What even is this mode?

[Clyan.1593]

There is no way this is a serious attempt of creating a balanced and fluid experience. Nothing really makes sense in it.

First of all while climbing there is no increase of difficulty until up to mid gold. Everything from bronze to gold is a total mess in which winning or losing isn't based on the players rather than the comp. It's pure luck. You stomp or you get stomped. And you either win win win win or you lose lose lose completely unrelated to your personal skill level. Then somewhere around that rank the absurdity of what is supposed to be "balance" kicks in. Like what even in the hell is the powerlevel of certain classes? Some professions hit like a wet noodle, you can run defensive stats and stall troll them on point for all eternity while others down you within seconds. And what is this CC and condi bombing on certain specs? Chain cc and condition spam have zero counterplay. Cleanse a full line of conditions and BOOM another full set of condis in your face.
You can't tell me this is refined balance, it's clearly not.And then the cast time of certain skills... For example what the heck is mace 2 and elite signet on guardian? In what mode or universe would you ever use these? No wonder everyone runs the same builds, there is zero viability and hence no variety for something else.On top of that this mode is infested with bots that never get banned. One would think since most of them are so easy to identify they would get banned immediately, but no, you encounter the same account every other day for months and months to come. It's not even subtle, they stay to artificially lower queue time so they can avoid improving this wasteland of a PvP mode.Last but not least when it comes to unlocking skins, minis and whatnot there is almost no content, just a grind that goes on and on until you finally hit lvl 100 after which you reasonably decide to never touch this mode ever again.

You can't tell me a mode so devoid of quality just randomly receives no communication from the devs. It's obvious they have given up on it and don't want it to have fluidity when it comes to progress and consistency of experience. It's easier to extend play time and keep up player count by making it a frustrating mess you can litter with small "balance" changes that essentially do nothing.

[Shiyo.3578]

I watched Vallun go from rank12 to 9 fighting players worse than anyone I've ever fought(they were basically silver and bronze i'm pretty sure). If you can get into top10 without even fighting anyone in the top50, your ranking system is a colossal failure.

[rng.1024]

It's a population issue, because the vast majority of the population plays for reward and fun with no desire to improve - this results in a 50% winrate over time and enough games played.

Before only silver used to be a mixed bag, but with the declining population this cap is only creeping upwards.

[Abraxxus.8971]

Garbage is what it as become.

[Xentera.4560]

We really need to stop blaming this on the dwindling population levels. I would gladly wait extra time to match with players of comparable skill level.And let’s not forget the reason why the population is low in the first place.PvP needs some serious overhaul, balance is the least of its problems.

[rng.1024]

@Xentera.4560 said:We really need to stop blaming this on the dwindling population levels. I would gladly wait extra time to match with players of comparable skill level.And let’s not forget the reason why the population is low in the first place.PvP needs some serious overhaul, balance is the least of its problems.

You're not wrong, but we can't dismiss population.

It is the sole reason we struggle with huge differences in rating within teams, just to reach an average team rating that can match another team in queue. The algorithm needs a big pool to draw from in order to create a solid team on both sides, and it already waits 5(!) mins before it starts to expand it's search.

If you look at average queue times they are usually 2-3 mins depending on time of day, which means the vast minority would achieve better games by increasing queue times across the board.

Matchmaking still does a stellar job in gold 3 and below for those with 50% winrate since there are so many players to draw from.

[Fueki.4753]

@rng.1024 said:Matchmaking still does a stellar job in gold 3 and below for those with 50% winrate since there are so many players to draw from.

If you think being matched with silver and below players against gold and above is stellar, we can agree.

The matchmaker feels to be programmed to ensure one side getting stomped to artificially create near 50/50 winrates.At the least, it is not matching 10 people with ratings close to each other most of the time.

[otto.5684]

@rng.1024 said:It's a population issue, because the vast majority of the population plays for reward and fun with no desire to improve - this results in a 50% winrate over time and enough games played.

Before only silver used to be a mixed bag, but with the declining population this cap is only creeping upwards.

I do not think the issue is people do not desire to improve. Improvement is tied to experience mostly (not always). The issue is can the game maintain the players or at least have the decline rate not being steep, so you have enough population for the match making to work?

I think we all know the answer for the question.

Btw, the match making system has significant issue, cuz the difference in skill level among gold players is staggering. Not so much in platinum. Once you start mix and matching players between 1,200 - 1,500, the result is guaranteed to be a shit show.

