55 replies to this topic

[capnjosh]

This shows actual MMR over the last 7 days (as a percentage of the population).

 

 

 

Two quesions:

 

1. Precisely, what are the top 2 matchmaking problems (from your perspective)?

2. In what order should we address those 2 matchmaking issues?

 

Really push to distill to the top 2 issues.  We won't be ignoring the rest; we just want to limit the scope for right now.  And remember, the situation we're in is one of "in which order shall we address the problems; not IF we will address the problems."

[Loglino]

I don't like it when the game says a server is out of my "fitness range".

That and I think we need to do something about mid-game and early-game balance. Sometimes teams are uneven (as in odd number in match) and it becomes very unfair.

 

Not exactly 2 fixes but...

 

Also YAY GRAPHS!

Edited by Loglino, 05 May 2015 - 03:21 PM.

[CounterlogicMan]

1. Games starting without the server being full. This causes the auto-balance system to fail at its duties. Causes a lot of frustration with players and makes leaving more likely. I highly suggest requiring games to be full before starting. Or to have bots fill in the empty spots. MMR scaling bots already exist in offline tdm. They aren't perfect but are better than an empty slot.

 

2. Not enough high mmr players. This is sort of a two in one.  A lot of people give up on Hawken because it is so frustrating playing against good players that possess some knowledge/equipment they don't.   The pie in the sky solution I envision is a collaborative youtube series with community players and devs. That is embedded in the game, like the tutorial series for Planetside 2.

 

3. Not enough people playing Hawken. A lot of people give up/have given up on Hawken because there simply isn't enough people playing it in their region. (high ping vs low ping isn't fun). Advertise!!! The game gud!

Edited by CounterlogicMan, 05 May 2015 - 03:24 PM.

[Xacius]

 

Two quesions:

 

1. Precisely, what are the top 2 matchmaking problems (from your perspective)?

2. In what order should we address those 2 matchmaking issues?

 

Really push to distill to the top 2 issues.  We won't be ignoring the rest; we just want to limit the scope for right now.  And remember, the situation we're in is one of "in which order shall we address the problems; not IF we will address the problems."

 

Top 2 matchmaking problems: 

• Match balancing

Once a match starts, even if games are completely unbalanced, the match will continue so long as both sides have (X) or (X +/- 1) players.  This means that a game that starts as a stomp will often stay as a stomp unless enough people quit and the lobby rebalances.  There are a couple factors that can cause this, but I find that the major one is as follows: An uneven number of players ready up in a lobby.  The matchmaker balances ( X vs. (X+1) ) players the best way it can, i.e. weighing the MMR of the sides and sorting players based on the most balanced matchup (so MMR of team X is as close as possible to MMR of team (X+1) ).

 

Potential solution: mid-match balancing/reorganizing teams whenever a new player joins.  Create more incentive to stay in games, and punish leavers for being scrubs.    

 

• Getting into lobbies

As a high MMR player, I rarely find lobbies that I can get into.  Oftentimes, I'll sit in a queue for 5-10 minutes waiting to be put into a match.  

 

Potential solution: Make a default "High MMR" bracket.  I.e., once you hit a certain point, you can be matched into any lobby beyond that MMR value.  Say you're 2200 MMR.  Now you're in the big leagues, and can be matched into any 2200+ lobby.  If your MMR is higher than 2200, you'll be able to freely join any servers with a 2200 average or above.  

 

Side issue: parties are weighed very heavily atm.  I've been matched into 1250 lobbies, all because the 3 other players were in a party and had a combined MMR (by the party formula) close to 3000.  That fuzzy bunny is whack, yo. 

Edited by Xacius, 06 May 2015 - 12:00 AM.

[CounterlogicMan]

 

Potential solution: Make a default "High MMR" bracket.  I.e., once you hit a certain point, you can be matched into any lobby beyond that MMR value.  Say you're 2200 MMR.  Now you're in the big leagues, and can be matched into any 2200+ lobby.  If your MMR is higher than 2200, you'll be able to freely join any servers with a 2200 average or above.  

 

2200+ mmr range henceforth known as wood league.

[LoC_TR]

It seems to me most players, especially the higher mmr players get split up and spread out over too many different matches, this is exacerbated by the mmr gate but is not a result of it. Say for example I quickmatch into a game, the likely result is I will end up in a game as the highest mmr player with no one to balance against me. Meaning the matchmaker has to stack the teams against me, this forces me into a hard carry where I have to play a mech the will fully represent what my mmr is. There may be 20 other players around my mmr but we're all in our own separate games.

