Improving match maker more important than balance right now

[Yerlock.4678]

Hot take I know but the matchmaker in this game is bad. Like 2011 League bad. In its programming it’s designed to set players with high mmr matched with new comers who are “just trying this pvp thing”. The result is tons of salt and some resorting to win trading or being night owls at 4 AM for better match ups. The whole thing is just ridiculous. 
 

Steam is giving the game a population bump and yet here we are still lumped with the same problem. Sure, the newer players can catch higher mmr early and get badly matched games after, but it doesn’t excuse the p*** poor quality in balance that the system gives people. In my opinion anet needs to go in house with the match maker and design it to be better for fairer match ups. Idk about you all but I’d happily wait even an extra 3-5 minutes so that the games were more fair. That’s just me though.
 

Or even have an option to toggle higher wait times for more evenly distributed mmr factors across teams. Right now the system does it’s “best” by finding the best suitable players online. But if the parameters are not ideal for a good match up, it goes to the next best parameters. And on and on. Toggling this theoretical option though could force parameter requirements to be met no matter how long it took. Or at least give up those requirements only after truly waiting an extra amount of time.

In ranked that functionality would be permanent. It wouldn’t divide the population as people who just want to play can still do that, but more experienced players with groups perhaps can really commit to games by waiting a little bit longer sometimes. As opposed to realizing how one sided it all is and afk’ing half way through the game. Thus wasting everyone’s time in the first place.. (why is there no surrender option btw? Just

have it you where you have to have the whole team vote yes/surrender and the bloody game ends. It won’t be abused that way as much, seems simple enough)

 

 

Checking this box wouldn’t guarantee higher wait times, only allow for them if acceptable parameters aren’t being met. In truth this is depressing to write because anet should be doing their own job instead of the community complaining and haphazardly pretending like they know how to solve it themselves. The point to all of this is that veterans shouldn’t feel pressed to make new paid accounts just to farm ranked with casuals in a pathetic effort to feel good about themselves being plat3. 

 

Or farm at 4Am for better match up quality or ofc win trade. Or all three. Its bringing out bad apples to act on their worst sort of behavior. It encourages true toxicity (unlike not seeing your teammates k/d and healing/damage, that does nothing to prevent toxic behavior anet it only makes me angry at you for thinking that will make people passive).

 

I’m tired of the doomer approach much of the community takes on this topic saying “Dead game bro. Low population means the system chooses bad match ups.” Well that’s why other games have had options to make it to where you can find more of what you preference in a game. Taking potentially longer to look for better match ups is just a starting place for what should be an extensive journey on how to improve the match maker for everyone. Guild wars 2 is right outside the top ten most played MMO’s of 2022 anyways. https://mmo-population.com/top/2022

In any case the issue shouldn’t be ignored. Even if the solution I’ve presented is totally faulty, it still doesn’t excuse anet ignoring the elephant in the room with how bad things have gotten on the match making side of things.

 

anyways I digress, what’s your opinion on this obvious hot take?

[Multicolorhipster.9751]

Matchmaking has always been more important, but has historically gotten 0 attention since season 9, and then they undid it all anyway in season 13

Balance is a passing fancy to gawk at for a week before being over whatever change it is and then having to wait another 3-6 months for the next. Its not content and it does nothing to address the real issues that make sPvP frustrating, sometimes even making them worse.

 

The wintrader cartel doesn't want you to think this way though. They want us to stay miserable and making 'nerf X spec' threads every other day.

But matchmaking will always be more important to the long-term sustainability of the game and anyone who disagrees is a wintrader.

[stry.1493]

8 hours ago, gmmg.9210 said:

anyways I digress, what’s your opinion on this obvious hot take?

i think you should stop playing warrior so you can get out of silver

[Yerlock.4678]

5 hours ago, stry.1493 said:

i think you should stop playing warrior so you can get out of silver

Grimjack is such a good ele thank god he opened your eyes about minion mancer 

[Fueki.4753]

The match making algorithm can't be better than it is right now, due the lack of players in sPvP.

