MMR

[Bart Cunningham]

Is MMR even used? I have fairly good stats with a majority of wins, and so do the people I join matchmaking in a crew with, so why is it I'm often placed into matches with nobody but brand new players who have no idea what they're doing? Even with only two hundred to five hundred people playing at one time, surely the matchmaking could be better?

I have no problem, honestly, helping new players get into the game and teach them what to do and even micromanage them if I need to because they don't have the experience to take initiative, but so often these new players don't seem to want to learn. They entirely ignore my help and honestly ruin my experience.

[DaOrks]

There aren't nearly enough people in this game to actually use an MMR system. Seems to be if the games open you join it.

[Frostbound]

Basically what daorks said, but on the prime time I find some lobbies where the players' levels are very close to each other (lowest about 10, highest like 20) so the MMR works if it gets enough players to work with.

[Queso]

Matchmaker's first priority is to have a balance of total MMR across both teams. This means at low population you'll get a match it was able to create, with balanced MMR. Ideally when it's higher population and can create multiple matches at once, it tries to reduce the range of MMR in a match.

[Byron Cavendish]

Even when the population is high don't expect your MMR to place you in a lobby full of high level skilled players. It prefers to create teams with mixtures of high and low mmr teams on both sides, so everyone wins! Basically what happens is the low mmr wander off and the one or two high level ships duke it out.

[ZnC]

I wonder if pilots' MMR are differently handled - their weightage in a game is so much more.

[Daft Loon]

I wonder if pilots' MMR are differently handled - their weightage in a game is so much more.

I have yet to see this reflect in the underdog system (pilot swapping places with a crewmember and causing it to change too or from underdog), although it could be easily missed if it was a small effect. With the separate search system it may also try to matchmake the pilots of a match without reflecting it in overall team mmr.

[Arturo Sanchez]

Matchmaker's first priority is to have a balance of total MMR across both teams. This means at low population you'll get a match it was able to create, with balanced MMR. Ideally when it's higher population and can create multiple matches at once, it tries to reduce the range of MMR in a match.

I played during 2-3k people online. I played during 50 people online.

saw no difference.

[DJ Logicalia]

That's because during those 2-3k spikes, it's all new people from the sales.

[HamsterIV]

I think the higher your MMR, the more likely the Match making system is going to put you on a crew of low MMR players when you join through the Solo Queue. Your high MMR boosts the team's total MMR to make you a match in the algorithm's eyes with an average team.

In a way you the Match Making system is not just putting you with novices, it is putting you with under-performing novices. Some times I attempt to teach, but considering the crew was flagged as under performing it is unlikely they were communicating or willing to listen to advice.

I find having a high MMR is detrimental to having an enjoyable experience in this game. I gladly take losses to lower my MMR so that I may be placed with better crew next time I enter the queue.

[Byron Cavendish]

I find having a high MMR is detrimental to having an enjoyable experience in this game. I gladly take losses to lower my MMR so that I may be placed with better crew next time I enter the queue.

THIS...so f%#king much. Sadly this is the main reason I've stopped playing unless it's clan vs clan scrims or tournaments.

[Extirminator]

High level people can have low MMR and and low level people can have high MMR, it all depends on their recent wins and who they fought.
The reason you might think you get paired mainly with low level people is not entirely because you have high MMR and they have low MMR, it's just because there are a lot more low levels than high ones. There are more of them, so you are getting paired up with them more often.

[nanoduckling]

It isn't a question of level Ext. MMR probably correlates with two things pretty strongly. (1) Natural playing ability (which in GoI includes forgivable things like poor twitch reflexes, and less forgivable things like an unwillingness to build consensus or listen) and (2) Experience. Matchmaker tries to balance MMR, if you win a lot, as many experienced players do, then matchmaker will on average give you inexperienced allies, and it will give you naturally bad allies as it tries to balance the match. If it is having a hard time balancing the match, as it often does, it will give you both. That is to say it will pair you with the worst player it can find. Might be the worst because they are a bit slow on the uptake and have the reflexes of a drunk sloth, but are nice folks to have on board, or they might be the worst because they spend the entire lobby screaming into their mic 'ready up' and questioning the sexual interests of the rest of the lobby while you are trying to get them to bring heavy clip. If there is someone who is both in the queue then your 45 ass is likely getting them unless there is a stack better than you in the queue.

The problem being identified here isn't being paired with low level players, it is being paired with especially bad players; often those players are bad at GoI because they are, at best, uncommunicative, at worse, total asshats.

Without the secret sauce we cant say for certain but I share the observation given. If I get the crap kicked out of me in the SCS or have a run of games where I play without some of my regular crews then the novices the matchmaker throws my way suddenly get far more polite, at least until my MMR recovers. In terms of putting my money where my mouth is, you'll notice I tend to stick about in lobbies when one of the ships is a full Rydr stack, even with a low level ally. These are often some of the best experiences I have in GoI because you folks win more than I do and thus tend to act as asshat magnets.

[BlackenedPies]

The system wouldn't be better if it paired high MMR together against lower MMR. The system doesn't search for a low MMR player to put on your ship, it puts in the first available player. The system should mix MMR instead of placing all high MMR on one ship. Use the friends feature.

I've had awesome pub crew recently who may have had low MMR but it was no indication of their quality as players. If you expect them to know everything then you may be disappointed, but the vast majority of players listen to good communication.

It's not true that the system gives you bad players due to MMR. They're regular pubs. The best way to filter the bad ones is to give recommended loadouts. If they don't accept then don't play with them period. MMR is no indication of player quality especially for newer players. Communicate and add friends.

[nanoduckling]

Blackened no one has suggested that the matchmaker should put all high MMR players on a single ship. That would be a bad idea.

Your anecdote is no more or less reliable than my own. Neither are sufficient to confirm or refute this hypothesis (yours isn't even inconsistent with it, and seems to require that you know the MMR of the players you are playing with when that is hidden).

I've outlined a mechanism by which MMR will pair you with low MMR players if you have a high MMR. I've also outlined what I think correlates with MMR. You say this mechanism isn't at play, well what part of the chain of reasoning here do you dispute? Does communication and community mindedness not make you a better GoI player? Is MMR not correlated with performance?  Do very experienced players not have higher than average MMR? Will the matchmaker not mix very high and very low level MMR players to try and balance against a team with middling MMR?

Your advice is sound, but I think everyone here already does it. The comments are at the moment directed towards understanding the phenomena, not avoiding it.