Does it really do anything?

Games Other Halo
1

Does the “Focused” search really do anything as far as “best match based on your fireteam’s skill and connection?” I just got matched in a game on a team of two unranked, and a gold, I’m only a plat level 2 in Team Arena but they couldn’t even do the basics on the objective game type. Going really negative as far as kills to death which wouldn’t bother me if they even got a capture. This seems to always be my luck in this, am i misunderstanding does this mean it will find opponents at my level and not my team?

Focused vs Expanded

2

The game matches up teams based on average skill. Focused tries to make doubly sure that you get games with people within a certain skill window relative to you at first. That doesn’t mean the players themselves will necessarily play like they know what they’re doing though. So it’s not really an issue with the system. If you really want to avoid stuff like this, you gotta game the system. Run with a squad.

3

Probably not so much any more. As population decreases the window to make games has to increase.

4

> 2533274816788253;3:
> Probably not so much any more. As population decreases the window to make games has to increase.

^^ ^^
This is very unfortunate.

5

> 2533274871590643;1:
> Does the “Focused” search really do anything as far as “best match based on your fireteam’s skill and connection?” I just got matched in a game on a team of two unranked, and a gold, I’m only a plat level 2 in Team Arena but they couldn’t even do the basics on the objective game type. Going really negative as far as kills to death which wouldn’t bother me if they even got a capture. This seems to always be my luck in this, am i misunderstanding does this mean it will find opponents at my level and not my team?
>
> Focused vs Expanded

You are a Plat 2 so being matched with a gold is within the search parameter that is currently being used. It has been like that for a while now. Also the unranked players don’t necessarily mean a bad match either. The system will look at the last ranked season, and something to keep in mind is the system is matching you based on your MMR which we can’t see.

Whenever you have a question about a game and if you were matched correctly you can post a link to your game and have Dr. Menke look at it. You can do that here. Every week he posts a new update and does respond to questions.

Some of his most recent posts regarding what they have changed in the matchmaking system:

> 2533274839818445;10:
> September 25: We currently time out our searches at 5 minutes though, so in practice, there’s still a 5-minute max for now. The main difference is we can expand search rules during the entire 5 minutes, instead of only half of it. For example, before this change, we could only expand the allowable skill gap for 2.5 minutes, and then after that rely on a set hard threshold that could no longer expand. Now, we can potentially continue expanding the allowable skill gap over the full 5 minutes, resulting in tighter matches.
>
> August 21: As part of last Thursday’s blog post we mentioned that based on community feedback and our own data, we decided to tighten matchmaking in the Ranked playlists. Instead of allowing matches within 2- and sometimes 4-tiers, we now only allow matches within 1-tier of your MMR across all Ranked lists.
> Keep in mind this is MMR and not CSR, so there will be the occasional exception where you see a gap that looks like it’s more than 1-tier (e.g. Gold v. Diamond), but this can only happen in cases where the Gold is already expected to play as Plat, or the Diamond is expected to drop soon to Plat. Or both.
> August 7: The changes let everyone matchmake in a timely manner, but they do allow larger gaps in the players you will see. The gaps are currently like this:
> HCS, Team Arena, and Slayer
> - 2 full ranks apart (e.g. Gold to Diamond, Champ to bottom Onyx, etc.) - Narrower because more skillful.

These are just are the most recent examples of where Dr. Menke talk about making changes, and what is happening with the system. If you want to get a better sense of what is happening with matchmaking check out all of his old posts here. Also to keep up with how things are going check the thread he posts every Monday.

6

> 2533274871590643;1:
> Does the “Focused” search really do anything as far as “best match based on your fireteam’s skill and connection?” I just got matched in a game on a team of two unranked, and a gold, I’m only a plat level 2 in Team Arena but they couldn’t even do the basics on the objective game type. Going really negative as far as kills to death which wouldn’t bother me if they even got a capture. This seems to always be my luck in this, am i misunderstanding does this mean it will find opponents at my level and not my team?
>
> Focused vs Expanded

I asked Josh the same question awhile back. Focused - Expanded attempts to chooses matches that are nearest to your location for less lag. Matchmaking is done by the MM system.

7

Focused only helps at the beginning of a search. As time passes without finding a match, the search parameters are lessened so you can eventually find one.

8

I can tell for sure that it doesn’t do a damn thing in FF lol, because there are good players playing it but you end up with new scrubs sometimes and have to carry your -Yoink- off.

9

The only way Focused comes into play for Skill is that if you DON’T choose Focused, you can be “sucked in” by any other player or party who has already waited “long enough”

Right now, the search expands from an MMR gap of 30 up to 300 on the CSR scale.

If you search Focused, you will first require 30, and then widen that slowly over time.

If you don’t search Focused, you can match with a player who has already waited out to the 300 mark without waiting at all yourself.

Focused guarantees tighter matches and low latency, but longer waits.