Fix this bullshit matchmaking system before it's too late
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@St-blackMaster I made a post about this too, but I'm starting to see this from a developer's perspective.
It's probably not easy fixing matchmaking, and like this guy said, "...it's delicate..."
This game, however, is the only kind of MOBA I enjoy, and it's the closest thing I'm gonna get to playing Gigantic.
It's funny how this game works tbh. I've been in games where all is lost, and you're 100% sure the matchmaking screwed you. Then to make things worse, 2 of those new players rage quit, leaving you with a 2v4 match. You've all but completely given up, so you just say "fuck it" and screw around till they win. Maybe try to pick off the team members getting cocky trying to get power ups only to be massacred by their teammates right after you get the kill.
Then you get the 2 new players to que in. All of a sudden your futile attempts at getting any kills turn into captures. Then you continue to gain points until your you're both in the 500s. The enemy team is taken by surprise because your team suddenly got skillful, and they're unable to appropriately counter. You come back beating them by 50 haha
These moments, and the ones where you que in to save the day, are the reasons I love this game. You really don't know what you're gonna get. Like a box of chocolates.
I think instead of level, matchmaking should be determined by time played. The more you've played, the more skilled you are obviously. A level just reflects the amount of xp you earned which varies depending on how well you did in a game and wether you won, which doesn't equate to skill level imo.
People who've played 1 day total get matched up, 2 days get matched up, 3 days ect...
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Being completely honest? I don't think it's nearly as bad as people make it out to be. I think the game being incredibly difficult to make a significant impact as a solo player and always needing to rely on your other 3 teammates contributing in some way gives a lot of players a false sense of where they're at. A lot of players massively overestimate themselves and are quick to blame their teammates for everything, and in turn, the matchmaker for providing them with those teammates. It has created a pretty toxic environment in general.
I've said this many times before but I think the aspect that is the most fundamentally wrong with this game is how it was ultimately presented, in comparison to what it is and how it's best played.
What I mean by that is - the game at its core is extremely competitive and team oriented. It should have been marketed around competitive, team oriented gameplay. The target audience should have been those who are looking for a real hardcore challenge. "Esports" material. Instead, I feel like it focused too much on the quirkiness of the characters and the artstyle, and as a result, attracted a much more casual playerbase. You see Overwatch comparisons absolutely everywhere but if you've played the game more than a couple of hours, you'd know there's very very little in common. I think that proves to me that the wrong message was sent out about the game. It's not a casual, quirky Overwatch substitute at its greatest potential, it's a highly competitive, team oriented game.
Obviously there's a massive difference in development size, budget and expertise which I absolutely respect, but I look at the way Valorant was presented/marketed and wonder what Bleeding Edge would be like if it followed their model. Valorant is a competitive, team oriented game. Instead of focusing on what abilities the characters can perform and what their personalities are, they focused on the fundamental details of the game that competitive players would be most interested in. As well as gameplay videos of the developers themselves, in communication, raw and largely unedited, trying to recreate the exact same experience that they would want the players to have themselves.
I think Bleeding Edge would have attracted a lot more teams that were looking to compete in this game, or teams that just want a competitive experience. Resulting in a playerbase that reflected what the game is at its core and how it best performs. Because you definitely can't say that about the playerbase right now. As a result, with no changes to the matchmaker itself, I think the game would have provided a much better experience overall.
I think the next big patch being a huge content drop will hopefully be a step in bringing more players into the game. Because right now, there is no magical fix to the matchmaking system because the playerbase isn't there to support it. The same goes with Ranked. I think the current playlist should be competitive, but it lacks a ton of integrity and credibility right now because there are a lot of unbalanced games.
I know I said "competitive, team oriented" about a thousand times but I'm trying to highlight that phrase the most. Because I don't think that's how you could truly describe the game in its current state. Even though that's what it's made for in my opinion. And that's not the matchmaker's fault, that's what the playerbase ultimately lacks, and now there's a much smaller playerbase altogether.
I do want to reiterate that I still enjoy playing the game a lot. I have Solo Queued 90% of my games and, of course I run into unbalanced matches sometimes, but I don't think it's nearly as bad as people make out. I think a lot of player's mentalities are pretty poor but I don't blame them at all. They are taking the game a lot more competitively in a much more casual environment. And that's essentially what the game is right now, casual. I just think the overall quality of the game has suffered because it's not competitively focused.
