The aim of this thread is not for me to whine about the current status quo, nor to ask others to find justification why this is okay and why we should just deal with it.

There is a problem in matchmaking that many teams suffer from. I want us to discuss possible solutions, and I hope someone representing SP can chime in and tell us if they will consider these solutions or if there any plans to improve war matchmaking.

First, an overview of my team to put things in perspective:
Our MP is 978,403.
7 of our members have MP ranging from 40k to 52k (highest). The rest range from 16k to 39k, with the majority being in the 20k range.

we have 2 players that have 3 or 4 130 legends.
the rest of our 30-member team have monsters that range between 100 and115, with 2 or 3 monsters at 120 at most, which are often max ranked breed-able epics.
Approximately, 1/3 of our members use level 8 runes or higher (very few X runes), 1/3 use 7s and 6s. and 1/3 use 5s, and 4s.

In our last 5 wars:

• Earliest one: we matched vs a team that has MP of 2.045 Million a top 20 team.
  Their minimum requirements in their description is: 130s and 120s and level 8+ runes, and there was more Xs and 130s on their first 5 islands than our entire team combined.
  we had no chance in that one and lost 175 to 419.

• Second and third one: we were matched with teams that had similar MP to us: 1.157 Million and 1.5 Million to our to our 978k. We won both wars 370 range vs 190 range. Even though they had better runes, they left several attacks and were less disciplined using B and C teams that lost to our simple defenses.

• Fourth one: we were matched with a team 1.29 MP that was as active. This was our closest and most fun war I can remember. We won 315 to 301 last 30 mins.

• Fifth one (current one) Now we are gain matched vs a top 50 team. with 2.25 Million MP and their minimum requirements are 130s and X runes. we will have no chance whatsoever against them.

So out of these 5 wars: 3 were really in our range, and 2 were completely out of our range vs top 50 teams. There is a problem here. This pattern continues through out our history.

We do not want easy wins, nor impossible matches, we want exciting, challenging, close wars. That's why we play.

Suggestions for Solutions:

1) Remove War coins earned as a factor for matchmaking:

• In the past, "war coins earned past x days" was not a factor in matchmaking at all. It relied mostly on the team's Monster power. That was a much better assessment, imo. If you see a team with 2 million MP and a team with 500k MP you already know who will win.
  MP is an indication of how many ranked monsters they have, which will be a huge factor in determining who wins. Teams with high ranked monsters will often also have high runes.

• War coins earned however are not an indication: My team uses speed charts, has a policy against using B monsters, and we maximize each win. Our war coin output on our wins is high, can be comparable to some top teams, but our monsters and runes are not. Matching us with teams that have our war coin output, but double and sometimes triple our MP is punishing us for being active and efficient.

• Teams now jump to a new team (reform) to wipe away their war coin history to eliminate that factor, and to be honest after we had 3/9 wars against top 30 teams that we had no shot against, we did that too some months ago.
  So why have war coin history be a factor at all? when something is not fair people find a way to bypass it.

2) Add a forfeit option

• In pvp when you come across a team you have no chance against you can skip it, or press the X and get out of it. In wars you have to sit 2 days to take a beating with no way out.

• Allow a team to forfeit. Having to lose 2 days sitting around waiting for a war, we have no shot at, to end is a waste of time. Allowing a team to forfeit, thus removing its cooldowns, and allowing it to war again vs someone more fair helps teams avoid a lot of frustration.

• some restrictions can be put: Only allowed to forfeit once every 5 wars.
  Team that forfeits gets nothing, other team gets 90% of max possible war coins. can even make team that forfeit only get 90% of the war coins it earns in its next win.

• you become immune to matching with the team you forfeited to, for at least 10 wars. (there is no point if you forfeit then match them right after) and this prevents teams from abusing it by making fake teams and forfeiting to themselves.

3) Unified pool system and globalizing war start time

• Wars start at the same time for everyone... a certain global time.

• All teams that want to participate in upcoming war, have say x hours to submit their entry.

• All teams worldwide that want to participate in that war, will be in one pool.

• After the period for submitting entry expires, Matchmaking then matches teams with similar MP and whatever other criteria.

• Having more teams to pick from, from the pool, should ensure much better matches for everyone!

• This also disallows teams to intentionally match or avoid each other by waiting a certain time.

These 3 points are my suggestions on how this can be rectified to make wars more challenging and yet fair, and ultimately fun!

I have seen several other great suggestions by fellow forum users on the old forums, who I hope can repost them in this thread.

• Pyramidal matchmaking discussed by @C0ntr1v3d
• League system with a certain maximum rank for monster allowed (suggested by @Portgas-D.-Ace )
• Another form of Leagues suggested by @Omar-Sharif
• Allow losing teams to still get their entire war coins earned. by @MarshallTheBeef

You brought up some great ideas Sam. I can copy/paste my proposed league system here and the reasoning behind it:

The top league level is Legendary League, where there is no limit on level and runes. Similar to how the top teams are warring currently.

