Guild Wars 2

It’s also exploitable when large wide characters such as char, are able to block any/all animations from tablet casting by standing on it.

Sly.9518:

The build also dies to being focused so if a team actually rotates the player does quite easily in teamfights, but I understand this is Solo queue players expect only 1 person to manage the side nodes while everyone else feeds mid….

This just highlights how a lot of players just don’t know how to fight the build or are familiar with it.

No

The animation of the #6 tablet summon and the #10 explode are overlapping animations. You can’t reliably tell if someone is only summoning a tablet or if they are also immediately exploding it, which in that case the animation overlaps and you can’t see the distinction between 6 and 0.

This is extremely exploitable and it needs to be fixed.

I feel like people are looking at this incorrectly, concerning the discussion. A Ventari Rev is not a usual meta archetype. It is not DPS, Peel +1, or even Bunker/Support in the same way that a Tempest is. Ventari Rev is something I would label as Traffic Control. It does a few things that are important to note before a discussion as to if it is OP or not can take place:

• It has the ultimate control skill. A no animation AoE knockback CC, which occurs frequently and is able to easily decap a node 1v1, 1v2 or even 1v3 in some cases. This ultimate control skill if used wisely, is also better damage mitigation than a normal support with heals. The frequent knockbacks can halt full team bursting/cleaving/stomping, very easily.
• A good Ventari Rev is unkillable 1v1 amongst meta builds. The only way you are going to down a good Ventari in 1v1 is with some strange build designed completely around condi DPS, such as a full trap shortbow Druid wearing Deadshot or something. It is possible to kill it 1v1 but the build used to do it will be useless against other metas. Essentially, Ventari Rev has no practical class counters in the same way that every other class/build has. So we are talking about a build that can inevitably hold a node 1v1, in every match up that it is against. Even if he is losing to some custom build designed to kill the Ventari, he sure as hell can hold long enough for a plus and if he doesn’t get it, was the time invested by the custom build to kill the Ventari on the Ventari’s color even worth it?
• You can kill it fairly easily 2v1 but the time invested to do this usually isn’t worth it while you’re team is getting 3v4d. This leads to situations where someone has to peel off the Ventari 2v1 to assist in holding/winning nodes and team fights. Since it is rare that a build can 1v1 kill a Ventari, the remaining player will almost always be forced to leave the fight as well. This results in enormously wasted time. If the game is actually balanced, there is no time to leave your team in 3v4s because it generally results in losing the other two nodes while you and your partner were trying to 2v1 a Ventari on the Ventari’s color. It’s just a bad idea. So then players figure out to avoid the Ventari.
• Avoiding the Ventari and trying to 5v4 around him on the other two nodes sounds like a great idea. But the truth is that a good player on the Ventari isn’t going to setup a tent and camp his home point all game. The Ventari will peel and go to other nodes, resulting in the same above two situations. If the match is balanced, players realize they aren’t going to win a team fight on the node against the present Ventari. Again, it forces players to peel off and go elsewhere. The Ventari wins the node again. Now consider his team isn’t stupid and they know to support play the Ventari’s presence so when he shows up to mid, they leave 1 person to support him and the other 3 peel to defend the sides. Ignoring the Ventari and playing around him isn’t as easy as it sounds when the Ventari is aware of how to position his presence. This is especially full of kitten when he duos with a good Chronomancer and they know how to play portal entre.
• At advanced levels, the Ventari recognizes that he can easily redirect and control the traffic of the enemy team. This is something sort of new really. No other bunker/support role is quite as effective at this as a Ventari Rev and this is really what makes it OP. It’s presence alone, creates forced rotations for the enemy team. A Bunker Druid can 1v2 a node against competent players, sure. But it has to peel around to survive, sometimes off point, and it must stealth at times to survive, which eventually can lose a decap. The same sorts of limitations apply to Scrappers/Tempests. They may toss more heal/condi cleanse than the Ventari but these other bunker/supports have no where near the capability to plainly stop a burst before it even happens, against multiple opponents mind you, and all the while easily the node while doing it.

The game of conquest is about decapping and holding nodes. Honestly if you could stack 5 Ventari Revs on a team and have 2 sit home, 2 sit mid and 1 rotate to + where needed, how the hell would you ever decap those nodes to get 2 nodes, to be able to win a game? They would never need to deal any DPS to your team. They would simply bully you off point with CCs and hold the nodes, all game. Even if you could kill one of them every once in awhile, you wouldn’t kill them quickly enough to ever be able to take those nodes.

In the end, the Ventari Rev has too high of a floor and too high of a ceiling. It is too easy for a subpar player to begin using, while he dodges rolls for stability proc and pushes everyone off point. And it is too rewarding for experienced players to abuse it’s over tweaked functions for the purpose of conquest. I mean the build almost plays itself “show up to a node, win that node cause Ventari”.

The AoE CC needs a longer cast activation and they need to add a tell of animation of the cast. Right now in its current state, that AoE CC is full of kitten ^^

Lots of convoluted response in here. Let’s get a couple things straight:

• Chronomancers need to be using swords. Regardless of if they are using power shatter or chronophantasma.
• It’s good to point out what players can do to get better but stop telling the OP that losing 26 matches in a row is his fault alone. If he were that bad of a player, the match maker should never have carried him in to a position that would set him up for a 26 game lose streak. For this to happen, the OP would have had to undergo some of the worst and most inaccurate placement matches that I’ve ever heard of.

Heavy condition application counters the kitten out of Ventari Rev

Indeed it was a lie

Omcrazy.4756:

Trevor Boyer.6524:

Let’s just see how you feel after you’ve experienced your first mandatory 20 game lose streak. You’ve been playing almost a month now, it’ll happen soon.

I’ll report back if it does. I’ve already had a streak where I lost something like 15 out of 20, but I am well aware I played poorly in many of those losses. It was followed by an 8 game win streak in which I played as a scrapper and not a very good one for about half of them but was lucky enough to get carried.

Oh I think you already did report back.

• 15 game lose streak
• Turns into 8 games of getting carried win streak
• Took less than a month to see an anomaly occur within the match making

Let’s just see how you feel after you’ve experienced your first mandatory 20 game lose streak. You’ve been playing almost a month now, it’ll happen soon.

@ Omcrazy

What you’re posting is full of condescending, apologist response. It’s also very bold considering the month long history of forum activity that your account has. That month long history with a total of 36 postings ever, is mostly full of questions asking what builds you should play.

• 1 – For one, you’ll often play multiple matches in a row. This often means you are going to have some of the same players in multiple matches in a row. Yup, we all know that. It’s easy to figure out after the first week of buying the game. People do take breaks, sometimes for days at a time before que’ing ranked again, but the lose streak continues for a forced amounts of games over the span of many days and playing at different time intervals. You need to understand what players are actually reporting here.
• 2 – Multiple losses leads to frustration which leads to mistakes. Yeah that’s why people take breaks. Are you seriously discrediting the gross amount of players reporting this same match making activity, with a suggestion that people aren’t self aware enough to recognize when their mood is so off that it is effecting their gameplay? I’ll tell you what buddy, 99% of the time people definitely log off the discord, log off the game and go take breaks when they know they are on a lose streak. They say things like “Ok, sorry guys, I don’t want to lose any more rating today, gonna give it a break.” No one plays 20 games straight when they know they are on a lose streak. And I highly doubt that even 1/10th of the player base is actually bipolar enough to remain kittened off about a loss in GW2 for longer than about 2 minutes after it occurs. We don’t all behave like the young smurf god.
• 3 – But just as often as you are getting horrible teammates dragging you down you are probably getting good teammates holding you up. Its arrogant as anything to blame your win streaks on your own abilities but loss streaks on some nefarious matchmaking conspiracy. Not a single recent post on this topic has implied anything like that. We are discussing times when you have evidence of elongated streaks of bad match making. Such as: Leg Leg Plat Plat Plat vs. Plat Plat Gold Gold Gold. It happens often during the bad streaks and it is happening to many players. Also, it isn’t a conspiracy. It’s just a system within the algorithm that makes sure integers are reaching far enough between legend and bronze so that they touch the extreme bases, numerically. If it weren’t for this system, everyone’s ratings would implode into a median and ratings would be high enough to hit legend and they wouldn’t be low enough to touch bronze 1, by the end of the season. Go reread the link I posted about this, in my previous post.
• 4 – Best I can offer is if you find yourself in the middle of a loss streak then go take a break. Or play a couple rounds on unranked. Gives it time for the matchmaking to mix up a little more and maybe for you to cool off and get a bit more level headed. That’s just condescending man. As if everyone were a bipolar 12 year old child.
• 5 – I don’t understand how people come to the conclusion that MM is purposefully stacking teams. What are you basing this on? Because you lose? Because some of us have a couple hundred spvp players added to our contacts lists so that we can que dodge and view names/ratings later ~ Go figure.
• 6 – 150+ matches this season so far. Yet to get more than 1 AFKer or idler on my team.
  That is either a bold lie or you are on the good list. Most people will confidently tell you that they experience some form of AFK or DC about 1/10 matches, at least.

