Guild Wars 2

If the top 25 on the SoloQ leaderboard were forced to start over today with a provisional rating:

1) They would be teamed with dancers and stand-around jokers. Three people would cap a point. They would all be playing against a team of 200-500 people, who would destroy them.

2) The Former top-25 person would win most of their 1v1s and have a lot of points. But they would lose the match all the same.

3) They would rise some, but would constantly be held back by the non-serious people they were teamed with.

Just sayin’.

Vove has some EXCELLENT advice!

Stuning,

You are obviously quite talented. Would you mind sharing your build for some of us new guardians?

I have a little more information.

Doing a little bit of screen scraping, and using a spreadsheet, I see that as of 8pmCST 10-Aug, there were a total of 30,768 matches logged by the 1000 people on the NA leaderboard. (There were 34420 logged on the EU 1000.)

But back to North America.

Games started on August 6th at about 9am CST.

In 108 hours, 30,768 games were played by the top 1000.

We have to add the games by the people below 1000, the percentage people.

They appeared 24 hours ago. There are 30 pages of them, or about 750 of them

If they, too averaged 30.76 games each (like the 1,000 did) that’s 23000 more games.

Total game in 108 hours: 53,844

That’s about 500 matches per hour.

Games are about 20 minutes total, or 3 per hour

So, would that be 500/3 servers, or 166 matches going at once.

How many people in the queue?

Please check my math and assumptions.

I expected that they would have a matching system that would place people of similar skill against each other.

Once I saw the numerous screenshots of the top players all being placed on the same teams, I knew things were bad.

OK math and logic people.

Can we deduce how large the “pool” is that the SoloQ matcher is drawing from?

This might explain how the top MMRs all land on the same team.

As evidence, we have the size of the leaderboards today, about 115 hours since the “fun” began.

We see how many total matches the people are averaging on the leaderboard. (LOTS of 12-15 matches).

We know that the NA leaderboard was at about 200 people after day 1. It hit the 1000 mark after about 3 days.

I hear that the EU leaderboard is a bit bigger.

Can we deduce how many games have taken place, and how big the queue must have been to have 5-7-minute wait times?

ELO is a good idea in principle.

I just think they need to adjust for a skewed queue where the majority of the people in the queue are high MMR.

Seems like the “matcher” is trying to give these lower teams a chance to raise their MMR by playing the next strongest team it can put together.

But there is SUCH a big difference between the top team and the “challenger” that the top team just keeps winning.

Kavia,

Uberkingkong has already posted a number of screenshots with top 20 people all on one team, and significantly lower MMR people on the opposing team. They were what got me thinking about what could explain it.

Narcin Roc.3018:

This needs to be seen. This data shows exactly why the current team making system is broken.

I don’t have proof of this. But it’s the only thing that really explains what is happening.

People with high MMR ratings get good strong teams, have fun, and play constantly.

Lower MMR, new people “trickle in” and are put up against these waiting high level teams.

If ArenaNet wanted to stop this ASAP, they would issue a hotfix with an algorithm that collects 10 players of similar rating FIRST (not 5), and then tosses them onto two opposing teams.

Seems like most of the people on the “leader” board have around 12 or so total games.

I am wondering the number of people trying it has drastically slowed, and what that means for people trying to increase their MMRs.

I still believe it is mostly high MMR people queuing right now. They have the most fun.

It’s not cheating, exactly. But they do have a natural advantage right now:

1) The matcher gathers them into their own team most of the time (like a premade, really), and then they play against the next team the matcher can find…usual people several hundred MMR levels below them. So they win and boost their MMR a tiny bit higher each match.

2) Some announce their TeamSpeak channel and password so the team can start talking and coordinating lightning fast.

Waiting just 5 mins for teammates who dance during the battle and make wisecracks and don’t cap anything or help in teamfights just isn’t worth it to me.

ArenaNet, I would pay a $5/month in gems if there was a way I could be assured a fair match with random solo players who try to work a strategy and win.

Right now, unless you have friends who play a lot together, in SoloQ you get terrible matches on of non-serious people who screw around and leave and “dance” during the match. Doing their dailies perhaps.

Yeah, I know, we should not have to pay for a fair match. But the reality is what it is.

And the more you lose, the worse teams they put you with.

Like that attack underwater, the “Sink Like a Stone” attack? That’s how it feels.

