Guild Wars 2

What is the aim of PvP? It is having close matches, testing your abilities against other players and get stressed/busy.

Season 1 reached the aim. It was probably unfair in that sense that league rank did not fully aligned with skill. However, the matches were (comparetively) even and often the win/loss could have been decided by a coin-flip.

Season 2 did not manage to reach the aim in many matches. I can remember many many blow-outs (win or loss). It is not much fun, when it either makes no sense to leave the spawn or when you basically have to wait in front of the opponent’s spawn hoping that they will move out and you can actually do something. Then you queue again just to get the next blow-out. It got slightly better at the end of the season. However, the blow-out ratio (losing team less than 250 points) during my last 10 games is still 50%.

If I have to chose, I would go for season 1 straight.

18 matches (or 36 in total) are pretty few to make statistics of.

megilandil.7506:

nothing rare, teams are paired considering the league of higher player, you are emeralds, rubis and one diamond playing whith diamonds, this time not is mmr or mmr hell, are you making a dispar team

I think you missed the point. It was not about losing in diamond, it was about losing in emerald after losing in diamond.

I think the example of the OP is a quite nice illustration of how team-queueing influences mmr. Let us say that the mmr used to be 1500. Then the player lost mmr during his matches in diamond. His new mmr is 1000 (assumption). Now he gets matched with other 1000-players against his former team-mates with 1500. I think the outcome is predictable. I can fully understand when the OP simply stops playing ranked this season (its almost over anyway).

Important to add: I have not enough information to say that my story is right. It is just a plausible explanation of the phenomenon.

I saw players in this season who basically could have gone afk at the beginning and it would not have made a difference. From the outside, it is hard to determine whether you belong to this group or not. Hence, we cannot say whether matchmaking works and you are just bad or matchmaking does not work and you have ex ante no chance to win.

However, what your example illustrates is that the current season could be frustrating for bad players or for players who are perceived as bad by the sytem independent of whether matchmaking works as planned.

What is your skill level? If you are good but nor really good, then you are right in diamond independent of the number of matches played.

inubasiri.8745:

gloflop.3510:

Aza.2105:

Its more like a requirement than a choice. Unlike gw1 you can’t be competitive in pvp without the xpac. The core specializations pale in comparison to the elite ones introduced in hots. So much that you are always forced to take elite specs.

In essence, Aza is right. However, you can put some pressure on ArenaNet by not buying HoT until most of the issues (especially about class balance) are solved. Then answering your questions will be easier as well.

You’re right, but it will be mostly your own loss and there’s no guarantee ANet will give in.

Ncsoft is a listed firm. They provide information to potential investors regularly. The last publication which I read about gw2 showed that they were really worried. The sale of HoT was below expectations. Let me provide you with 2 quotes from the CFO of ncsoft (pretty close to the top of the hirachy):
" However, in terms of the [games] sales and also the item sales versus the amount of active players, we think that that area is okay, but it’s more the issue of people converting over to the paid expansion pack that we have not seen come up to the level that we would have hoped. Therefore, to address that issue there are two strategies that we are currently trying to look at.
(…)
And the second area of our strategy is that, if you look at the actual expansion pack versus what our expectations were at the launching time, versus what the response has been from our users, I think that there is a gap that we need to address."
(source: conference call investor relations ncsoft)

In other words, according to Ncsoft itself players are not buying HoT because it is not as good as they expected it to be and they are trying to fix it. So we as customers have the power to influence the firm’s decisions and arenanet gave in already.

R O C.6574:

Jack Daniels.5270:

The MM is biased. Every day I get 4-5 decent games with 50% win/loss chance when i start playing, the more I play i get worst games down to 10% win chance.

That’s how they hook you. Then once you’re hooked they feed you to the people who won’t play if they lose. It’s marketing.

I doubt its marketing. I rather believe that the system trys to avoid matching the same players together or against each other. After the first few games, everyone in your range has played with you already. Hence, the system has to reach out wider. If there are less players above you than below, you will get matched with worse players and lose more often.

Zohariel.5708:

Ruby is hell. Once I ranked up to it, I could never get a 3 game streak going. ALWAYS got stomped on the 3rd game after winning 2. And pretty much lost one for every game won.
At this point, the games I win, I would still win being AFK; and the games I lose, I would lose no matter how good I play . Really makes you question the matchmaking.

Could you look up the score difference? Do you win 500-100 and lose 100-500?

Zohariel.5708:

Also worth noting, I bought the core game at pre-release, but felt Heart of Thorns wasn’t worth its asking price. (I Play mostly Guardian and Necromancer)
I’ve felt that once you reach a certain point (in my case ruby, “ymmv”), the skill gap closes enough so that you’re faced with trying to beat elite specializations and not the players. A much greater number of 1v1s end up with you losing; which is really disheartening considering you can’t help but feel you’ve lost, not because of skill discrepancy, but because the game handicaps players who don’t pay for more powerful options.
TL;DR… game is pay2win after the (now removed) entry fee.

