Stop this Madness!! MM and ladder

STOP discourage people from keep playing your game! WTF is this design? I should be encouraged to keep queuing! I should think "that's OK if I lose the next one, because if I win after that, I'll get at least the same amount of points, if not more! GOGOGO". Instead, you make your players look at that and think "why would I risk queue, get a bad match with bad teammates, and lose 2 or 3 wins worthy of points? Why would I put myself through that?"

I'm legitimately baffled with this design decision you guys made as a business company: to encourage your players to stop playing, giving them absolute zero reasons to keep going. JFC...

STOP DECIDING WHERE I (WE) BELONG BY MESSING UP WITH THE LADDER POINTS! THIS IS INSANE. HOLY MOLLY.

But the probability of you winning is (obviously) higher?

There have been lots of complaints, lots of explanations of the very decent Glicko-System (which is the issue here, not the matchmaker) and also some suggestions on how to improve this (I myself have suggested to lower the impact of later games, which would encourage people to play hundreds of games with less punishment - but also less chance to climb). It is far from perfect for such a complex game mode lie conquest in GW2 - but very hard to improve with the low population.

If you have a better idea how to match players with different rankings, different classes, team compositions and how to evaluate their skill in respect to others - go ahead and make a suggestion! I would be honestly curious if there was a solid and easy to implement way! :smile:

@Megametzler.5729 said:But the probability of you winning is (obviously) higher?

There have been lots of complaints, lots of explanations of the very decent Glicko-System (which is the issue here, not the matchmaker) and also some suggestions on how to improve this (I myself have siggested to lower the impact of later games, which would encourage people to play hundreds of games with less punishment - but also less chance to climb). It is far from perfect for such a complex game mode lie conquest in GW2 - but very hard to improve with the low population.

If you have a better idea how to match players with different rankings, different classes, team compositions and how to evaluate their skill in respect to others - go ahead and make a suggestion! I would be honestly curious if there was a solid and easy to implement way! :smile:

1. Re-enable 5 man que in ranked.
2. Require teams to be registered through guild panel to be able to que. This would encourage dedication over convenience for partying, granting an actual reason for players to practice together and form pvp based guilds again, which we lack incentive to do entirely right now.
3. During the same ranked season, now the algorithm can track both the rating of the individual player, and the team he plays on. Awesome, awesome, awesome. Solo que and Team que mixed together in the same que. No splitting of population between different ques, and players get the best of both worlds. <- Arenanet should really pay attention to this suggestions.

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

@"Megametzler.5729" said:But the probability of you winning is (obviously) higher?

There have been lots of complaints, lots of explanations of the very decent Glicko-System (which is the issue here,

not

the matchmaker) and also some suggestions on how to improve this (I myself have siggested to lower the impact of later games, which would encourage people to play hundreds of games with less punishment - but also less chance to climb). It is far from perfect for such a complex game mode lie conquest in GW2 - but very hard to improve with the low population.

If you have a better idea how to match players with different rankings, different classes, team compositions and how to evaluate their skill in respect to others - go ahead and make a suggestion! I would be honestly curious if there was a solid and easy to implement way! :smile:

1. Re-enable 5 man que in ranked.
2. Require teams to be registered through guild panel to be able to que. This would encourage dedication over convenience for partying, granting an actual reason for players to practice together and form pvp based guilds again, which we lack incentive to do entirely right now.
3. During the same ranked season, now the algorithm can track both the rating of the individual player, and the team he plays on. Awesome, awesome, awesome. Solo que and Team que mixed together in the same que. No splitting of population between different ques, and players get the best of both worlds.
   <- Arenanet should really pay attention to this suggestions.

But what will happen if you play at high rank, there are no other teams currently queueing and you get matched with lots of low ranked teams?

Exactly, the same. This is no issue of "teamQ versus soloQ". It is solely a population issue (and inherent in extreme rank situations i.e. at the very top and the very bottom).

