Battleground matchmaking

Everyone let's thank Jax for giving us and end all be all post about what a competition is. Hopefully this will get through to people better than all of us saying the exact same thing

Why don’t they just say listen guys you want top rewards in modes like AW and BGs you need to open your wallet for that so just enjoy what you get 😂

Can’t no one tell me accounts like this don’t have an advantage and it’s not that they put in hours grinding playing game or just high skill, it’s simply spending to gain an advantage and the game mode has no restrictions or anything to balance the playing field. We will continue to see threads about match making until they do something to even the playing field.

If you disagree prove me wrong and tell me how you get all those r5 6* playing the game 😂

Maat1985

Can’t no one tell me accounts like this don’t have an advantage and it’s not that they put in hours grinding playing game or just high skill, it’s simply spending to gain an advantage and the game mode has no restrictions or anything to balance the playing field. We will continue to see threads about match making until they do something to even the playing field.

Thats the point of growing your account.
You grow your account to have benefits.

@Matt1985 Growing your account is one thing buying it is another and the game doesn’t offer anything to date that will get you that amount of r5 and r2 7* champs.

So basically all game modes where we face each other will always be dominated by how much you spend. Kinda crappy if you ask me.

Can’t no one tell me accounts like this don’t have an advantage and it’s not that they put in hours grinding playing game or just high skill, it’s simply spending to gain an advantage and the game mode has no restrictions or anything to balance the playing field. We will continue to see threads about match making until they do something to even the playing field.

If you disagree prove me wrong and tell me how you get all those r5 6* playing the game 😂

So you think you have a right to be in that spot more than the person who put in the time and money to get there? You must not be living on planet earth

@ahmynuts So do you think they deserve that spot just because they can spend more money than me?

@ahmynuts So do you think they deserve that spot just because they can spend more money than me?

They still put in more to get to that position. Whether it be time or money, they still pay the price. It's how all of these things work

JustWantTheRewards

So do you think they deserve that spot just because they can spend more money than me?

They deserve the advantage. If you can beat them, even with their stacked roster, then you deserve the spot.

BringPopcorn

@ahmynuts So do you think they deserve that spot just because they can spend more money than me?

I'm gonna go try buy a Ferrari with that argument, see if they sell it to me cheap.

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@ahmynuts Your talking about two different things because we are talking about this game. Yes in life money is gonna get you more than others who don’t and I definitely know that but the game doesn’t only survive off the people spending massive amounts of money because f2p and moderate spenders make up a bigger portion of the player base.

I spend my self and not saying anything is wrong with that but the mode needs some balance so skill has more of a fighting chance with the spenders.

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Pikolu

ahmynuts Your talking about two different things because we are talking about this game. Yes in life money is gonna get you more than others who don’t and I definitely know that but the game doesn’t only survive off the people spending massive amounts of money because f2p and moderate spenders make up a bigger portion of the player base.

I spend my self and not saying anything is wrong with that but the mode needs some balance so skill has more of a fighting chance with the spenders.

Money only gives you one of the pillars needed to be competitive in BGs. Skill, roster, and game knowledge are all required to do well in the gamemode. Money gives a fair advantage for people in BGs as well as other content. If it didn't, then people wouldn't spend money and the game would either die, or you'd need to watch an idle heroes ad after every BG match. Choose your poison.

ahmynuts Your talking about two different things because we are talking about this game. Yes in life money is gonna get you more than others who don’t and I definitely know that but the game doesn’t only survive off the people spending massive amounts of money because f2p and moderate spenders make up a bigger portion of the player base.

I spend my self and not saying anything is wrong with that but the mode needs some balance so skill has more of a fighting chance with the spenders.
Money only gives you one of the pillars needed to be competitive in BGs. Skill, roster, and game knowledge are all required to do well in the gamemode. Money gives a fair advantage for people in BGs as well as other content. If it didn't, then people wouldn't spend money and the game would either die, or you'd need to watch an idle heroes ad after every BG match. Choose your poison.

^^^

ItsClobberinTime

Can’t no one tell me accounts like this don’t have an advantage and it’s not that they put in hours grinding playing game or just high skill, it’s simply spending to gain an advantage and the game mode has no restrictions or anything to balance the playing field. We will continue to see threads about match making until they do something to even the playing field.

