i mostly predict that elo will just separate us into small brackets mostly based on gs anyways with variances due to classes/builds being better/worse at pvp
Exactly!
That will take time to actually work out, as I have been saying, but that is exactly what will happen in time.
Because the Elo System will rate people in a manner which is basically synonymous with 'likelihood to win.'
You gear score effects your likelihood to win. It does not define it.
Which is why for the thousandth time i said it needs to be a PART of the system and not the entire system.
You can not deny that someone with a 20k has an advantage of everyone 18k and below. It needs to be a part of the system.
I'm really not trying to be rude here, but are you actually reading clearly what i write?
0
ambisinisterrMember, Neverwinter ModeratorPosts: 10,462Community Moderator
edited March 2014
Gear Score is artificial. It will effect your ability to win in a completely artificial manner.
Just because a person has 20K GS does not in any way mean they are competitive anywhere near the average person at level. It is entirely possible they should be fighting against people with 2K gear score if they are that bad.
Gear Score will effect your wins and losses against teams. It will determine your Elo Rating in an indirect manner.
I can't make this any clearer. It will work out the way you want in time but there is no need to artificially manufacture it.
Which is why for the thousandth time i said it needs to be a PART of the system and not the entire system.
You can not deny that someone with a 20k has an advantage of everyone 18k and below. It needs to be a part of the system.
I'm really not trying to be rude here, but are you actually reading clearly what i write?
It's not like that. The way it works now is more accurate.
Right now, if i got it right, the ELO will rate the result of your performance. Which is like a global rating of your performance, skill, gear, ability to teamwork exc... It also takes into account, if i got it right, the people you're teaming with (if your team is overall stronger than the enemy or if you're fighting in a weaker Group but still performing well).
If you put GS in the rating, you basically give more weight to 1 factor that is, in reality, NOT that relevant.
Skills, strategy and ability to work with your team are much more important in PvP. I can recall a ton of times i could beat up people with perfects/ greaters and better GS but wrong build, or less skilled. Or people with high GS but PvE builds.
There are guys with perfects and BiS gear bought through real money, that don't have a clue about how to play in PvP, or plain suck if you meet them 1v1.
If you give GS more weight, you're basically "boosting" the rating of these guys artificially, cause you're giving more weight in the overall rating, to something that instead is not the most important thing when playing PvP.
The way it works now, instead, the system rates the overall gesult of all the factors combined, and eventually put people together in the same bracket in a more accurate way.
For example, a not-so-good player in high gear and perfects could be put together with skilled players in normals, and the fight will be fair.
Giving GS more weight, the not-so-good folk would end up in a higher bracket, where probably there are skilled players in Greater-perfects, and he will suck and have less fun. Just cause the more weight given to his GS artificially boosts his rating and places him in the wrong bracket.
Examples about how GS is less important than skills and tactic/ knowledge:
- Got against GWFs with much better gear than mine. But they could just facetank, and didn't know how to evade/ use sprint in combat against another GWF. They could land only few hits on me, lots of missed frontlines and takedowns. Easy win.
- I can beat a not-good perma TR in BiS gear, or stall it, even if my gear is just rank 7's and normals. A skilled TR with the same gear would destroy such TR.
- Skilled hybrid TRs with less gear than mine but better build can beat my GWF hybrid (sub-optimal build for PvP)
- A BiS GWF charging blindly against the enemy team, alone, would die fast now, and be of no help to his team.
- A player in BiS gear that in a Group fight keeps trying to kill that very very tanky DC, GWF or GF, while his team gets slaughtered, is of no help. A lesser geared player who knows which enemy he must focus on, and when, is much better in a PvP match.
Just some examples, but it's to show how GS comes after many things in a PvP match, and can't be given more weight than it deserves in the rating of a player.
Would be great if the Elo Rating were a visible stat instead of something we just have to take by faith.
a ladder system is coming with module 3 per the announcement. currently the elo rating and whatever adjustable variables are in place are only providing a much more balanced match. how you queue for those matches may be responsible for how better or worse that matching is. solo queuing is probably the best matchmaking possible because it's only taking your rating into account to match you with your team and the opposing team. if you queue with a pre-made or a partial pre-made, it's taking the best rating of your team mates into consideration. we ran a few guild premades last night and we had mostly matched games and we won some and lost some. i'd say out of all the matches we ran, it was a 50/50 split.
gear would just be another variable that is unnecessary in the equation of the elo system. all you have to do is read up on elo matchmaking to understand why gear isn't part of the ranking system. elo ranking is based on wins and losses. incorporating gear score into this equation would add an element that could prove to allow the rating system to be manipulated. this could also be the reason why elo ranking isn't visible.
0
ambisinisterrMember, Neverwinter ModeratorPosts: 10,462Community Moderator
Problem is that in your gs system players would be constantly fighting those either above or below their skill level. Elo once they get the system sorted out and everyone has had enough matches will be a much better system.
They should have gear limitations for everyone or remove them entirely and give everyone access to everything for pvp. That's the closest to fair and elo ranks would be entirely dependent on skill. Without that you will have better players fighting people being carried by their gear. Some people do love a cushy ride though.
