Review [Issue 77] Examined: Matchmaking

[LOLKILLERTOTHEDEATH 1,921]

 

 

On the 28th of May, 2018, Tanki introduced a radical change to the way battles worked: the matchmaking system. While this release undoubtedly did bring about good things to Tanki, there were also some difficult changes for some players. Nevertheless, because I can only write reviews or guides, Matchmaking is a crucial subject, and that is why I’m here to tell you everything about it.

 

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The Benefits

1. More crystals!

Without a doubt, the biggest thing I see players whining about is how they have no way to get crystals and how Tanki is such a pay-to-win game. Granted, there are some things like skins and paints which cost real money. However, almost everything else can be purchased with crystals. Since any games you join through the Matchmaking system will last ten minutes at the most, I think that the developers decided to change the way funds work in non-pro battles. In general, players will have their score increased depending on how much they help out the team. Interactions with the object of primary importance (the ball in Rugby, the flags in Capture the Flag and the flags/point in Assault) will boost your score even more. At the end of the battle, the score you get will determine how many crystals you get, disregarding the fact that whether your team won or not. Although this change makes players slightly more focused on themselves than the team, everybody tries quite hard because everybody wants to be on the top of the leaderboard.

All facts aside, I think that the overall system for Matchmaking is quite simply amazing. This, by the way, is the part where I tell you a story which has something to do with me earning a hefty amount of crystals. Just before Tanki’s turret sales day, I felt the need to get 33,000 crystals. Under normal circumstances, that’s not possible for me to do in a day unless I buy or rank up. Thanks to the Matchmaking system though, I made almost 1,000 crystals in 10 minutes, and so It was only around 4 hours before I managed to earn 33,000. Granted that is a lot, but earlier I could never have made 33,000 crystals in 4 hours; I would need at least 10-12 hours to get 33,000 crystals.

2. More or less balanced teams!

The Matchmaking system also promised to give players much fairer teams, and for the most part, I think that they’ve succeeded at that. The teams which players are in now tend to be much more balanced. Tanki developers have explained that the Matchmaking system essentially chooses teams of players which the game considers being roughly equal in skill and equipment. First, tankers get put in a sort of “bowl” from where the system pairs two players who are similarly skilled, and once everybody is paired up, the pairs are split among the red and blue teams. I think that the only way to improve on this already existing mechanism would be to have people who select and make the match.

Off the top of my head, I can only recall about two or three instances at best where I felt like my team wasn’t that great. Usually, though, teams happen to have a reasonable level of synergy together, so strategy tends to be much more straightforward. I imagine that there are players who have not had a good time with the system. I guess that players who had a lousy time with Matchmaking don’t get put into bad teams, but some players on their team tend to be multing, to put it rather bluntly.

3. Multing is gone for the most part.

Before the Matchmaking system, loads of players complained about mults and how mults would ruin matches and make teams lose. Now that players are randomly selected from a massive pool of people wanting to play the same mode, it is impossible for any player to join a battle to mult purposefully. Sure you can use an alternate account with your account on one or two computers, enter a battle as a group and mult, but that doesn’t happen very much.

I do still find the occasional Titan who tries to purposely block a flag carrier, although most of the time, two or three players come and move the Titan out of the way. Also, multing in matchmaking matches doesn’t make much sense. Why? Well, a mult will mult so that a team does not win. When it doesn’t matter which team wins because both teams earn the same amount of crystals, a mult is just wasting their time doing quite literally nothing.

4. You can play with your friends much more conveniently.

While this isn’t so important for me because I don’t have friends/my friends are in different time-zones, I think that this feature is undoubtedly of great use for those players who do want to play with their friends. To do so, click the “Group” button and you can invite up to three friends or clan mates to play together with at the same time. For most intents and purposes, that should be enough because if you have a proper clan or loads of friends who want to play together, then a private battle would be best for you. I do imagine that earlier this could have been done, but "clicking that Silence battle three down from the Rio CTF" would have been quite the nuisance.

I can’t say much from personal experience, as I’ve mentioned before because I don’t have friends/my friends are in different time-zones.

5. Gold Boxes don’t depend on the battle fund anymore.

For most of the high rankers, this change isn’t significant, if at all of any consequence. The reason for this is quite possibly that Legends can be some of the biggest buyers and consequently they can turn Gold Boxes into ordinary repair kits with their money. For lower rankers, however, this change can mean a lot. At lower ranks, the battle funds grows much slower, and with the previous system, there was a higher chance for a Gold Box to drop with higher funds, the likes of which can seldom be found in battles among low ranked tankers.

From personal experience though, Gold Boxes seem to drop at a slightly higher frequency since the Matchmaking update. Typically though, Gold Boxes are the time for me to keep my blood pressure under check because I’m not a great Gold hunter. Nevertheless, I have had my good days.

 

 

The Drawbacks

1. You can’t choose where you want to battle!

Unless I’m mistaken, this would be the biggest complaint among tankers. The inability to choose which map they would like to play in. I’m not trying to be some saintly helper here, but while this is a con for most people, it is most definitely is a pro for me. I just didn’t put it as a pro because I was afraid that I would be egged to death. The reason I feel that this isn’t half as bad as people say is that of the spontaneity. Tanki is filled with expectations. For the most part, there’s a plan, and that’s how things will roll. Tanki’s birthday is in June, and you can be sure that it will be spectacular. 25th December is Christmas, and there’ll be some level of festivity. I find it refreshing to have just a pinch of randomness.

