Current Ranked Player Quality

[Rodzynald.5897]

The system doesn't even know what rank I should get. For the past month it was more or like this: I start at gold 3 and I keep on solo queing. Can't get to platinum for 2 weeks, winning and losing one match after another. Then... one day I went into solo and in 2 hours I got to high t1 platinum... then another week of winning and losing. Few days ago I went for some random ranked matches, solo ofc... and again a win streak of blowouts to top 250

I can't take the weigh of rank seriously and even though legendary players might be good while playing whatever is the strongest, beating people 1v1, the rank gained in 5v5 is now pretty much meaningless. It lost its glamour and prestige to me.

[Burnfall.9573]

> @"Reaper Alim.4176" said:

> Maybe because people are no longer trying anymore? Maybe people don't find it worth getting into. Maybe because most of the players who used to try are gone now.

>

> Maybe because PvP is just a revolving door. Where people come to just farm gold and PvE rewards. Then just sit the rest of the season out. I can tell you for sure. I would most certainly fit in this bracket of player.

>

> I no longer find it, worthy of me putting forth effort to compete. If ANet will not put in the basic effort of keeping PvP clean and most of the **ToS violators and trolls** out. If ANet is not going at least try, to give me a balance match but once every 8 or 10 matches. If match quality is just constantly this low. I'm better off just farming like the rest here. And take my competitive needs outside of GW2. When the need arise. Nothing to do but numb up, and accept the low quality matches in GW2's Ranked PvP. Grinding them PiPs oh yeah!

 

-Spot on-

[Lan.1968]

This entire thread sounds like a group of league players complaining about player quality, but also forget that they themselves are said players. You guys shift responsibility and blame to others due to their lack of knowledge in the pvp scene makes very little sense since that'd mean the other team would very likely experience the same thing as well. You talk about troll players and people that don't "try" as though you're the only capable player in the pvp environment because everyone else that was "relevant" quit except you.

 

I don't think you understand that the only way _any_ pvp scene can be competitive is if the community, namely you guys, would actively try to make it competitive and actually adapt to whatever environment is thrown at you in order to do so. If all the competitive players at the top are gone, then take their place so others will eventually challenge you for the position. If you can't even dethrone "kings" of the pvp community when they don't exist anymore, then that meant there are players still hindering your progress of climbing to the top, and they're very likely fighting against you than actually sabotaging your games.

 

The reason PvP dies in a game is purely because players have a defeatist attitude and give up very easily because things don't go exactly their way, and they try to justify giving up by shifting blame to another source. Frankly, the longevity of PvP is honestly dependent on the community itself, and not so much on how the game tries to balance things out. The moment you people understands this, the easier it is for you to actually improve.

[Impact.2780]

What you describe is real, but you can adapt to try and deal with it, just as you would adapt to your opponent. That said, there are cases where your team or even one or two players in particular are just a lost cause, and you're either going to carry them up, or they're going to drag you down, and if you really want to avoid a repeat, add them to block and wait for them to get their next game before queuing again yourself.

 

The match quality has gone down a lot since the release of HoT, and even more since we lost ESL. As for right now, people that care about their placement will also likely not be seen much throughout the first week of a large update due to ArenaNet's track record with such releases - the game becomes unstable, crazy bugs and crashes and disconnections are everywhere.

 

There are less "meta players" than before, which means less players that think strategically, trying to anticipate opposing team's plays and movements in order to counter-rotate. When that happens, you get less players learning to do it, because there is no need for it. This circle leads to a decline in match quality. When you have inconsistency, where one match you have good players and the next you have awful, you never know what to expect; i.e. you don't know if your druid will be able to deal with the enemy mesmer - whether it's meant to be able to or not is irrelevant, you have to work off of past experience and what is most likely. This potentially negatively impacts your own decisions which has a direct effect on the outcome of other fights across the map.

