Matchmaking Fail

[Orion]

I have had an entire evening of coming up against veteran players, when my teammate and I are both beginners.

Should this be happening? Its getting old losing -_-

[Origin]

Losing is how you learn. Watch replays, try new things, watch more replays.

With time and dedication, you'll be complaining about not being able to find a real challenge! :)

[Orion]

Losing isn't really the point here...

You would think new players would be fighting new players, at least thats how it works in other games that feature matchmaking.

[Burrich]

When I checked a couple of hours ago, there were just under 3000 players logged in to Battle.net. As more waves of invites go out you can likely expect a broader range of player skill to be available.

[Tacomonkey]

Agreed. I got stomped my first match and first thing I did was go back and watch the replay. I paid attention to what the other player did and have emulated their strategy while adding in my own little preferences. I do see your point where I was expecting to go up against players that have a skill level more equal to my own, but you have to allow for time for the better players to get up there in the ranks also. Everyone has to start at 0 no matter what their skill level. Just stick with it though and you'll be wiping up enemies in no time.

Or if you want add me to your friends list. I'm not that great a player and don't mind holding back a bit if my opponent wants some time to play around with the new units or old ones.

[Vermifax]

The problem is matchmaking doesn't know how new you are and how good they are after 20 or so games. It takes time for the cream to rise and what not.

[Kyras]

Matchmaking still has some kinks to work out I'm sure. Plus, this is a beta, with a much smaller pool of players for the matchmaking system to draw from. So it's probably not too far-fetched to think that the game is just pairing you with whoever is available to prevent less waiting and more playing/testing of the game.

[Desi]

Playing against seasoned players who thrash you in a few minutes isn't fun and doesn't provide much in the form of testing.

[Eyelessone]

Look... To the system mostly everyone is at the bottom, even the good/pros. It has only been a day. Give it some time, play some comp stomps to learn your race.

Even if you do lose you gotta take the most from it, what did my opponent do to pwn the shit out of me? I had a 7 win streak, didn't learn a thing, just kept using the same strategy... Until I lost (and also learned how to counter a mirror).

Just keep going, eventually you'll be playing against people your level.

[Medzo]

Don't let some losses get you down. Currently I haven't seen more than 3000 people on. Also its only been one day and everyone is just sort of thrown into the system, it needs a little time to sort out.

[Seerinox]

There aren't many players who can play at the moment. Also consider that most people who got access to Beta have usually been fans of Blizzard games for a while and most likely played Stacraft and Warcraft games. They're probably already familiar with the general framework of Blizzard RTS games.

Personally I've never played Starcraft multiplayer and stuck to the campaigns whereas I played a decent amount of Warcraft 3 multiplayer and I feel like the matchmaking has been working really well. I have a 2v2 in gold league and otherwise haven't ranked yet but I've never been beaten too badly except for the early games.

[Bassz]

Yea I think its just the lack of players. Me and my friend are going a good 5:1 ratio of losses to wins... Every game we play it says our opponent has the favor XD

I'm sure it will get better over time... Till then maybe the tough times will help us get better XD

[Kyrra]

I'm seeing a wide range of skills. When I was doing my first 10 matches in the 2v2 random bracket I was pitted against people that wiped the floor with me, as well as people who I demolished. Now that I'm in a league, the games are a little closer now.

[Orion]

Once again I will say that losing is not really the problem I brought up...

Clearly I am confused about game mechanics, because of this:

When you first created your account, you chose one of the 3 options:
Beginning player
Experienced
Veteran

So upon choosing beginner (because I was never that amazing at SC 1 to begin with), I assumed the matchmaking utility would group me up against other players that chose beginner.

Yet when I was losing in games, I often asked what other players chose as their skill level, and turns out most of my enemies were veteran players!

Perhaps most of you are right in that it has only been a couple days, but it still seems like something is wrong here mechanically.

[Dreuel]

Perhaps most of you are right in that it has only been a couple days, but it still seems like something is wrong here mechanically.

