Guild Wars 2

Already I see less whining on this forum. The serious players love the new direction. The casual “lawl” players are dropping our of arena and into hotjoin (i.e. called “Practice” now). All is well.

They are in the 14-day process of adjusting the matchmaking parameters to reduce this sort of thing.

Some players come for the dailies and for lawls. They just mess around till they get their random wins for the day playing with other non-serious players.

In a ranked arena of serious players, these casual daily players will not tend to get their dailies done and will be facerolled. They will gravitate to the casual “practice” area. Quick in and out. Mess around. Not serious play.

No, I believe your rating will not change from unranked matches.

No, I think they are using matchmaking and adjusting the settings to get even matches. Once they feel they are getting them as even as possible with the current PvP player population, they will start changing your rating and ladders will be turned on.

I have just been looking at the detailed information that ArenaNet has posted about how the sPvP Matchmaking now works.

Regarding the new matchmaking, I am very impressed! I am impressed with the methods, and I am impressed with the transparency they have shown in publicly showing all the details of how it works.

As they begin to adjust it and “dial it in” during this two-week testing phase, I am certain that it will get better and better at finding serious players a good, COMPETITIVE match.

BEFORE YOU COMPLAIN, understand how complex of a task this is. When you are looking for a match THERE MAY NOT BE ANYONE AVAILABLE at your skill level. Yet, you still want a short wait time. Then, if you are thrown in with better players or a premade, you complain on the forums.

DEVS: I wish there was a variable that each player could set: MAXIMUM ALLOWABLE WAIT TIME in minutes. Set it short to get fast, perhaps un-fun match. Set it longer to wait until your level of players are available, to get a more fun match.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/PvP_Matchmaking_Algorithm#Matchmaking

The OP is talking about people who are not serious PvP players and who do not work to get more advanced in skill and strategy, but who only do sPvP for the daily reward.

Serious sPvPers,

When you finish a SoloQ match, win or lose, how do you evaluate your performance?

What things do you measure yourself on?

Do you expect that you should make your team to win even with two of your five players AFK at base? Obviously not.

Just wondering how other serious players deal with the imperfect system that is soloQ.

Weren’t MMR systems designed for 1 on 1 individual games, like chess, where your performance is the only variable?

I do think that the players with a high MMR right now 1) Are decent, 2) have gotten good matches that raised their MMR, and 3) play a build that helps the team a lot, giving an advantage.

But I do notice that once people get in the top 25 they stop playing. And when they DO play again, they go down.

Excellent point, NeverSayDie.

Justin ODell.9517:

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.

Yes, but this assumes the MMR is accurate for each player. But their MMR came from the performance of their teammates…including the non-serious goofs, or a 4×5 match problem. There is a randomness there behind those exact-seeming MMR rating numbers. That’s the problem with a number. It looks authoritative. It should be more “fuzzy”.

Consider Fantasy Football team projections and player score projections…how wrong they can be.

Now think about the MMR rating trying to predict how well this team (that was formed for the first times just seconds ago) will perform against this other team that was just formed.

Justin, to answer your question, I think the “class MMR” is very valid. It’s something I was thinking about a few days ago: that some classes are just more powerful for the current SoloQ team mixes, and there should be an MMR adjustment for what class you are playing.

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.

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

Justin ODell.9517:

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.

Interesting.

Still, given the challenges of matching people into teams, I would expect that the top 100 would be less “static” then they currently seem to be.

I would expect them to get teams of low MMR teammates, on a regular basis, and go down rather quickly once they play again regularly.

One thing the current leaderboard absolutely requires is that all the more skilled players play constantly. They are in shorter supply, and when a similarly skilled player joins SoloQ, she or he needs to play against a team near her level, with teammates who are similar in level.

When the skill levels diverge, (and the class balance is off) the “step function” comes into play and it all falls apart. Yet the algorithm dutifully adjusts your MMR as if the match had been balanced reasonably.

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.

I suspect that the people in the Top 100 are mostly good players who have been given reasonable matches where they did not have to “carry” more than is possible.