Most of the people you are posting around in this discussion are players who have played since year 1, who have around 10,000 or more matches played. You have not yet undergone the lose streak activity because your account is still fresh in spvp “as you yourself even said in your first post in this forum, only 1 month ago.” New accounts, for years now are notorious for climbing too high and getting better match making than older accounts, due to how they inject new account MMRs into the system. But rest assured, you’re account will age and your total amount of games played will catch up and you will begin to experience the lose streaks. Enjoy it when it happens, remember this thread and all of the users who have posted within.

This will be my final post in this thread. I figured it would be a good idea to end my part of the discussion with a bit of closure.

First, I’d like to point out that this perspective from stronger players that, “all the complainers posting are just bad players who think they should be higher ranked than they are”, couldn’t be further from the truth. Indeed there are players with this attitude but the large majority of players posting about experiencing this problem are just confused and want to know why in the hell they get 10-20 game lose streaks, which occur frequently, that are clearly not luck, but rather something scheduled. That doesn’t make the game feel good to play. It makes the game feel bad to play. These players hovering silver and low gold already know they are bellow the average skilled player. Of course they like to win but they aren’t trying to fame hunt a high rating because they know it isn’t going to happen. They just want reasonable match making.
Win 2, lose 1, lose 2, win 1, win 3, lose 2, win 1, lose 1. If the match making were actually balanced, that is what the records should be looking like and no one can complain about that. But they certainly can complain about 10-20 game lose streaks that occur once a week, scheduled like clockwork, that makes the game no fun to play.
Some of the stronger players out there are actually able to play through bad situations like this, most of the time anyway. But they need to understand that is because they are at the top of food chain within this community and have few rivals. They need to understand what it would feel like to be some Silver 3 player who’s goal is to reach Gold 1, who just bought the game and has less than 200 matches played, who has plenty of players above him that his experience is unable to contend with. Understand how bad it feels for these players to play as hard as they can for 50 matches or so as they vie back and forth between Silver 3 and Gold 1, then suddenly one day they begin a 20 bad match lose streak where every team they are against is full of Golds and every team they are on is full of Silvers and some Bronze guy. Then they find themselves reset back to Bronze 3 with a single day of play time. These are the types of experiences that make players say: “You know what? Something is wrong with this and it distinctly felt rigged. kitten this game, I’m out” and then they leave because it feels bad. No one wants a hobby that makes you feel bad. I’m not saying they are entitled to feeling good and always being on a win streak, no. But I am saying that they are entitled to balanced match making that doesn’t lose streak them for the purpose of expanding the margins of the Glicko regions, which is a low blow. I’m sure the community would be much larger if there weren’t this enormous discouragement when a player undergoes 10-20 game lose streaks, which if you haven’t noticed, is being reported by many players. For every 1 person that takes the time to post in this forum, there are a couple dozen others experiencing the same things, that aren’t posting at all. And stop with the “get good and carry” pretentious remarks. It’s a cop out response that avoids the core of the discussion, which is bad matching for all of us, despite how good or bad one may be. Everyone wants match making to feel good, not bad.

Read this thread here, my last big double post. This is the best sense that I can make of why the lose streaking occurs. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/10-loss-streak-dev-feedback-required/first
The part about some players being favored, sorry if it offends anyone but I do believe in some cases that it is happening.

Here is another post regarding the same discussion:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/Suddenly-I-can-t-win-a-match

Retaliation isn’t a problem 1v1, it’s when you’re striking 4 or 5 targets at once, who all have retaliation. Then we’re talking a large return of damage. Though that situation is rare and I don’t really see a problem with retaliation.

Now let’s talk about the confusion condition. It only takes 1 person to stack large confusion condi and this situation occurs much more frequently than many targets having retaliation. All it takes is one multiple striking AoE cleave in the middle of a small node team fight and a player can deal enough damage to themselves to get downed twice over. Confusion in my opinion is very exploitable but not many seem smart enough to figure it out.

aaaaaand another one:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/My-Season-Experience/first#post6738557

Boy this sure seems to be happening to a lot of people. I mean could you even lose 10 in a row if you tried? Even if you AFK’d every match, you’d get a couple matches out of 10 where your team was able to 4v5.

I find this phenomena pretty odd.

Amityel, you’re talking the difference between when it is team supporting and when it is 1v1 taking a node. Of course it team supports in a team fight. But when 1v1 on a node, it will always win the node, doesn’t matter what it’s against. A good Ventari isn’t so easily killed by anything. It saves it’s CCs to stop bursts, not just decap.

Conquest is about taking nodes. Ventari is too powerful at this on side nodes.
The AoE CC needs a slight nerf.

Other things to point out:

• During this past season I have noticed more evidence of the control group A and control group B theory. I’ve noticed about 6 to 8 of my close friends will always begin lose streaks together on the same day and the same time “these people are not playing together, they are grouped into their own duos with people I don’t play with”. We all have bad match making streaks for this strangely exact same time frame, usually lasts for a couple days, then on the exact same day at the exact same time, it goes away. Then everyone gradually climbs back up the ladder at the same time while suddenly a different group of guys is on a magic lose streak to feed us? This wave of sudden shift in match quality has happened two or three times this season, at the same time, to the same groups of people, all in synchronicity. This is a statistical anomaly and shouldn’t/wouldn’t be happening over and over like automated clockwork, least it indicates control groups within the community and switches being flipped to create lose streaks as stepping stones. Why would they do this? Pretty sure it’s to make the glicko expand, rather than implode.
• The only way to make sure that glicko margins expand rather than implode with such a small community, would be to have some group of players varied all throughout the ratings, not just the top 50, who are pushing wins much more often within the balanced match making than anyone else, regardless of their actual skill levels. Then you would need a group of players varied through the ratings list, not just bronze players, who are somehow pushing 50% or lower win rates, regardless of their actual skill level. If the match making were actually balanced, it wouldn’t matter who was good and who was bad because they would be being mixed together in a balanced fashion, creating balanced matches. Simply put boys, the more balanced the match making is with average party mmr vs. average mrr, the more balanced the margin of difference begins to look from high rating to low rating, meaning it will begin to implode. To prevent this, lopsided matches must occur, especially within an ever shrinking community. It’s the only way to make sure there are enough differences in integers to reach from bronze 1, up to legend. Otherwise we have everyone hovering 1200 – 1600. The problem begins to get worse the smaller the community gets.

But why would they do this? It isn’t to screw with anyone, it’s simply to make sure the system works. But who is on the good list and who is on the bad list for win streaks and lose streaks and why are they allocated into these control groups? Well that’s a topic for a different thread but I can say this:

• Identified power players within the community have a loud voice and many of them stream. Power players who complain about bad match making is bad commercialism.
• Streamers in general, even the subpar skilled ones – No one wants to watch a loser on twitch, it’s boring. And it’s bad commercialism.
• People who are not identified power players, who do not stream, have no voice. No one cares if they complain about 20+ game lose streaks in a forum.
  Go figure how to allocate control group A and control group B

At any rate, I am truly convinced something like this is happening after all these years of viewing the patterns within the algorithm between the different demographics of players, concerning their status within the community and ability to represent Guild Wars 2, commercially.

Go ahead and toss all the pretentious remarks you want at me, explain to me how bad of a player I am and try to convince me how wrong the above statements are. But I think you’ll find it difficult to do that with everyone amongst the large list of players who are noticing the same things that I have, 5 years into this trail of evidence.

