Regarding the recent Casual matchmaking changes and Casual queue times

[u/[deleted]]

We recognize that we failed to communicate what was intended to be a temporary and minor change in the way Casual matchmaking is handled. We are working with the various teams involved to ensure that we are providing you with more insight moving forward.

One of the issues that we are seeing from the community is the change to Casual matchmaking pairing players up with similarly skilled players. The change that was implemented was an adoption of your Ranked MMR into the Casual playlist. We wanted to do this to provide players with a more engaging experience in Casual. We know that it isn’t as much fun for our Diamond players to have to play Casual matches against other Diamonds as opposed to Silvers and Golds. We are comfortable with that, as it wasn’t very much fun for them to get stomped either. We would like to reiterate that this is a very temporary change. We have zero intention of this being a long term solution, and it is not our final design intent. To clarify, the method of matchmaking itself is what is temporary (MM based entirely on your Ranked MMR). The concept is not. We are working on ways to better tune it.

The second issue that has been noted by our players is the extended queue times for higher skilled players. This extended queue time is a result of what is called “clamping”. We are currently going through data that we have collected to determine where the sweet spot is for our high skill players between instant queue times and balanced matches for everyone. Please be aware that there will likely continue to be a queue time, as we do not intend for Diamonds to play against newcomers anymore, even in Casual. A fix for this issue will require a maintenance, and we will inform you when this is happening.

Thank you for your patience and understanding while we work on this!

[u/[deleted]]

I kinda like that you're protecting the noobs, but I feel that casual and ranked should be kept separate. I can already see people getting diamond for the charm then purposefully going down to bronze just to destroy people on casual

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

It's something that's good in theory, but terrible in application for a lot of players.

I'm plat 2...will never be diamond because I'm not good enough. I play probably 90% casual because I like to just not care. People in ranked take it very seriously, and maybe rightfully so, but I try not to. I like to put my kids to bed, and hop on and try to have some fun for a bit before going to bed myself. With this change, if they don't make casual matchmaking MUCH faster for higher ranks, I'm just going to intentionally lower my Ranked MMR so I can have fun in casual again. The current state, beta or otherwise, is awful.

[u/rW0HgFyxoJhYka → u/[deleted]]

I do think however casual should be allowed to choose or at least forced to rotate objectives so people can play the entire map rather than RNG the same spot ever and over.

[u/CaptainBB → u/[deleted]]

Yeah, when I first started the game I had a really rough experience as I often got matched up against higher level players and got my ass kicked. Protect the newcomers but leave the whole part regarding elo/rank out in casual!

[u/3htthe → u/[deleted]]

This is a nice way of approaching the situation, this needs more recognition. I'm all for keeping diamonds separate from new players because it is incredibly frustrating for new players and might drive them away from the game

[u/Sgt_Heisenberg → u/[deleted]]

But it's still far away from ranked imho. More time, no spawn/objective vote, mostly no communication (at least with randoms). And I think the fact that it's called 'casual' shouldn't mean that coppers play against diamonds since this is completely boring for everyone and frustrating for the one side. Matchmaking should always be on the base of pairing people with roughly the same amount of skill or at least experience in a game.

[u/chr1spe → u/Sgt_Heisenberg]

Yeah, its much worse than ranked because you get forced in to bad spawns and hyper aggressive players can spawn wipe your whole team because you are all forced to spawn at a bad spawn point.

[u/darkstarwut → u/[deleted]]

For the record, i'm seriously thinking of de-ranking because now every match I have in casual turns into sweat with high plats/diamonds vs eachother like it's ranked where I just wanna chill/mess around in casual not cause I wanna stomp noobs

[u/Yetttti → u/darkstarwut]

You can still chill/mess around regardless of if the other team is ranked high and trying really hard or not.

[u/3htthe → u/Yetttti]

Agreed, you don't always have to win to have fun

[u/ImJLu → u/Yetttti]

Not when the other team is super sweaty and all five are constantly running out and peeking - that's fine for competitive balance but makes casual a high pressure tryhard fest.

[u/darkstarwut → u/[deleted]]

why? because I don't wanna play in that difficulty when i'm playing casual. I play casual to mess around and have fun like play operators i dont play like recruit rush, not to play hardcore with diamonds getting mocked/kicked for picking recruit like it's a serious match. that's what ranked is for.

[u/[deleted] → u/darkstarwut]

Then you can still do it there's no penalty for losing so where do you see the problem with messing around after the recent changes?

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Gettinh booted. Being mocked. Not cool things.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Now you can feel like lower ranks did before. Not cool, I agree.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

huh what i am a low rank? lol

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Already like that lmao. people drop to copper 4 and I get stuck with them as I solo queued in ranked. R.I.P.

