Other Rift Score(And Matchmaking I Guess)

[jamar]

The 3.2 matchmaking changes are here, and at level 61 Silver 2, they've been fairly positive for me. Not perfect, but I can almost always clear my opponent's map. You know, unless they have Futile Resistance and Darknut on the armor node. However, while matchmaking now includes collection strength in it's metrics, the rift rating gained/lost by playing does not. As a result, some matches that were originally competitive now have uneven incentives for winning. I'll file that under "ladder anxiety".
I've added some screenshots from post-3.2.
For example, in my matchup with user blackjackfkfkfkfkfk, my level was almost identical to theirs, and our collections were probably evenly matched, but because my Rift Rating was over 100 points higher, I would only gain 10RR for winning, but I would drop 20RR for losing.

 

[vucaar]

Yeah, it's kind of outrageous to watch that kind of penalty by losing having a similar collection and strength. I can't share the feeling of top and best players complaining that they want more "diversity" in rift battles, they won't forgive me, but they are on other level now, they shouldn't expect matches with people that would be so weak for them, they are in a "club" now due to their work and strength and they must fight with that people to have fair and matches with equal conditions.

I think developers would reduce the penalty by losing any match on rift battles. I am not bothered by winning 7 or 8 points, but losing 22 is enough. It's curious but before the matchmaking change, most of community complained about unfair matches and top players didn't say anything, didn't see from them a support. Now that top people complain about matchmaking, most of the community would complain about catalysts but not because they face so strong enemies, or have unfair matches if we talk about strength, matchmaking is not perfect but it improved, I can say that.

 

[viperbite]

I agree. Though getting 7-8 point matches arguably mean easy wins, I sometimes struggle with my opponents' boss nodes if they have fighters that I can't counter, so that easy win turns into a devastating loss. A -22 loss really hurts, so I definitely feel a lot of pressure when playing rift knowing that I will usually get matched with G2-D4. However, I also feel that with my collection, I don't deserve to be in D2 when there are much stronger D4s out there.

 

[jamar]

I'm fine with the penalty being high as long as it's warranted. If someone loses an unfair rift that was tilted in their favor, it makes sense to punish them more. But if you lose an even rift and get punished the same, then we have a problem.

 

[jamar]

Boosting because this happens often.

 

[Lulero]

As I understand and experience it, the main issue is that rift rating is supposed to both reflect your skills and ensure players do play enough to claim better rewards. And in my view, it fails at both. I'd love to see a more accurate estimation of the players skill, with no rewards attached. Quantity of goodies earned could be based on activeness, and quality on player level or similar.

Text you can and should probably skip (you already know all this, I'm just connecting the dots for myself and sharing):

All rifts below D2 are always "fair" regarding collection strength. As in within 20% of each others. Since collection strength is the sum of your top 20 FS, 20% means twice your average FS in that top 20, which can still be a pretty big difference though. Rift rating win and loss are solely based on respective ratings.

Point is, from a design viewpoint, players are assumed to always be equally matched regarding their collections. Thus if players have different rating, it is assumed to be from a difference in skills. And if both players are properly rated you can estimate the odds of one or the other winning. Meaning that when you got matched against blackjackfkfkfkfkfk you were a 20 to 10 favorite.

On another hand, the system makes damn sure you can't just be a good player and claim high tier rewards, you also have to be active. And rift rating serves this purpose too.

As consequence a lot of players aren't properly rated. I'm pretty sure it's already a lot better than when 3.2 released though, it takes time to stabilize. That being said, most leagues using a similar rating have ways to adjust newcomer or returning player ratings. What the current system does however, with the decay, is the polar opposite. Thus, I'm a bit pessimistic for the ratings to stabilize and better reflect skills.

 

[Fel]

If you're getting matches with less points for winning than losing, it just indicates that your collection is weak for your rank.

It makes sense for climbing to become more and more difficult if your collection remains a similar strength. Rift battles aren't a match for pure skill, it's also a battle of collection (fighters, moves, catalysts).

Now I think it can be argued that your collection strength, be it fighters or catalysts, is weighted too heavily compared to one's skill.
However, I think that getting these low point-gain matches are understandable and a part of a fair MMR based system. Just because you're getting the short end of the stick doesn't necessarily the system has a flaw.