UberKK,

First, I believe you. The matchmaking algorithm is flawed for SoloQ and the typical population of the game.

It needs to be fixed ASAP.

But really, do you really think they designed it that way on purpose to make sure one team is sure to be destroyed?

I can’t imagine any possible reason they would want to do that. Can you?

I think they need a new person to program a soloQ matchmaking algorithm that will give players a good, fair match.

And here is the reason you are getting unfair matches: I think most of the people queuing are top MMR.

The top MMR people play all the time; the lower MMR people do not queue that often now and are from all kinds of ratings. Most don’t queue every day.

Good idea, zone

I’ve been advising the teams I am assigned to in SoloQ just focus on holding 2 points, generally close and mid.

Far point gets hit every time the opponents respawn, so it is not reasonable to try and hold close and far.

Is this the best advice for a soloQ team that is inexperienced and not communicating much?

The pool of people queing is not infinite. It’s rather small at any given time.

People assigned to a win-streak team would be out of the pool for the other teams to use. The other teams would tend to lose more. The win streak team would have an advantage.

It means what percentage of everyone who has a MMR rating is below your rating.

If your rating is 45%, then 45% of all rated solo players are below your MMR rating (not your rank).

Pandabro.8743:

What exactly is this showing us? That players that play more often have a better chance of getting linked up with higher ranked players?

I don’t really understand what your conclusion is from this data.

The idea here is that the matcher seems to first look for people of similar rating to form a team. I suspect that there are more high-MMR people playing soloQ at any given time (because it is fun to win, and they are dedicated players, too). So the matcher easily finds them and tends to put them together on a team.

We have seen screenshots showing this; they should be “dealt” back and forth to opposite teams. But that does not seem to happen.

Once it has some teams, the matcher then seems to pair up the teams by averaging the rating of each team and puts them against each other in a match.

Ashenor, you don’t face premades, but you still face much stronger teams once you fall to the level where people your rating do not play as much. You get teammates from below your level. The ones from above are already teamed at their level.

And remember, the leaderboard is anyone who as ever played 12 matches on SoloQ.

So it grows and grows.

Phone texting style ONE HUGE RUNTOGETHER THING.

Did not read. No time for it.

Also, the difference in “win power” between a 900 and a 500 is much greater than between a 500 and a 100…even though it is still a 400-pt difference in rank.

The people at the 900 level are often not serious. The give up and stand around, and a couple of those doing that can completely sink a team.

Thus the win-power of an MMR rank is not linear, it falls exponentially after 500 or so, I bet.

Yes, I get what you mean.

I strongly suspect that this is who tends to be queuing for SoloQ, and why the current matcher puts mid level people on very weak teams, holding them back.

The higher your MMR, the more you play. The matcher can easily find people at your MMR level and team you up.

At the bottom, people try it a while and are discouraged. The don’t queue up as often.
They also give up and stand around, sinking the entire team and handing yet another win to already overpowered teams from “above”.

The orange dot is a player at around level 350, getting a team filled from below, not above.

UberKK,

Your experience teaches us that at the 300 level you are “on the boundary” with the glut of people at the top who have high MMRs and need bodies from below as cannon fodder.

If they ever get around to changing the matcher so that 1-50 people actually play each other, this SoloQ thing will be better.

By the way, I notice you have been playing like 16 hours a day since Tuesday to get in as many games as you have (more than 150 20-minute games). You are one tenacious player.

I suspect that the 1000+ is still growing, but they only show 1,000 on the leaderboard.

The names at the 990 to 1000 will keep changing. The others dropped below the hosizon.

You go down even without playing because the size of the leaderboard rose from 200 to 1000. Your position is still the same relative to the whole.

For example High Lord Sikari has been right next to me in the ratings the entire time while neither of us has played.

Thanks, Lux. Sounds reasonable.

Describe why a person who got a good rating with the TeamQ and a team should get that same rating in SoloQ?

There were a majority of people on TeamQ in a premade. They should get a high SoloQ MMR rating now?

When is the peak population ? 6pm CST to 10pmCST?

Kwll,

Yes, it’s an issue of too many high MMR and not enough low MMR playing at the same times to have their own games against each other.

Maybe the SoloQ matcher flaw is simply this:

It grabs people of similar MMR, first come, first served. And higher MMRs are more “clustered”. And there are more of them playing at any given time (they are having fun!).

