Changes to Versus Matchmaking [Update]

Demiurge_Will · April 2015

Update 4/13:
We've made another adjustment to matchmaking, limiting cases where players could be matchmade against more difficult opponents than intended. This is live in all events as of a few minutes ago.

Old post follows:

Hi, all,

Will here from Demiurge to talk about some changes to Versus matchmaking that you can expect starting with the SMASH HIT event that starts today, 4/7.

Quick summary of the changes:

We’re reducing the amount of points that you lose in a Versus loss by 20%.
We’re changing the matchmaking search parameters to more strictly limit how much harder your opponents can be (until you climb closer to the top and run out of matches worth plenty of points).
We’re making Kamala Khan the reward for the Versus event that starts 4/9.

Details:
We ran a new Versus matchmaking system during this weekend’s Heavy Metal event. It fixed a bunch of bugs and addressed the aims that we outlined in an earlier post. But after listening to your feedback and comparing Heavy Metal to what’s happened so far in the Kamala Khan event that followed (which we ran with the old matchmaking system), there are a number of adjustments that we want to make.

Part of the difficulty in improving matchmaking is that advanced players are used to a large chunk of their points coming from repeatedly stomping weaker teams. Many of you have asked to bring back that feature of the old matchmaking system. As the 4-star environment fills out, and more players are playing with maxed or nearly-maxed 3-star teams, those matches become more unfair and that experience becomes worse for beginning players. It’s not a sustainable situation for the long-term health of the game.

It was the intent of the old matchmaking system to match you with similar opponents (just like most other matchmaking systems), and it initially did that. Over time, though, the hidden rating that the old system used became more and more divorced from actual team strength or player skill, and we all got used to finding very easy matches at the start of events.

We still expect players with better-developed rosters to wind up on top (as, by and large, they did in Heavy Metal). But those players don’t have to be matched with the weakest players, causing first-time players to lose dozens of times for every match they win, in order to accomplish that.

That said, we want to make things easier at intermediate and high levels of play than they were during Heavy Metal, and we’re making two changes that do that.

First, we’re reducing how many points a loss costs. Previously, if you had 800 or fewer points in an event, a loss would cost you less points than your opponent gained, using this fomula: [points your opponent gained] * [your points] / 800. We’re changing this so that if you have 1000 or fewer points in an event, a loss costs you [points your opponent gained] * [your points] / 1000. (Above 1000 points, you’ll lose as many points as your opponent gains.)

Second, we’re reducing the maximum difficulty of opponents we send you, when there are enough available opponents to allow that. Players who were already seeing only opponents of their level and below in Heavy Metal won’t notice much difference here, but this will help players that are between the 2-star level cap and the 3-star cap, or between the 3-star cap and the 4-star cap.

These changes will take effect with the SMASH HIT Versus event that starts today, 4/7.

And because these changes take some time to get used to, we’re offering Kamala Khan covers again as a reward this weekend.

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts about how it feels to play with these new changes.

Unknown · April 2015

Thanks Will - and thank you for the detailed explanation of how the system works. It helps put what we see into context.

Unknown · April 2015

Sounds cool Will, it sounds like a balance of the good things of the Heavy Metal run with some attempts to limit the downsides (capping upward-facing matches and loss impacts)

atomzed · April 2015

The 20% reduction in point losses is great news!

This will make it easier to hit progression rewards. The game will still remain competitive, but people at least can feel they are progressing up the ladder.

darkmagearcanis · April 2015

All sounds good. I will be glad to see a change to the point loss/gain ratio. Thanks for the detailed explanation. I understand how the system works a little better. Also, thanks for the re-run of khan rewards.

woopie · April 2015

So when you say "between the 3-star cap and the 4-star cap" you're referring directly to the levels of those characters right? In that case, there really is no point in bringing any 4* to 270 unless you just have to have them maxed since having the correct covers is much more useful than the actual level of those characters. Doesn't affect me as I just left my XFW and 4or around the 250 mark, but it's going to hose the 270s out there

GrumpySmurf1002 · April 2015

One of the bigger complaints I saw was that high point players (800+) were highly visible to people just starting the event, which led to massive point losses when attempting to climb.

