Guild Wars 2

Hey all! I don’t usually post on the forums, although I’ve been playing GW2 since beta… Always loved this game as I find the combat system thoroughly enjoyable, second to none in my opinion, and through the years this hasn’t changed.

As time passed I found I got bored with most of the PvE content the game had to offer, and spent most of my time on WvW… Eventually I wanted a bigger challenge and to have a bigger impact on the outcome of a match, so I drifted towards sPvP, and currently it’s 90% of what I do in GW2.

I’m not a “pro”, but I think I’m fairly decent, I made it to Platinum last season but couldn’t get past it…

A few months ago I finally had enough of GW2 PvP and started playing Overwatch. Though Overwatch’s combat system is sub-par (again, personal opinion) compared to GW2, the game does manage one thing that is sorely missing in GW2 sPvP: Individual skill progression.

Even though in the past few seasons the game reworked the way one would progress through league ranks, and even though it was advertised that it would now measure individual performance, the reality is it doesn’t… Remember how I made to low Plat last season? I started on T3 Gold, and that’s the only reason I even got there: I barely had to make any progress.

Indeed there’s no discernable carry mechanic on GW2, and the game fails at measuring individual performance, and thus fails to reward players for actually contributing to a match.

Again, I’m no expert, I’m no pro, I’m barely above average but I AM above average… My experience in GW2 is I barely win or lose any SR at all since I hardly have any influence on the outcome of a match… I main DH, my experience is I win most 1v1s, I win most points and fights when I’m involved, yet that simply isn’t enough, because of the way the game is designed. A good friend of mine always points out “you’re only 1/10th of the match”.

Been playing Overwatch for a month now, and I’ve only participated in ranked matches for about 2 weeks, and even then it’s on an off. Started with an SR of 700 and change, I’m now at 1200-ish, I don’t play every day, and when I do I’ll play 4 matches tops. Not a huge fan of shooters, I’m not nearly as good on Overwatch as I am on GW2, yet the progression difference is is shocking.

What I find Overwatch has, that GW2 is missing is it actually measures each player’s individual performance and does a pretty good job at that. I’ve lost as many as 3 matches in a row, only to win the next and find that my SR is actually higher than before… Why? Because I did well, on all 4 matches, and the game takes that into account. This makes me wanna keep playing, I feel like I’m getting more skilled and the game notices that, I feel confident that I can reach Silver, then Gold, then Platinum, and then who knows…

In contrast, I’ve had the OPPOSITE experience in GW2: I’ve won 2 matches out of 3 to notice my SR barely moved at all. I’ve been SEVERELY penalized on lost games when I was basically the only one doing anything at all (had the same happen on Overwatch and barely lost any SR).

Again, I’m no expert, I don’t know the intricacies of how SR progression works on either game, I’ve only heard speculation, both on GW2 and Overwatch. Yet I know, as a player, that GW2 SR progression feels broken, and to my satisfaction it works in Overwatch, it’s far from perfect but it works, I feel I’m rewarded when I do well, and penalized when I don’t, regardless of whether my team won or lost the match.

On GW2, it all revolves around whether or not the team lost the match, or whether we won. It measures TEAM performance, not INDIVIDUAL performance, in spite of what it advertises.

Now as for how to fix this? Again, I’m no expert. I think the game needs to do:

1. A better job at figuring out who’s doing what, and how well. Right now it isn’t doing that.

2. Second, a very common issue through bronze, silver and gold (and even platinum at times) is people don’t even play the objective. So either the game needs to encourage people to play the objective (by doing simple tutorials that show what you’re supposed to do), or the game needs to change. For example, in Overwatch, there’s one game mode where there is a single control point, and teams fight for control over it, the first to reach 100 wins points wins. This works because that’s where the fight will be, and even the most idiotic players will play around the control point. Maybe GW2 needs to simply give up the 3CP system and move to a more simple game, that people can actually understand?

3. Finally I’m sure the community has offered tons of ways to fix GW2 sPvP, and I’m sure many of these are well thought out and could be implemented, if the devs are willing.

The only thing I, as a player, would like to see is ACTUAL individual progression. I’d like a system that actually knows what I’m doing, and rewards/punishes me for it. Right now, it’s entirely team dependant, and no class and no individual player (with few exceptions) is skilled enough to carry a match. As a result, what happens more often than not is you win a match for every one you lose, and this at times might even cause you to lose SR. I’ve even lost SR on days where my Win rate was closer to 66%, and this is when I finally had enough and basically started playing a different game, with a functioning progression system.

I love GW2 sPvP, and I’d love to see the PvP community thrive.. Current season has been one of the worst I’ve participated in. The reason I feel is very few people are actually playing, I’m sure we’ve all had that experience where it seems we’re playing with/against the same 9 players… When people give up and stop playing, it’s not the players’ fault, it means something is broken with the game’s system.

I agree. Skill rating should measure skill. This system doesn’t. To me it was so obvious at the start of S5 that I actually thought getting top stats was the only way to increase personal rating.
ANet kept talking about making PvP more about individual skill yet they base their ENTIRE system on whether you win or lose in a team of 5??

