Guild Wars 2

There is way too much easy projectile hate right now and it is totally killing some builds that I think would be pretty strong.

This wont get changed though, I am pretty sure ANet balance devs dont think this deeply about balance and skill types. Just look at all of those that are from HoT alone.

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

displacedTitan.6897:

“I know I am the constant but my teammates are still bad.’’

That isn’t logic, thats excuses. Sometimes you get bad teammates, sometimes you get good teammates. So consider those two cases a wash. In the games where its pretty even for teammate skill, YOU make the difference! It really isnt that hard to comprehend.

If you continue to blame the system for all your failures and yourself for all your success you will never improve. Its really that simple.

Do you ever use arguments when you discuss or are empty ideologies all you got?

I’d like you to take an argument others have used (as opposed to one you have mutilated and reconstructed) that you disagree with and tear it apart with LOGIC not baseless mantras like “everything is an excuse”. Mantras are not arguments (and that particular mantra makes as much sense as Marc Rubio saying “we are not a nation of have and have not but a nation of have and soon to have”).

You say that "I know I am the constant but my teammates are still bad’’ is not logic, and you are right it is merely a statement. But the problem is this was not the arguments people have repeatedly given and that are not mere statements nor excuses. When you deform what people say and actually argue about to thereafter “demonstrate” they are wrong or ridiculous you merely construct what we call a straw man. Now what is your excuse to resort to such lame tactics?

I think you are shifting from one topic to another in this thread.

I am responding to part of it only, the part my first quoted sentence sums up. There are people in this thread and in other threads who blame the system and their teammates for their losses instead of looking at themselves. The whole notion of MMR hell or of certain accounts getting lucky is a manifestation of this sentiment. I would go back and quote all of the people directly but you can read a few of thoses responses further up on this page of the thread. There is always a caveat to why they lose, it was the team, the MM algo, the composition, etc. My “argument” is that over many games all of those tend to cancel out, leaving only oneself as the constant to either admonish or commend.

If you are talking about the suggestions in this thread regarding decoupling of Division from Reward and of taking the safety gates off of Emerald and Sapphire then, sure, I agree.

In response to calling what I am doing strawmanning, maybe, but if so you are just as guilty as I am. You write these long paragraphs and empty platitudes but they always circle back to “my team is bad, I am not, this is unfair for (reasons)”. So many of the responses in this thread center around, “one person cant carry, therefore MMR cannot be used in this game.” To which I respond with examples of other games using MMR, your criticism of “no division gating” in those games is nearly useless. That changes nothing about the core concept of individual MMR correlating to team wins and losses only. The fact that those other games have millions of players in the competitive landscape and they continue to use this system SHOULD tell you that it works. GW2 isnt a special snowflake, MMR like that works here, people just cant accept negative feedback in a carebear game.

“I know I am the constant but my teammates are still bad.’’

That isn’t logic, thats excuses. Sometimes you get bad teammates, sometimes you get good teammates. So consider those two cases a wash. In the games where its pretty even for teammate skill, YOU make the difference! It really isnt that hard to comprehend.

If you continue to blame the system for all your failures and yourself for all your success you will never improve. Its really that simple.

It amazes me how many people in this thread have never once played another competitive game. DOTA2, LoL, CSGO, etc. All of these games use MMR and put you in a team where the only consideration is the W/L at the end, yet good players seem to always do well in all these games. DO YOU THINK ITS ALL LUCK?

If you blame every loss on teammates and the system for why you can’t advance then you need to grow up. Full stop.
After a bunch of games played there is only ONE constant, YOU!. It isnt that hard to understand really. All of the people saying that you cannot carry a team by yourself are missing the big picture, over a long string of games, if you are actually better than teammates/opponents on average then you will slowly advance upward. If you are not, then you won’t.
The MMR+MM system literally cannot put you on “bad teams” against “good teams” every game. Remember there is another team in the game and they can try and say the same exact thing about your team, making both points totally moot.

“The ship of failure floats on a sea of excuses.”

Ithilwen.1529:

I find all this talk of “earning” the wings amusing. How does it “earn” anything to be on a team and fed matches you are pre-set to win?

I’ve fought my way through 40+ loss streaks this season and been online almost daily. I’ve worked as hard as anyone and put up with being trampled over by the teams. If anyone has “earned” rewards this season I have.

I find no prestige in Legendary rank and I have very little regard for those players. They didn’t “earn” much of anything from my perspective. They were pre -set to succeed. This wasn’t a level playing field.

Classic.

“I deserve it because I TRY harder. Players who are above me didn’t earn it! All that matters is how bad you want it!”

Right and you didn’t “earn” anything either, in game or imagined. Keep blaming the system though, thats what winners do!

Rebound.3409:

You do realize PvP is also a game and not real life right? You do realize that when i purchaced the game it included PvP and WvW also and you are not entitled to dictate what i play and what not.

Yes this is PvP..should it be kitten-level pvp like u suggest? Then be prepaired to QQ all over the forums about how alone you are, how ques take 30minutes and how you face the same people over and over again.

What you suggest is to completely remove any form of friendly enviroment for people who don’t necessarily PvP as their main goal. Why is that? Are you really that upset at people who don’t make it their goal in life to get legendary, but instead want to try it out and have fun?