Think about it this way:

It's pretty clear from the features that are enabled in this beta that they are really focusing their beta testing on the ladder system, skill evaluation, and matchmaking. This makes sense, considering that it would be extremely hard to test this without a pool of thousands of active players.

Today is only the third day Blizzard has had to collect data on how their matchmaking system is working, and the first wave of testers is still getting invited, getting the game running, and so on. I'm sure that in the coming days and weeks there'll be significant under-the-hood tweaking to the matchmaking system based on our experience now.

The best thing we can do is play a lot of games, and trust that the cases where our opponent DESTROYS us will help the developers identify how to improve their matchmaking system.

[Shadowdestro]

With the low number of players it ALWAYS says "Expanding search." That means it isn't finding people it finds appropriate. It'll get better as they introduce more waves of players and release the game.

[Minor]

So, you're assuming that every player is going to pick their respective tier? That is never the case in any game, beta or not. You're going to go against vets that choose beginner, that's the harsh reality. Play an AI, learn the units, and watch replays and you'll get better.

[Tehschoolbus]

You have to understand that the search engine needs to find a pattern of wins or losses to determine where you sit compared to the other players. So until you've played many games, it wont be as capable of matching you up properly. Of course, if you chose beginner it TRIES to pit you against beginners, but it will probably look for a combination of equal skill and good connectivity. Like everyone has said, once there are tens of millions of players playing when retail hits your problem will be history because there will be a wider scope of potential playmates.

[Stormtrooper]

I hope this gets bumped because I just played like 6 2v2 games tonight and was favored on 4 of them and my a$$ was handed to me on a crystal plated dining table on ALL of them. Either a teammate died early due to the OP dual toss zealot or dual zerg roach rush or we were SEVERELY outplayed.

So i dunno if there's not many on tonight but the platinum players or what, but tonight was not fun. Not fun at all. If the matchmaking doesn't get better it's UMS and Custom maps for me only. Very discouraged tonight.

At least in SC1 I could sometimes get pitted against a complete noob and feel good about playing. Either fix the matchmaking or give it up entirely and go back to SC1 systems.

I think I'll play Final Fantasy XIII until some patches come out. My GOD, I'm frustrated. I want to like this game so I hope this can be addressed. /rant

[Stratosspear]

I have had an entire evening of coming up against veteran players, when my teammate and I are both beginners.

Should this be happening? Its getting old losing -_-

There's a message on the front page that pops up every single time you log into Battle.net that talks about this.

[Bmj]

There's a message on the front page that pops up every single time you log into Battle.net that talks about this.

Quoting for emphasis.

The first thing you see is a note that the matchmaker is set for speed over even matches at the moment. As more people are invited they'll start making the match finder more picky. With as few players as there are on the servers currently, if it was set to the launch settings, everyone would be waiting an hour between games.

Besides, It's a beta. A losing record could mean you were testing unorthodox methods for bugs.

[Endureth]

You have to understand that the search engine needs to find a pattern of wins or losses to determine where you sit compared to the other players. So until you've played many games, it wont be as capable of matching you up properly. Of course, if you chose beginner it TRIES to pit you against beginners, but it will probably look for a combination of equal skill and good connectivity. Like everyone has said, once there are tens of millions of players playing when retail hits your problem will be history because there will be a wider scope of potential playmates.

I completely understand this. It's just not fun to sit through many games where you are being trounced. You're basically asking us to just suffer with the promise that there's light at the end of the tunnel. If it takes too long, a lot of the lesser skilled people will just say screw it. Then they'll tell their friends to say screw it and there's lost sales. That's how this system could potentially hurt sales. That's the opposite of what Blizzard wants.

I can think of two ways to improve the system.

