Handicap for mismatched wars

One of the biggest problems (I think) with clan wars is the matchmaking system. Obviously, it's not easy to get a perfect matchup every time, and I understand that. We often have to wait for 1-2 hours to find an opponent (25v25). But even worse than taking a long time to find a matchup is getting a matchup that is so uneven that the outcome is virtually certain from the moment we see the opponent. (Yes, sometimes we have beaten overmatched opponents, but it is only possible if they are really bad or don't make their attacks.)

Now I'm seeing more and more gaming the matchup system -- creating either "sleeper" bases (bases that have only built enough buildings to join the clan and who don't participate) or offensive sleepers (bases with few defenses, but troops leveled up on a TH 8 or so, so they are counted as weak by the system but can still make reasonably strong attacks). By the way, I don't fault anybody for doing that, because that seems like the only way to consistently get favorable matchups and thereby keep winning.

I don't know if the matchmaking system is ever or will ever be tweaked, but it seems like if it is, it needs to take account of the concepts above. (One way might be to use a clan's war record in the matchmaking process -- although there are reasons that might not be ideal either.)

My other suggestion, and the reason for this post, is to acknowledge that matchups are uneven and to award the lower clan some sort of handicap. The simplest idea would be just to award some number of stars (probably not more than 5 or 8) to just give a straight-up bonus to the weaker clan. The possible problem with that is that the lower clan would then have a higher possible number of stars. How frustrating would it be to get every possible star (or very near it) and still lose a clan war? That doesn't make sense.

So my idea of a handicap would be to use a sliding handicap of sorts. For example, the handicap could be worth 10% of the stars that the weaker clan does not earn during the war. So in a 25v25 match, if the clan gets 45 stars, they would get a handicap of 3 more stars, so 48 total. If they got 55, then the handicap would push it up to 57. If somehow they got 75, they would still only get 75.

The formula could even be more complicated than that -- where the coefficient for the bonus is a function of the percent of stars the clan earns. It could also be a function of the average values of whatever score they use to rank bases, for example. It may be difficult to determine exactly what handicap makes sense, but if it was implemented on a small scale initially, then it would affect fewer outcomes, and it could gradually be increased until it is balanced.

Presumably, supercell has a lot of data on all these wars, so they could come up with a system, then retroactively see how many war outcomes it would change. Of course, the data would not be perfect because I know some clans or some people don't try their best when they know they're going to lose or especially if they're going to win.

The other idea I had for handicaps-- and I doubt supercell would ever go for it-- would be just to raise and/or lower the levels of the buildings in bases so that they reach an even matchup. For example, if my clan was a lot higher level than the other clan, it could take my inferno towers down to level 2, or it could raise the other clan's archer towers or cannons or whatever until the rankings are more even.

If you got all the way through this, congratulations. I'd be interested to hear if there are any other ways that might be simpler or more efficient, and whether there is any chance supercell would ever implement any type of handicap system.

I still contend that match making is not broken or wrong. There is a +/- for accumulated score which plays into it a bit but more likely what you are seeing is clans that full of strong players and weak players with almost nobody in-between. Clans are using "boot then re-invite" to stack the odds in their favor even when the matchup is perfectly even. An opt-out system will make even match making impossible.

I definitely agree the mismatches suck, but a handicap system will probably just generate more complaints.

I think more weight should go toward matching the top bases. For example, my clan is currently in a mismatched 15v15 war:

Us: 5x TH9, 10x TH8
Them: 2x TH10, 5x TH9, 8x TH8.

From looking at their profiles and troop capabilities, they can attack us top-down and wipe all of our bases off the map. There is NO WAY our top TH9 can take more than 1 star from their TH10s. However, their TH10s will be able to at least 2 star our top TH9s, essentially leaving all of their TH9s to attack all of our TH8s. It'll be like stealing candy from a baby for them. All we can hope is that they have lousy attackers or inactive members - we've won a lot of mismatches that way. Our only losses (we're 56-3-1) were on mismatches like our current one.

Similar example, but in the other direction... I remember a war when we had 3 TH9s and our opponent had only TH8s and lower. They didn't even attempt to attack because it was such a gross mismatch. We won 45-0.

Ideally, our clan should NEVER be matched against a clan with TH10s (even if they are sandbagging with TH7s or lower - bottom bases never matter in a war, they all get 3-starred anyway). An exception could be if it is a rushed TH10 with TH9 (or lower) troops and defenses.

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Originally Posted by iceageg

I still contend that match making is not broken or wrong. There is a +/- for accumulated score which plays into it a bit but more likely what you are seeing is clans that full of strong players and weak players with almost nobody in-between. Clans are using "boot then re-invite" to stack the odds in their favor even when the matchup is perfectly even. An opt-out system will make even match making impossible.

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I don't understand the "+/- for accumulated score." Can you explain what you mean?