Has there been any thought to reducing the ceiling/increasing the floor of scores that are visible to a player?

Unknown · April 2015

The biggest problem I had with the previous PVP was that I rushed off at the start and once I hit about 700 points all I could see was the same 5 people for about 12 hours, no mater how many times I skipped it was the same 5 people. At the start they gave me 40 points by the end about 4 each. I'm guessing it was because the matchmaking search parameters were so narrow that they were the only result. It made the game totally unplayable and I understand if I had of waited till later in the event the outcome would have been different as more people rose through the ranks. Is there anything in place to mitigate this problem?

Edit: I joined the game later than a lot of people and spent a long time being stomped. It made me a better player and pushed me to do better.

dr tinykittylove · April 2015

Looking forward to trying out the new system, thanks. I'm hoping it will make more of my roster usable than just the top few.

Unknown · April 2015

As someone with 4*s just barely above 166, this should make it less of a meat grinder for me. Hoping PVP will become playable again. All of these changes sound like a step in the right direction.

That being said, I'm probably going to be aiming a lot lower in PVPs that I don't need the prizes in than I had been prior to the new matchmaking, since climbing will still be much more difficult, I don't need the ISO or HP all that much anymore, and I'm going to hope to at least lower my sharding, if it's still possible. Is it still possible?

Incidentally, I really wish we would have had some warning on this. I just took my 4*s above 166 a few weeks ago, and never would have done that if I had known this was coming. I was trying to help my PVP, not hurt it. I don't want to take them any higher because I don't want to hurt PVE, too.

SnowcaTT · April 2015

Nice to hear what's happening, I'd love to see more of those formulas when it comes to matchmaking.

I see lots and lots of rosters like mine - One good (but not maxed) 4* - the only one, that you get some covers for early, that may or may not be nerfed soon....and a whole lot of nothing else above 166. Hopefully it isn't putting that kind of roster against multiple 270's.

Also if people haven't figured it out - since they are doing this change mid-season your Sim just got much easier for one event. I know I ran mine up to 1K over the last day, others may want to consider doing the same while the getting is easy/good.

Unknown · April 2015

plot twist: the planned reward for the event that starts 4/9 was iron fist.

Unknown · April 2015

Some of the recent discussion has revolved around the fact that (it seems like, I could be wrong) when you discount the super-casual players who aren't even trying, the ratio of 3-4 transitioners and "late stage" 3* transitioners to 2-3 transitioners is so high that they're always grabbing the top100 slots, often for covers they don't need, and prizes below that are practically worthless. I know DDQ is meant to alleviate this, but is there a particular reason that you haven't tried creating an alternate "endgame" bracket where players can compete for greater ISO, 4* covers, or some other prize that is more meaningful to veterans, while not trampling on 2-3 transitioners? It's the only thing that makes sense to me to resolve the "veterans/fresh blood" conflict to keep the game sustainable

esoxnepa · April 2015

With these changes, I hope there is still somewhere for me to play my non-max, non-top tier characters, that is not continually grinding PvE nodes.

I really enjoyed playing my Squirrel Girl, Cyclops and a few others in Teenage Riot, on the climb. Since the team is very beatable by 2* teams, it does mean I get a lot of hits during my climb.

I will wait and see how this shakes out.

Stax the Foyer · April 2015

It seems like the reduction in versus losses will cause the equilibrium point level to increase over time, for any given player. However, it seems like this may discourage people from playing earlier in the event, if the first day or so of the event will be similar to the Heavy Metal event. They'll have to play difficult matches for lower point totals than the players who join near the end of the event.

If the initial point accumulation by fighting lower level teams was problematic because of the discouraging effect on the players taking the losses, would you consider adding non-trivial seed teams for us to fight at lower levels (maybe sub-300), with 2* and 3* rosters?