I suspect the “percentages” area has a smaller number of good players, who “fell into the pit” with bad teams and bad team compositions.

Justin,

I think you and the team have done the very best you could, with the situation you all are faced with. I am a supporter! And I had high hopes. Yet, in playing and thinking about it, I now see the issues and so I posted them for discussion.

Sure Glicko2 is wonderful for accurately rating a chess player, and in other single person games.

And it can work for teams of random players if there is a sufficiently large number of people queuing for teams at all times, as in League of Legends.

But in GW2 at the moment, we have a very small pool of players, with skill ability skewed towards low level.

I just don’t see how Glicko2 can accurately judge your ability to win by assigning you to teams from a small pool of available players, many of whom are less skilled.

One very high MMR may mathematically balance 4 low MMRS…but that does not translate to an equivalent team "win probability " in SoloQ. It’s probably not a linear scale, but rather is a “discrete step function” on skill level. Meaning, sometimes a low MMR player cannot really contribute ANYTHING…but the math assumes they contribute a bit less than 1/5 of the win capability of the team.

Also, class types in a team are important for winning a match, but they are random for matches you are expected to win… to keep or raise your MMR rating.

There may be so much “noise” in the system that the true rating will not emerge for thousands of matches of the same set of people. New players introduce new “noise” in the data, skewing it, and keep the ratings inaccurate much longer still, I suspect.

Thoughts?

Ben,

You lost matches to teams with an average rating lower than the average Glicko2 rating of YOUR team. Your team was the expected winner, but lost. That makes you lose a lot of rating. It may not have been your fault at all, but rather the 4 other people on your team not performing up to their rating.

Of course, there are a lot of players on the leaderboard at the moment with a “temporary rating” that starts in the middle…even though they may be clueless about how to play. The system assigns everyone a mid-level rating with they first start SoloQ…regardless of their skill.

So…the good players on a team have to “carry” an entire team sometimes…or see their own rating drop.

It’s not fair, but it’s the best ANet can do because right now there is a core of decent players and what seems to be about 5 times more casuals who pop in and out now and then…many of whom just run around attacking the nearest enemy, without knowing how to actually win the match.

I want to try a sniper. A character that destroys from a distance, but goes down like tissue if you catch him.

Would that be a power-based ranger? A warrior? Thief?

Is 1500 range really worth it? Don’t people close the distance fast once they come after you anyway?

Thanks for any thoughts if you have played a character strategy like this.

Actually once I join a Q I always take the match for fear of screwing over innocent people…unless there were a family emergency or something. Then of course I would leave.

By leaving the Q you screwed over 4 people and ruined their chance of wining, and dropping their rating as well. Of course they complain.

Ulalume,
Many thanks for sharing your experience and your suggestions. I will take them to heart.
I run the swiftness signet and leave out one of the lesser spirits, so I am fairly quick.
Someone else suggested that a ranged super glass cannon is good for low-ranked matches with less experienced people, and also for assaulting them off a point.
They claim spirit ranger is a team support build and without a team working together, you are not that useful.

What do you think?

Does there tend to be a certain type of class/build that has an advantage in the SoloQ style, with non-coordinated teams, and where you are often teamed with unskilled players?

I do realize that the typical PvP Forum reply to someone complaining about this is “you just suck”.

But last night just felt different than that.

Lordrosicky.5813:

Maybe you are just not as good as you think you are?

One comforting answer for you is that the leaderboards are accurate on judging personal skill… and I just suck.

Then all is well in your world as you compete for your leaderboard rank.

But as I said in the post above, I really cannot see what I could have done that would have reversed the score in those matches I was assigned to. I don’t see how my spirit ranger could have made my team have the 200 – 250 individual scores, and the other team have the 0 to 80 scores. I was there supporting team fights. They were losing the two other points all the time.

Subdue.5479:

If you’ve got 4 pebbles and a big rock on one side of a balance and 5 pebbles on the other side, which side will be heavier?

