PvP Discussion: Matchmaking and Leagues

[OriOri.8724]

@Cynz.9437 said:

@Bazooka.3590 said:

@zHasgard.9827 said:Matchmaking is doing a good job in 99% because you are looking at the numbers, you still can have bad players in 1500 +.... >If you have bad players in 1500+ that means Match Making don't do a good job.

Or placements.

More like poor balance that allows for some builds that carry players HARD to exist for an entire season, or more, and carries many players far higher than they would ever be able to get to on their own.

[BikeIsGone.8675]

Do you guys have any data on the average # of games played per season-week?Personally I feel like there are a lot more people playing during the first 2-3 weeks and the last 2-3 weeks of the season. Somewhere in the middle of the season it always feels like there only are a "handful" of people left actively Qing, while the rest just camps rating and plays only when they need to get rid of decay.Could all just be my imagination tho....subjective perception and all.

[Garrisyl.7402]

A bit late, but I felt like chiming in on this.

This is the first season i really play pvp (look at my rank) and barely climbed to gold 3, when the matchmaker decided to put me into a match with Sindrener, who at the time was 400 rating above me.To make up for this obscene difference, I actually got very good teammates and the match was a close one. To your matchmaker this probably looked like both a good match-up and a good result, but I disagree. This match probably wasn't very enjoyable for anyone in it.

1) Sindrener got placed with players way below his skill level who he was supposed to carry, with all the frustrations that entails.2) In order to balance out his high rating my teammates were better than his, and constantly walked all over them. (see kill feed)3) I quickly noticed that my teammates were way better than me and didn't feel like I could contribute much to the match. If I won it would be because I got carried, not because I did well. I also got absolutely rekked by him a few times without ever feeling I had a chance. Not fun at all.4) His teammates were up against better players, and only won because he carried them.

This was obviously an unusual match, but the fact that the matchmaker allows for a 400 SR difference between players in the same match is absolutely ridiculous - queue times be damned.

I want to add that gold 3 is a terrible pvp experience at the moment. Almost none of my matches are against people of the same skill level. Due to the system allowing you to be dragged into other people's queue (thus allowing bigger SR differences), I'm almost exclusively used to fill in or balance out plat games. Feels pretty bad to constantly be in matches filled with "X Legend" titles who rage at me in chat for every lost teamfight. I know I'm not as good as you, and I sure as hell didn't ask to be here.

[Cynz.9437]

@"Garrisyl.7402" said:A bit late, but I felt like chiming in on this.

This is the first season i really play pvp (look at my rank) and barely climbed to gold 3, when the matchmaker decided to put me into a match with Sindrener, who at the time was 400 rating above me.To make up for this obscene difference, I actually got very good teammates and the match was a close one. To your matchmaker this probably looked like both a good match-up and a good result, but I disagree. This match probably wasn't very enjoyable for anyone in it.

1) Sindrener got placed with players way below his skill level who he was supposed to carry, with all the frustrations that entails.2) In order to balance out his high rating my teammates were better than his, and constantly walked all over them. (see kill feed)3) I quickly noticed that my teammates were way better than me and didn't feel like I could contribute much to the match. If I won it would be because I got carried, not because I did well. I also got absolutely rekked by him a few times without ever feeling I had a chance. Not fun at all.4) His teammates were up against better players, and only won because he carried them.

This was obviously an unusual match, but the fact that the matchmaker allows for a 400 SR difference between players in the same match is absolutely ridiculous - queue times be damned.

I want to add that gold 3 is a terrible pvp experience at the moment. Almost none of my matches are against people of the same skill level. Due to the system allowing you to be dragged into other people's queue (thus allowing bigger SR differences), I'm almost exclusively used to fill in or balance out plat games. Feels pretty bad to constantly be in matches filled with "X Legend" titles who rage at me in chat for every lost teamfight. I know I'm not as good as you, and I sure as hell didn't ask to be here.

