Guild Wars 2

I’m sure similar threads have been started and discussions brought up on this topic, but I went four or five pages back and didn’t see anything specifically addressing what I want to talk about, so I’m just starting fresh. No doubt, it’ll be lost in the mire of dated threads soon enough, but hopefully not before I glean a little feedback from the community.

I play a lot of solo queue. A lot. I generally bring in my engineer, Earbert Einstein. No doubt, I’ve played with and against many of you who might read this post. I consider myself a decent team player. I don’t fight off-point. I cap, I rotate, I bunk home, blah blah blah. I believe that the win trumps personal glory gain and stomps. If I’m sitting on home and am at the bottom of the score list but the team gets the W, I couldn’t be happier. I did my job.

I think — hope — that I’m a better player than the leader boards would describe. Twenty-Eighth percentile with 215 wins and 255 losses. I try not to pay much attention to that because the massive amount of variables that go into a match in the SoloQ are largely out of my hands. Not to say that there aren’t a good handful of losses — and to my credit, wins — in there that hinged directly on my play. I’ve kittened up a lot, especially early in the learning curve.

More to the point of this thing, and quickly now before anybody who has made it this far falls asleep, I’m curious to know what other people’s experience in the SoloQ arena are like. I guess I’m looking for responses somewhat beyond the 4v5 that we all know are a problem and AFKers. Those are issues that have already a lot of traction all over this forum. More specifically, what do people encounter in a 5v5? I’ll share my thoughts, and maybe some of you will share yours.

I find that matches that go the distance between two well-balanced teams are few and far between. Blowouts aren’t common, either, but I find the typical match has one team or the other ticking at about the 200-250 range by the time the other team crosses 500. I find that I can go on a long string of losses way more frequently than I can catch a string of wins. In that respect, I think the most wins I’ve chained together have been in the 5-6 range, while I’ve easily been on a losing streak that must have been near 20 straight Ls. And on long nights where I do a lot of SoloQ, it’s not uncommon to roll 5 or 6 losses between every win. At times, I start to wonder if it’s the player and not the team, but then I look at the map and see two people on my team capping and the rest chasing one enemy off point and I realize, nah, I think I’m not the problem here.

A lot of games are quiet. I assume people know what they’re supposed to do, and I’m not one inclined to dictate jobs, though I generally mention if I’m going to bunk home or mid. And I’m always happy to join a good plan if somebody speaks up. I notice that a lot of people in team chat that say their team is kittenty are actually the part of the team that is kittenty. Even on a team that’s terrible I don’t trash them. There’s no point and I’d like to think that I’m older than 12. If the other team talks kitten, I just block them. Life’s way too short to be griefed by kittens in SoloQ. I have a very impressive block list, actually.

It can be very frustrating game mode, but when you land one of those games where you come from behind to steal a win or just barely eek out a 500 to 498 victory, those are what I chase. I wish there was more of them. I wish the balance system worked better. Too often I’ve seen teams of 40s and 50s vs a team with a few 10s, a 20, and maybe a 30. Very peculiar. Anyway, as the old saying goes, wish in one hand and kitten in the other and see what fills up first.

Anyhow, I realize this was way too long, but if anybody just wants to toss up their general experience in solo matchups, I’d like to read them. Thanks and good luck out there.

PS

If any teams are looking for a solid engineer or necro player, pm me! <—- Shameless self promotion.

Well, I have played few soloQ. So few I don’t have a Leaderboard rating yet. That’s because I find games kinda depressing. I’m often sided with many people with less than rank 10 on both teams.

Even if I win, I feel a little dirty inside, because I ganked new players.

Another problem: people don’t care about soloQ. And you have Skyhammer, which is even more depressing.

Solution: play teamqueue. Join even if you are alone.

Maybe you’ll face premades, but you’ll play with people who actually cares, and ranks involved are much higher.

I understand the feeling. I pretty much stay hovering around the bottom of the leaderboards or just outside of it. I get there, sometimes going on a great streak only to be randomly matched up with people who are terrible. I don’t blame them, matchmaking thrust them into an awful situation.

