Matchmaking criteria

hungryhungrybbq

Just wanted to ask if the AW team is considering removing prestige as criteria for matching. The unintended consequences are creating a really frustrating experience for higher prestige alliances. Just as one example, an officer of mine has a brother who is in a much less developed alliance than us and they are in tier 3. No matter how far they advance in war rating they are still sheltered from fighting tougher alliances because they have low prestige. The opposite is occurring for higher prestige alliances. No matter how low they drop in war rating, they continue to receive tough matches.

If any of these lower prestige alliances were required to face off against the higher ones based on war rating, they would lose and in turn have their war rating start to go back down.. along with their rewards. However, that never happens as they're being protected by the current system and advancing artificially to a higher war rating than they could ever obtain if war rating was the primary factor in matching. This has truly created an unfair advantage in a competitive game mode. Please let us know if this is being discussed/looked into. Thanks!

Prater

I would like to support above message. Current matchmaking is done is such a way, that "heavy" alliances do not match with "light" alliances. As a results we have a NoName alliance, who is in Masters top2 and continue to match with alliances, which are in Category 2 and Pl3, Pl4. If NoName matches with any alliance in masters, they loose with significant difference, buy they just do not match.

And for high prestige alliances AW becomes boring, because they match with the same alliances again and again.

I don't know what is the second factor used in matchmaking (except war rating), is it prestige or alliance rating, but I believe matchmaking shall be based only on war rating, nothing more.

Kabam did a good attempt to prevent cases, when alliances drop their war rating intentionally, and introduced second factor in the matchmaking, but now we have a ridiculous situation with alliances like NoName in masters and even top2.

@Kabam Miike It would be good to receive confirmation, that Kabam noticed this problem and will consider it.

FluffySensei

I completely agree with this. A map 5 alliance with an 8.5k prestige in plat 3 tier 3, going against an alliance with 0, 1 or 2 r5 champions, and we are struggling to get into gold 1 (itemless wars), we have 9.8k prestige, all map 6 runners, a good group of players. I’d be okay if we ran with trash fighters, but that’s not the case, and in a lot of wars, our deaths are in the single digits. It shouldn’t be this hard. Gold 1 was a cake walk in the past, but since we went AQ focused and pushed on prestige, alls changed. And AW hasn’t got any more popular to push in, less so in fact, than back when p4 wasn’t in existence, you could get the top end of gold 1/bottom of plat 3 relatively itemless.

Prestige can be a factor, but war rating should be the primary matchmaking criteria. That’ll keep the lower alliances capped at what should be reasonable for them given their rosters and ability.

Prater

AW Seasons standings shall reflect how strong the alliance in wars, but currently alliances with low prestige and alliance rating get significant advantage.

QuikPik

I had a huge post about this some time ago where I looked at the top 50 in each tier and determined that Kabam is using prestige as the primary match making criteria.

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/179826/flawed-match-making/p2

You can see a flood of lower prestige alliances in the upper tiers due to the fact they only get matched against similar prestige alliances.

hungryhungrybbq

Thanks for the constructive feedback everyone! I feel like this is an important issue.

QuikPik said:

I had a huge post about this some time ago where I looked at the top 50 in each tier and determined that Kabam is using prestige as the primary match making criteria.

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/179826/flawed-match-making/p2

You can see a flood of lower prestige alliances in the upper tiers due to the fact they only get matched against similar prestige alliances.

Yes, great thread! Just scanned it for a response from the company, but didn't see one yet.

taoness

At this point, I'd feel even a latter-esque style matching would be better, as a quick fix.

IF you won your last war, your alliance is paired against one of the hundred-ish alliances above you. If you lost your last war, you're paired with one of the hundred alliances below you.

hungryhungrybbq

Update: We have dropped to Gold 2 now.. and as our war rating drops, we are being matched with STRONGER alliances instead of equal or smaller ones. This is the opposite of how the system used to work. Consecutive losses meant getting an even or easier match eventually. Not anymore, now we are being matched with alliances 4.5 million larger than us...as our war rating gets lower. Meanwhile alliances we would easily beat (even itemless) if they weren't sheltered from matching us have bypassed stronger alliances and are earning plat 3 rewards.
It's bananas. - Gwen Stefani

I'm not here railing on about it because I'm worried about my rewards. I'm doing it to advocate for the other 29 players in my alliance. As leader I feel like it's my responsibility to speak up and say something on their behalf. And I'm the one who has to explain why they will likely be getting gold 2 rewards instead of gold 1 or plat 4.
If this continues into next season, it will probably make just as much sense to respectfully decline to participate in the game mode. And yes, I'm keenly aware of the impact that will have on our supply of loyalty for AQ entry, but the fact that AQ and AW are linked together in this way is a separate issue.

Plantesan

Our ally, Thor, are running into this other ally. This is where the prestige/war rating become annoying...how is a 20mil spread fair (I’m aware it just means that the other guys have deep pockets and champs to work with)

Just wondering where they can find the happy medium besides relying on war rating and prestige