War Matchmaking a bit off
Greywarden
Member Posts: 843 ★★★★
This season was delayed supposedly due to war matchmaking issues. I'm not sure of the exact nature of the issue or if there were other things at play but I'm hoping what was looked into will EVENTUALLY be fixed and crazy uneven match-ups a thing of the past.
First 4 wars of this season my alliance which is outside the top 30 in terms of war rating has faced 3 of the top 5 in terms of rating. I won't get into the whole screenshot thing unless a mod asks for them but we've been seeing wild stuff like +50/-10 and +60/-3 against sub 10 death alliances. I've put up multiple posts about this in the past and I've come to realize we're in Season 9 and we still have the same issues....
What EXACTLY is being fixed because this has been going on for 9 seasons and almost nothing is different. Every season I can point out 4-5 wars where I've faced a top 5 regardless of what tier I've been in. I commend the top 20 every season as I know it's tough to get Master let alone top 3 (finished in Masters myself) but how good can anybody feel beating up on alliances that have no chance constantly? I gotta believe there are alliances out there that would like some semblance of a challenge from this game mode regardless of the current lackluster rewards...
I know matchmaking can't be perfect and there will be some tomato cans that get beat up on but when you're the tomato can for 1/3 of a season it gets a little old. It's been mentioned before but at some point the top 10 should be playing each other, and not just at the end of the season when things are pretty much locked in and the result is meaningless. It seems like I've played against top 5's every season more than they've played against each other.
How exactly can an algorithm match a group outside of the top 30 to a group in the top 5 consistently? Personally I think there is some sort of gaming going on where maybe there is a specific time these groups are enlisting that is guaranteeing a soft match-up but that's just a theory. I know this comes off as a whining post but 9 seasons of the same broken mode......
First 4 wars of this season my alliance which is outside the top 30 in terms of war rating has faced 3 of the top 5 in terms of rating. I won't get into the whole screenshot thing unless a mod asks for them but we've been seeing wild stuff like +50/-10 and +60/-3 against sub 10 death alliances. I've put up multiple posts about this in the past and I've come to realize we're in Season 9 and we still have the same issues....
What EXACTLY is being fixed because this has been going on for 9 seasons and almost nothing is different. Every season I can point out 4-5 wars where I've faced a top 5 regardless of what tier I've been in. I commend the top 20 every season as I know it's tough to get Master let alone top 3 (finished in Masters myself) but how good can anybody feel beating up on alliances that have no chance constantly? I gotta believe there are alliances out there that would like some semblance of a challenge from this game mode regardless of the current lackluster rewards...
I know matchmaking can't be perfect and there will be some tomato cans that get beat up on but when you're the tomato can for 1/3 of a season it gets a little old. It's been mentioned before but at some point the top 10 should be playing each other, and not just at the end of the season when things are pretty much locked in and the result is meaningless. It seems like I've played against top 5's every season more than they've played against each other.
How exactly can an algorithm match a group outside of the top 30 to a group in the top 5 consistently? Personally I think there is some sort of gaming going on where maybe there is a specific time these groups are enlisting that is guaranteeing a soft match-up but that's just a theory. I know this comes off as a whining post but 9 seasons of the same broken mode......
3
Comments
Also the timing thing should not be an issue anymore since we all start at the same time now.
Iso8A twice
J11
Kenob
I’d love to know how a group outside of the top 30 in terms of rating has that as the first 5 out of 6.
I mean cmon you're giving back to back byes to the top rated alliance in the game.....who knows maybe even 3 in a row.
Meanwhile an alliance outside of the top 30 (almost top 40 actually) has to play the top 5 every single war of the season so far. What was the point of the whole enlistment change if the algorithm is still broken?
FIX WAR MATCHMAKING
Matching a 2200 with a 2500 war rating (which has happened numerous times from what I have seen), simply because they have the same prestige or alliance PI, is setting up the alliance with 2200 rating to lose. The evidence and historical fact, based on their war rating, is that they are a weaker war alliance than the one at 2500.