 

All you can do, really, is not become one of them. Try to figure out early who on your team is capable and who, if any, are going to need to be carried or baby-sat. For rotations, if 2 go close and 1 goes far, don't be one of the two fools that goes to mid to 2v4. If you can't figure that one out, then this is in fact a pot-kettle situation, and we'll probably not get anywhere. If someone on your team does something daft, take it in stride. It's annoying, but if you just play as if they did what would have been correct or optimal, then you are becoming part of the problem. Change and adapt... If someone does something that makes what you wanted to do no longer optimal, be the guy that rethinks what they are doing, and react to the sloppy decision for a potentially better outcome than if you both do your own independent thing.

 

When a team mate just sits on a point, watching you get outnumbered, only for you to die, and then they are next because they chose point-sit or capturing it over team-play or just simply using their brain, then there really isn't much you can do, short of escaping and leaving them to die alone. When a team mate just constantly feeds far, instead of raging and letting him continue, if they insist on doing it over and over, you should try to help them kill the guy and cap it. It's annoying, but you have to suck it up, and if you fail, you know you at least tried your best to accommodate your bad player, and tried your best to win. Another common one is your team zerging close when the enemy owns it and they can't kill anyone because of the bunker comp or they are just out-comped or outclassed in a team fight; usually in that case, all you can do is probably delay your loss, because helping means losing the other points, and you know if you win close, 10 seconds later it'll be decapped and they start zerging it again.

[Lan.1968]

> @Impact.2780 said:

> What you describe is real, but you can adapt to try and deal with it, just as you would adapt to your opponent. That said, there are cases where your team or even one or two players in particular are just a lost cause, and you're either going to carry them up, or they're going to drag you down, and if you really want to avoid a repeat, add them to block and wait for them to get their next game before queuing again yourself.

 

This is the essence of ranked solo/duo queue pvp across all mmorpgs. At what point would all your teammates be satisfactory for you so you can have an easier time climbing the ranks? Does this mean all the "unsatisfactory" players should always be against you then? The whole point of climbing ranked is to prove you're better than these players even if they're basically dead weight. There is no possible way for you to constantly get trolls/grievers on every game, and that is honestly a rare case in itself.

 

> The match quality has gone down a lot since the release of HoT, and even more since we lost ESL. As for right now, people that care about their placement will also likely not be seen much throughout the first week of a large update due to ArenaNet's track record with such releases - the game becomes unstable, crazy bugs and crashes and disconnections are everywhere.

 

If you know the drop in player quality is largely due to release bugs/glitches, then why are you so surprised that people aren't "trying as hard" at the moment? Also, players don't need to be incentivized in order to challenge themselves against others. Like I said again, the pvp scene depends on the community and we're a part of that.

 

> There are less "meta players" than before, which means less players that think strategically, trying to anticipate opposing team's plays and movements in order to counter-rotate. When that happens, you get less players learning to do it, because there is no need for it. This circle leads to a decline in match quality. When you have inconsistency, where one match you have good players and the next you have awful, you never know what to expect; i.e. you don't know if your druid will be able to deal with the enemy mesmer - whether it's meant to be able to or not is irrelevant, you have to work off of past experience and what is most likely. This potentially negatively impacts your own decisions which has a direct effect on the outcome of other fights across the map.

 

Why would strategy and meta be out of the question just because others are not applying them? If nothing else, applying strategy and sticking to the meta would give you a tremendous advantage over those who do not care for it. Again, you're talking about the nature of matchmaking itself. Good or bad players are relative to whether you win or not, and you have a tendency to have a biased judgement based on that result. If you're struggling with getting bad players on your team, then get better yourself so you have to rely on them less. What other mmorpg would constantly fuel you with good players and dump all the bad players fighting against you? That's purely selfish.

 

> All you can do, really, is not become one of them. Try to figure out early who on your team is capable and who, if any, are going to need to be carried or baby-sat. For rotations, if 2 go close and 1 goes far, don't be one of the two fools that goes to mid to 2v4. If you can't figure that one out, then this is in fact a pot-kettle situation, and we'll probably not get anywhere. If someone on your team does something daft, take it in stride. It's annoying, but if you just play as if they did what would have been correct or optimal, then you are becoming part of the problem. Change and adapt... If someone does something that makes what you wanted to do no longer optimal, be the guy that rethinks what they are doing, and react to the sloppy decision for a potentially better outcome than if you both do your own independent thing.

