TW and GAC Matchmaking Proposals
April 21, 2021 6:38PM
edited April 2021
Cliffs at bottom
Territory War
I want to preface this by saying that I’m not salty about a recent loss or anything to that effect. My guild has been fortunate to enjoy a nice winning streak and I’ve done well in GAC. These are just objective observations and opinions.
Matchmaking should be based on a guild’s total GP. Sign ups should be done away with entirely. Roster lock occurs at the beginning of a 4 hr (if needed) matchmaking period. At its conclusion defenses are set over the course of 20 hours and the existing TW format plays out as is. A TW matchmaking countdown timer can easily be added in the lobby.
Current GP brackets are dated to a time before relics, GLs and 400m+ GP guilds. It’s time these are restructured as well. 225m+ is too large of a canvas. There are 42 guilds at 350m+ with more closing in. This should be the cutoff. Should there be an odd number of 350m+ guilds simply take the next largest into that group. For all guilds below 350m the algorithm should match within 10m GP if at all possible. Extend the brackets to 225m-249.9m, 250m-274.9m and so on up to 350m. Rewards are adjusted accordingly.
We are at 219m GP and fought a 278m guild awhile back. We were around 210m at the time. They had triple our GLs, more of everything and we barely got the win. My point is that match should’ve never occurred. Around 1/3 of our Wars are vs 30m+ larger guilds and I have friends in a larger guild who get those matches almost every single TW.
The current format caters to sandbagging. The antiquated algorithm quite literally punishes guilds with max participation. Is that really working as intended? Any game mode that encourages players to not play the game is broken. Reducing the number of slots exacerbates the problem. To be clear I’m not suggesting every guild missing 5+ players is sandbagging. I am saying participation should be rewarded; not punished.
I do understand that some guilds are casual with little participation in TW. This won’t really change much for you. However, the rest of the player base gains a number of clear benefits. The overwhelming majority of the player base would welcome effective solutions to eliminate sandbagging whether that be these suggestions or others.
Grand Arena
Again, we are looking at matchmaking. Personally, my matches have been quite fair to both parties. Occasionally I draw a 3 GL opponent but it’s not a big deal. However, I know good players who either refuse to play GAC or invest effort into it because of the matchmaking.
Galactic Legends must become a more centralized metric in determining lobbies. Players who built squads/factions that weren’t meta or GL reqs are constantly hammered. They should face equally strong opponents but there should never be a match where one player has 2 more GL’s than their opponent. This is especially unfair to those players in the 3v3 format. We’d like to see equal GLs in every lobby but we need to start somewhere.
Additionally, we’ve outgrown the existing Divisions. Currently a 4.6m GP player will compete against an 8m GP player on the leaderboard. That doesn’t seem right. We need a minimum of 2 additional divisions, perhaps more.
Up to this point there hasn’t really been a widespread and unified demand for these changes. We’ve just accepted things for what they are. Time has passed and the game has outgrown the status quo. I’ve been happy to see improvements across the board from CG over the past few months. These or similar changes would reinforce competitive integrity and improve the gaming experience for everyone. I love Star Wars and enjoy this game. I hope you’ll take the time to consider addressing these needs. Thank you.
Cliffs
-Updated TW and GAC brackets
-Abolish TW sign ups
-Tighten matchmaking and their respective algorithms
-Make changes to effectively end sandbagging
Territory War
I want to preface this by saying that I’m not salty about a recent loss or anything to that effect. My guild has been fortunate to enjoy a nice winning streak and I’ve done well in GAC. These are just objective observations and opinions.
Matchmaking should be based on a guild’s total GP. Sign ups should be done away with entirely. Roster lock occurs at the beginning of a 4 hr (if needed) matchmaking period. At its conclusion defenses are set over the course of 20 hours and the existing TW format plays out as is. A TW matchmaking countdown timer can easily be added in the lobby.
Current GP brackets are dated to a time before relics, GLs and 400m+ GP guilds. It’s time these are restructured as well. 225m+ is too large of a canvas. There are 42 guilds at 350m+ with more closing in. This should be the cutoff. Should there be an odd number of 350m+ guilds simply take the next largest into that group. For all guilds below 350m the algorithm should match within 10m GP if at all possible. Extend the brackets to 225m-249.9m, 250m-274.9m and so on up to 350m. Rewards are adjusted accordingly.
We are at 219m GP and fought a 278m guild awhile back. We were around 210m at the time. They had triple our GLs, more of everything and we barely got the win. My point is that match should’ve never occurred. Around 1/3 of our Wars are vs 30m+ larger guilds and I have friends in a larger guild who get those matches almost every single TW.
The current format caters to sandbagging. The antiquated algorithm quite literally punishes guilds with max participation. Is that really working as intended? Any game mode that encourages players to not play the game is broken. Reducing the number of slots exacerbates the problem. To be clear I’m not suggesting every guild missing 5+ players is sandbagging. I am saying participation should be rewarded; not punished.
I do understand that some guilds are casual with little participation in TW. This won’t really change much for you. However, the rest of the player base gains a number of clear benefits. The overwhelming majority of the player base would welcome effective solutions to eliminate sandbagging whether that be these suggestions or others.
Grand Arena
Again, we are looking at matchmaking. Personally, my matches have been quite fair to both parties. Occasionally I draw a 3 GL opponent but it’s not a big deal. However, I know good players who either refuse to play GAC or invest effort into it because of the matchmaking.
Galactic Legends must become a more centralized metric in determining lobbies. Players who built squads/factions that weren’t meta or GL reqs are constantly hammered. They should face equally strong opponents but there should never be a match where one player has 2 more GL’s than their opponent. This is especially unfair to those players in the 3v3 format. We’d like to see equal GLs in every lobby but we need to start somewhere.
Additionally, we’ve outgrown the existing Divisions. Currently a 4.6m GP player will compete against an 8m GP player on the leaderboard. That doesn’t seem right. We need a minimum of 2 additional divisions, perhaps more.
Up to this point there hasn’t really been a widespread and unified demand for these changes. We’ve just accepted things for what they are. Time has passed and the game has outgrown the status quo. I’ve been happy to see improvements across the board from CG over the past few months. These or similar changes would reinforce competitive integrity and improve the gaming experience for everyone. I love Star Wars and enjoy this game. I hope you’ll take the time to consider addressing these needs. Thank you.
Cliffs
-Updated TW and GAC brackets
-Abolish TW sign ups
-Tighten matchmaking and their respective algorithms
-Make changes to effectively end sandbagging
0
Replies
Yes, need to ensure forum mods have time for one liners that completely miss the point.
If you delete that bullet point, everything else you have said about TW is pretty much bang on the money.
Hard disagree with them taking any meta toons into account.
I mean there's threads like this all the time, but ok.
This hurts a guild when a player cannot participate for RL reasons. They are unlikely to change this.
No, it shouldn't. It was in the early days of TW which resulted in far more uneven matches than we see today when a guild had players that didn't participate (for whatever reason).
Completely disagree. It wouldn't be fair to the players that acquire the newest META characters fast if they are given stronger opponents than those who acquire them slower. Building a strong roster is part of championship. If you acquire the newest META character faster than you opponent you earned your advantage.
Agreed. Last year CG announced that they are awaiting some (undefined) critical mass in Div. 1 before they will introduced more divisions. I have no idea what's holding them back. Div. 1 has far more players than any other division.
How did you miss all those threads about matchmaking?
Yes - but not the changes you suggested.