Combine Unranked and Ranked arena into just "Arena"

[Yerlock.4678]

This game's matchmaker is trash because in part the population of pvp is about the size of three high schools combined. Combine Ranked and Unranked and use the ranking system from Ranked that we already have (with badges, leaderboards etc) because right now ranked is full of win traders who have to get toxic to beat the trash mmr that is DESIGNED to try to make you lose if you're doing too well.

 

The problem with ranked is the mmr quality is terrible and can't be taken seriously. After they're combined we can have 5 man ques with better quality mmr so teams that want to have fun can mess around in lower league's and try hards can try hard with out wanting to cheat the system. 

 

Am I taking crazy pills? Seems like this change is a no brainer.

[Stallic.2397]

This is a good suggestion, but at Anet, it's not a matter of how. Countless solutions are out there. But it's a matter of why. 

 

They're not investing resources to change pvp. Pve is where all the dev activity is at. 

[Zagerus.8675]

I'm not so sure that 5man teams would be healthy for Ranked. Tournaments are the proper answer for 5mans imo. As far as population goes: I'm hypothesizing but I'm willing to bet that the PvP population is unevenly split between Unranked and Ranked at any given time. I often play 2-3 Unranked matches to warm up before playing Ranked. There could be 1,000 people enjoying PvP but only 100 people queuing into Ranked - 900 queuing Unranked. That's.. highly unfortunate for Ranked if this actually is the case. Merging the two arenas together would theoretically increase Ranked PvP population but then gamers lose a REALLY valuable avenue to sharpen their skills on a whim. It would definitely be a sacrificial tradeoff - but maybe worth it?

The wintrading and team skill problems would mostly be resolved with a higher population. There are already so many incentives to just join queue and play but.. the numbers game still beats us. You hate to see someone with 50 hrs in the game get placed in a match with 6 plat2's @10k hours.

[stry.1493]

just stop being silver

[Yerlock.4678]

Just now, stry.1493 said:

just stop being silver

ya bro

[Multicolorhipster.9751]

Heart is in the right place, but I think this requires a bit more thought.

 

Wintrading/match manipulation is bad yes; it stops sPvP from ever having a solid competitive option, but consider how bad it is already with solo/duoQ.

Getting DuoQ back was the best thing the wintrader cartel could have hoped for because it gives them more control over matchmaking and allows them to boost multiple accounts at once.

Imagine how that would be if they could boost 5 accounts at once, all while having 100% control of who lands on one team.

If a party of 5 wintraders synchs their queue with just 1 other person, it is  💯%  guaranteed that the 1 other person will not be on the same team as the wintraders.

 

The only real ways to stop the wintrading cartel(Aside from retroactively banning them all, but that will never happen.) would be both SoloQ only and TeamQ only in 2 different Ranked arenas.

SoloQ is protected by its RNG. It is so random that the wintrading cartel cannot organize and manipulate the outcome of matches efficiently enough to where it is worth it. They absolutely hate it.

TeamQ is protected because a full team of players that know eachother are essentially incorruptible. 

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

5 hours ago, gmmg.9210 said:

This game's matchmaker is trash because in part the population of pvp is about the size of three high schools combined. Combine Ranked and Unranked and use the ranking system from Ranked that we already have (with badges, leaderboards etc) because right now ranked is full of win traders who have to get toxic to beat the trash mmr that is DESIGNED to try to make you lose if you're doing too well.

 

The problem with ranked is the mmr quality is terrible and can't be taken seriously. After they're combined we can have 5 man ques with better quality mmr so teams that want to have fun can mess around in lower league's and try hards can try hard with out wanting to cheat the system. 

 

Am I taking crazy pills? Seems like this change is a no brainer.

I've recently come to the conclusion after much thought into the subject, that ranked is beyond repair. The 5man game mode of conquest is broken for so many reasons in GW2 at this point. There isn't anything that can be done to fix any of this. I'll spare the usual text wall thesis explaining myself, but I am being serious after much deeper review. There isn't anything that can be done to fix any of this outside of a team of highly active moderators to watch matches and ban hammer cheaters immediately, which clearly Arenanet has no interest to do.

In fact, we are actually sitting in the better spot right now by allowing Ranked to stay the way it is. This is because it draws the win traders away from Unranked so people can at least go play for the funzies in Unranked. Without the cesspool cheater magnet that is Ranked, they'd be playing Unranked and ruining everything for everyone, even the casuals who are just looking for fun.

