Matchmaker and why I believe problems are occuring

Vainglory Discussion 5v5
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To prefice this, I am going completely based off of past experiences in regards to my thoughts. All of the following could be wrong. If you have additional/better ideas or understandings please comment! :slight_smile:

(No TL:DR! Prepare for a novel!)

Now the matchmaker seems to be getting worse lately. (Without knowing participants 5v5 ranks we really cannot know for sure if its mismatches or boosted players) I have noticed, especially in the last few days, a large spike in players who probably shouldn’t be anywhere near my games. (POA Bronze currently)

Not going to lie, today tilted me hard. I got mad, stopped my stream early, and seethed about what has happened over the last few days. Once I cooled off I started thinking about it constructively.

Here are some possibilities I can think of that I believe could be causing all the havoc.

  1. Smurf guard.

This is a system in place that accelerates gains to be sure those who are high tier players cannot bully new/low tier players. The problem arises when a new player is accelerated due to substantial luck when it comes to the teammates they are getting, allowing them to win most/all of their early games skyrocketing them higher than they should be as the system thinks they are a better player.

Aside from removing said system, its a time game before luck runs out on those boosted players, eventually leading to them dropping out of the higher tiers and placed where they belong.

With how buggy the MM was on release, this is something I see as a very possible reason to the problems being seen by high tier players.

  1. Queue variance.

Since all groups but full parties are in the same pool, this adds a level of difficulty for the MM to get through.

For example lets say team one consists of 2 duos and a solo, while team two consists of 1 three man party and 2 solos.

The match, according to the program, could be perfectly matched based on all parametres accounting for the mix of solo and partied teammates.

The problem is how it is weighted. It is assumed that partying gives an advantage so to compensate the MM may be a little more lax on who will be put into the game.

This too me is possibly part of the problem, but not really a core issue to it. What I see happening is the matchmaker having troubles placing a group of three properly, so it adjusts the range assuming that the advantage will make up for the skill difference.

3)LPQ.

This to me is another likely culprit, increasing the problems from #1.

Since LPQ now bars players from ranked play, the pool of players in every level effectivly shrinks down. This leaves less suitable matches for the MM to find, causing a widening of parametres, and really really bad matches.

Even if the MM is running perfectly, a decreased pool of players will obviously make it harder to find optimal matches.

There isn’t much else I have to say on this one, other than this problem is causing problem #1 to amplify.

Now #1 is what I would like to touch on once more before concluding.

Since this system is new, and there is a lot of variance at play with 5v5 when it comes to winning and losing, IMO it is only a matter of time before we see it level out and start working as intended.

Barring a legitimate bug in the programming, this seems most logical to me.

These same problems occur after a hard reset, and why they are such a terrible idea, as some players end up boosted into tiers they dont belong in based purely on the luck factor with teammates.

Does this sound reasonable to anyone else? Any other ideas or insights? Let me know!

If this is in the wrong place I am sorry!

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Sounds reasonable but you missed 2 key issues ATM which tilts people before they even start the game.

  1. The rank you see is only 3v3 rank which is a more mechanics oriented game.
  2. 5v5 is a completely new game but with the same characters and mostly the same items. The larger map and more opponents creates a game where mechanical skill means less and tatical skill is what really makes or breaks a team, this is also highlighted with draft in all tiers.
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I agree completely!

One thing I have noticed though is I am not seeing last seasons skill tier anymore in 5v5 ranked. Not even my own. Im not sure if its just mine though, like some kind of bug, or if it was intentional on SEMCs part.

On your second point, it kind of ties in to my point on boosted players, but they were boosted in initial placement instead of accelerated up. Since minimal knowledge seems to transfer over from one mode to the next, they essentially become the same kind of burden as any other player who is boosted.

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It sucks people who are t8 were put in t8 cause of 3v3 rank and not because of win rate

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I had 3 games yesterday where my allies were horribly inferior.

The matchmaker is off a lot.

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I became incredible salty yesterday, like you I grinded to POA silver so I expect to matched with tiers 8/10 however it’s clear to me that this isn’t the case.

I’m regardly matched with players from ranks 5-10 sometimes with all five ranks being on the fold.

My personal belief is that SEMC don’t have the player base, especially at certain times of the day. Even in 3v3 this is the case (play late at night and watch themismatches unfold). I also believe they’ve actively wanted to reduce que times for the new format so have allowed the parameters to be stretched resulting tier 5s matching with me (they’re so bad it’s obvious they’re low skill from the get go). When I’ve played from 6-10 I’ll get fairy good matches if I play at 1am it’ll be terrible.

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Wish you would stop repeating this…

I’ve instantly ground my 5v5 rank to my 3v3 rank and whilst doing so it was obvious to me who the low tier players were. When you check this on VGPro it’s confirmed, so why you assume someone at tier 4 3v3 is playing tier 9/10 at 5v5 is strange. Have you got a single example of a low rank 3v3 having reached vg in 5v5?

You’ve also mentioned mechanical skill more than once. But for some reason you believe their is no tactical knowledge in 3v3. Do you watch high level YouTube matches?

For some 5v5 has been out for months now (early access), so if you believe they or people like myself are still playing at tier 5 level then your wrong.

Match maker is broken, it’s obvious, to the point where we’ll known players Dnzio for istance are positing videos where they point out the obvious low skill tier players (it’s so obvious who they are). SEMC need to fix it because, and I never thought I’d say this, VG is no longer fun, nobody wants massive snowballs and that’s what 4/5 matches become.

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No they weren’t I’m tier 9 3v3 but started tier 4 bronze… I’m now tier 9 having grinned matches neelesssly bs low skill players, I was going games with 21+ KDA for weeks.

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This. Now we have even more modes + LPQ penalty for ranked and tbh overall the same playerbase.

The reason for the really bad matches at pre 3.0 update was to have the old match start time. Then thwy changed something and the matches were vastly better, but we waited for 15+m to start a match in a mobile game, absurd. Now it’s between those two - we wait 6m and have hit or miss matches.

I am sure they expected playerbase boom in pre 3.0 tuning and to have good MM at launch. Sadly this didn’t happen… people invested a lot of time, money and energy into the other popular mobile MOBAS, they just won’t swith. Especially to the game where they wait for a match start the same time they will finish 2-3 games in AOV and end up with mix of t3 to t10 pro players in both team instead of balanced match in AOV. Bang dong, aov, both are more on the go friendly, easy to pick and play fast, have times and times more players and funny enough - don’t devide them with 3vs3. Their MM have a lot easier time to find fair matches + it’s tuned for 5vs5 from the start.

I love VG, but clearly we are minor. Major want’s to play on the go some easier and short MOBA and fire up LOL/DOTA 2 when they get home. Not to wait 10m just for someone to dodge, then 10 more minutes to end up with totally absursly unbalanced game and finish with 1 15m one sided game in a 1h of time of their little free time in the evening + the need to charge as the game drains a lot in the menu, not to mention in the 5vs5 map(compared to 3vs3 and there the drain was already highest of all games I played on my phone, some of them really good looking ans heavy).

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Same, I am t8 silver right now in 5vs5 (one win away) and this only soloq + playing a lot diff heroes that I am not that good with. Soon will reach my normal poa rank from 3vs3. Started at t4 in 5vs5.