Wintrading at an all time high

[gmmg.9210]

It's funny, right at the end of the season random people get bumped from top 15 and other randoms become top 3-5. 

[Zyreva.1078]

Not much anet can do , because it can be impossible to prove intent behind wintrading and match manipulation (unless players are stupid enough to use ingame chat for their arrangement). If they just start banning anyone involved in "suspicious" activities, some innocent players will get banned and some guilty ones will get away and at the end nothing changes, except even less players will be playing.

PvP needs a complete overhaul and restart, i don't think anything else can save it at this point.

Edited September 12, 2022 by UmbraNoctis.1907

[Bast.7253]

15 minutes ago, gmmg.9210 said:

It's funny, right at the end of the season random people get bumped from top 15 and other randoms become top 3-5. 

strike wolf or something went from second or third page to number 2. Why I fight this person and Naru in a gold1 match is beyond me. But yeah. Crazy luck in matches the past few hours for that guy. 😂

[Multicolorhipster.9751]

14 hours ago, Ragnar.4257 said:

 

So, it's exactly like Ronald said. "75% of people in the top 20" is not a massive game-wide problem, it's a problem that exclusively impacts a handful of people near the top of the leaderboard. Yeah, if you're shooting for a top-10 spot, then wintrading is going to be a big problem. But if you're in gold-1, wintrading isn't what's stopping you climbing to gold-3.

It affects the entire competitive ladder all the way down to bronze and all the way up to rank 1/legend.

Unless your only motivation for playing ranked was to farm rewards, there's really 0 reason to compete and/or make any attempt to climb the competitive ladder.

Like yes, a plat is going to have much stronger emotions in that area, obviously, but that also only applies to the people who put in the effort to get there. It is entirely possible; likely even, that someone with competitive interest could look at the gatekeeping waiting for them in the upper-ranks and just quit right there.

And that's only when its not when its affecting them directly because top players getting into games full of lower-rated players is fairly common, and is the penultimate goal of the wintrader cartel.

14 hours ago, Ragnar.4257 said:

You do understand that exaggeration and hyperbole don't actually help your case, they hurt it. If you just kept it real on this issue, there'd be no debate.

There would still be debate when there shouldn't be any debate at all to begin with.

Wintrading should be something we're all unanimously against, but there's always going to be eristic people more concerned with arguing over the semantics behind said wintrading rather than the wintrading itself.

There shouldn't be a need to exaggerate and hyperbolize or to build any sort of 'case.' People should expect Anet to uphold their own TOS, and it should end there. Apparently not though! I guess we're delusional for setting such irrational expectations. 🤡

[Multicolorhipster.9751]

3 hours ago, UmbraNoctis.1907 said:

Not much anet can do , because it can be impossible to prove intent behind wintrading and match manipulation (unless players are stupid enough to use ingame chat for their arrangement). If they just start banning anyone involved in "suspicious" activities, some innocent players will get banned and some guilty ones will get away and at the end nothing changes, except even less players will be playing.

PvP needs a complete overhaul and restart, i don't think anything else can save it at this point.

They don't have to prove the intent behind anything. Match manipulation in competitive modes is against their TOS, or kitten rules.

Most of the people that would be banned will have been banned for it before in the past, making them very easy to identify in the event that someone at arenanet sits down and begins looking through 4 years of ignored match manipulation reports.

And given that its their job, it isn't unreasonable to expect some professionalism when/if they ever decide to handle it. That means not banning a bunch of random players, but the ones responsible.

[Bast.7253]

4 hours ago, Multicolorhipster.9751 said:

They don't have to prove the intent behind anything. Match manipulation in competitive modes is against their TOS, or kitten rules.

Most of the people that would be banned will have been banned for it before in the past, making them very easy to identify in the event that someone at arenanet sits down and begins looking through 4 years of ignored match manipulation reports.

And given that its their job, it isn't unreasonable to expect some professionalism when/if they ever decide to handle it. That means not banning a bunch of random players, but the ones responsible.

To be fair, I doubt they would ever have the manpower to go through all those reports. Nobody would. Because you'll have people reporting just to troll. Unless it's a unanimous voting system but even then you could just get a new form of wintrading - group-reporting people they want banned out of their little schemes. 

The only thing they COULD do is have somekind of logs of each match ( assuming they don't ) and create somekind of algorithm to sift through conversations during the match or conversations between certain players outside of the match. Even then most of the coordination would likely be done on Discord or some other form of communication that isn't trackable. Beyond that the only thing they could do would be to have somekind of analytics for contribution/actions during the match. That might catch afk'ers but then how do you prove that they did it to manipulate the match and didn't just have real life events come up that pulled them away?

Outside of cold hard proof via screenshots/conversation (which some brazenly do during map chat and even then can be written off as just trolling and not genuine win-trading ) there isn't really any feasible way to track this. 

The only way to fix anything at this point is to remove the titles/badges and other displayable bragging rights. Remove the actual ranks in ranked and just turn it into a game mode that incorporates unranked and ranked - with a larger player pool and maybe an adjusted matchmaking alogirthm. 

If they really want to leave ranked and "clout" in the game - get rid of conquest or make it so that it's group queue only. That way people wanting the titles will have to group up, and be pitted against others that group up. There will still be win-trading but it won't affect solo queue players. I would also take it another step further and make it solely a deathmatch, no caps/points/objectives. 

Other changes they could do that would really throw a wrench in the metagaming would be to prevent profession swapping and (assuming they have a high enough playerbase at this point) prevent profession stacking. Maybe that looks like - queue pops but it prompts you if there's already a profession of that class. If you don't have any other profession it puts you back into the queue instead. Of course this would be a pain and slow down the queue system as well. Also a major player inconvenience. 

Not really any way around it at this point but to remove it.

[Zyreva.1078]

8 hours ago, Multicolorhipster.9751 said:

They don't have to prove the intent behind anything. Match manipulation in competitive modes is against their TOS, or kitten rules.

Intent is what differentiates match manipulation from regular gameplay. It is the difference between a random disconnect and logging off. The difference between playing badly and throwing on purpose. The difference between sniping/dodging certain matches or randomly queueing. The difference between having someone manipulate matches in your favour with your agreement or without you even knowing.

[Ronald McDonald.8165]

On 9/11/2022 at 11:51 PM, Multicolorhipster.9751 said:

Send in the clowns! 📯 🤡🎺

If I made a change.org petition to change the PvP lobby music to copyright-free circus music, would anyone sign with me?

You don't give yourself enough credit and you give the do-nothings way too much credit.

I have played against you and you are p good mesmer brah, respect.