Other issues: leaving games in between matches and the time limit in between matches which I think could be easily remedied.

Edited by LoC_TR, 05 May 2015 - 03:40 PM.

[LEmental]

What Xacius said.

 

I think the match balancing (number of people) is the most important thing to fix right now.  Having incentive to stay in games is very important (right now there really is none).  Maybe the game could force even teams by not letting someone respawn until one of their teammates dies (so even amount of players are IN the game).

 

 

The MMR restriction only affects a small group of people.  It would be nice to fix, but the other issue is more pressing.

Edited by LEmental, 05 May 2015 - 03:40 PM.

[Darktim300]

1. While the lack of servers with people at the upper end is concerning, a bigger problem is how it delegates people to the teams during the match and after. It feels like the teams relatively stay the same regardless of the performance after the matches. This is detrimental to people staying in the servers for long periods of time due to team imbalance.

 

2. The volunteer for team switch could probably be reworked to fix this. Right now it only pops up when people start leaving. I miss the volunteer that was always active from before, in which you could try to que for the change when your team was beating the snot out of the other one.

Edited by Darktim300, 05 May 2015 - 03:59 PM.

[Saturnine]

I made a thread a while back in suggestions with my silly idea for condensing the high MMR end of players so that those at the top more often have games to play while keeping things balanced. Here it is.

 

Anyway, to boil it down to the two problems you're asking for..

 

1. High MMR players start to have trouble finding matches.
   • People start noticing this around ~2300 or 2250 MMR. Though there's a significant tail at the high end of the MMR spectrum, you can't rely on a significant number of those players being on at once in the same server to create the games of a reasonable enough challenge for these players. 
   • The thing about the high end of the MMR spectrum is that the difference between a 2500 MMR player and a 2800 MMR player is nowhere NEAR as big as the difference between a 1500 mmr player and an 1800 MMR player. The high level diversity is rather small, so once you're above 2150 or 2200ish, though the players above you will probably be better, it won't be ludicrous. You could put a lot of these really high end players in servers together and get very interesting matches out of it.
   • There's a huge tail because the starting point is 1250/1500 MMR, the MMR floor is 500, the average is 1500, and the ceiling is 3000. It starts players at a low end and allows a lot of room to grow, but at some point the system breaks and lets players keep going up and up.
   • The idea in the thread I linked attempts to alleviate this with my Bad Math; though I think the idea behind it is reasonable and could help. Basically chop off the top 500 MMR, lowering the cap from 3000 to 2500, so that there's a 1000 point spread above and below the average, reduce MMRs of players proportionately to their level above average (below average MMRs probably shouldn't change since their floor is unchanged, people closer to the average don't change as much, etc. Basically 2500 is the new 3000, etc etc more detail in relevant thread.)
2. What others have said before, the other major problem is that low end. There's not a healthy population of MMRs at the low end to balance out our weirdass high end tail of players. This is pretty much new player attrition, while the people who stick around end up rising up the ranks. Players need more incentive and support to get into the game and stick around with it, both in the long term, and in the short term in terms of sticking around in servers, and having the servers available to them that are appropriate for them.

 

Second question: Number two on my list is the higher priority. High level players are here in one form or another for the long haul, and have been for a while. Newbies/lowbies need the support more.

 

Edit: Hestoned reminded me with his post that comes later in the thread. The Star system for servers is terrrriiibllee and just about every day on the steam forums someone finds out that 3 stars does not equal higher level players and has their mind blown. The star system seriously needs to be reworked.

Edited by Saturnine, 05 May 2015 - 05:02 PM.

[IamSrk]

You Can NEVER fix the Balance/ Match Making & MMR as long as Smurfs continue to make new accounts every other day. This is a sole reason for why you very often see a lousy scout dominating everyone in the other team. His score is in 1000's while other people hardly cross 100. Its not just scout. It can be done with any mech. But you get the idea: Limit one account per IP AND system Specs + verify your account using your phone for additional measure. 1 account per phone/ IP and System Specs. If all taken into view then there will be pretty less smurfs.

 

IP's would be checked on the basis of your registration  and the actual game playing.

