4v4 - perceived balance and match making

Small pre-text:
A while ago PE, eh OKW, finally arrived, and i played them. Upon release everything was fine. I had long and good games. Pretty much no matter which patch. Watched some streams, L2P a bit more, all in good fun.

Recently:
But there's something seriously wrong with my games in the past two weeks. I had games were i literally built only 2 Volksgren the whole game, and still won, and my other mates were often not doing anything either.
Rank too high, no similar ranked opponents maybe?
Since i loved USF in COH1 i obv. went back and tried them in their current state, this time without an arranged team, and guess what happened in the majority of the games:
http://i.imgur.com/uik7mcT.jpg

So Axis got slightly higher prestige, but it's just XP anyways.
Guess it must be the balancing, and 4v4 is just screwed, right?
And maybe i'm just a noob and need to L2P more, which wouldn't explain though why i don't have any issues in arranged teams (!), at all, or maybe i should blame faction balancing... yeah, it's the balancing.

Hello match making:
A while ago, when i was playing OKW, i started checking all ranks after nearly every game, and the spread often (mostly always) looks like this:

Allied:
1. ~20, #6710
2. 20+, #573
2. 100+, #8311
4. 200+, #4950
Axis:
1. ~300, #45
2. ~300, #12
3. ~250, #67
4. 300+, #54
Approx number of games (without AT) with same faction, ranking in 4v4 (+/- 2% for anonymity, no particular order)

And this is actually one of the more "fair" ones.

On OKW side i had it even worse, i got mixed with another top10 player, and 2 top50 players against... guess... right, none of the enemies had any higher rank than 12k. Yes, there's a k, for thousand.
4 axis players from 3-40 face 4 allied newbies in the 12.000-28.000 range, and that wasn't the first time, it happens like every game.

Or maybe let's chill a bit and only spam Luchs?
http://i.imgur.com/srMRECj.jpg
"gg"




TL;DR, get to the point noob:
There's no point in having "top players" face some people who barely know how to play a faction. It's boring and utterly retarded for both sides.

But worse: besides the even more retarded "searching as" feature, stuff like this is letting a player believe the factions are highly unbalanced, or even certainly unplayable in team games, while this isn't the case, or at least not to the degree some people make you want to believe it.
(Yes, there's balancing issues, but that doesn't even matter in such games, nor would it matter for the average player).

Sadly though every game i see someone writing "omg, xyz OP!", then i check his rank later, and he got like 20 games and is rank 20.000 something. Great... a game full of wolves, and you throw some sheep into it. Must be certainly fun for the sheep. MM wise i was at least lucky when i started this game, but it starts to become absolutely ridiculous.

I think since there are a lot more 4v4 players searching as Axis, they have to wait longer to get games. This expands the search function. With allies, you usually get a game right away. Sometimes you are paired up with Axis players (who are not your skill level), since those Axis players have been searching for a long time

To a degree, 4v4 matchmaking will never be ideal. The number of players in each match creates a situation where, inevitably, variation of ranks will be higher than smaller brackets. The game mode is also favored by casual players, creating even greater spread between skilled players who happen to 4v4, and casual players who 4v4.

The matchmaker has to balance between wait time and how wide the player search is. If top players waited for top players, you could wait ages to find a game - exacerbating an already lopsided and Axis dominant player base. When 90% are searching as Axis, the matchmaker must eventually pair high ranked players with low ones.

Yup, but that's partly the problem Ninja. Plenty of Allies never get the chance to actually learn the game due this insane mismatch of skill level, will probably just give up, and never come back, or consider xyz being super OP.

You basically alienate a huge amount of players to give some others free wins - which are no fun either (at least not for me).


Edit:

the matchmaker must eventually pair high ranked players with low ones.

Throwing some sheep into a crowd of wolves is pointless for both sides. It will just accelerate the current situation, and cause all the "fun" discussions about balancing we have, and lot's of hard feelings and rage. It is just plain toxic, and nothing good will come from it.

Yes it is frustrating and annoying. Some members of this foru have already said they will not be returning until the balance issues iron out

I will still play games here and there, but I haven't spent a penny on CoH2 since Assault Grenadiers, and I do not intend on doing so again until the game is balanced and competitive.

Elite Ace commander, nazi Brits, and blobbish America hasn't helped this sentiment either.

I could, however, be convinced to pay a bit of cash for an upgraded Worldbuilder that allows me to place the same territory points as vCoH. High/Med/Low muni/fuel and actual strategic points were such a boon to map design and and map dynamism.

But even so, it'd be a hard sell considering the hollow sense of accomplishment that map making for CoH2 is when the game feels broken and unbalanced.

I was doing very very well for rank in 4v4s last patch but this patch i struggle to even make it out of my base as USF unless my opponent is afk or drops, its virtually unplayable and thats just balance.