The only real answer here, is to give us an ENTIRELY new game mode that is designed in such a way to intrinsically edge out cheating due to its design and queue system, or the community who actually cares that is left, needs to ban together and start forming community hosted events where we make our own game modes and have trusted players within the community moderate this stuff actively with absolutely no tolerance for bad sportsmanship.

I've had a few ideas for this ^ but haven't had the juice to act on it lately.

Edited July 30, 2022 by Trevor Boyer.6524

[Bazsi.2734]

6 hours ago, gmmg.9210 said:

This game's matchmaker is trash because in part the population of pvp is about the size of three high schools combined.

That's... debateable. I seriously doubt we have that much. But in general, yeah matchamaking is sh*t because of the lack of players.

 

6 hours ago, gmmg.9210 said:

After they're combined we can have 5 man ques with better quality mmr so teams that want to have fun can mess around in lower league's and try hards can try hard with out wanting to cheat the system. 

 

Am I taking crazy pills? Seems like this change is a no brainer.

Unranked is where I meme/learn builds, and I'm happily playing with even mid-gold rated players in there. If I see the same names in ranked though... I know we have a terrible match incoming. I'm a way better player in ranked, and I expect my teammates to be the same. In ranked having large skill-gap between players is unacceptable. And thats what the 5man premades and merging of the 2 modes would force on people.
So that's a hard pass from me. Not to mention to compete you'd have to maintain a 5man static and its just... I'd rather uninstall honesty.

Edited July 30, 2022 by Bazsi.2734

[Master Ketsu.4569]

As has been stated countless times before, 5 man is not some magic bullet to fix matchmaking. The problem is that 5 man reduces player population overall due to elitism and gatekeeping. If you need proof, just look at the ABSOLUTE STATE of ATs, which provides overwhelming empirical evidence that this is the case.

The fallacy being committed here by the "ooga ooga 5 man will magically solve all problems booga booga!" crowd is known as "Not seeing the forest for the trees". You are asserting that because you as an individual would enjoy 5man with your friends, that this is true for the community as a whole. But a look at match data from actual attempts at 5 man shows that this is not the case. The big killer is that 5 man groups take a lot longer to form due to convenience tax, meaning most people will still be solo Q. Solo Q vs Team Q results in horrifyingly lopsided matches that only makes the matchmaking algorithm even more inaccurate as it is unable to assess if a player in the 5 man is actually good, or just a terribad who is being carried, and also unable to tell if the Solo Q player is actually bad, or is actually highly skilled but doesn't want to spend the time to form a 5 man team every time he wants to PvP.  This results in people quitting the game.

Seriously, stop making this thread. Stop making this argument. It's a very stupid and very easily debunked claim literally just look at AT data and apply basic common sense lmao.

 

[roederich.2716]

stop thinking guys, there will be no changes.

Also there will be no actions against the wintraders.

Cause when they are getting banned they are back later and continue then cause they earning money with it.

And why did anet not perma IP ban these people yet? Cause these wintraders are buying accounts from anet and money is all anets goals seem to be. So with every account sold in blackmarket anet earned with the initial official sale of the account.

In Anets calculation: "Wintrader buy account why ban and take effort to change system instead?"

Here also applies the only thing one can do: Stay away from this game when you dont like how it is.

This game is causing more emotional anger by now than it makes fun, stay away for the good of your health, wellbeing and family.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

The only thing that will improve matchmaking is to drastically increase the population, and if you can't draw players to PvP, that means you stop thinning them out instead.

 

I've talked about this before, but there should only be two game modes--Rated and Custom Arena, with rated games offering Stronghold, Conquest, TDM 2v2, TDM 3v3, and TDM 5v5 all at once, with the same "preference" checkbox system we have now, where you can chose what modes you'd like.

 

Leagues and seasons should be completely eliminated and made available 24/7 for all rated games.  The acheivements should be merged and repeatable. There should be no difference between casual and hardcore players besides their ratings. MMR will automatically put them where they belong.

 

MMR should also be character-based, so players trying new classes and builds don't get demolished immediately or have anxiety about lowering their rating by experimenting. If you place gold+ on your main then you shouldn't have to enter a gold-level match on your new alt. This would also allow players to play in multiple different divisions at the same time, refreshing their experience.

 

These changes would solve the majority of the problems with PvP right now besides balance.

Edited July 31, 2022 by Mariyuuna.6508

[Khalisto.5780]

17 hours ago, Zagerus.8675 said:

I'm not so sure that 5man teams would be healthy for Ranked. Tournaments are the proper answer for 5mans imo. As far as population goes: I'm hypothesizing but I'm willing to bet that the PvP population is unevenly split between Unranked and Ranked at any given time. I often play 2-3 Unranked matches to warm up before playing Ranked. There could be 1,000 people enjoying PvP but only 100 people queuing into Ranked - 900 queuing Unranked. That's.. highly unfortunate for Ranked if this actually is the case. Merging the two arenas together would theoretically increase Ranked PvP population but then gamers lose a REALLY valuable avenue to sharpen their skills on a whim. It would definitely be a sacrificial tradeoff - but maybe worth it?

