Posted 02 July 2014 - 11:53 PM
The problem with the matchmaker is group disparity. Always has been.
Generally from what I've observed over the countless roflstomps and poor matchmaking prior to this patch is that the matchmaker was actually fairly good for matching groups (most of the time). Now, when I say, "matching," I mean the matchmaker seemed to go, "3 groups on this side, 3 groups on the other," and you end up with three full groups of 4 vs two groups of 3, and one group of 2. There also seemed to be no form of Elo matching between groups, so many times I'll be playing with 3 new players in my unit and get matched against an experienced premade of Lords, SJR, HHoD, etc.
Barring Elo differences aside, the lack of group sizes being matched seems to be the biggest issue with the new matchmaker. Just got done playing a few games as a 7-9 group, but every single game we seemed to get matched against groups no bigger than 3 or 4 on the other side, and that's a huge issue.
Like expected, we rolled pretty much every game (I think the closest was 12-5), and while some players may want to pad their stats, most just want to have a fun game where they're challenged and fight their best.
Those few games I played in a larger group is a detriment to both sides. For the losing side, it's absolutely infuriating to go against a large coordinated group, but for the winning side, it will actually make you perform worse!
Why? It's too easy. You're relaxed, you're taking more time to line up better shots, and you're telling your teammates to move, flank, and line up in ways that will ONLY work when facing an unorganized team of smaller groups. There's no sense of urgency, no heart-pounding, white knuckled terror that comes from wondering if your team is going to do something stupid. You know exactly how everything is playing out, there's little to no guesswork in what your team needs to do, and the most detrimental part of it all...
...You ARE NOT punished for your MISTAKES!
I honestly don't want to fight in large groups against disorganized teams as much as disorganized teams don't want to drop against large groups. Why? Because I'm going to become a worse player! I'm going to become complacent, and these kinds of drops DO NOT remotely resemble an actual competitive 12v12 match, meaning units wanting to train competitively will be lulled into a false sense of confidence by these matches.