The REAL reason people AFK ranked matches

[Multicolorhipster.9751]

On 1/27/2024 at 11:42 PM, draxynnic.3719 said:

You still hurt a lot of people who are actually trying that way. Heck, you might get people afking faster - why spend any effort when it's already apparant you're likely to get nothing however hard you try?

If you're on a losing team, you have 0 top stats, and your team's score is not within 80% of the winning team's score then you probably had an afk on your team, and if you didn't and you were actually trying then I'm sorry but losing is losing

People can still AFK if they really want to, but at least if people weren't given 3 pips for doing nothing, then they wouldn't be paid for wasting the time of 4 other people, and if they did AFK they'd have no incentive to do so and would be wasting their own time as well.

would also recommend moving the pips and reward chests to unranked as well, because it doesn't matter if people afk there and its a better starting point for PvE players coming over to PvP. If at least 1 gamemode has to be filled with pure degeneracy and indolence then it should be unranked instead of ranked imo

On 1/27/2024 at 11:42 PM, draxynnic.3719 said:

There probably could be some systems incorporated to detect afking, though, such as if someone stays in base for more than a reasonable period of time, or if they don't move from a location, score damage, or score capture points within a reasonable timeframe. Wouldn't be a perfect system, but if you can make it so that gaming the system is at least harder, people would be more likely to think that they might as well play properly. Hardest part would be distinguishing between legitimate cap point guarding and AFKing on point, but hey, at least the latter might slow down a decap by a few seconds, which is more than they'll achieve AFKing in base.

I think that's a good idea but not on its own. If we ever did see something like this though, and I don't think we will; I doubt it would be sophisticated enough to tell apart an afk from deliberate feeding, and if you can still get 3 pips for doing nothing, then doing nothing would remain a common strategy. 

[draxynnic.3719]

As I explained earlier in the thread, basing too much on top stats creates perverse incentives that can lead to players competing with their own team for top stats rather than focusing on trying to turn around the match.

Which might not be the same as afking, but it's still not healthy.

[Sparetent.9756]

I would be inclined to AFK because I'm sick of dealing ZERO damage while being 1-shot by all the stupidly OP builds out there. >.< There's a bunch of things that need a huge nerf, but never get it.

[Multicolorhipster.9751]

2 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

As I explained earlier in the thread, basing too much on top stats creates perverse incentives that can lead to players competing with their own team for top stats rather than focusing on trying to turn around the match.

Which might not be the same as afking, but it's still not healthy.

Is absolutely fine to have intrateam competition because that means to get anything you're going to have to contribute something at the very least, and something is always better than nothing which is what afks contribute; absolutely nothing.

Some of the top stats like offense and defense directly correlate to playing the objective too, which means for one's best chance of getting something out of a ranked match, they should play the objective and just play the game normally. Others like healing and revives tied directly to assisting your team.

And even if some stubborn fool wants to rush enemy spawn and try to farm things like top damage and top kills, they'd still be contributing more than the afk sat in spawn crying about how X class is too op so they now have no desire to play or engage with the game they booted up and spent time queued for.

[Cuks.8241]

Remove participation pips. Pips only for winning. Maybe 1 pip for every 100 points above 200 for losers.

Top stats are bad metric for pips. Top stats don't mean much. Farming top stats is not much better than afking. And players would focus on roles/builds that can farm top stats and not play roles that have less chance for stats but are just as important for winning. 

Win is all that matters, reward winning, don't reward losing. There is only 1 metric for winning, points.

[draxynnic.3719]

On 1/30/2024 at 11:41 AM, Multicolorhipster.9751 said:

Is absolutely fine to have intrateam competition because that means to get anything you're going to have to contribute something at the very least, and something is always better than nothing which is what afks contribute; absolutely nothing.

Some of the top stats like offense and defense directly correlate to playing the objective too, which means for one's best chance of getting something out of a ranked match, they should play the objective and just play the game normally. Others like healing and revives tied directly to assisting your team.

And even if some stubborn fool wants to rush enemy spawn and try to farm things like top damage and top kills, they'd still be contributing more than the afk sat in spawn crying about how X class is too op so they now have no desire to play or engage with the game they booted up and spent time queued for.

Then find some weighted means of determining a player's contribution outside of top stats. That way, the player who gets second in everything because they're the player actually trying to salvage the game while everyone else is busy farming top stats at the expense of actually contributing will get something.

