Every Game Lately

[Gotejjeken.1267]

Welcome to my TED talk!

 gw2 pvp — Postimages (postimg.cc)

To start, I feel something is seriously off with sPvP lately (NA don't know about the sun-averse pro's over in EU), I've seen it in my games and have seen it on the leaderboard--have many good players that were once plat in the g3 range now.  

I myself have fallen to g2 (47% winrate atm) because every game I get is either this, or a blowout.  If I die even once the game feels as if it is virtually over / usually spirals out of control, and I can't put my finger on why. 

Even here, I had zero deaths and almost 400k dmg with nearly 20 kills (which at 30% of team is about1.5 players worth of kills) and still the game felt entirely over at most every point.  It was too, because the 53% of deaths vs. enemy team means my team was feeding for as much as I was killing--there's no way to stop that.  

Also, for instance, I can't count the number of times this season from 1480 to now pretty much 1300, all ranges, that I've seen people run out of my smokescales field at any given point before I can blast it and give them stealth.  I would expect this at the lower end of 1300, but at almost plat range? And not 'oh I played 12 games and am 1480', I'm at nearly 125--and each game just going down more and more.

For others that have the titles and stuff, is there a certain point in the season where you go 'welp time to be done until next season'? I see a lot of people here with 200+ games but like 51% winrate and that tells me that initial placement kept them where they are--but why even play that many games? Some of you even duo and still hover around a 50% winrate, and that can't be coincidence.  I know it isn't coincidence as I have video evidence of a top 10 duo (one was 8 rank and other 12) getting wrecked by a non-leaderboard metabattle Druid build--that shouldn't be possible (as hilarious as it was to watch).  

Can't even play unranked either, as people there are actually sweatier than ranked.  Since it uses your ranked MMR you get carry duty 99% of time and super, super volatile matches because of it.  You also get the same 5-man comps that steamroll games so you can't do anything except get another 5-man and with the mode as dead as it is, that seems impossible. 

I've never tried ATs, but just the pre-match banter in the sPvP lobby is enough not to make me want to, with number of people throwing or not readying up, forfeiting matches, etc.  

Lastly, there's the 'just play don't care about your rank' crowd--but that doesn't work for me either, as the lower I get the dumber people get.  I'm well past the bottom end of where my skill is (which I'm guessing is 1430-1470 in current climate just solo), and so once I'm far enough down there really seems to be no way to climb back.  I don't want to put in 200-300 games to attempt to grind back up there either as already have the title and only really want to be there for more enjoyable games.  

The tldr; is I think seasons actually need to be shorter.  Need more hard resets or something, as I know 'the mode is dead' but you are losing the remaining players as it's not fun to have to carry 100% of the time or lose for like 3 months on end.  Having random balance patches in the middle of seasons too (multiple times) is also a whole other discussion for why this all isn't working.  

Edited March 11 by Gotejjeken.1267

[maxwelgm.4315]

I'd agree with shorter seasons. I play for pip farming (typically 200+ matches per season) and typically end up in g3.

Thing is, usually I start at high g3/plat and remain plat for like 120 games (great for pip farming too!) and then start dropping because the variance is so large. So if they don't change length of seasons, they could also reduce how hard GLICKO2 tries to push you towards the mean when losing. If I have top 10 duos and ultimate samurai notorious legendary xtrzvewytoeiwev accounts on my matches every single match there is no reason for the game to remove 18 points for a loss while giving 5 points for a win against more or less the same teams. It's already bad that they use a chess based rating for a team game with duoQ, the least they could do is having a damping constant of sorts for the huge variance that comes with a low population with immense skill gap.

On a side note it legit sucks that "playing as least as possible" is the one best strategy for improving your rating other than duoQ. When the winning move is not to play there is something wrong with the game in principle indeed. You don't see LoL Challenger players pushing the limits of how much rating decay they can have before they go for another match, but they don't have the issue of the entirety of the population skill gap fitting within the Challenger tier itself either. So regardless of rating/titles I would say Anet should give more incentive for leaderboard players to keep playing other than just the threat of decay - which is not very threatening at all if you lose about as many points for losing a lopsided match than you would for just letting decay take root for several hours.