If you disagree prove me wrong and tell me how you get all those r5 6* playing the game 😂

1. You didn't know people who pay in video games always have an advantage over those who don't? Were you born yesterday?
2. Kabam doesn't want equal playing field above Plat, you didn't read the post made by Kabam Jax? Keep crying all you want buddy, they're not gonna change matchmaking to cater to the noobs lol.

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DNA3000

I'm pretty sure I'm characterizing your post accurately. I said that in broad terms, every GC player that makes it into GC takes a spot away from another higher progress player. Your first words in reply were "That is not true." You then tried to support that refutation by saying that the devs made progress into GC harder. But that's the point. There is a limit on how many players will make it into GC. It isn't a hard limit, but a soft design limit and if more players make it into GC than this broad design limit, this signals to the devs that the VT tracks are not properly designed and they will tweak them until that broad number is met. Which means there's a limit on how many players will make it into GC because there's a limit on how many the devs will *allow* into GC.

We can say there's a limit, and when we give lower progress players an easier path to GC than higher progress players we are penalizing higher progress players by taking rewards from them and giving them to lower progress players. This acknowledges that the game mode has a design intent and that design intent limits progress into GC. Or we can say everyone could make it if only the devs would let them. You are clearly saying the latter. But that's a perspective that ignores the way games are made, that suggests developers are just a random cog in the wheel that sometimes interferes with players getting what they want.
Here is what you are saying:
1. There is a limited number of spots in GC, an internal target (which is different from the theoretical number GC can hold).
2. Lower progress players have an easier path to GC (because they have an easier path to Plat2).

Based on this you are inferring that the system takes rewards from higher progress players and gives them to lower progress players. You are basically implying that there are for e.g. 1,000 spots in GC, devs don't care if that means 1,000 Paragons in GC or 1,000 UCs. So if one UC makes it to GC, then only 999 Paragons can be there, so 1 UC unfairly got in. Replace GC with Vibranium, Diamond, Plat etc as appropriate.

Here is what I am saying:
1. The devs intentions are more nuanced on what they want to see in terms of participation and BG progress for lower strength accounts. There can be multiple reasons for this - retention, player experience etc.
2. When people were progressing faster than the devs liked, their choice was to change scoring and number of tiers. It wasn't to change early tier matchmaking. That suggests that they were not seeing too many small accounts progressing through VT tiers, relative to what they wanted.

If the devs concern was that lower progress players are taking away spots from higher progress players, they could have just opened up matchmaking earlier (like they did with the last change). They chose not to. Which suggests that they also have a soft limit on the pace at which high progression player move through VT and GC.

That does not logically follow, because it ignores history. BG match making was changed from deck matching to roster/progress matching to prevent deck manipulation, among other things. It was originally set to roster/progress matching all the way through. We know the problems that caused with giving lower progress players too easy of a path upward, but we also know that the devs themselves were thinking the same thing, because they reduced roster/progress matching from all the way up to just up to Platinum (somewhere between Gold 1 and Platinum 2: this changed over time slightly). They also explained their reasoning in a forum post:

Specifically:

Many Summoners have concerns about matchmaking, and we absolutely understand the wide range of perspectives on this topic. We know that the experience is not working for most Summoners, and we have concluded the only way to address this issue is to change the system. The seeding system described above will keep competitive groups of Summoners together and provide better and fairer matches from season to season. Once this system is in place, the Victory Track and matchmaker will be structured to ensure any player who climbs the Victory Track and/or reaches the Gladiator’s Circuit deserves to be there and didn’t simply reach those heights because of softer matches.

(emphasis mine)

I should also point out that Kabam specifically referenced my own post describing the same issues they asserted were the focus of their BG changes moving forward, and while they didn't (at the time) fully agree with my proposed solutions, they did endorse my own view of the problems. So I feel it is fair to reference my own post on the same subject here: https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/328868/fix-battlegrounds-in-three-easy-steps-that-we-can-argue-about-until-the-end-of-time/p1 and specifically the section on "Fairness":

The devs recognized this as well, which is why BG even has a VT and GC. The GC is the pure competition for the top competitors. The VT is intended to be a more balanced participation-driven and competition-driven mode. We want people to participate in VT, but we don't want to wreck the competitive elements completely. Some people feel that roster-matching is more appropriate to encourage participation. And I agree, to a point.

