Guild Wars 2

Faux Play.6104:

Ithilwen.1529:

Here’s the page; https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/PvP_Matchmaking_Algorithm

Scoring/Dishonor/@distance

Score added or removed based on the distance between the potential roster’s total dishonor and the total dishonor of all selected rosters, including both teams.

Scoring/Dishonor/@stack

Score added or removed per stack of dishonor the potential roster has on any of its members.

Dishonor also impacts matchmaking by preferring to place you with other players that also have dishonor. This isn’t a separate queue, but merely a suggestion to the matchmaking system.
It’s possible to have stacks of dishonor without having an active timeout because dishonor decays at a much slower rate.

Is that how ANET responds to reports? Are the match manipulators still able to play but with bad matches?

if you think you have dishonor, just queue and don’t accept it. If you can’t play for more than 3 minutes you have stacks of dishonor.

This wouldn’t work. The wiki states that dishonor stacks for the purpose of matchmaking decay at a much slower rate than the timeouts. You can play with a serious dishonor handicap and never know it.

It’s clear that I’m wandering off topic and that I’m unlikely to get an answer. I apologize.

@ Frostball. I am talking about the current state of the game and the coding thereof. BTW it’s Ms, -.- -.- -.- -.- to you.

Here’s the page; https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/PvP_Matchmaking_Algorithm

Scoring/Dishonor/@distance

Score added or removed based on the distance between the potential roster’s total dishonor and the total dishonor of all selected rosters, including both teams.

Scoring/Dishonor/@stack

Score added or removed per stack of dishonor the potential roster has on any of its members.

Dishonor also impacts matchmaking by preferring to place you with other players that also have dishonor. This isn’t a separate queue, but merely a suggestion to the matchmaking system.
It’s possible to have stacks of dishonor without having an active timeout because dishonor decays at a much slower rate.

Is that how ANET responds to reports? Are the match manipulators still able to play but with bad matches?

As a long time Mesmer player, it’s your own fault if you got 100-0’d. That stunt is nearly impossible to pull off in a real game.

Most likely, either you were already injured or were hit by multiple enemies at nearly the same time.

Bravo! I hope this trend continues.

Entering a match resets progress on the JP. So players can choose to JP or play matches.

This is not well thought out policy since it discourages actually que’ing up.

ANET doesn’t punish this behavior.. although there’s a rumor that they “award” dishonor for negative reports.

If true, this is perhaps the worst normative mechanism I have ever seen. Punish a misbehaving player by making them have worse games. Don’t tell them though.

That way a kittened player will have even worse games and not know why. This is certain to help them feel better and thus behave better.

Shaking my head @ ANET.

apharma.3741:

Ithilwen.1529:

I think NOS and Naru and similar players not being able to get a game was a sign that the system was actually working.

Heaven forbid that the elite should be inconvenienced for the good of the vast majority. After all, in this day and age we are seeing the poor oppressed top 0.2 percent finally get all the loving care it deserves.

Clearly, the needs of the few outweigh the needs of the many.

That is incredibly selfish and very exclusionary, I would think someone in your position would appreciate what its like to be excluded from something based on who/what you are.

Nos is actually that good, he’s been playing necro long before it was considered good and winning a ton of matches. I believe he has had the highest MMR in the entire game at one point and that was making him wait up to 30mins to even get into blow out games.

No, it’s just the opposite. While I appreciate that some players may in fact be “that good”; It harms the game to cater to them. Favoring a small group of players and adjusting the game to them is exclusionary.

I think that ANET would do well to cater to the majority instead. Logic is on my side which is why I sarcastically reversed Spock’s famous dictum: “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”

~edit~ I am not unaware of the broader issue you are referring to; The tyranny of the majority. Yes, I am very personally aware of lgbt rights. I don’t find that the argument applies here.

Fay.2357:

Whatever you do, don’t make the exotic version of trailblazer’s. It’ll be just about as expensive as the ascended version…but soulbound and with worse stats. If you must actually craft the gear (protip: don’t craft asc armor, get it from fractals/raids/WvW), make the ascended version.