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

This only marginally has  to do with OP's concern but

PvP is wild.

It be like:

Quote

A build surfaces that is good at turning fights, decapping, stalling, or removing people instantly from the map, thereby causing snowballs and making it easier for a single person to affect the board

The players: "That's busted. I hate it. Nerf it now, [class main]s are clowns, Anet's favorite child, give me title, I'm posting until it's GONE 🦀"

Quote

It gets nerfed so now players have to try hard to carry or duo to carry

The players:

"I HATE carrying games wdf"

"The game mode is dead"

"Why is the matchmaker struggling, it must be broken or something"

"Duos carry ALL the games wdf"

"Remove duos?" 👀

 

Anet made some bad choices, sure; but it's just kind of wild to watch the community want to [minecraft] itself so hard instead of reckon with the fact that they'd need to make a friend to consistently hit plat. Whether or not that is the correct strategy to reward is an altogether different matter, but-

Edited March 11 by Azure The Heartless.3261
I can hear multicolorhipster rolling in their grave* but I'm right

[Infinity.2876]

I legit got 500/490 twice in a row

[Multicolorhipster.9751]

Did somebody say 

6 hours ago, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

"Remove duos?" 👀

👀👀👀

[remorseless.6352]

Record games and post 

[Gotejjeken.1267]

2 hours ago, remorseless.6352 said:

Record games and post 

Why?

What is the point of posting most games when they are 100 points of differential and the obvious conclusion is can't carry hard enough or rotations were slightly better on the other team?

For example, I could post Rom demolishing my Untamed build in Unranked this evening and still winning against him because our team held nodes for longer, and all I had to do was distract him long enough to lose just enough impact on the game. 

Anyway, the metrics are there that most here are in g3 right now on NA, even ones who duo.  There's no reason to post games when something is obviously broken--and if you do somehow want to see my gameplay, I have posted on Youtube at various points (mostly WvW but some sPvP too).  

 

[Khalisto.5780]

how high can you really go solo without being "famous", I mean, I see ppl afking from start when they see team usa ppl on the other team

 

most ppl over 1550 duo q 85%+ matches, once you get past like 1420 you get a lot of matches against them if you do not consistently dodge. And when you get the no duo matches you allowed maybe to die once to win the games

[Endorphin.9147]

12 hours ago, Multicolorhipster.9751 said:

Did somebody say 

👀👀👀

Back to the graveyard foul fiend

[maxwelgm.4315]

3 hours ago, Khalisto.5780 said:

how high can you really go solo without being "famous", I mean, I see ppl afking from start when they see team usa ppl on the other team

 

most ppl over 1550 duo q 85%+ matches, once you get past like 1420 you get a lot of matches against them if you do not consistently dodge. And when you get the no duo matches you allowed maybe to die once to win the games

The first page of the leaderboard basically answers that as we have a gap of nearly 200 points in between the usual suspect first places and everyone else (~1800 to ~1600). And then from 1550+ the majority of people are in duos. Like you said, playing solo 1500+ doesn't nullify the impact of duos since a lot of the higher ups there also queue dodge/snipe duos. Basically everyone has everyone else added and/or blocked, which is quite funny.

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

16 hours ago, Multicolorhipster.9751 said:

Did somebody say 

👀👀👀

*visibly sweating* 💀

[Flowki.7194]

Duo MMR should go on highest rated player. MMR range needs hard locked, plat 3-2 should never be in games with golds, and gold 3-2 should never be in the same game as silvers. I played on and off-peak all the time, and getting players like Boyce in the same game, multiple games in a row, while I was at G1>3, was far from rare. I genuinely think 80% of the people currently running around with plat badges are G3 at best, if surrounded by equal skilled dps/support. Their ratings are inflated from duo/off peak abusing the kitten poor MMR range, and farming players with 2/3 of their skill. Shameless playerbase.

 

If anything, its deminished returns at current. The more people that try to duo/Q dodge, the harder it is for said people to que dodge AKA they are meeting players of similar skill levels and being put in place, G3.