If i recall correctly, Sind had even silver players in his matches kek. That is rather very very VERY generous rank range for MM.

[Kir Sakar.3647]

@"Garrisyl.7402" said:I want to add that gold 3 is a terrible pvp experience at the moment. Almost none of my matches are against people of the same skill level. Due to the system allowing you to be dragged into other people's queue (thus allowing bigger SR differences), I'm almost exclusively used to fill in or balance out plat games. Feels pretty bad to constantly be in matches filled with "X Legend" titles who rage at me in chat for every lost teamfight. I know I'm not as good as you, and I sure as hell didn't ask to be here.

Crazy kitten. May I ask what day of the week and what time that match was?

Because I have been spending quite some time in Gold 3 in EU now and do not feel that my matches are off. There are some blow-outs, sure (maybe 20% of all my Matches) but the majority feels fairly balanced. I mostly Play between 6 and 9 pm middle european time on weekdays.

The only odd thing I realized is that I constantly get more points (13-15) for winning than I lose for losing (11-13). Even though I have been sitting at my current rating for around 50 Matches. That would make sense if indeed I am constantly "used" to fill up higher ranked matches.

[Bossun.2046]

@Forsty.7968 said:I dont know if this got covered already but i have a question about rating rewarding based on currrent rating/mmr. Currently it seems to me that you gain and lose rating based on your rating solemly versus the average rating of the enemy team instead of both team averages. If that is the case, why is it so?

Is it to try to keep the matchmaker from having to group up the higher rated players with even lower rated players than they are currently to compensate?

Its been bugging me for a while and i thought i knew the answer to it some months ago.

I would also like to know this pls

[Ben Phongluangtham.1065]

@Cynz.9437 said:

@"Garrisyl.7402" said:A bit late, but I felt like chiming in on this.

This is the first season i really play pvp (look at my rank) and barely climbed to gold 3, when the matchmaker decided to put me into a match with Sindrener,

who at the time was

400 rating above me

.

To make up for this obscene difference, I actually got very good teammates and the match was a close one. To your matchmaker this probably looked like both a good match-up and a good result, but I disagree. This match probably wasn't very enjoyable for anyone in it.

1) Sindrener got placed with players way below his skill level who he was supposed to carry, with all the frustrations that entails.2) In order to balance out his high rating my teammates were better than his, and constantly walked all over them. (see kill feed)3) I quickly noticed that my teammates were way better than me and didn't feel like I could contribute much to the match. If I won it would be because I got carried, not because I did well. I also got absolutely rekked by him a few times without ever feeling I had a chance. Not fun at all.4) His teammates were up against better players, and only won because he carried them.

This was obviously an unusual match, but the fact that the matchmaker allows for a 400 SR difference between players in the same match is absolutely ridiculous - queue times be damned.

I want to add that gold 3 is a terrible pvp experience at the moment. Almost none of my matches are against people of the same skill level. Due to the system allowing you to be dragged into other people's queue (thus allowing bigger SR differences), I'm almost exclusively used to fill in or balance out plat games. Feels pretty bad to constantly be in matches filled with "X Legend" titles who rage at me in chat for every lost teamfight. I know I'm not as good as you, and I sure as hell didn't ask to be here.

If i recall correctly, Sind had even silver players in his matches kek. That is rather very very VERY generous rank range for MM.

It's definitely possible. The longer someone is in queue, the more likely this can happen, since it the range of potential matches increases. As we've mentioned, we're going to experiment with capping it and see what that does to the queue times.

[Ithilwen.1529]

@Ben Phongluangtham.1065 said:

@Cynz.9437 said:

@"Garrisyl.7402" said:A bit late, but I felt like chiming in on this.

This is the first season i really play pvp (look at my rank) and barely climbed to gold 3, when the matchmaker decided to put me into a match with Sindrener,

who at the time was

400 rating above me

.

