Allow us to pick rating brackets for TMM

Well no, it's the classic tradeoff of bad game vs no game. People would rather just play a 1.6k+ or 1.8k+ rated game but still would like the ease of queueing for matchmaker rather than going through the trouble of hosting themselves.

Currently the only solution for this is queueing with a significantly stacked premade so that it's impossible to have anything too low in quality, but it's more encouraging for people to queue up if there is no premade and it's just 8 people at that level queueing with the intention of only getting a game at that rating bracket.

implement the system that doesn't allow high ranks to play with low ranks as it currently happens, apex is a great example, you will never meet a pred with gold for example, this can be used on faf: don't allow group formations of x-2 divisions to avoid stomps

@rezy-noob What if a 500 and 1500 are a premade team though? A limitation on the rating variance would prevent them from being able to play

Good. I don't wanna be playing with 500 rated players in my team nor in enemy team. I want a semi-balanced game, not a roll of dice on who will get less animals in a team.

@maudlin27 well that's exactly what is supposed to happen, they shouldn't, you're gonna face 2 1k's which will surely affect the quality of the game and neither will enjoy the stomp

@rezy-noob If FAF had a larger player base it’d be less of an issue but introducing an arbitrary rating difference limit means both fewer games are created, and potentially fewer people queue for games (since you’re banning people from playing together if theyre not close in rating). Also For many people a game with a high variability in ratings may be preferable to no game at all, and you can still have fun games.

Eg I recall one I had where my team (iirc around 500-1k) had a matchup where the enemy team had one of the LOTS players (so probably 1.8k+) - we lost but it was fun to play and a much closer game than expected. Id much rather have had that game than be stuck in a queue with no game.

One middle ground that would avoid actively preventing people from joining the TMM queue and also allow people to avoid games with a wide difference in skill would be to have a checkbox people can tick to limit the rating range for if they personally want to join a game. Ie if checked then they would only be considered for a tmm game if the min/max rating would be within 2 divisions of them. It’d mean an increase in average wait times for games overall but less so than making it a mandatory change for everyone.

It’d also avoid creating perverse incentives for people to resort to rating manipulation or smurfing just to play with a friend in tmm

The matchmaker has some config values. Tuning those could already alleviate the problem with almost no dev effort. But I need IDs of recent replays to geht an idea what the problem is

@blackyps said in Allow us to pick rating brackets for TMM:

It seems to me the root problem is a lack of activity in the highest bracket. Not sure if there is a good technical solution

This is not entirely true. It seems to be generally true that there's a high rating discrepancy at top level.

aoe2: 450 rating difference between #1 and #100 https://www.aoezone.net/deladder/?ladderid=3
aoe4: 400 rating difference between #1 and #43 https://aoe4world.com/leaderboard/rm_1v1
sc2: 1400 rating difference between #1 and #100 (7.4k vs 6k) https://nonapa.com/ladder?4&season=52&region=2&mode=1

The examples are all 1v1 since teamgames are broken/dead in those games, but there's a similar trend in team based ladders too.

Yes having more players helps a little bit, but in general the top few players will still have issues finding games, because of the huge rating discrepancy.

In my case there's been 3 hours and 15 minutes since my last tmm game (rating 2316). It is pretty much prime time: 18-21 finnish time (1-2 hours earlier for most of europe). During this time there's been numerous games with many 1700-1900 players which I didn't get into (often the system matched them with 1200-1400s instead).

I don't know exactly how the system currently works, but I'd like to see players that have been in queue for a long time get some kind of extra priority if it doesn't do that already. Or strengthen it if it does exist. Alternatively there could be some system to favor higher rating players as it seems that generally most players prefer playing with higher rated players (1700 would rather play with a 2000 than a 1400). If those games in above pictures were custom games I doubt I would have any trouble getting into the lobby.

In its current state it's pretty unfeasible for higher rating players to play tmm, which only exacerbates the problem (making it even harder for high rating players to get games since there's fewer of them searching).

Good idea!

I suggest just having a +1.5k or 1.6k TMM button-option if you've reached a minimum rank of that, so you can face a challenge regardless of who you're up against. Easiest way to learn and get quick games, as the top is only like 10-20 people anyway.

You could balance it a bit, but it will never be perfect, but that's okay. At least the people know what they are doing ... ish ...

I agree with giving higher rated players priority because it's easy enough for lower rated players to get games anyway. This would also promote more higher level games, instead of TMM spamming 1300-1900 games and leaving out all the 2k+
Atm it's only possible for me to get games when i queue with people >500 rating lower than me, and even then it's honestly really hard.

And then I'd like to add it's awful that I can't have any other games open while waiting, because that immediately crashes the TMM launch. Really makes the waiting experience that much worse when I can't A. walk away from desktop for prolonged period of time and B. can't do anything while I wait
Don't know if it can be fixed but would be really nice if it could (custom games don't have this issue do they?)

@bulliednoob said in Allow us to pick rating brackets for TMM:

And then I'd like to add it's awful that I can't have any other games open while waiting, because that immediately crashes the TMM launch. Really makes the waiting experience that much worse when I can't A. walk away from desktop for prolonged period of time and B. can't do anything while I wait
Don't know if it can be fixed but would be really nice if it could (custom games don't have this issue do they?)

On a related note I was doing some cleaning while in the queue and I felt like I had to glance at the screen every now and then in the small chance that I actually get a game. It would be nice if we could enable some very noticable sound notification (preferably several seconds long) when we get a game. Then I could at least leave the room safely while I have speakers on.