I understand that ANET wants to sell expansions, but this didn’t happen back in GW1 when Faction and Nightfall came out with 2 new classes each . Maybe If ANET wanted to sell more boxes, they should of put more content in them, or sold them at a reasonable price, instead of shortchanging everyone who owned the core game.

I agree that there is a mismatch. You are in the comfortable position to decide whether you want to go for HoT or not. All those who own HoT have to wait for gw3 and keep in mind that there is a possibility that a similar situation as now can occur.

Side remark: If I remember the license agreement with arenanet correctly, they hold the option to introduce a monthly fee for the game.

bhagwad.4281:

Just logged in today after 6 months (not purchased HoT) to play a few games. Had to wait 4 mins in ranked (gave up waiting) and 6 minutes in unranked (finally got a game!).

Is that an indication of a lower PvP population, or was it a one off thing…? I remember consistent wait times of 2 mins before.

If you want to have a 100% correct answer, you will have to ask arenanet. I have some doubts you will get a useful answer. The impression which I have in the game and from the posts in the forum is that it becomes more and more difficult to find appropriate opponents/team-mates. Hence, the population decreased. In your specific case, you have to keep in mind that you (more or less) just started with the league. Most other players are outside your league position and cannot be matched with or against you.

Aza.2105:

Its more like a requirement than a choice. Unlike gw1 you can’t be competitive in pvp without the xpac. The core specializations pale in comparison to the elite ones introduced in hots. So much that you are always forced to take elite specs.

In essence, Aza is right. However, you can put some pressure on ArenaNet by not buying HoT until most of the issues (especially about class balance) are solved. Then answering your questions will be easier as well.

It is a question for esl how to proceed. I checked their website. So far the game has not been included in the table. I think you cannot blame them for not doing anything since they were surprised by what was happening. Furthermore, it looks like a ddos attack. However, I saw in the video of frosty only skill-lags and dcs. It could also be a problem of game mechanics (just to give another explanation). The case needs to be analysed and I doubt that here is the right place for it.

It is a further question about how to avoid such cases in the future (assuming ddos attacks). ArenaNet has lots of experience with ddos attacks. I see some potential to act and/or advice from their side as well.

I agree with the OP that gw has improved over time. However, its competitors have improved as well. Shall we keep on playing gw because it had improved in the past or shall we play the game we like most?

Let me draw the following analogy: Ford produced the model T. It was a huge success. Todays models of Ford improved a lot compared to the model T. Now imagine Ford builds a “crappy” car. Will you buy it because Ford improved so much in the past?

Oxidia.8103:

i flew trough ruby, diamond is making me hate pvp. I’m at t5 with 4 pips, i win one i lose one i win one i lose one i win one i lose one. It is stressfull.

This is how the system should work. Evan would say:“Your league-rank is equivalent to your skill.”

jackieboyo.3792:

I’ve flew thru mid/end of ruby, swaped class to break monotony (auramancer to revenant).

Currently on 47th loose game in a streak and doubting I’m playing same game as my teammates judging by their behaviour :P

A potential explanation is that you were better with the first class. Your other experience with “inexperienced” teammates is something to look into deeper. I did not play the games and cannot say anything about their true skill. However, if you are right and they should not be in your division, the question will appear why they actually are.

Another option for the results of the OP is lack of skill. I would suggest the following further calculation:
Go through your data until you find a win streak (5 wins should be enough). Redo the calculation after the win streak. Your results should be not statistically different from 0.5.

AkiraZero.8514:

I dont know what else I can say, I have enjoyed this season, I feel like I could probably still push my way up a bit through Diamond, I doubt I can make it to Legendary but getting more experience from playing games against others who are at a higher level than me is only ever going to make me a better player.

I dont know you and cannot tell anything about your personal experience, preference, etc. Important is probably that you stressed that you learnt something. If this is the goal, then most of us succeeded. I wrote the post not for you personally (although I refer to you). I wrote the post for all those who are happy because they are winning all the time although their wins are blow-outs. You may have been lucky. You may have liked the season. It is all your personal life. I will not interfere.

My experiences are different. If I just take the last 10 matches, in 5 of them the losing team had less than 300 points, in 2 less than 200. If I think back to the beginning of the season, there we had one match 500-0. Take the extreme case (500-0). Would you like to play on any of the two sides?

Salamander.2504:

I saw that too, but based on what I’ve been reading here, it counts as a minority case compared with people making f2p accounts and mimicking their performance on their main. We also weren’t given information on whether they changed classes on the f2p, and solo/team status on each account, so drawing conclusions from this 1 incomplete data point isn’t meaningful.

