Beginners Guide to League Matchmaking
Ву OxKing.
In this guide we’ll take a closer look at the Leagues, how they work, what we can expect from the Matchmaking, and how to best approach them without feeling frustrated or defeated.
What is a League?
Before we can talk about the Leagues, we first have to know what they are. So let’s go to the Battle Room and point out the parts that are important for us right now.
We Have:
- A big medal telling us our current League.
- Something showing us our current amount of Ranked Points (before the dash) and the amount of Ranked Points needed to get into the next League (after the dash). In other words, it shows us how far we still have to go to get into the next League.
- Something showing us our current SquadPower (before the dash) and the Recommended Power of that League (after the dash).
Like my kindergarten teacher once told me, number 2 and number 1 often go together. She was a very kind woman and never lied. Once again her words hold truth.
Every League starts at a certain amount of Ranked Points and every League ends at the number of Ranked Points where the next League begins. Number 1 and number 2 are two ways to tell us the same thing.
Our current amount of Ranked Points tells us which League we’re in, and our League tells us within which boundaries our Ranked Points fall.
My kindergarten teacher never told me anything about a number 3 though, so let’s ignore that one for a second. First we need to delve deeper into our number 1 and 2. The Leagues and the Ranked Points I mean, not the other ones.
Ranked Points
Now that we know that our League is determined by the amount of Ranked Points we have, we need to find out how to earn those. Lucky for us, Kitty was kind enough to tell us at the very start of the game.
Sounds simple enough. Win a Match, earn some Ranked Points. Earn enough Ranked Points, advance to the next League.
One problem though. When Kitty told us this, we had just reached League 29. In that League, losing a Match has no consequences. We will learn later that this isn’t always true. Once we get out of the tutorial phase of the game, losing a Match also means losing Ranked Points. This makes things a little more complicated.
To further examine this, we will need more data.
No worries, we’ll get to that in a second. First we still need to deal with that pesky number 3 that our kindergarten teacher never told us about.
A Little Side Note:
- It might be worth mentioning that we don’t actually fight each other during the Matches.
- We don’t mean “actually” like, “we’re not really meeting face to face for a physical confrontation, throwing lightning fast punches and super awesome kicks”. Although that’s also true. We also don’t do that.
- What we mean is that there is no actual person on the other side of the Match. It’s a bot. That bot is controlling the Squad of another player. But it’s always a bot.
Recommended Power
This is a funny one. And with funny, I mean confusing. And with confusing, I mean that the game gives us a number without explaining what it means or represents.
All that the game itself tells us about that number is the following (can be found by clicking on the number):
So… The game wants us to have at least that much Power in the Squad if we want to be in that League? That’s… Okay.
But as a lot of clever boys and girls have found out, that number doesn’t even tell half of the story. Something fishy is going on.
Time for Science!
It seems like we have hit a dead end for now. The game has given us some pointers to what is important (League, Ranked Points and Recommended Power) but hasn’t shown us how how these pieces fit together.
I mean, they kinda fit together, but not really. Like any two year old can show you, we’ve found a way to force the R-shaped piece into the B-shaped hole of our favourite alphabet foam puzzle.
It works, but it feels kinda wrong. So let’s be clever two year olds and see if we can find a better way to lay down our puzzle.
Time to delve into our parents wardrobe, try on those big shoes, and go searching for that fancy calculator so we can do something that the grown-ups call Science!
To do Science!, we have to do an experiment. Since the Leagues are all about Ranked Points and SquadPower, we tracked those across a lot of Matches. Being clever little boys and girls, we also tracked the SquadPower of the opponents we met during those Matches. And it’s good that we did, because something interesting happened there.
This is the part where we learn how the Matchmaking works.
Matchmaking in One Picture
For this experiment we tracked a lot of different things. We found out that only two of them matter though: our own Ranked Points and the SquadPower of our opponents.
The silly picture below shows the result of plotting the SquadPower of our opponents against our own amount of RankedPoints.
As we can see, it’s pretty much a straight line. It’s very, very rare to see an opponent with a SquadPower that goes above the line. A bit more common to see one go under the line. But most make up a nice little line going from the Recommended Power of that League when we’re at the very start of it, going up to the Recommended Power of the next League when we’re at the very end of it.
Click to enlarge…
In other words: The amount of Ranked Points we have determines the Squad Power of our opponent.
A Little Side Note:
As a man with a very sophisticated moustache once said:
- “All Power is equal, but some Power is more equal than others”.
- Okay, maybe he didn’t use those exact words. He probably also meant something totally different with it.
- Point is, some Squads will be more powerful (on their own, or against specific Squads) than others even if they have the exact same amount of Power.
Conclusion
The game has given us some puzzle pieces to play around with. These are called the Leagues, the Ranked Points, the Matches, and the Recommended Power.
Thanks to the help of the big and kind LG Community, we have been able to determine the shape and size of each of these puzzle pieces. Thanks to Science! we have also found that these pieces fit together in the following way:
- Every League starts and ends at a certain number of Ranked Points.
- Winning or losing Matches will make you gain or lose a number of Ranked Points.
- Every League has a Recommended Power. This tells us how much Squad Power our opponent will be during our first Match in that League.
- The more Ranked Points we have, the further down the Leagues we go, and the more Squad Power our opponents will have.
- Not all Power is equal. It is a rough reflection of how powerful a Squad is. Actual effectiveness will depend on how the Squad is build and how it is played.