Of course the playerbase for elo to work isn't there. I'm pretty sure we don't have 40-60 thousand people looking to pvp in neverwinter
0
ambisinisterrMember, Neverwinter ModeratorPosts: 10,462Community Moderator
edited March 2014
It isn't fair to put less skilled players against higher skilled players just because they have better gear.
Which is why a system which judges the likelihood to win, such as the Elo System, makes far more sense than Gear Score. What does it matter if a person is being "carried" by their gear if they still have the same challenge rating?
If they can't win with the gear appreciate you are a better player rather than insist that they have to be put into matches they are nigh guaranteed to lose. Gear will make them perform better but it is only a linear equation when assuming all players have equal skill and players are absolutely not equally skilled.
It isn't fair to put less skilled players against higher skilled players just because they have better gear.
Which is why a system which judges the likelihood to win, such as the Elo System, makes far more sense than Gear Score. What does it matter if a person is being "carried" by their gear if they still have the same challenge rating?
If they can't win with the gear appreciate you are a better player rather than insist that they have to be put into matches they are nigh guaranteed to lose. Gear will make them perform better but it is only a linear equation when assuming all players have equal skill and players are absolutely not equally skilled.
I don't think anyone argued for that to be the sole determining factor, it should however be a weighting factor.
And it matters because you can just buy even better gear, perfect negation not good enough? Buy an emblem and make it orange. Buy a perfect terror too. Now you get to lord it over the people that were a challenge.
And it matters because its about fairness. It should only be about skill so gear should be limited, as in give people a pvp inventory with a bunch of pvp armours and pvp enchants that can't be upgraded so everyone has equal opportunity or open the floodgates and let everyone use everything without gigantic price restrictions but only in pvp. And I say that as someone with 2 perfect weapon enchants.
No one wants to lose because the other guy just had better stuff and players shouldn't want to eke out wins just because they had better gear. That's pathetic.
And no one ever said anything about all players having equal skills, you really love erecting these strawmen. Its about equal opportunity and not having a bunch of people starting on third base.
The system doesnt work as is because not enough people are willing to queue for that and the comedy mismatches keep happening.
In a "Perfect World", the ELO system may even work without taking gear into consideration... but NW isn't really even close to be perfect and a) ELO has been implemented only to find out that there simply aren't enough players to match similar ranked character to play a PvP game without having to deal with impossibly long queue time and b) class balance is so terrible that makes PUG a pure luck bet.
Unless a real effort is made to balance classes for PvP (and indirectly also PvE) and PUG generation is reformed to avoid pitting 2HR 1 DC and 2TR vs 3GFW and 2CW, anything else you can add to the game will not make PvP more fun or fair for the average player.
Once this will be achieved (not that I think it will ever be tbh) then any filter based on ELO, GS or whatever, may actually work.
... and btw, why releasing new PvP gear with Tenacity instead of just adding it to all existing gear ? I really don't think that a few more points here and a little less points there are making any real big difference apart pushing players to farm glory to be as viable at PvP as they were before...
One last thing, speaking of "skill", as it stands now player skill influences the outcome of a match maybe for 15 or 20%, the rest is determined by group composition, GS and enchantments/artifacts level. Under these conditions and since it's not a 1v1 game, ELO does really little good.
0
ambisinisterrMember, Neverwinter ModeratorPosts: 10,462Community Moderator
edited March 2014
If people get better gear they go up the ladder. Problem solved.
If anything having gear weight the score is more abusive since players can change gear in matches.
Instead of making things better you have encouraged people to take off their items before matches to artificially lower their rating.
Oh, look there is that magical word again: artificial.
And it matters because its about fairness. It should only be about skill so gear should be limited, as in give people a pvp inventory with a bunch of pvp armours and pvp enchants that can't be upgraded so everyone has equal opportunity or open the floodgates and let everyone use everything without gigantic price restrictions but only in pvp. And I say that as someone with 2 perfect weapon enchants.
No one wants to lose because the other guy just had better stuff and players shouldn't want to eke out wins just because they had better gear. That's pathetic.
I would rather be facerolled 100 times in a row than go to such a system where my character never gets any better or makes any progress. This is the reason I don't play GW2, or a fps. Having your character stagnate and never get better after level cap makes the game dead to me.
I would rather be facerolled 100 times in a row than go to such a system where my character never gets any better or makes any progress. This is the reason I don't play GW2, or a fps. Having your character stagnate and never get better after level cap makes the game dead to me.
^^ this right here.
If someone took the time and farmed, or pulled out their wallet and payed i have no problem with them being in a better spot than someone that did not want to dedicate the time/money to achieve that. Stop being a lazy give me everything crowd. If i am face rolled because someone massively out gears me that only gives me an incentive to farm up some better stuff. Stop trying to punish people that have farmed up stuff and go do it yourself. It really is not that hard. Are you saying you want everything just given to you so you can no longer ***** about people having better stuff? you just want them to give it to you so you can be lazy? Stop complaining about someone else that has something better than you and go get it yourself.