[Arheundel.6451]

People afk, because the matchmaking is garbage....simple as that

[Deadmoose.6594]

On 1/29/2024 at 6:23 PM, Sparetent.9756 said:

 

I would be inclined to AFK because I'm sick of dealing ZERO damage while being 1-shot by all the stupidly OP builds out there. >.< There's a bunch of things that need a huge nerf, but never get it.

 

I think the real problem is that there are too many specs with 0 downsides. Ranger being one of them, insane sustain, insane damage, easy af to play, multiple op specs. I play chrono, which does a lot of dmg but is super glass. I also play reaper which does a lot of dmg, has decent sustain, but is slow and requires being in melee range which can be countered by aoe cond. A lot of specs out there need more weaknesses.

[Arheundel.6451]

33 minutes ago, Deadmoose.6594 said:

I think the real problem is that there are too many specs with 0 downsides. Ranger being one of them, insane sustain, insane damage, easy af to play, multiple op specs. I play chrono, which does a lot of dmg but is super glass. I also play reaper which does a lot of dmg, has decent sustain, but is slow and requires being in melee range which can be countered by aoe cond. A lot of specs out there need more weaknesses.

There are better players out there who will triumph, and no amount of whining and nerfs will ever change that. The better players know how to play their class...know how to kite....know how to dodge....know how to have patience.... and how to strategize......better players know to theorycraft new builds .... and Anet will, of course, keep the theorycraft going always. Without failure, they may nerf B...but they buff C...they may nerf C...but then buff A again ......whining and nerf calls will never win...can't possibly win. The better players will always have the tools to win fights and those tools can only change variant...never or even possibly taken away. Dozen, hundred....thousand of nerf threads will never ever change the reality of things: Better players win...and bad players lose, there is only one way up and that is playing the game.....the other option is to spend days on the forum asking for nerfs, while being stuck in the dreamwolrd where victory comes with no effort against everything

[Khalisto.5780]

honestly i just afk'd a game from start against phoenix + cjay knowing i was the best player in my team sitting at 1408 rating lol

[Deadmoose.6594]

3 hours ago, Arheundel.6451 said:

whining and nerf calls will never win

they have and always will win, so you couldn't be more wrong. whenever people call for nerfs on the forums, the next balance update there are usually nerfs.

3 hours ago, Arheundel.6451 said:

Better players win...and bad players lose

You're also wrong about this. Matchmaking MAKES you lose ~50% of your games. Unless you duoQ or are God's Gift to PVP or play a broken build, then you are going to lose ~50%, which invalidates your claims.

[Shagie.7612]

1 hour ago, Deadmoose.6594 said:

You're also wrong about this. Matchmaking MAKES you lose ~50% of your games. Unless you duoQ or are God's Gift to PVP or play a broken build, then you are going to lose ~50%, which invalidates your claims.

what a way to let everyone know that you have no understanding of how or why a matchmaking system works the way it does

truly a genius for the ages

[Deadmoose.6594]

Just now, Shagie.7612 said:

what a way to let everyone know that you have no understanding of how or why a matchmaking system works the way it does

truly a genius for the ages

I know how it works, I just don't agree with how THIS matchmaker works. They aren't all the same, there's an algorithm and this one is clearly bad. If you disagree with me on this your opinion is in the minority.

[Shagie.7612]

Just now, Deadmoose.6594 said:

They aren't all the same

Literally every single rating based matchmaker is going to trend you towards 50/50 as you approach wherever your skill level is at, actually

You clearly don't.

[Deadmoose.6594]

9 minutes ago, Shagie.7612 said:

Literally every single rating based matchmaker is going to trend you towards 50/50 as you approach wherever your skill level is at, actually

You clearly don't.

Yeah I'm not going to argue with someone who says "good players win bad players lose" and then restates that the matchmaker trends 50/50. So which is it? You don't even have a point, so there's no point in talking to you.

[Shagie.7612]

19 minutes ago, Deadmoose.6594 said:

I think at this point you’re the one who is clueless and you are failing to grasp the concept that the matchmaker blows and could be improved.

Sure?

The best thing they could do right now is redistribute the percentages of players at any given rating (and probably make the median NOT 1200 lol) and clamp how wide the search can expand to over time. Queues would get longer, but you'd have less matches where a silver player gets thrown up against a plat who had a 10 minute queue.
Neither of those would what you're complaining about, you'd still eventually hit the same win rates.

