In today’s entry we’re going to tell you how matchmaking (balancing) works in our game.
Matchmaking is based on the player’s rating.
What is matchmaker rating?
It’s very important to understand that it’s not the same thing as skill rating!
Matchmaker rating is a certain numerical value. The following things affect matchmaker rating:
Ship rank. Each rank has its own rating. This rating is the base matchmaker rating.
Installed weapon modifications:
Мк1: -2 points
Мк2: 0 points
Мк3: 0 points
Мк4: +2 points
Ship synergy.
1st level: -2 points
Maximum: 0 points.
Squad size:
1 pilot: 0 points
2 pilots: +1 point;
3 pilots: +3 points;
4 pilots: +5 points.
Player “Skill rating”. Every 100 points of deviation from the base value (1100) give ±1 point, but not more than 4 points in total.
Recent battle results.
Victory increases matchmaker rating by +0,5 points
Defeat reduces matchmaker rating by - 0,5 points
Maximum combat result influence is capped at ±4 points
Upon your first daily login into the game, last day’s influence becomes twice as weakП How does rating work?
There are two ratings, full and brief:
Full rating is calculated with the rules mentioned above and is used when dividing selected players into teams
Brief rating is used when selecting players for battle
Brief matchmaker calculation rules:
if full rating is higher than the base one by more than two points, then brief rating equals full plus 2 points;
if full rating is lower than the base one by more than 2 points, then brief rating equals base minus 2 points;
if both conditions don’t apply, brief rating equals the full one.
Squad rating is calculated in a special way described below. Ratings, ships and game modes
You may have noticed that so far we’ve been using singular forms when talking about ratings and ships.
This is all because of rating calculation depending on the game mode:
Single pilot matchmaker rating in PvP is calculated using the most advanced ship of all the ships installed in the pilot’s combat slots.
Squad matchmaker rating in PvP is calculated using special rules described below.
Single pilot matchmaker rating in PvE is calculated using the least advanced ship of all the ships installed in the pilot’s combat slots.
Squad matchmaker rating in PvE is calculated using an average of the least advanced ships installed in the squad members’ combat slots.
You can see your matchmaker rating using a special chat command /set cl_showMmQueueInfo 1
Queues
Depending on your rating you get into one of the queues. Onepilot may be in several queues at a time. As a result, one team may have ships of various ranks.
Server picks player partues with close brief matchmaker ratings within the queue. When the group of players has been chosen, it is divided into two teams on the basis of full matchmaker rating.
Distribution of queues by rank and rating
The picture shows that:
there is a total of 10 queues
queues 1,3,5,7 and 9 are base queues: only the ships of the same rank are included in these queues
queues 2,4,6 and 8 are intermediate: ships of two adjacent ranks are included in these queues Squads
How is matchmaker rating calculated for squads?
Full matchmaker rating is calculated separately for each pilot in the squad.
Depending on squad size, maximum value of the brief matchmaker rating is calculated:
1-pilot squad is equal to a single player: rating growth limit stands at 2 points
2-pilot squad: rating growth limit stands at 3 points
3-pilot squad: rating growth limit stands at 5 points
4-pilot squad: rating growth limit stands at 7 points
Average value of full matchmaker rating is calculated for the squad. If a pilot’s full rating is lower than the average squad rating, this pilot’s rating is not taken into consideration when calculating the full squad rating.
Thus, there is no way to artificially lower a squad’s rating by accepting weaker pilots on lower-ranked ships…
Top-squads
We’ve already mentioned that squads may receive up to +7 points to their matchmaker rating. What happens if a squad of high-tier ships goes into battle?
If the squad’s matchmaker rating is higher than 50, such a squad is placed in a special 10th queue that can’t contain single pilots of any rank.
If you think that there was a matchmaker mistake in your game/team, please report it [here](< base_url >/index.php?/forum/253-matchmaker/).
I don’t even have words for this, at this point… I knew that patch where you mixed T1 with T4 ships was just the beginning of something horrible… It improved after that, so I stayed silent… Woe and behold, people started leaving the game due to all kinds of things (dumbing down the game, more specifically).
And now, the Matchmaking System in its ultimate form… Where not only squad play is SEVERELY punished… But good solo play, as well.
I actually fear for this game’s future. I really do. And I fear you’ll be losing half your active gamers before the game even goes live. That’s my greatest worry.
The way it is, they nerfed teamwork, the very foundation of the game. Thus that means they are nerfing the friendship built when you get to fly with your friends. If you cant fly with your friends, then what’s the point of flying in a squad at all?! Never mind trying to fly with your elite corporation driven squads (which are basically very rare)
Right now, everyone is pissed cause they cant have there friends with them in a squad all because the stupid MM forces these rules and points and brings you up a tier.