[Bergwein]

 

Simple: In every mode (except DM), force the last player in a 2v3/3v4/4v5/5v6 match into the spectator mode. 

So we keep the PvP stable in the amount of players on each team. The spectator can join as soon as one teammate dies. The teammate that just died is now forced into the spectator mode. This will keep on circling as soon as there are enough players on the other side.

 

This for lopsided matches. Although who exactly is forced into spec mode could also be determined by MMR.

[IareDave]

Allow high MMR players the option to join the highest available lobby present. 50% of the time I get into the match I want after 10 minutes of wasteful waiting, and the other 50% I get placed into a match with very low MMR players (sub 1200) who are also having difficulty joining a match. This should be an easy fix unlike the autobalancing which will require a completely new system that isn't ludicrously as basic as the current system which only cares about MMR values and disregards most of the common issues that others have discussed already.

[Broham78]

+1 for adding bots to empty slots

[Dominance]

Is this you?

[ticklemyiguana]

While I'd love to say that the biggest problem is being able to join matches at a high MMR, it's not. That graph proves it.

 

There are so many people in the <2000 MMR range that the issues that affect the highest players (in regards to matchmaking itself, not game balance) are unfortunately quite shallow.

 

1. As far as I see it one of the major problems is starting players at 1250 MMR. 1250 is exceptionally low, and while it appears that the peak of that curve rests at about 1400, I'd be willing to bet that a fair amount of those players at 1400 MMR are relatively new. MMR is only calculated against other players. This means a new player who happens to be ok at the game can really stomp at that initial level, and his or her MMR won't be raised too significantly, thus forcing him to continue playing the game at very low levels for some time.

 

My recommendation is not original, but I'm not sure who initially posed the solution. Give players a single question survey the first time they sign on.

 

"How experienced are you with arena style shooters?"

 

a) lol wut's a computer = 1250 MMR.

 

b) I've played call of duty once or twice = 1500 MMR

 

c) I've played Unreal Tournament for years = 1750 MMR

 

d) I'm a smurf = 2000 MMR.

 

Obviously reword the answers, and the last one is for more than smurfs, it's for people that are just very very good at competitive shooters and want a challenge. This will help get people acquainted with their appropriate playstyles faster than the current system, bring people into the higher MMR range faster and should hopefully do a bit to alleviate both boredom and frustration on the part of newer players.

 

10. The way in which matches work. Autobalance actually does a pretty decent job if a few conditions are met. Those conditions are: relative MMRs are accurate (see solution number 1), the game does not add more players mid game, the number of people on each team is even, people don't leave mid match.

 

Now, I'd love to see casual and competitive servers implemented, but as a non-data scrounging high MMR player, I'm actually not sure whether or not that would be ideal in terms of the playerbase. But, if possible, maintain casual servers in which people can join mid game, leaving doesn't really matter, MMR isn't affected (or is only minimally so), and MMR isn't restricted.

 

Then, implement competitive servers, where the game can start with a minimum of three players per team, offering a start vote to start to the server at 6 players, 8 players, and 10 players, while at 12, it just starts. These are MMR restricted to a degree, but post 2200, as Xacius suggested, you've sort of entered the wild and can be matched with whomever is looking at that time.

 

Leaving a competitive server results in a time out from competitive play, playing in competitive servers nets an HC boost of some sort, and MMR is directly impacted. For the sake of minimizing the impact of smurfing in competitive play, it is restricted to an arbitrary level and above. Ten? Fifteen? Don't want to go too high, but in combination with the initial suggestion, hopefully alt accounts will reach an appropriate MMR by the time they hit this level.

 

______________

 

 

The first problem has a relatively simple fix, I think. The second, not so much, but hopefully some combination of the two will aid in new player retention and grow the playerbase.

[Shadeness]

Some notes:

 

* Users are restricted to servers with an average MMR of +-500 MMR their MMR unless there's a password on the server. None of the current servers have the IgnoreMMR flag enabled.

 

Is it possible to get a graph of # of (populated) servers a user can join within their fitness range?

[comic_sans]

Top 2 matchmaking problems: 

• Match balancing

Once a match starts, even if games are completely unbalanced, the match will continue so long as both sides have (X) or (X +/- 1) players.  This means that a game that starts as a stomp will often stay as a stomp unless enough people quit and the lobby rebalances.  There are a couple factors that can cause this, but I find that the major one is as follows: An uneven number of players ready up in a lobby.  The matchmaker balances ( X vs. (X+1) ) players the best way it can, i.e. weighing the MMR of the sides and sorting players based on the most balanced matchup (so MMR of team X is as close as possible to MMR of team (X+1) ).

