Epic have just announced the changes they will be making to Arena to improve matchmaking and have confirmed the AMA will be taking place on Friday, May 31 from 3-4 PM ET (8-9 PM UTC).
Epic have just released a blog to announce the improvements they are making to Arena matchmaking and the AMA will be held on the FortNiteBR subreddit on Friday, May 31 from 3-4 PM ET (8-9 PM UTC).
You can read the full blog below:
ARENA MATCHMAKING IMPROVEMENTS
Shortly after v9.10, we rolled out a new iteration of our Arena matchmaking logic and have since been reviewing and tweaking the mode.
Previously, we used a model where you would search for opponents with a similar amount of Hype, and that Hype range would expand over time to search more widely for suitable players. After 15 minutes of waiting, we would give up and create the best match possible based on the players available at that specific moment. To prevent issues where players with extremely high amounts of Hype would never find each other successfully, anyone over 350 Hype was considered equal for matchmaking purposes.
The main issue of this old model was that all players searching for a game needed to expand their Hype range to reach each other mutually. This means that players in high population divisions would create matches easily, leaving players in low population divisions still searching for additional players.
The new matchmaking system uses a set of Hype ranges which define a series of buckets. If a bucket doesn’t have enough players participating in it, it will merge with a neighbor bucket after a certain amount of time. We are expecting this to create better matches for players in all divisions, and greatly reduce occurrences where Champion League players are matched with Open League opponents after an extended wait. Additionally, it should scale into smaller regions during time windows when there are fewer players in the highest and lowest divisions.
We are closely monitoring both queue times and match quality on the new system. We’re still actively making adjustments, so you may experience some interruptions as we tweak the new system. Be sure to hop in and give it a try.
HOW TO REPORT BUGS
Through the community’s help, we’ve managed to tackle some notable issues over the last few weeks at a faster cadence. We will continue to do this, and your help accelerates our process. The quality of each bug report goes a long way in helping us investigate and troubleshoot problems, particularly with complex competitive issues. Including as much of the following information in each bug report expedites our internal bug-squashing process:
1) Clear and detailed description of the bug, and when it occurs.
- The more detailed the description, the faster and more accurately we can investigate.
- Including the date that the bug was experienced on helps us narrow down specific updates and hot-fixes.
2) Platform the bug occurs on.
- Sometimes, specific bugs only affect certain platforms.
- Listing this information also helps us explore if an issue is occurring on only one platform, or across our entire ecosystem.
3) Video evidence of the bug.
- A video is worth 1,000 words.
- Linking to specific clips allow us to attempt direct reproduction internally.
- If you see something, say something! Even if you aren’t playing yourself, you can make a difference by clipping bugs and issues while watching your favorite players compete.
4) Player logs and the in-game report button.
- Player logs provide us direct insight into many different variables that occur in a match. They are incredibly useful to our team when we triage bugs.
- You can directly submit a bug report in-game by navigating to the menu and selecting the “Feedback” button, which will automatically send these logs to us. Remember to be as detailed as possible within the text fields in game.
AMA DETAILS
Last week, we talked about our upcoming AMA. Have questions? We have answers. Join us for a competitive Fortnite AMA on the /r/FortniteCompetitive subreddit on Friday, May 31 from 3-4 PM ET (8-9 PM UTC).
We’ll have the following folks around to answer questions:
EpicEricSW – Design
skyzyn – Competitive Design
EpicMFG – Spectating and Broadcast
EpicLoomin – Competitive Operations
EpicEquinox – Competitive Analytics
JustMooney1 – Community
In the meantime, please toss us your questions via the subreddit, social media, or carrier pigeon, so we can have some answers ready to kick off the AMA when it begins.