You want competitive? Go make private lobbies..go play in ESL..go do something that actually counts towards THAT. What you are playing is the equivalent of let’s say “Starcraft 2 multiplayer” with ranks like copper, diamond, grandmaster etc". Most can achieve diamond if decent, very few can achieve grandmaster…and THAT’S how it should be. Is that a statement of skill? Yes…most legendaries are actually the good players. Does that mean anything? In esports absolutely not…because players do REAL tournaments that decide their skill.

As far as rewards go, anyone terrible or very good in starcraft can get any achievement and/or skin if they play enough regardless if they REMAIN terrible or very good. Only difference is the TIME it takes to get that thing.

Anyway as i said in other threads..all u eletists who think know better, don’t worry. Next season most will get their wings. Can’t wait for the wave of complainers about population. As far as ANet making the next season with division drop and whatnot, i honestly think (or hope) they are no that dumb..because that will not only be a nail in the coffin for most players who invested so much time trying to achieve that and virtually making it impossible for them to finish it, but it will actually make people quit the game. Them having less players is the worst thing they could think of specially as the game stands now….and for what..for your personal elitist behavior and failure to get past ruby/diamond? I don’t think that’s a good trade-off.

Put your elitist conspiracy thing away, no one is telling you what you can and cant play.

What is it you want? You can grind to the wings in this league ALREADY, 4 seasons of Sapphire/Ruby will easily get you there and the game helps you get to Ruby without changing a single thing about your playstyle.

Where are you going with this SC2 comparison? We have divisions here that pretty clearly represent skill (if the same person can take account after account to legendary while others fail to get Ruby its clear skill matters). As I highlighted you CAN grind to get the wings. What makes you upset? Is it that you dont have the little symbol next to your name and so you feel cheated?

I can sum up most of the complaints from all those threads in one line:

“When the going gets tough, quit.”

Rebound.3409:

Ruru.1302:

Ithilwen.1529:

@ Evan Lesh

Yes, rewards absolutely need to be grindable.

No, they don’t. The wings should only be accessible to players of the highest caliber.

Then everything outside PvP should be as hard as what you say also. Are you that blind as to see what you are actually suggesting? This is a game not a second job. If this is a second job for you then great, you will be faster then everyone else in obtaining it..but making it almost impossible for 70% of the playerbase just because of “some alien reasons” you have is plain dumb.

How about you have 50k AP, and at least 5k hours in the game to even be elegible to the fractal wings?..or hell..even ANY hot content.

Just listen to yourself for even a bit.

The reward for skilled players is that they get something much faster then others do. That’s how it SHOULD be in any decent mmo.

Jesus Christ good thing u are not making games.

You realize this is COMPETITIVE PVP and not PVE grinding right?

Not to call you out as its a widely held belief on these forums that they are the same thing.

They are not the same thing!

There are types of content where everyone is NOT supposed to succeed: Raids and Competitive PvP. There are types of content where everyone IS supposed to succeed: Open World, Dungeons, Fractals.

This is healthy for a game, it gives different types of players different types of goals. You are trying to apply some sort of slippery slope argument where it is unwarranted.

Competition and challenge are supposed to make you strive to get better, make you want to work harder, learn more, challenge yourself. What they are not supposed to do is make you say… “Well if I play this for another 100 hours, I can grind out this reward without changing a single thing about what I am doing.” Thinking like that is for PvE content where time is the only factor, not skill, not strategy or tactics.

TL;DR Competitive PvP // Raiding is not for everyone, shouldn’t be for everyone and will never please the part of the player base who is only interested in abnegation.

Agemnon.4608:

Ohoni.6057:

Evan Lesh.3295:

Getting ‘stuck’ in ruby is a very important topic regarding how best league should operate. We changed matchmaking to make the ladder more prestigious and so far it has done that. Divisions are aligning with skill level much better than season 1. The product of this change is that the bulk of players who hover around the middle of the mmr curve should stay in sapphire and ruby. Win rate will level out at 50% because there are plentiful players of similar mmr in the same division.

Should average players be able to climb out of the middle divisions by grinding? This removes prestige and can make matchmaking worse within a division, but always allows a sense of progression.

Should average players stay in the middle divisions because that’s where they belong at their skill level? This retains prestige and only improving skill will allow climbing, but rewards and progression stop at some point through the season.

Is there an incentive that could be added to league games for players who have reached their appropriate division and can no longer climb?

Nobody should ever feel “stuck.” EVER. There is nothing positive about being stuck. If the goal is that it is intended for players to get into Ruby and get “stuck,” then you should just tell them that. Have a message pop up that says:

“You are in Ruby now, which is as far as you’re capable of going. You can stop now because any further effort will be futile.”

Then they can just stop rather than continuing to waste their time in a mode that will never be rewarding for them.

There are no limits, only plateaus. You must not stay there, you must go beyond them. Is it the matchmaking keeping you in Ruby or are you keeping yourself there?

There is no belief in bettering yourself, instead of looking inward at why you desire things and what you are willing to do to attain them, you come to the forums to cry for changes to the system.