To be clear, I’m not arguing that the S3 matchmaking system shouldn’t be changed (newer players being stomped isn’t great for the population), but I do take issue with the sense of entitlement so many players have (many posting on these forums) of advancing through the leagues well beyond their skill level, just for the sake of “advancing”. That being said, there are poor players at every division.

I agree, we need more data. We could now find 1000 randomly selected player and try it out or we have to refer the case to the developper who (I hope) have also the IP-adress of the player and can draw a conclusion about main and alt.

Furthermore, I agree that some players complain here that they do not progress although they are just not good enough.

I nail down bad matchmaking at the cases where player had a win streak (e.g. got from amber to ruby straight) then a loss streak. Once you are as good as your skill is, you should have a win/loss ratio of roughly 50%. Thats how the system was designed (one of Evan’s first posts here). We had multiple data-points in the forum where it was less than 50%. Of course, I cannot say how representative they are.

For season 3 (I think I said it before), I see 2 options:
1) make mmr-visible and rank according to mmr. Probably grant achievements for mmr-point improvement (e.g.).
2) abandon mmr and match players according their league position (extended league).

Salamander.2504:

If folks are as good as they say there are, they are free to make an f2p account and prove it.

We had the cases. If you want, I can search for the post. First account ruby, second account legendary.

AkiraZero.8514:

(…) this season I’ve just cruised through to Diamond.

You cruised through to diamond, just one easy win by easy win by win. What have you achieved through it? Right, nothing! You had no competition. Why do you play PvP if you dont have a fair competition? If you just want to win, I can give you some games where you (basically) cannot lose. What does the nice diamond next to you name tell you? Yes, thanks to mmr-hell (it exists) also nothing. A ruby-player could in fact be better than you. However, the matchmaking does not let him through. In other words, you may feel great now. But you achieved in my eyes simply nothing.

I thought whether I should answer and push the topic or leave it and flip my eyes. However, there are probably more out who think similar. Hence, I will say something.

I hoped we were through with the topic. The current mmr has under ideal settings an error-rate of 4.5%. This is proven on an empirical model. Under non-ideal settings, the error-rate will quiet likely go up. It has not yet been tested. Thus, you can put a pro-league player into mmr-hell and he will not get out of it.

Furthermore, there are lots of reports about people with loss-streaks. The matchmaking(mm) is designed the way that you first have a win-streak and afterwards a win/loss-ratio of roughly 50%. Go through the foum yourself and count the cases. They must not occur in the case of working mm.

Yes, it is right. There are some players in the forum who won 99 games in a row and then lost 1. Afterwards, they come here and cried about the bad mm and mmr-hell. Of course they cried for nothing.

Yes, I also admit that the mmr-model sounds great. However, it sounds great in theory. The practice has shown its flaws. megilandil.7506 pointed some out. I will leave the rest to your imagination.

When you think you are capable of carrying a team, then make the test. Create a team and let 4 persons go afk. Please show me the video if you win! If you dont win (what I assume), try it with 3 persons afk, 2persons and 1. Then you know how many “bad” teammates you can carry. So please, whoever wants to post that you just have to “learn to play”, do your homework. I am entirely sick of reading such posts!

Ellie.5913:

MadVisions.4529:

gloflop.3510:

YAre you unable to invent something new yourself?

?i see this completely different. They want to invent the wheel over and over again.
tere are brilliant inventions in gw1 and we barely see any of them. GW2 just lacks on quality of life features even compared to the base game.
there is no shame on inplementing a cool feature that you discover in another game.
for example. take Diablo’s inventory system. 2h for weapons, armor, helm, boots, etc.. applyed by drag and drop/doubleclick … all the rpg games stole this kind of system.

Totally agree. The whole reason why gw1 was always my favorite game was because it was very different and unique from others and just fun and interesting with lots of different things to do all of which were entertaining. If I wanted to play a game like all the other games id just go play those. Also most of the things in gw1 you can do alone which is something very good for me since I always play alone. The way gw2 was in the beginning was a million times better than it is now but it never compared to gw1 in the fun factor. I laughed so hard when I first started playing this game and saw how few skills there were to chose from compared to gw1, I was like woaah equip a weapon and bam theres your build what did they do make this game for children who can’t make a build xD

You said it in your answer. ArenaNet had some great new inventions in the past. Thats why they are where they are today. However, they have to invent new things, they have to be ahead of the development with unique ideas fpr the future. My personally favourite example is the gliding. I dont want to name the game since it doesnt belong to ncsoft but it was copied.

You all mentioned nice explanations and opinions about what goes wrong in ArenaNet. However, I believe it is not the final explanation. I rather think it is a management problem. A game must be a consistent story, thought through from the beginning to the end as one unit. There must be a clear guidline in how to behave towards customers and a clear corporate culture. From the outside, I think there is the problem. The management has to provide clear directions in which the game and the company should be developed. There must be a clear target (target group, etc.). You cannot satisfy everyone.

