I have just had a string of what I would call poorly balanced games.

Often the two best players are placed on the same team, and often there was one player who was just significantly lower rated that everyone else, making the game unbalancable. Often we get a very very high rated player paired with a very low rated player, while these are arguably, "balanced", they are often not fun for those involved and I would definitely prefer to avoid them.

I understand there is a desire to match people so games can be played and avoid wait times, but with the balance in these games, I would often prefer not to play them. Particullarly games 1,3,4,6,7 the balance was so in my disadvantage it literally sucks all the fun out of it. Occasionally inbalanced game is obviously fine but this wasn't occasionally.

And I doubt Finx or Wifi enjoy being paired with so low rated players.

Please keep people in the queue longer so we can get more fairly balanced matches. As it stands, the chances of me getting a shit game is so high I am sure it wouldn't only just discourage me from participating in TMM. What would people prefer?

Game 1
BattleMoose 1133 Sigm 1012
Catman222 67 PomidorTawer 858

Game 2
(This one was actually allright)
BattleMoose 1155 lllS_update_Sll 1216
Forsaken_Child 877 ghnaf 909

Game 3
BattleMoose 1167 oles 1207
CallousRat 737 ills_update_sll 1207

Game 4
BattleMoose 1180 Mechanic_345 1008
Mandalore 786 ills_update_sll 1196

Game 5
Wifi_ 1860 BattleMoose 1204
Tuttifrutti 308 Roftante 1047

Game 6
BattleMoose 1219 Yolona-Oss 864
Photon 497 oles 1190

Game 7
b1adam 1429 BattleMoose 1241
Forsaken_Child 809 Mandalore 780

Game 8
Finx 1896 BattleMoose 1251
kiril608 -132 Mandalore 771

Game 9
Finx 1905 BattleMoose 1216
SimontheGamer44 537 Zwierzak 1315

@blackyps said in Matchmaker Algorithm Feedback Thread:

In theory this should prevent matches where e.g. a 400 and a 1600 rated player are in the same game. However the system gives everyone a bonus for each time they have not been matched. So during relatively quiet hours you could still get more unbalanced matches.

I very much hoped we would avoid the possibility having such imbalanced games. They were terrible before, so much so I stopped playing 2v2s alltogether.

Being in Australia, most times are quiet times. If I have to wait a long time to get a balanced game then so be it. But waiting a long time to only get an unbalanced game is the worst possible outcome for me.

I appreciate opinions will vary and wish you luck in developing an algorithm that the majority of the community will be happy with.

Curiosity got the better of me and spent some time going through the FaF M&M discord and whatever else has been going on. There is what I could only describe as a lot of "not okay conduct". It really doesn't seem like a space that encourages new map makers, at times the direct opposite. I am not okay with this process being a closed election. The entire process should involve the community much much more.

A t1 land unit with only radar jamming, like the UEF frigate but the signals need to be much closer to the unit so on radar it will look like 5 units which move quasi realistically. No combat abilities whatsoever. Should move the same as the t1 tank unit so it would look like a raiding force that would be expected during t1 phase of the game.

Even if your opponent knows you are using them, mixing them in with your regular army will make it difficult for your opponent to accuratly assess its strength from just radar.

A t1 land unit with only radar jamming, like the UEF frigate but the signals need to be much closer to the unit so on radar it will look like 5 units which move quasi realistically. No combat abilities whatsoever. Should move the same as the t1 tank unit so it would look like a raiding force that would be expected during t1 phase of the game.

Even if your opponent knows you are using them, mixing them in with your regular army will make it difficult for your opponent to accuratly assess its strength from just radar.

You might have mass stalled reducing the effectiveness of the hives.

Surround what you want to protect with a tonne of shields, cycle them if you can. Keep rebuilding them as they die. Its micro intensive but with enough build power its sustainable.

Outbuild its destruction. If its late game enough and If all your teammates commit to this, you can actually build faster than what it can destroy. Spread your stuff out.

Obviously if your enemy has a mavor up its an extremely bad situation but depending on the state of the game, there are ways around it.

"And how many 2000 rated players have you talked to for their opinion on 1200s? Because I promise you they view them even worse than how you seem to be viewing 700s. Plenty of 2k players refuse to play lobbies with rating minimums below 1.8k.Plenty of 2k players refuse to play lobbies with rating minimums below 1.8k."

