Winning Shouldn't Matter...

This makes me sound so much like a Millennial (I am one, but one of the first and the younger brother of four Gen-Xers... so I don't really identify with the Millennial culture)... but here goes:

In ranked, where you are randomly placed on a team, winning should NOT matter. Well, that's my bait-clicky title... Winning should NOT matter nearly AS MUCH as it does.

Hear me out.

Imagine your favorite sport. Now imaging teams are made completely by random, ignoring personal skills and experience, and the players hardly communicate and they are facing a team just like themselves, completely random. Not very exciting, right?

It's 2018. I am sure some smart folks can put together a scoring system that rewarded one's performance over one's ability to get luckier than the other team. Pre-made teams in tournaments reward team-play and wins. Random ranked queues should put way less emphasis on winning and more emphasis on personal performance. And I know, I know... whatever system they made would be "hackable" and gamed and exploited ... but that happens now anyways (win trading anyone?).

This would give folks more reason to play to their best, even when placed on a team with some scrubs. It also gives scrubs a reason to get better...

Getting put on a team with an AKF or with someone who DC's wouldn't feel as crappy either.

This is NOT about participation awards or everyone getting a trophy. It's about being rewarding for you individual play and winning is just a bonus on top of that.

Good luck with that...There's pretty much no metric in the game that can be used to measure individual performance.Time spent on a point? You can be just camping your close and being useless while the enemy holds mid and far.Kills? You can be killing the same weak guy over and over without actually being a help to the team...Caps? You can actually be there with 3 others on point getting cap points while the rest of your team is happily losing your other points.I often find that the better i'm doing and the harder my team wins, the less "Top Stats" i get, especially with scourge. Because i tend to burst the enemy, and when they're down and my team mate is safely capping, i tend to move on because scourge moves slowly, so he's likely to catch up after capping, especially on thieves and Rangers.Also i zone the enemy a lot, preventing them from getting close to points instead of fighting them on the point (and because i have shades, i also don't need to be on the point to destroy them hehe), which also gives me less defense counts.

Individual scores were a thing back in the day but it doesn't work because in an MMO there are different roles (i.e. bunker or support). In conquest mode the people who watch over the side points usually have a big impact that won't be reflected in the scoreboard.

From my experince in other PvP games, if you have that even more people will ignore what the team actually needs in order to farm points that give them the best score and then because they are getting the best score they will think they are playing brilliantly when they aren’t. It teaches people to play selfishly and mindlessly point farm rather than adapting to different situations.

If you are doing group PvP with a PUG just accept you are going to lose a fair amount

@Demented Sheep.1642 said:From my experince in other PvP games, if you have that even more people will ignore what the team actually needs in order to farm points that give them the best score

People allready do that, I don't play much PvP but the last time I did I remember having two thiefs in my team, one kept decapping all the time and was literally the only thing keeping us afloat and the other kept killing the more squishy enemies - in the end we lost because we pretty much only had 4 Players beeing useful and 1 just farming kills while the enemy team had way better cooperation. Guess who started flaming. The Thief with his incredible high kill count started blaming everyone else on the team and complained about how terrible we all are and why we don't have more kills.

Unfortunatly there is no fix for the attitude of players which is why I barely ever play PvP and when I do I make sure to have as many friends on my team as possible to reduce the amount of randoms.

@"pah.4931"

A pretty good idea, certainly would be great if implemented. However, and this is the main downside, the metrics are difficult to measure. I've been in plenty of games where I have 2-4 top stats (as guard) but I have seen another player be more pivotal(thief for example) but they have no top stats at all. Did they contribute less? - No.

Because PVP is not the only mode in GW2, the systems used there are not as advanced or "dedicated" to gathering so many statistics. DoTA2 (for example) has a more developed system to generate your "accurate" MMR based on analysis of playstyle and general contribution to team success/failure. Without significantly upgrading, it's not possible to fairly determine how "good" a player is in GW2 compared to the rest of their team. The current top stats mechanic does not necessarily reflect the contribution well which is why it is mostly dismissed as a measure of ability/skill by the community.

