Goal of Matchmaker

[GiN_nTonic]

Shouldn't one of the main goals of matchmaker to put someone in an equal amount of games where they are (a) -1 tier, (b) even/middle tier, and (c) +1 tier so that about (not exact but decently close) 25-33% of the games they play is a mix...?  Though WG may not say that directly, its the general thought that someone gets to be bottom tier about the same number of games they are top tier.

Is that the goal?  If it is, do you think its working for you? 

My experience is anything but...  i've been recording the last 2 weeks of my game play in various tiers and 53% of the time I was low tier (-2 tier diff), 17% middle tier, and 11% top tier.  There was another 19% of my games where only 2 tier represented in a match and in those games I was 62% lower tier (-1) and 38% top tier (+1).  I am rounding to whole % numbers - and of the 11% of the time I was top tier 5% of that I was playing tier X - so it was impossible to be anything else.

 

 

 

[cometguy]

I don't think MM does anything other than try to balance ship type per tier on each team.  Other than the low tier protections, that is. So theoretically, if you play enough types, and tiers, you're probably going to be top tier as often as bottom tier.

[CylonRed]

MM  can only do so much with the low population and that population playing a large mix of tiers and split between random, co-op, and operations.

[HMCS_Devilfish]

14 minutes ago, GiN_nTonic said:

Shouldn't one of the main goals of matchmaker to put someone in an equal amount of games where they are (a) -1 tier, (b) even/middle tier, and (c) +1 tier so that about (not exact but decently close) 25-33% of the games they play is a mix...?  Though WG may not say that directly, its the general thought that someone gets to be bottom tier about the same number of games they are top tier.

Is that the goal?  If it is, do you think its working for you? 

My experience is anything but...  i've been recording the last 2 weeks of my game play in various tiers and 53% of the time I was low tier (-2 tier diff), 17% middle tier, and 11% top tier.  There was another 19% of my games where only 2 tier represented in a match and in those games I was 62% lower tier (-1) and 38% top tier (+1).  I am rounding to whole % numbers - and of the 11% of the time I was top tier 5% of that I was playing tier X - so it was impossible to be anything else.

 

 

 

I think the goal with MM as it presently practiced at Wows is for you to not get to comfy so you move on to better higher tier ships and spend $ doing so a pole taken awhile ago had the vast majority willing to wait a bit for better MMs, if thats why they do what they do....id wait

[GiN_nTonic]

12 minutes ago, CylonRed said:

MM  can only do so much with the low population and that population playing a large mix of tiers and split between random, co-op, and operations.

10k isn't WoT population but it isn't "low".  You want "low" go play WoWP.

[CylonRed]

5 minutes ago, GiN_nTonic said:

10k isn't WoT population but it isn't "low".  You want "low" go play WoWP.

ANd the population being higher than WoWP does not make the WoWs population any better or any more meaningful and it still remains low.  Population would probably need to have a minimum of 5K new players and 10K would do wonders but that is highly unlikely.  EU and Russia have roughly 3x more players and NA is on par with Asia at the bottom.

[Stauffenberg44]

1 minute ago, CylonRed said:

ANd the population being higher than WoWP does not make the WoWs population any better or any more meaningful and it still remains low.  Population would probably need to have a minimum of 5K new players and 10K would do wonders but that is highly unlikely.  EU and Russia have roughly 3x more players and NA is on par with Asia at the bottom.

I was dimly aware of that and the impact on MM presumably.

Any idea why the NA population is a third of EU in particular?

[Pacific_Cruiser1942]

37 minutes ago, GiN_nTonic said:

Shouldn't one of the main goals of matchmaker to put someone in an equal amount of games where they are (a) -1 tier, (b) even/middle tier, and (c) +1 tier so that about (not exact but decently close) 25-33% of the games they play is a mix...?  Though WG may not say that directly, its the general thought that someone gets to be bottom tier about the same number of games they are top tier.

Is that the goal?  If it is, do you think its working for you? 

My experience is anything but...  i've been recording the last 2 weeks of my game play in various tiers and 53% of the time I was low tier (-2 tier diff), 17% middle tier, and 11% top tier.  There was another 19% of my games where only 2 tier represented in a match and in those games I was 62% lower tier (-1) and 38% top tier (+1).  I am rounding to whole % numbers - and of the 11% of the time I was top tier 5% of that I was playing tier X - so it was impossible to be anything else.

