Ranked Matchmaking is Broken

Hi, i look like a newcomer when i play on Battle net. Always get bad punished by pro guys with 200 APM. It is clear that smurfing is everywhere.

How newcomers can enjoy this?
I played ranked because i want to get paired fairly with someone of my level, but since you can re create your profile whatever you want, this is not serious gameplay at all.
How avoid this? Keep MMR Fixed to each battlenet account and not let users to “reset” it by deleting their profile.
Since this Ranked feature is only available on SC:R they cant fool with many accounts without buying the game for each one.

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Welcome to a great “new” beautiful world. :slight_smile:
On a more serious note: i agree this is a huge problem, I have raised it multiple times on multiple forums. But this won’t change. Old SCers love this and have no idea how bad it is for newcomers (or rather don’t care).
Funny thing is by doing this they are digging Starcraft’s own grave.

Try not to give up though, we need any new player we can get. (my suggestion is to join a clan and play custom games for a few months, and ladder rarely)
GG, GLHF

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Yeah, the problem does exist. How come that you can get either Protoss who does not know how to fast-expand or 300 APM perfect micro Zerg - both 1100+ MMR? Also half of the ladder is nonsence accounts - barcodes or just random letters. I think at least some restrictions in creating account names could have been applied…

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APM does not mean anything. If a player has 300 APM in 1100 MMR he just does not have any idea at all how to play and what to do with his APM.

If they knew how to play, they would not be at 1100 MMR. Do you know how many games you need to lose in a row in order to sink that low?

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Yes. And they do lose their games on purpose - no problem. In fact all real low-MMR accounts I have seen (like 800-900 MMR) are barcode smurfs resigning all their games from the beginning.

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SlowZerg just play better, you lost to F rank being E rank yourself and come on forums to complain like a crybaby. It’s not the matchmaking fault, it’s because people like you lose a couple of games and then complain on forums how bad the ladder is, then probably quit bw and play dota.

P.S. Sometimes I do quit games but not to tank my MMR lower, I just avoid some matchups (like ZvZ) because I had plenty of them or want to train macro. It’s not a big deal.

Match making all depends on how many players are available at the time a search is started. And what can be difficult is striking a balance between match quality and wait time based off that concurrency.

Match quality (better match ups) can surely be increased by limiting the MMR range to be matched, but that would increase wait time. Conversely, wait time can be decreased by expanding the MMR range, but that would decrease match quality. So, Bliz has to find a medium somewhere in the middle based of SCR’s average concurrency.

Through the many years at SC2 and now here at SCR, I’ve seen fervent arguments for both sides:

  1. Players frustrated that the match quality is bad and are willing to wait the extra time to find a good match, and
  2. Players frustrated that they have to wait too long for a match and are willing to take worse match ups just to get into a game.

However, it’s not possible to sate both of those at the same time, thus a balance must be struck between them.


Also, there’s the issue of smurfs. Players are often frustrated that it seems that nothing is done about it. The trouble is, it’s not simple to combat. Anyone can create multiple Battlenet accounts, and because all Bnet accounts are independent of each other, there’s no way to both identify the owner and block them from playing SCR on more than one without causing collateral damage.

Some examples are, one can supply fake information to prevent matching accounts to a single owner. IP and MAC address limitations will prevent separate people from making their own accounts on a single computer/network/household.

Then there’s leaving games. Massive abuse of that tactic probably could be monitored, but where to the draw the line is difficult. Where ever the line is drawn, players will always figure out how to skirt it just enough to not get actioned. Plus, it’s not easy to determine the intent behind random or sporadic throws. Bad connectivity? RL interference? Losing streak? etc.

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Bruquad, did you come today on forums to teach me life? Thank you! Idk, why every topic about smurfing problems and other clear abuses always collect a few smart asses bringing to people a wisdom “just play better! lol”.
I do know, how average 1000-1100 player plays, both korean and foreigner (indeed, there is difference). I know what I can expect from that level, and what not. I am ok loosing to stronger player, but I want him to have some real mmr reflecting his strength.

Leviathan, well on account creation. There are clear abuses with tons of all those “IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII” and “sdfrfhggjhgjkghjk” accounts. I mean right now there seems to be no rules at all how the name should look like. That could be a small step towards some order and people actually playing from their accs more then 10 games from each.
As for match-making. The balance is understandable. It is just sometimes very strange when you get paired with someone 200 MMR above after 5 seconds. Like seriously, could not the system search for a bit more? I am not in THAT hurry.

Indeed. That doesn’t make any easier. However, that would be tricky I think. They only way to force legitimate names would be a database of all real words, names, places, etc, and in multiple languages. That would be huge and forever incomplete. I don’t know what would go into something like that, tbh.

