Lesson 06 · 3 min · 5 things to do
Matchmaking is a rating
Say what a matchmaking system is optimising for.
A matchmaking system tries to pair you with opponents. What is it aiming for?
- Yes.An even contest is the most interesting one, and it is also what a rating system needs in order to learn anything about you — a predictable result carries almost no information.
- Not quite.Systems that hand out wins produce short-term satisfaction and a rating that means nothing.
- Not quite.Wait time is a genuine constraint pulling against quality of match. Every system trades one for the other.
A rating is a guess about your strength. Every result updates the guess, and how much it moves depends on how surprising the result was.
You have a rating of 1500. Slide your opponent's rating and see what a win is worth.
120015001800Gained if you win5 pointsLost if you lose27 points1200You were expected to win. Winning proves little; losing costs a lot.
Gained if you win16 pointsLost if you lose16 points1500An even match. The result is genuinely informative either way.
Gained if you win27 pointsLost if you lose5 points1800You were expected to lose. A win is a real surprise and moves the rating a long way.
Why does beating a much stronger player move your rating so much more?
- Yes.A rating is a prediction. When the prediction is right it needs almost no correction; when it is wrong it needs a large one. Every rating system in sport and games works on that principle.
- Not quite.It looks like a reward and it is a correction. The maths has no concept of deserving.
- Not quite.Points are not transferred from a pool. Each rating is updated by how wrong the prediction was.
Move the control to see what changes.
Which of these does a rating system actually measure?
How often you beat players of a given rating.
How much you have improved recently.
How skilful you look while playing.
Your results against this specific opponent pool.
Your potential.
Yes.A rating is a summary of results against the people you actually played. It travels badly between different player pools, which is why ratings from two regions or two games are not comparable.A system pairs you against opponents you beat 50% of the time. Over 40 matches, how many do you expect to lose?
matchesYes.Half of them. A well-tuned competitive system means losing about as often as winning forever — which is honest, uncomfortable, and why many players prefer modes with weaker matchmaking.Why do players so often feel matchmaking is against them?
- Yes.The complaint is a direct consequence of the design succeeding. It is why studios report matchmaking as the most complained-about system in games that have it, regardless of how it is tuned.
- Not quite.Some systems do weight matches for engagement rather than balance, and that is a real and separate criticism. The 50% experience appears even in the honest ones.
- Not quite.Widely true and not needed here — the even-match design produces the feeling on its own.
Lesson complete
A rating only learns from results it did not expect.
Next: When design starts working on you →