 

Edited March 12 by Flowki.7194

[Multicolorhipster.9751]

4 hours ago, Endorphin.9147 said:

Back to the graveyard foul fiend

Present and accounted for, shalom

1 hour ago, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

*visibly sweating* 💀

Just like a duoq...

*squinting*

Edited March 12 by Multicolorhipster.9751

[whooot.5784]

10 hours ago, Flowki.7194 said:

Duo MMR should go on highest rated player. MMR range needs hard locked, plat 3-2 should never be in games with golds, and gold 3-2 should never be in the same game as silvers. I played on and off-peak all the time, and getting players like Boyce in the same game, multiple games in a row, while I was at G1>3, was far from rare. I genuinely think 80% of the people currently running around with plat badges are G3 at best, if surrounded by equal skilled dps/support. Their ratings are inflated from duo/off peak abusing the kitten poor MMR range, and farming players with 2/3 of their skill. Shameless playerbase.

 

If anything, its deminished returns at current. The more people that try to duo/Q dodge, the harder it is for said people to que dodge AKA they are meeting players of similar skill levels and being put in place, G3.

 

Duo q should be deleted from this game mod, period.

It happens to me a lot actually, even in plat games, that I am facing a double duoq with a full pu random team, and it's absolutly not rare at all.

There is too many way to exploit the MMR, you could q as double mecha, double scourge etc (or any low bad spec), to force the mmr to put same spec in the ennemy team, then reroll before the start and completly faceroll and hard counter the ennemy comp.

You can q as duo during off hours, giving you way more chance to absolutly rekt the ennemy comp, where it's almost unplayable (and a pure torture) as solo q player if you're in plat 1-2-3 or higher.

There is so few player left, that basicly best players are always in same duo, where they should be splited for more equals game.

Best players playing duo q also q dodging themself every single time, cause they care about their rating. Or they're sniping themself time to time, but they don't care cause they're playing on alt account.

If pvp population would be higher, if wouldn't be a pb, but that's not the case right here, so duo q system should be treated accordingly, by beeing remooved.

It's extremly difficult to reach top 30 or higher if you're not duoquing yourself, unless you're some kind of pgm and can carry every single game, but the mmr will catch you soon or later, and will give you true cursed games, with gold and silver in it, making it absolutly uncarryable, cause ofc you'll be facing the best players in ennemy comp, but duo q can prevent that by a lot cause the carry potential is extremly higher.

I can't imagine, not even in my dream, a competitive game who puts players playing together as a duo, with vocal and extremly good group synergys, against a pu team. (yeah I know competitive is a joke, completly dead and burried, but still, there is a ladder, and rewards for better ranks so..)

 

Edited March 13 by whooot.5784

[Flowki.7194]

15 hours ago, whooot.5784 said:

Duo q should be deleted from this game mod, period.

It happens to me a lot actually, even in plat games, that I am facing a double duoq with a full pu random team, and it's absolutly not rare at all.

There is too many way to exploit the MMR, you could q as double mecha, double scourge etc (or any low bad spec), to force the mmr to put same spec in the ennemy team, then reroll before the start and completly faceroll and hard counter the ennemy comp.

You can q as duo during off hours, giving you way more chance to absolutly rekt the ennemy comp, where it's almost unplayable (and a pure torture) as solo q player if you're in plat 1-2-3 or higher.

There is so few player left, that basicly best players are always in same duo, where they should be splited for more equals game.

Best players playing duo q also q dodging themself every single time, cause they care about their rating. Or they're sniping themself time to time, but they don't care cause they're playing on alt account.

If pvp population would be higher, if wouldn't be a pb, but that's not the case right here, so duo q system should be treated accordingly, by beeing remooved.

It's extremly difficult to reach top 30 or higher if you're not duoquing yourself, unless you're some kind of pgm and can carry every single game, but the mmr will catch you soon or later, and will give you true cursed games, with gold and silver in it, making it absolutly uncarryable, cause ofc you'll be facing the best players in ennemy comp, but duo q can prevent that by a lot cause the carry potential is extremly higher.

