New players and Ranked PvP - Thoughts?

[jebro.6370]

Hey all,

 

New player pvp experience is usually pretty poor in PvP. Speaking to a few players tonight, they are being entered for their first ever ranked league into gold 3 and even above. Sure, players can have natural skill, but more often than not they have had a pretty sweet run in their qualifying games .. but then what happens?

The reality hits and now they can see a rating that aligns with their division. Up untill this point the experience is likely fairly positive.

After their first game of ranked, having gone through the placement process they lose a game. -X rating, which is higher at the beginning of the season as its still technically part of the placement process without having the placement UI enabled. Youre still being placed.

The negative impact of the rating graphic hits new players the hardest. Hell, it hits everyone pretty hard, and doesnt feel good. The new player Id bet probably quits PvP within 30 games of ranked play.

So, what could change? Id argue that NEW players cannot advance to above Silver 3 after placements. Placing lower will likely give them a steadier experience than being catapulted down the ratings to eventually hit 3 divisions lower because they may have had a poor run post placement run.

Gold is synnonymous with being average to above average at PvP in GW2. Being placed in silver will give the initial first goal, and logical expectation of having to spend some time, or gain some experience to reach gold rather than hitting gold after placement and plumitting down the ranks.

Its an experience Ive heard from many a new player, and wondered about others thoughts.

Cheers o7

Jebro

Edited October 28, 2022 by jebro.6370
spacing

[Goldilock.2584]

I think promoting pvp streamers for new players to watch would help allot. If you are knew you dont know whos a who and what they play. So streamers dont get the numbers they should for the game modes they stream. I was always stuck in gold when started until i started watching pvp streamers found ones who spoke abkut what is going in as it is going on and within a month i held plat because them explaining why they are doing this or that just gave me a better understanding how how a class should be played roles and movement.

[JTGuevara.9018]

On 10/28/2022 at 3:39 AM, jebro.6370 said:

Hey all,

 

New player pvp experience is usually pretty poor in PvP. Speaking to a few players tonight, they are being entered for their first ever ranked league into gold 3 and even above. Sure, players can have natural skill, but more often than not they have had a pretty sweet run in their qualifying games .. but then what happens?

The reality hits and now they can see a rating that aligns with their division. Up untill this point the experience is likely fairly positive.

After their first game of ranked, having gone through the placement process they lose a game. -X rating, which is higher at the beginning of the season as its still technically part of the placement process without having the placement UI enabled. Youre still being placed.

The negative impact of the rating graphic hits new players the hardest. Hell, it hits everyone pretty hard, and doesnt feel good. The new player Id bet probably quits PvP within 30 games of ranked play.

So, what could change? Id argue that NEW players cannot advance to above Silver 3 after placements. Placing lower will likely give them a steadier experience than being catapulted down the ratings to eventually hit 3 divisions lower because they may have had a poor run post placement run.

Gold is synnonymous with being average to above average at PvP in GW2. Being placed in silver will give the initial first goal, and logical expectation of having to spend some time, or gain some experience to reach gold rather than hitting gold after placement and plumitting down the ranks.

Its an experience Ive heard from many a new player, and wondered about others thoughts.

Cheers o7

Jebro

New players in gold 3? Yup. That's pretty much it for butt-tastic "matchmaking" system.

No wonder intermediate to high-intermediate players left the game, they kept getting paired up with new players that recently joined and through no fault of their own ended up COSTING those players games due to inexperience. This matchmaking system is THE MOST atrocious thing I've ever seen in a game. It's hideous.

THIS is what happens when you neglect game modes. I could write a book on how mismanaged this mmo's pvp is. The hubris about so-called "e-sports". It could even be on the New York Times Bestseller list! Sometimes, I don't even know why I even bother with pvp in mmos, but then I remember and realize that I'm a paying customer like everyone else. Games like this count on people "leaving and coming back to see if anything's changed"(Hah!) Well whatever...I got news for people. It's all downhill from here for pvp. Only a matter of time before pvp is automated or completely axed. Because it is just that atrocious as it stands.

