Maybe controversial, but I think it’s the right call.
Yes, unranked matchmaking is not tight and that’s ok, but everyone has plenty of matches where the discrepancy between two players are so obvious, that the only explanation is bad matchmaking.
Matches, even in Unranked should be somewhat fair.
I do believe that everyone would be ok with longer queue times if you get better matches.
Like today. Me on Mei and our second DPS on Ashe
I’m sitting around 8k damage and 17 kills at the end of the round while Ashe sits at 2,5k damage and 9 kills
12 Likes
just report the bad players, so the system knows they are bad
1 Like
“Report for bat matchmaking”
You monster, bats deserve love too!
(ohhhh, they changed the title)
3 Likes
I’m actually surprised that reporting the matches themselves is not a thing.
Yes, you can report a replay code, but that’s different from reporting a game for bad matchmaker.
We also lack the “report a poorly performing player” button. And I know people will abuse it, but it still gives an idea about bad matches and/or bad MMR estimations.
5 Likes
I think it could actually steer the matchmaking, but also it would give us the consumer, the feeling that we have at least somewhat of an agency, which would take out some of the tension in the current environment
3 Likes
True.
It can give a valuable feedback to the devs, and it represents some sort of venting for the frustrated player.
3 Likes
Just put bad matchmaker in the comments. I do it all the time. Let them figure things out.
2 Likes
People would treat it as a “report for loss” button, it wouldn’t serve it’s purpose but for maybe 5 minutes tops lol
Players are largely responsible for the poor matchmaking (imo), but unfortunately smurfs and alt accounts are not reportable. At least cheaters still are still reportable.
1 Like
We always just report suspicions so I don’t see an issue with this feature. The question is if these matches show any other pattern apart from the result.
It's neural network time 😎
Brainstorming:
- Inputs are all reasonable infos about all players and the match (hero stats, ranks/deltas, chosen role, account infos, assigned team, map)
- Output is a single number which represents the perceived quality
- The players rate their perception of the match, either directly or by reporting. This is one training iteration.
→ The trained model can be used to predict match quality so the better ones can be preferred.
IT IS POSSIBLE THAT THIS LEADS NOWHERE. If you actually can’t predict anything then this won’t work ever. Different setups must also be considered.
Additional thoughts:
- It’s probably a good idea to always group the teams in the same way, so the input values of the first 5 players are team blue and the next 5 are red
- Maybe group by roles aswell
- You can also have two outputs, each representing the perceived quality per team. Then you can decide if you prefer average quality, minimum, maximum or something.
Blizzard will not fix the system.
Either they can’t, because they are not skilled enough.
Or they refuse, because they designed it this way on purpose.
Or, which is the worse case, they just think the matchmaker works as intended, not because they want it to be bad on purpose, but they think it is actually good for the playerbase.
4 Likes
That’s probably a high-rank support or tank queued with their low-rank DPS buddy. Playing with friends is what unranked is for. It’s not bad matchmaking.
How can Blisz be wrong if they are always right tho?
*taps side of head twice
So providing unfair matches for other people is not bad matchmaking?
3 Likes
That means you’d never get a game for hours
No. It matches across roles. If you had one low-ranked DPS, so did the other team. It’s the best possible way a matchmaker can work for mixed-skill groups queued together.
The frequency is suspicious.
It shouldn’t be common, or even uncommon, this should be rare.
If it is a common experience for people who don’t group up, than it needs fixing.
1 Like
It’s absolutely going to be common. There are probably groups in every match, and there’s likely a skill difference between any two people even if they’re friends.
Competitive is the mode designed for tighter matches. That’s its whole purpose, so there’s no reason to implement the same matchmaking strictness in unranked.
you shouldn’t match a gold 1 tank vs a master 5 and stuff like that happens
There is a difference between loose like after a prison shower and loose, but fair enough.
Match integrity is important and if you dilute the experience to a point where a significant amount of your matches are decided by who got the better stack, than it needs fixing
3 Likes
That’s just the wide matchmaking system at work. Unfortunately, there’s nothing to report. It’s working as intended.
The devs themselves have acknowledged that wide matches are terrible, as seen in this tweet from Morgan: https://x.com/SrslyPaladin/status/1649572770899197953. But at this point, I don’t think there’s any going back from the wide system. The player base is shrinking, and without it, queue times would skyrocket—especially for stacks.
The best we can hope for is a bit of transparency (like letting players know when they’re up against stacks) and maybe an option for solo players to opt out of these matches. But realistically, that’s very unlikely to happen.