Except that raids are hugely closed and require this type of gear to get into. Fractals are even worse at high levels. You need these to get easy gear.. but you need the gear to get there. (not to mention dealing with the elitism in general )

Catch 22

I think NOS and Naru and similar players not being able to get a game was a sign that the system was actually working.

Heaven forbid that the elite should be inconvenienced for the good of the vast majority. After all, in this day and age we are seeing the poor oppressed top 0.2 percent finally get all the loving care it deserves.

Clearly, the needs of the few outweigh the needs of the many.

I’m watching my decay pile up. It would be a bigger and faster loss to queue ranked.
The match quality is simply too low to engage.

I believe I’d just be used as cannon fodder to feed matches to high ranked players.

I’m running Scepter/Torch and staff as a condi PU in PvP. It works reasonably well.

Wow, the attitude the OP projects.

Let me remind you that a major reason matches are funky right now is a lack of population. That lack of population is the direct result of attitudes of this kind.

I once told our club Sail Commodore, “Sure it’s great that (sailor x ) wins every race. He’s really good. But, what good will that do when he’s run everyone else off?”
For the record, that class is no longer sailed at that club, for lack of interest.

You disparage the population that supports the game at your own peril.

With the unbalanced matches currently in PvP, virtually any build could be successful if the player was lucky enough to be picked for the win side.

That being the case, I’m not much impressed.

In my considered opinion; the new match ending is sad. It promotes ego stroking and is nasty to the losing team. Who thought this was a good idea?

I know, let’s give the winners an extra chance to troll and humiliate the losers. Not only will that promote sportsmanship.. it’s likely to encourage the losing team to keep playing.

Clownmug.8357:

What’s there to discuss? The attacks were simply added so that phantasm skills will cause reveal. The other effects are just there to cover up their true purpose.

Hit the nail on the head there. Thank You.

I stopped playing yesterday after two badly unbalanced matches in a row. They were accompanied by the enemy team talking trash. Frustrated players means lower populations and deepening problems.

This is the direct result of the way the seasons have been set up and managed. In particular, the “competitive” deliberately unbalanced matches have been an issue. Now, folks assume a bad match is the matchmaker rather than bad luck.

Sadly, when I look at the new end-of-match screen, it seems that ANET still condones and encourages curb stomps and general non-sportsmanship.

The comparison to current politics in the US is unmistakable.

I can usually kill a DH, (on a vanilla PU Mesmer.) It just takes an annoyingly long time and I’ll probably get +1’d before I can finish him.

DH are annoying rather than OP.

It’s roughly the same against a bunker ele. Though, the bunker Ele does very little damage in exchange for all the tanking power.

I dislike the attack on conjure. I’m playing a PU vanilla build in PvP and it spoils stealth.

Mine was 68 straight losses a couple of seasons ago. Predestined losses are real.

I don’t like it either. Still it reflects the general attitude that has been promoted in PvP. The funny thing is when the same people turn around and complain about a “toxic” environment.

I think it’s clear that anet condones and encourages the environment as it is.

I ran an 8 game losing streak, most by blowout, the other day. It dropped me from gold to silver. Seems like there simply aren’t enough people playing.

There doesn’t seem to be a major effort to bring players in either.

I’d prefer anet focused on issues that affect the majority of players. It has been the emphasis on ESL that has contributed to many of the challenges we have now.

Balance is a major example.

After 8 straight losses in pvp ( almost all of them by blowout ) and several houurs trying to complete a near impossible task in Pve; I ask myself if ANET and I have the same understanding of “game.”

To me, a game is something intended to be fun and relaxing.

To make a game fun, the player in question needs to win at least some of the time. This is why games like “Greedy” are popular.. they are random enough that the wins are fairly evenly distributed.

I’m logging off with yet another headache after yet another long unproductive night of being hammered. Not fun.

I lost 8 straight heavily stacked matches. The new lobby is cute, but it’s meaningless to me. I’d much rather have even matches.

Yep, 8 straight unbalanced matches in a row. 8 straight losses. Another season of the same. Sank straight into silver.

