Rebuilding the PvP Que System?? Any thoughts or ideas??

DeltaBassMaster.3769 · July 31, 2019

I've been playing PvP for quite awhile now. I have experienced and witnessed unfair and unbalanced Que System Match making. I've a lot of the chat seeing the complaining. To Anet: has there been any thought or talk about rebuilding the PvP Que System so there is one Que per Division??? Example: Plats should not be playing with Silvers. In my opinion, there should be a Que per Division using the ladder system. Plts vs Plats, Golds vs Golds, and so on. Also, in my opinion, rebuilding the Que System will make it more fair and balanced. From what I've witnessed for a long time now will hopefully stop all the complaining. Have a nice day every one and God Bless.

Sampson.2403 · July 31, 2019

The pvp que system is fine as it is. It's perceived short comings are simply due to the major limiting factor here: low population.

The only debatable change is whether or not full team ques should be allowed in the ranked mode or not.

yanniell.1236 · August 1, 2019

There's no debate. If you allow teams to rank queue and stomp solo people, you will finish killing the game mode. Not even duoQ should be allowed, since it gives such a HUGE advantage over solo queue that people aiming for the top spots straight out refuse to solo queue.

sephiroth.4217 · August 1, 2019

@yanniell.1236 said:There's no debate. If you allow teams to rank queue and stomp solo people, you will finish killing the game mode. Not even duoQ should be allowed, since it gives such a HUGE advantage over solo queue that people aiming for the top spots straight out refuse to solo queue.

You would kill off the last remaining solo players for sure but the mists would fill with us casuals again wanting to play with friends.

Exactly the same thing happened when team queue was removed... we killed off the team players and solo players took over. Team players hung around for the most part but after 10 odd seasons of waiting on a viable team queue format I believe most, including myself have given up.

Its all about the intended audience. Who Anet is catering too. Right now they cater to solo players wanting to feel special about a number on the board and to players who play by themselves.

You could even look at it mathematically... solo players bring themselves into the mists and maybe a friend for a total of 2 players... team players can bring upwards of 20 players at a time and because they're having fun, each one of those players could bring another person making the total 40 players. Then those players bring more in and like a beautiful blossoming flower, PvP population will grow. It forms roots to grow from. Networking itself.

So our low population is expected under our current format. It will continue to dwindle under this format too. Unless something changes, we will continue this steady decline in population. The worst part is this community that wants the game to be fixed but doesn't actually want the game to change... so we are stagnant. Wanting change but not wanting anything too change.

End of the day... Top players will beat everyone regardless and Anet have said previously that team queue players lost way more than solo queue... I know why too, too busy having fun to care.

This is the first and last MMO ill play but its odd to me that a MMO forces you to essentially play single player.

rwolf.9571 · August 1, 2019

@Sampson.2403 said:The pvp que system is fine as it is. It's perceived short comings are simply due to the major limiting factor here: low population.
The only debatable change is whether or not full team ques should be allowed in the ranked mode or not.

You just pointed out it's broken. PvP population will never be back what it once was, so currently the system is broken. We will never have that population again, especially in a older MMO.

Sure we wish it was back where it was, but that's just wishful thinking unfortunately.

Avg blowouts for me is 8 out of 10, that's pretty broken to me.

Locuz.2651 · August 1, 2019

There are 2 different debates going on within this topic.

Regarding matchmaking:

The current matchmaking system tries to find 9 others that are as close as possible to your MMR. The bigger the PVP population, the better the matchmaking gets. So its a population and not a system related problem.

Regarding team queue

Team queue didn't work in the past. It was a queue that either didn't pop for an hour or you would meet PvE players that jumped into PVP for the first time. To give you an idea about how unpopular it was: I was top 100 EU on the team queue ladder while queueing solo. There was not a single competitive team playing on the team ladder.

If you really want to queue as a team; you can either queue for tournaments as competitive players or queue unranked as non-competitive players (Most players will fit into the latter category).