We need GvsG 5vs5 completely separate from the current solo/Duo que ladder.

Please vote for it in the PvP forums.

Well this is pretty normal if you're high elo or queuing during off hours.

unfornately this can also happen during prime time NA unlike EU

however it still needs a look at..

just face it we aren't gonna have enough people to make the system perfect. so let just balance it out the win / lose rating.

i basically jump on my ALT once i hit plat 2 otherwise it's not very enjoyable to play.

@Punny.9210 said:unfornately this can also happen during prime time NA unlike EU

however it still needs a look at..

just face it we aren't gonna have enough people to make the system perfect. so let just balance it out the win / lose rating.

i basically jump on my ALT once i hit plat 2 otherwise it's not very enjoyable to play.

Exactly. I'm sitting at 1640 rating, and not feeling like playing, because there's no incentive at all, quite the opposite: big hits on loss, small rewards on win. I just stop playing or get on my alt to play stress free.

i hope you didn't smash your keyboard while typing that, OP.

The thing is though, it has to be this way.

Players in plat 2 and above are all maintaining win-rates well above 50%. If wins were rewarded equally to losses, then rating would keep on increasing over the course of a season. The more games you play, the higher your rating goes.

That would mean that "rating" would be more of a measure of "games played" rather than "skill".

Are you happy for the rankings to be based on the number of games played rather than player skill? Would you be happy if there were players rated above you who are actually worse, but who have simply played more games?

No?

Then you must accept that players who achieve greater than 50% win-rates will receive less rating for wins than losses.

The only way you could have equal rewards for wins and losses, even for people near the top, would be to have an infinitely large player pool. You'd have to be pretty optimistic about the state of GW2 to think its approaching that.

That would be OK, except the rank #20 NA right now has a 60% win rate. So there isn't that many people "maintaining win-rates well above 50%" as you may think.

What people don't seem to realize is that the VAST MAJORITY of the players have a win rate below 55% with the current matchmaking and how things are. So maybe the current ladder point system is OK for 20 people? Again, that's a HUGE oversight by Anet as a business company who wants to keep their clients playing the game mode. You can't have a system working for "20 people" and not working for thousands more.

It must be balanced around the vast majority of your player base. It must be fun for the vast majority of your player base.

Well, there must be that many people winning over 50%, because the distribution of ratings is remaining static.

If the system wasn't balanced, then you'd see rating deflation, and each season everyone would on average lose rating. You'd see a shift of the population as a whole steadily losing rating, where the top 100 moved from legendary, to p3, to p2, to p1, over time (and not as a result of population loss).

But we don't see that. The top (and bottom) of the distribution are fairly static, which means the system is balanced. Infact, given that the population is probably actually slowly declining, this would indicate that anet are actually slightly inflating ratings. But thats another matter.

The fact that you don't like it is completely irrelevant, because without this system the entire thing would break. It's like complaining that you don't want to get up and go to work. Okay. But if you don't, and everyone else doesn't, then suddenly there's no food or electricity You can't just say "I don't like X, remove it" when doing so bring the entire world crashing down around us. That sounds over-dramatic, but for a ranked game-mode, knowing the ranking is based on skill and not just time played is pretty fundamental.

i think the main point is here

Do you want people to keep playing as much as possible or no... just prime time.

even on EU it's well known you don't queue after 10pm.

the way right now it forces people to play only certain time. ( with exception of some NA who go off time to farm rating )

i'm sure if i own the game i would want people to play as much as possible,

All these issues are a result of the Elo not functioning properly and there are two options for fixing this. One, you can narrow the k-factor on the Elo algorithm, but this would require a reworking of the game because it is a measure of the difference of performance between the good player and the bad player. This is a non-starter because in this game the difference between the okay player vs the pvp god is huge. The gap is just to wide to bridge.

The second option is to increase the population, and there are two ways to do this. Option 2(a), market the game and attract more total players (good luck), or Option 2(b) lengthen the queue time so that the population at the pvp gate grows and can make for better sorting.

