Can someone explain to me how matchmaking is meant to work?

@twitch-xk90 it's Rare's "modified Elo" system which takes into account W/L, and no other stats. It's not a SBMM system, so you're not always going to find players at your skill level.

Right now, the available pool of players is probably so low that the game is pitting you against... just whoever is also playing in your "stamp" or region lol. Apparently it doesn't search beyond regions.

@theblackbellamy

Its all I can think of, but it must be super low population because my W/L is in the toilet and I'm getting put up against people who are on streaks. Its a shame that there is no way of improving it.

@twitch-xk90 You might have better luck at another time of day. But if I had to guess what the distribution of players looks like, it'd probably be skewed-left with a majority of active players being those with a decent amount of PvP experience.

I wouldn't say there's no way to improve it though. I've seen plenty of good suggestions and made some myself. Ultimately, it comes down to where Rare wants to invest their time and resources.

Making the mode appeal to the more casual crowd would bring in more interest, and shift that distribution curve back towards something more normal.

@theblackbellamy

Im more thinking of an improvement to how matches are matched. Is there even away for Rare to track more then just W/L?

@twitch-xk90 said:

Im more thinking of an improvement to how matches are matched. Is there even away for Rare to track more then just W/L?

Yeah idk man lol. I'm sure they could.

A more skill based system would track cannon accuracy, gun accuracy, average match length or time-to-sink, in addition to W/L.

But if they added all these conditions, with thr player pool as limited as it is, and matchmaking not searching for players across regions, you'd be left either waiting significantly longer for a fight, or possibly even timing out due to a lack of skill-based opponents.

It's not just the matchmaking system that needs to improve. The activity (hourglass) itself needs to be improved and expanded in a way that would bring enough players to make SBMM effective.

Quick Explanation = It doesn't work, it's garbage.

More elaborate explanation:

Supposedly there should be an SBMM that would match you with players of similar level to you, that is not possible due to the incredibly low population of HG. So they've opted to use a pretty mediocre W/L system that doesn't seem to work either.

The system ends up matching you with the fastest match possible so you're not queuing for hours waiting for an opponent of your skill or W/L ratio.

It also could not be an exact system since there are two factors that directly impact the "MMR"

1 - People who farm defeats and runners affect both positively and negatively their MMR and that of their opponent (Personally, if I see a runner I don't bother chasing them, I disconnect from the game)

2 - The absurd amount of cheaters in the game (Thanks Rare, one day the anti-cheat will arrive) artificially destroy the MMR of others by destroying them through the use of third-party programs.

This has brought HG to the point it is at, basically a miserable and frustrating experience that isn't even worth playing.

The days with exp and gold bonuses are the worst to play HG, if on normal days there are many cheaters, these days it is an invasion, ironically, bonus days are least worth playing if you want to do Streaks, because you have a 90 % chance that you will be paired against one of these human garbage and ruin your game.

It seems that Rare is going to choose to do the same thing it did with the arena, leaving the HG there for whoever wants to get into that hell until they decide to close it.

It would not have cost them anything to listen to the community's feedback and increase both the experience and the rewards beyond level 200, they have decided to do nothing, leaving it as they are waiting for the cheaters to remain caged there and not jump into adventure mode (Spoiler - There are already cheaters in adventure)

I have just finished grinding this week from 1 to 100 in guardians, as I really wanted the ghost curse.

HG for me is not particularly fun. As had been said, the matchmaking is a joke if you are expecting a fair match up most of the time. The population of HG is so low you will get matched up with basically whoever happens to be actually playing in your stamp.

I faced complete beginners, followed by boats that absolutely shattered my cannon line and boat in no time whatsoever.

I understand that Rare do not want you sitting around underwater for ages waiting for a good match up, so they find you a match, not necessarily fair to either you or your opponent. They need more participants to make this happen and its just not a particularly fun game mode, especially if you are starting your HG career.

Good luck matey, I have seen improvement in my game play through playing HG but I'm honestly not sure I ever want to solo sloop in HG again

HG doesn't have the population to actually SBMM you. It's just trying to make battles.

@ix-indi-xi

Personally, I think HG is much worse than arena.
There it didn't matter if you sank, you spawned in the fight with the supplies again and it was a matter of learning and learning, HG greatly penalizes losing a game, both in time invested and in gold spent re-supplying again.

The HG doesn't need a lot of work to improve a lot, in my opinion with 3 things it would be greatly improved, ignoring the damn anticheat.

