Guild Wars 2

Rickster.8752:

There is currently an issue with the queue system. Inviting to roster seems bugged, maybe it is linked?

No. I don’t think so. Also, the invite bug should be fixed now.

@zilcho.7624: Are you taking into consideration the rating reset that happened about a month ago?

1) It could be that your MMR was reset higher than it was before. This should settle quickly because your deviation and volatility were also reset.

2) Playing during off-peak hours, especially while your deviation/volatility were high, could have caused your MMR to settle somewhere higher or lower than it should be.

Of course, this is just speculation. I will keep an eye on your account and see if I learn more.

Daishi.6027:

I know everything is matched based on MMR, and typically there are a lot of imbalances within that. So I gotta ask does it match actual teams based on MMR? or is it just grabbing players from a pool within a certain ratio (or closest to) and then randomizes teams from the pool of players?

Team arena will match teams based off the average MMR. Solo arena will grab a poll of players based on individual MMR, and then put them into two teams based on that MMR.

Ludus Rex.1562:

Getting rid of noobs can’t help a good player win more, at all, ever, but tightening up the matchmaking system COULD make for more competitive (and potentially more interesting/exciting) games.

I just wanted to highlight this point. I strongly suggest people keep that in mind when discussion matchmaking.

Drafigo.4690:

Now to the juicy part, Can you maybe outline the system better for us. I myself don’t under stand how I get the pairings I get in Pvp. 2 nights ago I seemed to get a fair shake in matches between both sides. fight where close win or lose. But last night I see to get a lot of low levels on my team and not so much on the other team. I was averaging 2-3 sub level 10 players on my team while the other team maybe had one sub level 10 player. One match I even had two level 1’s on my team. We died big on that one. I know you guys are working on some of these matchmaking issues but maybe i just need to understand the current map. what puts me in those brackets? Why is it so different day by day? Why so many low players on my team. Any explanation would be great and Im sure there are a few secrets hidden in the formulas you can’t tell us or you would have to kill us. Any explanation would be awesome!

There are two things that can cause that sort of behavior.

1. The concurrency at the time you play. As concurrency drops, so does the quality of matchmaking because we have to cast a wider net to find a match.
2. Your MMR is on or near the default MMR. When you are near the default you are more likely to be paired with new players. It could be that your MMR dropped, or raised, just enough to put you near the peak of the curve on one day. The more you play the less your MMR deviation should fluctuate, so you should start to see less variance.

The fact you had low rank players on you team, and the other team did not is just dumb luck. Only MMR is used when deciding which team someone should be on, so any other pattern is just random coincidence.

That said, we are working on changes to matchmaking that I believe will help reduce the skill gap between players. This will improve the quality of games for both new and veteran players alike.

Lopez.7369:

Three matches today. Three sweeps.

Your matches have been even. You are on the high skill side of the curve and haven’t been getting any new players on any of your recent rosters. Both you and the people you’ve played with have had a stable MMR.

I don’t know what to tell you.

Drafigo.4690:

RoRo.8270:

This is a player problem. Players can easily switch to other characters before the match starts, but everyone wants to do their own thing.

I believe I read somewhere last patch or the one before that you cannot change. ONce you enter a match at all you cannot make character changes. Someone even told me yesterday that you can no long swap weapons or skills including elites before the match starts one you accept and log in to the match. Maybe someone can confirm this.

Skills, gear, and traits are locked after the game begins, but I believe we do allow players to change those as well as characters before the match starts.

Just a reminder, solo arena match making works by sorting players by their MMR and then putting them into teams based on that order. (Exact pattern: 0 3 4 7 8, 1 2 5 6 9)

Any particular arrangement of ranks or professions is completely coincidental.

Future match making will reduce the chances of getting a match like this by reducing the number of duplicate professions and preferring players close to your rank.

Spectator mode has been re-enabled.

The fix for this went live today, you should see minimal downtime around builds going forward.

This fix has made its way to the live servers. You guys should start seeing very minimal downtime around builds now.

If you notice any strange behavior please let me know.

