Guild Wars 2

I am 62, and first played MMOs with Ultima online in 1997. I’ve been writing software since 1981.

I play sPvP exclusively. I enjoy it. Keeps the reflexes and muscle memory in better shape. And the brain connections.

Who is older?

They have been disconnected. They will no longer be used. The new test season starting Dec 16th will use Ladders, not the old leaderboards.

Would it be better for our playing experience if the matcher posted, at the beginning of the match, your odds of winning this match, based on the MMR difference of the two teams.

Because that’s what ELO is all about, according to what I read on Wikipedia: the relative odds of winning the match, and boosting or reducing your MMR based on who wins.

Myself, I’d want to know the match had already calculated that I basically am not expected to win the match, so when I lose, I don’t feel awful about my performance.

At least, tell us on the final scoreboard what the odds were, and how much each teams’ members MMRs have now been adjusted.

As long as there are more people playing, I am enjoying short queues, and lots of 5×5 hotjoin matches when I am up for practicing a new build.

If the numbers were to ever shrink again, then we can talk about it.

The numbers of people in the Mists has more than doubled after the Dec 10th changes.

Structured PvP is more integrated into the game world. You can now level your character in the Mists with sPvP. You can earn gold in sPvP.

I hear people saying it is dying because their friends from beta have moved on to other games, but I don’t see any evidence that GW2 sPvP is dying.

Pandabro.8743:

What exactly is this showing us? That players that play more often have a better chance of getting linked up with higher ranked players?

I don’t really understand what your conclusion is from this data.

The idea here is that the matcher seems to first look for people of similar rating to form a team. I suspect that there are more high-MMR people playing soloQ at any given time (because it is fun to win, and they are dedicated players, too). So the matcher easily finds them and tends to put them together on a team.

We have seen screenshots showing this; they should be “dealt” back and forth to opposite teams. But that does not seem to happen.

Once it has some teams, the matcher then seems to pair up the teams by averaging the rating of each team and puts them against each other in a match.

I really think the problem actually is that GW2 really does have a pretty great fighting mechanic.

And it requires thought and reflexes and anticipation to play at a high level.

But I just don’t think there are enough people in the MMO population who have developed these kinds of skills. The genre doesnt attract that kind of player; they go to FP shooters.

MMOs are not about any kind of dodge mechanic, or twitch and combos.

THEREFORE: in tournaments or soloQ you get a few players who have mastered these skills dominating the 75% who are not all that skilled.

This makes it not fun for the majority. They drop out when they find they cannot master the skillsets needed.

I found SoloQ to be much more stress-producing than hotjoin.

If you decide that being high on the leaderboard is important to you, then SoloQ can be absolutely deadly at producing stress and anger.

Believing that the leaderboards currently measure your combat skill is a BAD IDEA.

In hotjoin you know it is random and you are going to get losses, and your “rank” doesn’t depend on them.

In SoloQ as you find that your team is totally incompetent, you may feel a panicky feeling rising that you have to fix it and assure the win…which is not something you can really do.

It’s bad. Don’t do that.

Just play SoloQ as a hotjoin that has a slightly better chance that players will actually try to win and use a strategy.

But don’t think that the leaderboard truly measures your skill. It might measure how well you can pick and play a support build that can “amplify” a weak team’s chance at winning. But it could take hundreds of matches before you see a trends towards wins…there are so many variables.

A matcher that flags people on your last team as being unavailable for you on the next match would help.

The pool of people queing is not infinite. It’s rather small at any given time.

People assigned to a win-streak team would be out of the pool for the other teams to use. The other teams would tend to lose more. The win streak team would have an advantage.

uberkingkong,

It doesn’t even anything. It just starts to ignore skill differences and puts anyone with anyone after 4 minutes. So if there are top player teams waiting, they get low skilled opponents.

Personally, I question the value of “a match at any cost”.

There are high costs in slaughtering and demoralizing the average player base.

I think it should just tell the queued players “There are not enough players at your skill level at this time.”

Knote.2904:

They are the same as traits that proc things passively.

Such as Dhuumfire-esque traits.

They’re not the only guilty one, doesn’t make them any less guilty.

