Valve continues to tweak Dota 2’s matchmaking algorithm, which has been exposed to multiple failures in these couple of months. Since the very first tweak during TI9, Valve hit a roadblock as most of the high-ranked players are still noticing a considerable disruption in their matches.
For that matter, Valve has recently pushed another update regarding matchmaking to try and achieve different results. This update is supposed to minimize the problems that experienced players are facing, especially at some of the most experienced players across the globe.
Valve has posted the change and how the matchmaking system faces a new disparity than before. This will also prevent party matchmaking from acting as cheating and will allow the opposing team to settle in a game a fairer game.
Due to the unusually high frequency of matchmaking abuses found in party games in high level matches–we’re adding a new rule to party matchmaking for Immortal ranks to help reduce some of the negative behaviors that have become common at these ranks and to help make solo queuing more viable. For any party that includes an Immortal player, every player in that party will be considered the same rank as the highest player in that party. While this will significantly reduce some of the more common abuse scenarios, the trade-off is that it will also affect “normal” parties with large MMR disparities. We think this trade-off is worthwhile at this high level, however, because matches are unlikely to be of high quality anyways with extremely disparate skill levels within a party given the shallow pool available. Such disparity has often made the games less fun for most players involved. We expect that this will have the net effect of reducing the number of party games at the highest skill levels by some amount, but compared to how infrequent high-MMR party games were in the past, the number of party games should still be higher than the historical average.
According to Valve, a stack of 5 players will now only collide against another 5-stack player, which may provoke lingering queues.
But, that’s not only it. Due to the feedback, Valve has also discovered some bugs in the matchmaker’s evaluation that has led to incorrect ranks. Those bugs are fixed, and shortly after this update, players are expected to receive the Outlanders update, which is scheduled to include new heroes and excitements.
Sadly, both Twitch Streamers and recognizable Dota 2 players are cynic about the matchmaking changes, as they’re receiving low-rank players in their matches. Is Valve ever going to put an end to this bitter experience? Knowing that Dota 2 compresses the most complex matchmaking algorithm, Dota 2 players may face a tough period before everything’s settled.
