PvP Medals and Matchmaking Feedback Thread

[VegaMist]

Only managed to get one warzone after almost an hour wait. And then one of the teammates left almost as soon as the battle started (assuming disconnected) and we didn't get another one until about 70% in. We lost. Got 7 medals as a tank. Could have gotten more if I just stayed on our only turret with other few already there (it was no longer being attacked), but decided to go with one more player to try and steal enemy turret instead. Ended up being heavily outnumbered, so our effort failed but at least we tried. Unfortunately, there are no medals for trying. Can't speak much for matchmaking since we were happy just to get a pop. Perhaps, better team balancing might have helped - the other team seriously out-dpsed us.

Edited February 17, 2023 by VegaMist

[Crystal_Mind]

Alderaan Warzone Map:

• Is it easier to obtain Attacker and Defender points?
  Yes
• Do you feel like you can earn 8 medals even if you do not win matches?
  Unless the match is completely lopsided, I'm confident I can get 8 medals on Alderaan as a pure dps. I didn't test heal or tank.
• How many medals did you earn per match per win/loss?
  I queued as sniper and ended up with 12 medals. This was a match where I rotated between mid and the east turret and got several kills. Of note--this wasn't a particularly competitive match. The enemy team largely allowed me to freecast on them.

ETA: The endgame leaderboard was sorting very oddly after my PTS match. It took several attempts to sort by any category, and if I moved my mouse it would sometimes resort the players on its own.

General PvP matches:

• Were matchups fair?
  N/A -- Sample size too small to determine.
• If you participated in a match, please describe the makeup of your group and the group you were paired against.
  I queued in on engineering sniper with a friend on lethality operative. We had a juggernaut and I think a merc on our team as well? No one else on our team really stood out to me. The enemy team had a lethality operative, an AP PT, a heal sorc, a carnage mara, and an infiltration shadow who all made a good effort with regard to rotating between nodes.
• Feel free to leave general feedback of your experience with matchmaking.
  N/A -- sample size too small. I will say that my friend and I were paired to see if we would get a longer queue time, but it seemed like everyone was complaining about long queue times, so it's hard to say if we were actually skipped or not. Queue time didn't seem terrible.

Edited February 17, 2023 by Crystal_Mind
leaderboard bug note

[Chryptyk]

@JackieKo i got a 5v6 the other day on PTS.  on live, i only get 8v8, unless people quit en masse, and then we get the warning about the match will be ended unless more people join.  is the lower threshold to make a queue pop exclusive to the PTS (since there is a lower population there), or is it something that will be implemented to live?

Edited February 17, 2023 by Chryptyk

[sjoggan]

Alderaan Warzone Map:

• Is it easier to obtain Attacker and Defender points?
  • Yes
• Do you feel like you can earn 8 medals even if you do not win matches?
  • Unclear, only had wins
• How many medals did you earn per match per win/loss?
  • Around 13 per win (Capping one turret and then fighting/getting kills at our turrets)

General PvP matches:

• Were matchups fair?
  • Sample size too small to tell for sure, but generally it seemed that both teams had a mix of Tank, Heals & DPS
• If you participated in a match, please describe the makeup of your group and the group you were paired against.
  • Both teams had mix of Tank, Heals & DPS
• Feel free to leave general feedback of your experience with matchmaking.
  • N/A Sample size too small

 

Edited February 17, 2023 by sjoggan

[Ramalina]

On 2/9/2023 at 11:19 PM, TrixxieTriss said:

You either need to close the algorithmic loop hole that allows premades to go against non-premades if they are having slow pop times OR you need to split the queues. Those are the only 2 options if you want the matchmaking to have any chance of working properly & you want solo players to continue playing pvp.

Actually, there's a step that could help massively if they implemented it.   Call it a sanity check step.

 

If you pick 16 players queued in a fluctuating queue of many more than that, and the initial matchmaker picking algorithm (what's live now) take 2 groups of 4 and 8 solo players, what is the expected outcome?

 

Well if the player data indicates that one of the groups of 4 are all really weak players, and 3 of the solo players are really excellent, maybe you get a 4 + 4 vs 8 solo match.  

 

What the SWTOR matchmaker likes to do is in the case where it's 2 groups of 4 strong players and 8 weak solo players, is due to whatever the priority system is for picking from the queue, end up putting both strong groups against the 8 weak players.   Then the match is started.  If there were a sanity check step, you'd catch that with this same selection of players, you could have a much more balanced match by putting the two groups on opposite teams instead of the same team.   The lack of a "check your calculations" step creates a higher rate of obviously avoidable poorly balanced matches.  I find this style of "could have had the same players but so much better balanced," match much more grating than lopsided matches that are just a byproduct of a sparse queue.   In a sparse queue, sometimes no algorithm will do much for balance.  When the algorithm just does a bad job of sorting, when a much better sort is clearly available, that's annoying.

[mrgoo]

On 2/9/2023 at 7:16 AM, JackieKo said:

Be sure to read this post first before jumping onto the PTS and submitting feedback in this thread! 

Alderaan Warzone Map:

• Is it easier to obtain Attacker and Defender points?
  
  It felt like it was esier yeah
   
• Do you feel like you can earn 8 medals even if you do not win matches?
  
  We didn't win and I killed 10 and got 10 medals and showed up late too so yeah, I think 8 is doable.
   
• How many medals did you earn per match per win/loss?
  
  8 to 10

General PvP matches:

• Were matchups fair?
  
  It was really close and i qued in mid match so yeah I suppose.
   