[jebro.6370]

9 minutes ago, JTGuevara.9018 said:

New players in gold 3? Yup. That's pretty much it for butt-tastic "matchmaking" system.

No wonder intermediate to high-intermediate players left the game, they kept getting paired up with new players that recently joined and through no fault of their own ended up COSTING those players games due to inexperience. This matchmaking system is THE MOST atrocious thing I've ever seen in a game. It's hideous.

THIS is what happens when you neglect game modes. I could write a book on how mismanaged this mmo's pvp is. The hubris about so-called "e-sports". It could even be on the New York Times Bestseller list! Sometimes, I don't even know why I even bother with pvp in mmos, but then I remember and realize that I'm a paying customer like everyone else. Games like this count on people "leaving and coming back to see if anything's changed"(Hah!) Well whatever...I got news for people. It's all downhill from here for pvp. Only a matter of time before pvp is automated or completely axed. Because it is just that atrocious as it stands.

Just a note. My intention isnt to rag on the mode or players at all. Just wanted some open discussion ^^

[Zagerus.8675]

I think it's a good idea, but it will most likely need to come at the cost of even longer queue times for gold+ players. I'd be willing to make that tradeoff. The player skill gap is a very difficult thing to work around since one of the mandatory aspects of getting skillful is investing the time. If you're constantly pulled into high rated matches vs. experienced players.. that's just not a reasonable learning path for most gamers. Adversity has a place but like with any competitive sport it is -usually- gradual.

[freakcoco.4287]

First I want to thank you , you provide a new player perspective .

There has nothing wrong to be a newbie, I pretty sure all of we are bad when we try a new thing.

I think "matchmaking system" and "Glicko2 rating"  is the problem.

The Glicko2 rating is a 1v1 rating system ,  multiple comparisons problem is not no it's hypothesis, and GW2 use arithmetic mean to compose the rating level ,  and whether that is outlier or not , the weights is one, when a newbie input you will be the outlier and mean to it and there will get no fair fight.

Matchmaking system is bad... It just bad, it not base on skill(win rate), it have 5 factor, one of it is skill , and that is not the most important factor, the most important is time and what class is you cruurent matching, other factor is play time and party size,  skill will decay in sec , whatever skill level it will put you in in 3 min no matter what rating are you , I don't know but It worse than random...

 

source:

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

Edited October 28, 2022 by freakcoco.4287

[Stand The Wall.6987]

that sounds fair. a consequence would be that it would make the duo q match manipulation meta easier, but i think its worth the trade off since new players are the life blood of any game.

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

6 hours ago, JTGuevara.9018 said:

No wonder intermediate to high-intermediate players left the game, they kept getting paired up with new players that recently joined and through no fault of their own ended up COSTING those players games due to inexperience. This matchmaking system is THE MOST atrocious thing I've ever seen in a game. It's hideous.

Let me explain in a nutshell why glicko for random PUG team play in low population is not viable to use:

1. A well known veteran player who generally plays at p2 margins wakes up and decides to run his placements. He happens to do this at the same time a new player who just hit r20 decides to also run his placements.
2. Due to low population and the way the algorithm sorts class compositions, it has little choice but to continuously put the well known veteran on the same team as the new r20 player who has owned the game for a week, several several times in a row. We've all seen it happen.
3. 10 placement games are ran. The veteran player mulches everyone in his way like the terminator and never dies, whilst the new r20 is performing as a complete liability due to poor rotational calls and never wins combats. But because they were on the same team several several times in a row for placements, meaning they were winning and losing the same game together, both of them finish placements and come out relatively at the same rating. Does this make sense? No, it doesn't.

It creates an effect where one man's 1500 is not equal to another man's 1500. This is truly a failed rating system.