 

If you know the solution, why are you so hung up on the problem?

 

> When a team mate just sits on a point, watching you get outnumbered, only for you to die, and then they are next because they chose point-sit or capturing it over team-play or just simply using their brain, then there really isn't much you can do, short of escaping and leaving them to die alone. When a team mate just constantly feeds far, instead of raging and letting him continue, if they insist on doing it over and over, you should try to help them kill the guy and cap it. It's annoying, but you have to kitten it up, and if you fail, you know you at least tried your best to accommodate your bad player, and tried your best to win. Another common one is your team zerging close when the enemy owns it and they can't kill anyone because of the bunker comp or they are just out-comped or outclassed in a team fight; usually in that case, all you can do is probably delay your loss, because helping means losing the other points, and you know if you win close, 10 seconds later it'll be decapped and they start zerging it again.

 

I can't help but feel that you do agree with my sentiment

[nacario.9417]

ever since PoF hit the quality has dropped 2 tiers for sure

[Cloud Windfoot Omega.7485]

Ok now I swear the quality has dropped even further.

Cant go 2 games in a row where 1-2 people do not drop out ( returning in the last 5 seconds.... somehow making the game with -13 points...)

 

6 losses in a row is just stupid! Especially when one of the games was a surefire win!

490(us) vs 460(them) with us holding 2 points.

Both were lost 491 vs 500... literally the worst upset i ever seen.... with a desperate final fight on mid to hold out.... It did not take a genius to know that they won via kills because the teammates decided to scatter everywhere allowing us to be picked off (one even destroying the treb for no reason even tho the enemy never even used it)

[Mira.4906]

As games age to most competitive players tend to move to whatever is new since they will have the greatest competition and activity there. This is not exclusive to PC games but all platforms. I remember when all servers has 10 to 20 WvW guilds ranging from 7 man to 50 man and now most are lucky to have 3 15 man WvW guilds that raid with any frequency.

[ellesee.8297]

What a ridiculous thought. All these completely new players! They've reached rank 20! Why aren't they good!

[Razor.6392]

Just avoid playing at nights. Trust me.

[Vagrant.7206]

There's multiple problems going on:

 

* Balance is way out of whack with PoF release. If ANet is serious about PvP (which I'm starting to doubt), they need to do balance passes more frequently.

* Match manipulation rules need to be enforced vigorously. Smurfing needs to be shut down.

* The matchmaking system only seems to care about matching average team numbers -- it doesn't seem to look at standard deviation or variance. I'm sorry, but a larger variance on one team will likely lead to a loss -- a good player cannot carry a bad player as well as two average players can play well.

* Because of the aforementioned issues, PvP population keeps shrinking (why play except for your dailies? PvP is pretty broken at this point). This causes the matchmaking algorithm to make even worse matches, resulting in even larger variances in team quality, creating a vicious cycle as fewer players want to keep playing.

[Cloud Windfoot Omega.7485]

> @Vagrant.7206 said:

> There's multiple problems going on:

>

> * Balance is way out of whack with PoF release. If ANet is serious about PvP (which I'm starting to doubt), they need to do balance passes more frequently.

> * Match manipulation rules need to be enforced vigorously. Smurfing needs to be shut down.

> * The matchmaking system only seems to care about matching average team numbers -- it doesn't seem to look at standard deviation or variance. I'm sorry, but a larger variance on one team will likely lead to a loss -- a good player cannot carry a bad player as well as two average players can play well.

> * Because of the aforementioned issues, PvP population keeps shrinking (why play except for your dailies? PvP is pretty broken at this point). This causes the matchmaking algorithm to make even worse matches, resulting in even larger variances in team quality, creating a vicious cycle as fewer players want to keep playing.

 

It really is silly to not balance during seasons, since things like Necro are currently able to capitalize on what are pretty much bugs (if what Anet said is true) and the already ridiculous condition state. To raise in the ranks.

They need to nip these kind of exploitative situations in the bud while a season is ongoing... as it just favors what is currently the meta classes at the moment.