No honor in this match manipulation-ridden PvP system, fix it?

[Sir Cunning Linguist.1705]

A bad rank system allows a bronze player who lost their last forty matches in a row to queue with a platinum player who is on the verge of entering top 25. An even worse ranked system also uses the average of the two players ranks to calculate their weight in matchmaking. 
Idea: prevent players who are too far apart in rank to queue together in ranked as a blatantly wide open door for match manipulation exists. 
Different idea: use the rating of the higher player as the average. 
Different idea: delete duo queue past a certain badge rank. (solo queue only at p1/2+) 

Funny how people cry about balance on the one class they overplay instead of opening their eyes to the unbalanced playing field itself. Everyone is a loser in ranked because the system makes us that. If you are 90-0 or have four accounts in legendary eight, chances are you care more about exploiting your way to easy game clout rather than honorable competition. Just like Arena Net cares more about weighing new specializations on their wobbly money scales rather than taking a few minutes to address real simple PvP issues. We don't need a better game mode or more balance when the foundations of quality matchmaking are so heavily slept on. Why target balance and build diversity so heavily when a legitimate playing field doesn't exist to accrue accurate balance data in the first place? 

[Spellhunter.9675]

I was told the system uses the the higher rating from duo, not the average. Is it not true?

[Avatar.3568]

Just let na and eu que together 

[Vancho.8750]

I've seen allot post like this one but, but this one takes the cake just because of the name of the OP.

[Sir Cunning Linguist.1705]

@Spellhunter.9675, no this is just a segment of misinformation from an old system that doesn't hold up. The same developers that keeps removing legitimate build diversity in some vain attempt to improve quality would love if people just believed it. In reality, the system uses the generic average of the duo queue thus enabling a higher rated player to play on a lower rated account to boost a friend. 

So let's say plat 2 + bronze 3 are in a duo queue ranked and they win 5 games.

 

Plat 2 points for each win are as followed: 3, 4, 3, 3, 4. 

Bronze 3 points for each win are as followed: 27, 29, 24, 24, 29.  

 

This would be fine and fair if the bronze player carried the weight of a bronze player. Both players are of platinum to legendary skill though, as one is using a lower rated account to tip matchmaking into their team's favor. So the actual odds of them losing a match are low (usually dependent on someone disconnecting or the enemy team using the same tactics but with better players). 

 

Want to know what is even worse about it? Getting to bronze so you can boost a platinum account can only be done by losing. So first there's a large group of people abusing new accounts to upset matchmaking in their favor so they can win enough games to climb for a day. So now the culprit has to go lose their way back to bronze so they can farm 10-15 more easy wins. Bots and multi-client programs come in handy here, or simply paying another player to lose for you. 

 

So after people spend hours each day exploiting and farming, then they flood the same system with losses so they can be ready to go again on the next ride. So each time you queue in ranked remember that there's a good chance of someone throwing the match for future benefit, or the enemy team having some legendary player who is hidden behind an account with low rank. 

 

Doesn't that sound fun for regular gamers? To realize the game you bought and play is full of commonly-used and quality-sucking exploits? 

 

In short, the system is easily abused along with the players and there are simple things that could improve the quality of gameplay for the common gamer and their desire for fair play.  🙂 

 

UPDATE---

Arena Net's official response: "So what, at least your swords are guns now!" 

[Multicolorhipster.9751]

14 hours ago, Spellhunter.9675 said:

I was told the system uses the the higher rating from duo, not the average. Is it not true?

That's just what they want you to think.

 

Unless you want to believe the highly credible source of: "I heard it in a dev stream once."

[Luci.7018]

 

How Do I Improve My Rank Quickly?

 

In short, you need to win more often. Each match affects the rating value, so victories will raise it. The higher the percentage of victories, the higher the increase of the variability coefficient will be — and the easier it will be to improve your rank. Inveterate players are unlikely to be able to do it quickly. 

There are many ways to increase the percentage of victories. The easiest ways are to play with friends and to approach the game more seriously. Warm-up, good mood, the desire to communicate with teammates, and theoretical knowledge such as timings or nade throws — all of these significantly increase the chances of victory. 

At the same time, note that it’s the win-to-losses ratio that’s important, not the number of victories. 40 wins against 20 losses will have a much stronger impact on the rating than 60 wins against 40 losses. So it’s better to play less often, but victoriously, rather than “farming” victories. 

Understanding all the tricks of the Counter Strike: Global Offensive rating system is difficult, but it isn’t necessary for successful play. The essential thing is to remember the rule: the higher your win-to-losses ratio, the faster you can get the next rank!

 

https://blog.cs.money/en/esports/what-is-glicko-rating-secrets-of-mm-rating/#How_It_Works_in_Matchmaking

 

Hmm ,  i cannot find that the part about "join with a smaller elo friend to get easier matches"

Edited October 1, 2021 by Luci.7018

[Crab Fear.1624]

6 hours ago, Multicolorhipster.9751 said:

That's just what they want you to think.

 

Unless you want to believe the highly credible source of: "I heard it in a dev stream once."

If we can just point to random non verifiable sources as credit....

 

Well, once on this forums someone showed the code for mm, and specifically duo were shown to use the average of the pair's MMR.

 

This was about the time when duos were taken out for a bit, and used as an argument against duos.

 

There was never a rebuttal.

 

I believe you might be onto something.

 

 

[Multicolorhipster.9751]

10 hours ago, Luci.7018 said:

Hmm ,  i cannot find that the part about "join with a smaller elo friend to get easier matches"

That's because a game like CS:GO is a game that is made for competitive play. They have systems in place to prevent high-rating people from queuing with low-rank people.

 

Competitive play in Gw2 is an afterthought. There is no such system in place to stop two people from breaking the matchmaking in Gw2. 