 

Potential solution: mid-match balancing/reorganizing teams whenever a new player joins.  Create more incentive to stay in games, and punish leavers for being scrubs.    

 

• Getting into lobbies

As a high MMR player, I rarely find lobbies that I can get into.  Oftentimes, I'll sit in a queue for 5-10 minutes waiting to be put into a match.  

 

Potential solution: Make a default "High MMR" bracket.  I.e., once you hit a certain point, you can be matched into any lobby beyond that MMR value.  Say you're 2200 MMR.  Now you're in the big leagues, and can be matched into any 2200+ lobby.  If your MMR is higher than 2200, you'll be able to freely join any servers with a 2200 average or above.  

 

These are my main two issues and the two best solutions I've seen for them.  Maybe add a congrats reward (HC/MC/Camo) for getting into the pro bracket?

 

Regarding mid-match balancing: I am a decent player of this game, and if I'm in a rare comp game, I'll play to win, but in pubs, I play to do well and have fun, and I'd have no problem with the teams switching whoever whenever as long as it makes the game more balanced for everyone.

Edited by comic_sans, 05 May 2015 - 04:40 PM.

[Call_Me_Ishmael]

You Can NEVER fix the Balance/ Match Making & MMR as long as Smurfs continue to make new accounts every other day. This is a sole reason for why you very often see a lousy scout dominating everyone in the other team. His score is in 1000's while other people hardly cross 100. Its not just scout. It can be done with any mech. But you get the idea: Limit one account per IP AND system Specs + verify your account using your phone for additional measure. 1 account per phone/ IP and System Specs. If all taken into view then there will be pretty less smurfs.

 

IP's would be checked on the basis of your registration  and the actual game playing.

 

 

I'd suggest that instead, give any player topping (MVP) a server below 1800 MMR +200 MMR.  A server 1801-2000, +100 MMR.  A server 2001-2200 +50.  This will very quickly sort out smurfs and move them into a range where others have a chance against them.

 

It will also elevate more-naturally-skilled newbs and help broaden the histogram, and help higher-MMR (non-smurfers) fit into more matches.

[hestoned]

get rid of the star system. bring back public mmr ratings on the server browser. remove the mmr restrictions. allow us to organize the server browser from highest to lowest mmr rating. those on the high end will join the highest available one. this worked flawlessly before. it will work now. we dont need new ideas or "fixes". its a tried and true system. dont fix what isnt broken. correct adhesives biggest mistake to this game.

[Fstroke]

My only suggestion is a reset or at least a fit to model for MMR as something got screwed up over the years.

The top high mmr players are way more than 3 standard deviations out by observation.

It may alleviate the problems with available games especially in the upper tiers but across all skill levels really.

[Hijinks_The_Turtle]

There should also be something done about future s.c.r.u.b accounts as well.  Problems arise when veterans are in scouts against players who've no idea what they're doing along with matchmaker fixes so everyone's happy.  New or lower MMR players don't get smashed badly and higher leveled players get to play more on their actual accounts with others.

 

Now, I'm not saying scouts are the problem.  I'm saying that people of lower MMR range and new players don't have the reflexes to kill the vets in one of the fastest mechs available.  Not to mention this vet knows everything there is to win the match and can make others feel cheated when in fact it's not that at all.  They've just not had enough time to acclimate to those players.  People might say 'lel git gud', but some people's reflexes just aren't good anymore.  I'd say it's an added bonus when these new or lower mmr players stick with the game and eventually get better to the point where they can fight properly.

Edited by Hijinks_The_Turtle, 05 May 2015 - 05:20 PM.

[hestoned]

if mmr was made public again then the only reason a smurf would be in a low rated server is because they chose to be there and stomp. this will happen regardless and happens now with the current system. nothing can be done about that. we dont need complicated systems of limits on accounts or ip tracking or resetting mmr or creating a new range of mmr.

