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FEEDBACK - Matchmaking is the REAL killer in this game.
Hi. I’m a new player. I’ve been in-game for less than a week. I understand to many of you that would invalidate any of my opinions. Those who understand the business aspect, however, realize that it is far easier and less costly to retain current customers than it is to bring in new ones. That means new customers are incredibly valuable, especially when they are converted into repeat customers. Basic business aside…
I’m working on a full review of the game, but to quickly summarize why I’m here: I’m a middle-aged life-long horror fanatic. I discovered this game a year or two ago, but the gameplay really didn’t sound that interesting, so I didn’t bother. It was the horror aspect and finding the game for sale cheap that drove me to finally give it a shot and I can honestly say I fell in love with this game off the bat. In fact, I spent the first couple of days disappointed in myself for putting it off as long as I did. But then… reality sank in.
I’m genuinely surprised this game has lasted as long as it has with matchmaking as it is. I’m willing to assume it wasn’t always this way. I play on PC and for two-thirds of my day, I average between 10 and 12 minutes for a match. That’s the average wait time, so some are shorter but, unbelievably, just as many are longer. We should never be waiting for longer than 5 minutes and that 5 minutes should be the steep edge of the curve. I live in the metro Atlanta area, and we’re just ramping up the COVID-19 crisis here. Every decent game should be overflowing with players. I kept playing because I prefer to be a part of a solution rather than a part of a problem. If long queue times are a problem, then my leaving only adds to that problem. So, I stay queued up and I play every match, regardless of how outranked the opposition looks. Speaking of outranked…
I was willing to put up with long match times because I’m not streaming this game yet and I can work or get up and do other things while I wait for a match. When I say I’m waiting the two-thirds of a day for matches to queue, getting matches right away isn’t much better. At least last night it wasn’t. The following image is just a small sample of the matchups I faced:
These were only the last four matches of the night. I was equally outranked the preceding eight matches for a total of twelve ridiculous matches. That was, fortunately, all the time for gaming I had wherein the best match I acquired 10k bloodpoints. Yes, that is with the x1.5 bloodpoint bonus. I cannot even imagine trying to progress in this game without the x1.5 bonus and, at this rate, I’m genuinely not looking forward to trying.
I find myself in the incredulous position of deciding if I prefer extremely long wait times between matches in the hopes I might get a reasonable matchup or if I’d rather get matches right away and be woefully outranked. I would think I’d prefer the longer wait times… until I start having 15 minute wait times for matches where I am also completely outranked.
What’s odd is that hasn’t been the case. During that slow two-thirds of the day, my matches are far more even. The only reason I reached rank 17 was because I was able to control the maps during these slow periods and instead of destroying the survivors, I let everyone farm points. I felt like I was playing an altruistic killer (which seems absurd) just to get the most of our long matchmaking times and to try and help everyone have some fun. If I had been playing a slasher film killer (you know, competitively as I'd prefer), I’d probably still be rank 19.
Anyway, I don’t have a solution. I read an article from back in January that the Devs were reworking matchmaking. I hope this is true. In mid-April, I don’t see much evidence of it. I admit this has not been a typical experience overall. Last night was definitely the most lopsided of the previous four nights. Perhaps this was an anomaly where I got stuck in a sad matchmaking loop. Halfway through, I quit the game and rebooted in the hopes I would get better matches. I didn't.
I do hope these matchmaking issues are being aggressively prioritized because I cannot imagine this game continuing to grow if most new player experiences are like this.
(edited for minor grammar errors)
Comments
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As you can see. The rune nerf definitely made the game easier for new players. The complete lack of killers at low ranks is ridiculous. It's a shame. New players have to deal with red ranks. This is terrible.
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It's entirely possible that I missed something. That is the drawback of being a new player, even though I've watched hours of videos and read numerous articles. I don't know what I missed because I showed up after the nerf. Are you implying as a high-rank killer I am encountering low-rank survivors because low-rank killers stopped killing?
I do know about the rune nerf, but I cannot imagine that one change completely gutted killers.
As an aside, I'll still main killers and I'll get better as I go. It's just going to be excruciating if I have to crawl along with minimal bloodpoint gains because I keep getting matched with low ranked survivors.
I'd also like to clarify this only seems to be a consistent issue during prime-time hours. Off-peak, like earlier today, the lowest rank I encountered was 12. Still difficult, but not nearly as bad as last night. It is interesting that when I switched to survivor for the dailies the killers I encountered were rank 19-20. Not a solid sample size by any means, but interesting, nonetheless.
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Basically. There was a perk called ruin. And in when the perk was primarily used a couple of months ago the gen speeds needed fixing and that was one of the few perks that helped killers pressure gens easier
Basically if you didnt hit great skill checks the gen would regress. All you would need to do is find the perk totem for it since it was a hex.
The perk got nerfed to make the game easier for new survivors. This stopped alot of killers from playing the game on console and pc and combine that with the fact that it is very difficult to hit rank 1 as a killer and bam. The matchmaking becomes terrible for survivors and unfair for killers. The game pretty much throws any killer it can find at any team. That's the reason your fighting such high ranking survivors
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Thank you for taking the time to explain it to me. You really helped connect a few dots. I can be easy going to try maximizing gains when the survivors let me. It's not how I want to play all the time, but if it gets me where I need to go, for now, I can do that. I have fun bopping field mice on the head. The key there is, "when the survivors let me."
Not everyone is as easy going as I can be, though and not everyone will enjoy playing survivor. Not everyone will take the time to understand the issue, either. It is still my hope this is a prioritized issue, either from a matchmaking standpoint or finding a way to make killing more enjoyable... if not profitable again.
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Yeah bro. If your new to the game I'd recommend getting invested in the games youtuber community. They're 90% of the reason I'm rank 8
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Ruin played a big part, the horrible rework of rank reset, and only losing 1 pip on a loss have all made the ranking in this game a joke. To be fair this game has a pretty steep learning curve initially combined with needing millions upon millions of blood points for unlockables. If you can put the horrid matchmaking aside, try and get a couple key unlockables. If you want to main killer, I’d highly advise getting barbecue and chili off of leatherface. It will help out a lot on your bp grind. Nurses calling from nurse is always useful too. The devs say they are going to hide rank so rest assured everything will be all better (sarcasm)
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I've got Chili unlocked, but I forgot about Nurse's Call. Thanks. It seems most have at least one. I'm not looking forward to PGTW, but I haven't thrown down on Clown yet.
Hiding rank is a funny "sweep it under the rug," solution. The sad thing is, it's pretty obvious (to me, anyway) how experienced a survivor is and I can usually tell within the first encounter or two. The only time I've guessed wrong about rank in the past two days was earlier today running into a Huntress while doing dailies. She was on point, but not a jerk about it. She had us locked down, but let a couple of us farm a little. I expected her to be closer to 10, but she was 20. Probably a survivor main.
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