Match Maker analysis

Android's LQ is far different then. Lopsided matches are the norm. So much so that in the rare instances that matches become even closely even in ranking and/or equipment players notice it immediately at first. I think it's Pixonic's twisted way of teasing players, making them think that they are free for a match or three, before the hammer comes down again and the LQ matching gets back to "normal".

Pixonic told players that if they squad they would not be facing the LQ. Obviously that was a lie for both iOS and Android. In Android's LQ I saw just as much squading going on as out in the Tankers Queue.

Also dropping/leaving/skipping maps is still quite prevalent in Android's LQ. And it's almost a given that it will be squads doing it while trying to find a map that they want to play on. When I dropped in on Spingfield or Yamantau with any teammates that were squading I'd just wait to see if they were going to jump or dump so I would know how hard to play. If they dumped and left the rest of us short I'd kamakazi while shooting at the nearest enemy bots just to get the matches over with quickly.

I run 8 profiles and out of all of them I was surprised to find that my Steel Cat profile provides me my greatest enjoyment and fairest matchings playing the game. More surprising considering its hanger. All Destriers. They're fairly balanced as a bot. Good speed, decent weapons and armor.

The pace of battle in light bots is faster, no trudging around to get into range. Yeah, it takes a while to destroy some bots, but that's just part of the challenge and the fun. Using them properly forces the player to be a real teammate. Because as a light bot pilot you need the protection of other teammates' bots to survive. And they need the light bot pilots to try and get those beacons.

My Steel Cat profile managed a better than 62% win/loss well into player level 29. The recent boycott really put a crimp in that rating when the lower tiers became flooded with even more tankers than usual. Dropped to my lowest of 50% for a couple of days before it let up a bit and I climbed back up to 58%. About where it usually drops just before the seasons end.

But because my win/loss stays above 50% my sense of fairness is satisfied even though my ranking only flutters a little up and down. Steel Cat has touched Gold1 several times but drops back to Silver1 fairly quickly too. But with that better than 50% win/loss rating I never feel frustrated. I'm on the winning side more often than not. Not something to b*tch about.

But I'm also not a player that cares one whit about those ridiculous rankings. My better than 50% win/loss tells me all that I need to know about my own playing ability.
Those rankings do not tell the entire story of a player's abilities obviously. Just look at the number of players in the higher tiers dissatisfied because their win/loss rates are way down in the 30% areas.

But the bigger point is that my Steel Cat profile gets the best matches. Almost always fair even though I do see a few Diamonds-Experts and quite a few hardcore tankers in the matches. I want to get those Destiers to 12/12 just to see what happens, but I'm sorely tempted to switch over to all Stalkers. What would stealth do to my win/loss I wonder.?

None of my other 7 profiles even come close to having the same number of fair matchings that the Steel Cat gets. And I have to wonder why that is. Is it my hanger, or my playing style?

Try a MK2 stalker nearly 110hp and a MK2 jes 130hp

Normal Queue?

That's a tough one, what you need is a proper after match report with all your teams hanger weight along with opposition hanger weight. As you know you the way some people play this game it is possible for a lower hanger to be stronger than a higher league one, difficult to tell from those shots alone.

Here's just another example of the daily grind with Pixonic's wonderful matchmaker. This is the kind of crap all players at every level up to Diamond are experiencing. Beyond that I'm not sure because I've never had that rank on Android. And although I didn't see any tankers in this particular match, they are still prevalent even into Bronze1. These Gold players did absolutely nothing wrong. They were just placed into a match with players that they didn't belong playing with, Bronze and Silver2s.








Now that's just a mild example. With this profile I have been seeing players all the way up to Expert1 in matches with corresponding equipment. My Silver2-3 Steel Cat profile has been facing full Diamond-Expert matches of late. And although a little flattered that the mm thinks I'm that much of a bad「bum-bum」 with just Destriers, I'm not all that thrilled about it. Not one of my profiles are currently in the LQ. I've never seen the mm so messed up before. My biggest complaint has always been the upgrade disparities in matches because of the tanking algorithm. Now it appears that the player pools are so shallow that Pixonic's mm is dragging bottom so to speak just to create matches at all.

Russel

I don't see how you can call the LQ "fair" in any sense. Lower ranked players get excluded from Au and any fair distribution of Ag. Many of those lower ranked players are clueless noobs who are just fodder for the higher ranked players. What enjoyment do you think they are getting out of the game in there? Experience at getting the sh*t beat out of them on a daily basis? Because when faced with such overwhelming opposition your "player experience" quotient get filled up pretty quickly with "frustration points". I know that I wasn't a noob when I got put in there and my equipment was mostly 5-6. But I certainly never once found it "fair" in any way.

Posted the previous match right after playing it. This is essentially back-to-back since it was right after posting that match...





This was all mixed up across the board from level 9-30, Private2-Silver2. "Fair"? I don't see it. My Gold profiles are now consistently seeing Diamonds-Expert3, even a Master once in a while. And I'm still seeing super tankers all around.

I have to wonder if this is how Pixonic is "fixing" the issue of the complaints from players about tankers. Just mix/"fix" the mm so badly that tankers are just no longer noticed. ?

Then I retract my statement as I misunderstood yours.

I certainly don't know anything about your own experience in the LQ or the records you kept. After a month or so in there I became completely uninterested in trying to determine if there was any "balance" by participants. For myself I saw that one side was just as likely to have all Champions while the other had one Champion and a mixed box of Recruits-Diamonds.

Getting stomped day after day after day in the LQ, and having very few opportunities to capture any worthwhile rewards, it becomes very monotonous and extremely frustrating. That was my determination of fair and balanced in the LQ. An even chance for every player in the matches of obtaining Au and Ag. Lesser upgraded players rarely shared in the win rewards, if at all. Many times I was left with a deficit as my bots were hammered out flat just trying to get into range of a 12/12 player.