Will matching based on war rating lead to skewed match ups in the form of a 20m alliance facing a 10m alliance? Yes that can happen, but it is not an unfair match up since obviously to both be at 2200, they both have been winning/losing at the same rate at that war rating, and therefore they are equally competent. The problem of matching at prestige is that the game is artificially segregating alliances into sub-tiers at the same war rating.
I’m leaning towards this being worse due to a few things.
1) there are only 20 top 20 groups (duh) so the match pool is smaller than if you went by rating. There are quite a bit more groups that are 2900 rating and higher.
2) prestige can’t be what is used for aq and aw. For years it’s only purpose has been to rank groups doing the same aq map and now it’s going to be used for groups doing the same war map??? If that’s the case why even have war rating to begin with. Just go with prestige caps that give certain multipliers. And COMMUNICATE it.
3) the difference between high prestige groups that don’t have a ton or any whales versus a group of all whales is pretty massive. I don’t want to say our normal death total for competitive reasons but under normal circumstances where we’re actually trying and know we have a shot we stand no chance against sub 10 death groups, not many do.
4) you’re not only pushing people away from war but from the game. There are only so many +60 matchups in a row you can see before you start thinking about moving on.
5) along the lines of #2 there has been zero communication regarding a shift in the match making criteria. I understand you can’t divulge the secret sauce to the algorithm but moving from ratings to prestige is pretty massive and I think it’s fair to say that communication from this company has been far from acceptable for years now.
There’s probably more that I’m not thinking about but this went from my favorite game mode to the one I just want to be over.
Why are we now after 6,......yes 6 straight wars of completely BS match-ups changing strategy? The answer is right there, at some point you get beat down enough where your strategy has to change. Beginning of the season first bad match-up, whatever. Do your business and get the 100% but after 6 straight match-ups against close to 10 death alliances you have to pick the wars where you actually try.
Do me a favor and don't verbally attack anybody before knowing and thinking through all of the facts.
I'm not sure alliances skipping nodes is the problem here. I can't speak to all instances of other groups but we have always been a 100% clear group,...hell we were Master last season, that doesn't happen from skipping nodes. Our strategy may have to change considering we're getting incredibly lopsided matches based on the arbitrary metric of prestige being what we're being matched on.
The main issue I'm trying to discuss is the fact that we're 9 seasons into war and the algorithm is probably the worst it's ever been.
You've basically created a system where a few spots in each tier are reserved for alliances that don't belong there. These smaller alliances keep playing one another and never against larger alliances with the same war rating.
With the new system, a handful of 12-15m alliances make platinum because they just keep playing similar sized alliances. Same goes for Gold 1 as well, there are quite a few 10m alliances in that tier. Any 20m+ alliance is going to walk all over an opponent's map that filled with only 4*.
I did this personally for a season before and found it extremely enjoyable. Coming from a Plat 1 / Master ally, i dropped to a Gold1/Plat 3 ally for a season, and was basically walking through maps taking out minis and final bosses, sometimes noded, without a sweat. If every end game player does this when they want a break, overall spending in AW will go down and everyone will be getting easier rewards this way.
To be clear, this is not the same as shell swapping since it is not about 30 people moving to a new ally (that would trigger the same prestige-based match ups). It is about 1 or 2 moving into a generally weaker alliance so that the match ups are relatively easier for you, but you can still easily get Plat 2/3 rewards depending on which ally you chose.
How is an AQ metric affecting AW (which is a completely different game mode) something that makes any sense to anybody. Currently groups that push AQ are being punished in AW for doing so. Competing in AQ and AW are two completely different animals however AQ is somehow being considered when creating matches.
ZERO SENSE.
Take a look at some of the groups in Masters and P1 and then take a look at some of the Masters groups you now see in P3.....definitely not working as intended.
Mng
Iso8A twice
J11
Fnx
Kenob
Asr
^^^^ pretty nice string of BS. Relatively certain no other alliance has had that kind of lineup to deal with this season.