Addressing the issue of ELO-hell.

Hey, this is me BasedKing and I am bringing upon your attention a very important problem with ranked COH2 matchmaking which I also experience.

Let's take for example a player which is level 10 on 2v2 as SOV. If he loses more than 3 matches straight (which is ridiculously easy to happen, given the absolute noobs/griefers/leavers that plague random matchmaking) not only will he lose 2 whole ranks (maybe 3), but also he will be continually matched with equal ELO teammates against higher ELO opponents. Rosbone has a pretty funny and depressing post which lists such matchmakings.

The result? If you have more than -2 streak on any mode as any faction, you will get matched with higher retardedness teammates and better opponents and as a result you will never have a fair chance at levelling up and keep hammering down hours and hours, also known as "Elo HELL".

Most decent people I know use unironically smurf accounts. Other people, like myself, do not. That is also the reason you see so many people being level 2-3-4 whilst also being level 100 prestige 3.

The only reason I post this is to give attention to it since no other poster around here does. Most people are fine arguing about hit chances and damage modifiers of a unit not really in use since 2018 but few are willing to see the elephant in the room.

Discuss with me.

Let's take for example a player which is level 10 on 2v2 as SOV. If he loses more than 3 matches straight (which is ridiculously easy to happen, given the absolute noobs/griefers/leavers that plague random matchmaking) not only will he lose 2 whole ranks (maybe 3), but also he will be continually matched with equal ELO teammates against higher ELO opponents. Rosbone has a pretty funny and depressing post which lists such matchmakings.

Could you elaborate why that is the case?
The game will try to match your ELO with similar ELO players on the other team. If you lose ELO, you also get matched with worse players on the enemy team. Why should your ELO go down but you still get upmatched?

The issue is that the match making algorithm seems to make odd decisions especially in team games and creates hugely unfair games every once in a while.

Could you elaborate why that is the case?
The game will try to match your ELO with similar ELO players on the other team. If you lose ELO, you also get matched with worse players on the enemy team. Why should your ELO go down but you still get upmatched?

The issue is that the match making algorithm seems to make odd decisions especially in team games and creates hugely unfair games every once in a while.

Basically the whole problem is not with ELO ranking in and of itself, rather how the game uses it:

Lets say that in the last few games I suck hard right? Let's say -5 streak. Naturally, I will lose ELO points, my opponents will get them ofc and normally I would play with lower-ranking opponents so as to make the game fair.

The problem with COH2's implementation of that is the fact that they filter your teammates by elo, BUT not your opponents. Hence, ELO hell.

If you have -5 streak it is very likely that you will end up with a teammate that is also on a similar losing streak. HOWEVER, it is no guarantee that your opponents will also be at the same level ELO-wise, and if you work that out using induction, almost always you will be playing against better teams (or even worse, arranged teams) whilst at the same time the quality of your teammates will continually erode --i.e. ELO Hell.

Basically the whole problem is not with ELO ranking in and of itself, rather how the game uses it:

Lets say that in the last few games I suck hard right? Let's say -5 streak. Naturally, I will lose ELO points, my opponents will get them ofc and normally I would play with lower-ranking opponents so as to make the game fair.

The problem with COH2's implementation of that is the fact that they filter your teammates by elo, BUT not your opponents. Hence, ELO hell.

If you have -5 streak it is very likely that you will end up with a teammate that is also on a similar losing streak. HOWEVER, it is no guarantee that your opponents will also be at the same level ELO-wise, and if you work that out using induction, almost always you will be playing against better teams (or even worse, arranged teams) whilst at the same time the quality of your teammates will continually erode --i.e. ELO Hell.

I made the point bold that I don't get.
Do you have any backup for that? To my knowledge, as well as how any other skill based match making system works, it tries to match your ELO with an opposing player. I doubt Relic re-invented the wheel here, since it also does not make sense. Matching your ELO to an opponent is even more important for balancing than matching your ELO to your team mates' ELO.

What you explain does not make sense. A losing streak should have nothing to do with any of this, even if your assumptions were true.
There's these options:
1. The game does care about the ELO of both teams -> games should be fair at any level and previous games do not matter, you'll just get matched to higher/lower ELO. In my eyes, this is the current system with bad implementations and "hick ups" here and there.
2. The game does not care about any ELO -> completely random games. This is surely not the case, at least not by my experience.
3. The game cares only about similar ELO in your team, but not in the opponent's team -> Random opponent strength with random wins and losses. Any streak does not have an influence.

The only way your explanation would be true is if CoH2 somehow remembered your starting ELO at any given day. Then, when you lose, the game updates your ELO only when looking for team mates but not for opponents and will still continue to find opponents for your high ELO.