But the people that you're claiming to be better than you are on the same exact skill level, those 80, 90% of games won are all artificial.

I'm talking REAL top clowns, Ronald. Washed up egotistical clout chasers that hit their peak and from that point on wintraded and cheesed the matchmaker just to gatekeep leaderboard spots on this low population game and flex.

Its not blown out of proportion. The same people gatekeep the top of the leaderboard across a handful of alts every single season. It kills all competitive aspects of Ranked and just turns it into yet another boring pip farm.

It could be just 1 person and it would still ruin it. There should be 0 wintraders and spineless, sweaty metagamers in this game, and I hope that one day some hero at Arenanet comes to their senses and bans these clowns, or better yet reverts it back to SoloQ only after plat2 so that everyone can be reminded once again just how painfully average these 'top players' really are.

I feel like I hear them repeat that same insult on a biweekly basis.

The cartel is criminal organization and criminals love to be reminded of their crimes.

The best way to get them mad is through pure apathy and calling them trash. Yes indeed, the truth is the only defense against egotistical boosted sweats.

There is actually a significant difference between myself when I was a consistent plat 2 Mesmer to an actual top 10 Mesmer. I can turn on Shorts stream and acknowledge that at my best when I cared about the game, that the gap between him and I, is larger than the gap between myself at plat 2 and a gold 2 player.  They are that much better. I don’t think people realize how large that gap is. 

That’s not to say people don’t win trade. I wish wintraders would be banned. It’s frustrating when it happens, but it’s not that often. 
 

I think people equate wintrading with abusing the system and the issues with a small player population. People are able to abuse the system by duo queuing with with much lower ranked players. I think this is probably a more common issue than wintrading. Definitely needs to be a limit in place for how large of a gap you can duo with. Or even a discussion of whether duos should even be a thing still. 
 

Then the issue with a small player population. I’ve had multiple games this season and prior seasons where I’ve gone like 20 kills and 0 deaths on power chrono and lost. I’m literally keeping the enemy team in respawn and still losing. I am able to run through the enemy team like nothing, but the problem is my team is just as bad. My teammates are running out of respawn into a 1v3, 1v4. And are getting snowballed on other nodes. In plat games you still have people giving up nodes and losing team fights so they can kill beast for 25 points. And these games aren’t win traded, the population is so low you can get these terrible quality games somewhat often. This is why I stopped giving a kitten, took a long break from the game and am now playing much more casually. This low population is why you can have such large variation in the quality of your games.

 

On 9/12/2022 at 12:44 PM, Nova.4608 said:

Wintrading isn't a problem only when aiming for those top spots. It affects everyone that's in gold and above due to the matchmaker having nothing to work with aswell as gold consisting of something like 80% of the active population at any given time. Especially later into the season.

It's really not that uncommon to find people in the top pages when you're in gold 3 and as such it's also not that uncommon to find the wintraders they are trading with and getting your match ruined because of it. It's actually fairly common if you play during off-hours as that is when they have an easier time to link up for the match trade.

No, it's not stopping somebody from climbing gold 3 but that doesn't mean it isn't affecting them aswell and making the climb far harder than it needs to be.

Situations like those tends to create hyperbole but that's every game's forum in existence, and if you can't extrapolate the truth from an argument that's on you not being informed enough on the situation in the first place. Something which, by the way, takes all of 2 minutes to open the leaderboards ingame to check how many new no-names have showed up in the last day or two.

Also, if you think 75% of the top 20 leaderboard being wintraded isn't a massive issue game-wide, I don't know what to tell you honestly. If anything that tells you how little Anet cares about sPvP and how little they care for their game in general if they're willing to allow such a staggering number of cheaters in any game-mode.

I'm sure all the two dozen or so players coming from Steam that are interested in this game's dead pvp scene are going to be simply thrilled at realizing that the vast majority of the top players aren't actually top players but just people wintrading, especially when those wintraders stand around doing nothing in their match at gold 2 because the matchmaker cannot function with this population to begin with.

I think the 2 dozen players coming from steam aren’t going to care or notice  or even know about the few wintraders on the leaderboards.

 

I think what hurts them more are if they decide to come to the forums and read threads like this and believe the reason they are stuck in gold 1 is because of wintraders. Which is the furthest thing from the truth. 
 

What I’m about to say might hurt some feelings. Here we go. If you actually care and try hard to climb, you can reach the top 20 without wintrading. It is possible to climb the ladder and grow as a player.

Edited September 13, 2022 by Ronald McDonald.8165

[ResJudicator.7916]

Honestly, if you really wanted to cheat your way to the top, win-trading isn't the way to do it.  The easiest way to do it would be to buy a pro player (the "booster") an alt account, tank that account's rating, and then you (the "climber") spams duo-queues with the booster.  You'll get matched in low-gold / silver games constantly where the booster (the pro player) can completely carry.  When the booster's account gets too high, he can just de-rank it while solo-queuing (so it doesn't hurt you), or switch to another alt account.  Then repeat the process.  This method just requires two players coordinating (the booster and the climber).

 

By contrast, if you wanted to climb via win-trading, you need to count on getting placed into games where the "thrower" is on the other side.  If you only have one booster involved, the odds of queuing against the thrower are pretty low.  If you're only queuing against the thrower 50% of the time, you're not going to climb into the top 20.  PLUS, the thrower needs to win matches to keep his rating close to yours.  Otherwise, you'll never get queued against him.  And if you try to solve the problem with multiple throwers, then that's more people you need to pay (and more people who have to keep their rating up to get matched against you).  Plus, you'd need to do all this during off-hours. 

 

31 minutes ago, Ronald McDonald.8165 said:

I think people equate wintrading with abusing the system and the issues with a small player population. People are able to abuse the system by duo queuing with with much lower ranked players. I think this is probably a more common issue than wintrading. Definitely needs to be a limit in place for how large of a gap you can duo with. Or even a discussion of whether duos should even be a thing still. 

 

This.  Although judging from some of the posts here, I think people are just using "wintrading" to describe (a) legitimate win-trading, in addition to (b) "smurfing", (c) "duo-queue abuse" and (d) "queue-dodging".  The reason we shouldn't conflate these issues is that duo-queue abuse and, to some extent quo-dodging, can be easily solved by removing duo-queue.  (Removing duo-queue won't completely remove queue-dodging, but it makes it a lot harder because now dodgers have 2x the number of participants to avoid.)

 

Win-trading is trickier to track, but also inefficient and much less common.
 

