Matchmaking mathematics: current system is fair but should be refined
CG is right to stand by skill points based matchmaking, because it is demonstrably fair.
If two players have been hovering around the same skill points level, then the probabilities of either winning are by construction 50% / 50%, even if there’s a big GP discrepancy => matchmaking is fair.
What the community feedback has been about is that we not only want matchmaking with 50/50 odds of winning, we also want 50/50 odds of winning CONDITIONALLY on both players participating.
Consider the situation where I played all my GAC rounds and had 50% win/loss ratio at my current skill points, and my opponent had 50% win/loss at same skill points, because they won 100% of the rounds they played but only played 50% of them.
My odds of winning are indeed 50%: the matchmaking was fair.
But the outcome depends entirely on whether my opponent will show up or not: there is no game element.
This screams for a simple conceptual fix: continue to match players based on skill points, but also match them by the probability they play a round based on their history of 0 banner rounds.
If two players have been hovering around the same skill points level, then the probabilities of either winning are by construction 50% / 50%, even if there’s a big GP discrepancy => matchmaking is fair.
What the community feedback has been about is that we not only want matchmaking with 50/50 odds of winning, we also want 50/50 odds of winning CONDITIONALLY on both players participating.
Consider the situation where I played all my GAC rounds and had 50% win/loss ratio at my current skill points, and my opponent had 50% win/loss at same skill points, because they won 100% of the rounds they played but only played 50% of them.
My odds of winning are indeed 50%: the matchmaking was fair.
But the outcome depends entirely on whether my opponent will show up or not: there is no game element.
This screams for a simple conceptual fix: continue to match players based on skill points, but also match them by the probability they play a round based on their history of 0 banner rounds.
