DuoQ and No more PvP ladder Titles from S13

[suffish.4150]

@Arheundel.6451 said:

@suffish.4150 said:

@Arheundel.6451 said:

@suffish.4150 said:No more titles? Ok that means I am never going to play seriously in ranked again, because what’s the point? It also means that duo q means nothing to me either because I don’t care about winning if I don’t gain anything for it. Terrible, terrible decision that I truly hope anet decides not to follow through with. Well I guess the only tryharding I will ever be doing from now on is in ATs, which most of the time I can’t be bothered doing because it’s an hour waiting around for 2 good games.

If you take away any incentive to try in ranked, nobody WILL try in ranked. Is that what anet really wants ranked to be? A place where nobody cares about winning and losing because they don’t get anything extra if they win other than a few pips (which pvp players have no need for)? Extremely disappointed to hear this.

Oh well, I guess I can just have fun playing rifle warr in gold 2 forever.

Rewarded for winning a random game with people you never met before...in that case gold reward is adequate. Ranked in GW2 is the same as Random Arena in GW1 with gladiator titles

If you believe that ranked right now is purely random then you are pretty delusional I have to say. Of course luck is a factor, nobody is denying that but it, over an entire season, is much less of a factor than people seem to believe. Why is it that the same players are always able to reach top 10 and legendary division? Because they are just lucky? Of course not. The leaderboard is the best way of representing skill that we have ever had. No, it isn’t perfect but it’s as close as we are going to get.

As for the argument I have seen people making that bringing back duo q will make the leaderboard unbalanced- have you forgotten seasons 5, 6, 7 and 8? There was duo in those seasons and nobody was complaining about it making the leaderboard unbalanced. If you want to get god of pvp, then yes you will have to duo but come on, if you are a player who is truly good enough to get something like that, you will have no shortage of top players to queue with. If nobody good wants to duo with you Then you are not a good player and when you improve, that will definitely change. So no, duo does not make the leaderboard very much less accurate than it is right now at all.

I just find it hilarious that players have been asking for new pvp content and features for so long with no success, and what does anet do when they finally act? They REMOVE one of the major reasons to try in ranked. We want MORE pvp content, not less

We've seen stream of "GW2 pvp legends" fall flat on their face when they're placed in a total crap team...despite your claims of god like skills...

nobody can carry a total crap team

, you win because your random team happens to be less braindead then the opposition but still insist on these titles why?

1- People use specs that artificially increase their skill level by 600-700 pts2- The tile is not a representation of personal skill...no matter how hard you claim otherwise, I recognise names...not titles, like everybody worth its salt does3- I stopped pvp in ranked,

winning was boring and losing was absurd

, 8 times out of 10 the skill difference is immense ,immeasurable and that alone invalidate anything you could say or do

It seems that you don’t understand what I am saying, so I will make it clear to you:I AM NOT SAYING THAT IT IS POSSIBLE TO WIN EVERY GAME, NO MATTER HOW GOOD YOU ARE. THERE WILL ALWAYS BE AN ELEMENT OF LUCK.

I think that this is something we both agree on. However, my argument is that, although there will always be an element of luck, this does not in any way invalidate the leaderboard as a measure of skill. Let’s look at it this way:

You are a good player. Because of your skill, you are able to carry 67% (2/3) of your games when you play your best. In each individual time you queue up, you have a 33% chance that the game will be a loss even if you play to the best of your ability. This seems pretty high right? Well not really when we look at what is likely to happen over a whole season. Yes, every game you queue up for will have a fair chance of being totally impossible to win, but when you look at the ENTIRE season, the chance that your win rate will deviate from the 67% too much becomes extremely small and therefore, your skill that was able to get you a good win rate and a high rating by the end of the season, whereas an average player would only end up with about a 50% win rate.

I remember seeing another post that explained the situation perfectly- in each individual game you are always at the mercy of the matchmaking, however, the more games you play, the more your individual skill affects your rating, and the less the matchmaking and luck do.

The fact that uncarriable games exist does not even suggest that the leaderboard is not a good measure of skill. Even the term ‘uncarriable game’ is a big misleading, because games that are uncarriable to one person playing to the best of their ability will not be uncarriable to another person playing to the best of their ability, leading to better players being able to win more games, just like they should.

