News | New Matchmaking System
NEW MATCHMAKING SYSTEM
In the coming weeks, we’ll deploy a new matchmaking system. It will address the edge cases that caused some of you to experience longer matchmaking queues and should even out waiting times, thus making them fairer for all players at any given time.
Why are we making changes to the current matchmaking system?
The current system attempts to find the best possible match for a player, given their rank and geolocation. It starts by searching for lobbies that include other players who are both close in rank and geographically. If it doesn’t find such lobbies, it expands the search, both in rank and in geolocation. It continues expanding the search until a lobby is found.
The current system does, however, have the drawback that some players will get matched very quickly, while others will take a long time to be matched depending on the time of the day, the player’s rank, and geolocation. In other words, a new lobby can still be preferred over an older lobby if the new lobby is a “better match” in terms of rank and geolocation. Simply put, some players might wait for a long time because other players keep finding better matching lobbies.
How is the new matchmaking system different?
The new system puts a player looking for a match in one of two queues: a queue for killers and a queue for survivors. Then at a fixed time interval (for example, every thirty seconds), it takes a bucket of players from both queues and matches them together, creating multiple lobbies, and trying to find the best possible match for a player with every other player within the bucket (again, according to rank and geolocation).
Why is the new system better than the current one?
The objective of the new matchmaking system is to address the longer matchmaking edge cases and even out the waiting times. Whereas in the current system, a small portion of players could find a match very quickly (under 5%) and another small portion of players could wait a very long time (under 5%), the new system will reduce these edges case and make sure all the players, at a given moment, have about the same wait time.
When will the new system be deployed? Will it be deployed all at once?
We are looking at testing the new matchmaking system during the Chapter X PTB. It might not go live on the first day but later in the week.
If all goes well, our target is to release the new matchmaking system on the main live environment by January 2019 on all platforms. We will keep you informed when we are ready to roll it out.
We will roll out the system gradually to make sure the system behaves as expected. We will start with a small percentage of people, and if the results are satisfactory, activate it for more people, until everyone uses the new system.
Will an update be needed to get the new matchmaking system?
No. The first iteration of the new matchmaking system will not require an update. All the changes are on our back-end services.
I am playing as a killer. What changes will I notice with the new matchmaking system?
As a killer, the noticeable difference is that you will see all four survivors appear almost simultaneously in the online lobby.
I am playing as a survivor. What changes will I notice with the new matchmaking system?
As a survivor, the main difference is that you will wait in the offline lobby instead of the online lobby until you get matched. Once matched, you will join the online lobby at the same time as the other survivors you have been paired with.
# Will this new system radically improve the matchmaking wait time?
The objective of the new matchmaking system is to reduce the waiting time edge cases. This new system will not necessarily be a miracle solution reducing the overall matchmaking waiting time. Dead by Daylight is an asymmetric multiplayer game, which means that if there are too many players playing killer then killers will wait longer, and if there are too many players playing survivors then survivors will wait longer.
Will I see the estimated wait when looking for a game?
While the first version of the new matchmaking system will not give feedback to the players about how long are the expected wait times for both killers and survivors, such improvements are on our roadmap.