Battle.net StarCraft II Matchmaking Too Good?

[Sethala]

It's worth mentioning that SC2 has a normal game lobby in addition to the automatic ladder matchmaking. You don't gain or lose rating for playing these games, though.

Also, the matchmaking is based on some form of elo rating. Essentially, you start with some points (1000, I think), you gain points when you win a game, and lose some when you lose. You earn more (or lose less) if your opponent is higher rating than you, and vice versa. Before you begin the normal ladder though, you play in what are essentially qualifier games, to let the system gauge how good you are before tossing you into the ladder.

They've really taken steps to make sure the ladder caters to casual gamers and the less-than-perfect players, instead of just the elite.

 

[agrandstudent]

New southpark is about to start so i dont have time to read everyones post so sorry if this has already been said

instead of always matching people against their equals they should use a normal distribution curve so that way 64% of the time you will play people of about your skill and on rare occasions you will get stomped and stomp others

 

[Space Jawa]

...it might be problematic if you have multiple people in the household who want to play the game.

Indeed, I imagine it would be very problematic. It would seem at least a little more reasonable if they either allowed a small number of accounts per game (like say five or so) or allowed purchase of extra accounts at a small fee (five dollars, perhaps? maybe 10, but that would really be pushing it).

 

[TheSkaAssassin]

This was always something I had a problem with when I played Command & Conquer.
I love you Blizzard.

 

[ark123]

1 - Screw stats. If a player had 0 losses and 70 wins on WC3 it meant nothing. If a player had 600 wins and 400 losses he was good for sure.
2 - On the actual system, I'm divided. Occasionally getting completely owned drove me into watching WC3 replays until I eventually got a build order that could compete with mediocre players. This in turn rewarded me with easy games where I destroyed people that were worse than me, while continuing to lose to people who were better. I don't think you should have to wait until level 40 to experience this.
On the other hand I can see how a more casual player could give up on ladder entirely if they got completely annihilated while finding out what building does what. How many casual players are gonna buy SC2, though?

 

[Nouw]

That better work. But then again I'm South Korean.

ITS IN MAH BLOOD TO WIN!

Spoiler: j/k

But it is in my blood to play Star Craft.Practically every teenage relative plays it.

 

[rddj623]

A very interesting point, sometimes you want a game that's quick. Either to kill all others or to die and be in awe of your own quick demise.

 

[Agorwal]

I have to say, while I do like this idea, and I even agree with the matchmaking being too good in some games to the point of getting really tired after an hour or 2 of close competitive games, I also agree with a post above that it will be very frustrating to some people, I know im one of them, due to taking a long break from the game and coming back to realize you forgot your account information.

For example the game they put in the article, Warcraft III, I have probably uninstalled and reinstalled the game 3 or 4 times now, and with each reinstall I have had to make a new account due to me forgetting the old information due to it no longer being neccessary. Also the whole thing about being able to send the information to an email doesn't always work, I dont know about the rest of you but I personally made some extremely stupid emails in the past when I was younger that I would rather forget, so sending my account info to an email I made in 6th grade isn't gonna work for me.

 

[Cryo84R]

Great, now I might actually have a chance in an RTS. Now all I need is for them to announce that it's going to be released on Mac, or else save up a shitload of money for my local Internet cafe.

It is for mac as well.

 

[Georgie_Leech]

Yes, it's a good thing! So they're not playing as long. Big deal. I prefer playing against a skilled opponent and actually enjoying myself over playing for hours.

 

[frosts]

I've got to say, I'm not too thrilled about this announcement. I can't tell you the number of times I've created new accounts on the original StarCraft by mere virtue of the fact that I forgot my previous account information.

I don't "gank" no "noobs": I suck at StarCraft. All I do is play with my friends, who also suck. And I take some issues with the fact that I'm going to have to play 20 Questions to remember my whatnots after I take a half-year break from the game.

