Guild Wars 2

godsie.2864:

I do blame myself and have tried very hard to improve and look at my faults – but once you don that it is still very hard with the system to make progress – I am where I should be I feel but still get no competitive matches and no chance of even seeing progress from my efforts to improve

Good for you. Most people just place blame elsewhere. Idk you, so you said, you might be where you should be, either because you’ve hit your skill ceiling or because this is as high as your current skill level will get you. I can’t tell you. But I’m not sure what you’re expecting. If you are where you belong currently, you wouldn’t make progress, if the system was working (I’d argue it isn’t. It’s far easy to progress). And if you continued improving, you’d probably see progress. As far as competitive matches go, you don’t really get many (if any) of those anywhere.

This is assuming you’re not affected by some form of elo hell. But as I understand it’s a minority who are experiencing this issue, so chances are many of the people complaining about being stuck are not experiencing elo hell.

Uh.. it wasn’t great, match/player quality didn’t particularly improve between divisions, it wasn’t hard probably a bit easier than last season tbh, but I had to force myself to play. Biggest problem is no division loss. Too many people of low skill in leagues they shouldn’t be in, complaining about huge loss streaks, convinced they ought to go even higher when they really ought to go down. I didn’t enjoy it.

I’m not trying to be mean, but every player I encountered in my matches who claimed to be on a huge loss streak or being stuck… was stuck for a reason. If you’re stuck, maybe instead of blaming the system, consider if it’s not maybe you that’s the problem. Sorry for the truth bomb.

Galen Grey.4709:

once very 100 years is a regular interval just saying.

If I may butt in, and I might be going out on a limb here, but I suspect you’ve never heard of terms such as ‘reasonable expectations’? Sorry for interrupting. Please continue arguing semantics

evilunderling.9265:

skullfaerie.7203:

I’d be very interested to hear more about this. My intuition is the same as your friends, but it’s not an area I know much about either. People who are looking into it- keep us posted

You should be able to get a refund on the basis that the product you were sold is not entirely as described and is no longer acceptable to you, but you’re not going to get anyone jailed or fined here, and you’d be expected to exhaust all other avenues of discussion (including crying to your bank for a chargeback) before going to court.

The thing is, as I see it, most people, including myself don’t ~want~ to go that far (either to their bank or anywhere else). Anet should be offering compensation to begin with, as a gesture of goodwill for their outright failure to deliver things we in good faith paid them for. But they have not done so, which is disgusting. They clearly feel that they are being perfectly reasonable and are completely safe from any repercussions. So maybe they need to feel the pressure. Be this through the law, bad press, or customer outrage.

Raxzor.5946:

This morning I was speaking to a friend of mine who here in the UK is a civil liberties barrister while he is no expert in this type of thing, he does state that the law in the UK has the ‘Consumer Rights Act 2015’ that basically states what Anet have done is illegal in the UK. And a claim can be made in a small claims court. So anyone in the UK that wants a refund you have a good case against Anet.

I’d be very interested to hear more about this. My intuition is the same as your friends, but it’s not an area I know much about either. People who are looking into it- keep us posted

The disrespect coming from the tone of your posts is so real Mo, I have no idea why you’d think this tone is ok? How you expect anyone sane to care for whatever you ship however far off in the future after this, I don’t know. I certainly don’t care. I’ve pretty much stopped caring when I read Evan’s equally condescending posts in the pvp subforum and when you pushed any actual new content to summer. With this announcement and the way you have handled it, any last bit of care for this game I had and any trust I had in this company is dead in the water. Nothing you say will make us ‘feel better’ you say? Like we’re children who were just told we’re not getting the promised pony for Christmas? Fact of the matter is, we’re not children disappointed in a lack of free presents love, we’re paying customers. We paid you to deliver us these items, you took our money and you failed to deliver them. Its not about making us ‘feel better’, it’s about compensating us for your failure to deliver promised and paid for goods. When you do something that feels like you’ve just taken our money and then laughed in our faces, I don’t see how you expect us to feel goodwill towards your company. Worse, I don’t see how you expect us to pay for another expansion or your gem store fluff when you’ve actually just taken our money and then refused to deliver what we paid for. And it’s all delivered in a kitteny, disrespectful tone at that. I mean heck, you even tried to tell some people how they’re supposed to feel about HoT. Honestly… This is just wrong.

Jesus. This sure isn’t Anet’s best day. First this disaster of a move (and the associated blow to their rep) and then they also get some person they appointed (and who thus represents them) openly trolling and insulting users on their forums. Lovely.