Most balanced match making possible? I don’t believe that at all. The glicko system would almost certainly need fluctuation of purposeful lopsided matches being thrown to different control groups at certain times for there to be point fluctuation between them at all. I’m not going to sit here and write you a 10 page thesis on this one but if you were to sit down and actually try to find ways to improve the glicko, you would self discover what I’m talking about. I had discovered that, without purposeful match stacking from time to time, a glicko ran system designed for individual ratings that is played through 5 man vs. 5 man teams, will actually implode over time and not expand, in terms of the margin of difference between high ranked players and low ranked players. This is mostly due to the mixing and matching of how the system is supposed to work and if the match making is actually making balanced matches, Each individual rating of a given player only represents 20% of his contribution and the other 80% directly represents other players that he is playing with. Hrmm now stop and think about this logically for a minute. You don’t need to run a simulation to understand that if matches were actually balanced in creation, the beginning of a season may start with highs looking like 1800 and lows looking like 900 but over the course of time, due to balanced match making, highs will be forced to carry more 900s in their team and 900s will be getting carried by more 1800s in their team. This should be resulting in 1800s being dragged down by 900s whilst 900s are dragged up by 1800s. All in the end, imploding that margin of difference in the whole number integer ratings. 1800 – 900 should end up looking more like 1500 – 1300 in the end. It certainly shouldn’t be expanding like we see, into 2300+ through 600. Even given the volatility in difference between rating gained and rating lost. There is also other supportive aspects of this effect:

• A 1800 wins a game, gains like +7 rating but when he loses a game, he gains like -40.
• A 900 wins a game being carried by a 1800 in his team, against another team with a 1800. The 900 gains like +25 points but if he loses only loses like -8
• The higher an individual’s rating gets, according to match making, he should be pulling in more lows to go against similar players of his rating also being forced to carry lows. He should not be getting stacked high teams against lower rated parties.
• The lower an individual’s rating gets, according to match making, he should be being grouped with higher ranked players to go against other lows who are teamed with high ranked players. He should not be getting stacked into bad teams that are repeatedly fed to high ranked players.
• Upon all of the above, we all know that guild wars 2 conquest is a game with hard limitations on how much one can carry a match. You have so much life value, only so many stunbreaks, only so much disengage, you only deal so much damage and above all, 1 good player can only defend 1 node at a single given time. If we were to compare some match up like Abjured vs. TCG, the match would be balanced. But if we were to run some control group situation and make the Abjured substitute Magic Toker out for some subpar player or let’s even say “me”, do you have any idea how much that would matter in the outcome of the match? Point being to take from this example: Great players are not immortal carry gods. If great players are supposed to go against other great players within this que system, they should have varied luck with who they draw in for their matches, resulting in varied wins and varied loses. They SHOULD NOT be rolling stacked teams of high ratings vs. lower ratings all the time. And if they are doing that frequently, something is wrong with the match making. Because they should be getting balanced matches for competition, even if it looks like: leg leg plat gold gold vs. plat plat plat plat plat. So why are they frequently getting matches like: leg leg plat plat plat vs. plat plat gold gold gold? That is high level kitten right there and no one can convince that it isn’t.

So if anyone were to run the numbers realistically here, they would see that in the presence of fair and equal match making, the margin of difference between high ranked players and low ranked players should be imploding over time, not expanding. At the very least, peak ratings for individual players should be settling at a realistic margin and not going past a certain point. It certainly should NOT be expanding. Ever expanding numeric margins suggest the presence of:

• High levels of meta match manipulation remaining within the community
• High levels of stacked match making that is designed to happen within the algorithm to make sure that the glicko works as intended for individual ratings within a 5v5 game.
• Remaining segregation within the system, something similar to division segregation, probably ran by listed MMR “which is indeed separate from Rating”. And MMR is not always gained or lost fairly as arenanet has us all agree to in the TOS before being allowed to download and play Guild Wars 2. This indicates the very real possibility of account favoritism.

The problem with Ventari occurred when they nerfed stability intra-class wide and added too much freecast boon removal on sigils effects, which makes it very easy to strip the little stability that the classes provide. The problem with Ventari Rev will only worsen when PoF releases because the sources of boon removal will double if not triple. Stability boons will become negligent, stun breaks will be the only reliable method of escaping CC “which there aren’t enough of” and the game’s meta will become tilted towards CC and DPS. This will make Ventari Rev a powerful assist on point for the purposes of setting up team bursting and/or mitigating enemy bursting with it’s perpetual AoE CC effects. It’s ability to stop bursting before it happens is in every way equal to or greater than Auramancer healing.

But the real culprit of the problem here, is too much boon removal and the nerf to pulsing stabilities. Now there is no class that can stand in the Ventari’s face long enough to deal damage to it, let alone even keep a node contested against it to begin with. It’s also ridiculous that the AoE CC spam has instant animation which provides little to no counterplay. They really need to increase the cast time of the CC and add some tell of animation for players to be able to work with against the CC play.

NotoriousNaru.1705:

Lmao your memes never seem to disappoint.

You can’t lose 15 games in a row, cry on the forums, and expect anyone good at this game to take you seriously. I don’t think you truly grasp how bad ANYONE has to be to lose FIFTEEN ENTIRE GAMES in a row. If matchmaking was so flawed like you claim it to be, then why is there not a single semi decent or good player complaining about them having FIFTEEN games stacked against them. Here’s the reality of your situation Mr. I like to click my skills, of those 15 games you lost you probably had 2 maybe 3 stacked against you, and the other 12-13 you were just not good enough to win. I’m sorry to burst your buble but its true.

Do you notice a pattern here? Good players keep climbing up, and bad players keep losing(15 loss streak xd what a meme). MM isn’t out to get anyone most people coming on this forum crying about where they are and where they should be, are usually just delusional and are exactly where they deserve to be.

Psychological projection is a defense mechanism people subconsciously employ in order to cope with difficult feelings or emotions. Psychological projection involves projecting undesirable feelings or emotions onto someone else, rather than admitting to or dealing with the unwanted feelings.

You may be playing on a different account but you are the same person.

Another one, with exact same details and explanation of the somehow frequently occurring anomaly:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/My-Season-Experience

You’re missing the point entirely, Naru. Even if I was a terrible player, my MMR/Rating should be settling at some point. It should not be ping ponging between 1600 and 1300 all season each and every season, due to bad match making streaks that function on an automated schedule that is as predictable as clockwork. Leg Plat Plat Plat Gold vs. (Me) Plat Plat Gold Gold Gold, for 15+ games in a row, is not balanced match making.

A few things that need to be said:

• You’re “God Of PvP” title was not real. We all know what you did to obtain it.
• If I were to begin smurfing, my 1500ish – 1600ish rating would sky rocket to 1800+ quite easily. Very very easily. But I’m sure you already know all about how that works.
• I don’t think you are as good of a player as you believe you are. If you want to put some push and shove behind your name again and if you are that hard up to defame mine, we should set up a time to do a non smurfing environment 1v1. It would be good for your twitch ratings. Will you take me up on this after all of the big talk or will you dodge?

~ Let me know, Naru

NotoriousNaru.1705:

Why do people do this? Why do you go on a massive loss streak and act like matchmaking is working against you. It isn’t. If you lost 10 in a row you need to re-evaluate yourself and see what YOU are doing wrong and fix it to stop that from happening again. This is just like that other guy with his massive rant about losing 15 games in a row, but hes a skill clicker.

8 seasons in you people need to understand that the population is low and MM isn’t going to spend 30mins giving you a perfectly balanced game. If you want to win more then either start improving or play something cheese(condi thief/ventari rev)

Big talk from smurfing culprit #1
Come back and post after you’ve actually experienced legitimate matches.

I don’t think the problem is Ventari Rev directly.
The direct problem was the stability nerfs intra-class wide.
And the implementation of too many boon removals vs. what little stability we have.

Though if you want a quick fix to Ventari Rev, the knockback on the elite needs to be about half the range that it is now. That frequent AoE knockback is too powerful in conquest after the stability nerfs. I mean, this spec could have 0 DPS but still be decapping nodes 1v3 out from under everyone. It’s a bit much. If the knockback was half range, they’d actually have to play wisely and catch players near the edge before pulsing, to be able to decap.

All of the responses, even the OP’s original post seems to be misunderstanding the reason why a player will go on a 10+ game losing streak and that reason is match making that is literally “stacked against you”, where a plat 2 solo que is forced to get teams like: (you) as plat 2, gold, gold, gold, gold vs. teams like: leg, plat, plat, plat, gold. Start adding people to your friends list and start paying attention to these lopsided rating distributions during lose streaks. You’ll see that it is true.