And I also don't see what booting and re-inviting will do. You mean basically just kicking people out that they don't want in wars? Then you're still left with whatever bases that get put into the matchmaking system -- where I think the break down is.

My point is that clearly there is some range of clans that you can get matched up with. We've been on both ends --where we have basically no chance or the other clan has no chance. Either way, it sucks. But they obviously use some numbers to compare the two clans, so they have some kind of basis they could use for a handicap system. I know it's way too optimistic of me to think Supercell would ever buy into it, but I think they need to if they want the game (or at least clan wars) to stay popular.

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Originally Posted by ElBen

I also don't see what booting and re-inviting will do. You mean basically just kicking people out that they don't want in wars? Then you're still left with whatever bases that get put into the matchmaking system -- where I think the break down is.

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This is an exploit that works because the clan's score is determined when the search begins, but them players are seeded once the match is made. So, suppose I have a 30 base clan, with 5 TH 10's. If I boot the TH 10's and start the search, the strength of those bases won't be factored into the matchmaking. But if they rejoin the clan before the search is complete, they'll still be eligible to participate in the war. An easy fix to this is to only allow bases that were in the clan when the search began to be eligible. SC will probably fix this soon (I hope).

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Originally Posted by paddyflynn

This is an exploit that works because the clan's score is determined when the search begins, but them players are seeded once the match is made. So, suppose I have a 30 base clan, with 5 TH 10's. If I boot the TH 10's and start the search, the strength of those bases won't be factored into the matchmaking. But if they rejoin the clan before the search is complete, they'll still be eligible to participate in the war. An easy fix to this is to only allow bases that were in the clan when the search began to be eligible. SC will probably fix this soon (I hope).

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Er what.. Not true. The roster is fixed as soon as you hit "search" button. Whoever eligible members werw in clan at the time of search was done are the only one that will be chosen regardless of who you booted afterwards or who joined you before search finished. Not sure where you are getting this from.

We always kick people who don't want to war for that war and start search , they come back right after 2-5 mins. And search completes after 20-30 mins. No one was ever added to war even when they joined back while search was going on

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Originally Posted by ElBen

I don't understand the "+/- for accumulated score." Can you explain what you mean?. . .

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Sure can. Lets say your clan has a total added strength of 1000 super-points. Ideally you would get matched up against another clan with a calculated strength of exactly 1000 super-points. The problem is it would probably take a long time to find a perfect match, so SC undoubtedly has a +/- allowable range for match making. So if you have 1000 super-points you could be matched up against any clan with say 900-1100 super-points (+100/-100 of your score). This would ensure MUCH faster match making while the clans would still be pretty close to the same strength.

Keep in mind that SC has never made any of the actual numbers public so I don't know what the actual +/- range is, what equation is used to calculate it, or even what they call the score. I simply made up "super-points" so I would have something to call them. What we do know is that they add up the level of your defenses and troop levels and assign each player a score, then add those scores together to get the total super-point rating of the clan.

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Originally Posted by ElBen

. . . And I also don't see what booting and re-inviting will do. You mean basically just kicking people out that they don't want in wars? Then you're still left with whatever bases that get put into the matchmaking system -- where I think the break down is.

My point is that clearly there is some range of clans that you can get matched up with. We've been on both ends --where we have basically no chance or the other clan has no chance. Either way, it sucks. But they obviously use some numbers to compare the two clans, so they have some kind of basis they could use for a handicap system. I know it's way too optimistic of me to think Supercell would ever buy into it, but I think they need to if they want the game (or at least clan wars) to stay popular.

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I dug this up from another thread I responded to a couple of weeks ago. It explains how people use boot/reinvite to stack a war in their favor. On the surface it looks like a mismatch but the strength of their hand picked special forces team is actually a perfect match for your clan.
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Handicapping players who have put in the work and time so their efforts were in vain is not an idea that SC should entertain. Narrowing the +/- range for match making scores would probably flatten out the way-to-strong and way-to-weak matchups to a certain degree. Much of what is being complained about here is clans intentionally working the system by using drop/boot, then rejoin as a form of opt-out. Here's a brief example . . .

Lets say you are going into a 10v10 war. SC's mystical calculator has assessed your members with the following strength scores. You have a clan leader who is the strongest in your clan and most members joined up and have grown together as a tight knit 10 person clan. Clash on!

Home team
1 = 200
2 = 125
3 = 100
4 = 100
5 = 100
6 = 100
7 = 100
8 = 100
9 = 100
10 = 75
total strength = 1000

The matchmaking system puts you up against another EXACTLY strong match up of a 1000 score clan! Oh your lucky day!!! What you don't know is that this is a 30 person clan who hand selected a special forces unit that does not reflect their clan.

