Matchmaking Feedback Update – July 24

Games Other Halo
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Hey folks, no big updates since I’ve been out of the office for a bit. Smaller post this week.

Fireteam Restrictions

Just a quick update here. We have heard mixed feedback on the restrictions. Some are loving it, some are a bit frustrated by the longer wait times and resulting larger skill gaps in matches.

Part of this is just that the matchmaking change has made it necessary to retune our matchmaking parameters. We are keeping an eye on each playlist individually and tightening some of the matchmaking back up where possible to balance against the new settings. We have done this already in HCS, Team Arena, and Slayer and have already noticed improvements in matchmaking quality.

We have another update coming down the road that should drastically reduce the possible skill gap between full fireteams and their opponents for the cases where we still have to match against non-full fireteams. This should result in more fair matches when this happens.

We also may soon be able to stretch the search out over a longer period of time, allowing us to maintain party restrictions for longer than 2.5 minutes, and also expand the allowed skill gap over a longer period as well. This should trade-off wait times for tighter matches overall.

Fireteam Size Limits in Warzone

We’ve heard the request that now that we have party restrictions, can we allow full fireteams of 12 players to queue again for Warzone rather than have Warlords.

We currently feel the experience could be more frustrating than enjoyable with the trade-offs it would require.

  • In Arena, we eventually give up on the party restrictions and allow non-full parties to match against parties of 4. We couldn’t do that in Warzone. - Fireteams of 12 have a massive advantage in Warzone. So massive, that if we allowed them back in, we would have to restrict them to matchmaking only ever against other fireteams of 12, we couldn’t drop the party restriction after long wait times. - If a fireteam of 12 queues up to matchmaking, there’s a possibility there are zero other fireteams of 12 to matchmake. That fireteam could wait indefinitely for a match, not knowing that there aren’t any other fireteams to play with.
    We feel the experience of waiting indefinitely, not knowing there aren’t any opponents to play, wouldn’t be great for those Warzone teams, and that it would be more enjoyable compromising with queuing in a fireteam of 6 and definitely getting a match, than trying over and over in a party of 12.
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I don’t know why it’s so difficult to have a solo Warzone playlist and a team Warzone playlist.

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> 2533274839818445;1:
> - If a fireteam of 12 queues up to matchmaking, there’s a possibility there are zero other fireteams of 12 to matchmake. That fireteam could wait indefinitely for a match, not knowing that there aren’t any other fireteams to play with.We feel the experience of waiting indefinitely, not knowing there aren’t any opponents to play, wouldn’t be great for those Warzone teams, and that it would be more enjoyable compromising with queuing in a fireteam of 6 and definitely getting a match, than trying over and over in a party of 12.

One factor you don’t consider is that WZ isn’t available for custom games. I’m sure there are a small number of high-skill 12-man WZ squads who would love nothing more than to play each other over and over, but can’t because there’s no custom game option. They could potentially achieve that by searching at the same time in WZ To12s. I’m sure there would be forum threads that would start up to organize folks trying to match each other.

It would affect a minority of the population, but I’m not sure I really see the “downside” - teams already wait seemingly forever to try and find Warlord matches and don’t seem to mind too much. I mean they complain about long wait times, but then they complain that they want warlords more often… :wink: Can’t I have my cake and eat it too, please?

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<mark>This post has been edited by a moderator. Please refrain from making posts that do not contribute to the topic at hand.</mark>
*Original post. Click at your own discretion.

What about an MCC playlist update?

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This update has been pretty great. I don’t usually have to wait for more than a minute or two (plat-diamond in most playlists) and matches have improved a lot in my opinion. Solo queue matches play so much different than one or both teams being full squads; there are more 1-on-1’s, greater opportunity to survive encounters, etc. I’ve been winning a lot more games and there’s a lot less blowouts. Appreciate you fam

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Josh,

I would seriously enjoy not getting a match at all than searching with a fireteam of 6 and end up losing (which nobody WANTS to lose) because the other half of my team lacks the skill or motivation to win the match.

That is the tradeoff that you and 343i refuse to acknowledge. We’ve had this for about 8 months now and it is seriously ruining the game for many.

Please figure out a way to match fireteams of 12 against the largest fireteams currently searching or something because the game is getting stale.

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> 2535423944871715;2:
> I don’t know why it’s so difficult to have a solo Warzone playlist and a team Warzone playlist.

Josh this is what we need, or a warlords that comes back every 2 weeks ( like an event to look forward too)

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Warlords fue una porqueria >:v,no cargaba nada >:v

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Can you guys combine TA and the HCS playlists? It seems counter productive to have them separate.

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> 2533274970658419;9:
> Can you guys combine TA and the HCS playlists? It seems counter productive to have them separate.

Read through the prior threads for an answer to this but the tl;dr is that people playing TA, don’t want to play HCS and those playing HCS don’t want to play TA.