34 minutes ago, Ronald McDonald.8165 said:

What I’m about to say might hurt some feelings. Here we go. If you actually care and try hard to climb, you can reach the top 20 without wintrading. It is possible to climb the ladder and grow as a player.

Also this.  But you'll have to queue only during prime-time.  It also helps to have a duo-queue partner.  A duo can ensure at least 2 players on their team are good (i.e. the duo pair), while a soloqueuer can only count on himself.  It's like starting a poker round with 2 Aces instead of 1 Ace.  Your odds are significantly better. 

[Multicolorhipster.9751]

13 hours ago, UmbraNoctis.1907 said:

Intent is what differentiates match manipulation from regular gameplay. It is the difference between a random disconnect and logging off. The difference between playing badly and throwing on purpose. The difference between sniping/dodging certain matches or randomly queueing. The difference between having someone manipulate matches in your favour with your agreement or without you even knowing.

Oh okay, I think I get what you're saying now.

I gotta stand by what I said though because that's all information that Anet has. Match manipulation isn't a 1 and done kind of deal, the people that play by it will usually do between 100-200 games a season.

Someone who AFKs on accident; whether by DC, or because they really had to use the bathroom or something is probably going to very rarely, on occasion, maybe get DC'd from a game or two here and there. 

Nobody is going to point at those people and say wintrader. That's reserved for the serial AFKers and the people that leave intentionally when they get all emotional. That's more indicative of match manipulation. I don't think Arenanet participates in victim-blaming either, so if a match manipulator does get caught; which has happened multiple times before, you can rest easy knowing that they aren't going to ban to the entire lobby for the actions of 1 or 2 people.

4 hours ago, Ronald McDonald.8165 said:

There is actually a significant difference between myself when I was a consistent plat 2 Mesmer to an actual top 10 Mesmer. I can turn on Shorts stream and acknowledge that at my best when I cared about the game, that the gap between him and I, is larger than the gap between myself at plat 2 and a gold 2 player.  They are that much better. I don’t think people realize how large that gap is. 

🤣 I take back everything I said Ronald, you actually are a fairly good clown.

This is someone i've played with and against on and off for the past few years. To his credit, he is pretty decent at the game, but that isn't a very discouraging matchup.

Its hard to take seriously someone who has fully embraced the cheese tactics multiple times, has an ego the size of Manhattan, and usually just sits there on his livestream getting carried by DuoQ while trash-talking every other person he comes into contact with.

4 hours ago, Ronald McDonald.8165 said:

That’s not to say people don’t win trade. I wish wintraders would be banned. It’s frustrating when it happens, but it’s not that often. 
 

I think people equate wintrading with abusing the system and the issues with a small player population. People are able to abuse the system by duo queuing with with much lower ranked players. I think this is probably a more common issue than wintrading. Definitely needs to be a limit in place for how large of a gap you can duo with. Or even a discussion of whether duos should even be a thing still. 

 

That's more or less what people do and match manipulation of any kind is usually described as wintrading.

Its easier to type and its closer to WITCH!

4 hours ago, Ronald McDonald.8165 said:

I think the 2 dozen players coming from steam aren’t going to care or notice  or even know about the few wintraders on the leaderboards.

What I’m about to say might hurt some feelings. Here we go. If you actually care and try hard to climb, you can reach the top 20 without wintrading. It is possible to climb the ladder and grow as a player.

Yes, this is true these are both true. You can reach top 20 because the standard for getting into it is getting lower and lower with every season.

What you can't do is grow past that point, especially if you SoloQ. You could play the best damned Guild Wars of your entire life, but you will always have either an average or slightly above average winrate that cannot hope to compare with the artificially boosted winrates of the wintrading cartel.

That kills the ladder and any motivation to play beyond that point. Yes, someone new coming in doesn't have to worry about that right away, but eventually they will.

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

7 hours ago, ResJudicator.7916 said:

Honestly, if you really wanted to cheat your way to the top, win-trading isn't the way to do it.  The easiest way to do it would be to buy a pro player (the "booster") an alt account, tank that account's rating, and then you (the "climber") spams duo-queues with the booster.  You'll get matched in low-gold / silver games constantly where the booster (the pro player) can completely carry.  When the booster's account gets too high, he can just de-rank it while solo-queuing (so it doesn't hurt you), or switch to another alt account.  Then repeat the process.  This method just requires two players coordinating (the booster and the climber).

 

By contrast, if you wanted to climb via win-trading, you need to count on getting placed into games where the "thrower" is on the other side.  If you only have one booster involved, the odds of queuing against the thrower are pretty low.  If you're only queuing against the thrower 50% of the time, you're not going to climb into the top 20.  PLUS, the thrower needs to win matches to keep his rating close to yours.  Otherwise, you'll never get queued against him.  And if you try to solve the problem with multiple throwers, then that's more people you need to pay (and more people who have to keep their rating up to get matched against you).  Plus, you'd need to do all this during off-hours. 

 

 

This.  Although judging from some of the posts here, I think people are just using "wintrading" to describe (a) legitimate win-trading, in addition to (b) "smurfing", (c) "duo-queue abuse" and (d) "queue-dodging".  The reason we shouldn't conflate these issues is that duo-queue abuse and, to some extent quo-dodging, can be easily solved by removing duo-queue.  (Removing duo-queue won't completely remove queue-dodging, but it makes it a lot harder because now dodgers have 2x the number of participants to avoid.)

 

Win-trading is trickier to track, but also inefficient and much less common.
 

Also this.  But you'll have to queue only during prime-time.  It also helps to have a duo-queue partner.  A duo can ensure at least 2 players on their team are good (i.e. the duo pair), while a soloqueuer can only count on himself.  It's like starting a poker round with 2 Aces instead of 1 Ace.  Your odds are significantly better. 

Naw, it's win trading.

If you actually take your time to REALLY sit back and watch what's going on, it's plain as day to see.

For example, constantly declined queues in ranked:

Do you ever notice how in ranked queues, at least 50% of your queue box pops will always decline and put you back into queue, pop again, decline, go back into queue, pop 3rd time and finally everyone accepts? Notice how that rarely ever happens in unranked? In unranked 9/10 queue pops just get accepted and the game starts. This is because in ranked, if the accounts being synched didn't make it into the same/right game together, you just decline and have everyone reenter a new queue. Constantly declined ranked queues is people synch queueing for the win trade.

Edited September 14, 2022 by Trevor Boyer.6524

[greedywholesome.9081]

On 9/10/2022 at 12:55 PM, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

@Bast.7253 @Multicolorhipster.9751 @ResJudicator.7916 @Ragnar.4257 

Yeah, so check this out.

