Matchmaking and ranking (wall of text)
This was originally a reply in another thread I was going to post in, but it got so lengthy I decided to make it a thread of its own.
All things being even, matchmaking is based of rank. The ranking system is fairly broken, especially if you have a disparity of rank and skill while playing in SWF. Which, in turn, breaks the matchmaking. For example, me and another friend were playing with two other friends who were much lower rank. We weren't trying to get easier matches, or anything meta like that, we just wanted to play with our other friends who frankly don't play as much of the game as we do, or are quite as skilled as us. Not to say we're the best, we're really not. I would say both of us would be between 8-6 normally.
But the fact of the matter is, because we were getting easier matches (because of how the matchmaking averages the rankings, etc), we were going up in rank. Quickly. Pipping or double pipping every single game. We started at about 9 or 8, and after a few hours, I think we peaked at rank 3, each. And when our lower ranked friends hopped off for the night, and it was just the two of us? We got destroyed, again and again. Not every game, but damn it felt like it.
Now, I didn't start a depipping spree, do a lot of disconnecting, or afk or anything like that. Did I want to? Oh yeah. The game was, essentially, unplayable on the survivor side for me until the rank reset. And yes, you could tell me to just play matches until I fell down enough to be where I belong on the ranking system...But at the same time, I was safety pipping most of my matches. I was getting destroyed, but I was still able to do enough pretty much every game to safety pip.
In short, playing with lower rank friends pitted me against killers that were, to be brutally honest, too easy to play against, and I don't doubt that several of them got off after our matches, pissed off. Pretty much all of us were escaping every single round. But that ranked me up so high that, solo, or even duo at that rank, we were getting destroyed and dying almost every round. And because of how easy it is to safety pip, I essentially wasn't able to go down in rank to where I should be, and wanted to be. I've always been of the opinion that any game is most fun when both sides are equal in skill and chance at victory, and at pretty much at no point in the evening was that the case.
I don't know what the solution is, especially one that can't be abused by the more toxic members of the community. But honestly, this is kind of a problem. I've heard about this kind of thing happening, but after experiencing it first hand, and to such a degree, I really think it does need to be addressed. Especially since I can't address it myself without doing something scummy, like deliberately deranking (which would essentially make the games worse for the other people playing with me)
I've heard several ideas as to how to alleviate the issue, and I'll regurgitate the ones I remember, plus any I've thought of myself. One I've heard is to outright get rid of the safety pip. That could potentially work, but I'm also torn. I've played games where the ranking system was based purely on win/loss, and it didn't turn out so well. Maybe it could work, maybe not.
Another one I've heard is disabling the ability to pip or go up in rank while playing SWF with players or a player that is much lower in rank. I think that as long as the trigger for this was 2+ rank difference between your rank and the lowest person, it could work. However, to prevent it from being abused, I think it would need to be applied in conjunction with an idea I came up with:
Matchmaking change: Instead of going for the average of the group (or whatever it does currently do), I think it should aim for closer to the highest player. Now, I'm not sure how to mathematically make it completely fair, and to where it won't be able to be abused to the level it is today, but I'll spew some ideas. A+(A/2)=M (A for average, M for matchmaking rank that is searched for). As far as I'm aware, the matchmaking just looks for the average rank. So if you had a rank 1 and a rank 20 play together, it would aim for around 10 or 11. With this, it would aim closer to 5. Harder on the lower ranked survivor, but it would be a better time overall for everyone, be more fair to the killer, and would make it more difficult for people to abuse the matchmaking. An alternative method could be to give more weight in the average calculation to the highest ranked players. Let's say you have a rank 5, and a rank 15. Again, it would aim for 10 or so. But if it bumped up the weight of the rank 5 player, and artificially considered him to be rank, say, 1 or 2 in this case, the matchmaking would aim for a rank 7 killer or so. This could also potentially prevent someone that's a rank 1 survivor from playing with 3 level 20s deliberately to go up against baby killers. It might throw a few baby survivors into the deep end a little early, but I think the tradeoff is certainly worth it.
Anyways, sorry about the long post. At the end of the day, this is a game. And games should be fun, for all participants. But when there is such a disparity in skill in the players in the match, it can be difficult for many of the people to have fun. I wasn't having fun playing against killers who were too easy, then later, too hard, and I doubt that the newer killers had fun going up against someone who was literally running circles around them. In short, I want a challenge, but I don't want the floor wiped with me, either.
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