One thing annoys me pretty much. I see ArenaNet copying other games and ideas from there. These games have other concepts, other stories and other targets. Are you unable to invent something new yourself?

It has a much more simple reason why gw2 will never be balanced:
When are the classes balanced? When are the skills balanced?

If we really discuss the question, then we will have as many opinions as posts. Hence, what person 1 perceives as “balanced” is for person 2 “unbalanced”.

Currently, the perception of the imbalance is quiet high most likely due to the introduction of the elite specialisations and other new parts due to HoT (my opinion). The prior found balance has been disrupted and has to be found again.

Tyler Bearce.3427:

No.

We aren’t changing anything regarding the layout of the map.

Please dont forget to change the dailys then.

You forget one main issue. It is a lot easier to maneuver in the alpin keeps. Hence, it is easier to scout. An attack is faster detected.

I will invest more time in WvW when there is a group of players with which you can work with. I learnt how to flip a keep alone (takes 30 min.). However, I dont want to flip a keep alone all the time. I need some action. If the old BL will bring back the action, I will invest more time as well.

a continuation of the discussion could have had a negative impact on the brand value

I think, the problem is more that the perception of the game’s quality declined. The problem is admitted by the Korean headquarters so I will consider it as a fact.

The aim to attract new players by the tournament is a good idea. However, as long as the base product is perceived badly, it will not work. It has even adverse effects (as the OP pointed out). There is obviously money available. Nevertheless, the money gets rather spent on some “pros” than on the core product. In other words, the customer will ask himself why he should continue spending money for the product when his money will not be used to improve the product but rather for some “pros”. I understand the reasoning (I dont want to say whether I follow it).

More dangerous is the problem of attracting new players. It may sound fun but I consider it as a problem right now. The game is perceived as “bad”. A new player coming would quite likely perceive it as bad as well and not buy HoT. What happens if the overall perceiption of the game’s quality increased? The activation costs to bring this player back to the game will have increased (once a bad experience, why better now?). In other words, attracting new players through e.g. a “pro”-league has currently rather negative monetary and brand value effects.

I entirely understand the concept behind the “pro”-league and I fully understand that it must be hard for a person highly involved and engaged to accept it. However, I cannot change the truth!

Let me make a simple analogy: Imagine you would be employed for Addidas. Addidas produces the ball for the football (in the US and Ireland soccer) world cup. They also sell the ball through their normal distribution channels. Now let us say Addidas developped a “crappy” ball which will fall apart after 3h playing with it. A “pro” player will not recognise it. A game lasts 90 min. A “casual” player will recognise it because he will not buy a new ball everytime he wants to play. What will happen then? The “casual” player will go to Nike or Puma and buy a ball there. If he is satisfied, he will of course stay with the brand (brand loyalty). What does it mean for Addidas? Sponsoring the world cup has even negative effects! It would have been better if the “casual” players did not buy an Addidas-ball in the first place.

And please dont thank me that you got the analysis for free (normally I get money for it (ofc it will look nicer and will be better explained etc.)). Just make sure that I have to shake my head over the management decisions of AreanNet less often and I will be happy.

I see two options for a working season:
1) Make MMR visible and match the players according to their MMR. The “league”-position would then reflect the MMR without having to go through all the divisions again.

2) Make a proper league system. It would require to abandon MMR at all. Players are matched according to their current league-rank independent of their MMR. It will be a mess in the beginning but in the long run should equal everything out. It would also require more divisions. Abandoning the division-locks after e.g. division 4 could also be included.

The current system leads to nothing and should be abandond asap. Furthermore, whoever designed the system should think about why he has not forseen the problems (I claim, they were forseeable).

The OP indicates (but does not prove) that something with the matchmaking is broken. Since the player is in division 3, he has won a couple of matches before. According to the system, he is in the right division for his skill. The likelihood of winning should hence be 50%. Loosing 5 games in a row (thats what I could count in the screenshot) has the probability of (1/2)^5=1/32. It is still probable but unlikely that the player has a 50% win chance. In fact, it should be below. Which leads to the question: Why does the system believe the player is in the right division?

R O C.6574:

They can’t possibly expect a 50% win rate at anytime.

They do: see here

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.

To all those who dont believe in mmr-hell, read what Evan wrote. In theory with a perfect assessment of the quality through mmr, a player should have a win rate of 50%. A diamond player used to have a win rate above 50% until he reached diamond. In the case of OP the win rate dropped far below 50%, fishball’s win rate even to 10%.

In other words: The system doesn’t work!

Locuz.2651:

gloflop.3510:

1) In theory, it should not happen that a player once he reached a certain division loses 1000 games in a row. In theory, a player ranks up until he reaches the point where his mmr equals his league-rank. Then the player will have as much wins as losses. In practice, it does. I think nobody experienced 1000 losses but I read about players with a win/loss ratio of 40/60 or 30/70.