All the more reason to use a hard limit on skill difference. This has been my main point the entire time. I really don't need to have it parrotted back to me as if I don't understand something.

https://forum.faforever.com/topic/2172/can-we-please-talk-about-tmm-match-making

I was specifically asked what I thought the limits should be and responded.
I was specifically asked to justify my thoughts, I did.

But you don't like my numbers or reasons, FINE. Fix it or don't fix it: I am done here.

@blackyps said in Matchmaker Algorithm Feedback Thread:

I'm still interested in your explanation for this.

For higest rated player less than 1000: no limit is as it currently is. Effectively no change. Its so hard to determine accurately skill in this bracket that I think its fine.

For highest rated player greater than 1000 and less than 1500: max skill difference is suggested at 500. For a 1200 player, to have a 700 rated player as a teammate vs a 1000 and a 900 I think this is a very big ask. Personally as a 1200 player you effectively need to carry the 700 to victory, it removes the "fun" of a 2v2 with such a large skill disparity.

Note that in this example rating disparity will be zero and alone would be an indication of high quality or balanced game. Which is why I recommended in my previous post as to looking at these metrics together and shoult not be seperated. Rating disparity and skill differences do not neccessarily increase together but could be largely indpendent of each other.

For highest rated player of 2000 or more being matched with a 1200, I think could still result in a viable game. You can generally expect a 1200 to be independent and contribute to a fight in a meaningful way right up to the t4 stage of a game.

Matching a 2000 with a 300 I think will just result in a bad gaming experience for everyone and discourage people from searching tmm. It has for me. Which is why I am suggesting a hard limit on skill difference.

I am much less interested on what the numbers actually should be. I don't know what they should be. But I certainly think that if they are allowed to be too large, whatever too large is, that will just produce games that people will not want to play.

@ftxcommando said in Matchmaker Algorithm Feedback Thread:

Also, these suggestions would make you match with an even larger difference than what currently exists.

This is demonstrably untrue because these limits can only prevent games with large skill differences: impossible to produce more... My suggestion is the imposition of hard limits where currently none exist. I cannot even begin to try and untagle what you think I am suggesting...

@blackyps said in Matchmaker Algorithm Feedback Thread:

What limits would you like to have?

Based on the highest rated player in the game:

less than 1000: no limit on skill difference
1000<1500: maximum skill difference of 500
more than 1500: maximum skill difference of 800

As a first pass, obviously be adjusted depending on results and such.

@ftxcommando said in Matchmaker Algorithm Feedback Thread:

These are the exact same differences as far as how Trueskill works.

I guessed as much. Which is excatly the issue....

The biggest issue you are running into is the implicit assumption behind your metrics, that is, a rating difference represents the same skill difference at all rating levels. For example, a 500 rating difference from 800 to 1300 represents a much greater level in skill than does 1900 to 2400. This "error" is also included in opti balance games when there are large skill differences and results in very unbalanced games even though the algorithm can assign it a very high game quality metric.

Also, it doesn't appear that your game numbers correspond to specific games. But rather that you monotonically sorted your metrics and plotted them. If you plotted specific games along the x-axis, sorted by rating disparity and plotted the skill disparity, that would be revealing.

Also, I really woudn't be worrying about the wait times for the top end of the spectrum. There simply aren't many of them and to have them all online at the same time, randomly, is extremely unlikely. But if a competitive scene develops, they will do what they already do and communicate with each other and search at the same time, in a cooperative fashion.

Having hard limits on skill differences at the different rating levels would be what I would want to see. Should just take a few if functions...

@blackyps said in Matchmaker Algorithm Feedback Thread:

In theory this should prevent matches where e.g. a 400 and a 1600 rated player are in the same game. However the system gives everyone a bonus for each time they have not been matched. So during relatively quiet hours you could still get more unbalanced matches.

I very much hoped we would avoid the possibility having such imbalanced games. They were terrible before, so much so I stopped playing 2v2s alltogether.

Being in Australia, most times are quiet times. If I have to wait a long time to get a balanced game then so be it. But waiting a long time to only get an unbalanced game is the worst possible outcome for me.

I appreciate opinions will vary and wish you luck in developing an algorithm that the majority of the community will be happy with.

@BlackYps Please reach out if you want help in developing or testing the algorithm: I would be very happy to help.