BUG report: Improve ranked team match making

Age of Empires IV IV - Discussion
1

Version/mode: AOE IV 9.1.404.0, 4v4 team ranked

Summary: The player sorting within ranked team games can be greatly improved

Body:
The player sorting within ranked team games can be greatly improved. It seems like many times the top players end up on team 1 and the bottom half on team 2.

I know match making has nothing to do with rank (MMR), I know it is based on the underlying ELO for the mode (i.e. one for 2v2, one for 3v3 and one for 4v4). I also know that some teams are premade, but even when taking all this under consideration there can be greatly unfair games.

Here is a fresh example from yesterday, a game shown on Twitch from Mokomi, a Team Game streamer: Mokomi's Game – AoE4 World
Twitch - Twitch

In the game shown player 4v4 team ranked ELO at the time of the game:

Team 1: Mokomi (1548), BearFriendly (1293), nannelund (1130) and simbax (1374)

Team 2: Flyan (1150), 厚德载物 (1122), XQC (1183) and Niko (1152)

Mokomi’s team 4v4 average is 1336 ELO vs the opponents 1152 ELO, an almost 200 difference, a very shitty match up imo.

Mokomi was teamed with BearFriendly and Flyan was teamed with 厚德载物.
I know this because I watched the stream and then did research on aoe4world.
The search time was 5.20 before Mokomi found his game.

Obviously game can’t split the two friend groups but regardless the single conq Simbax (1374) should have been on the other team, e.g. switch team with XQC.

I am guessing (1) the game either forgets original ELO when players queue for a long time or (2) game randoms the chosen players/groups within a match, ignoring their ELO or (3) game puts the people who searched the longest in 1 team first, which results in all the high elo ones in one team.

Whatever, the reason, this game goes to show that the algorithm CAN be improved by a simple sort once 8 players are picked, i.e. the single queuing conq should have been on the other team.

Fixing this would mean ALOT for team games, please PRIORITIZE this simple fix.

1 Like
2

I think the real problem here is the player base. It’s widely known that when lasting too much in queue it starts to open the range of search.

This means, if you have 1700 elo and searching for team matchamking, you can end up in matches with people around 1400-1500 elo if just there are not enough people to play.

I think the system of opening the range to search for players must be changed, I am in diamond 1 right now, I had a lost streak of 13 games where I was getting all the time matchmaked against conq 3 premades and I went down from conq 2 to diamond 1, but I still get paired with conq 1- conq 2 guys.

How I am supposed to get to conq again if I am getting against people of my level or better? I don’t know. I suppose because I’m in diamond 1 that I would get more points winning that lossing, and in the end keeping a 50% win rate I would get again to conqueror, but it has nonsense.

3

Sure, I know about the widened search but this is not what my post was about.

Read again, carefully, and look at the 8 players 4v4 elo please. And please note that I am talking about team games only. You will find that the game didn’t do its best placing the 8 players in each team for an even match up. The single queing conq should have been on the other team. So, after chosing 8 players a (re-)sort should be made to make it more even. See what I mean now?

Improving this will surely help, it is so often the algorithm does a shitty job placing single players in team 1 or 2, depending on their elo to make the game as even as possible.

4

Yep I know, and I wasn’t saying you are wrong, just pointing than probably there are other things influencing the matchmaking. And I was also talking about team games.

I also think there isn’t a second sort after the players join the match. The game would just assume that everyone is the same level because of course they are in the same lobby and just shuffling the players random.

I usually play 3v3 or 4v4 with a friend, and we usually encounter this kind of situation. We are diamond 1 and platinum 2, facing for example a conq1, diamond 1 and a platinum 3, whereas in our team there is another platinum for example.

5

I’ve been scratching my head about this for a while too. I have this weird attraction to solo queue 3v3 and 4v4, spontaneous teamwork just feels good, and I see this A LOT. It definitely feels like something that needs to be tuned, when I check aoe4world I don’t see these people playing with each other ever. So it’s been solo queuers and some small groups but the cumulative ELO gap is 300-400 in the worst cases. Got to be the way it sorts players on matchmaking.