Hi, everybody knows that especially on NA, the gains and losses from games seem to just be “unfair” and heavily steers a lot of players from playing on their mains because it’s simply not worth it. Lots of people feel frustrated with the gains and losses as sometimes it’s like a slap in the face – here’s why.
The matchmaking system attempts to make a fair game. However, because of the low population in NA, for higher-rating players, it’s hard to find an “even match” with 10 high rating players on both sides. Oh, how everybody can dream of a matchup that’s like
2000 1900 1900 1900 1800 (average: 1900)
vs
1900 1900 1900 1950 1850 (average: 1900)
Instead, we usually see something like this:
2000 2000 1500 1500 1500 (average: 1700)
vs
1900 1900 1600 1600 1600 (average: 1720)
So, the average ratings of both teams is very similar. Looking at the average rating of both teams, the matchmaker has effectively made what’s close to a 50:50 game.
But here’s the problem.
Let’s pretend you’re one of the 2000 rating players. You see two recognizable players (the 1900s) on the enemy team, and realize it should be a pretty even match – which it turns out to be. But then the rating change screen pops up. You won, and got what…? +7? And if you lost, you would’ve lost -18.
It’s because instead of balancing potential gains/losses based on the chance to win, the system does something among the lines of comparing your rating with the average of the enemy team’s rating. Now, this is really frustrating, as to create fair matches (more or less), higher rating players get matched with even lower rating players in order to have similar average ratings across the board. You can see something like
2000 + 2000 + 1400 + 1400 + 1400 (average: 1640)
vs
1600 + 1600 + 1600 + 1600 + 1600 (average: 1600)
A match like this causes the 2K players to wonder “How come my teammates are just getting rekt in even matches against the other team?” and causes the 1600s to think “Why the heck are we going against 2K rating people”. And all this leads to a generally salty PVP scene and plenty of odd “NA-exclusive” behavior in order to avoid being punished by the matchmaking system (playing on alts, decay exploiting with match manipulation, etc).
Of course, a system like this is hard to balance. As much as I would like to base the gains/losses purely on the team’s chance to win (which should be 50:50 most of the time), let’s take a look at the example above. 2K rating players shouldn’t be able to Q in offhours and just farm 1600s and attempt to carry the 1400s on their team to achieve the same results as, say, 2K players fighting 5 other 2K players (if that could ever happen on NA!). What should be done is something like this -
1) Gains/losses are based on the team’s chance to win. For example, if it’s a 50:50 matchup – e.g. both teams have similar average rating – it should be the same potential gain as loss – +10, -10.
2) In addition, gains/losses are deflated when playing at an average rating lower than your rating. If you have a full 2K team verses a full 2K team, it can stay at +10/-10. But if we have a 2K rating player playing with an average of 1600 rating people (but it’s still an even match in terms of average rating), then the gains/losses should be like +3/-3. This should encourage people to play at their own skill level, regardless whether or not the matchmaking system can try to balance the two teams by grabbing people from all kinds of rating and throwing into a mixing pot where somehow the average comes out to be the same.