Before you enter ranked conquest

[Hogwarts Zebra.8597]

15 hours ago, Swagg.9236 said:

I mean, GW2 doesn't even feature a super high skill ceiling anyway

If you believe that then you have no business in this thread

[Inguz.6493]

1 hour ago, Spellhunter.9675 said:

It is good point of view for personal skill grow. But due to the pvp population problem and things like Qdodging, duoQ, Gods of 6 AM arena etc. it's not always the case.

That's a fair point. People did that with arena very many years ago in WoW, playing during hours with as few online as possible (before all the servers got cross-play, before that they were part of one of a dozen different server clusters for instanced PvP).

I just know that despite Overwatch having had such a huge playerbase some time ago and was able to create many matches with very similar rating, it often felt like the outcome was decided by a dice roll. One game my pug team steamrolled the enemy, next one the enemy steamrolled us. And the couple of close fights here and there felt less frequent than one side dominating the other. In my experience it's the same in conquest here too.

I mainly want to play to have fun, and all the tilted and salty people in chat malding can be real buzzkillers. It's highly counterproductive if someone gets offended and can't play as well because of it, and that the offender risk being ridiculed themselves by others. Everyone gets irritated sometimes, but why even play in a pug if they already know that they despise having close to zero control over your team? It's a team game, and if trying to encourage cooperation and team spirit then starting with insults clearly isn't the way to go.

Not at all saying that OP does any of this, but still wanted to point out that it's mainly peoples' own mindset that makes them tilt to that degree. Venting isn't always toxic. But, Alt + F4 > flame people in chat

Edited April 1, 2022 by Inguz.6493

[Infinity.2876]

good job I'd like to add a few things mind you I haven't played for very long so  take with grain of salt

 

sometimes stomping is not a good idea ae: when there are no rezers and they are far off point it will take longer for them to rez only using 4 (rangers it's a good idea to stomp as they have a powerful number 3)

 

and please for the sake of all of our sanity DO NOT TREB

Edit:(treb is okay if the enemy team is snowballing mid but should not be camped)

Edited April 2, 2022 by Infinity.2876

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

3 hours ago, Hogwarts Zebra.8597 said:

This is the afk mindset that throws games. If you are 1v3 and still losing, that means someone on the enemy team is also 1v3ing, and likely doing a better job of it at that. 

Now ofc there are games that are simply uncarriable, but most ppl treat every lost game as uncarriable whereas most of them would've been. 

No

Winning 1v3s while holding the node as you do it is certainly not an "AFK move". That's insulting my dude.

I'm pointing out the difference between having PUGs that go to nodes and PUGs that don't. If your PUGs simply don't go to nodes or never defend and always run from combats, you automatically lose, doesn't matter who you are.

Getting janky games like this where you are a plat+ player with low rated teammates vs. a team of mid rated goldish opponents is pretty common nowadays. It results in a situation where even if you can win all of the time no matter the circumstance on the node you are at, your silver teammates will be getting crunched by golds on the other two nodes that you are not at. They lose every combat almost immediately and never try to defend nodes because they either die within 2s of standing on a node or are immediately ran off if they want to survive. Thus your team only ever has 1 node cap and there is no way to carry the win.

And I don't care if these average party MMR vs. average party MMR splits look balanced on paper, because they are not balanced in application. If RED team has a high plat with a bunch of low golds to balance a match vs BLUE with a bunch of high golds, this is unfair due to how conquest is actually played on 3 nodes, where you have to hold 2 nodes to win. If RED team's strength all lies within one player who can only be in one place at any given time, of course his four other teammates are going to lose on the other two nodes, equating to a loss most of the time, regardless of if the actual numeric average party vs. average party MMR looks perfectly balanced on paper.

Obviously this problem is due to low population, but it is a very real problem in which I was trying to detail in shorter words to point out that some matches in this low population community are very seriously incarriable, regardless of how good you are.

Go figure why so many people have collaborated win trade cliques as of 2022. Can anyone really blame them at this point? Arenanet needs to do something different with either the algorithm itself, the queue system "Solo Duo only", or possibly just dumpster the game mode and give us something else better designed for low population and just leave 5v5 for ATs.

Edited April 1, 2022 by Trevor Boyer.6524

[Hogwarts Zebra.8597]

1 hour ago, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

No

Winning 1v3s while holding the node as you do it is certainly not an "AFK move". That's insulting my dude.

