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Gaile Gray.6029
ArenaNet › ArenaNet
PvP Season 13 Starts August 28
Gaile Gray.6029
ArenaNet › ArenaNet
in PVP
Hey folks!
As you may have heard, we have several changes coming for Season 13. We’re doing a trial of the return of duo queue for all levels. We’ll reevaluate the effect this had on the season near the end of the season to see if this is something that should come back permanently.
In addition to this, we’re retiring the old leaderboard titles.
We’re looking forward to an interesting season!
Gaile Gray
Communications Manager: ArenaNet
Fansite & Guild Relations; In-Game Events; Community Showcase Live
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Eliminating Leaderboard titles? Can we get an explanation why?
What is coming to replace the title system that you are taking away?
This is extremely lazy from an Auditing standpoint, and you really should just permanent ban win traders after the second offense.
Why are you punishing the entire player base for the actions of a few?
I have been actively trying to improve every season with the end goal of having the top 250 title at the end of a Season.
But it looks like I will never have the opportunity to ever receive this. I play at a Gold 3 or platinium 1 tier and within the top 500 range.
This is extremely unfair and is going to drive the competitive players away from PvP. I guess I will be playing more Starcraft 2 or Overwatch in the near future.
Thank you for giving us a heads up, my guild members were starting to lose their mind without PvP season.
Win trading should be punished with perma ban. It is an huge insult to those who put in the hard work and don't take fraudulent measures to climb the ladder.
Thanks, @Gaile Gray.6029, would you let us know if anything is replacing the old LB titles? New rewards, new incentives, or will this just not be a factor this season?
wintrading is hard, but not impossible, to prove. with a little effort, they could identify and deal with the problem people directly, but instead they choose the lazy route to discourage people from doing it. meanwhile, the cheaters just keep their fraudulently acquired titles unscathed. nothing about this game’s lack of support for competitive play surprises me anymore, but it sure is disappointing.
This means everyone will lose their titles, or they will just become unobtainable?
Joko lies, Balthazar don't.
You keep titles you have, you can't receive them anymore though.
It was done becasue of the rampant wintrading each season for them, which was honestly a ton of work for something a lot of high level players (myself included) held very little value to anymore due to the wintraders and the rng aspect of actually getting it.
Angeels - twitch.tv/angeels
https://godsofpvp.net
I've never seen queuing with mixed-size teams working well together with players queuing solo when it comes to 'rated' gameplay, for that it's often better to have only full solo and full made teams, so I'm glad that this is at least a test, so it may not stay.
But will there be enough people to get decent data? People have been rather disillusioned with PvP lately. Maybe there needs to be some fundamental change that will encourage more people to give it another chance.
☆ SUGGEST-A-TRON
I'm guessing our system for rewards will be based purely on ascended shards now. Will there be any incentive to be good at ranked q? In other words, why should I try to get higher rating? Other than a badge and an extra pip, there is no reason. Makes me not care about winning.
twitch.tv/vallun
https://www.youtube.com/b2therye
Are there matchmaking changes to prevent highly organized duos from rofl-stomping random not-in-voicechat noobs?
Or is that back en vogue this coming season?
I definitely would avoid you "in-voice" pro nab, anytime - that epic attitude. I just don't see how they can change anything about match up system, even if they were collecting all matches data, and player data individually. When sPVP has been in a state of joke, wintrading and casual playground - based on about everything I have had heard and read.
@Gaile Gray.6029 Can you shed some light on plans for other professions and outlier builds they may have?
Well, the duos could get a sharp bump in evaluation points when matchmaking is building teams. As in "duo of A and B" is A + B + 100 points by default. It's just I've watched too many streams of duos giving significant advantage to teams (which is why practice was stopped in the first place). Hopefully solo queue participants wouldn't suffer, and I'd love to hear some indication of what was done to prevent problems caused by duo qued higher skilled players in last seasons.
I don't mind getting farmed by duos again if this brings more good players back to the game but I doubt it.
We already knew this was planned thanks to Ben, but I guess now its more official.
I agree these titles lost most of their appeal after several seasons, but it's still the only thing worth competeing over for many players. For example, my motivation to get better was the top 25 title(RiP me).
I assume there will be something new to compete for, because no serious competetive player is motivated by a badge that you share with people 250 rating below you, or reward chests with basic PvE loot&gold.
Could we get some information on what the new PvP prestige skin/title/badge system will be?
