Guild Wars 2

I’m not really sure these changes will change nothing, We can see now how a double bunker + 3 zerker comps (like TCG, 2 cele + 3 zeker) can do really well against a 4 cele/5 cele or soldier/1 zerk.

Hambow warrior was nerfed too with these changes (+ ele celestial/engi) so i think we’ll see a meta more shifted to zerker setup instead of a pure tank/bunker comps. Mesmer torch was buffed + TW.

Is it a buff for TCG comp? Maybe, i think it will be really interesting to watch next tournaments. I think TCG and 55hp with Strong mesmer meta will do the difference.

My two cents.

Random Weird Guy.3528:

MarkPhilips.5169:

Random Weird Guy.3528:

So why does nobody ever use them in tournaments?

Because it’s so brainless that people probably feel ashamed to use it.

But turret engi build has an amazing low skill cap and too high rewards.

It needs balance.

No because the only one that does reasonable dps is rocket which you can focus down, thumper obviously don’t stand next to it, rifle does very little damage except for it’s OK damage when it’s overcharged.

The only thing it’s good for is 1v1ing on point, but just don’t go to that point on your own and the engi has to just stand there and be useless to his team, or pick up his turrets to move somewhere else, allowing you to take advantage of the cooldowns.

Also as a burst class, attack him off point and he either has to waste his turrets off point or reach the point with 25% hp.

One of the main differences with other IA builds is that turrets are immune to critics and conditions.

I’d start to change this aspect.

Random Weird Guy.3528:

So why does nobody ever use them in tournaments?

Because it’s so brainless that people probably feel ashamed to use it.

But turret engi build has an amazing low skill cap and too high rewards.

It needs balance.

And they forgot to nerf Spatial Surge Stow weapon issue.

BTW it’s amazing they didn’t touch Engi turrets.

It’s kitten for the game.

Plus.7209:

MarkPhilips.5169:

Engi celestial rifle nerf:

engi celestial before: 10/12 might stacks: 350/420 condi damage/power
engi celestial now: 7/9 stacks might (with different value): 240/300

Basically they lose 110-120 condi damage/power

7/9 stacks should give 210/270 now, for a total of 140/150 lost, with your numbers

My bad, I edited the values.

Thx

Ps. it’s not a little nerf imho.

Engi celestial rifle nerf:

engi celestial before: 10/12 might stacks: 350/420 condi damage/power
engi celestial now: 7/9 stacks might (with different value): 210/270

Basically they lose 140-150 condi damage/power

You need to consider that you can defend or attack a node in many ways, not only fight on node but around the node, switching with team mates etc. , basically it depends on many factors, it’s very important which party compositions fights around the node.

Justin ODell.9517:

Try to look at it from the eyes of a beginner guys.

The NPCs award points, and give you a buff. Who wouldn’t want that?

It takes a higher level of understanding of the both the map and conquest mechanics to get that securing mid is important.

How would you guys suggest we go about teaching this to players?

Tips in game, like pve, same thing when you’re low health and a big arrow appears on your heal in pve, a Big “X” + advice appear on svanir/chif at beginning/when you cap a node in 2+/ when you try to kill a single guy in 3+ etc.

Basically a live tip on common mistakes and to explain maps mechanic.

Of course you can disable this option (activated by default for new players)

Another cool stuff for new players (but i think for everyone) it would be a dynamic counter (on mini map) to count how many players are involved in a fight. Very usefull when there is a mesmer involved in a 3+ teamfight and you don’t have voice communication.

Combo example:

Forest, a guy wants to kill svanir at beginning, when he is close to him a big X appears on svanir with the tip :“remember, to not leave Your mates outnumbered!!!”
The guy looks the mini map and the dynamic counter (close to mid node) says “3vs2”

So the guy realizes is a fool, maybe it’s too late but at least he learnt something

A TDM works in a 2vs2 or 3vs3 mode in a more clean map.

5vs5 is bad

imaclown.1628:

MarkPhilips.5169:

The W/L ratio of this guy means:

- He plays with a very strong team, and his team won every matches.

How many times this guy (and his team) was matched against the other strongest team NA in ranked matches? Probably very few or never, or it would be impossible to not lose a single match.

Is it a matchkaming failure? It depends, maybe yes or not but in this scenario, probably only one or two teams can compete with his team and if they are not online at the same time, matchmaking can’t do nothing.

This is only to say w/l is not the best indicator to show if a guy/team is better than other.

Said this, try to imagine a league system scenario + matches cap. For example a max number of 150 matches/Season (5 matches/day for 30 days).

