Clan War Matchmaking Improvements

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Originally Posted by nstar612

What's your definition of worse matchup? My proposed MM aims to match up every clan based on their players' "current" skill levels. If the players demonstrated their skill levels in previous war, shouldn't MM try to match them with someone equal to their skill levels? Why would that be a punishment?

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Two players with identical max TH8s should have exactly the same war weight
Regardless of the fact that one can three star a weak TH9s and the other can't three star a max TH8 they should be weighted the same.

This cannot happen soon enough.

We did the heinous crime of winning more than 3 wars in a row.

We do a 20v20.

We have 1 TH11 (me) and 3 TH10.
8 TH 9
5 TH 8
the ones at the bottom are TH7.

Our opponent?

2 TH11. Both mostly max troops. But no EA and non-maxed infernos.
5 TH10. The bottom one (in 17th place where we have a TH8) has level 3 hounds. Golems. Baby drags.
7 TH9 etc etc etc.

we have lost before we have begun.

Its lovely for a bunch of bullies who can't fight people of their own level.
Rubbish for a friendly war clan made up of kids and adults who play for fun

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Originally Posted by nstar612

TH level and offense/defense weights alone shouldn't determine a good matchup. 2 extra TH11s might not be much of an advantage if the players in that clan have trouble 3 starring all TH10s. Player's past war performances are much better indicators of a clan's strength. Yes, this would require SC to upgrade their technology if they haven't already looked into machine learning and AI.

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Sounds much easier to manipulate than the current system. Sorry won't work.

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Originally Posted by WiseGuyClasher

Nothing in your statement contradicts anything I said in mine. Regardless of whether your clanmate had fun engineering or not she did it for the effect in war. If it wasn't for war MM she would not have done it. My point was outside of the war effect no one would ever just decide to push or farm building an engineered base. My statement stands, and no, for the most part people all engineer for the same reason.

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Nope. She didn't even tell us she had the defenseless base until she was well into the TH5 stage. She did it to experience a different style of play. I told her to get that village into the clan so she could donate to herself. She then successfully pushed that TH8 into champions league for fun.

I'll trust her word over that of an internet stranger who doesn't even know her.

Edit: do you know that small numbers of defenseless bases existed even before there was such a thing as clan wars?

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Originally Posted by Jesterdeath

This cannot happen soon enough.

We did the heinous crime of winning more than 3 wars in a row.

We do a 20v20.

We have 1 TH11 (me) and 3 TH10.
8 TH 9
5 TH 8
the ones at the bottom are TH7.

Our opponent?

2 TH11. Both mostly max troops. But no EA and non-maxed infernos.
5 TH10. The bottom one (in 17th place where we have a TH8) has level 3 hounds. Golems. Baby drags.
7 TH9 etc etc etc.

we have lost before we have begun.

Its lovely for a bunch of bullies who can't fight people of their own level.
Rubbish for a friendly war clan made up of kids and adults who play for fun

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Your clan is what is sometimes called "roster engineered" you have low TH bases that lower the overall weight
Of course you're getting matched with other engineered clans...
Having such a wide range of TH (11 down to 7) in war is a great way to match against engineered

EDIT: I'll clarify my point
Your clan looks like it is roster engineered, adding lower THs to lower your overall war weight.
That might NOT be why you have the TH7-11 spread in your clan, if you're all friends and family or lower level second accounts, but the mathcmaker doesn't know that. It's looking at the spread of offensive and defensive strengths and getting matches that still aren't fair.

There are clans out there that take this to the absolute extreme:
5 strong TH11s (max or close to it)
5 TH3s (unupgraded)
the top 5 bases get 10 attacks between them so they just have to beat the other teams bases (which usually aren't TH11s)

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Originally Posted by gw2kpro

Roster engineering is no different than base engineering. It's all engineering.

When people complain about engineering -- they're complaining about lineups like yours.

For the record: I don't care that your clan engineers. If SC wants to do something about it, they will.

My opinion is that, just like in real war, if you're not trying to get an edge, you're not trying very hard and are going to lose.

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There are lots of types of engineering. I happen to detest roster engineering, but not account engineering. Why? I don't fault anyone for building their base in the way the mathmaker tells them to. I don't it would be smart to drop a defense that you think the matchmaker overweights to give yourself a disadvantage intentionally. I find that much different than putting low weight bases (whether trash th3s or defenseless) at the bottom of your roster to intentionally face a much weaker opponent. No right or wrong here, it is just my opinion.

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Originally Posted by nstar612

Not sure what would be your top requirement for clan war? If you want competitiveness and even/fair match-ups every time, then wouldn't the win/loss records trends toward 50/50? If you want to room for long win streaks, then you are opening door for someone to manipulate the system. In my proposal, someone can still maintain a winning streak by constantly building new/better war bases and constantly upgrading their skills. But the streak will be challenging as the clan is likely to face tougher and tougher opponents equal to their own skill levels. I agree that a clan's win/loss records shouldn't factor into match-making as it's the "current" players in the war roster that determine a clan's strength. The match-making algorithm needs to looking each player's past war performances.