I'm pointing out the difference between having PUGs that go to nodes and PUGs that don't. If your PUGs simply don't go to nodes or never defend and always run from combats, you automatically lose, doesn't matter who you are.

Getting janky games like this where you are a plat+ player with low rated teammates vs. a team of mid rated goldish opponents is pretty common nowadays. It results in a situation where even if you can win all of the time no matter the circumstance on the node you are at, your silver teammates will be getting crunched by golds on the other two nodes that you are not at. They lose every combat almost immediately and never try to defend nodes because they either die within 2s of standing on a node or are immediately ran off if they want to survive. Thus your team only ever has 1 node cap and there is no way to carry the win.

And I don't care if these average party MMR vs. average party MMR splits look balanced on paper, because they are not balanced in application. If RED team has a high plat with a bunch of low golds to balance a match vs BLUE with a bunch of high golds, this is unfair due to how conquest is actually played on 3 nodes, where you have to hold 2 nodes to win. If RED team's strength all lies within one player who can only be in one place at any given time, of course his four other teammates are going to lose on the other two nodes, equating to a loss most of the time, regardless of if the actual numeric average party vs. average party MMR looks perfectly balanced on paper.

Obviously this problem is due to low population, but it is a very real problem in which I was trying to detail in shorter words to point out that some matches in this low population community are very seriously incarriable, regardless of how good you are.

Go figure why so many people have collaborated win trade cliques as of 2022. Can anyone really blame them at this point? Arenanet needs to do something different with either the algorithm itself, the queue system "Solo Duo only", or possibly just dumpster the game mode and give us something else better designed for low population and just leave 5v5 for ATs.

I wasn't referring specifically to you, but I've had countless games that otherwise would've been very winnable, yet some random teammate just decides the game to be "uncarryable" and afks while spamming chat abt their trash team. And while yes some games are actually unwinnable, I wouldn't advertise the "game's uncarryable" mindset on the forums, as that only further increases the amount of uncarrayble games by people going afk. 

Edited April 1, 2022 by Hogwarts Zebra.8597

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

10 hours ago, Spellhunter.9675 said:

If you are stalling 1v3 at far and the enemy player can kite 1v4 long enough that basically means he is just carrying harder than you. So he deserves to win more than you.

Not true at all.

1. Literally any Thief or some other mobile class could run up and down the djinn bottle and avoid death. Like gold 3 players can do this.
2. Someone actually holding a node while winning a straight 1v3 combat is entirely different. This kind of a move is a p2+ move.
3. The scenario I described amounts down to the PUGs. The enemy team had 1 who was wise enough to go and cap the nodes, whereas your team had no PUGs that were wise enough to disengage the g3 monkey thief to stop the guy who was full capping two nodes by himself.

The situation detailed amounts down to who's PUGs are stupider.

Many GW2 matches often amount down to this nowadays.

Gains & losses hardly feel skill based in ranked games lately.

Edited April 1, 2022 by Trevor Boyer.6524

[Ashgar.3024]

Telling people to practice in Unranked is such a bad advice. Unranked is a clusterkitten with 0 matchmaking and usually just a ton of premades stomping around.

 

Ranked by design is meant to match people of similar skill, which is what you should aim for when practicing anything. Main issue is that the system doesn't work all the time due to low pop.

 

So yeah telling people "don't queue ranked if you haven't sweated for 20k hours over this game" isn't really helping anything.

[Gibson.4036]

5 hours ago, Ashgar.3024 said:

Telling people to practice in Unranked is such a bad advice. Unranked is a clusterkitten with 0 matchmaking and usually just a ton of premades stomping around.

 

Ranked by design is meant to match people of similar skill, which is what you should aim for when practicing anything. Main issue is that the system doesn't work all the time due to low pop.

 

So yeah telling people "don't queue ranked if you haven't sweated for 20k hours over this game" isn't really helping anything.

That was my first reaction, too, but on seeing some more posts in this thread I don't think that was the intent. It looks to me like it's more "don't come into ranked still trying to figure out what your skills do" than "stay out of ranked until you've mastered your build".

Though a few minutes reading through my skills and trying them on a golem is about as much as I think I'd learn from playing in unranked, where five person teams insta-kill me and outrotate so well it feels like they're on every point at the same time.