Option 2(b) is entirely workable but it seems to me that the devs here have prioritized having players get as close to a 50/50 win loss ratio above all else. It's kind of strange, and I may be wrong on this, but the match making mechanics seem very deliberate and very strange.

@tacoclaw.8251 said:All these issues are a result of the Elo not functioning properly and there are two options for fixing this. One, you can narrow the k-factor on the Elo algorithm, but this would require a reworking of the game because it is a measure of the difference of performance between the good player and the bad player. This is a non-starter because in this game the difference between the okay player vs the pvp god is huge. The gap is just to wide to bridge.

The second option is to increase the population, and there are two ways to do this. Option 2(a), market the game and attract more total players (good luck), or Option 2(b) lengthen the queue time so that the population at the pvp gate grows and can make for better sorting.

Option 2(b) is entirely workable but it seems to me that the devs here have prioritized having players get as close to a 50/50 win loss ratio above all else. It's kind of strange, and I may be wrong on this, but the match making mechanics seem very deliberate and very strange.

What are you smoking about

The system is working properly like any other games

the only difference is Gw2 doesn't have enough population to make it consistent

Why is it so hard for people to accept that they are in the elo they deserve ? No it has to be Anet keeping them down with their 50/50 win rate algorithm.

GW2 uses Glicko-2 and not Elo rating system. The rating system works but is also paired with the matchmaking which is the biggest problem. But that also coincides with the pvp population. So how do you fix the population?

@everyman.4375 said:Why is it so hard for people to accept that they are in the elo they deserve ? No it has to be Anet keeping them down with their 50/50 win rate algorithm.

I dunno about that. But I am at 1430-1470 Almost always a few games from plat. I know for certain that if I play on certain hours I will maintain this and possibly get there.

I also know for sure at certain hours if I play I will get massive losses. Because I would be paired with silver and g1 and lose some 14-18 points a game. While if I win I will get like 8.

There is absolutely no reason for me to play in those hours whrrr my score would be destroyed.

According to your reasoning I absolutely deserves to be in my elo while in certain hours I should be 2 ranks down. Which makes no sense.

Eh... You think you get used to it after half a decade, but still the same old kitten.I mean I just lost 20 mmr to a complete blow out in low plat. (and the one after that) I only keep playing only because A. Gold rewards. B. I mostly don't care about my rating. and the lesser of C. Watching toxic players got ape kitten over their rating when they lose.

@Megametzler.5729 said:But the probability of you winning is (obviously) higher?

There have been lots of complaints, lots of explanations of the very decent Glicko-System (which is the issue here, not the matchmaker) and also some suggestions on how to improve this (I myself have suggested to lower the impact of later games, which would encourage people to play hundreds of games with less punishment - but also less chance to climb). It is far from perfect for such a complex game mode lie conquest in GW2 - but very hard to improve with the low population.

If you have a better idea how to match players with different rankings, different classes, team compositions and how to evaluate their skill in respect to others - go ahead and make a suggestion! I would be honestly curious if there was a solid and easy to implement way! :smile:

Thing is the low population is a thing, but the balance is an other. I do not mind being teamed with 2 silvers and facing 2 silvers too. However, there will be a clear difference if i'm having 2 silver core thieves and the oponnent does have 1 mirage 1 scourge ( this is an extreme case scenario, but you get the idea)

Make one season with everyone starting at 1200 rating. No placements or anything. One wins grants +5/+15 according to opponent's level, one lose grants -5/-15 according to opponent's level. That way it will be fair for everyone and there will be no excuses of poor matchmaking.

You can just increase the "at gate" population by extending the acceptable queue times. For example if the queue time is 10 minutes you presumably have four times as many in the queue than if you have a queue time of 2min 30sec. The issue I think for many is if the average per team is supposed to be say 50 and you get there by having two players at 10 and two at 90, that is a different match than with two at 45 and two at 55. It seems to me the devs have decided to keep queues low even if it means wide varieties of rankings on any team. This is fine, but it makes for weird game play after a while. And to be clear, I suck and I know it and I don't really feel bad about it. I just don't don't want to play against epic players because nobody likes a turkey shoot.

