The Fair/unfair Matchmaking.
ragnarok_947
Member Posts: 817 ★★★★
Now, before you start spamming disagrees thinking this is another rant about how the new war matchmaking is completely unfair, hear me out. This is just a personal over-view about how it fares for me and my alliance and also a speculation of the perspective many alliances have over this topic.
Our alliance is currently 19m rating with 9k+ prestige. We landed Gold 2 in the previous season. But what I was totally unaware about was there were legit 30-40m alliances who were stuck in Silver for all these years. That’s absolutely mind-blowing and I can’t imagine being in such a position for such a long duration. This is just one of the many unbalanced effects that the previous matchmaking system had brought upon this aspect of the game. Fortunately, the new system will put an end to this and give a deserving spot fo the alliances based on their player’s roster and skill. Like many mid-level alliances like mine who were placed in a wrong tier, currently getting smashed by bigger alliances, I wish the game had assigned a different method to sort this out. Yes, the frustration that the bigger alliances had to face is unprecedented compared to the mild inconvenience we are facing now. But this doesn’t justify the punishment mid-level alliances have to endure when the mistake is not even our’s. The game is solely responsible for having such a broken system for such a long time then fix it in such a way which has brought a feeling of bitterness among many players and alliances. Let’s be honest nobody wants to see thier alliance lose, war after war. It is also actually pathetic to see some players rubbing it in the face of others which is doing nothing but increasing toxicity. And also players who are not ready to accept that the new matchmaking is actually fair no matter what explanation or facts are presented before them. Seems like having words like intellect or insight in your name doesn’t actually give you those qualities ;P
All in all, I hope this gets over soon and we will be fighting alliances who are equal or slightly above than us staying in the spot we deserve. If you think my opinion is wrong or I’m failing to understand things in thier entirety, well there’s always room for improvement.
Our alliance is currently 19m rating with 9k+ prestige. We landed Gold 2 in the previous season. But what I was totally unaware about was there were legit 30-40m alliances who were stuck in Silver for all these years. That’s absolutely mind-blowing and I can’t imagine being in such a position for such a long duration. This is just one of the many unbalanced effects that the previous matchmaking system had brought upon this aspect of the game. Fortunately, the new system will put an end to this and give a deserving spot fo the alliances based on their player’s roster and skill. Like many mid-level alliances like mine who were placed in a wrong tier, currently getting smashed by bigger alliances, I wish the game had assigned a different method to sort this out. Yes, the frustration that the bigger alliances had to face is unprecedented compared to the mild inconvenience we are facing now. But this doesn’t justify the punishment mid-level alliances have to endure when the mistake is not even our’s. The game is solely responsible for having such a broken system for such a long time then fix it in such a way which has brought a feeling of bitterness among many players and alliances. Let’s be honest nobody wants to see thier alliance lose, war after war. It is also actually pathetic to see some players rubbing it in the face of others which is doing nothing but increasing toxicity. And also players who are not ready to accept that the new matchmaking is actually fair no matter what explanation or facts are presented before them. Seems like having words like intellect or insight in your name doesn’t actually give you those qualities ;P
All in all, I hope this gets over soon and we will be fighting alliances who are equal or slightly above than us staying in the spot we deserve. If you think my opinion is wrong or I’m failing to understand things in thier entirety, well there’s always room for improvement.
17
Comments
Alliance #1- 20mil in silver 3, struggling a lot
Was my old alliance, I left because they were failing in aw. We ranked our way to silver 3 in season 17 and watched alliance #2 place higher than us. This is an alliance whose war rating is too low because of prestige matchmaking.
Alliance #2- 5 mil in silver 2, nearly placed silver 1, had a season with only 1 loss.
My alt account’s alliance was consistently placing silver 2, with a lot of different players(new accounts and a few cavaliers). Obviously, every matchup except 1 since the new matchmaking system has been a loss, as we’ve been dwarfed in prestige and struggle to explore the map. This is an alliance whose prestige is too high because of prestige matchmaking.
Alliance #3- 25 mil in gold 1
I went here after I left alliance #1. We managed to get gold 1 in season 18. Since the matchmaking changes, the alliances we’ve faced have similar prestige to us. This alliance has the correct war rating.