Right, I have a question that I’ve not seen answered yet : How, with what and when exactly do you plan to compensate customers for failing to deliver a feature advertised with the product you sold us? I paid a lot of money for an underwhelming expansion pack that was meant to include not four, but 16 new legendary weapons, and this feature played a substantial part in my decision to purchase.
Needless to say, the decision to simply scrap a feature, after delays, without anything satisfactory (e.g. of equal value and in a timely fashion) in return will destroy the last shred of confidence I had in your company after the disappointment that was HoT and its aftermath.

p.s. it goes without saying that ‘some LW, maybe, when it’s ready, possibly’ is not something that can be considered ‘adequate’ here.

Also, a decision to scrap the build process and release the new legendaries under the old system would have been infinitely more palatable. This however is not.

Absolutely not. I never got my money’s worth from HoT.

Fay.2357:

A competitive ladder

This ladder system is supposed to be competitive? Thanks for the giggles.

lol just when you thought it couldn’t get worse. And nothing but necros everywhere. Win or lose, the game is boring. Thanks Anet, I remember now why I barely log in anymore. Overwatch can’t be released sooner.

Trepidation Lost.3469:

unkempt promises.

Well, they could at least brush their hair.

:D

Inb4 they throw something random together and patch it in after an hour or so claiming it was being held back on purpose. It’s probably in the works right now

Ah, so these were the “minor balance tweaks” they spoke of. And people still wonder why we don’t trust Anet. Haha.

Btw, what happened to those Amulet changes they even made an entire thread for? They coming later or what?

I don’t care what they claim could ‘maybe be on the table’ unless it is actually implemented, sorry. That’s just more of the same PR talk used in the blog post and with the same intent

This was never about logical interpretation of data or anything like that. It’s a PR move, it affects almost nothing in practice, the wording is intentionally vague, and it’s intended to deceive.

Ah, the problem is that you can voice concerns about as many things as you like until you go blue, Anet will stubbornly go ahead with it and ‘test it out’ without another word. Then about a week or two before the season is over some ‘statement’ will be made and a ‘fix’ might get rolled out. Three years into the game and we continue to get ‘test season’ after ‘test season’.

Saiyan.1704:

skullfaerie.7203:

Soul.9280:

Some other combos that are inherently not fair:

5 vs 2-1-1-1
4-1 vs 1-1-1-1-1
4-1 vs 2-1-1-1

^ This.

I got a good laugh out of that section of the blog post though. It even admits that this ‘fix’ only addresses a tiny number of cases. The majority of potentially unfair match ups are untouched.

Are people not realizimg that premades will have a 10m+ queue time?

We know you solo casuals don’t care, but we can’t simply ignore premade’s who are either practicing for tournaments or choose to group up to avoid soloQ heros on their team. More importantly, fighting for those win streaks and getting Legendary quicker.

Next you’re going to say 3-1-1 vs 1-2-1-1 is an unfair matchup… le sigh

Oh, you’re right. It’s totally fine that premades should have it as easy as possible by being fed solo/duo combinations while also having the shortest possible queue times
If there actually are no 5, 4, or at least 3 mans to pit them against within a reasonable timeframe, then well… I don’t know what to tell you. Obviously they shouldn’t be ‘ignored’ but they shouldn’t get a free ride to the detriment of the majority either. A middle ground is needed and the changes do not achieve this.

Also, who seriously practices for tournaments against solo/duo combinations? And in ruby and below to boot? lol

And no. Pretty sure I stated specifically that I’m talking about matches such as 4-1 or 5 vs 2-1-1-1. In other words, the more common scenarios for matches perceived as ‘unfair’ than the comparatively rare 5 v 1-1-1-1-1.

rchu.8945:

skullfaerie.7203:

Soul.9280:

Some other combos that are inherently not fair:

5 vs 2-1-1-1
4-1 vs 1-1-1-1-1
4-1 vs 2-1-1-1

^ This.

I got a good laugh out of that section of the blog post though. It even admits that this ‘fix’ only addresses a tiny number of cases. The majority of potentially unfair match ups are untouched.

yep, it must be quite easy to get a job / keep a job at Anet, the barometer for competence is not set very high…

This is not the case, imo. What it seems like to me anyways is that a frequent player feedback was taken and given a pretty PR spin, without actually affecting anything of significance. Since apparently only 1% of matches are affected by this change, the effect on matchmaking overall is minimal, yet it looks as if “Anet listened”. What about other unfair matchups, particularly the ones that are only marginally less unfair, such kitten or 4 vs 2-1-1-1, you ask? Since duo and solo queue are likely the most frequent occurrence in the queue, restricting anything but the outlier 1% of matches affected by this change would result in long queue times for the exact group of players Anet wants to entice: 5 man queues. Them having short queue times is more important than creating even matchups. So chucking a duo queue vs a premade is still fair, because otherwise premades would have to wait a bit longer. I can’t see why the average solo or duo queue would care, but it’s an incentive for premades. They can queue knowing that they will continue to be rewarded with easy matchups vs many mixed queues and have reasonable queue times.
It seems to me that improving matchmaking quality was not really the goal here. This particular change seems to me to be an exercise in appeasing the player base at large with words, while not actually changing anything of significance for the preferred audience (premades) in practice.

