Alliance War Matchmaking loophole/exploit

I am well aware that the matchmaking "formula" is a secret so that alliances can't take advantage of it and exploit it to their benefit. Unfortunately, I believe it is so obviously flawed by looking at the current 2nd and 3rd place teams in war seasons. They are WELL into tier 1 war rating (3200+) and continue to match similar prestige alliances and not face any top prestige alliances with similar war ratings. There are currently 2 21 million rating alliances in the top 3 season leaderboard. By no means is rating a testament or conclusive deciding factor to the skill of an alliance, but it is part of a measuring stick. If you view their rosters you will find many guys with only 3 r5s. I have participated in 7 wars this season, vs perennial top alliances, majority of the defenders being r5. If we faced an alliance of mostly r4 defenders, we would have very few deaths and be very hard to beat. Same goes for many other top aq/aw alliances. It is becoming widely apparent that matchmaking has a significant weight of prestige in addition to war rating. These alliances appear to be getting matchups vs similar prestige alliances, much further down in war rating.

Once an alliance reaches a threshold in war rating, whatever part of the calculation matching based on prestige there is needs to be eliminated. Matchmaking is luck of the draw a lot of the time and thats fine, but at a certain war rating it should be the best of the best and no handicapping should be in the formula.

I could show a lot of data to support my findings, for example one of them had a +11 matchup in war 8, with many other suitable matchups around them that would have resulted in a +/- 25 to 35 or so matchup. I have a statistics degree and my math spidey sense is tingling far beyond a little bit of bad rng on matchups. If this is the case, this is essentially a loophole. Highly skilled players keeping their prestige down and getting great war matchups as a result. Is that as intended?

I just wanted to voice my thoughts on it, thanks for reading.

Comments

Wayntos

So if war match up is based off alliances team rating. players that are say average at best that dont sell their champs are put against whales that and elite teams that sell everyone except 4* and up. because of the similar ratings. There got to be a better way of matching up teams.

Greywarden

what's the point of war rating if all wars are being matched by prestige?

MNG
Iso8A
FNX
Iso8A
J11
Kenob
ASR

That's 7 of my allies last 9 wars....yet there are people in Master that aren't even 20 million rating and haven't faced anybody tough. One of the "top" groups has been getting spreads around the +10 mark every war which is obviously very easy to track whereas my group has been getting the complete opposite and almost every war has been a -10/+50-60.....

Shrimkins

They ought to calculate the prestige of each accounts top 15-20 champs and incorporate war rating. Would make matchmaking more consistent no?

Prestige should not factor into the matchmaking system at all. Matching Only on WR is the only way to get a fair matching system. We have been through this before many times with different systems to find AW matches.

If prestige is a major factor in matching, then lower strength alliances can work their way to the top of the leader boards and never play actual top tier allys.

For example: Alliance A has 10000 prestige and alliance B has 5000 prestige. Everyone would assume that alliance A has a much better chance of winning a war against alliance B.

But because the system would never match the 2 together, alliance A continues to fight against other 10000 prestige alliances while alliance B would continue to fight against 5000 prestige alliances.

If alliance A wins all their matches and alliance B wins all their matches, then they end up with the same amount of points at the end of the season.

See the problem? Alliance B now qualifies for the same rewards as alliance A even though alliance B could probably never win a single war against any of the opponents alliance A had to face. They did not have to fight the same competition all season long. This is exactly what happened in the early iterations of AW. You had alliances full of 3* champs in tier 1 because the mm system never matched them against hard allys.

synergy247

@synergy247 I'd be more concerned with all the low rated alliances taking up your plat spots.
True that, seems very unbalanced tbh

Gold 1 and higher levels should really be 15m rating and higher alliances approx
So it should not matter how skilled someone is, they should be required to have a specific rating to get the good rewards? Seems pretty classist.

No sorry I don’t mean that at all I’m saying from experience it tends to be those sort of level of alliances where they are ready and willing to push for the higher level war rewards, and building up rosters to cope

synergy247

Sure some lower level alliances may also push but it’s the exception rather than the rule, we're talking about tough 5* R4/5 defenders here some at max sig for bosses and not many alliances at other levels would have the champs to counter and 100% the map.

