Valiant Force Forum

About Arena Matches and Some Detailed Feedback on How to Improve the Matchmaking


I’m seeing a lot of launch players talking about the problems with Arena, about it being too unfair to new players. Right now, form what I’ve read from Devs posts and players it’s based on the player level. I cannot verify this at the moment but, I have a solution, a new formula for matchmaking.

Suggestion:
If we can calculate the might of a squad adding their status (Base+Equip) and making a total power status, we can calculate what I’m going to call it the: “Squad Power”.

Let’s elaborate:
This Squad consists of:

Isabella Invoker + 2 Lv 33
ATK: 2060 + 837
DEF: 1278 + 365
HP: 4645 + 1710
CRIT: 1676 + 104
MAG: 3125 + 1131
Total Status Points: 15.781, Let’s name this as “Weight” Status Points.

Ok, based on the same Principle I have a 5 Hero Squad on Arena:

Isabella Invoker +2 Lv 33 = 15781 Weight Status Points.
Zedd Elementalist +2 Lv 30 = 16885 Weight Status Points.
Kai Assassin +2 Lv 30 = 17321 Weight Status Points.
Victoria Paladin +2 Lv 30 = 18583 Weight Status Points.
Teresa Inquisitor +2 Lv 30 = 17781 Weight Status Points.

If we add all Heroes Weight Status Points the result will be: 86.351 Total Squad Power (the sum of all heroes Weight Status Points).

Ok, let’s work on that:

If I’m in Silver 2 Arena Rank, we should have a lot of players in the same Rank in the future, to be fair to everyone in matchmaking, we could use the following calculations:
Each Player Level add +1000 Points of Expertise (the higher the Player Level, more experienced this Player is).
Expertise Points + Squad Power = Arena Power Status

The Player Level in this case is Lvl 70, so 86.351+70.000 = 156.351

The actual matchmaking calculations could be as follow:
Find another Player with 80% to 120% of your Arena Power Status. Search between Players of the same rank or two Ranks up / two Ranks down.

This will make the arena battles more fair, as the player will evolve with similar speed as his/her arena battles.
 
To Add a little suspense, if your next fight has a chance of rank up the formula can be a little different:
Find another Player with 120% to 150% of your Arena Power Status.

The Expertise points was created to avoid high level players that could use some way to exploit the system (ex: using low level heroes mixed with high level heroes). This whole system was created to benefit low level players that look at the actual system as being too unfair.
 
Additional Info and Potential Problems with this Suggestion and a Solution:
Players using three or four 5* maxed heroes and one or two weak heroes to lower her/his Total Squad Power.

We can use a Base minimum for a Hero Weight Status Points that rises as the Player Level raises, example:

Minimum Base Weight Status Points:
Lvl 1 = 2100
Lvl 2 = 2200
Lvl 3 = 2300
Lv 70 = 9000

Example:
Player Lvl 70:
Isabella Invoker +2 Lv 33 = 15781 Weight Status Points.
Zedd Elementalist +2 Lv 30 = 16885 Weight Status Points.
Kai Assassin +2 Lv 30 = 17321 Weight Status Points.
Teresa Inquisitor +2 Lv 30 = 17781 Weight Status Points.
Acursed Skeleton lv1 = Minimum Base Weight Status Points = 9000 Weight Status Points.

This system will avoid high level users using an Lv 1 Skeleton as fifth member to lower the Total Squad Power.
Total Squad Power: 76.768.
 
Players using 4 hero squad to lower her/his Total Squad Power:
If the player is using a lower than 5 hero squad, the missing hero spots will use the following:

Isabella Invoker +2 Lv 33 = 15781 Weight Status Points.
Zedd Elementalist +2 Lv 30 = 16885 Weight Status Points.
Kai Assassin +2 Lv 30 = 17321 Weight Status Points.
Empty Slot = Minimum Base Weight Status Points / 2 (lvl 70) = 4500.
Empty Slot = Minimum Base Weight Status Points / 2 (lvl 70) = 4500.

Total Squad Power: 58.987

All those numbers are placeholders, as it may need some testing to make all work as it should.
 
Other Uses for Squad Power:

Squad Power can also be useful to hint the difficult of some quests.
Ex: Quest 18-3 Legendary: Recommended Squad Power: 90.000.

Well that’s it, sorry for the long wall of text and my bad English, hope the Devs can read this.
 
Edit 1 - 11/14: Format and bad english

Reserved.

So what you're basically suggesting is... to adopt PVP matchmaking system similar to Wartune or League of Angels? Those battle rating numbers based on Hero strength? This is a big revamp you're suggesting, I'm not sure this is suitable for VF...

The problem right now is those inactive CBT players who's hovering at the bottom, an easier solution would be to kick everyone out of arena after weekly reset and leave a 'register for arena' option after that. If players are still at a safe point during reset, they drop to the next safe point at the lower tier. Sound good?