The real question is:
Why are some players forced to play through these mandatory streaks of bad match making, resulting in frequent resetting of MMR/Rating levels and extremely volatile placement “Continuously ping ponging between 1600ish and 1350ish all season”, whilst others will tag a top 100 positioning directly out of placement and only ever fluctuate between 1600, to 1620 and maybe as low as 1580? Those are the two different types of patterns you see within the algorithm, if anyone cares to pay attention at all. You never hear of any stories that are in between these two extreme types of patterns. Honestly it would indicate a Control Group A and Control Group B type situation where some players are omitted from the mandatory bad match streaks whilst others are being used as stepping stones for others, within the algorithm.

I have a thread written in detail about this algorithm activity:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/Season-8-My-Match-Making-Response-Please/first

Thunderbird.4298:

The op has trained no one. Thanks for the laugh tho. -ESL player.

Oh yes I have. I didn’t say I trained pro players who have won a WTS. I trained players who made it into bottom line up teams within the ESL, a couple of them at least. Trained quite a few players who ended up running AGs and doing fairly well.

My name was in circulation for awhile as a guy to contact for these purposes, amongst new players and new teams arriving into the GW2 scene. It wasn’t because I was the best player, frankly it was because I was one of the extremely few people who was running an actual entry level spvp guild, that actually took the time to sit down with these new players and make them run scrims, 1v1 and 2v2 practices, rather than invite 200 players and then ignore them. In modern GW2 terms, I was taking bronze/silver entry level players and in a little short of a week, bringing them to a gold 3ish/plat 1ish level of competition. When they felt they had learned all they could from me and were ready, they would move on with hopes of finding more competitive teachers that could bring them to a tournament level. A few succeeded, most others failed. But isn’t that how the story goes in general for everyone?

Regardless of all that, Thunderbird, you are a great player but your commentary towards me was either in ignorance or disrespect, maybe a bit of both. Saying: “I have trained no one” to me, suggests that you are only acknowledging some extremely small player base of the top 5% of the elite community. Maybe the players I’ve trained never became stapled GW2 icons such as The Abjured or TCG, but some of them did find spots in functional teams and were around briefly, within the competitive scene. Maybe I am not the one that brought them to that tournament level of competition, but I was the one who took the time to play games with them and teach them the basic essentials, when other players were avoiding their inexperience like the plague. Saying: “I have taught no one” is hilarious considering that I am probably amongst the top 3 players within this community who has brought players to GW2, introduced them to spvp, taught them the basic essentials and kept them interested in the game. I’ll make that statement very boldly. That is just what happens when you run an honest to god entry level spvp guild that is actually active.

At any rate Thunderbird, it would be surprising if we could look at some statistic that showed players still playing, good and bad, players that don’t log in anymore, and how many of them were given the basic essentials not through a youtube video but through my personal time shared teaching them. You should learn a bit more about respecting others efforts and accomplishments, least you expose your nonchalant and egocentric buffoonery. You don’t need to respect me but you should respect the pillars of effort that keep players interested in this game mode.

Shout out to all the guys who dedicated personal time to teaching new players

Still missing the point

The point is discussion behind matches that are placed like:
leg leg plat plat gold vs. plat gold gold gold gold
That has nothing to do with new players on the scene.
That is a problem with stacked match making.
There is no reason why the match making could not rather do:
leg leg plat gold gold vs. plat plat plat gold gold

Yeah, it’s good advice Chaith. Too often I try to take the easy route into a carry by drawing as many opponents as I can onto a neutral node or a node of my color, which like you said, works great if the match is relatively balanced but it works terrible during bad matches where 4 of my lower PUGs get chewed on other two nodes against 2 opponents who actually are running the types of builds you were referencing “like Toker on a Rev”. I need to focus more on assisting the weak players rather than assuming they can win 3v2s and 4v2s. I can see how this would make a difference in my match outcomes but I still have to ask: “Why in the hell does the other team have two players capable of winning 2v4s but my team has 4 dudes capable of losing 4v2s?” I mean seriously… it gets old after about 10 games in a row.

@ everyone else:
I see a lot of people pointing out botting/smurfing/aspects of luck, but I am not talking about botting/smurfing/aspects of luck during ques. I am talking about traceable evidence that the match making is tossing streaks of lopsided games on purpose. I was calling it a lose streak but I should have been calling it a bad match making streak. Situations where you are plat with four guys in gold but you are against a 1800 duo stacked with other players “who are on your friends list nonetheless” that you know are playing above 1500 all in plat. It’s a rating reset when this goes on for 10+ games.

Again, the question presented in this thread is:
Why are some people I talk to/play with experiencing the exact same thing, yet others I talk to/play with say their match making feels so balanced? These two extreme points of view are reflected in rating history by two different types of players:

• Players that tag a 1600ish rating or something and then play between 1630, maybe drop down to 1580 and then back up and lower again, their rating seems to actual settle and they are clearly not undergoing chains of leg leg plat plat plat vs plat gold gold gold gold matches to reset their rating for 10+ games in a row on some automated lost streak that happens every 30 games or so.
• Players that tag a 1600ish rating and climb to 1650 but then magically, after the first 30 games played, an automated lose streak occurs and then they drop down to like 1350 and then the lose streak stops and they are able to play normally again. After another 20+ games or so, they climb back up to that 1600ish rating but then the lose streak happens again in the same exact manner concerning clearly one lopsided match after another to ensure the forced loses? These types of players never have their rating settle no matter how many games they play. Isn’t that curious? How would the rating gain/lose remain so UBER volatile? And why would the occurrence and timing of these bad match streaks be so dependable and on schedule?

Call me crude but I honestly believe the difference between these two sorts of players is that some players are omitted from the automated lose streaks. Is this actually happening? Honestly not too sure but after 5 years of viewing these patterns, especially after visible rating was added, I’m convinced that it is happening.

Look at how many report the same exact thing in this forum and even in this thread.
Here is one that was posted recently:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/10-loss-streak-dev-feedback-required

Yeah Faux, you are not the first person I’ve heard say that about resetting their que. I’ve noticed it myself actually. At around 4+ minutes is when I start getting matches with double capping, players that explode on contact and guys asking questions about legendary wings in the middle of a match. If they don’t do something about this quality of match making, it will indirectly elongate ques when more people figure out to leave their que at around 3.00 or 4.00 minutes.

Right now though, I’m more concerned with whatever this wall is that hits at 1550. It happened again today, I worked back up to 1550ish+ and then immediately was given a bad match. This time around I actually had Sir Crysis in the team with me. At one point during this match, I was at the far point with Crysis and we were 2v3 holding the node our color. I was running bunker druid and just healing Crysis so he could kill everything. We were at that node for like 2 to 3 minutes. At one point it had actually turned in to a 2v4 and I thought “ok, this is clutch. Our 3 other guys will easily retake home/mid, we’re good to win.” During this timeframe, I watched in horror and rage as a single opponent went and took both mid and home against our 3 other players and sent them on wipe. I don’t know, you tell me what we could have done to better carry that match. I sort of thought that having 4/5ths of their team at far on our color for almost 3 minutes was enough. Is it even possible to carry harder than that? Well.. maybe if all 5 opponents were on us. That would have given us time to explain to our teammates how to use their WASD movement keys to cap nodes while allowing them to stay out of combat completely.

The culprit of the problem was one of three things:

• Hard smurfing and/or people being paid to lose
• Completely botched match making system
• The lose switch being pushed – Impossible matches that guarantee lose streaks
  Could is possibly be a bit of all three?

Whatever the clusterflux of causes, I’m absolutely fascinated with why this happens to me at exactly 1550 and I am convinced at this point that I am not allowed to play past 1550. Yet I see other players who are no better or worse than I am, playing up into 1700ish. You can’t tell me that these players are somehow magic carrying through matches such as what Crysis and I had, every game past 1550. You can’t tell me they are legitimately maintaining 85%+ win rates and experiencing the same kind of match making that I do, past 1550.

There is either server favoritism, where some accounts are omitted from these mandatory lose streaks or a lot of people are still smurfing hard and getting away with it by simply making sure to not share accounts.

It’s not that meta conquest builds are always too strong, it’s that meta conquest builds best suit the purposes and roles of conquest. Using your same example, Bunker Druid vs. Condi Druid, look at how both builds are OP under the right circumstances. Bunker Druid is great to stall node decap in conquest even in 1v2s, but it does nothing to help pass a DPS check in a raid. Condi Druid however, was literally the highest DPS in the game for awhile there but simply doesn’t fit enough of a niche role in conquest to be a top meta selection. Likewise, a build that is meta for wvw sucks in conquest just as much as a conquest build sucks in wvw. Cool example: Staff Eles & Power Well Necros. These suck terribly in conquest but are powerful as hell when used as backline zerg material.