It’s also about having deep rosters made up of 5 x 5* R3/4/5 defenders
Plus
3 x 5* R4 or higher attackers minimum
Plus enough champs to manage AQ say Map 5 x 5 days during war season

battleone

Apparently all of these smaller alliances with roughly the same war rating but much lower prestige continually play one another and their war ranking doesn't change that much. Under the old system, those alliances would've played much higher rated alliances 10-12 wars.

this is a good perspective and I agree at many tiers of the game there should be a prestige "handicap" to prevent mismatches .... I am saying this handicap shouldnt exist at the absolute top of the game as it is resulting in significantly inferior alliances at the top of the leaderboard.

what's the point of war rating if all wars are being matched by prestige?

MNG
Iso8A
FNX
Iso8A
J11
Kenob
ASR

That's 7 of my allies last 9 wars....yet there are people in Master that aren't even 20 million rating and haven't faced anybody tough. One of the "top" groups has been getting spreads around the +10 mark every war which is obviously very easy to track whereas my group has been getting the complete opposite and almost every war has been a -10/+50-60.....

Yeah Grey, I'm not trying to make this about us. It's a global issue.... if Kenob slips up in one of their last 3 wars, are we really going to crown an alliance that hasnt faced any "tough" opponent as the AW Champ? IS that the intended result here? That is what is happening here. Also several people have shown me p2 and p3 alliances that are crazy low.

If Kabam wants to keep war rating matches to factor in prestige, the points multiplier needs to quantify that handicap.

The best analogy I can think of here is it is like pro sports teams are playing pro sports teams and college sports teams are playing college sports teams...... but the leaderboard is merged and all matches have the same value. Do we really want a whole bunch of lower alliances on the masters through p3 leaderboard simply bc their strength of schedule is incredibly lower than the higher alliances?

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battleone

I think I have concluded to this:

If Kabam wants to use prestige as part/all of the matchmaking equation, then the multiplier (points earned) needs to take into account this handicap being provided.

Seeing things from their side, it has a lot to do with the experience of the user. Facing an insurmountable war isn't fun. It's not fun for the summoners at a 400 war rating and not fun at 3200 war rating. They are trying to make it a pleasant experience However, playing wars of your level should also be awarded points at your level.

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Ultra8529

@synergy247 I'd be more concerned with all the low rated alliances taking up your plat spots.
True that, seems very unbalanced tbh

Gold 1 and higher levels should really be 15m rating and higher alliances approx
So it should not matter how skilled someone is, they should be required to have a specific rating to get the good rewards? Seems pretty classist.

The context is that those alliances below "15m rating" are in fact not facing the higher alliances. Nobody is saying that there should be an absolute bar to them based on alliance PI on prestige. We are just saying that they should be matched up against any alliance of their war rating with equal chance, and not weighted against matching a bigger alliance. The latter creates sub-tiers within a war bracket, thereby allowing smaller alliances to reap rewards higher than they truly deserve if they were to face all alliances of their war rating.

QuikPik

@Kabam Miike Are these the intended consequences of your new match making system?

Above alliances are not master caliber but due to your new algorithm somehow wound up being in that class.

Seriously that's about a 5500 prestige alliance in Gold 1.

Your new match making algorithm has undermined the integrity of the entire rankings during seasons.

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battleone

This new system equates to letting the jv team at the local high school to play in the super bowl for world titles

but get to do so vs other jv teams

Demonzfyre

@Kabam Miike Are these the intended consequences of your new match making system?

Above alliances are not master caliber but due to your new algorithm somehow wound up being in that class.

Seriously that's about a 5500 prestige alliance in Gold 1.

Your new match making algorithm has undermined the integrity of the entire rankings during seasons.

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battleone

I can't figure out how to get the quote right without having all the screenshots, so I will just tag, sorry for that @Demonzfyre

Just a quick couple of questions-
1. Have you seen the matchups for those alliances in masters? Have you seen each war this year?

Nope.

2. What makes them not masters caliber exactly? Their overall alliance rating?

Lack of defense to get the deaths needed to win at masters level.

3. Why cant a 11mil alliance be in Gold 1?

I understand that you're playing devils advocate. Do I have any black and white information provable in court as to their matchups? no. Kabam does not make the war information public. The only publicly available information is that some summoners profiles have less than 4 r5 5*s in masters.

Lets just say you were used to facing r3 5* defenders at your level and all of the sudden you were surrounded or being crushed in the standings with many alliances with r1 5*s, 4* 3/30 defenders. Something is awry. I could even accept 1 standout amazing alliance doing exceptionally well, but almost half of the alliances in master just simply don't belong there. they dont have the caliber rosters to defend vs perennial master alliances if they were matching them.