This guy and his team, having a super high mmr go in the best league (for example diamond) and compete with people of similar skill level (in leaderboard, in game they could face people of other leagues if matchmaking can’t prioritize their league for different reasons ). At the end, probably backpack (and his team) will be in top10 and probably they deserve to be there. A cap is imho necessary to contain the extreme grinding about player can play more than X games every day (5 in this case) and to keep a “fair” competition (speaking about number of matches).

In general with a cap i mean people can play after they reach the season cap but their extra matches don’t count for the leaderboard (they can get progress for ingame rewards like pvp tracks and achievements).

Except he actually is punished due to his high mmr. It expects him to win so he gets the minimum amount of points when he wins, technically the player who can maintain a very high mmr will probably never see the top of these leaderboards.

In a league scenario he is in a master league with other people with very high mmr, so he is in competition with people that gain points like him.

In the actual scenario yes, is an issue.

The W/L ratio of this guy means:

- He plays with a very strong team, and his team won every matches.

How many times this guy (and his team) was matched against the other strongest team NA in ranked matches? Probably very few or never, or it would be impossible to not lose a single match.

Is it a matchkaming failure? It depends, maybe yes or not but in this scenario, probably only one or two teams can compete with his team and if they are not online at the same time, matchmaking can’t do nothing.

This is only to say w/l is not the best indicator to show if a guy/team is better than other.

Said this, try to imagine a league system scenario + matches cap. For example a max number of 150 matches/Season (5 matches/day for 30 days).

This guy and his team, having a super high mmr go in the best league (for example diamond) and compete with people of similar skill level (in leaderboard, in game they could face people of other leagues if matchmaking can’t prioritize their league for different reasons ). At the end, probably backpack (and his team) will be in top10 and probably they deserve to be there. A cap is imho necessary to contain the extreme grinding about player can play more than X games every day (5 in this case) and to keep a “fair” competition (speaking about number of matches).

In general with a cap i mean people can play after they reach the season cap but their extra matches don’t count for the leaderboard (they can get progress for ingame rewards like pvp tracks and achievements).

Celtus.8456:

MarkPhilips.5169:

Leagues can’t divide the pvp player base because is basically only a different leaderboard reorganization. A good matchmaking should prioritize people of your league but there will be always the chance to face people of other leagues. Starcraft has the same system, you can face people of other leagues so it’s basically a leaderboard reorganization + rewards dedicated for each leagues.

So basically it is another attempt at improving the leaderboard then? The previous one only had a few flaws. The new one has an incredible amount of flaws, and maybe the league leaderboard will be better? Idk.

The actual lB is a test, like BLU said, it’s not the definitive version and it’s a mid step for a league system.

Leagues can’t divide the pvp player base because is basically only a different leaderboard reorganization. A good matchmaking should prioritize people of your league but there will be always the chance to face people of other leagues. Starcraft has the same system, you can face people of other leagues so it’s basically a leaderboard reorganization(people spread by rating and results) + rewards dedicated for each leagues.

I agree with you but at the same time i think that is possible to fix the matchmaking to guarantee a good experience to soloers and team.

This is because the old soloqueue basically was an hard filter, it means only 1-1-1-1-1 vs 1-1-1-1-1-1. The impossibility to put this hard filter in the old matchmaking, created a separate queue for soloers, splitting the community in two big parts (1-1-1-1-1 vs 1-1-1-1-1 and the others in team queue).

Now matchmaking is different, it has more parameters so it’s possible to put filters in matchmaking formula and splitting ranked matches is not really necessary. 1-1-1-1-1 vs 1-1-1-1-1-1 is a big limitation filter, soloers can be matched with organized group if there is the same composition on the other side (like 3-1-1 vs 3-1-1 or 1-1-1-1-2 vs 1-1-1-1-2 etc.). This helps the queue length because more filters you use —> longer queue.

I think the only reasons because anet didn’t already used hard filters in matchmaking formula is because they don’t want to force immediatly the system (with a possible queue length problem) so they’re trying different ways to do this (like matching soloers against a premade only if there is a big skill difference). i don’t know if it’s the best way or it’s a waste of time, honestly i’d use immediatly filters because the actual state of spvp is really poor and really many players don’t play now.

Justin, what have you changed in matchmaking for the new patch?

philheat.3956:

2 items

- Account bag - basically a bag (20 slots) to share stuff between characters. Every character needs to equip one to work.

- heart boost - a boost to complete quickly (more quickly, like 50% for example) hearts in gw2 world. Very usefull for fast map completation.