 

[Lulero]

@Fel

This is all good. But, again, rift rating isn't only designed as a measurement of a player's skills. It also serves the purpose of making sure you played enough to claim the better rewards. Meaning you can also be matched against someone how takes regular breaks, isn't as active, 300 rating under yours (25 to 5) but with about the same skills, catalysts and collection. It's not necessarily a problem, but my guess is doesn't help to stabilize the player pool and increase occurrences off odd looking matches.

 

[jamar]

getting these low point-gain matches are understandable and a part of a fair MMR based system.

How does a fair system punish me more for a mistake than a higher leveled player even if we have equal collections?

 

[Fel]

How does a fair system punish me more for a mistake than a higher leveled player even if we have equal collections?

Level doesn't mean anything in Rifts. It punished you more for a mistake because you had higher points. Your points shows that you are skilled or have more experience than your opponent since you both have a similar collection but you have a higher rank.

 

[jamar]

Level doesn't mean anything in Rifts. It punished you more for a mistake because you had higher points. Your points shows that you are skilled or have more experience than your opponent since you both have a similar collection but you have a higher rank.

Then why does collection strength matter when deciding a match but not when rewarding the winner? Seems counterintuitive.

 

[Fel]

Then why does collection strength matter when deciding a match but not when rewarding the winner? Seems counterintuitive.

Because that way it matches you with a relatively fair fight while also making sure you're not rising rapidly to ranks you don't deserve to be in. People with a stronger collection gets matched with people in higher ranks which leads to earning more points on a win. People with a weaker collection gets matched with people in lower ranks which leads to a harder climb.

 

[jamar]

Because that way it matches you with a relatively fair fight while also making sure you're not rising rapidly to ranks you don't deserve to be in. People with a stronger collection gets matched with people in higher ranks which leads to earning more points on a win. People with a weaker collection gets matched with people in lower ranks which leads to a harder climb.

Then I can conclude that everyone I faced had a strong collection for their rank? If the goal was

making sure you're not rising rapidly to ranks you don't deserve to be in

, two players with even collections should have the same rewards, regardless of rank, and it will even out eventually.

If two players have D1 level fighters, except one is in D1, and the other stopped playing for a while and dropped to rookie, the rookie player will always fight D1 level players (because the collection strength metric prevents them from facing actual rookies), but they WILL shoot up in rank for every match they win. And the D1 player will drop an absurd amount for losing to an even opponent. That was my original problem.

 

[Fel]

Then I can conclude that everyone I faced had a strong collection for their rank? If the goal was
, two players with even collections should have the same rewards, regardless of rank, and it will even out eventually.

If two players have D1 level fighters, except one is in D1, and the other stopped playing for a while and dropped to rookie, the rookie player will always fight D1 level players (because the collection strength metric prevents them from facing actual rookies), but they WILL shoot up in rank for every match they win. And the D1 player will drop an absurd amount for losing to an even opponent. That was my original problem.

The matchmaking system still considers your points to a certain degree. I have never seen anyone be matched more than 2 ranks above or below them. Of course this is anecdotal evidence so if there's anyone who's been matched extremely far apart, it'd be good to see.
Your specific example would never happen since D3, D2 and above get matched based on points and not collection.
Also people who play regularly get more rift coins for more/better catalysts so they have a slight advantage anyways.

 

[Blimeylimey]

I'm just going to dump some disjointed thoughts about this topic here because I don't know where else to put them.

It seems like there are two major parts to the rift battle “fairness” problem:
1) how fair does each individual match feel to both players? (Matchmaking)
2) how fair is the end-of-season reward system? (Ladder)

I think there are 4 major factors that determine a player’s hypothetical “rift strength”: fighter strength, catalysts strength, move strength, and player inputs. "Rift strength" here is a hypothetical quantity that measures likelihood to win against any other player. Player inputs include setting up defense rift map, selection of attackers, and in-fight mechanics. Being strong in one area can lead to a rise in rift rating to the point where the other weaker areas become a liability.

