Unfair Matchmaking!

Hey,

Well this is what happened:
I had to play vs an Uber guy (I'm gold) and unsurprisingly I lost.
This is really unfair..

Matchmaking should be selecting 2 people with the same rank!

perhaps there was noone elese on at the time of your rank and this was the closest it could come up with?

It looks like the matchmaking system picks based on rank, but if there is no other uber person looking for a match, it will match them up to anyone else it finds

It doesn't show your rating as of now, but I am pretty sure it did not cost you much points to lose.
So all that happens is that you learn

That sucks for the guys with a lower rank..

Depends. The higher ranked player will lose a lot of rank if they lose. You in turn lose very little, but you can gain a lot if you win.

The probability that an uber will lose vs a gold is extremely low

Everyone who is currently Uber at one point was even bronze. It basically takes winning all your original set up games to get Uber.

It happens sometimes. Before the ladder reset I got three games in a row against someone. I easily won the first two and decided to try a new build for the third. My build was awful and this guy learned a lot from our first two games. He completely destroyed me and I fell far down the ladder.

It's a painful truth: You learn the most if you get utterly annihilated, at least if you are watching the replay afterwards, shamelessly copying everything your opponent did to you.

If being repeatedly utterly annihilated was all it took I should be a PA master by now.

This is why: http://joostdevblog.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/why-good-matchmaking-requires-enormous.html

Exactly. I am 4k in points at Gen on SSF4. So, I play a lot of 6-8k players, a letter grade above. One time I played a Guile, got corner-killed literally a match and a half in a row, and somehow in second match cornerkilled him and in the third match juggle-killed him. So, I actually won, and he was B+ with 8k rank.

Point is, if I lose, I literally lose 1 point. Literally. They literally gain 1 point. It is hilarious. If I win, which very rarely I can against a really top tier, I get like 400 points and they lose like 700. Ouch...

How can you tell what rank your opponent is? I really hope there is more transparency planned (i.e. full leaderboard visible, and badges or preferably exact rank number next to a player's name).

he/she told me
he/she asked me what rank I am and then I asked him/her ^^

Thanks for sharing that.

When making or implementing an algorythm I look for numbers like the later for execution times. But it seems with matchmaking numbers can get too small.
We programmers have the fun choice between exponentially* growing costs or being too effective for our own good.

*And I mean that literally.

Agree.

While it's all well and good to say "You learn best by getting destroyed by your opponent" there is also a fun factor to consider. I'm not playing PA to be the best in the world - I'm playing PA to have fun...and if I'm getting paired with people ranked much much higher than me constantly and getting crushed, I'm just going to stop playing. I imagine it's also not much fun for the higher ranked player.

I would rather wait an extra 5 mins for someone of my rank to join than just get constantly paired with much higher ranked players.

It should pin you against someone slightly better than you so you get a slight challenge.

Also if you're playing for fun, why play ranked matchmaking?

constantly it would be weird, but sometimes stuff happens

Because they are fun?

Well yes, but fun is subjective. If he cares about rank and just wants to have a game without dealing with rank ranked matchmaking probably isn't the bbest idea for him. I'd suggest Uber implement unranked matchmaking playlists.

*couch* Halo, *cough cough*