 

 

 

Do you play mostly at late night (say 11:00 PM PST - or - 2:00 AM EST)?  I've noticed that the MM has a much harder time making even/middle tier or -1 tier matches in the late night time slots (probably related to the game's population, as mentioned above).  I usually end up playing low tier with my tier 7 and tier 8 ships during those times.

Just curious ...

[GiN_nTonic]

1 minute ago, Pacific_Cruiser1942 said:

Do you play mostly at late night (say 11:00 PM PST - or - 2:00 AM EST)?  I've noticed that the MM has a much harder time making even/middle tier or -1 tier matches in the late night time slots (probably related to the game's population, as mentioned above).  I usually end up playing low tier with my tier 7 and tier 8 ships during those times.

Just curious ...

Actually yes...i typically play much later.

[CylonRed]

10 hours ago, Stauffenberg44 said:

I was dimly aware of that and the impact on MM presumably.

Any idea why the NA population is a third of EU in particular?

Not really - maybe once it hits Steam it might pick up.  I knew about WoT but I did not know anything about WoWs till I watched a video by Frooglesim about it, otherwise I would not have knows anything about it.

[twitch133]

11 hours ago, GiN_nTonic said:

10k isn't WoT population but it isn't "low".  You want "low" go play WoWP.

 

10k concurrent players during prime time is pretty pathetic.

 

Considering when you look at other major studios... in both spotlight and niche markets.

 

BF4 still has over 15k concurrent players on, PC NA alone, in prime time. This is a 4 year old AAA shooter (average life span of ~1.5 years) that has been obsoleted by two titles released since it was launched.

 

PUBG (PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds) In arguably a much more niche market than warships... (Battle Royal... All of the previous games that existed were just mod's of existing games) Has over 2 million concurrent players, and it is not even in full release yet!!!

[Skpstr]

10 hours ago, Stauffenberg44 said:

 

Any idea why the NA population is a third of EU in particular?

 

Europe just plain has more people. With all else being equal, I would expect to see EU with twice the players. Combine that with a possible small difference in gaming tastes, and it makes sense.

 

[Skpstr]

5 minutes ago, twitch133 said:

 

10k concurrent players during prime time is pretty pathetic.

 

Considering when you look at other major studios... in both spotlight and niche markets.

 

BF4 still has over 15k concurrent players on, PC NA alone, in prime time. This is a 4 year old AA shooter (average life span of ~1.5 years) 

 

Does that count people playing modded versions though?

 

Most mods don't hit full stride until several years after the release of the original game. (Forgotten Hope was a popular BF42 mod, and as far as content and maps being added, it peaked around 2011-12 IIRC)

[twitch133]

1 minute ago, Skpstr said:

 

Does that count people playing modded versions though?

 

Most mods don't hit full stride until several years after the release of the original game. (Forgotten Hope was a popular BF42 mod, and as far as content and maps being added, it peaked around 2011-12 IIRC)

 

That is just vanilla players... on DICE run servers.

 

If you count modded players running on non-DICE servers, you can probably add 2-5k to the count.

[Skpstr]

7 minutes ago, twitch133 said:

 

That is just vanilla players... on DICE run servers.

 

If you count modded players running on non-DICE servers, you can probably add 2-5k to the count.

 

Gotcha.

 

I might debate PUB being a niche game though, since the previous modded game efforts obviously drew enough interest to make a game from the ground up, and 2 million players seems to indicate that what was originally seen as a niche market really wasn't. 

 

[Kevik70]

Th goal of matchmaker is to ruin your day in any way sharp or form. Bottom tier every game.. check, lots of potatoes on your team... check. A unicum div on the other team... check... CVs, yep, so so on.

[Raptor_alcor]

1 hour ago, twitch133 said:

 

10k concurrent players during prime time is pretty pathetic.

 

Considering when you look at other major studios... in both spotlight and niche markets.

 

BF4 still has over 15k concurrent players on, PC NA alone, in prime time. This is a 4 year old AAA shooter (average life span of ~1.5 years) that has been obsoleted by two titles released since it was launched.

 

PUBG (PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds) In arguably a much more niche market than warships... (Battle Royal... All of the previous games that existed were just mod's of existing games) Has over 2 million concurrent players, and it is not even in full release yet!!!

If a game has 2 million concurrent players then I have to say that isn't niche, at all. 

[twitch133]

28 minutes ago, Raptor_alcor said:

If a game has 2 million concurrent players then I have to say that isn't niche, at all. 

