Dota 2 had two problems with matchmaking: it did not give players an incentive to play in a team and could not balance teams by roles. A recent update has solved both.
To select teams in its popular MOBA, Valve combined single and group ratings, and also introduced the long-awaited selection of games by roles.
Overall rating
To begin with, Valve merged the above ratings. The overall rating will change after each match regardless of the number of players in the game. The purpose of this approach is to encourage team play (primarily with friends), because previously many users preferred to play solo. They simply had no incentive to unite. This, as Valve writes in its blog, contradicted the developers’ intention.
In addition, with the new system, players will not be able to raise their rating artificially by playing in a team with a more experienced friend. The system will select teams with similar skills and experience for each match, that is, their composition will be more balanced.
Let’s add that a similar match selection algorithm works in Overwatch. There, the growth and decline of the rating also do not depend on whether the user is playing alone or with friends. And the teams for the matches are also selected in such a way that one of them does not have a noticeable superiority.
Role rating
The second change is even more interesting. Now, before each match, the player will be able to choose the desired role in the team — the basis or support (support), one or more preferred positions (easy line, center, etc.). The system will take care of the match selection with an eye to the rating corresponding to the selected role.
Considering the instability in the selection of games and the influence of groups on the game, we noticed something that users could already think about: the comfort of players depends on their role (basis or support). Some players are very weak in an unusual role for them, which makes the operation of the system much less predictable, since the rating deviates from the actual skill of the player, and the games themselves are unbalanced.
Also, the foundation and support will have separate leaderboards.
According to Valve, the new matchmaking mode is a big experiment, and it needs calibration. By the end of the current Dota 2 season, the company plans to collect feedback and decide which features to develop and improve next season.
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