@Abazigal.3679 said:

@"Megametzler.5729" said:But the probability of you winning is (obviously) higher?

There have been lots of complaints, lots of explanations of the very decent Glicko-System (which is the issue here,

not

the matchmaker) and also some suggestions on how to improve this (I myself have suggested to lower the impact of later games, which would encourage people to play hundreds of games with less punishment - but also less chance to climb). It is far from perfect for such a complex game mode lie conquest in GW2 - but very hard to improve with the low population.

If you have a better idea how to match players with different rankings, different classes, team compositions and how to evaluate their skill in respect to others - go ahead and make a suggestion! I would be honestly curious if there was a solid and easy to implement way! :smile:

Well, that could be discussed. Ben said there is some kind of soft-reset after each season, even though we don't know exactly how that looks like.

Also, the matchmaker actually tries to get similarish team compositions - i.e. not two classes on one team and none of them on the other - but of course, two silver thieves might be more problematic than two silver scourges. That really depends on the rest of the teams and stuff, it would be extremely tough to control these things though.

However, this still has nothing to do with the OP's issue (I guess). Because after a week or two, the rating will look almost the same again and players will experience low value wins and high value losses. That's got nothing to do with placements, nothing to do with "stuck in gold", not even necessarily with population. The low and high rating end players will always experience this effect, even with high population (not even sure with infinite population as was already mentioned in the thread, but that would be a theoretical, purely mathmatical question :tongue: ).

@Megametzler.5729 said:

@Abazigal.3679 said:

@Megametzler.5729 said:But the probability of you winning is (obviously) higher?

There have been lots of complaints, lots of explanations of the very decent Glicko-System (which is the issue here,

not

the matchmaker) and also some suggestions on how to improve this (I myself have suggested to lower the impact of later games, which would encourage people to play hundreds of games with less punishment - but also less chance to climb). It is far from perfect for such a complex game mode lie conquest in GW2 - but very hard to improve with the low population.

If you have a better idea how to match players with different rankings, different classes, team compositions and how to evaluate their skill in respect to others - go ahead and make a suggestion! I would be honestly curious if there was a solid and easy to implement way! :smile:

@phokus.8934 said:

@Megametzler.5729 said:

@Abazigal.3679 said:

@Megametzler.5729 said:But the probability of you winning is (obviously) higher?

There have been lots of complaints, lots of explanations of the very decent Glicko-System (which is the issue here,

not

the matchmaker) and also some suggestions on how to improve this (I myself have suggested to lower the impact of later games, which would encourage people to play hundreds of games with less punishment - but also less chance to climb). It is far from perfect for such a complex game mode lie conquest in GW2 - but very hard to improve with the low population.

If you have a better idea how to match players with different rankings, different classes, team compositions and how to evaluate their skill in respect to others - go ahead and make a suggestion! I would be honestly curious if there was a solid and easy to implement way! :smile:

Maybe. Do you have a source?

@Megametzler.5729 said:

@phokus.8934 said:

@Megametzler.5729 said:

@Abazigal.3679 said:

@Megametzler.5729 said:But the probability of you winning is (obviously) higher?

There have been lots of complaints, lots of explanations of the very decent Glicko-System (which is the issue here,

not

the matchmaker) and also some suggestions on how to improve this (I myself have suggested to lower the impact of later games, which would encourage people to play hundreds of games with less punishment - but also less chance to climb). It is far from perfect for such a complex game mode lie conquest in GW2 - but very hard to improve with the low population.

If you have a better idea how to match players with different rankings, different classes, team compositions and how to evaluate their skill in respect to others - go ahead and make a suggestion! I would be honestly curious if there was a solid and easy to implement way! :smile:

Not maybe. BenP confirmed.