Edit: Win or loss is therefore currently the best way of determining how good a player is.

@"ReaverKane.7598" said:Good luck with that...There's pretty much no metric in the game that can be used to measure individual performance.Time spent on a point? You can be just camping your close and being useless while the enemy holds mid and far.Wait, so the amount of ticks you get for your team isnt a measure of individual performance?

I mean sure someone could stand on a point "being useless" with 0 kills and 0 zero deaths but if he singlehandedly got 250 of the 500 match points needed to win, I'd argue he contributed. There is plenty of stats to determine individual performance - kills, deaths, damage done, healing done, point caps, point decaps, time spent on point, defense points, etc. This apply even in blowouts and all you did was try to hold your ground - you can still be the best reviver on your team if you only revived 1 person and the rest of your team none.

Should it be all that matter? No. Of course not. But performing decently should reduce the loss of rank points when the match is lost.

This at least encourage players to try instead of like it is now when people just give up. Loose by 50v500 or loose by 498v500, Anet still says kitten you're dropping 30 points. So why even bother trying?

I think there are metrics out there. It doesn't matter what archetype you play, if someone smart is programming the system, it can detect you and judge you accordingly. Also, I'm not saying it's perfect. But it's less not perfect than going almost solely by win-or-lose. Especially considering you queue completely into a random team.

I'd like to see some innovation with scoring. Winning is just one part of that.

I really wish they can implement a system that takes in consideration your performance. Using win/loss is not a good indicator at all.

@"ReaverKane.7598" said:I often find that the better i'm doing and the harder my team wins, the less "Top Stats" i get, especially with scourge. Because i tend to burst the enemy, and when they're down and my team mate is safely capping, i tend to move on because scourge moves slowly, so he's likely to catch up after capping, especially on thieves and Rangers.Also i zone the enemy a lot, preventing them from getting close to points instead of fighting them on the point (and because i have shades, i also don't need to be on the point to destroy them hehe), which also gives me less defense counts.

Pretty much this. On a good team, my individual performance actually looks worse. When I'm facing a good team, my individual performance looks worse as well, but that's because I spend more time trying to survive rather than wrecking everything. The worst matches I've been in (both winning and losing), I've had top stats on nearly everything.

Thus, relying on top stats is not a meaningful measurement of skill. In fact, there's not a lot of good, quantitative means of measuring an individual's skills in a game as complex as this. Actions per minute doesn't necessarily mean skill, points from kills/caps/def/healing/damage doesn't necessarily mean skill. You can't measure tactical prowess either, which I think is probably the most important "skill" in PvP.

@Vagrant.7206 said:

@"ReaverKane.7598" said:I often find that the better i'm doing and the harder my team wins, the less "Top Stats" i get, especially with scourge. Because i tend to burst the enemy, and when they're down and my team mate is safely capping, i tend to move on because scourge moves slowly, so he's likely to catch up after capping, especially on thieves and Rangers.Also i zone the enemy a lot, preventing them from getting close to points instead of fighting them on the point (and because i have shades, i also don't need to be on the point to destroy them hehe), which also gives me less defense counts.

My proposition would be to revamp and innovate how "top stats" are accumulated, processed, and rewarded. I would most definitely NOT use what's current (since what's current is very shallow and simple and, as you pointed out, not at all reflective of actual performance in many cases).

What I am purposing is IF there is a way to score a player based on individual performance, using a lot more data points and smart algorithms and machine learning and all that jazz, it would be nice if that was done instead of wins. I mean... Doesn't Anet have programming in place to manipulate win rates so most people are close to 50%?? That's not a very fun experience. It basically means that no matter how good you do, you will struggle in a lot of games due to the way they matchmake.

I am guessing it's doable to measure performance. But I am also guessing it's too much work for a game that not a ton of people are interested in playing (PvP specifically).

Well put.

I personally wonder if it is possible to design a smarter Match Maker to deal at least in part with the non-sense. Maybe though, ultimately, it's just that we need pvp balanced skills and a properly tuned meta.

