API Designed Individual Rating System - Suggestions - Why Ranked Mode Needs Healing

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

The Reason Why Previous Individual Rating Suggestions Haven't Been So Hot:

Over the years we've seen many suggestions based around the idea of individual rating, but none of them have really panned out well for how the game of conquest is designed. The biggest reason why previous suggestions haven't panned out well is because the suggestions that were made would have encouraged the idea to play for your individual rating and not necessarily for winning the match. This would obviously defeat the purpose of the conquest match to begin with and the glicko algorithm rating system that is behind it. As much as we've wanted these ideas to work, our suggestions haven't been very practical for implementation set on top of the algorithm and its rated seasons.

But now hold on there. All of our suggestions have been based around the idea of sculpting an individual rating system around the algorithm and rated seasons. None of our suggestions were based around the idea of seeing past it, or possibly devising an entirely different system that is set next to it that doesn't effect it at all. I'll explain what I mean shortly here, but first it is more important to explain why the current design of ranked encourages ridiculous levels of completely unnecessary toxicity, and why it is failing in 2020.

The Reasons Why Ranked 5v5 Seasons Are Overly Toxic, Failing, And Driving Off Player Base:

1. Too much organized win trading. It's the same people who have always done it, but now with much lower population you can't avoid these guys unless you sit around and play this queue dodge game where you wait for the stars to align so you can queue a game when either all of the know win traders are already in games or not online, and hopefully not on alt accounts trying to throw phase against players they don't want climbing. This is ridiculous in 2020. To be able to avoid these guys is extremely difficult to do at this point with low population. You can sit in the mists for half a day or a full day and never get an opening to queue for a clean game.
2. Too much vengeful alt throwing. This happens a lot more frequently than people realize. For those players who don't hang out in discords very often, you probably haven't heard the types of things that people say about other people, or heard them in action while they are performing certain shenanigans against certain players. Guys will hang out in discords together while queueing, and the guys who are on alts will sometimes land in games, and you'll straight out flat out hear them say things like: "Bro I'm in a team with Bob & Steve. Should I throw?" and then when people find out that players are doing that to them, it encourages those players to synch queue with a lot of friends to greatly dampen the chances of things like that happening, and can you really blame them? But ultimately all of this is what leads to and has turned the game into the no so secret win trade wars.
3. Too much blocking the leaderboards with alts for various reasons. Players have long figured out that they can control the leaderboards very easily within the solo/duo only format, so long as they have the social clout to organize it and get away with it. This leads to a certain regime of players who work these leaderboards seriously, in hopes of making some extra cash along the way through the means of charging players money for titles, as well as maintaining the reputation of their appearance in conjunction with what happens on stream. This has been happening for a very long time now and it isn't fair for legitimate players who are playing clean & fairly.
4. When all of the aforementioned aspects align: 1) Organized Win Trading - 2) General Vengeance ALT Throws - 3) Leaderboard Position ALT Blockade, it turns into 4) Low Population. When the population becomes so low, these problems become exasperated to a point that they create a situation where a player's social standing within the community becomes every bit as important for climbing the leaderboards as their actual skill level & experience playing the game of conquest. A few examples of what I mean, and these are things that I have sat and watched happen or experienced first hand: "A certain female player wants to quit the game because her class was nerfed and she is now playing at much lower ratings than she is used to and it has her all pissed off. So the bros get together and someone convinces her to try a few more games. They synch queue on alts and make sure she gets back to a position to where she is happy and wants to stay." - "Player (A) duo queues with someone who he thinks is a friend which is Player (B). Player (A) has a strong reputation within the community for being a rager in the discord when he is losing. Player (B) thinks it is funny and a different group of players has convinced Player (B) to duo queue with Player (A) and troll him by losing ranked matches as to induce rage, so Player (B) can voice record him and let the other group of players listen to it later so they can get a good laugh out of it." - "A streamer engages a 1v1 in a private custom arena with someone he does not like. The streamer is 100% positive that he will win the 1v1 so he streams it. The streamer ends up losing the 1v1 on his own live stream after much trash talking. The streamer becomes angry and turns off his stream as he threatens the player who beat him, that he and his friends will now queue snipe him for existing. And then that streamer actually goes out of his way to do this for 3 seasons in a row. Cough you know who you are." - "A reputable strong player asks someone for 100g and the person actually gives it to him without asking any questions at all. Suddenly on that day, the player who gave the 100g goes on magical 15 game win streak and rides into a much higher rating than he has ever been at before." The point being is that depending on how a player's social standings are with the people driving the throw wars, a player could be favored & protected, targeted for trolling, or simply neutral and unnoticed. <- This stuff has become very real in 2020 and no matter how you look at it, it has become too much of a popularity contest for something that is supposed to be a competitive pvp mode.
5. Then this all leads to low queue participation. People sit around taking their time queue dodging, waiting for good openings for easy or clean queues, only running a few matches a day. When they get to that desired rating and have enough games played, they begin avoiding queues and only play 1 every 3 days because of how ridiculous risky it is to just queue and have fun. Although this is an entirely separate discussion on its own, this is definitely a symptom of the 4 aforementioned points before it, and it is a problem. People want to queue and play this game, but everything about how ranked is designed, discourages high rates of participation if players want to play for rating.