Just depends on what game mode you’re talking about. There are many viable builds on every class, just not everything on every class is specifically optimal for 3 node hold 5v5 conquest.

Low population being responsible for bad match making is a myth and it’s not the issue at all. Even if only 10 people were playing Guild Wars 2, only 10. If those people were standing in que as: plat plat plat plat gold gold silver silver silver silver, it should que the match as: plat plat gold silver silver vs. plat plat gold silver silver. It should not que it as plat plat plat plat gold vs. gold silver silver silver silver. That is in no way balanced or competitive and that is what people are talking about in this thread, matches like that when there is no reason for the algorithm to be doing it other than to feed a team of low ranks to higher ranks.

The system does this often. It chooses when players go on win streaks or lose streaks to the point that the win/lose switch flip is reliable and dependable like clockwork. It is excruciatingly obnoxious for a player to “know” that he just had a ridiculously bad match 500 to 40 or some kitten and that it’s going to continue for another 8 to 10 games or so, for the purpose of resetting his rating gain.

I think the Glicko needs the game to do this for it to function, which is absolute garbage. If that is the case, they need to figure something else out or even remove the algorithm entirely and leave que’ing up to true randomness like GW1 RA. Honestly the match making couldn’t get worse than predictable win streaks and lose streaks.

I’ll make sure to do that, thanks for the tips.

It happened again today. I reached around 1550 rating and then bam, all day lose streak. Down to 1509 now. I’m convinced the only way to fight through these automated lose streaks is to smurf, which is exceedingly easy to get away with so long as you don’t share accounts.

• DCs
• Mysterious 4v5s half way through game
• silver silver silver gold plat vs. legend legend, plat plat plat

Get 10x in a row of these types of matches, back to back with no interruption. Always at exactly 1550 rating, always. Happens every time.

With the way this algorithm is setup, I honestly don’t blame people who smurf to get around it. The algorithm actually encourages players to find ways to bypass the automated lose streaks.

In the instance where he had gone against our plat duo, I had recently been running thief in unranked. I am the worst thief in NA, it was always one of the classes that I sort of ignored for years. Naturally, I went on a lose streak for about 8 -10 games in a row while trying to relearn thief and I’m sure that had lowered my unranked MMR quite a bit.

When our plat duo joined unranked for “practice” that day, we were running our mains and not trying to learn alts. So it’s a situation where our unranked MMR at the time was reflective of kittening around and running either custom builds for fun or when we are trying to learn classes we aren’t so good at. Then we log into our mains and the unranked is essentially placing us as if we were silver/gold players in unranked when in reality we are capable of playing at mid plat on mains. That’s really all that happened there.

I wouldn’t be opposed to trying something new like that.

I will say on a side note though, there is absolutely no reason why unranked shouldn’t have individual class MMR. No one farms unranked, no one cares to exploit the match making there, playing ranked is far far more rewards anyway. Unranked should be individual class MMR for sure, for the sake of good practice. It’s a real pain when a player’s Unranked MMR goes through the roof from running guild teams and doing pvp missions on mains. It results in a bad situation for that player and everyone on his team when he decides to log in and practice on something he knows nothing about but the algorithm is placing him as a high MMR main that should be able to 1v2 and 1v3 carry matches, yet there he is getting the kitten kicked out of him in every team fight and every 1v1 because he’s trying to learn a new class. All the while, kittening off everyone else in the team who doesn’t understand why they are being 500 – 40’d

I’m the person that told him ranked players use unranked for warm up. There are numerous reasons for unranked play though:

• Get your duo partner, run a couple unranked matches to warm up first. Sometimes when you first wake up or just get out of work, your head isn’t in the game yet.
• Run unranked with people that you wouldn’t run ranked with. Like new friends who only play at silver level or something. Unranked is where you teach them.
• Sometimes players just want to random around with weird builds in unranked.
• Sometimes a player who is plat on say a Druid, could be very bad on a Mesmer which he has less than 20 games played on. So he runs unranked for practice.

In testimony to the OP’s statement though, I had him in what, two or three games earlier? Either way, his matches were terrible. The game stacked my plat duo with other higher rated players and the OP’s team had like…. silvers and golds at best. There is no reason for the match making to be that lopsided. You all can sit here and tell him he needs to get good but that’s beside the point. The point is that there is supposed to be a match making algorithm that works, regardless of one’s person skill, they should be getting relatively balanced matches and not one fat losing blowout after another in a chain lose streak. Something is wrong there. Again, I was IN his matches and I’m telling you something was wrong with that match making. We had like plat stacked teams against a bunch of new guys. Didn’t make any sense to me. There is no reason why the algorithm couldn’t have taken 2 of our plat guys and swapped them with a couple of his silvers. Just no reason for that.

phokus.8934:

The problem is the OP. I’ve played against him a few times and he was feeding far (our home) all match and kept dying.

You want to know where 99% of the problems come from? Look in the mirror.

GW2 matchmaking isn’t perfect but to make some outrageous claims like you’re being singled out is pure lunacy.

mid syn·drome
noun

a group of symptoms that consistently occur together due to a lack of understanding conquest rotations in guild wars 2

a common syndrome in which a player does not understand the game of conquest beyond “taking the mid node”

Symptoms:

• repeatedly pushing the mid node, despite any remarkable circumstances that would encourage a different rotation
• ignoring active opponent back capping at the home node even when circumstances would otherwise encourage easy rotation to defend
• loses advantage 4v3s and 4v2s but blames team wipe on 5th player who is decapping/holding neutralizations 1v2 and 1v3 because they were not at the mid node
• blames a losing match in general on anyone who is not at the mid node
• gradual rise in toxicity resulting in an egotistical denial to accept limitations and/or learn from other players, this is mostly due to the player’s avoidance of admitting he was wrong

Example:
“He is suffering from mid syndrome. Our team could have won the match if he would have typed less complaints and stopped feeding the mid point. Sorry bro he is new. I will try to explain it to him later when he calms down and signs back on.”
~ a characteristic combination of opinions, emotions, or behavior

GS Power Mesmer is underpowered vs. DPS specs.
GS Power Mesmer is strong as all hell against anything that is supposed to be bunker.
Bunkers can’t deal the DPS they need to pressure the Mesmer.
The Mesmer however, can stealth 1 shot bunkers.

Again, more lopsided balance. Power Mesmer not broken in the aspect of being OP.
It’s broken that the spec isn’t more balanced in general for its role & purpose.
It either gets immediate stomped or immediate stomps something else.
It’s a volatile spec and I wouldn’t necessarily call it high risk high reward.
I would more refer to it as a suicide bomb build.

bOTEB, no one is complaining about beginners in general they are complaining about lopsided distribution of beginners. Those times when a team has gold gold gold silver silver but is for some reason against plat plat gold gold gold. These kinds of situations happen frequently and come in waves of lose streaks. It isn’t an accident and it isn’t dumb luck. The algorithm would seem to be picking and choosing when players lose and when others are fed. This has nothing to do with balanced match making.

I would say GS power mes is broken but not in an OP way. What makes it broken is that it’s a great spec with really fun burst material but it lacks the sustain to play seriously. What they ought to do is, lower it’s burst a bit and give it a bit more disengage. Then we’d see a 2nd viable Chrono spec.

Condi thief on the other hand, is just too powerful. I don’t think it’s the condi thief’s fault. It’s that condis are overwhelming within current patching right now. Condi burst builds are able to land twice the damage of any physical burst build in the same amount of time “power shatter mes is the only exception to this”. The guys from Radioactive wrote a post on this not long ago and I absolutely agree with them. Condi bursting is too powerful and it needs to be turned down game wide. We are currently in a condi bursting meta that slightly overrides the play of any bunker or support. If condis are not toned down before PoF, we won’t be seeing peeler or bunker/support roles anyone. The CCs, condi, boon removals will be too overwhelming for any bunker/support/peel to be viable. It’ll just be all about who hits that CC to hit & sit first wins.

@ Abazigal
You most certainly can have 10+ blowout games that are impossible to carry. It happens to me about every 15 – 20 games that I play, the mandatory lose streak begins. Notice how many other players have posted in just this thread, that they are experiencing the exact same thing, which comes in predictable waves that run like clockwork on a schedule.

