AW Matchmaking is Jacked Up.

Jestress

I am in an alliance pushing for Platinum 3.

Every single AW match we've had this season has been against a Top 100 alliance who tanked their rating prior to the season start so that exactly this could happen.

Is this what we can expect from AW moving forward? Top alliances tanking their AW rating for favorable matchups in a short season? This is ridiculous.

Lysiszero

Yeah pretty much. Going for rank is to much bs. Just play for the cheap rewards and don't have high expectations.

Birdofprey

The problem with tanking your ranking is that you can drop a tier. If you don't keep in a high tier, you can kiss your season goodbye. It is always a gamble on how far down to drop. The war tier ratings are never the same day to day, so you may not get back into the tier you want and lose points on the war. You will notice that the plat 1 and master alliances are not too keen on doing this. They all want to be in tier 1

Grimmbanana

more complaining oof

Jkw634

I think what else we maybe seeing is the side affect of kabam deducting points from aw rating dropping the offenders into lower tier easier matchups. This could also be screwing over lower rated alliances.

PaytoPlay

Just make off season matches friendly , you still get winning and losing rewards but no changes on war rating. Problem solved.

Hulksmasshh

Jestress wrote: »

I am in an alliance pushing for Platinum 3.

Every single AW match we've had this season has been against a Top 100 alliance who tanked their rating prior to the season start so that exactly this could happen.

Is this what we can expect from AW moving forward? Top alliances tanking their AW rating for favorable matchups in a short season? This is ridiculous.

While I agree that AW matchmaking is jacked-up, the issue you are describing is not the fault of the matchmaking system. The system actually matched you with alliances of similar war rating and was working properly within that context. The problem arises from season / off-season structure, where losing wars during off-season can put you in a better position for the start of the season. This point is debatable when you compare the rewards you miss out on during off-season wars when you lose wars on purpose. If you didn't tank during the off-season, you likely won some wars against higher alliances that you wouldn't have if both alliances had played their best. I don't know the cost / benefit analysis though if it's better to tank wars during off-season (it probably is). I do think it is a problem that should be addressed.

A solution to tanking during off-season is to make it so you always want to be highest war rating you can at any given time. This could be achieved by introducing more tiers and closer multipliers in-between. If you tank during off-season, you'll be at an even lower multiplier during season and be in a worse position. This does come with it's own flaws though, such as a system where those behind have no chance to catch-up to those ahead because of the multiplier. Kabam would have to do some in-depth math and analysis to find the best tiers and multipliers (which they probably did when first expanding the tiers). Another solution could be lowering the 4*, 5* and 6* shards a tad from season rewards and placing them into war victory rewards.

Hulksmasshh

Jestress wrote: »

Hulksmasshh wrote: »

Jestress wrote: »

I am in an alliance pushing for Platinum 3.

Every single AW match we've had this season has been against a Top 100 alliance who tanked their rating prior to the season start so that exactly this could happen.

Is this what we can expect from AW moving forward? Top alliances tanking their AW rating for favorable matchups in a short season? This is ridiculous.

While I agree that AW matchmaking is jacked-up, the issue you are describing is not the fault of the matchmaking system. The system actually matched you with alliances of similar war rating and was working properly within that context. The problem arises from season / off-season structure, where losing wars during off-season can put you in a better position for the start of the season. This point is debatable when you compare the rewards you miss out on during off-season wars when you lose wars on purpose. If you didn't tank during the off-season, you likely won some wars against higher alliances that you wouldn't have if both alliances had played their best. I don't know the cost / benefit analysis though if it's better to tank wars during off-season (it probably is). I do think it is a problem that should be addressed.

A solution to tanking during off-season is to make it so you always want to be highest war rating you can at any given time. This could be achieved by introducing more tiers and closer multipliers in-between. If you tank during off-season, you'll be at an even lower multiplier during season and be in a worse position. This does come with it's own flaws though, such as a system where those behind have no chance to catch-up to those ahead because of the multiplier. Kabam would have to do some in-depth math and analysis to find the best tiers and multipliers (which they probably did when first expanding the tiers). Another solution could be lowering the 4*, 5* and 6* shards a tad from season rewards and placing them into war victory rewards.

That's fair - it's the off-season mechanics that lead to this. They should just eliminate AW war rating changes during the off-season.

That wouldn’t be ideal at all honestly. There are many alliance changes and new ones created that use the off-season to build up their war rating as much as they can. No one would want to use seasons as the only time to start a new alliance or revive a disbanded one.

TacoScotty

I think new seasons should start with assigned war rating based on prior season results. Whoever finishes 1st gets assigned highest rating and then like drop it a little each step down for like top 100 and then make brackets for rest and each bracket same rating. The assigned values should be close enough so wins during season can still move ya up tiers for multipliers. This will get same result for offseason being friendly but also allow effectively resets at times to align to which alliances are doing better most recently.

I would also love if AW was more of a tournament setup for top alliances. For example after the 4 weeks of standard war are over the top 8 master alliances the next week do a tournament to determine final placement - points from season are only used for initial seeding. Results of the one week tournament determines who gets top rewards for season. May want to spice up master rewards for the non-top 3 and extend to top 8 so still competitive after first loss

GroundedWisdom

I agree that there are some issues with Matchmaking being off-kilter. Whether It's the result of tanking or reductions, or both, I'm not certain. I actually brought it up not too long ago. Still somewhat lost for suggestions. I had the idea of incorporating Prestige into the Matchmaking as well as War Rating. In terms of Seasons, when I originally suggested Seasons, I had the idea of starting every Season with a fresh Rating. I could see how that would be problematic. I suppose a couple other ideas would be to separate Season War Rating from regular, or what I originally suggested, having a Placement Phase for Seasons. Basically using some factor, Prestige, Wins, something...that places you in appropriate Matches for the start of Seasons, then basing your performance on the usual way. Just some sketches of ideas I had, but I do agree there are some imbalances.