 

please capnjosh. just bring back public mmr and allow the player base to regulate its self. this was working perfectly before. it will work now. the start system makes no distinction about a 1 star server being above or below your range. its confusing and unnecessary. it makes no sense to new players. the mmr restrictions on servers is complete trash. did my friend invite me to a game? sorry your mmr is too high to play with friends. were you in a game but you crashed or lost connection for a minute? good luck getting back into that server. do you want to play in those cool mayhem servers? have fun sitting in que for 10 mins and you MIGHT get in before it fills up.

 

before this abomination of a server browser that adhesive droped on us there were regular 2400 - 2600+ servers. daily. please remove this slap in the face to your most hardcore and dedicated player base. please just let me play hawken.

[GGGanjaMan]

I posted once before about how the auto-balancer only matches players in the lobby ready-up screen. People readying up with a odd# of players in a lobby will usually skew a game with bad balancing (why it's best to only ready up on even # of players or full lobbies). People leaving/joining games after the initial start-up don't get balanced by their mmr, they are just added +1 to each side randomly to keep even #s. Punish leavers by not letting them join a game until the one they left finishes. Also maybe work out a queue system for players joining ongoing matches, by having a balancer queue by mmr for any joiners instead of only at the initial ready-up screen or just prevent joining of games until they're done, because people might not want teams reshuffled everytime someone joins. Maybe add a spectator mode so the people queuing to join a server can just spectate until next game begins.

[kasei]

1. Keep the team player count even.

Set aside MMR for a moment, and just look at the team player count.

• Matches shouldn't start unless the teams are even.
• Two players should be added to a server at a time.
• If a player leaves, add a bot. In siege mode, tell it to hang around AA, and shoot anything that moves.

Mayhem servers can be the exception, but the trade-off should be that those servers must start with many more players.

2. Encourage players not to leave after a match has ended.

If a balanced match was made, and then everyone leaves, the matchmaker now needs to reallocate those people and will imbalance other matches. Add a consecutive match bonus to XP/HC, win/lose doesn't matter. Also, shorten the time between matches.

Edited by kasei, 05 May 2015 - 05:38 PM.

[capnjosh]

I found a setting that may have been the reason high-MMR players could not get matches... at all.  I just changed it to what I believe it *should* be (based on my own interpretation and testing... and the fact that all documentation on MatchMaker v2.5 indicated that value as well).  I've made a few adjustments that I *think* may be a really good start.

[hestoned]

I found a setting that may have been the reason high-MMR players could not get matches... at all.  I just changed it to what I believe it *should* be (based on my own interpretation and testing... and the fact that all documentation on MatchMaker v2.5 indicated that value as well).  I've made a few adjustments that I *think* may be a really good start.

 possible eta on when this can be tested?

[Dedhed]

get rid of the star system. bring back public mmr ratings on the server browser. remove the mmr restrictions. allow us to organize the server browser from highest to lowest mmr rating. those on the high end will join the highest available one.

 

^^^This very much so. Keep matchmaking for the auto join feature, why not. With the server browser, I like this.

 

An automatic, clearly visible indication of one's own mmr would be great. Like at the top of the screen beside your name/pilot level.

 

I also +1 the spectator until someone joins on the other team to even things out suggestion and allow someone to volunteer. If no one volunteers, force it, sure. Hopefully we're nice enough people   that shouldn't be the case too often.

Edited by Dedhed, 05 May 2015 - 06:00 PM.

[DM30]

1. Matches starting with uneven number of players and mid-match joins. These really, really screw with any work the balancing system did before the match started and are the main reason I see for seriously lopsided games.

 

My observation is that it seems like the way Matchmaking prioritizes servers for queued players is partially to blame for this. It seems to avoid starting new servers like the plague and drops players in active games at any given opportunity, regardless of how balanced or imbalanced that match is at the time. I would like to see it look at how many people are queued at the present time, and if there are enough players of similar MMR queuing at once (say 8+) it starts a new server with those players and tries to fill it with more as quickly as possible before the match starts. Only if that isn't possible should it look at dropping players in games in-progress. Just an idea off the top of my head, but I just know that the current way matchmaking finds games is less than ideal (obviously, since this topic exists).

 

2. Parties being placed in the same queue as solo players. The balancer's ability to properly create balanced teams is hampered by the presence of parties. I would rather see parties get their own queue, and have matchmaking start a new server with the most similar parties available. Out of curiosity, is it possible to see how many parties there generally are queued at any point in time? That would be an interesting thing to see in the context of this discussion.