So I don’t understand your argument and I still can’t see any sense in removing titles. If you still disagree with me, I would like you to answer one question:

Why, if rating is not a good representation of skill, do the same players almost always reach the highest spots on the leaderboard season after season and no unknown names reach the top spots at the end of the season?

[Falan.1839]

The biggest problem with the ladder is the huge volatility, as an lucky or unlucky streak can push you quite high up or far down, way outside of your usual skill bracket. If you track the average placement over, let's say 3 months, it probably constituted a fairly accurate measure. With DuoQ that is likely going to change as synergy between your duo "comp" and how much it can snowball a game will affect rating way more than individual skill.

[ReaverKane.7598]

@Ben Phongluangtham.1065 said:Yes, the current plan is the remove titles next season. The leaderboard itself will remain. We won't remove titles for people who've already earned them.

Current plan is to also bring back to duo queue for next season.

We'll have a blog post when the next season is getting close to starting.

IMHO that's not going far enough to address the problems, but a good step forward none the less...

[Arheundel.6451]

@suffish.4150 said:

@Arheundel.6451 said:

@suffish.4150 said:

@Arheundel.6451 said:

@suffish.4150 said:No more titles? Ok that means I am never going to play seriously in ranked again, because what’s the point? It also means that duo q means nothing to me either because I don’t care about winning if I don’t gain anything for it. Terrible, terrible decision that I truly hope anet decides not to follow through with. Well I guess the only tryharding I will ever be doing from now on is in ATs, which most of the time I can’t be bothered doing because it’s an hour waiting around for 2 good games.

If you take away any incentive to try in ranked, nobody WILL try in ranked. Is that what anet really wants ranked to be? A place where nobody cares about winning and losing because they don’t get anything extra if they win other than a few pips (which pvp players have no need for)? Extremely disappointed to hear this.

Oh well, I guess I can just have fun playing rifle warr in gold 2 forever.

Rewarded for winning a random game with people you never met before...in that case gold reward is adequate. Ranked in GW2 is the same as Random Arena in GW1 with gladiator titles

If you believe that ranked right now is purely random then you are pretty delusional I have to say. Of course luck is a factor, nobody is denying that but it, over an entire season, is much less of a factor than people seem to believe. Why is it that the same players are always able to reach top 10 and legendary division? Because they are just lucky? Of course not. The leaderboard is the best way of representing skill that we have ever had. No, it isn’t perfect but it’s as close as we are going to get.

As for the argument I have seen people making that bringing back duo q will make the leaderboard unbalanced- have you forgotten seasons 5, 6, 7 and 8? There was duo in those seasons and nobody was complaining about it making the leaderboard unbalanced. If you want to get god of pvp, then yes you will have to duo but come on, if you are a player who is truly good enough to get something like that, you will have no shortage of top players to queue with. If nobody good wants to duo with you Then you are not a good player and when you improve, that will definitely change. So no, duo does not make the leaderboard very much less accurate than it is right now at all.

I just find it hilarious that players have been asking for new pvp content and features for so long with no success, and what does anet do when they finally act? They REMOVE one of the major reasons to try in ranked. We want MORE pvp content, not less

We've seen stream of "GW2 pvp legends" fall flat on their face when they're placed in a total crap team...despite your claims of god like skills...

nobody can carry a total crap team

, you win because your random team happens to be less braindead then the opposition but still insist on these titles why?

1- People use specs that artificially increase their skill level by 600-700 pts2- The tile is not a representation of personal skill...no matter how hard you claim otherwise, I recognise names...not titles, like everybody worth its salt does3- I stopped pvp in ranked,

winning was boring and losing was absurd

, 8 times out of 10 the skill difference is immense ,immeasurable and that alone invalidate anything you could say or do

It seems that you don’t understand what I am saying, so I will make it clear to you:I AM NOT SAYING THAT IT IS POSSIBLE TO WIN EVERY GAME, NO MATTER HOW GOOD YOU ARE. THERE WILL ALWAYS BE AN ELEMENT OF LUCK.

I think that this is something we both agree on. However, my argument is that, although there will always be an element of luck, this does not in any way invalidate the leaderboard as a measure of skill. Let’s look at it this way:

You are a good player. Because of your skill, you are able to carry 67% (2/3) of your games when you play your best. In each individual time you queue up, you have a 33% chance that the game will be a loss even if you play to the best of your ability. This seems pretty high right? Well not really when we look at what is likely to happen over a whole season. Yes, every game you queue up for will have a fair chance of being totally impossible to win, but when you look at the ENTIRE season, the chance that your win rate will deviate from the 67% too much becomes extremely small and therefore, your skill that was able to get you a good win rate and a high rating by the end of the season, whereas an average player would only end up with about a 50% win rate.

