Skill based matchmaking

[KKACHI]

We now have substantial amount of players playing the game. Why don't we have a skill based matchmaking? We do have BR system but I believe adding skill based system won't cause too much trouble...

[<I^_^]I_1C3Qu33n_X33_I[^_^]>]

No this is not a good suggestion BR is the best for everyone, just because someone is bad in a F-16 you cant make him fight ww2 props.

[biomike]

What do you use to determine someone's skill?
Kills? Assists? Tonnage bombed? Caps?
And how do you do it for all game modes?

[redned]

if you ever look at the queue when waiting for a game you will see that there isn't enough people waiting in each BR bracket.

yes there are a lot players yes, but they are already so divided between modes and BR's.
for air there are 34 possible BR's splitting all players, ground is 33 brackets.
then you need to take those numbers and multiple it by 2 to get the total number of BR brackets just for air and ground AB/RB. making a total of 134 BR brackets splitting all players.
all of naval is another 44 meaning now we got 178 brackets splitting players.

right now we got 78k players online but let's just round that up to 100k.
ok we got 100k split 178 ways waiting for a match which is 560 players each bracket.
now let's split that again between skill brackets good, average and bad.
ok now we got 187 players, then you gotta split them into matches of 32 per match.
leaving you with roughly 6 possible matches you could end up in. what happens if everyone in your BR playing your mode with your same skill rating is in a match already. you going to wait 10-20 minutes for one of those 6 games to end. ok then what you are left facing the same 32 people over and over because as you end a game you will all queue at the same time then get the same people again. could fix that by making less players per match maybe only 24 or 16.

so you either get no queue times getting the same people over and over or you gotta wait
10, 15 maybe 20 minutes for a match to end.

would this only work for certain modes because we already know some modes are less popular then others, meaning less chances of finding enough people at your BR in your mode with the same skill depending on the mode.
then some BR's are not that popular.

and I am trying to make this easy by only doing 3 skill levels other games have multiple. I'm also not mentioning Sim and custom battles.

the only people that will get the most games are average players in the skill bracket with the most players.

meaning bad players can't get better since they don't get as much play time and neither do the good players.

so after seeing this. would you only want only want this for certain modes and BR's.

[Lucky_Star_Fan]

Sane people do not want SBMM. It only benefits the very worst players.

[JetWash]

Originally posted by I Kawaii_Sheep I:

No this is not a good suggestion BR is the best for everyone, just because someone is bad in a F-16 you cant make him fight ww2 props.

This is not OP's suggestion. In-fact, no players in the history of this game have asked for this. Either you have a learning disability or a reading comprehension issue. BR and MM are not mutually inclusive. Skill-based matchmaking would pair similarly performing pilots in the same BR. Instead of noob jet pilots facing veterans, they would be facing other noob jet pilots.

People actively fighting against good things because they don't know what they're talking about.

Originally posted by Lucky_Star_Fan:

Sane people do not want SBMM. It only benefits the very worst players.

This reads like an opinion from a mediocre pilot who likes to womp on noobs and doesnt want to face a real opponent.

Seal-clubbing is a pastime of the phallically challenged.

[Ulvhamne]

Since this is supposedly a team game, you don't actually have to balance on individuals. In particular GAB, you can easily balance the teams according to skill so that the teams are roughly balanced seen to skill. However you want to measure skill.
GRB and sim are not as easy since you generally don't fight your own nation there, so it'd have to make a best effort by balancing the average skill per nation instead and balance the teams that way.
You'd still be in battles with people many times more skilled than you, but at least you'd have a team that can carry you somewhat, and the curb stomping matches would possibly be fewer.

[JetWash]

Originally posted by Ulvhamne:

Since this is supposedly a team game, you don't actually have to balance on individuals. In particular GAB, you can easily balance the teams according to skill so that the teams are roughly balanced seen to skill. However you want to measure skill.
GRB and sim are not as easy since you generally don't fight your own nation there, so it'd have to make a best effort by balancing the average skill per nation instead and balance the teams that way.
You'd still be in battles with people many times more skilled than you, but at least you'd have a team that can carry you somewhat, and the curb stomping matches would possibly be fewer.

They already do with with vehicle BRs. In a full-uptier, there are 4 players that have vehicles that are a full BR higher than you. It doesnt work. After the champions duel, its a steamroll on the surviving greenhorns.

A long time ago, players that were squaded up, were always guaranteed to be uptiered because gaijin tried to say that teamwork was more OP than premiums (or some garbage, just paraphrasing). It doesnt help. In the span of 1.0 BR, you will have WW2 tanks facing mid coldwar tanks with atgms and thermals, and jets with no afterburner facing jets with countermeasures. Teamwork isnt going to do anything for you when the tech gap is that wide.

