Group matchmaking timeline update

Hi folks,

We’ve been wanting to deliver a group matchmaking feature since release. On last year’s Pylon Show at BlizzCon, I indicated that we were pushing the release until this year (2019). Recently, it’s become apparent that we cannot deliver this feature this year.

Although it’s probably little consolation, to give some context as to why it is taking longer than anticipated: since we’re a small team juggling many priorities, for large tasks like this we’re reliant on receiving help from various other teams. We’ve made progress in this area, but thus far the planets have not aligned to receive all the help we need just yet.

We’re also exploring other, more creative avenues to get the work done. And as far as good news goes, the SCR team has been working on this feature since last year, and a decent portion of the work is complete - just not to the point of release readiness yet.

Group MM has been one of our highest priorities for some time. It’s a feature we’d love to deliver and something we’re pushing for constantly and will continue pushing for.

19 Likes

Is ok, as far as me is concerned i am willing to wait a few months more, that is even after June next year.

Honestly its been horrible to have such an important feature not present on release, specially when it was advertised before release and we all assumed based on earlier Blizzard publications that i would be on release (already 2 years back).

The Team Match Making en devour is complicated i am sure, we not also want or deserve 2v2, 3v3, 4v4 but we also need to have “fixed start locations” to play north vs south and east vs west. As a side note we dont have very much fair and popular “team match making maps” so the community has to work with you guys next year to design such maps.

My suggestion, not that anyone cares about it, is that you deploy a Ladder with the classic Game Rooms in mind, where only people that have Remastered can Join by pressing a “Team Match” button, you wont be able to see your allied or enemy stats in that room or chat, when the room is filled the game starts, period, this would help to the community would react to TMM, fixed positions, lag, playing with people of different levels etc… so many questions about this.

Here is my dumb list of things TMM need ot have from my point of view:

  1. 2v2, 3v3, 4v4, and maybe Fastest
  2. The posibility to search 1v1 games while searching for Team Games also, considering waiting times are going to be long anyways.
  3. Fixed positions, north vs south, east vs west
  4. Let people that have the free version to join Team Match Making games with some restrictions.
  5. New maps made by the community, this CANNOT be a FS or BGH map pool only
  6. Good points distribution, even if you get teamed with a noob let things like the “end game screen” to consider that you played your best, sometimes you will get trolled and stabbed by ally, just have the Game Stats tell the story and avoid people losing points miserably. Also punish people that leave Team Games in a way that is fair.

Otherwise thank you for answering, communication is always appreciated, i think there is no problem on patiently waiting for it another half year or so, and please consider it making it THIS great, sorry for being obnoxious about it. Cheers.

3 Likes

That is so incredibly sad. Team matchmaking is my jam, and I just couldn’t get into SC:R because it was lacking. I was surprised it wasn’t available at launch, and that it’s not even out yet is disappointing considering how major a feature it is.

6 Likes

we’re too busy ripping you off with skins to care about features we left out at launch heh
REEEEEEEEEEE

5 Likes

Hey Grant, serious question.

Is it possible to do any kind of opensource coding to help expedite the process?

Some kind of agreement like; “If you develop any code for this project you are not entitled to it by any means financially or copyright. You are agreeing to help develop for Blizzard, for a Blizzard game.”

Not sure how well it’d take and not sure of Blizzard policies, but the idea behind this is to help you guys lighten the load at Blizzard as well as opening up new avenues of approach as to maintain an old game that doesn’t have a huge player base. As a company I know why you guys have just a couple or a few devs, but if you can entice people to help program a game off payroll; I think that’d be something a company should really consider.

We know that SC:R is a low priority to Blizzard as whole, but this game could be great to the small community that it has.

Regardless, thank for your effort in trying to do what you can.

Sucks to have my favorite game of all time, to be a niche kind of game. :stuck_out_tongue:

9 Likes

hey grant, we don’t need cartoon skins, we don’t need worker count bull shi t, we don’t need the 64 bit version, ALL WE NEED IS TEAM MATCHMAKING and you’ve been pushing it again and again and again, from 2018 to 2019 to 2020 to forever,why don’t you just sit in there, thinking of what “priority” is?? you know what? I have to play sc2’s team game because the lack of SC:R and it’s not fun at all, disappointed and sad.

4 Likes

Hi Grant.

I want to open by saying that SC:R is an amazing product, and you guys have been doing an amazing job with it.

However, this is pretty sad. A huge portion of the population interested in SC:R has been waiting for group Matchmaking since before release. Just in my group of friends alone, 3 to 4 of them bought SC:R with the pretense that group matchmaking was going to be implemented.

I hope your project managers can understand that this is basically a giant middle finger to the entire casual community that plays this game. Why bother with a 64 bit port or any of the other features, when the only people still playing this game would be playing the original brood war if SCR was not released? The significance of SC:R was that it opened the door for quality of life changes.