I don't think anyone argued for that to be the sole determining factor, it should however be a weighting factor.
It IS a weighting factor. I can't believe this has got to page 8 and this still hasn't sunk in.
Win/Loss ratios, weighted for matchmaking imbalance (so large gain in arbitrary score if you beat a better team, small gain if you beat a worse one) factors in absolutely everything that could contribute to the win (or loss). It makes gear vs skill irrelevant, since both gear AND skill contribute to your likelihood of winning, and winning is what it actually scores. If you're getting massively facerolled by a 20k GS guy, then either you haven't played enough matches yet, or you're playing during super quiet time (so the matchmaking is less fussy) or you have some amazing players on your team.
Is this system flawless? Hell no, because it's not fundamentally intended to be used in a team context (especially when the teams can vary so much, and are often composed of randoms), and as noted, it's debatable whether the NW PvP playerbase is large enough to make it work effectively within a reasonable timeframe (if you only HAVE two teams wanting to play, you're gonna match them up regardless of ELO), but it's fundamentally a huge step in the right direction.
So it's better than the totally random kerbstompfest that was pre-patch PvP. Is it better than a system that somehow magically factors in gearscore as well as factoring in everything (including gearscore)?
Debatable, but I'd say yes, because gearscore is increasingly meaningless. Above 15k means that a player has clearly got pretty decent gear. Or ok gear and all the boons. Or is a conq GF. Or has padded HP heavily. Or has a variety of feats that artificially pad GS. Or any of the above. Also, they may or may not have perfect vorps and soulforged, because neither of those add to GS. GOOD LUCK DEVISING AN ALGORITHM FOR THAT
If all that gear that you're so concerned about has an effect on your performance, you will win more, and travel up the rankings. They are purely based on win and loss- so anything you do which gives you an advantage that increases performance helps you win more. Winning more makes you rank higher, it's that simple.
In any case, GS is a really crude and approximate thing and is somewhat orthogonal to actual effectiveness anyway. If someone stacks the wrong things, they can have a massive GS and still not be all that powerful per se. There are also many performance-affecting factors which do not change GS.
It really is that simple. A ranking based on how much you win doesn't need to worry about imprecise and misleading externalities. If they help you win, whoopee, better rating, tougher opponents. If they don't, weaker opponents. Whether someone is strong or weak in terms of winning or losing matches also has a lot to do with their spec and of course, their skill level and play style- arguably weighted more heavily than GS. There are plenty of 16k target dummies out there.
I do wish people would stop bringing this up over and over again. In competitive Chess, they don't modify ELO ranking based on how comfy your shoes are.
0
gabrieldourdenMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,212Arc User
edited March 2014
Well, GS is quite a factor even after the last patches. I play a 14,9 k (in Pvp) HR and are not really PvP optimized as I strongly prefer PvE.
Some days ago I was in PvP at Hotenow and there was another HR in the other team. I got the chance to shoot him with Aimed Shot at distance and critted him for 3/4 of his HP. He died immediately after. He tried a 1on1 with me later and I killed him by spamming Rapid Shot.
It was not fun for him and not for me either. I tried to ignore him most of the time not to be unfair. Imagine I had been a PVP focused HR with my same gear score on a killing spree. He would have died every single time I spotted him.
Same story I've seen with a TR which was unable to do real damage. He used Lashing Blade from stealth on me and did 2,5k damage.... I even killed him in stealth by coincidence when spamming Split Shot over a node. A good matchmaking system should not assemble this kind of matches.
Le-Shan: HR level 80 (main)
Born of Black Wind: SW Level 80
It's a matchmaking system that learns. It's not going to take one look at you and go "yep, you'd be a perfect match for these guys." It needs time to derive even half decent numbers, and it hasn't had nearly enough time so far. Plus it's been introduced at the exact same time as a ton of new PvP gear and a massive shift in the way PvP damage and healing works. Expecting super balanced matches 100% of the time is incredibly naive.
Matches as you describe will initially be common, and are in fact vital to establishing the ratings. If you WEREN'T pitched against players you could instantly destroy, the game would have no way of determining this fact. Sure it could look at your arbitrary epeen number, but it has no way of knowing whether you're a creditcard warrior with no play experience or a hard-bitten PvP vet or a well-geared PvE toon who swung by PvP for lolz. All of these are more important than your gearscore, and all of these can be more accurately established by actually making you play against people of varying skill and gear levels and seeing where you fit.
As far as I'm aware, people are already noticing a drop in the number of kerbstomp matches, which pre-patch comprised 90% of the entire PvP experience. Sure they still happen, but as long as they are LESS frequent, this is a step forward.
0
gabrieldourdenMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,212Arc User
It's a matchmaking system that learns. It's not going to take one look at you and go "yep, you'd be a perfect match for these guys." It needs time to derive even half decent numbers, and it hasn't had nearly enough time so far. Plus it's been introduced at the exact same time as a ton of new PvP gear and a massive shift in the way PvP damage and healing works. Expecting super balanced matches 100% of the time is incredibly naive.