Ragnar.4257 · August 1, 2019

You think it makes more sense to match someone with 1495 rating (top of G3) against someone with 1205 rating (bottom of G1), rather than against someone with 1505 rating (bottom of P1)?! Really?? You think matches with rating difference of 290 are better than matches with rating difference of 10?

The "divisions" and "tiers" are entirely arbitrary and meaningless, only rating needs to be considered. Certainly it should not be the case that people with 1800 rating are going against people with 1100, but divisions/tiers are not relevant to this, only rating.

sephiroth.4217 · August 1, 2019

@Locuz.2651 said:There are 2 different debates going on within this topic.
Regarding matchmaking:
The current matchmaking system tries to find 9 others that are as close as possible to your MMR. The bigger the PVP population, the better the matchmaking gets. So its a population and not a system related problem.
Regarding team queue
Team queue didn't work in the past. It was a queue that either didn't pop for an hour or you would meet PvE players that jumped into PVP for the first time. To give you an idea about how unpopular it was: I was top 100 EU on the team queue ladder while queueing solo. There was not a single competitive team playing on the team ladder.
If you really want to queue as a team; you can either queue for tournaments as competitive players or queue unranked as non-competitive players (Most players will fit into the latter category).

Thats top end... you need us scrubs filling the mid ranks otherwise you have what you got now.

Without us scrubs filling the mid ranks, you'll continue to lose 20 a loss and 2 a win because thats all that is left.

As for your tournament suggestion... that might work for someone who has no responsibilities but as a parent who plays with other parents, good freaking luck organising our kids, partners, work and everything else to line up to a specific time... its sort of take what you can get.

Dont get me wrong, the current format for team play is great if you send your family on a holiday and take a week off work to bum around the house.

Multicolorhipster.9751 · August 1, 2019

I think the way the matchmaker values quantity over quality should be improved, meaning; the current way of seeking people around your rating then gradually going lower over time. That should not only be slower, but should have a threshold where it doesn't seek out any lower than 100-150 rating difference. Yes, this means longer queue times, but it also means closer matches AND more rating from those matches being as rank gain/loss is tied to the rating of other people in your match. It's funny to see people dismiss this by saying "The population is too low" because silvers are being matched against plats, and people are losing -18/gaining +9 from those matches. It's a self-perpetuating problem, and; it's most definitely a problem. It can't just be written off as "the population is too low."

If you wanna talk about things the population is too low for, DuoQ should just be removed too, and no merged queue should ever exist within ranked ever again. Pretty much everything fundamentally broken and annoying about ranked SPvP is amplified by DuoQ, on top of creating entirely new issues on its own. TeamQ split from SoloQ with its own unique LB is the most fair and in my opinion; most fun way to play ranked with friends.

After all, DuoQ doesn't promote playing with friends; it promotes queuing with the highest rated player that'l take you just create a numbers advantage, and to seek out those easy games that leave people disillusioned with ranked or SPvP entirely.

Sampson.2403 · August 1, 2019

@rwolf.9571 said:
@Sampson.2403 said:The pvp que system is fine as it is. It's perceived short comings are simply due to the major limiting factor here: low population.
The only debatable change is whether or not full team ques should be allowed in the ranked mode or not.

You just pointed out it's broken. PvP population will never be back what it once was, so currently the system is broken. We will never have that population again, especially in a older MMO.

Sure we wish it was back where it was, but that's just wishful thinking unfortunately.

Avg blowouts for me is 8 out of 10, that's pretty broken to me.

10 people show up at the court to play a pick up game of basketball. You make the teams as even as possible and play ball. You don't wait 3 hours for 10 people of equal skill to show up and then play.

You want super long que times? Not me.

BadMed.3846 · August 1, 2019

Just remove ability to duo queue. Rest is all fine.

jessiestiles.9437 · August 1, 2019

It's worse than that. The matchmaker creates one team, then attempts to create a second team as best, or worst depending on availability, as possible. Rather than the sensical method you described of selecting 10 players and then creating two roughly equal teams.

