Matchmaking Abuse and Possible Solutions (PvP & PvE)
Hello! Hope you're doing well.
Good matchmaking is hard, and honestly Wizard101 has some decent countermeasures against exploiting either one, but there are some cracks forming.
First, PvP. The matchmaking is far from ideal, and I get why. People often just expect to get a match when they join queue. You have to balance speed and accuracy to get good enough at both, but in some areas of PvP that aren't so active and are swamped with people who have a pretty large advantage, like level 60 PvP, this balance can be thrown off by a limited range of current competitors. It might be nice to, at times, be able to toggle a system which sacrifices speed to gain accuracy.
Of course, this is only so helpful in really inactive portions of PvP, but it would be a nice option to have when you're getting matched against people with commander robe, a perfect pvp pet, and all of the loremaster spells if you just don't have these things and want a more even match. Just suggesting it, as it might work to some degree in certain situations?
(To clarify, the systems in place to prevent abuse once in a match are really good right now, especially after the 2020 summer update.)
Now, PvE. Most of the wrinkles are well-smoothed out, giving someone a timer for leaving a long dungeon first or leaving while everyone else is still in works pretty well. But there are still two things that I think could have pointed and lenient safe-guards against them.
The first one I'm gonna call team cancelling, and it's pretty minor in most uses. It's just starting a team up and disbanding it when someone joins. It's mostly done in Wizard City where people are trying to rack up team credits, which is incredibly minor, but I've seen it occasionally in farming spots, where the sigil is a long walk from warp zones, like Morganthe, and that can be a pain.
The second one is time stalling, where someone joins a desolate team up and just leaves and joins back every time the timer is almost over. This has the potential to happen a lot in worlds like Mirage, and that's where I found it the most, but I've also occasionally seen it in the first two dungeons of Castle Darkmoor.
I say these both side by side because I think a very similar protection can be put in place for both that would stop people abusing the system to harass people without effecting those just trying to play the game in an intended way. Just count how many times someone disbands a team up without entering one, or how many times someone joins an existing team up without entering one. This should be able to easily spot repeat offenders, while not punishing those who just play the game as intended.
Neither of these are game breaking, but they can be really frustrating at times.