This is what happens in 3/4 of my games in final two weeks 120 req, every season.

It's just blatant shameless alt throws to knock you off leaderboards, while rubbing it in your face while it happens:

GW2 - Chat Log Of Blatant Alt Phase Throwing - Twitch

 

I actually watched your 12min vod. They were either taunting you or throwing intentionally due to some sort of spite towards you. Tricky situation you're in and yes, I empathize with you because you seem so passionate towards this game. I don't condone to cheating at all however, have you tried befriending or at least amend whatever misunderstanding you had with these players?

 

AFKing, matchmanipulation, high elo on alts are irritating but from my personal experience, sometimes I get the AFK, sometimes the other team gets it. It's not 75% of my games like yours have been. 

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

1 hour ago, greedywholesome.9081 said:

have you tried befriending or at least amend whatever misunderstanding you had with these players?

Nah, there's nothing to solve.

It's just a bunch of immature kids who attempt to run off or at least punish anyone who speaks out against the throw show. I am a special case however, because I tend to be louder than most, so they like to make things extra uncomfortable for me when it's convenient. It's as simple as that.

I remember when it all started. There was a particular streamer who threatened me and I quote: "Me and my friends will queue snipe you until you quit because we hate you." I thought this guy was just mad, but come to find out he was serious. Ever since this happened, the saaame thing happens to me every season. I play around P2 margins all season until final 2 weeks 120 games req, and then during that final phase, I cannot get clean games and I end up losing every game I play once per 3 days to avoid decay, and end up placing low bottom plat. Happens every season. And I'm not talking "sort of bad games" I'm talking stuff happening like what was shown in that video, blatant throwing where they make sure you know what is happening, to rub it in your face.

At the end of the season like that, they run so many alts to knock people off leaderboards with throws, it's impossible to track & dodge all of them. If you are on their ****list, it's impossible to queue clean games.

I mean if their goal is to get me to shut up and stop talking about it, they are using the wrong method with me. They ought to try just leaving me alone rather than the punishment method. I will always talk about this when it continues to happen to me.

 

Edited September 14, 2022 by Trevor Boyer.6524

[ResJudicator.7916]

19 hours ago, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

Do you ever notice how in ranked queues, at least 50% of your queue box pops will always decline and put you back into queue, pop again, decline, go back into queue, pop 3rd time and finally everyone accepts? Notice how that rarely ever happens in unranked? In unranked 9/10 queue pops just get accepted and the game starts. This is because in ranked, if the accounts being synched didn't make it into the same/right game together, you just decline and have everyone reenter a new queue. Constantly declined ranked queues is people synch queueing for the win trade.

From what I've seen, it's from people queue-dodging.  Either because they have really bad players on their block list that they want to avoid getting teamed up with, or because they're trying to avoid some really good duo that's currently on.  Your theory doesn't check out because of the timeout punishment that kicks in when you reject a queue. 

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

1 hour ago, ResJudicator.7916 said:

From what I've seen, it's from people queue-dodging.  Either because they have really bad players on their block list that they want to avoid getting teamed up with, or because they're trying to avoid some really good duo that's currently on.  Your theory doesn't check out because of the timeout punishment that kicks in when you reject a queue. 

Dude queue dodging doesn't happen mid queue, it happens before people push queue. You wait until players are already in a game, which shows they are in a pvp map in conquest in your contacts, or when they log offline completely. You can tell if they are signed offline completely or just set offline in your contacts.

Declining a queue last second has absolutely nothing to do with queue dodging, because if the players you wanted to avoid were going to be in your game, you wouldn't be able to tell that until you were already in the game, because it will not show where they are until you load into the game at the same time they do.

Unless there is some kind of hack that allows users to see into the server to be able to see who is loading into a game during the queue box accept phase that I don't know about, what you're assuming here about declining to queue dodge does not work that way.

Clearly people are chain declining queues in ranked so often because they are making sure they load in with their synchs. And no, they don't care about timeout punishment. What they care about are near 100% win rates. They are willing to wait.

Edited September 14, 2022 by Trevor Boyer.6524

[ResJudicator.7916]

8 hours ago, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

Dude queue dodging doesn't happen mid queue, it happens before people push queue. You wait until players are already in a game, which shows they are in a pvp map in conquest in your contacts, or when they log offline completely. You can tell if they are signed offline completely or just set offline in your contacts.

Declining a queue last second has absolutely nothing to do with queue dodging, because if the players you wanted to avoid were going to be in your game, you wouldn't be able to tell that until you were already in the game, because it will not show where they are until you load into the game at the same time they do.

Or you . . .

1) Queue up first b/c queues take forever to pop at higher ratings. 

2) Once queue pops, check your contacts.  Are a bunch of people you want to avoid currently OUTSIDE of an active PvP game?  If yes, decline queue b/c chances are their queue just popped as well, so your odds of getting matched with them is higher.  If they're currently in a game, then accept the queue.

From the video you posted from your stream, it seems like you have an (unfortunately) unique experience where people specifically throw when they get matched with you, due to some personal animus that they have against you.  I think that's awful behavior and totally inexcusable, and that those people should be punished for it.  But I also think that your experience is probably not representative. 

8 hours ago, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

Clearly people are chain declining queues in ranked so often because they are making sure they load in with their synchs.

The evidence you've linked actually suggests that people are duo-ing with smurfs on alt accounts.  That's why you wind up with a bunch of alt accounts also in the top 50.  It's also what the first video you referenced actually showed.   

And it's so easy to do.  A guy with 1600 rating duo-queues with his 1800-rated friend, but the 1800-rated friend uses a 1100-rated alt account.  Their average rating is now 1350, so they get to crush a bunch of mid-gold, then high-gold, then low-plat games.  Those games are going to be so one-sided because these gold (and some silver) players are actually up against some of the top players in GW2, and once you decisively win a fight you can snowball the rest of the map.

At the end of the session, the 1600-rated guy winds up at 1800 from all those wins, while the 1100-rated alt winds up at like 1600.  If they really want to try-hard about it, the smurf could always create a second smurf account to reset the rating yet again.  And if someone ever wants to de-rank their smurf account, all they have to do is chain-afk a bunch of matches (and maybe it's those people who are stream-sniping you while they derank to troll you). 

By contrast, just think about how much effort it takes to win-trade consistently at platinum and above.  Every time the "thrower" account actually throws a game, he's losing like 15 points, while his "partner" gains 15 points, for a 30-point differential.  Then the thrower account has to grind games just to get back to the same rating as his partner so the matchmaker syncs them up against each other.

