Jump to content
  • Sign Up

Match Making Transparency Improvement


Recommended Posts

Posted

Hey all,

I've been pretty interested in a lot of the data that ANET has been posting about the improvements to their matchmaking algorithms. I think these are great, and this post is to list a few ideas to possibly improve the system even further.

To me, the matchmaking improvements will only go so far. IMO, the best thing that could be included in a matchmaker is transparency in the algorithm to the player in game. Here are some possible examples of that:

  1. Tell the player when they are queueing, how much +- above their current rating the algorithm is currently searching for.
  2. Tell the player (post game) what the MMR of the other players in the game was. People rage way too often thinking that the matchmaker is stacked against them, but in realtity they just played poorly.
  3. Have a "slider" that allows the player to determine their matchmaking "range" if you will. Say its the last day of the season and I need 3 games to play, I could set my "range" to something like +-50 points. I would do this knowing that the consequence is longer queue times. Early in the season, I may not care as much and just want to play games so I could set my "range" to +-200.

These are just a few ideas, but the theme is to give control/information to the player in the game. Improvement behind the scenes will only go so far in terms of improving attitude/outcomes. At the end of the day, being in the dark about the process will always leave holes for unnecessary SALT.

Thanks!

Posted

1. Show Search RangeWhile seemingly easy, this would just add to player confusion rather than help it. Your rating may not have expanded, but someone who are you matched with may have. Then you wonder why you got matched with someone 100 rating higher when you were only at ±50.

2. MMR of others playersThere are pros and cons to this. I think the cons out-weigh the pros. Chances are that losing players will rage at the lowest rated player (despite any actual good or bad performance) in place of the current general complaints.

3. Rating SliderNot enough return on investment. It's likely time-consuming to design and implement, while having little actual effect. The majority of players are fine with the current system. Those near the top will likely switch to the expanded range anyway after sitting and waiting. The outcome is no different than the current system.


What would be useful while not provoking targeted rage is being able to see the average rating of each team and the average deviation of each team (how close to the average are each players' ratings).

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...