Then the Gold League, where the limit of monster level is 115, and max lvl 8 runes. Anything higher will be scaled down to the limit.

And then a Silver League, where limit of monster level is 100, and max lvl 6 runes. Everything higher will also be scaled to this limit when competing in this league.

This way you if you like playing with all the "diversity" and new monsters without worrying about 130s just molesting you, you can stay in Silver League. Semi competitive players can be in Gold, and the whales fight to their heart's content in Legendary.

A level cap system also ensures that winning is not largely based on money spent, but will more be determined by team coordination, strategy, and individual player skill & participation.

Lets say a team of very skilled players want to challenge another team of skilled players, but team one is a bunch of F2P poor highschool students and only has lvl 100 monsters. The other team has 120s and 130s, so the 2 can never fight for fun and good sport in the current system. In the proposed league system, they can just enter into the lowest league and the playing field will be completely level and fair for a good fight.

Matchmaking will also be a breeze, since everyone is more or less at a similar level and capped, there will be no way to complain about unfair matchups. You don't have to wreck your brain to write complex algorithms to try to improve matchmaking.

Thank you. Constructive feedback, positively presented.

Let me add my two cents.
Option for rolling war with increased fairness disregarding time taken to find a match.
One team can opt for increased fairness and another not and still end up fighting eachother if they are around the same level.
As far as what is fair, more or less the same level of monsters under the restriction as a main factor and to a little lesser extent, average rune power - excluding gold and team gold runes (of all monsters, not just under restrictions).

Not in favour of option 2 for the completely selfish reason that I don't want to search for 12 hours for a war just to have the enemy team forfeit.

I am in favour of option 3 or something similar.

For reasons stated below as I posted on 3 March on ML War Fighters (I know the entire thread, including the flaws in this suggestion, was forwarded to the devs, but may as well repeat it here):

We are now in a situation where weaker teams try to avoid stronger teams, stronger teams try to avoid even stronger teams and some of the strongest teams take hours and hours to find a match (and sometimes even the strongest try to avoid a hard war). In the end I don’t think anyone really gets any better because of this. Quite a tiring and stupid process.

So what if the entire match making system was revised with something completely new?

1. Teams sign up every week for an X number of wars. Usually that would be 3.
2. At the start of every week each team gets 3 randomly selected opponents from within ‘their own range’.
3. Every war starts 4-8 hours after the last one so people can make sure they have enough time for some personnel changes if needed.
4. If a team starts with 30 in one week, but drops to fewer members, the bases that can not be filled will remain empty (rather than dragging the other team to 25 as well, as is the case now).
5. To take different time zones into account, wars start at different times.
   Benefits to this:

1. No more playing around with match making. You get what you get.
2. You know in advance what opponents you will get and will be able to decide better whether to activate Mjolnir or not et cetera.
3. There is no way you can get the same opponent twice every week.
   Downsides could be that you can only have 3 wars every week and that teams that are consisting of members of the same time zone will have to start a war in the middle of the night every now and then.

Edit: language please, per forum rules

@Ekto-Gamat said in War Matchmaking. Discussion and Suggested Solutions.:

Not in favour of option 2 for the completely selfish reason that I don't want to search for 12 hours for a war just to have the enemy team forfeit.

you would however be able to search again, and thus you are getting more war coins in a shorter duration. 405 coins from the team that forfeited then the coins from the new war. even if your matchmaking is too long, it still won't take as much as an entire war.

You being the number one team though, I can see how that could be not fun, as probably every team will forfeit when matched with you, even if they are in your range.

So more restrictions can be added to balance that:
Only allowed to forfeit if the rank between the teams exceeds 50 (or 100 even). Team ranked 100 can forfeit against team ranked 40 but not against team ranked 60 for example. This allows you sure 50 possible matches

....
yeah whether weekly or daily, having all teams in one pool, and then selecting from those sounds like the best option imo.

I agree, the whole matchmaking system needs revising!

I'm with Ekto in regards to point 2 - forfeit would not solve anything. You want a system where that option is not something you wish were there (as it is now!)

• I like the idea of a globalised start time. I think a 4 or 6 hour pool would work. 2 hours would be too short, 8 too long.

• matchmaking should be based on MP and Rune strength. In particular rune strength can be quite simply calculated by number of X, IX, VIII, ... IV, III, II, I in the team. You can create a simple numerical value for each player and the entire team that can be used. As a basis, the points given at Rune Lords might work. This would also help recruiting if you can see "Rune Power" of a player!

