[2021] In Response to Ajax's Matchmaking Explanation

This is a strange way to word the poll which will likely lead to biased results.

First off, lets align on terminology just to simplify things a bit

• Timed Queues (count down, same duration every time)
• Standard Queues (count up, variable duration)

These both can have issues depending on the configuration and the population, its inaccurate to state that Standard Queues are longer, better, or have less autofill. All three of those factors depend on the population and the "good" match threshold, not the queue type.

The differences between the two are mostly perception base, not matchmaking quality based. Both can be configured to wait longer for better match, both can break down and give bad matches in low population times.

Standard Queues also had a "match force time" by the way - which would trigger if the queue reached a point we specifically selected as "excessively long" and it would just give you the best match it could at the time - just like Timed Queues.

Lets look at this from the perspective of a Masters level player waiting in a Ranked queue at non-peak times.

• The chances you get 10 masters is low - the queue type doesnt matter
• Timed Queues show you exactly when the queue will pop, Standard Queues have a force time players can memorize but then its still not exact when it will pop because it still needs to gather players after the force time
• When a Standard Queue goes to force time, the matchmaking pool is actually much smaller than the Timed Queue, because other mid-level games have been successfully made while the Masters player is waiting.

So for this commonly reported situation - the match is likely going to be better for the Masters player in Timed Queues - as this includes the full population of people who queued within the time, and not a random assortment that heavily relies on how many other matches were recently made.

And they get a better QoL of knowing exactly how long the wait is going to be, which players have often reported as a big improvement.

This is, of course, just one example and it can't possibly illustrate the entire concept and the high number of possibilities, but hopefully it can better show the actual functional difference in Timed Queues vs Standard Queues

We have discussed with the community before: https://old.reddit.com/r/Smite/comments/b0sjjx/timed_queues_ranked_only/

And we continue to discuss it with Olympians and Pros, and as of now we have not seen much desire for reverting back to Standard Queues, if we did id expect us to keep Timed on Ranked and apply Standard on Normal modes only.

Yes your wording is wrong.

Specifically on these points:

• Timed Queues vs Standard Queues are not necessarily shorter vs longer, thats entirely up to us to choose the Timed Queue time and the Standard Force time (which have similar effects)
• You labeled one as "better matchmaking" and "worse matchmaking" which is also untrue based on the description I just provided. Both of these require more wait time to have better matchmaking. This is also just a specifically incorrect way to run a poll, there's no way you can value these results with that wording.

In high population environments, both are largely the same, except that Standard Queues have less transparency in the system.

In bad situations, these two have different fail cases.

• Standard Queues (or unbreakable MMR requirements) - the fail case is that you do not play the game. You wait for a very long time or potentially a match never actually fires - so we do end up breaking the rules anyway.
• Timed Queues (breakable MMR requirements) - the fail case is a very wide MMR range between the 10 players - but we can transparently communicate that it was the best possible match at the time

The real lesson im trying to teach here is that the queue type does not matter. Its entirely about the key variables of:

• Population
• Wait Time
• Breakable vs Unbreakable rules