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Thanks Dr. Menke. WZ has never been better. In terms of Warlords, could it be brought back once a week? Say every saturday is Warlords day. Or does it require someone to manually load and remove the playlist?

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Heavy aim is still happening. Any info on another patch? Is there an official explanation on why/how this occurs?

Thanks

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Make HCS microphone required please. Or give me a search option for microphone only matches. If you’re going to have a “pro” playlist, there should be a way to filter out the, to put it nicely, less dedicated.
To put it not so nicely, scrubs that can’t afford a microphone have no business rolling with the big boys; gtfout of my pro circuit

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> 2533274847665309;4:
> What about an MCC playlist update?

Yeah, im waiting an H1 and H2 only playlist

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Is there a reason I literally cannot find any games in matchmaking? My NAT is open, I’ve cleard/reset my MAC address. I can join online custom games, but I try to search a game in social or arena and literally wait forever and no games or players found.

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Reducing party size without offering any sort of compromise is ridiculous. So many players have just stopped playing altogether due to the restrictions. WZ is supposed to be your flagship gametype and at this point it’s just a -Yoink- show.

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> 2533274799134570;6:
> Josh,
> I would seriously enjoy not getting a match at all than searching with a fireteam of 6 and end up losing (which nobody WANTS to lose) because the other half of my team lacks the skill or motivation to win the match.
>
> That is the tradeoff that you and 343i refuse to acknowledge. We’ve had this for about 8 months now and it is seriously ruining the game for many.
>
> Please figure out a way to match fireteams of 12 against the largest fireteams currently searching or something because the game is getting stale.

Couldn’t agree more. Just force teams to match teams if they can’t find a match then oh well. Atleast larger fireteams wouldn’t ruin the game for smaller lobbies or solo players.

Maybe those 12 man teams would actually decide to not Plat with full teams all day every day which would great improve matchmaking from being lopsided.

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https://www.halowaypoint.com/en-us/games/halo-5-guardians/xbox-one/mode/arena/matches/bc290d52-d998-46dd-8b76-b7f1562d727b/players/a%20numb%20thumb?gameHistoryMatchIndex=0&gameHistoryGameModeFilter=Arena

Menke your system is dope.

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Generic update about matchmaking, no particular game mentioned in the title or by what forum the post is in, and it’s just assumed that we’re all supposed to know it’s Halo 5 and that nothing in the announcement applies to MCC.

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> 2533274804406181;17:
> > 2533274799134570;6:
> > Josh,
> > I would seriously enjoy not getting a match at all than searching with a fireteam of 6 and end up losing (which nobody WANTS to lose) because the other half of my team lacks the skill or motivation to win the match.
> >
> > That is the tradeoff that you and 343i refuse to acknowledge. We’ve had this for about 8 months now and it is seriously ruining the game for many.
> >
> > Please figure out a way to match fireteams of 12 against the largest fireteams currently searching or something because the game is getting stale.
>
> Couldn’t agree more. Just force teams to match teams if they can’t find a match then oh well. Atleast larger fireteams wouldn’t ruin the game for smaller lobbies or solo players.
>
> Maybe those 12 man teams would actually decide to not Plat with full teams all day every day which would great improve matchmaking from being lopsided.

Are you serious?? Your encouraging people NOT to play with their friends??? That isn’t right, nor is that Halo. Your way makes it so someone playing by themselves can play without problems, but people playing with friends might not be able to play at all. That’s ridiculous!!! and all that would do is make those people leave the game (or maybe worst, leave Xbox) and last time I checked that’s not what 343I or Microsoft wants.

I agree with what Edwyrd said in the one part of his post. I would have it so if you have say a Fireteam of 12, it tries to match you up with another fire team of 12. After X time it tries to match you up with the next biggest fire team that’s available with the remaining spots filled by, small teams or solo players if needs be. To me, that is a very fair compromise.

This whole punishing people for wanting to play with their friends needs to stop. I remember back in Halo 3 days people actually 1) talked on headsets (if you don’t want too, then fine, but there’s a mute and Report button for a reason) and 2) seem to relish the challenge of taking down a full team. Nothing was more satisfying than beating them knowing that your team wasn’t or maybe you all just met that match.

Now it’s complain complain complain… why do you hate a solo players 343I… (which I go solo I might add a decent amount) So you go up against a team every now and then in whatever playlist. Sure it sucks, to get destroyed but it’s not like it’s happening every game to you as some people claim. Every time someone says this and I checked their history it’s blatantly not true. I’m not saying people don’t go up against full teams (heck I have) I’m saying it doesn’t happen nearly anywhere as much as what people claim.

Also, Instead of saying things like make a solo queue playlist only, which will do absolutely nothing other than split up the population of the game I might add, which isn’t good for anyone for reasons we all know, try to think of actual solutions.

Sorry for the bit of the rant, but come on people we’re (the Halo Community) better then this.

PS This isn’t directed at anyone, Honestly. Just a general statement