Matches as you describe will initially be common, and are in fact vital to establishing the ratings. If you WEREN'T pitched against players you could instantly destroy, the game would have no way of determining this fact. Sure it could look at your arbitrary epeen number, but it has no way of knowing whether you're a creditcard warrior with no play experience or a hard-bitten PvP vet or a well-geared PvE toon who swung by PvP for lolz. All of these are more important than your gearscore, and all of these can be more accurately established by actually making you play against people of varying skill and gear levels and seeing where you fit.
As far as I'm aware, people are already noticing a drop in the number of kerbstomp matches, which pre-patch comprised 90% of the entire PvP experience. Sure they still happen, but as long as they are LESS frequent, this is a step forward.
I sincerely hope you're right! My feeeling is that "overall" matches are getting more equal, i.e. final party scores in the fight are more balanced. All my last matches didn't end 1000 to 50 for either party and that's an improvement (yesterday both fights I made ended 1000: to 800ish). What I feel still lacking is balance across a single party. If in the same party one dies 40 times and one scores 40 kills due to gear I guess one of them will not be happy and other will probably be bored.
Le-Shan: HR level 80 (main)
Born of Black Wind: SW Level 80
I sincerely hope you're right! My feeeling is that "overall" matches are getting more equal, i.e. final party scores in the fight are more balanced. All my last matches didn't end 1000 to 50 for either party and that's an improvement (yesterday both fights I made ended 1000: to 800ish). What I feel still lacking is balance across a single party. If in the same party one dies 40 times and one scores 40 kills due to gear I guess one of them will not be happy and other will probably be bored.
Again, that should find its own level, more or less. A sane system will try and assemble a reasonable match based on the pool of players. At busy times, it's easier to be more even, as you will have a bigger pool to draw upon. Obviously, you want to trade that off against queue times, maybe with a "sliding window", where a matchmaker tries to build a match within certain tolerances, fails and retries with a more liberal window (rinse and repeat until success).
It will never be perfect, but as you say, it's less one-sided. As the ELO rankings populate more, there will be more to differentiate the players, so your team mates and opponents will be broadly compatible to you. Right now, I get the feeling that it's still a bit "clumpy".
Also, people should note that there may well be a Poisson distribution- so you don't want to be too strict with your matchmaking, or it will be pretty horrible for the very best and very worst players, taking ages to get a game
Otherwise, the aim is to have the system largely self-correcting. I'm pretty sure that no-one sane (and in that I tentatively include you) expects perfection, but it should cut down the amount of kerbstomping significantly.
I would rather be facerolled 100 times in a row than go to such a system where my character never gets any better or makes any progress. This is the reason I don't play GW2, or a fps. Having your character stagnate and never get better after level cap makes the game dead to me.
They could give you cosmetic upgrades based on wins and kills. Everything gear based is just you wanting advantages that you didn't earn in that match. Sorry. That's just how it is. Its what it would have to be to even approach competitive.
Seeing all the people who take neverwinter pvp super serious with their specific pvp only builds and op gear is kind of funny. Same people probably get wrecked without putting up a fight in real games but this game lets them stack the cards in their favour. It will probably never really change.
0
pers3phoneBanned Users, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 0Arc User
Seeing all the people who take neverwinter pvp super serious with their specific pvp only builds and op gear is kind of funny. Same people probably get wrecked without putting up a fight in real games but this game lets them stack the cards in their favour.
If there would be no ELO and leavers penalty, such claims could easily be dismounted in the test shard by giving any opposing team full R10s and perfects of their choice, then you go against the PvP team you think you will wreak in equal gear.
You might have some surprises... and still lose. Some people here play together since Beta. Some theorycraft for PvP almost everyday. Some communicate and have working strategies for virtually all situations that might arise. All in all, this game is a bit above personal twitch skills if you wanna win hard matches.
They could give you cosmetic upgrades based on wins and kills. Everything gear based is just you wanting advantages that you didn't earn in that match. Sorry. That's just how it is. Its what it would have to be to even approach competitive.
Other games have this. I don't play them. It's not the advantage, as I'm usually not one of the guys that has server firsts or close to it. I get curbstomped by the very best. It's the feeling of making your character better. Increasing in power. Without that I get very bored in an mmo. The story is only good the first run of pve content, and some here will talk about the foundry but foundry authors are neutered in their ability to create challenging content. BTW I'm not even a hardcore pvp'er. I'm casual with pvp, I do it once in a while in most games but overall I'd rather be raiding. I pvp in neverwinter because it doesn't have a raiding scene.
Here's another reason why gear with a good Elo type system is the best way of doing things. It measures your performance, which gear helps but doesn't determine. As a personal example I'm disabled, I get muscle twitchs and spasms at times which means my coordination at the keyboard is not as good as others. While I consider myself to be at the high end of average, a good player without that disability with the same gear, will beat me every single time in a 1v1 match. An Elo system adapts and tries to put me in a competitive match even if that means I overgear the opponent. Elo has the best chances of providing competive matches for all gear and skill levels. Right now the dev's still need time to tweak things in.
And don't forget the potential to simply swap your armor to manipulate your GS.