All of this has continued to result in lower and lower population at an exponential rate, each passing season, which is why the mode is failing. These problems have mainly been enabled due to the decision to implement and then maintain solo/duo only format. Keyword there is "mainly" this is not the only reason, but it is the seed reason, where the great decline in population began. This is when people started to slowly realize how bad the system was being gamed by players, when they were forced to play with PUGs and began to witness obvious throwing in their games. This isn't to say that Arenanet could have even avoided the decision to go solo/duo only, even if they wanted to. And this discussion isn't about solo/duo vs. 5 man que in ranked, so let's avoid that discussion entirely.

The thing about all of this, is that players who aren't so social, who don't get into discords, who don't talk to many people, they have no idea what's going on. They queue games and blindly believe the games are clean. And even the people who believe the games are clean, they are still able to "feel" that something is wrong with the matches. Even though they cannot explain what is happening, you often hear these people making comments in-game or posting in the forum with statements indicating that they believe the match maker and class balance is completely responsible for the strangely frequent turnouts in ranked games that look like 500 to 50. But those of us who are deep into the game and its community, know that the problems with match making aren't really problems with the algorithm or "match making" at all, but rather "match outcomes" which goes a great deal deeper than algorithm functions or class balance. As much is obvious when a player queues Unranked or ATs for 20 games in a row and doesn't see a single DC or AFK, but they see a DC or AFK in just about 1 out of 3 or 4 Ranked games they queue. As much is obvious when a player queues Unranked or ATs for 20 games in a row and every time the queue box pops people accept and the match starts, but when a Ranked queue box pops there is often a decline and it goes back into queue again, and then the box pops and there is another decline and it goes back into queue again, box pops 3rd time and finally all accept and the match starts. <- That's people declining when they aren't getting into the same match as their synch queues. And as much is clearly obvious, when an AT team of plat 1 players happens to beat an AT team of top 20 players, although the top 20 players somehow play 300 to 400 rating higher than they do, each and every single season without ever dropping out of those margins.

And this brings me to the final effect & reason of why the population is shrinking so quickly. Simply put, there is no reward for legitimate competitive players in this system, there is only loss. What I mean is that, the reward in pvp for competitive players was never gold or gems or precursors/legendaries. The reward for competitive players in any game including Guild Wars 2, is was and will continue to be seeing the progress of their own personal skill value and skill status amongst the community. In the long term, competitive pvp players will continue to play a game like Guild Wars 2 for as long as the servers remain live, so long as they are able to maintain the relevance of their peak skill within community status. This is because it feels good to do something you are familiar with, that you know you're good at, and other people can see that you're good at. However in Guild Wars 2, due to all of the reasons I've mentioned about why the ranked system is failing, you have this effect now with low population where old P3/P2 players are dropping down into P2/P1, old P2/P1 players are dropping down into bottom P1 and touching Gold, and old bottom P1 players are dropping down into G2 and getting uncomfortably close to the Silver division. This is where players are feeling nothing but loss. There is no psychological reward for seeing yourself go from an old P2 player down to a bottom P1 player who struggles to fight out of Gold each season, and there certainly isn't a psychological reward in being an old P1 player who now plays damn near down into G1. This effect removes everything that would normally feel rewarding to a player who has been a regular competitor and stuck with a game title for nearly 10 years. It is actually incredibly abnormal in any game, for the oldest veterans in that game to be suddenly dropping through the floor with their ratings or wins, if they didn't chose to stand on the right side of the fence. In all of the games I've played over the years, the opposite happens, where the veterans who stick around play higher not lower. Arenanet should take 2 steps back to seriously consider why their game is different. Special shout out to: Solo/Duo Only - F2P Accounts - ALT Accounts - Unchecked Match Manipulation - Leaderboard Blockades - And Shrinking Divisional Rating Margins Due To Low Population Which Makes It All Worse. Point being is, all of this makes players leave when they only feel psychological loss. The tragic thing is that none of this needed to happen in Guild Wars 2 ranked and it certainly didn't need to go this far. But again, that's not really what we're talking about here.