• I think rather than leagues, I would prefer "Special Team Wars" where monster level is capped at 100, just for the good old times sake! Although Portagas D. Ace idea of league system based on max monster level that a team can choose by itself and higher level monsters are capped as per league might be interesting, but I doubt it would gain traction.

I hope that the ideas listed here will be seriously considered. I'd love a revamp of the matchmaking system. I'd be nice to have more wars like this:

@David-ML said in War Matchmaking. Discussion and Suggested Solutions.:

I agree, the whole matchmaking system needs revising!

I'm with Ekto in regards to point 2 - forfeit would not solve anything. You want a system where that option is not something you wish were there (as it is now!)

Yes I agree, the forfeit suggestion is if they are not willing to change the system at all. At least it will be better than nothing. A silver lining.

Wouldn't you agree that having the forfeit option be a good thing, if there is for sure not going to be any change to the current system?

@Sam said in War Matchmaking. Discussion and Suggested Solutions.:

Wouldn't you agree that having the forfeit option be a good thing, if there is for sure not going to be any change to the current system?

Why would they add that, but not consider any other changes? Doesn't make any sense! I am pretty sure that they are considering changing the system. I am not a developer, but I think that difficulty of implementation is also a factor that plays into it....

....anyway, as said above. There are some good ideas floating around here. Let's hope they'll consider some of them

And just to highlight the issue with matchmaking, I thought I should provide a screenshot of our current war:

The system is aligning me with Base 29 as 'appropriate' target, LOL, I am Base 4 on our team! So 'the system' knows that this is an unfair match, so why does it allow the match up in the first place??? @Fox this really needs fixing AND it should be a priority!

Lol, Thierry Gambier at base #30.

We fought them last war. They are in our range, clearly not in yours.
Good luck!

@Ekto-Gamat said in War Matchmaking. Discussion and Suggested Solutions.:

Lol, Thierry Gambier at base #30.

We fought them last war. They are in our range, clearly not in yours.
Good luck!

I think you can randomly position all their bases. They are all as good (or bad) as each other. All bases without exception have 3 x XXX and only a handful have one monster <Lvl130. Luck has nothing to do with it, except that it might win us the odd coin here or there...

@Ekto-Gamat said in War Matchmaking. Discussion and Suggested Solutions.:

Lol, Thierry Gambier at base #30.

We fought them last war. They are in our range, clearly not in yours.
Good luck!

Obviously we matched up trophy wise. Clearly the system is working.

I think the overall issue about matchmaking is mostly due to one fact that was illustrated by Sam in his description of his team: the factor responsible for "unfair" or more precisely "unreliable" matchmaking is highly due to the heterogeneity of players level in a team. Except for the highest ranked team, most of the teams (high, mid and low level) are built according to this model of level heterogeneity within a team. In this configuration the players with higher level have a strong weight in the matchmaking process while the outcome of a war for such a team will be mostly decided by how the lower level players can perform against the low levels of the opponents' team. Consequently the matchmaking is inherently flawed for this reason as it is going to be extremely difficult to get an algorithm capable to anticipate and take into account such fluctuating parameter. That's the reason why most teams will alternate a winning streak followed by a few losses. I think that makes the matchmaking issue a really difficult problem to solve without completely revamping the matchmaking system.

Some propositions described above are really interesting and can be used as part of a think tank to try to propose/discuss solutions. Giving weight to rune level might appear interesting but may not solve/address current issues mostly due to the different effect related to each type of rune (imagine the "extreme" case of someone who has only level X gold runes for examples; very unlikely but that is an extreme example). One thing that I thought about would be to eventually imagine a 3 steps mechanism for the wars implementation rather than the current 2 steps:

1. lead starts a war, restrictions are displayed first: those restriction would likely need to be more stringent with few layers such as "book restrictions" and "only level 100 monsters with max level V runes". (You can imagine other restrictions like "no legendary monsters but only UC or R to address low level players who don't have enough legendary etc... but that is another story)
   Once the restrictions are set then players choose a team of monsters ( for example 6 monsters for a war matching the restrictions); if players do not choose their monsters within the time allocated then the system will choose default monsters (possibility to change runes remains during preparation day).
   Only once this step has been done then the matchmaking would start.
2. preparation day
3. war
   This way that would ensure an even matchmaking and provide a large range of teams to match with. Winning a war would be essentially relying on skills and not on monster/rune level. However this would certainly be hard to implement as it would strongly reduced the need and motivation to rank monsters and get better runes hence meaning loss of profits for the company. As stated above this is likely a hard problem to solve but using such threads to discuss about it might give us and the developers some ideas to work on. That could be even an opportunity to organize some serious think tank on this forum in which some developers could join sometimes to share with us and discuss ideas (I know they are busy but might be something to think about: that would give people willing to participate the possibility to make their voice heard rather than worrying if they are going to be fairly represented).
   I apologize for the long post but i was trying to lay down some ideas that filled my mind

@xargul I am upvoting you purely for use of the word "heterogeneity"

I am wholly in favor of 3 as my team can surely attest to after hearing me ramble about it for ages. I think 1 should be folded in to changes in matches along with the war "bins" but if their current algorithm can match teams a lot closer if more teams are available in the matching pool then it might not be as big a priority.