Why should it do that? This is creating hugely complicated extra steps. Also what happens the next day? Does the game fully update your ELO? Does it only update once you win a game? Do you then get continuous wins as well? What will the game take as a reference point for finding opponents?
None of this sounds logical, and therefore I assume the game does not do that. The match maker is just shoddy sometimes, let it be due to lack of players, due to some players searching too long or other badly tweaked parameters for the current player base. But overall in 2v2 and 3v3 I found it to work decently well.
The really bad thing is that it does not seem to adjust for arranged and random teams, leaving randoms less of a chance in such a matchup.

I see and respect your argument.

Yes, ofcourse I do not have any research or logic-formal takes on this. Just my experience and many more peoples'.

That's totally fine, I agree that the CoH2 match maker is far from perfect.

But I also don't think that the mechanism you describe really exists. Even if the game finds you completely fair games, you'll have a winning/losing streak of +/-3 every 4th session.
Plus on top no one is "fit" every day. If I am tired or just want a chill out session, I will more likely accumulate a losing streak and might even get fully outplayed. Gunther recently posted some study on sleep and car crashes, but there are many more on general reaction times and judgement. You might not even fully realize that you're already at a stage that impairs decision making. That's why most players will probably blame the match maker if they get beaten heavily, they don't even notice that they're having a bad day or at least the extend of it. On the other hand, winning streaks get deemed to be deserved because of good play, not because your opponents were tired or something else.
My point is basically: Most of this will be a subjective, personal bias, with some streaks extended by 1 or 2 due to actual shitty match making every now and then.

One major issue right now is playing soviets in team games.

Currently in team games soviets are under performing badly.

Axis factions are easier to play. Your infantry works great and you have an early presence.

Any map you get with an OST and OKW player on the same side, you lose. By the time you get to the fuel they have already locked it down. So you lose ELO.

Now your ELO is worse, so you get stuck with noobs who dont even try to get the fuel. They run to the middle and camp out. Then get run over with blobs and early vehicles. So you lose ELO.

Now you are not only playing with noobs, but noobs that just bought the game. Meaning most of them do not have ALL of the allied factions. Which means you now get all soviet games against mixed axis teams.

GG ELO Hell.

Now add this all to premades, AFKs, bug splats, bad spawns, axis favored maps, etc. Playing soviets right now is a joke.

And that is where the MM sucks hard.
1) Getting premades 4-5 games in a row.
2) Games where the enemy is even remotely better than your team = loss because allies crumble after about 12 minutes.
3) Getting the same afk or bug splatter on your team 2 and 3 times in a row.
4) Playing the same map several times in a row. And getting the shit spawn every time.
5) Always getting the worst player on the team in your next match.

With the current state of the game and MM, I /L out of about 3 out of 5 games. Stuck in ELO hell just due to the MM.

Some of these things are just BAD LUCK. And I have horrendous luck. But some things could easily be fixed by those cucks at Relic.

1) Calc an estimated ELO for premades.
2) Dont play the same map twice in a row.
3) Adjust ELO based on current win rates for the factions and mode.
4) Dont play with the person who just crashed the last game.
5) Adjust ELO on faction performance per map.

There are probably 3-5 more things that could easily be added by any competent programmer in about 20 minutes. But here we sit...

i didnt read, but it wont ever be fixed for CoH2


props for trying to fix it tho

i didnt read, but it wont ever be fixed for CoH2


props for trying to fix it tho

many thanks

Maybe SOV is my best faction, but imo SOV are pretty gucci in 2v2, especially after 120mm buff.

Regarding ELO hell, just l2p. Your placement may oscillate between the ranks, but your average rating will improve only if you grow. So many guys just leave after being matched against a decent opponent, instead of trying figuring out how to beat or at least survive vs him. Also 2v2 is not a human factor mixed with ranking RNG generator like 4v4. On average it is pretty fair for most players.

Example: there is a guy with a SOV only guy that has something like 6k games and 2 years ago he was rank lvl 12, when I was lvl 10. The guy is still lvl 12. Very toxic and rigid player who always blames someone when something goes wrong. I highly doubt that he will ever climb the ladder. Seen guys with 10k game, 12k games and still very bad. And the biggest thing that those guys have in common - they give up and leave when they see any decent adversity.

level 2-3-4 whilst also being level 100 prestige 3.

prestige only represents amount of EXP the player earned anywhere. You can go download a PvE meatgrinder map and get EXP that way, you could grind it in ranked PvP, or you could go and play some customs. In short prestige is irrelevant.

Regarding ELO hell, just l2p. Your placement may oscillate between the ranks, but your average rating will improve only if you grow.

This is just false in 4v4. May be true on 2v2.