I state this as an informed participant in high level alliance wars. Kabam won't provide actual data or matchups to prove any of this. Other folks have chimed in from their perspectives in p2 p3 and g1. What we are seeing is a lot of underwhelming alliances in brackets they seem to be over their heads in.

QuikPik

@Kabam Miike Are these the intended consequences of your new match making system?

Above alliances are not master caliber but due to your new algorithm somehow wound up being in that class.

Seriously that's about a 5500 prestige alliance in Gold 1.

Your new match making algorithm has undermined the integrity of the entire rankings during seasons.
Just a quick couple of questions-
1. Have you seen the matchups for those alliances in masters? Have you seen each war this year?
2. What makes them not masters caliber exactly? Their overall alliance rating?
3. Why cant a 11mil alliance be in Gold 1?

Why do you play devil's advocate to everything? I have presented many alliances across different tiers that you would not normally find.

1. How can one see another alliances war
2. Overall alliance rating is a good gauge at depth of roster. ISO8A another master alliance has over 38m rating. I bet most if not all of their defenders are R5. The 18m master alliance probably only has a small handful of R5 on defense. Any other large master alliance is going to get max attack bonus against a defense like that.
3. Surely you can't believe this. I've been in Gold 1 for a long time and I've never come across a defense full of R4 and R5 4*.

Kabam has been promoting breath and depth of roster for a long time and these alliances don't have that for their war tiers. I can understand if some alliances inflate their war rating during offseason because they face a lot of tanking or shell alliances. But to be in this position this late in the war season means they are winning during the season. How are they winning, they get matched against alliances with similar prestige and not similar war rating.

GroundedWisdom

Prestige wars means war rating should be removed. It is a pointless metric at this point since war rating does not ensure you get matched up against opponents of close or equivalent war rating. You will instead get matched against someone with close or equivalent prestige.

This is creating sub-tiers of allies based on prestige within the broader AW ranking brackets. If we did not have such artificially constraiend matchmaking, we would be seeing a very different Plat 2 and Plat 3 as those tiny alliances that are getting free passes in avoiding bigger ones would, in a fair matching system, be knocked out.
I have to disagree with that. There are reasons for both to be used. War Rating is the result of performance. Wins and Losses. Prestige acts as a regulator to minimize manipulation of the system. Which it has seen too much of.
Prestige is a terrible way to minimise manipulation of the system. The better solution is simply to make it not worth alliances' while to tank, if that is the concern. Give them much lower points or rewards from tanking. Give incentives for people not to tank and the problem will solve itself.

Using prestige as a regulator simply creates a protective bubble around weak and low prestige alliances, and lets them think they are of a certain standard when truthfully they are not.

Prestige is the smartest way in the current system. No reasonable Player is going to manipulate that. Nor could they. They can't sell 5*s and 6*s. Prestige alone is not useful so much as Prestige combined with War Rating. Then it's less of a closed system. Let's be real here. Tanking and other forms of manipulation have become rampant. Disincentivising will not stop people from doing it. You need something more concrete. The only other viable solution is to freeze Off-Season, or separate the two.

Demonzfyre

@Kabam Miike Are these the intended consequences of your new match making system?

Above alliances are not master caliber but due to your new algorithm somehow wound up being in that class.

Seriously that's about a 5500 prestige alliance in Gold 1.

Your new match making algorithm has undermined the integrity of the entire rankings during seasons.
Just a quick couple of questions-
1. Have you seen the matchups for those alliances in masters? Have you seen each war this year?
2. What makes them not masters caliber exactly? Their overall alliance rating?
3. Why cant a 11mil alliance be in Gold 1?
Why do you play devil's advocate to everything? I have presented many alliances across different tiers that you would not normally find.

1. How can one see another alliances war
2. Overall alliance rating is a good gauge at depth of roster. ISO8A another master alliance has over 38m rating. I bet most if not all of their defenders are R5. The 18m master alliance probably only has a small handful of R5 on defense. Any other large master alliance is going to get max attack bonus against a defense like that.
3. Surely you can't believe this. I've been in Gold 1 for a long time and I've never come across a defense full of R4 and R5 4*.

Kabam has been promoting breath and depth of roster for a long time and these alliances don't have that for their war tiers. I can understand if some alliances inflate their war rating during offseason because they face a lot of tanking or shell alliances. But to be in this position this late in the war season means they are winning during the season. How are they winning, they get matched against alliances with similar prestige and not similar war rating.

