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Posted by: Evan Lesh

Evan Lesh

PvP Gameplay Programmer

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I want to thank everyone who has given us great feedback on our matchmaking. We’ve been crunching the numbers, deep diving on the data, and running simulations to help identity the root cause of the reported issues. This has led to some discoveries, and I’m happy to say we’re making two changes to matchmaking that should help improve match quality.

First, we’re disabling some code that was attempting to account for outliers on teams when updating MMR. The goal was to prevent adjusting a player’s MMR too much if they were much more or much less skilled than the rest of their team. Unfortunately this was causing players with low, inaccurate MMR to never properly rise back to their true position. It was effectively creating ‘Glicko-Hell’. After the fix, players in this situation should return to their correct MMR range.

Second, we’ve found a very sneaky bug in the way we distribute players across the two teams. The goal of the system is to ping-pong back and forth between red and blue team to evenly distribute player skill. In reality, the bug caused the highest rated player between the two teams to usually be teamed with mostly lower skilled players. For matches with high skill spread, this could result in one player feeling like they were matched with a surprisingly low-skilled team. This was hard to notice because matchmaking was always picking ten similarly skilled players to start with, so the problem only really presents in the high and low MMR brackets where there are fewer players to choose from.

Both of these issues will be fixed in an upcoming release. Thank you all for the continued feedback; it has helped tremendously while identifying these types of issues.

Bluxgore (80 Warr), Xilz (80 Necro), Ivo (80 Eng)
Bra (80 Guard), Fixie Bow (80 Ranger), Wcharr (80 Ele)
Xdragonshadowninjax (80 Thief)

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Posted by: Tux der Pinguin.3049

Tux der Pinguin.3049

I sure hope it helps. But i am quite supprised by the second bug, as i remember we were told this is supposed to happen?
But hey, thank you for looking at it.

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Posted by: Wolfs Shadow.7234

Wolfs Shadow.7234

Second bug explains a lot, and in turn has revealed a lot of toxic players along the way.
Some of the top I’ve seen as of late

“Noobs go back to pve and catch some crabs”
“My invisible mini pet is doing a better job capping than you nubs.”

But my favorite of them all, which I actually did lawl about.
“I am taking the Charles Darwin approach and raging quitting at least that way I don’t know whether all you die or not” – Kudos to those who understand that.

Have to give them points for creativity.

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Posted by: Harrier.9380

Harrier.9380

Anyone up for starting Evan Fanclub? It’s long overdue.

“Men are more ready to repay an injury than a benefit,
because gratitude is a burden and revenge a pleasure.”

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Posted by: Pimsley.3681

Pimsley.3681

I’m impressed with the transparency of your post and really do appreciate how you’re on top of improving matchmaking quality.

That second bug you mentioned was something I hypothesized

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Posted by: Arcanine.3928

Arcanine.3928

Second, we’ve found a very sneaky bug in the way we distribute players across the two teams. The goal of the system is to ping-pong back and forth between red and blue team to evenly distribute player skill. In reality, the bug caused the highest rated player between the two teams to usually be teamed with mostly lower skilled players. For matches with high skill spread, this could result in one player feeling like they were matched with a surprisingly low-skilled team. This was hard to notice because matchmaking was always picking ten similarly skilled players to start with, so the problem only really presents in the high and low MMR brackets where there are fewer players to choose from.

Good grief, that explains so much… Thank you for the work. I’m glad matchmaking is being worked on.

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Posted by: Khairiya.7240

Khairiya.7240

“I am taking the Charles Darwin approach and raging quitting at least that way I don’t know whether all you die or not” – Kudos to those who understand that.

If it said Schroedinger I’d get it, but Darwin? No idea

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Posted by: Wilco.1458

Wilco.1458

It’s good we’re finding bugs two years after implementation.

http://www.twitch.tv/drwilco
Wilco Tango Foxtrot #lifting #hardwork

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Posted by: EARL.8312

EARL.8312

what about the pug unfairly matched vs premade guild?

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Posted by: Wilco.1458

Wilco.1458

what about the pug unfairly matched vs premade guild?

Sounds like working as intended. That’s why they removed solo queue, right?

http://www.twitch.tv/drwilco
Wilco Tango Foxtrot #lifting #hardwork

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Posted by: sanctuary.1068

sanctuary.1068

Im happy to hear this, because it means alot of players didnt imagine things. Looking forward to the update!