What we're talking about here is that we need something new, a change, for the longevity of our enjoyment playing Guild Wars 2 pvp. It is my firm belief that for a company to maintain healthy player base in a game while approaching the 10 year bench mark, the game needs to provide that hardcore player base with the feeling that they are "progressing" or at least "maintaining" their skill values & standings within competitive modes. That feeling of progression or maintaining could even be an illusion entirely, but it needs to be provided or legitimate players will lose interest and leave when they are being forced out of competitive margins, especially if they know it is happening due to shenanigans which cannot be avoided. What we're talking about here is a need for an individual rating system that actually works. So regardless of seasonal rating and badge icon, a player can always judge himself, judge others, and be judged by others, through the individual player rating. By doing this, we can give the game back the quintessential feeling of progression or ability to maintain the real reward, which is psychological clout. And then people would feel good while playing again rather than just feeling loss.

A Call To Arenanet And All API Designers - We Need An Individual Rating System - Let's Talk About It

@Cal Cohen.2358 @"Ben Phongluangtham.1065"

Please read this particular part of the thread:

I think that where the community has gone wrong with previous suggestions for individual rating systems, including my own suggestions, is that we've all imagined the idea that an individual rating system would replace the current seasonal rating system, which would intrinsically come with many complications to implement and many potential problems as to if it would even be practical to implement at all. So I've been looking at this differently lately, and I believe a strong & simple remedy for many of the problems that Guild Wars 2 Ranked is facing, lies within an individual rating system that is actually completely separate from the normal seasonal rating system. The separate individual rating system could still be completely based around a player's performance during the ranked season, so it would be synonymous with the ranked season but be displayed on a completely separate leaderboard. If Arenanet would not be interested to implement something like this within the game's actual UI, I believe the answer to be within an API design if API was able to access pvp stat data. Without getting too crazy on suggestions just yet, let me give the easiest possible example of how something like this could work:

1. The API tool for individual player rating becomes available right now. The individual player ratings will be viewable via some specific website. Other tools linked to that tool, could also be designed for discord use. Keep in mind that this individual rating idea is truly an individual rating. It doesn't gauge anything against anyone else, other than the one player who is using the API for himself. In other words, only 1 person could ever download this API and it would be completely functional. It doesn't need a large community pool to work in the same way that the normal glicko needs.
2. Take the already existing personal after-match stats that Arenanet has provided us and we'll base the individual player rating off of these stats. We can get into how important or not those top stats are a bit later. We can go into suggestions of better ways to gauge personal rating a bit later. Right now what we're looking at is the easiest possible implementation of an individual rating system. So imagine that our beta test API will track all of the games played during that specific season. We are actually going to use something like the glicko algorithm for the individual rating, hear me out on this, it's just a template, but it's a good one. When a season starts the player will begin at say 1400 individual rating, and this number will be static, meaning it never goes away. What happens is that this number is dynamically altered for the individual rating display, depending on the factoring of top stats achieved each game, how many were achieved in each game, and the average rating bonus of those top stats achieved from all games played. We have 6 top stats, damage, kills, healing, offense, defense, revives. Let's say that getting a top stat is worth 100 points so getting 6 top stats in a game is worth +600 points to the individual rating for that one game. If a player played his first game that season and achieved 6 top stats in that single game played, he would be at 1400 + 600 = 2000 individual rating. But if he were to receive no top stats at all in the 2nd game he played, the API would average the top stat bonuses from both games, making his individual rating become 1400 + 300 = 1700. Realistically what we'd be looking at here, is a player who averages 1 or less top stats a game, resulting in an individual rating between 1400-1500. A player averaging between 1 and 2 top stats a game, coming in at rating margins between 1500-1600. A strong player who averages 2 to 3 top stats a game, coming in at around 1600-1700. Then a carry boss who manages to average 3 to 4 top stats a game, will weigh in at around 1700-1800. And if a player can someone manage to average 4 to 5 to 6 top stats a game, they will have rightly earned an individual rating of 1800 to 1900 to 2000. Again, this is just a beta template idea to spur thought & discussion.
3. Don't worry about players trying to play for personal stats/rating before playing to win the game. The ranked season is still completely based around winning games, and people will play to win games before playing for individual rating because you know, that plat badge. The individual rating API is there simply for legitimate players to have a different kind of a gauge on player weight. Additionally, when contrasted with the normal rating system, this becomes a more accurate way of gauging a player's true value and if they are being carried, if they are doing the carrying, if they are match manipulating or if they're being trolled & sniped. For example, it would be quite suspicious if a Gold 2 player was somehow achieving 4 to 6 top stats on average but somehow couldn't fight his way out of the Gold 2 division? Or if a Plat 3 player was somehow only averaging 0 to 1 top stats but somehow had a 90% win rate?
4. Don't worry about players gaming the system. When stopping to think about how you could do that in a ranked season, it wouldn't be easy to do and an account would likely risk losing matches to do it, which I would imagine would completely discourage any attempt to do so at all.

