Is the matchmaking - well, broken?

Mercenary Center Q & A Section (Pilots Version)
#1

Hello.

 

I am kinda new to this game, played for a while, unlocked up to a not all that bad equipped Lynx-M.

The thing is - with the Lynx I had fun. I fought against enemies of equal power* which reeaally helped learning the game! I got better and could actually put up a decent and equal fight relatively quickly!

It was so fun and I liked it a lot!

* (Okay, I once or twice encountered a higher-tier-player, but it worked relatively flawlessly.)

 

Now, when I fly with my Lynx-M, I get steamrolled all the time by Tier 2 players who I can shoot at all day with everything I have while they need one missile and a few shots to turn me into dust.

 

I mean - what the hell?

Is this intentional? Was I just unlucky and experienced a rare and unfortunate concidence?

Because this goes so far that I actually started to play PvE all the time, not daring to touch that PvP button because I don’t want to lose - all - the - time!

 

So my questions are:

a) Is this actually how the matchmaking  regularly  works? Like - seriously…?

b) If so, is there a way to work around it, some way to “trick” the system into matching me up with same-tier-players?

 

Because if a) is “yes” and b) is “no”… then, to be honest, I am not sure if I want to keep playing this game. For a while I thought “Yeah, spend some money on it next month!”, but now? I… well, as it is now, I won’t.

The game itself is really fun, but how am I supposed to experience any of said fun if me and my Tier 1 ship get thrown into Tier 2 moshpits where a horde of players do nothing but use me as a nice score machine by quickly killing me off again and again and again(!!) with no real chance to win?

I can sometimes chase a guy for around ten seconds, using modules, firing missiles and shooting at him like a madman, barely getting even just his shield down - and then, the moment he is able to aim at me, I’m dead within seconds.

 

Hell, the last match - my team was actually FULL of new Tier 1 players trying to learn the game… and the enemies were ALL Tier 2 players!

Needless to say: We were quite literally destroyed. Lost without managing to capture even just one beacon, got maybe one or two kills and a whole truckload of deaths.

You… you can’t be serious. Call me crazy, but this doesn’t make the slightest bit of sense in terms of actual matchmaking, you can’t call me whiny or a complainer for that - it’s bullshit.

 

I’m sorry, you made a very fun game and I started looking at you as that strange company that somehow gives me exactly the games I was looking for (and exactly what I want them to be like)…

… but if you are actually serious about this (sorry) bad joke of a matchmaking system, I have to say I’ll propably be gone in a few days. Simply because I honestly don’t have the nerves to grind myself up to Tier 5 in PvE just to work around it and to then be able to actually properly learn and enjoy this game.

 

If anyone has any advice on how to work around this, please fill me in.

I really, really want to enjoy and keep playing this game.

 

And just to make it perfectly clear: I am only so upset and I only react so strongly because I really like this game a LOT.

I wouldn’t even say something if I didn’t.

 

 

Greets,

Anvanaar

#2

Tiers can be mixed a little bit.  People people will mix the tiers of their slots slightly while entering a new tier.  Your teammates could have had T2 ships in their slots but favored the T1 ship for whatever reason.

 

As for PvE, one thing I might recommend using PvE for is firing accurately at a moving target without a target lock.  The ranges in PvE are somewhat small, and the bots easy enough to kill.  If you get higher level ships and then switch to PvP, you’re going to have a worse experience than what you’re having now.

#3

Hello,

 

are you sure that the enmey team was flying Tier 2 and not Rank 2?
Which ships were they flying? Could you give me the names?

Greetings
Error

#4

difference between ships within 2 ranks is relatively slim and heavily based on player skill rather than ship power. 

Here is an example:

rGmUFF6.jpg

Older iteration of matchmaking had way bigger discrepancy for mixing ship ranks, it was up to 6-7 ranks. In this picture we are flying T1 (rank 3) ships and facing T2-T3 (Rank6-Rank9) ship in the game mode where you have 1 life per ship, so you cant simply throw your bodies at enemies, you don’t get to respawn in the same ship.

I am not saying that ships are equal in power, no they are not, but power difference within 1-2 ranks is very small.

Another thing is that on average every next Tier means that average players have relatively better skill and game understanding, so it gets harder to play with each step. If you think that rushing to T5 (to avoid ships with higher ranks than you) will make your game easier, you are very-very wrong, it will be a living hell for you, in those tiers there are are a lot of brutally skilled players, that have 10 000+ games, believe me, best way to progress is to play PvP tier by tiers and getting more experiences one step at a time.

#5

For me it’s broken. It needs fixed.

 

I’m not a good player so I lower the whole team. Why not match up all us negative w/l players? It will improve it for everyone.

 

Good players go to the top. Bad players all have a close match-up

#6

What tier are you flying? What ships do you use? What level are your modules?

There is a lot of fine detail to the game that is not well explained. Positioning is a prime example of a skill that can turn an average player into a game winning one.

It’s tricky to go into detail on the forum, but try to spot the really good players and note how they use cover, time their attacks and focus fire.