PVP Matchmaking Algorithm for Arenas 8v8

[SuperZay]

This would be a good idea.

Also, what about locking the ability to change job in duty? So you queue as the role you want to PVP as and the matchmaking puts you into a suitable game with other people. Changing job in the arena could be a form of grief if the matchmaking sorts compositions. Example, your team is assigned a tank, two healers and 5 damage dealers; the tank griefs and changes to damage.

That would be a bad idea, I switch jobs based on who I know (or don't know) in my team and on general team composition. If I qued as a healer but see bad dps and 2nd healer who can solo heal perfectly, I'll switch to dps to make more impact on a match, and if I see 2 new healers in i145 gear and intelligence accessories I'll switch to 3rd because they might as well don't exist.

[Caitlyn]

It doesnt matter how many healers/DDs/tanks you have. Having 2 Healers on your side doesnt automatically mean to win the match. It just looks safe and comfortable, but not more. I played so many games, where the team with 1 healer and 7 DDs destroyed the team with 2 healers AND 1 tank. Or even with 3 healers!

It doesnt depend on the classes, it depends on skill. And thats where the problem is in PvP (especially Feast). Many people doesnt know how to play Feast proberly. Wrong gear, no PvP Skills, no focus on specific targets, no communication at all (by using the chat commands). It doesnt matter how many healers or DDs you have. 1 skilled Healer can do more than 2 bad healers. 1-2 skilled DDs or tank(s) can take out any other player, mostly faster than every heal.

I enjoy 8v8 very much and the only things which really matters are player skill and tactics. Not classes.


1 Healer, 7 DDs, still a win. Who needs a tank anyways? And btw: I can show you more screens like that with any other class-combination xD


Just a small example of a bad healer (because he died extremely fast obviously ^^):

[Zojha]

It doesnt depend on the classes, it depends on skill.

*rolleyes*

These topics are always to be discussed under the assumption of skill parity between the teams.

Four exceptional players can beat eight bloody newbies. By your logic, that fact would mean that group size doesn't matter either, only skill, which in turn means that it's not important to make matches where both teams have an equal amount of group members. 4vs8 is perfectly fine and acceptable, because it only depends on skill, not group size. Or composition. Or whatever.

I say: Hell no. The outcome of a match depends on a lot of things: Skill, job balance, team composition, group size, gear, luck, internet connection/PC (Even a great player won't perform well at 10 FPS or 700 MS latency). They all matter to some degree, some more some less. If everything else is equal, a game can literally boil down to which team has 30 MS latency less.

And for 8vs8, it's simply completely random, because it has little to no checks in place in order to speed up queues. You might get a skillwise even match-up and lose for no reason other than your composition, you might win despite three people on your team feeding intentionally because the enemy is just that bad. You might also have a really great and even game and then randomly someone DCs and the enemy gets a free win. All quite possible! But that doesn't mean that composition, skill nor DCs are the only things that matter. They all matter and they can decide a match - that's a general truth of competitive online games.

That all said: The point of 8vs8 is not to create balanced or fair matches, but rather quick matches, hence why it also has no skill rating. Trying to balance it would compromise that function. Which one you value more... up to you.

[Caitlyn]

*rolleyes*

That all said: The point of 8vs8 is not to create balanced or fair matches, but rather quick matches, hence why it also has no skill rating. Trying to balance it would compromise that function. Which one you value more... up to you.

Maybe you misunderstand me. I m not complaining about different skill-ratings or rankings or whatever. I just saying, its not neccessary to have 2 healers in both teams or to balance both teams by classes.
Sometime I joined 8v8 as DD. No healers in my team, I switch to healer. And vice versa. Nothing wrong with that, right? Like you ve said: 8v8 is meant to have quick matches. Having fixed roles (or something like that) will eliminate this point.

But when it comes to skill or something, I would rather implement something like a PvP-version of the Hall of Novice. Or some kind of tutorial. Many players joined PvP without their PvP-Skills or not to know what to do.
Oh... and btw:

Skill: Yes. Obviously.
Job balance: Every job is mostly balanced already.
Team composition: A minor part. You only need to know how to handle it.
Group size: Its always 8v8.
Gear: A minor part, because PvP- and PvE-gear ist mostly the same
Luck: Like always
Internet connection/PC: "great" players wont play on a crappy pc ; )
Teamplay and Communication: You forgot that part (which is extremely important).

[Guesswhat]

.

Most people would agree skill is very important when it comes to winning.
But the game don't necessarily knows how good each player is compared to each other, and should consider whatever it can to balance the teams. I'd assume the game would queue up 16 players and then arrange players according to job/class (and perhaps also rank). That is obviously not the case.

[Chiramu]

That would be a bad idea, I switch jobs based on who I know (or don't know) in my team and on general team composition. If I qued as a healer but see bad dps and 2nd healer who can solo heal perfectly, I'll switch to dps to make more impact on a match, and if I see 2 new healers in i145 gear and intelligence accessories I'll switch to 3rd because they might as well don't exist.

I thought the ability to change role was locked once the match started though? How can you see if you have bad damage and good healer in the wait time? :/

I don't think we can stop griefers if they want to grief anyway, I guess it'll just be annoying for helpful people to limit options.

[SuperZay]

How can you see if you have bad damage and good healer in the wait time? :/

Based on previous matches obviously :/ It takes only a couple of matches to see how well someone performs.
If you spam matches in a row you'll be matched with or against the same people, especially now when garo wave mostly ended and pvp regulars are coming back.

[Serilda]

I'd rather they kept 8v8 as-is. If they want to add a 'balanced' option they can have a separate queue (which I won't use) but it's very rare that people won't switch, and even though I strongly prefer playing healer I would hate not to have the option of switching! Being able to change roles to balance a team is something I really enjoy, since I don't have to make sure I strategically queue to limit the chance of being a double WHM combo or something else I dislike. I've won plenty of matches in 8v8 as solo healer or with no tank. Once I was the sole DPS (having changed from healer at the start) and we still won. Somehow.

You can spot most bad players really easily if you play a few matches. That and people without enough HP to be worth healing. But I'd rather they fix the other 100+ things wrong with PVP right now before adding balancing to an inherently unbalanced training mode.