In order for matchmaking to feel fair, both players should feel that there is a “reasonable chance” that either player could win at battle start. It seems that players generally want to feel that player inputs are the major determinant of who wins/loses. Player inputs are the variable that can change the most after a match is found. If the outcome depends too much on the other factors, matchmaking starts to feel like a game of chance.
Something that is difficult here is maintaining the perception that there is a reasonable chance to win. Because there are many ways to be strong, there are many ways to perceive that your opponent outmatches you. The subjective perception of fairness often does not match the "true" fairness of any given match. "True" fairness would match players based on "rift strength." Looking through official forums, discord, and the subreddit, you can find players claiming unfair matchmaking based on differences in rift rating, player level, average fight score, top fight score, catalysts, last season ranking (regardless of current rift rating), and other things. Many of these do not contribute significantly to current "rift strength" but they are still perceived as factors in fairness. Also, right now gold2 matching with diamond4 should happen sometimes because there is no gold1...but this looks and feels unfair to players who don't know that there is no gold1.

I think players want to feel rewarded for investing in their fighters, catalysts, and moves. Someone who invests 10 hours daily grinding to fill out a roster of level 50 gold fighters wants to feel rewarded by climbing the ladder and getting better end-of-season rewards than someone who has has level 30 fighters. With matchmaking taking collection fight score as a significant factor, most players are actually discouraged from raising stronger fighters. At the same time, they are encouraged to spend resources to get stronger moves and catalysts.

Fairness for matchmaking and ladder seem to be in opposition, or at least in tension, under the current ladder system. If every match begins with both players at equal chance to win, then, on average over a large number of battles, nobody will ever move up or down the ladder. In order for someone to make substantial moves on the ladder, they need to, on average during their move, have a series of uneven matches such that their win rate is consistently skewed. My opinion is that the original matchmaking system (based only on rift rating) was the most fair for the ladder.

The soft reset every season that resets everyone over 2000 rift rating down to 2000 exerts a downward pressure on the entire ladder. If there are enough players doing rift battles, this downward pressure should get dispersed without affecting lower ranks very much. Currently, it's about 50 players (slightly over 1%). I do not know if there is any data to measure this effect. I suspect that players who were able to climb quickly/easily through silver ranks hit a heavy wall trying to get through gold.

I have not yet come to any conclusions regarding number of matches per player per season and how this might affect ladder/matchmaking. Preliminary thoughts: players who do more battles influence the ladder more. I do not know if this influence significant in any way.

My personal experience/situation likely biases these opinions. I only have experience playing against diamond players and players who already have the strongest collections so I never experienced feeling discouraged from raising high fight score fighters. I also do not know what matchmaking feels like in other tiers nor do I know what it feels like to try to climb through ranks. Because I have a very advanced collection of fighters, moves, and catalysts, I want to be rewarded for that and prefer to have a system weighted to ladder fairness over matchmaking (which it currently is at my rift rating). Ever since the season reports have been published, I cut way down on the number of battles I do, from 14 per season down to enough to be +5 wins over losses (usually less than 7 total battles).

If you read any of this, thanks for reading. Bottom line: fairness is complicated.

 

[Dusty00]

I'm just going to dump some disjointed thoughts about this topic here because I don't know where else to put them.

It seems like there are two major parts to the rift battle “fairness” problem:
1) how fair does each individual match feel to both players? (Matchmaking)
2) how fair is the end-of-season reward system? (Ladder)

I think there are 4 major factors that determine a player’s hypothetical “rift strength”: fighter strength, catalysts strength, move strength, and player inputs. "Rift strength" here is a hypothetical quantity that measures likelihood to win against any other player. Player inputs include setting up defense rift map, selection of attackers, and in-fight mechanics. Being strong in one area can lead to a rise in rift rating to the point where the other weaker areas become a liability.