The "time bin" matchmaking has some immediate issues, like what happens if there's an odd amount of teams in the bin, and probably the need to reduce the war prep phase so that teams can stay in their preferred time slot, but getting more teams rolling at the same time is the only way I'm thinking we can get better matches. There just aren't enough teams at each strength tier within the top 200-300 teams to allow them to roll randomly across 2 days.

I am not in favor of 2 at all as I think it would be difficult to balance, and if we get what we hope for, the thing it's trying to fix should be minimized greatly already.

Two points I would like to bring up.

MP is not always a good way to match make either. I was previously on a team that deliberately only accepted players with low MP and high monsters and runes. Not my way of deciding but they did to keep their wars to easy wars and they deliberately tried to stay in the 250 something range for wars to keep wars easy. Although most had high runes and ranked monsters.

High MP can be a collectors account with a lot of lower monsters fed up. It is not really a good indication they have a lot of ranked monsters.

I agree coins should not be factored in.

And my last point is I don't like the idea of wars starting at a specific time as there are to many people on different time zones and it is hard enough to do 5 attacks when wars are started late.

I like some of the ideas of leagues or groups and matching evenly.

@Suzznee said in War Matchmaking. Discussion and Suggested Solutions.:

And my last point is I don't like the idea of wars starting at a specific time as there are to many people on different time zones and it is hard enough to do 5 attacks when wars are started late.

I like some of the ideas of leagues or groups and matching evenly.

Unfortunately, the matching evenly part probably is quite dependent on getting a bigger matching pool.

SP is in the best position to figure out how many time slots can be created and still have large enough pools of teams. I'm hoping there's enough to have at least 3 bins a day so that start times can be varied a bit.

I'm guessing something like a league system along with time bins will work out best. There seems to be many more teams available to match at lower levels, and it gets increasingly sparser the higher up the team ranks you go. So at lower leagues there could be more time bins, but as you go higher it might need to be reduced both to keep that minimum amount of teams needed in a pool and to avoid teams trying to dodge.

My team is spread across the globe so we're pretty aware of the effect of unfortunate start times, but as our times drift those affected do the best they can and we're all okay with that. Perhaps SP could reduce cooldowns by an hour or two for leagues that have fewer times slots to help compensate though.

@karryt said in War Matchmaking. Discussion and Suggested Solutions.:

@Suzznee said in War Matchmaking. Discussion and Suggested Solutions.:

And my last point is I don't like the idea of wars starting at a specific time as there are to many people on different time zones and it is hard enough to do 5 attacks when wars are started late.

I like some of the ideas of leagues or groups and matching evenly.

Unfortunately, the matching evenly part probably is quite dependent on getting a bigger matching pool.

SP is in the best position to figure out how many time slots can be created and still have large enough pools of teams. I'm hoping there's enough to have at least 3 bins a day so that start times can be varied a bit.

I'm guessing something like a league system along with time bins will work out best. There seems to be many more teams available to match at lower levels, and it gets increasingly sparser the higher up the team ranks you go. So at lower leagues there could be more time bins, but as you go higher it might need to be reduced both to keep that minimum amount of teams needed in a pool and to avoid teams trying to dodge.

My team is spread across the globe so we're pretty aware of the effect of unfortunate start times, but as our times drift those affected do the best they can and we're all okay with that. Perhaps SP could reduce cooldowns by an hour or two for leagues that have fewer times slots to help compensate though.

I would be ok with reduced times for cool down. Right now our team is spread out all over as well, but when we hit later hours I am lucky to get in 4 attacks and I really really hate that sometimes I have to spend gems to get the 5th attack in. It is hard enough when wars start at odd hours for myself. But it would make it harder if we were limited to when it was started considering. I know it is going to be hard if it went to specific times wars started as someone will be affected, but then that brings in a new set of problems.

@Suzznee said in War Matchmaking. Discussion and Suggested Solutions.:

MP is not always a good way to match make either.

True, but it would probably be too hard to distill out just useful ranked monsters for the algorithm for weighting. I'd say it gives a reasonably accurate measure at least 80% of the time. So for lack of a better alternative, I think MP has to go into the equation!

I agree coins should not be factored in.

No, I think it should play into it but not carry a lot of weight. It should be used as a final factor after 'the system' has determined 'strength' through MP and Rune Power, i.e. similar strength teams are then matched according to war coins earned.