To make up for this obscene difference, I actually got very good teammates and the match was a close one. To your matchmaker this probably looked like both a good match-up and a good result, but I disagree. This match probably wasn't very enjoyable for anyone in it.

1) Sindrener got placed with players way below his skill level who he was supposed to carry, with all the frustrations that entails.2) In order to balance out his high rating my teammates were better than his, and constantly walked all over them. (see kill feed)3) I quickly noticed that my teammates were way better than me and didn't feel like I could contribute much to the match. If I won it would be because I got carried, not because I did well. I also got absolutely rekked by him a few times without ever feeling I had a chance. Not fun at all.4) His teammates were up against better players, and only won because he carried them.

This was obviously an unusual match, but the fact that the matchmaker allows for a 400 SR difference between players in the same match is absolutely ridiculous - queue times be damned.

I want to add that gold 3 is a terrible pvp experience at the moment. Almost none of my matches are against people of the same skill level. Due to the system allowing you to be dragged into other people's queue (thus allowing bigger SR differences), I'm almost exclusively used to fill in or balance out plat games. Feels pretty bad to constantly be in matches filled with "X Legend" titles who rage at me in chat for every lost teamfight. I know I'm not as good as you, and I sure as hell didn't ask to be here.

If i recall correctly, Sind had even silver players in his matches kek. That is rather very very VERY generous rank range for MM.

It's definitely possible. The longer someone is in queue, the more likely this can happen, since it the range of potential matches increases. As we've mentioned, we're going to experiment with capping it and see what that does to the queue times.

I'll wait for quality matches as opposed to being offered up as cannon fodder to keep the high enders happy.

~Edit~ I think that is really the essence of why population has gone so low, ( If we leave out balance. )

[The Ace.9105]

@"Ben Phongluangtham.1065" said:

4. Please consider match outcome by points loss. If match was close, player shouldn't lose as many points - this would encourage players to play to the end. A lot of matches are winnable but players give up early since there is not enough difference between close match and simply lost match.

In order for this to not be broken, we'd have to also not give as much rating increase for winning a close match. How do people feel about this?

I am up for this absolutely. The biggest thing bugging me is that the rating gained and lost is based on mmr and not the actual match score. When the score is close it means that the teams had a good match and that the rating system has been able to predict a good matchup. In case of blowout matches where the other team wins with clear advantage due skill the losing team should lose more points and the winning team win more in order to put the players in their right spot.

In case of afk players (i am sure someone will bring this up) there could be some ways to measure how much action does the afk players make approximately and then determine how long has a player been afk and balance the rating lost or gained based on that and/or punish the afk players with 2x more rating loss. In any case, this system should still be better in terms of afk players losing more score over time thus dropping the player out of the ratings more quicker and as said in the quote, maybe motivate the player to play instead of afk.

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

Feels like the algorithm allocates a schedule of win streaks and lose streaks to certain players at certain times, to make sure that the rating margins from low to high are expanding in whole number over the course of a season, rather than imploding.

If this is the case arenanet, I suggest figuring out something else. Perhaps base division icon status on percentile of where one stands on the leaderboard rather than whole number rating margins.

Point being: This would allow much more balanced match making while still allowing the division icon rating system to function as intended.

[Ledavi.1803]

@"Garrisyl.7402" said:A bit late, but I felt like chiming in on this.

I want to add that gold 3 is a terrible pvp experience at the moment. Almost none of my matches are against people of the same skill level. Due to the system allowing you to be dragged into other people's queue (thus allowing bigger SR differences), I'm almost exclusively used to fill in or balance out plat games. Feels pretty bad to constantly be in matches filled with "X Legend" titles who rage at me in chat for every lost teamfight. I know I'm not as good as you, and I sure as hell didn't ask to be here.

I actually enjoy the occasional match against those way better - it is aspirational and I want to improve. But I do agree that those matches are likely a little frustrating for almost everyone, and spending most of my time bouncing from NA gold 2 - plat 1 seems like a really wide variety of teammates and opponents skills. I play weird times though

[hunt.2394]

https://imgur.com/a/djGbZsee the last 6 matches, is the pvp sceneario today.......... 5 matches with unbalaced team, the last match balanced but only +8.