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Posted by: Phil.8901

Phil.8901

This is good to know but it’s also the confirmation we won’t see the soloqueue come back in the first pvp league season, cuz it’s obvious you’re trying a different way.

I think we could give it a chance but I’m not really optimistic about soloqueue experience without a pure soloqueue.

We’ll see but I think complaints will be super high.

I hope i will be wrong.

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Posted by: Amante.8109

Amante.8109

Let this be a lesson to all the people who were claiming matchmaking was fine… mindlessly defending the status quo when there’s signs that something is up isn’t helpful.

(edited by Amante.8109)

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Posted by: Harrier.9380

Harrier.9380

We’ll see but I think complaints will be super high.

I hope i will be wrong.

We’re on MMO game forums. People will complain no matter what happens.

“Men are more ready to repay an injury than a benefit,
because gratitude is a burden and revenge a pleasure.”

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Posted by: SkiTz.4590

SkiTz.4590

We’ll see but I think complaints will be super high.

I hope i will be wrong.

We’re on MMO game forums. People will complain no matter what happens.

Honest question, does anet even allocate enough resources to the PvP team to have internal testing??

How on earth does an obvious bug like that go unfixed for such a LONG PERIOD OF TIME…. its amazing really. I continue to be impressed at how little the higher ups at NCsoft/anet care about the PvP team….

Even high level players (heselth in particulur lol) have been screaming about MMR
issues for years!

Its just….idk…disheartening to see it take THIS LONG to figure out problems and implement solutions…. and its all because anet/NCsoft suits don’t really give a rat’s kitten about PvP…..from balancing to issues like this, to simple stuff that should have been implemented from the get go like map voting….

I’m glad this is particular issue is being resolved (better late than never right?) but don’t expect a pat on the back….this is something that should have been figured out AGES ago….

(edited by SkiTz.4590)

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Posted by: Phil.8901

Phil.8901

We’ll see but I think complaints will be super high.

I hope i will be wrong.

We’re on MMO game forums. People will complain no matter what happens.

The problem is when complaints are focused on major issues

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Posted by: Pimsley.3681

Pimsley.3681

Let this be a lesson to all the people who were claiming matchmaking was fine… mindlessly defending the status quo when there’s signs that something is up isn’t helpful.

I know what you mean. I usually ignore people like that because they hinder progress and never really bring anything positive to the discussion.

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Posted by: Evan Lesh

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Evan Lesh

PvP Gameplay Programmer

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How on earth does an obvious bug like that go unfixed for such a LONG PERIOD OF TIME…..

It’s not an obvious bug at all. It changes entirely depending on what roster sizes and player MMRs are in the match. The 10 players are already very similar in MMR before splitting them onto teams, and the ‘best’ player is different every match so its not like one particular set of players was always being affected by this bug. Players still have ~50% win rates. It’s very hard to track down ‘gut feelings’ about matchmaking :P

Luckily we have some powerful tools now to get better global data about how matchmaking is performing that helped lead to the discovery.

Bluxgore (80 Warr), Xilz (80 Necro), Ivo (80 Eng)
Bra (80 Guard), Fixie Bow (80 Ranger), Wcharr (80 Ele)
Xdragonshadowninjax (80 Thief)

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Posted by: Flumek.9043

Flumek.9043

Thank you very much Evan.

It would still be really nice to actually see the ladder and MMR.

PvP guild [YUM] -apply- (EU) http://muffinspvp.shivtr.com/

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Posted by: Pimsley.3681

Pimsley.3681

What matters is that they did a good job tracking down a sneaky bug that matched extremes. Those almost always turn out sour.

Plus they are disabling some code that locked our MMRs and prevented us from climbing up. This is definitely 2 steps in the right direction and possibly a huge win for all pvp lovers.

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Posted by: Claes.4795

Claes.4795

when are these changes going into effect?

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Posted by: Good Tofu.9376

Good Tofu.9376

Thanks for the changes, Evan.

Also, are you guys going to fix the issue with stat tracking and PVP rank points?

I have two full champion titles (meaning I would have at minimum 300 arena games assuming 100% win rate). This isn’t even counting the number of arena games I’ve won with the same classes after obtaining champ titles or with other classes. Yet, my in-game stats only acknowledges that I’ve played slightly over 100 or so total arena games. This is mathematically impossible, and I feel that there is definitely an issue here with stat logging.