And my last point is I don't like the idea of wars starting at a specific time as there are to many people on different time zones and it is hard enough to do 5 attacks when wars are started late.

I don't think the idea is to have wars always start at a specific time, but to have say 4 start times in a 24 hour period. It'll then be up to the teams to make it fair for everyone and switch start times periodically. Our team has members from US, Europe and AUS. We are constantly moving start times around the clock. I wouldn't want to change this even if we could theoretically stick to one specific time!

I like some of the ideas of leagues or groups and matching evenly.

Absolutely!!!

I like a lot of these Ideas, especially the leagues, props to SP for introducing pvp to leagues, just go the extra mile SP and let team wars see it too ! However no forfeit, I can only imagine the trolls that would take advantage of that. I am no programmer, nor do I have any knowledge of the profession, however, I would like to see matchmaking take runes and monster level into account, as I said, I don't know how that would work, nor how tricky it might be to implement, but I would be a hugely welcomed change that I am sure all players would love, and would surely make up for some of that slaps in the face SP gives. I would also like to hear players thoughts on decreased time for preparation day, I see it as what it is, a time for the team to talk stratagem, change runes, and monsters, what I don't see, is why that takes so long. I of course understand that players are from all over the planet as such, need the time, however, I am sure it could be shortened to maybe 18 hrs? 16? And finally, I would LOVE for SP to have war offense monsters not go on cooldown unless they die, and it be for 4 hrs not 5. Thoughts ?

@PredakingX said in War Matchmaking. Discussion and Suggested Solutions.:

I like a lot of these Ideas, especially the leagues, props to SP for introducing pvp to leagues, just go the extra mile SP and let team wars see it too ! However no forfeit, I can only imagine the trolls that would take advantage of that. I am no programmer, nor do I have any knowledge of the profession, however, I would like to see matchmaking take runes and monster level into account, as I said, I don't know how that would work, nor how tricky it might be to implement, but I would be a hugely welcomed change that I am sure all players would love, and would surely make up for some of that slaps in the face SP gives. I would also like to hear players thoughts on decreased time for preparation day, I see it as what it is, a time for the team to talk stratagem, change runes, and monsters, what I don't see, is why that takes so long. I of course understand that players are from all over the planet as such, need the time, however, I am sure it could be shortened to maybe 18 hrs? 16? And finally, I would LOVE for SP to have war offense monsters not go on cooldown unless they die, and it be for 4 hrs not 5. Thoughts ?

I agree on everything you mentioned here. I would rather see a shorter time before the war starts as well as a shorter time on the cool down before you can do another battle. It makes it very difficult at times for me to get all my attacks in. And when wars start at times rather than what is right for me .. ie like having to sleep ha ha it would make it easier to compete battles

The forfeit idea, that many of you seem to be shunning down. I don't really understand why.

If they are not going to change the whole matchmaking system this is a very reasonable solution to escape unfair matches, which is the whole point.

Yes much better if they make it so that there is no need for that. However, up-hauling the entire system is not as easy as just adding a feature. This is just an added feature to the existing system.

and I suggested how it can be made balanced:

• "trolls can take advantage of it" I assume that means people can make some fake teams and forfeit against each other.
  I already suggested how that can be prevented: only allowed to forfeit once every 5 wars and you can't be matched again with the team you forfeited to, for at least 10 wars. This makes it very hard for them to abuse this.

• high teams will have a hard time to find a match as many teams will just forfeit against them.
  Solution: Teams can only forfeit against a team 50 ranks or more higher than them. This prevents a team ranked #50 from forfeiting against team #20, but still allows a team ranked 100 to forfeit against team #20.
  which is the whole point: avoiding huge over matches.
  can be balanced even more, as you go down the ranks the difference that allows forfeiting increases to 100. team 500 can't forfeit against team 600 for example or whatever.

• teams lose coins if the other teams forfeit: nope they get 90% of max war coins. (405 in a 30 member war) and get to run again immediately.

If there are any other negatives to this, let's bring them up individually, and discuss how they can be balanced instead of shunning the entire idea out.

this is what my teammates and I are dealing with this war vs a top 50 team:
58 losses on our part compared to their 5.
(We are all using our absolute best on attack). That's gotta tell you something.
that's their weakest compared to our mid !

I would love to forfeit, instead of sitting around waiting for the beating to end, they can take their 405 coins and we can run again. Where's the bad thing here?

I would like Team Wars to be removed from the game, and more single player challenges added instead.

@Clackers said in War Matchmaking. Discussion and Suggested Solutions.:

I would like Team Wars to be removed from the game, and more single player challenges added instead.

