If all they want to do is play with friends then no it isn’t intentional.
Whether they’re queuing with a friend or a random is irrelevant. What matters is that they know the consequence of queuing with someone several divisions lower than themselves. Surely after even one or two games they would’ve realized that they were getting way easier matches in way less time and gaining more points for wins.
Heck if the wait time is hours then its not intentional either.
Also irrelevant. But if they’re queuing with a low ranked “friend” and still having to wait hours for a match then that just shows how far above everyone else they are.
You seem to think knowing the consequences of something makes it intentional, no it doesn’t.
If they understand the consequence and do it anyways then it must be understood to have been on purpose. The opposite of intent is accident. Are we to believe that all these (in many cases extremely experienced) players have been engaging in this sort of behavior for days on end completely unaware of how it’s effecting their matches and queue times? I don’t think so.
wow the moral integrity of a video game queue system. yall take this too seriously. it’s a game, and anyway morals are just made up so they are just nonsense.
anet allows this behaviour, and its their algorithms that’s create the match ups. blame those who create a broken system, not those who abouse it.
If we’re going to talk about blame then we have to consider moral and social responsibility.
I personally care less about assigning blame than I do fixing the problem.
If the intent is to play with friends then they’re not doing it to get into matches they would have otherwise not got into. And anyway its up to the matchmaking to ensure the teams are even with the matches they do get into.
Whether they’re queuing with their friends or some random “anchor” out of the mists is irrelevant. What matters is that they’re using this lower ranked player to bring down their team’s average MMR to the point where the matchmaker will place them into matches that they would never get into otherwise. They’re doing this intentionally.
Furthermore the matchmaker will look at their artificially low team MMR and frequently put them at even to unfavorable odds to win which means that they minimize their potential loss exposure. So even if they lose they usually only stand to lose one pip. Meanwhile a win can net them multiple pips. They might even get a pip for losing if the match is close.
Heck even if they do it just to get matches at all due to the ridiculous queue times at diamond and legendary I don’t blame them at all, given the achievement requirements.
I do blame them because if they’re smart enough to figure out how to game the system then they’re smart enough to know why they shouldn’t. They’re compromising their reputations and moral integrity and causing no small amount of grief for people simply attempting to progress through the ladder in a legitimate fashion. That is unacceptable.
But I agree anet need to do something about it, a soloq queue at the very least. I just prefer to put the blame where it actually lies, on the anet devs and their poor system.
Yes I absolutely agree that Solo Queue needs to be reimplemented.
Arenanet certainly shares responsibility for this moral failure. Particularly for not stepping in quickly and putting a stop to it. But the people who have taken advantage of this loophole are still morally responsible for their own actions. I wouldn’t take punitive action against them unless it was severe and decisive. A slap on the wrist would only trivialize the importance of what’s been going on. Better to just close the loophole and be done with it.
Yet you regard queueing with lower ranked friends as cheating as well.
I think it is a form of cheating. I think one simply has to consider the intent behind the action to understand why.
They’re doing it to get into matches they wouldn’t get into otherwise. So regardless of who they pick up the point is to bypass the division restrictions. That, to me, is match manipulation. I don’t think they should be banned but I do think Anet should close the loophole. It seems an easy fix.
That’s all I do. I’ve been stuck in Ruby for weeks now and I accept that perhaps this is where I belong. But what bothers me is all these smurf diamond/legendary premades getting into ruby matches and taking two pips on a loss while only ever giving one on a win.
I don’t think it’s necessary to have an entire solo q team openly agree to some overall plan/elect a leader at the beginning of every match. Experienced players know how to just play off one another simply by watching their teammates movements, watching the map and with non verbal ques like calling targets and map pinging. I’ve seen just that level of coordination be enough to beat even premade teams sometimes.
Would it help sometimes to have in game coms? Sure. Will they add it? Doesn’t seem like it.
Yeah it’s possible but I’m still working through it. It’s been hard on me psychologically though. The amount of rage I experienced during my last play session has made me want to take a week off from the game.
I’ve seen so many games go completely sideways after the first major wipe because the team never really gets back on the map.
10.) Don’t get too spread out.
This kind of goes back to the point you make in 3 about greed. But I think it also relates to people’s fear of concentrating power into just two points aka “zerging.” Zerging around the map can work if you’re quick about it. Taking people off the map quickly and keeping them staggered is worth losing a cap from time to time imo.
I dont think they will seperate Team and solo ques. There just isnt the player base for it. Remember TPvP? They killed it bc there just wasnt enough players to fill it. The problem i believe anet is having is how to populate games. If you start separating everything there will be players that cant get matches without going down a division to find them. 20 minute diamond ques anyone? It will only get worse. Not better. And ive come to discover that the divisions are screwy as all get out. How some players make it into ruby makes no sense to me. They dont know squat. Dont communicate, dont know it only takes 1 person to cap a point. Dont know that running into a 3v1 is bad etc. There is ZERO skill involved right now in leagues. Its all RnG on your teammates. Thats it . Period. End of discussion. I dont care how good you are. If you get bad teammates the game is over. Ive even watched pro players struggling to climb the ladders due to awful teammates.
I totally agree with you about the teammate rng. I’m not so sure about there not being enough people to populate two queues though.
However, if you are better than players in your division, you will climb up divisions – and as other better players climb divisions, your job will only become easier.