I remember seeing another post that explained the situation perfectly- in each individual game you are always at the mercy of the matchmaking, however, the more games you play, the more your individual skill affects your rating, and the less the matchmaking and luck do.

The fact that uncarriable games exist does not even suggest that the leaderboard is not a good measure of skill. Even the term ‘uncarriable game’ is a big misleading, because games that are uncarriable to one person playing to the best of their ability will not be uncarriable to another person playing to the best of their ability, leading to better players being able to win more games, just like they should.

So I don’t understand your argument and I still can’t see any sense in removing titles. If you still disagree with me, I would like you to answer one question:

Why, if rating is not a good representation of skill, do the same players almost always reach the highest spots on the leaderboard season after season and no unknown names reach the top spots at the end of the season?

Just use some logic no need for any wall of text:

-Going straight to one point , carrying matches it must means you outnumber the enemy on your own and that means you outskill the enemy by tenfold, you're playing against worst players than you and that should happen 50/50 of the times while facing equally skilled players the rest of the time....ideally you should face equally skilled players 100% of the times.

The question now is why the system places you in such situations more times than it should .......it's simply ridiculous that people fervently believe they win games on their own.

Following your logic, Argentina should have won the world cup because Messi was in the team but that's not how it works, you need a good team behind you to win ..no matter how much self-absorbed you are, in a situation where a system randomly gives you a good or bad team...I dunno why people still believe to be world champions by their own merits..like they won 1vs5 by themselves.

[Crab Fear.1624]

@"suffish.4150" said:

Why, if rating is not a good representation of skill, do the same players almost always reach the highest spots on the leaderboard season after season and no unknown names reach the top spots at the end of the season?

Now, this is NA, this season and last. There can be a variety of reasons why they are not the same, such as:

• didn't finish decay
• they are playing on alts and taking spots, but 1 player on 2 accounts holding 2 spots, is that good?
• the other players didnt play this season

only 4/30 out of top 30 are the same name, I could look at lower pages, but if their skill swings that much when the population isn't really booming, can we say it is a good and accurate rating of true skill?

I believe it can tell what RANGE players fall into, like the divisions, but I don't think it can pinpoint down to the individual number.

Way too many factors. Its like trying to say GW2 is chess, when it's actually basketball.

[Kako.1930]

@Crab Fear.1624 said:

@"suffish.4150" said:

Why, if rating is not a good representation of skill, do the same players almost always reach the highest spots on the leaderboard season after season and no unknown names reach the top spots at the end of the season?

Now, this is NA, this season and last. There can be a variety of reasons why they are not the same, such as:

• didn't finish decay
• they are playing on alts and taking spots, but 1 player on 2 accounts holding 2 spots, is that good?
• the other players didnt play this season

only 4/30 out of top 30 are the same name, I could look at lower pages, but if their skill swings that much when the population isn't really booming, can we say it is a good and accurate rating of true skill?

I believe it can tell what RANGE players fall into, like the divisions, but I don't think it can pinpoint down to the individual number.

Way too many factors. Its like trying to say GW2 is chess, when it's actually basketball.

Wait, all the highlighted ones are the same player??? I barely get enough time to play enough games to be on the leaderboard once with work and life, how does someone have that much free time? XD

[BeLZedaR.4790]

If you remove the titles I would like to see legendary division removed.And instead have the top 99 spots display as a number on a new badge.Otherwise no reason to care for leaderboard spots, because let’s be honest the prestige is not as much there anymore for anyone to care without a visible bragging rights reward for it.

[HeadCrowned.6834]

It is true that the top spots of the leaderboard are often in the hands of more well-known/good players. At the same time you also see a lot of good players, who belong skill-wise at the top of the leaderboards, reside in ranks that are way too low for them. And that does not necessarily have anything to do with decay. I think it is also a matter of how much you care, and that you adapt your playstyle to it (in the sense of rerolling classes, playing only at prime times, etc). The leaderboard does give an indication of skill, but the accuracy is not right there where it should be.