They could just base it off your maximum GS (ever). While it might not be exact if you swap out pve gear for pvp gear it will be close and you couldn't manipulate it.
If there would be no ELO and leavers penalty, such claims could easily be dismounted in the test shard by giving any opposing team full R10s and perfects of their choice, then you go against the PvP team you think you will wreak in equal gear.
You might have some surprises... and still lose. Some people here play together since Beta. Some theorycraft for PvP almost everyday. Some communicate and have working strategies for virtually all situations that might arise. All in all, this game is a bit above personal twitch skills if you wanna win hard matches.
I don't expect that I would do well in the top end of neverwinter pvp given that my main is a control wizard but I think a quite the number of high geared players would be in for an unpleasant surprise. How many more people would bother to take it more seriously though if they knew that they weren't going in gimped and likely to be beaten. Big fish in small ponds might find a bigger pond interesting too.
And the fact is there are only 2 very basic maps. The complexity is somewhat limited to say the least. In comparison you might be surprised how untwitchy any level above total beginner cs is. Reaction shots are not the norm. Good players are not aiming like that, they place crosshairs exactly and then move so that the shot is lined up before they round the corner. Its a question of predicting where the other person is going to be or where they are coming from. No one is just responding to things. Its a head game. Its kind of crazy to hear that people believe that kind of thing happens in high level games.
A guy jumping around a circle till his bar fills and he gets to take his turn is comparatively brain dead. Ive looked at stox's stream and some of the matches he's highlighted if that's the very high end its kind of basic. Maybe you think he's bad though and want to point me in the direction of the really skilful play.
Other games have this. I don't play them. It's not the advantage, as I'm usually not one of the guys that has server firsts or close to it. I get curbstomped by the very best. It's the feeling of making your character better. Increasing in power. Without that I get very bored in an mmo. The story is only good the first run of pve content, and some here will talk about the foundry but foundry authors are neutered in their ability to create challenging content. BTW I'm not even a hardcore pvp'er. I'm casual with pvp, I do it once in a while in most games but overall I'd rather be raiding. I pvp in neverwinter because it doesn't have a raiding scene.
Here's another reason why gear with a good Elo type system is the best way of doing things. It measures your performance, which gear helps but doesn't determine. As a personal example I'm disabled, I get muscle twitchs and spasms at times which means my coordination at the keyboard is not as good as others. While I consider myself to be at the high end of average, a good player without that disability with the same gear, will beat me every single time in a 1v1 match. An Elo system adapts and tries to put me in a competitive match even if that means I overgear the opponent. Elo has the best chances of providing competive matches for all gear and skill levels. Right now the dev's still need time to tweak things in.
It should theoretically put you into a competitive match each time anyway. Let me put it this way. Lets say you lose a close game. That's disheartening but it happens. Lets say it was pre patch when the emblem was beyond ridiculous and the enemy team has 2 guys with it and your team has nothing on that level. You just can't clear them off points fast enough to get points on the board because it seems like someone is always popping one. Congrats you just ran into a gear wall. Its not really your fault you lost and its not really to their credit that they won. They just had access to better stuff. What then? if your reaction is fine, whatever next game thats maybe a nice way to take things but lets not kid ourselves that it was fair. If you had money down you would call bul****.
I am tired of going up against people (groups) who have 10x better gear then me. Please make it so they only fight each other and not lesser geared players..
I am tired of going up against people (groups) who have 10x better gear then me. Please make it so they only fight each other and not lesser geared players..
Thanks
You mean so people can que for PVP naked then equip all their 16K GS items once in the match?
Foundry - Fight Club? (nw-dluqbofu7)
- JailBreak (in development)
Comments
Exactly!
That will take time to actually work out, as I have been saying, but that is exactly what will happen in time.
If you agree then why are you saying not to even count GS.....
Your gear score effects your likelihood to win. It does not define it.
Which is why for the thousandth time i said it needs to be a PART of the system and not the entire system.
You can not deny that someone with a 20k has an advantage of everyone 18k and below. It needs to be a part of the system.
I'm really not trying to be rude here, but are you actually reading clearly what i write?
Just because a person has 20K GS does not in any way mean they are competitive anywhere near the average person at level. It is entirely possible they should be fighting against people with 2K gear score if they are that bad.
Gear Score will effect your wins and losses against teams. It will determine your Elo Rating in an indirect manner.
I can't make this any clearer. It will work out the way you want in time but there is no need to artificially manufacture it.
It's not like that. The way it works now is more accurate.
Right now, if i got it right, the ELO will rate the result of your performance. Which is like a global rating of your performance, skill, gear, ability to teamwork exc... It also takes into account, if i got it right, the people you're teaming with (if your team is overall stronger than the enemy or if you're fighting in a weaker Group but still performing well).
If you put GS in the rating, you basically give more weight to 1 factor that is, in reality, NOT that relevant.
Skills, strategy and ability to work with your team are much more important in PvP. I can recall a ton of times i could beat up people with perfects/ greaters and better GS but wrong build, or less skilled. Or people with high GS but PvE builds.
There are guys with perfects and BiS gear bought through real money, that don't have a clue about how to play in PvP, or plain suck if you meet them 1v1.
