Really love all the work you guys have put in Evan, this is already looking like it’s leaps and bounds ahead of last season. If all goes according to plan you could end up with a very rewarding and competitive league system which would really spike the pvp population.
Regarding changes I do have a few questions and any answers you can provide (even if it’s just “I don’t know because I’m not on that team”) would be greatly appreciated:
1. Have the balance devs been doing this level of change to classes so we will see a large shakeup in game function as well or has it been small so we can expect similar play to now?
2. Are there any plans to look into class stacking within matchmaking or is that not a really big concern of the PvP team from a matchmaking POV?
3. Will the new armor skins be available only through the season or for all time? And if only for the season will the currency be common enough to allow us to get all the skins within the season?
4. How will the extra tickets and shards of glory we have from previous seasons be utilized after we have the backpack? Is there more stuff coming for us to save and spend on?
Thank you for all your time answering questions, listening to feedback, and doing these amazing changes for the game! Have a good one.
1) There will be the expected periodic balance updates, but I cannot speak to the extend of them.
2) Class stacking has not been a priority because of the leagues rework, and negative feedback regarding character locking when queuing. This might be something worth polling.
3) The vendor will always be around, but the new currency is only obtainable from the league pip system. You won’t be getting all the skins in a single season.
4) We’ve added the double currency requirement for ascended items to sink out shards of glory and will use the league tickets for more rare, longer term rewards as we make them.
I can for see one massive problem with this system so far with out playing it.
If a good player where to throw there 10 placement matches, they would be placed with the new players, then they could just farm wins and rewards for fun. What’s the incentive not to do this? You know there will be people out there who will do this if there is more to be gained from doing it.
There are three possible outcomes:
You throw your matches and then get yourself stuck in glicko hell.
You throw your matches and actually start playing poorly like continuing to make a funny face when your mom told you not to.
You throw your matches and then as you win, your rating shoots right back up again.
Rip. If the extra pips were only a thing for the winning team I don’t think anyone would go after them to the extent of hurting their teams chances of winning, but if you can get them on the losing team as well I could totally see some idiots out there trying it.
We think the top stats will be generic enough that they do not cause detrimental gameplay, but it does then we will have to adjust how top stats are given out or whether you get extra pips at all.
I totally agree with what you said about rewards. Same o’l thing. Why don’t you give us PVP players a chance to get the legendaries? Why would I need an ascended gear for? At least make some vendor with account bound skins or something.
You want the ascended armor because its a new set of skins!
1.) I know that and did write it in other threads. I would be pleased on locking class in Q :-).
If it ever happen we should get a possibility to change our builds in resp zones. If I will be locked on one class with one build that sucks because in opposite team have some hard counter to me, then there is no fun in play.
I don’t imagine we’d ever lock builds, just your profession. You could even swap to another character of the same profession since they’re share the same MMR.
How would you do this though? The allowing of a switch from character to character as long as its the same class.
If you have the same MMR on two different classes (theoretically possible, not sure how hard it would be to do exactly) wouldn’t it then open the the floor to the argument that you should be able to switch to that one too? I’m sure your initial gut response is “no” for mmr tracking accuracy (among many other variables, like team composition), but if you can accurately determine that the player is swapping from say one thief character to another, could you not also as easily determine that they swapped to an ele with an equatable mmr value and apply any changes from the match played accordingly?
Technically allowing someone to switch to a profession with the same MMR would be fine. The only reason we want to lock is so you can’t switch to something that invalidates what matchmaking just finished working with. Even if we allowed a particular MMR range of available other professions, the user experience of that feature would be bad and not worth it.
1.) I know that and did write it in other threads. I would be pleased on locking class in Q :-).
If it ever happen we should get a possibility to change our builds in resp zones. If I will be locked on one class with one build that sucks because in opposite team have some hard counter to me, then there is no fun in play.
I don’t imagine we’d ever lock builds, just your profession. You could even swap to another character of the same profession since they’re share the same MMR.
There have been some threads on the past about it, but the community always seemed split. Some liked being able to counter pick after they got into a match, or to better fill out their team comp. Others wanted the accuracy.
I do agree with the players that said profession-based matchmaking needs to be better before locking classes.
There is a leaderboard for the top 250 players (plus a friends/guild leaderboard for everyone else). The leaderboard awards unique titles at the end of the season.
Is this like the old leaderboards that showed what percentage you were at so you could aim to progress even outside the top ranks? That was a good system.
I think it was more than top 250 but I may be misrembering.
