Let's talk Battlegrounds matchmaking.
SuperDuperBuuu
Member Posts: 45 ★★
So, as many have noticed recently, Battlegrounds matchmaking has had a change done to it and with that, it has its issues. I immediately noticed I was getting matches with people that absolutely dwarf my account in terms of R4 6 Stars and overall $ spent (all brand new champs), this is coming from last season where I had a great time fighting people at or very close to my level.
Because of this change and the comment made by Kabam that they don't want to reveal what the new matchmaking system bases it's algorithm on, I decided to do a little testing and see just what the hell the matchmaking uses to find opponents. So after a bit of forfeiting and logging my opponents Prestige, Account Base Hero Rating & Progression level, I think I finally know what the new system uses. To put it straight up, it uses Base Hero Rating for the algorithm. Now, there were some oddities with the testing, like matching people who I just shouldn't with any algorithm, but that was less than 10% of the time, the other >90% was people that had very similar or in the ballpark Base Hero Rating.
The reason I find an issue with this new system is, not only is it absolutely screwing me on 70-80% of the matches but I also am seeing people with rosters far below mine getting matched against me. People with newer accounts that didn't rely on ranking up their 3, 4 & 5*s are looking to have these matches on easy mode, do to their rating being far lower than a long time casual player who has gone through needing to rank up those champs over the years. I can't imagine it's a fun time for someone with a 10k prestige account getting curb stomped by a 15k prestige account, just because one person decided that ranking only their top 6 Stars is what they need. This is no complaint towards those players by the way, this is a complaint towards the matchmaking system, it's screwing a lot of players from Cavalier to Paragon. I for one will not be ranking up anymore champions that aren't going to R3 as a 6 Star, since that's all that matters now.
TL;DR Battlegrounds matchmaking is now based on Base Hero Rating and it's screwing mid-endgame players.
Because of this change and the comment made by Kabam that they don't want to reveal what the new matchmaking system bases it's algorithm on, I decided to do a little testing and see just what the hell the matchmaking uses to find opponents. So after a bit of forfeiting and logging my opponents Prestige, Account Base Hero Rating & Progression level, I think I finally know what the new system uses. To put it straight up, it uses Base Hero Rating for the algorithm. Now, there were some oddities with the testing, like matching people who I just shouldn't with any algorithm, but that was less than 10% of the time, the other >90% was people that had very similar or in the ballpark Base Hero Rating.
The reason I find an issue with this new system is, not only is it absolutely screwing me on 70-80% of the matches but I also am seeing people with rosters far below mine getting matched against me. People with newer accounts that didn't rely on ranking up their 3, 4 & 5*s are looking to have these matches on easy mode, do to their rating being far lower than a long time casual player who has gone through needing to rank up those champs over the years. I can't imagine it's a fun time for someone with a 10k prestige account getting curb stomped by a 15k prestige account, just because one person decided that ranking only their top 6 Stars is what they need. This is no complaint towards those players by the way, this is a complaint towards the matchmaking system, it's screwing a lot of players from Cavalier to Paragon. I for one will not be ranking up anymore champions that aren't going to R3 as a 6 Star, since that's all that matters now.
TL;DR Battlegrounds matchmaking is now based on Base Hero Rating and it's screwing mid-endgame players.
20
Comments
When I use my best (mainly 5*) I'm destroyed by bigger accounts with ranked up 6*.
When I use half 2* im matched with other sandbaggers lolz.
As long as you don't compensate the players for their losses, you will never get anywhere realistically. BG has the greatest potential of any content ever created, but the experience is ruined on a daily basis by cheaters.
At a minimum, Kabam should at least remove losing 1 medallion in the Victory Track when losing, to limit the damage cheaters do to other players. But we don't even get that.
Unbelievable, simply awful customer service.
I also observed it tends to happen more the closer I am to advancing to next league. That could be a base for some rather unfortunate implications but I'm not accusing Kabam on being actively malicious on the matter. The competence, however, does leave a lot to be desired.
Lets say my roster strength is a 5 (on a scale of 1-10). Before the fix, I was regularly facing 8+ strength rosters (and using 2-stars to trick the system into think its a 5 strength roster). Now after the fix I am facing rosters that are 4-6 strength, meaning of comparable strength.
As with anything, matchmaking is not going to be perfect. Some people liked the previous matchmaking system while others hated it, and now different ppl like the new matchmaking system while different people hate it.
The most recent changes probably makes it harder for accounts in between Progression levels (like new Paragons/advanced Thronebreakers, or new TB/advanced Cavaliers, etc)
I do want to clarify as well that this is only for Victory Track and not Gladiator Circuit, Kabam has made GC so anyone can match anyone from the very first season, nothing has changed there.
1- That's why there s TWO levels of progression, Victory and GC for better/best players, with different, extra rewards. GC gives tokens, and whoever gets there, also gets the Victory level rewards as well.
2- Victory rank rewards are basically pay to get, so whoever you are, you can get a good chunk of them by spending units, money, aka elders marks.
I have said it before and I'll say it again, all of these assumptions on what the primary purpose of BG is could be better settled if anyone from Kabam would actually address the issue. Simply let us know, is BG supposed to be about "skills" and "fair" matches. Or is it supposed to be like other modes where everyone fights for rank rewards such as AW and AQ where it takes a combination of multiple items but stronger accounts will have a massive advantage.
Think about it, the closest modes to BG are AW and AQ and to some level arena. In AW alliances with UC could face Paragon player alliances depending on AW tier, the strongest and most dedicated get best rank rewards.
In AQ, strongest accounts with best prestige get best points leading to higher AQ rank rewards placemwnts. Even in arena, the top rewards each cycle (excluding bots) will go to the most dedicated players who will need deep rosters to put up the ton of points to score at top of leaderboard. When has anyone from Kabam said that BG is supposed to be anything different than than king standing concept on how rank rewards content has been for years?
Absolutely the only reason I play anymore is battlegrounds and every time I rake up my roster it makes battlegrounds, much harder. Shouldn’t it be the opposite? The stronger my roster is, the better I get in BGs? I have literally held back ranking up champs I use in battle grounds because it makes my matchmaking ridiculous if I have any rank 4s. The nice part is, it has been an incentive not to buy deals.
They 100% are fighting for the same rewards.
Do you think it's fair for us to be pulling off 7-8 win streaks in a row while the stronger players can barely get 3? The result is going to be us getting better ranked rewards than them and maybe even making it into GC, which makes no sense. I'm not saying matchmaking should be random as soon as you start your first fight in bronze 3 but there should be a brick wall for us so the stronger players can keep climbing up and then we climb up after them, not the other way around.
And half the time I might be lucky to select 2 or 3 of my R4’s yet the opponent seems to have a smorgasbord to choose from their R4’s