 

It was.... prior to PUBG. The mods for existing games had only a few thousand players put together.

 

PUBG found a winning formula that changed players minds, and rolled with it... To become one of the most successful games every developed. (I can't say released, as it has not even been released yet...)

[ZoomieG]

From observance of both my games and those of others, MM doesn't use any algorithms like you mention, Gin.

MM appears to only do three things:

1 - Drop you in a match within your MM spread as soon as it has the numbers

2 - Attempt to even out classes, Tiers, and nations on both sides

3 - Apply special rules for CVs (which is honestly a subset of rule 2)

Everything else hinges on the server population, and which tiers are more populated at the time.  If half of the server is playing at T10, and you cue up in a T8, as soon as another T8 cues up, you will be on opposite sides of a match with all T10s.  This will happen even if there are plenty of people playing at T8, such that a T8 level match would collect enough people to play in less than 5 min.  Doesn't matter, they will all get T10 matchmaking, because the T10 numbers are higher, and there are more T10 games to throw players into.

It would be nice if the MM attempted to match to own tier or ±1 for 1 or 2 minutes, and only then switch to up-tiering rules.  This would strike a nice balance for those clamoring for ±1 vs those who say ±2 is necessary.

For those that maintain 10k is a low server pop, it might be relative to other games, but it is enough that MM takes less than 30 seconds to collect enough players.  Modified MM would be fine, and when pop gets low, ±2 would kick in after 2 min.

[_TheEntireUniverse_]

While there may be 10k+ people online, not all of them are sitting in the matchmaking queue. MM is limited to working with the people that are currently in the queue. If you watch the screen it shows you how many people are within your tier range waiting for a match, and it isn’t usually an astronomical number. And yet I seldom have to wait longer than 90 seconds for a match. I haven’t played a lot of WoT, but my experience is that WoWs has just the same or even faster matchmaking even though WoT has a vastly larger population within any given tier range. Given how short WoT rounds are if you really suck (like me), I spend a lot less time waiting in queues and a lot more time enjoying the game. Even if MM puts me in with a group of people that eviscerate me right away, it’s so quick to start a new match that I don’t mind that much. 

 

Caveat: I’ve only played as high as tier 7. I can easily imagine the lower population in the upper tiers requiring MM to resort to less optimal player lineups to fill seats.

[Raptor_alcor]

9 hours ago, twitch133 said:

 

It was.... prior to PUBG. The mods for existing games had only a few thousand players put together.

 

PUBG found a winning formula that changed players minds, and rolled with it... To become one of the most successful games every developed. (I can't say released, as it has not even been released yet...)

Note I was talking about PUBG, not the genre, by claiming that PUBG is a niche game yet listing millions of players, you kinda shot that exact example out of your argument. 

[twitch133]

5 minutes ago, Raptor_alcor said:

Note I was talking about PUBG, not the genre, by claiming that PUBG is a niche game yet listing millions of players, you kinda shot that exact example out of your argument. 

 

Well... Like I said. PUBG found a winning formula to drag themselves out of one of the most niche markets around. Notice though, that I did not call PUBG a niche game, but the market. Battle Royal games were almost non-existent before PUBG.

 

And all of a sudden, they have games like Fortnite copying them.

[Raptor_alcor]

Just now, twitch133 said:

 

Well... Like I said. PUBG found a winning formula to drag themselves out of one of the most niche markets around. Notice though, that I did not call PUBG a niche game, but the market. Battle Royal games were almost non-existent before PUBG.

 

And all of a sudden, they have games like Fortnite copying them.

Still not a fair comparison to WoWS which is a niche game by a company that is following a trend that worked in the more popular tank market without adapting it at all to much more niche (in comparison) ship market. 

[twitch133]

Just now, Raptor_alcor said:

Still not a fair comparison to WoWS which is a niche game by a company that is following a trend that worked in the more popular tank market without adapting it at all to much more niche (in comparison) ship market. 

 

There were more ship games built from the ground up than battle royal games....

 

Battlestations: Midway, Battlestations Pacific, Navy field... And I just named three more ship games than I can think of for ground up battle royal games.

 

And the only battle royal that I can think of prior to PUBG, was a mod for ARMA.

[Spud_butt]

22 hours ago, Stauffenberg44 said:

I was dimly aware of that and the impact on MM presumably.

Any idea why the NA population is a third of EU in particular?

because we have the sims, and better TV on our high speed DSL