[Resident NATO Freedom Enjoyer]

Meh, skill based matchmaking wouldn't be a good idea because I can 'deskill' someone with the plethora of meme/broken vehicles that can mist people. Tiger 1 pro drilling your team a new one? Just use something with HE and hit him anywhere. Like the M109 that every nation has now.

CAS player drilling your team a new one? Use one of the many ridiculously strong SPAA, like the R3 in Italy, the Wirbelwind in Germany, the any tank with a .50 cal of the Americans, half the soviet tree, etc.

Really you may not struggle with these things, or maybe you do, but skill can always be countered with cheese or unavoidable deaths. Yeah that Maus may be able to soak up all your solid shot, but introduce them to HEAT or if you play arcade, a 38cm Sturmtiger if you own it. You can counter anything with enough patience and practice. Skill begets skill.

[Ulvhamne]

Originally posted by Resident NATO Freedom Enjoyer:

Meh, skill based matchmaking wouldn't be a good idea because I can 'deskill' someone with the plethora of meme/broken vehicles that can mist people. Tiger 1 pro drilling your team a new one? Just use something with HE and hit him anywhere. Like the M109 that every nation has now.

CAS player drilling your team a new one? Use one of the many ridiculously strong SPAA, like the R3 in Italy, the Wirbelwind in Germany, the any tank with a .50 cal of the Americans, half the soviet tree, etc.

Really you may not struggle with these things, or maybe you do, but skill can always be countered with cheese or unavoidable deaths. Yeah that Maus may be able to soak up all your solid shot, but introduce them to HEAT or if you play arcade, a 38cm Sturmtiger if you own it. You can counter anything with enough patience and practice. Skill begets skill.

Depends on how you measure skill. And any measure needs to be either obtuse enough to be ungameable, or very very secret. Because people would game it to go baby seal clubbing.

[Jaes]

Gaijin will never implement a SBMM simply because their matchmaking goal is to have games running as often as possible and have each player spend as little time as possible in queue.

As Redned's good break down points out, SBMM very quickly starts alienating players within whatever the criteria for the SBMM ranges are, usually the best and worst players. This is not a good overall experience for chunks of players and will drive them away.

It would also be antithesis to Gaijin's goal for War Thunder: Be as accessible as possible. War Thunder is not designed to be a hyper competitive ladder ranking game. It's an asymmetrical
lobby game and they don't want it to be anything else.

Gaijin has a separate set up for competitive players through their ranked tournament system if you choose to participate in it.

Originally posted by JetWash:

A long time ago, players that were squaded up, were always guaranteed to be uptiered

This isn't quite correct. The matchmaker would attempt to match a squad of 4 with another squad 4. If you can get a match quicker through an uptier by being uptiered, it would throw you in an uptier. If you could get a match quicker through a downtier, you got downtiered.

My squadron back in the day used to form two full squads and join queue at the same time of opposing nations (when historical battles used to be a thing and it tried to MM based on Nations first followed by Tier/BR depending on what era of WT we talkin about) and we'd almost always get instant queues and fight each other in a lobby. Was pretty fun!

This has largely been eliminated due to the "Auto Join Squad" feature some years ago, especially when they started doing mixed nation lobbies.

[Venom]

The fact that you are in a higher BR does not guarantee that you will immediately get a better enemy. The problem is in the machines and their inclusion in BR. If you don't have a thermal, a laser rangefinder and there are tanks that have these things against you, it's a big disadvantage. Just like airplanes. If you stand with the Mig 23 against the Mig 29SMT or the F16C, which have significantly better weapons and maneuverability, it's nonsense. So the problem is not in the distribution of players, but in the machines that can meet. It will be necessary to adjust the BR lines, or reduce the maximum difference to 0.7, or let the players decide in which maximum difference they want to play. If I want as little as possible, I will logically wait longer for the game and vice versa. At least for the beginning, it could help at least a little.

[-NODER-_Novastorm_]

Playing agaisnt very skilled players can help you to improve your skills.

[JetWash]

Originally posted by Novastorm:

Playing agaisnt very skilled players can help you to improve your skills.

Man, all competitive activities have levels for a reason. Boxing, karate, baseball, chess, football (both). [Insert small town name] Teeball League isn't facing off against the MLB all-star team for the experience.

And your argument works both ways. How is pitting skilled players against noob players building experience for the more skilled player? You're essentially capping the skill ceiling because the veteran players arent being honed against each other as often in the mainsteam matchmaker.

[mogami_99]

Chess is an excellent example of skill based match making. In most tournaments the players are grouped according to rating with every 200 points being a new group. (1000-1200 1300-1500 1600-1800ect) a player rated 200 points higher then opponent is considered twice as good and the win rates with that difference are very high.
The problem putting that system into a game like War Thunder is arriving at the ratings in the first place. Since any single player can play battles from 1.0 to 11.0

[Belgord]

how many times does this need to come up? This game would be unable to judge skill, what is "skill"? Kill death ratio? that can and is smurffed