Guild Wars 2

Very familiar with the choices, and I did not hit the “re-enter queue” option. Consider yourself lucky you have never run into this (as there is nothing more irritating than making it through a long queue, only to be sent back to the end of it). This is not an isolated incident, it has happened to me and guild-mates multiple times. Posting to hopefully raise awareness about this issue, as it is a long-standing bug that needs to be addressed (at the very least as a QoL issue).

Was just queued up for a guild raid in WvW (wasn’t able to make the beginning of reset night unfortunately) for some time, reached the end of the queue and was given the option to travel to the borderlands (desert borderlands). Upon selecting the option to travel, I was pushed back to the end of the new queue (significantly longer than when I had queue’d up).

Given the state of balance in WvW at the moment, I’d say this is par for the course, but this issue has persisted for multiple years, and wanted to draw attention to it because this is getting ridiculous.

First off, on mobile, so bear with me if there are any spelling or format errors.

Now to the heart of the issue: matchmaking in pvp

As it stands, there are some major issues apparent in the way teams are formed in ranked pvp. As these issues are most apparent from the standpoint of a solo queue player, it stands to reason that this is the best case to study. Currently, teams are formed prioritizing the mmr similarity of teammates, as opposed to opponents. Opponents are matched on the basis of league rank. By itself, this seems like a logical choice (see season 1), however this greatly penalizes players that suffer early losses, and inflates the standing of players who win a few matches early in the season (for detailed reasoning, skip to very end). This issue is that once a streak has been started, it is very difficult to break out of. Speaking from personal experience, this has been exceedingly frustrating. Having lost a couple of early matches due to afkers and (admittedly) opponents of very high skill, I find myself repeatedly matched with teammates that are not of equitable skill levels. As of time of writing, I am on a 14 game loss streak (and that is just the current streak. Win percentage over the current season is most likely in the single digits), and am constantly matched with a team of players that are very new to the game. While I am not trying to push all blame off myself (as I am not a pvp primary player), there is a point where the team makes or breaks a match. To cite two examples of this phenomena, I recently finished a match on forest where not one, but two players ended with a score of 0. Additionally, in a recent Khylo match, I had a teammate immediately jump on our trebuchet and spend roughly two thirds of the match trying to hit the opposing team’s trebuchet (in case any readers are curious, no, it is not possible no matter how many times one tries).
I get that Arenanet is trying to modify the matchmaking system to address issues that were present in season 1, and that issues are going to arise regardless. However, I just cannot see the reasoning behind averaging team mmr to your own mmr (as opposed to bringing team mmr up to a value closer to global average) and removing the matching of team mmr to opposing team mmr. As it stands, the matchmaking system has a number of notable flaws that are taking the point out of pvp. I would hope these issues would be addressed in a timely manner, as currently progression in the leagues are dependent on chance (as a solo queue player) more than player skill.

The reason the first few matches played are such large factors in deciding the outcome of the majority of following matches is as follows. For the purpose of example (and due to a lack of the numerical values used in mmr calculations), let us quantify player skill (both actual skill and skill as perceived by the system — mmr) by the highly accurate and precise terms of high, average, and low. If a player loses their first match, they will lose skill standing in the system (mmr). Under the current matchmaking system, the next team this player will be placed with will consist of players that have a similar (read: low) mmr. Stastically speaking, this low mmr team will (greatest probability of occurrence) be matched up with a team of average mmr. It is overwhelmingly likely that this low mmr team will consist of players of a lower skill level (the odds of all five players being the victim of an afk player in a previous match are exceedingly low). Due to this lower skill level of the majority of players in the low mmr team, the most likely outcome of the match is a loss for the low mmr team. This pushes the mmr of each player even lower, leading to an even worse team in the next match. Because the opposing teams are not matched by mmr but by rank, basic statistics dictates that this very-low mmr player will be matched with a very-low mmr team, and will face a group of average mmr players. This simply compounds the issues outlined above, and quickly turns into a loss streak for a player that should (by any reasonable measure) have an average mmr.

No no, I got the joke. I also disagree with Lome (when Dulfy says you must run 2+ to be able to complete a hero point, I’m going to hazard a guess that she isn’t kidding).

I have no issue with the concept of hero points as a form of progression for unlocking abilities through actually playing the game. My problem is with how it seems like hero points are being used to artificially create a social aspect of the game — locking away abilities unless you find a group to grind out maps with. In fact, I would argue that this attempt by the devs to force grouping into the game could itself be a cause of people getting bored and leaving the game (as no sane person wants to spend hours beating their head against a wall with a certain hero point or set of hero point).

Also, looking to the future, this could cause issues down the road. If you look at the zones that have been recently added to the game, you will find that the number of players completing hero points(/points of interest/waypoints/general mapping/etc) falls off dramatically after some time. Dry top is a ghost town (with the exception of the infrequent organized event maps), and the reason The Silverwastes is so popular is because it is one of the best open world farms in the game. Considering that getting hero points awards nearly zero rewards (the xp reward is pretty trivial at higher mastery levels), I wish anyone levelling an alt the best of luck in the future, as it is going to be ridiculously difficult with the current state of hero points.

I had started this thread to hopefully draw attention to an issue with the implementation of certain particular hero points and the level of difficulty present in obtaining these points, not really as a critique of the mechanic itself. Hopefully a functionality is added, or the enemies are adjusted to be a bit more accommodating to those who attempt them without a group.

Arenanet, I love the expansion and can’t wait to unlock all the elite specializations, but I just have one question: can you please make the hero points soloable? It is difficult to work up the motivation to map a character and progress towards unlocking the elite specs when hero point bosses spawn that are scaled towards groups of three or four. I understand that the new hero points are worth 10 of the old hero points and enjoy a higher level of difficulty, but there comes a point where content is no longer available to those who are not in a hero point tour group. Thanks!