While one could theoretically lock the maximum gap in rating per match, but that would only lead to substantially increased queue times, which would only make sPvP worse and potentially cause even more players to leave sPvP behind (which in turn makes queue times worse again).

Seeing that the neglect of proper profession updates and blatant favouritism of certain professions/specializations are the primary reason for the lack of players, this issue should be the one to be focussed most. That said, I doubt the one person (or at best two) in charge of sPvP will be able to do it.

[Khalisto.5780]

I agree

 

Bring new players in and keep them playing is the key to get better matches

 

what i would do

 

make the report system work, so you can get rid of all those afkers ruining low rated games

 

if you level 50 pvp and you below 1350 you won't get matched against ppl that are 1350+

 

get rid of duo q of course, majority of the onesided matches is because one team has a high rated duo and the other don't

 

do some serious investigations in top 10 rankings, like any account sharing on those accounts will end up of titles being removed, ideal was them to check every match this ppl played and the reports for idle or matchmanipulation, yesterday i got in a match against this "pros", yes they're better than me, but in this game we had the means to win, we get a straight afk from start with a later dc, cuz i guess one of their friends was on our team, so they didnt want to grief him and the wintrader disconnected for the so the guy in our team wouldnt lose rating. I've been in other matches were a dude afk when we had 150 pnts lead, 350-200, he was back to play when the game was already beyond of any comeback possibility.

 

Aiming for high ranks would also bring old players that are good at the game, i have a bunch of p2 friends that play 2-3 matches a day, cuz once they spot their being part of matchmanipulation they just quit.

 

 

[Grimjack.8130]

3 hours ago, gmmg.9210 said:

Grimjack is such a good ele thank god he opened your eyes about minion mancer 

i did what now

[stry.1493]

28 minutes ago, Grimjack.8130 said:

i did what now

you said my core ele minion build with inscription is bad :(

[Vinny.7260]

59 minutes ago, stry.1493 said:

you said my core ele minion build with inscription is bad 😞

I enjoy setting the Lesser Elemental Glyph as my auto while I AFK on a node. >:P

It's a fun build though, Alacrity trait adds some extra pizazz.

[Gibson.4036]

Does anyone even understand what “hot take” means any more?

[Shao.7236]

A better matchmaker (Somehow?) won't attract more players.

Having less bloated self carry low effort content would at least participate in the idea that people can play what they want from a wider range of ratings which is less discouraging for newcomers because they could at least have the motives to learn without unfairly dying which is already a huge task to ask from a casual userbase.

Top tier gameplay right now consist of being perma slowed by the same 3rd key pressed on to the point where the cap has a nail shape carved into it(Specter), nodes nuked and irradiated by the largest aoe spam ever seen in this game(Catalyst), then a forced scripted loss copy pasted MGR intro(Bladesworn).

This is what people are watching and praising right now in the metawagon, you can easily tell why nobody would be curious to try. Nobody wants to be with the same boring uninteresting people that bring nothing new or entertaining for anyone.

This is why PvP is such a failure right now, nothing looks entertaining when it's the same unenticing garbage.

Vallun while I can't talk for his abilities at least keeps his PvP fresh unlike everyone else and you'd think people would be doing the same by now but you can't help those who are obsessed by just winning in the cheapest, easiest and unchallenging ways to play.

Must have that fame in the non existing community that they sought for themselves.

Edited September 3, 2022 by Shao.7236

[Loboling.5293]

I actually agree that PvP balance is not awful. Still a lot of changes needed, mostly for damage on cc, and rez rate. But there's no doubt more complain about matchmaking these days. Not sure what they can do though.

[Marxx.5021]

Any devlopment related to PvP has been stopped long ago. I guess Anet would laugh if they read such discussion.

[Poobah.6254]

Honestly the one thing they need to get on asap if they want to retain any new players from the steam launch in PvP is actually do anything about reports. So many games are ruined by toxic and/or idle players.