In conclusion, I’m glad kabam decided to fix matchmaking, even if season 19 will be a wasted season.
Having these losses come in LLLLLLLLWLWL sequence, or LLLWLLLWLL, or whatever the permutation is, will not soften the blow of needing to have 8 losses to reach their true war rating.
However, by having the losses come earlier and thus reaching the true war rating earlier, the matchups will be balanced earlier. In addition, this prevents alliances with inflated war ratings milk higher multipliers for longer, creating an overall fairer system as a whole.
In a nutshell, there’s no point in prolonging the pain of having to face mismatches and losses. Having it dealt fast and swift is actually the more merciful of the 2 choices. (Kabam even made it less painful by compressing the war ratings so these losses will be fewer in number.)
Hope you understand what I mean.
And just for some extra kick, my alliance has actually gone down in season rank even though we've only lost one war so far, which means that even with the war ratings of these smaller alliance that had inflated ratings, my alliance is getting pushed down further by the inflated small alliances who's ratings are still way above what they should be, even though they're losing way more matches. Eventually those smaller alliances will come across my alliance and probably still get devoured. That's how much of a flawed system the old way was. It's just time to accept that there's going to be a lot of losses until they settle in a bracket in which they are way more suited.
except it is absolutely fine, since that 6m or 1m ally never had to fight other alliances in the bracket they were previously in, thus earning rewards they didn't deserve and also falsely inflating their egos, believing they were indeed an actual Gold1-2 alliance.
Kabam has done many things people dont agree with and there have been several folks that enjoyed white knighting for Kabam, but for once they've done something fair and I'm glad most players have understood this.
if there are players that feel they deserve those better rewards, they can move on to another ally or perhaps recruit players to replace those that are under-performing.
And op, yeah I agree this method sucks big time for people like you, and they could have done something else. i personally can't think of a way they could do it without it being abused by people, but I'm not very smart in regards to in game stuff like this lol. I think everyone can agree that it isn't your fault that you had an inflated rating and that the game just had a busted system which benefited some and disadvantaged some. I think xnig made a pretty good point about just letting the system work as fast as possible so you can get balanced asap. unfortunately, a lot of people in your alliance are probably going to get frustrated about it. I would just advise to try your best to explain the system and why this is happening, and hopefully the sensible people in your alliance will understand. best of luck to you guys
Here's the more mathy but hopefully still not terribly long explanation. If your alliance had the right rating, you'd be winning about half your wars against roughly equal competition. But if you have a higher rating than you were supposed to, you were getting more points than you were supposed to even if you were still winning 50/50 because your multiplier was higher than it should have been. So the game should drop you down to that proper rating as soon as possible, and ultimately that's going to happen through losses.
Could this have happened "gradually" by some complex mechanism? Let's say there is such a way. In that case you'd have that higher rating for longer, and accumulate more points longer. This benefits you. But because there are only so many places in each war tier and each season bracket, the more points you earn above what you ought to earn, the more you're displacing other alliances downward. If you're in tier 6 but you should be in tier 8, every war you remain in tier 6 is someone in tier 7 that should be in tier 6 and losing that multiplier, and someone in tier 8 that should be in tier 7 and losing that multiplier. You are costing them points, and if that places you into a higher season bracket then you're also costing someone, maybe multiple alliances, rewards.
So to give you a soft landing and make it seem like you aren't being "punished" how slowly do you want the game to gradually lower you, and how many alliances do you want to get lower rewards than they should be getting and for how long, so your alliance can get that softer landing? How much rewards do you want to take out of other player's pockets so you can reduce the change in rewards for your own alliance mates? If you were in charge of the game, how long would you allow that situation to continue?
If you were getting more rewards than you should have been, the current system will be handing you less rewards than you were getting before. That's unavoidable. It might seem like punishment, but it is really just resorting alliances into the proper order. That happens with wins and losses. It is just more obvious now than it was before, but it was happening all the same. People were losing wars they should have won, and getting fewer points than they should have been getting, and getting fewer rewards than they should have been receiving. If you're being punished now, they were being punished then. But in fact, no one was or is being punished. Players were just playing the game and the system was rewarding players as it was programmed to, and now the system is rewarding players in a different way. That isn't punishment. It just is.
