15 votes

Modern multiplayer games making matches unfair by design, what are your thoughts on Engagement Optimized MatchMaking (EOMM)?

Title
Anyone that has been playing multiplayer games for a while must have noticed the recent shift when it comes to multiplayer games matchmaking trends.
Multiplayer games were no joke, they were hardcore, with high entry barriers where the more experienced players would dominate the field, and newer players were nothing but fodder for them. If you were new to a game you could expect to lose most of your matches for a while, but if you were to put in the effort, improved, learned the game and persevered trough, then you'd be rewarded by becoming the one to dominate the field instead.
Nowadays it's different, anyone can pick up a game, no matter how experienced they are, and expect to win roughly half the games they play. From newcomers to pro players, everyone seems to be relegated to a strictly forced 50% winrate policy. But how is that possible?

The focus in game design seems to have shifted from rewarding individual oriented play, to rewarding more teamwork oriented skills instead. The focus on teamwork has been pushed so far to the point where, if your team isn't putting in the effort, no matter how good of a player you are, you won't be able to compensate for your team lack of skills and they'll be the reason why you lose the match. There wouldn't be anything inherently wrong with this, especially in a team game, if it weren't for the fact that it really feels as if the better you get at the game, the worse your teammates get.
This is how they're able to make everyone's winrates hover around 50%. Sure if you lose too much the algorithm will start giving you better teammates, but if you win too much then the quality of your matches will be abysmal, leading to a point where all the good players get effectively punished and can never fully see the fruits of the effort they put for actually learning the game.
Players have expressed for years their frustrations against this balancing method, as many felt cheated due to losing too many matches due to factors completely out of their control, but so far nothing has changed.

This sort of matchmaking algorithm can also be used to impose certain "patterns" in the wins and losses that a player experiences while playing, in order to increase their engagement. A study from 2017 published for EA , goes to show how players are more likely to quit a game if they incur in specific win/loss patterns. For example, of the entire playerbase, 5% of them will quit the game if they were to incur in three losses in a row.
Here's an excerpt from the paper's abstract
"Current matchmaking systems depend on a single core strategy: create fair games at all times. These systems pair similarly skilled players on the assumption that a fair game is best player experience. We will demonstrate, however, that this intuitive assumption sometimes fails and that matchmaking based on fairness is not optimal for engagement"

This is just a window into what goes trough the developing process of a multiplayer videogame these days. The paper is from 2017 but troughout these years this approach to multiplayer games has been adopted and developed to the point where every single multiplayer experience, from PC to mobile to consoles, feels artificially crafted and finely tuned to keep you as hooked for as much time as possible to the screen.
This doesn't stop to win/loss patterns, another example would be gears of war, where the devs have admitted to make your bullets do more damage on your first match of the day, because their studies showed that people were more likely to play troughout the day if they were to win the first match they played. These same devs would later go to make Fortnite, which would go on to generate billions in revenue for years.

What are your thoughts? Do you prefer the modern take to make multiplayer games more accessible to everyone, or would you rather go back to the days where communities would develope more organically?

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3 comments

  1. Beenrak
    Link
    I have no issue with skill based matchmaking. I don't think people deserve to dominate less skilled players for their amusement. I think it has greatly benefited certain games (like RTS's and...

    I have no issue with skill based matchmaking. I don't think people deserve to dominate less skilled players for their amusement. I think it has greatly benefited certain games (like RTS's and things like Rocket League) which can be infuriating or very boring if you are matched up poorly.

    That being said, going beyond balancing teams such that their skill is roughly equal and stepping into addictive/predatory manipulation of the system to keep you playing is terrible. Gaming is addictive enough as it is.

    I've never heard of literally cheating for the player (e.g., the OPs example of extra damage), but it has no business in a skill based matchmaking system. If you are already matching me on skill you are admitting that your game is designed as a skill based game; choosing to then throw skill out the window is unfair.

    10 votes
  2. stu2b50
    Link
    I think people have roses tinted glasses over lobbies. Most games in a given lobby or server were not very fun or competitive for the players involved, and you had to invest a significant amount...

    I think people have roses tinted glasses over lobbies. Most games in a given lobby or server were not very fun or competitive for the players involved, and you had to invest a significant amount of time into it. If you just went on a random server and only played a single game, it was likely that that game sucked. The chances are much better with MM that you have a competitive game. It is the case that you don't feel the progression as much, although there's a very visual representation, your rank, but this is why smurfs are so prevalent.

    I think skilled base MM is the way to go for team based games, or 1v1 games. There is a hunger for something less "intense", and that's why Battle Royale games have been so popular. A battle royale game is basically like those old servers, but it's OK, since it's not a team game, it's an everyone-vs-everyone game.

    4 votes
  3. xyz
    Link
    I had much more fun when games weren't based on matchmaking. I'm fond of the days when most multiplayer games had private servers where you could enter and leave as you wanted. If you wanted a...

    I had much more fun when games weren't based on matchmaking. I'm fond of the days when most multiplayer games had private servers where you could enter and leave as you wanted. If you wanted a serious server, there were those. If you wanted a fun server there were those too. It was up to the player, and the stakes were much lower because how you played wasn't codified on a global profile that attempts to force you to take ever match seriously, lest your number and ranking go down.

    3 votes