Furthermore, I only have ~310k or so rank points, but in a previous post I identified that obtaining one champion title alone would generate ~360k rank points (assuming 50% W/L). Going by this logic, I should at minimum have 700k rank points based off of the two champion titles alone (and not taking into consideration the many other arena games I’ve won/lost).

On a final note: According to the GW2efficiency site, my winrate for arenas is 53% and my total winrate is 60%. So I’d understand that my case does not reflect a pure 50% W/L (which is what all my assumptions are based off of), but I do strongly feel that my case indicates something is seriously wrong with in-game stat tracking.

Thanks for your time btw!

(edited by Good Tofu.9376)

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Posted by: Mewling Kittens.7965

Mewling Kittens.7965

Noob question… what’s MMR?

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Posted by: Emtiarbi.3281

Emtiarbi.3281

Noob question… what’s MMR?

I think is Matchmaking Rating?

Anredhal Amethyst – Lain Amethyst – Orss Jerre

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Posted by: MakubeC.3026

MakubeC.3026

Thank you Evan. Thank you for rising my confidence.

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Posted by: timmyf.1490

timmyf.1490

Noob question… what’s MMR?

I think is Matchmaking Rating?

Yep. It uses a system called Glicko (soon changing to ELO) that assigns a number based on your performance. We can’t see our MMR right now (but hopefully that will change) so people tend to guess a lot about how good they are.

I’d really love to know the raw Glicko for myself so I can compare it to top players. Even if it were just through the API. Anet plz.

Karaoke – Guild Leader – [MEGA] Super Mega Happy Fun Time
www.getunicorned.com / northernshiverpeaks.org

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Posted by: Evan Lesh

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Evan Lesh

PvP Gameplay Programmer

Next

Noob question… what’s MMR?

It stands for Match Making Rating. We use the Glicko 2 algorithm to assign a number to each player that represents skill level in order to match similarly-skilled players together.

Details here:
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/PvP_Matchmaking_Algorithm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glicko_rating_system

Bluxgore (80 Warr), Xilz (80 Necro), Ivo (80 Eng)
Bra (80 Guard), Fixie Bow (80 Ranger), Wcharr (80 Ele)
Xdragonshadowninjax (80 Thief)

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Posted by: T raw.4658

T raw.4658

Noob question… what’s MMR?

It stands for Match Making Rating. We use the Glicko 2 algorithm to assign a number to each player that represents skill level in order to match similarly-skilled players together.

Details here:
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/PvP_Matchmaking_Algorithm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glicko_rating_system

Any possible way we can see our Glicko rating?

I’d really be interested in how low mine is so I can wallow in self pity

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Posted by: Mogar.9216

Mogar.9216

sounds great . lets see how things go when I play good to see that you guys are working to make match making better

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Posted by: Exodus.6501

Exodus.6501

Did you guys ban Justin from commenting on the forums because his responses were too good?

Please respond— he was the hero we deserved.

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Posted by: abc.5790

abc.5790

Darn I though MMR stood for Mainstream Music Rocks (not really, I hate it)
Learnin’ something new each day!

[Star] In My Prono
EU Scrub

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Posted by: abc.5790

abc.5790

More importantly, THANKS EVAN!!!!!!!!!

Goodness my word.

Does this mean I will no longer have teammates who say they will take home and runs to the waterfall when we’re the red team?

Someone say yes and I will be happy forever.

[Star] In My Prono
EU Scrub

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Posted by: Elxdark.9702

Elxdark.9702

how long till the implementation of this?

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Posted by: abc.5790

abc.5790

Did you guys ban Justin from commenting on the forums because his responses were too good?

Please respond— he was the hero we deserved.

Aww come on now, Evan is our hero too, man.

Justin would be answering the swarms of questions we were bombarding him with on Sundays and weird hours. My guess is that we were prolly taking up his programming time or he told his boss that he’s had it with us pestering him 24/7 and wants out of the forum duties.

[Star] In My Prono
EU Scrub

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Posted by: Evenna.2519

Evenna.2519

How on earth does an obvious bug like that go unfixed for such a LONG PERIOD OF TIME…..

It’s not an obvious bug at all. It changes entirely depending on what roster sizes and player MMRs are in the match. The 10 players are already very similar in MMR before splitting them onto teams, and the ‘best’ player is different every match so its not like one particular set of players was always being affected by this bug. Players still have ~50% win rates. It’s very hard to track down ‘gut feelings’ about matchmaking :P

Luckily we have some powerful tools now to get better global data about how matchmaking is performing that helped lead to the discovery.