The old leaderboard was top 1000 I believe and did not show MMR, only win rate and rank.
3.) This doesn´t realy help. Your MMR is dependent on your teammates which might be hard to overcome but is not realy good.
We’ve tried using your teammates’ rating to affect your own for a while, but it ended up being less accurate and effectively created Glicko Hell. I’m sure there is a way to factor them in, but MMR and matchmaking is delicate. In my 4ish years of adjusting our use of Glicko, I’ve come to learn that most of the time less is more.
I’m not really sure what all this fuss about “skill rating” is. First off how does that mechanic even work? How do you measure someone’s skill completely without individually watching them in action? Is a player that caps more and engages in 2v1’s truly more skilled than the player holding off 3 by himself while preventing a cap? Lmao my problem with going down this path is that people will use the leaderboard to claim who is and who isn’t skilled. But if you ask me, being able to kill two players out of 3 that are fighting you by yourself is a much better skill rating than capping and defending.
I suggest possibly changing that mechanic to TEAM skill rating. There is only one way to measure skill in this game and it’s in 1v2 wager duels.
This is an enormous topic and there are no right answers. If you’re curious about approximating player skill, you can do some research on Elo, Glicko, Glicko 2, or True Skill. TL;DR an approximation is the best we can do, but end up being quite accurate.
Curious about the decay. Will it happen at every division or will the bottom divisions not be affected. For example bronze to gold would not have decay while divisions above gold would
Decay happens in every division. There is a 3 day grace period, then 7 days of decay. Each game played will remove 1 day of decay.
Last season MM was not so bad and with full premades gone i expect a lot close matches.
There will be still the usual problems.
1.) Without per class MMR skill might vary largely (especiall if daily class stays ….)
2.) With even matches progress moves to grinding. That 50:50 rate won´t please people playing for a rank.
3.) System might calculate personal MMR on a team effort… Which is one of the culprits for frustration.)
4.) Human factor will still decide a lot of matches. (AFK, drunk, trolling, toilet, cat on keyboard, ….) You will never get rid of that (exeption is 5:5 team at high level) so don´t complain to much on that ;-)
1) We track per-class MMR, but it’s not very accurate right now. I really want to use it, but without class locking on queue, we can’t use it for matchmaking.
2) This is why rewards and skill rating are split. Your skill rating will only go up if you actually improve your gameplay.
3) Your personal MMR is only updated based on win/loss and enemy MMR.
4)
What is skill rating and what affects it?
Skill Rating is your Glicko Rating plus decay. Each match has a zero or one outcome that updates your Glicko rating against the average of your opponents’ rating.
So it’s still possible to lose a close game you weren’t expected to win and still gain some glicko, kind of like how you could gain pips on a lose in Season 1?
In practice, rating does not ever go up on a loss.
I think a team of coordinated folks would be particularly over powered against equally skilled but not pre-made folks in this gank meta. I feel there should be an option for teams to go team each other if they want, but it should be sperated from those who want to solo/duo queue.
Not enough full parties play to keep an entirely separate 5-man queue healthy 24/7. However, that doesn’t mean teams shouldn’t have a structured place to participate in PvP. This will be part of the the discussion around the followup poll regarding solo/duo queue.
Last season MM was not so bad and with full premades gone i expect a lot close matches.
There will be still the usual problems.
1.) Without per class MMR skill might vary largely (especiall if daily class stays ….)
2.) With even matches progress moves to grinding. That 50:50 rate won´t please people playing for a rank.
3.) System might calculate personal MMR on a team effort… Which is one of the culprits for frustration.)
4.) Human factor will still decide a lot of matches. (AFK, drunk, trolling, toilet, cat on keyboard, ….) You will never get rid of that (exeption is 5:5 team at high level) so don´t complain to much on that ;-)
1) We track per-class MMR, but it’s not very accurate right now. I really want to use it, but without class locking on queue, we can’t use it for matchmaking.
2) This is why rewards and skill rating are split. Your skill rating will only go up if you actually improve your gameplay.
3) Your personal MMR is only updated based on win/loss and enemy MMR.
4)
What is skill rating and what affects it?
Skill Rating is your Glicko Rating plus decay. Each match has a zero or one outcome that updates your Glicko rating against the average of your opponents’ rating.
I also thought what shakeup? No per class MMR which for me would be the base to have a good MMR matching. No Leaderboard? People seem to cry for that.
Lets see how it works. It´s definitly intresting to look at. It might be much better but doesn´t seem like a huge change. Well. If it creates good matches and exitement it will be a large step forward even if it doesn´t sound so.