 

This sort of goes into what Jebro was talking about, when new players end up in places they really shouldn't be. The problem now in low population is that they never really get filtered away from those margins because we all play in the same division now, so veterans & new players are eating the same wins & losses together, always.

This isn't about the experience of just the new player, it is also about the experience of the veteran player. Yes, we want new players to have a better experience so they stick around, of course. But we also want the veterans to stick around as well.

Right now with how glicko works in low population, placing veterans into the same games as new r20s, it serves to do nothing other than create very unsatisfying games to play for both the veteran and the new player.

I don't know what needs to be done or what's even possible to do, but Arenanet needs to do something different if they care at all about the pvp scene, because what we have left is very quickly imploding on itself. This isn't the steady natural organic decline we are used to that all games go through. No, this decline has become greatly accelerated as of the beginning of this season. I don't know if the algorithm needs to be tweaked or if we need a new game mode or maybe both, but something different needs to happen, something that works for low population.

 

Edited October 28, 2022 by Trevor Boyer.6524

[Khalisto.5780]

IMO you delaying their frustration, if they placed gold 3 no lucky involved and you place them s3 they gonna skyrocket to gold 3 cuz they gonna get like +30, +27, +25 for the next 10 games, assuming they gonna have the 60%, 70% winratio they got in placements.

As soon as they're there they gonna be placed against top players anyways, maybe not so much as an old account does, cuz matchmaking uses the games played in some extent.

 

There's only 2 division now unless you play on those 2 hours spam from daily reset

 

and even tho if you play offhours you still might play against top players in a gold account

 

just faced vaans and wolfspider in a 1247 rating account lol

 

plus

 

I've done this research myself and ppl told me the new player frustration are afks 50-70% of those low rated games and very onesided matches

 

to fix this you gotta ban the afkers, a clear message "afk is not right" and remove duo q

 

Looking at those reports i get it would take a person to see what's really happened

 

But remove duo q is literally delete a programing line

 

why remove duo q

 

they're the main reason matches go super 1 sided, cuz yeah, top 1 and 2 playing on the same team instead of against each other is like great (for them) bad for everyone else

[CrowEschatologist.6214]

Returning player that's only started PvP about 6 or 7 weeks ago. It's really crappy - got carried to the top end of gold 3 during placement playing bunker mecha. 

 

Now I have several problems. 

I only really know 1 build for PvP but I can't learn anything else without throwing games at the level I'm matched at. I don't even think bunker mecha is really that good, but I perform worse on everything else 

Getting flamed out by veterans regularly - because I'm getting matches way past my competence level, seeing people in the top 50 who destroy me in moments.

Decayed down to silver, where I had better matchups - I suspect silver is a more appropriate level for me to be playing, but quickly got back to gold 2.

 

I'd have loved to have been clamped to a maximum level, as it would let me learn without getting wrecked and feeding constantly.

 

Mainly started PvP as a more interesting way to unlock ascended armour as fractals are so dull, but the 'new' player experience has been crappy enough I'm not sure I can be arsed with another season of ranking rewards up again.

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

@jebro.6370 The only problem I see with this idea is the creation of alt accounts by veterans. In this situation we'd have ultra smurfs capped at a certain level to ensure they can continue smurfing.

In an ideal environment where everyone was playing organically, I think your idea would work.

[Lysico.4906]

No.  Being capped at a level would be bad. Think of the trolling.  Listen. Get good and rank up.  Or don’t.    I am g3 or p1. That is my skill level for non meta classes. If I wanted to get higher I could switch to meta but for me no fun.  But I have a ceiling in ability. No biggie

[shion.2084]

1 hour ago, CrowEschatologist.6214 said:

Returning player that's only started PvP about 6 or 7 weeks ago. It's really crappy - got carried to the top end of gold 3 during placement playing bunker mecha. 

 

Now I have several problems. 

