BG matchmaking

I keep getting this kind of matchups. Is this working how it’s supposed to? Just frustrating to instantly loose points and marks. It’s making BG disappointing andimpossible to climb.

Comments

SummonerNR

Once you get into Platinum, it will match you against anyone else in Platinum, regardless of your roster/prestige.

I would save any further Elder Marks until next season.

danielmath

Plat 2 vs plat 2 is as fair as humanly possible.

winterthur

Plat 2 --> keep trying.

DNA3000

I keep getting this kind of matchups. Is this working how it’s supposed to? Just frustrating to instantly loose points and marks. It’s making BG disappointing andimpossible to climb.

Yes, it is frustrating, and yes, this is how it is supposed to work. Sort of.

Ideally, the way battlegrounds is "supposed to work" is this. Everyone fights everyone else. The stronger players rise higher. So starting from zero, you'd expect over time for BG matches to "sort" players from weakest to strongest. The weakest players would be at the bottom, then the ones slightly stronger, and so on. You would rise up to the point where you reached a level where everyone else was like you, and you could only win about half the time. You'd then more or less hover there. This is how, for example, Alliance War works.

Battlegrounds doesn't work that way for a few reasons, all of them designed to *help* weaker players. First, you cannot drop tiers. In Alliance war if you keep losing, you keep falling. A tier 1 alliance can become a tier 20 alliance if they lose enough. Alliances are moving up and down all the time. However, in the Victory Track of BG, you cannot go downward. You can only go upward. This means a player doesn't actually need to be good to move up. They could be just lucky. They could get a lucky match, they could get lucky and have the other guy forfeit or crash, or they could win a tight match. Once they promote, they cannot go back down. So players do not just rise and fall based on winning and losing. They only move upward.

This creates a problem. If we allow weaker players to only match against each other, then all it takes is for two weaker players to promote up to the next track, and then *one* of them has an automatic path to the next higher tier. They can only match against each other, and one of them has to win. Some fraction of all players that make it from Bronze 3 to Bronze 2 *automatically* get to Bronze 1 no matter how good or bad they play. And a fraction of those get to Silver, then Gold, then Platinum, then Diamond, then Vibranium, then GC. Automatically. This is seen by many players and the devs as inherently unfair, because instead of the strongest players moving up, lower strength players have an easier path to promotion. So the devs have been moving away from roster-strength matching.

If we completely remove roster-strength matching, then weaker players will likely get hammerred right from the start. The devs don't want to discourage players that severely, so they protect weaker players in the early rungs of VT by making most of their matches against players of similar strength. They then shift this from roster-matching to more tier-based matching (where you have to face anyone in your tier), and the critical horizon is Platinum. Up to gold your likelyhood of facing someone not similar to you is low, and above Gold that chance rises substantially.

Because the devs decided to add a VT in the first place, and because they decided to give lower roster strength players a break in the early tiers and allow them to rise much higher than they might otherwise, lower roster strength players aren't seeing a gradual increase in the strength of their opponents. Instead, they are shielded from strong opponents up to Gold and then are suddenly exposed to them. What you should have seen is your opponents getting stronger and stronger right from the beginning, and you'd never have seen those super-strong players because you would have never promoted high enough to see them.

To put it another way, instead of being told you have to climb Everest from the bottom, you're being given a helicopter ride to the final base camp and suddenly discovering there's no air there. You're seeing things get suddenly harder when they should have gotten gradually harder, but not from Platinum 2, from Bronze 2.

winterthur

I keep getting this kind of matchups. Is this working how it’s supposed to? Just frustrating to instantly loose points and marks. It’s making BG disappointing andimpossible to climb.
To put it another way, instead of being told you have to climb Everest from the bottom, you're being given a helicopter ride to the final base camp and suddenly discovering there's no air there. You're seeing things get suddenly harder when they should have gotten gradually harder, but not from Platinum 2, from Bronze 2.

👍🏻

ReignkingTW

Good another thread

GroundedWisdom

It's not actually the Matchmaking that is frustrating me. It's the drop-off from success rate, and the AI response that's driving me nuts. Mind you, I'm not taking a podium about it. I have no idea if it's the result of the server lag, or accelerated anything. All I know is it's leaving no room for error.
As for the Tokens, I understand that's the way it's designed. I'm just salty because I've spent 70 Matches or more trying to get out of D2, and the win ratio is driving me nuts. I get 2 Wins, I go down. I get 3 Wins, I go down. If I had my way, the 2 Token system would last until Vibranium, but that's just me.
I can understand how some feel the Matches are too much, but that's one of the cases I don't have much to agree on. It's as fair as it's going to get. There's a large doable range. At least from what I've seen this Season.

GroundedWisdom

I think the immediate solution for me is next time I decide to give it a go, I save Units for Shields for the final push.

noclutch

Is there there any official breakdown of how BG matchmaking works?

XFREEDOMX

Is there there any official breakdown of how BG matchmaking works?

No. And honestly, I don't think they will ever disclose it. Cheaters will find a loophole and take advantage of it.

QleverOne

This creates a problem. If we allow weaker players to only match against each other, then all it takes is for two weaker players to promote up to the next track, and then *one* of them has an automatic path to the next higher tier. They can only match against each other, and one of them has to win. Some fraction of all players that make it from Bronze 3 to Bronze 2 *automatically* get to Bronze 1 no matter how good or bad they play. And a fraction of those get to Silver, then Gold, then Platinum, then Diamond, then Vibranium, then GC. Automatically. This is seen by many players and the devs as inherently unfair, because instead of the strongest players moving up, lower strength players have an easier path to promotion. So the devs have been moving away from roster-strength matching.

If we completely remove roster-strength matching, then weaker players will likely get hammerred right from the start. The devs don't want to discourage players that severely, so they protect weaker players in the early rungs of VT by making most of their matches against players of similar strength. They then shift this from roster-matching to more tier-based matching (where you have to face anyone in your tier), and the critical horizon is Platinum. Up to gold your likelyhood of facing someone not similar to you is low, and above Gold that chance rises substantially.
The logic you described working for strong roster players as well, some of them will get to GC same way automatically. In Hearthstone from which this ladder system was copied it works the same way: you ether playing strong and promoting fast or have lower win rate and grinding ladder spending more time.

I can understand this kind of matchups in GC where there is actual places in ladder and rewards at stake. So stronger skill+roster have higher place, it’s fair and absolutely logical. But in VT it’s doesn't seem to be necessary. Other players don’t lose anything by you promoting here and you still need to grind this wins like any other player. It’s just roadblock for the sake of roadblock. Just bad game design imo.

FiiNCH

To be fair, you have a 370k account. You can’t expect to progress and do well in the most competitive game mode there is right now.

Gogi

This again? Plat 2 vs Plat 2 seems right.