If you give GS more weight, you're basically "boosting" the rating of these guys artificially, cause you're giving more weight in the overall rating, to something that instead is not the most important thing when playing PvP.
The way it works now, instead, the system rates the overall gesult of all the factors combined, and eventually put people together in the same bracket in a more accurate way.
For example, a not-so-good player in high gear and perfects could be put together with skilled players in normals, and the fight will be fair.
Giving GS more weight, the not-so-good folk would end up in a higher bracket, where probably there are skilled players in Greater-perfects, and he will suck and have less fun. Just cause the more weight given to his GS artificially boosts his rating and places him in the wrong bracket.
Examples about how GS is less important than skills and tactic/ knowledge:
- Got against GWFs with much better gear than mine. But they could just facetank, and didn't know how to evade/ use sprint in combat against another GWF. They could land only few hits on me, lots of missed frontlines and takedowns. Easy win.
- I can beat a not-good perma TR in BiS gear, or stall it, even if my gear is just rank 7's and normals. A skilled TR with the same gear would destroy such TR.
- Skilled hybrid TRs with less gear than mine but better build can beat my GWF hybrid (sub-optimal build for PvP)
- A BiS GWF charging blindly against the enemy team, alone, would die fast now, and be of no help to his team.
- A player in BiS gear that in a Group fight keeps trying to kill that very very tanky DC, GWF or GF, while his team gets slaughtered, is of no help. A lesser geared player who knows which enemy he must focus on, and when, is much better in a PvP match.
Just some examples, but it's to show how GS comes after many things in a PvP match, and can't be given more weight than it deserves in the rating of a player.
a ladder system is coming with module 3 per the announcement. currently the elo rating and whatever adjustable variables are in place are only providing a much more balanced match. how you queue for those matches may be responsible for how better or worse that matching is. solo queuing is probably the best matchmaking possible because it's only taking your rating into account to match you with your team and the opposing team. if you queue with a pre-made or a partial pre-made, it's taking the best rating of your team mates into consideration. we ran a few guild premades last night and we had mostly matched games and we won some and lost some. i'd say out of all the matches we ran, it was a 50/50 split.
gear would just be another variable that is unnecessary in the equation of the elo system. all you have to do is read up on elo matchmaking to understand why gear isn't part of the ranking system. elo ranking is based on wins and losses. incorporating gear score into this equation would add an element that could prove to allow the rating system to be manipulated. this could also be the reason why elo ranking isn't visible.
Exactly.
I agree, just make it visible
We should see what ELO the party we're thrown in the match has, yes? Also is boring to count your own W/L ratio, lost count a while ago.
They should have gear limitations for everyone or remove them entirely and give everyone access to everything for pvp. That's the closest to fair and elo ranks would be entirely dependent on skill. Without that you will have better players fighting people being carried by their gear. Some people do love a cushy ride though.
Of course the playerbase for elo to work isn't there. I'm pretty sure we don't have 40-60 thousand people looking to pvp in neverwinter
Which is why a system which judges the likelihood to win, such as the Elo System, makes far more sense than Gear Score. What does it matter if a person is being "carried" by their gear if they still have the same challenge rating?
If they can't win with the gear appreciate you are a better player rather than insist that they have to be put into matches they are nigh guaranteed to lose. Gear will make them perform better but it is only a linear equation when assuming all players have equal skill and players are absolutely not equally skilled.
I don't think anyone argued for that to be the sole determining factor, it should however be a weighting factor.
And it matters because you can just buy even better gear, perfect negation not good enough? Buy an emblem and make it orange. Buy a perfect terror too. Now you get to lord it over the people that were a challenge.
And it matters because its about fairness. It should only be about skill so gear should be limited, as in give people a pvp inventory with a bunch of pvp armours and pvp enchants that can't be upgraded so everyone has equal opportunity or open the floodgates and let everyone use everything without gigantic price restrictions but only in pvp. And I say that as someone with 2 perfect weapon enchants.
No one wants to lose because the other guy just had better stuff and players shouldn't want to eke out wins just because they had better gear. That's pathetic.
And no one ever said anything about all players having equal skills, you really love erecting these strawmen. Its about equal opportunity and not having a bunch of people starting on third base.
The system doesnt work as is because not enough people are willing to queue for that and the comedy mismatches keep happening.
Unless a real effort is made to balance classes for PvP (and indirectly also PvE) and PUG generation is reformed to avoid pitting 2HR 1 DC and 2TR vs 3GFW and 2CW, anything else you can add to the game will not make PvP more fun or fair for the average player.
Once this will be achieved (not that I think it will ever be tbh) then any filter based on ELO, GS or whatever, may actually work.
... and btw, why releasing new PvP gear with Tenacity instead of just adding it to all existing gear ? I really don't think that a few more points here and a little less points there are making any real big difference apart pushing players to farm glory to be as viable at PvP as they were before...
One last thing, speaking of "skill", as it stands now player skill influences the outcome of a match maybe for 15 or 20%, the rest is determined by group composition, GS and enchantments/artifacts level. Under these conditions and since it's not a 1v1 game, ELO does really little good.
