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Battlegrounds matchmaking is fundamentally flawed, Regardless of Meta

DarthSalem

I would greatly appreciate discussion on this matter.

The manner in which Battlegrounds decides who to play against eachother is shockingly incompetent, inconsistent & downright frustrating.

From my understanding, all the Battlegrounds matchmaking is, is that it will place you against other players within the same subdivision of your current rank (+ or - 1 subdivision).

Now I understand that, this on paper, seems fine. However, it falls short immediately when experiencing the excessively large flaw in it.

The current matchmaking we have is comparable to that of a FPS Shooter, where: ‘Everyone has access to the same things everyone else does, so we then base our matchmaking on players rank & therefore skill’

But that style of matchmaking doesn’t translate well into this game, as mcoc has *always* been primarily, a game of luck & secondly, a game of making yourself stronger. It is a gacha format fighting game. This then inherently means that players rosters are going to be automatically more well rounded or solid, whether it be due to luck from crystals, pouring a large total amount of time into the game, or simply just buying their way to it.

& when you take a gacha format fighting game, add an online based pvp mode but then correlate the matchmaking of a FPS Shooter to it, all fairness & enjoyability is vacuumed out of it.

There has been countless discussions in global about horror stories of even *attempting* to get a start on Battlegrounds & I myself have experienced them too. Freshly uncollected players, trying to make their way through bronze only to run into Valiant & Elder players. My account (now due to collectives) is at 7.6mill & yet my past 5 matches have all been 12mill+ ratings, which is a major gap in roster sizes & ranks. Its frankly absurd.

Uncollected Elder
300K Rating vs 12M Rating
Silver Silver

Based on Battlegrounds matchmaking, it believes this ^^^ is justified because both players are silver. Its unbelievable.

It has so many undeniably bad side effects. Preventing players from even moving out of their starting brackets. Completely stopping us from moving up to receive *vital* limited time rewards like radiance.
Aswell as generally falling into the rhythm of 1 step forward 2 steps back.

Its an excruciating slog to have to endure that is in dire need of changing. So far, all the testing adjustments to Battlegrounds have been to the technical measurements within the matches themselves when it should be focused on testing alternatives to the matchmaking, allowing for matches to actually be inherently healthier based on correct player correlation.

I can shortly name an alternative that i believe are extremely better than what we have currently

• Matchmaking Based on Top 30 Prestige: Identical to how reward scaling is in Monthly EQ. The roster a player brings of 30 will most likely be their top 30 champs. Equate their top 30 average to others with similar averages, even reaching beyond their current rank while not changing the rewards for winning (Win still = +2, Loss still = -1)
E.g.

Valiant Paragon
29K Average vs 28K Average
Diamond Silver

This matchmaking ignores rank & focuses on their top 30 average. This would solve mismatching higher accounts to lower accounts while not letting players just completely skip.

This concept could hypothetically be swapped to value similar total account ratings over rank, however there would still be a mismatching every now & then.

Comments

DarthSalem

Sorry for those match examples, posting it removed the positioning I had it placed it. The general gist of what i mean is still there though.

MrSakuragi

I’m not sure when you heard these stories from global, but Uncollected haven’t been able to play ranked/VT matches since season 34, over 6 months ago. It is restricted to Thronebreaker+.

DarthSalem

thank you for pointing that out to me, that expresses it to be a bit hyperbole but my points still stand. Didnt realise it had changed

NARWH4L

They changed matchmaking to its current state because account/deck based matchmaking results in a significant advantage for smaller accounts to advance. I get the concern of smaller accounts having a hard time, but such matchmaking not only gives small accounts a less hard time, but also a significantly easier time progressing than larger accounts. Until they separate progressions/prestige levels and giving smaller accounts less rewards for fighting each other, there really is no solution. So long as the game mode stays as it is, changing matchmaking would not be reasonable. There is no valid argument to justify smaller accounts having an easier road to the circuit than larger accounts.

spiderknight616

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2952990#Comment_2952990

I think the best solution would be to have GC placement give people a boost in starting VT rank. Maybe just have everyone in Arcane or Mysterium and up start in GC straight away and push the Uru and Gamma starting position to somewhere in Vibranium. That gives incentive for grinders to actually push for higher GC points to skip VT and reduces the high level accounts that people have to face during the VT climb.

Either way if they want to put chase pieces in BG related stuff it should at least be in a solo event

Disthene_T

It is tricky. What is fair is very subjective.

In the current model, bigger accounts get an advantage. This makes sense from Kabam's perspective because the bigger account likely played more and/or spent more money. The payoff is getting an advantage in all game modes. Investment paying off is fair in a sense. If someone has been playing 5 years and built a huge account, they don't want to have a 6 month old account to be protected from them and advance faster.

Because rewards are fixed, it kind of has to be open competitions. It doesn't make sense for Uncollected accounts to get to GC before much bigger accounts and earn more essentia,radiance, etc. If small accounts get prestige based protection, then they probably need to be given progress gates or reward selectors tailored to their progression. Things like "Thronebreaker accounts can't go above Platinum 1" or "Elder gets 500 essentia in Diamond 5 but Uncollected only gets 100".

Low activity players are problematic and hurting the system though. Prestige based matchmaking isn't a solution because it just gives the big accounts harder fights and keeps them in the low reward tiers. Instead, large gaps in account size should activate a free victory shield for the weaker player and give the bigger account bonus points, to propel them out of the low tiers. For Example, an Uncollected player encounters a large Valiant account in Silver 3. The Uncollected account gets stomped effortlessly but doesn't lose any points. The Valiant gets 5 points and immediately goes to Silver 2. That way, the Valiant gets to the place they shoud be faster and causes less damage along the way.

NARWH4L

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2953003#Comment_2953003

That has little difference with account based matchmaking because it just gives smaller accounts an easier road to the GC, just by a different route. The best solution is to split BGs across prestige brackets and adjust the rewards for each bracket accordingly, but that almost certainly will require more work from Kabam than they're willing to put in.

spiderknight616

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2953029#Comment_2953029

They'd still have to contend with bigger accounts higher up in VT. I frequently put off getting to GC until the last week and go up against people with solid rosters

DarthSalem

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2953026#Comment_2953026

This has been very insightful & interesting to see alternative perspectives & methods to the same issues.

When i first glanced at that hypothetical i was a bit confused but i think thats actually a very smart idea, the longer the blubbery accounts exist in lower bracket/vt in general the more harm they do to players genuinely struggling as it is. One flaw i do see however is that if the lower level account was to somehow win against the large account, that big account is now still in the same spot while the small account has furthered itself into bad territory. But i suppose with the hypothetical free shield that wouldnt be too much of an issue.

Its just so aggravating & excruciating to have to endure all of this horrid gameplay & being the free win for other plays while i run out of currency to even attempt to win JUST because i want a sliver of radiance that my account is in desperate need of to hit elder.

ADIV

I think there should be some change in matchmaking in bg's . I am saying this because of my personal experience in bg's . i have a low prestige account and some how managed to vibranium 2 and still facing difficulty in playing bg. I have submitted multiple requests about this before update also but kabam didnt take any action.they should talk about this on streams.