1. The leagues are a good idea. But the players don't have enough choice of what kind of league they're in. They play some placement games vs the entire Starcraft community and they're placed according to their performance. But that's like having Joe Montana competing for placement with me. It just doesn't make sense. In real sports Joe had to compete with other people that wanted to compete on a professional level and his record speaks for itself. While me, I don't do that, I compete in local ball clubs, even more minor than the minors. People that play it for fun and don't want to bust their balls just to have a good time.

My point here is let us have leagues further split by something like game speed. The real competitors can play in the 'Pro League' (they'll like the sound of that) where the game speed is Fastest. People that might want to think about going pro can play in, well, let's stick with tradition and call it the 'Minor League' where the game speed is just Fast. And finally you can have 'Casual League'. The game speed is Normal.

Personally I would play in the casual league and so would all my friends, but they're not really considering even buying the game and the reason they all give is the same, "It's just too fast. I don't need an adreniline rush when I get home from work, I want to relax." I might one day consider moving up to the minors just for kicks but at least then I know I'm probably going to get pushed around a little but that's ok. You can attach leagues to accounts in the same way you do my Endureth.endureth identifier. Accounts can move up leagues but never down. If someone really wants to be a bully, they'll really need to pay for with cash. Blizzard likes cash amirite?

You can also reserve all official prize winning contest to players in the 'Pro League'. I don't mind.

Also, I want to put in a note here for the people that argue the game has to be played on Fastest to be played right, and the best way to learn to be good is to play as fast as you can. I'm a professional bass player. I can play the bass pretty dang fast but I couldn't always. I had to start out at very slow tempos and lots of repetition to build the muscle memory required to play well. Nowadays I just think it and my hands do it. I believe the same principle applies to this type of game. But the best way to train your hands to hit the key sequences your mind is thinking is to start slow.

This is why you get that adrenaline rush when playing the game. Your mind is moving faster than your body is able to respond and that causes stress. Adrenaline causes stress and stress is bad.

Another way to phrase this would simply be to ask the player which league they wish to play in instead of what there skill level is. Instead of the matchmaker attempting to place people on what they claim their skill level is, place them within other people at the level of competition they want to participate in.

I think game speed is a better way to divide the leagues, perhaps I'm wrong but I don't think so. You can still have the ranks. "I'm Gold in my casual league." Or "Wow I just watched a video of two Bronze players in the Pro League."

2. The other idea is to just let me decide how long to wait. If I want to wait 20 minutes until a match can be found, then I'll wait 20 minutes. I wait that long for battlegrounds sometimes and that seems acceptable. I know the matchmaker is just looking for fast games at the moment. I just want to make clear that when the game is released I wouldn't mind waiting for games.

In the end, I think 1. is the best idea. It can't hurt the game because the people that want fast-paced elite-games can have it. And they can feel just as special as before. And me and my friends can know that there's a league just for us other guys where we can enjoy what looks like to b

[Baked]

I have had an entire evening of coming up against veteran players, when my teammate and I are both beginners.

Should this be happening? Its getting old losing -_- i see posts like this alot, but idk if any of you guys have read the news part on the home page of beta in game..... it explains why this is happing... its kinda random who you get.... They gave you a heads up :P

[Stratosspear]

I completely understand this. It's just not fun to sit through many games where you are being trounced. You're basically asking us to just suffer with the promise that there's light at the end of the tunnel. If it takes too long, a lot of the lesser skilled people will just say screw it. Then they'll tell their friends to say screw it and there's lost sales. That's how this system could potentially hurt sales. That's the opposite of what Blizzard wants.

I can think of two ways to improve the system.

1. The leagues are a good idea. But the players don't have enough choice of what kind of league they're in. They play some placement games vs the entire Starcraft community and they're placed according to their performance. But that's like having Joe Montana competing for placement with me. It just doesn't make sense. In real sports Joe had to compete with other people that wanted to compete on a professional level and his record speaks for itself. While me, I don't do that, I compete in local ball clubs, even more minor than the minors. People that play it for fun and don't want to bust their balls just to have a good time.