Right now, if you do team up and 4 stack, you are likely to be the only team playing so you will absolutely stomp pretty much every match. So it's always interesting that people don't complain about winning unbalanced games but they're quick to complain if they lose in a supposedly unbalanced Solo Queue match. People just don't like losing full stop.
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@St-blackMaster Me pasa, lo mismo que a ti, los nuevos jugadores solo juegan pensando en ellos. Nunca en equipo y muchos de niveles altos los mismo. Tambien tienen que cambiar un poco lo de ecoger células. Ya llevo de 15 partidas 14 recogiendo y 12 en el mismo mapa con jugadores novatos. ya me cansa un poco el juego, parecia bueno al principio ahora ya aburre.
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@St-blackMaster I fully support you. This is a real pain, when matchmaker connects you with 1-7 lvls against 15-100 in 15 games in a row. And this is 15 losing matches and -1,5% of win rate.
It's not about search time. Matchmaker often creates teams 50,6,6,7 vs 17, 24,80,100. Nothing prevents him from simply swapping these players 80,50,17, 6 vs 100,24,7,6.
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@x-AmberPrice said in Fix this bullshit matchmaking system before it's too late:
Being completely honest? I don't think it's nearly as bad as people make it out to be. I think the game being incredibly difficult to make a significant impact as a solo player and always needing to rely on your other 3 teammates contributing in some way gives a lot of players a false sense of where they're at. A lot of players massively overestimate themselves and are quick to blame their teammates for everything, and in turn, the matchmaker for providing them with those teammates. It has created a pretty toxic environment in general.
Sorry Amber, but I definitely do not agree with you on this.
The matchmaker is absolutely flawed, and it's not about expecting the team to be on the same page as you or synchronize their playstyle with yours. No the matchmaker is flawed because it matches completely new players with more experienced players.
It's not about impact, it's about you wanting to play the game, while 2 of your team mates are standing in spawn trying to locate the mount up button, and then go on to explore the map because they are literally level 1 and this is their 1st game. Or the game starts and you see 1 of your team mates moving straight to the enemy spawn because they don't understand the game, and think that they should find the enemies and kill them (because it's their 2nd or 3rd game).Meanwhile it gets so much worse in terms of backfills. When one of your team mates leave, the game searches for ANY available player. Could be someone who has literally just installed the game and has not even tried the tutorial yet. While you would be in a match against Holo's 4 stack, and this is extremely likely because everyone leaves the games that seem unballanced, and your reshuffled team will basically be like pieces of cloth stuffing holes in the ceiling.
All we want is for most of our matches to be normal, and we can tolerate a few hick ups here and there with new players, but the way it is right now is the complete opposite. Most of our matches are extremely bad because of players who belong with other new players, and the normal matches of likely skilled players are the hick ups.
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@b4nj4x7581 "Also the swap/shuffle thing, would you be suggesting that it actively breaks stacks of players trying to play together? Because I don't see the change being overly impactful otherwise and that's something I'm sure many players would not enjoy. Matchmaking is a delicate thing to change in my opinion. You change it the wrong way, you're gonna end up with smurf accounts or losing players."
I never suggested to break parties. What made you say it won't be impactful otherwise? I play majority of my matches against solo players.
"Lastly I'm not saying it's too much to ask for them to fix matchmaking, it's just tiring because at this point, we all know it's a problem, we all agree it has to be fixed but ultimately there's not much we can do about it by asking for it over and over again. For whatever reason, the devs haven't figured it out yet or they are holding it back until they are sure it won't be detrimental to the game. That said I'm not a dev so I have no idea why it's not fixed, I just know they have limitations and everyone has already established it's a problem that needs fixing. Posts asking for a fix now does nothing for the game."
You have no idea why it isn't fixed? Guess what? Me neither. That's why i made this post.
