Guild Wars 2

Brigg.6189:

Not trying to claim that I’m amazing or anything, but I’ve managed to progress up to #298 atm doing solo queue as War. Some if it’s luck of the draw, I only have 60% wins, and matches are almost always very close.

Brigg,

Did you used to play lots of tournaments with a premade team, to get your basic ranking up there? Or did you start below the 1,000 rating and work your way up to #298 soloing?

It’s good for eSports, but bad for people who want to “be the hero”. That’s why other games let that happen with gear advantage earned simply from time spent in game.

For those of you who are much more knowledgeable that I am about how ELO works, please tell me if I am right.

Basically, it will always put you on a team that has a 50/50 chance of winning. Your performance is only 20% of the win or loss…80% is based on the performance of the other team members.

The law of averages means that the teams you are assigned to, will always tend to perform at their rating level: and have 50% wins and 50% losses.

So your rating remains the same, and you never rise?

To actually rise fast you would have to suddenly CARRY your team every match and start winning 90% of the time.

I just can’t see that happening.

Last night I was solo Q’ing tourneys, and had won a bunch straight, and it had settled into about 50/50 wins to losses, when somebody in the Mists asked be if I wanted to get in a premade group they were forming.

I jumped in and…we got our butts handed to us, 500 to 169!

I guess it’s not just being in a group that wants to play properly…you have to be in a group of players who have the ability to carry out their roles.

I went back to letting the matcher place me on teams, and I started winning again.

By the way, I play as a super swiftness roamer/capper.

I can say that my wins went up when I changed from trying to kill people to just trying to outsmart them and cap points (speed and stealth). Kind of fun hiding patiently when they take a point and then I slip in and take it right back, then speed off to the next point and cap it as well.

SO:

Rating is only from tournaments.

Rank can be earned in both hotjoin and tournaments.

Do hotjoin wins increase rating? I can’t remember.

No more solo queing tourneys for me!

The Leaderboards ACTUALLY show your TEAM’s rank.

So it seems like it is pretty much “rating suicide” to EVER do a tourney with a PuG team.

Because as a rule, a PuG “team” is of low “team ability”and loses to a real team.

SO…at 5%… I might be at 0% OR I might be at 15%

On the new leaderboards my ranking comes up at 5%.

5%!!!

I only solo queue.

I am puzzled. I am typically in the top three for my team in “score”.Often at the top.

I work on objectives.

I was winning a lot, but for the past three weeks it seems the teams I am assigned to lose more than we win, and it’s typically against really efficient teams that seem to really work together. (premade groups?)

My win/loss is now 38 wins and 72 losses.

Currently I win some and lose some, so my rating stays the same.

I need to be on teams of people who work together!

But I cannot seem to find that in solo queue.

I think they are busy working on custom arenas and a few other high priority items. And as far as I can see, there are only a couple of PvP programmers and testers.

Reikou,

If you were matched against 6 teams of lower rank, your rating will not go up.

But the 200 people who rose in rank might have won against better teams, and that would raise their rank.

ALSO: if the actual rating were shown, you might find that most actual ratings differences might be tiny. Maybe the ratings go from 1 to 25000, and your rating went from 11500 to 11300.

And maybe the top people are in the 19800 range, but from rank 100 and below they suddenly are all around 14000… so, 11000 pts lower that the “top” premades.

Minion,

That makes sense to me, after playing 1200+ games, mostly hotjoin.

I saw Gasmask’s video of him playing in a random hotjoin PUG (looked like) over on his Twitch page.

I was comforted to see that, without a team, he tended to go down nearly as often as I do as a ranger.

Gotta have a team to work with.

I’m not a bad PvPer. I am almost always near the top three position in a match.

And I was winning a lot UNTIL I started hitting premades. Then I found myself teamed with inexperienced people (many farming laurels).

Soon I had more losses than wins.

As result, I am not even in the top 1000 players.

I eagerly await a solo queue and a separate ranking.

Gasmask The Suffocating.2567:

Hello Lobby Lurkers! My name was in violation of the TOS. I was forced to name change

Yes, the “wtf”. I get it.