@Evan I have been wanting to hug you for several days now for hunting down these minute little details that affect us not so obviously but are there. Thanks for searching for needles in Haystacks, so MUCH!

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Posted by: Los Re.4607

Los Re.4607

I always had this question: Since there is a number that supposedly “describes” our skill level, why can’t we use this number as our rating in the leaderboards? Why does it need one number for matchmaking and a different one for the leaderboard? I’m not being sarcastic, i really can’t understand it.

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Posted by: TorsoReaper.8530

TorsoReaper.8530

As one of the louder people complaining about the matchmaking system I will say I am truly grateful to hear Anet is trying improve the system.

I pray these updates will help keep pugs from getting obliterated by premades but that is probably not likely; however, if it helps pug vs pug that is better than nothing.

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Posted by: style.6173

style.6173

@Evan:

You forgot #3

3. Prevent a group of 5 PUGs from ever being matched against a team that has 3 or more people partied together.

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Posted by: Hvaran.6327

Hvaran.6327

this changes coming pre hot or with hot?

Handarand – Handacooon – Handa Panda – Handa Genie

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Posted by: Nike.2631

Nike.2631

Any possible way we can see our Glicko rating?

I’d really be interested in how low mine is so I can wallow in self pity

Its really for the best if we don’t have access to them. If you don’t know, no one can demand that you tell them…

“You keep saying ‘its unfair.’
I wonder what your basis for comparison is…”
- Jareth, King of Goblins.

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Posted by: Evan Lesh

Previous

Evan Lesh

PvP Gameplay Programmer

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this changes coming pre hot or with hot?

As soon as we can

Bluxgore (80 Warr), Xilz (80 Necro), Ivo (80 Eng)
Bra (80 Guard), Fixie Bow (80 Ranger), Wcharr (80 Ele)
Xdragonshadowninjax (80 Thief)

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Posted by: T raw.4658

T raw.4658

Any possible way we can see our Glicko rating?

I’d really be interested in how low mine is so I can wallow in self pity

Its really for the best if we don’t have access to them. If you don’t know, no one can demand that you tell them…

I’d wear it like a badge of honor on how bad I am!

Telling the highest MMR player in the game my pathetic score would bring joy as he unleashes his tears.

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Posted by: Demus.4571

Demus.4571

Good to hear you guys are continuing to work on better matchmaking. Excited for these changes to be implemented!

[ASAP] Zerg ~~~ Starkar

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Posted by: XGhoul.7426

XGhoul.7426

Wouldn’t showing everyones rating in game at the end of the round identified this problem faster so people can post how they had a high rating with low rating people vs a more even spread on the other team?

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Posted by: Wicked Demiurge.3107

Wicked Demiurge.3107

Great find, Evan. Good matchmaking is super hard (and super interesting!), and it’s cool to see you make improvements.

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Posted by: CodeHavoc.7926

CodeHavoc.7926

Hopefully this fixes that hellish solo queue.

Necro Jesus is a thing apparently
The Zerker Bunker meta is the biggest bug in the game

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Posted by: Atharian.7092

Atharian.7092

While you are at it, can we get a proper rating system? It makes me kinda angry to sit at 50% all the time, as it means I never actually feel like I’m making any progress at all… The fact that PvE is about 500% more rewarding does not help much either.

(edited by Atharian.7092)

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Posted by: Power.2957

Power.2957

This is cool and all but when are we gonna be allowed to queue outside of Heart of the Mists?

“Power is like the illuminati of Guild Wars.” -Loshon

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Posted by: morrolan.9608

morrolan.9608

I sure hope it helps. But i am quite supprised by the second bug, as i remember we were told this is supposed to happen?

From the sound of it its been too much skewed against the high mmr player.

Jade Quarry [SoX]
Miranda Zero – Ele / Twitch Zero – Mes / Chargrin Soulboom – Engi
Aliera Zero – Guardian / Reaver Zero – Necro

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Posted by: morrolan.9608

morrolan.9608

Any possible way we can see our Glicko rating?

I’d really be interested in how low mine is so I can wallow in self pity

Its really for the best if we don’t have access to them. If you don’t know, no one can demand that you tell them…

Other games show rating why can ’t GW2?

Jade Quarry [SoX]
Miranda Zero – Ele / Twitch Zero – Mes / Chargrin Soulboom – Engi
Aliera Zero – Guardian / Reaver Zero – Necro