The beautiful thing with this, is that regardless of if a person is win trading or throwing or playing legitimately & fairly, and regardless of what normal seasonal rating they actually play at, none of that matters at all. An individual rating system like this, is designed for players to be able to see who is playing hard and who is sort eking by in their matches, regardless of actual rating, which many players now, including old vets, would tell you really doesn't matter in 2020 with how botched the queues are, for all of the reasons I've already mentioned. It could create a massive iconic shift in how players view their progress & maintenance of clout within the community, which is the real psychological reward that competitive players are seeking. Something like this could keep many players satisfied for many years to come. This is what this game mode is really missing. It isn't class balance or new maps. It's missing "the feel good" alongside of a reason to run bottomless queues and have fun again, without worrying about camping that peak rating and avoiding shady queues. With a system like this, it wouldn't matter if you were losing a match 500 to 50. If you were the strongest player on your team, you'd still be achieving a strong rating value for that match played. With a system like this, players don't get fudged out of ranking positions they deserve, because multiple players can share the same exact individual rating. A system like this is all about how hard you are playing in the match. A system like this discourages all forms of cheating and match manipulation because a player could have a 100% lose rate in every match he played during a season, but still be the strongest individual player because he played that hard during every match that he lost. A system like this even discourages rage AFKing because there is always incentive to get the top stats. It would help discourage toxic communication because players will care less if they know they're individually playing well. It discourages every single thing that makes the ranked game mode toxic. A system like this is exactly what Guild Wars 2 needs to keep the pvp game mode alive, if not actually grow in popularity again. Late blooming game modes have happened plenty of times to plenty of games in the past, when monumental changes are made. And Guild Wars 2 is a game that people WANT TO PLAY and I don't think Arenanet takes that seriously enough. It is still highly highly regarded as the best MMORPG engine, even in pvp. All people needed to see was a fix to the platform. And I truly believe the platform that needed fixing was the psychology of how this game was making them feel.

Why hasn't something simple like this happened yet? I don't know, maybe it isn't possible. But if it is, this is a shout out to API Designers who are interested, and god willing Arenanet if they were so inclined to implement something new into the actual UI. If anyone knows the names & contacts of any API designers who like to work with Guild Wars 2, please drop them a link to this thread. If we were ever to get an individual rating system, this is more than likely the way that that we'd have to do it.

~ Thanks to anyone who took the time to actually read this thread. I'd say this is the most serious suggestion I've ever made, and the one I've cared about the most.~ Give any feedback you want, even if it's nasty. Just brainstorm.~ If API wouldn't work for accessing pvp data, if anyone knows their stuff about API, could you drop the facts into this thread please?

[Varron.4291]

Jayy savage is #1 rev worldwide UwUHe deserves to be rank 1

[Avatar.3568]

Idk if this would help, thief players that fly through the map and decap the shit out, would benefit way less.A player that just sit the whole game on enemy point and try to decap and fight, will have probably have most dmg and most heal, but he would still not be a good player, but would blame everyone because he thinks he is a godlike player and say "look at my individual rating, I get every game at least 2 top stats but I still hang in Silver because of noob mates"

It would much more help if they ban bots, wintraders and the very few hackers.