Amazing items, i’d buy them multiple times for sure (and gathering tools too with an account bag more other stuff).

I think it’s a combination of many factors:

1- solo queue experience ruined
2- leaderboard only time consuming
3- poor final rewards for test season
4- stagnant meta

In general i don’t think we need a super large community for a league system. Players number we have now is enough to make 5-6 league+ (like for example bronze, silver, gold, platinum, master). Matchmaking should prioritize meeting people of your league but it should be possible to face people of other leagues if there is not enough people online (like in starcraft and other games).

A league system brings a lot of advantages because people can compete for each leagues for different skill level, so everyone is on competition with people of similar skill level (at least in the leaderboard, in game you can face people with different skill level or it would be impossible for a matchmaking to work properly 24h/24h).

It promotes progression because people can move between leagues at the end of the season like MOBA games and you can get rewards for each leagues, so basically everyone can win something if participates (with a tokens system for example everyone could get a little amount of tokens for participation and depending on final position, an higher number tokens).

At the same time i agree this game mode (conquest) is not really easy to play and to understand completely (there are a lot of common mistakes), for this reason i’d like to see a better spectator mode implemented at least in unranked mode (in ranked it would be perfect with a replay system + delay). This would have a huge impact on game quality.

Unranked Queue

The good: it’s the natural hot join evolution. Finally people have a place where there is no auto-balance. It’s a true conquest mode, so people try to learn how play conquest correctly and it’s a good mid step before ranked matches. It’s really better than hot join. Same money amount and rank points for ranked matches, it’s possible to have a progression in rated matches achievements.

The bad: it suffers matchmaking issues like ranked matches.

Suggestions: in general it’s fine, i like to see a spectator mode in unranked queue, it would have a huge impact on people gameplay.

The Queue system

The good: i really like the new UI, is really clear and easy to use. Now people need to accept the queue pop so it minimizes the AFK issues at beginning. The map selection is really good, everyone has a chance to keep their favorite map. In general I’m not a fan of RNG system but i think in this case it’s fine as it is.

The bad: people need to stay in HOTM, waiting for their queue. It helps to avoid or minimize afk at beginning but it’s really boring now.

Suggestions: at least, let people to do hot join or custom arena. In alternative, add more stuff to HOTM (JP with rewards, 1vs1 Pavillon Style etc.)

Dishonorable system

The good: it’s a system that punish people if they quit early the match or the queue so it’s good. It needs to be balanced about length.

The bad: you gain dishonor and loss if you have a DC. Many times people can come back very fast in a match so it’s not a really good way punish people if they can come back fast in the match

Suggestions: add a grace time window (like 1 min max) for short DC.

Conclusion

In general i think it’s a good patch for some aspects but really bad for others. Matchmaking and leaderboard are main issues and need to be fixed quickly. After that, there is always the balance problem, basically a 6 month meta is too long, we need a more dynamic scene.

Honestly, before touching profs traits/utility etc. i’d start to fix exploits like stow weapon autoattacks and strong sigils combo (fire/air, doom/geo etc.) + rune.

There is too much high impact from sigils/rune in many builds.

Yeah i agree, Mesmer is a huge super cannon from distance, damage is insane (combo air/Fire needs a nerf), but it suffers 4-5 celestial comps.

I agree but i think it doesn’t depend on pvp team, but there is a contradiction for sure.

I think grace period should be max 1 min.

If you have a ssddrive you can usually reconnect in less than 30s, so basically the damage for the team is a bit more than a common death.

But over one minute, the damage starts to be too big for the team.

Imho Compatible rostersize

5 always against 5
1-1-1-1-1 vs 1-1-1-1-1 or 1-1-1-2
3-1-1 vs 3-1-1 or 3-2 or 2-2-1
4-1 vs 4-1 or 3-2

For me, the point system is good, i’ll add only a season cap for matches (like 200-300 max for seasons, it means 7-10 matches/daily) to avoid the extreme grinding and for a better competition.

Justin for president

Justin ODell.9517:

Mrbig.8019:

When i duo/trio q with lower or slightly lower ranked players, match ups seems to be WAAAAAY better, prolly cuz it averages our MMR.

Very likely, I’ve heard this from other players as well.

yep, with high rating involved, roster size make a lot of difference if there is no similar roster size (and skill) on the other team.

Basically i think when a team reach a certain number in rating average, roster size should have a strong priority for the matching or the altenative is a bad game.

For exampe an high rating 5 men full premade should meet only another 5 full premade with similar skill or an high 4+1 only another 4+1 or 3+2 max.