Just putting this out there, the newly formed 20m alliance two possible theories, they used to be an over placed alliance who was sick of losing all their matches in this rebalance, and so started a new alliance and jumped there so they could get easy wins this season (at terrible multipliers so ending up with worse season reward but better morale.) or another factor/ Possible reason, these war new maps are far harder than they used to be for the mid tiers, t11 is mental compared to the old map, went from averaging 5 kills per war all season to 50 in the new map Off season, this is another massive morale killer for alliances, I wouldn’t be surprised if there guys wanted to go zero item, and just focus on win shards for a season and alliance morale. And flag on rewards. The 1m - 20m is a massive outlier but with how bad this situation is going to be hitting alliances it may actually become a problem. I still believe a better solution could have been found but am yet to hear it or cone up with it myself, the system shouldn’t be what we are debating, long term nobody can deny this system reaches a far better solution for fairness than the old one. The new alliance matchups may become a problem but we are talking a .1% problem that may need a look at,
Suggestions new alliances get a matchmaking parameter of only fighting within 50% of their alliance size for their first 5 wars, after that they are on their own.
Also I think locking all ratings off season would be more viable with this system in place
Also could this whole rollout have been done off season with an incentive to participate like winning rewards even for the losers of wars, so everybody participated and got shard rewards while they found their true standings, competitive alliances would have wanted to win to get the better rewards from higher tiers and have better Multipliers to start the season, and the overrated teams could have dropped off season and still got those shard rewards as if they were winning.
Seems to work in my head
I also suggest maybe kabam bump every alliances rewards this season to be one bracket higher than they actually achieve, as compensation for the teams who will suffer demoralising losses for the season and may actually end up with worse rewards than their future season (not sure yet) but if they aren’t clearing half the maps and are losing, the higher multipliers won’t be balancing those numbers out. But also Compensation for the bigger alliances who’ve had multiple seasons of demoralising placings. And know they have missed out on Many seasons rewards they should easily have been able to compete for
Every now and again we would come out here and add Please Fix Matchmaking to whatever complaint thread seemed to be getting track. Shaking our heads at our meagre rewards and getting burned out of war. We still got on with it.
It's not gloating to finally feel vindicated. And it's not rubbing it in when we explain (time and time again) how this is the fair way to go.
Allis that were hella advantaged by being in the wrong spot have to just take in on the chin now. One or two seasons. However long it takes to balance it out. It was broken, they fixed it. The wheel turned.
Or quit playing the mode, or change alliances. I hate saying that and I don't mean it. But that was what we used to hear when we complained about a matchmaking system that made no sense. It makes sense now. To be against it now is being a sore loser, sorry. Pick yourselves up, dust yourselves off and work for your bread.
whether they are strong or weak they will win more wars then they lose until they find their spot.
its just a part of the competiton that has to happen.
if you use prestige matching and someone forms a new alliance at 40million then who do they fight?
they get stuck facing t4 platinum allies right from the get go and immediately get stuck down the bottom.
thats exactly what has been happening that is causing big allies to get stuck low.
meanwhile little allies climb easily, then grow when they are high.
i know i was a leader of an ally for a while. we were small and little, and we climbed easily to t5 and stayed there for a while.
then we changed our members out for semi retired ex vets and suddenly got much much stronger and suddenly our wars got much much harder to win and we began dropping.
we were getting rewarded easier as a smaller ally.
so we gave up, we moved to another ally, this one was t9 and we wanted them to grow, we were pushing real hard in wars, using items and boosts and couldn't for the life of us climb no matter what. this ally was 18mil and stuck at t9.
so we left and went to a 24mil ally at t5 and wow wars were easier. we could win easier using less items and got more rewards.
so yeah i see how big allies got stuck and smaller allies could climb easier.
and its also funny how lower tier wars are harder for big allies. cus nodes were so easy attack was crushing defense. wars were won or lost by who had 150 v 148 diversity or who died only twice compared to the opposition 5.
you literally cannot afford to die if you are a 20mil+ ally at low tier.
at higher tier there is less pressure cus deaths are more common it is easier play well and win.
(or those interested, yes i play multiple accounts in multiple alliances and have and still am playing in both a small alliance at t7 and a big alliance at t4. so i have different experiences in big and small allies climbing, getting stuck and everything in between. so i know how it affects people in all different situations)