Where did he go?

Isn’t GasmaskTheSuffocating a warrior? He’s the top player on the new leaderboards.

Hanzo,

I agree with you.

I tried to like WvWvW, but all I found was huge impersonal zergs where you can’t really tell if you are having any kind of real effect.

Thanks very much, Jax and Empathetic Fighter!

I thought a defensive guardian was easiest. Is that right?

As a professional musician, I know that you start with the basics, and add new things as you master the basics.

Can someone link me to the easiest, basic bunker Guardian for sPvP?

I want to start with that, and then start adding more sophisticated techniques and skill chains.

Something with “training wheels”…and a suggested path to the “real stuff” to follow as I get it down would be so helpful.

Thanks.

Davinci.8027:

Start trying to find a team.

Seems to be all I can do now.

Gradually as my wins and rating increased, I started having newer and newer players on my team, and the teams I was assigned to started losing at games with scores like 500 to 250. Every game.

Also I saw we were often up against coordinated teams that were very efficient.

SO…do I now stop tourneys until an actual solo-only queue is implemented?

I am obviously not going to win any more. I cannot carry an entire low team with my 35 ranking alone.

Phaeton.9582:

Lets face it, what do other successful mmo companies like SOE and blizzard have in common? They’re very good at making money off players. And are arguably quite evil.

Arguably quite evil? Are you serious?

Please… you have no rational argument that a business is “evil” if it sells a service to make a profit. No one is forced to buy the game, or buy extras in the game.

Of course, in “forum PvP” you have to always expect the reply: “It’s just you…I am better than you and so I don’t ever have that problem”.

But it did take about 60 views before it showed up.

Believe me, I teleport and I clone and I confuse. But with a huge number of opponents, somebody standing by is going to notice you and be in the right place at the right time to drop you. Eight pairs of eyes are more observant than one.

It seems that when I play my mesmer in large group hotjoin fights, there is always somebody who spots me and locks on, soon to be joined by another…and I do NOT last long in my thin armor.

Mesmers may be tough 1v1, but I think in a group they have their weaknesses exposed.

There is no money for a “complete overhaul”. The PvP team seems to be two people working on it fulltime, with a part-time manager who also does non-PvP tasks. At least that’s who shows up to talk about PvP when there are interviews and “talk shows”.

Grouch, Nero, Xeph – Great job.

mbh.8301:

Laserbolt.6731:

It is not a troll. I was really wondering what other people tend to do. It’s frustrating. How do others cope?

You clearly didn’t read my first reply particularly well.

No? What part of this negative poetry did I not understand?

I see through your ruse
It doesn’t matter if you lose
Don’t come here just to complain
Or find others to blame

And at the end: “Don’t make any more posts like this”

Seems unfriendly and sarcastic…even if you rhymed it.

It is not a troll. I was really wondering what other people tend to do. It’s frustrating. How do others cope?

When YOU are joining tournaments as a solo player and you get placed on a very weak team that is getting slaughtered?

Do you tend to go cap points and look for 1v1 fights?

Do you throw yourself at their zerg again and again and again (giving them points each time you die in 8 seconds?

bhagwad.4281:

I’m a mesmer and I barely need to put in any skill to defeat a guardian, a warrior, necro, ele, rangers, and most thieves.

Sorry, but I just don’t believe you.

Any really good player playing one of those can kill you. Especially the Elementalist.

Naseria.5130:

You need to learn how to play.

Not all that helpful. Direct him WHY he is not killing. Ask him some questions.

Anybody here have experience with the different necro builds in PvP?

Do people clear conditions so much that it’s not worth it?

Is direct damage viable, or should you go to another class if you want to be direct damage?

If you have tried a lot of builds in PvP, what did you find most effective?

Thanks

nerva.7940:

i was an avid spvp’er until i started doing WvW, and now i have ZERO reason to go back. the “structured” aspect just doesnt offer any incentive.

What do you love about WvWvW? I am curious because I just can’t get excited about it, because it all seems to be these huge zerg battles where I can’t really see how I make any difference. And a castle is taken, then lost, then retaken, then lost…that’s about it.