I only really know 1 build for PvP but I can't learn anything else without throwing games at the level I'm matched at. I don't even think bunker mecha is really that good, but I perform worse on everything else 

Getting flamed out by veterans regularly - because I'm getting matches way past my competence level, seeing people in the top 50 who destroy me in moments.

Decayed down to silver, where I had better matchups - I suspect silver is a more appropriate level for me to be playing, but quickly got back to gold 2.

 

I'd have loved to have been clamped to a maximum level, as it would let me learn without getting wrecked and feeding constantly.

 

Mainly started PvP as a more interesting way to unlock ascended armour as fractals are so dull, but the 'new' player experience has been crappy enough I'm not sure I can be arsed with another season of ranking rewards up again.

There's unranked if you wanna try out something new.   You'll get less annoyance aimed at you then if you muck around in ranked.

[Bast.7253]

Idk why everyone is complaining. We’re getting a balance philosophy guild chat. Whoever said they don’t care about this game mode is clearly wrong! 
 

Maybe we’ll get to see what’s became meta defining.

[CrowEschatologist.6214]

34 minutes ago, shion.2084 said:

There's unranked if you wanna try out something new.   You'll get less annoyance aimed at you then if you muck around in ranked.

I mean you'd think that, but unranked is a weirdly toxic place, and is an awful place to learn anything other than gross character control and rotations, as games there bear little resemblance to ranked matches.

[shion.2084]

4 minutes ago, CrowEschatologist.6214 said:

I mean you'd think that, but unranked is a weirdly toxic place, and is an awful place to learn anything other than gross character control and rotations, as games there bear little resemblance to ranked matches.

Huh, I've had good luck with it.  I normally up front tell folks I'm trying out a meme build so they're aware.

[jebro.6370]

I think peeps are a little confused. I mean from placement to league placing. Not the entire season. Of course they can climb after that.

[jebro.6370]

 

2 hours ago, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

@jebro.6370 The only problem I see with this idea is the creation of alt accounts by veterans. In this situation we'd have ultra smurfs capped at a certain level to ensure they can continue smurfing.

In an ideal environment where everyone was playing organically, I think your idea would work.

I think peeps are a little confused. I mean from placement to league placing. Not the entire season. Of course they can climb after that.

[jebro.6370]

1 hour ago, Lysico.4906 said:

No.  Being capped at a level would be bad. Think of the trolling.  Listen. Get good and rank up.  Or don’t.    I am g3 or p1. That is my skill level for non meta classes. If I wanted to get higher I could switch to meta but for me no fun.  But I have a ceiling in ability. No biggie

I think you misunderstood. Its only a cap for entry into the league from placement to placing, and not for the entire season.

[MARTIGIN.2136]

10 hours ago, jebro.6370 said:

Hey all,

 

New player pvp experience is usually pretty poor in PvP. Speaking to a few players tonight, they are being entered for their first ever ranked league into gold 3 and even above. Sure, players can have natural skill, but more often than not they have had a pretty sweet run in their qualifying games .. but then what happens?

The reality hits and now they can see a rating that aligns with their division. Up untill this point the experience is likely fairly positive.

After their first game of ranked, having gone through the placement process they lose a game. -X rating, which is higher at the beginning of the season as its still technically part of the placement process without having the placement UI enabled. Youre still being placed.

The negative impact of the rating graphic hits new players the hardest. Hell, it hits everyone pretty hard, and doesnt feel good. The new player Id bet probably quits PvP within 30 games of ranked play.

So, what could change? Id argue that NEW players cannot advance to above Silver 3 after placements. Placing lower will likely give them a steadier experience than being catapulted down the ratings to eventually hit 3 divisions lower because they may have had a poor run post placement run.

Gold is synnonymous with being average to above average at PvP in GW2. Being placed in silver will give the initial first goal, and logical expectation of having to spend some time, or gain some experience to reach gold rather than hitting gold after placement and plumitting down the ranks.

Its an experience Ive heard from many a new player, and wondered about others thoughts.