[Nimrud.5642]

Dear Ben,

'my' problem in a nutshell: 1-9

No, its not that I lost 9 out of 10 matches this evening. (I did lose but thats not the problem, thats just bad luck on my part.)

But its the quality of the matches. In only 2 out of those 10 was there a chance for the match to go either way. The other 8 was over when the gates opened. Losing 10 or 15 in a row is not that bad if the score is close, because that gives me motivation because a future win in a similar situation seems possible if I play 'a little' better. But there is NO perspective in trying to compensate for a 300+ points loss.

[BeLZedaR.4790]

Any plans maybe for profession specific leaderboards? Not any rewards and things but just based on most class played this season show who has most success with their class and what is their rating.

[messiah.1908]

i dont get iti play 10 games and after i get my tier i belong in which the system puts me with ppl with my lvl. so with 50% chance of winning in average no one should climb to hier tier unless someone is actual more better or higher tier . and how can i leran to be better if i will couple up with ppl which are in the same tier.

[Forsty.7968]

@Bossun.2046 said:

@Forsty.7968 said:I dont know if this got covered already but i have a question about rating rewarding based on currrent rating/mmr. Currently it

seems

to me that you gain and lose rating based on your rating solemly versus the average rating of the enemy team instead of both team averages. If that is the case, why is it so?

Is it to try to keep the matchmaker from having to group up the higher rated players with even lower rated players than they are currently to compensate?

Its been bugging me for a while and i thought i knew the answer to it some months ago.

I would also like to know this pls

This really matters because technically what the system is doing is it is punishing a high rated player for getting a game with high variance in skill rating which happens a lot. Basically long queue time>might as well not play the que pop from what i understand.

[Kalibri.5861]

@Cynz.9437 said:

@Ben Phongluangtham.1065 said:

@Cynz.9437 said:

4. Please consider match outcome by points loss. If match was close, player lose as many points - this would encourage players to play to the end. A lot of matches ae winnable but players give up early since there is not enough difference between close match and simply lost match.

In order for this to not be broken, we'd have to also not give as much rating increase for winning a close match. How do people feel about this?

Probably would need poll for this. I personally wouldn't mind.Agreed, should have a poll, but I love this. Rewards skilled play and encourages players to dominate. Of course, if there's rampant match manipulation and/or quitters or afkers then this might make a lonely genuine player's experience that much worse, but I think the answer to that problem should always be to heavily police and sanction botting, manipulation, quitting, et cetera, rather than to avoid the (hopefully) beneficial change.

[Sihmm.9236]

Speaking of MMR, do we really still need decay now that there's a minimum number of matches to appear on the leaderboard/get prestige rewards? What purpose does it serve other than making it harder for someone to participate if they can't play every day?

[Forgotten by Jana.7819]

I need to be constructive and respectful here .Yes MM need a complete rework , totally wrong based .

I would love if you consider one proposal that many players , low skill medium and to agree to , is to add a BLOCK option in pvp , so we can block a player that we dont want to be in a team ever again ? We all agreed to longer match ques ...

[Aden.9306]

I have a novel idea! How about for one season we have no restrictions with how many people you can queue with an see what happens to match quality. Because that has to be better than just the constant 500 to 100 matches or the ever constant DC'ing. It's honestly the best defense against manipulation; just utilize the highest player's MMR in the group to prevent surfing and be amazed how the match quality will improve. Pvp guilds will be a thing again; leader board ratings will heavily inflate, but I don't care anymore matches seem stacked half the time any way. Its just a joke......... Competition is 2 teams of relatively equal strength fighting and its not showing. You guys keeping making thing more restrictive is not helping the match quality. Removing the human aspect of guild mates, friends grouping up to play make this mode. Now it just feels like a lottery.