The wintrading and team skill problems would mostly be resolved with a higher population. There are already so many incentives to just join queue and play but.. the numbers game still beats us. You hate to see someone with 50 hrs in the game get placed in a match with 6 plat2's @10k hours.

not sure of that, if I q spam unranked I usually i'll be matched with at least 5 players from previous game, with me that'll be 60% the same players of the last match, it doesn't feel unranked is more populated than ranked.

 

Plus if you g3+ you get matched against 3-5 plat premades randomly farming noobs that match quality wise ranked would've been a better choice, cuz ppl will stop playing 2 mins in after scoring 0.

[Infinity.2876]

The problem with unranked is it is necessary to have a team you can rely on. This is hard for people who are used to duoQ or singleQ. You would have to use something like lfg and the amount of people who want to do PvP as a group and post it on lfg is small when you can do Wvw as a bigger group or do a dragons end meta or strikes or something so you would have to use discord. Some people don't  have it or don't want to use it or some other reason.

 

Mesmer, ele(non tempest), and warrior mains barely even participate any more because of nerfs. 

 

 

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

12 hours ago, Master Ketsu.4569 said:

As has been stated countless times before, 5 man is not some magic bullet to fix matchmaking. The problem is that 5 man reduces player population overall due to elitism and gatekeeping. If you need proof, just look at the ABSOLUTE STATE of ATs, which provides overwhelming empirical evidence that this is the case.

The problem is deeper yet. You also have social gate keeping.

Let's say an AT is forming. There are 5 players entering this AT who are generally top players and there are 5 others who are generally bottom plat level players. 3 of those top players like to play together so they form a team and then they invite 2 of the remaining bottom plats. They do not invite the other 2 top players for one reason or another of social politics. The remaining 2 top players also jive with different cliques and don't really know each other or maybe have a reason to not want to play together. So now both of those top players make separate teams and begin inviting whoever is left that is signed in of the plat+ community. One of those top players is much more active in social Discording. The remaining plat+ prefers to join his team. The other top player now gets to fish through debatable g3+ material or lower to form his team.

The team with 3 top players and 2 plat+ is clearly going to win the AT. The team with 1 top player and 4 plat+ will ride a 2nd place where their team will lose 500 to 100. The team with 1 top player and g3+ or lower may not even take 3rd. So we have a situation when population gets low like this, where plat1 players start riding more 1st place wins than some top players, and some top players are being made to look worse than other top players or even some socially popular plat1 level players, even though they are some of the best players in the game hands down. When population gets very low like this, everything starts functioning like a high school gym class. Things become like a popularity contest and it matters for winning just as much as skill does. <- This is a very real effect after a game has survived a decade and players have long histories with each other. Some people just decide to like and honor certain players as well as hate others, regardless of if the reasons why are right or wrong.

All of this leads to an ultimate effect where people who know they are amongst the best players in the game skill wise, stop participating. Players who know they're good, would rather not play at all instead of playing and losing badly against players they know they are equal too. At least this is usually how it goes. And so we have people leave the community and the population gets smaller and smaller and smaller.

All of this ^ is very very real and it is testimony to the social evils of lying & deceiving your way to the top, sabotaging other's reputations with propaganda, and what it does to a competitive scene's community in the end. It kills games, to put it simply. This is why good sportsmanship is stressed so strongly in any good competitive scene, so that scene can survive generation to generation rather than shrink.

 

But yeah, my point being in responding to you is that nothing can be done to fix these problems with 5man play at this point. What Arenanet really needs to do if they care at all in any way, is just deliver a new game mode that is designed in such a way that it organically negates these kinds of problems from occurring to begin with. I know people don't want to hear it and I'm not saying that this is the answer, but if they were to do let's say a 1v1 beta season using 2v2 arenas, that format would eliminate so many problems. No one would be landing synch queue monkey PUGs on your team, your wins are based off your own performance. There wouldn't be any social gating. There would be WAY more matches happening in general so match making in 1v1 would be better. You take a single game of RED p1 g3 g2 g1 s3 vs. BLUE p1 g3 g2 g1 s3 and it would divide that into 5 separate 1v1 games of p1 vs p1, g3 vs g3, g2 vs g2, g1 vs g1, and s3 vs s3.