Edited by DM30, 05 May 2015 - 05:57 PM.

[SatelliteJack]

... and the time limit in between matches which I think could be easily remedied.

 

 

I'd suggest that instead, give any player topping (MVP) a server below 1800 MMR +200 MMR.  A server 1801-2000, +100 MMR.  A server 2001-2200 +50.  This will very quickly sort out smurfs and move them into a range where others have a chance against them.

 

It will also elevate more-naturally-skilled newbs and help broaden the histogram, and help higher-MMR (non-smurfers) fit into more matches.

 

 

get rid of the star system. bring back public mmr ratings on the server browser. remove the mmr restrictions. allow us to organize the server browser from highest to lowest mmr rating. those on the high end will join the highest available one. this worked flawlessly before. it will work now. we dont need new ideas or "fixes". its a tried and true system. dont fix what isnt broken. correct adhesives biggest mistake to this game.

 

 

These right here seem to just about nail it.

[Hyginos]

I'd suggest that instead, give any player topping (MVP) a server below 1800 MMR +200 MMR.  A server 1801-2000, +100 MMR.  A server 2001-2200 +50.  This will very quickly sort out smurfs and move them into a range where others have a chance against them.

 

It will also elevate more-naturally-skilled newbs and help broaden the histogram, and help higher-MMR (non-smurfers) fit into more matches.

 

Someone has to top the server though. There needs to be a minimum point difference by which you outscore a server for this to apply. A 100-200 MMR bump is just too large to throw around like that.

[Roarschak]

+1 Punish leavers by not letting them join a game until the one they left finishes.

+1 Add a consecutive match bonus to XP/HC, win/lose doesn't matter.

 

I have observed this also:

It feels like the teams relatively stay the same regardless of the performance after the matches.

[Call_Me_Ishmael]

Hyginos,

 

If they get the bump and can't hold the grade (MMR), they will lose 35 each time they try to defend it.  I think faster-up and slower-down is likely better than our current slow-up (for most good players) and orders-of-magnitude-faster-down.

 

But - like all things - try a modification, and collect data.  I'm all for the experimental/empirical observation.

Edited by Call_Me_Ishmael, 05 May 2015 - 07:27 PM.

[Max_Reed]

As a person who has only played for a week, I feel like the "This Server is Out of Your Fitness Range" message is annoying. I feel like any person should be able to join a game on their friends list regardless of MMR standing. Smurfs are a thing in every single competitive game ever and there is no way to limit them without pissing off the player base in some way (I've always been an exceedingly competitive gamer and have had my hand in a lot of games). People will find a way to circumvent MMR one way or another or be angry that they can't queue up with their friends. If you guys were to implement a ranked system, however, I feel like this would balance out the issue at hand because players across every spectrum of MMR can play casuals with friends (and other people from low or high mmr's), and when they're feeling serious they can play some ranked to try-hard. Aside from that, I feel like repetitive leaving should be punished as well. In my opinion, people that leave on occasion shouldn't be punished, but people who make a habit of leaving or rage quitting should certainly receive some sort of time penalty before being allowed to queue again. 

[CrimsonKaim]

1. Matches with uneven amount of players due to leaving and joining the match. (3v4s, etf.)

Solution: Abit like in Heroes and Generals, prevent the 4th player in the 4v3 match (the 4th player and the 4 head team) from spawning until a teammate dies. The teammate who just died is now in the waiting corner or whatever you wanna call it and is unable to spawn until another teammate dies.
Continue until we have a 4v4.

2. Leaving and joining (especially joining). The mm balances players at the beginning of a match. In the worst case, 5v4 with an even number of MMR points.
One player joins and it turns out to be a 5v5 but the one team has now more MMR than the other one (the difference is equal to the MMR of the player joined).

Solution: Refuse to start a match with uneven numbers of players. This will cause an even number of players witu an even number of mmr points.

[DarkSpock]

I made a thread a while back in suggestions with my silly idea for condensing the high MMR end of players so that those at the top more often have games to play while keeping things balanced. Here it is.

 

Anyway, to boil it down to the two problems you're asking for..