Ouk.5914 · August 1, 2019

they'll never ever rebuild the rank system to what it is. At most possibly improve the match making but that's about it. Ben himself said it'll most likely never happen and We all know Anet wouldn't invest that much time anyway.....If it takes a year to properly finish 1 MAP for spvp imagine rebuilding the entire spvp ranking system? Swizz is on a 2 year mark almost and we still haven't got that or an idea when it'll come out. Then we have the 2vs2 system that was ADDED but then removed for almost no legit reason and that also has been close to a year without a single update as to why.

Issue with Anet they have about 10+ side projects going on all at once.....and they delay everything because of the lack of employment to help finish it through. I love the game but I'm telling you expecting anything to be done in a reasonable fashion isn't ever going to happen for gw2. They rather focus on the Pve side of things to keep things "alive" before finishing anything for spvp or wvw.

Locuz.2651 · August 1, 2019

@sephiroth.4217 said:
Thats top end... you need us scrubs filling the mid ranks otherwise you have what you got now.
Without us scrubs filling the mid ranks, you'll continue to lose 20 a loss and 2 a win because thats all that is left.
As for your tournament suggestion... that might work for someone who has no responsibilities but as a parent who plays with other parents, good freaking luck organising our kids, partners, work and everything else to line up to a specific time... its sort of take what you can get.
Dont get me wrong, the current format for team play is great if you send your family on a holiday and take a week off work to bum around the house.

I think you misunderstood what I typed. That's exactly what I'm saying; you need a large and active pvp player base of all skill-levels to get good matchmaking. The current system itself works fine but due to the relatively small PVP player base, they are forced to tweak the numbers to prevent that ppl have to wait 45 minutes for a game to pop. No one wants that.

I'm a father of 3 myself, that's one of the main reasons why I prefer to solo q. That way I can play whenever I want.

You don't have to play competitive/ranked matches. U can play unranked with a 5 man group any time you want.

We used to have a competitive team ladder that was up 24-7. It didn't work. We had very few teams playing and long queue times. Hell even in wow that has a way bigger scene, 5 and 10 man rated PVP never really worked. Same issues; few teams playing and long queue times.

DeltaBassMaster.3769 · August 1, 2019

The purpose of my post is to make it more fair and more balanced. There should be , in my opinion, one Que per Division. Plat vs Plat, and so on. I don't mine waiting for a match as long as it is fair and balanced. Plats just rape Silvers every day. The current Que System does not recognize skill levels. For now it will always be, "Luck of the Que", until the current Que System is fixed. Also, keep in mind many of us here are not serious about Rank. The motivation is Legendary Armor Farming. Which in my opinion, PvP is the easiest way to obtain Legendary Armor. Havee a nice day. :-)

Vancho.8750 · August 1, 2019

Will be good if the score mattered and people lost less points if they try hard even when losing, so the AFK blits start playing instead of doing chat pvp and pissing off people.

otto.5684 · August 1, 2019

I do not think the issue is with the que system. The issue is with the population decline. At this point, I do not think there is any resolution.

rng.1024 · August 1, 2019

Given the population issues, I think at this point there are a few necessary changes that has to be implemented in order to resustain the gamemode:

Duo Q giving less rewards. This allows you a competitive advantage in a trade for less loot, while for the average player promoting solo queuing for more fair and even matches - less duos would also mean closer ratings and shorter queue-time.
Profession specific leaderboards. Even if a certain spec is busted, this would bring competitiveness back on the table. It's also alot easier to get a spot on 9 top 250 leaderboards than on just one so for many this would be great incentive to play.
On demand ranked team queue tourneys. If I'm not mistaken this is in the works, and coupled with AT's and unranked should give more than enough options for groups of friends who want to play together.

Admittedly this would be just a start, but it would significantly boost the capabilities of the matchmaking algorithm without actually having to fundamentally change it. For even better results you could disable unranked during seasons and ranked during off-seasons forcing the split pool of players into one, given the algorithm the casuals would quickly land in lower tiers and the tryharders would still reign the higher divisions anyways, so for most of us it wouldn't even be noticeable except in positive terms - shorter queue time, closer matches and better rewards, but most importantly more players spread over the entire spectrum for a better PvP experience.