[avey.4201]

@Xentera.4560 said:We really need to stop blaming this on the dwindling population levels. I would gladly wait extra time to match with players of comparable skill level.And let’s not forget the reason why the population is low in the first place.PvP needs some serious overhaul, balance is the least of its problems.

it's a balance issue, causing a population issue, I get 5-10 minute q when i do one match for daily's, I'm not waiting 15-20 minute for 2 gold.bunker meta is dull, engi has high damage, sustain, support, cc not to mention revs is broken.bots are only more popular because a bunker meta is tailored too it, bots are created for boring menial tasks, any meta I've played required setup/burst/bating evades or defenses, and spamming skills = death, now I get more kills/die less from spamming skills, no 10k damage to dodge, so it doesn't matter if you dodge this 35 damage or that 35 damage so long as you use 2 dodges, bots can spam skills/randomly dodge too.

[rng.1024]

@Fueki.4753This is what I am saying, that when the population dips during the day it has to pull 2 gold players to match the 1 leg player on one of the teams in order to match the opposing 5 plat team.

If we had the population it could just draw 9 legend players for that 1 guy, 3 plat players for those 7 guys and at the same time 8 gold players for the 2.

In other words it could create 3 good matches instead of 1 lopsided one, which just isn't viable anymore when pulling these 30 players (6 teams 3 matches) within 5 minutes of everyones queue time excluding those already in a match.

@otto.5684You're right about that, but it's because it truly is random. This is because you don't see a consistent positive winrate until you reach plat. This means every single player on both teams in gold win every other match and as expected just pull their own weight. This gives equal teams mmr-wise and naturally with all things being equal every match is like a coinflip - win and lose are the same chance hence the 50% winratio.

Gold and below actually is a testament to the matchmaker potential when the population can back it up, it only fails when it tries to go higher because there's just not enough players there to fill all games with f.ex those with 70% winratio instead and it has to mix'n'match.

[Fueki.4753]

@rng.1024 said:@Fueki.4753This is what I am saying, that when the population dips during the day it has to pull 2 gold players to match the 1 leg player on one of the teams in order to match the opposing 5 plat team.

That isn't usually what happens in the Matchmaking though.Usually that Legend player would get four of those five platinum players, while said Gold player would get four gold or below players, because the matchmaking is programmed to try and make one side completely dominate the other.Since February, I've seen significantly more often that the better five players are on one team and the worse five on the other team, than I've seen balanced teams.

[rng.1024]

@Fueki.4753We have statements from anet and documentation that the matchmaker seeks to create teams who have the closest mmr possible, so getting a team of all plats vs all golds is not possible with the current matchmaking algorithm.

What you have seen probably is players belonging a few division steps under mixed into a your game, where the few players above you couldn't really do much because their every move were nullified by bad team decisions - this happens in every game to some extent all the way up to legend.

All it takes is 1 bad player on your team to make winning a challenge if the other team is semi-competent. This is why duo-queue exists, to compensate for that. It's also important to know exactly why and when a match is lost, just blaming the matchmaker (which by all inspection and evidence does what it can with the people who are queuing) doesn't help one improve.

If you feel it's a really big problem you can completely avoid it by queuing primetime - the more players that are queuing, the closer the team average mmr will be.

[Fueki.4753]

@rng.1024 said:We have statements from anet and documentation that the matchmaker seeks to create teams who have the closest mmr possible, so getting a team of all plats vs all golds is not possible with the current matchmaking algorithm.

And yet it's happening in the majority of my games.Just because Arenanet claims for it to to have worked that way once upon a time, doesn't mean it still does.I doubt that nearly 100% of the teammates I get play bad on purpose.If the matchmaker was at least trying to balance things, the majority of my games should be fair.However they are not, the vast majority of my game are stomps, which are a direct result of the matchmaker not trying to make fair teams.

If you feel it's a really big problem you can completely avoid it by queuing primetime - the more players that are queuing, the closer the team average mmr will be.When even is prime time for NA servers?After all, NA servers double as the primary choice for regions without their own servers.If it's evening in América, then it's deep in the night and thus sleeping time for many parts of the world, including where I live.If It's evening for countries close to UTC, it's morning in América and thus working time.