In order for matchmaking to feel fair, both players should feel that there is a “reasonable chance” that either player could win at battle start. It seems that players generally want to feel that player inputs are the major determinant of who wins/loses. Player inputs are the variable that can change the most after a match is found. If the outcome depends too much on the other factors, matchmaking starts to feel like a game of chance.
Something that is difficult here is maintaining the perception that there is a reasonable chance to win. Because there are many ways to be strong, there are many ways to perceive that your opponent outmatches you. The subjective perception of fairness often does not match the "true" fairness of any given match. "True" fairness would match players based on "rift strength." Looking through official forums, discord, and the subreddit, you can find players claiming unfair matchmaking based on differences in rift rating, player level, average fight score, top fight score, catalysts, last season ranking (regardless of current rift rating), and other things. Many of these do not contribute significantly to current "rift strength" but they are still perceived as factors in fairness. Also, right now gold2 matching with diamond4 should happen sometimes because there is no gold1...but this looks and feels unfair to players who don't know that there is no gold1.

I think players want to feel rewarded for investing in their fighters, catalysts, and moves. Someone who invests 10 hours daily grinding to fill out a roster of level 50 gold fighters wants to feel rewarded by climbing the ladder and getting better end-of-season rewards than someone who has has level 30 fighters. With matchmaking taking collection fight score as a significant factor, most players are actually discouraged from raising stronger fighters. At the same time, they are encouraged to spend resources to get stronger moves and catalysts.

Fairness for matchmaking and ladder seem to be in opposition, or at least in tension, under the current ladder system. If every match begins with both players at equal chance to win, then, on average over a large number of battles, nobody will ever move up or down the ladder. In order for someone to make substantial moves on the ladder, they need to, on average during their move, have a series of uneven matches such that their win rate is consistently skewed. My opinion is that the original matchmaking system (based only on rift rating) was the most fair for the ladder.

The soft reset every season that resets everyone over 2000 rift rating down to 2000 exerts a downward pressure on the entire ladder. If there are enough players doing rift battles, this downward pressure should get dispersed without affecting lower ranks very much. Currently, it's about 50 players (slightly over 1%). I do not know if there is any data to measure this effect. I suspect that players who were able to climb quickly/easily through silver ranks hit a heavy wall trying to get through gold.

I have not yet come to any conclusions regarding number of matches per player per season and how this might affect ladder/matchmaking. Preliminary thoughts: players who do more battles influence the ladder more. I do not know if this influence significant in any way.

My personal experience/situation likely biases these opinions. I only have experience playing against diamond players and players who already have the strongest collections so I never experienced feeling discouraged from raising high fight score fighters. I also do not know what matchmaking feels like in other tiers nor do I know what it feels like to try to climb through ranks. Because I have a very advanced collection of fighters, moves, and catalysts, I want to be rewarded for that and prefer to have a system weighted to ladder fairness over matchmaking (which it currently is at my rift rating). Ever since the season reports have been published, I cut way down on the number of battles I do, from 14 per season down to enough to be +5 wins over losses (usually less than 7 total battles).

If you read any of this, thanks for reading. Bottom line: fairness is complicated.

You say disjointed thoughts but you are still able to articulate all the important ideas clearly. I agree with every single statement and would echo them. Thanks for putting your thoughts together man!

 

[vucaar]

Before to start: English is not my main language so I want to apologize for my broken english, thanks.

Two weeks ago I got one of the "worst" weeks on rift battles, why? Because I got paired with 4 diamond tier people:
- Diamond 3 (2)
- Diamond 4 (2)
- Gold 4 (1)

It is supposed that once you climb to diamond tier you must fight with the best of the best, a thing I am sure I am not. Taking the words of the devs, the "problem" with 3.2 was that you could evade top players and you could continue climbing with the matchmaking system they used to have.... well I can say that I liked more that system (also the people that climb, no matter what, suffered the "2000 rift points" score and they were exposed to lose anyways), because you really got a system where the community could have a fight with similar conditions, or at least collections. From my experience, I used to have weeks with 4 Wins and 3 Loses or 3 Wins and 4 Loses (now it is more common to have 2W - 3L weeks), and when I lost, even when I could be a little (a lot) bothered, there was a feeling of losing in a fair match instead of getting frustration by the unbalance of the opponent's map against yours (I think we don't want the same characters in maps, but at least, not going too far comparing them, my boss node has 55K and I fought with a lot of people that has 70-80k in that node, just to make a mention because it is regular to stay in disadvantage in most of the nodes)

I got amazed that the people that complained in the 3.2 matchmaking was the top and expert players and most of the community focused in the catalyst discussion instead of complaining about the matchmaking, and once top people got the "change" they want in 3.3 I can say that the matchmaking is failing again, a lot...