This would admittedly result in point inflation, but that's already going to be the case with the reduction in point losses. If that's a problem, you could only provide these non-trivial seed teams for a specific number of matches, so that the point injection is controlled and known. It would give early joiners a small runway, and make early joining more desirable.

snlf25 · April 2015

The only way to be perfectly fair about this is truly random match selection with a much lower point loss ratio for getting beaten by a player several notches better than you. Say a 4* beats a 2*. Maybe the 4* wins his 14 points but the 2* only loses two. That way if he "gets stomped dozens of times" he only loses 24-48 points which he can usually make up in two wins, three max before he is back to improving his score.

And while we should all fight each other in one big pool, there really ought to be a different set of rewards with different expectations and you let the player select what set of rewards they want to fight for.

tanis3303 · April 2015

This is a step in the right direction, and I applaud you folks for it, but I don' t think this solves the real problem. You're never going to be able to throw veteran players, transitioners and newbies into the same pool, for the same rewards and have it be fair for everyone. It's never gonna work out, someone is always going to get the shaft. I think the only real way to separate player tiers is to actually separate player tiers. It's been suggested numerous times in numerous posts -- what we need is a beginner, intermediate and expert version of each event, and you can only enter one of them. Make the top prizes appealing to each group of players, maybe award 2*s for most and a 3* cover for 1-3 place for the beginner event, leave the reward structure as it currently stands for the intermediate, and offer 2 4* cover for top 3 and 1 4* cover for top 10 in the expert. That makes the prizes juicy enough that 90%+ of the vets with their big scary Xforces will go after the 4* covers, and everyone will be punching at their own weight classes.

Unknown · April 2015

esoxnepa wrote:

With these changes, I hope there is still somewhere for me to play my non-max, non-top tier characters, that is not continually grinding PvE nodes.

I really enjoyed playing my Squirrel Girl, Cyclops and a few others in Teenage Riot, on the climb. Since the team is very beatable by 2* teams, it does mean I get a lot of hits during my climb.

I will wait and see how this shakes out.

I am 100% in this camp as well. I've got a fairly broad roster and enjoy trying to play with my less than optimal characters (yes, even Beast) during easier matches in my climb. The IM40 event really discouraged me because it was impossible to be competitive with all the X-Force + 4Thor/Hulk/IF/etc teams I was seeing right out of the gate using 3rd tier (or below) characters. I've played to earn them and build them up, I want to use them!

Yes, I've got X-Force and the other top tier guys as well, I like them and use them when I need to, but if I have to use the same 3 characters for every single battle the game gets real boring real fast.

Unknown · April 2015

Better late than never I guess!

How many months were sub 166 teams getting mauled by 270 xforce/4thor from 500 pts on

stowaway · April 2015

Demiurge_Will wrote:

Second, we’re reducing the maximum difficulty of opponents we send you, when there are enough available opponents to allow that. Players who were already seeing only opponents of their level and below in Heavy Metal won’t notice much difference here, but this will help players that are between the 2-star level cap and the 3-star cap, or between the 3-star cap and the 4-star cap.

We'll have to see how it plays out in practice, but this sounds worryingly like you're giving players a(nother) reason to deliberately keep their toons under leveled.

Demiurge_Will · April 2015

gamar wrote:

Some of the recent discussion has revolved around the fact that (it seems like, I could be wrong) when you discount the super-casual players who aren't even trying, the ratio of 3-4 transitioners and "late stage" 3* transitioners to 2-3 transitioners is so high that they're always grabbing the top100 slots, often for covers they don't need, and prizes below that are practically worthless. I know DDQ is meant to alleviate this, but is there a particular reason that you haven't tried creating an alternate "endgame" bracket where players can compete for greater ISO, 4* covers, or some other prize that is more meaningful to veterans, while not trampling on 2-3 transitioners? It's the only thing that makes sense to me to resolve the "veterans/fresh blood" conflict to keep the game sustainable

The reason why we haven't tried that yet is just that there are meaningful technical and design challenges involved, and we haven't yet devoted the resources needed to give it a shot in game. It's a sound idea and there are a couple of different features along those lines that we've explored on paper.

Changes to Versus Matchmaking [Update]

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