 

The way ranking and the leaderboard works too. It encourages people to play the bare minimum number of games while holding on to a high rating.

Basically people can break matchmaking with their alts towards the end of the season where people are happy with their rank but need to finish more games for the leaderboard requirement.

[Luci.7018]

Isn't Glicko 2 something as universal as Unreal Engine , where whoever wants to use it  they can .

And whoever wants to spent millions in creating heir own system (GW2 engine) , they also can ?

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glicko_rating_system

 

The only backfires are :

a) If you don't play more games the " ratings deviation" (RD) , treats you like the system haven't determent if you are 1400-1600 rating player . And if you take breaks , the same rule happens.

b) If you play Berseker , you get destroyed by Papper 🙂

 

 

 

Edited October 2, 2021 by Luci.7018

[Khalisto.5780]

I think we should get "the exploit" reality show

 

where 2 ppl show their average mmr solo queuing, then they go on stream playing duo only and using all known exploits (no cheating, no wintrade)

 

Duo

offhour games

q dodge

class mirroring

whatever else is out there

 

after all that we can see how much higher they end up

 

[Vancho.8750]

14 hours ago, Crab Fear.1624 said:

If we can just point to random non verifiable sources as credit....

 

Well, once on this forums someone showed the code for mm, and specifically duo were shown to use the average of the pair's MMR.

 

This was about the time when duos were taken out for a bit, and used as an argument against duos.

 

There was never a rebuttal.

 

I believe you might be onto something.

 

 

Here is the supposed algorithm.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/PvP_Matchmaking_Algorithm

There is some funky stuff, that I dislike being there for low pop. 
Also I think it might have been changed or has a bug. There is a time where they did allot of fixes, since people abused some bug that locked people in queues. And there is the whole deathmatch system carfuffle, that I'm still not sure if it is affecting conquest and vice versa . Also the API seems to be missing allot of passed seasons information.   

[Multicolorhipster.9751]

2 hours ago, Vancho.8750 said:

Here is the supposed algorithm.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/PvP_Matchmaking_Algorithm

There is some funky stuff, that I dislike being there for low pop. 
Also I think it might have been changed or has a bug. There is a time where they did allot of fixes, since people abused some bug that locked people in queues. And there is the whole deathmatch system carfuffle, that I'm still not sure if it is affecting conquest and vice versa . Also the API seems to be missing allot of passed seasons information.   

I'm not even going to pretend to understand how to read that, but this is an interesting bit from the part that describes players in parties. 

 

"The second phase of the algorithm is the scoring phase. During this phase each player is scored against every other player being considered for matchmaking. The metrics used during this phase include: rating, rank, games played, party size, profession, and dishonor. With each metric the system is looking for players that are as close as possible to the average of those already selected."

 

Its the only bit that says anything about DuoQ or parties that I could find in there.

[xiaoyan.1637]

I will personally pay someone money to go 120-0 during a season just to see if anything gets done about this shitshow. 

[BlackTruth.6813]

You know how "honorable competition" would happen though? If anet just deleted conquest and focused on making a 2v2/3v3 death match mode THE MAIN MODE. 4 other team mates = more likely to have garbage matches. It's easier for you and the system to find 1 or 2 other genuine players to play and more people would probably play because NOBODY ACTUALLY LIKES OBJECTIVES, PEOPLE ON AVERAGE ACTUALLY WOULD RATHER JUST FIGHT THAN HOLD POINT. It has been that way since the beginning of the game. This mitigates the bot/bad player/win trading problem assuming that ANET is not going to do anything about it anyways.

 

Conquest is garbage, even worse now that teams aren't forming anymore. And ANET is probably not banning  whatever is left of their playerbase so they may as well be practical and do some sort of damage control by changing the main game mode.

 

You could just motivate ANET to actually enforce punishment (which is going to fail because there aren't many people playing spvp so I doubt ANET will ban what is left, and the possibility that ANET is very understaffed) or tell them to hire more people to manage spvp, which will probably not happen because ANET is trying to cut cost most likely. Or they could just be practical and SCRAP CONQUEST because this game mode has been obnoxious ever since HoT 2015.

[FoxGoesFloof.8049]

@Fire Attunement.9835
@Cal Cohen.3527

[Sir Cunning Linguist.1705]

I am unsure how punishing people for win trading will help anything. I also think it unfair to take titles away from them or anything for their work invested. Technically they were indeed the top X title, despite their methods. They didn't blatantly edit their name into the title without working their butts off to bridge the gap to success. This is not any player's fault . It is ArenaNet's fault and they should ban themselves before looking for another list of players to blame.  
The only thing that can help this situation and not leave bitter tastes is simply finding a technical fix to prevent further issue. Abundant ideas for legitimate solutions should be produced rather than slander. Blame may be fun for a moment but it doesn't fix anything. 
For too long these exploits have been quite apparent to a majority of the active PvP community. When a game has an opening to be exploited, players will naturally do this simply because they know someone else will too. Also, why not? It is just a game after all. Finding new and creative ways to attain results is admirable. 
In Teapot's video, he sort of talks about the top one or two players or specific suspects, but what he doesn't realize is that hundreds of players across all brackets of rank are guilty (not to say they are currently in their respective positions). Sure, the top three spots will attract the most attention, but it trickles down further for sure. There are dozens of duos on each side of the pond every day abusing this tactic of rank climbing. And so what? It is a requirement now. The odds are against us all. If everyone is exploiting the same surefire method to success, would you just let them all pass you without joining? 
The best way to address this issue is to make it more clear and abundant so ArenaNet can implement viable solutions (place complaints in recycle bin). So please don't feel bad for win trading or insult others for it, as everyone's doing it. 🙂