That’s my cynical interpretation anyways. I’d be happy to be wrong, for obvious reasons.

Soul.9280:

Some other combos that are inherently not fair:

5 vs 2-1-1-1
4-1 vs 1-1-1-1-1
4-1 vs 2-1-1-1

^ This.

I got a good laugh out of that section of the blog post though. It even admits that this ‘fix’ only addresses a tiny number of cases. The majority of potentially unfair match ups are untouched.

Well, what they get out of fixing things is people’s continued custom. That should be enough of an incentive. If it isn’t then I don’t know why we should stick around, let alone reward them with more money.

It’s really simple, actually. If they want me to purchase from them again in the future, they need to produce content that’s worth the money. When they do, I’m willing to purchase cosmetics and silly things. If and as long as the content continues to suck, no money will be forthcoming. I don’t need to ‘help’ them fix their game, they need to help themselves. I’m not a charity and they already burned me with HoT, which was not worth the money I spent on it. For HoT I immediately pre-ordered ultimate, because I wanted to help them and I believed their product would be worth it. Looking at the game today, if I even consider buying their next expansion, it will be the cheapest option, and I am unlikely to pre-order. It’s on them to fix that.

P.S. I think I happen to be in one of those guilds you mention, although I don’t know you That guild is pretty much fully dead in GW2. RIP

There is simply not enough content to justify the 9 month break preceding it and the (probably) 6 month break following it. Not even close.

In addition, content we were promised for HoT still hasn’t even been delivered yet. PvP has lost all its entertainment value. Elite specs were disappointing and not even close to being a side-grade as promised.

Why should I even log in anymore? There’s nothing fun to do.

mhamilton.3095:

I bought this expansion pack 13/2/16 . I absolutely hate it , total waste of money .I gave up trying to do the story in the Verdant bank . as i just could not get around the map as all wp were contested . Could not look at the map without getting killed by the numerous mobs .very disapointed with the game .

Tbh, there are countless valid complaints and reasons to dislike the expansion (I dislike it too), but this sounds like a l2p issue to me.

Yep, I pretty much strongly dislike the game now. Not necessarily because of HoT itself, but everything surrounding it. The 9 month content drought preceding it, the disappointing nature of HoT itself and everything that has happened since then (rushed, boring, not enough story, legendaries still not even released and acquisition not to my taste , leagues implemented prematurely and kittentily, absurd balance, pvp in general, and apparently no real content updates until at least April- so another 6 months drought, etc.). I definitely regret purchasing and especially purchasing ultimate.

I’ve always loved and defended this game but at this point, I feel completely frustrated with Anet and their decisions and I’ve had enough, I think. I suppose enticing p4f players to purchase is more important to them than veterans. Meh.

Call me pessimistic, but I consider the game to be unplayable.

Evan Lesh.3295:

An important question i: Would all high-skilled players be OK with profession locking if we could ensure no stacking?

I don’t consider myself to be high-skilled, but no. Taking into consideration the reasons why players swap classes (you get matched versus an unfavorable roster, your team composition is lacking, etc), it would potentially disadvantage solo/duo players in particular.

This thread is a pretty good example of why player feedback is not always a good thing :/ lots of people who have no or little grasp of why something is problematic advocating it enthusiastically.

I agree it would be beneficial to have a space to practice new classes, but just re-implementing class locking in the current system and with all the problems it caused last time is unlikely to be the solution.

Great thread! Overall some neat stuff, though content-wise it’s mostly not for me. That’s ok. Since it’s been said before, I’m going to keep it short and concise and limited to my main concern:

Ele balance. So bad. Just look at it. Please fix.

Well, I know of one person who got suspended for afking/trolling, but I submitted a ticket when it happened. I haven’t heard of anyone being successful via in game reports.

Basket of Boxes.1976:

felzero.8526:

happen few minutes ago

HAHAHAHA no words for this… for those of you complaining about the bad match ups stop queuing ranked and let other people be the guinea pigs for this nonsense. It will save your precious pips and a lot of frustration.

Except with leagues ending in a week, there’s no time to do that >:D It’s a bit of a joke.

