Team Matchmaker - hard to get games to develop rating

I have a friend (Runefinger) with whom we moved our weekly 2v2 ladder Starcraft to FAF. Reasons: SC2 has become stale without a meta shake-up in a while now, and FAF introduced a Team Matchmaker.

It is prohibitively hard to get games though, yesterday we got 1 game, last week was ok with 5 games, before never got a game in 2 weeks of trying.

We have tried getting custom games, but I have a global rating of 1100 and he -100. Joining games together is all but impossible, so we host a 2v2 and wait and often get genuine 1100 rated players to lose against. When we host we occasionally get yelled at for something (smurfing I guess?)... we managed to get 3 custom 2v2 yesterday.

My global rating has been a huge problem for me anyway because it is wrong. I started FAF in 2012 and got a 1200 rating for free, up until octobre 2020 I had played 3 custom games*, everything else was ladder 1v1. I am affraid to join games for fear of ruining the game balance and games for everyone, while possibly getting yelled at (in past this happened 2 out of the 3 games I played).
(* excluding Rise of Immortal tournament or something)

If this keeps happening I will give it 1 or 2 weeks and we are giving up on this.

• Can the 2v2 matchmaker match us up against broader ranked /stronger opponents after 1 join cycle?
• Can my global rating be reset to forget everything that happened before oktober 2020 - or just complete reset? - or set equal to ladder 1v1 rating (700)?
• If I or we play 2v2 separately sometimes, will it help the matchmaker give us games?

For #1, I can't speak for everyone else, but I have been matched with some of the best- and worst-rated people. My TMM rank is similar to yours.

#2, global rating is not reset. The fastest way to shed global rating can be playing custom 1v1s. Rating moves faster with 1v1s than with team games. That can also be a way for your friend to move up in rating.

If people won't let you join their games, host your own. For 2v2s, just call it something like "all welcome" or "1200 or less" and you don't even have to tell the other people that the -100 guy is your friend.

Or just call it "2v2 premade team" and nobody can complain. They will join your lobby or they won't.

Hard to really give a good answer without more info.
At what time of day (UTC) were you searching?
How long were you searching?
Were there enough other people in queue to theoretically match?

@BlackYps said in Team Matchmaker - hard to get games to develop rating:

Hard to really give a good answer without more info.
At what time of day (UTC) were you searching?
How long were you searching?
Were there enough other people in queue to theoretically match?

From 19:00 UTC to 23:00 UTC roughly
We were usually searching 3 cycles so 6-9 minutes
Usually there were 6-10 people in the queue, usually 4-6 were left over after each cycle.

first of all:no you can't get a rating reset neither for global or ladder.
TMM works fine since it has it's own rating,as an example,i have 1.9k global and 1.7k ladder though when I have started playing tmm,i had 0 tmm rating,now i am 1.6k and this rating doesn't interfere with my other 2 ratings.
For some reason it feels strange that you guys don't get games,i was playing with newbie boy called Bloodthirst when i was 1.6 already and he was a solid 0,and we played about 30-40 games during 5 days.
All i can think of is probably the timezones you're in since TMM has it's peak around 19:00-23:00 GMT+0,where you can get games in no time at 500pts-1.6pts,it gets harder when it grows up since most of the high ranked players are either waiting for the pool change or are just chilling with their boys in a preset group with an average rating of 1.8k+.

@Resistance said in Team Matchmaker - hard to get games to develop rating:

first of all:no you can't get a rating reset neither for global or ladder.

Why not? The system was changed for a reason from starting at 1200 rating to starting at 0 rating. With such a change there will be legacy issues that might need to be fixed.

@Resistance said in Team Matchmaker - hard to get games to develop rating:

TMM works fine since it has it's own rating,as an example,i have 1.9k global and 1.7k ladder though when I have started playing tmm,i had 0 tmm rating,now i am 1.6k and this rating doesn't interfere with my other 2 ratings.
For some reason it feels strange that you guys don't get games,i was playing with newbie boy called Bloodthirst when i was 1.6 already and he was a solid 0,and we played about 30-40 games during 5 days.
All i can think of is probably the timezones you're in since TMM has it's peak around 19:00-23:00 GMT+0,where you can get games in no time at 500pts-1.6pts,it gets harder when it grows up since most of the high ranked players are either waiting for the pool change or are just chilling with their boys in a preset group with an average rating of 1.8k+.