Well since the majority of the ML playerbase seems to think this is the main focus of ML, I doubt it is going to happen. Not to mention, I do not want to see it go. It has its advantages and disadvantages but so far the advantages outweigh the disadvantages, not to mention it is a moneymaker. So no, I do not see it going anywhere anytime soon.

@Clackers Ummmmm, why, it is, like Nynaevelan said, the main focus of the game. sure add more single players, that's a great Idea, but remove one of the, if not THE best thing that ever happened to this game??? I think not. Wars are what this game needs because they are free and optional and give free rewards. Remove it and literally 90-95% of players will leave, effectively losing SP all the money because they took out a mode that has nothing to do with real money... You must realize that Teamwars is why SP has a player base, and taking it out would do more damage to their $$$ than taking out VIP or Nemesis or anything else.

So after the top 40 team that slaughtered us
We got a decent match. Then after it, now another top team with min requirements 120 130s and X runes to our 110s and 115s and 7 runes.

That's 3 complete mismatches vs top 50 teams in 7 wars.

Guess it is time to reform and make a new team to wipe out our war coin history to get fair matches again!

Because we refuse to sit and be a victim of a flawed system. Fix it and teams like us won't be forced to do this and "trick the system".

We don't want easy matches nor to get slaughtered.

Give us an option to forfeit or make a unified pool or increase matching times to get better matches again.
@Fox is there anything being done about war matchmaking?

@Sam said in War Matchmaking. Discussion and Suggested Solutions.:

So after the top 40 team that slaughtered us
We got a decent match. Then after it, now another top team with min requirements 120 130s and X runes to our 110s and 115s and 7 runes.

That's 3 complete mismatches vs top 50 teams in 7 wars.

Guess it is time to reform and make a new team to wipe out our war coin history to get fair matches again!

Because we refuse to sit and be a victim of a flawed system. Fix it and teams like us won't be forced to do this and "trick the system".

We don't want easy matches nor to get slaughtered.

Give us an option to forfeit or make a unified pool or increase matching times to get better matches again.
@Fox is there anything being done about war matchmaking?

So you think creating a new team fixes everything. This is the whole problem with half of the mismatches. Teams creating a new team to get easy matches cause they don't want to face a tough team. If teams would stop creating new teams maybe there wouldn't be a bunch of mismatched wars. I am so tired of seeing excuses for why it is ok to create a new team for team wars, because they aren't getting matched fairly.

Maybe look at your MP or members who are either to low or to high rather then taking the easy way out and creating a new team. And I have seen your reasoning why it is ok in the past so spare me the lecture.

@Sam said in War Matchmaking. Discussion and Suggested Solutions.:

3) Unified pool system and globalizing war start time

I wholeheartedly agree with this system, with one caveat: there should be no less than 3 or 4 global start times daily. Remember, many of us are used to back-to-back wars, and really don't want to sit ANOTHER day between attack days.

Along with the global start times, can we shave some time off prep? That way when we finish a war, we can jump right back into the same global start time for our next war. Really, removing one hour from prep will make no difference to teams' preparations anyway.

@Suzznee and I have seen you "ranting" about unfair matching on every forum. Without even suggesting any solutions.
Only difference I am willing to do something about it while you are gonna just sit around and take it. Good luck with that.

I have suggested many solutions of how to make this unnecessary. Once they implement them or even acknowledge there is a problem and they are trying to improve it, then we will hold on or have faith they will fix it. Otherwise we will take things into our own hands.

And my MP and my team distribution and runes are highlighted above in my first post and there is no way in a million years we should be matched with a team more than double our MP with their minimum requirements, I repeat minimum! Being 120s, 130s and X runes (and they do follow their requirements) and no offense, but I don't need advice on runes and MP from somone who places self speed on commons, thank you very much.

This is our THIRD war like this in 7 wars. That is 6 lost days with nothing, but sitting around and watching our monsters getting wiped with their 130s before ours get a turn. I refuse to make it 4 out of 8.

Lucklily I am not looking for your permession or your acceptance, and you will not "shame me" for doing my only option to get out of the wrong pool we fell into, so spare me the lecture as well. I will do what is best for my team in a flawed system that is not being fixed.

And i said it before and I will say it again. We don't want easy matches, nor impossible matches we want close exciting fun matches, that is what's enjoyable! But obviously we can't have that. Only 1 of 7 was close and enjoyable and 3 were complete mismatches.
So no we are not doing this because we are cowards and don't want tough matches as you like to spew around, we are doing this because we refuse to lose even more days on inpossible wars especially at a time team shop prices have made war coins near useless in lower amounts. We can't afford to lose another 6 more days.

If we reform, in a few wars, our war coin output will catch up with our Mp and put us back in the pool we should be in. Remove war coin output as a factor, do not punish us for being effecient and this won't be necessary.