Nobody is “guilty”. These are the traits and classes that the game consists of. Everyone is free to use any one of them. But some people decide that only certain builds and professions are “real”…the ones they enjoy playing that require the type of skills they find enjoyable.

El Gaucho,

Thanks for your considered thoughts. Interesting to read.

I agree it is mostly about feelings. And enjoyable feelings make the game enjoyable for players.

I think it may be that removing the current “personal score” would be better than the current score that does not accurately reflect a good player’s real contribution to scoring points and instead says they scored lowest.

Even though I know better, when I score low, it bothers me. I find myself double capping just to not be so low. Silly human I am.

And I think these current personal scores do promote counter-productive behavior.

So rather than have a second column, I would rather not see phony “low scores”.

This guide is the perfect antidote to the Dunning-Kruger Syndrome I see displayed on the sPvP forums.

I am talking about those people I see regularly who smugly and arrogantly declare that GW2 sPvP is so very, very simple.

(Dunning-Kruger Syndrome is when people understand a topic so little that they wrongly believe that the little they know about it is all there is to know about it!)

Just put in a deathmatch arena for all the people who want a no-strategy, kill-kill-kill game mode. Basically a third-person view first-person-shooter.

Why 4 types? why not 8 with the dimension of overall strategic or tactical player? Add the dimension of melee or ranged?

I think it would be very interesting and instructive if one of the top “name” players were to ask ANet to set their SoloQ ELO to a minimum, and see how long it takes them to raise that character to the top again. If they even could.

It would be something to watch.

“Here is the thing, starting from the neutral MMR position if you get a bunch of lucky wins early, it shoots you up the boards and then you get grouped with good players and don’t have to worry about it as much (I believe he went 10-1 on day one). If you get a bunch of loses early it has the opposite effect.”

Ashanor understands.

NeXeD,

I meant that you were theory crafting about player strategy. Inexperienced players with a 0 to 19% chance of winning can’t be cat-herded into such reasonable, strategic behavior, in my experience.

Phantom,

I like your suggestion, Random Arena.

I think a main weakness of the GW2 design is that it was designed for organized teams who work together and train together to follow a strategy and use voice communications. (In other words, eSports).

But most players don’t have that kind of situation available to them, and so they must join random groups and they have to choose a build that does not depend on the help of others, nor depend on others following a strategy.

It’s always supposed to be about 50/50. You are supposed to be equally matched with players who can win as easily as you can. So…50%.

The position on the leaderboard only shows the skill “bracket” where you play your 50/50 matches.

With an accurate MMR system, really good players will never get a match.

Maybe after waiting an hour in prime time they will find 9 others at their level.

The 5×5 hotjoins have been full all day.

El Gaucho,

You are right. It is mostly about changing our perceptions and having our own criteria for success…and fun.

Just being in a group of two really seems to help matches.

I am personally trying to collect the names of all the people on this forum who seem mature and smart about playing the game. When I am in HOM I will look for them and ask to team up. It’ll be a “virtual team”, not always the same people…that takes too much weekly organization for my schedule.

But if I have 25 people I can ask to group, I am HOPING it will be better than solo.

And the more you lose, the worse teams they put you with.

Like that attack underwater, the “Sink Like a Stone” attack? That’s how it feels.

There is no cheese. There is only a playstyle you think is easier than the one you like.

If you think other people’s “easier” builds are cheese, then you should start playing with suboptimal runes and amulets…just to be “non-cheese” to the max.

Eventually you can boast that you play naked, and everyone who uses a powerful rune is “cheese”.

Think about it.

I like it if it keeps daily grinders out of Ranked.

You will do best if you can understand the playstyle you enjoy most, and choose a profession that fits.

Then, read the forums for that profession and find a tested, proven build for sPvP for that class.

Think about and understand WHY that build works best. Learn how to use it.

Join hotjoin to practice with that build until the finger presses are fairly automatic. That way you can think about the overall battle, rather them looking for the keys with tunnel vision.

Learn to think about the strategy of each map, and how you can best contribute to pulling off that strategy.

WOW. Why are those top players ALL on the same team???

The matching function is obviously naive.

