Elite 2, Elite 3, Gold 1 vs Silver 1
Marked as the solution EA does not matchmake around rank/division. Therefore balanced matchmaking does not exist
Unfortunately, we don't filter matchmaking by rank/division. There has been a lot of feedback on this and it's been relayed to the team. Hopefully, we'll see changes in the future to help get matches closer to your team's division and RP.
People will always smurf, any competitive game has that problem but its not a remotely good excuse to not balance matchmaking, adding back the P1 unlocks will discourage it though. I'm also lost where you gathered people think they are entitled to wins because they want the matchmaking to be balanced. We want it balanced so there is actual competition and not one sided matches. I'm not an elite but its not fun both ways, either playing against people who way outrank me or people who are low ranked, people end up leaving resulting in incomplete games. If it was actually balanced, games would be more competitive, closer skill levels will result in more competition with more play in each zone, out of all of the games I have played the most fun and competitive games were ones against teams that were similarly ranked and they were proper fair matches.
I'm not saying that it needs to be exact ranks playing exact ranks either, I don't think I have seen a comp game that does it that way. Going 1 up and 1 down could work which I think most comp games that have ranks do this, so example a gold rank could match with/against silvers or platinums.
I see the point with it potentially increasing wait times due to a shrinking playerbase however the lack of this system is one of many reasons people have stopped playing.
The system you are proposing, being restricted to playing up or down one tier, literally punishes me for being elite. Being one of the top players means I now have to wait until another elite or purple team is on and searching. There are far fewer players that make elite than there are slivers. You are proposing eliminating the majority of my available player pool and making me wait for literal hours to play. This is not an acceptable solution. Performing at a high level should not be punished.
A better solution IMO would be limiting the size of drop in parties. Break up the entire teams of elites in dropins. That way there’s a more casual space available for casual players. Max drop in for 6s would be 3. 3v3 and elims 1 or 2. If you want to play with a larger party, play clubs.
No increase in wait times, you get to hide from the big bad good players, and I’ve successfully solved the issue…win win win