The problem with the leaderboards is that that the more games you play, the more difficult it is to climb; yet, with losing, it feels like you fall at a constant rate.

I’m currently 160-148 and stuck at 85% (which on NA, seems to be the current cutoff, give or take a few ). When I lose a game, I tend to drop around 3 – 4 percent . When I win, I seem to go up around 2. That means that I need to currently have about a 75% win ratio to continue climbing, otherwise I feel like I’m running on a treadmill.

Well, 75% is very difficult to do in the current matchmaking. I seem like I get a few good match-ups here and there, but there are a lot of terrible match-ups sprinkled in.

Overall, don’t put too much weight in the leaderboards, because unfortunately, they mean nothing at this point. It’s frustrating, but it’s the truth and I don’t expect a fix this year, which is a shame.

For the longest time I sat around 80% on the leader boards, it seemed like I couldn’t move up at all because when I went on a good winning streak, it would be followed by an equally bad losing streak, plagued by 4v5’s , afkers, or new players. It was extremely frustrating. Then one night, after about a 10 game win streak, I found myself at rank 20. It was wierd because I knew I didn’t deserve to be there lol… But since then, I’ve consistently had really good close games.

I want to echo felivear’s thought as well, the leaderboard really doesn’t mean much. The matchmaking system is off, so don’t take it too seriously. Even when you get higher in the leader boards, you will still get teammates that have no clue what to do, but instead they rage more, blame the team, and eventually quit.

for me soloQ is very anoying and depressing experience

i played alot and with warrior/spiritranger/engineer i was rank 250-500 first weeks/months with 59% win/lose

now when i startet to play only for my champion titles and play guardian i dropped to 50%-80% and saw things ….

1 match i was 80% and all in my team was lower than me but enemy team was rank 7 rank 18 from leaderboard others i dont checked and after match they even said sorry for this broken matchmaking but is not our fault and they stop now soloQ and go teamQ – tzzz they even was a full team

now on my rating i gave up to think i ever will go up again – all my teammembers ever think they are the prosuper roamers and run around like chickens and just fight somewhere and dont even care for any node

had 1 match on temple – me bunker guardian in mid – and our close got not capped till 3 min ingame FROM ME

seriously – game is broken and people to stupid to play it^^

Although the leaderboard is pretty bad, I’d suggest reexamining your gameplay rather than blaming the fact that you have a bad rating entirely on the leaderboard system.

Solo queue in the lower ranks is pretty awful. I didn’t care for it until I made i into the top 500. Now I’ve made it into the top 100 and it’s pretty much the only thing I do. If you play on peak hours the matches are actually are a lot more competitive and people will swap profs/builds to fill necessary roles (which leads to some pretty fun/close games).

If you just care about getting up on the LB’s i wouldn’t recommend entering the queue when you’re on a losing streak. The way the MMR is set right now and also the low population can contribute to stacked teams repeatedly.

However, If you only play oceanic there is pretty much nothing you can do. Your chance of winning (at least in my experience) is random chance. Good luck mate.

Note: Sorry If this is a little rough to read. I’m kind of hungover.

infantrydiv.1620:

Although the leaderboard is pretty bad, I’d suggest reexamining your gameplay rather than blaming the fact that you have a bad rating entirely on the leaderboard system.

My initial post is a wall of text. I apologize for that, I’ve reread it and it’s tough to get through. But in there I stated that I don’t really pay too much stock in the leaderboards. I’m way, way, way more interested in quality matches. I feel the discussion has somehow implied that I think the leaderboards are my impetus for playing PvP. Not at all. Whether the boards existed or not, 4v5s and unfairly stacked teams resulting in losses sucks.

On that note, I believe my gameplay is generally fine. I’m sure there are people who would agree and disagree on that, but I hold my own in a good match-up and, more often than not, even in a bad one. Anyhow, thanks for the replies. It’s interesting to see what the vibe is out there.