Speaking as a 1400-1500 rated player, I wouldn't be able to tell the difference between an 1800 and a 2300 teammate/enemy whilst playing the game myself (unless there was 1 of each to compare). I'm perfectly happy to have players like Blodir in my game, as long as the match is balanced and they can forgive my mistakes, but I do enjoy games more when everyone is below 1600.

A rating bracket system sounds alright, but not if the brackets are forced. Like if I have to play in the 1500+ bracket whenever I reach over that rating, I'm just always going to be the worst there and have no fun. With an optional bracket system it allows people who don't want to play with noobier players to opt out of those games, while still allowing those of us who don't mind playing with noobs as much to continue as we are. Those players who opt in will just have to accept the fact that imposing their own brackets will increase wait time.

Also, as a side note, whenever I get into a game where everyone is 1400/1500+, the map always seems to be 20x20, often with lots of navy, whereas the lower games are at least 75% land maps. Why is this, and can it be changed?

Higher rated game -> more difficult maps. A 10x10 is extremely simplistic gameplay in a 4v4 generally. Bases are compact, mexes are all taken and controlled by min 5, ACUs walk mid, all aggression is over. If that was made more pervasive at the top level of tmm, I’d definitely just stop queueing entirely.

In terms of sea based 20x20, they’re just easier to make than a decent land 15x15 or 20x20 so there are more of them on the vault.

I'll also throw my two cents in, sitting around 1600 tmm rating it's incredibly difficult for me to get games as well and it's causing me to play less and less tmm. I usually have to queue with lower rated friends if I want to get semi-consistent games. It's pretty annoying being one of the first in queue, then seeing the queue grow to 32+ players and then not getting a game. And that happens over and over. The last few weeks I've basically given up solo-queueing and just went back to hosting again. I imagine it's a similar-but-worse situation for even higher rated players as Blodir describes.

@ftxcommando That's understandable, however it leads to a, perhaps unintended, increase in noobiness. For a newer player who predominantly plays TMM, and who hasn't had years of experience in custom games, we learn how to do well in those low level TMM land maps and practice over and over at them. Then we rank up into more experienced games and the whole dynamic shifts - our prior experience is largely thrown out of the window. I think this is the primary reason that 1800+ players consider many 1300-1500s nooby - we just don't know what we're doing and haven't practiced 20x20 naval maps. This means its very easy for us to make "simple" mistakes which garners BM from better players.

I don't have a solution to this, but do other people feel the same way?

@brokenprincess well that's the same as other "noobiness".
If your 800 rated and play other 800 rated your opponent will use bad strategies (as he's only 800), so you will learn how to counter those strategies and incorporate them in you gameplay. But your counter strategy is also bad and only works, because your opponents strategy was even worse and will cease to work once you meet an opponent of a certain level.
But you still shouldn't play 2k rated players as an 800 just to prevent learning noob strategies/counters from playing against bad players. that's just how you learn and improve at the game.
The only problem here would be the higher rated players being mad at the lower rated players for making mistakes.
They may be mad at the system for matching them with worse players, but being mad at lower rated players for making mistakes is just stupid.

It isn’t like you randomly unlock 20x20 maps at the highest bracket. You get more and more of a percentage of your pool consisting of them while they also increase in complexity in turn.

It also isn’t like all current high level players sprouted with the knowledge to enjoy those games either. Lots of people gained rating playing gap, isis, wonder, canis, and so on. Eventually you just get tired of it and, if you had interest in getting better, you started joining the more complex maps with the better players.

Is there a growing pain period? Yes, but that’s just what improving is. You aren’t going to improve at anything if you just stay comfortable all the time.

@blodir said in Allow us to pick rating brackets for TMM:

It would be nice if we could enable some very noticable sound notification (preferably several seconds long) when we get a game. Then I could at least leave the room safely while I have speakers on.

FAF phone app, when?

@Nex I concede, you make a good point - the only problem is 800s are expected to play poorly and 1500s are expected to be somewhat adept, so it's a shock to my team mates when they witness my utter lack of skill xD

@FtXCommando I agree that growing pain periods are required, but the issue is that these periods affect team mates too. As I'm sure you're well aware, having a sub-par team mate lose a whole side of the map is very frustrating. This leads to less desire to play TMM for the top rated folks, which is the point of this thread.

Honestly it really depends on the situation. I honestly don’t even enjoy kicking like dual gap 1800 dudes from games as they at least want to try to play different stuff.

I played several tmm games yesterday. I got mad when my 2000 air player made less air to ground than Blodir, had less eco than him, and had less asf than him. I expect a baseline of like some 1800+ player to, even if suffering in one area, to have some comparative advantage that I can take into account and play along with.

I had a game where I had a 1200 get utterly crushed by a 1900 on tabula, but there is no reason to be mad about it. He’s expected to die even though he was on the slot that is supposed to crush his opponent.

Another game I had a 1200 air player so rather than risk the dice roll of a 1200 v 1400 late air game, I just try to end the game with t2 air from my front slot.

I don’t think playing simple maps is going to make games more enjoyable for higher rated players. You’re just moving the game quality up in one way while decreasing it in another.

What a high level player wants is a game where strategies are necessitated due to dynamic gameplay rather than by where the drastically low rated dude on your team is. You can’t get that unless you allow restrictions on what games can be made. Poor teammates can make dynamic gameplay not matter but so can bad maps.