We'll probably never get either.

@Dawdler.8521 said:

@"ReaverKane.7598" said:Good luck with that...There's pretty much no metric in the game that can be used to measure individual performance.Time spent on a point? You can be just camping your close and being useless while the enemy holds mid and far.Wait, so the amount of ticks you get for your team isnt a measure of individual performance?

Did he get the points? How does the game know if he got the points himself, or did he just capped the point, and then the 2 guys fighting off points, or contesting but not capping other points allowed for him to get those points?Was that revive good, or wasted time? I mean you can be best reviver by doing that ress, while you could have helped get a kill that would result in a rally, but because you ressed, and now your other 3 team mates died from going 4v3 or something, and you're now alone maybe full health with some other guy on low health after ressing fighting 3 other guys withvarying degrees of HP, and probably the 5th guy almost ressed and coming to reinforce.There's simply no actual metric that can define a good or a bad play, only it's outcome.> @Dawdler.8521 said:

@"ReaverKane.7598" said:Good luck with that...There's pretty much no metric in the game that can be used to measure individual performance.Time spent on a point? You can be just camping your close and being useless while the enemy holds mid and far.Wait, so the amount of ticks you get for your team isnt a measure of individual performance?

Actually Arena Net can lose you less points if it's a close loss, but they didn't because they thought they'd have to dock points out of the winning team as well. There's a quote somewhere on the PvP discussions for that.

@pah.4931 said:

@Vagrant.7206 said:

@"ReaverKane.7598" said:I often find that the better i'm doing and the harder my team wins, the less "Top Stats" i get, especially with scourge. Because i tend to burst the enemy, and when they're down and my team mate is safely capping, i tend to move on because scourge moves slowly, so he's likely to catch up after capping, especially on thieves and Rangers.Also i zone the enemy a lot, preventing them from getting close to points instead of fighting them on the point (and because i have shades, i also don't need to be on the point to destroy them hehe), which also gives me less defense counts.

Lol machine learning... Yeah it's possible, is it viable? For scoring a declining off-shoot of a game that even lost it's Professional component?The algorithm will end up with you going close to a 50-50 win rate because it works towards matching you with people of similar skill.So if you're really good, you'll rake up wins like crazy until you get to "real good MMR", then you'll start seeing a patchier record. Of course, there's issues, especially with the low population, but there's no algorithm that can replace players.

@TwilightSoul.9048 said:

@Demented Sheep.1642 said:From my experince in other PvP games, if you have that even more people will ignore what the team actually needs in order to farm points that give them the best score

Some people will always do that. All the more reason not to reinforce that behavior.

The idea wont work look at scourges mesmers druids firebrand and whatever can multi act, they would rack up tons of support play offense play and defense play points with very low effort

To clarify im not saying they are OP im pointing out the class and skills functionality for example firebrand scourges and tempests can toss out lots of both aoe support and heals as well as dish out high dps

@ReaverKane.7598 said:Did he get the points? How does the game know if he got the points himself, or did he just capped the point, and then the 2 guys fighting off points, or contesting but not capping other points allowed for him to get those points?Was that revive good, or wasted time? I mean you can be best reviver by doing that ress, while you could have helped get a kill that would result in a rally, but because you ressed, and now your other 3 team mates died from going 4v3 or something, and you're now alone maybe full health with some other guy on low health after ressing fighting 3 other guys withvarying degrees of HP, and probably the 5th guy almost ressed and coming to reinforce.There's simply no actual metric that can define a good or a bad play, only it's outcome.

First of, when I meant stand on point in my example, I meant stand on point. Why you are going off with another example of leaving the point I have no idea. The tick you get from a point you are standing on is a tick earned for the team by you. Again, its only a small part of the total performance, but its still a part, just like defending a point is, or attacking a point.

There is most definetly a metric that defines how players perform because the game already bloody does it with top stats and other scores it keeps track of - things that could also easily be expanded.

