Reduce the number of rage quitters and afk after first mid loss

Instead of a concede button or people going AFK in sPvP, I would like to suggest an option that encourages players to fight harder and not give up, afk, etc. even against unbeatable odds.

My idea would be to upgrade the current rating system to deduct fewer rating points if you loose within a certain threshold of your enemy. For example:

Current system:

You loose 495 - 500 and your rating drops 14 - 20 points

You loose 100 - 500 and your rating drops 14 - 20 points

There is no difference so no motivation to not give up, or at least finish with the best possible score you can make.

Suggested system:

Three thresholds1 If you loose within 50 points of enemy 0 rating points deducted.

2 If you loose within 100 points max 4 rating points are deducted.

3 If you loose within 150 points max 8 rating points deducted.

Anything lower than that old rating system points apply so you loose 14-20 rating points.

The amounts of points for a win remains the same

I think this will keep players motivated to keep fighting to mitigate the amount of rating points they loose even in an in-winable situation, rather than just give up from the start.

Ooooooor. Get rid of any ranking system for solo-q and make the competitive ranked scene team based (either 5v5 or a smaller 3v3 or 2v2 arena). Ranking people based on randomly made teams never did and never will make sense. And it will ALWAYS make for a terrible FEELING experience, which is the most important thing.

I could only imagine what ranking players in random BG queues would do to WoW PvP. Yikes.

i.e., Anet design philosophy encourages toxicity and negative player sentiment. They are using math to solve the human heart. Bad bad bad.

@pah.4931 said:Ooooooor. Get rid of any ranking system for solo-q and make the competitive ranked scene team based (either 5v5 or a smaller 3v3 or 2v2 arena). Ranking people based on randomly made teams never did and never will make sense. And it will ALWAYS make for a terrible FEELING experience, which is the most important thing.

I could only imagine what ranking players in random BG queues would do to WoW PvP. Yikes.

i.e., Anet design philosophy encourages toxicity and negative player sentiment. They are using math to solve the human heart. Bad bad bad.

Although I am a huge fan of 2v2 and 3v3, i dis-agree on not making solo-q ranked. I only solo que because I don't have alot if friends who play GW2 - I don't want to be excluded from ranked because of that.

In fact you could probably have both ideas work, as my threshold idea could also be applied in pre-made team completion mode too.

I just don't see why a loss of 5 points is treated the same as a loss of 400 points. Clearly one loss is more balanced than the other implying that the losers and winners were more or less equal and therefore the losers should be rewarded by not dropping a huge amount of rates, as is the current situation.

The winners will still climb up but the losers will not fall so hard by an unlucky loss that could have gone either way.

This will also keep roughly same skilled players in the same match making category. For example 497 -501 loss.

Losers get -14 points winners get + 14 = 28 rating difference for a loss by 3 points.

Such large rating gap should only come if you loose a match by more than 150 points, because then clearly you fighing players/team above your league.

For the above example, in the threshold system, losers would get 0 points deducted and winners 14 for a 3 point game decider. That reflects team and player effort/skill for both loosers and winners a lot better than the current system.

Nice idea James, i think it would help to change the climate in matches. (I think people would be less likely to rage for loss if they don't lose rank ;) )As a player i would like to see it implemented, that's for sure. Along with system that would put the stop to afkers that pipfarm and/or bots. (no viable idea atm how to handle that)

Your idea would naturally inflate player's rating over time: While that's a non-issue for me as long as match quality improves, I'm not sure that Anet wants or wishes majority of playerbase to be located in low plat divisions.(Team with better score has no incentive to risk and try for blowout victory, playing safe with lead and getting to 500 would be optimal: Besides that, when you see a player you respect/who's a friend in other team, you can let his team catch up to within 100)For me this would be a non-issue because i feel that overall experience in PvP would improve, but i'm not sure how would players that take pride in high plat/legend rating react to a bunch of us scrubs climbing to their bracket :)

@Arioch.4810 said:

For me this would be a non-issue because i feel that overall experience in PvP would improve, but i'm not sure how would players that take pride in high plat/legend rating react to a bunch of us scrubs climbing to their bracket :)

Well those plat/ legendary players would still remain on top if they continue to consistently win their matches so I don't see the issue as their rating would reflect that.

It will solve nothing, at most mitigate it because:

• As Pah said, sPvP biggest issue is to measure individual score based solely on the outcome of a team based match where your allies can be as strangers as the enemies. This creates a lot of situations where people give up because either there is a huge skill difference between both teams or you have teammates playing selfishly. In such situations, winning or losing becomes secondary as people give up because it is not fun or they don't want to deal with impossibles that have been granted randomly.
• Most of the matches end up 500-150 or less because of the current powercreeped meta, where it's very easy for anybody to blow up and create a snow ball for the entire match.Your suggestion would only mitigate the effect in the rating of people. Instead of winning or losing 14-20 points, we would be in the same situation but winning or losing 4-8 points.

This would just be open to a lesser degree of match manipulation with the winning team letting the losing team close the gap a bit. Unlike wintrading you don't even get an L for that, you lose literally nothing.