If anything having gear weight the score is more abusive since players can change gear in matches.
Instead of making things better you have encouraged people to take off their items before matches to artificially lower their rating.
Oh, look there is that magical word again: artificial.
^^ this right here.
If someone took the time and farmed, or pulled out their wallet and payed i have no problem with them being in a better spot than someone that did not want to dedicate the time/money to achieve that. Stop being a lazy give me everything crowd. If i am face rolled because someone massively out gears me that only gives me an incentive to farm up some better stuff. Stop trying to punish people that have farmed up stuff and go do it yourself. It really is not that hard. Are you saying you want everything just given to you so you can no longer ***** about people having better stuff? you just want them to give it to you so you can be lazy? Stop complaining about someone else that has something better than you and go get it yourself.
It IS a weighting factor. I can't believe this has got to page 8 and this still hasn't sunk in.
Win/Loss ratios, weighted for matchmaking imbalance (so large gain in arbitrary score if you beat a better team, small gain if you beat a worse one) factors in absolutely everything that could contribute to the win (or loss). It makes gear vs skill irrelevant, since both gear AND skill contribute to your likelihood of winning, and winning is what it actually scores. If you're getting massively facerolled by a 20k GS guy, then either you haven't played enough matches yet, or you're playing during super quiet time (so the matchmaking is less fussy) or you have some amazing players on your team.
Is this system flawless? Hell no, because it's not fundamentally intended to be used in a team context (especially when the teams can vary so much, and are often composed of randoms), and as noted, it's debatable whether the NW PvP playerbase is large enough to make it work effectively within a reasonable timeframe (if you only HAVE two teams wanting to play, you're gonna match them up regardless of ELO), but it's fundamentally a huge step in the right direction.
So it's better than the totally random kerbstompfest that was pre-patch PvP. Is it better than a system that somehow magically factors in gearscore as well as factoring in everything (including gearscore)?
Debatable, but I'd say yes, because gearscore is increasingly meaningless. Above 15k means that a player has clearly got pretty decent gear. Or ok gear and all the boons. Or is a conq GF. Or has padded HP heavily. Or has a variety of feats that artificially pad GS. Or any of the above. Also, they may or may not have perfect vorps and soulforged, because neither of those add to GS. GOOD LUCK DEVISING AN ALGORITHM FOR THAT
It's very, very simple.
If all that gear that you're so concerned about has an effect on your performance, you will win more, and travel up the rankings. They are purely based on win and loss- so anything you do which gives you an advantage that increases performance helps you win more. Winning more makes you rank higher, it's that simple.
In any case, GS is a really crude and approximate thing and is somewhat orthogonal to actual effectiveness anyway. If someone stacks the wrong things, they can have a massive GS and still not be all that powerful per se. There are also many performance-affecting factors which do not change GS.
It really is that simple. A ranking based on how much you win doesn't need to worry about imprecise and misleading externalities. If they help you win, whoopee, better rating, tougher opponents. If they don't, weaker opponents. Whether someone is strong or weak in terms of winning or losing matches also has a lot to do with their spec and of course, their skill level and play style- arguably weighted more heavily than GS. There are plenty of 16k target dummies out there.
I do wish people would stop bringing this up over and over again. In competitive Chess, they don't modify ELO ranking based on how comfy your shoes are.
Some days ago I was in PvP at Hotenow and there was another HR in the other team. I got the chance to shoot him with Aimed Shot at distance and critted him for 3/4 of his HP. He died immediately after. He tried a 1on1 with me later and I killed him by spamming Rapid Shot.
It was not fun for him and not for me either. I tried to ignore him most of the time not to be unfair. Imagine I had been a PVP focused HR with my same gear score on a killing spree. He would have died every single time I spotted him.
Same story I've seen with a TR which was unable to do real damage. He used Lashing Blade from stealth on me and did 2,5k damage.... I even killed him in stealth by coincidence when spamming Split Shot over a node. A good matchmaking system should not assemble this kind of matches.
Born of Black Wind: SW Level 80
It's a matchmaking system that learns. It's not going to take one look at you and go "yep, you'd be a perfect match for these guys." It needs time to derive even half decent numbers, and it hasn't had nearly enough time so far. Plus it's been introduced at the exact same time as a ton of new PvP gear and a massive shift in the way PvP damage and healing works. Expecting super balanced matches 100% of the time is incredibly naive.
Matches as you describe will initially be common, and are in fact vital to establishing the ratings. If you WEREN'T pitched against players you could instantly destroy, the game would have no way of determining this fact. Sure it could look at your arbitrary epeen number, but it has no way of knowing whether you're a creditcard warrior with no play experience or a hard-bitten PvP vet or a well-geared PvE toon who swung by PvP for lolz. All of these are more important than your gearscore, and all of these can be more accurately established by actually making you play against people of varying skill and gear levels and seeing where you fit.
As far as I'm aware, people are already noticing a drop in the number of kerbstomp matches, which pre-patch comprised 90% of the entire PvP experience. Sure they still happen, but as long as they are LESS frequent, this is a step forward.
