user defined matchmaking tolerance for tetra league

[LastExceed]

quote from discord:

here is a big flaw in the matchmaking system: whenever there is no other player on your level available, the system increases the tolerance to rank gap until an opponent is found, resulting in very unfair matchups sometimes. now of course this can happen in both directions, you can either greatly benefit from it if you get matched with someone who's way below your rank, or greatly suffer from it (when the opposite happens). and one would assume that in the grand total that should balance itself out. HOWEVER if you're on the higher end of the ladder, you will almost always benefit from this (since there's more people below than above your rank), making climbing the ranks even easier, and if you're on the lower end you will almost always suffer from it. (not to mention that heavily imbalanced matches aren't fun to play at all).

to fix this i propose a user option for rank gap tolerance in matchmaking (this should of course go in both directions equally). to be clear, i do NOT want a system like PPT where you can decline matchups since that can be abused (e.g. when you know that your opponent is underranked).

both users' preferences must comply for a matchup to happen.

Should we allow setting upwards and downwards tolerance individually or only symmetrically? this could help people that think their initial placement was too low to quickly get up the ranks.

[crscillitoe]

I've got to disagree here. The real cause of the issue here is the small player base, which will resolve itself once Tetra League is available to the public, and as Tetr.io continues to gain users. (in case it matters, I'm very low rated and suffer from the problems you're talking about here, so I don't have an agenda)

Allowing players to choose a gap for matchmaking can really hurt players on either extreme. If I'm Wumbo, and I'm 25000, and the guy in 2nd place is 23400, the guy in 2nd can set their gap to 1000 and avoid facing Wumbo entirely.

[Wirtualnosc]

You also have to keep in mind that when a lower rated player loses to a higher rated one, they lose less points (and vice versa - when a higher rated player wins to a lower rated one, they gain less points). Even if you get matched against someone rated way higher than you, chances are, that won't really affect your rating that much. And also, as mentioned, once Tetra League moves to public, there will be a lot more players playing, and there will be a lot higher chance to get matched against someone around your rank.

I don't think any other competitive games do such trickery with tolerance either (CS:GO doesn't for instance), and I feel like a bit of wilderness when matching spicies things up. Of course, getting completely destroyed isn't fun, but I think that the current system is fine (and yes, my rating isn't that great either).

[LastExceed]

I think you're misunderstanding. This proposal only affects the worst case scenario, not the best case. In situations where there's enough even opponents available my proposal wouldn't have any effect since the tolerance isn't getting exhausted anyway. The matchmaker should of course always favor even matchups no matter what your settings are. If however no even opponents are available then I want to be able to choose to keep waiting instead of completely nuking (or getting nuked by) someone. This setting would simply be where to draw the line.

@crscillitoe I don't see the problem in your example. Never fighting Wumbo would also mean never surpassing him, since surpassing requires being even at some point in which case you simply cannot dodge anymore.

@Wirtualnosc rank relation being accounted for in the outcome solves the rank part, but not the enjoyment part. Even if it barely hurts your rank, matchups like 7k vs 17k simply aren't fun at all, and I personally would prefer to just keep waiting than nuking or getting nuked like that. Also I don't see how it matters what other competitive games do. There's no reason to do what they do just because.

I feel like a bit of wilderness when matching spicies things up

I can't agree with this. From my experience the most intense and enjoyable matches are always the ones where both players are on the same level.

[o5k]

I'm steering away from being able to individually change how the matchmaker works unless absolutely needed, as it'll be a small benefit at best and cheatable at worst. However, if people still often get bad matchups even with lots of people in matchmaking, I may tweak the numbers (for everyone).

[Ads20000]

Opened #534 and realised it's basically a duplicate of osk's comment above so I closed it. Basically please +1 this comment if you feel that the matchmaker should wait longer / indefinitely if the player it's going to matchmake you with is two or more ranks above or below your own (and a similar heuristic for unranked players).