I only play for fun. Dont care about rank.

When maxims were OP I was level 14 sov. After the nerf I went to about level 12 and held there ever since.

Recently I went from Level 12 to level 4 in a week of bad match making, afks, bug splats, etc. And cannot get past level 6. I win about 1 out of 4 games generically. And if I win, the MM immediately puts me against much higher ranked opponents and the win is erased.

So I am playing with people who just bought the game and I am level 15 in OST and BRITs. Seems about right.

One major issue right now is playing soviets in team games.

Currently in team games soviets are under performing badly.

Axis factions are easier to play. Your infantry works great and you have an early presence.

Any map you get with an OST and OKW player on the same side, you lose. By the time you get to the fuel they have already locked it down. So you lose ELO.

Now your ELO is worse, so you get stuck with noobs who dont even try to get the fuel. They run to the middle and camp out. Then get run over with blobs and early vehicles. So you lose ELO.

Now you are not only playing with noobs, but noobs that just bought the game. Meaning most of them do not have ALL of the allied factions. Which means you now get all soviet games against mixed axis teams.

GG ELO Hell.

Now add this all to premades, AFKs, bug splats, bad spawns, axis favored maps, etc. Playing soviets right now is a joke.

And that is where the MM sucks hard.
1) Getting premades 4-5 games in a row.
2) Games where the enemy is even remotely better than your team = loss because allies crumble after about 12 minutes.
3) Getting the same afk or bug splatter on your team 2 and 3 times in a row.
4) Playing the same map several times in a row. And getting the shit spawn every time.
5) Always getting the worst player on the team in your next match.

With the current state of the game and MM, I /L out of about 3 out of 5 games. Stuck in ELO hell just due to the MM.

This is quite an exaggeration. The game even in 4v4 is at least balanced enough that you don't have to sink THAT far below your actual skill level, because at some point you will just win by out-microing.

Some of these things are just BAD LUCK. And I have horrendous luck. But some things could easily be fixed by those cucks at Relic.

1) Calc an estimated ELO for premades.
2) Dont play the same map twice in a row.
3) Adjust ELO based on current win rates for the factions and mode.
4) Dont play with the person who just crashed the last game.
5) Adjust ELO on faction performance per map.

There are probably 3-5 more things that could easily be added by any competent programmer in about 20 minutes. But here we sit...

Sadly, the only point in time when Relic will gather a lot of data on winrates and maps without it being influenced by patches is when, well, there are no more patches. Catch 22...

This is quite an exaggeration. The game even in 4v4 is at least balanced enough that you don't have to sink THAT far below your actual skill level, because at some point you will just win by out-microing.

Again, completely false. I have played games where I am 2v1 all game long and have my side and we still lose badly.

Just played a game on White Ball where all 3 of my team went middle at the start and were losing. How can anyone win this game?????? And our team ranks were much better then the enemies.

So me as soviets with only 3 squads on the field will beat an OST and an OKW who each have 4 squads and MGs??? In what universe?

I've always assumed this but don't know it's true or not. Does MM average ranks/Elo out when making teams? For example it's okay with a 2v2 of Rank 100 and 500 versus 300 and 300.

Matches like this are always a crapshoot if the match turns into two separate 1 on 1s where the higher rank in the lane might overly dominate if there isn't good teamwork. If this is the case you could probably improve MM by tightening up how far apart the outliers are from the average ELO that it's trying to make. For example 50 1000 versus 500 and 500 is much more likely to not be a good game.

Estimated ELO for Premades would be HUGE. I freaking hate losing to some AT in placement matches and then see that some of the team is top 100 in Randoms or something. It just results in further annoyance because the placement matches probably underestimate the rank of the AT and it will still be bad MM until they climb for a while.

Matches like this are always a crapshoot if the match turns into two separate 1 on 1s where the higher rank in the lane might overly dominate if there isn't good teamwork.

I agree with this. That would be a great change to the MM to limit the spread of ranks. See Aerafields post were I went against him and he had like 10k rank team mates

That is one nice thing about having maps that have a strong middle section (Belgorod for example). If one player is getting dominated, they can fall back to middle to:
- Get VPs.
- Push the fuel cutoff.
- Make sure the stronger player does not get flanked.
- Even double the better players side if the stronger enemy does not chase to middle.

It is one way that maps can help balance team games. Any noob can make an MG and spam mortars to try and protect the middle and hold out for a VP victory.

For 2v2 it also helps to have a safe fuel.

Once again it comes down to the community doing everything they can to make Coh2 a fun experience and Relic not responding. We had map patches and 100 balance patches. Please, just ONE server patch would be great. We beg you. Or at a minimum implement some of these ideas into coh3.