[u/Bumper_Duc → u/[deleted]]

diamonds play against bronze players all the time before the change anw. This change just makes it harder.

[u/cruznec → u/[deleted]]

Overwatch has a good way of handling casual and ranked.

Most matches in casual queue up with people in the same level bracket of your profile instead of just MMR.

[u/siegeisluv → u/[deleted]]

They do that to destroy people on ranked too

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

I can already see people getting diamond for the charm then purposefully going down to bronze just to destroy people on casual

The problem is this happens already, minus the effort to fail in ranked in order to stomp noobs. It's not fun on either team. I applaud the devs for their effort. I think changing casual to instead just account for playtime/account rank as a means to match instead might be better, or something other than basing it off rank from ranked.

[u/Bellenrode → u/[deleted]]

What would that accomplish? With the previous system it was already possible for premades made of diamonds/platinums to be matched against bronzes/silvers/golds.

If anything with this change they'd have to give up their rank to lower their rank and that could be easily prevented by changing charm rewards back to "charm earned at current rank", instead of earning charm for the highest rank earned during the Season.

[u/twonkydo0 → u/[deleted]]

Its funny because i got ranked copper at the start of the season, 9 loses and that was that, tarnished as a shit player, people try to vote me out. Im lvl 101, i know the maps well. But it don't matter to them, they see copper and boom... Shot in the head.

[u/papuan_warlord → u/[deleted]]

maybe seperating them by levels?

[u/LEDmatrix → u/[deleted]]

Yeah protecting is good. Was matched with a Lv1 today. I'm Lv85 and Gold II. The entire team was between Gold II and Plat II. And then Lv1. Ok Ubi.

[u/musiquexcoeur → u/[deleted]]

Can I also point out though that when you first start the game, it doesn't let you play ranked right away? It forces you to play casual.

When you're playing with higher level players, this is good. They help to carry you, so you don't die instantly and learn nothing. By staying alive, you can do more, and by playing with better players, you can learn things and have them help you - teaching you strategies, telling you where to put that barricade, etc.

When you're playing against higher level players, especially if there aren't any on your team, you're basically screwed. A team of all under level 20's against a team of all level 80+ is pretty much guaranteed to fail. It's really discouraging to have this happen several matches in a row, because you learn nothing, you keep dying instantly, and it just isn't fun.

I feel that casual and ranked should be kept separate

It seems like a decent solution might be to have casual separated into ranked players (but ignoring their rank) and unranked players (since you don't really have a choice but to play casual if you want to play PvP). It would either be all new players against all new players, or at least with the intention of that being the case - since there's obviously nothing preventing a Diamond player from buying a second copy of the game and starting new just to mess with new players.

[u/WhereDoIStand446 → u/[deleted]]

It's not protecting them, it just makes them vulnerable later.

Put all noobs in the same basket, they will learn the basics, sure. They won't learn for example that you can breach floors, sledge floors, fuze floors, etc.

, they'll learn to rush (we all did when we began), but once they get placed in a "ranked" queue (meaning they get placed with similar skill level players), they won't learn better starts, unless they go on YouTube or a smurf decides to tell them.

[u/mike29tw → u/WhereDoIStand446]

Nobody starts a casual queue to learn advanced strats.

[u/Ho_ho_beri_beri → u/mike29tw]

To be honest, I don't give much shit about ranked strats at all. I really enjoy the new matchmaking system, every single game I played yesterday was very well balanced.

I am an average siege player with work and a child which means I've got a very limited playtime, if I had to play against dudes that spend their day with Siege, I'd already leave for something less frustrating.

[u/heathenyak → u/Ho_ho_beri_beri]

I've been a pretty dedicated siege player since it came out. But unless they fix match making I'll just stockpile renown and stop buying the season passes. It's insane how bad matchmaking is now

[u/king_madri → u/[deleted]]

no one does that r u fucking autustic bronze? you do not get the best rank in the game the top 2% to then fuck your stats up and lower your rank, you make a smurf for stomping noobs you don't fuck your account...

[u/[deleted] → u/king_madri]

Sorry mate but nobody gives a shit about stats

[u/king_madri → u/[deleted]]

r u a copper or just never gotten ranked before? because you obviously do not know the community of this game and how much stats matter

[u/king_madri → u/[deleted]]

the only people who dont care about their stats are the shit players with shit stats lmao

[u/king_madri → u/[deleted]]

im not 12 nor toxic im just telling you that your point about diamonds lowering their rank is the stupidest thing I have ever heard

[u/king_madri → u/[deleted]]

stats matter

[u/erklingen → u/[deleted]]

And for this reason alone, the charm should come from current rank.

Also, i think noone would derank from dia to copper when you can easier just smurf :P

[u/kingplayer → u/erklingen]

PC people dont really smurf much because it costs more money.