As long as I have a basic feel for my build and what it does, I'm going to learn a lot more in ranked.

Edited April 2, 2022 by Gibson.4036

[Multicolorhipster.9751]

My personal piece of advice would be; as many would say & have said, not to play it.

Not because you're bad at the game and need to learn.

No, because you're a good person and you deserve better than to endure the mental torture that is Ranked Gw2 Ranked PvP.

 

Its unfair by design. From DuoQ, to the way rating is awarded/deducted everything is set up to make the average SoloQ Ranked experience a miserable one.

There's not even a payoff for it. It's just needless suffering. There's so much cheating and shady behavior at the very top% that even if we finally did break through and climbed to the very top % of players, that would prove absolutely nothing and would also likely land you on several government watchlists.

[PsyCho iz IDMP.8291]

There will be no true ranked Q if people are forced to play ranked game for pips... Unranked is irrelevant, you gain nothing. It is better to train a new class directly in ranked if you are not platinum. You gain the same number of pips if your copper or gold. Don't forget that if you want to have enough players to play with you have to include players that are here only for pips and legendary armor/backpack.

[Infinity.2876]

one more tip dont play when traffic is low you will die

[Lilithish.7243]

The most important rule of PvP is ‘block’. My block list is exceptionally long over the years. You’re going to lose. Read that again. You’re going to lose sometimes. Sometimes you’ll get onto a bad streak as well. You will lose. Learn to lose. Learn to learn from a loss and get better from it. Accept personal responsibility for the loss and work harder. Do not enter chat. Do not engage toxicity. Block, study your loss, and get into the next bout.
 

Good luck and have fun! 

[greedywholesome.9081]

There will always be new players and it's somewhat a good sign but right now, the bigger issues facing this mode and the game is new player acquisition and retention for PvE. If the devs succeed at that, then PvP will get a bit of a boost in player population. 

The mechanics of this game is amazing and the original devs who designed the core engine of the game were truly passionate. 

With the low population, it's very difficult at times to keep a competitive mind set. Like what some of you have already stated, and this is common by the way, a lot of matches turn up very uneven. Countless times I would survive a node 1v2 sometimes 3, stalling opponents as long as I can. My teammates would still lose to the outnumbered opponents because they would tunnel vision fighting on a single node instead of spreading out. After that it just snowballs.

However it goes both ways, we'd be down a lot and one over-rotation error by the other team or ganking them off points to prevent them from decapping or capping could turn the game favorably. 

What I've been seeing a lot of lately are the behaviors you'd generally expect in unranked happening in ranked. They would Q up with builds they are still practicing on or uncertain with so they zerg together because of inexperience or lack of confidence with their build or skill. The game is designed to promote ranked gameplay. 

Best we can do is teach and support them....IF THEY WILL LISTEN. 

Edited April 3, 2022 by greedywholesome.9081

[anjo.6143]

On 4/1/2022 at 10:23 AM, Hogwarts Zebra.8597 said:

This is the afk mindset that throws games. If you are 1v3 and still losing, that means someone on the enemy team is also 1v3ing, and likely doing a better job of it at that. 

Now ofc there are games that are simply uncarriable, but most ppl treat every lost game as uncarriable whereas most of them would've been. 

Or their teamates are worse than the opponent. Or they arent 3x1. Etc. 

[Khalisto.5780]

On 3/31/2022 at 9:06 PM, Pimsley.3681 said:

What's sad is the toxicity in unranked as well. When I Q there, there are often really toxic "know-it-alls" that prevent newer players from understanding the basic concept of conquest. I often tell them to please chill and allow people to learn in this mode. 

 

Unranked is supposed to be a safe haven to learn new builds and such. 

unranked is a no mans land right now, as a solo gold 3 i q into enough plat 2 3-4 man pts prolly being the better player in my team, those matches usually 500-100, sometimes they go easy and let the other team score pnts so the gap isn't so big and ppl don't give up 2 mins into the game.

