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jules avatar image
jules asked

How can we make the number of online players affect Matchmaking 2.0?

Hi there,

We are setting up Matchmaking 2.0 for our game, and we'd really like the number of online players to affect the matchmaker. A matchmaker should behave differently if there are 10 vs. 100 vs. 1000 players online.

As an example, let's say there's a 1v1 game, like Chess, where players are roughly normally distributed around 1000 Elo but can realistically range from 0-3000 Elo.

Let's say our matchmaker compares the difference in Elos of players queueing up to see if there's a viable match.

If there are 1000 players online, we might want to match players within 300 Elo of each other, expanding by 1/sec.

If there are 100 players online, we might want to match players within 500 Elo of each other, expanding by 2/sec.

If there are only 10 players online, we'd basically want to instantly match players with anyone else who queues up.

Do you have any recommendations on how we can accomplish this with Matchmaking 2.0?

For example, if the initial difference allowed increased as the number of players decreased, that would help. Or if the expansion rate increased as the number of players decreased, that would help. Of if we could compare across different attributes (instead of just within attributes), that would help.

Any ideas are appreciated. This is critical for us to have good matchmaking.

Thank you,

Julian

Matchmaking
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1 Answer

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Citrus Yan avatar image
Citrus Yan answered

>>Do you have any recommendations on how we can accomplish this with Matchmaking 2.0?

As I see it, each scenario is easily done with the current Matchmaking features. So I am thinking that you can create multiple Queues that correspond to each scenario, and submit Matchmaking Tickets to one of the Queues according to the number of online players.

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jules avatar image jules commented ·

Thanks for your answer, Citrus. Your solution helps, but it offers a discrete solution to what I would describe as a continuous problem.

The 10 vs 100 vs 1000 players online was just an example to illustrate that matchmaking should behave differently. The same applies at 10 vs 20 vs 50 players online. 10 vs 50 might not seem like a big difference, but the probability of finding a viable 2v2 match with 50 players is significantly higher than finding one with 10 players.

To me, it doesn't seem like the best solution to create 10+ different queues.

Still, I appreciate your help though.

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Citrus Yan avatar image Citrus Yan jules commented ·

PlayFab Matchmaking doesn't natively support this "continuous" scenario you are describing. Also, I think that the number of online players doesn't really matter, what really matters is the number of tickets in the queue, which truly reflects the number of players who want to play together. PlayFab Matchmaking is capable of finding the best match quickly, following the rules you set in the Queue.

Therefore, as I see it, a possible way to accomplish your situation would be defining a Queue that starts with a rather small Elo difference (this corresponds to the situation that there are a large number of players want to play together), and then uses linear/custom expansion to increase the Elo difference gradually to act on the situation that there are smaller amount of players want to play together. This requires you to fine-tune the rule configuration to help the players find matches more accurately and promptly in real-world situations later on.

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