Possible changes to the matchmaker

[Yachi]

Eh, so what's to prevent all the BH1's hiding from your big, bad BH2 until they've upgraded? You have managed to defeat your own argument in a single paragraph.

I knew someone would challenge this, that's why I added that this is a rough idea of how it works, or in other words, hypothetically speaking, which you so conveniently took out from the quote. The new game mode could start at a higher level, maybe say, BTH5 and upwards. That's where you go past the safety zone and into the area of no protection. You start facing BTH levels higher than your own in ladder. That's when you can opt for the additional game mode and progress there.

[Tomville]

This is getting ridiculous. You’ve pushed this “broken matchmaker” line many a time Yachi, each time unconvincingly. Fundamentally the truth is not that it is broken, but rather than that you don’t like it and think SC should be doing something completely different instead. Well guess what? They aren’t. They’re running with this matchmaker.

This matchmaker only lets one rise as high as one is strong enough to maintain at, taking one to the natural equilibrium point of a 50:50 win rate. Some of what factors in that equilibrium point is not really within the player’s control (point of progression on both offence and defence development) whereas many other factors are within the players control (attack skill, base design, what you choose to upgrade in what order, whether and how much you rush etc) but those factors are necessarily in the context of overall development. If people want something different to that, then they need to look to some other game to find it.

I have yet to see any reason in all what you say to agree it’s actually broken, as opposed to unappealing to you.

[SilverX]

Yeah it's ridiculous.
Winning losing ratio of 50:50 is what any PVP system would like to have and achieve, it is totally okay. There is no legit reason to suggest it is broken and need a change.

I am not sure about winning losing ratio of 50:50 being a grind and people don't like that.
But it doesn't really improve the system if the changes will affect the winning losing ratio to 70:30 or 80:20. That's just make it more grinding for some people who would now have winning losing ratio of 30:70 or 20:80.

Also this game can't reward skillful players alone, it needs to reward progress too for this game to work. Does it make sense for the less skilled players to be on the lowest trophy range no matter how much progress/effort/time/money they put in? Why would they play anyway if they will never win against more skilled players?

[Yachi]

I agree that it is getting ridiculous, because the pro matchmaking crowd is so hell-bent that it is fine the way it is, no amount of reasoning will get through. I'll stop here. Even as we speak, another fresh spawn has started yet another thread about fair matchmaking. We are just going nowhere. I will not reply to this thread anymore. You have a good weekend.

[SilverX]

I agree that it is getting ridiculous, because the pro matchmaking crowd is so hell-bent that it is fine the way it is, no amount of reasoning will get through. I'll stop here. Even as we speak, another fresh spawn has started yet another thread about fair matchmaking. We are just going nowhere. I will not reply to this thread anymore. You have a good weekend.

You said it yourself man, we are the pro matchmaking crowd.

And you? Fresh spawn mascot? lol
Because you hold those fresh spawns complaints like some big thing and no legit reasoning will get through your fail reasoning....

Like I said previously, you will always have enough fresh spawns to propose for this change you wanted, that's really great amount of people asking for a change, assuming they are not one time poster. I will certainly wait for it....

[Kaledonian]

I agree that it is getting ridiculous, because the pro matchmaking crowd is so hell-bent that it is fine the way it is, no amount of reasoning will get through. I'll stop here. Even as we speak, another fresh spawn has started yet another thread about fair matchmaking. We are just going nowhere. I will not reply to this thread anymore. You have a good weekend.

Have a good weekend too.

Sorry Yachi, but your "reasoning" just isn't there.

As I see it, just my opinion mind, you want to transpose a system from a game with a completely different mechanic. I know very little about CR, but from what I do know it's a glorified card game, played out in fixed arenas. It may have its merits in that game environment, but BB has the extra factors of troop deployment & base design. I just don't see the fit.

I suppose we'll just have to agree to disagree.

Clash on.

[Noctaire]

If you noticed, I never mentioned anything about CR 2v2 matchmaking being fair. There are still mismatches. But the frustration is minimal, because you can have a counter deck to the higher lvl opponents. You can even beat them with ease. Same like 1v1 ladder. So the system is more balanced. Also, without involving trophies, you stay where you are at your arena. You continue to reap the same rewards awarded at that arena, yet you have the opportunity to continue to progress as you win 2v2 matches because you gain loot.

Your words, in describing the CR 2v2 mode:

”This can be applied to BB. Fair match ups, no trophy involvement, just win lose and loot gain.”

That aside...on the BB, a similar mechanism exists within the matchmaking system design - offense is typically stronger (if the player understands how to advance) so, when you face a stronger opponent, you have an offense capable of winning at the 50:50 ratio that is expected (and the same for most players). This provides the same balance and you continue to progress just like everyone else. Likewise, stronger players do not stay at the lower levels very long; they quickly ascend the ladder. An occasional mismatch may occur, but it is infrequent that a player mismatches on multiple pillars.

When I mentioned CR's 2v2 mode, it wasn't meant to say that BB should have a 2v2 mode. It was just used as a reference that if an additional game mode is possible for a game that has a similar ladder system to BB, it certainly is possible for BB. This additional mode can be said as a casual mode. You face same BTH lvl opponents, no trophies involved, just duke it out 1v1, winner gets loot, loser gets nothing, winner gets to progress.

Then...what you’re saying here is that you want to be able to win more and progress faster, and that you think there should be a faster way to do so but have no viable suggestions on how it could be done.

This is the ongoing issue with this truly endless debate. Critics of the existing matchmaking system, first and foremost, want more ways to gather resources and progress more quickly in the game. That’s not unreasonable (to a point) and SC has provided that in the form of the collectors, events (like Battlefest), and Clan Games (Runes, Potions, Books). This is not enough, though - so, some as yet undefinable, parallel play mode is wanted.