If the match making works the way you suggest, then why is it that I can play 10 games within a 2 to 3 hour time frame, and always have to be one of the guys who goes against the leg leg plat plat plat with my plat plat gold gold gold team, but then never get rolled to be one of the plats that is with the good stacked team? Again, more historical pattern that suggest the idea of a control group A and a control group B. Some people get better match making than others.

If you want to talk about higher MMRs being given the luxury of being stacked together, then how is a player like myself “plat 1ish plat 2ish” ever supposed to rise in MMR/Rating when I am repeatedly set into the control group B and forced to try and carry golds vs. plats and legends, through a mandatory lose streak? Why do I never see these high MMR players being forced to carry gold against my platinum? No, everytime I see them, their team is stacked 1600+ whilst I am fed to them alongside my obviously gold 2 or worse players as they explode on contact during each combat engagement, trip over themselves during rotations and fail to win 4v2s while I am 1v3 somewhere for 4 minutes or some ridiculous kitten that I’m sadly not even exaggerating.The match making is neither fair or balanced when an algorithm creates match favoritism like this.

Do you have any idea how much this effects the success of a player climbing the leaderboards? I’ll use myself in these two different control group situations:

• Group A – I play 10 games out of placement, get placed Plat 1. Play 5 more games and hit Plat 2. The games are balanced, matches are won 500 to 450 or lost in the same way. Then suddenly, the mandatory 10 game lose streak hits. Each of those 10 games are lost like 500 to 200 or worse, sometimes like 500 to 40. The matches are distinct rigged so my team is far weaker than the opponents we are against. Now I’m kitten near down into Gold 2. After the clockwork lose streak ends, the matches begin to feel balanced again. I am able to slowly climb back to Plat 1-2ish with my 15 game leniency before it happens again. I’m never able to transcend Plat 1-2ish due to the scheduled Gold reset of automated lose streaks. Hey, I might even place as low as Gold 3 if the lose streak hits and ends on a bad day near closing time.
• Group B – I play 10 games out of placement and then 5 after that. I end up in Plat 2. No obvious lose streak hits. I never get matches where I am a Plat 2 forced to carry gold gold gold silver against a team of fellow plat 1s and plat 2s. Due to this, my win rate is significantly higher. My rating placement only ever fluctuates within about 50 points up or down. ALL of the matches are generally won or lost within 500 to 450ish type situations. I often que and find myself on the same team as top players. Many of matches feel dominant, where we win 500 to 100. I finish the end of the season in legend or kitten near legend.

~ I am the same player with the same skill level/knowledge in the above two examples, but due to different treatment within the algorithm, it heavily dictates my success.

If you are saying that you honestly don’t experience these impossible to win match streaks, this just further supports the idea of control group A and control group B. Because there is an overwhelming amount of players who are experiencing the exact same thing. Lose streaks that come in a wave like clockwork, predictably and well on time. Over the course of a season, the MMRs and ratings should be settling, not becoming more volatile. Nothing makes any sense with that. Anyone who tries to explain and legitimize the lose streaks, is a cop-out apologist in my honest opinion.

But it’s all ranting & raving until I provide evidence of my experience right? I’ve thought about doing it you know. If I were to win 10 record all of my matches during a season so that users could SEE what I’m talking about. But if I did, would anyone even watch 120 games played during a season on some guy’s youtube channel? Because I just might do if there were enough demand.

No, class balance isn’t the point. The point of this thread discussion is how the algorithm is purposely creating obviously mega lopsided blow out matches for the sake of the win and lose switch which some players are seemingly omitted from, as pattern or no pattern would indicate. You can tell when it has less to do with class balance and a lot more to do with platinums vs. silvers.

And yes, the matches are definitely imbalanced, at least for those of us experiencing the lose switch. That level of purposeful lopsided nonsense: leg leg plat plat plat vs. plat plat gold gold gold, only happens when the lose switch is turned on and it continues for 10 games or so, always. Then it ends and everything goes back to normal. That isn’t luck or coincidence when it runs like clockwork, it’s something automated and scheduled.

About the guy 1v3ing at far and is he good or is he exploiting that others aren’t good?
That’s like asking if a coin is a penny or a dime based on the fact that it has a heads and a tails side. It’s a loaded question. Of course a player is good if he can 1v3 hold a node and not die. That is the direct goal of a good player and the purpose of conquest node holding. These kind of plays are the exact material that players use to judge who is good and who is bad. The player 1v3ing and keeping node his color is making a good play. The players 3v1ing on enemy node and failing are making a bad play. Not hard to understand, don’t convolute something simple.

Oh you guys don’t like condi?
Prepare yourselves for 9/22/2017.

I see what you mean, Rod. But we are discussing why the algorithm will at times stack teams of 1600 and 1700 players against an opposing team of 1400 and 1500 players. This thread is a great documentation of this: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/matchmaking-algo-BROKEN-w-evidence/first

So the problem is that it will choose to stack a team of high rated player and feed them low rated players. When the algorithm could easily swap 2 of the highs off the good team and put them on the lesser team for a more balanced match. There is no reason for such feeding within a system that tells us “it creates balanced match making”.

Just earlier this morning, my duo partner and I, who are playing between plat 1 and plat 2, had that good old fashioned feeding experience again. We tried to que 3 matches and lost each one like 500 to 200. the worst was 500 to 43. That last 500 to 43 match consisted of us two, hovering plat 1 and plat 2 with a bunch of guys down in mid to low gold who were solo. We were put against Jeff’s duo who are players in the top 20 and they had solos with them that were ranked anywhere between 1500 and 1600. So you explain to me why the system would put 2 players who are close to legendary ranking, with 3 plat solo ques vs. plat duo with 3x guys in gold.

That is nothing but a feeding switch being pushed where we were set to lose and these already higher ranking players were being set to win. That is terrible match making and in no way competitive or balanced. You tell me, if these higher ranked players are so good, why do they need near legend stacked teams to go against 3 solo golds and a single plat duo? It makes the top 50 look like they’re being handed wins. It honestly does. Considering that to even hold plat 1 – plat 2ish, every match I play is some herculeic struggle against players of my same rating or higher. I certainly do not get situations where I am on an all plat team vs. a bunch of guys in gold and silver. But apparently top 50 players get to benefit this effect. Again, my question is why is that happening? And why do I occasionally have days where I rock teams of silver/gold PUGs vs. plat and legends only?

I mean during that particular match, there is no reason why the algorithm couldn’t have taken 2 of Jeff’s higher PUGs and swapped them with 2 of our low PUGs. That would have better balanced out the MMR split. But it chose not to do it. It purposely gave our team all of the much lower rated players.

Aliam, I see what you’re saying but I don’t think you see what I am saying.

When the lose streaks come and go like clockwork, to that point that one can timely read when they are starting and when they are ending, that is not chance that is a routine scheduled switch being flipped.

To Rod:
At this point it isn’t even about wanting it fixed, it’s just public discussion in the fascination of what is going on that isn’t being talked about, within this match making.

I see what you’re saying but I can’t agree that the massive lose streaks are part of anything to do with MMR settling and putting you where you belong.

If our peaks were 1550, don’t you think that MMR settling over the course of a season should provide us with an experience that looks more like: lose, win, lose, win, lose, lose, win, win, lose, win, win, lose, ect.. ect.. Especially considering that the climb to 1550 was rendering a similar experience to get there. When we climb to 1550 with a relatively balanced feel of match making, where every match is won or lost by 500 to 450, where players are being pushed to limits to evolve quickly to figure out how to win the match, that feels like where we belong. But when we “suddenly” get placed on a lose streak, immediately as we hit 1550, and lose 10 to 15 games in a row, not by 500 to 450 but more like 500 to 200 or worse, that certainly doesn’t feel like MMR settling to put us where we belong. It feels like a lose switch being pushed.

It’s also very strange that at that exact point of 1550, there is this ridiculous shift in match making quality. No, not a small one. It’s not that you feel your PUGs get a bit worse and your enemies get a tad harder, no. It’s this ridiculous switch that gets turned on, where the algorithm “tries its hardest” to find THE WORST players que’ing at the time to give you and find a team of people your rating or higher to stack on a team together, to make sure that you lose rating.

This is definitely happening but yet it shouldn’t be. There is no reason, with all the different demographics of rated players and actual MMRs out there, that at certain exact point in the rankings, you automatically pull the worst players possible vs. stacked teams of people who are the same rating as you or better. That in no way makes any sense for how the algorithm is supposed to work.