If a T1 squad of 4 members goes automatically up to T3, then thats game breaking and would totally discourage new players from even trying to play with there friends or corp mates.
People like me are semi-affected, as I have to stagger the Queues to avoid T5 kill squads, and my own corp squads that are running in parallel.
Game, because of these changes will be doomed. Not only is the balance WAY off, but the MM makes it 100% worse.
(last night, only 400 players were logged in, and only HALF of that was in battle. I seen the same people 4 or more times in a row.)
last night, only 400 players were logged in, and only HALF of that was in battle. I seen the same people 4 or more times in a row.
I were helping a friend with his T1s in PvE Rank 1-3 and we had the same 2 partners 10 games straight… I can’t imagine how it’ll be now. Perhaps 150 players in my timezone “top” hour (21:00 hs GMT -3)?
This is an interesting way to go about match making. I sincerely hope that this system does not make it into the final release of the game.
Often times matchmaking that takes pilot skill into effect results is player frustration since the auto-balancing will pound good players until they start losing regularly and quit for the day.
That being said I understand why this MM could be necessary with the low number of players currently in the queue. For instance if it was restricted to ONLY playing with your tier as it has in the past the chances of Bot battles goes up drastically and you probably can’t pull the statistics you need to try and help the game.
The reason your player base is upset by these changes are because you’re taking your most dedicated players (those who play enough to get purple and good ship ratings and victory percentages) and making the game harder for them to play and enjoy.
World of Tanks MM has never taken pilot skill into effect which results in some games with stacked teams and some games where its even. The randomness of the MM (with favorable matches for new Tanks etc) leads to less frustration. It still has mixed tiers but its only 2 above and 2 below (ie: ranks 5-7 or ranks 2-4). If you feel that a 4 person squad is too powerful in a 12 on 12 matchup put squads back down to 3 people instead of just jacking their MM up SO HIGH that their chances of winning are less than if they solo queued despite the teamwork advantage. There are a lot of people squaded up who are not elite players and just end up facing the elite and getting stomped.
Victory increases matchmaker rating by +0,5 points
Defeat reduces matchmaker rating by - 0,5 points
Maximum combat result influence is capped at ±4 points
Upon your first daily login into the game, last day’s influence becomes twice as weakП
Long post. I’m going to take this by parts.
The way I see this algorithm, MM punishes people for winning and rewards losses. In the interest of maintaining a competitive environment, it doesn’t make sense to put artificial barriers in the way of people who have earned their skills. Not only that, but it’s so easy now to say “Oh, we lost because of the system” and not because the other team beat them in a fair match.
Losses feel fake. People won’t improve if they think the game is working against them.
The way I see this algorithm, MM punishes people for winning and rewards losses. In the interest of maintaining a competitive environment, it doesn’t make sense to put artificial barriers in the way of people who have earned their skills. Not only that, but it’s so easy now to say “Oh, we lost because of the system” and not because the other team beat them in a fair match.
Losses feel fake. People won’t improve if they think the game is working against them.
Agreed. Fear Me metals actually cost me credits, and I have noticed that if I die like 1 or more times, I get alot more credits.
You know, they’re trying to nerf players capabilities/skill in order to make it more “fair” to everyone, but they don’t or can’t understand that you can’t nerf it.
There’s always someone who’s better or worse than you, and if you want to achieve better results, you’ve to play more, train more, upgrade your ships/equipment, do the logical stuff, step by step, progessing… But no, that doesn’t work here.
You are a good player? It took you long to get the hand to the game? You grinded/farmed like crazy to get new/better equipment? Finally you’re winning and showing that you’ve improved? FORGET IT, now you’ll be PUNISHED for trying to become better, you’ll lose a LOT by being matched with bad team-mates (usually lower rank/tier) against higher tiers. You’ll be at complete disadventage in order to give the newb1es/bad players a chance to humilliate you, and you’ll do a rage-quit.
Also, don’t forget, if by any chance you have good reflexes and hand-eye coordination, well, that’s TOO BAD, we’ll nerf all the interceptors (the only ships that can make real profit of those abilities) so you’ll be in the same ground as someone who’s capabilities ain’t even enough to play “Hello Kitty Online”.
You know, they’re trying to nerf players capabilities/skill in order to make it more “fair” to everyone, but they don’t or can’t understand that you can’t nerf it.
There’s always someone who’s better or worse than you, and if you want to achieve better results, you’ve to play more, train more, upgrade your ships/equipment, do the logical stuff, step by step, progessing… But no, that doesn’t work here.
You are a good player? It took you long to get the hand to the game? You grinded/farmed like crazy to get new/better equipment? Finally you’re winning and showing that you’ve improved? FORGET IT, now you’ll be PUNISHED for trying to become better, you’ll lose a LOT by being matched with bad team-mates (usually lower rank/tier) against higher tiers. You’ll be at complete disadventage in order to give the newb1es/bad players a chance to humilliate you, and you’ll do a rage-quit.