[Carnage.6751]

With this rate PvP in this game destined to die.Legit playing ranked pvp no different than playing with bots.0 communication,0 map awareness,0 teamplay.Every game like this ;"people coming to game without 0 talk pushing themselves to door and walking to bases they choose.I'm saying guys I'm close" and sometimes someone who doesn't know to read chasing me and mid goes outnumbered and loses.When I build support teammates walking around map like headless chickens and roaming and 3 v 1 everytime.I lost my patience in this point I got 4 days suspension.This is not just fault of players.Arena-net pushing players to play new classes in ranked for Ascension ,so people coming to ranked with classes they never played before   and being a weight until they win 5 match.And people who throw to games and ruin to game says "Dude who cares it a game".YES its a game made for fun and because of You I can't have fun.And 0 punishment againts that.Throw to game ,stay idle but don't say what they are.They doesn't care as long they complete to reward tracks and achievements.

Edited April 9, 2022 by Carnage.6751

[Carnage.6751]

On 4/1/2022 at 11:18 PM, Ashgar.3024 said:

Telling people to practice in Unranked is such a bad advice. Unranked is a clusterkitten with 0 matchmaking and usually just a ton of premades stomping around.

 

Ranked by design is meant to match people of similar skill, which is what you should aim for when practicing anything. Main issue is that the system doesn't work all the time due to low pop.

 

So yeah telling people "don't queue ranked if you haven't sweated for 20k hours over this game" isn't really helping anything.

So just because you bullied by premades makes you to jump on ranked without experience?Dude Unranked a place for learning and set your skillset for ranked.You losing nothing but if you do that you being weight on other players and causing them to lose ranks.Why you are so shameless ?Yeah unranked so mean so I'll become a weight on other players for carry me.You doesn't care your rank that doesnt mean there isn't player wanna promote.And you being a barricade for them.Not everyone in this game is casual players.Some players wanna be competitive.Wants challenge at least dont ruin their fun.How many times I met people like you in ranked.And they are so shameless about it."Yeah I ruined your match so what?"

Edited April 9, 2022 by Carnage.6751

[otto.5684]

On 3/31/2022 at 5:34 PM, Pyriel.4370 said:

Please use the following guidelines before pugging conquest ranked:

- each death you have gives the enemy 5 points. So if you notice you are dying a lot, don’t do the thing you are doing and try something different like…..

- learn to rotate, going in one by one into an aoe meat grinder only gives em points and you downtime.

- if you are support, straddle team fights and don’t get separated.

- if there is a support with you in a team fight. Don’t wander off, stay near them where possible.

- use targeting and focus who is targeted, usually it’s for a reason.

- learn to safely stomp. Stability, blind, things like guard focus 5, etc. all these stop you getting knocked about and helps you secure a stomp.

- notice someone doing high damage but their health is going up and down? Target them, a dead person does 0 damage and they are likely squishy.

- notice your team member down and an enemy down? Gun for that stomp more than anything unless it’s covered by aoe as it will rally your teammate back to life. Don’t…..for the love of god…..don’t pick a fight with a nearby interrupter. Use stability or blind and get the job done.

- if mid is a meat grinder, go sides. Don’t tunnel into mid. Again, don’t tunnel into mid. You are only giving them free points.

- new build or new to a profession? Cool! Don’t bring it into ranked. Learn it in unranked first.

- Stomp in team fights. Unless you are pro and know what you are doing. Just stomp. Don’t hard Rez or dance about. Stomp. It’s a potential free Rez for a downed ally, 5 points for your team and a 4v5 for 15+ seconds for the other team depending.

- if you see a low enemy, kill them. It doesn’t take much and that’s someone down. Don’t be engaging the full health enemy when a low health one is nearby.

- teams wiped? Regroup and Zerg close, try to secure a kill or 2 and snowball. Don’t go back in 1 by 1, you will be farmed. 
- if you are ranged, DONT GO INTO MELEE UNLESS YOU ARE STOMPING. Make it harder for an enemy to just spam your team down. 
- if you are melee, don’t go out of range unless you are disengaging or healing. 
- do not fight off points. You’re allowing them to tick up points while a couple just hold you off and turtle. It isn’t team death match.

 

Finally, please, for the love of god, bring SOME condi cleanse.

And if you are reading this thread you probably already know all this 😝 

[Ziegrif.5964]

Unranked isn't worth it as you only get the chest rewards for ranked play. So if a player is there for leggy armor or backpack ranked is the only game mode that matters. 