Just nerf mesmer and PvP will be fun again pls
Well, I hope that the people who are mainly asking for this actually come back and play with it. otherwise its pointless to implement suggestions from people who already "quit"
sugoi monogatari oniichan
Horrible changes
I echo this, it needs to be said objectively whether Anet devs are or are not ACTIVELY pushing the exclusive pvp player base out of their desired game mode by only rewarding things that have use in PvE, from an official mouthpiece. There is no discussion from the development team @Gaile Gray.6029 on the future of PvP in regards to population development, ie volume and quality, literally, zero. It seems obvious to me that the development team has made, either of their own accord or from above, choices to continue the degradation of the pvp community as a whole, the current changes seem to continue this path.
The inability to commit to the integrity the game deserves is pretty disenfranchising, as a whole. Couple that with the REFUSAL to listen to pretty much anything your most skilled players have to say, it's no wonder this game is a laughing stock. But hey, at least people who are good at the game can play with a friend again.
Really hope they have compensated with older titles/emotes/rank updates or else
GVG - HOH - war machine - The last Pride - Idiot Savants - Bigmchugelarge maine gw1 boss
Retired Titles
I'm hoping the titles, like all the titles that were from PvP, come back in some way tied to the many PvP achievements that do not have titles associated to them. While titles are honestly quite pointless and many are okay with being "exclusive"...there were so many PvP titles that were just so much cooler that can easily just come back as something that isn't tied to leaderboards. Heck, just let us waste our Shards/Tickets we have piled up for them! We need more sinks anyway.
Hope @Ben Phongluangtham.1065 can chime in on the feasibility of this.
Duos
Good that this will be another test season to see how this plays out. Most likely, it is probably best for a 2v2 Ladder more so than the Solo Ladder. A good duo can really snowball a game, and given that there are just 5-players to a match, that makes 2-duos and 1 person will always be the odd-player out. This was the exact issue that caused nightmare many seasons ago (after 5-man was dropped). Again, you'll have the data anyway!
All my alts are just storage for my Engi.
would also so inc storm but i really doubt it tbh lack of pvp love is insane , not dissing just a opinion
GVG - HOH - war machine - The last Pride - Idiot Savants - Bigmchugelarge maine gw1 boss
Bummer about the titles. I'll give this season a shot though.
[Charr Noises]
[Plays every class]
[JUST GIT EVEN GUDDER ITS FINE]
Please, oh please, look @ the Guardian forum for suggestions on how to buff DH properly...
Twitch | YouTube
Dragonhunter main | If I'm forced to I can play holo... poorly
@Gaile Gray.6029 Help my mans Rauls out he desperate out here smh
Removing titles is pretty weird. That means people who got away with wintrading have some of the most exclusive titles in the game.
Not to mention I'm still kicking myself for quing into wintraders the day before season ended and going from r2 to r19. I didn't realize the top spots were all going to get removed so I tried quing to beat them and got screwed over in the end 2 seasons ago. RIP my legendary demigod title.
I really think investigations should be conducted throughout the season to prevent scenarios like that from happening. It doesn't make sense to let wintraders run rampant, hurting people for weeks, only to remove them AFTER the damage has been done.
can we just add pip rewards to unranked at this point? there's really no point to ranked and i just want to farm gold. i also get to play stronghold for something different and casual for a change.
The removal of the titles was something we've been considering for a while. They haven't really felt great for a while, in my opinion. Mainly because the design of the reward actively discouraged you to play once you hit a certain position on the board. People didn't want to take the risk of losing their position and would often play the bare minimum required.
My future desire (not happening this season) is to replace leaderboards rewards with rewards for reaching a tier. Then you're not punished for continuing to play ranked PvP. This does bring up the question of what motivates you once you hit the tier you feel you can reasonably obtain, but that should be up to making sure the pip rewards feel good enough to motivate you to keep playing.
The duo-queue change is something we've been somewhat hesitant to bring back. It makes matchmaking at the high and low ends of the skill rating spectrum more difficult. Ultimately, it came down to the fact that most players have more fun queuing up with a friend. Regardless of the effect it has on competitiveness. So we're bringing it back and we'll see how it goes for the season.
Ben Phongluangtham
Game Designer
Reddit: ANET_BenP
Twitch: AnetBenP
And what will be the reward of this season? Pips?