Chaith.8256:

Fivedawgs if it wasn’t implied when I said that premades are no obstacle, yes, there are way fewer premades for a solo queuer’s climb to Legend from Amber, as in, practically none. The ones I do encounter are only some casual friends who are just as often speedbumps to my solo/duo queue team.

It’s insanely casual at the moment. Since premades are so unpopular, and getting wrecked their fair share, I even question how matchmaking treats them, but have no first hand experience because never once have I team queued in S2. Does anyone have even some bad anecdotal evidence to support premades wrecking people, like there normally is? I haven’t seen a lick of it.

It’s so insanely easy to solo queue to Legend if you are actually a strong player, this is why premades are not born out of necessity for the strong. Everyone is naturally falling into a solo/duo playstyle.

Any premades that form as kind of like a coalition of people who are tired of being stuck in ruby, I have a very sinking suspicion that they get wrecked by Diamond/Legend solo queues very hard if they were to stay together.

If anything, this season highlighted group play as being overvalued by the matchmaker. I totally agree, even if I am only diamond, soloQ all the way there and have seen almost no grouping at all.

Poor players blame the system or their teammates (aka the system) for their inability to get out of Emerald or Sapphire. If that thread the other day of someones gameplay after complaining is any indication, than most people deserve to be in those lower brackets.

Yasi.9065:

displacedTitan.6897:

(…)
By your logic all team based competitive games do not work properly then. Seriously DOTA2, LoL, CSGO are all TEAM games and yet they use MMR just fine to match people of equal skill. I can tell you 100% that your MMR in DOTA2 has ZERO bearing on the specifics of any given match, all that matters is the W or L at the end of it.
(…)

Lets look at this statement a bit closer. Dota, CSGO cant be compared to gw2 simply because professions dont matter there. No skill diversity either. A win says a lot more about the pure skill of a person there since it doesnt get diluted by skill and profession balance. Its like comparing dragon ball arena to spvp. You should see that yourself.

LoL has softresets and promo games to solve their issues with mmr getting inaccurate the longer a system is running. Also, they dont allow players too far apart to team up and they dont start new players on an average mmr.

So you are saying in DOTA2 that different heroes are actually the same? That a hard carry is the same as a support? Are you saying that item builds don’t matter to the outcome? Do you think there are no overpowered heroes (especially in ranked non-ban games)?

I think you might be the one who thinks this game is a special snowflake and doesn’t realize that the comparisons are very valid.

There are a handful of people on this forum (we know who they are), who comment in every single thread about how its not them and its ALWAYS their team/matchmaking algo. I would love to see videos where they can prove that instead of the endless paragraphs of blame and crying that they post here.

/bump

lead.7543:

The real elephant in the room is that MMR is based on wins, losses and disconnects. It is not based on what the player actually does in a match on a specific profession. MMR is flawed so what Evan says about players staying in a division based on MMR is extremely flawed.

If you put such illogical theory into real life practice, it would not work! Simple example, if you do a team work at class (if you are a student) and your team losses, your personal rating goes down (not because of the contribution you gave but just because of the fact the whole team lost).

Wait but we forget that the team was made up of people who are new to the subject too because their rating is automatically at the same level as those who have studied this subject for many years!! That is again how illogical another aspect of MMR is… but according to ANET. You belong there, u should stay there, and we will add players new to pvp in your category and “oh it should balance out”.

So in a real life scenario, the real brains behind the losing team gets sent down to a worse team because of the reduction in MMR and so this student will keep having to work extra hard to try and make a team of potential new students win the team task (so s/he can improve their personal rating). At one point the student will just think.. W T F! This system will definitely not work in real life, not in sports, not in education and not in ANY competitive environment.

To summarise, the actual concept of MMR that is employed in GW2 PvP was flawed from the beginning. It does not reward the individual for individual’s efforts rather it punishes/rewards the individual for what a team does! And that is what the Dev’s regard as “individual’s skill”.

Only real solution
Best way out is either play in a team on teamspeak/discord (whatever) and have fun doing that or just quit PvP altogether because soloQ in a flawed MMR system is not viable.

edit: added more stuff

By your logic all team based competitive games do not work properly then. Seriously DOTA2, LoL, CSGO are all TEAM games and yet they use MMR just fine to match people of equal skill. I can tell you 100% that your MMR in DOTA2 has ZERO bearing on the specifics of any given match, all that matters is the W or L at the end of it.

People in this game suffer from some serious dunning-krugar effects where all negative outcomes are the result of either their team or the system and all positive outcomes are forgotten or attributed to themselves. I read this thread and see responses about how losing a few matches in a row makes them never want to PvP again and can only think… you shouldn’t be PvPing at all if you cant take a loss. This isnt PvE where you can memorize a pattern and then just robot each fight after that and win. If you want your feel goods then PvP is NOT for you.

The discussion on whether the rewards should be grindable and decoupled from the league divisions are a good start and will ameliorate the hurt feelings of some players who are only here to get a reward. This would make it exactly like another reward track, however, and so there is some discussion around the duplicate functionality.

Mogar.9216:

Evan Lesh.3295:

Matchmaking doesn’t count pips past the end of legendary, so prestige count won’t affect queue times.

