2023-09-17 (original post date)
Preamble
Bringing attention to issues is useful for game development, balance, and most importantly, fun. I do not think it is productive to just complain without offering solutions, so here is my input. My goal is to present a fair system for evaluating the effectiveness of squads, so we can have better matchmaking (MM). As game systems become more complex, solving them typically becomes intractable. This is nerdspeak for “the best build is impossible to determine”. If it’s not a difficult problem, it’s usually indicative of a very simple, or unbalanced system. The current meta (6k+ hangars) has a short list of 8 mechs(1). There is a wide variety of weapons being used, which I feel is a good sign for this game since the meta isn’t “solved”(2) . The meta is absolutely solved since typical endgame competitive hangars are 5 mechs with 2 weapons(1). This is “likely” due to a balance issue in the weapons, and the mechs are mostly based on being the way to utilize those weapons (circa 2025). Because both sides in a match don’t have identical pieces, an ELO-type system, famously used for ranking in chess, is problematic for matching people to have a “fair”(3) match. If the matching system is fair, then the outcome of each match is determined by the combination of map, mech abilities, weapons, and player skill. When I parsed matches, it was clear that the MM was probably not based on squad power (SP), rather it appeared to be based on the highest rank and rarity of equipment in the squad. I believe that we need a more sophisticated calculation than SP as the sum of all the parts of squads, which I call Match Squad Power (MSP).
The problem with current MM
Matching by SP is not ideal because it’s easily abusable: A squad of 1-2 strong mechs will typically destroy a balanced squad of 5 with the same total SP.
A more reasonable assessment of the power of the squad would factor the power of the top mechs, and project that power across all 5 slots, even if empty. This would also encourage people to build more balanced squads instead of stacking everything into 1-2 mechs. My understanding of the MM from last season doesn’t change what I’m suggesting.
My suggestion, in loose terms, and relying on power assignments:
Match Squad Power (MSP)
- Sort hangar of Player A in descending order of power
- MSP = sum (A1x5 + max(A2,A1x.9)x4 + max(A3,A2x.9)x3+ max(A4,A3x.9)x2+ max(A5,A4x.9)x1))
Rationale: assign weighted power, resulting in at least 90% of the power of the previous mech. The final minimum power, based on the highest power mech is 90%, 81%, 73%, and 66%
This intentionally punishes players with relatively weaker mechs on their squad, or empty mech slots. This should only be applied when players are expected to have 5 mech slots. The final division by 3 is simplified division by 15 (the sum of the multipliers) then multiplied by 5 to show
Build bots as follows:
Sort hangar of Player A in descending order of power
1 Assign Weight = 9
2 Player B1 = A1
3 Player B2 = (Weight x A1 + A2) / (Weight + 1)
4 Player B3 = (Weight x max(A2,B2)+A3)/(Weight + 1)
5 Player B4 = (Weight x max(A3,B3)+A4)/(Weight + 1)
6 Player B5 = (Weight x max(A4,B4)+A5)/(Weight + 1)
And then apply some minor variance of up to +/- 5%
Use anything similar to the current bot matching configuration, and adjust pilot, implants, and weapons to fit these numbers.
Bots : build from the weekly configuration, but scale to be +10% of the team average MSP.
Prioritize matching with players: Calculate MSP, and pair within 10%
These systems rely on the current assignments of power, which I feel are flawed for the following reasons:
- Weapon power is based on rarity and energy, not actual damage, rate of damage, or effective range.
- This is further compounded by implants and pilots. If additional damage is sufficient to kill the opposing mech without a reload, this allows the winning mech to move to a better position instead of risking taking damage during a firefight.
- Mech power is based on the stats, and some of the power assignments are questionable, such as Panther.
(new content here)
There are many games with a points system to balance armies/squads/heroes. The scoring for modern versions is largely based off playtesting and regular adjustments.
I think the points value should start with a baseline generic attacker, and then we look at speed, hp, and ability. Since you need HP to do damage or cap beacons, the survivability of a mech should be the baseline. Either raw HP, speed to move to cover, and then abilities like shields/walls/mitigation/etc or dashing/speed increase.
The baseline for weapons is trivial – assign power for burst dps (max damage in an arbitrary 5 seconds) or sustained (average including reload time), AoE, range, and weirdness (Oracle reveal, ridiculous tracking, speed of lock, etc).
Pilots scale the HP and damage/reload, same with implants.
Mods scale the HP, and I would use the total amount of possible HP from all installed mods.
Generic weapons on mechs should get no multiplier to power. Weapons that perform especially well (i.e. Revokers on Surge) should have a multiplier applied. Weapons
Yes, I’m suggesting a matrix of all mechs & weapons.
I’m not sure if these base stats should be visible to players since they will fluctuate wildly and likely confuse newer players. Maybe a relative base power stat for mech and weapon, but the players would need this explained in some detail.
(end new content)
I haven’t parsed matches vs bots at different loadouts to extrapolate what appears to be the current matching system this season (it seems very different than Season 22), and a new matching system has been mentioned, so I hope there is time for some of these points to be considered and possibly implemented.
MM has been tweaked many times, but always seems to be mainly based on rank & rarity of the preset. (circa December 2025)
(1) current meta, in alphabetical order: (this was circa September 2023)
-Aegis
+Bastion
+Eclipse
-Gatecrasher
+Orion
+Panther
-Redeemer
+Surge
The +/- indicates popularity
(1) current meta in alphabetical order circa December 2025:
Deathwalker
Eclipse
Lacewing
Nomad
Surge
(2) Solved normally means a winning strategy that “guarantees” (has a high probability of) a win, loss, or draw for one of the players. In abstract terms, every strong mech has a viable counter in the meta, Since we see regularly new weapons and mechs in the game, the meta is expected to change over time. This has not happened in 2025 (circa December 2025).
The fact there are active players with 9k+ meta builds from last year and still winning 80% of their matches is a strong indication the game is healthy and not solved. (circa September 2023)
The current meta is a 5 mechs and 2 weapons. It is clearly solved, not healthy, and endgame players have been complaining about this for at least a year (circa December 2025).
(3) in Probability, “fair” means an equal chance of success. For example, a coin is considered fair if there is an equally likely chance of a flip resulting in either heads or tails.
edit 2024-05-19 I’m wondering if instead of sorting mechs in a hangar in descending order, it might be better to calculate the max SP from the current hangar; biggest mech with biggest pilot modifier, biggest 2 weapons (regardless of energy) including biggest pilot modifiers for that weapon, and then assign 100%, 90%, 81%, 73%, 66% with some variance as originally posted.