The plan is simple:

Give unranked players incentive to play ranked
Let the matchmaking algorithm do it's thing with the artificially increased ranked population
Use the improved matchmaking to draw players in from other gamemodes.
Profit. Once the population reaches a stable level we can even undo the ranked/unranked merge, the only reason for it at this point is that having the population split into 2 queues massively hurts the matchmaking options. It's not like ranked is competitive anymore (anymore than the mini games which is exactly how much you put in it and a title) so it makes sense to remove unranked temporarily.

There are those that worry about toxicity and such, but the simplest solution would be to just turn leg/plat/gold into gold/silver/bronze tier in it's own league, and let the rest below only be rating dependent. This way, once you cross into the bronze threshold the climb would start. Add to that an increasing number of games having to be played, rank requirements, faster decay and increased population you would never have to worry about competing in bronze and above should you not care to and rather wanted to play casually like in unranked.

sephiroth.4217 · August 2, 2019

@Locuz.2651 said:
@sephiroth.4217 said:
Thats top end... you need us scrubs filling the mid ranks otherwise you have what you got now.
Without us scrubs filling the mid ranks, you'll continue to lose 20 a loss and 2 a win because thats all that is left.
As for your tournament suggestion... that might work for someone who has no responsibilities but as a parent who plays with other parents, good freaking luck organising our kids, partners, work and everything else to line up to a specific time... its sort of take what you can get.
Dont get me wrong, the current format for team play is great if you send your family on a holiday and take a week off work to bum around the house.

I think you misunderstood what I typed. That's exactly what I'm saying; you need a large and active pvp player base of all skill-levels to get good matchmaking. The current system itself works fine but due to the relatively small PVP player base, they are forced to tweak the numbers to prevent that ppl have to wait 45 minutes for a game to pop. No one wants that.

I'm a father of 3 myself, that's one of the main reasons why I prefer to solo q. That way I can play whenever I want.

You don't have to play competitive/ranked matches. U can play unranked with a 5 man group any time you want.

We used to have a competitive team ladder that was up 24-7. It didn't work. We had very few teams playing and long queue times. Hell even in wow that has a way bigger scene, 5 and 10 man rated PVP never really worked. Same issues; few teams playing and long queue times.

Playing unranked competitively is like dieting on McDonalds, its not going to work.

I can't even remember the last time I saw an unranked match stay a 5v5 for the entire game.

Ahwell... nothing is going to get better if nothing will change.

Locuz.2651 · August 2, 2019

@sephiroth.4217 said:Playing unranked competitively is like dieting on McDonalds, its not going to work.
I can't even remember the last time I saw an unranked match stay a 5v5 for the entire game.
Ahwell... nothing is going to get better if nothing will change.

So you do want to play competitively?

One question comes to mind; where were you when GW2 team ladders were active? Noone played those days. Queue times were long and matchmaking was non-existent since only a handful of teams would be playing at a given moment. So it wasn't rare that first-time pvpers would play vs top 100 players since there were no other teams to match up against.

There was no real difference between the rated full 5v5 team games back then....and unranked right now. Besides the leavers maybe.

Rated PVP with bigger groups doesn't work in MMOs unless it's heavily incentivized. During my days as a wow player, the same issue occurred; both 5 man arenas and Rated Battlegrounds (10v10) didn't offer enough incentives. The hassle of bringing together 5-10 evenly skilled and minded players just for the fun of it wasn't very popular. 5v5 arena was in a similar state as GW2 team ladders; no one played. So they removed it. Rated battlegrounds had people playing it but only since they gave more so-called conquest points. That was the incentive. Nowadays the only reason ppl play it is since its easier / less skill-based than lets say 3v3 arena.

sephiroth.4217 · August 2, 2019

@Locuz.2651 said:
@sephiroth.4217 said:Playing unranked competitively is like dieting on McDonalds, its not going to work.
I can't even remember the last time I saw an unranked match stay a 5v5 for the entire game.
Ahwell... nothing is going to get better if nothing will change.