If people want to get high ranks learn many different classes for rerolling or master your one class that you can carry nearly every game.

[choovanski.5462]

considering what top stats you can get depends on what build/role you're playing, you do realise this system will literally favour particular builds and give others nothing.

anyone playing a support well enough so they don't need to res teammates can hope for top healing only as a stat. awesome.

however rotational DPS can go for max offense, kills, damage, and even healing if they play something like holo or condi rev.

does three top stats mean you played 3x as well? not at all, and we all know this.

so a system where your rating is determined by top stats is just going to favour particular type of builds, and not really give a good indicator of skill at all.

[Fearless.3569]

GW2's PvP is past it's prime and is almost a died corpse. To the point ANet started to inject bots into PvP. To make up for the lack of players.

With the situation with the win-traders, bots, and trolls. It's gotten to the point where if you want decent PvP. You'll have to go to a well established eSport title to get it.

[rng.1024]

We definitely need to introduce an actual rating and an effective rating, and let the matchmaker work off of the effective rating instead.

The effective rating could be adjusted by:

• Last 3 games performance
• Class rating (already implemented)
• Dishonor
• Top stats (it really shouldn't)
• Previous season performance
• Lifetime account winratio
• Lifetime account games played
• Rank points etc

We also know by the way dishonored works, that we can make entirely separate queues like this with a simple addition to the algorithm.

Imo the best approach is to reward the good and punish the bad. This still won't lead to better matches at first, because some players are carried by build/duo/team into higher ratings.

My suggestion would be to recycle the "join party prompt at the end of a match to choose the mvp (your team) of the match. Duo's who vote for eachother don't count, in fact the existence of duo's help this system remain impartial. You cannot leave the map until you cast your vote. After a while this value accumukates meaning yoy did better than the other 3 teammates in an average 3+2 game, and that should be rewarded.

This value is alot harder to wintrade with since:

• Enemy team can't vote for you
• Your duo can't vote for you
• Only applies in ranked matches
• If you have no duos and it becomes a 2-2 tie, it is selected randomly between you

We need player input here, and we need to force the issue on the lazy ones. Metrics alone can't fix it, and we know the devs want as easy a fix as possible. By rewarding good behaviour and giving them a boost it becomes more rewarding than throwing a match. Instead of punishing bad behaviour, we let them play in lower divisions because this added rating buffer will keep players in good conduct always above, meaning the algorithm doesn't have to stretch down there when the population dips.

As a simple example:

• Every mvp you get, your effective rating is adjusted by 1.01 (multiplicative) from your actual rating.

The good thing is it scales with games played. More chances to get mvp, easier to climb and benefits solo q massively while duo q lose nothing. It's fair and solves the problem of imbalanced matches by filtering up those who do good leaving the average/bad/wintrading ones at the bottom (which literally was the rating system purpose) on an individual basis, in conjunction with the traditional team winratio of course.

And yes, it should decay every so often to make sure you just don't play off primetime and "happen" to get 3 buddies in your team everytime for a massive effective rating boost. There are a 100 easy fixes for this.

Also wintrading and actual rating won't be enough to land you a top 250 title anymore, since those from plat 1-2 in good conduct will have a ~100 point buffer (defined by decay), but of course if your winratio is above a certain threshold (again defined by how high decay allows the effective rating modifier to go) you will still place above.

[phokus.8934]

A Trevor thread that rivals a Crab thread. I wonder who would win in a duel?

[Tayga.3192]

@phokus.8934 said:A Trevor thread that rivals a Crab thread. I wonder who would win in a duel?

in 1v1? Trevor wins.

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

@"choovanski.5462" said:considering what top stats you can get depends on what build/role you're playing, you do realise this system will literally favour particular builds and give others nothing.

anyone playing a support well enough so they don't need to res teammates can hope for top healing only as a stat. awesome.

however rotational DPS can go for max offense, kills, damage, and even healing if they play something like holo or condi rev.

does three top stats mean you played 3x as well? not at all, and we all know this.

so a system where your rating is determined by top stats is just going to favour particular type of builds, and not really give a good indicator of skill at all.