Again, I'm not saying 1v1 is the answer, but I am saying that a new game mode design using the idea of what I just explained there, about the design being situated in such a way that eliminates big problems before they even occur, is what we need. If Arenanet would just care one more time to put some thought into this. That'd be awesome.

[Paradoxoglanis.1904]

Game is dead. If the match sucks just turn your brain off and stick it out for the pips or quit and take a long break along with everyone else. Whatever integrity was left in pvp is now gone.

[Sindrener.1592]

2 hours ago, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

The problem is deeper yet. You also have social gate keeping.

Let's say an AT is forming. There are 5 players entering this AT who are generally top players and there are 5 others who are generally bottom plat level players. 3 of those top players like to play together so they form a team and then they invite 2 of the remaining bottom plats. They do not invite the other 2 top players for one reason or another of social politics. The remaining 2 top players also jive with different cliques and don't really know each other or maybe have a reason to not want to play together. So now both of those top players make separate teams and begin inviting whoever is left that is signed in of the plat+ community. One of those top players is much more active in social Discording. The remaining plat+ prefers to join his team. The other top player now gets to fish through debatable g3+ material or lower to form his team.

The team with 3 top players and 2 plat+ is clearly going to win the AT. The team with 1 top player and 4 plat+ will ride a 2nd place where their team will lose 500 to 100. The team with 1 top player and g3+ or lower may not even take 3rd. So we have a situation when population gets low like this, where plat1 players start riding more 1st place wins than some top players, and some top players are being made to look worse than other top players or even some socially popular plat1 level players, even though they are some of the best players in the game hands down. When population gets very low like this, everything starts functioning like a high school gym class. Things become like a popularity contest and it matters for winning just as much as skill does. <- This is a very real effect after a game has survived a decade and players have long histories with each other. Some people just decide to like and honor certain players as well as hate others, regardless of if the reasons why are right or wrong.

All of this leads to an ultimate effect where people who know they are amongst the best players in the game skill wise, stop participating. Players who know they're good, would rather not play at all instead of playing and losing badly against players they know they are equal too. At least this is usually how it goes. And so we have people leave the community and the population gets smaller and smaller and smaller.

All of this ^ is very very real and it is testimony to the social evils of lying & deceiving your way to the top, sabotaging other's reputations with propaganda, and what it does to a competitive scene's community in the end. It kills games, to put it simply. This is why good sportsmanship is stressed so strongly in any good competitive scene, so that scene can survive generation to generation rather than shrink.

 

But yeah, my point being in responding to you is that nothing can be done to fix these problems with 5man play at this point. What Arenanet really needs to do if they care at all in any way, is just deliver a new game mode that is designed in such a way that it organically negates these kinds of problems from occurring to begin with. I know people don't want to hear it and I'm not saying that this is the answer, but if they were to do let's say a 1v1 beta season using 2v2 arenas, that format would eliminate so many problems. No one would be landing synch queue monkey PUGs on your team, your wins are based off your own performance. There wouldn't be any social gating. There would be WAY more matches happening in general so match making in 1v1 would be better. You take a single game of RED p1 g3 g2 g1 s3 vs. BLUE p1 g3 g2 g1 s3 and it would divide that into 5 separate 1v1 games of p1 vs p1, g3 vs g3, g2 vs g2, g1 vs g1, and s3 vs s3.

Again, I'm not saying 1v1 is the answer, but I am saying that a new game mode design using the idea of what I just explained there, about the design being situated in such a way that eliminates big problems before they even occur, is what we need. If Arenanet would just care one more time to put some thought into this. That'd be awesome.

Tldr they are not inviting u cus u are not skilled not cus of politics

[Luthan.5236]

The problem is that some people still care about rank/rating. So they want a separate mode cause they fear people in unranked playing less good. Actually unranked in my opinion seems to offer more incentive to play better - less raging  and early quitting/throwing cause of ranked.

Testing new builds: Yaeh ... I might still do that in ranked. 😄 (Going for the pips. I do not really care about rating. Playing unranked if the season is over and I want to play 5 vs. 5 and not death match. Or before mini season starts in that short time after regular season ended. Then unranked might thave shorter queue time. Cause the people playign for rating are not queuing for ranked anymore though technically that button is still possible then. Just giving no rating change anymore.)

Edited August 3, 2022 by Luthan.5236

[JTGuevara.9018]

On 7/30/2022 at 1:18 PM, gmmg.9210 said:

This game's matchmaker is trash because in part the population of pvp is about the size of three high schools combined. Combine Ranked and Unranked and use the ranking system from Ranked that we already have (with badges, leaderboards etc) because right now ranked is full of win traders who have to get toxic to beat the trash mmr that is DESIGNED to try to make you lose if you're doing too well.