Your point about the revive is silly because again its a small part of the total sum. It could be a good revive, it could be a bad revive, its still a revive that's part of the players performance. You are trying to overanalyze scenarios that doesnt matter. If you got reviver top stat, it means you got reviver top stat, end of story. That should mean something even if your team didnt win.

If you want the simplest scenario I can imagine: Match ended 420v500. Winners get +30, loosers get -30 (with variation depending on rank).

Another way:Player 1 on loosing team got 2 top stats, thats +5. +5 for going over 400 points. Loose -20. What he did meant something.Player 2 on the winning side got no top stats nor any defense or offense points and had 0 kills. No one knows what he did. He gets +30 like normal.Player 3 on the winning side got top defender. Thats +5. He gets +35 points. What he did meant something.Player 4 on the loosing side was as invisible as player 2. +5 for going over 400 points. He gets -25. At least he was part of a team that tried.Etc.

See how easy it is to make it mean something? If we could mitigate losses by trying to do our best, that'd be great.

Tops status may not set the player's skill and help in 100% of cases, but it's better than nothing.

I always win 3 or 4 tops status, always damage, and it is unfair that I do not get rewarded in rank, because to achieve this I have to participate and help a lot in the games.

matchmaking is not that bad and you can carry games more less.

Winning matters and everyone should adapt the mentality to win! It is because people decide to work around the problems instead of tackling the problems is why we have the problems.

The argument always has been that Glicko2 supposedly is a more accurate rating system than Elo, but with the low pop and imbalances of GW2 I honestly think it'd be better if your rating gain was determined by (own team average)-(enemy team average)=(rating gain) rather than the current (personal rating)-(enemy team average)=(rating gain). Leaving your teammates out of the equation when they can be extremely awful, especially on off-hours, is a fatal mistake in my opinion.

I'll just drop here the official creed of the Olympics, one of the most competitive arenas on Earth.

"The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph, but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered, but to have fought well."

In my opinion, it's unfortunate that the only metric in GW2 is win/loss. I'd like to take pride in a match well fought.. but it's hard to do that looking at the winners dancing over one's corpse in the end-of-match screen. ANET has promoted this attitude, even selling finishers that can be perceived as mocking a defeated foe.

SUGGESTION:

The only other potential metric that comes to mind is this: Compare some statistic that is representative of a given class. For Warrior, perhaps damage. Then, compare that to a long term average of all players' performances. There's a precedent for this in 80's video games. In one, you race against a "shadow" which duplicates the current high scorer's most recent run. In this way, a player could see how they stacked up against a generic average of the population.

If you think about it, that's really what MMR is supposed to do.

I don't know. I think an equal mmr gain for a loss and a win for everyone would be a more fair system than the current system when you can get -25 for a loss and +10 for a win. If mmr gain or loss is equal to each other, players with the highest win percentage will come on top. You still have to be lucky with ur teammates, but less than the case is now. Rewarding on top stats is probably the worst thing they could do.

Reward individual performance is hard in a game mode like conquest, many times with my holo specced on roaming and outnumbering fights with rocket boots for mobility and ending up with zero deaths but also with zero top stats.

Different from my teammate scourge who camped mid all the match dying several times and getting all the possible top stats (except for "offense" probably). In the eyes of the other players i was the noob engi with zero top stats.

I know I'm not that great player but calling me garbage... for sure i carried more than that scourge which at least gifted the enemy 50 points just by dying, even if constantly on point.

So i don't think an actual individual rating is possible. Remember before when you could see every single player points who made for team total score. It was a very fake and unreliable indivual score and they removed it making it invisible.

Below plat 1-2 even a completely noob player can get carried to that rank if he is lucky with the other 4 teammates... maybe even higher ranks probably, rank doesn't show actually a player skill but a player luck on getting good teammates.

You can be god of pvp top 1 player but if all the other 4 people do stupid mistakes and the enemy team is decent, there is nothing you can do about it, carrying works if your teammates have at least some pvp basic knowledge.

This above + some unbalanced situations. It's not really entertaining losing to 2 scourges + a FB 500-490, doing your best against players that aren't doing anything and win thanks to setup only