We’ve been back and forth for nearly a year now on this topic and so far, no one - not one - has offered up a system or solution that would fulfill this desire. In that time, we’ve seen a few events and the introduction of Clan Games - both of which have been criticized by some of the same players and both of which move things along faster...just not fast enough for these players.

In order for this game to survive long term, there needs to be a balance between the business side and the player side. SC has been regularly tweaking that balance - to the expense of potential profit - to find where it evens out. We will never see a truly parallel playing mode - even 2v2 in CR does not fit that description - because it doesn’t make sense. Additional mechanisms for earning loot...I definitely think we’ll see more of that, but not at the expense of the regular game.

What I think the BB is lacking, is a form of single player mode - like the Goblin maps on the other side of the game, or the NPC bases in Boom Beach. An NPC mode would provide a boost to resource gathering, perhaps just early on. Likewise, something like the MegaCrab in Boom Beach would work well here too- again, an NPC minigame that boosts resource collection which, in turn, enables a player to progress more quickly.

You can progress just the same even if you play only on 2v2 mode. That's the beauty of having it.

I find that difficult to believe, especially since you can’t earn trophies in 2v2 and trophies are tied to advancement in the game.

[themariofan]

In this new mode, you don't have to win / lose 50% of the time, because it isn't a self regulating system. Same level match making, no trophies involved, what's there to regulate? You can win all the time if you are good, you don't have to be forced to lose, or play 6 games just to win 3. That takes away the frustration, brings back the fun.

Except PvP games, by the very fact that every single winner is paired with a corresponding loser, need a 50/50 win rate to be stable, because that's the only rate mathematically possible. If you (plural) have an 80:20 win ratio in this new mode, it means a number of other people have a 20:80 win ratio, a frustrating grind, so they jump back to ladder. You're then stuck with the people who had the 80:20 ratio and winning 50% of the time ANYWAY. The simple fact that this is a PvP mode makes 50/50 win rates unavoidable.

[Noctaire]

FWIW, I really think the 50:50 win:loss ratio would be more acceptable to these players if it wasn’t so heavily tied to progression in the game. This is the issue with the way the BB is designed - the daily loot cap represents an artificial limiter to progress. On the surface, thing loot and progression together and limiting daily loot to slow progression makes sense; in practice, it makes progress glacial compared to other games. From the business angle, you want players to become impatient and spend money; however, if it takes too long, your playerbase will suffer as players won’t be willing to bother.

In short, players just aren’t willing to progress as slowly as SC’s freemium model wants, nor are they willing to pony up in the amounts required to advance more quickly. Like I said - SC has to find the right balance between business and gameplay. I think it’s close, but still needs a little tweaking.

If SC were to introduce an NPC component to the BB, I think that would ease the pain substantially. There just needs to be some way to get more resources outside the existing PvP. Similar to what Clan Games has done to rejuvenate HV play, such a device would inject new life into the BB. TBH, I don’t know why SC did not introduce something like Clan Games to the HV sooner - it’s made a world of difference to the game. CGs are focused on the HV, though, and providing the occasional Rune isn’t enough for it to be a solution for the angst on the BB.

[groteoliebol]

You are very right that this needs to be implemented, simply because it should never be possible for a worse player to get an easy matchup just because he is in a weak trophy radius. Matchups need to consider bases over trophies in my opinion, or at least try to give players an equal BH battle. The only place where this can be annoying is at the bottom, as attacking and base building is pretty limited there. The way to fix this is to give every BH level a max trophy count. This will mean that no matter how good you are at winning at your current level, you will have to upgrade your BH to go up in trophies. Making these changes will get the following done:

A) more intense matches: if people with the same BH level and a near equal amount of trophies fight, there will most likely be a lot of intense battles, which is more fun, and allows people to appreciate there victories way more.(say for yourself, if you win with a 2star 60% against a 2star 57% that feels way cooler than beatinf a 29% 0star)

B) rushing finally can be punished: rushing(for those who don’t know: upgrading your builder hall before maxing your stuff) is not a good thing in clash of clans, but it goes relatively unpunished in builder base. The changes listed above will change that (since a BH6 with BH4 stuff will now usually encounter at the very least a BH5, more than likely with at least BH4 stuff), so that BH6 will finally have some issues due to him rushing his builder hall. Promoting maxing out before upgrading your builder hall, although not a main idea, is definitely a positive side effect.

C) even though these changes will shake up a lot of things, the core principles of builder base will remain the same and there will not be any exploits. You still have to attack to get resources, build up your base, upgrade your forces, and you will gain trophies based on skill, gain more loot based on trophies, and gain better troops and defences with those resources, all the while having fun and gaining mroe experiece, but now with the fighting part being more balanced from the start. Some people may see the danger of not upgrading your BH after you max out to give you good matchups and going up a builder hall level being bad for you, however please keep in mind the matchmaker will TRY to match you with your corresponding BH. There will be plenty of occasions where players are fighting up or down a single BH level if there are no equal matchups available. After all, you shouldn’t have to wait more than 5 seconds to find a match. The mismatches caused by this can indeed cost you some trophies at the beginning but remember that you have to upgrade your BH or else you will never be able to go above a certain amount of trophies, and then once your defences and troops are upgraded you can grow bigger than you have ever been.

Clearly the shakeup these changes will bring can improve the builder base. You, my friend, are very right something needs to be done, and this may be what we can do. If you think this would mess up a big part of builder base let me know, and I will see if there is a solution it. I have thought hard about this, but a couple million minds are probably better at thinking about it than just my little one, so definitely let me know!

My sincerest apologies for the long story, thank you very much for sticking around until the end.