[Zlater.6789]

@"Ben Phongluangtham.1065"Sorry about being late to the party, but I really wanted to ask you a question.I remember that the match maker tries to assemble teams based on different classes and it tries it's hardest to separate classes on each team to prevent class stacking. I was thinking that the bigger the game is the less viable this becomes, each elite spec aims to have 3 different design routes with 2 elite specs that's already 6 each class.

Instead of making class diversity a priority, is there any possibility that we might see a "role" feature in the future?A way for a player to say I'm playing as a 'bruiser' so that way the team doesn't end up with 5 bruises the matchmaker can say OK we need a bunker ummmmm let's get this FB bunker because we don't have either of those yet.

[Ithilwen.1529]

@Forgotten by Jana.7819 said:I need to be constructive and respectful here .Yes MM need a complete rework , totally wrong based .

I would love if you consider one proposal that many players , low skill medium and to agree to , is to add a BLOCK option in pvp , so we can block a player that we dont want to be in a team ever again ? We all agreed to longer match ques ...

Doing this would lead to chaos. Is there a player you know you're likely to lose to? Block them. I don't think that even ANET would permit this.

[Ithilwen.1529]

@Zlater.6789 said:@"Ben Phongluangtham.1065"Sorry about being late to the party, but I really wanted to ask you a question.I remember that the match maker tries to assemble teams based on different classes and it tries it's hardest to separate classes on each team to prevent class stacking. I was thinking that the bigger the game is the less viable this becomes, each elite spec aims to have 3 different design routes with 2 elite specs that's already 6 each class.

Instead of making class diversity a priority, is there any possibility that we might see a "role" feature in the future?A way for a player to say I'm playing as a 'bruiser' so that way the team doesn't end up with 5 bruises the matchmaker can say OK we need a bunker ummmmm let's get this FB bunker because we don't have either of those yet.

Sadly, the community voted down locking classes. Without that, class MMR and anti class stacking fails. The players can always re roll.

[Zlater.6789]

@Ithilwen.1529 said:

@Zlater.6789 said:@"Ben Phongluangtham.1065"Sorry about being late to the party, but I really wanted to ask you a question.I remember that the match maker tries to assemble teams based on different classes and it tries it's hardest to separate classes on each team to prevent class stacking. I was thinking that the bigger the game is the less viable this becomes, each elite spec aims to have 3 different design routes with 2 elite specs that's already 6 each class.

Instead of making class diversity a priority, is there any possibility that we might see a "role" feature in the future?A way for a player to say I'm playing as a 'bruiser' so that way the team doesn't end up with 5 bruises the matchmaker can say OK we need a bunker ummmmm let's get this FB bunker because we don't have either of those yet.

Sadly, the community voted down locking classes. Without that, class MMR and anti class stacking fails. The players can always re roll.

That's not what I'm asking

[Ithilwen.1529]

@Zlater.6789 said:

@Ithilwen.1529 said:

@Zlater.6789 said:@"Ben Phongluangtham.1065"Sorry about being late to the party, but I really wanted to ask you a question.I remember that the match maker tries to assemble teams based on different classes and it tries it's hardest to separate classes on each team to prevent class stacking. I was thinking that the bigger the game is the less viable this becomes, each elite spec aims to have 3 different design routes with 2 elite specs that's already 6 each class.

Instead of making class diversity a priority, is there any possibility that we might see a "role" feature in the future?A way for a player to say I'm playing as a 'bruiser' so that way the team doesn't end up with 5 bruises the matchmaker can say OK we need a bunker ummmmm let's get this FB bunker because we don't have either of those yet.

Sadly, the community voted down locking classes. Without that, class MMR and anti class stacking fails. The players can always re roll.

That's not what I'm asking

The matchmaker attempting to prevent class stacking is irrelevant for two reasons:

The players can re-roll.

Duo queue, which forces a combination on the matchmaker.