The PMs, marketing, and executives of blizzard continue to disappoint. How many more blunders in 2019?

9 Likes

I’ve got to assume that Warcraft III Reforged’s “by December 31, 2019” release date took precedent over the team matchmaking 2019 goal. Blizzard is kind of desperate to get some new releases out. So anyone working on network features like matchmaking is probably racing to get Reforged ready for the already-delayed beta.

As far as 64-bit, it’s a lot more important than it sounds. Mac iOS X is dropping all support for 32-bit applications and Windows 10 will be following in the near future. One of the main goals of Classic Games is to get Starcraft, Diablo II, and Warcraft III working correctly on modern operating systems and networks and that all goes out the door if you can’t play it on the most recent version of Mac OS or Windows.

I’m not excusing the further group matchmaking delays, just offering some insight.

5 Likes

just read first parahraph only
what a joke
WHERE IS THE DOWNVOTE BUTTON IN THIS FORUM ???

2 Likes

Now we can look forward to the late 2020 post from grant about how it will be pushed back till 2021

9 Likes

How about an incremental approach to this complicated new system?
As you guys receive feedback and start working on it, it may be easier to get the ball rolling.
I think most people agree that if you guys release anything, it’s going to be better than nothing/ the status-quo.
The initial implementation could be a very simple system.
Here’s an example roadmap that could allow progress, and alleviate the issue with finding the correctly skilled games quickly.

Phase 1

2v2 only on regular maps, no match making system. Local server only, perhaps limit to a couple of servers localize skilled games to few as possible servers.
(This might be good to just keep around for a while, until everything is working just dandy. )
Add a ranked game type option, (top vs bottom, only allowed to use ranked maps from ladder folder)
Start calculating 2v2 scores and displaying them when people join.
Compute ladder score on each team, recalculate based on outcomes.
Keep a 2-minute draw condition to alleviate lag if it were to be an issue.
Remove loss condition if player loses all buildings but his ally wins.

Phase 2
Allow preset groups to match vs other preset groups.
Add a couple of screens for 2v2 match making. Ranked -> 2v2 -> Choose ally -> Friend/Ally accepts -> enter queue
Start with regular 2v2 map choices, more maps can be added later.
Queue takes calculation of both MMRs to create a score to match and uses same algorithm as 1v1 with some modifications for lag checking all players.
Players receive points using same algorithm as 1v1 system.
Consider keeping a 1-minute draw condition if lag conditions are not favorable.
After game ends add a side lobby tab to score screen so that all players are still together for rematches.
Add a rematch button waiting on players to click it or “find next game”.
Allow player to remain in game beyond elimination.
Phase 3
Add maps, eg BGH/Hunters and a new separate league for Fastest
Add 3v3 mode, same as 2v2, except 3 people must join the queue.
Hold off on 4v4 until individual join mode is created.
Phase 4
Add individual join mode to mix. Group players with similar MMRs to face off vs similar MMR opponents.
Add 4v4, this may not have enough players to support a thriving 4v4 scene.
Add options to calculate time estimates based on real data.
Further optimizations based on feedback

Future phases/ideas
Map of the week system
Add fixed position map types, (there are some ums maps that could be ported to this new type immediately)
Add system to promote maps to ladder
Add eccentric map leagues, eg old maps larger map pools.
Add map analytics

4 Likes

Team match was promised last year.
Please stop making promises that cannot be kept, you are getting our hopes up for nothing.

6 Likes

Just roll back to 1.16. And quit

3 Likes

Pathetic. Utterly pathetic and unacceptable. A core feature missing for TWO YEARS after release. How hard would it be to consolidate (grey out all but two) gateways and enable lobby 2v2 ladder, copying Iccup until you come up with something better? No, instead you wait around for 2 years and make excuses

2 Likes

How many 21 years old games have the luxury of a development team and televised tournaments? I think not many

2 Likes

Guys, the Cartooned skin was made by a separate team of just artists so stop b***hing about it please.

Also without something to sell we aint gonna have either a dev team and KSL that’s for sure.
Blizz not gonna support esport and development out of charity.

5 Likes

Wasnt team MM promised at preorder times? xd

3 Likes

Hey there Grant! It’s always nice to see a response and update from you guys. I understand that there are around 3 guys working on this. How about asking help from your own company? It’s unaccaptable to leave such a masterpiece in this state without delivering what ppl wanted on launch. Nevertheless I’m always happy for any updates you push. Remastered hwaiting!

4 Likes

Waiting for preferred outcomes to move the needle on a number 1 priority doesn’t serve the customer.
Anything is better than nothing. Starting with an iccup like system would satisfy and reinvigorate thousands of players.

3 Likes