[JTGuevara.9018]

On 9/1/2022 at 10:53 AM, Fueki.4753 said:

The match making algorithm can't be better than it is right now, due the lack of players in sPvP.

While one could theoretically lock the maximum gap in rating per match, but that would only lead to substantially increased queue times, which would only make sPvP worse and potentially cause even more players to leave sPvP behind (which in turn makes queue times worse again).

Good old feedback loop!

On 9/1/2022 at 10:53 AM, Fueki.4753 said:

Seeing that the neglect of proper profession updates and blatant favouritism of certain professions/specializations are the primary reason for the lack of players, this issue should be the one to be focussed most. That said, I doubt the one person (or at best two) in charge of sPvP will be able to do it.

I mean, it's just a CLOWN show lmao...(shakes head)...I am just SO through with spvp. Even mmopvp in general.

mmopvp is essentially dead in the water these days. Who even cares? MOBAs, FPSs, RTSs have already overtaken them.

[Xentera.4560]

New players will realize very quickly that the MMR targets a win rate of 50% by placing you in a tilted matchup on teams very likely to lose whenever your win rate gets too high. Literally meaning there is no reason to be playing this game mode. At that point they will just quit pvp and move on to other modes; keeping the population kitten low.

[JTGuevara.9018]

On 9/1/2022 at 6:18 PM, Gibson.4036 said:

Does anyone even understand what “hot take” means any more?

I'll tell you what it means. It means "let me share my misguided attempt at being edgy".

[Gibson.4036]

3 hours ago, JTGuevara.9018 said:

I'll tell you what it means. It means "let me share my misguided attempt at being edgy".

😄 Special forum definition.

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

This has less to do with the match maker and more to do with handing out bans to obvious match manipulators.

[Exedore.6320]

The matchmaker is good enough. It would function better with a higher population, but you'll always see anomalies at the edges and during slow times regardless of the algorithm chosen.

 

The bigger problem is that skill doesn't mean enough until you get to the very top. Until then, people are carried by build choice. If you're slightly better at face-rolling and not standing in fires, then you move up. When there is such little difference in skill, no algorithm can rank people well according to skill. This is due to game design choices since HoT, which falls under balance.

[Arheundel.6451]

1 hour ago, Exedore.6320 said:

The matchmaker is good enough. It would function better with a higher population, but you'll always see anomalies at the edges and during slow times regardless of the algorithm chosen.

 

The bigger problem is that skill doesn't mean enough until you get to the very top. Until then, people are carried by build choice. If you're slightly better at face-rolling and not standing in fires, then you move up. When there is such little difference in skill, no algorithm can rank people well according to skill. This is due to game design choices since HoT, which falls under balance.

The higher you go, the more stacked "super" builds you see : insta cast/teleportation/all boons/super tanks and the more "zerg mode" is again what I see the most...You certainly don't see "one mistake=dead" gameplay. Although in one thing you are 100% correct : since HoT (since the GW1 devs left ) , the class design in this game has gone full nose dive into the abyss of madness....and at this point I wonder why people still try to talk about balance, when all we see are nerfs which reduce the already scarce options

Edited September 3, 2022 by Arheundel.6451

[Faux Play.6104]

19 hours ago, Xentera.4560 said:

New players will realize very quickly that the MMR targets a win rate of 50% by placing you in a tilted matchup on teams very likely to lose whenever your win rate gets too high. Literally meaning there is no reason to be playing this game mode. At that point they will just quit pvp and move on to other modes; keeping the population kitten low.

 

That is not factually accurate.  If you are getting around 12 pts for a win loss you are playing teams at your ability level.  If you are consistently winning or losing at that point differential you are either better/worse on average than people at that rating.  If you placed too low at the start of the season you will end up with a positive w/l ratio.  If you placed too high it will be negative.   If you are better than the rest of the population, you will consistently be getting less points in your matches e.g. 4-8 for a win and losing much more.  If you belong at that level you will have a higher than 50% win rate.  Opposite thing if you are playing much worse than the rest of the population.   You will be loosing 4-8 pts and winning much more.