So you can levy accusations of AW manipulations where said alliances can't speak for themselves but I can't ask a few questions just to see what you are basing said accusations on?

You cant see who they played so you don't know their win/loss record. You are assuming because you personally haven't seen these types of alliances in these positions it means something is going on. If they are winning their matchups and earn their war rating, how is it manipulation?

You are basing your accusations on overall alliance rating and what you can see in their profiles.

Again, everyone has 4 hrs to enlist and then matchmaking starts. Its all done behind the scenes. When matches are made and wars are won fair and square, what does overall alliance rating matter?

I'm not trying to play devils advocate just trying to understand your angle.

Greywarden

Just a quick couple of questions-
1. Have you seen the matchups for those alliances in masters? Have you seen each war this year?
2. What makes them not masters caliber exactly? Their overall alliance rating?
3. Why cant a 11mil alliance be in Gold 1?

1. Pretty much, I don't want to give names but I've noticed one of the 'top' groups from the last 2 seasons has been on quite a roll and has only lost once over the last few months. Went from 2700/2800 - 3200+ at a +10 rating per war win at a time. It's really easy to just see that before war a certain group has x rating and then after their "tough fought win" giving tier 1 points for running through a low prestige group they have x + 10 rating.

2. Roster differences are part of it and the other bigger issue is the fact that they've never played anybody in master...not sure how that's hard to understand. How can you be getting top rewards in a game mode where you're being recognized as top 20 however you've never actually played against the top 20 or even top 30-40 for that matter.

3. I'm more concerned with the top and seeing groups in Masters 2 seasons in a row that just hit 20 million rating is very hard to swallow seeing as I've fought hard to get Masters myself in the past. This season in particular has been tougher than most as we've faced 7 top 10 REAL Masters group out of our first 9 wars. If these groups had to face the same caliber of opponents that my group has had to face so far they'd quit the game.....

QuikPik

Do you think an 11m alliance is going to win consistently enough against all the 20m+ alliances in Gold 1 and Gold 2 to maintain their Gold 1 ranking?

Are they winning wars yes but they are not fighting against random alliances at the same war rating. Instead it seems like Kabam's algorithm looks at prestige first and then war rating. Hence a 5500 prestige 2000 war rating alliance will rarely be matched up against a 8000 prestige 2000 war rating alliance.

Demonzfyre

Just a quick couple of questions-
1. Have you seen the matchups for those alliances in masters? Have you seen each war this year?
2. What makes them not masters caliber exactly? Their overall alliance rating?
3. Why cant a 11mil alliance be in Gold 1?

1. Pretty much, I don't want to give names but I've noticed one of the 'top' groups from the last 2 seasons has been on quite a roll and has only lost once over the last few months. Went from 2700/2800 - 3200+ at a +10 rating per war win at a time. It's really easy to just see that before war a certain group has x rating and then after their "tough fought win" giving tier 1 points for running through a low prestige group they have x + 10 rating.

2. Roster differences are part of it and the other bigger issue is the fact that they've never played anybody in master...not sure how that's hard to understand. How can you be getting top rewards in a game mode where you're being recognized as top 20 however you've never actually played against the top 20 or even top 30-40 for that matter.

3. I'm more concerned with the top and seeing groups in Masters 2 seasons in a row that just hit 20 million rating is very hard to swallow seeing as I've fought hard to get Masters myself in the past. This season in particular has been tougher than most as we've faced 7 top 10 REAL Masters group out of our first 9 wars. If these groups had to face the same caliber of opponents that my group has had to face so far they'd quit the game.....

That all makes sense. I haven't ever seen the matchups like you said you have which is fine. I understand how matchups were manipulated last season but couldn't/can't see how it works this season. My alliance has been in plat 3 mostly so we see a range of alliance ratings.

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Demonzfyre

So this war just started. So far two guys on defense in our BG are running suicides. One is the account who placed the Boss, a R4 Korg.

Our ally is pretty skilled. No real big spenders and as such we don’t have a crazy defense. How do these guys have a higher war rating? Seems impossible to be competing at this level when one BG is placing a weak boss and defenders. 🤷‍♂️

Your war rating is 30ish points different and you are both in the same tier.... You just said you don't have a crazy defense yet you are trying to say they dont belong because they are using a R4 korg as boss. If you don't have a stacked defense in tier 2, why do you belong and they dont?

Maybe they are more skilled than you.

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QuikPik

That could've been a lapse in placement. The issue would be if they were a 15m alliance in tier 2.