We have been complaining about this and suggesting solutions for how long now? And it hasn't even qualified as a "Q&A" hot topic yet.

Direct your anger where it should be because I am not willing to take it any more than the flawed system.

@Sam I was not directing anger at you and spewing stuff about me and speed runes on commons nonsense. Sour grapes Sam. You can't take anyone disagreeing with you now or in the past. You are right and everyone else is wrong.

Cheating the system is not the answer. And no where did I say any of the responses on fixing it were not adequate. But you constantly spout it ok to game the system cause things aren't going the way you want them. Because someone isn't fixing something "Right Now!" For you.

And yes I don't like the mismatches any more then anyone else does, or the repeated specials, or ....and so on, but I don't come into the forum threatening SP that I am going to keep creating new teams and gaming the system to get my own way.

And no I don't like that people game the system. It makes it hard on everyone trying to play honestly. And Mods if you want to delete my post I understand. I am sorry.

@Suzznee said in War Matchmaking. Discussion and Suggested Solutions.:

@Sam I was not directing anger at you and spewing stuff about me and speed runes on commons nonsense. Sour grapes Sam. You can't take anyone disagreeing with you now or in the past. You are right and everyone else is wrong.

Not true. Yo don't know me enough. an example: It was wrong of me to bring up the speed on common thing, I do apologize for that.

Cheating the system is not the answer. And no where did I say any of the responses on fixing it were not adequate. But you constantly spout it ok to game the system cause things aren't going the way you want them. Because someone isn't fixing something "Right Now!" For you.

Then what is the answer? what should I do? just sit and take 3 more impossible matches of this till my team crumbles because members are no longer willing to sit around for a beating and want war coins to progress?

And let me clarify something I have been reporting this and crusading about this for months. so no it's not about "fix it now" it's about there hasn't even been any progress or acknowledgement for this.

Every time we had this kind of impossible matchmaking I have reported this to SP support, that's more than 20 times for months now, for about 6 months if not more. and the responses I get are a variation of these:

"oh well! get better runes and monsters!"
"oh well it is what it is, you win you get harder matches, you lose you get easier ones"
"oh well, we will forward it, I am not a bot, honest"
"oh well, it is based on MP, no wait sorry it is not based on MP... we don't actually know what it is based on either"

I have done all I can do with the tools I have at my disposal. Posted on the forums (old and now new), sent support messages everytime it happened (A lot of messages), posted on fb groups to try to rally support where I get told to "suck it up buttercup, it happens!"

I don't believe there is anything more I can do.

And yes I don't like the mismatches any more then anyone else does, or the repeated specials, or ....and so on, but I don't come into the forum threatening SP that I am going to keep creating new teams and gaming the system to get my own way.

I hardly think my "threat" is gonna even tickle them. This is a rant not any more different than yours. It is me highlighting the fact then when teams get pushed to the corner, they will tear the wall down and that this issue should be urgent.

Many other teams are doing it too, in silence and in secret. At least I am being honest about it, I am right here at the lion's den telling them WHY we are doing it so they do something, so that us and others, don't have to!

others have resorted to using other platforms to call out their war start time to avoid each other, play the system differently, I don't have that luxury.

Believe me I HATE doing this. I want to keep my war log that we worked hard on, I don't want to go through the stress of moving 29 people and risking losing people along the way, I don't want to lose 2 days for moving, I don't want to get an easy match that is nor fun nor challenging, I don't want to have to explain when I recruit someone new why our war log is empty. But I hate even more losing my teammates out of frustration, or halting their progress because we keep losing 2 days to end up with 20 coins from an impossible war. 3 times in 7 wars!

The solution is simple, remove war coin output as a factor for matchmaking. so even those that reform still have same everything else!

I also acknowledge that some teams are exploiting this just to get easier matches even when they are not outmatched, and I am with you on that.

@Sam said in War Matchmaking. Discussion and Suggested Solutions.:

So after the top 40 team that slaughtered us
We got a decent match. Then after it, now another top team with min requirements 120 130s and X runes

Minimum requirements make me chuckle, because often half of the players in the team in question do not meet the requirements. Probably doesn't make the slaughter any less pleasant though.

@Fox
Can you please check this thread/ forward these suggestions or tell us if anything is being done or going to be done to improve war matchamking?

We just finished a war vs the team ranked #16 worlwide with twice our mp, where they absolutely slaughtered us. Only to be matched with them again right after!!

That's 4 wasted days. We are not in top 20 team league! We are technically raked 200. How is that match even logical. Like why would the system think we are a good match. Twice in a row!

Please consider that forfeit option! Or add some safeguard against getting matched with same team after a big loss twice!
Or some limits that disallows matches with teams with double (and higher) the other's Mp.

@Sam How do you like our current war Sam? I bet you'd love that but seriously @Fox something needs to be done about this!