It was said already, but with an accurate or prestigious ladder you get people on each extreme with long queue times as the population to pull from is smaller. Queue times in unranked are never this bad because we expand the mmr search range quite far over time. We could do the equivalent expansion of the ladder search range, but there will be just as many (if not more) people then complaining about all the legendary players in their ruby matches.

To summarize the issues people have brought up:
An accurate ladder rewards skill at the cost of queue time.
Reducing queue time would require frustrating players with imbalanced matches (either by skill, or just visual ladder badge).
Making the ladder more about grind gets more players to legendary, but there is no prestige.

What would make legendary players happy to keep playing the game? Is it just quicker queue times? What if you could do other things while waiting? What if there was something other than leagues all together like unranked arena that legendary players could go to until more players make it to legendary?

I’m going to point out the painfully obvious here. You main problem is lack of players, yet you implemented a system that actively screws over the avg player and make them want to quit….
If you just stuck to 1 system, i.e the pip system and randomly made teams , you could easily have teams of 1 legendary player each, 2 diamonds and 2 rubies. Result in close matches and no one mad. The better player will advance in a random system. Where right now you would be matching 5 legendary vs 5 rubies = 5 really kittened off rubies and quite pvp all together…

1. You are rambling nonsense right now. Legendaries dont get queued with Rubies at all currently, there is a whole bunch of people in diamond in between.

2. If you just randomly made teams, then what is the point of any MMR/Pip system at all? It takes one second of critical thinking to realize your idea doesn’t make any sense.

Shylock.4653:

Amineo.8951:

I’m not pleased by how HoT turned this game into a complete mess where grinding is omnipresent.

This has nothing to do with HoT. The two Leaderboard seasons long before HoT were pure grind.

You have to understand that to most of the complainer’s on these forums “grind” in PvP equates to losing, something they cannot handle given their “pro” status and all the skills they clearly have from playing PvE. It’s like they expect to just win each and every match and that winning only 50% of the time (at your skill cap/good matchmaker algo) is somehow NOT what is intended.

Pretty obvious that the player base in GW2 is not one that is coming from MOBAs or FPS games.

Ithilwen.1529:

This season is awful. Here’s the final of my most recent match. Yes, it was full premade vs full PuG.

I was top score on Blue.

Right thats why you blacked out the grouping brackets and I am sure it wasn’t two 3 mans and two solos on each side right???

Just HAD to be a full five man premade ESL NOSCOPE 360 team vs. you and 4 other scrappy PUGs.

This season has been great. Ruby made me step up my play for sure, although it meant switching to meta builds instead of fun rogue builds, but then I got through it. Losing teaches you far more than winning.

What I enjoy more though is reading these forums and loving the salt of the same few players over and over in every single thread. I could list the names here but thats against the TOS and I have been suspended enough from these forums already.

Nice work Leeto! I like watching your stream when I get the chance.

ITT: People who are really salty that this season highlights their utter lack of skill.

Reapers have an extremely low skill floor and are very powerful right from the start. Doesn’t take a genius to stand on point and drop unblockable marks -> reaper shroud aoe skills.

As my anecdotal evidence for how absurdly easy Reaper is right now, I was on a 6 game losing streak as Engi/Theif last night. I got fed up with all the Reapers I was seeing, decided if I cant beat them then I should just join them. Proceeded to win 6 in a row as reaper and make Diamond. I am not a good Reaper, there is no reason it should have been so easy to win like that.

Galandil.9641:

Yasi.9065:

If the brackets for matchmaking are set to +/- 250, and the deviation from perfectly calculated mmr is at around 10%, then you can easily get someone that should be considered a slightly below avg player mixed in with the average crowd at 1500. You also can get put in with the average crowd as a slightly above avg player….

Yasi, pls read my post before. MMR is not taken into account when chosing the 10 players pool for creating a match, the only criteria is the pips range of all players (which must fall inside a maximum range of, apparently, +/- 15 pips).

The MMR is used only to stack the teams: the 5 lowest MMR players in one team, the 5 highest in the other.

And that’s what causing the problem.

You have the second part totally wrong. They dont put the 5 highest and 5 lowest MMR into two teams. The system takes your pip range and finds people in that pip range around your MMR and teams you. It does the same with another group of five players from within their pip range and around their MMR. Then it matches two teams of five players who most closely match in pips and MMR.

Its not taking 10 and splitting into 5 high and 5 low, that would make literally zero sense.

I picked other 5v5 competitive games… how much more similar to this one do they need to be for you to accept the comparison? No kitten MMR is an algorithm, in fact, dota2 and CSGO both use modified glicko2 themselves so my point is even more valid.

Your quotes all say the same thing, even if you cant read between the lines, they realize that the start of the season has some bugs but they dont mention MMR or ratings in any way. They just acknowledge they should get the higher skill people out even faster than they did this season.

At the end of the day, you and others can keep blaming the system each time you lose, but maybe, just maybe, you will realize that part of the blame is in yourself. I told you before I struggled at the start of the season because I knew my MMR was lower than my skill, instead of coming here to cry I just made sure I played better and now its all good. Amazing how it works like that.

