World of Chel Matchmaking

Not the only one asking for what is essentially skill-based matchmaking. I have not seen EA officially turn it down but its been mentioned that the player base is not big enough and it would "punish" those at higher ranks with less people to match with or make matchmaking longer. I think Aljo has said that during club playoffs there is skill-based matchmaking but I'm not sure if I am recalling that accurately as this was back on last years game.

There has been protests about this from the other side as well, I seen a few posts from players that were elites saying those types of matches are not fun for them either.

I made this before NHL 26 came out and I forgot about it until now, just a forgotten pitch on a matchmaking system for clubs.

To be nice, if anyone wants to quote any texts from that picture I'll put the description here.

During times of the day when the population is over a certain threshold, matchmaking should follow the green boxes; if the population falls below the threshold, then matchmaking can expand to compensate for the drop in population. This can be the global population of WOC or the population per rank, whichever is more efficient.

This does not need to be limited by the example Pop-based matchable; it could be the lower the pop. the lower the ranks you can match with.

There can even be a population threshold where a system like this is turned off completely when there aren't enough players to match with efficiently.

The chart should use the average rank of the entire lobby/team; this does not prevent ranks from still being able to match with any rank if the team average allows for it using the chart. For example, a team composed of platinum/diamond/elites would likely have an average closer to diamond, allowing for elites to play against teams who can match against diamonds... an elite playing with a team of bronzes, etc.

Another idea is a system that won't prevent matchmaking with higher/lower ranks, but searches/prioritizes for the closer ranked opponents during time of matchmaking, that way a team of silvers has lower odds of playing a stacked team of elites unless they were the closest ranked team during the time of matchmaking, keeping matchmaking efficient while trying to have balance.

I would also say adding player rank icons to player banners in pregame lobbies would be a decent thing to add, display your rank while in a lobby, this can have an affect though on matchmaking as teams can back out if they don't like the ranks they are matching against. But being able to know the ranks of your opponents prior entering a match would allow teams to better prepare for the matchup.

titus1029 wrote:

I would also say adding player rank icons to player banners in pregame lobbies would be a decent thing to add, display your rank while in a lobby, this can have an affect though on matchmaking as teams can back out if they don't like the ranks they are matching against. But being able to know the ranks of your opponents prior entering a match would allow teams to better prepare for the matchup.

As much as this idea promotes fairness and I agree with it on paper, I think ultimately it would just lead to a ton of back-outs which I would hate.  There has been many times where my team has been matched against teams ranked 1 or 2 tiers above us and our expectation was an unfair matchup.  The reality was a competitive match and we've won a good number of them.  My fear would be certain players/teams backing out left and right if the matchup on paper didn't give them an advantage.   Games that could have been competitive then don't happen, making it take longer. Hiding the ranks until its too late feels bad, but helps eliminate that possibility.

That's not to say matchmaking is in a good spot, I think it needs an overhaul and I agree with the idea behind your proposed chart.  I 100% agree on using team average RP (i.e. adding up each player's RP and dividing by number of players) to search for matches.  My proposal would be to search for 30 seconds in a +/- 1,000 team average RP range.  Then expand it so that the next 30 seconds looks in a +/- 2,000 team average RP range.  And so on.  Give a notice that the search window is widening each time it does. This would marry MMR-based matchmaking (which the players here want) to the Engagement-based matchmaking (which is what EA currently has implemented).  Instead of backing out of matches, teams would know if the search has gone on too long, they need to stop and restart the search to find someone in their range.

I think 2 big issues are leaving us with this issue. 1 it's a niche sport and doesn't have the biggest following, and 2 the game just isn't NEARLY as polished as any other title. This results in 90% of the population that DOES buy the game are usually fairly skilled. Then when you are playing with 5-6 players it looks for another team with 5-6 players, the teams with this many are more likely going to be skilled. Lots of players create leagues and diff things, I suppose the only dependable fix would be to find a way to create a discord or league with other bronze/silver/ gold players and create private lobbies. I'm not very confident EA will create good match making anytime soon. We ALL asked for match my room size, we only heard "wait until next year to see" we didn't get it and this was something they already had coded, so to think they will add skill based match making is probably asking too much. Just my opinion, maybe they will surprise us. I just suggest you take it upon yourself to do something. 

Modulater83 wrote:

My proposal would be to search for 30 seconds in a +/- 1,000 team average RP range.  Then expand it so that the next 30 seconds looks in a +/- 2,000 team average RP range.  And so on. 

Thats a good way too. We just need a system that at least tries to provide balanced matches more often than not.

I think these ideas avoid the issues that would be faced with strict full skill-based/MMR-based matchmaking, matchmaking time will have a minimal impact, you can still match against higher ranks, but before being significantly up-ranked the system tries to match you within your range.

i am a firm believer in Iron Sharpens Iron, that playing people better than you will make you better. However, when you lose a lot of games to players who have found exploits, or, they're just That Much Better Than You, it makes you question why you're repeatedly being thrown to the wolves. 

I personally think that if they had skill-based matchups, it would take longer to matchup games (they should give us a practice lobby while we wait) and a lot of the higher tier clubs won't like playing each other. but i could be wrong on that last one. maybe they'd enjoy beating each other up vs the scrubs? i dunno.

either way, I hope EA figures out matchmaking. It's def frustrating and causing several on my club to not really want to play anymore.

R0yH0bbs wrote:

i am a firm believer in Iron Sharpens Iron, that playing people better than you will make you better.

Agreed, but some of the matchups can be very extreme in the case of silvers vs elites. Which I haven't really experienced much but apparently lots of people are experiencing these types of matchups frequently. At some point these people will get fed up with it and stop playing because they get unfairly matched often and that's completely understandable. I can say from reading the posts about it, woc has definitely lost some players due to this.

R0yH0bbs wrote:

I personally think that if they had skill-based matchups, it would take longer to matchup games

Earlier comments in this post had ideas that would address the match timing issues, instead of full skill-based thats 100% strict, it would search for the closest ranked team during matchmaking, does not prohibit for example elites vs bronze but makes that matchup outcome less likely while still preserving matchmaking times.

R0yH0bbs wrote:

either way, I hope EA figures out matchmaking. It's def frustrating and causing several on my club to not really want to play anymore.

I hope so too. Its competitive but not fun and honestly I don't get wowed by plays teams like that make, 9/10 goals are just breakaway toe drags or backhands with loadouts that sacrifice everything into speed.

agree with your points. I hope they can improve it. matchmaking hasn't been good, going back to the jump from ps3->ps4 (nhl15 strip down). I had high hopes that crossplay would fix a lot of this, joining the player pools, one would hope that it would increase the chances of playing someone the same skill level as you. I don't envy the devs here. i'm glad i don't have to figure this out!! (but i wish someone would!!)