Guild Wars 2

Its the first person to join the team. You must have a fast computer

dkspins.4670:

Wow! An ArenaNet employee playing a Ranger – be still my beating heart! YES!

My Asuran Ranger is named Beeste (like Beast), my Stalker is named Beauty .

I’m just glad to see someone from ArenaNet playing a ranger, was so weary of being the red-headed stepchild LOL

Oh hey, no surprise there. Rangers are great! In fact, I have played Rangers since 2002 (when the bow was first added to the dev build) and I have no intention of stopping any time soon. It is my favorite profession of all. <3

Reorganization of the English forums is complete. Please let us know in the Bugs Sub-Forum if you experience forum issues, but we believe we’re good to go!

Thanks for your patience while we reorganized.

Personally I like crafting for the sake of crafting, but I’ve known a couple people (even a few working here!) who are not big fans of crafting and haven’t done it at all. Especially for PvE if you’re not a fan of crafting you don’t need to do it. Crafting will always give you better gear than drops, but it is not necessary to enjoy the game! If you don’t want to craft, you can sell off your materials, or save them in case you ever change your mind. Alternately, you can save them for quickly leveling up any alts that you may decide to get later on.

Aaron.2413:

TLDR Don’t make most games = Top, and a .5 w/l vs a .9 w/s lol.. you guys said the .5 was better because he was LOSING closer…. thats ridiculous, the .9 is face rolling… BECAUSE HE IS BETTER

Not necessarily true. The matchmaking could be flawed for any number of reasons. E.g. they tanked their MMR before the start of the season to get easy wins. We are underplaying the benefit of queuing as a group. They only play late at night when matchmaking quality is lower.

If we had completely random matching W/L might mean something, but as long as we filter by rating it’s tainted by selection bias.

Relentliss.2170:

…

No, we aren’t bringing solo queue back. Yes, I am working on making sure you’re less likely to be stacked against pre-mades.

The change I’m referring to benefits everyone because we’re purposely holding back the matchmaking system until this fix goes through. Without this fix, queue times grow during off-peak hours to levels we don’t find acceptable… which causes a feedback loop that increases queue times further as people leave the queue because of the wait.

It benefits outliers because there are far fewer players available at their level, but the system doesn’t (yet) compensate for that fact, so it simply won’t match them. There may be enough players in the queue to form a good match for them, but not enough to meet the amount we prefer for the common scenario. We want a larger pool of choices so we can be picky about thing like profession. So instead they sit in queue until the fail-safes kick in (which increases the range of possible matches by lowering standards) and the system gives them a lower quality match. In that way it benefits the more typical player by preventing the fail-safes from engaging in the first place.

I’m pretty sure it will show the guild name if there is a majority on the team. Else it will show the highest MMR, or it might be your character.

Edit: I don’t remember I’ll check in the morning.

lilwizz.5783:

…

I’ve got a fix for this that will let us ramp up min-potentials, and dynamically scale it back for off-peak hours or outliers.

Should be in for the 16th build unless something goes wrong.

Lordrosicky.5813:

This last part is vital to the games success. I posted this many times over the last year on the forums. Please don’t sacrifice this ideal because it is so important. Some people will QQ about it. But they have vested interests. It is so important that less skilled people who play alot are rewarded.

I think what people might be forgetting, is that we also have tournaments, ESL cups, etc. to cater to those who want skill to be the absolute determinant.

Lopez.7369:

Question: If someone starts the season with a high MMR, and only gets matched with similarly rated or lower-rated people, giving him a 40 to 100 percent of chance of winning, does that mean he’ll have to grind a lot of one-point games to get to the top of the ladder, even though his MMR is so high?

Possibly, if matchmaking was ideal. Ugg, I’d really hate to argue that matchmaking not being perfect was a positive thing. :P

If the beta ladder does show that sort of behavior, what would you guys like to see? The number of points adjusted by the rating relative to the default rating, instead of just relative to the players in the game?