That would be the case if losing divsions (+ in some cases tiers) was a thing. If that was the case divisions would be a better representation of skill. Right now lucky streaks due to DCs etc can mean ppl get pushed up to divisions where they dont belong.

We talk here about diamond-division. Hence, the player has to fluke his way through ruby. That is quiet improbable. DCs occur not so often and sometimes hit your own team. However, this is just the theory. If the system works as planned, the division-lock should not matter. The best players will jump to the next division, worse players will follow. The best players will rank up, the worse will rank up further and new double-worse players will follow, etc. In case your skill-level ranked up and you are “right” there, you will have a win/loss ratio of 50%. This means, you will win as many games as you lose. Hence, if we allow losing a division, you would get it back straight. The theory says that you cannot have a lower win/loss ratio than 50%. That is the point where I would start with.

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

So if i get it right then this can happen:

Someone in diamond looses 1000 games in row. (Not a single win). I’m exagerrating to make the point more clear.

His mmr glicko points are completely Eaten.

Instead of giving him good players to compensate a little, so opposing team can’t roll over, he gets ALL THe trash of diamond paired with him. On top of this, enemy team can all be very good mmr glicko score players. And Anet considers this fair matchups?

I had a win streak until diamond. I’m finally loosing. Quite a lot so. Should i stop playing just protect myself from the above explained situation? I want Exalted legend badly. I’m a better then average player (…).

1) In theory, it should not happen that a player once he reached a certain division loses 1000 games in a row. In theory, a player ranks up until he reaches the point where his mmr equals his league-rank. Then the player will have as much wins as losses. In practice, it does. I think nobody experienced 1000 losses but I read about players with a win/loss ratio of 40/60 or 30/70.

2) In theory, the mmr will not get “eaten”. The loss in mmr depends on the mmr of the opposing team. In other words: If you have to play with the lowest of diamond against the highest of diamond, you will not lose anything. In practice, your mmr can get eaten if you have a long loss streak and no wins. I don’t know how the game does the roundings, so I won’t speculate about the exact amounts. However, even if there is a substantial gap, a player loses mmr in case of a loss. In your example (1000 losses, no win), a loss in mmr is quiet likely even if your team has the lowest mmr compared to all its opponents.

3) As an above average player, you are supposed to end in a high division. Hence, if your self-assessment is correct, you could well be in the “right” division. I never saw you playing and I don’t know much about you. Therefore, I will not want to give a clearer statement.

guys, small remark: Next time you change the reset times, please make a small note in the game release notes (e.g. WvW change in reset time).

I do not have a mathlab-license anymore. Could you do me a favour and ease some assumptions in order to get the maximum possible percentage of players stuck in “mmr-hell”?

@Evan: It is nice that you admit that something went wrong. The consequence would be to terminate the league, put the resources on finding a solution and restart the leagues.

Raek.8504:

What they should do, is scrap leagues entirely, pips and stuff are just fluff.

What i would like to see it’s something like in Leaderboards with rating rather then pips and leagues.

You are right: Another option is to make mmr visible.

A little bit of topic: If its not too much work, would it be possible to bring back capricon to unranked? Unranked can be imbalanced, the map is new to most player, it should lay somewhere on your database anyway (so needs almost no time to implement) and it brings some new aspects to the game.

To the topic: I would suggest, you try next off-season a kyhlo without the repair function (easy to implement) or some other suggested changes to kyhlo. However, keep in mind that the map “works”. Another nice thing would be (for test reasons) a map without any secondary mechanic (like foefire without the lord). You can track the perceived quality of the changes by the number the maps get clicked at easily.

Jourdelune.7456:

MMR is a fairer representation of your skill than your enemy pip range.

IS MMR Perfect? No.

Is it better than random team? Yes.

I deleted the explanation. In essence, we agree on the point that mmr is not a fair representation of the skill of all players although we have a different reasoning.

I tend to disagree with your random team to a certain extent. A league is a form of ranking. mmr is a form of ranking. What we currently have are both forms of ranking which influence the team-making.

What you suggest (if I got it right) is to make the leagues redundant (as last season). I suggest making the mmr redundant (which means random teams at the beginning) since the league position is visible and observable. However, either solution should solve the problem.

Edit: Forgot to mention that the league then has to be adjusted, e.g. dependend on the previous season you start in division 1,2 or 3, and the introduction of new division(s).

Short: For the joy of winning, stomping others and being more skilled than someone else.

A tiny side-remark: Sometimes the community does not know what it actually wants. Even though we may come up with certain suggestions, they may not work in practice. Please keep it in mind!

It is great that you came up with the treb. I can remember matches where the treb was called “not PvP-like” and I got called away from it. The dominant strategy which I experienced is that the treb gets killed straight at the beginning. Repairing it makes in most of the cases no sense. However, the threat of repairing sometimes leads to players trying to chase the repairer. So it brings some interesting new strategies in the game. My perception is that Kyhlo has only few friends. The treb may be a reason for it.