However from the matchmaking perspective I have seen myself in games with multiple top 10-50 players when i have gone OKW and this seems to happen quite often. Balance issues aside matchmaking does not seem to be putting equally skilled opponents against each other and it is getting ridiculous.

There seems to be a new thread on 4v4 problems every day and it's well justified the mode is in really bad shape right now. Just watch relics recent stream, PQ was on a team with top 4v4 players and they struggles to leave their base sector as allies and easily dominated the map with axis. This is typical of games nowdays

4v4 is a novelty mode. COH2 doesn't have even close to a big enough playerbase to get good matches in 1v1 most of them time. Keep in mind every player and/or team with less than 10 games together is still in pending ELO and will go up against opponents of all skill levels.

Yes it is frustrating and annoying. Some members of this foru have already said they will not be returning until the balance issues iron out

Did you even read the Thread? The point is, that there are no big balance issues, or that altleast they are not the problem. The problem is the Matchmaking.


The Solution would be to either, make Allies cooler, or change the Matchmaking algorithm, so that no matter how long you wait, you wont get paired with players way worse than you.

The negative effect of this would be, that Axis waittimes would be increased even more, but in the end the problem is here right now already. With the changes, you will need ages to find a balanced game, now you need ages to find a balanced game. But the added positive would be that maybe some more people would play Allies.

Did you even read the Thread? The point is, that there are no big balance issues, or that altleast they are not the problem. The problem is the Matchmaking.


The Solution would be to either, make Allies cooler, or change the Matchmaking algorithm, so that no matter how long you wait, you wont get paired with players way worse than you.

The negative effect of this would be, that Axis waittimes would be increased even more, but in the end the problem is here right now already. With the changes, you will need ages to find a balanced game, now you need ages to find a balanced game. But the added positive would be that maybe some more people would play Allies.

yes of course i read the thread.... my earlier replies show this....


I doubt matchmaker is the only thing that drives Allies players away from the game. The perceived, or actual balance of the game in the 4v4 mode is also to blame for the cynical and dissatisfaction felt amongst players.

yes of course i read the thread.... my earlier replies show this....


I doubt matchmaker is the only thing that drives Allies players away from the game. The perceived, or actual balance of the game in the 4v4 mode is also to blame for the cynical and dissatisfaction felt amongst players.

My apologies, I didn't saw that you posted something before^^ And yes I agree that the design of the US lategame drives players away. But it is probably also more enjoyable when you fight enemys that are on the same skill level as you.

It just seems like the high rank Allied players are mostly avoiding playing until the next patch. Searching as Axis often it goes through the entire cycle and gives up. If you try a few times you get a game but Allies always have 1-2 newbies unless you're lucky enough to get a match against an arranged team.

It's good for streaks but a bit pointless otherwise.....,

The same story is repeating itself again and again... when does the allies's side of 4vs4 automatch will be getting some love? Plz Relic ! For fun'sake fix it !

The match making is really bad on the last patch from 1v1 to 4v4, I think I've lost 1 or 2 games out of 20-25. A lot were just pure noobs that got stomped so easily. Though I guess it could also be some higher ranked allied players are avoiding the game from now.

If ur gonna play allies.. get a team of high ranked players. then problem solved. i went on a strong winning streak as allies with top rank RNG clan members and others.....

It shouldn't be this the recent patches are making casual player avoid allies

they blow ballance and cause this situation that no top players like to play ally , now with this player base 4v4 will die itself

The last patch I liked by the inf is balanced and is not an aggressive.
But there are some issues that benefit the axis and hurt allies. And they are not inf. They are tank/vehicles:

- Walking stuka: HP reduced to 160. AoE reduced from 8 to 6.
- Jagdtiger - removed ability to shoot through objectives like trees or buildings.
- Trucks AA & Health can move in the first minutes.USF can only do this after 10 minutes with
mayor. SOV and WER no have such powerful means of defending a point. Resources spent to recover the area are many, and in some cases is impossible to recover the point.
- Heavy tanks. Is easy to win with heavy tanks and few or non counter

@ OP

Noun's ELO explanation

@ OP

Noun's ELO explanation

Which really has nothing to do with what the OP is talking about.

Based on a year of experience with random teamgame matching, the expanded search is purely onesided, ie. if an axis team has been waiting for a long time and has thus expanded their search to a humongous range, if any two players join the allies queue, they can get instantly matched to the axis players no matter how large the ELO differences are. So with the current generally 100% axis searching pattern, you get absolutely horrible matchmaking as allies which leads to even less players wanting to play allies.

There's also the issue of the system not differentiating between randoms and arranged teams, leading to even poorer matches. But this applies to both factions.