From my personal experience -and it's a bit limited, so take it with a grain of salt- , ranking up in CoH2 and escaping ELO hell really comes down to personal skill at the end.

A few years ago a friend of mine asked me for a favor: if I could log-in to his account and boost his 4v4 ranks, he was around rank 2000 with all factions besides brits which he did not own. I thought it's a funny experiment so I agreed.

It took me about 3 weeks of playing ~2-3 hours per day to boost the 4 factions from rank 2000 to top 100.

Of course you get games that are impossible to win. Ofc there may be losing streaks that lead to a lot frustration because they are totally out of your control. But I think if you're a good coh2 player, just focus on your match (ignore what crazy bullshit your team is doing) and tryhard at 100% it's totally possible to escape ELO hell without any excuses if I'mma be honest.

Oh, and I would recommend to close CELO program and not use it at all until the game is over Many times I looked at CELO afterwards and asked myself "holy crap how did I win this". Had I looked at it before the match, I would've been demoralized and lost the match most likely.

From my personal experience -and it's a bit limited, so take it with a grain of salt- , ranking up in CoH2 and escaping ELO hell really comes down to personal skill at the end.

Please send me the crack brand you smoke. I would like to try it. It seems very strong.

Here is a shot of the last hour I just played. Not a single winnable game. The last game was a premade who were way higher ranked than my team. I owned 50% of the map and we were losing....we actually made one guy rage quit and leave. So we had about a 5% chance of winning then our loser dropped.

Two of these games had 2 players AFK on my team. That's right 4v2 anyone?



And since the MM is so bad, only the worst and dumbest players are even playing this game anymore. Anyone with functioning grey matter has left the building.

As I stated I am LEVEL 15 with OST and Brits. The two easiest to play factions. USF I am level 13. OKW and Sov I play the most because I am terrible at them. OKW has no smoke and I always get ALL okw teams so its gg from the start. Any faction with an MG I am decent at. So why am I a level 4 as Sov when I was a 12 just 3 weeks ago????

From my personal experience -and it's a bit limited, so take it with a grain of salt- , ranking up in CoH2 and escaping ELO hell really comes down to personal skill at the end.

A few years ago a friend of mine asked me for a favor: if I could log-in to his account and boost his 4v4 ranks, he was around rank 2000 with all factions besides brits which he did not own. I thought it's a funny experiment so I agreed.

It took me about 3 weeks of playing ~2-3 hours per day to boost the 4 factions from rank 2000 to top 100.

Of course you get games that are impossible to win. Ofc there may be losing streaks that lead to a lot frustration because they are totally out of your control. But I think if you're a good coh2 player, just focus on your match (ignore what crazy bullshit your team is doing) and tryhard at 100% it's totally possible to escape ELO hell without any excuses if I'mma be honest.

Oh, and I would recommend to close CELO program and not use it at all until the game is over Many times I looked at CELO afterwards and asked myself "holy crap how did I win this". Had I looked at it before the match, I would've been demoralized and lost the match most likely.

Your reply took me from skeptical to almost certain you were never in elo hell to begin with. What would normally happen as your rank 2000 friend helper you would win 2-3 games back to back then get matched with an absolute ape who can barely control his mainline. What would then happen is you most probably would lose and that is ok. What is not ok is that the matchmaking system would automatically erase your previous victories, so as to downgrade you way further than normal due to idiotic teammates. And then rinse and repeat.

Is it even possible to get out of elo hell?

And since the MM is so bad, only the worst and dumbest players are even playing this game anymore. Anyone with functioning grey matter has left the building.

I think ultimately it comes down to this.

No matter the algorithm, if there are only braindead people playing (I consider myself one sadly) it's more than likely that one would get matched to them.

Is it even possible to get out of elo hell?

It is possible. But it has absolutely nothing to do with skill. It is 100% RNG and shitty Match Making.

I would guess level 16 and up may be mostly skill since these people tend to not crash every other game. And not go AFK every other game.

Its just hysterical to me that I play a game of soviets against a person who just bought the game and my team sucks so bad that we lose. Then switch to OST, brits, usf and play with the top 5% of players and win easily.

Like I keep repeating over and over. This game is completely broken and no one cares. It is much easier to sit and pretend their skill is what makes them better than other players. It is not. It is RNG with the dog squeeze Relic server.

And that is not even all the garbage RNG built into this shit game anyway. Like a mortar will wipe an entire squad on the move with its first shot with no vision. But a late game arty piece will get 2 kills. How do these Relic guys sleep at night knowing they are completely incompetent. How do you get up and look in the mirror knowing you made the shittiest decisions ever made in a game and go to work with a smile on your face?

I dont know, that should be a pretty entertaining read