First, thank you Jourdelune for the explanation of what mmr is. Now the important question is: Do you think it works as planned?

If I go back to last season where both teams were in my mmr range (if I understood it correctly). A game on the forest map started with one player running to close and 4 to the forest creature. After the forest creature was killed, both teams battled for mid. However, when I entered ruby (division 4), the dominant strategy changed entirely. Now 1 player went close and 4 players went mid. Once close was captured, the player from close killed the forest creature.

I dont want to start a discussion about the optimal strategy. Let us for now assume that it is the division 4 strategy. Let us furthermore see my annecdote as a signal for better players in division 4, worse beyond. Last season we got ranked against players in our mmr and in our division (roughly). What happens now with my mmr in this situation? Since I play against better opponents and since there are some players improving strongly and enter diamond, I start losing more than I win. Hence, my mmr drops (as I said: paired against similar mmr). Let us now compare my mmr before season 1 with after season 1. Am I higher, lower or equal?

Now the question again: Is mmr a fair representation of your skill? Do you think, I am comparable before and after season 1?

@Evan Lesh:
You need to keep two things in the back of your mind (and this will be hard now, sry):
1) Guild wars is a product on a demand market. The players can easily switch to e.g. Aion, Blade&Soul (yes, I products of ncsoft). In other words: The customer is ALWAYS right.
2) A product is only as good as it is perceived (not as it actually is). That is something you learn in marketing pretty early. In other words: You may believe you created an ideal product but as long as the customers do not recognize it as such, you do NOT have an ideal product. If you believe it is the customer’s fault, please read 1) again.

If you do not believe I am right, maybe the following conversation of Yoon Jae-soo (a leading person of ncsoft) and an analyst about the HoT introduction will help:
Question:" Yes, I’d like to ask you a question about Guild Wars 2; it seems that the performance of the expansion pack is a bit weaker than what you had expected. So in terms of the business model, do you have any strategies, for example, to beef up items, in-game item sales, or any strategy to do that?"
Yoon Jae-soo:“(…)if you look at the actual expansion pack versus what our expectations were at the launching time, versus what the response has been from our users, I think that there is a gap that we need to address.”

Hugh Norfolk.2798:

• Which secondary mechanic do you like more: A secondary mechanic that is always up and has constant impact on the map or a secondary mechanic that comes up periodically that maybe has more impact on the map?

• Do you think secondary mechanics should ALL be swing mechanics or can there be some maps secondary mechanics that are more focused on snowballing the match?

• If you could rework the Skyhammer secondary mechanic what would you keep and what would you change?

I like the temple of the silent storm. Why? You start the match by fighting for the mid point (or any other 2-point combination). This takes 1-2 trys and then the buffs appear. The team which holds 2 points has to split up and try to get the buffs.

Now let us imagine for a moment, there has been tranquility around all the time. We would have 4 fighting areas (3 points + tranquility). The teams would form a strategy to win tranquillity and to hold it. The game would become really boring, isnt it? Hence, make it appear less often.

The secondary mechanics should not influence the game too much. They should force the teams to change their strategy but it should not decide about a win/loss. A good example are the forest creatures. Holding a point provides more points than killing the creature and the opponent holds the point.

Please dont forget: It is PvP and not “PvCreature, PvLord,…”. That as such can be interesting as well (as I discussed already).

As everything in life, there are good and bad sides. I started with voicing for changing DBL. However, I saw the decline in number of players. We had with the alpine BL queues during prime time. Now we have a long queue for eb and empty BL. In my opinion the decline has to be stopped and optimally reversed quickly. Otherwise, WvW will die. Therefore, I switched and now would prefer bringing back the alpine BL. The DBL can in the meantime get adjusted away from the pressure of the player.

Skyhammer is a fun map. It requires different skills compared to the ranked PvP-maps. However, it would require an entire new skill balance for the classes.

I would suggest implementing some of the changes (there has been a long list which I dont want to extent) and test them. Afterwards we can discuss again. It is hard to forecast the actual outcome accurately.

When it comes to new maps in general: You started already with splitting up the PvP maps into two sections. One was real player vs. player fights and not much around, the other was that two groups had to fulfill a task and who was faster/more successful wins. Each type requires different maps designs. I would suggest making clear maps for each direction.

examples for direction 1 are the maps of ranked PvP.

examples of direction 2 are Spirit watch (to a certain extent) and Stronghold.

As I understood it, the goal with Skyhammer is direction 1. The ideal map for direction 1 would be a map with many strategic possibilities to get to a point, to hold a point or to attack a player holding the point. However, it should not have many other things. Skyhammer has many of these opportunities when we talk about the mid, but not too many when we talk about the sides. So when we talk about changing the map (beside the problem with falling down and the skyhammer) we also have to talk about the strategies. Currently, there are 2 ways to get to the mid-point. one is straight and on top, the other is coming up the stairs. The first is faster, the second has a surprise element. Interesting could be to strenghten coming from behind (so to make the pathway shorter/easier). The side points could benefit from a second feasible way to approach it, e.g. from the top. As I said before, implement and test some changes. First in a closed environment if they are feasible and then in an update to all of us.