[Megametzler.5729]

@"Falan.1839" said:The biggest problem with the ladder is the huge volatility, as an lucky or unlucky streak can push you quite high up or far down, way outside of your usual skill bracket. If you track the average placement over, let's say 3 months, it probably constituted a fairly accurate measure. With DuoQ that is likely going to change as synergy between your duo "comp" and how much it can snowball a game will affect rating way more than individual skill.

I started a discussion with someone here in the forums about that volatility a couple of weeks ago. Actually GLICKO allows this system of reducing the impact on your rating the more games you play. It probably is the effect we see at the start of the season after the placement matches. The problem ist just: They set the "minimum rating change per game" too high so that even in your 120th game you can see a -20 if you're unlucky. Or +12 if you're lucky. That's the main reason for volatility.

Sadly they don't seem willing to change this.

I very much doubt duoQ will have any effect on this. People with lower individual skill will just get pushed higher, especially when using firebrand + scourge and stuff. Yes, it is questionable how much though, granted, please don't pin me down on this. But with the removal of titles, I don't really care that much.

Some other reward for higher placements would be nice though...

[FrizzFreston.5290]

Does there need to be a reward every single season thats unique? In GW1 you didnt earn much special if you were at the top either.

maybe we see more people who just want to win instead of those who play tricks to get exclusive shinies

[Devilman.1532]

@Crab Fear.1624 said:

@"suffish.4150" said:

Why, if rating is not a good representation of skill, do the same players almost always reach the highest spots on the leaderboard season after season and no unknown names reach the top spots at the end of the season?

Now, this is NA, this season and last. There can be a variety of reasons why they are not the same, such as:

• didn't finish decay
• they are playing on alts and taking spots, but 1 player on 2 accounts holding 2 spots, is that good?
• the other players didnt play this season

only 4/30 out of top 30 are the same name, I could look at lower pages, but if their skill swings that much when the population isn't really booming, can we say it is a good and accurate rating of true skill?

I believe it can tell what RANGE players fall into, like the divisions, but I don't think it can pinpoint down to the individual number.

Way too many factors. Its like trying to say GW2 is chess, when it's actually basketball.

Wintrading, match manipulation and paying gold to get others to throw a game is a beautiful things isn't it? lol

[Namless.4028]

you should also count the eu players that only came for one season to meme on NA

[Genoshock.2104]

btw, please fix the F bug when you can't ress your mate

[Bibby.7859]

@"Ben Phongluangtham.1065" said:Yes, the current plan is the remove titles next season. The leaderboard itself will remain. We won't remove titles for people who've already earned them.

Current plan is to also bring back to duo queue for next season.

We'll have a blog post when the next season is getting close to starting.

I can understand trying to deter win traders by removing titles but I believe this is the completely wrong step (unless other rewards are being added but at that point... why remove them in the first place). You are essentially ruining the point of playing ranked. Sure there are plays who will continue to play ranked just to see their name on a leader board and that is totally cool. To each their own. However, this is the wrong thing to do.

Look at other games/companies that have reward titles and their paths/history. Did you see them remove titles/rewards after X amount of time to deter win traders? No. The argument people are making that "you should have gotten them earlier" is a weak argument with nothing to support it. Other games have titles and while they change titles per season or per expansion they never remove the ability to get them playing competitively. What needs to be done is you need to crack down on win-traders and give them a swift and harsh punishment. You don't have to ban the account if you don't want to but making them ineligible for season rewards for at least the current + next season on top of a rating reset is a start. With a game that is free to play giving people a 30 day slap on the wrist does nothing.

We clearly saw this season that the win traders were dealt with pretty quickly and removed from the ladder. Why cant this process be done each season? If its personnel you lack then hire and accommodate for a balancing/exploits team for both pvp and pve. If you already have one, expand it. Removing these title rewards and all rewards from competitive ranked pvp is abysmal and should seriously be reconsidered.

At this point if you remove titles you may as well combine both unranked and ranked ques in a "PvP" que and call it a day. Doing that will also kill the competitive nature of your game.

[breno.5423]

Just delete sPvP from the game anet.We all know that you dont care to it.

[breno.5423]

Most moron decision ever.The only reward i care was the titles and badges and you guys are going to remove them.The "trully" sPvP players don't need gold, don't need skins, don't need gears, they just want recognition.Titles and badges brought this recognition, so as the leaderboards.

If you tell me that sPvP will no longer have rewards such gold/gear/skin i wont care, but don't mess with the only significant rewards that sPvP players have.