Well the leaderboards seem character based so one way to stay up in the ranks is make a toon you can practice with (learning a new build, in a 4v5 situation, etc.) and use your main for when you feel up to scratch. I have a thief who I’ve played less than 10 games on and she’s higher ranked than my main who has been in quite a few more.

Quite a lot of the issue is that new players take on solo queue while incredibly inexperienced - even joining team queue with a partial team of 3, you can get paired up with two r1 players who’ve just come along to see what this sPvP stuff is all about and want to play together.

While I wouldn’t want to exclude newbies from the potential rewards of ranked matches, maybe more focus on hotjoin for the inexperienced would be helpful.
A tutorial that more clearly explained how to play (possibly an instance with some reward for completion - a unique bit of PvP kit or something? Not really sure how this would be implemented with AI) could also be useful - my frustrations in solo queue are almost entirely due to players:
- fighting far from points when they should be trying to cap
- trying to take someone out at range instead of forcing them out of their point
- capping an unchallenged point with three players at once
These are all issues that a well-designed Conquest tutorial could explain, though I understand creation of this would take quite a bit of time and resources.

As several people have already said, it’s daft to get annoyed at the players who aren’t very good - everyone has to learn, and random matchups are the devil’s work - but it’s hard to give advice to a poor player without sounding like an kitten , especially when in the middle of a match. "Cap, don’t fight!", "Stay in the points!" and other bossy comments are demoralising and don’t encourage new players to stay in the community - and we all know that the sPvP playerbase isn’t undergoing exponential growth as it is.

PlagueParade.7942:

I have a thief who I’ve played less than 10 games on and she’s higher ranked than my main who has been in quite a few more.

Ranks are account bound, not character bound.

With that being said, it is a good idea to have a few characters that you can reliably switch to (that are built and ready to play) in case you come across a team that counters your team pretty hard.

cheese.4739:

As several people have already said, it’s daft to get annoyed at the players who aren’t very good – everyone has to learn, and random matchups are the devil’s work – but it’s hard to give advice to a poor player without sounding like an kitten , especially when in the middle of a match. “Cap, don’t fight!”, “Stay in the points!” and other bossy comments are demoralising and don’t encourage new players to stay in the community – and we all know that the sPvP playerbase isn’t undergoing exponential growth as it is.

This is a great point also. Without having access to some type of VoIP during solo q, it is extremely hard to communicate effectively. Usually when I need to relay information, it is at the worst times and I really only have a second to type a few words, which might make me come off as a kitten.

I love solo queue even though there are some issues. Matchmaking is supposed to get a fix in the next PvP patch, so that will hopefully help a lot.

I have also found that playing during primetime makes the matches much closer; also, it helps your rank because you don’t face the possibility of losing to a team with a very low MMR because of a 4v5 or just getting unlucky with your teammates.

As far as getting your teammates to play well, sometimes it’s just impossible. I’ve found the best thing is to say hello to your teammates before the match starts. If none of them respond, you know that you won’t really be able to give them any instructions later on. If they do respond, suggest a very simple opening strategy (i.e. who’s going to cap close point). If you have a good sidepoint build, offer to take close yourself.

With that rapport, you will usually be able to type two or three more messages to your team during the match. I usually save mine for two situations:
1. Several of my teammates die. I’ll usually type “regroup at close” or “regroup at mid” depending on where the other team is. The last thing I want is for my team to start trickling in and getting farmed. Especially if there are 1-2 enemies at close point, I’ll call for a regroup at close, try to keep 2 of them busy at mid or far, and let my team win the 4v2 at close point. After that, we can roll over the map.
2. Points are getting decapped while my teammates are fighting off point. I’ll usually type “fight on points please.” This one doesn’t always work; if they are the type of player that just chases people around the map, they’re not going to listen to instructions. But it’s worth a try.

I will sometimes say something if I am bunkering 1v1 on a point and I don’t need any help. A simple “go” or “I’ll be fine” will usually suffice. If they don’t listen, I’ll leave and be useful somewhere else. Even if they die in the 1v1 and blame me, it’s better to be useful somewhere else than get stuck in a 2v1 that hurts my team.