We are right now rated -169. Think we didn't win a ladder 2v2 game yet, but it is hard to win one if you don't get any more games. We won 1 custom 2v2 against 586+28 global rated.

I'd be happy to be on the opposing team in a custom 2v2 so say hi if we're online at the same time.

I did play with Runefinger yesterday and got myself killed very stupidly so I'll try not to do that again.

What “system” was changed to start at 0 rather than 1200?

Trueskill values do not get changed because it’s tedious (requires one of the very few server admins to go and adjust values), once allowed will get requested every hour (already does basically), and it generally induces inaccuracy into the system (who is supposes to be gauging what your rightful rating is if not the statistical result of winning/losing)

@FtXCommando said in Team Matchmaker - hard to get games to develop rating:

What “system” was changed to start at 0 rather than 1200?

Trueskill values do not get changed because it’s tedious (requires one of the very few server admins to go and adjust values), once allowed will get requested every hour (already does basically), and it generally induces inaccuracy into the system (who is supposes to be gauging what your rightful rating is if not the statistical result of winning/losing)

Ok, that is clear

@Wainan said in Team Matchmaker - hard to get games to develop rating:

I'd be happy to be on the opposing team in a custom 2v2 so say hi if we're online at the same time.

I did play with Runefinger yesterday and got myself killed very stupidly so I'll try not to do that again.

Thanks, iwill add you to friends when I am online.

Good point. There is a newbie matching system in 1v1 that hasn't been modified for 2v2 yet. I'll put it on my list.

For everyone's info, if you are playing ladder 1v1 for the first time (first 10 games) and you can't find a balanced match, you will get matched randomly against any other players available in the queue. We added this specifically to fix the problem expressed in the OP.

Now the reason it hasn't been added to the team matchmaker yet is that the whole party system complicates things. It's no longer "you're a newb" or "you're not a newb", but you could have mixed parties where only player is a newb and the other isn't. But I'm sure with some more thought we will figure out something that works.

@Askaholic said in Team Matchmaker - hard to get games to develop rating:

Good point. There is a newbie matching system in 1v1 that hasn't been modified for 2v2 yet. I'll put it on my list.

For everyone's info, if you are playing ladder 1v1 for the first time (first 10 games) and you can't find a balanced match, you will get matched randomly against any other players available in the queue. We added this specifically to fix the problem expressed in the OP.

Now the reason it hasn't been added to the team matchmaker yet is that the whole party system complicates things. It's no longer "you're a newb" or "you're not a newb", but you could have mixed parties where only player is a newb and the other isn't. But I'm sure with some more thought we will figure out something that works.

Thanks, this offers a lot of perspective.

However, given the relatively small pools for 2v2 matchmaker - I think a wider margin than 1v1 is required for reliable matching.

Tried getting games on the2v2 matchmaker yesterday (party of 2) but it involved long waits - at one point there were 12 people queuing at the end of the countdown so I thought we should get a game but it ended with all but 4 of us getting a game (me and my teammate were negative rank so I presume everyone else was very high rank). The couple of games we did manage we were completely crushed though, so it could just be the issue with too few people queuing meaning it's not possible to find balanced games. However, after waiting through several cycles of matching with no game I'd prefer any game to no game - is it possible to increase the range allowed for a valid match each time you fail to be allocated a game?

It works just as ladder, when you fail to match your criteria for an acceptable game quality decreases.

Well... I shed a whopping 10 max rating per game, if my ladder 1v1 rating of 650 is accurate that means 50 more losses and my rating is correct.

Also, checkmark for getting yelled at for being a noob (ally expects 1100 rated ally, gets 650 rated).

@FtXCommando said in Team Matchmaker - hard to get games to develop rating:

What “system” was changed to start at 0 rather than 1200?