And now it is time for our favorite part…
The Numbers
Click to enlarge…
A Little Side Note:
- League 1 and GrandMaster League are the sole exception to this kind of Matchmaking.
- Once we reach League 1, we’ll be Matched according to the ELO system.
- Every Season (two weeks) this system will reset and everybody in League 1 will go back to 15.000 Ranked Points. The 50 players that ended up with the most Ranked Points will be placed in the GrandMaster League for that Season and will only face the other GrandMaster League players. This will stay like this until the Season ends and the dance begins anew.
FAQ
I feel stuck in one place. Did I do something wrong?
- You did not do anything wrong! It’s just that every time you win, you will meet opponents with more SquadPower. At the start of the game this is easy to handle, since almost every new Merc you unlock will make your Squad a lot more powerful. This makes it manageable to keep up with the stronger and stronger opponents.
- But after a while that’s just no longer enough. We all start losing that race eventually. We win Matches until we reach a point where the opponents are just too strong for us. Then we lose some Matches until we’re back with opponents we can handle.
- This is true for everybody. Due to how many RankedPoints we win and lose per Match, each and every player win roughly 66% of the time, and lose the other 33% of the Matches.
- The only way forward is increasing how powerful your Squad is. While changing the composition can help, most of the times it just means that you need more raw Power. Getting that needs time. So just keep playing the game at your own pace. You’ll keep finding Points. You’ll add more Power when you’re ready. And when you’re ready, the next League will welcome you in.
- Of course, then the dance starts anew. Everybody is always stuck in one place. What we all try to do is being stuck in a better place.
Every time I get close to breaching a new League, the game gives me a number of impossible opponents and slams me back down a League. Why does the game hate me?
Rest assured, the game does not hate you. You just landed yourself in the same situation as the previous question. Only difference is that it’s fun to be that close to reaching the next stage in a game. And it’s a bit frustrating if you get so close that you can almost taste it, only to be pushed away from it. We all want to lick that next League after all. People say it’s tasty.
The best way to deal with this might be to focus on our average amount of Ranked Points. After all, we’re not always stuck at exactly the same place. We don’t always win two Matches just to lose the third one and then redo that song and dance. Sometimes we have a good day. Sometimes we get lucky with the Mercs we can choose from at the start of the Match. Sometimes we are blessed that the opponent didn’t play that one Merc that could destroy us. And then we go on little win streaks. We push ahead, further than we ever had.
And then our luck ends. That one Merc that is our kryptonite? It appears everywhere. Our one counter to it? Nowhere to be seen. Our good day? Ruined.
At times like this it’s best to zoom out. Yes, we did have a good day previously and almost got into the next League. But we didn’t make any changes to our Squad. And to be fair, on an average day we are just bouncing around in the middle of the League. That’s our comfy place. We’re going to hover around it. On a good day, we got way past it. On a bad day, we lost some ground. But we always get back to our comfy place, and that should be the focus. So be proud of yourself! On a good day, you can get so close. All it needs is some time to make your Squad a little more powerful, and then you’ll breach that fancy new League and get to lick all corners of it until it’s clean as a whistle!
I’ve been bouncing between the Leagues so long that I feel like a yo-yo. Why does this happen and will Shinji Saito love me?
Same as the previous questions, this is just a side effect of the Matchmaking. You are powerful enough to handle the SquadPower of opponents at the end of one League, but just shy of really being able to handle those at the start of the next League. Only now the game shows you those big fancy animations every time you cross the boundaries of the Leagues, so it stings a little more when those losses happen. It’s not fun to lose a Match to begin with. It’s even less fun if the game decided to announce it with a big animation. So let’s just ignore those and focus on the good: you are very close to being powerful enough to really handle opponents in the next League. You just need that little final push.
Don’t worry, given a little time and some nice drops of MercPoints, you’ll be able to fully breach that new League and make it your new comfy place. You’ve got this! We all believe you can make it. Just needs a little more time. And all that time, we’ll be rooting for you!
On the note of Shinji Saito, I sadly have no idea. But unless proven otherwise, let’s assume that he loves all of us dearly.
I hate it when… Wait, what was that in the previous question about Shinji Saito? Who is that? I’ve forgotten my question, just tell me who it is or it’ll keep me up all night.
Shinji Saito (斎藤 慎司, Saitō Shinji, born June 29, 1989) is a Japanese competitor and a performer in yo-yo. He won the World Yo-Yo Contest 8 times in 2A and 4 times in CB. He has the most world titles of any yo-yoer in the history of yo-yo competition.
If there is one person who can tell us how to yo-yo, it’s probably him!
I swear this game is rigged. I was about to breach L15 and then the game throws an L1 opponents at me. Of course I’ve lost that single Match and the game threw me back all the way into L20! This game sucks and I blame Shinji Saito!
I… I don’t know what to say. I’m afraid you’ve totally broken the game. What you’ve said shouldn’t be possible. Like, not possible at all. L15 means that you’ll be Matched with opponents between 7.500 and 8.950 SquadPower. While you could meet an L1 account in that League, it would mean that they’ve replaced their whole Squad to fall between those numbers. In other words, it should be a somewhat fair Match. Even if you lost it, it should have only cost you 80 RankedPoints. At worst, that would put you back into L16 (if you were at the start of L15). Going all the way back to L20 from losing a single Match in L15 is just… It’s not possible.
Please record this and send it to Support. Something is really wrong with your game.
Also, please don’t blame Shinji Saito for this. He has done nothing wrong and is in no way, shape or form affiliated with this game.
great guide, thank you!