This can't be understated. I assume the omission of mentioning alternative rewards means there are none. I've always tried to be better and better each season wanting to crack the top 100 title. Now there is no point to aim for that. Why even keep the Leaderboard? I care so little for the items you can trade with those shards and don't keep track of how many I have.
Can we not get an official explanation for this??? Or is it going to be shoved under the rug because whatever truth there is behind it is too embarrassing to admit? PVP is dead yes, but you still have your strong, albeit small population of pvp enthusiasts. This update just bulldozes through that whatever is left of the population. Was it just easier to kill off the population entirely so all attention can finally be diverted to PvE (and maybe WvW but IDK the state of it)? I can see absolutely no point in me wanting to play pvp anymore except out of boredom. Those titles are not handed out until the end of the season, so I hope there is still time for PVP devs to reconsider this. If not, an explanation would at least be the decent thing to do.
EDIT: I was writing this post up for a long time, and in the interim, Ben replied before I posed. At least it's some closure. I don't understand why the titles could not have waited to be removed until the new system came. Does that not suggest it is pretty far off?
You can always do what I do, screenshot your end rating so you can send it to people who are talking kitten. Works pretty well, people who refuse to even look at the link are people you can ignore.
Quoted for emphasis.
Removing a product you have available for players because some people colluded to obtain it illegitimately punishes the wrong people. Hopefully titles return in an avenue that makes it difficult to wintrade for them.
[Charr Noises]
[Plays every class]
[JUST GIT EVEN GUDDER ITS FINE]
That's why something as basic as titles should be given to more controllable features that everyone can achieve. For example, spending 10000 Ascended Shards for Goddess of PvP. There are many gods and goddess anyway in the lore. (:
It seems people mostly want recognition for reaching the top, can just do something that is rotational per season sort of like AT does monthly...plus not make it very restrictive on specific placement (ex. Top 20 gets X from August to October).
Seems like a catch-22. While it's fun to queue up with a friend, it hurts competitiveness due to how the system looks at it and those who are the odd-person out in those situations. Ideally, I would work better if it were 2v2, 4v4, or 6v6 (some even number rather than odd)...but maybe we don't have the population for it really to go past 2v2.
All my alts are just storage for my Engi.
As someone who's been going for the top 25 title (very close last two seasons rank 29,30) I do need something exclusive for the players who try and reach their goals of higher rankings. I am glad you're bringing back duo and I think your general rewards for pvp has been improving so i'm happy about that at least. But if you do not make exclusive rewards for higher skilled players or players trying to get better you're going to kill the competitive side of ranked que.
If there is a honest attempt at balancing PvP that leads to more people picking it back up, full premades might be doable more often than ATs. Not right now though. Duo's a good place to start and see what happens.
[Charr Noises]
[Plays every class]
[JUST GIT EVEN GUDDER ITS FINE]
That's why I rather push to make the titles just more accessible to everyone. Wintraders no longer get the "prestige" of having a title earned dishonorably and now exclusively that it's retired completely. If people can just buy them with their excess amount shards or whatever, we hit two Risen Chickens with one stone.
All my alts are just storage for my Engi.
I do understand your thinking behind the removal of titles, however your logic seems flawed in a couple of areas and one particular thing stood out to me immediately. You say that the removal of titles will stop people from camping spots on the leaderboard to stop them from losing rating. However, the only reason removing titles will stop this behaviour is because the players no longer care about their rating. Look at it this way- WHY are the people in the top 10 camping their spots? Because they care about their rating and do not want to lose it. The only reason these players would stop this behaviour is if they do NOT care about their rating and do not care if they lose it and we both know this is a terrible mentality to have in an environment that is supposed to be competitive.
The problem lies in the rating system itself, not the behaviour of the players. I do agre with you that camping a spot on the leaderboard is absolutely not something that should be encouraged, but is removing the rewards from both people who camp spots and people who play actively the best solution? Or is the best solution to make playing actively more rewarding in terms of keeping leaderboard positions? I don’t know how you would do this but I do know that simply removing the reason to tryhard for rating is a very lazy fix to the problem of spot-camping.
That said I am very happy that duo is returning, but I can’t help but feel disappointed that I will never be able to get the titles for top 3 and higher.
I like the sound of gaining rewards by playing.
You're absolutely right that Duo queue hurts competitiveness. I don't see the argument for duo queue to increase fun. You can always team queue in unranked.
