How does the matchmaking system work?

[mossyquartz]

Hello! For a while I've been wondering how exactly the matchmaking system works in S3. I already know about weapon pools and ranks, but I've never seen anyone give a full explanation on how the game decides which players you're gonna face/be paired with. So does anyone know how Anarchy matchmaking works? What about Salmon Run?

 

[Joy]

Nobody knows for sure, the matchmaking is done entirely on Nintendo’s servers which even dataminers don’t have access to. All we know are the inputs it takes, which are letter rank and internal MMR. There are things we can assume from watching how it works, like that it does not strictly match you with people from your letter rank, and that rank-up battles combine your internal MMR with the next letter rank up.

X we could probably figure out, if enough people in all-top-500 matches gave me enough data, I could cross reference that against my massive database of Top 500 over time. But for now, it’s also a mystery. Only thing that is apparent is the edges of the matchmaking (1900/2000) the quality of matches becomes extremely erratic as the system struggles.

 

[mossyquartz]

Nobody knows for sure, the matchmaking is done entirely on Nintendo’s servers which even dataminers don’t have access to. All we know are the inputs it takes, which are letter rank and internal MMR. There are things we can assume from watching how it works, like that it does not strictly match you with people from your letter rank, and that rank-up battles combine your internal MMR with the next letter rank up.

X we could probably figure out, if enough people in all-top-500 matches gave me enough data, I could cross reference that against my massive database of Top 500 over time. But for now, it’s also a mystery. Only thing that is apparent is the edges of the matchmaking (1900/2000) the quality of matches becomes extremely erratic as the system struggles.

I see, thank you!
I was mostly wondering because matchmaking feels VERY inconsistent and I was curious as to why, I also just like to know how things work lmao
Kinda sucks that we can't know cause it'd be rly interesting to know exactly why I get put with certain players in certain lobbies

 

[Bubbsart]

Hello! For a while I've been wondering how exactly the matchmaking system works in S3. I already know about weapon pools and ranks, but I've never seen anyone give a full explanation on how the game decides which players you're gonna face/be paired with. So does anyone know how Anarchy matchmaking works? What about Salmon Run?

I once got into a salmon run match with a teammate that had a Japanese name, implying they’re from Japan, my region is set as North America

 

[ThatsSo]

The way I understand it is that you are connected with 7 other people based on your internal matchmaking numbers and ping, and then if/how you are sorted into teams depends on what mode you're in (X rank being the most strict)

 

[Joy]

I see, thank you!
I was mostly wondering because matchmaking feels VERY inconsistent and I was curious as to why, I also just like to know how things work lmao
Kinda sucks that we can't know cause it'd be rly interesting to know exactly why I get put with certain players in certain lobbies

My own tin foil hat theory is that it is an engagement maximizer, seeing how S3 has made a lot of changes that are engagement-driven, a not insignificant part of me (as someone who knows how the sausage is made) makes me feel there’s at least some engagement optimization in there. But it’s unknowable and frankly it’s simpler to say that it just tries to match players within an acceptable threshold. X matchmaking, because of the way it also matches based on weapon category, I assume will just first find you an opponent with a similar XPower and same weapon category, then find three other pairs to make a match. Don’t think it’s super sophisticated, since I’ve seen all-T500 matches (relevant because it means I have the XP of all players in the lobby) not be the combination that minimizes the difference in XP between teams

 

[Ace Emerald]

Saved this image with the match making rules a while back! Definitely out of date, this was before X rank changes, but hopefully provides a little context.

 

[Oculus049]

Nobody knows for sure, the matchmaking is done entirely on Nintendo’s servers which even dataminers don’t have access to. All we know are the inputs it takes, which are letter rank and internal MMR. There are things we can assume from watching how it works, like that it does not strictly match you with people from your letter rank, and that rank-up battles combine your internal MMR with the next letter rank up.

X we could probably figure out, if enough people in all-top-500 matches gave me enough data, I could cross reference that against my massive database of Top 500 over time. But for now, it’s also a mystery. Only thing that is apparent is the edges of the matchmaking (1900/2000) the quality of matches becomes extremely erratic as the system struggles.

We do have some data on this. Iirc one of the data miners like lean or oatmeal mentioned that in Xrank they will try to match weapons with similar ranges together. In fact, in the recent 6.0.0 patch with the release of this season they mentioned deducting the amount of groups together. The system uses Glicko2 for matchmaking which iirc is used on like chess websites and other competitive systems. They try to do both similar ranks and matching up weapons on both teams by groups (like chargers, splattershots, will have mirrored pairs on both teams). If enough time passes, the threshold for which powers you can be matched with expands. If they stilll can't find a match for you, it just cancels Idk how they do it in anarchy with weapon pairing but I presume it just sticks to the mmr the same way. Salmon I'm pretty sure they just match people with similar numbered ranks.

Oatmeal wrote a blog on how the system works for S2 but not much has changed for the most part so most of the stuff still applies: http://up/an-in-depth-look-at-the-splatoon-2-ranking-system/

EDIT: Just checked and yeah, he has confirmed that its the same system for S3: https://x.com/OatmealDome/status/1562530185299329027?s=20

 

[Oculus049]

I once got into a salmon run match with a teammate that had a Japanese name, implying they’re from Japan, my region is set as North America

Matchmaking is only region locked for X-Rank cuz of the different divisions. I think it tries to prioritize lower ping connections so you are more likely to get ppl in your own region (plus Japan is probably asleep when you are awake assuming you are American) but I don't know/recall of any data that supports that.

 

[Joy]

We do have some data on this. Iirc one of the data miners like lean or oatmeal mentioned that in Xrank they will try to match weapons with similar ranges together. In fact, in the recent 6.0.0 patch with the release of this season they mentioned deducting the amount of groups together. The system uses Glicko2 for matchmaking which iirc is used on like chess websites and other competitive systems. They try to do both similar ranks and matching up weapons on both teams by groups (like chargers, splattershots, will have mirrored pairs on both teams). If enough time passes, the threshold for which powers you can be matched with expands. Idk how they do it in anarchy with weapon pairing but I presume it just sticks to the mmr the same way.

Oatmeal wrote a blog on how the system works for S2 but not much has changed for the most part so most of the stuff still applies: http://up/an-in-depth-look-at-the-splatoon-2-ranking-system/

The system in S3 is very different from S2, while it does use glicko-2 as the internal MMR, we don’t actually know how much it weighs the use of MMR in figuring out who is assigned to which match. And yeah, we know they’re used as inputs but we don’t know how exactly they’re used when determining matchmaking.

My bad for neglecting to mention the weapon categories in the initial post though.

 

[Oculus049]

The system in S3 is very different from S2, while it does use glicko-2 as the internal MMR, we don’t actually know how much it weighs the use of MMR in figuring out who is assigned to which match. And yeah, we know they’re used as inputs but we don’t know how exactly they’re used when determining matchmaking.

Ah yeah like the exact details we don't know. Like I've had lobbies where I'm like 2400.0 and the average power of the lobby is 1990.0
I've noticed a lot of deviance form the S2 system. Seems to be all over the place tho I don't play Xrank as much anymore since it takes so long to get a match and my power is already high enough for top 500 this season.

My bad for neglecting to mention the weapon categories in the initial post though.

Np, I tend to forget about that too. But man matching bamboo with eliter is such a crime.