 

1. High MMR players start to have trouble finding matches.
   • People start noticing this around ~2300 or 2250 MMR. Though there's a significant tail at the high end of the MMR spectrum, you can't rely on a significant number of those players being on at once in the same server to create the games of a reasonable enough challenge for these players. 
   • The thing about the high end of the MMR spectrum is that the difference between a 2500 MMR player and a 2800 MMR player is nowhere NEAR as big as the difference between a 1500 mmr player and an 1800 MMR player. The high level diversity is rather small, so once you're above 2150 or 2200ish, though the players above you will probably be better, it won't be ludicrous. You could put a lot of these really high end players in servers together and get very interesting matches out of it.
   • There's a huge tail because the starting point is 1250/1500 MMR, the MMR floor is 500, the average is 1500, and the ceiling is 3000. It starts players at a low end and allows a lot of room to grow, but at some point the system breaks and lets players keep going up and up.
   • The idea in the thread I linked attempts to alleviate this with my Bad Math; though I think the idea behind it is reasonable and could help. Basically chop off the top 500 MMR, lowering the cap from 3000 to 2500, so that there's a 1000 point spread above and below the average, reduce MMRs of players proportionately to their level above average (below average MMRs probably shouldn't change since their floor is unchanged, people closer to the average don't change as much, etc. Basically 2500 is the new 3000, etc etc more detail in relevant thread.)
2. What others have said before, the other major problem is that low end. There's not a healthy population of MMRs at the low end to balance out our weirdass high end tail of players. This is pretty much new player attrition, while the people who stick around end up rising up the ranks. Players need more incentive and support to get into the game and stick around with it, both in the long term, and in the short term in terms of sticking around in servers, and having the servers available to them that are appropriate for them.

 

Second question: Number two on my list is the higher priority. High level players are here in one form or another for the long haul, and have been for a while. Newbies/lowbies need the support more.

 

Edit: Hestoned reminded me with his post that comes later in the thread. The Star system for servers is terrrriiibllee and just about every day on the steam forums someone finds out that 3 stars does not equal higher level players and has their mind blown. The star system seriously needs to be reworked.

 

I agree with adjusting the MMR cap, there is a point where MMR becomes less representative of a player's skill and instead becomes a showcase of how much effort the player has put into increasing said MMR, which shouldn't be the case if its true purpose is for matchmaking. 2500 sounds like a reasonable number given the playerbase and the number should probably tweaked even more on a regional basis (if possible) as this issue becomes even more prominent on less populated regions.

 

Some of the other issues, like smurf accounts, likely stem as a side effect of this issue, i.e. high level players can't find a match they can enjoy in, either because they have to hard carry or can't join a game at their level,  create a smurf, stomp the low level players, resulting in low level players leaving and the vicious cycle repeats.

[MomOw]

1. Precisely, what are the top 2 matchmaking problems (from your perspective)?

2. In what order should we address those 2 matchmaking issues?

 

 

1. New player joining a match leading to uneven team / starting with uneven teams

2. first deal with new player joining balanced match

Edited by MomOw, 05 May 2015 - 09:07 PM.

[thirtysix]

More restrictions on mm, IareDave got put in a match with me... I'm ranked like #568... and he's best player on the board... sup wit dat?

all you learn to play better donkeys... save it for someone else... there isn't any getting better here

[Kopra]

Numerical imbalance (3v2, 4v3, 5v4 and 6v5). It's hardly ever balanced or fun, especially when the team with less people get a late joiner. Someone in the numerically advantaged team might sit out, which then gives the previously undermanned team an MMR advantage.

"Looks like you came to the wrong place". A sole player who is several hundred MMR away from the server average, especially if the server's MMR distribution is low (everyone is more or less the same MMR), that sole player will destroy the balance either by essentially being dead weight (makes a 5v4 feel like 4v4 with the other team having a massive MMR advantage) or by being too good and carrying the whole team. Latter is mostly a problem in low end rooms (and the former in high end).

[Xacius]

 

all you learn to play better donkeys... save it for someone else... there isn't any getting better here

then git redy 2 git rekt, you casul fuzzy bunnyng scrublord

Edited by Xacius, 06 May 2015 - 01:12 AM.

[Nept]

While I'd love to say that the biggest problem is being able to join matches at a high MMR, it's not. That graph proves it.

 

There are so many people in the <2000 MMR range that the issues that affect the highest players (in regards to matchmaking itself, not game balance) are unfortunately quite shallow.

 

You fool.  If you allow the top 1% into any server they want, their enjoyment will trickle down and benefit the other classes.