As I already did the pre-work: I would suggest splitting between the two directions. That means, direction 1 focus on PvP fights and less to nothing around it. Think of a chess board as orientation (I know it will be hard for a designer not to be too creative). direction 2 can be a creative world. Think of Spirit Watch without points for holding the points. So only points for bringing the orb to one of the three targets. In this direction, some nice features like a skyhammer could be interesting. The fun will come from the unexpected, the different and not from the joy of being “better” than the others.

Gewd.8125:

gloflop.3510:

Gewd.8125:

Let’s say there is someone that should be at legend, they need to grind at least 60 wins and this is assuming they don’t lose a single game. The win streak system is basically a poor man’s ELO and capping the pip gain at 2 makes people’s divisions reach their true value slowly.

I understand your reasoning. However, you base everything at the assumption that the “game” knows which division you should be in.

The mmr is biased due to the first season. A player in a high division faced harder opponents. Hence, he lost more often and hence his mmr dropped. Now all players get pooled again. Then the player who had a win/loss ratio in division 5 of 1:3 gets now directed in a group of players who could not reach division 5 last season but had a win/loss ratio of 1:3 as well. The other side is a player who could not leave division 2 last season. However, at the end of the season he started playing more and (due to easier opponents) had a win/loss ratio of 2:3. This player now gets treated equally with a player from division 5 (season 1) who had a win/loss ratio of 2:3. Since the 2:3 will face the 1:3, I can tell you the likely outcome before.

If you had a high MMR last season and you belonged there, you would have a win ratio of 50% which means your MMR would not change.

Last season people were matched in their MMR range. If a player with 1000 MMR had a win ratio of 1:3, let’s say he would have 500 MMR. If a player had 2000 MMR and had a win ratio of 1:3 then he would maybe have 1500 MMR this season. MMR does not equal win ratio. It highly depends on who you are matched against.

I kept playing solo queue in legend last season stabilizing 8 pips in and frequently saw ESL players, and I have no issues with huge losing streaks.

Yes, I tried to simplify the case. In fact it is more complex due to inactivity periods, classes,… Let us assume there was just one mmr per division. It will make life easier.

Let us say that the average mmr are 1000. Then the player with 1500 will climb in the divisions quickly until he reaches the point where his skill will pull his group down than pushes it up. We had several player suggesting to stop playing and continue the next day when you enter a loss streak. That is the consequence. You need to wait until the other players could catch up with you so that there are less skilled players left.

Now let us have a look at the 500 case. The player will be grouped with bad players from the beginning and has no chance to show his skill. His mmr will drop even further since he loses. Yes, it will drop less if he loses against a high-mmr-team. However, it doesnt matter as long as he loses. A loss in mmr is a loss in mmr.

Gewd.8125:

Let’s say there is someone that should be at legend, they need to grind at least 60 wins and this is assuming they don’t lose a single game. The win streak system is basically a poor man’s ELO and capping the pip gain at 2 makes people’s divisions reach their true value slowly.

I understand your reasoning. However, you base everything at the assumption that the “game” knows which division you should be in.

The mmr is biased due to the first season. A player in a high division faced harder opponents. Hence, he lost more often and hence his mmr dropped. Now all players get pooled again. Then the player who had a win/loss ratio in division 5 of 1:3 gets now directed in a group of players who could not reach division 5 last season but had a win/loss ratio of 1:3 as well. The other side is a player who could not leave division 2 last season. However, at the end of the season he started playing more and (due to easier opponents) had a win/loss ratio of 2:3. This player now gets treated equally with a player from division 5 (season 1) who had a win/loss ratio of 2:3. Since the 2:3 will face the 1:3, I can tell you the likely outcome before.

geekilo.8512:

Make it so you can lose tier and pip at every division

I agree with you. I just want to have some starting playground for new players. Therefore, I would keep div 1-3. However, I would suggest adding a division 6 (and maybe 7) before legendary where you can lose pip and tier. Thats where the knowledgable players are. When the season gets reset, I would suggest that div. 5 starts in div 2 next season, division 6+7 in div. 3 and legendary in division 4.

The mmr-system can then be abolished. The league is the only ranking.

terminatorkobold.6031:

Way before HoT when they started made EotM they wee tons of topics here on the forum complaining about zerg fights and giving solutions to help break the zergs. The two most comon suggestions were to make bigger maps with choke points in order to force server to run many groups rather than a big zerg.
When they relased Dbl i thaught they had listened and done exactly what the people hee wanted but thene everyone started complaining about the map being too big with too many chokepoints. I don’t understand anything anymore and i am not surprised the devs are totaly lost.

