A Critical Look At sPvP

[Pawlegance.7012]

I've been playing sPvP on and off, but mostly off. I stopped when Skyhammer turned into a troll heaven and just recently returned to give pvp another go. This comes from a Dolyak who has been stomped a lot by Dragons lately, but I hope you appreciate some of the following thoughts on sPvP. I try to outline my points as concise as possible.

Fighting for AttentionI love that this game puts the focus on actually watching the opposition instead of the UI. At least in general it does. However I feel the UI always tries to get my attention because critical boons are not really visible on the player character. You see them if they are selected, but icons are tiny compared to the action around you and I don't want to increase their size or make them blink. Instead, use icons as evidence of applied effects and focus on telling special effects on characters.

A lot of sfx go off which don't concern me and might even obscure information needed in battle. Imagine the opposition charging you with Eternity and all the flashy slashes obscuring your vision. It happened to me and it affects my counter play. In order to facilitate counter play, I suggest sorting sfx by importance. Imagine a warrior charging you with a great sword and the first thing you see is if they got fury or stability.

Layers of AbstractionThis leads me to my next point. A lot of effects overlap each other, some of them affect me little, some a lot. Some AoEs deal a lot of damage to me or impair me heavily. I'd like for AoEs to have their effects highlight as much as in PvE depending on how dangerous they are. If you are like me and don't know much about the other elite specs, you sometime experience a WTF moment. How did they kill me? Why can't I seem to hurt the other guy? There is a steep learning curve and some abstraction might help players step through the process.

At the top, highlight effects on players which greatly increase their threat against you, and highlight effects on you which help you dispose of your opposition the most. Highlight AoEs depending on the damage they inflict on you.

Install a medium tier which shows effects on them which increase their survivability. Visualize boons players got and be able to tell how well protected they are just be looking at them.

At the bottom, this is what we see now. This is for players who know specs and the game inside out. Enable players to choose the layer of abstraction or let them adjust it to their needs.

Learning CurveThis game hides a lot of information and makes it difficult to learn from mistakes or other players. I'd love to inspect the builds others use after a match has ended. I know there is a window which shows how they killed you, but I rarely analyse it due to quick respawn. Give me the tools to analyse my performance afterwards.

Observer ModeIn GW1 you could watch high level matches and rewatch your latest. This really helps in analysing mistakes and learn how top players behave in different situations. Monkey see, monkey does. I know there is an observer mode in GW2 but afaik you may only watch current matches. It feels like there is no top player/team scene. I don't know them. I still remember The Last Pride and War Machine, Idiot Savants and Treacherous Empire among other from GW1. I watched them play in awe. I don't recognize top players or top teams in GW2.

Rewarding DefeatsLosing a ranked match increases your personal rank. It even increases your rank more than winning an unranked match. Now I agree that participating in pvp and leading players from low stake to high stake matches is the way to go, but I propose to scale rank gain with current rank. In the current system, all you need is to participate in a number of matches and you will get to the highest rank eventually. At one point only winning should rank you up.

Until then, I don't think that's a fair assessment of you skill and the skill of everybody else in this rank group. It devalues your achievement, theirs and kinda turns rank gain into a grind instead of an ascensions. Reward players for participating in order to get them into pvp, but make sure only the best players actually rise to the top. Your rank should reflect how good you are!

MatchmakingI've encountered numerous dragons and other much better ranked players. And I've also seen most of the matches play out similarly. One team is just better and defeats to other 500-150. I guess one cause is lack of player base and another a way to really gauge a player's abilities. Since everyone may get to the highest rank at one point, it cannot be used to properly evaluate a player. I think the current rating provides some way to evaluate a player, but it depends on performance during a season and current balance (or flavour of the month).

To be honest, rank or rating do not concern me. All I want is good games, mostly fair and with a chance to win. PvP in its current state, does not really provide it.

Build upRight now, the pvp feels arcade-y. Let me explain. Personally, I like the quick matches. At the same time I miss downtime in matches and between matches. Usually I just play match after match without really reflecting on the last one. This is caused by the perceived need to quickly climb in personal rank and rewards shelled out in a match even when you lost.

ProgressYou cannot talk about Conquest without talking about Stronghold. It is one-dimensional, feels familiar, quick, easy to practice your profession in a somewhat safe environment. Had some decent matches but turned to Conquest after we got defeated by certain compositions which just pushed the line into the lord room and killed them without much resistance. There is no real counter play to a better composition.