So why does this happen to some players but not others? It’s easy to see who it is happening to. It happens to those players that you see in plat 2 one day, then down in gold 2 the next, then the day after that they’re back in plat 2 again. Yet other players place plat 1, climb to plat 2 and then stay there for 200 games, only ever fluctuating up or down about 50 points or so. There are two extremes happening here with no in-betweens. One group of players have extreme fluctuation, all season, with no evidence of any MMR settling. The other group of players will take a rating and hover right in that rating the entire season, giving evidence of settled MMR. What the hell is going on here?

Kinda seems like rats in a laboratory where you have group A and control group B.

I dunno boys, just pointing out the patterns I’ve noticed.

Yes, I do believe I am being targeted but I’m not exactly sure by what. I don’t necessarily think it is a group of people sniping or anet messing with me. I think more realistically there is something within the algorithm that uses players within my demographic of, “total matches played” “actual MMR” that likes to use us as stepping stones for other players. I also want to point out that the problem -always- happens to me exactly when I reach 1550 rating. It’s done this to me every season. Let me explain this:

• I’m que’ing all night
• I keep getting basically the same 10 players in matches all night.
• There are four decent players during these ques that are capable of carrying. Some good Daredevil, some good Chrono, some good Tempest and myself on a Bunker Druid.
• The majority of matches will be split fairly where it tosses different splits that put two good players on each team, with various randoms. Sometimes I’ll see six to eight to ten games in a row that make sense concerning average MMR vs. average MMR. Matches will be won or lost with scores like 500 to 450. Good balanced real matches.
• Then immediately as I hit the 1550 mark, I begin receiving splits where I am the only person on my team capable of playing at all, then the three other good players are stacked on the other team, creating 500 to 200ish blowout or worse. This will usually go on until I am dropped well down into Gold 2. Why would it begin to aggressively stack many strong players against you, every match, for a 15 match lose streak down into Gold 2, when it was just previously giving obviously balanced match making in Plat 1 and Plat 2?

So the real big question is, if the algorithm works the way it says it does for balanced match making, why does it allow balanced match making for the -climb- from Gold 2 into Plat 2, where matches are won or lost with scores that look like 500 to 450. But then it distinctly creates a -fall- , where it hands out 10-15 game lose streaks of impossible to carry matches that look 500 to 200ish or worse. My good dudes, that is not the behavior of MMR settling, that is a win/lose switch being flipped – Clearly. How often do you hear people talk about winning 1, losing 1, winning 1, losing 1 or winning 2, losing 2 as compared to how often you hear people say they won 10 and they lost 10? I believe at this point, not in the good and the bad list, but the good and the bad switch I’m just trying to figure out what declares when your account goes on the good and the bad switch because there are some players that I know, who never seem to the get the bad switch. The large majority of player’s ratings will fluctuate heavily due to these win streaks and lose streaks. Though… some players just climb right into whatever rating demographic they obtain and stay there, only fluctuating within 50 rating or so, the entire season, as if they are omitted from the lose streak entirely. It’s as if their MMR is allowed to settle while others are not allowed to settle and are given the switch if they climb too high. It’s as if someone or something is watching certain accounts to make sure they don’t rise too high. What motive would there be behind this? No idea but it definitely feels like this is happening and it’s starting to look like it too, when you pay attention to the fact that certain accounts never go on forced lose streaks. I’m not just talking about top 250 players here, I’m talking people down in Gold 1 or Silver, who play hundreds of matches in a season but maintain a tight position that never fluctuates. Explain that to me, when the majority of players report clearly receiving large doses of win streaks and lose streaks. These patterns don’t add up and they don’t make sense outside of the idea that certain players are omitted from lose streaks.

I don’t want to hear any responses regarding “getting good” because there is an aspect here that people are overlooking:

• Say a top 10 player who has a record of 50 and 4 ends up at the far point during the end of a match, the game score is 420 to 420. Three players come to kill the top 10 player at the far point and he is forced to defend that node while pulling three players. He knows he can survive and that this will allow his team an easy 4v2 between home and mid, which will be enough of a clutch play to win the game, even if the three opponents are only distracted for a matter of 30s. This is something he does often to pull wins. 9/10 times, his team mates are able to easily take advantage of the 4v2 and easily win.
• I am in Plat 1 and the exact same thing happens to me, with all of the exact same circumstances. But for some kitten reason, 9/10 times, my team will somehow lose the 4v2 and I will still lose the game. Because the PUGs given to me were either throwing or actually that bad of players.

The aspect that people overlook, is that there are players down in Plat 1ish who are capable of and do the very exact same things to carry games as top 50 players but for whatever reason, their match making is so much worse than the top 50 players, that it doesn’t matter at all how hard they play. How can one person’s match making quality -always- be that much better in terms of PUGs picked up than someone elses? How could one person carry like that for 10 games in a row and receive no success from it? Yet another person generally always receives success from such plays?

It’s a really good question that people should start asking. I mean this season I’m repeatedly being thrown matches during lose streaks, that could only possibly be won if I could somehow simultaneously be on two nodes at the same time and 1v4, while allowing my one armed PUGs to 4v1 some other opponent somewhere else. You think this is am embellishment? The sad thing is that it is not. I’m just wondering how top players are somehow avoiding matches like this or why they aren’t being given matches like this to begin with.

Been playing bunker druid since start of season. First 50 games were played between 1500 and 1560 rating, solidly. For once, things felt balanced. Win 500 to 450 or lose 450 to 500, games were good. Suddenly upon the morning of 8/24/2017, there was a distinct shift in match quality. Went on a 15 game lose streak where losses were looking like 200 to 500 or worse. I 1v2 or sometimes 1v3 far, the entire game, usually never even die. Yet my team mates cannot cap/hold home OR mid in 4v3s and 4v2s.
This is no embellishment, my matches are complete kitten every single time I que.

I saw the same thing happen to Chaith on day one. He was put on a team that simply couldn’t do anything to our team. Chaith carried hard but it didn’t matter because his teammates were exploding on contact. So I don’t want to hear anything about “getting good” because it is true that bad enough match making can create impossible to win situations for even the best players.

Furthermore, I find it odd that during the first three days, the matches felt real. Every player was communicating and trying hard. It felt like an inhouse or scrim. I could tell the players were real and every match was try hard balanced scores between 500/450 for wins or losses. Then suddenly… 15 games in a row of questionably real players. Where people never communicate, they almost seem like bots at times and I wonder if they are throwing or if they are handicapped one armed players. They aren’t just losing matches no, they do questionable things:

• Example A: I am far point 1v1ing an enemy bunker druid on my team’s color. My thief comes to + me but instead of actually DPSing the bunker druid “which has no damage to threaten the thief” he dances around, dodging and only striking once every 3 or 4 seconds with #1 auto then goes back to random dodging and won’t leave when I tell him to. Is he making it look like he is doing something but in actuality is just throwing? He is either throwing or he is actually a handicapped player with one arm.
• Example B: I am literally “1v3ing the far point while holding it neutral for 4 minutes or more”, I look at the mini map and see home and mid as the enemy color and 4 of my teammates on respawn. Yes, that has happened multiple times during this 15 game loss streak. How is that even possible? I’ve been training new players for years now and I can say that 4 intermediate or even new players can kill 2 veteran players rather easily in 9/10 situations. So what the hell is going on here? Is there still UBER mass amounts of match manipulation going on or do anet devs secret play in matches and like to screw with certain players? Because let me tell ya, Always seeing 4 players lose to 2 players, has got to be throwing or purposeful placement with handicapped players who only have one arm, but the match making cannot possibly be that bad. I don’t believe it. Either way you look at it, something is up that isn’t being talked about.
• Example C: Having the same exact people on my team over and over and over and over, yet the enemy teams are always different players. What is that and how is it even possible? It often feels like these players are being put with me to make 100% sure, that I lose the match every time.

My question is, why is this suddenly happening to me for 15 games in a row? Why do other players I talk to always tell me that their full season experience is more like my first 50 matches?

If anyone in that anet office cares to figure out what is wrong with this, please sit in and view my matches. I know you can do it and I think you should see this. Because when you see that I am not over-exaggerating the stories of 1v3ing far while my team losses 4v2s at home and mid, it just may inspire you to figure out what is going on here.

But, maybe you already know why. Maybe I’m just being screwed with. Sometimes I really do question it. Don’t take this as the usual idle rant about losing. I’ve played 10,000 matches and have personally trained 100s of players, some of which who went on to form ESL teams. I know the difference between players who are trying and theatrics.

