please qualifying match FIX NOW!!!!

[Galeskyring.9617]

"gajhgrwbnegrkjbhregjkrehg" is how myself and many feel given this has been a rage issue ever since the 10 pre-ranking matches system has been added to ranked season play, the reason for that is because it is insanely trollable to ruin eveyone's legitimate placements!!

I say enough is ENOUGH every season my initial placement suffers due to getting 2-3 minimum match trolls in the first 10 matches were are forced to play every season. Be it trolls who idle in spawn/corner or people who outright logout either of which leaves the team at a disadvantage forcing a loss scaring the remaining players with an immediate debunk to where they would be placed otherwise.

Season nine I had 4 match trolls and barely got into platinum for it, I won 6/10 qualifying matches but lost 4 of them due to people dcing or idling in spawn or corners of the map. THIS season I've played my first match out of ten and got an immediate lose due to 1 person troll leaving right as the match started, inspite of this troll my team lost 302 to 502 simply because the remaining 4 had to work much harder to compensate for having less on our team and lost specifically due to that as many of the fights were evenly matched except for the 1 missing person not contributing.

This has been an issue ever since the 10 qualifying matches has been implemented and it needs an immediate change to account for the ease of trolling that can be done. Harsher penalty's need to be implemented for leavers who troll or throw matches and compensation for those of use actually fighting need to be given if competitive pvp is ever going to improve.

These changes need to be done to both qualifying matches and season play to promote a healthy pvp growth. Things such as harsher dishonor times for leaving Q-matches should be added to discourage trolling them including extra loss counts added to the ones responsible so they can be dumped into the amber tier quickly instead of being allowed to troll 10 straight fights. It already took me over 10 minutes to get my 1st of 10 matches today and now I'm furious to have a troll match be the reason my team lost especially since we received no update today to balance anything for the season while troll issue sin the Q-matches has not been addressed in spite of being present for multiple seasons. It's bad enough we honest pvpers get trolled in the season play itself but to have even our initial placement dragged down by trolls is revolting.

Sorry if this comes off as a bit of a rant post however this needed to be said and certainly needs to be addressed, I've played in every season since their implementation and seen it only get worse as issues that need to be fixed are often overlooked or ignored then carry over to other seasons dragging them down.

[Master Ketsu.4569]

One longstanding issue with placement matches is you still get screwed if you get an AFKer. You can have 4 DCs and be forced to 1v5 and it will STILL get counted as a loss. This is always a bigger problem at the start of the season because you get people who wan't to be ranked lower since it's easier to farm ranked chests in bronze. It's kind of an open secret that most people are bronze/silvers who hide their rank badge and only play for rewards.

I'm actually tempted to purposefully let myself fall in gold this season because EVERY platinum game I had last season was 2 scourge both teams and holy crap that gets old. I was watching a stream of someone in low gold and people were actually playing fun builds and I started to feel jealous.

The absolute state of sPvP community.

[Loboling.5293]

As someone who placed silver last season due to some bad placement and worked my way back to plat, I can tell you the meta is less present in the lower tiers. I got to play zerker staff ele, lifesteal power renegade, staff thief, core rev, core engie, scrapper, etc. I played tons of different builds and still maintained a solid 60% win rate as I moved up the ranks. (solo) But the meta in plat 2 and up is pretty lame. Even plat 1 has some games of 3 scourges, firebrand and mirage; or 2 scourge, firebrand, mirage and spellbreaker. I made some builds to fight the cheese (a zerker soulbeast), but I got tired of it.

Qualifying matches don't seem to be any worse than regular matches.

[sephiroth.4217]

@Master Ketsu.4569 said:One longstanding issue with placement matches is you still get screwed if you get an AFKer. You can have 4 DCs and be forced to 1v5 and it will STILL get counted as a loss. This is always a bigger problem at the start of the season because you get people who wan't to be ranked lower since it's easier to farm ranked chests in bronze. It's kind of an open secret that most people are bronze/silvers who hide their rank badge and only play for rewards.

I'm actually tempted to purposefully let myself fall in gold this season because EVERY platinum game I had last season was 2 scourge both teams and holy crap that gets old. I was watching a stream of someone in low gold and people were actually playing fun builds and I started to feel jealous.

The absolute state of sPvP community.

I think that's the reason a lot of us stay in gold to be honest.I dislike higher tier play simply because of the META, I would much rather stay in a tier filled with players running off meta builds. Having games as a Reaper against another Reaper and DH trapper, good games. Games against 2 Scourges, Holo, FB and Mirage game in and game out, not so much fun.

[Shortage.5427]

They should not allow people to duo que with the same class. That is blatant zerging on PvP matches.

[Cal Cohen.3527]

Disconnects are handled the same in placements as they are everywhere else. The placement UI still shows a loss because the game counts toward your game total, but rating, deviation, and volatility are all unchanged.

[Razor.6392]

So it's basically like a draw.

[Vagrant.7206]

@Razor.6392 said:So it's basically like a draw.

Functionally, it doesn't count against you for any placement/elo rankings.

[Galeskyring.9617]

@Vagrant.7206 said:

@Razor.6392 said:So it's basically like a draw.

Functionally, it doesn't count against you for any placement/elo rankings.

That is essentially untrue for Q-matches, you get 10 matches that's it then based on your W/L rate you get placed. Trolls can cost you matches which still shows up as a lose on your 10 Q matches unlike in normal season play where trolls net you a 0 point gain/lose for their antics.

