Guild Wars 2

Hi folks. As you know, the leaderboards reset on Friday, and a new algorithm was implemented that reflected: “a much stronger focus on wins, with less weight given to the sheer number of games played over a period of time.”

Immediately that sounded like great news to me. I thought the 2 or so individuals equipped with in-chair toiletry and an overhead feed dispenser tube would be finally be overcame as the holders of the Arenanet given titles, “leaders of PvP.”

So now it’s Sunday morning, and there’s been 2 sleeps since the leaderboard reset, I check it out to see how things are progressing.

So, the #1 guy on NA has logged 104 games at the time of this post. If you factor in the two, 8hr sleeps we’ve had, that means for every waking hour, they’ve completed 5 games that hour. Impressive. The guy has 61 points. 55 wins and 49 losses, and 52.88% win rate.

I look at the very close #2 guy on NA, and he has 59 points. 56 wins, and 26 losses, for a 68.29% win rate.

There is not a darn thing that the #1 guy has over the #2 guy, besides twice the amount of losses, of course.

How is this explainable by the language used to describe the new Algorithm? There is a disconnect between reality and expectations here. This is not a focus on win ratio (maximizing wins, minimizing losses) at all. This is still just a focus on farming wins.

After a little research, what was changed was the ability to gain points from losses was nerfed.

What needed to happen to give any credibility to these leaderboards are for losses to affect you negatively.

Having more points than you have wins? How does going 50 wins and 50 losses in a low MMR bracket result in 60 points? Shouldn’t it be slightly closer to um, 0 points than 60 points? (Not saying it should be zero gain, but just a very very very slow gain.) Am I the only one taking crazy pills here?

Since losing games still doesn’t matter at low MMR levels, it’s still simply a matter about how many wins can be farmed, and losses are disregarded. Look at the #1 and #2 players on NA leaderboards to see this is true.

At low MMR, any amount of defeats are never going to negatively affect accumulated points. If you repeatedly lose, sure, you’re not getting wins, but fast queue times allow you to do 4-5 per hour intead of 2.5-3 at high MMR. On a model that’s still 100% based on how many wins you can grind, now instead of how many wins and losses you can grind, it’s really not changed anything.

That brings me to touch on the experiences of a high MMR players.

• As a high MMR solo, or duo in Ranked queue, you’re a beacon that pulls all middle to high tier teams against you, magnifying the imbalances that matchmaking can’t account for, teamspeak/coordination, high performance comp. High MMR solo queue has a severely handicapped win rate. Personally, I find it unplayable due to the extreme pressure/frustration to shepherd players with widely fluctuating experience and effectiveness, against a coordinated foe.

• As a high MMR four queue, the 5th player is often going to be the equilivant of an assassin’s amulet 6/6/0/0/1 Staff Elementalist who’s taking their first baby steps of the game, creating frustration for this one player, and essentially a 4v5 scenario. It’s a handicap that is quite annoying, and will always be a clear decision for the group to simply picking up a competent 5th.

• This leads to the realization that medium to high MMR players can only attempt to achieve quality matches, with a competitive win rate representative of their skill, without severe handicaps, when they queue as a full group. This further limits group playtime to a couple hours a day, where a group of 5 competent players can be organized and continuously play. This creates a further disadvantage in win farming compared to low MMR solo queuers.

• High MMR gameplay in any size incurs a 6-10 Minute queue time. This drastically reduces leaderboard point generation. We’re talking like, low MMR players can fit 4-5 in a leaderboard update, and high MMR players can fit 2-3. It’s cut by around 33-40%. I can’t stress enough that this is an entirely unfair and imbalanced mechanic that nearly ruins the balance of who can farm more wins, which the current rankings are now based on.

If I could make anything clear from this wall of text on my matchmaking / leaderboard thoughts, it is that:

It’s wrong that rapid fire, low MMR, low quality, imbalanced matches, are the optimal way to progress towards mastering the leaderboards. It’s so completely backwards and nonsensical. High MMR players are punished in almost every way, unless they form a premade which is the other extreme, totally circumventing all balance handicaps, often facing non-premades with only a few good players, who have to carry ridiculously hard to win. Leaderboard progress at no point ever, will reflect the progress in mastering the game, or becoming stronger.