[breno.5423]

RIP my entirely guild structure.I'll have to figure out any other way to separate my members for their merit.

[Exalted Quality.8534]

It seems a bit strange that this is the method they are using to discourage win trading. How about you remove titles from and perma pvp ban all cheaters, then bring back the old pip based system without the leaderboard.

If you must remove titles, how about deleting rank 1, 2 , and 3 but leaving 10, 25, 100, and 250? Titles provide a sense of accomplishment for those who earn them. Punish the cheaters for once, not the people that play fairly.

[Devilman.1532]

Those guys will never be banned forever. For...reasons. ;)

[jcbroe.4329]

I'm still just at a total loss days into this topic. Why can't we have titles AND solo/duo/team queuing AND rewards AND a leaderboard? Is there some sort of hidden "feature quota" where we can only have so many things before things get removed? Like when we removed Solo/Team queue because we hit the feature quota back then too?

I just don't understand why it's 2018 and we're still removing PvP infrastructure instead of adding and improving.

[Abelisk.4527]

Instead of titles, make boxes that lets us choose three items from an assortment of PvP armor, finishers, minis, weapons, and maybe even have the top 3 be able to choose a trophy consumable like the ones you win from monthlies (bronze trophy for 3rd, silver for 2nd, gold for 1st)

[Megametzler.5729]

Don't make these unique rewards. That only enforces wintrading again...

Give smallish rewards for top 1%, 5% etc. or something like that. Nothing special, just... something.

[Sampson.2403]

Brilliant decisions being made at A-Net. This kind of logic can be applied to anything and can solve so many problems!

1. People robbin banks? Well lets just stop putting our money in the banks, problem solved!
2. Hackers? Pfff! Lets just all stop using the internet and computers! Problem is tEh solved.
3. People are cheating to win prizes?? Bah! Lets just remove the prizes! P r o b l e m SOLVED! PWNED

[CETheLucid.3964]

@Nuvola.9460 said:

@Ben Phongluangtham.1065 said:

@Nuvola.9460 said:

@Ben Phongluangtham.1065 said:Yes, the current plan is the remove titles next season. The leaderboard itself will remain. We won't remove titles for people who've already earned them.

Current plan is to also bring back to duo queue for next season.

We'll have a blog post when the next season is getting close to starting.

Why should I even play ranked now? I mean if there is no rewards for leaderboard than better play unranked at least I play with more friends and not just with a single one?

Ranked will still have league rewards. There are no current plans to add pips to unranked. We will be occasionally adding new rewards to the league vendors.

People who play ranked don’t really care about pips stuff or golds, and why someone should tryhard to get top 1,10 or whatever in ladder if the next season ladder is resetted and not even a title to say “hey, I did good”

Why you decided that? For wintraders? So for those 20-30+ people the whole community have to renounce to rewards like ladder title or any other reward which could be given with ladder positions?

And let’s not talk about the fact that those people who got them wintrading will still have their titles while new people or those who still aim to get them legittimally can’t do that anymore

The only people that honestly care are those same 20-30+ people who gamed the system to begin with. The titles don't mean anything as a result. They're worthless.

Absent that, ranked offers the same level of reward to everyone. If you want to argue "well now I don't have a reason to tryhard!", when they gave us a reason, the "top players" cheated so it just doesn't matter.

The sad truth is the "top players" are those same 20-30+ people. Rest of the PvP population is, well, casual. And not very large overall.

At least if the same jokers do their jig to rig the leaderboard again it'll be for nothing tangible that literally anyone else can manage by just playing ranked honestly.

Removing incentive to rig it and attempting to restore integrity to the leaderboard is a noble goal. Dicks will be dicks unfortunately but the fix makes it so they're wasting their time and risking account action if they're caught for pretty much nothing.

Meanwhile everyone else is being rewarded for their efforts and incentive to personally improve continues to be a thing. Even more so now that you can play with a friend again.

It's a step in the right direction IMO.

[breno.5423]

@"Abelisk.4527" said:Instead of titles, make boxes that lets us choose three items from an assortment of PvP armor, finishers, minis, weapons, and maybe even have the top 3 be able to choose a trophy consumable like the ones you win from monthlies (bronze trophy for 3rd, silver for 2nd, gold for 1st)

"Armor, weapons"...We wont use these sh1ts at sPvP.