Two weeks ago:




The last week:


So I can't understand what is going on with your improvements, in 3.2 I was paired with Gold 2/3/4 and never against Diamond tier players or Silver, because the game knew I hadn't the strength and collection or didn't want me to abuse of the people in lower categories. I can complain that the people doesn't worry to have golds in a good state and just invest in diamonds and try to max them or about the AI making impossible inputs even for the most skilled player (A Filia making an evade in the middle of the launcher of Eliza would be a good example and no Great Escape catalyst) but I guess that's another topic...

I can say that the matchmaking you used to have was the best thing at the moment of rifts, but if top players will start to complain, we will have to keep suffering the same system right?

Some suggestions:
- Open the diamond tier to top 250, there are a lot of people that have the collection, catalysts and strength to be there, but they are stuck in the Gold 2 tier or lower (because I know that the Gold 1 it's just a myth), so the normal people that is trying to climb finds the terrible surprise of outraging maps.
- Give a better cutoff for Gold 1 tier, I can say that I won't stay in that tier, but at least to relieve the Gold 2/3 tier where the people with overpowered maps gathers with people that climbed. We need to make a gradual improvement of difficulty and not go to one edge to another. How? Maybe reducing the cutoff between Silver 2-3 and Bronze 2-3, to make the top and the bottom (silver 1 and 4 in example) the categories with more people and the middle categories the transition levels.
- Reduce the losing penalty by 2 or 3 points, You will say that the current penalty is to prevent the quick climb, but I can say that most of the people are stuck at the moment in the tiers, the last week I had won 26 points aprox with 3 fights in a row, and just in one fight I could lose 25 points, that's not something I could call balance.
- Locking the rift battles until you reach level 40 or 45: I have seen that you have been saying that rift battles is an "end-game content", well if you are right, people that reach lvl 25 shouldn't be allowed to even give a look to it, I know it is optional but the devs "intention" with rift battles was to have a mode to play for every player that got accustomed to the game (rookie and bronze categories are a good example), but if we are going to give the "pretext" that is a content not for everyone, well maybe they should lock it until they get more experience and stuff.

 

[Starsmore]

The matchmaking system still considers your points to a certain degree. I have never seen anyone be matched more than 2 ranks above or below them. Of course this is anecdotal evidence so if there's anyone who's been matched extremely far apart, it'd be good to see.

In may when i was gold 2 I was matched against a phenom, right now I'm still gold 2 and still get matched with diamond 2 and with people with 200 points more than me.
Anyway the whole idea of considering only the score of the top 20 fighters to find an opponent is totally wrong. For example, you can't compare my gold Dead Heat, Poltergust and Silent Kill to Bio Exorcist, Lovecrafted and Assassin's Greed, opponent stats are better since they're natural and mine evolved, usually their special abilities are even better.
Problem with the catalyst, sometimes I get easy wins against opponents with only catalysts on the boss node and the two next to it, but usually I'm against people with armor on almost all their nodes, I even fight some with armor catalysts stacked, they should fight against players with similar catalysts.
Another thing, someone open a topic about how unfair Xenomorph is because "she nullify too much rift strategies" i have to say that Sketchy is the one doing it, i see a lot of my opponents with army of barely levelled Sketchy (or various Valentine's variants) on their team, this made some nodes useless. You want to use four different Sketchy? Fine, put them also on your map. Players should use only the fighters they put on their maps or the game decided they are the top 20 fighters, or top 30 to have space for some strategies. Also catalyst that prevents enemy immunity would be nice to counter that.

 

[Luke]

Players should use only the fighters they put on their maps or the game decided they are the top 20 fighters, or top 30 to have space for some strategies.

We been talking about rift and Mach since it’s out and this is the only one that make me go. This is it. This is what I want.

 

[xcapibara]

Just got this match:



A 248 difference in rift rating.

4 full tiers above mine.

A difference of 90k fs between bases.

Several maxed out and 55+ level diamonds (both in profile and in base) when I don’t have a single diamond at level 50. Matched by collection strength... yeah right.