Hope that helps!

The problem with solo Q it’s very hard to move up or down, due to the MMR. Once you are stuck in the lower brackets it’s very hard to climb out and vice versa. Since the way it matches people.

Pretty much; the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

Harbinger.8637:

The problem with solo Q it’s very hard to move up or down, due to the MMR. Once you are stuck in the lower brackets it’s very hard to climb out and vice versa. Since the way it matches people.

Pretty much; the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

It’s quite easy to drop. I went from rank 150 to 85% in 3 days. A lot of 4v5 and being out-classed over and over.

infantrydiv.1620:

Although the leaderboard is pretty bad, I’d suggest reexamining your gameplay rather than blaming the fact that you have a bad rating entirely on the leaderboard system.

It’s been very well established that the matchmaker is against lower-MMR players.
There are not enough people playing to match you against people of your skill level in soloQ (and the more skilled players tend to play more, so there are more of them playing at any given time)… this means it forms a top-rated team first, then collects typically much lower MMR players to play against them to get a “chance” to raise their lower rank. (And good luck with that).

SO…you tend to be put into the wrong “bracket” over and over when you are a lower MMR player.

I think the OP was pretty honest about his gameplay. He sounds solid to me.

jefferson.8317:

Harbinger.8637:

The problem with solo Q it’s very hard to move up or down, due to the MMR. Once you are stuck in the lower brackets it’s very hard to climb out and vice versa. Since the way it matches people.

Pretty much; the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

It’s quite easy to drop. I went from rank 150 to 85% in 3 days. A lot of 4v5 and being out-classed over and over.

There’s always exceptions. However for the most part once you make it into the higher brackets you rarely fall out of them. Because the game will constantly match people on your team with similar ratings. That’s why there are so many blow outs in Solo Q. You’ll have a team of people from the top 100 vs a team of 75%.

Josh Davis.6015:

We’re making improvements to the way matchmaking works to prevent ‘stacked’ rosters from occurring. I’ve been on the receiving end of these rosters in top 500, and it definitely impedes your ability to win a game.

I think that once we roll out our rewards improvements we’ll see players taking all queue types a bit more seriously. When time equals worthwhile rewards, you’ll want to spend your time in-game efficiently (winning).

To prevent 4v5 and other mismatches, we’ll also be lowering the amount of dishonored stacks a player is able to get before being penalized. The current limit is too high. I don’t think that’s the only change we’ll make to prevent mismatched games, but it’s a start.

Good to hear!

Harbinger.8637:

jefferson.8317:

Harbinger.8637:

The problem with solo Q it’s very hard to move up or down, due to the MMR. Once you are stuck in the lower brackets it’s very hard to climb out and vice versa. Since the way it matches people.

Pretty much; the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

It’s quite easy to drop. I went from rank 150 to 85% in 3 days. A lot of 4v5 and being out-classed over and over.

There’s always exceptions. However for the most part once you make it into the higher brackets you rarely fall out of them. Because the game will constantly match people on your team with similar ratings. That’s why there are so many blow outs in Solo Q. You’ll have a team of people from the top 100 vs a team of 75%.

You also have to realize that the population is very small. An mmr fix will only be a slight help. There needs to be more inventive to play spvp.

jefferson.8317:

Harbinger.8637:

jefferson.8317:

Harbinger.8637:

The problem with solo Q it’s very hard to move up or down, due to the MMR. Once you are stuck in the lower brackets it’s very hard to climb out and vice versa. Since the way it matches people.

Pretty much; the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

It’s quite easy to drop. I went from rank 150 to 85% in 3 days. A lot of 4v5 and being out-classed over and over.

There’s always exceptions. However for the most part once you make it into the higher brackets you rarely fall out of them. Because the game will constantly match people on your team with similar ratings. That’s why there are so many blow outs in Solo Q. You’ll have a team of people from the top 100 vs a team of 75%.