Replies defending Ninja Theory on their 'suggestions & feedback' thread does nothing for the game either. -
I think the general rule of the matchmaker is that it prioritises win rate and character performance over profile level, essentially SBMM. I think people lose a match, see that they have a player less experienced than them on their team, and use them as an easy target to put blame on. There's always more you can do to win a match, even in solo queue, to make that little bit of a difference. Whether that's switching up team compositions or mod loadout, or switching who your first target is. And some players simply don't have the competitive mindset to play like that, or just simply don't want to, and they just want to fly around on their hoverboard with their favourite character and have some fun. And that isn't exclusive to low level, inexperienced players at all. And that isn't always exclusive to you and your team either, the exact same player mindset could be present on the opposite team that just beat you.
There are several low levelled players that are better than some high level, experienced players. Skill level and player profile level aren't directly correlated to each other in many instances. But the community has pretty much made that connection themselves.
I don't like how frequently brand new players get pushed into experienced player's games in general though, regardless of individual skill. I think it has an affect on how long they're willing to stay around for sure. I think being eased in more appropriately would be beneficial to the playerbase overall. I mentioned something like a Casual Queue here: https://forum.bleedingedge.com/topic/1533/afk-players-and-griefers/3 , But,I just don't know if the numbers are there to support something like this, especially long term. There's enormous skill gaps in this game in general right now, and again, the playerbase just isn't there to healthily fulfill each skill base in the game currently.
Backfilling is a whole problem in itself and I have explained possible workarounds that I think would be beneficial to the game. I think the latest post I made is here: https://forum.bleedingedge.com/topic/1573/changing-the-backfill-for-players-who-dont-quit-matches/2
I know people tend to clown on the fact that no one has played the tutorial, but if you look at the Xbox achievements, 61% of players have completed ALL of the tutorials, which is more than the amount of players who have won a single game. Truthfully, I think new players are just easy targets to put blame on. Of course there are matches that are extremely unbalanced, usually due to just that 1 player who seemingly doesn't know what he's doing, but that's the same with most multiplayer games. New players make up a pretty large percentage of the overall playerbase right now so it is bound to happen occasionally.
Sometimes players just have poor matches as well? I'm sure you've had your fair share of bad performances like we all have. It's a team game at the end of the day. If one player on your team makes mistakes, that could be the difference between the two teams. Like I said in my previous post, you fundamentally have to rely on the contribution of the rest of your team. You don't win alone, and you don't lose alone.
Just my opinion of course
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Here is another thing people love to do, they love to jump into conclusions rather than addressing the problem that too by generalizing the fan base in order to show off their 'pseudo superior competitive mindset'.
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We already have smurf accounts. In fact a lot of the top players have smurf accounts to protect their percentage when trying new ish. See my Bastardo Emot Cancelling you to oblivion at level 5
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Don't defend the bad matchmaking. It's bad, and the devs need to make it better.
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@I-WORSTPLAYER-I said in Fix this bullshit matchmaking system before it's too late:
to protect their percentage
And that's a problem too. There are no other incentives in the game to set a goal and determine your personal growth by it. When we have a surplus of coins and gears, we come up with a goal to raise the percentage of victories - overall or for individual characters.
For example, Halo does not have any ratings and win / lose influence. Losing does not bother me at all, because the next one will be victorious. Players can change teams at any time if there is an imbalance. You can leave the lobby at any time if there are 2-3 guys who are too skillful in one team and they just farm a weak team.
WoTanks have a percentage and other things. And with all this, NOBODY leaves the battle if the team starts to lose, because even the last player can eliminate 3-6 enemies alone with the proper skill and luck, and win the game. And for completing the match, valuable experience is given, which are always in short supply, and is needed to open new vehicles.
I played in another tactical pvp 4x4 (Xcom-like) game where, being the last survivor, I could take down the 2 last enemies.
Well, I haven't played in moba, overwatch and everything else that Edge is compared to, but the balance here, where you can't do anything, even if 1 mate gets out of the game, even when I play DMC on DMD difficulty, it seems depressing.
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@GattlingCombo said in Fix this bullshit matchmaking system before it's too late:
Don't defend the bad matchmaking. It's bad, and the devs need to make it better.
So how would you make it better then? Taking into account the number of players that currently play the game as well as the several skill gaps?
Only things I desperately (and realistically) want changing are how backfilling works, and if possible, how group matchmaking works.
