big BUT, better matchmaking system will attract more people overall and those frustrated soloers (like i sometimes aswell) back to pvp itselfe so the choice for matchmaker will be weider, so basically it should compensate.
- daily class play? I don’t care about dalies, like at all (only if the class that is in daily, i KNOW how to play and i WANT to then i do it, maybe, if i spot etc) but when i get 3 rangers in team i feel like…well…bad that i can’t start queueing straight to next game from this one…i know in some way it makes people to play different classes and try their alts, and maybe like another class, but on another hand it ruins the fun for other people that want to play with some dedicated people
- build templates can save ALOT for pvp aswell, cause sometimes it’s not enough 1 minute to change your entire build when you see it doesn’t fit at all against enemie comp or you can’t swap class and fastly change your build either.

Meh, I have a pretty decent time in Unranked solo queues. The good games (those that are enjoyable regardless of the outcome) have always outnumbered the bad.

The poster who mentioned that you’re likely to run into reward track farmers and casual or semi-casual players this way is spot on, though. Anyone who wants to fly solo should adjust their expectations accordingly.

Some days my teammates all seem to know the basic mechanics and either it’s a good fight or we stomp the other team.

And some days are like today. Because 6 of my 8 matches were vs premade teams of 3-5 memebers. Lots were rank 80. I, and almost everyone I’ve played with, are not rank 80 (I repeatedly asked). There were lots of players than seemed to barely even understand the game type (and RNGesus put them all on my team). And 2 of those 8 matches had afkers and/or leavers in the first minute of the game.

I’ve played more than 8 matches today, but that’s just when I started keeping track because of truly awful the experience was becoming. It’s been one of the most frustrating days I’ve ever had in any game.

This game sometimes… is really bad. I don’t take back what I said before, however nights like tonight make me wonder. Played five games in a row, all against the same premades. (also had to wait +8 mins for all of them). My sixth game I finally get other soloqers and the game starts 4v5.

Definitely makes me not want to play anymore,but I probably will.

It’s actually so much better if you’re ranked in the leaderboards. People know how to rotate, they know the meta builds, they make relatively smart decisions, etc. I know that’s a small number of people, but it’s not all bad. Premades are honestly only an issue if you (or most of your team) don’t know what you’re doing.

All I do is soloq….

I noticed different time zones have different types of players too…

3-6 pm I fight mostly power builds and pewpew rangers
6pm onwards changes to regen bunker condi builds and turret engies / PU mes

Reichbane.6297:

It’s actually so much better if you’re ranked in the leaderboards. People know how to rotate, they know the meta builds, they make relatively smart decisions, etc. I know that’s a small number of people, but it’s not all bad. Premades are honestly only an issue if you (or most of your team) don’t know what you’re doing.

If you think having a predetermined group of players that have practiced together, built a team around, and that talk to each other via teamspeak throughout the match don’t make a difference vs a PuG group then I really don’t know what to say. That’s a view I’ll literally never agree with.

I`m playing solo and it is growing pain ……
even if you spend decent time in SPVP
even if you are well(meta) geared
even if you are well(meta) skilled
even if you don`t mind toxic language

We are focusing the so-called balance in the game.
To me the problem was always the narrow player base.
As far as a can remember GW1 had the random arena where people were matched against 4 other players. There was no “matchmaking problem” back then. Well there was a problem:
1) you have a monk, your team wins – here we don`t have a dedicated monk, here we don`t play in one single group, so such a problem should not exist
2) premades – change your district to Japan or Korea, hit the JOIN buton and you are teamed with your friends that were in the same district.

Leave solo Q and try to drag more players into PVP.
You don`t need to work on a matchmaking engine.

Ever since the last major pvp update hit, the gameplay has been horrible to be honest. I get 2,3 good matches if i’m lucky (i.e i get paired with players of similar skill and exp) and then i get like 6-7 horrible matches (where i am paired with beginners or ppl of very low skill), then i get 2-3 more horrible matches ( where i face extremely poor players or beginners). Its not really about wins or losses for me at this point. But i would like to have the opportunity to have a good game every time and by good games, i mean matches where players are of similar skills and ones that have very close finishes. I get such matches from time to time and i relish them but they are far too rare. The ‘revolutionary’ MMR algorithm is extremely poor and has to be changed as soon as possible.

Also regarding new players pouring in from pve or beginners, i’m all or getting more ppl into pvp but there has to be a structure set so it doesn’t ruin the gameplay for those who like to play a little bit more competitively. Why cant unranked and ranked have a rank requirement? Wont it actually encourage people to take pvp more seriously and level up with some purpose. Maybe 35 plus for unranked and 50 plus or ranked? Yes this means that not everyone can hop in and play everything but to maintain and encourage quality, we do need a little bit of limitation.

I used to love pvp but now its really boring and i truly wish it gets better.

yup, I used to have a 1/1 win rate, then it turned into 1/10, then 1/20; Rage quit pvp ages ago.

I do have a itch to play my condi-ranger since it’s only viable in pvp…

Invoker.5462:

This message is sort of a shout out to Anet and anyone considering this game for its PVP. While i will say that i adore the mechanics of the pvp in this game. I have grown tired of its lackluster matchmaking.

So as someone with a 50% winrate this is what i put up with.

1. Certain matches i’ll get someone who has literally never touched pvp before.

2. Many game’s are so lopsided that- win or lose these games are just boring. And it’s not the fact that player’s are not trying to work together, its that you can be matched against AN ENTIRE PRE MADE TEAM while searching alone.

PS: If you can’t figure out how to match players on skill and experience then FOR THE LOVE OF ALL KITTTENS please change it so you can’t be matched against pre-mades while alone. This is the single most devastating flaw of matchmaking and regardless of skill this is a MAJOR problem. I don’t think i need to go into detail why… (teamspeak)

• Everyone has about 50/50 win/lose due to how MMR works
  You may stomp over low ranks for awhile until your MMR catches your own skill
  Then the opponents you get put against will be 50/50ing you
• A r80 dragon in the top 200 can be placed with r10 85%ers simply because of how MMR balances the team for matches “Only two r80 200s are on so one is on red team the other gets put blue team and then both of you get 4 random PUG r10-15ers who roll the 85% brackets” this is simply to distribute the player experience amongst the two parties for the most balanced match possible, given who is queing at the time
  The idea being: “as balanced as it can be” not 100% balanced, they do the best they can
• Most the teams you think are 5-man premades are actually a duo que who has been teamed up with a triple que

But overall, realize this is conquest that you are talking about here
It is based around the idea of “team play”
So of course any form of greater communication/organization is rewarding
And it should be that way

You need to find a crew to run with and it will solve all of your issues

I’ve been having fun solo. Many matches (with the exception of deathmatch) end up being quite close.

Look at how much fun i’m having facing full premades

Why did ArenaNet make ranked pvp a team queue? You can’t balance communication and coordination with matchmaking…