Valve recently introduced some changes to the matchmaking experience in Dota2. The objective is to create a smoother and better matchmaking experience within Dota2. While the changes might not have been to everyone’s liking, the changes definitely have helped improved the entire experience in Dota2 Matchmaking.

But Valve’s other game, CS GO has long suffered from various problems in matchmaking. Indeed the matchmaking services of third party services such as FaceIT, ESL have become more popular with the higher ranks within CS GO. The poor quality of Valve Anti Cheat does not help matters either.

We think there is a way we can learn and adapt our matchmaking experiences learnt from the three big esport titles : Dota2, CS GO, Overwatch. All three games have some positive features which can be used to create and build a stronger matchmaking system overall.

Seasonal Ranked Update

Valve introduced the Seasonal Ranked update on November 22nd, 2017 as a means of revamping the entire matchmaking experience. Players would be able to calibrate for the seasonal ranks with seasons lasting six months each. The players will be calibrated based on their highest rank in the seasons. The Seasonal Ranked Medal will not decrease over time and will display the highest ranks for the season.

For the initial season after the update, the ranks would be roughly based on the previous skill. Since there is no benchmark for the inaugural season, it will roughly use the previous MMR as the official benchmark. The new ranked system will feature Seven levels of Ranked Medals. Each of these levels has five stars of progress which will determine how close you are to the next level.

The Different Ranked Tiers

Herald

Guardian

Crusader

Archon

Legend

Ancient

Divine

One of the biggest problems in the previous matchmaking experience was with respect to the solo and party games. In the new system, greater emphasis is given on solo performances as opposed to party rank. The higher levels of Ancient and Divine will only consider your solo skill and not your Party MMR. This ensures a fair and even matchmaking system for all concerned as players will be unable to ‘game’ the system. A player’s true worth can be seen only when everyone at the level is judged on a level playing field.

This update also expands the Leaderboard system to include many more players. Players with 5 stars on the Divine Rank Medal (the highest rank) will now have a leaderboard number listed with the medal that broadcasts their position amongst other players. This leaderboard position will always be displayed alongside the Medal, and will be visible to all players in the game and on your profile.

CS GO Trust Matchmaking

Meanwhile in CS GO, Valve introduced a Trust factor. This trust factor is basically a hidden assigned value which would be used to make a balanced approach to the game. The trust factor groups players with similar traits together. It factors in the time spent playing CS GO, the number of reports that a player has received for various factors such as Cheating, Griefing etc.

The objective of the Trust factor Matchmaking is obviously to ensure that the best quality of players stay in the matchmaking groups. It is designed in such a way that players are grouped together into the matchmaking based on their hidden trust rating.

Quoting Valve’s post :

“What if the Prime system was re-imagined using a wider range of factors? We started with that question, and have been experimenting with matching players using observed behaviors and attributes of their Steam account, including the overall amount of time they had spent playing CS:GO, how frequently they were reported for cheating, time spent playing other games on their Steam account, etc.”

Valve have not revealed the exact set of parameters used to determine the “trust rating”. This is mainly done to keep the effectiveness of any such system at a premium. But the parameters will also be constantly updated, according to Valve in order to keep themselves ahead of any changes in matchmaking system. Sensing the deep discontent within the community with the previous matchmaking experience, Valve have resolved to keep themselves ahead of the curve by focussing on the future in matchmaking.

Overwatch SR Decay

Meanwhile Overwatch has a decay system for it’s higher ranks. Players who remain inactive for long periods of time will see their SR ( rank ) decay over time. This is a push by the developers to the players who might tend to reach high ranks and just leave their accounts sitting there. We have seen in previous seasons of Overwatch players reaching high ranks on their main accounts. Once they reach a high rank, they would play the rest of the season on their alternate accounts. Not only does this mean that they would essentially block a spot at the very top ( while not actively playing on that account anymore) but they would also not care about their playstyle for the rest of the season.

The SR decay is not specific to address the above problems, but it does help in mitigating the problems to a small extent. We do have something similar in CS GO, where players lose their ranks if they do not play for a long period of time. But the CS GO rank loss is sudden and feels extreme at times. Overwatch gives us a gradual decay, and players can see their rank going down over time. At the same time a player’s hidden MMR remains the same. The hidden MMR is essentially a number which the system ‘thinks’ you rightfully deserve. We will not go into the details of how the Hidden MMR and the Public SR work in Overwatch, but SR decay is something that should be transparent and gradual as it is in Overwatch.

The Matchmaking experience

We need to merge the matchmaking systems in order to create a hassle free experience for all the players across esports. It will help in negating many of the poor experiences in traditional matchmaking right now. We have already listed some of these disadvantages that we could do away with if we make some minor changes to each system.

Dota2

Solo queue MMR at the higher Ranks

Seasonal Rank Resets

Stabilisation of Brackets

Discouraging Account buyers

CS GO

Appreciate Player feedback and make a trust based matchmaking

Remove toxicity / cheaters to a huge extent

Overwatch

Decay System

Matchmaking has seen itself evolve overtime with more and more players playing these games. The increased competition has also led to a very competitive and serious desire to win amongst the players. Oftentimes this results in a lot of toxicity in the system, something which has repeatedly driven players away from these games.

A Combined Matchmaking experience

Less Toxicity

The trust based system will take into account players’ reports and feedback about their fellow players. This will ensure that the entire system remains a feedback based system. It is not always possible to remove toxicity based on an algorithm as there are no set parameters defined for toxicity.

When a player gets reported repeatedly over a long period of time, his ‘trust factor’ will go lower and lower. This will automatically place him in a lower bracket based on the trust factor. It acts sort of similar to the Low Priority queue when players in the LP ( Low Priority) ar e

Less Cheaters

A feedback based system would drastically reduce the number of cheaters. Valve’s anti-cheat is notorious for being inefficient in weeding out cheaters and hackers from the system. It is one of the reasons for the huge success of third party anti matchmaking systems such as ESEA and FaceIT. Even the professional players use their very own matchmaking leagues such as Rank S and FPL.

More Balanced Rank Tiers

The new system will ensure a better balance of the ranks across tiers. While the old system in Dota2 showed a MMR Number which would be used to gauge the calibre of a player, the new system has tiers within itself. We have seven different rank medals which are further subdivided into five steps along the way.

Seasonal Resets – Less Smurfs

One of the biggest reasons for smurfing and account buying in Dota2 / CS GO is that the ranks remain as they are for a long time. The Dota2 MMR would remain consistent and account buyers had a field day buying accounts with the ‘accepted’ 4k-5k MMR Bracket.

Bought accounts often spoil the experience for the vast majority who play on their main accounts. This results in a lot of toxicity and short tempered behaviour in the matches, leaving an unpleasant taste for the players.



With the new Dota2 rank system, players would need to recalibrate after every six months. The seasons would then have the new ranks after calibration. This directly counters the objective for the account buyers and smurfs. The numbers of Account buyers and smurfs will definitely come down, but this will not eradicate the problem. However, this will ensure a proper talent distribution across the ranks and have a better experience for all.

Final Thoughts

A combined matchmaking experience including the best features of Dota2, Overwatch and CS GO would be really good for all the titles. We have seen Valve anticipate the problems within the two games and try to approach these problems separately. The community has been complaining about the Overwatch Matchmaking system for weeks now. Individually all three matchmaking systems seem to be lacking in some crucial aspects

A possibly better solution for all three titles would be to use the best parts of the three matchmaking queues. While this might not solve all the problems, it will significantly improve the overall experience. Let us know if you think this system would work out for the better in comments below.

Source :