Well, the new matchmaking shouldn’t be making one sided matches.

The exception being when they’re caused by a full party that the system is having trouble matching them. (Looking at you Booms.)

Let me know if you feel like you’re getting trapped and I’ll monitor your games.

Lopez.7369:

It’s interesting to see people say the leaderboard must be a grind because it’s based on points. Isn’t MMR based on points?

No. MMR becomes more stable and accurate with more games, but there can be two players with equal number of games, even an equal number of wins and losses, that have very different MMR.

MarkPhilips.5169:

I’m ready to bet that in the final top100 there will be people with a really bad win ratio and a huge amount of matches played.

I don’t think this will happen, but if it does happen we can change the table so losing always takes away points. It’s only the narrow losses, or going up against a higher MMR and doing OK, that will let you stay neutral after a loss.

Booms.2594:

I am willing to bet you 1000g that I am better than 24/25 of the people on the front page, and another 1000g there are 25 better than me that arent there

I believe you. Seeing as we haven’t officially started the season and 0 people before today were taking it seriously, I think its fair to assume the end of season ladder will not look like this one.

Archaon.9524:

Well no…that might be true for someone sitting around 500 or if you just soloq…if you have a good team and you aim at high ladder 50% ratio is actually pretty bad (That makes you an average team but for sure not a top 100 one)

Not if we’re matching you against other full rosters with similar skill, which is our goal.

Rank 1: 67 wins, 72 losses, total games = 139

higher than

Rank 8: 38 wins, 8 losses, total games = 46

sounds good and fair to you guys…i really dunno what to say anymore

Rank 1 could be solo and have really accurate matchmaking, giving them better quality matches. Rank 8 could be always going with a full roster and face-rolling due to an inaccurate MMR that is still in the process of stablizing.

If you think win/loss ratio is the metric we should be watching, then I know what to say. You’re wrong.

Win/loss ratio is only a valid metric for skill when the number of participants are low, and each participant players ever other participant a fairly equal number of times. This is not the case with nearly every online game, and is not the case with GW2.

Silentshoes.1805:

Is there any significance to the fact that 99% of the time my team is called “Team Silentshoes”?

It used to be random before the patch. Is it ALWAYS your name now?

I believe it takes the player with the highest MMR. Let me ping Evan or Branden. They’re both away from their desks…. so, let’s just go with Justin = correct.

Archaon.9524:

65 wins 75 loses 1st place
i don’t even want to know about others then….rofl

Rank 1: 67 wins, 72 losses, total games = 139
Rank 6: 50 wins, 20 losses, total games = 70
Rank 8: 38 wins, 8 losses, total games = 46

Data is holding to the hypothesis that “more skill equals less grind.”

Also, win/loss ratio shouldn’t mean anything to you. With an ideal perfect matchmaking everyone’d would be at 50%.

crunchyraisin.6054:

I would bet the player in 1st place at that time had a low MMR and queued solo more often than not.

Since there win/loss ratio is under .5, I’d assume their MMR is pretty accurate. I’d think the people with closer to .9 win/loss ratios are ones who might be benefiting from an artificially low MMR and/or are grouping up and facerolling.

Of course, that’s just guessing. I still have to look at the actual data.

Look at the top 2 in NA, both with 58 points as of writing this..

First place:
58 points with 65 wins, 75 loses. That’s ~0.43 points per game.

Second place:
58 points with 63 wins, 51 loses. That’s ~.51 points per game.

That .43 vs .51 is the difference between narrower losses, and winning against tougher opponents. That’s where the skill comes in.

Yes, someone with .5 points per game will be higher than other players with .5 points per game the more they play, but someone with a higher point per game stat will need fewer games to get the same number of points.

Addendum:
Yes number of games also matters. We want the players that play more to be higher on the ladder than similarly skilled players who play less. We also want less skilled players to have a chance as well.