Given its limitations it still got something Conquest lacks. There is build up. You move the front-line up until you can kill an npc. This progress cannot be reversed and it feels good to get there. In Conquest there is no such build up. You get the points, but personally they feel more like PPT from WvW. There is no satisfaction in scoring the 500th point. In Stronghold, you mostly win by stomping or killing the lord. This provides satisfaction!

In essence, Conquest plays like team death match with 3 places most fights occur in. There is no strategy, no tactics, just team composition. If you die, respawn and run back to one of those places as quickly as possible. It is really difficult to come back unless the opposition gets complacent or makes serious mistakes. There is no progress in matches, no early, mid or late game. It is all action, but no depth.

Secondary mechanics add little to this game mode because they tie so heavily into point scoring. Think of flag running in GW1's GVG mode for a secondary mechanic. It does not serve the main purpose directly but can improve your advantage a bit or get you back on your feet. In LoL, dragons and baron nashor provide boosts to add to your advantage or come back from a disadvantage, but are also known to be throw pits. Even if your team gains these boons the match may still be very open. In GW2 they just add to the snowballing effect.

RolesThe second reason is a consequence of missing progress and actual objectives within a match and how Conquest is designed. The most important thing is to defeat your opposition in direct combat. Hence there is only one role: the damage carry. Each profession approaches the how differently but if you fail at killing you won't enjoy Conquest. You cannot compensate your deficiencies by doing something else during the game e.g. support or complete a minor objective.

AttritionI miss a war of attrition in this game. You should be punished for making mistakes and rewarded for playing well. Killing opposition should help you deal with attrition and shift the power balance slightly in your favor. Implementing a war of attrition could also go a long way of adding depth to this mode and game overall.

Possible Solutions to ConquestHere are some suggestions to improve Conquest according to the points raised above. Some of these points work best in combination with each other. All are meant to keep work on maps and mode at a minimum.

Score Variants-Best x out of Y. A team needs to control the majority of objectives on the map. Instead of constantly ticking, a countdown appears for Z seconds it any team got control majority. When the countdown expires the controlling team gets a point and everyone spawns back at base. A new round begins.

Secondary Mechanics Variants-Capture the Flag like in GW1's GvG mode. Choose a point in equidistance between the spawn points. X seconds after capture, a team gains a morale boost.

Attrition-Morale like in GW1: Each time you die you get a disadvantage. Each time your team kills or gains a morale boost you gain an advantage. A team loses if all members got X disadvantage.

There are more ideas floating around in my head, but this post grew a bit too long already. I hope you can find something useful in this post. Looking forward to you replies.

[montecristo.1324]

@Pawlegance.7012 said:I've been playing sPvP on and off, but mostly off. I stopped when Skyhammer turned into a troll heaven and just recently returned to give pvp another go. This comes from a Dolyak who has been stomped a lot by Dragons lately, but I hope you appreciate some of the following thoughts on sPvP. I try to outline my points as concise as possible.

Fighting for AttentionI love that this game puts the focus on actually watching the opposition instead of the UI. At least in general it does. However I feel the UI always tries to get my attention because critical boons are not really visible on the player character. You see them if they are selected, but icons are tiny compared to the action around you and I don't want to increase their size or make them blink. Instead, use icons as evidence of applied effects and focus on telling special effects on characters.

A lot of sfx go off which don't concern me and might even obscure information needed in battle. Imagine the opposition charging you with Eternity and all the flashy slashes obscuring your vision. It happened to me and it affects my counter play. In order to facilitate counter play, I suggest sorting sfx by importance. Imagine a warrior charging you with a great sword and the first thing you see is if they got fury or stability.

you can put standard enemy models in the options menu and all the classes will be represented by one standard character, so you can focus on the animations

second and third point is a learn to play issue, play a lot and you will be able to recognize all the skills ;)

@Pawlegance.7012 said:Rewarding DefeatsLosing a ranked match increases your personal rank. It even increases your rank more than winning an unranked match. Now I agree that participating in pvp and leading players from low stake to high stake matches is the way to go, but I propose to scale rank gain with current rank. In the current system, all you need is to participate in a number of matches and you will get to the highest rank eventually. At one point only winning should rank you up.

Until then, I don't think that's a fair assessment of you skill and the skill of everybody else in this rank group. It devalues your achievement, theirs and kinda turns rank gain into a grind instead of an ascensions. Reward players for participating in order to get them into pvp, but make sure only the best players actually rise to the top. Your rank should reflect how good you are!

