[Locked] Matchmaking Feedback Update – April 3

A bit slower this week, but here's the update.

Is intermission too long or too short?
Vincent Hui, our UX Design Lead, has another question for you. He wants to know your feelings on the intermission.

Is it long enough to do what you want between matches? Like, look at packs and / or read through the PGCR?

We see people back out and re-search instead of waiting for it to finish. Is that because the intermission is too long?

Would you prefer this:

• A much longer intermission so you have time to check everything you want to check
• A button to skip the intermission if you want and go straight to matchmaking (Fireteam leader would override teammates)

Or do you like it fine as it is, backing out and re-searching is fine, so a “skip” button would be redundant?


Why don’t we hear as often from other designers as we do from you?
Honestly, it’s just because I’m a super chatty person. The other designers I work with read your feedback, and go through much the same steps you see me showing you transparently here --- they just don’t drag it out on the forums for you all to see like I do. They’re listening too. Just like me, they also don’t always agree, but they have reasonable reasons just like me when they don’t.


SWAT is still taking too long to match for some
The setting we have for SWAT right now is about as loose as I dare without allowing, e.g., Gold vs. Champ, which I don’t think anyone wants. You could try searching expanded, or search doing global peak times.

What are you going to do about Champion players partying with low CSR accounts to rank up faster?
A small change will go in, probably later this week, that makes it so this doesn't work anymore. Playing with low ranked players will result in very little progress. The only way to Rank up effectively will be to party with people around your skill.

The best players may eventually hit a wall where they are getting +1 win, -30 for a loss. This is just poor messaging that means, "Your performance these last few games has been the same, so no need to increase your CSR." Basically, their CSR has been found, so it doesn't need to go up any farther unless they start displaying significantly improved performances.

the option to skip would be the better option thanks

In my experience, people quit during intermission and rematch primarily in order to avoid matching the same players in the next game. I've never had an issue with the intermission length for accomplishing inter-game tasks like opening REQ packs, changing armor, checking PGCR, etc. I've also never heard anybody complain about the length.

The option to match right away would be cool, though. I'm always a fan of more granular controls.

I always back out and manually restart because it's too long IMO.

Are there any matchmaking or playlist updates coming down the pipeline for MCC?

snickerdoodle wrote:

Willko wrote:

Are there any matchmaking or playlist updates coming down the pipeline for MCC?

This is not the place. First and only warning.

What about my post about the smurfing people? Is it okay? I can delete it if it is out of place

nendoras wrote:

snickerdoodle wrote:

Willko wrote:

Are there any matchmaking or playlist updates coming down the pipeline for MCC?

This is not the place. First and only warning.

What about my post about the smurfing people? Is it okay? I can delete it if it is out of place

Your post is fine but I suggest you read the prior posts by OP. He explains that they're working on something. Reporting people for cheating is more an Xbox Live thing, not a Halo specific thing.

I'd love a button to skip the intermission but leaving and starting over isn't really the most tedious thing ever so that works too.

"Is it long enough to do what you want between matches? Like, look at packs and / or read through the PGCR?

We see people back out and re-search instead of waiting for it to finish. Is that because the intermission is too long?

Would you prefer this:

• A much longer intermission so you have time to check everything you want to check
• A button to skip the intermission if you want and go straight to matchmaking (Fireteam leader would override teammates)

Or do you like it fine as it is, backing out and re-searching is fine, so a “skip” button would be redundant?"


With increased search times I think the intermission timer is sufficient because you can buy req packs or change settings/armor during the search. Also, the work around of backing and researching is so easy I don't think its necessary to fix at this point.

What are you going to do about Champion players partying with low CSR accounts to rank up faster?
A small change will go in, probably later this week, that makes it so this doesn't work anymore. Playing with low ranked players will result in very little progress. The only way to Rank up effectively will be to party with people around your skill.

The best players may eventually hit a wall where they are getting +1 win, -30 for a loss. This is just poor messaging that means, "Your performance these last few games has been the same, so no need to increase your CSR." Basically, their CSR has been found, so it doesn't need to go up any farther unless they start displaying significantly improved performances.

This may rank lock the champ in the scenario of a champ/gold searching in doubles but it doesn't fix the issue of a silver/gold/plat matching a champ/gold combo. I think the majority of smurf accounts that do this do so to play against low ranks because its fun to just own lower level players. While a smurf account does continue to rank up they can just purposely derank and place silver/gold each season.

Smurfing undermines the matchmaking system and gives lower skilled players a bad experience.

If my understanding is correct you currently average each teams skill (Gold/Champ) and end up with a diamond average that faces diamond averages or lower.

What can be done to fix the smurfing problem? You could just use the rank of the highest party member for searching, but that would lean towards unenjoyable games for the lower ranking party members. You could prevent a gold from searching with an onyx but this stops friends from playing together (Not sure how often this happens anyways aside from smurfing teams).

Maybe there is another option to prevent this from happening that we haven't thought of.

Jolly Josh wrote:

[...] but it doesn't fix the issue of a silver/gold/plat matching a champ/gold combo. I think the majority of smurf accounts that do this do so to play against low ranks because its fun to just own lower level players. While a smurf account does continue to rank up they can just purposely derank and place silver/gold each season.

Maybe there is another option to prevent this from happening that we haven't thought of.

There is change coming a bit further down the road that I think will help. One of the reasons the smurfs get to play those easy matches is because of how long it takes to identify them and move them up in the matchmaking. We should be able to drastically improve how fast we detect skill, meaning the number of matches they impact lower-skilled players will be greatly reduced.

In addition, we like the idea of an SR requirement---especially on smurf accounts--- but it's unlikely we'll see that in Halo 5