by JR Cook - 7 years ago     show comments

Have you felt like you are waiting less time to get into Quick Match games recently? A post on the official forums from Community Manager Rathmyr confirms that queue times are indeed faster for most players and explains how this improvement was made.

The TLDR version is that there was a matchmaking rule in place that gave priority to those players who had been waiting longest for a game and would “hold” other players from getting a match until these players found a game. This rule was being applied to players in normal skill ranges even though the players who were waiting for games were not in this same skill range. As a result, they decided to remove this rule for players within normal skill ranges and the result was faster queue times.

From all of us normals out there, thank you Team 1!

You will find a copy of the original post below, and if you would like to join the discussion on the official thread simply click here.

You may have noticed that Quick Match queues have been quicker than ever recently, and you’d be correct! We’ve made a number of adjustments in order to improve the matchmaking algorithm to decrease the queue times without sacrificing game quality.

In general, queue times have been reduced by about 50-75%, depending on hero and region. In general, the newest or most popular heroes will still see longer queue times, but even those should be shorter than they would have been (which some players noticed during Lúcio’s release, as this change went live just after that patch).

The matchmaker was previously using a rule that would only apply to extreme cases, but these rules were actually being applied to all players, increasing queue time. By lifting these restrictions for most players, we were able to decrease queue times without affecting the quality of matches made.

Here’s what changed:
Previously, the matchmaker would “hold” players from getting a match until the players who had been waiting longest found a game. With some careful testing, it was determined that players in normal skill ranges were able to easily find a game without having to hold others. These players will now be released and able to quickly find another match that suits them.

As always, we’re continuing to monitor matchmaking feedback and make adjustments. We’re planning more improvements for the future, but we wanted to shed light on one of our most recent changes that we’ve seen players feeling the effects of.