Also, don’t forget, if by any chance you have good reflexes and hand-eye coordination, then we’ll nerf all the interceptors (the only ships that can make profit of those abilities) so you’ll be in the same ground as someone who’s capacities ain’t even enough to play “Hello Kitty Online”.
Basically a big F YOU to my SRDS and all good interceptor pilots. and its like a big F YOU to me, cause, hell, im a good pilot, but now i have to die a couple times to lower my SR…
It’s funny 'cause when I started, I lost around 70% of my first 100 PvP, I sucked hard, died a lot, I were unable to hit anything, my DSR were in the ground… But that motivated me to get better. I dropped PvP and started PvE in order to learn how to fly each ship, how to shoot properly, how to avoid, how to make an escape and a comeback. I used PvE to test every single role and find the ships that I liked the most, then once I learned “the basics” (that the tutorials doesn’t even teach properly), I went back to PvP and started flying in a completely different way, paying more attention to everything, from my teammates, to the enemies movements, how each map is played and so on. I’m NO “pro”, I’m just average (almost 1000 battles, 1,10 W/L, 1220 DSR/Skill), but I wanted to become better, and I still want to, only problem is that the game WON’T let me do it, 'cause having the mentality to become better seems to be a bad thing.
It’s funny 'cause when I started, I lost around 70% of my first 100 PvP, I sucked hard, died a lot, I were unable to hit anything, my DSR were in the ground… But that motivated me to get better. I dropped PvP and started PvE in order to learn how to fly each ship, how to shoot properly, how to avoid, how to make an escape and a comeback. I used PvE to test every single role and find the ships that I liked the most, then once I learned “the basics” (that the tutorials doesn’t even teach properly), I went back to PvP and started flying in a completely different way, paying more attention to everything, from my teammates, to the enemies movements, how each map is played and so on. I’m NO “pro”, I’m just average (almost 1000 battles, 1,10 W/L, 1220 DSR/Skill), but I wanted to become better, and I still want to, only problem is that the game WON’T let me do it, 'cause having the mentality to become better seems to be a bad thing.
At this point, its better to have a low skill rating to fool the MM
Yeah this game is punishing good players now. I for one won’t even log in to collect my daily bonus until this crap is fixed. I’ve been playing video games since the early 80s, now I am not saying I am the best gamer out there, but I can hold my own. I’ve played a LOT of FPS games on the PC over the years, and honed my hand eye coordination. When I first started playing this game there was a learning curve, but I picked it up fairly quickly. Hell I am (was) still learning every game I played. Then the DEVs start changing EVERYTHING about the game. This is NOT the same game I started playing a few months ago. Now I know there needs to be some changes to a game as it goes along, but these DEVs want to make this another game that requires no skill what so ever. If you do happen to have some skill you are now punished for it. They need to change MM back the way it was. It had a few things that might have needed tweaking, but it was doing a pretty good job. Any game that requires any kind of skill will have matches that are lopsided from time to time. This is to be expected, and the players realize this. Those players that don’t need to go back to playing match 3 type games.
I guess my support style mass assist gameplay can also do this, as i can get extreme points in a game with only 4-5 kills and 3 deaths. thus, i dont get boosted up
Having an experimental main weapon shouldn’t boost your rank. The benefits are trivial compared to active and passive modules and even then synergy should reflect the player skill on the ship more than whatever the random number generator decided to give.
By the looks of it, I can fly against R8 ships while grinding in T2. I’ve noticed R7’s but not many R8’s. Maybe the players with R8’s are decent enough to get into T3. I sort of feel sorry for ESB though, since they’re forced to fight only squads in T5 so they probably can’t even have a chance of a 12v12. I question the math of the DSR influence, I noticed more balanced games once it crossed the 1250 threshold. Sorry Zap, better learn to use that CO self destruct module if you want better teammates.
The biggest change I would do is to limit the squad boost to be one of the odd queues. Then it would be limited to a one tier boost, but the top of that tier. I know everyone keeps xxxx bitching and moaning about mixed tiers, but do you realize that if you’re constantly dominating it’s not competitive or a challenge and it becomes just stomping? You complain about people bringing T2 ships to T3 and T3 ships to T4, but why should that player be forced to play T4 bot matches because of a newly purchased R10? If you’ve grinded that R10 into an R11 or R12 then it’s clear you’ll be in T4 matches unless you suck. If you do suck, it doesn’t matter if it’s an R10 or R15, you still suck! Getting a 1:1 w/l ratio is common, it means MM is trying to have balanced teams. Any time one side dominates the other it means MM failed, and it doesn’t matter if you’re in a squad or PUGs. We’ve all been in matches where one side dominated the other side, those were MM failures. Those are worse than mixing tiers.
