Ranked PvP

I have learned something about PvP I want to share with people. You working hard to get on leaderboard and noticing your about 50/50 in games? Well that's me I been trying to get to platinum. I ran into top tier player and you know what he told me? Get and alt account make it suffer and have friend queue with me on my alt account with my main account. If I am going to lose the game my friend playing my alt account simple log. Then instead of my main account losing points it 0. If there is disconnect you lose no points. I was honestly furious to hear there not really any skill on getting on the leader board you simple farm your way there.

After finding this out I am like oh now get why top players have such high win rates. Make since, and honestly I feel bad for players who are working hard to get up the leader boards and explains why there are disconnects all time and rage. How can we fix this well I don't know....

@gimmick.1845 said:I have learned something about PvP I want to share with people. You working hard to get on leaderboard and noticing your about 50/50 in games? Well that's me I been trying to get to platinum. I ran into top tier player and you know what he told me? Get and alt account make it suffer and have friend queue with me on my alt account with my main account. If I am going to lose the game my friend playing my alt account simple log. Then instead of my main account losing points it 0. If there is disconnect you lose no points. I was honestly furious to hear there not really any skill on getting on the leader board you simple farm your way there.

After finding this out I am like oh now get why top players have such high win rates. Make since, and honestly I feel bad for players who are working hard to get up the leader boards and explains why there are disconnects all time and rage. How can we fix this well I don't know....

Hahaha yea a few ( all?)of us pretty much knew this already... I forget who said it but. F2P waa probably not a good idea

I didn't know this lol sure not lot people know

I'm pretty sure the amount of people doing that is very very low.

The large majority of people between 1600 - 1700 are actually doing it for real. 1700+ is where your win trade & general match manipulation territory begins. Not saying everyone 1700+ is match manipulating, but there is an awful lot of it going on in these tiers.

You have a few levels of match manipulation that goes on:

• Actual Organized Win Trading - This goes much deeper that what you've listed in your OP statement. I've learned a lot more about it this season, thanks to a particular someone explaining to me the roots of why it was ever a thing to begin with. In a nutshell, you get guys who are actually trying to make USD profit off a video game, whether it be through streaming views or obtaining/keeping sponsorships or people paying them for various reasons to boost an account, they need to be winning matches to do this. So they scout ways in games to make this easier to do. In GW2, it happens to be exceedingly easy to do. Step 1 - Get a bunch of guys in a voice chat together. Step 2 - They all log in on alt accounts to support one or two players who will que on main accounts. Step 3 - The alt accounts are purposely played to low and middle tier divisions to enhance their chances of being teamed with or against the guys on mains. Step 4 - They all hit the que button at the same time. With a low population there are high chances that at least 1 or 2 of the alts will land in the game with the mains. Step 5 - If the alts lands on the team with the mains they try hard to win. This is a great advantage because some guy being weighted in the algorithm as a gold 2 player is someone actually capable of playing at a plat 2+ level, so you have smurfing in general going on here as well. If it looks like they are somehow going to still lose the match, the alt will DC on purpose and block point lose for the mains. If they land against the mains, they just do stupid things to throw the game so their buddies on mains can win easily. Step 6 - Identify other win traders within the community, play social politics to stay on each other's good sides, and que dodge them as to not interfere with each other's operations. <- There isn't too much left of this level of try hard win trading, despite what some may think, but there is still a small handful of individuals who do it. The biggest problem here is that with such a small population, it effects a much larger margin of players in various ratings/divisions than it ever did before. These kind of shenanigans used to only effect players playing around 1550+, now they effect players down into 1400 and sometimes 1300, because we all play with each other in the same matches now. Oh but that's not all. The other effect that this brings is the que snipe phase. What happens to the guys on alts who don't make into the game with the mains? Well, when they join a game that doesn't have their buddies on mains in it, they assess the situation and decide if that alt needs to rise in rating or lose rating for its desired position for the win trade procedure. So they will either try to win the match or lose it on purpose, to readjust the desired rating for that alt. Sometimes, if they land in a game with someone that their win trade crew is competitive against or simply someone they do not like, they will throw the game just to hurt that player's rating.
• Would-be Win Trading - After the above win trade techniques became relatively public knowledge due to a reddit a post about a couple years ago now, you get a lot of guys trying it out who are doing it for no other reason than to be awesome and tag a top 25 or 100 title. They aren't competitive enough to seriously win trade their way to top 10 or God Of PvP, but they really just want that top 25 or 100 title. The problem is, they don't do it correctly and lack the mechanical skill to compete against real pvpers even when they have created essentially a 5v4 advantage match. Nonetheless, they still create problems within the community concerning match manipulation. Most of them only do it for one season to get the desired title and then they stop, or they do it from time to time to "get back to that rating that they feel they deserve".
• General Smurfing - Here is where the bulk of match manipulation happens and most of what is happening isn't even against the TOS. So you get some guy who plays plat 2+ on his main, but he has purchased 2 or 3 other accounts over the years which are in his name, he owns them. So what he does is he has a couple accounts that play at much lower mmrs and ratings than his main, and each season he uses these accounts to help his buddies keep their plat badge or something. So you have a guy who plays plat 2+ realistically, who is signing into accounts rated at gold 2/3, who is being placed into matches through the algorithm as a gold 2 player, when he is really a plat 2 player. So a match within the algorithm was supposed to be: RED: p1, p1, g3, g2, g2 vs. BLUE: p1, p1, g3, g2, g2 but due to the guy rated as a g2 who is actually a p2, the BLUE team is actually p1, p1, g3, g2, p2. That's a huge advantage, and this is what general smurfing is. It is not to confused with win trading. <- This general smurfing is the bulk of all match manipulation, the bulk of what screws up the algorithm's purpose and functionality. Do you have any idea how many accounts that are shown or not shown on the leaderboards, that participate each season, are various alts of well known high rated players? You'd be surprised. This problem has blown up into a serious problem now that ANYONE can make a f2p account and use a Core Guard, which is viable amongst elite specializations. It may be a good idea if Arenanet omits f2p from being allowed to que ranked.
• Bots - So I don't even know if this is true or not because I don't play low divisions, but apparently people who are like gold 1 or lower, have a problem where there are bots in their games that just que all day long to farm gold or something? I don't know but I believe it actually. There was this guy around in ATs for quite awhile "Ranger Dan", it was a 5 man bot team that would que every AT all day long, every day, and every time it would enter and lose that first round, that guy was still making +25g per AT at the least. I know these bots are REAL, I just don't know how frequent or persistent this problem really is in gold 1 or lower divisions, but apparently a lot of people complain about it nowadays.