None of these solutions are going to do anything to make people feel better about solo queue, and they all have holes you can pick in them. The bottom line is you have to accept solo queue for what it is right now, or just don't play it. Accept that your rating will be affected heavily by RNG, accept losing rating for completely unwinnable games, and hope that over a large enough number of games it all balances out. That's all you can do.

The only "true" solution would have been to shift PvP away from Conquest for solo queue because it just isn't designed for that and is honestly a poor game mode for solo queue (great for actual 5v5 and esports, the things it was designed for). But that will probably never happen at this point.

The simplest and easiest method to implement, that would put a major dent in the number of afk/idlers....NO PIPS FOR LOSS. Stop rewarding players for bad behaviour.

These could be interesting points, but there are already too many bad behaviours in the game, and it would get even worse with these suggestions.A good example : match being lost 150-300 on legacy of foefire. This isn't over, but many players would consider so and push lord for the 150 points. Opponents would have no reason to prevent it, and the match is going to end in a 350-500, although it holds the same value as a 150-500.

The real problem are placement games being useless and shuffling people from every single rank in gold divisions. It does happen also in other games, not GW2. Just make everyone start from its previous rating, and you will see no more complaints 2 seasons after, once everyone will be at its deserved rank.

@James.1065 said:

@pah.4931 said:Ooooooor. Get rid of any ranking system for solo-q and make the competitive ranked scene team based (either 5v5 or a smaller 3v3 or 2v2 arena). Ranking people based on randomly made teams never did and never will make sense. And it will ALWAYS make for a terrible FEELING experience, which is the most important thing.

I could only imagine what ranking players in random BG queues would do to WoW PvP. Yikes.

i.e., Anet design philosophy encourages toxicity and negative player sentiment. They are using math to solve the human heart. Bad bad bad.

I just don't see a reason for RANKED solo play. You should still be matched with similar players and you should be rewarded PIPs for wins. But ranking people leads to tons of other issues that are so unnecessary, especially considering how few people actually care about ranks. Most people just want good games. The TERRIBLE ranked system (and the awful feeling you get for losing ranked because dumb teammates) gets in the way of good games.

Need more thoughts on, but I agree with the main problem

Before all... Fix the bot problem... It's terryble some one put great effort to least play a match while 2 or 3 team mates just run around to be killed and killed all time.Are they unexperienced, unskilled, bots or just trolls?In all 4 scenários some thing it's wrong, and isn't the rage kitter.

Some matchs should not even happen.

@James.1065 said:My idea would be to upgrade the current rating system to deduct fewer rating points if you loose within a certain threshold of your enemy.

The problem with this idea is that score differential isn't a strong correlation of how close a match is. A team which plays conservatively and doesn't push for a third point, but wins all battles decisively will seem a lot closer than it actually was. A good back-capper can make the match a lot closer in favor of the losing team than it actually was. Map mechanics, especially Foefire, can artificially influence the score.

About the only thing you can say with confidence is that when the loser earns less than 50 points, the game was a blow-out. I've seen teams which are evenly matched have a 200 point or more differential by the end. It really comes down to one team getting staggered spawns and not coordinating to stop it. With no teams in ranked, there's no pressure or mentality to play as a team and fix things like that.

Further, as someone else mentioned, lower adjustments to rating means the rating system will take more games for players to be spread out correctly, especially when it comes to outliers in a match (players who belong at a much higher or much lower rating). Over time, the amount of close games you won and close games you lost will even out.

The notion that the current rating system is completely broken is just players refusing to admit their shortcomings. In reality, when you view skill as a range - e.g. plat2, plat1, gold3 - it's pretty accurate.

@MissCee.1295 said:The simplest and easiest method to implement, that would put a major dent in the number of afk/idlers....NO PIPS FOR LOSS. Stop rewarding players for bad behaviour.This will accomplish the opposite outcome.If real players see no value in trying when they're a little behind, even more will stop trying earlier so that the game ends sooner. That way, they can queue up again and get another chance at a win.

@Exedore.6320 said:

@James.1065 said:My idea would be to upgrade the current rating system to deduct fewer rating points if you loose within a certain threshold of your enemy.

The purpose of this change is to keep players motivated throughout the entire match even when loosing. The best way to do that is reward them for finishing as close to the winning team as possible.

You will still get blow out matches, but I believe fewer, as the losers would have more to gain by continuing to fight rather than simply trying to loose faster and re-que. (Which in my experience is more fun for both teams)

Further, as someone else mentioned, lower adjustments to rating means the rating system will take more games for players to be spread out correctly, especially when it comes to outliers in a match (players who belong at a much higher or much lower rating). Over time, the amount of close games you won and close games you lost will even out.

I don't agree - I think que times will become shorter and teams more evenly matched. The logic is that the smaller delta of rank points earned/deducted with a win or loss will become more tighly spread thus creating outliers slower.

Furthermore over time people will start to reach their skill cap equilibrium, just like they would do in the current system by either winning or loosing more games.

The difference is you won't have such a dramatic fall of rank for 1 or 2 close losses.

The notion that the current rating system is completely broken is just players refusing to admit their shortcomings. In reality, when you view skill as a range - e.g. plat2, plat1, gold3 - it's pretty accurate.

No body said anything about a broken rank system. Just a way to tweak it to keep players motivated, even when a loss is inevitable.