This is basically the gist of how these rating systems work. The more you win, the heavier the rocks you’re weighed with, both on your own team and on the opponent’s. Eventually you’ll be getting weighed with and against similarly weighted rocks and your probability of winning will be about 50%.

If you’re getting a consistent 50% win ratio while playing with the pebbles, perhaps you’re not as big as you think you are.

Well… I am open to the idea that maybe in reality I hopelessly suck. But it really doesn’t feel that way when I look at my gameplay. And when I look at other people’s stories and screen shots posted here.

When I think hard about the string of games I lost last night, I really can’t think of what else I, as a spirit ranger, could have done in those matches that would have guaranteed win in those 500 – 150 games… when the opposing team had individual scores of 200 to 250, and my team had scores of 0 to 80!

I supported team fights very well. I had the amazing Spirit of Nature there at the right times to stream health into my team mates. I stayed alive and kept my spirits up and running. I did my share of downing opponents.

I am starting to believe there is such thing as a “class MMR”, which I will discuss in a new thread.

So here I am at 29%. Is it worth playing SoloQ any longer with this character?

Frankly, I am becoming suspicious of Glicko2 MMR accuracy as applied to team sports, especially with a very small pool of players.

If the MMR is adjusted based on your team’s performance…and you are only 1/5 of the team. How can your MMR really be your skill level?

People in posts above say you need to play a non-team-support character in SoloQ. That would seem to contradict the whole point of your rating being the rating of the team you are assigned to. You should support that team, since IT is your rating.

I should add I did this on a second, mule account. I am still a solid 450 or so on my main. But frankly, I don’t think I will be playing my main in soloQ for while. I can see why a lot of people stop playing SoloQ for fear of dropping to the pits after being asked to carry new players.

Now that I have sunk to the depths at 29%, I am no longer concerned about playing SoloQ for fear of unfairly losing MMR… and I can look around and see what is happening at the bottom of MMR.

What I see at low-MMR SoloQ is hotjoin: little teamwork…lots and lots of glass cannons harvesting the new players.

Excaliber,

I don’t believe the answer is to try to be a one-man army. There are three points. You cannot be everywhere at once.

I don’t need sympathy. Many other people have posted that the same thing has happened to them. Lots of people in the same boat. Good players. Assigned to weak teams because of very few people queuing. Tonight was my turn to plummet.

But it’s a team game. Not a 1v1 game. Even in SoloQ.

Excaliber,

No, all the pro teams have spirit rangers. It’s one of the most team-supportive classes you can play. And I figure if I am going to be asked to carry 3 other people who are ineffective, at least I can give them an edge by buffing them very strongly.

You will just have to take my word for it that I was at the right places at the right times to help them out. My reward was being dropped to the 44% bracket along with the people I was assigned to, I guess.

I play a spirit ranger, since I figure that offers some of the best possible help to weaker team members.

But when the team is weak, even having the buffs from a spirit ranger is just not enough to keep them up and take a point.

And for me, it was loss after loss tonight. I tried very, very hard to help the teams I was assigned to…but just had to watch all the points at the top of the screen continuing to go to the enemy team’s color…over and over. That’s what the game gave me.

Disappointing. Not fun.

I can’t think of a more frustration-producing situation that tying a person’s personal skill rating on the public board display to 4 strangers, some of whom just don’t know how to play the game yet.

I started at 550.

Now I am at 44%. And I think I actually played my class pretty well tonight.

“Why Are you Not Helping?!”

I understand the frustration when you see a team mate not helping the team win.

Of course, if they are carried hard by extraordinary effort by the higher MMR players, and the new player WINS, they actually get an even more inflated temporary MMR…say 1200 now.

So it does take time for their lack of skill to be “discovered” by the matchmaking algorithm.

A challenge is: getting the higher skilled players to actually play SoloQ and risk getting a lower MMR, to make the adjustments happen.

Thanks, Justin.

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?

I did get some intelligent and thoughtful replies here so far. Thanks.

Now that I know a lot more about the game and the class strengths and counters, I see that in the past I was disappointed that I didn’t win in situations where now I realize winning was just about impossible. I was actually not doing too bad.