Roster matching is intended to be a balance between the competitive requirements of the mode and the participatory requirements of the mode, and rather than use a phase-in scheme like I proposed, they used a sharper cutoff between them. They can't just arbitrarily change that to make it harder for lower progress players to advance, because it is there in the first place to encourage participation. You say if the devs wanted to change the relative difficulty of progression in VT between different progression tier players they could have just changed where the roster match phases out, but there's the equally workable alternative to increase the runway past the cutoff, which is what they did instead. Doing so keeps the period when low progression players are incentivized to participate reasonably long, while having enough VT tracks post-cut off to differentiate players of different competitive strength before reaching GC. This is the far more logical option to take when you've already made a compromise decision on where to phase out roster matching.

Moreover, the devs do not have some sort of quota on how many players of each individual progression tier make it to GC. They don't directly care how many UCs or Cavs make it to GC. Rather, they care *how* they get there. If they get there because they fought through the same competitive pool as everyone else, they deserve to be there. But the devs know they are putting their thumbs on the scale with roster matching, and what they don't know with certainty is how much impact this is having as BG seasons progress. That's why they are still tweaking things now. They don't care if those players are UC or Cav or Paragon in broad terms, they care what percentage of the top players are making it to GC in general. Assuming they are in fact the top players of BG. When they see a ton of UCs in there, they aren't directly concerned that too many UCs are getting in, they are rather concerned that a large number of them suggests roster matching is continuing to have too much of an impact on how easy it is to get to GC. That provides feedback to their judgment on how hard to make VT overall. But because outside of early tier roster matching all match ups are random, any change they make to VT's overall difficulty is going to affect all VT players regardless of progression tier. VT structural changes are blind to progression, so by definition every low progress player that overcomes those difficulty hurdles to get into GC will displace a high progression player, because that part of VT doesn't distinguish between them, and neither do structural balance changes in that part of the VT.

Stature

Roster matching is intended to be a balance between the competitive requirements of the mode and the participatory requirements of the mode, and rather than use a phase-in scheme like I proposed, they used a sharper cutoff between them. They can't just arbitrarily change that to make it harder for lower progress players to advance, because it is there in the first place to encourage participation. You say if the devs wanted to change the relative difficulty of progression in VT between different progression tier players they could have just changed where the roster match phases out, but there's the equally workable alternative to increase the runway past the cutoff, which is what they did instead. Doing so keeps the period when low progression players are incentivized to participate reasonably long, while having enough VT tracks post-cut off to differentiate players of different competitive strength before reaching GC. This is the far more logical option to take when you've already made a compromise decision on where to phase out roster matching.

Moreover, the devs do not have some sort of quota on how many players of each individual progression tier make it to GC. They don't directly care how many UCs or Cavs make it to GC. Rather, they care *how* they get there. If they get there because they fought through the same competitive pool as everyone else, they deserve to be there. But the devs know they are putting their thumbs on the scale with roster matching, and what they don't know with certainty is how much impact this is having as BG seasons progress. That's why they are still tweaking things now. They don't care if those players are UC or Cav or Paragon in broad terms, they care what percentage of the top players are making it to GC in general. Assuming they are in fact the top players of BG. When they see a ton of UCs in there, they aren't directly concerned that too many UCs are getting in, they are rather concerned that a large number of them suggests roster matching is continuing to have too much of an impact on how easy it is to get to GC. That provides feedback to their judgment on how hard to make VT overall. But because outside of early tier roster matching all match ups are random, any change they make to VT's overall difficulty is going to affect all VT players regardless of progression tier. VT structural changes are blind to progression, so by definition every low progress player that overcomes those difficulty hurdles to get into GC will displace a high progression player, because that part of VT doesn't distinguish between them, and neither do structural balance changes in that part of the VT.

To summarise:
- VT tracks were extended to limit the number of players getting into GC.
- The extension of VT tracks increase the competitive element of BGs over participatory elements. This by nature favors larger accounts over smaller one.
- If UC/Cav player fight through this competitive pool and get to GC, they deserve to be there.