Edited September 15, 2022 by ResJudicator.7916

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

9 hours ago, ResJudicator.7916 said:

2) Once queue pops, check your contacts.  Are a bunch of people you want to avoid currently OUTSIDE of an active PvP game?  If yes, decline queue b/c chances are their queue just popped as well, so your odds of getting matched with them is higher.  If they're currently in a game, then accept the queue.

This is a silly argument and anyone who actually tried doing this would realize that it was easier to just wait until people went into a game or signed offline before entering a queue. Trying to do what you said here grants absolute no advantage in queue dodging, but rather would result in several timeouts which would actually prevent you from being able to push enter queue when you do see a good time to enter a queue.

I don't understand your reason for trying to argue against this. Apparently you've never sat in a Discord and heard people talking with each other while they were performing win trading. If you had, you would understand how all of this works.

9 hours ago, ResJudicator.7916 said:

From the video you posted from your stream, it seems like you have an (unfortunately) unique experience where people specifically throw when they get matched with you, due to some personal animus that they have against you.  I think that's awful behavior and totally inexcusable, and that those people should be punished for it.  But I also think that your experience is probably not representative. 

Yes, they hate me because I am one of the people who is actually good at creating awareness. They hate me for the exact reasons of the types of things I am saying and pointing out in this thread right now. The thing is, my experience is representative for many people who have been treated like this, I'm just one of the ones who sticks around to tell the story. Many people who have gotten on their bad side for whatever reason, simply throw their hands up in the air from the harassment and quit GW2, which is why you don't hear many people telling deep versions of what goes on outside of myself and maybe a few others.

You should read this, a private email I had sent to someone. I was actually looking for a reason to post this in the forum anyway. This is all the explanation you need on the topic, though I will omit certain things for public posting:

 

The reasons why they do this to me aggressively are these:

1. Stream views, which propagates cash
2. They sell titles/ranks/gizmos to people who work through them, propagates more cash. Check this out if you haven't watched it yet. This is an actual hacker who went out of his way to retrieve profoundly incriminating evidence on the subject: He Paid $10,000 for 2 Gizmos - GW2 PvP Boosting Circle Exposed - YouTube
3. There is a system they use to attempt to bully people away from the community who threaten their ability to do these things. Anyone who is loud enough to seriously draw attention to them, they hate, especially if that person is even a small streamer. Even a small streamer who tags video evidence that goes viral, is dangerous. They especially hate players who are actually good at this game who speak out. People listen to good players who have clout & reputation. The whole system of bullying they have revolves around messing with your games and making you look bad. People listen to a 1650 P2 rank 25, but they don't care what you say if you are 1300. This is unfortunately true, and this is especially true with streaming. Nobody watches a losing stream and they know this. To make people shut up, they mess with your games and make you look bad, which makes less people pay attention to what you're saying. They also launch this plethora of in-game harassment tactics to make a player feel so uncomfortable within the community that most people they do it too, throw their hands up and walk away from GW2. 

What's going on here is a system of control they've discovered & developed over the course of a decade, to maintain their ability to live off a McDonald's level salary through playing video games. This was never about looking cool on the leaderboards, it's about USD. They boost each other up the leaderboards and knock others down, to maintain that appearance of top players so people actually watch their streams. I've talked with other people who play other games with leaderboards, and they all tell me the same exact thing is happening on all game platforms that have ranked leaderboards. It is a system where the streamers of those games, the ones who are willing to play dirty to stay at the top, identify each other and form something like a regime, which allows them to create gates and exploit a community through illegitimate tactics. This eliminates any other streamers from coming in to compete in views. They do not want to share viewer base or positions at the top because this begins to distribute potential USD profits. They only want enough people in their clique as it takes to perform the shady techniques to maintain control, so USD profits per individual are higher. Maybe if someone offered them a good deal, it would be different.

I once thought that streaming & competitive money scenes were the best things that came to gaming, but now I am convinced that streaming & competitive money scenes were the worst things to ever happen to gaming. Now that those younger generations who started the streaming are getting older, they are developing these kinds of systems to maintain control, to continue making USD off video games. In hindsight it doesn't surprise me that this is happening. What does surprise me, is that the game companies didn't have enough integrity to take care of these problems which are often exposed on a regular basis.

No matter how you look at it, gaming has gotten dirty, and money is to blame. It isn't just those young players creating the problems, the companies who condone this behavior are more to blame than those young players. These companies have all the power to shut down such corrupt behavior, but for whatever reason they have opted to allow it. This creates a situation where our modern gaming is no longer gaming, but rather it has become a theatric platform for stream crews to create false clout for the sake of propagating USD. This is very disappointing to me as an older gamer as I see that the time of good competitive real gaming, has ended.

I wrote all of this so you could really understand my plight in all of it. I absolutely kittening hate social deception, which our leaders within the past 10+ years have almost commercialized to an entire new generation that not only is it acceptable, but it's in style. I feel that right now, more than ever, it is important for the older gamer generations who still play, to voice up very loudly as consumers that this kitten is not acceptable, that we want clean competitive scenes again. We need to often voice loudly, to remind everyone that these stream crews are often playing dirty, they often do not deserve the attention they receive, and people should be very careful before clicking that send donation button or watching their streams at all, as doing so only serves to fuel the very literal ****show that has ruined modern competitive gaming. It is important for all legitimate gamers who want good clean competitive scenes, to stand up, get loud, and set this example now. My hopes in this example set, if enough people were to take their consumer rights more seriously and begin doing this, is that it would incentivize companies to care about fair & clean scenes again, as well as discourage cheaters from doing what they do, if enough people were to point at them, call out their kitten, and stop following their content.

This is the only way, to get loud and spread awareness.

It is nothing personal, I just want good clean competitive games again, because let me tell you, it is vanishing fast.

 

9 hours ago, ResJudicator.7916 said:

And it's so easy to do.  A guy with 1600 rating duo-queues with his 1800-rated friend, but the 1800-rated friend uses a 1100-rated alt account.  Their average rating is now 1350, so they get to crush a bunch of mid-gold, then high-gold, then low-plat games.

No one actually does this anymore, it's too dangerous. You have to understand that things are different in low population now. By inviting in massively low rated games, you invite in risk of losing -35 or something on a loss when you're climbing +1s on wins. Some other people can queue snipe them doing that same exact tactic, simple smurfing. It's too dangerous. This is why people synch queue their buddy alts and win trade. If you notice, the duos who are high rated ride the same ratings together. This is because those mains queue together my dude. No one uses these old smurf tactics anymore.