Cyanon.1928:

displacedTitan.6897:

StickerHappy.8052:

Cyanon.1928:

Erik Waananen.6089:

Sardath.8524:

- the MMR of average/bad players shouldn’t be lowered as much when losing against a team of a significantly higher MMR

I can confirm that the Ranked matchmaking system already works this way, and worked this way for Season 1 as well. The matches in which you lose against opponents that are much higher rated than you do not adjust your MMR significantly.

Sardath.8524:

- they need to add a preseason to fill the gap or to place people in the ladder based on the previous season

We are continuing to explore ideas for the upcoming off season period, as well as ways to improve overall match quality for Season 3, as we know that there are frustrations for many players (particularly during the start of the season) with regard to matchmaking for Season 2.

Erik, thanks for taking the time to join us in this discussion. You have no idea of the peace of mind that bring us the customers that someone is at least trying to address the issues of sPvP season 2.

It occurs to me that ANET could implement a survey system in which players can give feedback from inside the game by completing surveys in exchange of small rewards (this could be a powerful tool for ANET if its well developed).

SURVEY? THAT IS WHAT THE FORUMS ARE FOR.

The problem is they spend too much time and effort on reddit (WHICH IS A THIRD PARTY SITE)

Do you think this forum is an accurate cross section of the entire pvp playerbase?

Reddit which you seem to hate so much gets many more posts and comments than this forum does, regardless of its non-official status. Still Reddit isnt a cross section of the player base in any meaningful survey-able way.

Just look at this thread, people dont even understand the basics of how MMR works when you get match against much higher/lower skill teams and yet I see them griping in thread after thread about how unfair the system is being. As if the system itself is out to get them or something and its not just a lack of player skill.

About the only agreeable thing in this entire thread is that they should show our MMR, to just ourselves, so that people stop crying.

First, this forum is not an accurate cross-section, nor is Reddit. And forums are not good places to take surveys. That’s why I suggested a “set of In-Game occasional small surveys”.

Second, a player used to win 50-60% of soloQ for the last 3 years should not be considered as “relatively unskilled”. We have to be careful with generalization. There is a problem in the matchmaking system and ANET already recognized it.

If you want to keep considering veteran players as unskilled, just because they got stuck in a losing streak for doing their usual soloQ the first couple days/week and now are being teamed with newer non-dedicated, less skilled players and facing higher mmr enemy teams you are not really understanding the implications of this experimental matchmaking system at all.

I am one of those veteran players who had a 50-60% solo q win ratio. At the end of last season I tanked my MMR by playing Thief for the required number of wins and went something like 5-30 overall. Starting this season I had a hard time in Amber and needed to play 30 or so games to get out of it, I WAS NOT one of the people who started on a quick win streak. However, after getting out of amber and continuing to do well my MMR has risen back to where it should be and I have gotten a lot of really solid games.

Basically if after a bunch of games you still find yourself with bad players and blaming the system, its not the system, its you. Again people fail to understand how MMR works in this game or in other games. You keep calling it experimental and pretending that ANet said the whole thing was a dumpster fire but thats not what they said at all. They said “we are looking into it” in response to the criers on the forum. MMR itself is a system that absolutely works and works well in team based games ala LoL, DOTA2, CSGO, all of which are esports and excellent competitive games.

The community here is just too carebear I think. It showed when they released HoT and people claimed the PvE was too hard and it shows now when people just want a glorified reward track and not actual competitive play.

antichecker.1675:

Kayberz.5346:

antichecker.1675:

Kayberz.5346:

antichecker.1675:

It might be a good suggestion for players who are on a loss streak, yet he sticks to the idea that the system is a good one.

I dont claim that the system is necessarily a “good” one, but its no where near as broken as some people here are claiming it to be, and its WAY better than season 1s matchmaking.
I still think we should have a separate solo queue. But at least this system is way more manageable to solo queue in than last season was as long your smart about it and dont grind your face against a brick wall out of stubbornness

The matchmaking system is WAY worse than season 1. The problem with season 1 was that noobs actually could have make their way up and it was exploitable. Now the new matching is no way better. There still are noobs carried to saphire. There are decent players stuck in soloq hell. But regardless of that, the system fails by matching strong teams vs weak teams. And I refuse to waste my time in an from beginning decided game, just so the pros can advance faster. As I allready stated some time ago: Have you seen Manchester U play an official ranked match vs an amature team from some village at the start of a new season?

Last season was exploitable, this season isnt
This season has greatly reduced the amount of premades vs full solo queuers
I stand by my statement, this season is FAR superior to season 1

This season is exploitable, if you start now and pay 3 – 5 g per win to a 4player high mmr team, u are in ruby in less than 4 hours. That was not possible in s1.
Season 1 had almost only premade vs premade. Now there is at least 1 premade in every match. I stand by my Statement that u are wrong

I only play solo-q and the most I see at this point are some duo’s but even that is very rare. This is up through T3 Ruby, I can count the number of non solo player only games on one hand.

Really wish we had something like DOTABUFF so that we could call people out for their gross exaggerations around premades.

StickerHappy.8052:

Cyanon.1928:

Erik Waananen.6089:

Sardath.8524:

- the MMR of average/bad players shouldn’t be lowered as much when losing against a team of a significantly higher MMR

I can confirm that the Ranked matchmaking system already works this way, and worked this way for Season 1 as well. The matches in which you lose against opponents that are much higher rated than you do not adjust your MMR significantly.