Acandis.3250:

so from what i gather, new ladder is simply about grinding points. so…… most games played = rank 1

More games mean more opportunity for points, but look at the data. There are plenty of players with fewer wins that are higher. There are also players with fewer loses that aren’t as high.

There are people with really high win/loss rations who aren’t even doing as well with 50/50 ratio.

It’s who you play, and how close you come to winning if you lose.

Note: You may experience some difficulties with the forums tomorrow, as the reorganization takes place. You may experience a time out or two, or just general slowness to load. Each forum will be serviced individually, starting with the English-language forum and then working through each one.

We will post a notice when the reorg begins so that you’re aware of the period of time when the forums will be read only and when they’ll be fully back in business.

Silentshoes.1805:

Justin ODell.9517:

Silentshoes.1805:

Meaning 4×5 taken into account?

No, but things like 5 vs 1+1+1+1+1

That’s good to know. 1+1+1+1+1 should get a deep adjustment based on experiences in this test period.

Can you adjust the weighting and then run through ALL the games since the patch in a simulation, until the Expected Winner starts hitting at 100%?

Yes, though it will never hit 100%. Sometimes matches are just too close to tell.

Each case of reported “stalking” or harassment is reviewed by our Customer Support team individually and with care. Here are some steps you could take:

• Block the player on your Friends List
• Play in Invisible Mode
• Try reaching out to the person’s guild leader if you feel that the person would be receptive to helping you
• File an in-game report
• Submit a support ticket (see below for details)
• If the harassment extends to real life (at your home, place of business, via telephone, etc.), contact your local law enforcement agency

Now, there are occasions when claims of “harassment” run in both directions. I am not making a judgment about any situations mention here, but sometimes chat records show a back-and-forth bickering or attacking that does not allow an easy solution. This means an agent confirms an in-game report but also notes that the alleged victim also was in breach of the UA or the RoC. If there’s evidence of what we call “mutual antagonism” then it gets trickier and a resolution isn’t as simple to reach.

If someone is overtly harassing a player, the team may well be able to help with the situation if that player wishes to file a support ticket. (We cannot accept a ticket on behalf of a third party — the person involved should reach out to CS.) When doing so, please provide your character name, the offending player’s character or display name, and a very precise time, time zone, and date. Screenshots are not necessary if you can provide those details, at which time an agent will look up the incident and see what took place.

Bottom line: if you’re being harassed, do not react. Do not have your friends react. Don’t post about it on a forum or make a public issue of it. Do not start a flame war or fire a bunch of verbal mortar shots back in the direction of the person who initiated the attacks. Simply submit an in-game report or, if necessary, a ticket.

If you have submitted a ticket and the team has not reacted, then you need to continue your private discussion with a CS agent, as we would not discuss particulars here on the forums.

tichorum.2415:

So all wins/losses and rank on the new LB will be reset on the 16th?

Yes. We might also reset it before then to test the reset procedures, but we don’t have a firm date for that because we weren’t expecting it to be visible.

Silentshoes.1805:

Meaning 4×5 taken into account?

No, but things like 5 vs 1+1+1+1+1

Silentshoes.1805:

It’s called the Expected Winner calculation. It is determined by the average MMR of each team.

Not just MMR, we also include the maximum roster size on each side.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/PvP_Matchmaking_Algorithm#Match_Prediction

Kite.2510:

Is there a chance that you add more music variety to the old world?
There are many zone that could greatly benefit from some “musical enhancements”.

Kite — it might be helpful if you could give specific areas that you feel would benefit? I’m not sure where the “old world” would be in reference to your post.

Thank you.

Silmar — the standards that you have outlined have been and remain very much at the forefront of my mind as I make proposals for future forum systems. In my opinion, No. 1 is essential; No. 2 is ideal (but not always possible, depending on the service being considered), and No. 3 is not the most feasible or reasonable option for us.

The double negatives are confusing in the fourth section, “It is not possible…is not guaranteed.” For it certainly is possible to do so. Perhaps you meant it differently than it reads?

