Community Transmission - Matchmaking

@felker_s

I understand your doubts, I have them as well. It is quite hard to understand what their system exactly does, and "Without getting too technical,..." doesn't help either. I would certainly like it more if they did get more technical and explained how they "match players of similar skill level". I've never really experienced that at all in the game.

So let me break it down as far as I understand it now. Let's denote someone player X that joins a GA game and assume that the game actually uses skill-matching in the initial matchmaking.

CURRENT SITUATION

• X searches for game mode GA. Game takes the server with the absolute lowest ping (highest connection speed to server) and searches only on this server for matches.
• X finds and joins a game of GA on map 1
• The game sees that there is room on both sides of the battle. It calculates the skill level of both teams and tries to balance that by adding player X in one of the teams. This is the only time the skill-based matchmaking occurs.
• In the first match, the teammates of X are denoted Y, Z while his opponents are called A, B
• For now, it doesn't matter what happened in the match.
• The match ends and player X, Y, Z, A and B are placed on map 2 (they do not leave the game).
• The game doesn't shuffle teams or does any calculation of skill-based matchmaking. It just keeps the same team intact. 
• Player X is again teammates with player Y and Z, while his opponents are again A, B.
• New player N joins the starting match, the game calculates the skills of both teams and places N in the one that has the least skill.

conclusion: The current system tries to balance the match by sorting the joining players into the less-skill side of the match.

result1: the core players in the game are playing against each other every single game, since no one leaves and the game doesn't shuffle.

result2: good players are always placed in the weakest team on joining a match

result3: if one side has a lot of good players which don't leave the game, the sequential matches will have the same one-sided outcome.

result4: a party can be 20 people large. This creates massive imbalance and cannot be prevented or solved.

AFTER MATCHMAKING UPDATE (AS FAR AS I CAN TELL)

• X searches for game mode GA. Game searches for all the ping sides and tries to find a match on a server with a low ping side. This means that it doesn't only search on 1 server, but it looks at multiple good-connection servers to find a match.
• X finds a match and joins a game of GA on map 1
• The game sees that there is room on both sides of the battle. It calculates the skill level of both teams and tries to balance that by adding player X in one of the teams. 
• In the first match, the teammates of X are denoted Y, Z while his opponents are called A, B
• The match ends and player X, Y, Z, A and B are placed on map 2 (they do not leave the game).
• The game sees the imbalance in skill between the two teams and shuffles players around in order to obtain a better balance.
• Player X is not teammates with A and Z, while Y and B are his opponents.
• New player N joins the game and the game automatically adds this player in such a way that balance is retained.

conclusion: The upcoming system tries to balance the matches in between the rounds, instead of only relying on start-of-match matchmaking.

result1: If an imbalanced play is detected, the next match will have other (shuffled) teams, trying to find more balance between the teams. Multiple imbalanced games can still happen by chance, but are not 100% related to the previous match.

result2: due to the squad system, parties cannot be larger than 4 players. The game can solve any imbalances by adjusting the members of the team and opponents.

result3: Good players are placed on the lowest skill-side, but the difference in skill between the teams isn't as much as before.

Things I wish some more technical clarification on @EA_Ataashi

"When matchmaking, we’ve always tried to match players of similar skill level"

How are skill levels calculated? Is this only related to K/D or takes this win/lose ratio on certain maps/modes into consideration? 

Does the game takes previous matches (match 1) into consideration for the balance of the next match (match 2)? Or could it be that if team 1 wins in match 1, and the system doesn't detect a major difference in skill, that match 2 will have the same teams again and team 1 wins yet again?

Are there any plans for rebalancing mid-game?