If I can’t get a fair game, the rest is meaningless.

Well, the new HoTM is interesting. I took great pleasure in hitting a dev with as much torment as I could. Thank you for that.

I finally made Gold and now I’m seeing stacks of this freaking trap/condi ranger.. Maybe I ought to quit now and preserve my gold .. hope for next season.

Back to that annoyingly hard vanquish in Elona.

I don’t agree. The Rt/Me I mentioned can do nuke damage by “shattering” ( [Soul Rupture] ) using multiple slot skills.

Effectively giving fewer skills on the bar is the point of making phantasm enhancing skills. You trade one thing for another.

Importantly: this would not require a Mesmer nerf to implement.

If the new slot skills were strong enough, they’d present a new playstyle of exploiting your phantasms.

After all, ranger can use slot skills to enhance her pet. Realistically, the White Mantle Phantasm is comparable to a ranger pet.

The old Raid on the Capricorn was my first PvP map. That was wild fun. I believe it was pulled because ANET was unable to balance underwater combat.

I really liked the old Skyhammer. I didn’t enjoy being pulled off the hammer platform from below or [Scorpion Wire] instant kills. Other issues: an engi or staff necro could lock down the gun almost permanently.

Anet moved the hammer to stop the pull from below trick. I’m guessing the change to automated firing was to prevent Necro/Engi/DH from dominating the upper platform and the game.

Skyhammer was the map that made my heart beat faster, because it was easy to die. It’s still fun for strategy, but not as exciting.

As to Khylo… well that felt like a big finger in the face to Mesmer/Thief. It’s still fun, but much less so.

You mentioned Coliseum, which got the same anti Mesmer/Thief style mods. I will say that “playing for the crowd” makes Coliseum much more attractive than it would be otherwise. I love doing the shout out to the crowd and hearing the response.

To some extent the heavy point bombing classes have been limited on Skyhammer.

The takeaway? I think ANET wants a majority of fairly straightforward bruiser classes fighting in close proximity. The trend has been to simplify and encourage “knife fight range” combat. There’s also been a drift away from trickier play styles, toward more sword/shield methods. A better strategy would be to let players play the way they want.

Matchmaking hasn’t been too bad so far. I’m in low Gold without many real blowouts.
( mid-Bronze last season with quite a few pre-determined games )

Class stacking is still going strong though. That’s causing some poor matches.

Fay.2357:

It’s a condie phantasm, what exactly were you expecting?

Seriously though, for most of this game’s history the torch phantasm has been nothing more than a flaming pile of garbage widely regarded as worse than a clone. Nevertheless, torch has been a staple in builds purely because of how good a skill the prestige is. Think of skill 5 as an extra illusion for a shatter now and then or just ignore the fact that it’s on your bar.

Well said.

Truthfully, neither solution is likely to happen. Phantasm buffs have come up from time to time over the years.

I’m thinking that if the buffs were slot skills, it might not make the balance team so nervous.

I’ve been away a lot lately, exploring the history of Tyria. One of the many things I’ve noticed is the Ritualist.

A GW2 Mesmer is essentially a GW1 Ritualist/Mesmer (Rt/Me) and that has some interesting implications.

The Ritualist spirits ( like our clones and especially phantasms ) are weak “out of the box.” However, the Ritualist has access to a number of skills that directly buff the spirits or exploit them, eg to recover energy or heal.

If we could directly buff our Phantasms or use them for healing, it would add a great deal to the options we have. This is similar to the recently introduced White Mantle Mesmer with there very tough phantasm.

tldr: ANET should consider adding active slot skills that can buff or exploit phantasms. This would be a playstyle similar to the new White Mantle Mesmer.

~edit~ Oh btw, I’m currently in Gold, on a PU vanilla Mesmer.

Guild halls have a “brawling” area. I presume this is why ANET chose that name. Brawl and duel are equivalent in this case, I’m guessing.

I love the polymock idea. After all, this is a PvP mode that ANET could successfully balance.

I enjoy it in GW1.

A better approach would be to play relying on your own strength and ability.