Yeah but it's entirely reflective of if players on those builds are actually carrying or not. I fully expected 10x different iterations of exactly what you just said to show up in this thread. The thing is though, people don't get 4-6 top stats without carrying like Atlas, and they don't get 0-1 top stats by without being relatively less present than the guy getting 4-6 top stats. If a Herald or Holo is getting 4 top stats in a game, it's because that guy is carrying hard that season, regardless of if it is because of massive personal skill or that his current class is over-powered. It does equate to how hard someone is playing.

When have you ever received 4+ top stats and sat back and said: "Man that's weird I didn't think I was doing that great. Actually I was farmed that entire game." And when have you ever received no top stats and honestly said to yourself: "I was carrying much harder that game than the guy who got 3 top stats."

Getting no top stats doesn't necessarily mean that a person was bad, and getting many top stats doesn't necessarily mean that a person was super amazing either. But come on now, when dudes get 3 top stats, damage, heal, defense, that means the guy was engaged in combat defending nodes, dealing more damage, and taking/healing more damage than anyone else on his team. People like to toss the cliché that "top stats don't mean anything" but that's kind of a convoluted statement that only applies in certain situations. Honestly, top stats matter more than people give them credit for, in my opinion.

Upon that, about your analogy with Thief. Team Fighters are the ones who are really winning the matches. Even I've had to admit this myself lately. A match cannot be won without winning team fights. So the most important presence to have in your team, are guys that win fights. Something like a Thief who is off node often rotating around for decaps, cannot do his job without a capable team fight presence or he gets snowballed & chased and can't do anything at all. But on the other hand, a capable team fight crew can do their jobs perfectly fine without the Thief at all, by simply holding 2 nodes and winning. I'm not saying that a Thief isn't important, but I am saying that the team fighters are more important. They are the ones who win games. This is why people cringe when they see double Thief rolled on their team, but they are happy if they see double Herald. This is why Heralds/Holos/Necros/FBs/ect ect often get many top stats, because they are engaged in combat nearly 90% of the time in the match and they are the ones who are responsible for if nodes are being held or lost, depending on where they push that decisive team fight. Honestly man, the people playing those classes should be the ones getting more top stats because they are the ones who are usually responsible for the carry.

But aside from that, I wish you guys would pay attention to 2x important things:

1. I stated that the beta template idea for the top stat individual rating system was simply an exercise to get the mental gears cranking, and to show how easy it could be to introduce a separate individual rating system through API, that can do its work alongside of the normal algorithm, not replace it.
2. I asked for feedback and I appreciate all of it. But when I asked for feedback, I was more imagining brainstorming & suggestions for improving the beta template idea that I had laid down, not so much just players shooting it down entirely.

Look, I was going to go out of my way to try and contact & work with some people to organize a few cool community driven projects like this. Another project that I have planned which would be much easier to complete and put into motion than this one, would be a way for players to have a sort "casual 1v1 system with ranking" so to say. So take this seriously and let's talk about it, rather than just shoot down every idea because this is the GW2 forum and that's what everyone is used to doing.

[Sneakers.8462]

That was a lengthy but really well put post about all of the problems ongoing in Ranked. It's no secret the current system is not working and the player base is dwindling so something must be done.

I'm no developer so I'm not qualified to suggest how to fix it but one thing that concerns me is if a system that revolves around "Top Stats" is implemented, certain classes would be more optimal to boost individual rating making an overflow of 1 specific class in games.Say for example the current Grenade Holosmith build, it can quite easily get top damage, top kills, top offense and or defense while a Tempest can realistically only get top healing. Does the Holo deserve the better individual rating, personally I'd argue no as both were fulfilling their roles.

I'd personally like a system that leans more into the roles seen in current games that the community has created: Support, Roamer, Teamfigher, Side-Noder. Then you can judge a player on how they perform in THAT role.

Regardless I'm just spit balling more ideas but I agree with everything you said about the current system being broken, great post!

[Koen.1327]

its the opposite, if you kill your enemy fast you wont get any top stats unless they keep feeding then maybe top killsbasically has been said already you can 1v1 on enemy node and get all top stats

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

You guys are focusing way way way too much on "top stats wouldn't be an ineffective gauge".

Once again, I already pointed out that the purpose of that suggestion was simply to show how easily a simple API program could be implemented.

What I was really looking for was suggestions & discussion on what would be a good gauge for an individual rating system.

So far, @Broady.2358 has the only suggestion even made, which is a system designed to gauge someone's effectiveness at their job role.