I think because the leaderboard is not definitive, so it’s more easy to change a web frontend than an ingame leaderboard.

It’s a population issue, matchmaking can’t do miracles.

Swap character or dc give you -1 -2 or -3 it depends on odds. It’s always a loss but doesn’t appear in the leaderboard.

Chase.8415:

MarkPhilips.5169:

I had a very weird match where i gained 2 pts for a loss (close match, we did more than 450 pts i think), but i didn’t find this too huge difference between teams (according with the new system we had only 0-19% chance of win).

I’m pretty curious about it.

I gave you the details Justin in private.

That usually means they were in a premade and you were solo if you noticed they didn’t seem very high skill level.

Nope, we were in full preamde with all veteran players (all top100 players + or -) against a team with top100 players + or -(with the old leaderboard) in a full premade too.

For this reason it’s pretty weird.

I played only 3 matches today, 2 wins against random team (so 1 and +1) and 1 loss in the final match (2)

I have 4 pts (same score of my team mates).

I had a very weird match where i gained 2 pts for a loss (close match, we did more than 450 pts i think), but i didn’t find this too huge difference between teams (according with the new system we had only 0-19% chance of win).

I’m pretty curious about it.

I gave you the details Justin in private.

dc + reconnect = abandon.

We need a little grace time :\

Skady.5916:

Negative awards? No thank you! If you dont like other player for whatever reason you should not be able to affect his gaming experience and his matchmaking – this is the road to grieving.

But MVP system would be nice!

Completely agree.

+1 for MvP system too (=i really liked how a my team mate/enemy played)

Have you swapped profs or had some dc?

Btw justin said this leaderboard is not the official version yet, “officially” it starts on 16th (with a total reset)

This is because engi and ele have a better synergy together in a teamfight and the ROM build is not really widespread (or atleast i dunno in na but in Eu every good war uses it).

Warrior celestial builds are very strong (especially sword/warhorn) and soldier hambow is always strong, a bit less now because the great condi spam, but it depends on who plays hambow. For sure, performing now with an hambow is less brainsless than before (like lyssa age).

War is fine, celestial amulet works well on warrior.

CDI GvG When does it start?

thx

Considerations:

1) I agree with you when you say 1+1+1+1+1 vs 5 is really bad but this issue can be filtered directly on MatchMaking. Basically Soloqueue was a super filter for a separated team queue (only 1+1+1+1+1 but don’t forget the sync). Having a mixed queue is better for a tiny community, of course matchmaking needs to be improved.

2) Many times people see wrong things. I can bet everything you want that when people say “ahhhh i was against a 5 premade team!!” it’s not true. Maybe they were 3 or 4 and you had 3 people together in your team,but there was a simply skill gap that creates a false vision. Of course there are roster size that have an advantage against other roster size (i did a topic about rostersize compatibility like 5 always against 5,
1-1-1-1-1 vs 1-1-1-1-1 or 1-1-1-2, 3-1-1 vs 3-1-1 or 3-2 or 2-2-1 , 4-1 vs 4-1 or 3-2 ) but this is always a matchmaking problem that can be fixed for the majority of the games (of course this costs a longer queue).

3) Skill, first of all. Good people can play really better when they’re in solo against bad premades. Mainly it’s a skill problem. When rating is higher (you have more skilled people together) and you don’t have the same skill and composition in your party, the issue is bigger. I agree this needs to be filtered and don’t need to happen. But it’s a matchmaking issue.

So basically a soloqueue is not necessary, you can apply better filter to matchmaking and solve the issues (but this cost always a longer queue) , keeping a unique queue for rated matches. You need to consider that many people is waiting for the Season starting to play in rated (or other changes with leaderboard) and now (until 16) matchmaking is basically disabled to really improve the queue time.

In my league design example, i put rewards for every x top players of EACH league at the end of the season, i think this gives great motivation to everyone to improve their skill level and play to win.

In general some rewards should be differerent fo each season or it takes a progression system like for example mystic forge recipes that use multi pieces to create a special item (example 4 mini llamas for a super special mini llamas) or a token systems like www seasons.

Laserbolt.6731:

“People look to the leaderboards to see who is the best.”

Best at what, exactly?

Not as simple as it may sound. It’s worth discussing.

In the other topic i gave 2 suggestion to contain extreme griding. Maybe it could be interesting a discussion:

. CAP Matches during the season - it means a player can play only X matches during the season valid for the leaderboard (an average number calculated after the test season). OF course, player can play rated after they reach the max number of matches played but further matches don’t count for the Season Leaderboard. Only count the first X matches (with X high number but not super high). In this way we have a fair competion like in every sport championship, same number of matches, who get more points, will win. Super grinding is limited.