My point here is let us have leagues further split by something like game speed. The real competitors can play in the 'Pro League' (they'll like the sound of that) where the game speed is Fastest. People that might want to think about going pro can play in, well, let's stick with tradition and call it the 'Minor League' where the game speed is just Fast. And finally you can have 'Casual League'. The game speed is Normal.

Personally I would play in the casual league and so would all my friends, but they're not really considering even buying the game and the reason they all give is the same, "It's just too fast. I don't need an adreniline rush when I get home from work, I want to relax." I might one day consider moving up to the minors just for kicks but at least then I know I'm probably going to get pushed around a little but that's ok. You can attach leagues to accounts in the same way you do my Endureth.endureth identifier. Accounts can move up leagues but never down. If someone really wants to be a bully, they'll really need to pay for with cash. Blizzard likes cash amirite?

You can also reserve all official prize winning contest to players in the 'Pro League'. I don't mind.

Also, I want to put in a note here for the people that argue the game has to be played on Fastest to be played right, and the best way to learn to be good is to play as fast as you can. I'm a professional bass player. I can play the bass pretty dang fast but I couldn't always. I had to start out at very slow tempos and lots of repetition to build the muscle memory required to play well. Nowadays I just think it and my hands do it. I believe the same principle applies to this type of game. But the best way to train your hands to hit the key sequences your mind is thinking is to start slow.

This is why you get that adrenaline rush when playing the game. Your mind is moving faster than your body is able to respond and that causes stress. Adrenaline causes stress and stress is bad.

Another way to phrase this would simply be to ask the player which league they wish to play in instead of what there skill level is. Instead of the matchmaker attempting to place people on what they claim their skill level is, place them within other people at the level of competition they want to participate in.

I think game speed is a better way to divide the leagues, perhaps I'm wrong but I don't think so. You can still have the ranks. "I'm Gold in my casual league." Or "Wow I just watched a video of two Bronze players in the Pro League."

2. The other idea is to just let me decide how long to wait. If I want to wait 20 minutes until a match can be found, then I'll wait 20 minutes. I wait that long for battlegrounds sometimes and that seems acceptable. I know the matchmaker is just looking for fast games at the moment. I just want to make clear that when the game is released I wouldn't mind waiting for games.

In the end, I think 1. is the best idea. It can't hurt the game because the people that want fast-paced elite-games can have it. And they can feel just as special as before. And me and my friends can know that there's a league just for us other guys where we can enjoy what looks like to b

They thoroughly explain what is going on with a message that is on the front page of Battle.net that you see every single time you log in.

[Dreuel]

They thoroughly explain what is going on with a message that is on the front page of Battle.net that you see every single time you log in.

Uh huh. He was offering suggestions for improvement, not expressing lack of understanding of what is going on. Good for him.

[Kralic]

Cool posting an answer to the first post which was 2 days after the beta came out! /golfclap. Why did this get rebumped?

[Psiwolf]

Playing against seasoned players who thrash you in a few minutes isn't fun and doesn't provide much in the form of testing.

Or learning.

"Great. Nydused again" or "Great. Proxied again." doesn't teach you how to build faster. It teaches you "Ok, I got nydused, so I need to defend here." and then you get opened up to some other vulnerability.

Yeah, I'm not expecting it to be some instant process, but ten minute games don't offer a lot of learning opportunities. They show you one thing to counter against and then you just keep getting blown away by different stuff.

Match me up against other people in the copper league for god's sake.

[Minos]

When you go into the matchmaking info, it says that it's currently configured to get you into the fastest game possible. This was done due to the low volume of people actually playing the beta right now, so you wouldn't have to wait 20 minutes to get in a game with someone close to your skill level.

It also says that the matchmaker will change as more people are added to the beta to be a more accurate matchmaking system when theres enough people to find a match quicker. So a better matchmaker is coming, it's just waiting for more people to join the beta, but right now its tailored to get us in the games the quickest.

[Endureth]

I think my post was too long for most people to read :(