What would you have named those sectors? We (mostly) went with cardinal directions to help players orient themselves.

Blackmoa.3186:

http://i.imgur.com/Jt0uVNm.png

So how exactly can this happen?
So i was on 8 wins, played 2 games (won both) and now i am on 2 wins?
I think something is not quite working correctly

This could have happened because while testing the ladder we’ve reset the data several times. It wasn’t suppose to be visible to you guys until the 16th.

On the 16th, we will reset the data one more time and then the beta season officially begins.

I just wanted to interject: Yaaaay, Peter’s posting in the forums.

We now return you to your regularly-scheduled thread.

No, there should be a bullet under that graph saying that winning always awards at least 1 point.

The current leaderboards are no longer being updated, and the new beta ladder will start on the 16th.

Edit: Apparently someone decided to show the new ladder early, so you’re seeing your data. This will still be reset on the official start, the 16th.

Also, if you’re seeing a down arrow, its probably because someone jumped ahead of you.

Thanks for these notes. We’ve filed on this before and the ad was pulled. But it seems to have reappeared. If you could kindly post a direct link to the ad — not to where the ad leads but to the ad itself — we can investigate.

minbariguy.7504:

Gaile Gray.6029:

[SNIP] We regret that the search engine is not functioning properly right now…

Out of curiosity, does anyone know if the search engine ever worked? If so, when did it stop working? I’m not sure that I recall that it ever worked, but I could be mistaken.

In any case, I’m having a difficult time understanding why exactly the forum search engine would be broken for so long and/or be so difficult to fix. Nearly every forum on the internet has a working search engine; it’s not brand-new cutting-edge technology. Honestly, is ANet doing so poorly financially that it cannot afford to have forum tools that work?

The problem is deep within the technology behind the forum structure itself. Yes, we had a search engine in the beginning, but it was broken by our forum contractor in the course of working on other things. We no longer have a relationship with that contractor or his company, and someone else is not able to step into the system and fix the search engine because (1) our programmers are tasked with other essential work, (2) the forums run on a web framework with which most of our programmers are not familiar and (3) we’re investigating other options for forums and it would not be prudent to pour money into hiring someone to fix this as a short-term solution.

My team agrees that it would be great to share the system that is outlined in the OP, and we’re going to figure out a way to do that. It won’t be as simple as “plumbing” the current search window to go to Google — each of us still will need to input the search manually, but it’s better than the current “poke and prod” to find a particular post!

Thanks for the note, mahri. Guild Wars is a great game — I love it, as I can see you do!

The actual official release date was April 28th (as it was for Guild Wars: Factions) and it’s a day that we all keep in our hearts, as it was the start of something BIG for all of us at ArenaNet. (I can see from the date you mention that you were in the early start, so thank you for being an early believer in our company. <3 )

This is another thread where the variety of opinions is very insightful. I read the thread with interest because I can see the situation from many different angles! Thanks for a thoughtful thread.

It’s really interesting to read the various thoughts on the story and the role that we, as players, played in the update. We’ve highlighted this thread (and a few others) so that the developers can see the various opinions about the Living World updates.

StevenL.3761:

Does that imply that we should get faster loading times now than back when the updated TP was launched?

Yeah, once the UI has loaded it’s noticeably faster searching/switching between sections/etc. We can avoid a lot of the TCP overhead of HTTP by re-using the existing game connection.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Since you’re here… why does the Far Silverwastes, formerly Mamnoon Lagoon, no longer looks like a lagoon was there? I don’t mind but was really looking forward to seeing an old lagoon.

Edit: And any other naming trivia? ^.^

One of the names I suggested for the Silverwastes area was “Fractured Mamnoon”…

The unexplored areas of our overmap are subject to change, which is to say as our map artists build out new maps to fit our current design. We couldn’t have anticipated every decision we’ve made in the last two years at the time that the art was created to hint at unexplored areas. The art for our world map gets refined as we go.

