Ladder matchmaking is broken

[Eric_Lesch]

Hi all,

During the last few weeks I've started getting matched up on ladder 1v1 with quite a few players rated 0 or lower. I'm rated about 1000. I've been told by many lower ranked players that they have been matched up with 1000ish players. One person told me that their last 8 games were against players rated way way higher than them.

I don't like playing extremely lopsided games but this isn't really the main issue. The main issue is that such bad matchmaking is turning away new players and will destroy FAF.

Consider the following:

1. New player joins FAF.
2. New player plays against players mostly rated way higher.
3. New player gets destroyed 90 percent of the time.
4. New player gets discouraged and quits.
5. FAF dies because very few new players keep playing.

When I started playing, I lost about 75 percent of the time. I think at one point I was rated -200 or something but I got better quickly. I *never* played against someone 500+ at that point so I was never beaten so horribly that I didn't at least learn something. It was frustrating but tolerable. After a couple of months I got better enough to at least have a 50 percent win rate.

Anyway, this seems like a recent issue but an important one nonethess. Ladder is extremely hostile to new players right now and that's really bad for the community in the long run.

My suggestion is restricting all matchmaking to only create match ups where the players are within 400 rank of each other.

Thanks for reading,
santori

[SilverKronos]

New players always play against stronger than them for their first matches during the time they get an accurate rating.
I remember my very first game and it was against crazed chariot, i had no rating he had 1500+. I lost the game quickly, but after few ladder games, my rating were more accurate and i began to play against people of my level.

So i don't see where it's broken. It can be annoying for new people that doesn't know how to play the game, but only for few matches.

But see it in "someone who can play the game" point of view. If you play only against 0 rating for your first matches, then your rating stays low,no matter the outcome. But if you're playing against a 1500 rating for your very first match and you win, then you'll get a better rating instantly (500+ rating)

This way the system can determinate the rating of someone really quickly in a few matches instead of 30+ matches

[madformuse]

Well I'm not exactly sure how it works but I agree with you that for the first few games you play stronger players.

About the seeing it the other way thing though, I would guess that it is more off-putting for weak new players being destroyed than it would be for strong new players getting easy wins.

Everyone likes winning

[lextoc]

Basically you just want to remove the guessing-your-rating system? I wouldn't have a problem with that

[Blodir]

I actually agree that matchmaking should have a deviation cap of sorts, past a certain amount of deviation the system should force a cap on your search range. Simply because there's way more newcomers than there are smurfs.

[Iszh]

It is an interesting system here in faf but in all other games i know that it is normal that people start from bottom in ranking and new players dont face this problem that the first 10 games are a nightmare. On the other hand it has its advantages. If everybody would start from "bottom" all the smurfs would also all the time go through the lower rating levels and smash them for more or less long time period until they are higher rank again. No idea if there are really lots of smurfs or mostly new people. This way it is now you lose 10 games in begin and then you will get only enemies of your rating. Once you are under 1k rating you will not meet to strong people again at least not very likely even if they start to play with new account. I am not sure about it but i think you can find enemies all the time +-500 rating maybe thats a bit to much but very high rated players have a problem that they cant find enemies anymore. A suggestion here would be to reduce this to +-300 or +-200 rating and create a hidden rating behind for 1v1 which is your ladder rating but limited at 200 min and 1800 max rating to avoid that people have problems to find enemies. A 1500+ person still has a mini chance to win over a 2k+ person.

[nine2]

yep. its really bad how often brand new players have to go against 1200 rated players

just give them a rating of 500 when they start and let them play... they will climb or fall from there.

[Eric_Lesch]

So i don't see where it's broken. It can be annoying for new people that doesn't know how to play the game, but only for few matches.

It's also annoying for higher rated players. Lopsided matches aren't fun for anyone.

But see it in "someone who can play the game" point of view. If you play only against 0 rating for your first matches, then your rating stays low,no matter the outcome. But if you're playing against a 1500 rating for your very first match and you win, then you'll get a better rating instantly (500+ rating)

I don't think it's very likely that someone new to FAF and has been playing against the Sorian AI can play competitively against an 800 rated player (much less a 1500 rated player. Was your game against Crazed Chariot competitive?). Every game against a new account (rating 0) that I've played on FAF has been a noob smash fest without exception.

If you already know how to play the game (i.e. are competitive with 1000ish rated players), then that means you've already played FAF quite a bit. That begs the question, what is the player doing creating a new account? Did their other account get banned? Should they be able to jump in at a high rating right away or have to play a little bit to work their way up?

In any case, several times I've read commentary in the game from the opposing player that it doesn't make any sense that we are playing each other (0ish rating vs 1000ish rating). It's very clear that it's discouraging and demoralizing to folks who are trying out FAF.

This way the system can determinate the rating of someone really quickly in a few matches instead of 30+ matches

Sure, I understand the advantage but I think the most common scenario is that a lot of folks quit after a ten or so matches where they get slaughtered.

Thanks,
santori

[ZLO_RD]

Sure, I understand the advantage but I think the most common scenario is that a lot of folks quit after a ten or so matches where they get slaughtered.

but there is a explaining message when you play those 10 games.
it explains why you get matched against random opponent
Also it often takes even less than 10 games for system to give player a rating

[Eric_Lesch]

Well I guess this falls under the category of "Is it a bug or a feature?"

Depends on your point of view. I definitely think that most new players getting pwned really hard just because they're new isn't a good feature. It's not very welcoming.

Also, it seems like this is more of an issue when there is a low server population - which is when I usually play since I'm at GMT +7 and it's night time or morning most other places. After waiting 5 mins to make a match, the server gets a lot looser about who it will match up. I think that's when you get matchups like I had the other day (1000ish vs -77).

Who decides how it works? The coders or the Council?