Fix this or people are going to bail on SoloQ.

It has to have credibility, or people will leave it as they did the “premade soloQ”.

If I was coding the matcher, I would flag people who have just been on a team together to be disallowed for being with anyone of that team for the next game. I.e. I would just attach a list of the last 4 people to each person, and disallow them from being on a team with anyone on that list.

Each game you refresh the list.

El Gaucho.5278:

I understand what you’re proposing, but I’m not sure that I understand what the problem is that you are trying to solve.

Are you trying to encourage bunkering? Boost personal rewards? Surely the win bonus should already acknowledge the team effort that was being targeted?

People want to see “how they did” in a match, even if their team lost.

The current individual scoring system does not really do that. We all have seen when we have had a crucial role in winning, and yet find that we have one of the lowest “scores”.

I am not saying rank should be awarded on these scores.

I just am trying to think what would most accurately display an individual’s real contribution to the win rather than “skirmish points”, etc.

IF each team sat on their home point and a few people fought over Mid all game, then all the individual scores would be identical at the end, except for a few people who flipped Mid now and then.

Which reflects exactly their contributions. Boring, in this case, but accurate.

The current matchmaking system uses YOUR HIDDEN MMR to find 10 people of similar MMR. Then it distributes the 10 to two teams as equally as possible.

But 10 people of really close MMR are never queing up at the same time…so you get some variation in the MMRs.

Qaelyn.7612:

I’ve thought about guardian, Ashin, but have little experience with them. And to be honest, I find that I can kill most of them pretty easily with my mesmer, which makes me wonder if that’s really the direction I should go.

Love to see your build if you’re willing to share (here or PM, if you wish.)

Kharr, I don’t really think I’ve reached my skill bracket based on my gameplay experience. I could be wrong, but it just seems that way, as I have a lot of games where I play well but still lose due to circumstances beyond my control. That keeps me down in the bottom of the rankings where I am teamed with more people who cause me to lose in ways I can’t avoid, setting up what seems like a vicious cycle.

I can almost guarantee that you probably play a roamer and look for 1v1 fights. You cannot hold a point. You cannot help much in a team fight since you do not run team buffs.

This does not help a team win and keeps you on losing teams. And your rank is ONLY about your team wins, not your own play. You MUST influence your team win.

I know about this because I did the same thing for months and learned the hard way.

Go for a more team supporting class/build. A good example is a spirit ranger…with the super buffs they provide to everyone in a team fight.

When it is 300 to 20 and the stronger team is laughing and steamrolling, many people assigned to a weak team just stand off in a corner and let it be over fast. Because unless you want to skirmish off in a corner 1v1 or 1v2, it is a waste of time.

Seems like most of the people on the “leader” board have around 12 or so total games.

I am wondering the number of people trying it has drastically slowed, and what that means for people trying to increase their MMRs.

I still believe it is mostly high MMR people queuing right now. They have the most fun.

I think it is much better than the way it matched before. Games are more often close. Higher MMR players have to play like it. Lower MMRs will be sorted out as they play more.

I see that guy at the top with 11 wins and 0 losses.

He will stop playing that character. Watch.

There is something disturbing to me about a person accepting a completely made-up set of achievements in a commercial game as an actual real-life achievement.

What if a some business entity asked you to walk backwards in the rain for 1,250 days when the temperature was less than 50 degrees Fahrenheit holding their product in your hands, and if you could prove it, they would put your name on a website saying you did it.

Would you do it and feel that you had accomplished something significant?

What else could you be doing with some of that time? Could you be improving the world in some small way? Helping fix some sort of real-world problem that causes pain or discomfort for innocent people somewhere?

Mesmers have a few seconds of stealth every 30 seconds. 80% would be 24 seconds of stealth every 30 seconds. In a 15 min game they would be in stealth for 12 minutes.

This is a good example of why it is so hard to find accurate information on the PvP forums.

[THIS SLOT RESERVED FOR PEOPLE WHO MUST BRAG AT HOW EASY IT IS, BECAUSE THEY THEMSELVES ARE SO SKILLED]

There, it was said…now you don’t have to brag and clutter up the topic with useless ego posts.