The early, noob, assumption is that you will win all your games and all your fights…if you are a great player. So sure, roll a mantra mesmer and try to win all your fights against any class, ever, that tries to take you on.

Not gonna happen. As we all know.

Really, the only thing that makes real sense is being on a regular team and learning the strategies and inventing some with your team, and carrying them out. That seems to be what GW2 PvP combat and maps were designed for.

Being thrown onto a random team with no voice communication is just too…random! So much is out of your personal control.

I will say that spectating some really good players does open your eyes to the kinds of things you should be doing, but didn’t think were possible. It’s a learning experience.

At that level it is very fast paced. No time for thought. You see and your fingers do. You react. You anticipate and know the classes and the builds and you sense cooldowns and rhythms.

People who say this game has a low skill level are demonstrating the Dunning-Kruger effect, in my opinion. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect)

From Wikipedia:

“Dunning and Kruger proposed that, for a given skill, incompetent people will:

-Tend to overestimate their own level of skill;
-Fail to recognize genuine skill in others;
-Fail to recognize the extremity of their inadequacy;
-Fail to recognize and acknowledge their own previous lack of skill, if they are exposed to training for that skill."

Knowing what you don’t know is the beginning of wisdom.

I just thought of a good answer to my own question.

If you are on a regular team in TeamQ tournaments and your team is near the top in wins, and your teammates say you have skill and like how you play…then you are good.

I guess I was thinking of CC that helps your team. Group CC that helps everyone in a team fight do better.

If SoloQ rank doesn’t really show your skill, and matches are won or lost based on many, many random factors…all outside your personal control…

…then how should you judge how “good” you are? And whether you are getting better?

Do you keep a record of the 1v1s you win? Maybe your class is at a disadvantage 1v1 and that doesn’t matter.

If you play support, how do you know you are making a difference? What would have happened if you were not supporting a fight?

Some people greatly overestimate their ability. Others do not give themselves enough credit.

GW2 is fun, but all the RNG factors make it tough to really know how well you are doing…in my opinion.

Looking forward to thoughtful non-simplistic replies, from perceptive people. Thanks.

runeblade.7514:

Necromancers have the best CC options.

Every single weapon set except Off-hand dagger has a snare. However, you do not want chill necromancers at all. They are trash.

What you want is D/W staff Minion master necromancers. You can keep enemies crippled forever vs. chilled for 12 seconds.

I can’t see where the permanent cripple comes in when I add up the seconds each of these give.

Can you explain further? Have you played this build a lot?

Yolosmurf,

If the matchmaking system begins to work the right way, you should never be sure if you will probably win the match when it starts…they will always be difficult, there will be turnarounds based on a single team mistake, and you will lose about as many as you win.

Your place on the leaderboard will not be about how many you win, but about the MMR rank of the people you are usually matched against. Your “bracket”. That’s all.

In my opinion it’s a bit controversial using an MMR system designed for an individual game (chess) to apply to a team-based win method. So much of the win or loss is out of your personal control.

And everyone will have to deal with newer players now and then. You’ll have to be able to carry a bit.

This was helpful.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Chilled

Wintel,

I need to change my signature. I HAVE tried HamBow and a few other warriors.

I am thinking that I suer haven;t tried all the possible builds of all classes, and maybe I have missed something.

I tried a chill necro. I have heard that an ele could possible do a lot of freezing.

Just wondering what everyone’s thoughts are.

I love trying new or less-used strategies.

If I wanted to be the King of Chill…what class seems to have the most CC choices?

Well, play every day for a couple of weeks and see how it works out now.

It’s not meant to put him down. I edited the original post to reflect that. He was only mentioned tangentially by name as a reference to who is #1.

This thread is meant to be about the new leaderboard mechanic.

The #1 player on the SoloQ leaderbord at the moment is joking happily about his climbing to the #1 spot.

The test now is to see if he can stay there under the new matchmaking system, with decay that requires him to play at least every couple of days or more, and a low PvP population that will put much weaker players on his team.