Evan Lesh.3295:

Mr Godlike.6098:

Evan Lesh.3295:

We are still watching this thread to determine configuration changes for ladder search range.

I still insyst that that you need to repay players for makeing this change now. Whole idea of mmr change was great but you should’ve wait to the end of season. Right now we have kinda random system who can give to your team anybody in your divison. Now even if you are good player your blocked from reaching higher divisions, because new mmr needs to adjust (to start giving you fair matchups) and probably it might start working at very the end of season.

It would be great if you could give ppl some pins at the end of this season (as little sorry for this guys). For example one pin for every earned division.

There have been no changes to the way MMR matchmaking works. The two changes we made were: Parties use highest division and the division search range expands more to shorten queue times.

I feel like you already knew that this is what he was meant when he (erroneously) said “MMR” And he isn’t wrong, it’s not exactly the greatest thing to make untested changes like this more than halfway through a season.

Evan Lesh.3295:

I looked into the match from the OP and we are making some configuration changes based on it that should improve matchmaking for unranked and ranked.

You know it’s bad when “Hi we’re rolling out a fix” starts sounding like a threat to make things worse

Gambit.8425:

@OP: Maybe the problem is youself, ever thought of that?

I guess you’re incorrectly assuming this is about losing matches? You realize that (at least) I am talking about match quality in general, right? For example, I won all but one of my matches today and I’m still saying the quality of these matches was awful.

I mean, side buff capping Legends? Really now?

pdavis.8031:

zorokai.1486:

SORRY FOR SPAM I THINK ANETS FORUM WENT WEIRD

Diamond is full of people who are maybe emerald level at best, due to them smurfing their way up the ranks for most of the season. Changing the algorithm now, when few people in diamond and above have any idea what they’re doing is completely ludicrous and makes no sense.

For example, I just got matched with four hotjoin level diamond solo queuers who spent the whole match dead, downed, and rotating like blind seals – vs a 4 man diamond and legendary queue who outclassed them in every way. This is unplayable and even worse than before.

Please, just revert yesterday’s changes. The season is almost over, you can carry out your experimental adjustments then. This really isn’t fair on your players

Just want to stress they got Outplayed by RUBY Division….

And just for clarification, you are certain beyond a doubt that they were able to “smurf” their way up the divisions? And how can you tell this? Because they played terribly for a match?

You did mention they were solo-queuers. So it seems like terrible communication, and bad decisions more than anything. Or they just decided to troll their team for whatever reason. But it seems rather far fetched to claim that they somehow abused the system to get to a higher rank

Well. I just had a match in which both sides were legendary and diamond (with one exception on each side).
Temple. The diamonds and legendaries on both sides constantly went for side buffs. Not just once, constantly. Their team even kept going for side buffs when their only point was getting decapped.
Heck, three of them let me grab top buff while they were poring over a dead body.
Am I sure they smurfed their way to diamond and/or that they really don’t belong there?
Um, yes.

SlimChance.6593:

Before the changes it was “good” to get matched with these people. (BAD for the players that got matched “AGAINST” these people, but GOOD for their teammates.)

NOW, its “BAD” to be matched up with these people, but GOOD for those that are AGAINST them.

So whats the difference as far as this season goes. Its been a failure balance wise, league wise, etc. Hopefully, with these changes they can at least get more of the “bugs” out of the MM system, so that Season 2 will actually be worth it from the start.

No, it wasn’t good to be matched with them, tbh. They weren’t particularly helpful, you see?
But they would at least face opponents somewhere around their skill level. Now they… don’t, so they get shredded, much to the displeasure of whoever has the misfortune of getting paired with them. Particularly when its matching them against premades.

No, you’re missing the point. Since most people farmed their way to Diamond and Legendary illegitimately, matching them with other people in Diamond results in horrible matches, since they are placed significantly higher than position they would otherwise have had. These guys should probably face lesser skilled opponents than what they are getting now, since they cannot compete- making the game pretty awful for whoever gets matched with them.

Well, there’s also a host of other problems (MM expanding too far, no ability to queue with lower ranked friends and find an appropriate matchup- which was supposed to be a feature of this game tbh, but leaving that aside for now).

This system doesn’t work well with the current league as a result of the previous issues of this season- it should’ve been left as is and fixes should be tested for season two, rather than arbitrarily rolling out untested systems.

Uh, some forum error going on here o_O Help? But yeah, please revert?! Pretty please.

Diamond is full of people who are maybe emerald level at best, due to them smurfing their way up the ranks for most of the season. Changing the algorithm now, when few people in diamond and above have any idea what they’re doing is completely ludicrous and makes no sense.