MatchmakingI've encountered numerous dragons and other much better ranked players. And I've also seen most of the matches play out similarly. One team is just better and defeats to other 500-150. I guess one cause is lack of player base and another a way to really gauge a player's abilities. Since everyone may get to the highest rank at one point, it cannot be used to properly evaluate a player. I think the current rating provides some way to evaluate a player, but it depends on performance during a season and current balance (or flavour of the month).

To be honest, rank or rating do not concern me. All I want is good games, mostly fair and with a chance to win. PvP in its current state, does not really provide it.

in gw2 the rank means almost nothing, what you have to check is the rating of the player, is he a silver player? is he platinum? etc.When you play ATs people will ask your rating not your rank

@Pawlegance.7012 said:RolesThe second reason is a consequence of missing progress and actual objectives within a match and how Conquest is designed. The most important thing is to defeat your opposition in direct combat. Hence there is only one role: the damage carry. Each profession approaches the how differently but if you fail at killing you won't enjoy Conquest. You cannot compensate your deficiencies by doing something else during the game e.g. support or complete a minor objective.

gw2 pvp has roles, there are a lot of YouTube videos about it and I think also the wiki has a section about it.Maybe in low tier rating, and for new player, going dps is rewarding, but there are plenty of roles: bunkers, support, rotational dps, dps, duelist, etc.I suggest you to check on Twitch and on YouTube some videos of the AT and of the monthly automated tournament, you will see how coordinated this game is and how every player has a specific role and does his job on the map (for example a bunker or a duelist tend to play 1v1 on a node in order to contest/protect the node while a rotational dps may quickly join his teammate on a fight to kill one person and run away to help someone else on another role)

@Pawlegance.7012 said:AttritionI miss a war of attrition in this game. You should be punished for making mistakes and rewarded for playing well. Killing opposition should help you deal with attrition and shift the power balance slightly in your favor. Implementing a war of attrition could also go a long way of adding depth to this mode and game overall.

Possible Solutions to ConquestHere are some suggestions to improve Conquest according to the points raised above. Some of these points work best in combination with each other. All are meant to keep work on maps and mode at a minimum.

Score Variants-Best x out of Y. A team needs to control the majority of objectives on the map. Instead of constantly ticking, a countdown appears for Z seconds it any team got control majority. When the countdown expires the controlling team gets a point and everyone spawns back at base. A new round begins.

Secondary Mechanics Variants-Capture the Flag like in GW1's GvG mode. Choose a point in equidistance between the spawn points. X seconds after capture, a team gains a morale boost.

Attrition-Morale like in GW1: Each time you die you get a disadvantage. Each time your team kills or gains a morale boost you gain an advantage. A team loses if all members got X disadvantage.

There are more ideas floating around in my head, but this post grew a bit too long already. I hope you can find something useful in this post. Looking forward to you replies.

I think the way pvp is structured is quite alright, there are some things to fix of course, but the maps mechanics replace the "attrition" you are talking about. Losing a fight means that you probably lose one or two caps, and it also means that you need to regroup and probably you will lose also the next fight if you are not clever enough to think about another strategy or change the way you are playing the game (focus on quick rotations instead of fighting).

I think overall you should try to find some people that knows a bit more the game and play with them to understand better conquest.I understand your points because as a gw1 player I see what you mean but as explained in the past years this game has grown a lot and now is really enjoyable!

[Luthan.5236]

The "rank" associated with the animals (dragon, tiger, bear, dragon and stuff) is useless. There is even a site about rank farming in the wiki and people can farm in custom arenas and it is encouraged by ArenaNet (otherwise the wiki page would not be allowed to exist). They call it "playing oddly": https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rank_farming (See the "discussion" page where a player links a post of ArenaNet where it is called "playing oddly".)

So the bit of rank points from losing in ranked/unranked ... is not a big deal. (Achievements might be a bigger problem here. You can play bad on purpose to get more losses to lower your rating and the get more wins in a row if wins are needed for achievements - for example.)

If they don't even care about rank farming I doubt they care about generating "good" (close) matches. I'd prefer an invisible rating and no ranked/unranked. Just 1 queue. (Maybe allow for solo and team queues where "team" can be 1-5 players so 3 players can queue as team getting filled up with 2 randoms.) Less whining/complaining about ranks ... more focus on winning and/or fun. Then again ... we have thos players that want a visible rating/rank to brag with and to see progression (for motivation cause they can't just play for fun).