Ulalume.9584:

No offense, Justin, but unless you have several friends to queue with team arena is a a horrible experience. Since solo queue pops take so long, I’ve been pugging team arena for the past couple of days. I consistently find myself in matches with guild groups of four r1 players on my team. I am sure the newbies try their best, but they just have no clue how to play their class, let alone in a tournament environment. Of course, these total blowout matches wouldn’t happen if you introduced a rank requirement for competitive pvp…

I wouldn’t advise anyone to pug team arena unless you have at least two buddies to queue with so you are able to carry two newbies. I’ve lost 95% of my team queue matches and the only reason I still queue up is for giggles. It is hilarious how many players die to Svanir or manage to never run over a node, not even by accident, throughout an entire game.

I believe there are a few guilds that exist solely to allow you to find people to Team Arena with. I’ll mention it to Josh, maybe we can increase their exposure.

Teutos.8620:

The problem here is to see who is carrying…

Exactly right. It isn’t an easy thing to detect without creating incentives for certain ways of playing that could ruin game play as a whole.

Teutos.8620:

With that you would also make a 4vs5 loose much more significant and painful. A 400 to 500 was already a good fight, and you team was almost even. I think you can get over one of those looses.
The problem is the other one, where you end up outnumbered, and you already get angry over this loss, I don’t think you should harm those poor guys further.

Right again. Leaving should always award you a full loss. I agree with the second part as well, we shouldn’t punish the remaining team just because they now have an unfair disadvantage. We can factor that into the equation though. Maybe we get the ratio after dividing the team scores by the number of players in the team.

Teutos.8620:

New player playing with their first games 2-1 or 3-0 and ending up in the Top 10. Please take a look at those occurrences and adjust the system accordingly. Nobody will take your ladder or leaderboard or whatever serious when those things will happen.

One of the reasons I’m looking forward to the ladder system. I don’t think MMR was a good choice for leaderboards simply because it encourages players to distort them which ruins the quality of matchmaking as a whole.

Teutos.8620:

What happens when the above behavior is not getting fixed in the new system?

I don’t think we’re ready to talk about ladder details yet, but my understanding is that it shouldn’t apply.

Teutos.8620:

4vs5, people who are flaming / afking: Why are you not banning the players who are constantly doing this?

We are looking at ways to amp up the dishonor system so it is more effective. I believe we have a change coming on the 10th, but we will likely more in the future as well.

Teutos.8620:

Even though the filtering should increase over time, it should also be restricted to not increase too much.

Agreed. I’m going to be writing all this so it can be tweaked via configuration files which will allow us to adjust them in response to the real world, without requiring a build.

Incurafy.6329:

How hard would it be for you to prioritise something such as a requirement that each player press the “I’m ready” button within the match start time limit, else everybody is booted back to the lobby and rejoins the queue with the players they had already been matched with while the game searches for more?

It is already a priority and is likely to be done as part of the back-end server restructure.

Incurafy.6329:

If it wouldn’t take you that long to implement, why can’t you just include it in one of the bi-weekly PvE patches? It would improve SoloQ considerably with that change alone.

It would not be a simple change for the existing systems unfortunately. We also can’t just slip things in to random updates like that for many good reasons which I agree with but can’t get into on the forums.

I’m in the middle of writing an outline for the matchmaking blog, hopefully that will go out soon so you guys can at least see what proposals we have planned. We’ll also start a discussion around the proposal. I’m sure that together we can come up with something awesome and practical.

Aza.2105:

This might be worse, you may get communication sure. But Team Arena it seems like its more geared towards a dedicated group of pvpers.

The fact it is geared toward more dedicated pvpers is why I think the OP might enjoy it more. Though, I agree… there are some very good players in this arena and it can be very hard to win.

Aza.2105:

Between 4v5, skyhammer, being grouped with rank 5s and other clueless players….its frustrating. I can understand the OP perspective.

Agreed. We’re working on all of the above.

Aza.2105:

The worst part of all, your rating is tied to your wins and losses. But how is it your fault if you played well but everyone else did not? It would make sense for a static team to have a group lose and win ratio. But solo needs something better, like overall stats.

It’s the nature of the beast. PvP is a team sport, and that may sometimes suck in solo arena but do keep in mind other players are being treated the exact same way. I’m experimenting with ways to compensate for this as far as MMR and matchmaking is concerned, but I wouldn’t expect this to change for rewards or ladders.

Aza.2105:

Hey Justin, I’m currently in another 4v5 whoooooo! And it will count against my overall record.

Why are you posting on the forums during a match?! Get back in there and stand on those circles!

Thedenofsin.7340:

snip

I’m sorry you’ve gotten matches you don’t enjoy. We’re working on addressing the skill gap on multiple fronts.