Go ahead, propose a change that would fix your "forced 50/50" problem that still retains some sort of skill based matchmaking system.
I wanna see you do it, I wanna see you come up with one. Explain how it would work.

[Deadmoose.6594]

34 minutes ago, Shagie.7612 said:

Sure?

The best thing they could do right now is redistribute the percentages of players at any given rating (and probably make the median NOT 1200 lol) and clamp how wide the search can expand to over time. Queues would get longer, but you'd have less matches where a silver player gets thrown up against a plat who had a 10 minute queue.
Neither of those would what you're complaining about, you'd still eventually hit the same win rates.

Go ahead, propose a change that would fix your "forced 50/50" problem that still retains some sort of skill based matchmaking system.
I wanna see you do it, I wanna see you come up with one. Explain how it would work.

Give more meaningful rewards for a loss. Problem solved. People would be less salty about losing if they got their participation rewards. Why not? You literally get participation rewards in wvw. Why not pvp? Is a pvp’ers time less valuable than a wvwer? Winning/losing should affect rank and thats it, they tied rewards to winning which was a mistake right off the bat.

[Arheundel.6451]

5 hours ago, Deadmoose.6594 said:

they have and always will win, so you couldn't be more wrong. whenever people call for nerfs on the forums, the next balance update there are usually nerfs.

You're also wrong about this. Matchmaking MAKES you lose ~50% of your games. Unless you duoQ or are God's Gift to PVP or play a broken build, then you are going to lose ~50%, which invalidates your claims.

The same people who asked for nerfs yesterday...still ask for nerfs today..and they will ask for nerfs tomorrow and after tomorrow....a reality that never changes, just like them losing over and over again. How does all the nerf crying work out for you? 

Quote

There are better players out there who will triumph, and no amount of whining and nerfs will ever change that. The better players know how to play their class...know how to kite....know how to dodge....know how to have patience.... and how to strategize......better players know to theorycraft new builds .... and Anet will, of course, keep the theorycraft going always. Without failure, they may nerf B...but they buff C...they may nerf C...but then buff A again ......whining and nerf calls will never win...can't possibly win

 

[Deadmoose.6594]

1 hour ago, Arheundel.6451 said:

The same people who asked for nerfs yesterday...still ask for nerfs today..and they will ask for nerfs tomorrow and after tomorrow....a reality that never changes, just like them losing over and over again. How does all the nerf crying work out for you? 

 

Did you just quote yourself?

The nerf crying works, and as long as I play pvp I'll never stop, get over it.

[Arheundel.6451]

43 minutes ago, Deadmoose.6594 said:

Did you just quote yourself?

The nerf crying works, and as long as I play pvp I'll never stop, get over it.

The same people who asked for nerfs yesterday...still ask for nerfs today..and they will ask for nerfs tomorrow and after tomorrow....a reality that never changes, just like them losing over and over again. How does all the nerf crying work out for you? 

Can you read?....yes you can keep crying about nerfs....it doesn't matter really...better players win always and bad players lose

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

🥤💀

[Multicolorhipster.9751]

23 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Then find some weighted means of determining a player's contribution outside of top stats. That way, the player who gets second in everything because they're the player actually trying to salvage the game while everyone else is busy farming top stats at the expense of actually contributing will get something.

You already get extra pips for top stats and nobody does this. Like I've explained already, 4 of the 6 top stats you can get are directly tied to playing the objective. Only top kills and damage aren't, but you stand a better chance of getting them by just playing the game rather than hyperfocusing on them. And no, no reward for second place. The only reward for second place is a reminder to do better next time.

And the alternative is no reward for losing at all; which I'm all for, but I understand this playerbase has grown too accustomed to getting something for doing nothing so I think this is good compromise; pips based on contribution, which are already in the game and already tied to top stats which are totally fine. It's the pips you get just for being there that are an insult to anyone that tries.

[Deadmoose.6594]

11 hours ago, Arheundel.6451 said:

The same people who asked for nerfs yesterday...still ask for nerfs today..and they will ask for nerfs tomorrow and after tomorrow....a reality that never changes, just like them losing over and over again. How does all the nerf crying work out for you? 