The only thing going on anymore is win trading and alt throw phasing. Alts are just used for synchs and for throws to knock competiting rankers down the leaderboards. Telling you, no one uses smurfing anymore. It isn't reliable in low population world where everyone is already smurfing.

 

Edited September 15, 2022 by Trevor Boyer.6524

[JTGuevara.9018]

1 hour ago, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

This is a silly argument and anyone who actually tried doing this would realize that it was easier to just wait until people went into a game or signed offline before entering a queue. Trying to do what you said here grants absolute no advantage in queue dodging, but rather would result in several timeouts which would actually prevent you from being able to push enter queue when you do see a good time to enter a queue.

I don't understand your reason for trying to argue against this. Apparently you've never sat in a Discord and heard people talking with each other while they were performing win trading. If you had, you would understand how all of this works.

Yes, they hate me because I am one of the people who is actually good at creating awareness. They hate me for the exact reasons of the types of things I am saying and pointing out in this thread right now. The thing is, my experience is representative for many people who have been treated like this, I'm just one of the ones who sticks around to tell the story. Many people who have gotten on their bad side for whatever reason, simply throw their hands up in the air from the harassment and quit GW2, which is why you don't hear many people telling deep versions of what goes on outside of myself and maybe a few others.

You should read this, a private email I had sent to someone. I was actually looking for a reason to post this in the forum anyway. This is all the explanation you need on the topic, though I will omit certain things for public posting:

 

The reasons why they do this to me aggressively are these:

1. Stream views, which propagates cash
2. They sell titles/ranks/gizmos to people who work through them, propagates more cash. Check this out if you haven't watched it yet. This is an actual hacker who went out of his way to retrieve profoundly incriminating evidence on the subject: He Paid $10,000 for 2 Gizmos - GW2 PvP Boosting Circle Exposed - YouTube
3. There is a system they use to attempt to bully people away from the community who threaten their ability to do these things. Anyone who is loud enough to seriously draw attention to them, they hate, especially if that person is even a small streamer. Even a small streamer who tags video evidence that goes viral, is dangerous. They especially hate players who are actually good at this game who speak out. People listen to good players who have clout & reputation. The whole system of bullying they have revolves around messing with your games and making you look bad. People listen to a 1650 P2 rank 25, but they don't care what you say if you are 1300. This is unfortunately true, and this is especially true with streaming. Nobody watches a losing stream and they know this. To make people shut up, they mess with your games and make you look bad, which makes less people pay attention to what you're saying. They also launch this plethora of in-game harassment tactics to make a player feel so uncomfortable within the community that most people they do it too, throw their hands up and walk away from GW2. 

What's going on here is a system of control they've discovered & developed over the course of a decade, to maintain their ability to live off a McDonald's level salary through playing video games. This was never about looking cool on the leaderboards, it's about USD. They boost each other up the leaderboards and knock others down, to maintain that appearance of top players so people actually watch their streams. I've talked with other people who play other games with leaderboards, and they all tell me the same exact thing is happening on all game platforms that have ranked leaderboards. It is a system where the streamers of those games, the ones who are willing to play dirty to stay at the top, identify each other and form something like a regime, which allows them to create gates and exploit a community through illegitimate tactics. This eliminates any other streamers from coming in to compete in views. They do not want to share viewer base or positions at the top because this begins to distribute potential USD profits. They only want enough people in their clique as it takes to perform the shady techniques to maintain control, so USD profits per individual are higher. Maybe if someone offered them a good deal, it would be different.

I once thought that streaming & competitive money scenes were the best things that came to gaming, but now I am convinced that streaming & competitive money scenes were the worst things to ever happen to gaming. Now that those younger generations who started the streaming are getting older, they are developing these kinds of systems to maintain control, to continue making USD off video games. In hindsight it doesn't surprise me that this is happening. What does surprise me, is that the game companies didn't have enough integrity to take care of these problems which are often exposed on a regular basis.

No matter how you look at it, gaming has gotten dirty, and money is to blame. It isn't just those young players creating the problems, the companies who condone this behavior are more to blame than those young players. These companies have all the power to shut down such corrupt behavior, but for whatever reason they have opted to allow it. This creates a situation where our modern gaming is no longer gaming, but rather it has become a theatric platform for stream crews to create false clout for the sake of propagating USD. This is very disappointing to me as an older gamer as I see that the time of good competitive real gaming, has ended.

I wrote all of this so you could really understand my plight in all of it. I absolutely kittening hate social deception, which our leaders within the past 10+ years have almost commercialized to an entire new generation that not only is it acceptable, but it's in style. I feel that right now, more than ever, it is important for the older gamer generations who still play, to voice up very loudly as consumers that this kitten is not acceptable, that we want clean competitive scenes again. We need to often voice loudly, to remind everyone that these stream crews are often playing dirty, they often do not deserve the attention they receive, and people should be very careful before clicking that send donation button or watching their streams at all, as doing so only serves to fuel the very literal ****show that has ruined modern competitive gaming. It is important for all legitimate gamers who want good clean competitive scenes, to stand up, get loud, and set this example now. My hopes in this example set, if enough people were to take their consumer rights more seriously and begin doing this, is that it would incentivize companies to care about fair & clean scenes again, as well as discourage cheaters from doing what they do, if enough people were to point at them, call out their kitten, and stop following their content.

This is the only way, to get loud and spread awareness.

It is nothing personal, I just want good clean competitive games again, because let me tell you, it is vanishing fast.

 

No one actually does this anymore, it's too dangerous. You have to understand that things are different in low population now. By inviting in massively low rated games, you invite in risk of losing -35 or something on a loss when you're climbing +1s on wins. Some other people can queue snipe them doing that same exact tactic, simple smurfing. It's too dangerous. This is why people synch queue their buddy alts and win trade. If you notice, the duos who are high rated ride the same ratings together. This is because those mains queue together my dude. No one uses these old smurf tactics anymore.

The only thing going on anymore is win trading and alt throw phasing. Alts are just used for synchs and for throws to knock competiting rankers down the leaderboards. Telling you, no one uses smurfing anymore. It isn't reliable in low population world where everyone is already smurfing.

 

Yup. I was always suspicious about this e-sports "movement". You had a LOT of venture capital coming in and trying to push this crap to the public. Before the days of "e-sports", players had dedicated lobbies. LAN gaming was the norm. But eventually technology advanced to the point of warehouse-scale computers, giant service providers and data centers, online gaming became the norm. Dedicated servers got phased out. They got cheaper and cheaper and big tech companies eventually gobbled them up. For the people and I guess, smaller studios, servers eventually became phased out so people pretty much had no choice but to flock to live services en-masse oh..ahem..excuse me, "the cloud(tm)".