And this is the single biggest flaw with PvP right now: It’s all about whether you win or lose.

And please stop talking about carrying. There is no such thing in this game. Pre-season I played unranked against all caliber of players and sorry but I have yet to see the God of PvP that can win every match no matter who they are teamed up with.

This would be fixed by simply making top stats matter. Consistently getting top stats should result in higher rating progression if the game is won, and it should result in no rating loss if the game is lost.

Emdrix.6124:

People need to stop blaming matchmaking. Im far from being a pro player and I have 3 accounts in the top 250 full solo Q. If you re stuck in some scrub tier division that’s probably where you belong. You just need to be slightly above average to make it. The matchmaking works as intented.

Sometimes I get destroyed aswell or get 4v5s but that happens to everyone, you just need to win more than you lose, stop blaming matchmaking .

If you lose its YOUR fault, You were not able to carry hard enough. That’s about it. Sure some matches are uncarriable but most of them are if you are in a lower division.
If you cannot carry then that’s where you belong. because carrying means being significantly better than everyone in that division.

And btw on this account I had to climb to reach top 250 because the placement matches were a total mess, so I did get unlucky on this account unlike my other 2 but still climbed.

This is not a brag thread I’m literally just slightly above average and still made it solo Q on 3 accounts. for pro players this would be even easier. I believe Magic Toker has 3 or more? accounts in the top 10-20.

Im probably never gonna reach legend and in fine with that. People need to accept that and stop blaming matchmaking.

Really? Carry your team or be stuck in some lower division? I got 7 out of 3 on my placement matches yet was still placed on higher tier silver… I dropped a few tiers because I was playing DH and honestly the class can’t carry…

So I switched to Ele to climb up to gold and I’m still working my way higher. I win most matches on bunker ele because that class/build can carry. Others cannot.

Has jack to do with skill since I’m admittedly better on a DH than I am on Ele. I main DH, I play Ele for laughs and giggles.

The point is you argue you should be significantly better than anyone else on your division and thus you should be able to carry… Really? You’re supposed to carry the other 4 scrubs that don’t look at map let alone follow simple instructions on chat?

The point here is if you were truly intended to carry, than ANet should introduce what I call “carry mechanics” where say not dying or reaching certain metrics actually buffs your character in order to be able to carry the rest of the team.

As it stands today, no matter how good you are, you cannot carry every team, in every situation. As an example, it’s common knowledge that in lower tiers, bunker specs outperform since you are rarely focused, and people in general don’t know how to fight you.
If you play a power spec like DH forget it, you can win every fight and every point you are on, yet the lack of mobility and squishiness of the class will make it impossible for you to carry your team to victory.

I’m not even complaining since I actually enjoy winning 90+% of matches as a bunker ele, this is actually fun.
But I hardly think this is how the game is intended to be played. I simply don’t belong in this division and I was placed here by this obscure MMR that honestly would be nice to know how exactly it’s calculated.

I would’ve loved to be placed on a division where I feel I’m actually challenged I get competent teammates/opponents.

Again, if you’re supposed to carry and that’s how the system is supposed to work, then please introduce proper carry mechanics because as it stands today, 2 average players will always get the pro, doesn’t matter how good they are, at best the match ends with the pro just leaving the fight. This is not a game where skill makes THAT big a difference if you’re saddled with a team that will fight off the points and use the weirdest most useless builds…

Love it! You’ve obviously put some thought to this so I can’t comment on the mechanics but having 2v2 deathmatches is the one thing missing from PvP atm.

Having to rely on 5 man teams makes the outcome of a match much too dependant on random group makeups and that I feel detracts from the overall PvP experience. Winning a match should be 100% about skill and right now it just isn’t.

2v2 makes it much easier to team up with a friend and at least have a reasonable chance to win based on your skills as a player.

Here’s hoping they implement something along these lines!

So funny thing happened… I’m about to join a match, I get disconnected and for some reason I wasn’t able t get in for about 5 minutes. I finally manage to join and my team (as expected) was losing 140 to 280… After I join I manage to get far and luckily we are able to win 500 to 488..

Only to find not only I lose a pip for “deserting” I also get thrown out of the game on some ridiculous 20 min CD again for “deserting”.

This is so ridiculous it needs to be revised immediately, the whole desertion thing needs a hard look, sometimes a player gets disconnected halfway through the game which causes your team to lose but that doesn’t count as desertion, and now this? I spent 5 minutes trying to rejoin the game but it’d get stuck on the loading screen for whatever reason.

And I should point out my internet was working fine throughout this entire thing so I don’t even know why I got disconnected in the first place, but losing a pip PLUS 20 min not being able to play when the reality is the reason my team even won is I managed to get back in is just too much…

And don’t get me started on the matchmaking system… I’ve found that whether I win or lose a match is entirely dependant on who’s got the crappy players, which equates to sayig winning or losing in PvP is a coin-toss that basically favors those with time to play dozens of matches and eventually work the numbers in their favor.

And why do I even bother posting here? Because I still have another 10 mins before this desertion BS goes away…