---

Conquest imo is more fun than Stronghold. I don't find Stronghold (tried it a few times) fun. It could be fun if all NPCs besids the lord were removed (or at least they could be replenished by the players like they already can hire an endless amount of attacking NPCs). Preferably though no NPCs besides the lord and players building siege and attacking/damaging the gates. (Major flaw that they can't do that. Makes it into a boring escort job where you need to protect boring NPCs.)

For the conquest we have boring maps like Djinn, Coliseum - where the side mechanics don't contribute much. (They can get ignored most of the time.) More interesting maps like Capricorn. And the really fun maps like Spirit Watch and Temple.

Spirit Watch could have been turned into a capture the flag game mode where no conquest capture points exist. But yeah the "we don't want to split the playerbase bla" seems to prevent them from adding new stuff. People even discuss about having 2 vs. 2 only in mini seasons and don't want it in the current season besides conquest because it might split the playerbase. (More diversity = more attracting different kinds of players ... didn't occur to them it seems.)

[Pawlegance.7012]

@"montecristo.1324" said:

1) you can put standard enemy models in the options menu and all the classes will be represented by one standard character, so you can focus on the animations

2) in gw2 the rank means almost nothing, what you have to check is the rating of the player, is he a silver player? is he platinum? etc.When you play ATs people will ask your rating not your rank

3) gw2 pvp has roles, there are a lot of YouTube videos about it and I think also the wiki has a section about it.Maybe in low tier rating, and for new player, going dps is rewarding, but there are plenty of roles: bunkers, support, rotational dps, dps, duelist, etc.I suggest you to check on Twitch and on YouTube some videos of the AT and of the monthly automated tournament, you will see how coordinated this game is and how every player has a specific role and does his job on the map (for example a bunker or a duelist tend to play 1v1 on a node in order to contest/protect the node while a rotational dps may quickly join his teammate on a fight to kill one person and run away to help someone else on another role)

4) I think the way pvp is structured is quite alright, there are some things to fix of course, but the maps mechanics replace the "attrition" you are talking about. Losing a fight means that you probably lose one or two caps, and it also means that you need to regroup and probably you will lose also the next fight if you are not clever enough to think about another strategy or change the way you are playing the game (focus on quick rotations instead of fighting).

1) yeah, I forgot about that. Thanks for reminding. however, would you be able, as a caster, to explain what is going on to the average joe watching it on twitch? it is just so flashy.

2) for some reason, I got placed into gold after completing placement matches, I didn't even do that well. I'd put myself into bronze since I've not beenplaying for so long. it is unclear why I was placed way above my league. I will probably not participate in ATs due to time constraints.however the number of snowballing matches in this game is insane. Matchmaking appears to be non-existant.

3) to be honest, spvp feels way more chaotic any other pvp game I played. please clarify the difference between a rotational dps, dps and duelist. I haven't seen dps stick to a specific node. in any case, according to your posts conquest seems to be deeper than it presents itself and makes it even harder for new players to climb. Since you claim, there is a difference between at, mat play and regular soloq games, ANET should focus on clearing misconceptions and make it easier to learn the game.compare it to lol or dota or most mobas, the way the game is played doesn't change between high level play and low level play. You've got 5 fixed roles and you learn them. In gw1 roles were even more pronounced with Mesmers and Rangers focusing on disruption and split.

there appears to be a gap between new players coming to pvp and veterans. I don't think just saying l2p builds the bridge.

4) well, it doesn't really defeat my point. my point was about actual shifts in power if you do better or worse than the other team. statistics can be deceiving. it is not like a team actually scores after the win a fight. e.g. in football you score if you outplay your opponent (most of the times), same in rocket league, in gw1 you gain a morale boost, kill npcs or the lord, destroy structures in lol/dota etc, in spvp it just ticks away. there is no actual gain and loss.

there are reasons why the pvp mode never took off and gains so little traction.