Cheers o7

Jebro

Actually a very good idea & suggestion. If new players were forced into lower tiers and would have to claw fight their way up the ladder this could really help with the higher tier games as well. Much more accurate ratings for all. (Hopefully)

 

the only concern that I still see, is silver and low gold players going into platinum 2 matches.. why is this a thing?

 

they should just extend the que times and get more accurate teams together.

 

also, get rid of duo que!! It’s time to let go.

[SlayerXX.7138]

10 hours ago, jebro.6370 said:

The negative impact of the rating graphic hits new players the hardest. Hell, it hits everyone pretty hard, and doesnt feel good. The new player Id bet probably quits PvP within 30 games of ranked play.

Who gives a flying kitten about rank points. I would argue especially newer player don't have and unhealthy attachment with their rank points.

10 hours ago, jebro.6370 said:

Gold is synnonymous with being average to above average at PvP in GW2. Being placed in silver will give the initial first goal, and logical expectation of having to spend some time, or gain some experience to reach gold rather than hitting gold after placement and plumitting down the ranks.

Are you an alt account of a pro player who wants to farm noobs easily? If so go kitten yourself. If not you should think that through and how easily this suggestion is to abuse by the leeches who suckle on the PvP Playerbase. 

[lotus.5672]

10 hours ago, jebro.6370 said:

Just a note. My intention isnt to rag on the mode or players at all. Just wanted some open discussion ^^

Discussion is nice and all but lets be honest, nothing is gonna be done, anet is clearly done with the gamemode. Expansion had 0 pvp or wvw content, not even new stats, runes or sigils. 

[SlayerXX.7138]

4 hours ago, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

10 placement games are ran. The veteran player mulches everyone in his way like the terminator and never dies, whilst the new r20 is performing as a complete liability due to poor rotational calls and never wins combats. But because they were on the same team several several times in a row for placements, meaning they were winning and losing the same game together, both of them finish placements and come out relatively at the same rating. Does this make sense? No, it doesn't.

Yeah because it is faulty logic. In your example the noob has a chance of being grouped with the terminator of 4/9 for 10 placement games each that is (4/9) ^10 =0.03% highly unlikely. Some boosting can happen 3 games in a row maybe, but while possible(8%) shouldn't be a common occurrence. 

 

4 hours ago, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

This sort of goes into what Jebro was talking about, when new players end up in places they really shouldn't be.

Every body on the map is valuable. It is highly unlikely that pushed people stay pushed. If you are paired up with the same noob over and over, you probably only marginal better then the noob in question. Or the noob is a smurf. Winning a 4v5 is extremely difficult. If the noob doesn't rank down its because they are good enough. If you have extremely unmatched matches it is because someone from the top trickled down not the other way around. 

[JTGuevara.9018]

8 hours ago, lotus.5672 said:

Discussion is nice and all but lets be honest, nothing is gonna be done, anet is clearly done with the gamemode. Expansion had 0 pvp or wvw content, not even new stats, runes or sigils. 

Yeah, I'm way past the point of discussion. Now, I'm in permanent torch-burning mode.

[CraftyK.9062]

In an ideal world I guess that locking a part of the ranks out of placements would work, but what if someone who obviously isn't a silver 3 type of player, made an alt and started ranking? This is something I guess one cannot account for in this type of change

 

I don't think I am anyone outside of ordinary in terms of skill. I got placed at I think either gold 2 or gold 3 in placements and I pretty much went on to play a small bit and I was "doing well enough" (Make of that what you will) to be able to stay around 1480-1580 range with exclusively Guardian builds (Trapper DH, Power Willbender, sometimes Core Shout Support), by pretty much playing solo all the time.

 

Some people that get placed in Gold do deserve to be in Gold but unless you just watched someone play 10 games live and gave their rank yourself, I think it'd be impossible to accurately and automatically distribute ranks, especially with how low pop the PvP appears to be

Edited October 29, 2022 by CraftyK.9062
typo