I sincerely hope you're right! My feeeling is that "overall" matches are getting more equal, i.e. final party scores in the fight are more balanced. All my last matches didn't end 1000 to 50 for either party and that's an improvement (yesterday both fights I made ended 1000: to 800ish). What I feel still lacking is balance across a single party. If in the same party one dies 40 times and one scores 40 kills due to gear I guess one of them will not be happy and other will probably be bored.
Born of Black Wind: SW Level 80
Again, that should find its own level, more or less. A sane system will try and assemble a reasonable match based on the pool of players. At busy times, it's easier to be more even, as you will have a bigger pool to draw upon. Obviously, you want to trade that off against queue times, maybe with a "sliding window", where a matchmaker tries to build a match within certain tolerances, fails and retries with a more liberal window (rinse and repeat until success).
It will never be perfect, but as you say, it's less one-sided. As the ELO rankings populate more, there will be more to differentiate the players, so your team mates and opponents will be broadly compatible to you. Right now, I get the feeling that it's still a bit "clumpy".
Also, people should note that there may well be a Poisson distribution- so you don't want to be too strict with your matchmaking, or it will be pretty horrible for the very best and very worst players, taking ages to get a game
Otherwise, the aim is to have the system largely self-correcting. I'm pretty sure that no-one sane (and in that I tentatively include you) expects perfection, but it should cut down the amount of kerbstomping significantly.
They could give you cosmetic upgrades based on wins and kills. Everything gear based is just you wanting advantages that you didn't earn in that match. Sorry. That's just how it is. Its what it would have to be to even approach competitive.
Seeing all the people who take neverwinter pvp super serious with their specific pvp only builds and op gear is kind of funny. Same people probably get wrecked without putting up a fight in real games but this game lets them stack the cards in their favour. It will probably never really change.
If there would be no ELO and leavers penalty, such claims could easily be dismounted in the test shard by giving any opposing team full R10s and perfects of their choice, then you go against the PvP team you think you will wreak in equal gear.
You might have some surprises... and still lose. Some people here play together since Beta. Some theorycraft for PvP almost everyday. Some communicate and have working strategies for virtually all situations that might arise. All in all, this game is a bit above personal twitch skills if you wanna win hard matches.
Other games have this. I don't play them. It's not the advantage, as I'm usually not one of the guys that has server firsts or close to it. I get curbstomped by the very best. It's the feeling of making your character better. Increasing in power. Without that I get very bored in an mmo. The story is only good the first run of pve content, and some here will talk about the foundry but foundry authors are neutered in their ability to create challenging content. BTW I'm not even a hardcore pvp'er. I'm casual with pvp, I do it once in a while in most games but overall I'd rather be raiding. I pvp in neverwinter because it doesn't have a raiding scene.
Here's another reason why gear with a good Elo type system is the best way of doing things. It measures your performance, which gear helps but doesn't determine. As a personal example I'm disabled, I get muscle twitchs and spasms at times which means my coordination at the keyboard is not as good as others. While I consider myself to be at the high end of average, a good player without that disability with the same gear, will beat me every single time in a 1v1 match. An Elo system adapts and tries to put me in a competitive match even if that means I overgear the opponent. Elo has the best chances of providing competive matches for all gear and skill levels. Right now the dev's still need time to tweak things in.
They could just base it off your maximum GS (ever). While it might not be exact if you swap out pve gear for pvp gear it will be close and you couldn't manipulate it.
I don't expect that I would do well in the top end of neverwinter pvp given that my main is a control wizard but I think a quite the number of high geared players would be in for an unpleasant surprise. How many more people would bother to take it more seriously though if they knew that they weren't going in gimped and likely to be beaten. Big fish in small ponds might find a bigger pond interesting too.
And the fact is there are only 2 very basic maps. The complexity is somewhat limited to say the least. In comparison you might be surprised how untwitchy any level above total beginner cs is. Reaction shots are not the norm. Good players are not aiming like that, they place crosshairs exactly and then move so that the shot is lined up before they round the corner. Its a question of predicting where the other person is going to be or where they are coming from. No one is just responding to things. Its a head game. Its kind of crazy to hear that people believe that kind of thing happens in high level games.
A guy jumping around a circle till his bar fills and he gets to take his turn is comparatively brain dead. Ive looked at stox's stream and some of the matches he's highlighted if that's the very high end its kind of basic. Maybe you think he's bad though and want to point me in the direction of the really skilful play.
It should theoretically put you into a competitive match each time anyway. Let me put it this way. Lets say you lose a close game. That's disheartening but it happens. Lets say it was pre patch when the emblem was beyond ridiculous and the enemy team has 2 guys with it and your team has nothing on that level. You just can't clear them off points fast enough to get points on the board because it seems like someone is always popping one. Congrats you just ran into a gear wall. Its not really your fault you lost and its not really to their credit that they won. They just had access to better stuff. What then? if your reaction is fine, whatever next game thats maybe a nice way to take things but lets not kid ourselves that it was fair. If you had money down you would call bul****.
Thanks
- JailBreak (in development)