Can you read?....yes you can keep crying about nerfs....it doesn't matter really...better players win always and bad players lose

As I sit here lately winning more games than I lose, soloQ and climbing the ranks from gold 1 to gold 3.

[draxynnic.3719]

On 2/4/2024 at 1:38 PM, Multicolorhipster.9751 said:

You already get extra pips for top stats and nobody does this. Like I've explained already, 4 of the 6 top stats you can get are directly tied to playing the objective. Only top kills and damage aren't, but you stand a better chance of getting them by just playing the game rather than hyperfocusing on them. And no, no reward for second place. The only reward for second place is a reminder to do better next time.

And the alternative is no reward for losing at all; which I'm all for, but I understand this playerbase has grown too accustomed to getting something for doing nothing so I think this is good compromise; pips based on contribution, which are already in the game and already tied to top stats which are totally fine. It's the pips you get just for being there that are an insult to anyone that tries.

Here's a scenario for you:

Player 1 is camping home the entire time. The enemy pokes at them a few times, realises they never leave home, and proceeds to 5v4 the rest of the map, only sweeping into home to kill the bunker after wiping the rest of the team. Because the other points are almost permanently held by the other team, this player gets top defence.

Player 2 spends the entire match on far, beating their head against a bunker they can't kill. They get top offence because they're fighting on an enemy-held point the entire match, even though they never score a single point for their team. Constant combat means they might snipe top healing and/or damage too. Accounting for both Player 1, Player 2, and the enemy bunker, the game is now effectively 4v3.

Players 3 and 4 are more concerned about chasing kills than points, making it very easy for an enemy player to pull them off point. They'll share top kills and one of them might get top damage, because they're regularly getting kills off point, but they're not doing much to secure mid or far. Because they're fighting together, one might even score top resses.

Player 5 is actually trying to win the game - trying to secure mid or pushing to far to try to help player 2. But they're offset by two enemy players doing the same thing.

Who really deserves to get nothing in this scenario?

Now, I don't think I've seen all four of these in a match... but I've seen three, and loading too much on top stats would encourage it. You also don't need more than two to start squeezing out the top stats that you might get from playing properly. Let's say you just have the two easily-lured-off-point kill-hunters, but you also have a decent decapper and support. The decapper should get top offense by default, the healer should get top healing and is likely to get top resses if they have a res skill, and you're competing with the healer for top defence and the kill hunters fighting miles off point for damage and kills.

Second place in multiple categories can still be a significant contribution to the team, and your aim should always be to do whatever is appropriate to push your team's score up - even if that means you're doing a little of everything and you're therefore likely to end up coming second in most or all categories and top in nothing.

Allowing more thresholds for scoring pips off points would, I think, suffice to ensure there's always an incentive to do just a bit better. There are a lot of ways to game top stats, but it's pretty hard to push the team score up without contributing to increasing the chance of a comeback. If you really want to punish afkers, there could be some thresholds in place, like if someone scores below 15% of the team in all categories they're deemed as having not made a meaningful contribution and docked pips. But the system needs to be one that rewards contribution and not gaming top stats, or people will start trying to game a top stat or two the moment they think their team is unlikely to win.

PS: Come to think on it, there's an even worse perverse incentive for Player 1-type behaviour: If a player already has highest Defence stat on their team, they have an incentive to undermine the team, because if the rest of the game is either triple-capped in the enemy's favour or double-capped and the camper is on the one friendly point, nobody else will have the opportunity to beat them to that top stat. A similar incentive to AFK could also come with top kills.

Edited February 5 by draxynnic.3719
Postscript.

[Urud.4925]

On 1/25/2024 at 6:00 AM, Last Crab.6054 said:

no pips for loss unless within 100 points, afk fixed

if the matches are TRULY balanced, they should be within 100 points

Matches are never truly balanced. There are often matches that end with 400 points of difference where no one goes afk. The first 10 matches are qualification for example, the matchmaking basically doesn't work there. You can't punish players because the matchmaking is trying to understand your level.

If ArenaNet reworked theit matchmaking, maybe, but as it is currently, it's not reliable enough. It doesn't make sense to check our ranking every season if we play the same class. On the other hand our performance can vary a lot based on the profession we play (and currently this doesn't count).

I didn't even know that difference in pips, and I played more than 2k matches. The solution is easier: if you get a temporary ban, you'll stop to afk.