I can't imagine, not even in my dream, a competitive game who puts players playing together as a duo, with vocal and extremly good group synergys, against a pu team. (yeah I know competitive is a joke, completly dead and burried, but still, there is a ladder, and rewards for better ranks so..)

 

In honesty the concept of Duo does not bother me, its just very badly implimented. The system should place 1 duo on each team as a complete rule of thumb, and it has to go on the player with the highest rating. People care about rating at top level, its unlikely a true plat is going to duo with anything less than another true plat with this change. This would solve so many issues, firstly, it means you as a plat solo, get a team plat duo, and an enemy plat duo, and all other solos are plat (one or two solos on each team could be G3, if you are all P1, but no wider MMR than that). Second, it stops plats having a true plat friend who is sand bagged as a low gold player, the average then puts them in a game with golds, despite them both being true plat.. that is horrible for the golds to deal with, and a great way to kill off a playerbase. With all similar skill levels, duos can't just abuse certain spec combos to carry, spec diversity would also incraese. With an overall cap on MMr range, it is also far less likely that plat duos can Q as mech engis etc, becuase at the higher locked MMR range, their is next to no chance of the game matching them with mechs anyway.

Edited March 13 by Flowki.7194

[Saiyan.1704]

On 3/12/2024 at 4:13 AM, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

Why?

What is the point of posting most games when they are 100 points of differential and the obvious conclusion is can't carry hard enough or rotations were slightly better on the other team?

 

Every single person in every rating says, "I couldn't carry hard enough" but only a couple of players within a given match, if that, are allowed to actually say that. Very few people are that efficient in this game's PvP. Those players can retain top 100 consistently even as a soloQ player. They're no-life/casual gamers.

Everyone else makes mistakes because there's ALWAYS mistakes to be made.
A thief that stays at home and 2v2's for the entirety of the match, can't say they did well. A heal Tempest and a Warrior 2v1ing a person on or off node at far, while a DE is also chasing some one at home without decapping nodes, can't say they did well.

There's sooooo many opportunities for players to be inefficient in this chess-like gamemode and the majority of players simply don't know what they're doing wrong. They don't know why they deal 0 damage on their non-meta build. They don't realize their individual class roles within the game because this game isn't like Overwatch--- it doesn't tell players their roles.

Your game was extremely close and it seems like you did well overall. But sometimes it's not about being top kills or less deaths on your team. I would rather have several deaths if it means that I'm also shutting out that single 1-shot ranger, or mesmer, or necro. Because I am denying them the possibility of wiping out my teamates. OR I die horrifically, but managed to get 3 other players down to 50% (which happens often as a WB) so my other teamates wipe mid.

This would be considered a win. 1 death for 3 kills for my team. 

That's why end-game stats in this game really doesn't matter because the game can't efficiently measure individual skill level. We can only "assume" we did OK based off of the stats of the game.


 

[Gotejjeken.1267]

44 minutes ago, Saiyan.1704 said:

Every single person in every rating says, "I couldn't carry hard enough" but only a couple of players within a given match, if that, are allowed to actually say that. Very few people are that efficient in this game's PvP. Those players can retain top 100 consistently even as a soloQ player. They're no-life/casual gamers.

Who are these players?

You're ok with being 1490 atm with a duo (54% winrate)? So, when you say ' top 100' are you factoring that 1500 is now top 100 instead of like 1600-1700? 

I'm of the opinion you can't even really retain top 250 atm without a constant duo; I've fought duos (including yours) and had games with zero deaths, held points, did all the things.  Still lost because I'm on full rando team.

I also don't like the role logic, because as a roamer Druid I've been chased around map many times by WBs just to distract them from other things, because as a fallback a Druid can hold/contest a point way better than a WB can.  So can we say roamer classes are now direct hinderances to matchups?

If so, I say that's just game design flaw, not role flaw IMO.  It's game design flaw as currently there's nothing to get bunkers off points besides more people, when a year or so ago whenever burst was a thing you could have a better roamer get a bunker off by doing more damage to them then they can bunker.  