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I want to add that until very recently, I thought that the matchmaking simply wasn't working due to limited playerbase to cover all the skill gaps or whatever and that most unbalanced matches with like a bunch of level 4s and 6s on one side and 80+ on the other side which lead me to assume, oh they're stacking and clearly there wasn't any similarly leveled 4 stacks at the time. However, now that I've actively started asking people on the enemy team if they are stacked in those situations, turns out that most of the time, they're just all solo. Makes it clear that the matchmaking could've put one of their high level players on our team and one of our new players on their team and that would have made a huge difference I think. So now I legitimately have a real problem with the matchmaking and I won't be defending it much anymore.
Also despite what @x-AmberPrice is saying about "Skill level and player profile level aren't directly correlated to each other in many instances" which I believe is very true, I still think that profile level should generally be what the matchmaking is based on. I don't care how good a level 10 is or how bad a level 110 is, seeing a combined level of under 100 vs a combined level of 300+ naturally makes the match feel uneven and those numbers really can effect one's mindset, especially mine even though I feel I know better.
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@b4nj4x7581
Matchmaking doesn't take player profile level into account at all hence why there are a lot of games that are seemingly "unbalanced" in that aspect. I am absolutely not going to name drop but there are several low level players that are infinitely better than several high level players. It literally means nothing 90% of the time. If a level 10 matches vs a level 100 then it's because they have a similar MMR (win rate, KPL, character performance, etc).
What you do need is good chemistry and team coordination. You can't win alone. Sometimes there are really small margins for victory and I genuinely think going into a match with the mindset that you will probably lose due to a low level player on your team can be the difference between being on the winning or losing side, rather than that low level player performing badly.
I'd suggest NT block the ability to check players' profiles in game, I think it would help disprove the myth that player profile level = skill level as well as reduce general toxicity.
The game hinders on individual decision making and no matter your experience or skill level, you are going to make the wrong decisions occasionally. Especially when you've got 3 other players on your team to synergise your decisions with.
In Solo Q, there are many times where experience tells me that a certain player is absolutely making the wrong decision, however backing his decision and joining him can often lead to a successful outcome anyway, rather than leaving him to die and being pretentious.
I have said previously however that despite all of what I've just said, I still think generally speaking that low level players are thrown into more experienced players' matches too often/too soon and the matchmaker is a little too aggressive in that regard. However, the playerbase essentially dictates the quality of the matchmaker. If there's not enough new players for a "casual queue" of sorts, then they're going to be placed into matches to make up the numbers. Likewise if there's not enough "experienced players" on at one time.
More players = better matchmaking system IMO.
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@x-AmberPrice - I definitely agree with the idea that more players would go a long way toward better matchmaking, but I think it's interesting to note that poor matchmaking is precisely the thing many posters higher up in the thread suggest prevents the game from retaining more players. So there seems to be a bit of a chicken and egg argument there. I don't know if there's an objective answer out there, but it seems like it could be framed as an empirical question.
I wonder if NT has done focus groups or any particular data analysis to assess reasons for the size of the player base. It certainly could be the way the game was marketed (as you suggested in contrast to Valorant, for instance), or just a couple of bad reviews, etc. But as much as I agree with your thoughts about the importance of gamer mindset and as much as I like your ideas about a casual queue, it does seem to me that the folks pointing out issues with matchmaking are pointing to very legitimate possibilities for why this game didn't stick for other gamers. They might be right that matchmaking changes would attract more players.
As much as I agree, too, that player level is not causally related to skill level, it may very well be the case that they're statistically correlated in this particular game. Or, (more likely IMHO, but I don't know details about how the MM works in BE) it may just be the case that a purely SBMM system, or too-heavily weighted SBMM system, is being tricked by a small sample size of games played into viewing lower-level players as more highly skilled than they actually are. In either scenario, folks looking at games with high disparities between player levels and complaining about that is precisely what you'd expect to see.
Maybe none of that is actually the case, but we can't rule it out without knowing the MM formula. If it is the case, then one fix might be your casual queue idea, which would be great. But if the player base is too small for casual queue it's also truly possible that weighting player level just a little more in the MM would accomplish the same goal. I'll bet NT is already looking at it, but if they aren't I at least hope they'll review the mechanics of the MM and crunch some of the data to find out if players here are pointing them to a real issue. It's worth review.
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