Mesmerizing Girl
so happy to hear about the return of duos hopefully team is soon to follow and i can play with friends again
Well this is really bold move, and the risk for "$#[email protected]!@##%$%^!@#" coming from competitive folks - very loud folks ( most of them), daily buzz in-game and forums. Given how matchmaking is basically almost unmanageable with this system, I think I will skip this season all together. This "fun" is going to ruin a day to a lot of folks and I don't think it's fair to bring it back, without re-design to counter the major issue people have brought.
Sounds good to me.
You know what else sounds good? An AT achievement panel with a whole bunch of new stuff to do and titles there-in.
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Any chance in hell you're considering bringing team queue back? It sucks that my two brothers and I can't farm pips on the few nights we can play together...
That argument goes both ways (logically speaking, not emotionally). You can always join a team...
Personally, I don't get to play that often, so when i play with my brothers... not being rewarded anything for playing is not a great experience. We are being punished for wanting to play together... that is logically dumb.
Team queues actually increase competitiveness... for teams (it is the highest level of competitiveness, in fact, unarguably). I personally don't think there's anything wrong with the highest level of play being teams. If you can't get out of gold as a solo player against teams (usually of a lesser skill level, by how matchmaking works) then you have a reason to queue up in a team!
That's actually a good idea. Since matchmaking is beyond salvation and, as someone said before, the top titles are basically decided by either RNG or win trading, making the titles buyables will make the long term variance bearable and slowly remove the RNG factor from the equation.
The currency used to buy the titles should be given based on the leaderboard placement at the end of the season.
Obviously, top titles should cost A LOT of said currency, but then really good players will eventually get there. God of PVP could cost the equivalent of 10 Seasons in the Top 50, for example.
@Ben Phongluangtham.1065 ?
Makes sense. I have a feeling duo-queue will make games feel lame again @ higher levels. I'm ready to get crushed I guess.
On a separate note - I recommend you check out the Guardian forum to see good ways to properly buff Dragonhunter.
Twitch | YouTube
Dragonhunter main | If I'm forced to I can play holo... poorly
so bad thieves like me can watch your videos in high level play. i watch them all and while the music may not always be to my tastes, it's a break from my monotony of sound lol
Soon™
Sure sounds like we have hit the lowest point of moral ever in PvP.
You can't take something away without replacing it with something else.
This is one step forward with bringing Duo que back for all players, but 10 steps backward by removing leaderboard titles.
I was patient for an official response for what was going to replace the current title system. Now that we know that nothing is coming to replace those top 250 titles, I have every reason to be upset.
The only good that I can see from this, is that the top 100 will be forced to keep searching as other players will be pushing their player ratings higher with each week. This will make it harder for players to sit at the top of the Leaderboard with minimal games played.
Perhaps I will be able to push into top 250 with Duo que this season. But where is the incentive for me to keep trying to improve other than climbing the Leaderboard?
Although I love this game and playing PvP, i don't think ANET marketing has a clue on how to manage their game. It would be great if someone making these important decisions actually play PvP occasionally.
The rating system and MMR really need to be updated to work with a low population.
It's almost as if the "good" players think we won't recognize their skill or watch their streams anymore. Good players will always get the recognition, and people will still watch your videos and streams because they enjoy it or want to learn.
PvP seems like it may be going through a sort or long term evolution but if you like the game don't quick because it may turn into something beautiful. You don't want to quit playing/ steaming and be out of the skill loop and then forgotten because you don't make content.
Somewhere down the road on-demand tournaments or swiss is coming and us "bads" can watch your proper and official teams fight for glory in battle.
I do hope that elements found to be broken once the skill cap in teams go up are swiftly eliminated so "unfun" metas do not ruin observing games.
If you don't like the game because of where it is at now and hate it....bye Felicia
Soon™
I’m happy with removal of titles.
Please add a new incentive though.
Buff rev and make useful of excessive useless traits too btw.
balance changes inc too? @Gaile Gray.6029
Have a good n8 sir
Mirage since Day 1 - It got better!
I never say never, but it's pretty unlikely. Our plan for supporting full teams is AT's. The main problem, as many point out, is that the dailies only happen 4 times per day. Our hope is that once On-Demand tournaments are released, teams will have a variety of ways to play together.
Ben Phongluangtham
Game Designer
Reddit: ANET_BenP
Twitch: AnetBenP