smash, story time, in which I completely break a competitive game's matchmaker
One of my guilty pleasures when the-world-feels-too-hard is to dive into a game's achievements and game out how to get them to 100%. This is different from actually getting them to 100%, and mostly keeps my brain occupied on something other than whatever-it-is-that-day. It's self-care for planners, in a way.
One of Smash's achievements is 200 quickplay battles, AKA online matchmaking. I am thoroughly not the target audience, but I tried it to see how it would go.
Over this (~8-9 hour) experiment, I learned the following:
1. I am quite good compared to the average Smash player
2. I am very, very, very bad with Solid Snake
It turns out this combination completely breaks the how the game matches online play in possibly the best way possible.
re: smash, story time, in which I completely break a competitive game's matchmaker
In summary: I guess this was a useful experiment, but please keep me from ever playing Solid Snake again. Down that path lies madness, insanity, and many dodge-rolled-grenades that do 8-15% damage.
re: smash, story time, in which I completely break a competitive game's matchmaker
PS: I said I'd get to the ranking thing trying to please two distinct communities of players by assuming "better" players want solo-1v1-no-items. Without getting into specifics, splitting the categories was a better way to go (and I suspect the competitive category had a _lot_ less traffic).
An example that I think really succeeds at doing this is Splatoon and its sequel. And I wonder if some of its lessons will transfer over.
re: smash, story time, in which I completely break a competitive game's matchmaker
PPS: also, apologies for typos mid-thread. Writing this over lunch, and my metaphorical editor was more interested in food at the time.
re: smash, story time, in which I completely break a competitive game's matchmaker
The game currently thinks that I match at around the top 10-15% of Smash players, which is way higher than I expect it to remain. But with Snake, I match at the bottom 5%, consistently. And the game has thoroughly no idea what to do with this data.
In its third and fourth iteration, Smash did randomized matchmaking (even in 4's "For Glory" mode). Online matches were kind of unpredictable, but fun for jumping into and out of quickly.
Ultimate, however, has a ranking system called "global smash power", which in similar games is described as a matchmaking ranking (MMR for short). The game also varies the rules based on your ranking to try to please two (mostly independent) communities of Smash players. The developers assume that higher ranked players prefer solo 1v1 without items (which is hilarious, I'll get to that), and they give preference to these rules based on your ranking.
So in comes my unfortunate interpretation of Solid Snake. The game thinks I'm a good player overall, so it... matches me solo 1v1 without items. While only showing my rating as Snake to other players.
These people were clearly expecting a different match than what they got.
I picture it this way: Salty Nacl McSaltington, ultra competitive Simon Belmont player, is all juiced up for a game. They're on their third high-octane energy drink, having just tabbed out of a heated discussion about balancing the returning (Fire Emblem) Roy character. They're angry, and they have their sights on today's high global smash power.
And here comes this Solid Snake that forces them to chase them around the stage for 10 whole minutes before inevitably self-destructing off of the stage, while aggravating them grenades, remote bombs, stage hazards and (sometimes) items. They didn't even get time to teabag them! And then they see they were paired with someone who, compared to their 1.3 million "global smash power", has a rating of 30k and doesn't move their ranking at all.
Injecting this element of chaos to the game fills me with life.