Every "easy" match-up means it's probably a "mismatch" for another clan. I don't know how else you can keep everyone happy when trying to reach for fairness. Perhaps SC should come out with a league system for clan wars to differentiate competition levels.

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Fair? In my mind fair is both sides have as close as possible the same useful offensive and defensive power. The outcome then depends on the skill of the attacking and designing. The more skilled clan wins. That is the only system that makes sense to me in a game where the only war success marker is a win/loss record. As I have said before, I hate that the matchmaker takes into account recent war success at all. The idea that all clans would be close to 50/50 war records no matter their skill to me sounds like a good way to kill wars. People would quit. It wouldn't be fun. Some clan of kids spamming troops has the same record as my clan? No thanks.

Now, throw all of that out if there is a clan war trophy system. THEN the war success is all geared toward how high you can get your trophies. As you move up the trophy ladder, your opponents will get tougher. That makes sense.

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Originally Posted by nstar612

Definitely the latter. Yes, if you are the top clan with the most skilled players, then it would be most difficult to find a fair matchup for you under any MM system. But for most clans that sits in the middle of the skill range, this shouldn't be a problem. I have also heard people say they wouldn't mind longer search time for a better matchup. Even, if top TH10 clan gets matched with a few TH11s and lost, the AI would be adjusted in real-time to determine a cap on the player's capabilities based on that war result.

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You are using the word "fair" as though it is unfair for a skilled clan to match a clan that puts no thought into their attacks. That is not unfair. The clan putting no thought into their attacks deserves to lose. It is a competition. As I've said before, I don't like participation awards either.

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Originally Posted by nstar612

TH level and offense/defense weights alone shouldn't determine a good matchup. 2 extra TH11s might not be much of an advantage if the players in that clan have trouble 3 starring all TH10s. Player's past war performances are much better indicators of a clan's strength. Yes, this would require SC to upgrade their technology if they haven't already looked into machine learning and AI.

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I disagree completely for the reasons noted above, unless, again, we have war trophies. Including your trophy level in the matchmaker as a factor would make perfect sense to me.

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Originally Posted by nstar612

TH level and offense/defense weights alone shouldn't determine a good matchup. 2 extra TH11s might not be much of an advantage if the players in that clan have trouble 3 starring all TH10s. Player's past war performances are much better indicators of a clan's strength. Yes, this would require SC to upgrade their technology if they haven't already looked into machine learning and AI.

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The goal of war matchmaking isn't that all clans should win 50% of your wars.
If a clan is full of <insertnamehere> who can't raid, maybe they just deserve to lose more than half of their wars.

The ONLY fair way to match clans is based on the combination of their Defensive and Offensive Strengths.
Effectively penalizing a clan because they have good raids isn't either fair OR a good idea.

Seeing is believing.

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Originally Posted by PhilISuppose

Your clan is what is sometimes called "roster engineered" you have low TH bases that lower the overall weight
Of course you're getting matched with other engineered clans...
Having such a wide range of TH (11 down to 7) in war is a great way to match against engineered

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I think that's problem several of us have with Engineering. It isn't about having a maxer mentality. It's about having a fair match for the whole clan without leaving anybody out.

So the solution has been not to allow lower TH8 & TH7 in because that makes us "roster engineered" and will draw engineers that bully them around?

How is any casual clan that has fun warring supposed to get a fair and fun match? Tell the kids or new guys, "No you can't war because we'll draw bullies" ? How are any of the low guys supposed to learn?

The MM should be smarter than that. We know the old algorithm isn't. So lets hope the new one is.

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Originally Posted by GrapeApeAffe

I think that's problem several of us have with Engineering. It isn't about having a maxer mentality. It's about having a fair match for the whole clan without leaving anybody out.

So the solution has been not to allow lower TH8 & TH7 in because that makes us "roster engineered" and will draw engineers that bully them around?

How is any casual clan that has fun warring supposed to get a fair and fun match? Tell the kids or new guys, "No you can't war because we'll draw bullies" ? How are any of the low guys supposed to learn?

The MM should be smarter than that. We know the old algorithm isn't. So lets hope the new one is.

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I absolutely agree that the match maker should be smarter than that
Unfortunately it isn't at the moment

I have high hopes for the work they have been putting in

I'm a max TH11 so not sure there's a lot there that will effect me, but my clan does have a mix down to some 8.5s and a defenseless TH11 so we're sure to see some change here to matchmaking
If wars get fairer we might see more people want to war, which would be nice

I have a clanmate (been here for ages, great guy, good donations) who has 7 war stars since wars just aren't his thing.

Most people would agree that while Matchmaking isn't great at the moment, it's probably better than it has been. Most "bad" match ups are explainable now at least.