Josh and Tami, who worked on building out the Silverwastes and Dry Top maps for Season 2, built maps for every other GW release. Even though I’m a writer now, I built maps as an environment artist on Factions, Nightfall, Eye of the North, and Guild Wars 2. There are still plenty of us here from those days, including our studio’s environment art lead (who bears an uncanny resemblance to a certain Krytan legate minister).

Significant upheaval and terrain shifts have altered the face of Tyria in the past two and a half centuries, in some cases making familiar locations all new.

I assure you that no insult was intended. Sometimes we just change our minds.

Susie was always intended to be a dolyak cow.

Apparently, this was another spawning error on my part that I didn’t even notice in game. If it wasn’t for the screenshot on the kittening wiki, I could have just accused you all of lying, but now it is I who am revealed to be the fool.

Funny that I messed that up twice, in two locations. At least I’m consistent.

1053151 Solved
1050900 We’re waiting on a hotfix, the tickets will get an update today.
1053072 Same as above.
1053738 You need to follow the instructions given and confirm you’ve done so.

See here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/community/api/Guide-to-the-Black-Lion-Trading-Co-API/page/2#post4612198

Sure, I see how what I said is confusing. I’ll elaborate.

As part of the rewrite we also set it up so that the Commerce apps could go over the existing game connection instead of making HTTP requests. It’s more efficient (there’s no per-host limit on the number of requests we can make) and avoids some of the overhead. Until we could do some more testing of that on live we had a simple HTTP proxy for requests.

Once we cut over completely to the game connection the HTTP proxy was automatically disabled. It’s been deleted entirely in dev so it will start 404ing before too long.

I’ll continue communication with you through your ticket. Thanks for bringing this up! =)

JustTrogdor.7892:

https://support.guildwars.com/home

Follow the submit a request link to contact support.

We are actually switching this week to an integration of both support interfaces into one, meaning https://help.guildwars2.com will be the home for both Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2 support. More on that in a future thread though

Please keep in mind that if your Guild Wars account is linked to your Guild Wars 2 account, the password for both games will be the same.

If you wouldn’t mind posting the ticket number for the recent inquiry about your daughter’s account, I’ll be happy to take a look into the situation for you! =)

longbawl.5072:

And there seems to be see-sawing in philosophy of where to take the game. Back to merging queues? Do we remember why the didn’t work in the first place?

When we had them together everyone hated being stacked (which is understandable) and wanted a solo queue. When we had solo queue everyone hated how it was random and the ladder meant practically nothing.

Now we have them together and everyone hates being stacked against (again, understandable.)

The solution isn’t to try the same thing no one liked, the solution is take care of the actual problem: being stacked against. I’m working on that. Looking at the data, the current implementation seems to be helping, but still has a quite ways to go. I have a few ideas I’m going to run by some people on Monday, and I’ll run a lot more simulations before bringing them into the server.

Another part of the problem is the perception players have, which is being fueled by a selection and confirmation biases, and was not helped by unranked and profession ratings starting at the default.

Lewis Burnell.2493:

How are we now supposed to find out our PvP Rank? I queued today for 10 minutes and got no ranked queue pops. I’m Rank 52 and previously rated 320 on the Leaderboards.

Ladder rank? The beta ladder does not start until the 16th.

What time were you queuing?

glock.6590:

Just bring back the old match making system. Is it that hard? The new system is obviously not gonna work if there’s like only 1k players that actively play spvp.

At it’s worst, the new matchmaking works the same as the old. Which is to say, all it does is find players near the same MMR. The new matchmaking attempts to improve matches by holding on to players until there are more to compare, and then adds addition metrics to the mix.

What specifically is bothering you? Is it queue time? Is it merging solo and team arena?

Have you been watching the forums long? Plenty of people called the old matchmaking broken as well. My goal is to figure out which complaints have merit and can be improved.