Understandable! And is an example of how concerned players fall into one of the two camps. Trouble is, each is often as vocal (similar frustration, similar passion, etc) as the other, which boils back down to the difficulty of appeasing both sides simultaneously.

Hm, I am not an IT specialist, so can’t tell for sure, but I think there are some simpler ways to make limitation on the user names. Maybe I am wrong though…

After all, talking about all the abuses. There are no clear report system provided by Blizzard! Existed one is very complicated - you have to use right syntax, using correct nickname (hello, barcodes!) and have actually no idea what’s going on after report or if you were successful creating this report at all. No simple right click on the name in ladder with some kind of user-friendly menus. Overall it does seem like Blizzard does not really want to receive all those reports. Which is understandable from some point, like you have no people to deal with it. But it adds more frustration to the field.

Brood war is dead game with a team of around 2 developers. Who will handle those reports? I was not teaching you life, just helping in this context because you got frustrated. Life is not fair either btw but that’s the job of professional life coaches.

Mod Edit: Removed inappropriate language. Even when the language is masked or abbreviated, it’s still against the Forum Code of Conduct.

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I’m with you there. An easy to use point and click method, like WoW’s, would do wonders.

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Just throwing a suggestion in…

How about a checkbox option in a user’s profile? Something like:
:white_medium_small_square: I want to be matched with players of the same level.
:white_medium_small_square: I want a fast match, and it doesn’t matter the level of the players.

Also, the search parameters (for the first option) could expand after a set amount of time:
First 2 minutes, search for players within (small range).
Next 2 minutes, search for players within (slightly larger range).
Next 2 minutes… etc. You get the picture.

There could even be an additional checkbox to specify the range of the player level that users want to play with.

Not really. Sure, its player base might be slowly diminishing, but there are still a large enough number of fans. The issue is that Blizzard made such a good game that they are having a hard time getting people off it and onto their newer games. A game with such longevity and no paid extras is a bad business move, but great for the customers!

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That’s a pretty good idea! Here and in SC2.

I don’t know about SCR, but SC2 does exactly that so it’s not a foreign concept for Bliz. Hence, it’s not completely outside the realm of possibility.

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Part of the problem with broodwars ladder system and the melee community as a whole has been, that it emulates the pros too strictly. Its good for serious and well developed players-- i.e, I am fine playing fighting spirit entirely. I can manage four bases blah blah. If your a new player though, and your playing on fighting spirit, not only are you likely to run into smurfs or the odd decent player, your just going to be overwhelmed with what the meta expects you to do. Theres a couple interesting maps in the pool every now and again for a beginner, but I dont think a beginner really wants a square flat boring map like fighting spirit.

We recognize that S, A, B are serious players but we dont make any bones for the fact E and [f? is that arank?} D are not particularly serious. The melee player base is only a fraction of the actual broodwar playerbase and theres a reason for that. We should change the ladder to allow for lower rank players to play a broader set of maps than the rest of us. I honestly do think it would at least help offset the downward cycle of every new player just walking into the game and getting destroyed right from the get go, or having no idea what to do.

edit: talking island maps, semi island maps, just wackier more creative maps from across broodwar that allow new players to experience broodwar. Because thats what a new player wants, to experience the game, not emulate the absolute best players [who are people they dont even know].

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They can create Bnet accounts, and inside each account they can create up to 3 profiles per region. Thats makes the things even worse, So if you have an account with SC R you can also play ranked games and you can make a new profile anytime you want to troll.
An aproach should be made here, only 1 profile per account and this is undeleteable at least for an entire season. So If you want to smurf on ladder, you must have many accounts with SC R and must be paid.
More restrictions would be added, like IP adress or PC ID restriction.
For intentionally leavers, there must be a penalty, so they wouldnt apply to a game for a least 10 minutes or so, and should be increased penalty as the same behavior continues after the first penalty ends. Similar like DOTA or LOL.

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Every day on ladder I have to play several people at least who did not even finish their placement matches. And several accs with less than 10 games. Are there so much newcomers signing in every day? I don’t think so. And I could spend this time playing legit opponents instead, if this flow of “new” accounts was stopped somehow.

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If you have run into me and I did not do anything it is because I just gaved up.
I do every season the ranking matches for portrait and then go into hiding until next season. Though it is very unlikely I do it because mayby someday in the Future enlightment will hit me and I will start to love StarCraft.
Right now the Matchmaking is doing it best to prove my point it is already way over its time and should be replaced by something better.

SlowZerg why do you care how many people create new accounts instead of improving at the game?

Because newbies are important for the game so it does not die out and if enough people are scared away in the lower tiers through smurfs StarCraft Brood War will sooner or later die because there will be a moment when there a not enough people who care about it anymore

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