Visiting team:
1 = 150
2 = 150
3 = 150
4 = 150
5 = 150
6 = 150
7 = 25
8 = 25
9 = 25
10 = 25
total = 1000

Assuming that evenly matched bases will average 2 stars against one another, fighting down is usually 3 and fighting up is 1 star we end up with the following results if the attacks are matched up to get the maximum stars

Home team
1 = attacks anybody 1-6, scores 4 new stars.
2 = attacks anybody 1-6, maybe squeezes 1 new star
3 = attacks anybody, scores no new stars
4 = attacks anybody, scores no new stars
5 = attacks anybody, scores no new stars
6 = attacks 1 and 2, scores 2 stars
7 = attacks 3 and 4, scores 2 stars
8 = attacks 5 and 6, scores 2 stars
9 = attacks 7 and 8, scores 6 stars
10 = attacks 9 and 10, scores 6 stars
total = 23 stars

1 = 150 attacks 2 and 3, scores 6 stars
2 = 150 attacks 4 and 5, scores 6 stars
3 = 150 attacks 6 and 7, scores 6 stars
4 = 150 attacks 8 and 9, scores 6 stars
5 = 150 attacks 10 and 1, scores 4 stars
6 = 150 attacks 1 in hopes of getting a second star
7 = 25 farms for loot
8 = 25 farms for loot
9 = 25 farms for loot
10 = 25 farms for loot
total = 28 or 29 stars

This is an even matchup by any standard. One clan just stacked the odds against you to guarantee the win. This clan will also probably donate troops that are stronger than anybody in the war can actually create to aid with their attacks. This is the inevitable result of an open to anybody opt-out system. We are already seeing it. Stack the top and let the bottom get rolled.

Thanks for the explanation, iceageg.

I understand what you're saying about the +/- now. I know that Supercell obviously uses some form of super-points comparison to match clans. So if a clan is matched with another clan that is -100 points from them, Supercell could use that -100 to come up with some way of handicapping the clan that they know they have given an advantage to. That would be the only way to make it fair (without narrowing the +/-range so much that it takes forever to find matchups). Just what kind of handicap is right would take some figuring out, but like I said originally, Supercell should have access to plenty of data that they can play with, and introducing it on a small scale at first would lead to fewer complaints. (There will always be complaints.)

Exploiting the system (which is a separate problem), even though the algorithms are secret, will continue to happen unless matchmaking becomes more sophisticated and thus harder to game. I certainly understand your point about stacking the high end and leaving low bases on the weak end. In fact, I came up with that idea myself, and my clan added a few players that had as few buildings as possible to be able to build a clan castle so they could join. We got some terrible matchups this way -- so bad that they weren't even fun, but now we're down to just a few of those weak bases. To me, I only added a few of those bases to hopefully avoid the most unfair of mismatches. Even with our 3 sleeper bases out of 25, we still get way overmatched from time to time. (Just finished a war against 14 TH 10s and 9s compared to our 8. And that's not the worst.)

One way to deal with this problem would be for supercell to take account of the variation in bases, rather than just using the total score. I hope they are at least considering that, although that could end up with longer matchmaking.

Another way to deal with it would be to incorporate a clan war ranking system that gets factored in. So say some clan composes an elite special force team with a handful of very weak bases, like you said people do. After using this exploit to fix easy matchups, the clan would increase its ranking, which would then match it up against clans that are either more successful or have more super-points, depending on the exact matching process. The unfortunate result of this would be that it would become increasingly difficult for clans to legitimately stay successful, as winning now only increases the chances of losing later. And the best clans that are successful against relatively even matchups will find themselves in unwinnable wars about half the time. (Okay, now that I think that through, this definitely seems like a bad way to go.)

My bottom line is: Clan wars are the only thing keeping me in this game. Other than that, we're basically just playing Farmville. So Supercell needs to do something to make clan wars a good experience more often. (I don't know if it's actually getting worse or if I just happened to hit a rough stretch of wars or if I'm just getting a little tired of managing a clan that doesn't ever stop warring.)

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Originally Posted by iceageg

I still contend that match making is not broken or wrong. There is a +/- for accumulated score which plays into it a bit but more likely what you are seeing is clans that full of strong players and weak players with almost nobody in-between. Clans are using "boot then re-invite" to stack the odds in their favor even when the matchup is perfectly even. An opt-out system will make even match making impossible.

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Boot/re-invite is only (by all but maybe a few) used to allow players to put their real lives first. Its a non factor for clan structuring.

For clan structuring we just have that in place with our steady base of members. And if needed, instead of kicking we just pad the bottom with some nob hoppers we find in global (wonder how hard we have to look to find those) Noob because we want their low level since that's easy to cover when they take off (we make it easy on ourselves by assuming they are going to). And hopper because we really don't want them around anyhow and its nicer when they get their own selves out of the way. So even when these guys ditch us they have already made the contribution we needed from them just by being there during the matching. So adding works better then kicking to balance the clan for war.

As far as your comments on opt in/out - You know from other threads where I stand on that, but I don't want to present my counter arguments here because for the topic the thread is about it is not an issue for or against and I should not hijack it. Please start a new one if you want to discuss that.