XerreX.7196:

One thing is for sure: if the month wont be a success story for the pvp part, the competitive scene will be wiped out, because 95% of the top tier PvP players will quit and probalby 50% of them wont even consider checking out any news concerning the game ever.

I disagree. If ArenaNet put the needed stuff in, and in August the game sites blogged about it and how great it is, the players who left would return to try it out.

I played well and won a lot of matches as a solo que player and my reward was…

Being put into constant premade stompfests where I suddenly felt like a terrible player, losing every single match by scores like 500 to 160, 500 to 75, etc.

I’d be winning a 1v1 to take a point, and 2 opposing members would appear in no time and kill me. Thanks, TeamSpeak!

I understand why this happens. I look forward to the day when there will be enough players for a true solo queue with no voice-communication advantage.

I think they know what they want; but I think the PvP development team is small, and pressed for resources.

Either way, it is what it is, and I choose to look forward to what they implement this year.

I still like trying different classes and play styles.

I think ArenaNet will eventually have most of the things sPvP people want. It’s just taking a lot longer than we expected. So consider it a LONG beta test phase.

The PVE side is pretty amazing and solid and worth the price of the game all by itself.

Lots of people will come back when new things in PvP are implemented and word gets around on the gaming sites.

Can someone fill me in on what’s the optimal way to run the orb in the sPvP Spirit Watch map?

I can jump backwards with sword 2. And I can evade back with lightning reflexes every 45 seconds.

I can switch to longbow and knock them away from me.

Anything else am I missing that works even better?

Thank you!

milo.6942:

re-roll your char daily = tourny glory farm
people made whole new guilds in gw1 all the time just to farm lower ratings.

I think your rating is based on your account name (with the number on the end), not your specific character.

Jacobin.8509:

Tyler Bearce.3427:

So as people play more games they’ll start to settle again.

Basically it sounds like Anet is saying let the premade teams destroy your rating until you are so low that you will be less likely to face them.

Solo queue = low rated players without teams. If at any point you start to win you will again be matched against pre-mades until you are knocked back down.

Its IMPOSSIBLE to achieve a high rank as a solo player, which defeats the entire point of having rating for solo players in the first place.

As I understand it, that’s supposed to be what ELO ratings are all about: getting matches where you have a 50/50 chance of winning unless you play that match with more skill than your average.

Premades win because they have added advantages not available to you. They eventually should only be playing premades, and there THEY will not dominate, either.

If I am assigned to the weak team being lol-stomped by a premade, does my rating go DOWN?

Or is my rating only affected by a win, which raises it?

I just want my rating to be a measure of MY skill…not the matching system.

When there aren’t enough players playing (generally before 6pm server time)…the matcher has to work with the few players it’s got. And if the fanatics who play all day are on, you have to compete against them more often, basically.

Low population makes for bad matchups. Wait till prime PvP time for your server.

XIII.9615:

There is a problem with match making: Winning is more fun than losing. When the system works, you are supposed to only win 50% of your games.

Such an EXCELLENT point, and we need to remember it when the matchmaking algorithm starts working well and games tend to be close, with neither side feeling “powerful” and dominant.

A great matchmaking system will mean NOBODY will honestly be able to claim that they win most of their games…as long as there are at least two “top-ranked” teams available at all times.

One thing that helps mitigate the feeling of being less powerful is knowing where you stand on the leaderboard. Knowing you are facing the best there are goes a long way in giving you that “performance pride” back.

Both teams at the Super Bowl know that getting there is an achievement in itself.

Yes, I am thinking that only a general suggestion is going to work, because others won’t remember anything detailed that requires coordination. And some people never read their chat or even have it set to combat messages only.

What have you found to be the suggestions that best help shape a pickup group into more of a team on Spirit Watch?

I am thinking that suggesting an orb runner and support, and a fast roamer to cap points, might be good.

For those of you who have tried to organize, what have you found?

(Let’s not rehash how much you dislike Pugs. We get that. It’s a challenge.)