[Faux Play.6104]

I would say neither.  The most important is to get a larger player base.  No algorithm will be able to make good matches when the player base is low, and people are allowed to play a wide variety of builds.  To me that is on the community to grow itself.

 

There are a variety of builds that are effective, so I don't think that is an issue.  The way the system is now you can make completely ineffective builds at any skill level as well as very effective builds that are very easy to play.  They could "improve balance" by limiting build choice to vetted balanced builds, but people won't like that.  There are already sites that give build advice so people should be able to choose effective builds if they put forth some effort.

[Faux Play.6104]

On 8/31/2022 at 5:25 PM, gmmg.9210 said:

Hot take I know but the matchmaker in this game is bad. Like 2011 League bad. In its programming it’s designed to set players with high mmr matched with new comers who are “just trying this pvp thing”. The result is tons of salt and some resorting to win trading or being night owls at 4 AM for better match ups. The whole thing is just ridiculous. 
 

Steam is giving the game a population bump and yet here we are still lumped with the same problem. Sure, the newer players can catch higher mmr early and get badly matched games after, but it doesn’t excuse the p*** poor quality in balance that the system gives people. In my opinion anet needs to go in house with the match maker and design it to be better for fairer match ups. Idk about you all but I’d happily wait even an extra 3-5 minutes so that the games were more fair. That’s just me though.
 

Or even have an option to toggle higher wait times for more evenly distributed mmr factors across teams. Right now the system does it’s “best” by finding the best suitable players online. But if the parameters are not ideal for a good match up, it goes to the next best parameters. An 

In ranked that functionality would be permanent. It wouldn’t divide the population as people who just want to play can still do that, but more experienced players with groups perhaps can really commit to games by waiting a little bit longer sometimes. As opposed to realizing how one sided it all is and afk’ing half way through the game. Thus wasting everyone’s time in the first place.. (why is there no surrender option btw? Just

have it you where you have to have the whole team vote yes/surrender and the bloody game ends. It won’t be abused that way as much, seems simple enough)

 

 

Checking this box wouldn’t guarantee higher wait times, only allow for them if acceptable parameters aren’t being met. In truth this is depressing to write because anet should be doing their own job instead of the community complaining and haphazardly pretending like they know how to solve it themselves. The point to all of this is that veterans shouldn’t feel pressed to make new paid accounts just to farm ranked with casuals in a pathetic effort to feel good about themselves being plat3. 

 

Or farm at 4Am for better match up quality or ofc win trade. Or all three. Its bringing out bad apples to act on their worst sort of behavior. It encourages true toxicity (unlike not seeing your teammates k/d and healing/damage, that does nothing to prevent toxic behavior anet it only makes me angry at you for thinking that will make people passive).

 

I’m tired of the doomer approach much of the community takes on this topic saying “Dead game bro. Low population means the system chooses bad match ups.” Well that’s why other games have had options to make it to where you can find more of what you preference in a game. Taking potentially longer to look for better match ups is just a starting place for what should be an extensive journey on how to improve the match maker for everyone. Guild wars 2 is right outside the top ten most played MMO’s of 2022 anyways. https://mmo-population.com/top/2022

In any case the issue shouldn’t be ignored. Even if the solution I’ve presented is totally faulty, it still doesn’t excuse anet ignoring the elephant in the room with how bad things have gotten on the match making side of things.

 

anyways I digress, what’s your opinion on this obvious hot take?

 

Either get rid of duo que or don't let people duo queue with more than 100 rating difference.  It is too easy to get favorable matches by queuing with a friend on a smurf account.  The majority of the imbalanced matches I'm seeing this season are a result of duo queues.  The duos are either 1) people that are try-harding and really aren't at the level they are queuing at, or 2) they are two good players one on their main account and one on a smurf.  If those two end up on opposite teams you get 500-80 matches.

 

Also, forcing longer queue times would encourage the top players to play at the same time vs. ducking each other in queues.

[Stand The Wall.6987]

i wonder how much the match maker is at fault or people blaming it for them being bad.