If you have trouble remembering account info, maybe you should consider writing it down on a label or something, and sticking it somewhere covert.

On topic, I think that limiting account creation will have it's ups and downs, but will ultimately reduce the amount of unfit matchups in the matchmaking system.

 

[JWAN]

Wow, having topay $$$ for another copy in order to have more fun...
I smell a scheme here!!

No, you have to pay $$$ if you want to spoil others fun.

do you even pay for games in Korea anymore? when i went they were all bootlegs of bootlegs of someones bootleg hidden in a shipping container of cowboy boots

 

[Miral]

They should definitely have some way for each individual player to indicate what skill levels they want to be up against, so that the newbie can choose to play against the elite (and presumably learn something).

To reduce griefing, maybe make it a window centred around your current skill level, which you can widen or narrow but not shift. That way, the griefers can't choose to play against the newbies without also becoming targets for even higher experts themselves.

Still, the determined griefer will probably just throw the occasional match on purpose. Intentionally letting someone else beat you is just another kind of victory.

 

[spinFX]

Ok I am buying SC2 now. One of the things I hated in WC3 is I always got stomped. I never got good at the game, but on the rare chance I got to play with another noob it was a LOT of fun.

SC2 looks better and better by the minute.

 

[mokachill]

Anyone who thinks its fun to go nub clubbing is a dick and the thought of deliberately making the system is just dumb on the face of it... the best fight in any game (RST, FPS, MMORPG) is the close ones... the ones that really draw you in

 

[boholikeu]

I actually think they should keep the matchmaking strict. Yes, the games will be more "exhausting" but I much prefer that kind of game to a 50/50 chance of pwning/getting stomped.

How much you wanna bet someones gonna buy about five or so copies just to continue playing against n00bs?

I bet a million dollars a number of people will. Any takers? If someone wants to smurf so bad they will buy another copy of the game to do so, and then will quit a number of matches to keep their rankings low, then there is basically no stopping these peope and that's okay--at least they had to buy another copy of the game. Getting noob-stomped now and again isn't the worst thing and oftentimes you learn something.

While there's nothing that can be done to stop people from buying another game, they can make it so you can't just disconnect from a game to artificially lower your score. I wouldn't be surprised if SC2 has 2 (or more) rankings. One visible one based on your win/loss ratio (for those concerned about epeen), and a hidden matchmaker one. Blizz could make it so that a d/c lowers your visible score, but actually raises your matchmaker one. That way it would totally punish people that regularly d/c by A) ruining their tourney ranks and B) forcing them against progressively more difficult opponents every time they d/c.

This way in order to artificially lower your score you'd actually need to lose games, so for every newb you roflstomp later there will be at least one that got an easy win off you.

 

[Sir Kemper]

Wait...So if i get StarCraft... i might have a chance of wining a few games?


YES! WOOOOOO HOOOO! Hooray for being godawful at RTS games!

 

[BlindMessiah94]

I don't have the beta.
Is matchmaking a separate option or something for ranked matches?
Also, can you not just create a room and get your buddies to join?
What if my buddies are noobs and we wanna play together but I am the leetsauce?

 

[MurderousToaster]

This is actually a fairly good plan. People who shout about it are clearly the "smurfers" in question.

I bet anything that this is going to add more people illegally downloading SC2 just to ruin the fun of new players.

 

[Callex]

I don't have the beta.
Is matchmaking a separate option or something for ranked matches?
Also, can you not just create a room and get your buddies to join?
What if my buddies are noobs and we wanna play together but I am the leetsauce?

Matchmaking = the tool that organises ranked matches for you. You can create a 'party' of sorts with your buddies, and join unranked custom games together.

You can also arrange a 2v2 3v3 or 4v4 ranked match with them. The system will try to take the skill of each player in your team into account and find a team of similar skill. Team games are ranked seperately to the singleplayer games, so you could be a bronze leaguer in 1v1, but have a platinum team in 2v2 etc...