So you do want to play competitively?

One question comes to mind; where were you when GW2 team ladders were active? Noone played those days. Queue times were long and matchmaking was non-existent since only a handful of teams would be playing at a given moment. So it wasn't rare that first-time pvpers would play vs top 100 players since there were no other teams to match up against.

Of course I want it to be semi competitive...Whats the point in playing if it isn't.

I was around, my guild of over 100 members used to queue all hours of the day and quite often I would solo queue under team queue for the extra rewards or tokens for loot we used to have.

Then there was another guild with about 200 pvp players that used to sync queue so we would all end up fighting eachother.

That system worked. That system catered too all players, not just solo.

As for losing against top players... well thats going to happen regardless of which queue format is installed.

rwolf.9571 · August 2, 2019

@Sampson.2403 said:
@rwolf.9571 said:
@Sampson.2403 said:The pvp que system is fine as it is. It's perceived short comings are simply due to the major limiting factor here: low population.
The only debatable change is whether or not full team ques should be allowed in the ranked mode or not.

You just pointed out it's broken. PvP population will never be back what it once was, so currently the system is broken. We will never have that population again, especially in a older MMO.

Sure we wish it was back where it was, but that's just wishful thinking unfortunately.

Avg blowouts for me is 8 out of 10, that's pretty broken to me.

10 people show up at the court to play a pick up game of basketball. You make the teams as even as possible and play ball. You don't wait 3 hours for 10 people of equal skill to show up and then play.

You want super long que times? Not me.

Counterpoint. That's what unranked is for.

3 hour que? hyperbole much? This is ranked. And players should play with others that are equally match. Not a fiesta of Silver to Legendary all in one match! If blowouts were limited to the odd 2,3 times out of ten matches that would be fine. But we're talking about 60-80% of matches.

This is incidentally another factor that's killing pvp. You don't throw a scrub into a pack of animals to be ripped apart, they'll won't ever come back.

Rebuilding the system does not necessarily mean excessive que times.

yanniell.1236 · August 2, 2019

@sephiroth.4217 said:
@yanniell.1236 said:There's no debate. If you allow teams to rank queue and stomp solo people, you will finish killing the game mode. Not even duoQ should be allowed, since it gives such a HUGE advantage over solo queue that people aiming for the top spots straight out refuse to solo queue.

You would kill off the last remaining solo players for sure but the mists would fill with us casuals again wanting to play with friends.

Exactly the same thing happened when team queue was removed... we killed off the team players and solo players took over. Team players hung around for the most part but after 10 odd seasons of waiting on a viable team queue format I believe most, including myself have given up.

Its all about the intended audience. Who Anet is catering too. Right now they cater to solo players wanting to feel special about a number on the board and to players who play by themselves.

You could even look at it mathematically... solo players bring themselves into the mists and maybe a friend for a total of 2 players... team players can bring upwards of 20 players at a time and because they're having fun, each one of those players could bring another person making the total 40 players. Then those players bring more in and like a beautiful blossoming flower, PvP population will grow. It forms roots to grow from. Networking itself.

So our low population is expected under our current format. It will continue to dwindle under this format too. Unless something changes, we will continue this steady decline in population. The worst part is this community that wants the game to be fixed but doesn't actually want the game to change... so we are stagnant. Wanting change but not wanting anything too change.

End of the day... Top players will beat everyone regardless and Anet have said previously that team queue players lost way more than solo queue... I know why too, too busy having fun to care.

This is the first and last MMO ill play but its odd to me that a MMO forces you to essentially play single player.

If you think there is so many of you, then just ask for a separated team queue. There is absolute no reason to allow premades to stomp a bunch of solo players. What you are asking right now is just easy wins.

sephiroth.4217 · August 2, 2019

@yanniell.1236 said:
@sephiroth.4217 said:
@yanniell.1236 said:There's no debate. If you allow teams to rank queue and stomp solo people, you will finish killing the game mode. Not even duoQ should be allowed, since it gives such a HUGE advantage over solo queue that people aiming for the top spots straight out refuse to solo queue.