two simple, good enough patches for matchmaking
(actually 3 things)
Something somebody wrote recently in another post stuck with me - there's no need to make matchmaking perfect, just good enough. With that in mind, I thought I'd mention three things that would reduce some problems with current matchmaking, enough to be useful, without necessarily being perfect or solving everything.
1. Rarity separation: Only those squads can be matched whose top rarity of mechs and weapons is the same. E.g. if I have a legendary mech or weapon in my squad, then I cannot face another player who has only epic or lower mechs and weapons.
- This applies to rare, epic and legendary mechs and weapons.
- Squads with common and uncommon mechs and weapons can be matched with each other.
- This does not apply to pilots and implants (though it can be in the future if needed).
- Other existing rules for matchmaking can remain, with this rule acting as a top-level filter after which the other rules apply.
2. Power ratings improvement:
- Legendary mech and weapon power ratings should be doubled.
- Epic mech and weapon power ratings should be increased by 50% (become 1.5x).
- Rare mech and weapon power ratings should be increased by 25% (become 1.25x).
3. SP variance: The squad power of matched players should be within 10% or 20% of each other.
Benefits of rarity separation:
- The most common victims of SP dropping, which are new and mid level players, will be spared the current "meta" of SP dropping (such as Dreadnaught, Nomad, Killshot, to some degree Tengu, Revoker, etc.).
- SP droppers can continue to SP drop and take advantage of it against bots. Just not against other players.
Benefit of power ratings and SP variance improvements:
Players with just one or two new mechs/weapons of a higher rarity will be able to ease into the new rarity without always facing overly powerful opponents, since the squad power differences would be somewhat higher.
All three changes should be quite simple for Plarium to implement. And as long as they solve more problems than they cause, they are worth a try. What do you all think?