Sardath.8524:

- they need to add a preseason to fill the gap or to place people in the ladder based on the previous season

We are continuing to explore ideas for the upcoming off season period, as well as ways to improve overall match quality for Season 3, as we know that there are frustrations for many players (particularly during the start of the season) with regard to matchmaking for Season 2.

Erik, thanks for taking the time to join us in this discussion. You have no idea of the peace of mind that bring us the customers that someone is at least trying to address the issues of sPvP season 2.

It occurs to me that ANET could implement a survey system in which players can give feedback from inside the game by completing surveys in exchange of small rewards (this could be a powerful tool for ANET if its well developed).

SURVEY? THAT IS WHAT THE FORUMS ARE FOR.

The problem is they spend too much time and effort on reddit (WHICH IS A THIRD PARTY SITE)

Do you think this forum is an accurate cross section of the entire pvp playerbase?

Reddit which you seem to hate so much gets many more posts and comments than this forum does, regardless of its non-official status. Still Reddit isnt a cross section of the player base in any meaningful survey-able way.

Just look at this thread, people dont even understand the basics of how MMR works when you get match against much higher/lower skill teams and yet I see them griping in thread after thread about how unfair the system is being. As if the system itself is out to get them or something and its not just a lack of player skill.

About the only agreeable thing in this entire thread is that they should show our MMR, to just ourselves, so that people stop crying.

As Sins laid out, there are numerous trait lines and classes of traits (gadgets, turrets) that are unusable in every single mode right now. In addition to our weapon sets of MH Pistol and Shield which are both terrible.

The real problem isnt the lack of skill splits or that spvp is all about capture points, the real problem is that ANet DOES NOT incrementally balance. Regardless of all of their talk about shaving and their balance philosophy.

These notes from DOTA2 are what incremental balance looks like. A ton of these changes are small but Icefrog will keep doing small changes to a TON of heroes until their power gets up to par. ANet does ZERO of this type of balance, if they did turrets would be getting slightly stronger each patch, gadgets would be getting a little better, hammer would be getting a little worse, alchemy wouldnt be so required, et cetera.

Until ANet decides to practice what they preach with “shaving” balance, all of our discussion is for nothing. They will do another 180 degree overhaul on some traits and make them BiS or Useless, just like they always have.

“Dota 2 Update – December 29th 2015
December 28, 2015 – Valve
6.86c:

• Alacrity damage/speed rescaled from 30/40/50/60/70/80/90 to 10/25/40/55/70/85/100
• Invoker base strength reduced by 2
• Time Walk cast range increased from 550 to 625
• Faceless Void strength gain increased from 1.6 to 1.8
• Time Dilation duration increased from 5.5/7/8.5/10 to 6/8/10/12
• Time Dilation cooldown increased from 34/28/22/16 to 36/30/24/18
• Call Down first missile damage decreased from 220/285/350 to 200/275/350
• Walrus Punch cooldown increased from 20/16/12 to 36/24/12
• Nightmare cooldown increased from 16/15/14/13 to 22/19/16/13
• Tricks of the Trade cooldown reduced from 70 to 40
• Tricks of the Trade AoE increased from 475 to 500
• Blink Strike cast range increased from 700 to 800
• Blink Strike cast point reduced from 0.4 to 0.3
• Arcane Orb int steal increased from 1/2/3/4 to 2/3/4/5
• Arcane Orb int steal duration increased from 40 to 50
• Shallow Grave cast point increased from 0.35 to 0.4
• Shadow Wave manacost increased from 80/90/100/110 to 90/100/110/120
• Winter’s Curse attack speed bonus increased from 50 to 70
• Tombstone cooldown increased from 60 to 70
• Surge manacost increased from 20/30/40/50 to 50
• Death Prophet base intelligence increased by 3
• Spirit Siphon HP Drain increased from 1/1.8/2.6/3.4% to 1/2/3/4%
• Spirit Siphon slow rescaled from 6/10/14/18% to 5/10/15/20%
• Exorcism duration increased from 30 to 35 seconds
• Radiant Small Camp’s spawn box is now smaller
• Fixed Lone Druid’s HP not increasing when upgrading True Form "

Smurfing is a thing. You can watch some extremely high MMR people play DOTA2 and do the same thing on a new account. Amazes me how many players of GW2 have no experience with any other MMR driven competitive game.

Saiyan.1704:

Finally a legitimate post over the usual “Pvp sucks fix plez” QQ rants thats in the forums.

Absolutely agree OP, even other games have a rating system so that even though you “lose” your individual skill goes up.

It’s what the game lacks, amongst other matchmaking balance issues currently.

I am hard pressed to think of a competitive game where your rating goes up as you lose.

Any game that uses any sort of ELO system you will always lose points, sometimes very few, for a loss and always gain, again sometimes very few, for a win.

I have seen it go both ways for losing a pip or not after someone disconnects. At first I thought it was because they came back so it counts as a game but now I am not so sure.