In the mean time, have you tried Team Arena? You may find it more your speed.

Asomal.6453:

snip

I’m currently experimenting on my personal time with two things.

1. A better way to distribute ratings adjustments so that players that are carrying feel less impact for a loss and more impact from a win. I’m uneasy with this change because it would help high MMR players stay high instead of settling them down to where they should be, but may be needed to get some players out of MMR hell.
2. Adjusting MMR based not on win/lose, but the ratio of the final score. So that a final score of 400/500 would be seen as a minor loss instead of the same as a final score of 100/500. My concern with this change is that it would slow how quickly people’s MMR fluctuates, but that may be a good thing in the long run.

The first may be unnecessary if we use ladders as a matchmaking metric. If we do that, excluding the beginning of a season, you shouldn’t be matched as often with players at a lower skill level than your own.

Also, the reason I said players don’t have to carry is because the majority of the time (not always, I’ve seen the screenshots) the other team has players in the same situation as you. You aren’t really that unique as far as any individuals game goes, so it isn’t as one sided and unfair as many people seem to think.

Now that we’ve decided to keep ranks, I’m going to push for gating arenas, or at the very least using rank as a metric in matchmaking.

Laserbolt.6731:

Though some pretty dedicated, good players who are struggling down in the “percentages” might disagree about how good the matchmaking can be right now.

In every instance I’ve investigated players are being matched very well as far as MMR spread is concerned. You don’t need to carry a team, you just need to provide enough of an advantage to win. The other team is in the same boat with the same chance at team composition.

What is especially significant, in my opinion, is the frustration of dealing with players that are less serious and less experienced, and I hope using ladders in matchmaking, among other things, will help.

Kharr.5746:

There are a number of problems with assuming that there’s a magical solution to finding everyone’s perfect MMR in SoloQ:

1) Every player has variance in their ability depending on time of day/fatigue/health/how drunk they are.

2) Player skill and knowledge is constantly changing. The skill of inherently good, but new, players will go up each match as they learn new tricks from watching others/dying to them (e.g. terrain use/positioning on maps — you only have to see it once to know that you can provide pressure onto a point from certain areas better than others)

3) Players are not equally skilled at all professions, yet they sometimes swap what they play on-demand, or just for fun. Also, professions aren’t necessarily balanced. This adds even more noise.

Given these problems and the massive amount of day-to-day and match-to-match variance in player ability, the current system does an amazing job balancing the teams in SoloQ.

1) This is basically impossible to predict or deal with. If you’re constantly playing while in a state that your skill is significantly impaired, I’d say a lower MMR is proper.

2) The system is designed to allow MMR to raise or fall over time, just not as rapidly as when your deviation is high (i.e. new player or long periods of inactivity.)

3) I’ve pitched the idea internally of having two MMRs, one account bound and the other per profession. Does any one have an opinion on this?

Laserbolt.6731:

SO if people get into the top 100 and stop playing, they tend to stay there too long. They are not exposed to the same forces that randomly force some losses.

Actually, your ratings deviation increases due to inactivity, so the longer you have been inactive the wider and more random your matches are likely to become. This was masked previously by the flaw in how players were matched.

Once the leaderboards are replaced by the ladders, we’ll be able to experiment with ways to deal with issues like this. Until then we do not feel that it is fair to alter the MMR algorithm. This is one of the reasons we agreed to a reset after the last changes to matchmaking changed things significantly.

Feel free to offer ideas though, as we’ll definitely refer back to this thread if it leads to a good discussion.

Taym.8326:

I wonder how long it will be before people start afk wall running in hotjoin for money.

We’ve been discussing ways to more strictly police being AFK and leaving the game early. We don’t like the idea any more than you do.

jojoba.7093:

I actually think the leaderboards now are extremely inaccurate ever since the leaderboards are reset. I.E. winning 1 match almost immediately makes you climb multiple ranks up the leaderboard. Plus the MMR based queue doesn’t really work since the dawn of tourneys, being queued with ~20 ranks even before the separation of solo and team queue. I sure think it wouldn’t be simple adding a slider for this as it might be pretty tedious to adjust the formula based on the slider but as justin has said, if there is a need to it then they could get back to it.

Actually the leaderboard behavior is consistent with what we were expecting as best I can tell. The large jumps are normal for two reasons.