And yeah, gw2 went all-in on that "e-sports" nonsense years ago. Of course, it blew up in their face. That did not stop some in the inner circles from trying to push it. Only now, it's really just for the sake of pushing it since there is nothing to gain. Online pvp is decreasing due to obvious anti-social behavior.

 

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

2 hours ago, JTGuevara.9018 said:

Yup. I was always suspicious about this e-sports "movement". You had a LOT of venture capital coming in and trying to push this crap to the public. Before the days of "e-sports", players had dedicated lobbies. LAN gaming was the norm. But eventually technology advanced to the point of warehouse-scale computers, giant service providers and data centers, online gaming became the norm. Dedicated servers got phased out. They got cheaper and cheaper and big tech companies eventually gobbled them up. For the people and I guess, smaller studios, servers eventually became phased out so people pretty much had no choice but to flock to live services en-masse oh..ahem..excuse me, "the cloud(tm)".

And yeah, gw2 went all-in on that "e-sports" nonsense years ago. Of course, it blew up in their face. That did not stop some in the inner circles from trying to push it. Only now, it's really just for the sake of pushing it since there is nothing to gain. Online pvp is decreasing due to obvious anti-social behavior.

 

I've learned hard lessons about competitive gaming in about the past 10 years.

In a nutshell:

The only way to ensure a fair match with competitive video games, are with 1v1 games such as Street Fighter or Tekken or Smash, and you have to show up in the same place with someone and play against them on the same console. Otherwise there are simply too many ways to cheat & game systems through the internet. Even with something like 2v2 Smash in person even, there are still risks of a partner being bribed. It has to be 1v1 and it has to be in person on the same console.

This is actually one of the larger reasons why Smash Melee developed such a strong following. In an era when gaming was going dirty, Smash Melee was secretly delivering the cleanest & least corrupt scene of them all, because how hard could anyone really cheat when they have to show up in person to a hosted tournament and play on the same Nintendo Gamecube in front of a bunch of other people?

All off-the-net gaming, where there are no EASY ways at least, to alter the functionality of any files or change how the Nintendo works. Even an XBOX can be tinkered with but a Nintendo Gamecube console that isn't microsoft compatible where the game runs of a CD with unalterable files? Not so easy.

Edited September 15, 2022 by Trevor Boyer.6524

[JTGuevara.9018]

25 minutes ago, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

I've learned hard lessons about competitive gaming in about the past 10 years.

In a nutshell:

The only way to ensure a fair match with competitive video games, are with 1v1 games such as Street Fighter or Tekken or Smash, and you have to show up in the same place with someone and play against them on the same console. Otherwise there are simply too many ways to cheat & game systems through the internet. Even with something like 2v2 Smash in person even, there are still risks of a partner being bribed. It has to be 1v1 and it has to be in person on the same console.

This is actually one of the larger reasons why Smash Melee developed such a strong following. In an era when gaming was going dirty, Smash Melee was secretly delivering the cleanest & least corrupt scene of them all, because how hard could anyone really cheat when they have to show up in person to a hosted tournament and play on the same Nintendo Gamecube in front of a bunch of other people?

All off-the-net gaming, where there are no EASY ways at least, to alter the functionality of any files or change how the Nintendo works. Even an XBOX can be tinkered with but a Nintendo Gamecube console? Not so easy.

Yup. Exactly. You CANNOT have competitive systems through the internet. It is IMPOSSIBLE. They have to be localized.

We can't go back to the days of dedicated servers, but we should learn from them.

And yes, you are absolutely right. This is why fighting games are still going. Every other primarily online competitive genre (MMO, FPS, MOBA) has either completely collapsed or is on its way. (Yeah, I said it. League of Legends gets the bullet too...) RTS because of LAN capability(again, localization...!), is having a resurgence. And that's no coincidence.

I see people hyping up Warzone, Overwatch, Fortnite, etc but they're also going to go eventually. It's not a matter of if, but when. That venture(vulture) capital is going to dry up.

[Multicolorhipster.9751]

2 hours ago, JTGuevara.9018 said:

Yup. Exactly. You CANNOT have competitive systems through the internet. It is IMPOSSIBLE. They have to be localized.

True enough, something localized will always be more competitive, but its still possible to get decently close with online games.

Online is more convenient than having to drive up to your homie's crib or setting up an entire tournament, also more accessible to the general public, meaning more varied competition which is important to keep things from getting stale.

2 hours ago, JTGuevara.9018 said:

I see people hyping up Warzone, Overwatch, Fortnite, etc but they're also going to go eventually. It's not a matter of if, but when. That venture(vulture) capital is going to dry up.

WZ, Fortnite, and League will probably die out much later than Overwatch and Guild Wars 2 because those games have a better understanding of what makes a game competitively viable.

Overwatch and Gw2 have merged queues, mixing premades and solos which is not competitive and allows for a lot of gross match manipulation.

WZ, Fortnite, and LoL are more modern, allowing for both competitive team and solo play exclusive to their own modes. If an online game gives players the ability to  display both individual mechanical skill in solos and/or strategies, awareness, and game knowledge in teams, then that game is competitively viable.

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

27 minutes ago, Multicolorhipster.9751 said:

Online is more convenient than having to drive up to your homie's crib or setting up an entire tournament, also more accessible to the general public, meaning more varied competition which is important to keep things from getting stale.

I dunno about that man. You should show up to a local Smash Melee tournament. It's about a lot more than the winning or losing. Guarantee you there will be some facebook page of a group near you that lists where and when it happens, just gotta look for it. These people get together and party man. It's about chivalry and community rather than toxicity and corruption. When new faces show up, these people are excited to see you get involved and it immediately makes you want to hang out. There are even guys who drive quite far distances to visit other groups and join their tournaments.

I'm telling ya, this localized gaming stuff is making a comeback. The first time you show up to one of these IRL tournaments like this, it's like the opposite toxicity, and it's this immediate deep realization of what gaming is supposed to be.

As far as the competitive aspect, the best players who are willing to drive and show up to the higher stake tournaments, these are the ones who get noticed. And let me tell ya, it is a different kind of a feeling if you are playing in front of hundreds of people watching you in person while some DJ from a local radio station is over in the corner speaking to the city live.

I guess my point is that these live tournaments people organize for games are anything but stale.

[Multicolorhipster.9751]

20 hours ago, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

I dunno about that man. You should show up to a local Smash Melee tournament. It's about a lot more than the winning or losing. Guarantee you there will be some facebook page of a group near you that lists where and when it happens, just gotta look for it. These people get together and party man. It's about chivalry and community rather than toxicity and corruption. When new faces show up, these people are excited to see you get involved and it immediately makes you want to hang out. There are even guys who drive quite far distances to visit other groups and join their tournaments.