. Weekly ladder points bonus based based on win ratio . So, having an high win ratio is more a system issue (or better, population issue) than a true skill measurement but the fact remain that there are people who stomp more people than others but play less. With this bonus boost, you’ll receive a weekly boost points for the leaderboard if you keep a good ratio (for example > 0.6/0.7 )

Justin ODell.9517:

How would we determine your league? By that, I mean, do we place you in a league based on the MMR at the start of the season? 10 days after the season starts? Or, do we let you move between leagues as your MMR goes up and down throughout the season? Do we let people pick their own league?

What sort of implications does this have for matchmaking? Do we only let people fight others in their league? If yes, this could cause long queue times, especially in the upper leagues. If we let people fight players from any league does the current odds of victory point handicapping still fit?

How does this affect rewards? If we rewarded the top 150 players, do we now only reward the top 50 in each league? If we split rewards by league, doesn’t that imply locking people into a league at the start?

I like this discussion, but keep in mind, I’m not a designer and be kind to me if I don’t know the answer to these sorts of questions.

League Design Example

Inizial position - new players: 10 test unranked or rated match to determine their mmr or an “entry” division (like for example “bronze” ) . Old players: old MMR in rated match.

League: people are spread considering their MMR in different leagues (master, diamond, gold etc.). Number of people and number of leagues depends on spvp population.

Progression - you can move between leagues at the end of the season. You can go up and down, it depends on your final position.

Matchmaking: like LoL and Starcraft, you can meet people of other divisions. Of course there is a priority for your league but if there is no people online, you are matched with people of other leagues.

Rewards: Top X players of each league at the end of the season. Different rewards for each league (of course more league is higher, more shiny is the reward. Exclusive rewards for league (weapons,armor,titles, back, finishers, special usefull items etc. ) + other good stuff difficult to get ingame (for example precursor or gift for master leagues)

And how i suggested in another topic, i’d like a CAP for the number of matches played during the season to contain the extreme grinding. OF course you can always play rated if you reach the max number of games played but only X matches (like X high but not very high) count for the season.

2 Suggestions, i dunno if it could work or not, but there are simply ideas, it could be interesting having some suggestions:

. CAP Matches during the season - it means a player can play only X matches during the season valid for the leaderboard (an average number calculated after the test season). OF course, player can play rated after they reach the max number of matches played but further matches don’t count for the Season Leaderboard. Only count the first X matches (with X high number but not super high). In this way we have a fair competion like in every sport championship, same number of matches, who get more points, will win. Super grinding is limited.

. Weekly ladder points bonus based based on win ratio . So, having an high win ratio is more a system issue (or better, population issue) than a true skill measurement but the fact remain that there are people who stomp more people than others but play less. With this bonus boost, you’ll receive a weekly boost points for the leaderboard if you keep a good ratio (for example > 0.6/0.7 )

And of course, a league system (bronze, silver etc.)

I think with divisions, people would have his division at the beginning linked to their skill level. LoL and Starcraft have a ladder point system in every divisions if you win or you lose a match you get /lose points, so basically the true difference is the league system.

In a team game, underline the individual skill it’s not easy, probably a team leaderboard would be more appropriate for teams.

When Justin said with a perfect system win ratio should be 0.5 for everyone, he is right, but spvp population is tiny so strong teams don’t play always at the same time or strong people don’t have the chance to meet strong people with a similar skill level at the same time, this is the first reason because we have people with high win ratio in leaderboard.

I though about it, it’s not really easy underline individual skill in leaderboard. i think in general a league system would be very helpfull but there will be always a grinding component.

I’d like to see other suggestions about how to put best people on top of the leaderboard.

You’ll find a lot of thieves in 1vs1 custom arena. Go there and spectate.

Gl

I’d like to see an option for live hints for every map (you can disable it if you want) like “don’t cap the node in 2+” , ’don’t be overnumbered for only one guy" “go on metabattle.com and don’t use no sense builds” etc. In practice and unranked for example.

I think it would be very usefull for a lot of new players, something like a special collections of common mistakes.

It’s very important players can access to it very easily.

It’s intended, unranked and ranked are both of them rated match for design, the only difference is the leaderboard and future seasons.

Archaon.9524:

You know what? With this ladder system prince vingador is gonna be #1 EU hands down after playing thousands of matches again.

How bout that…nothing else to say here i guess

I bet on Collero #1 eu.

Collero is my horse.