 

The problem with ranked is the mmr quality is terrible and can't be taken seriously. After they're combined we can have 5 man ques with better quality mmr so teams that want to have fun can mess around in lower league's and try hards can try hard with out wanting to cheat the system. 

 

Am I taking crazy pills? Seems like this change is a no brainer.

No the matchmaking is trash because it's trash. Period. Win 4. Lose a close game on the 5th. Then LOSE 4. Fudge off with this matchmaking garbage. Just roll the dice. It's SIMPLE and fair. None of this "skill rating" GARBAGE.

[JTGuevara.9018]

On 7/31/2022 at 8:18 AM, Infinity.2876 said:

The problem with unranked is it is necessary to have a team you can rely on. This is hard for people who are used to duoQ or singleQ. You would have to use something like lfg and the amount of people who want to do PvP as a group and post it on lfg is small when you can do Wvw as a bigger group or do a dragons end meta or strikes or something so you would have to use discord. Some people don't  have it or don't want to use it or some other reason.

 

Mesmer, ele(non tempest), and warrior mains barely even participate any more because of nerfs. 

 

 

You got that right. And when we do, we get shell-lacked by EoF specs and that samurai rip-off bladesworn.

[Gibson.4036]

7 hours ago, JTGuevara.9018 said:

No the matchmaking is trash because it's trash. Period. Win 4. Lose a close game on the 5th. Then LOSE 4. Fudge off with this matchmaking garbage. Just roll the dice. It's SIMPLE and fair. None of this "skill rating" GARBAGE.

And yet, overall I get better matches after my first ten of the season. So it’s doing something.

Maybe because I’m low tier so there’s a larger population at my skill level?

[shion.2084]

As much as I despise trying to apply a rank up down to individuals based on being 1 of 5 in a group as a ranking system.... I do find that my matches where I'm 114th in rank are generally against vastly better opponents than when I'm in g2.  (and yes through the stupidity of match making I literally do that oscillation several times a season).

You will note that I did not say the matches are harder when I am high ranked... only that I face better opponents.   Matches in G2 are often harder because I can kill 3 people, hold a point and look over to see that everyone on my team is dead and they have the other two points... and there's literally nothing I can do about it.  I can win every fight and still have no chance of winning.

[Vancho.8750]

I think that patch that made people start in gold 2 their placements killed it for new players, since they can't play on starting level and most probably meet allot of THE ARENA players, get rolled over and quit the game. The game is constantly losing people but that is expected, the problem is that it is not gaining any new players.
Arenanet has perfect opportunity to put some anti churn measures for the Steam launch and try to cater to new players. The ranking system is terrible for new players, "balance" is done only for the tournaments, allot of the New specs are total nonsense for PVP, teleports, bad telegraphs for strong skills, over pronounced telegraphs for low impact skills, kitten ton of lingering AoEs, 1 hit 5 condition abilities, almost instant high damage skills, "immortal" bunkers, random CCs and so on and so on. 
But I don't think they are able to fix the issue they created, since there have been attempts to do it but it only backfired like the self driving PoF specs, since the long term players were able to abuse the ez builds better. Let the players figure out the META game is their worst approach they have applied to the game, the players will always gravitate to the most optimal and boring way to win in pvp.  Arenanet needs more curated experience with broader strokes across all of the professions. I'm not saying that they should ignore people's feedback, I'm saying they should make the game fun and entertaining for everyone not just the Top end.

Edited August 6, 2022 by Vancho.8750

[Guirssane.7082]

On 8/4/2022 at 6:45 AM, JTGuevara.9018 said:

No the matchmaking is trash because it's trash. Period. Win 4. Lose a close game on the 5th. Then LOSE 4. Fudge off with this matchmaking garbage. Just roll the dice. It's SIMPLE and fair. None of this "skill rating" GARBAGE.

If MM is that bad, why do good players still manage to get top 20 every season? Dont say wintrade xd

[Shao.7236]

22 minutes ago, Guirssane.7082 said:

If MM is that bad, why do good players still manage to get top 20 every season? Dont say wintrade xd

Combination of what is broken in the game, match manipulation of professions on queue time as they swap professions when they know what they are up against in the actual ready up phase and duo multiplying the mentioned issues.

[JTGuevara.9018]

4 hours ago, Guirssane.7082 said:

If MM is that bad, why do good players still manage to get top 20 every season? Dont say wintrade xd

Wintrade.