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

See this is the issue with the matchmaker. Placing you in gold means your being put waaaaaay higher, and likewise some of the best players who should be in plat are in waaaaay lower than they should be and you get matches where it’s completely unbalanced. It’s a failure of the matchmaker that people refuse to acknowledge

[montecristo.1324]

@Pawlegance.7012 said:

@"montecristo.1324" said:

1) you can put standard enemy models in the options menu and all the classes will be represented by one standard character, so you can focus on the animations

2) in gw2 the rank means almost nothing, what you have to check is the rating of the player, is he a silver player? is he platinum? etc.When you play ATs people will ask your rating not your rank

3) gw2 pvp has roles, there are a lot of YouTube videos about it and I think also the wiki has a section about it.Maybe in low tier rating, and for new player, going dps is rewarding, but there are plenty of roles: bunkers, support, rotational dps, dps, duelist, etc.I suggest you to check on Twitch and on YouTube some videos of the AT and of the monthly automated tournament, you will see how coordinated this game is and how every player has a specific role and does his job on the map (for example a bunker or a duelist tend to play 1v1 on a node in order to contest/protect the node while a rotational dps may quickly join his teammate on a fight to kill one person and run away to help someone else on another role)

4) I think the way pvp is structured is quite alright, there are some things to fix of course, but the maps mechanics replace the "attrition" you are talking about. Losing a fight means that you probably lose one or two caps, and it also means that you need to regroup and probably you will lose also the next fight if you are not clever enough to think about another strategy or change the way you are playing the game (focus on quick rotations instead of fighting).

1) yeah, I forgot about that. Thanks for reminding. however, would you be able, as a caster, to explain what is going on to the average joe watching it on twitch? it is just so flashy.

2) for some reason, I got placed into gold after completing placement matches, I didn't even do that well. I'd put myself into bronze since I've not beenplaying for so long. it is unclear why I was placed way above my league. I will probably not participate in ATs due to time constraints.however the number of snowballing matches in this game is insane. Matchmaking appears to be non-existant.

3) to be honest, spvp feels way more chaotic any other pvp game I played. please clarify the difference between a rotational dps, dps and duelist. I haven't seen dps stick to a specific node. in any case, according to your posts conquest seems to be deeper than it presents itself and makes it even harder for new players to climb. Since you claim, there is a difference between at, mat play and regular soloq games, ANET should focus on clearing misconceptions and make it easier to learn the game.compare it to lol or dota or most mobas, the way the game is played doesn't change between high level play and low level play. You've got 5 fixed roles and you learn them. In gw1 roles were even more pronounced with Mesmers and Rangers focusing on disruption and split.

there appears to be a gap between new players coming to pvp and veterans. I don't think just saying l2p builds the bridge.

4) well, it doesn't really defeat my point. my point was about actual shifts in power if you do better or worse than the other team. statistics can be deceiving. it is not like a team actually scores after the win a fight. e.g. in football you score if you outplay your opponent (most of the times), same in rocket league, in gw1 you gain a morale boost, kill npcs or the lord, destroy structures in lol/dota etc, in spvp it just ticks away. there is no actual gain and loss.

there are reasons why the pvp mode never took off and gains so little traction.

in my opinion is totally a l2p issue. And I'm not attacking you, it's just a general thing. If I start to play dota now, I never played it, I totally don't know which champions is good for a certain lane and which build I have to build on it. In the same way, when you start to play gw2 you don't know which class should play a certain role with a certain build.There are websites like metabattle or godsofpvp which help you on that giving explanations and builds.

The difference between rotational dps, dps and duelist is simple:let's take a power herald revenant with high mobility and burst potential, this class is a rotational dps, because it can rotate quickly from one node to another and do a +1 on the fights to get a kill, then move againa power reaper on the other hand, is really strong in AoE and pressure damage but it is slow, he can't rotate quicly, so what he can do is try to stick to the larger fights and rotatle slowly whith them, he is a dpsa duelist, like a LR weaver is a class with a good damage and some heals that can win a 1v1 and he needs to try to focus on finding a node with only one enemy on it and try to pressure this enemy from the node and cap it.

There are a lot of roles, and everyone has a specific thing to do! check on youtube you will find a lot of guides about it, you can also check metabattle and godsofpvp

I'm not a pro player so probably some things can be explained better!

[Ovark.2514]

@Pawlegance.7012 said:

there appears to be a gap between new players coming to pvp and veterans. I don't think just saying l2p builds the bridge.

Hear Hear!

[choovanski.5462]

give this video a watch @Pawlegance.7012 . it's a cast of recent monthly tournament by an experienced caster. you'll get to see a lot more of the rotational depth, and variety of roles than you would in a regular solo queue match. this game really takes on a whole new level when the teams are coordinated

[Pawlegance.7012]

Thank you for your answers. Will definately check out this video. I've watched Mighty Teapots (?) casting of a recent monthly tournament and wasn't impressed. In fact, it was hard to follow and didn't advertise the game. Most games snowballed hard once a team got the upper hand. The pace of this game doesn't help either.