There is a leaderboard for the top 250 players (plus a friends/guild leaderboard for everyone else). The leaderboard awards unique titles at the end of the season.
Last season MM was not so bad and with full premades gone i expect a lot close matches.
There will be still the usual problems.
1.) Without per class MMR skill might vary largely (especiall if daily class stays ….)
2.) With even matches progress moves to grinding. That 50:50 rate won´t please people playing for a rank.
3.) System might calculate personal MMR on a team effort… Which is one of the culprits for frustration.)
4.) Human factor will still decide a lot of matches. (AFK, drunk, trolling, toilet, cat on keyboard, ….) You will never get rid of that (exeption is 5:5 team at high level) so don´t complain to much on that ;-)
1) We track per-class MMR, but it’s not very accurate right now. I really want to use it, but without class locking on queue, we can’t use it for matchmaking.
2) This is why rewards and skill rating are split. Your skill rating will only go up if you actually improve your gameplay.
3) Your personal MMR is only updated based on win/loss and enemy MMR.
The poll has concluded! The final results (not including “Don’t Count My Vote”) are:
79.1% Yes, restrict ranked queue to one or two-player parties for Season 5.
20.9% No, do not restrict ranked queue to one or two-player parties for Season 5.
This means Ranked Arena will be restricted to solo players and two-player parties during Season 5. This change will not affect off-season Ranked Arena or Unranked Arena. After the end of Season 5 we will re-evaluate the experience and poll the community again to decide if the change should become permanent for all ranked seasons. Thanks for voting and we look forward to the changes coming to ranked play!
This thread has responses pointing out issues in the current iteration of leagues and using those flaws as reasons why a rating and point (pip) system cannot both be used in tandem as I suggested in my original response. The issues mentioned include restrictive matchmaking based on pips, small tier sizes creating a large sense of loss when dropping pips, and a lack of prestige because of win streaks and rating-based matchmaking.
With that said, I’d like to clarify my original comment regarding using both pips and MMR. Our goals for leagues are still the same: create opportunities for skill-based prestige, give rewards for effort, and keep a low barrier to entry. We’ve tried to hit these goals with different iterations of a catch-all pip system; each emphasizing a different goal at the expense of the others. Pips are an easy to understand system for delivering rewards, but we understand that rating is a more accurate display of skill. We are now looking at how we can leverage the strengths of these systems individually to better succeed at reaching all of our goals. Both pips and rating can be used within the system if they are focused on solving specific problems – not all of them.
Because to make them play nice with each other, without impairing matchmaking, requires pips to behave in very specific ways that are more complex than anything currently on the table.
If they do not behave the right way, one or more of the three – MMR, matchmaking, or pips – will behave poorly. In seasons 1 and 4, you chose pips; in 2 and 3, matchmaking.
The current system is definitely trying to do too many things and each aspect suffers because of this. I think pips are an appealing reward system and I also think MMR is a good skill system. We need to work on getting each part of the system focusing on what they do best.
What’s the top of your crash report look like? It starts with something like: —> Crash <—
Assertion: index < m_count
File: p:\code\gw2\game\content\CnUtil.h(99)
I cannot find this file location. Where can I find the crash files to submit?
What is happening to me is in matches, the game will just freeze up. I can walk around, but all the skills go in que instead of activating and all players just keep walking in their original directions. Almost feels like someone is pulling out the ethernet cable.
Close gw2, reopen and rejoin the match. But of course all players will rally and it takes like 30 seconds.
Woops, that path isn’t the location of the crash report, that’s just what the text from a crash report looks like. When you client crashes, a window pops up where you can type in notes and send the report to ArenaNet. Under the box is a bunch of text that helps me find out which specific crash you’re having.
There is a change in the pipes to allow leaving during the new timer. If you press ‘Yes’, you will still have to wait the 15 seconds to allow others to opt in before leaving.
The delay is there so players who accept the party don’t leave the match early and and get back to the lobby before the party is actually created. Otherwise they’d be able to queue and then get kicked out, and it’s just all sorts of weird user experiences.
However if someone doesn’t intend on joining the party anyways, there is no harm in letting them leave early other than maybe slightly less usage of the feature.
There are no NPC pirates in this map that interact with players. The secondary mechanic is a periodic 4th capture point (“The Bell”) that awards increasing team score.
There was probably some confusion because once the bell is captured, there is an awesome sequence of cannons blowing up the pirate ship. This is only for flavor, though.