I'm telling ya, this localized gaming stuff is making a comeback. The first time you show up to one of these IRL tournaments like this, it's like the opposite toxicity, and it's this immediate deep realization of what gaming is supposed to be.

I agree, and I do. I've been playing SSB competitively since I don't even know how long. Not Melee though because i'm not into that hipster kitten where older = better, SSBU Joker main.

20 hours ago, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

As far as the competitive aspect, the best players who are willing to drive and show up to the higher stake tournaments, these are the ones who get noticed. And let me tell ya, it is a different kind of a feeling if you are playing in front of hundreds of people watching you in person while some DJ from a local radio station is over in the corner speaking to the city live.

I guess my point is that these live tournaments people organize for games are anything but stale.

IRL tournament play is more fun for sure, I can't argue with that. I think this perception of them is a bit starry-eyed though. Most of them aren't livestreamed, definitely ain't no DJ or i've never seen one. If there is a caster its usually one of the players casting between games.

Its only like this at big events where people have rented out entire convention centers. I've only been to two that are like this.

Ime, most local tournies are just the same few people cross-faded and crowded into some dude's house or a comic store. 100% more fun than online, yes.

But you do occasionally get people like the wintrader cartel on Guildie Wars that take it all way too seriously, only in real life that's obviously amplified. I have witnessed real tears, violent(yet inconsequential) nerd fights, and keying eachother's cars in the parking lot. Over smash, yes.

Be it online, or on a couch people still struggle to just play the game in question and to have fun with it. Its all metagaming from people who think in their minds that they're already at Evo and that can be pretty grating. IRL or no.

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

20 minutes ago, Multicolorhipster.9751 said:

I think this perception of them is a bit starry-eyed though. Most of them aren't livestreamed, definitely ain't no DJ or i've never seen one. If there is a caster its usually one of the players casting between games.

Its only like this at big events where people have rented out entire convention centers. I've only been to two that are like this.

Ime, most local tournies are just the same few people cross-faded and crowded into some dude's house or a comic store. 100% more fun than online, yes.

The ones I was playing in mainly, were through radio stations in different cities in Michigan which were qualifying people to go to the nation finals in Las Vegas. The state champion was to get free plane & hotel fair to go to Las Vegas for the finals.

Funny story, I made it to the final state tournament and lost the final round to an 11 year old little girl playing Luigi. The story is so good, I'm not ashamed to tell it. They were running stock match format and it rolled Hyrule Castle for us to play in. I was playing Bowser, which was good in melee if you understood how to abuse his special grapple which could grapple mid-air and throw players down into pits for immediate KOs. I don't know what kind of big brothers this little girl had beating her up in Smash Bros to get her to learn how to play like this, but her entire method was to kite you around a map utilizing Luigi's charge headbutt for superior mobility to get away rather than attacking, and then she would wait for items to spawn and just get there faster than you can. She would play the long-game while staying away from you and just pelt you with pokeballs, hammers, w/e superior ranged items she picks up. This unorthodox playstyle countered me on a heavy pretty hard and it was mainly due to the Hyrule Castle roll. That map is a literal loop, where she could just out-mobilize me by kiting in a circle up and down both elevations while keeping the land mass between us. If it had rolled any other map, I could have aggressively closed in on her. It came down to both of us having only 1 stock left. I was actually winning in terms of having much less damage than she had, and then a classic Smash "god hates you" moment happened. A hammer spawned and I was trying to block her from getting to it while baiting her to get close to me. She throws a pokeball and a legendary pokemon comes out, which causes me to start burning dodges & blocks to evade the damage. Keep in mind I am still trying to stay close to the hammer to stop her from getting the hammer and to bait her to get close to me. Then one of those weird bomb-omb spawns occurred where they didn't even come in a box but rather 4x bomb-ombs just spawn out of thin air and fall to the ground. This happened directly above my head and due to the legendary pokemon, they detonated before even hitting the ground and it immediately KO'd me. I didn't have enough shield left to deal with it inside of the legendary pokemon.

It was honestly my fault. I should have peeled and let her have the hammer and just kited myself until it ended. But I was over-confident because I knew if I could draw her close to me, she couldn't deal with me in melee. Then the moment happened where I felt the most gamer rage I've ever felt in my life. She looks at me and like some kind of cliche commercial catch phrase she says: "Gee golly, I'm sorry mister" and makes this sad little girl face at me and then quickly spins around and prances away from me as the people standing around are extra excited that an 11 year old girl created an upset and beat a grown man in the state finals. I wasn't sure if she was being serious or if she was trolling, because it felt extra sarcastic lol. I quietly walked away and said nothing to all of my friends as we walked back to my car to drive home. It took me like 20 minutes to even mentally sort myself to begin rage complaining about what happened. It was by far the most embarrassing loss I've ever experienced in gaming.

This was a long time ago. I'm 39 now, I was 24 when this tournament happened. That little girl would be in her mid 20's now. But still this day I'll tell you I wish I could rematch that little **** in any map that was not Hyrule Castle so I could slam her and reclaim my dignity.

Hope you enjoyed the story as a Smash player.

[Multicolorhipster.9751]

2 hours ago, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

I don't know what kind of big brothers this little girl had beating her up in Smash Bros to get her to learn how to play like this, but her entire method was to kite you around a map utilizing Luigi's charge headbutt for superior mobility to get away rather than attacking, and then she would wait for items to spawn and just get there faster than you can. 

Her big brudda named Hungrybox from the sounds.

2 hours ago, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

This was a long time ago. I'm 39 now, I was 24 when this tournament happened. That little girl would be in her mid 20's now. But still this day I'll tell you I wish I could rematch that little **** in any map that was not Hyrule Castle so I could slam her and reclaim my dignity.

If you ever get the chance at a rematch, you should turn items off and make her play with the competitive ruleset.

Like you said she's up there in age now, the hungrybox method of running away and playing the timer is far less cute. We will all be cheering for you when the day comes.

2 hours ago, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

Hope you enjoyed the story as a Smash player.

Yes it takes me back to better days.

Blowing through the brackets using absolutely nothing but Ness' Up-B while the guy sitting next to you formulates a long-winded explanation as to how PK Thunder is a broken and overpowered skill that presents no counterplay. 

Nowadays I would be more afraid of getting shanked IRL by those kinds of people, lacking the ignorant bravery of my youth.