• If you participated in a match, please describe the makeup of your group and the group you were paired against.
  
  I was Lethality focused on hit and runs. My team had a Merc and a sniper and sorc they had an Operative, Jugg, Trooper and Sorc I think? Didnt catch it all.
   
• Feel free to leave general feedback of your experience with matchmaking.
  
  I felt more of a need to rotate then stand in 1 place and defense or attack. I wanted to be where the action was at to see how points came in I liked seeing the combatent points they seemed to come in easier. Maybe that is not new and just the more agressive play style I had? Not sure.

Please only leave feedback if you participated in a PvP match. 

EDIT: Added additional medals feedback question. 

@JackieKo

Edited February 17, 2023 by mrgoo
adding @mention

[TrixxieTriss]

1 hour ago, Ramalina said:

Actually, there's a step that could help massively if they implemented it.   Call it a sanity check step.

 

If you pick 16 players queued in a fluctuating queue of many more than that, and the initial matchmaker picking algorithm (what's live now) take 2 groups of 4 and 8 solo players, what is the expected outcome?

 

Well if the player data indicates that one of the groups of 4 are all really weak players, and 3 of the solo players are really excellent, maybe you get a 4 + 4 vs 8 solo match.  

 

What the SWTOR matchmaker likes to do is in the case where it's 2 groups of 4 strong players and 8 weak solo players, is due to whatever the priority system is for picking from the queue, end up putting both strong groups against the 8 weak players.   Then the match is started.  If there were a sanity check step, you'd catch that with this same selection of players, you could have a much more balanced match by putting the two groups on opposite teams instead of the same team.   The lack of a "check your calculations" step creates a higher rate of obviously avoidable poorly balanced matches.  I find this style of "could have had the same players but so much better balanced," match much more grating than lopsided matches that are just a byproduct of a sparse queue.   In a sparse queue, sometimes no algorithm will do much for balance.  When the algorithm just does a bad job of sorting, when a much better sort is clearly available, that's annoying.

The issue is BioWare can’t get the matchmaking algorithm to work with solo & premade players in the same queue. How do you balance solo skills against group skills, voice comms & trinity built groups? It’s not really quantifiable in numbers, which is what an algorithm need to work properly. Sadly, a sanity clause in an algorithm isn’t feasible if you can’t convert all the variables to quantifiable numbers, including sanity.

The only logical response is to split the solo players & group players into seperate queues. Then the matchmaking algorithm will have a better chance of working properly. And it would be easier for BioWare to tweak them specifically for each queue. 

[Ramalina]

2 hours ago, TrixxieTriss said:

 Sadly, a sanity clause in an algorithm isn’t feasible if you can’t convert all the variables to quantifiable numbers, including sanity.

It is doable, and easily doable.  There exists a weighting system.  There exists a sorting algorithm that sorts into teams mathematically with the goal of having team weights as close to equal as possible.   The problem is that by doing the sort as a set of "blind" steps from a constantly changing input set, a correct sort at step n, can turn into an incorrect sort on step n+1 because the inputs changed between steps.   I'm saying that after step where the sum of the number of players =16, take that set of player groups and resort.   That way if something changed at step n+1 that turned step n into a bad choice by the algorithm's standards, it gets to redo the sort.

 

It doesn't make the sorting algorithm better, it just catches mismatches that are bad by the sorting algorithm's own standards.  It's a sort of error checking.  

The drawback is that you can't start loading in until at least 16 players have clicked accept, because to do it you have to freeze the input list before teams are finalized.

[KyraMalakai]

Alderaan Warzone Map:

•     Is it easier to obtain Attacker and Defender points?

Can't really say, I never played pvp before so I don't have anything to compare to.

•     Do you feel like you can earn 8 medals even if you do not win matches?

Yes, of the matches I played lost one and got 9 medals.

•     How many medals did you earn per match per win/loss?

Did 6 matches, first one I lost and got 9 medals, the wins had 8/13/13/11/10.

General PvP matches:

•     Were matchups fair?

It appeared balanced most of the matches were close but the sample wasn't very large.

•     If you participated in a match, please describe the makeup of your group and the group you were paired against.

Of the 6 matches only one didn't had healer the other matches did, the enemy team had a similiar composition.
 

•     Feel free to leave general feedback of your experience with matchmaking.

The matchmaking looked balanced but a healer in every match is a must.

[bakapaado]

Alderaan Warzone Map:

• Is it easier to obtain Attacker and Defender points?
  Didn't notice difference.
• Do you feel like you can earn 8 medals even if you do not win matches?
  No.
• How many medals did you earn per match per win/loss?
  Top was 7 in lost matches, didn't score a single win (played 8 matches in total on different accounts).

General PvP matches:

• Were matchups fair?
  In terms of class setup, looks fine. In terms of players skill setup, is disaster.
• If you participated in a match, please describe the makeup of your group and the group you were paired against.
  As above.
• Feel free to leave general feedback of your experience with matchmaking.
  Takes a lot of time (but this is most likely fault of low number of players on PTS when I was playing) and have tendency to put weak pvp players (like myself) in one team against top pvp players in another.

Edited February 24, 2023 by bakapaado
Small fix

[kekrot]

Question: Since full PvP point rewards and the Medalist conquest objectives now will only require 7 medals, are you scaling the Valor gains as well? Will 7 or more medals now award the same amount as 8 medals currently do, or will our valor per match have a lower cap? (I really hope we get at least as much as we could before but I would like Bioware to double check this!)