Guild Wars 2

Silverkey.2078:

You are simply experiencing what lower-tier people experienced in amber last season. Actually you are experiencing probably a milder version of it.

I was in the very similar situation to you. Last season I flew my way from amber painlessly and only slowed down around ruby to finally reach diamond.

This season, I started sapphire and took a beating the first day. But after a few days, it has gotten better and I now have more balanced games.

Instead of 1 big population with the low tier getting beaten repetitively by high tiers, we have 3 smaller populations with in each the low tier getting beaten by higher tiers. You and I were in the high tier before, so we sailed smoothly, now we are in the lowest tier of the tier 3 group and it hurts. But the important point is that this new system reduces the skill gap (us getting beaten by legendary is still better than amber being beaten by legendary) and helps to reach faster overall convergence.

And I actually feel that you see it by the lesser number of complains on the forum compared to last season. It’s not a perfect system, but I would argue this is a better system.

Your post gives me hope, thank you!
My biggest issue is that profession achievement, made it to Diamond as a mesmer, get to play against the people I was stuck with last season in Sapphire now on my cruddy thief and tank whatever MMR I have, as well as take abuse from teammates. Thats the heartbreaking part.

Which is why the issue of my post is early division placement. I should be in Amber getting my achievements done and not in Sapphire

This season is truly terrible. Why is it so bad? Because of early division placement. This was a horrible idea.
Diamond and Legendary players are placed together in Sapphire. Cool, we got our ticket rewards early and didn’t have to waste our time blowing through Amber-Ruby this season. That sounded awesome when I read we got a head start. Boy was I wrong.

Diamond division has been considered the “brick wall” once you got there, all the good players were there and going on winning streaks wasn’t common. (I went on a 24 win streak from Amber-Diamond last season) That’s when I finally started hitting that wall, I’d win some and lose some, it was truly 50/50 and was stuck in second tier.
This season you guys have taken that brick wall and placed it in Sapphire, there is little to no progression this season because we’re all stagnant on winning some and losing some far too early. Even people in Emerald are having way too much trouble moving up because they’re being placed with Sapphire Ranking people.
This system is also a nightmare for those profession achievements that require you to play other classes. I’m a Mesmer, that’s my jam, I’m no where near qualified to play my alt (thief) in Sapphire against previously ranked players of last season this early in the season. I’m an Amber level thief placed in Sapphire because of my Mesmers ranking last season. If I continue to play mesmer I’ll eventally go up to Ruby, but that still leaves the achievement needing to be done and again I’ll be playing an alt in a division I shouldn’t even be in with it. Not to mention I have to play yet another alt as well.

The plan was to play Amber-Early Ruby on alts to get better because I’ll be placed against people of equal skill (since good players move up quickly) but there is just no getting better against the quality of players I’m against and teams are just flat out savage if you’re doing bad because everyone is feeling the struggle too. We want the hell out of our division for achievements and rewards.

Hopefully this brick wall in Sapphire thins out as we claw our way to Ruby where we’ll more then likely face it again.