Let's fix ELO automatch

Ok, Relic. I play a lot. I get on these streaks see? And then you send me up against 4 or 5 top 50 players in a row, I, not surprisingly, lose them all, and you send me back down to some horrible ELO bracket reserved for the mentally challenged and "just trying out the game" set. Then I get on another retarded streak only to, once again, hit top 50 players I am not going to beat. And after 5-6 games playing noobs, I actually START PLAYING WORSE. Because I don't have to focus as much. And so, for me, the process repeats. This isn't fun for the top guys, this isn't fun for us (apparently few) intermediate level players. And it's certainly not fun for the 5-6 guys I have to stomp in order to re-raise my bracket.

I DO NOT CARE HOW LONG IT TAKES TO GET A MATCH WITHIN 50 SPOTS OF MY LEADERBOARD RANK. If it takes 15 minutes, I'm fine with that. If it takes five, so much the better. How about an option for it? Ie. "Click to wait longer for a better match." People who want to play faster can use the default system, those who want a more even match can click it and the system will increase the timers.

I have also noticed that being beaten by someone NEAR or below your rank has far more negative consequences than it ought to. It seems to me that losing to someone below me instantly lowers my ELO bracket, when it should take 4-5 games losing to people in your bracket or below to send you down to the lowest tiers. If this is the case, please modify it. Maybe I'm having a bad day, maybe it's an up-and-comer, whatever. Being sent down to the handicapped bracket for one loss is just too much punishment.

Thanks,

Sluzbenik/Noise of Carpet

I would be happy to just see the ELO score of my opponent some how.But, then you'll see even more of the drop before the game starts stuff. So I don't know...

It's very likely there is no one searching in your skill range. Most people are either terrible at this game or else have nothing else in their life to do but play it and therefore are pretty good.

You are the one complaining about Pros keeping their secret,

and here you go, Pros are now teaching you How to Play the game.

I am 85 ranked German player, okay I don't mind being put up against good/pro players as a German since my rank is top 100. Ill prob lose but ill learn from those matches or just rage and call them nerds.
Here is what I don't understand, I just started playing Soviets last patch (t34 buff) and being ranked as 400-500 sov I played against nub players, but then around rank 200s I started playing TOP 5 GERMAN players!!! That's ridiculous and it continues to happen! I don't learn AT ALL from these games! I learn more watching replays but that's not enough. MY soviet rank has hovered around 150-200 for past 50 games because ill win a match, lose 2-3 some top ranked players and then win another match and the pattern will repeat.

you get matched up with noobs when you lose a lot and then you get matched up with pros when you get a better score, seems like it's working well.

It's not broken. Elo is just math, sure there's some variations but it's largely a set formula. The problem is the small pool of players searching at any given time. If you wait for better matches, people will bitch about long wait times. If you try to get players in the game faster, they'll bitch about imbalanced matchups. It's lose-lose.

That's why I suggested a checkbox for "increase wait time for a better match."

I do learn a bit from playing people far above my skill level, but mostly seeing what they do is interesting, tbh, doesn't help me in the least with what I'm doing to counter it. Like I played one top player today, and while his assgren micro was great to watch, it didn't help me with knowing what to do with my cons, ie., "stay in building while he roams around?," "try to toss Molotov or not," "move to cover or stay at range," when to retreat another con that was in a building yet STILL getting pulverized by the assgren, etc.

It's up to you to quick search so you get a better match. It may take you longer overall to find one but that is always how you handle low pop games.

It always took me a good amount of time to find a quality game in halo wars which had a much lower pop than this game.

That checkbox won't help if people around your skill level aren't available. You'll just infinitely search until someone else hops on.

That checkbox won't help if people around your skill level aren't available. You'll just infinitely search until someone else hops on.

That sounds great to me!!! It means I will only play good entertaining matches unless I decide that I will rather play unbalanced match, than none at all.

It will help hugely

The check box sounds ok, you are just opting to stretch the search time, so if nobody near your level is on even after 10 mins, it would then allocate you as normal.

This is no disadvantage to anybody but the person waiting, and it could potentially provide some closer matches for any other plays who just jump on.


Top players play a lot of games, so as soon as you get anywhere near top tiers, your going to encounter them.

This is no disadvantage to anybody but the person waiting.

wrong: people that don't have the checkbox ticked will experience longer search times too since you are taking yourself out of their matchable players pool

Wouldnt it be much better to allow people to set up theire own public games? I mean, the matchup skillwise i pretty random, there dosent seem to be any kind of connection and performance check, and the waiting time is often quite long.

It just seems to me that automatch is full of flaws that people want to fix by adding buttons that gives them more of the freedom public lobbies offered. The solution seems obvious to me.

Reset ladders and player EOL so these insane jumps don't occur.

Reset ladders and player EOL so these insane jumps don't occur.

Go back, take a breath and think again.

the range of elo the queue will match you with increases over time. to avoid that, you can leave the queue every so often and start it again. that would keep your games in a smaller range around your elo.

automatch is shite. But, then again, with no real multiplayer requirement that scores real skill level, how will they get it right except after a few years when their slow ass formula figures it out.

the range of elo the queue will match you with increases over time. to avoid that, you can leave the queue every so often and start it again. that would keep your games in a smaller range around your elo.

That is not really good advice. Because if everyone did that, it would prolong search times for all since matchings in Progress are constantly being aborted.

What you suggest was becoming standard procedure for many in COH1, and created massive Waits untill Relic disabled the editor access and urged players not to abort searches.

Anyway, to the original topic, I think the real problem is just maths.

I have the same experience as the OP allthough I am messing around in the rank of many thousands: a few wins, then opposition quality takes a massive jump for 3 to 5 games. Then back to total newbie opposition and/or teammates.

To me it feels like the matching is simply gearing too much. It should make smaller increments and - without knowing the code - that's probably a question of changing one single ratio.

It might just be the nature of the game too. There are about 75-100 people, I think, who have really superior multitasking skills and just play really, really well, and they seem to be a breed apart. Below that it's much harder to judge skill level, and maybe the ELO system has a similar problem. Or as I suspect, most intermediate level players don't do 1v1 because they know they are not good enough to play the top 100, who are constantly automatching, so they do team games.

I've hit the brick wall of my multitasking level over and over, and so I'm definitely thinking of just going back to 2v2s and up.