1 - Reduce the circle to avoid those annoying runners, if they don't want to fight, let them farm for defeats, but don't waste the opponent's time for many minutes.

2 - Increase the experience obtained, the amount that is obtained is ridiculous even by winning on days without bonuses, I would also put a multiplier for streaks that would work even if you get sunk during a streak, to encourage going one step further and breaking that limit that many use such streaks as x2 or x4.

3- Do not punish sinking so much, if you are sunk, you respawn at the outpost and if you queue up for HG again (So that it is not abused) you will have free captaincy supplies, even an option when you sink that says - "Re-queue with free supplies." This would make the mode much more dynamic and the queues short

The most curious thing of all is that there are Rare staff playing HG, 3 days ago I came across one who had the title "Rare Vanguard", I think his name was Micah or something like that.

If there are staff members playing, I understand even less why the mode remains without improvements, it is very easy to realize the shortcomings that HG has and it is also very easy to solve them to revitalize this mode.

I have decided to stop playing it, because of all this and because of the absurd amount of cheaters that there are, I get very bored in adventure and I barely get into the game, I love PvP and HG along with the arena were and are my two favorite modes, but its current state is regrettable and after 2-3 games I'm totally bored.

From level 200 onwards it's a psychological battle, the feeling of zero reward for 800 levels is horrible, that's something I forgot to mention but it's also very important.

Here's a wild thought- maybe the general population doesn't actually need or want a pvp mode.
Arena
Hourglass
Siren Skull

abandoned by all but a few.

@ix-indi-xi

Totally agree, hate towards the PvP aspect of SoT is usually tied to players' refusal to put in enough hours to improve.

It is true that many times it does not work very well, but without PvP, this game dies in months, I have tried the Safer Seas to improve my Sniper + Flintlock build and after making a skeleton fortress without anyone coming, I get bored and I log off, leave the loot in the crypt and go play something else.

Let's hope that changes come for S11, because honestly they are going in a direction that does not seem to be correct.

@PithyRumble

I partially agree with you, those contents are half dead because they have been developed poorly and without testing.

But that doesn't mean PvP is dead, in fact a high percentage of the public that consumes SoT on Twitch does so for PvP.

The partners almost all do PvP, many of them dedicate their streams only to HG, others do a mix, but PvP content is something they focus a lot on.

If the content they released for us was later updated, these modes would not be as they are.... but if you, as a PvE player, are offered a playable loop for 800 levels without any reward, I think you would not play it either.

The skull has been content that has lacked a lot of testing, it is dead content right now.

@pithyrumble said:

maybe the general population doesn't actually need or want a pvp mode.
Arena
Hourglass
Siren Skull

abandoned by all but a few.

Or they don't like the way the modes are designed and/or maintained.

I think "abandon" is pretty accurate there. Folks who avoid PvP will avoid PvP, but I think the general population does have at least some initial interest in these modes, until Rare practically abandons them, and then so does the playerbase.

If Arena had multiple modes, including a TDM one, it would have kept TDMers out of naval modes, and retained more naval players. If it kept the 1.0 and 2.0 modes, it would have retained both of those types of players. There would have surely been crossover interest between the modes as well.

But we got none of that, no ledger, no new rewards, and there was almost no maintenance. The lobbies were borked and matches wouldn't start, even with full teams of closed crews lol.

So of course the general population wasn't interested in Arena, when even those who were interested, were having fewer reasons to return.

Hourglass was released with issues, and by the time Rare did resolve some of those issues, the general population probably had a bad enough first impression, that they abandoned the mode.

I've seen plenty of good suggestions on how to bring in more casual interest, mostly involving significantly higher rewards for those defending loot or facing greater odds. A "first win of the day" rewarding a whole level. Stuff like that, I would think, would appeal more to the general PvPvE crowd. Yet we've seen no such changes.

And for other unresolved reasons/issues folks have mentioned above, the mode barely even appeals to SoT's PvP-focused playerbase, let alone the general population. Even the comp kids are abandoning the mode lol.

Siren's Song gets a pass here because it's as much a "PvP mode" as a Reaper Chest lol. This is one of those things that only gets activity if anyone else on your server cares.

What HG and Arena have in common is the ability to bring players who want to PvP together, on demand. Fast and easy. No need to search for an active server. Just load into the Arena tavern, or click a few buttons and dive into the waters.

OP is just one member of the general population, who is wanting to play HG, wanting to get better, but seemingly losing interest.