Anyway, that's not what really strikes me here, as if duos are that potent you should be holding 1600+ at least--because if I'm 1400 without a duo and you are 1500 with one, you are saying that the players in the mode are so bad now that two people can't carry teams half the time? Or are you just running sub-optimal classes in duo and barely holding the rank as your duo partner makes up for what you lack or refuse to run?

[Saiyan.1704]

14 minutes ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

Who are these players?

You're ok with being 1490 atm with a duo (54% winrate)? So, when you say ' top 100' are you factoring that 1500 is now top 100 instead of like 1600-1700? 

I'm of the opinion you can't even really retain top 250 atm without a constant duo; I've fought duos (including yours) and had games with zero deaths, held points, did all the things.  Still lost because I'm on full rando team.

I also don't like the role logic, because as a roamer Druid I've been chased around map many times by WBs just to distract them from other things, because as a fallback a Druid can hold/contest a point way better than a WB can.  So can we say roamer classes are now direct hinderances to matchups?

If so, I say that's just game design flaw, not role flaw IMO.  It's game design flaw as currently there's nothing to get bunkers off points besides more people, when a year or so ago whenever burst was a thing you could have a better roamer get a bunker off by doing more damage to them then they can bunker.  

Anyway, that's not what really strikes me here, as if duos are that potent you should be holding 1600+ at least--because if I'm 1400 without a duo and you are 1500 with one, you are saying that the players in the mode are so bad now that two people can't carry teams half the time? Or are you just running sub-optimal classes in duo and barely holding the rank as your duo partner makes up for what you lack or refuse to run?

I duo very very seldomly (that a word?) in RankedQ. I can fall asleep and get top 250 but I don't say that to gloat. I've just been playing this game for a long time on the same WB build so I'm generally on auto-pilot a lot of times when I play.... that said, when i'm losing multiple games I just hop on my alt account (Char name literally says Saiyans Alt lmao) because I don't like losing 10 games in a row, going down to G2.

Duo is mostly extremely important when it's after hours. Because everyone seems to be lower rating, so you absolutely need that 1 other carry class on your team. Duo during peak hours doesn't do a whole lot unless you're... doing something you're not supposed to be doing. There's a reason why top5 players NA/EU stream on alt accounts.

It's a minigame within the top100 when it comes to trying to get rating, and that's fine... because it's impossible for Anet to fix that aspect of GW2's sPvP. That said, it doesn't effect Gold players 99% of the time. A lot of players can soloQ in top 250, it just depends on what kind of carry class you're on.

Top 250 is mostly made up up 1-shot specs.

[Multicolorhipster.9751]

2 hours ago, Saiyan.1704 said:

Every single person in every rating says, "I couldn't carry hard enough" but only a couple of players within a given match, if that, are allowed to actually say that. Very few people are that efficient in this game's PvP. Those players can retain top 100 consistently even as a soloQ player. They're no-life/casual gamers.

Everyone else makes mistakes because there's ALWAYS mistakes to be made.
A thief that stays at home and 2v2's for the entirety of the match, can't say they did well. A heal Tempest and a Warrior 2v1ing a person on or off node at far, while a DE is also chasing some one at home without decapping nodes, can't say they did well.

There's sooooo many opportunities for players to be inefficient in this chess-like gamemode and the majority of players simply don't know what they're doing wrong. They don't know why they deal 0 damage on their non-meta build. They don't realize their individual class roles within the game because this game isn't like Overwatch--- it doesn't tell players their roles.

Your game was extremely close and it seems like you did well overall. But sometimes it's not about being top kills or less deaths on your team. I would rather have several deaths if it means that I'm also shutting out that single 1-shot ranger, or mesmer, or necro. Because I am denying them the possibility of wiping out my teamates. OR I die horrifically, but managed to get 3 other players down to 50% (which happens often as a WB) so my other teamates wipe mid.

This would be considered a win. 1 death for 3 kills for my team. 

That's why end-game stats in this game really doesn't matter because the game can't efficiently measure individual skill level. We can only "assume" we did OK based off of the stats of the game.
 

