Deadlock's matchmaking has come a long way since the MOBA exploded in popularity among playtesters a few months ago. The first big change happened when Valve added ranked play, which corralled players into 11 ranks to better suit their skill level. However, that led to some issues that have now been more or less ironed out in the latest update.
"This update includes a new version of the matchmaker," developer Yoshi says in an update post. "The matchmaking pools are no longer split between normal and ranked, there is only one primary matchmaking mode, and there are no limited hours." This change is great news for players who don't want to play ranked but still want to be on equal footing with their opponents, as now there'll also be MMR assigned to casual games. Although, the update to how ranked matches will take place seems like bigger news.
Previously, players could only queue for ranked matches for a couple of hours every day in the late afternoon. This short window of time often meant I just missed out on playing ranked games and, therefore, found it difficult to reach the required seven games per week to receive a rank update. At first, it was necessary for players to complete seven games to help Valve build a better idea of the skill spread across Deadlock's playerbase. It was also necessary to collect more data on individual players so the developers could place them accordingly in one of the 11 ranks.
Thankfully, this requirement has also now been removed in the latest update. "Badges will update immediately whenever you gain or lose enough MMR to change badges," Yoshi says. "You no longer have to wait a week or play a certain game count." However, there may be a monthly global rank reset to adjust for miscalculations caused by cheaters or influxes of new players. Yoshi confirms there will be less weighting put on matches taking place in off hours, like 5 am, when there's poorer match quality due to fewer players being online.
Furthermore, there are now no limits on party sizes for MMR consideration, although if you have a particularly wide spread of ranks in your party, then you'll probably encounter quite erractic matchmaking.
The last major change to matchmaking is the introduction of hero MMR. "When you queue, we will match you based on that hero's MMR. So if you are unfamiliar or play worse with a given hero, you will be put in an easier match than your usual."
Deadlock will place your skill for each hero according to the last 20 games you played with them. To see how you're doing with each hero, there will be a new UI that will show you what the matchmaker thinks your ranking for each is. Although this may change, as Yoshi does stress the devs would appreciate feedback on this particular feature.
I'm really happy to see hero MMR added to Deadlock. My skill gap between playing as Seven or Vindicta, heroes that I've put time and effort into improving on, compared to heroes like Kelvin or Grey Talon, who I don't play as often, is very noticeable. Previously, in order to retain or improve my rank, I'd almost always just stick with what I know. If I ever tried to branch out I'd almost always feel punished by the enemy team for picking a hero I was less familiar with. So this change will hopefully give me a better shot at honing my skills with some new heroes by placing me in matches that are on my level.
Yesterday's patch was a big one in general. It overhauled the Walkers’ attacks and defenses, added three new items, and introduced a new voice actor for the Patrons. It's always great to see these kinds of changes being made in Deadlock. Through these, the game has quickly changed from a fun MOBA that is scuffed around the edges to something that is surprisingly polished despite technically being in closed beta. All of these updates to matchmaking have remedied some of the issues I had with ranked play and seemed like really great quality-of-life changes for Deadlock—which I'm sure the community will appreciate, just as I do.