When I started playing in 2013 (ZePilot was boss then) I didn't earn a 1200 rating, I started out with it.

@FtXCommando said in Team Matchmaker - hard to get games to develop rating:

Trueskill values do not get changed because it’s tedious (requires one of the very few server admins to go and adjust values), once allowed will get requested every hour (already does basically), and it generally induces inaccuracy into the system (who is supposes to be gauging what your rightful rating is if not the statistical result of winning/losing)

Actually, imagine if a button was added to profile page with 3 month cooldown that would increase your uncertainty(sigma?) by 100 (which would reduce visible rating by 100 too right?). Activating this function would immediately reduce your rating, but more importantly, it would increase your rating change per game. This function would pretty much be available for any returning player. Being usable once per quarter makes it unsuitable for abuse, so you can let it be available without limitations other than 3 month cooldown.

Attempted Abuse by lowering rating to smurf: increased uncertainty will give you larger ratings gains so you will be worse off.

Attempted Abuse to climb in rating faster: if you win these games, then you earn that higher rating.

Once per 3 month you can join a game 100 rating below you, that is all abuse I see.

Shown rating is mu-3*sigma so if you increase sigma by 100 then you decrease the shown rating by 300.

Your proposition would be quite tedious to implement since you need to add an UI element, tbh I would just wait for implementation of Divisions (they are nearly done and would arrive much faster then your proposition (if it would be considered worthy of implementing)). With Divisions we will have seasons and perhaps they will have some sort of increase in sigma after each season ends (gotta ask Ftx about this one since I am not sure what the exact plan is by now).

@Tagada said in Team Matchmaker - hard to get games to develop rating:

Shown rating is mu-3*sigma so if you increase sigma by 100 then you decrease the shown rating by 300.

Your proposition would be quite tedious to implement since you need to add an UI element, tbh I would just wait for implementation of Divisions (they are nearly done and would arrive much faster then your proposition (if it would be considered worthy of implementing)). With Divisions we will have seasons and perhaps they will have some sort of increase in sigma after each season ends (gotta ask Ftx about this one since I am not sure what the exact plan is by now).

I cannot argue about available resources, good to know divisions are almost there. However, I must stress the importance of high-sigma for returning players.

For my information: who can I ask and present arguments to about changing my 2013-based rating? - unless answer is always no

The answer is always no.

Having a button to adjust rating when like 5% of FAF have any sort of understanding of trueskill is just not a good idea. If we wanted to do a sigma increase, it would be done artificially and automatically through a server side decay. However, there is no real point in doing this due to the new division system coming out.

If you started out with 1200 in 2013 I don't know what to say to you. I started in June of 2013 and I was 0 rated.

@FtXCommando said in Team Matchmaker - hard to get games to develop rating:

The answer is always no.

Having a button to adjust rating when like 5% of FAF have any sort of understanding of trueskill is just not a good idea. If we wanted to do a sigma increase, it would be done artificially and automatically through a server side decay. However, there is no real point in doing this due to the new division system coming out.

If you started out with 1200 in 2013 I don't know what to say to you. I started in June of 2013 and I was 0 rated.

I checked the e-mail and I was registered 20 december 2012.

Maybe I am slightly wrong, maybe I got my global rating to 1200 when ladder and global were linked: https://forums.faforever.com/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=10880

This topic suggests people get a mean rating of 1500, even in 2016, and the Sigma probably reduced it to 0 rating: https://forums.faforever.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=16357

So, reconstructed history:

• I started playing and reached 1200 global rating (low sigma) purely with ladder 1v1
• Ladder 1v1 overrated players for team games, so ladder 1v1 was separated
• My rating was copied, now I have 1200 ladder 1v1 low sigma and 1200 global low sigma
• Did not play global since 2013.

As mentioned since start of topic, this having-to-lose-and-be-yelled-at has become prohibitive to engage in teamplay. I need high sigma to fix this in a reasonable (<50 plx) amount of games.

Dude just play a few 1v1 games and you will lose your rating in a matter of minutes hint hint.