1. A larger starting deviation, which is by design, that allows a player’s MMR to settle into a more accurate position much faster.
2. The curve itself is much steeper because players haven’t finished spreading out. That means the difference between you and your neighbors on the leaderboard is likely lower than before, allowing smaller changes to have a larger impact.

Those two may seem to contradict each other, but the former applies to individuals and the latter applies to sum of every player.

Bsgapollo.5364:

Will we keep the current glory we have now?

Yes, but glory will be retired in the future. We will give warning before that happens.

We reset MMR and the leaderboards during the last release. Could that explain your drop in position?

Where are you getting the idea that we are removing rewards?

Aza.2105:

Since the new matchmaker rolled out, things have been worse for me. Before the change I was grouped with players of similar rank with the rare chance of having someone who is low rank on the team.

Using the ladder tiers in matchmaking should help with that. We’re also still discussion ways to better place new players onto the MMR curve.

Draco.9480:

You can’t eliminate Glory because it’s part of the PvP currency or it’ll become p2win skins. which doesn’t suit pvp at all.

The vendors will be selling things for glory + gold, you can’t buy anything with just gold. Once the new reward system is and place, and glory is retired, those vendors will be removed and the new reward system will be the way to get things.

I think game modes were cut from the blog because we’ve already mentioned that we are working on new ones. I’m sure there are a few threads as well.

risenlord.2035:

I really dont like they way you guys pick and choose your quotes. You picked out the positive things you liked in my post with addressing the core of my concerns.

I pick out the things I can actually answer with at least some bit of authority. I’m not a designer and I’m not working on rewards so I cannot answer every post or every part of a post.

I’m also limited to only talking about things we agree we are ready to talk about.

risenlord.2035:

Upcoming changes to the reward system is an excellent idea. Gold in place of glory another excellent idea. Your implementation of the new system though doesn’t seem right to me.

We haven’t released any details about the new reward system. The rewards going in December 10th are more of a way of rewarding players for the glory they have earned before we retire it.

We have talked about various ways to handle retiring glory, and we’re still open to those discussions.

Admiral Zombie.8624:

A lot of people are misunderstanding what is happening. People who have earned their rank emotes and finishers will get to keep them as they are.

If I understand what people are saying, and I may be wrong, many people are treating ranks as more of a lifetime achievement. That is certainly something to consider in regards to the future reward system replacing them.

jojoba.7093:

Using the ladder system as a factor of tourney queues is definitely a great idea! However the diminishing restriction over time feels rather not flexible, how about say, an option to whether or not the player is willing to risk queueing with someone with a rather lower level on the ladder and MMR.

I know several people would like an option to wait forever for a good match, but I think it would be best to design the system around the more typical use case. If there is still a need for it then we can certainly revisit the topic.

jojoba.7093:

Ready buttons do seem to be the most efficient solution to afkers and I’m sure you guys have never overlooked this solution (having talked to josh before in game regarding this issue) and its definitely long overdue so i assume there are some troubles in implementing this?

I don’t think it’s really an matter of trouble but of time. We’re prioritizing our time toward the new infrastructure rather than the existing. This is also easier to implement with the new servers than it would be to add to the old.

Sea.5732:

sorry i am not the brightest person, more need it bluntly said =P so basically ranks will be removed after X amount of months? a ladder would go for what like 6 months?

just be nice to have a rough idea to know if can pull off another 10 ranks before there removed.

Why? Would you like us to hold off releasing these changes so you have more time?

I can’t give you a time frame because things are still being decided based on your feedback.

Proven.2854:

Honestly, this wouldn’t even be a problem if we had skins a bunch more skins that were exclusive to each PvP and PvE. Instead of having two paths to the same thing and people grinding their way through the path of least resistance, you’d instead have people using their special armor or weapon as a trophy for conquering a certain objective in a certain mode. Same issue with WvW and the fact that it needs something exclusive to it other than the Invader set.

The recent issue with the Flamekissed gem armor comes to mind.

If you want exclusive PvP gear then please, please, please, post that in the rewards discussion.

- Cough -
- Cough -

cymerdown.4103:

They could keep the changes to the reward system, but just not remove ranks and their finishers. Just have it as this little side progression thing, but not have it display anywhere except on your PvP menu and maybe keep the progress bar on the bottom. This way, you still get the cool new rewards, and yes glory is now gone, but rank points and the rank finishers will remain.

