After reading several posts on how matchmaking and ranking is working I have come up with an idea that will improve the experience for everyone!! The problem is that those who are super competitive are finding themselves matched with subpar teammates. I imagine the current matchmaking system has a broad range for skill set in order to speed up the matchmaking process.
A simple option that I propose is to allow the gamers to choose speed or skill. I am asking for 343 to give us an option before entering matchmaking for us to prefer a speed matchmaking causing us to get a wide range of skills in our game, or an option to prioritize based on ranks that are closer to our skill level. The second option would definitely slow down the matchmaking process due to fewer prospects, but would appeal to those who are more competitive and care about their skill ranking.
Post your thoughts below. If this gets enough attention from the community maybe 343 will take note and make some changes!
I take that back it was not Halo 3 that had the prioritization options but it is Call of Duty that allows you to tell the server how to best match your games. I think the options included local player only, fastest match. But I don’t remember if there was an option for similar skill.
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> I take that back it was not Halo 3 that had the prioritization options but it is Call of Duty that allows you to tell the server how to best match your games. I think the options included local player only, fastest match. But I don’t remember if there was an option for similar skill.
It was Black Ops 2 to be specific but it was connection based. Stricter matchmaking so you got better connection, had nothing to do with skill based. I do agree this would be a nice feature though.
Thank you Trespa5s I thought I remembered something like that. Having matchmaking filters I think would have a huge impact on gamer satisfaction (sorry, I just go finished doing some quality improvement training, lol). I get tired of being matched up with super elite gamers who just roll over me in the game. I don’t improve much by playing them because I walk out the door and boom head shot, I’m dead. Instead I would rather play with those that are marginally better than me so I can work to improve my game while having fun.
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> > I take that back it was not Halo 3 that had the prioritization options but it is Call of Duty that allows you to tell the server how to best match your games. I think the options included local player only, fastest match. But I don’t remember if there was an option for similar skill.
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> It was Black Ops 2 to be specific but it was connection based. Stricter matchmaking so you got better connection, had nothing to do with skill based. I do agree this would be a nice feature though.
I’m pretty sure that Halo 3 (or maybe it was Reach) did have something like that though. You could choose from a few different matchmaking options such as talkative, speed, connection etc.
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> > > I take that back it was not Halo 3 that had the prioritization options but it is Call of Duty that allows you to tell the server how to best match your games. I think the options included local player only, fastest match. But I don’t remember if there was an option for similar skill.
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> > It was Black Ops 2 to be specific but it was connection based. Stricter matchmaking so you got better connection, had nothing to do with skill based. I do agree this would be a nice feature though.
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> I’m pretty sure that Halo 3 (or maybe it was Reach) did have something like that though. You could choose from a few different matchmaking options such as talkative, speed, connection etc.
> 2533274835257915;2:
> I take that back it was not Halo 3 that had the prioritization options but it is Call of Duty that allows you to tell the server how to best match your games. I think the options included local player only, fastest match. But I don’t remember if there was an option for similar skill.
In Halo 3 there were matchmaking filters! You could (potentially) slow down your matchmaking times, but find specific types of matches per your choosing.
The options were similar to:
-Best Connection
-Local Region
-Quickest Match
-Closest Skill Match
I remember this due to the massive amounts of people boosting achievements in Rumble Pit for armor. You, and five of your closest friends, could go into the Xbox 360 dashboard, change your primary language to something extremely strange (Usually with Asian characters), search with the “Local Region” filter, and match your five closest friends to chase down achievements.
Yes it was flawed in that sense, but damn is it better than nothing! I’d give a lot to be matched with only Onyx players on my team and the opposing team. Ten minutes of searching wouldn’t be that bad at that point. Otherwise, the array of CSR is too wide right now. I don’t want to have players on my team going 2-14 against a full team of Onyx players. It defeats the concept of the ranking system.
The whole purpose of the ranking system is so that you play with people of your own skill level. It is possible these kids have boosted, but I really feel the majority of the problem is the matchmaking criteria is just too broad to speed up matchmaking. I will gladly choose to take a longer time to be matched with people from my own skill level.
Interesting idea, there does seem to be a gulf between people who just want fast matches, people who want good connections and people who want fair matches.
Fair matches = longer wait times but they don’t seem to understand or accept that
I had an idea last year with a goal similar to this - to improve skill based matchmaking.
The idea is based around this - the algorithm can search and select players for matching from a pool of those who are ALREADY in a game. Currently, I believe the matchmaking pool is only those players who are currently searching. If you think about how many people are online and how many of those people are currently IN GAME and not in the pool…
The available pool of players could be increased significantly, meaning that it’s more likely that you’ll find a more fair match, faster. It would mean that during a game your next set of teammates and enemies could already be being evaluated from amongst ALL players online, playing and searching.
It might mean that some people who are searching would have to wait for a game to finish, increasing search times a little, but it could result in far fairer matches. As such it would only start including players in the pool once a game is around 1-2 minutes away from being complete and it would need a timeout in case of long stalemates. It would also have the problem of the player not wanting to play another game in this playlist after finishing his/her game, possibly an option for “are you playing another? Set up my next game while I play this one” would be needed.
It would also be great if the matchmaking system gave more fidelity to the UI. Letting us know when a potential player has been identified and how long it is until they’re available.