[Stand The Wall.6987]

you could group top stats into categories to support @Broady.2358's idea, so a roamer could get top kills but not top damage and healing.example:roamer/ side noder - kills, offense, defensesupport - damage mitigated, healing, revivesteam fighter - kills, damage, boons removed

each player would fight for one category. added top kills twice since its important and I forgot all of the top stats. I think adding in a kill/ death ratio would be in order to help weed out the possibility of people playing horribly but somehow getting top stats, either by team/ build carry or some other factor. support would suffer from this but then again barely anyone plays support so they are naturally facing less competition in the top stats arena. also I think protection and aegis should have diminished value since guard can pump out so much of it, and obviously account for things like stone heart.

[Exedore.6320]

As others have pointed out, individual scores simply don't work. There are too many factors and "ya, but"s which sink the concept. I've seen it used in other places (Overwatch, CS:GO) and at best it had no effect. The best metric is still whether you won or lost.

If you want to fix some of the match manipulation, make ranked 1-5 queue again. Being able to queue with a larger group can overcome AFK trolls. Making that change takes 10 minutes.

[Bazsi.2734]

This is not an appropriate forum to submit your thesis. First tl:dr I did in years... it feels disrespectful but I dont have a spare hour to read lol.

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

@Stand The Wall.6987 said:you could group top stats into categories to support @Broady.2358's idea, so a roamer could get top kills but not top damage and healing.example:roamer/ side noder - kills, offense, defensesupport - damage mitigated, healing, revivesteam fighter - kills, damage, boons removed

each player would fight for one category. added top kills twice since its important and I forgot all of the top stats. I think adding in a kill/ death ratio would be in order to help weed out the possibility of people playing horribly but somehow getting top stats, either by team/ build carry or some other factor. support would suffer from this but then again barely anyone plays support so they are naturally facing less competition in the top stats arena. also I think protection and aegis should have diminished value since guard can pump out so much of it, and obviously account for things like stone heart.

That's an excellent idea actually.

[Leonidrex.5649]

@Trevor Boyer.6524 before I waste my time reading the same arguments for n times.give me straightforward reply.Do you know a single game with similar concept, that did not backfire ? at least 1 example?

[Stand The Wall.6987]

@"Exedore.6320" said:As others have pointed out, individual scores simply don't work. There are too many factors and "ya, but"s which sink the concept. I've seen it used in other places (Overwatch, CS:GO) and at best it had no effect. The best metric is still whether you won or lost.

If you want to fix some of the match manipulation, make ranked 1-5 queue again. Being able to queue with a larger group can overcome AFK trolls. Making that change takes 10 minutes.

it isn't the best, its the best we've got. it would be the best if the mode required teams, its crap for solo play. win/ loss ratios work better in other games with solo mode cuz those games aren't complicated mmos. in 1st/ 3rd person shooters its pretty simple: kill bad guys and prevent them from doing xyz. mmos are the same but there is a whole other layer of rotations (conquest specific), builds, and extra combat mechanics all which aren't that easy to get into and started on. thats why i think conquest is completely inadequate for solo since most newbies will have no idea whats going on and generally won't have the chance. to be forced to third party learning is a complete fail, most people won't even bother. besides how the hell can you organize a team for a team based game mode when you can't even form one? someone please be a support, someone please guard home, oh you don't care because you're doing your solo thing, ok we've lost. pvp is utterly pointless like this.

[Stand The Wall.6987]

all that said i don't think top stats are indicative of that much. if i went 15-3, is it cuz i outplayed my opponents or did the matchmaker put me against people i could easily beat? if i got top damage, is it cuz i survived well in team fights or did the enemy team have noodle bunkers that let me wail on them all match? at best counting in top stats could put in some padding or lessen/ strengthen the losing/ winning points by a tad. a system like this works better in more populated games, which is true of all scoring systems, but for this one in particular i think it gets substantially worse for lower pops.

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

@Leonidrex.5649 said:@Trevor Boyer.6524 before I waste my time reading the same arguments for n times.give me straightforward reply.Do you know a single game with similar concept, that did not backfire ? at least 1 example?

Fortnite

Super Smash Bros

[Leonidrex.5649]

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

@Leonidrex.5649 said:@Trevor Boyer.6524 before I waste my time reading the same arguments for n times.give me straightforward reply.Do you know a single game with similar concept, that did not backfire ? at least 1 example?