For example, I just got matched with four hotjoin level diamond solo queuers who spent the whole match dead, downed, and rotating like blind seals – vs a 4 man diamond and legendary queue who outclassed them in every way. This is unplayable and even worse than before.

Please, just revert yesterday’s changes. The season is almost over, you can carry out your experimental adjustments then. This really isn’t fair on your players.

Diamond is full of people who are maybe emerald level at best, due to them smurfing their way up the ranks for most of the season. Changing the algorithm now, when few people in diamond and above have any idea what they’re doing is completely ludicrous and makes no sense.

For example, I just got matched with four hotjoin level diamond solo queuers who spent the whole match dead, downed, and rotating like blind seals – vs a 4 man diamond and legendary queue who outclassed them in every way. This is unplayable and even worse than before.

Please, just revert yesterday’s changes. The season is almost over, you can carry out your experimental adjustments then. This really isn’t fair on your players.

Diamond is full of people who are maybe emerald level at best, due to them smurfing their way up the ranks for most of the season. Changing the algorithm now, when few people in diamond and above have any idea what they’re doing is completely ludicrous and makes no sense.

For example, I just got matched with four hotjoin level diamond solo queuers who spent the whole match dead, downed, and rotating like blind seals – vs a 4 man diamond and legendary queue who outclassed them in every way. This is unplayable and even worse than before.

Please, just revert yesterday’s changes. The season is almost over, you can carry out your experimental adjustments then. This really isn’t fair on your players.

And then the attempt to fix the fix to queue time also went wrong.

………….

This is exactly why tinkering with MM at this point in time was a dumb idea. Could’ve just waited for the break in a few days to test stuff out and see how it works in practice, but nooo… Anet knows best, right?

Could you please clarify what you mean by that? To get it fixed according to what Grouch and the blogpost said, or according to what the patch notes say?

In summary: just when you thought these leagues couldn’t be more of a joke, today happens.

Corran.4957:

1) Changes like this to algorithm should NOT be made during the season.
2) Changes like this should not be made unannounced
3) Please announce when you changing algorithm back to something more decent as many people wont even bother when they find out about this. Really encourages playing only outside primetime

This. Please change it back and please give us and ETA on things being reverted :/

edit: or… just make more changes. That’s cool too. Alright then.

Mysticjedi.6053:

skullfaerie.7203:

Evan Lesh.3295:

The change to long queue times went out last night, so this is the result of that. The search range is clearly expanding too much, so we’ll reconfigure it to be a tighter search again.

Well, that might explain why matches were unusually awful last night all of a sudden. Could we maybe not get stealth changes like this, so people can at least know and accept that MM might be shoddy if they queue at a particular time? Doesn’t seem fair to your players otherwise.
I’m a bit concerned about the idea of making experimental, hidden changes during a league season. Surely the break between seasons is the most ideal time to test things.

Please announce when you make changes.

This season, in my mind, is done. I say experiment now so season 2 can be great.

Well, that’s you. I’m sure there are plenty of people who are still working on their season goals for whatever reason (maybe they couldn’t play earlier, maybe they took time off, maybe they had exams…) and who are you to say Anet should make the experience even worse for them than it already is?
Plenty of time to experiment during the break and too many downsides to starting now. Heck, make the break longer if more time is needed, which is what should’ve happened in the first place.

Evan Lesh.3295:

The change to long queue times went out last night, so this is the result of that. The search range is clearly expanding too much, so we’ll reconfigure it to be a tighter search again.

Well, that might explain why matches were unusually awful last night all of a sudden. Could we maybe not get stealth changes like this, so people can at least know and accept that MM might be shoddy if they queue at a particular time? Doesn’t seem fair to your players otherwise.
I’m a bit concerned about the idea of making experimental, hidden changes during a league season. Surely the break between seasons is the most ideal time to test things.

Please announce when you make changes.

I mean, why tweak and break things at this point in the season. Only makes it harder for people to progress for no reason. Anet missing the mark as usual I guess

Cynz.9437:

skullfaerie.7203:

Jana.6831:

skullfaerie.7203:

What are they even patching today?

Removing the wintersday event.

Yeah, but some people seem to think pvp would be patched today- I don’t think that’s the case, is it?

Nah, they won’t do it mid of the season.

Actually just noticed this in the forum post:

“Shopping for Ambers: This specific change will go into effect in our next scheduled release (prior to the end of season 1).”

Might explain the broken MM -__- I’m not sure implementing a new proposed change for S2 this late in the season is a good idea tbh. Especially if it breaks stuff and makes it worse for people.

(btw I’ve noticed these server hiccups too, so I’d be ok with warnings and stuff)