It might be true of you were facing only players from you own division, but you aren’t. Additionally, the system will still try to get you to 50% win chance within the division – and if it cannot do so by finding you enemies on your level, it will compensate by giving you noobs as allies. No matter how good you are, it’s really hard to advance when you play in truth 1v5 games, and lose 2 pips on every defeat.
Yes and perhaps more importantly the game only cares about wins and losses not what actually happens during the games themselves. So you could win every 1v1, rotate properly, get resses, decaps whatever but if your team still loses it just assumes you played poorly. On the other hand you could individually play very poorly during a match but if your team still wins it assumes you played well.
You need luck, skill and a lot of persistence to get through every division. Also good timing. Avoiding top tier premades is half the battle.
I think that over enough time and with enough effort and good fortune that most people can eventually get to legendary.
The problem that I personally run into is rage control. I get so angry playing this game now that even when I win I’m not usually having fun which makes it hard for me to keep at it. I just don’t know if I care enough about a stupid backpack to suffer the system through however many games it will eventually take me to reach diamond and then legendary.
Even in Ruby I notice there’s still a lot of luck of the draw in terms of what teams I get placed on or against. I will say that the games have generally been more even though.
the demonic defiance nerf won’t change anything about the bunkerish nature of the current meta; it might even make it worse.
a certain counter to druids and mesmers are conditions. the only 2 condition builds currently working are chill reaper and viper revenant.
chill reaper had a bit trouble with the resistance uptime of 2 viper revenants so it didn’t see that much play. with the nerf to demonic defiance it is possible that viper revenants will disappear and berserker revenants will come back.
will reaper see more play? most likely not. you will never run 2 reapers instead of the current 2 viper revs because it’s already a big risk to run only one.
less conditions = less trouble for most bunkers.
I totally agree I’m just saying that the Demonic Defiance change is a pretty big change for Revenant. Unfortunately it just means that the double mesmer/tempest strat will probably be even harder to crack.
People are bringing Chrono bunkers because they do what they do better than any other build for any other class and on top of that they’re relatively easy to play effectively. Chrono bunker has all the tools one needs to stand on a point and not get killed. They can fight outnumbered without too much risk of going down before someone can rotate to them. They also have excellent boon generation and excellent res ability. They’re mobile via portal and the passive speed boost in Chrono line. They have access to lots of ethereal combo fields and solid aoe ccs. What more could you ask for in a bunker?
Shiro/Glint is not going to work anymore without some serious changes to revenant because people are learning how easy it is to just overload it with condis. The only reason so many revenants transitioned to Mallyx was for the resistance. If Glint gave three seconds of resistance every time a facet was primed/consumed then everyone would still be running shiro/glint.
It’s really a combination of both the Stability and the Resistance. Prevention is better than a cure; I.E. not needing to pop Stun Breaks or cleanses or use weapon dodges/blocks is overall better than having to react to them.
Anyway, assume that only Enhanced Bulwark is gone and now they don’t have perma-Stab. Now suddenly they’re pretty vulnerable to CC as soon as they swap to Mallyx and maintaining the Resistance they need to survive Conditions is also more difficult due to the fact that you can actually be CC’d.
Mallyx would be MUCH riskier overall and, alongside certain design changes that are needed for certain traits and certain skills, would also reward skillful play much more.
That’s how I view it anyway. IMO, Mallyx should be all about high risk and high reward and the current iteration of the Viper Revenant is way too safe for what it can do. That being said, I would also love a functionality change on Embrace the Darkness so it can do something that doesn’t compete with Unyielding Anguish (both try to keep enemies inside a 240 radius and pulse out Torment…).
I actually hope that they try the sort of changes you’re talking about. I have my own ideas about what they’re going to go after when they eventually decide to try to balance Revenant and I fear it will be far harsher than a nerf to Enhanced Bulwark.
I don’t really think this is the issue with Viper Revenant.
It is. That what makes Mallyx viable and removes his weakness. Without double stab on dodge you could cc rev in Mallyx 100-0. Try playing without it and see yourself. The difference is huge.
I actually think a strong argument could be made that Viper Revenant could be significantly toned down by simply changing Durability Runes.
But I also think the thing that makes Mallyx not just viable but rather mandatory right now is the access to resistance. A revenant without resistance is just asking to get shut down by condis. The amount of cc in this game right now is so insane that two stacks of stab on dodge for investing in a grandmaster trait seems reasonable to me. But better to try to avoid the ccs on Viper Revenant than tank them imo. They could absolutely take Bulwark out of Herald but I don’t think it would make much of a difference for the meta Viper Revenant build. I’m basing this on what I’m seeing watching Pro League players but also from my own experience playing it. It don’t think it wins by walking through ccs, I think it wins by stacking resistance and by being an extremely effective offensive pressurer via coordinated boon strips/bursts on focus targets.
it’s called java playing on his alt account so techinically you’re playing vs 3 diamonds… i wouldn’t be tripping out if it was SOME random but it’s not just them abusing the system by playing on alt accounts to farm more rank for their buddies
They don’t have to queue with some random bad player. They can just have one of their team queue on a fresh alt account with low mmr. But even if they queue with a bad player they’re still pro players getting into matches they wouldn’t be able to get into otherwise. That’s not very sporting.
. Map manipulation is NOT picking up a baddy and carrying him so you can lower your mmr and get lower q times.
And what if one of these pros gets on an alt account with low mmr and queues with their friends so they can get lower mmr matches? What would you call that?