Maybe if they quit GW2 entirely then you dont lose a pip but if they stay in game and just leave the match for some reason it counts the game as being “real” and thus you still lose the pip??

This is a silly game to be sure but I imagine the matchmaker has a hard time balancing classes given that Necros are like 50% of the playerbase right now with DH being another 30% or so.

ITT: People who have never played another competitive team based game.

Halfway through Sapphire I started getting really good games and it has continued into Ruby. Very good season so far.

To be honest you have 5 close games and 5 blowouts. If I look at my gameplay history in DOTA2, its no better than that. You will never get each and every game to be a close nailbiter regardless of how many players are in the pool and the strength of the matchmaker.
Blowouts happen for a variety of reasons unrelated to the MMR of the players involved. In GW2 it could be class balance related and in DOTA2 sometimes people just dont want to support both of which lead to blowouts at no fault to the matchmaker.

cosmicegg.8502:

It does not make match’s ever get more even if your brought down by losses from poor teammates. As long as there is bad players coming to do dailys or any other kitten then your stuck in that pool like you were last season. Now we face premades and we cant even tell they are premade. Just faced 4 necros and an engie cant see they’re in a group anymore because you’ve hidden it. WHat did hiding this solve? This system sucks as bad as last system. Match’s are off the charts lopsided. WHY CANT YOU GUYS MAKE SOMETHING THAT ACTUALLY WORKS RIGHT! You guys are like the government.

At the end of the match you can see who was grouped together. Dont blame the game for a problem with your eyes. That line that connects players at the end of the match?? THATS THE GROUPS!

The OP is totally right about why people are mad but doesn’t go far enough with it. The reason people are actually mad is they think of themselves as great players but are in reality mediocre. The difference between expectations and reality is disappointment.

In regards to people in the thread saying that these players will go play another game and feel better… like what? You gonna go and play Dota2 or LoL and try complaining about your low MMR and that it isnt your fault? Players in those games will kitten all over you for being a scrub. To be honest it would be in ANets best interest to tell us what our MMR actually is so people know where they truly stand, although that leads to even more salt and kitten feelings.

I wish all of my games (win or lose) were that close. The fact that you lost them all is unfortunate but with so many games going 3xx-500 means they were competitive. If you dont like close games then maybe you shouldnt play pvp in a ranked system.

So I have a question for everyone. What is a close or balanced game in terms of score? Right now it feels like I never see a balanced game and just get blow outs that go in either direction.

To me anything under 300 for a team is unbalanced. Just wondering what everyone here thinks. Check out my last 10 games, 5 wins and 5 losses but only one was remotely close.

ANet, how you so bad at this?

Lol Scrapper is for sure too strong but Druid and Reaper are equally offensive. Druid is especially lolworthy since their pet does all the work while they kitten.

I forgot we even had this utility…

ITT: A ton of people who have no idea how a matchmaking system works or why they end up around 50% win rate.

Its not a “programmed 50%”, the game matches you against equally skilled opponents. If both teams are equally skilled what do you think the overall win rate tends towards?
It sounds like the algorithm is doing its job pretty well if you are all sitting around 50% winrate in solo q. Everyones longterm average should be 50% win rate if the matchmaker is doing its job.

I would love for some of you to go and post on a real esports games message board (DOTA2, LoL, CS:GO) and talk about the 50% mechanic and see how much they laugh at deride you for not understanding basics of competitive play.

ITT: A ton of people who have no idea how a matchmaking system works or why they end up around 50% win rate.

Its not a “programmed 50%”, the game matches you against equally skilled opponents. If both teams are equally skilled what do you think the overall win rate tends towards?
It sounds like the algorithm is doing its job pretty well if you are all sitting around 50% winrate in solo q. Everyones longterm average should be 50% win rate if the matchmaker is doing its job.

I would love for some of you to go and post on a real esports games message board (DOTA2, LoL, CS:GO) and talk about the 50% mechanic and see how much they laugh at and deride you for not understanding basics of competitive play.

ITT: A ton of people who have no idea how a matchmaking system works or why they end up around 50% win rate.

Its not a “programmed 50%”, the game matches you against equally skilled opponents. If both teams are equally skilled what do you think the overall win rate tends towards?
It sounds like the algorithm is doing its job pretty well if you are all sitting around 50% winrate in solo q. Everyones longterm average should be 50% win rate if the matchmaker is doing its job.

I would love for some of you to go and post on a real esports games message board (DOTA2, LoL, CS:GO) and talk about the 50% mechanic and see how much they laugh at deride you for not understanding basics of competitive play.

Ya Conquest only is to blame for a lot of the balance issues in this game. Hammer included.

Why we dont have other maps its beyond me. 3 years for them to design a new game mode that they have zero faith in is pretty pathetic.

Payload maps would reward the defensive team having more range to snipe at people on the payload. Push maps would incentivize more movement oriented classes that could get to the various objectives around the map.

I guess its easier to just keep tweaking numbers instead of addressing the real problems in pvp, map modes and class swapping (meta-gaming mid match).

Dawdler.8521:

I always find it funny when people talk about sPvP core issues followed by rambling about classes. Last time I checked, the only core issue is … [insert drumroll]… the gameplay mode. The capability of standing on a tiny capping circle drives player vs player balance. Only problem is, its the only place in the game that does this meaning its impossible to balance by class, you will wreck or OP it in other modes.