Far to much of ranked season play is flawed fundamentally due to its pure all out W/L rate being the dictator and not your performance during matches. You can be a pro player but if you get 2 bad players whom you cannot compensate for due to numbers or 1 match troll intentionally making you lose then your score is impacted for it, the only time you get the 0 gain/lose effect is if the troll pulls the dc method, all other forms of trolling can still force you down the ladder since the system isn't built to recognize actual player skill beyond winning and losing.

In earlier season IE 1-2 we could still move forward even if our team lost due to simply playing well enough to grant some pips to progress up the ladder as back then pips were also your ranking not just reward progression. It was harder to troll someone's ranking back then because good players still had a chance to progress based on skill where as now we are pure;ly dictated our placement by winning and losing now how well one performs in any given match in spite of the outcome.

back then If your team lost but 1 or 2 people still gained points to progress up the ladder for playing well then you knew they earned it but for a long time now being an all star or totally carried is irrelevant because the system only goes by win/lose rate which is easier to troll since the win/lose is a be all end all which has also nurtured the unloved meta as well.

[Vagrant.7206]

@Galeskyring.9617 said:

@Vagrant.7206 said:

@Razor.6392 said:So it's basically like a draw.

Functionally, it doesn't count against you for any placement/elo rankings.

That is essentially untrue for Q-matches, you get 10 matches that's it then based on your W/L rate you get placed. Trolls can cost you matches which still shows up as a lose on your 10 Q matches unlike in normal season play where trolls net you a 0 point gain/lose for their antics.

You seem to have missed the context I was quoting. I was referring to matches in which a player disconnected from -- IE the dreaded 4v5.

As to your other points... the "10 wins" placement matches is mostly an illusion. They only serve as a useful tool for PvP newbies who haven't been ranked before. To the rest of us who have played multiple seasons, they actually have relatively low impact on our overall starting position. They can bump us up or down (from like plat 1 to plat 2 or from plat 1 to gold 3), but generally speaking you will start pretty close to where you ended your last season.

For example, I haven't been out of plat for about 4 seasons now. One season I totally bombed my placement matches, and I was still in Plat 1 (or really high gold 3, I forget). The rest was easy enough to earn back.

@Galeskyring.9617 said:

@Vagrant.7206 said:

@Razor.6392 said:So it's basically like a draw.

Functionally, it doesn't count against you for any placement/elo rankings.

Far to much of ranked season play is flawed fundamentally due to its pure all out W/L rate being the dictator and not your performance during matches. You can be a pro player but if you get 2 bad players whom you cannot compensate for due to numbers or 1 match troll intentionally making you lose then your score is impacted for it, the only time you get the 0 gain/lose effect is if the troll pulls the dc method, all other forms of trolling can still force you down the ladder since the system isn't built to recognize actual player skill beyond winning and losing.

ArenaNet devs have addressed this issue many times, but they had an internal discussion about it. Ultimately, what came out of it was that they felt that emphasizing individual skill would result in people ignoring the overall match in favor of showing off their skills. A thief could be the best thief in 1v1s throughout the whole game, but if they can't support their team or cap/decap, then they aren't as good as they think they are. And ultimately, the question of skill is very subjective too -- My damage could be really high one game, and low in another (due to the enemy's behavior), but I could perform more skillfully in the low-damage game.

Thus, the emphasis on winning matches. Say what you will, but in essence I agree with this decision. I think that skill should play a larger role in softening/boosting losses/wins, but I think they're right on this.

@Galeskyring.9617 said:In earlier season IE 1-2 we could still move forward even if our team lost due to simply playing well enough to grant some pips to progress up the ladder as back then pips were also your ranking not just reward progression. It was harder to troll someone's ranking back then because good players still had a chance to progress based on skill where as now we are pure;ly dictated our placement by winning and losing now how well one performs in any given match in spite of the outcome.

back then If your team lost but 1 or 2 people still gained points to progress up the ladder for playing well then you knew they earned it but for a long time now being an all star or totally carried is irrelevant because the system only goes by win/lose rate which is easier to troll since the win/lose is a be all end all which has also nurtured the unloved meta as well.

That system was also borked, because once you got to the dreaded 50/50 win/loss ratio (or gain 2 pips, step back 2 pips, repeat ad nauseum), you never earned any more rewards. There was no reason to keep playing -- which many players, including myself, stopped doing for those seasons. That led to a massive dropoff in the PvP playerbase, which was a pretty bad result that led to worse matches overall, and creating a worse death spiral than we have now.

TL; DR -- Some things in past seasons were good, but don't get rose-tinted glasses. There were significantly more problems back then than people remember, and I still remember how much more frustrating the game was back then.

[Ithilwen.1529]

I just had one of those trolls, dc'd until a minute or two into the game, leaving us 4v5 in a game that was already tilted to the other side by team comp. It shows as a placement loss.

[zealex.9410]

@Cal Cohen.3527 said:Disconnects are handled the same in placements as they are everywhere else. The placement UI still shows a loss because the game counts toward your game total, but rating, deviation, and volatility are all unchanged.

U should prob change it to show on the ui to prevent ppl from going yolo on these forums each season.

[BlaqueFyre.5678]

@Ithilwen.1529 said:I just had one of those trolls, dc'd until a minute or two into the game, leaving us 4v5 in a game that was already tilted to the other side by team comp. It shows as a placement loss.

But it doesn’t effect your rating, you know the thing that actually effects placement.