But uh yup, the match manipulation is real in GW2 ranked seasons. All you can do is learn how to avoid ques with players that you have identified as potential match manipulators, if you want to rise in ranking. Add them to your contacts list and give them a nickname: "Questionable Player 1" and do not hit the que button when these people are standing around in the mists. Wait for them to log off or to get into a match first.

I thought this was fixed? (if your duo partner DCs you both lose rating but the rest of the team doesn't)

@witcher.3197 said:I thought this was fixed? (if your duo partner DCs you both lose rating but the rest of the team doesn't)

At around 1600 rating i've noticed this A LOT this season. People disconnecting if they get ~100 points behind. Most of them are usually in duoq's too. 1600+ DuoQ was definitely a great idea, especially when there's no cap on how much lower-ranked a person is that you can queue with. There's no room for exploitation there. Kappa

@witcher.3197 said:I thought this was fixed? (if your duo partner DCs you both lose rating but the rest of the team doesn't)

Source or no deal

@Emapudapus.1307 said:

@witcher.3197 said:I thought this was fixed? (if your duo partner DCs you both lose rating but the rest of the team doesn't)

You too...source or no deal

@Crab Fear.1624 said:

@Emapudapus.1307 said:

@witcher.3197 said:I thought this was fixed? (if your duo partner DCs you both lose rating but the rest of the team doesn't)

Sauce is good.

@witcher.3197 said:I thought this was fixed? (if your duo partner DCs you both lose rating but the rest of the team doesn't)

It was fixed, the duo partner can't DC to block rating loss anymore, one of the solo que alts has to do it.

The biggest problem is that many many already good players play 2,3 or more accounts.This influences the matchmaking, and blocks people from progressing.It's not forbidden, as it is also not forbidden to play with your friend on whichever account you want. But lets be real here, people do that for a reason, and we all know which reason this is.

Maybe Anet will figure out a smart solution that will keep people play on their MainAccounts so the matchmaking algorythm can do a better job.Getting more points for winning / less for losing might help, so the #1 Spot is not at 2000, but on 4000.Placement matches do also have a way to high influence, ppl can burst their twink accounts up in top 100 in no time.

And last but not least, there is really nothing more frustrating than knowing that you will lose a game before it starts - cause in the nmy team someone is carrying on a lowranked account - and losing a lot of points for those games, often enough they end 500:<100 .

why cant anet just delete these alts and leave one of them which was the top 1, also how is it fair to keep the wintrader players playing on there alts even tho they are banned.