[Shiyo.3578]

At plat I'm constantly put with 4 golds and expected to carry. It makes really unfun and uneven games. I've legit played against the rank1 player duo with another 1800+ player(he was duo queue) when I was 1580 and my team had 4 golds. 0-500 score. Good matchmaking?

[rng.1024]

@Fueki.4753 said:

@rng.1024 said:We have statements from anet and documentation that the matchmaker seeks to create teams who have the closest mmr possible, so getting a team of all plats vs all golds is not possible with the current matchmaking algorithm.

And yet it's happening in the

majority

of my games.Just because Arenanet claims for it to to have worked that way

once upon a time,

doesn't mean it still does.I doubt that nearly 100% of the teammates I get play bad on purpose.If the matchmaker was at least

trying

to balance things, the majority of my games should be fair.However they are

not,

the vast majority of my game are stomps, which are a direct result of the matchmaker

not trying

to make fair teams.

If you feel it's a really big problem you can completely avoid it by queuing primetime - the more players that are queuing, the closer the team average mmr will be.When even is

prime time

for NA servers?After all, NA servers double as the primary choice for regions without their own servers.If it's evening in América, then it's deep in the night and thus sleeping time for many parts of the world, including where I live.If It's evening for countries close to UTC, it's morning in América and thus working time.

What exactly do you think the matchmaker is trying to do then? Personally punish you for some reason? We are all in the same boat (making it fair) yet there are huge amount of players who manage to get more wins than losses regardless.

Especially if you play below 1200 rating and with less wins than losses, then it will always put you in a team with players better than you. If that's not enough to help you win the matchmaker is not to blame as it is doing everything it can to make you climb.

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

@Shiyo.3578 said:I watched Vallun go from rank12 to 9 fighting players worse than anyone I've ever fought(they were basically silver and bronze i'm pretty sure). If you can get into top10 without even fighting anyone in the top50, your ranking system is a colossal failure.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

GG queue dodging.

@Fueki.4753 said:

@rng.1024 said:@Fueki.4753This is what I am saying, that when the population dips during the day it has to pull 2 gold players to match the 1 leg player on one of the teams in order to match the opposing 5 plat team.

That isn't usually what happens in the Matchmaking though.Usually that Legend player would get four of those five platinum players, while said Gold player would get four gold or below players, because the matchmaking is programmed to try and make one side completely dominate the other.Since February, I've seen

significantly

more often that the better five players are on one team and the worse five on the other team, than I've seen balanced teams.

Yeah something is very wrong with it. It's got to be one of these things:

1. The match maker is actually 100% completely broken. As in, it's no longer even working, Arenanet removed it, and never told us about it.
2. The match maker is actually rigged. As if some accounts were flagged for "wins" and others were flagged for "losses" in some way. Or possibly someone with administrative access is able to toggle players in a queue back and forth between the two teams, like in custom arenas, so they can create a lopsided win.
3. Match manipulations have grown past win trading, and have evolved into some method where players are able to game the algorithm's match making entirely, and actually land on the same team together, like whenever they want.

^ I mean, it's got to be something along these lines. I know exactly what you're talking about. I've had several matches in the past week or two where I really noticed inarguable truths like: RED Team has a 1650/1650 duo, with some guy at 1620, and a couple 1520s vs. BLUE Team with a Plat 1 duo, with some guy at 1490, and then a couple guys in 1420 and I'm not even complaining about this happening to me. I've straight flat out entered queues and been the guy on the steam roll team. Then we win 500 to 60 or something, and I'm thinking: "What even just happened right now? I can tell this wasn't win trading. It was... the algorithm stacking every plat player on one team vs. low golds? Why?" Why would the algorithm do that? If it sees 10 guys sitting in the $%^&ing queue, it should be allocating them for a balanced match, not stacking one side with plats vs. golds. So I dunno what's going on there, but some patching needs to be done at this point with lower population, if it is the algorithm's fault.

[Shiyo.3578]

Yeah, I consistently get games like that. The matchmaker needs to understand the difference between a gold2/3 and a plat1 is up to 10x in skill. I get gold 3's who don't even know map mechanics..