Fortnite

Super Smash Bros

anything that is even close to what gw2 is?fortnite is a joke and super smash bros is 1v1 game.

[choovanski.5462]

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:Yeah but it's entirely reflective of if players on those builds are actually carrying or not. I fully expected 10x different iterations of exactly what you just said to show up in this thread. The thing is though, people don't get 4-6 top stats without carrying like Atlas, and they don't get 0-1 top stats by without being relatively less present than the guy getting 4-6 top stats.

spoken like someone who has obviously never played a bunker or support build. if you think anyone with more top stats than a tempest who just has top healing must be carrying harder than they are, you are insane.

you can get top kills easily by running around the map, plussing every fight and losing the game for your team by over rotating. you can get top damage, and top offense like that too.

I feel like you've never been in a team, because you seem to have very little idea about what actions actually contribute to a win. if you had experience with teams you would know that small clutch actions are far more important than things like top damage. you can even see this from watching the MOTA, the players who carry hardest and have massive impact on the matches are usually not the people with a big collection of top stats.

the fascination with top stats is a solo queue issue, and isn't considered a valuable performance metric by anyone serious. it's foolish to think so

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

@Leonidrex.5649 said:

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

@Leonidrex.5649 said:@Trevor Boyer.6524 before I waste my time reading the same arguments for n times.give me straightforward reply.Do you know a single game with similar concept, that did not backfire ? at least 1 example?

Fortnite

Super Smash Bros

anything that is even close to what gw2 is?fortnite is a joke and super smash bros is 1v1 game.

lol what

Both of those games might actually be the top 2 most successful pvp video game titles that the world has ever seen. Both use individual stat systems along with trackers for general win/loss rate. The psychological theory behind these games is that "the players always feel like they are winning even if they are losing" which is what I was explaining in the OP post, about what GW2 ranked is missing. Go watch some youtube videos about it, there are plenty that explain why those two game titles have been successful on unprecedented levels.

And if you think Smash Bros is a 1v1 game, well I guess this discussion is over before it began.

[Sneakers.8462]

I think people are missing the point of the OP.

Regardless of what @Trevor Boyer.6524 suggested for a fix they highlighted an obvious issue in the broken matchmaking system we currently have.

Lets try and stay on topic and figure out what is the cause of the issue and discuss what COULD be done, not what SHOULD be done as that isn'tour job. That is ANets job.

I honestly think that PvP as a whole just needs a rework and some much needed love put back into it as it has been neglected and caused lots of players to leave. This causes the current matchmaking to pair up players who in reality, should never meet in a ranked playlist due to a dwindling population.

Developers need to find a creative solution to encourage players to learn their roles, and actually play to win, not play for the chests win or lose.An interesting solution a friend of mine came up with was have the current reward chests limited to your rank.For example a Gold 3 player could only reach Amaranth making that their repeatable chest for lesser rewards. Plat 3 would have access to Byzantium and that would be their repeatable chest. This would then encourage players to climb ranks so their overall pips per win grants superior rewards!

[Multicolorhipster.9751]

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:What I was really looking for was suggestions & discussion on what would be a good gauge for an individual rating system.

In my arrogant and very biased opinion,

SoloQ/YoloQ was the best gauge for individual skill we've ever had. It forced the same people ruining and gatekeeping the entire game to play like everyone else and the result was winrates similar to everyone else's.

I mean they are skilled players, and they were still at the top back then, and that's fair if they earn it. We're talking like 50% of games won fair though. 60% if they were above average, and not just being carried by placements and the initial rating boost. The absolute highest probably being around 70%. Every season we've got 1 or 2 players in legendary division and they're just barely holding on in there.

Compare that to now where the few remaining YoloQ's are still trapped at 50%, but Johnny Wintrader and their Duo partner Mark Metagamer along with their other 10 alt accounts between the two of them are all sitting comfortable at the top of the leaderboard with nearly every single game out of ~120 won. So just incase playing with them didn't make you feel hopeless enough, they're there at the top every season with such an inflated rating that any sensible competitive player would realize is just pointless to even attempt to contend with.

An easy solution(and we know it's easy because it has been done before) would be to give the Solo/Yolo players their own queue, which would be the option to be rated individually and separately from any type of teams.And rating gain/loss could be changed to be based loosely on personal performance rather than being completely RNG based on who you're matched with. Rating right now is really just a measure of luck for most people, or exploitation for a handful.