But I digress. Lets randomly tweak some numbers instead. Its worked great so far, right?

This is nearly 100% of the problem currently with balance. The only ranked mode is one that centers around bunkering on points and +1ing fights which is why balance always seems so skewed. Where is the capture the flag game mode? What about payload ala TF2? Push maps where you move through objectives as the map continues (also from TF2)?

They have this huge dynamic event system in this game and yet use almost none of it for PvP. You dont need to try and be a MOBA like Stronghold, you can use ZERO PvE elements and create “new” game modes.

Teams would be forced to set up comp’s that would be usable in each different map and class swapping would be blocked. Actually good competitive games that use build systems (MtG, MOBAs, etc.) disallow swapping things in and out mid game or mid tournament for exactly this reason.

Granted this is all wishful thinking, it took ANet 3 years to create Stronghold and they have so little faith in the mode that it isnt used in the Pro League at all. Why even design it then? Why isnt the Pro League matches like two conquest and then Stronghold as a tie breaker with no swaps of classes???

Normally I defend the pretty poor matchmaking algorithm that is used in this game but after this match I cant help but post and laugh.

Two people who have LITERALLY never played a single stronghold match vs people in “The Mist Initiative”.

HOW DOES THAT HAPPEN? Is there no checking at all and its just totally random? Additionally it was 3 DH and 2 Reaper at the start. Does it not try to balance professions either???

Reinventing the matchmaking wheel is ok if you can do it right but this is just sad.

Nubu.6148:

iam rifle SD Scrapper and i enjoy it ^^ .

Nice! I actually got tired of Hammer OP nonsense so I decided to try out Rifle SD again since it used to be my favorite spec.

Can I ask what your build looks like for Rifle SD Scrapper?

Currently I am running:
Tools 1,1,2 Alchemy 2,2,1 Scrapper 3,1,3. Paladin Amulet, Hoelbrek Runes. HT, ToolKit, Rifle Turret, Elixir U, Elixir X.

Well I tried some condi builds with p/p and its even kittentier now. Condi necro is just so much better in every single way at this point.

GG ANet you still dont understand how to balance.

Hammer and Sneak Gyro are both OP. To pretend otherwise is either ignorant or disingenuous (depending on your knowledge level).

Hammer should not have both the best defense AND strongest offense in pvp. There is no reason that I should be hitting people for 6-8k with rocket charge, 6k with electro whirl and 3-4k with my block, in a row, through a stun (from hammer) while stacking vuln for funsies.

Sneak Gyro at 20 second CD makes you unkillable, for real, if you die as a scrapper you are a bad player. You can endlessly reset fights by popping sneak, running away a little ways and healing up and going back in. Between broken hammer, dura runes and sneak gyro Scrappers are fully OP in both damage and defence.

All this talk about Crowfall and CU like they are fully fleshed out games that will really launch.

Funny how people seem to think all unreleased MMOs are THE BEST and yet when/if they launch, suddenly they are dead gaem and horrible. I would love for CU to be an amazing RvR game and will pick it up instantly if that is the case, small studio and slow timeline of development so far makes me think of Darkfall, not WoW sadly.

When I look at which builds are in meta and which are not, condi doesnt seem to be the problem.

Are there any good pure condi builds at all? So many things just shut them down that its hard for me to imagine complaints like this are real.

Chaithh is totally right that the turret engi build was super lame and deserved to be destroyed BUT if ANet is going to leave turrets in the game they should be usable SOMEWHERE.

Right now its a whole set of utilities and a couple traits (why even have them right now?) that are totally worthless. There is NOTHING you can use turrets to do right now.

Its a horrible design by ANet to give Engi so many worthless utilities, its not even close for any build.

Garbage utilities: Turrets (non-heal), Gadgets (non-slick shoes), Gyros (non-sneak), Exliers (non- B/S). Essentially there is a single good utility from each category and the rest are total trash.

warbignime.4610:

Wait, I dont understand what are you on about? Isn’t this happens in other pvp games as well like dota and lol? Isn’t quickly adapting the meta part of being pro?

Also how is this spit on pvper? Since when does pro players aka very small community equals the whole pvp player base?

Nah man, dont you know, having the meta solved and playing what everyone else is playing is a surefire way to show just how pro you are!

Adjusting to changing conditions and still performing at the top level is not the mark of a true pro, you pleb!

/s

kdaddy.5431:

Pyriall.1683:

Stronghold is interesting. I would love to see how competitive teams approach playing it. That being said, it should not have been allowed to count towards league progression this soon after its initial release.

Some of them have videos on stronghold and i think many of them said stronghold strategy for every team would be the same.

In 5 vs 5 conquest people can play different classes for different roles and each class brings something unique to the table. In stronghold its less about the team make up and more about the individual builds and the strategy becomes the same each time.

I of course am using my own words to explain what a few of the ESL players stream said that i saw.

Ehh I highly doubt that, the ESL players for GW2 are the kind of people who would say DOTA2 only has one strategy every game. They are great at playing GW2, dont get me wrong, but by and large they are crybabies when it comes to changes.