[Fueki.4753]

@rng.1024 said:Especially if you play below 1200 rating and with less wins than losses, then it will always put you in a team with players better than you. If that's not enough to help you win the matchmaker is not to blame as it is doing everything it can to make you climb.Except it almost never puts me in the team with the better players, despite having more losses than wins and having disproportionally long losing streaks.I don't even remember having gotten two wins in a row this year.@rng.1024 said:What exactly do you think the matchmaker is trying to do then? Personally punish you for some reason? We are all in the same boat (making it fair) yet there are huge amount of players who manage to get more wins than losses regardless.Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if some accounts were, for some dystopian reason, flagged to be more on the losing side, while others are flagged to getter better teams more often.If it's not rigged on purpose, it's simply broken.

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

@Fueki.4753 said:

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:Especially if you play below 1200 rating and with less wins than losses, then it will

always

put you in a team with players better than you. If that's not enough to help you win the matchmaker is not to blame as it is doing everything it can to make you climb.

^ That quote right there that you quoted from me, did not come from me. It was from @rng.1024 a few posts up.

[Fueki.4753]

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:That quote right there that you quoted from me, did not come from me. It was from @rng.1024 a few posts up.I fixed it.

[Noodica.5428]

This game is suffering horribly from a lack of population. The other night on my stream, whilst I was at top 30 rating, I kindly asked a team mate on my team what rating he was at just so I could prove a point that the match making system is in such a horrible state. He said "I'm silver lol just here to do dailys". When that is the sort of team mates that high platinum players get on their teams then wth does this say about the ranked mode. Its not the silver players fault either, its all arena nets inability to make ranked actually work. I would much rather a 10 minute queue and a good match than hit or miss with silvers in the mix.

[Fueki.4753]

I wouldn't mind if Arenanet merged ranked and unranked into one queue.That might solve a bit of the population problem.This queue could be ranked during seasons and unranked outside of conquest seasons.

And then Arenanet could open up a second option with 2vs2 or 3vs3 as a mini season while conquest is unranked.

However, this might be too much work for that "one person in the back".

[Shao.7236]

Y'all well know that even if Anet did all the right things, people aren't willing to stay or wanting to care enough. This game is a niche and it's easy for people to drop it. The population problem is way more than "balance" or "matchmaking", players do have to take most of the blame because they don't care.

Game is a rather good state right now and it doesn't matter, as long as the typical MMO cheese isn't there, it won't attract the population that crave instant gratification. Perseverance is not something most have the time or even know the existence of.

[Scoobaniec.9561]

@"Shao.7236" said:Y'all well know that even if Anet did all the right things, people aren't willing to stay or wanting to care enough. This game is a niche and it's easy for people to drop it. The population problem is way more than "balance" or "matchmaking", players do have to take most of the blame because they don't care.

Game is a rather good state right now and it doesn't matter, as long as the typical MMO cheese isn't there, it won't attract the population that crave instant gratification. Perseverance is not something most have the time or even know the existence of.

People cared for far too long and finally gave up after recent patches where nothing is being addressed. 8yrs of the same team who is unable to balance for kitten. And recent patch proves they have no intention to change anything since the mess in feb. Honestly that too much. Covid is not an excuse either when other others games i play managed to release patches as if nothing was happened5yrs ago i made decision to drop pvp and just casually log in the game to pve/wvw. 0 regrets. Rip to all the tryhards tho

[Clyan.1593]

@"Shao.7236" said:Y'all well know that even if Anet did all the right things, people aren't willing to stay or wanting to care enough. This game is a niche and it's easy for people to drop it. The population problem is way more than "balance" or "matchmaking", players do have to take most of the blame because they don't care.

Game is a rather good state right now and it doesn't matter, as long as the typical MMO cheese isn't there, it won't attract the population that crave instant gratification. Perseverance is not something most have the time or even know the existence of.

This game is not niche at all. How do you come up with such a claim? Among the sea of WoW clones it's the perfect solution for those who are tired of the copy paste MMOs. Why would this MMO be easier to drop than any other?It took 3 years for an expansion to drop. Until then the vast majority of players was already bored with central tyria since a long time. It was lacking content. And PvP and WvW both were not good enough to compete with PvE. Fractals when they released didn't have a great progression system and also were lacking content. Originally there was no ascended gear, and since exotics would drop way too often soon people had nothing else to work towards. Dungeons were a joke, just speed runs for skins which back then you couldn't unlock in a wardrobe like today. We didn't even have a LFG. Raids also were introduced way too late. And finally when most features were integrated PvP and WvW both went even more downhill. Edge of the mists was completely cut out, and with the addition of elite specs balance never got any professional care.GW2 never recovered from its early problems, not because it might be niche.