A better way:
Those who have received his first valiant ticket will drop to 1100 each month
Those who have past their first month daily reward reset to 1000
Inactive monsters can't touch tiny cutie players
Those who played more than 28 days can get through it, maybe hard but not impossible

There're 2 big problems in arena in VF as far as I see:

1. There's a lot of "strong" players down in Bronze/Silver arena rank which make it 3 out of 4 times a bad match up for newbies.
2. The progress for newbies are actually very slow (due to lack of gear and good pull) so a lot of newbies are unable to build a team that can fight against these strong players. 

With these two problems combine, a newbie just essentially "stuck" at an arena ranking and it's not fun at all to do arena.

So what you're basically suggesting is... to adopt PVP matchmaking system similar to Wartune or League of Angels? Those battle rating numbers based on Hero strength? This is a big revamp you're suggesting, I'm not sure this is suitable for VF...

The problem right now is those inactive CBT players who's hovering at the bottom, an easier solution would be to kick everyone out of arena after weekly reset and leave a 'register for arena' option after that. If players are still at a safe point during reset, they drop to the next safe point at the lower tier. Sound good?

Yeah, i like the sound of registering for arena. So inactive CBT players won't swarm on lower ranks 

Somehow this Arena Matching become so intense and mathematical 

So what you're basically suggesting is... to adopt PVP matchmaking system similar to Wartune or League of Angels? Those battle rating numbers based on Hero strength? This is a big revamp you're suggesting, I'm not sure this is suitable for VF...

The problem right now is those inactive CBT players who's hovering at the bottom, an easier solution would be to kick everyone out of arena after weekly reset and leave a 'register for arena' option after that. If players are still at a safe point during reset, they drop to the next safe point at the lower tier. Sound good?

I've never played those games, but one thing I forgot to add was: the Arena Battle Power don’t need to be displayed! We players may not even know it exists, it is only there to make a fair system of matchmaking in the Arena. Maybe if people know every number they can start thinking in ways to exploit it (even though I think that it’s high improvable giving the way this system could work).


About your suggestion let's elaborate:
Clearing inactive players from the active matchmaking pool will lessen the problem with new players facing them, BUT, this is a workaround solution and not a definitive one this is not the whole problem, the matchmaking is not working as only matching players in the same level range. Let’s say:

Kid installs Valiant Force, Kid really likes Valiant Force and starts to whale a bit, and goes up in prestige before Player lvl 20. Soon he will get complete sets (4*, 5* and 6* ones) from prestige level gifts, soon he will get a complete 5* team, he enters the arena already powered, facing players that are taking their time to evaluate the game and determinate if they want to invest in it in the future (most mid spenders think like that). New player reaches Player Level 20 and the arena opens up, new player can be facing Kid in the arena and being totally smashed by him. New player think the arena is unfair and starts to think if he should really invest in a game that where he just started and is being slaughtered.

Eventually Kid will rise in the ranks, or he may think that rising in the ranks is a little too risky. Why? If he can starts losing before just before the rank up to stay on low rank and win with a steady rate?

Kid reads the forum or other communities and decides that is the best to stay at lower ranks to earn more blood tokens to change for valiant tickets (fact: if you can’t keep a good wining rate it truly is).

Kid becomes a cancer that the Devs can’t do anything about it, and when new players faces him they will think that the system is unfair and maybe even give up about that aspect of the game, how long till they also give up on other aspects?

Is Kid just an occasional type of player? Those types of players exist and I already see a lot of players thinking about doing that here in the forum.

A better way:
Those who have received his first valiant ticket will drop to 1100 each month
Those who have past their first month daily reward reset to 1000
Inactive monsters can't touch tiny cutie players
Those who played more than 28 days can get through it, maybe hard but not impossible

Are you suggesting total arena reset for every month?
You know that 100 Arena points in difference can be as simple as 8 arena wins? If new players that recently used their valiant ticket drop to 1100 wont they still be too much close to each other?

There're 2 big problems in arena in VF as far as I see:

1. There's a lot of "strong" players down in Bronze/Silver arena rank which make it 3 out of 4 times a bad match up for newbies.
2. The progress for newbies are actually very slow (due to lack of gear and good pull) so a lot of newbies are unable to build a team that can fight against these strong players. 

With these two problems combine, a newbie just essentially "stuck" at an arena ranking and it's not fun at all to do arena.

Yeah, I agree with what your are saying, and this is exactly why I make this suggestion, If I was a new player I would no be happy with these thing happening to me.
Other thing to note is The Haloween Event is halting  the progression of some new players, instead of progressing and questing for equipment drops to better their heroes they are spending their energy on the Haloween event in the hope of getting the exclusive monster or the rewards. 
There is also lot of reasons to having strong players in the bronze rank. On my suggestion the matchmaking would be pairing players of up to two distance ranks, so new players can face starting players that just upped their ranks, instead of facing long time bronze players that stay there for any reason.