Tl;dr - Duoq is important when I'm losing because it helps me not lose

The forums have gotten pretty honest recently and I couldn't be more proud of y'all 😍🙏

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

18 minutes ago, Multicolorhipster.9751 said:

Tl;dr - Duoq is important when I'm losing because it helps me not lose

The forums have gotten pretty honest recently and I couldn't be more proud of y'all 😍🙏

Were people aggressively claiming that duos weren't an advantage against pugs?

I just kind of assumed that was so obvious it didn't need to be debated.

[Multicolorhipster.9751]

20 minutes ago, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

Were people aggressively claiming that duos weren't an advantage against pugs?

I just kind of assumed that was so obvious it didn't need to be debated.

It's always been "we just want to play with friends" that's the lie and the excuse

Very rarely hear the truth that it's just an advantage and they want to play with an advantage over everyone else because the truth appears untidy while the friends excuse is a convenient and sweet little lie.

I might come off as sarcastic, but I mean it when I say telling the truth is fr a lot more respectable because truth sets free.

[maxwelgm.4315]

11 hours ago, Saiyan.1704 said:

That's why end-game stats in this game really doesn't matter because the game can't efficiently measure individual skill level. We can only "assume" we did OK based off of the stats of the game.


 

The very window he posted says a lot about the match. Blue held waterfall for a long interval in the middle of the match which kept them afloat even as red was winning around the 5min mark. Then they proceeded to repeatedly decap+cap the mines with red taking a bit too long to recap it on each time, and sometimes it would immediately get decapped probably due to a fight. Red was consistently winning graveyard fights but not able to capitalize due to strong waterfall defense + constant mines decapping. This overall picture is pretty much the reason why OP himself says  "and still the game felt entirely over at most every point." .

It's also a bit disingenuous that people keep saying the individual stats have nothing to say about this overall picture at no point in time whatsoever as if they were truly irrelevant. Tradeoffs do also show up in the end match window as long as you're willing to actually take a look and compare individual to team results. Since OP has 30% of his team DPS with 0 attempts to res and almost 3x the amount of "offense" than "defense" it's safe to say they were aggressively pushing enemies and leaving when the fight becomes unfavorable, with probably no fights being turnarounds and the result being clear from the first few seconds. Whether or not his playstyle worked for that match or not is a matter for him to decide putting this data under the lens of the actual match experience ("Should I have traded off pushing far for having team lose even faster at mid?", "should I have helped home more or taunt enemies into far by trying to rush it?", etc.) but the fact is that he can do much more than just saying he was "OK" with that much data.

Just because the end stats don't have a full textual narration of the paths of each player during the match that doesn't mean no one can use it because certain people can't use it or because certain people want to say that their afk-worthy self stats actually mean they played it as a team game instead.

[KrHome.1920]

Seems like the mechanics are the same as in 2016 (when I stopped playing PvP for the exact reaons I have read here in this thread).

We've 2024 now. I guess a fix will arrive soon. Right after anet fixed wvw matchmaking.

[Chase.8415]

After advancing to the platinum rank this season—a milestone I've maintained for over two weeks, reaching the #70 spot on the leaderboard—I've experienced a profound shift in my gameplay approach from my days in high gold. The competitive scene and my tactical focus have evolved dramatically. Whereas previously I aimed to lead and carry each match, I now prioritize executing the safest and most sensible strategies. This adaptation often involves taking on a supportive role, contributing to my team's success indirectly rather than attempting to outperform the top-ranked players. By acknowledging my limits and focusing on not making detrimental errors, I ensure I'm a reliable team member. For example, while I may not consistently prevail in one-on-one situations, I concentrate on controlling objectives effectively, aiming for neutralization over outright capture when necessary.

This approach makes it easier  for higher-ranked teammates to lead us to victory. I've learned that not risking unnecessary plays can be as crucial as making bold moves. Essentially, being open to being carried by more skilled teammates when appropriate is a strategy in itself, ensuring I contribute positively without compromising our chances of winning.

Edited March 17 by Chase.8415