[Ashgar.3024]

23 hours ago, Carnage.6751 said:

So just because you bullied by premades makes you to jump on ranked without experience?Dude Unranked a place for learning and set your skillset for ranked.You losing nothing but if you do that you being weight on other players and causing them to lose ranks.Why you are so shameless ?Yeah unranked so mean so I'll become a weight on other players for carry me.You doesn't care your rank that doesnt mean there isn't player wanna promote.And you being a barricade for them.Not everyone in this game is casual players.Some players wanna be competitive.Wants challenge at least dont ruin their fun.How many times I met people like you in ranked.And they are so shameless about it."Yeah I ruined your match so what?"

 

If you're competitive you shouldn't get matched with Casuals in Silver/Gold anyway.

 

Also never said this applied to me lol.

[Carnage.6751]

2 hours ago, Ashgar.3024 said:

 

If you're competitive you shouldn't get matched with Casuals in Silver/Gold anyway.

 

Also never said this applied to me lol.

What are you talking about?Do you think I picking  my teammates in solo que?

Edited April 10, 2022 by Carnage.6751

[Ashgar.3024]

10 minutes ago, Carnage.6751 said:

What are you talking about?Do you think I picking  my teammates in solo que?

You're aware of the MMR system right? You're a competitive player right? Why someone who's 1500+ worrying about what's going on at casual ratings?

 

Or are you a "casual" yourself constantly blaming your teamates for your losses?

[Carnage.6751]

Do you realize when you lose you losing MMR right?Oh guys look at him we have a team carrier in chat.What are you talking abotu man?Being Competitive doesn't change This is  a mode based on TEAM PLAY.Make some sense please.Being a competitive means you need to carry new players come for free wins?You definitelly no idea about matchmaking and def pretend like game is  balanced.When new expansion already droped a nuke on balance with new busted classes Im here trying to play a bruiser chrono.Your posts screams like " How dare you tell me go practice you gonna carry me."Nobody is your dolyak ok bro?Make some sense.

 

Edited April 10, 2022 by Carnage.6751

[TheQuickFox.3826]

Some of my own as semi-casual-ish PvP-player in silver/gold:

 

• Do your best. Keep doing your best even if the match is going downhill.
• sPvP is more enjoyable if you don't care about sPvP. With this I mean: Don't try to care too much about individual matches. Sometimes you will be outskilled, sometimes you will get bots or AFK team mates or bad players. Accept this and realize that this will happen as often to your team as to the enemy team.
• Listen to your team mates. Short messages can be very helpful in winning the match.
• A match is never won in chat. Especially in losing matches some players have the tendency to criticize team members in chat. However, if something cannot be told in a short message, don't say it as all time spent typing is time lost playing the match.
• Don't care too much about winning or losing. The rating and matchmaking system is quite good and will result in a approximate 50% win/loss ratio for everyone.
• Avoid unranked if you care about rewards. With the pip system, the ranked matches have far better rewards for the same gameplay. Sure, if you want to practice, try a few matches in unranked, but ranked is where you generally want to be.
• Tournaments are better to be avoided for your average player. The matchmaking system with a 50% win/loss ratio does not apply here and you will be paired against teams that far outskill you.
• Players in PvP can be quite toxic sometimes. If someone is overly toxic and offensive in chat right-click them and select block to silence them. If they use really offensive language, report them.
• Try to balance individual goals with your team goals. If you need special achievements like for slaying the lord in the FoeFire map, communicate about this and choose a good moment to try this. Try to go together.
• The maps "The Battle for Champions Dusk" (stronghold) and can at this time ONLY be played in unranked. Be aware of this if you want the map achievements for these maps.
• If you're new to PvP, Stronghold may be a good introduction to PvP as it combines PvE and PvP elements together. You can select it in the PvP panel. If you hate stronghold and only want to play conquest, be sure to have only conquest selected. Too often I see Conquest players complaining about Stronghold coming up while they have the option to turn it off.

[Pimsley.3681]

On 4/9/2022 at 9:54 PM, Khalisto.5780 said:

unranked is a no mans land right now, as a solo gold 3 i q into enough plat 2 3-4 man pts prolly being the better player in my team, those matches usually 500-100, sometimes they go easy and let the other team score pnts so the gap isn't so big and ppl don't give up 2 mins into the game.

 

Hi Khalisto, yup. There just isn't a safe haven anymore for new players to learn builds. We used to have hot join.