You’re wrong. the 120 game bar isn’t enough. The exploit of the last season, play as few games as possible to keep your rating risk to a minimum.. hurt the game badly.

The players have clearly demonstrated that they will exploit any hole in the system. Not only that, they will take pride in doing so.

I, for one, congratulate the devs on closing this loophole.

Lordrosicky.5813:

Mesmer and thief have been vastly OP for almost the entire life of the game.

Facepalm

Is this post serious? If it is, I think it demonstrates a lack of knowledge/experience with Mesmer.

The one and only reason Mesmers are successful is that other players are unwilling or unable to understand the style. Such players would rather claim the class is OP than to expend the effort to learn.

For once, I agree with nothelseth.

-edit- For the record; I am currently playing a vanilla PU Mesmer because I dislike Alacrity being given to Rev and the general sword/shield bruiser style.

At this point, I’m prepping for a new season.

My expectations are really pretty low. The strategy is to survive and hope for an occasional good match.

What say you?

The “fix” involved making the map so open that there is little to no line of sight shelter or advantage to teleporting.

Since that is the case, there’s little point in taking a light armor class. I predict that heavy armor and ranger will dominate The Coliseum.

The culture of quitting games was created by multiple seasons of deliberately unbalanced matches. People got into the habit of assuming a game is lost if it doesn’t go well at first.

In fairness, that was largely true for each of the past PvP seasons,. The only long term effective way to fix that would be to have a run of even matches. Consistent 50/50 matches would clear the problem up very quickly.

In all honesty, I’m not sure ANET is in a position to do that.

I love “playing before the crowd” on Coliseum. Most of it’s warts are forgivable just for that.

It’s extremely open though. The changes are a serious blow for Mesmer.

This is a core problem in this discussion.

To one group of people, “competitive” seems to mean heavily unbalanced matches that allow them to win easily. This in the name of “competition” since those being stomped should somehow be grateful for the chance to learn.

Another group, (including myself, ) believes that “competition” means even matches so that the odds are as close as possible to 50/50 going in.

Team Death Match (TDM) advantages certain classes and combinations of classes by it’s very nature. Not only that, it has a tendency to really kitten people off when they get stomped. I don’t see that as a “competitive” mode at all.

This seems odd. Why publish a 2v2 mode with fanfare when it’s not actually going to be in the rotation?

I can think of a possible reason for doing so and I don’t like the implications.

I’ve been away exploring the history of Tyria. Word of a new season brought me back to get my chops again.

Sadly, the matches so far have been the same as always; mostly very one-sided. I think I’ll add “Venus in Furs”, to my summer reading list to get in the mood.

Seriously though, a pretty new lobby won’t help if the matches continue like this.

There already is one of these. It’s a focus, the “Bloodseeker.” It’s kind of a small Bloodstone Shard, similar to the ones at the end of Arah P4.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bloodseeker

2v2 is not exciting me much. It will take all of a day for people to figure out the optimal pairings. Then it will be same old story.

Here’s one of my beloved Mesmers. Flaming Dragon Sword, Jora’s Defender and Heritage gear. The Court Dress for Mesmer from GW1,

Her name: Tinuwyn is the closest the game would give me to Tinuviel, a hero from Tolkien.

HoT specs were designed, at least in part, for raids. That being the case, they couldn’t make major power changes to the elite specs without also affecting raids.

I don’t honestly think ANET has the ability to make major PvP and Raid content changes at the same time.

So, ANET can’t really make major changes to power levels in PvP. Changes would be restricted to those that wouldn’t compromise raids. This may explain some of the design choices.

It also implies that vanilla specs won’t ever be equivalent, since that path would require major changes to the pve world. Such an undertaking would be even larger than revamping raids.

The sigil changes are brilliant, seen in that light, since they affect PvP in isolation.

Sadly, this means that the next expansion specs will likely have the same issues.

From where I sit, ANET would be wise to nerf raids and HoT specs along with them. This would permit better PvP balance.

So if stability has been cut back, perhaps it’s worth trying interrupt again? Has anyone got a solid interrupt build handy?