So what should they do? Flatter smaller maps that encourage the hated zerg playstyle or biggr convoluted maps that encourage zerg breaking and discourage graverunning?

The problem with the new borderlands is that they are too large and too complicated. There has to be a balance and it was not yet found.

I will focus on ranked PvP since I consider unranked as a playground. Hence, I would keep skyhammer and spirit watch there. It can be rebalanced and adjusted so that it may become a part of the ranked matches one day.

From my perspective 2 points are currently of greater interest:
1) We have an MMR-ranking (which is hidden) and a league-ranking (which is public). Both systems parallel lead to problems because losing leads to a lower mmr-ranking. However, the enemies are determined on the basis of the league-ranking. Hence, they are better ex ante if you are in a higher division. This implies that the player loses more often than without the league ranking. Consequently, the mmr-ranking goes down as further a player ranks up in the league. After a reset of the league system, the opponents are determined on the mmr-ranking which leads to an imbalance. I would suggest taking away one ranking. Since it is unobservable, I would recommend the mmr-ranking. Then additional divisions (in which you can lose tiers and pipes) should be added so that the quality of the player is distributed equally and not skewed to a certain division. A good player from the last season can get 1-2 divisions bonus at the beginning of the next season so that he can avoid going through the “bad” players again.
My suggestion bases on the assumption that an average player wins on average with a probability of 50%. If we take away the mmr-ranking, the probability will have much deviation. Hence, winning 5 games in a row (1 tier) is probable but not winning 25 games in a row (1 division). Hence, quality would be in the highest division. For the current season, I would suggest taking away the mmr-ranking so that the frustated players do not start with another game and are lost.

2) waiting time
We all know it, time flies when you are playing, you are active. Time almost stops if you have nothing to do. Being in the queue means that the players have nothing to do. Hence, I would suggest that activities are implemented. This could be (as already suggested) a duelling arena, this could be a crafting station, this could be watching others playing or playing a mini-game (e.g. tetris or pacman). I personally go to the desktop and do something different until I hear the sound. It works for me. It is most likely not what the programmer intended.

I think priority number 1 should be to get more players on the borderlands. I play on a server which used to belong to the top-5 with the old borderlands. Now we are around rank 10. I will give a short overview of what changed.

Before the patch: When there was the reset, eb and at least 1 bl had a queue.
After the patch: When there was the reset, eb gets a queue of 120 players easily (so it can be filled twice). On 2 borderlands are large groups of our server, on 1 borderland we are outnumbered.

Before the patch: We had several guilds which had their raids during the week. We even discouraged guilds to move to us when they wanted to have their raids during the prime-time.
After the patch: There are still guild raids. However, the guilds are maximum on one borderland (eb has queue). Some guilds are rarely seen anymore in WvW. Especially the guilds with the highest reputation are not playing anymore.

In short: The number of players decreased too much.

Before we can discuss population balancing, this has to be stopped or optimally reversed. The players on the small worlds still have the option to transfer to a high population server.

My suggestion is therefore to focus on the new borderlands. I got the impression that most of the players left because of them. From my perspective the new borderlands have many advantages. Nevertheless, it has some drawbacks as well. I will focus now on the drawbacks.

1) It takes too long to get to the commander.
Imagine the following case: You join a map and the commander is at the keep in the middle. It makes now no sense to run to the commander. Until you are at the commander, the keep is flipped/the commander lost his interest. Hence, I better wait or search for another map. If we hold our side-keep (and I can make use of the wp), I actually have a chance to reach the commander in time. That could be an indicator for a suitable time to get to the commander (I dont know enough to provide a clear guideline).

2) The map gets too complicated.
This point is related to the previous one. The map is nice. It is nice to walk around there after you learnt all the pathes and understood how it functions. However, it is too much. I read that players wanted the barricades to be removed. This could be one part of the solution. I would like to see much straighter much clearer pathes. It continues with the keeps and towers. If the timer at a keep starts, I need quiet some time to run around every corner to spot if there is an attack. In essence, I need too much time. It would be easier if the keeps had half their size. I had it not just once, that we defended the keep and while we were searching for the open spot on our outside, the enemies were back.

3) The NPCs should be weaker.
I would exclude the lord. The lord is hard to kill with just 2-3 players. That is reasonable for a keep It should be difficult to take them. What annoys me is killing the guards at the gates or the NPCs at the mid-event. It is WvW. The game lives from the matches between humans and from the strategy but not from killing NPCs. This belongs to (and here I use the normal complaint) PvE. Killing NPCs could be a strategic instrument. Claiming land allows now to spot where the enemies are. That is absolutely useful!

I personally see and understand what the programmers had in their minds when they created the map. It has many good sides and allows for plenty of strategic options. However, it is too much for one map. I hope that changing the maps will attract players to stay in WvW or return to it.