You also have to realize that the population is very small. An mmr fix will only be a slight help. There needs to be more inventive to play spvp.

Also, many high ranked people sync queue very successfully.

jefferson.8317:

Harbinger.8637:

jefferson.8317:

Harbinger.8637:

The problem with solo Q it’s very hard to move up or down, due to the MMR. Once you are stuck in the lower brackets it’s very hard to climb out and vice versa. Since the way it matches people.

Pretty much; the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

It’s quite easy to drop. I went from rank 150 to 85% in 3 days. A lot of 4v5 and being out-classed over and over.

There’s always exceptions. However for the most part once you make it into the higher brackets you rarely fall out of them. Because the game will constantly match people on your team with similar ratings. That’s why there are so many blow outs in Solo Q. You’ll have a team of people from the top 100 vs a team of 75%.

You also have to realize that the population is very small. An mmr fix will only be a slight help. There needs to be more inventive to play spvp.

Of course there needs to be more inventive to play tpvp. They already stated they’re working on it, but also fixing the mmr is extremely important. If they don’t, when the new reward system gets implemented. The same people are going to be reaping all the benefits.

Harbinger.8637:

jefferson.8317:

Harbinger.8637:

jefferson.8317:

Harbinger.8637:

The problem with solo Q it’s very hard to move up or down, due to the MMR. Once you are stuck in the lower brackets it’s very hard to climb out and vice versa. Since the way it matches people.

Pretty much; the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

It’s quite easy to drop. I went from rank 150 to 85% in 3 days. A lot of 4v5 and being out-classed over and over.

There’s always exceptions. However for the most part once you make it into the higher brackets you rarely fall out of them. Because the game will constantly match people on your team with similar ratings. That’s why there are so many blow outs in Solo Q. You’ll have a team of people from the top 100 vs a team of 75%.

You also have to realize that the population is very small. An mmr fix will only be a slight help. There needs to be more inventive to play spvp.

Of course there needs to be more inventive to play tpvp. They already stated they’re working on it, but also fixing the mmr is extremely important. If they don’t, when the new reward system gets implemented. The same people are going to be reaping all the benefits.

Yup. More incentives and a better mmr will be great. Also, decay is needed.

Josh Davis.6015:

We’re making improvements to the way matchmaking works to prevent ‘stacked’ rosters from occurring. I’ve been on the receiving end of these rosters in top 500, and it definitely impedes your ability to win a game.

I think that once we roll out our rewards improvements we’ll see players taking all queue types a bit more seriously. When time equals worthwhile rewards, you’ll want to spend your time in-game efficiently (winning).

To prevent 4v5 and other mismatches, we’ll also be lowering the amount of dishonored stacks a player is able to get before being penalized. The current limit is too high. I don’t think that’s the only change we’ll make to prevent mismatched games, but it’s a start.

I hope soon, as this is the biggest issue for me as all I do in pvp is solo q and losing 10 games to win 1 makes you want to not even try to win anymore and just do your own thing. It makes you lose interest because you can’t do it all yourself.

- syncing
- afk
- 4vs5
- bad mmr
- bad splits. the most losing teams goes 1(home)-3(mid)-1(far) or 1-2-2 with classes/builds that arent capable of winning undermanned fights. first they loose 1 fight. the other collapse then to the remaining and after that they start to run solo into groups. or if team was splitting correct to home and mid and won midfight, 1-2 of the team start to run to farpoint immediatly after the midfight was won. on farpoint now they faced the respawned enemy midfight group and die. then they collapse on mid and during the shortmidfight they run solo into the group immed after respawn.
thats the usual gaming experience in soloq. it get only interesting if the enemy does the same mistakes or if you has some ppl who know what they do.

The solo queue will always be imbalanced as long as there are OP professions that persist for months on end.

Thedenofsin.7340:

The solo queue will always be imbalanced as long as there are OP professions that persist for months on end.

oh yeah forgot that point… anet calls it “shaving”, with the speed of slug!