The finishers are not going away. You will likely have until the first ladder season to earn them. After that they can’t be earned, but you will continue to have them. If all you want is additional finishers to work toward, be sure to mention that in the rewards discussion.

Updated Reward System
With gear unification we will also introduce a system that allows players to set goals for rewards in PvP and work towards them. We are not ready to discuss this system in detail yet, as it is still being developed, but more information will come as we get closer to being able to release this system.

Once this new system is in place, glory will be retired as a currency, and gold will be the standard currency across the game. All existing glory vendors will be removed at this time. We will give advance warning when this is coming so you can spend all of your existing glory before that happens.

That’s the part you should keep in mind.

Well, now that the news is out I guess I can spoil this one tidbit regarding matchmaking. In addition to your MMR, we will also be using your ladder tier when determining who you play against, so as you travel up the ladder the odds of being matched with new players is reduced. This filtering becomes less strict as you wait in the queue, so people can still find matches during low concurrency.

I’ll be working with Josh and the others to get a blog post out and start a discussion about matchmaking in the near-ish future, and we will likely talk about the 4v5 issue at the same time.

What do you guys thing we should do in the meantime while we continue to work on the new server infrastructure, matchmaking, ladders, etc.?

Pixels.6532:

Regarding ranks, why does one have to exclude the other? Why can’t the current rank system remain and new emotes and titles be added for people who work their way up through the ladder.

Maybe you can’t go into much detail yet, but how would the ladder system and titles/emotes work?

It’s not just ladder tiers/divisions replacing ranks. The future reward blog will likely cover things for people that are more interested in long term investment type rewards.

Miflett.3472:

Do not like the finisher changes as I like my achievement not being time gated, but that’s a personal thing, I admit.

Please focus future achievement structure on permanent achievement; comparing stickers for how many days you showed up is nice and all, but please keep these things open. Achievement in my mind is not time gated. Once again, personal opinion.

Although ladder rewards will be time gated, PvP will also likely have other rewards that are not time gated as well rewards relevant to living story and holiday events. It depends on what you guys would like to see.

Incurafy.6329:

Bad:

• Rank removal
• PvE skins in PvP
• Skillpoints required for new skills. I only have one level 80, the rest of my characters are level 2 PvP only characters, I am NOT going to be forced to PvE just to get new skills in PvP!

Good:

• Everything else.

I’m optimistic about this but I am completely diappoonted in the above.

• Ranks are being removed in favor of ladder divisions and tiers.
• It’s not just PvE gear in PvP, you’ll be able to take the gear you earn out of PvP. Do you want PvP specific gear rewards? Mention it in that discussion.
• The Tome of Knowledge will award skill points instead levels when you reach max level.

Quincy.2198:

The leaver thing is what annoys me more, becuase u practically have no chance.

Yeah, we’re working on that as well. We’ve got plans to prevent it from happening before a match starts, and what to do if it happens in the middle of a match. This will probably be covered in the matchmaking blog and discussion unless we feel it merits its own discussion.

I know what you mean. We understand a lot of our higher skilled players are being burned out by playing with people that haven’t learned the game yet.

Once the news comes out on Monday, I’ll be able to explain one of the additional ways matchmaking will be able to help you guys play together.

Laserbolt.6731:

If a brand new Rank 1 player starts joining SoloQ, they get a temporary MMR of, say 1000 on a scale of 1 to 2000. (But their actual MMR should be about 100, let’s say.)

So they get matched in a group of average 1000 MMR. And they happily goof around in their first match and lose.

Does their MMR take only a small hit? Are therefore are they ready to jump right into another match… and ruin that one as well?

Or does their MMR get cut faster?

Rank is not used in MMR at all, but yes they should drop pretty quickly until they start getting grouped with people more near their skill level and the losing stops. If you’ve been playing long enough that the system is confident in your MMR then you should not drop as far as they would.

Stealthasaur.2198:

How is this a coincidence? It solo que and I thought you fixed matchmaking to balance out mmr. This happens more than not.

The way the system works this can now only happen in solo arena for one of two reasons. Either the MMR of the players lined up in such a way that when they were shuffled they ended up in teams like that, or they are using an exploit to team up.

I really doubt it’s the latter, but if anyone has any sort of evidence to suggest this please email exploits@arena.net. The former makes much more sense to me because MMR was just reset, putting everyone in that default starting area.