"in my opinion is totally a l2p issue. And I'm not attacking you, it's just a general thing. If I start to play dota now, I never played it, I totally don't know which champions is good for a certain lane and which build I have to build on it. In the same way, when you start to play gw2 you don't know which class should play a certain role with a certain build."No offense taken. The difference is I rather watch dota and learn (monkey see, monkey do) by watching. Well, I wouldn't even start comparing the depth and gameplay of spvp with dota , that's not even a competition.

[DMO.4158]

I love how there's this magical threshold that one must overcome before the game becomes fun and balanced.

I always see the same argument brought forth about "higher rank" play and it's irrelevant to normal players. Vast majority of people will never stick with it long enough to get there. Totally moot point.

Do you balance around the 1%ers that show up in some obscure twitch stream from Europe or do you balance it around the brunt of the population looking for a fair match?

This game doesn't have the market pull nor the population to sustain a 1%er focus. E-sports was a wipe. Twitch viewership is abysmal compared to other MMOs. This game isn't even part of the conversation or consciousness in the grand scheme of things.

8 years of catering to the top end and all its done is create a small niche of players trying to gatekeep so 1%ers can have a good time at everyone else's expense.

Catering to the pros didn't bring in players. It didn't cause a twitch explosion. Leagues dumped it. It barely made any kind of tangible dent in wow's population. Everything they tried to do has failed.

Maybe it's time to sacrifice the small number of gatekeepers for the greater good of the player base and long term health of the mode.

[Avatar.3568]

@"DMO.4158" said:I love how there's this magical threshold that one must overcome before the game becomes fun and balanced.

I always see the same argument brought forth about "higher rank" play and it's irrelevant to normal players. Vast majority of people will never stick with it long enough to get there. Totally moot point.

Do you balance around the 1%ers that show up in some obscure twitch stream from Europe or do you balance it around the brunt of the population looking for a fair match?

This game doesn't have the market pull nor the population to sustain a 1%er focus. E-sports was a wipe. Twitch viewership is abysmal compared to other MMOs. This game isn't even part of the conversation or consciousness in the grand scheme of things.

8 years of catering to the top end and all its done is create a small niche of players trying to gatekeep so 1%ers can have a good time at everyone else's expense.

Catering to the pros didn't bring in players. It didn't cause a twitch explosion. Leagues dumped it. It barely made any kind of tangible dent in wow's population. Everything they tried to do has failed.

Maybe it's time to sacrifice the small number of gatekeepers for the greater good of the player base and long term health of the mode.

If you do not balance around 1% the lower leagues will get even more unbalanced and unfun

[Exedore.6320]

@DMO.4158 said:8 years of catering to the top end and all its done is create a small niche of players trying to gatekeep so 1%ers can have a good time at everyone else's expense.

Catering to the pros didn't bring in players. It didn't cause a twitch explosion. Leagues dumped it. It barely made any kind of tangible dent in wow's population. Everything they tried to do has failed.

Maybe it's time to sacrifice the small number of gatekeepers for the greater good of the player base and long term health of the mode.Catering to the face-rollers is what happened in HoT and PoF with brain-dead and overpowered builds. HoT with Chronobunker is what killed e-sports.

[Kuma.1503]

GW2 could do a lot to improve clarity. Unless you invest money into character slots, and time into playing every class, it's difficult to comprehend what's killing you at any given time.

Games like League have taken great strides to improve clarity, and for that reason, players generally have a good idea of why they died. Even if they don't know what they should have done better, they can at least look back and say "It was definately skills X and Y that killed me". I'm not sure what can be done to improve this. League is a MOBA so PvP combat is a top priority. Gw2 is a PvE game first and foremost, so I'm not sure how this can be improved given the game's design. Then there's the question of whether it's financially viable to invest the resources into doing so.

[JTGuevara.9018]

@"JusticeRetroHunter.7684" said:See this is the issue with the matchmaker. Placing you in gold means your being put waaaaaay higher, and likewise some of the best players who should be in plat are in waaaaay lower than they should be and you get matches where it’s completely unbalanced. It’s a failure of the matchmaker that people refuse to acknowledge

Yeah, this is why I will call out not only the stupid RNG-based matchmaking system, but the community itself for looking the other way as they benefit from it. You want to cry about bots? There are no bots! There are just ragers, afkers, quitters and so-called "elites" and forum warriors that want to deny that there's a problem or want to BS you.