From personal experience, choosing a good map used to be quite the pain. Not because I wanted to find the winning team, but because I wasn’t sure which turret I should go into the battle with- and if I wanted to use a specific turret, then I’d have to check for a good map for that turret. Instead of all that time being taken out of my playing, I can now go into a battle and enjoy it without all the “hassle”.

2. It takes some time!

If one were to scroll through the “Matchmaking Goes Live! topic”, one might notice comments such as “Plzz it takes soo long. Fortnite is so fast!” or “Lazy devs! What are you doing why so slow?”. Gee that must be something quite bad for people to complain about you must be thinking. Well, it’s not. As many players are aware, it takes a few minutes (or seconds, depends on luck really) for you to be put into a match. What most players don’t consider is that it used to be similar to this without Matchmaking. Wow, I love your maths you must be saying. The reasoning is that with the old system, you’d need to find a match which had space for you, then join that match. Before that though, chances are you had a “signature” combo for that map, such as Viking and Thunder for Polygon which you had to equip. Naturally, there was a chance that by the time you finished all your equipment changes (if any) you wouldn’t find a space. Now, however, Matchmaking will find you a space in a reasonably good battle.

I’ve had a plethora of different times. It has taken me seconds to get into a battle, and it has taken me well over twice the average waiting time as well. I suppose it is just luck. Nevertheless, the small amount of time taken only removes all the pointless “Which combo to use?”. One thing you should note is that whenever the time goes above the average time, suppose 50s, you should just exit the queue and click on “Play!” again. Doing this handy trick will save you from long waiting times most of the time!

 

3. High ranked players in low ranked battles! (GOING TO BE FIXED SOON)
 

One of the strangest thing that Matchmaking has brought to tankers are mismatched battles. I don't mean your run-of-the-mill Legends against Marshals; I mean Legends fighting Warrant Officer 5 players. Naturally, if a high ranked player finds their way into a low-ranked battle, that is generally a big problem because the poor low ranked players are quite possibly going to tank (I know right, I'm so punny!) loads of hits. In my case, lower ranked players tend to end up in battles which I am in. As one might imagine, a Commander against a Warrant Officer 5 isn't exactly a fair fight. Tanki developers have said that they will try to fix this issue soon, so hopefully there will no longer be Warrant Officers in Legend ranked battles and vice versa. 

 

I've had a few occasions where I ended up battling Warrant Officers and sometimes even Master Sergeants, and while it was mildly entertaining for me, I doubt they'd tell you the same if you asked them. Although, only because I'm a Reporter and I have to pretend to be a saint I am not overly fond of this feature and am glad it will be fixed soon because it isn't really fair for either party.

 

 

Conclusion? Many would say that the Matchmaking System is excellent. Still, others would say that matchmaking is to endorse Pro Battles and that the developers are trying to steal their crystals. After thorough introspection of the Pros and Cons, I think I can safely say that it is most definitely one of the best updates that Tanki has seen. Thanks to it, you earn more crystals, not to mention a few other benefits. The only real downside is that you can’t choose the map, which all things considered, isn’t that bad.

 

[gokuMI6 1,290]

Nice keep going

[Chronicle 164]

Wow, that's a checkmate right there! Well written! 

[GuidoFawkes 2,361]

this is pretty much just repeating what the devs said about matchmaking themwelves.

i read this expecting to see some of your own observations but all i see is the same thing i already knew from the matchmaking announcements and vlogs. 

[thethiefofvictory 339]

this is pretty much just repeating what the devs said about matchmaking themwelves.

 

i read this expecting to see some of your own observations but all i see is the same thing i already knew from the matchmaking announcements and vlogs.

What, does nobody have the right to see good in matchmaking? Read carefully, it IS his own observations.

 

Anyways. Great article! I agree with your points too. It's much easier to find and play a battle now, and it's made me willing to play on Highways now :P

[LittleWillie 3,199]

You;ve included a couple changes that happened at the same time as MM but are not part of MM itself.  The battle fund calculations the gold box drop rate changes are their own things,. They could have been done with or without MM. I bring this up because so often you see players lumping all sorts of issues under the MM label. It leads to confusions at times.

 

I agree with your bottom line conclusion. MM really has been one of the best changes in the game. It did what I hoped it'd do. I don't have to hunt for starting games with full teams. I do not see the same predictable overload of certain turrets every time I play certain maps. MM gives me games worth playing much ore reliably.

 

MM has already sharpened my play. I use the quick battle button a lot. Now I find myself in modes and mas I played rarely. I am seeing a wider variety of games. And yes my lower ranked accounts now have to fight higher ranks more often. I can't be the only one.

 

MM take players out of their comfort zones. But those players who stick through it will learn all sorts of new skills  Game play overall will be sharper and mow competitive.

 

Excapt on 10x gold events of course.

[GuidoFawkes 2,361]

What, does nobody have the right to see good in matchmaking? Read carefully, it IS his own observations.

 

Anyways. Great article! I agree with your points too. It's much easier to find and play a battle now, and it's made me willing to play on Highways now :P

he explained what everyone already knew and aded his experience. but he didn't come up with his own observations, all the benefits and drawbacks have already been stated by the devs

[Aigaion 636]

tbh dont like it . . .