Lich King.1524:

Sifu.9745:

I just don’t get this condi: whenever i use it in PvP as Thief it seems that it doesn’t have any effect on my opponents. I can spam Blindness forever but still being destroyed within 4 or 5 seconds lol. If i use it on pve mobs, especially Black Powder and Shadow Shot, it works as intended, but in PvP, nope. I use Shadow Shot on Guardian, he hits me for 50% of my health in next 0.5 seconds. Blind him again and again with Shadow Shot or Black Powder, nothing happened, i am dead just 3 sec latter.
I understand there is a condi cleanse in the game but they can’t just spam it, like i can spam Blindness, right? How can my opponent hits me over and over again in melee range, if i stand in Black Powder is beyond me.

Thank you for very good topic!
I believe it’s fully useless in PvP now, but it can be fixed by Arenanet, if they will introduce stacks for Blind, like for [Stability], then normal skill have to provide 3-4 stacks of blind, then it will be more remarkable.

Lich has a good point actually.
I don’t know about stacks but duration time should blind all attacks for that duration.
This would actually help curb some of the DPS that is being brought in from PoF.
Just make sure the durations are greatly shortened on blind effects.

100% agree with Smurf that, DH and DD builds from HoT are hard countering like every PoF build in 1v1 situations. This is due to PoF specs being highly offensive with little to no defensive/disengage methods offered. This also has to deal with the mass amount of boon removal being provided by PoF. Classes like DH and DD that can spam long range CCs will be very powerful in PoF. Maybe too powerful.

I do not however, feel that DH and DD need nerfing. They are balanced concerning HoT play. It’s the PoF specs and some of the other PoF content that needs attention. Again, I can say there is too much boon removal being provided with PoF content. This is allowing control classes way too much power due to the lack of stability and ability to keep stability during team fights. And of course the PoF content isn’t providing many defensive options vs. such offense.

I think a lot of the problems would be insta-solved if about 1/3rd of the new PoF boon removals were simply gutted out and replaced with some other effects.

~ Seriously though, PoF has way too much casual boon removal.

Oh yeah, forgot to mention buggy things I saw:

• Saw a Mirage’s clones turn invulnerable? I was 1v1ing my buddy Scourge vs. Mirage. I noticed the damage was ticking on the clones but when they hit 0 health, they were immediately going back to full health and not dying. This went on through the entire duel up until the combat engagement stopped, we OOC’d and everything went back to normal. lol what?
• Multiple times while playing Spellbreaker, the trait Shield Master seemed to not work at all. It wouldn’t reflect projectiles back at the opponents. And no, I was not confusing channeled attacks for projectiles or misunderstanding unblockable attacks/projectile nullification fields. I noticed it mostly while 1v1ing a Deadeye for practice. Most of the time dueling him, the Shield Master trait did not function at all. It would block his shots but not reflect them. It seemed to be happening frequently against Mesmers as well and now that I think about it, it wasn’t reflecting headshot back at thieves either.

Thanks for the comments everyone but I have a question:

Does anyone else agree or disagree with the 2nd point made in my post?
About how very high DPS changes not only the meta but how the game is played?

Try to sum up my experience/opinions in a nutshell:

• Scourge – Overwhelming DPS, serious lack of mobility. Feels good to play though. I like the new mechanics. It just needs polishing. Easily one of the OP specs during beta.
• Holosmith – Overwhelming DPS, decent mobility. Didn’t test this myself but this is what I’ve seen from fighting it. Easily an OP spec during beta.
• Firebrand – Feels more balanced in terms of what a new spec should be like.
• Deadeye – Love the mechanics, feels good to play but way too much potential DPS on this. I don’t think it’s general average strikes need a nerf but it’s top end damage potential need to be toned down somehow. It’s debatable whether this is OP or not.
• Spellbreaker – Mixed feelings on this. This was the first one I tried. At times it felt strong and at other times it felt weak. The biggest issue I had was that it relies so much on the resistance boon and how easily that can be removed with all the boon removal in the game now. That’s not adequate sustain at all. Some of that resistance needs to be replaced with hard condi cleanse, especially after the nerf to Adrenal Health and Cleansing Ire.
• Weaver Another one that feels more balanced in terms of what a new spec should start as. It could use a buff to it’s DPS. Didn’t try this one myself but this is what I noticed playing against it.
• Mirage – Didn’t test it myself but playing against it felt exactly like playing against Chronomancer with less damage and more evasion. Felt like this class needed more.
• Soul Beast – This class definitely needs more of something. I didn’t see a single Soul Beast survive long enough in a fight to even be able to gauge what this class was even capable of. Due to this, I didn’t get around to testing it myself as it was on low priority.
• Renegade – Same issue as Soul Beast, they just never survived. It needs more of something to make it useful. Also another that I didn’t get around to testing due to how I saw it performing in combat and what others said about it.

All in all I can say that the DPS was too high during the spvp beta and that stability counter play vs. CC was negligent to none with so many boon removals. The weekend beta resulted in a 2 day nuclear bursting control CC meta where the first to hit & sit the opponent was the winner. Running support specs wasn’t working because the DPS was transcendent of any bunker or support. In a way, I enjoyed it but looking at it in terms of balance and keeping conquest interesting, the DPS needs to be lowered and it may be a good idea to gut out about 1/3rd “at least” of these new boon removal sources. This is to keep the 3 conquest roles viable: Bruisers, Peeler +1ers and Bunkers. When there are various different forms of those 3 archetypes, the conquest game is just more interesting. But when the DPS is this high and boon removals are so frequent that it’s easy to dominant with CC after stripping stabilities, it ends up in a situation where everyone is running only one archetype amongst all the classes and that is a nuclear bruiser. Peeler +1ers and Support Bunkers lose all viability when faced with this amount of DPS and highly reliable CC play. Conquest just isn’t as interesting when we lose 2 roles out of the 3.

A good thing I noticed after running 1v1 tests is that HoT specs are still very viable for being able to counter PoF specs. This is great! This is the kind of diversity that players have been waiting for. It all just needs a good polish and shine to the intra-class balance.

You know what, rereading Faux’s post, he has the right idea for pvp mission reworks. It should be to better incentivize players to participate in the game modes not only as a team but as a guild:

• Easy mission – Win 1 match as a guild team All players in a match, who are in that guild and tagged up together in some guild team, receive credit upon mission completion so long as they ran a match during the mission timer. This way two teams could run, one of them gets a win and completes the mission but the 2nd team who loses, still receives credit because they participated within the time frame. Only players tagged together in a guild team receive credit. 30 minute timer is fine on this. Plenty of time to que and win one match and possibly time to play/win a 2nd if the guild fails to win the first match. This would help propagate more 5 man teams again who are playing to win. ~ 5 players required. Why 30 minutes? Remember that some of us when in a 5 man team have ridiculously long que times. Also remember this is supposed to be an easy mission.
• Easy mission – 5 players from the guild tagged up but doesn’t have to be in a guild team, win the game they are in, Ranked or Unranked. So a 5 man team could complete this mission in one game or 5 separate players running solo win their games to complete the mission. Any player who is tagged up for the guild, who participates within the time frame will receive credit, whether they win or lose their match. Again, this encourages everyone to try in their matches. 30 minutes should be allowed for this mission timer. Why 30 minutes? Same as above.
• Medium mission – Same as the first easy mission but the guild teams will be required to win two games within a 45 minute time frame. 45 minutes is realistic concerning que times and how sometimes matches can be very long if there is much node neutralization happening, stalling point ticks. 45 minutes is also possibly long enough to win one, lose one and then win another if the matches happen to be all short with lucky quick que times. 45 minutes should be the timer on this.
• Medium mission – Same as second easy mission but the 5 players are required to win two games within a time frame or alternatively, 10 tagged players only need to win one each, in unranked or ranked of course. 45 minute timer.
• Hard mission – Guild team must participate in and win a match in automated tournament. All guild teams within a guild receive credit if they participate in the AT but one guild team must get a win to complete the mission. 30 minute timer is fine for this.

These missions encourage participation in all pvp game modes and the propagation of more actual 5 man guild teams, which we need. They encourage participation where players are actually trying to win. Which brings me to my final point and suggestion:

• Remove missions revolving around “get top stats for mission complete” because it encourages teams to end a match quickly by throwing, so they can beat the mission timer before it runs out. The community does not need anymore incentive to throw matches. Just remove top stat missions and replace them with some other goal that involves wanting to win matches.