How do you go from this to suggesting that every UC/Cav getting into GC is taking a spot away from a Paragon? That's a trivially true statement in terms that anyone who gets to GC is taking a spot away from anyone who isn't in GC. But the way you phrased it earlier made it seem the system was favoring lower accounts over larger ones. Maybe you believe that or maybe not. Anyway, this is much clearer. Thanks!

GroundedWisdom

ahmynuts Your talking about two different things because we are talking about this game. Yes in life money is gonna get you more than others who don’t and I definitely know that but the game doesn’t only survive off the people spending massive amounts of money because f2p and moderate spenders make up a bigger portion of the player base.

I spend my self and not saying anything is wrong with that but the mode needs some balance so skill has more of a fighting chance with the spenders.
Money only gives you one of the pillars needed to be competitive in BGs. Skill, roster, and game knowledge are all required to do well in the gamemode. Money gives a fair advantage for people in BGs as well as other content. If it didn't, then people wouldn't spend money and the game would either die, or you'd need to watch an idle heroes ad after every BG match. Choose your poison.

That was actually one of my issues with the scoring change. It takes an element of choosing wisely out of the equation. Taking the Champ down faster should count for more than it does.

Maat1985

@Matt1985 Growing your account is one thing buying it is another and the game doesn’t offer anything to date that will get you that amount of r5 and r2 7* champs.

So basically all game modes where we face each other will always be dominated by how much you spend. Kinda crappy if you ask me.

Buying your account is one way. Yes. Always has been and always will be.
Like it or not it just is.
How much someone spends is only part of the equation.

But yeah, no matter how you do it, the biggest part of this game is building your roster. Infact that is exactly what it is all about.
It is pokemon in disguise.

Ironman3000

It isn't a separate subject. It pertains to the reasons we have Matches that are regulated to begin with. First you argue that it isn't harmful. Then you tell me to change the subject. Sounds like a two-step to me.
Ugh. I never said it was harmless I said it was a non-issue. And no, tanking is not the reason we have the matchmaking we have now, sandbagging is. You aren't even arguing the correct manipulation.
It's not a non-issue, and I'm really getting tired of mincing words so here goes.
All along in these discussions, the opposition has been calling lower Players entitled because they want a fair fight. They didn't say they want free Rewards. They didn't say they wanted guaranteed Wins or cake walk Matches. They wanted a fair fight. There is absolutely no denying that certain Matches are a guaranteed Loss. In War discussions, the argument was "If you're skilled, you can win.". That doesn't apply here. Mathematically, even if both sides play with perfect skill, one side will lose because of the vast difference in what they're using. Damage dealt and Health lost are not the same at all. You can say that people have earned their right to those Matches, but you can't deny that some mean Players are dead in the water. That's a fact. They said they want a fair chance. Not a setup for failure.
The reality is, and I don't care if it offends people at this point because I'm not talking about anyone specifically, I've seen the other side be just as entitled. They felt entitled to Tank and cherry-pick Matches to start. Then they felt entitled because lower Players were having more success than they were when they were losing their own even Matches (as if that's an argument to stomp them if you can't handle a fair fight). Now we have more entitlement arguing that Tanking is an acceptable practice, and people should suck it up. These people asking for even Matches are nowhere as entitled as the ones saying if we can't have what we want, we're just going to take it because we're bigger and better and we deserve more. Nevermind the fact that it stops the system from being a true reflection of skill because those results and Tiers are being manipulated by Players.
This right here is the reason any competition in this game becomes more than just a competition. It becomes toxic as hell.

Your definition of a 'fair fight' isn't actually fair. That's the whole point GW.

Ironman3000

But I was told that BGs are not a competitive mode that is for the best-of-the-best. Who am I supposed to believe?

@ItsClobberinTime I have 260k points already and hit GC every season so far from a noob lol I’m talking about making the mode more competitive and skill based and not catering to biggest spenders.

You said video games, so here let’s talk about other games like COD or Apex that have a huge ranked system and yes in those games you have a p2w aspect in the game at times only if a paid gun has a better iron sight than the base but it’s 90% skill based and 10% p2w and they make plenty of money. Someone who doesn’t spend a dollar and grinds can compete at the same lvl as the biggest spenders.