Higher MMR people tend to play most often (they enjoy the winning). There are relatively more of them in their “cluster”. When they queue, they are instantly placed on the same team because their MMRs are very similar and that’s what the matcher looks for first..

All the rest of the people in the queue tend to have MMRs scattered all over the place: 500s and 700s and 900s. There are no “clusters” of say, 400s in the queue at any given time. It’s a wide spread in the queue for lower MMR ranks.

So the matcher has to take what it can get. It puts a 200 and a 300 with a 900, a 900, and an 850. The two higher cannot carry three unskilled players.

And they are most likely up against a more homogeneous Higher-MMR team: perhaps a 50,70,100,90,80. Because there are more high-MMR teams playing at any given time.

Xeph.4513:

I tanked my elo by playing mesmer in a solo que dominated by necro’s spirit rangers and s/d thieves; I am currently attempting to go up with s/d thief, so I will see how it goes.

Xeph,

I will follow your progress. Rayn claims it should only take you a few days. I think that’s wrong. I think it will take a while.

I see, you are EU. See how it goes with lots of games without top players on your team. It will be interesting.

Rayn, play 12 games on SoloQ and see where you end up on the leaderboard. Then come back with your opinion on how it is working. See how many you win.

Play a few more games Rayn. You’ll begin to see how it goes most of the time.

Mammoth.

Yes, that is the theory if there are many hundreds people, at all rating, levels queuing up when you are queuing up.

But we have a small population here in SoloQ. There may be 1000 people who have played 12 matches, but most of those people on that leaderboard are not logged in and doing SoloQ at any given time of day.

I am thinking it may be better once there are not so many “temporary rated” players in SoloQ. They can really sink a team when they are assigned too high up as a “test”.

My rating is 458 at the moment. But I am afraid to play any more until things settle down. I don’t want to get the sinking stone syndrome" with weak players tied to me in loss after loss.

It seems that it’s the “temporary midlevel rating” that all new players start with in SoloQ. Half of them or more don’t deserve that rating but the system doesn’t know it yet.

The only way to find out how poorly they play is by assigning them to teams.

Woe be to the team that gets several of them.

Of course, they never seem to be assigned to the top MMR people…the ones at the top of the leaderboard at the moment with 90%+ ratings.

Jasher.6580:

What would be the point of this challenge though?

The point would be to see if a player really has a chance to regain their “natural ELO level” in this system and population, if they have bad luck at the beginning when they are teamed up with a lot of unskilled players with “temporary ratings” (for their first 12 matches). The bad players (with a fake temporary rating) sink a lot of teams while the system is discovering how good or bad they really are as it tries to find and assign them a rating.

I think it would be very interesting and instructive if one of the top “name” players were to ask ANet to set their SoloQ ELO to a minimum, and see how long it takes them to raise that character to the top again. If they even could.

It would be something to watch.

If you are a mid-level player right now, you are likely getting teamed up with new people assigned a mid-level MMR because they have not yet played 12 games. They might be decent players; or, they might have a lot to learn and are not effective.

If they cause your team to lose, the matcher will try them on a “lower” team.

But you still eat the loss.

For soloQ to work and grow you MUST have good reason to believe that if you play better than average, your team will have a better than average chance to win.

If you feel the match is stacked against you from the get-go, SoloQ is no longer enjoyable. In fact, it’s worse than 5×5 hotjoin.

I don’t feel like it is a good idea for me to log in today, face unfair teams or 4×5s, and tank my rating.

If you have an unstable system, you should not be able to play rated sPvP until you have it stabilized…your faulty computer system harms 4 other innocent people when you disconnect.

Is it better to wait to play on SoloQ until it has gotten stable?

Are the lower-level people who had bad matchups screwed for a very, very long time? Destined to be sprinked into higher-MMR matches they lose, to give the high MMRs someone to play against?

You will do best if you can understand the playstyle you enjoy most, and choose a profession that fits.

Then, read the forums for that profession and find a tested, proven build for sPvP for that class.

Think about and understand WHY that build works best. Learn how to use it.

Join hotjoin to practice with that build until the finger presses are fairly automatic. That way you can think about the overall battle, rather them looking for the keys with tunnel vision.

Learn to think about the strategy of each map, and how you can best contribute to pulling off that strategy.

Sounds like people have given up on SoloQ until the matchmaking is changed. Very few must be playing.

They got one team full, but there were not enough people to fill the second.