As David mentioned, our up and coming war highlights the imbalance in a stark manner. There is no way we are, in anyway, even a possible close match to
PoF.
They have been very generous and de-powered some of their bases so we get a few coins, which they really didn't have to do, but really this does need to be fixed....SP.

One positive is we get to play the top team and chance our luck and hopefully learn a few things from the set-ups etc....

Seems some people are clutching at straws, but still drowning. You are ranked top 50 and i do not see you complain when you get 3 easy Wars in a row against Much weaker opponents. Nobody Said life is fair so take the tough with the smooth. Sp are in my opinion improving this game at least beyond my expectations, and i Think they deserve more credit,sure Voice your opinions, but however flat the pancake is, there are always two sides. Lets all enjoy this Great game and be patient, have fun and be HAPPY! . Best Wishes to everyone

@Fugazi said in War Matchmaking. Discussion and Suggested Solutions.:

Seems some people are clutching at straws, but still drowning. You are ranked top 50 and i do not see you complain when you get 3 easy Wars in a row against Much weaker opponents. Nobody Said life is fair so take the tough with the smooth. Sp are in my opinion improving this game at least beyond my expectations, and i Think they deserve more credit,sure Voice your opinions, but however flat the pancake is, there are always two sides. Lets all enjoy this Great game and be patient, have fun and be HAPPY! . Best Wishes to everyone

I didn't see either of them complaining only pointing out the evident difference in the two teams. And Fugazi, David is one of the first ones in a war against a weaker team to place a comparable team on his base to give them at least a chance at a few coins. And yes they do complain about easy matches too as it isn't fair to the other team either way.

@Fugazi said in War Matchmaking. Discussion and Suggested Solutions.:

Seems some people are clutching at straws, but still drowning. You are ranked top 50 and i do not see you complain when you get 3 easy Wars in a row against Much weaker opponents. Nobody Said life is fair so take the tough with the smooth. Sp are in my opinion improving this game at least beyond my expectations, and i Think they deserve more credit,sure Voice your opinions, but however flat the pancake is, there are always two sides. Lets all enjoy this Great game and be patient, have fun and be HAPPY! . Best Wishes to everyone

Life is not fair? yes true. However, this is a game designed by people, it is not supposed to be a miniature representation of life. It is supposed to be designed to be fair. It is their job to make it fair.
Unfairness in a game isn't equivalent to "Oh someone had a car accident or someone broke up with someone, but hey that's just luck/ fate/ destiny" that is simply bad game design.

Your expectations and whether you think they are doing a good job, are not relevant to this thread sir. This is a thread clearly titled "War matchmaking suggested solutions", this isn't a thread to pat them on the back. I give credit where credit is due. I gave positive feedback about the new players profile on the relevant thread. Am I supposed to start every thread with "before I get to the point, hold on till I enumerate what I like about it first :D"?

"Lets all enjoy this Great game and be patient, have fun and be HAPPY!"
Oh okay, here let me turn on my "Happy Switch". Oh wait I am not a robot! An unfair impossible match-up twice in a row does upset me but apparently we are supposed to be patient, for a magical solution or something?. This thread is to be pro-active about finding a solution for an issue that has long existed without any resolution or progress, instead of simply complaining about it and quitting as many people do, or just pretending it is fine and keeping things broken and say "not my problem!" That is not patience, that is apathy.

thanks for the "advice" though

@Fugazi I don't believe we were complaining Fugazi, just highlighting the imbalance of the matching system, which seemed to be demonstarted by our current war. I agree it's unfair when we get matched up against uneven teams, which seems to be the more often than not.

I can tell you the most fun the guild has is when it's a close war, everyone pulls together, it's exciting and normally goes to the wire.

I believe that is probably what every guild wants is close wars, we really aren't just looking for easy war coins.

Hence quite a few of us ( that's an understatement ) would like to see the matching improved.

There seems to be quite a few good ideas on how to improve the matching algorithms and maybe there is a need for multiple matching algorithms depending on the team rank. I can easily see a system that works well mid to lower teams not working so well for the higher ranked teams. It's clear though, that this is not an insurmountable problem...so we all have hope ......

Oh and for the record, I do enjoy the game, I just think it needs a wee bit of tweaking in certain areas

Hi @fox I know you are busy with catching up after your vacation but I really like to know If this issue is being worked at. Nobody is really sure how matchmaking works and there was some talks about leagues but not sure anymore if it came from suggestions from players or more official channels

@Marianne-van-Es Currently no. We are preparing for Relics and making sure this will go smooth. But TW matchmaking is still on the list and idea of the leagues is being considered.

@Fox Thanks for the quick answer. Understandable and good to know its still on the to do list.
PS dont start to work on the weekend or you will be needing another vacation real soon