At L5, I didn't even know a Game History existed

Me neither. But did I anyhow accuse? Why would I lol

If you just jump into multiplayer ofc expect to lose your first few games and slowly learn how to get good ofc
No one just accuses better players of cheating except some really sore losers

Yup. Try playing singleplayer at least to the level of 'getting strategic', This will teach you some of the basics needed to play.

It took me 53 games to get my first win. You'll get it sometime!

Wow. That's a lot. and thats a lot of persistence


i thought 4 was the minimum to kill 2 due to the tutorial for quite a while lol
and I thought for example 4 would kill 2 of its own on its way to the next territory

Game links are the key to further analysis . . .

It would be ironic if he actually joined a rigged FFA game where 1 player had an unfair advantage and/or used alts to gang up on him, which is indeed cheating

But if the criteria for cheating is the enemy having an unbeatable stack in a strategic location leading to an unstoppable loss, then I can make a list of cheaters right now ... Xeno, Nickpugs, Rufus ... well just check out the 1v1 Ladder Top 25 or the forum post of WZ GOATs, they've likely all done this to me (and many others) at some point

I was matched vs Alphakill this morning.
https://www.warzone.com/MultiPlayer?GameID=33824181

I very much sympathize with his plight. QM matchmaking sucks - big time. It is extremely frustrating for new players to encounter a stream of qm games vs. way overpowered opponents. Entire game setup is rigged towards favoring "advanced/experienced/long-time/elite players" by serving up newbs as cheap cannonfodder to them.

Situation s further adversely affected by unbalanced = effectively unwinnable! - start distributions in SEAD and "rather unbalanced pick luck" in manual distribution templates.

No wonder that as a new player you are often led to believe the other side must be cheating, when faced with huge number of oppo armies compared to own troops after only a few turns.

Not surprised to see many longtime players here defending the system. You guys believe you are entitled to n00b-slaughtering now, bc you experienced a rough time yourself when you started out - years ago. But this system causes a lot of new players to quickly quit after a very frustrating initial run of qm losses. I am sure it is THE major driver of new player drop-out rate.

This game sucks in many ways and needs urgent fixing. Eg. oppos in qm games should only be matched if they are within +/- 30% qm rating. If no such match possible, then match should be vs. an AI model of adequate play strength - relative to player's qm rating. Yes, it would still not guarantee a pleasant experience every time, but already a major improvement over current state.

But "auto-enable" dev dork unwilling to listen and unable to understand. His priorities are things like "3D" mode for a pure "2D" game. Oh well.

Edited 3/15/2023 14:30:12

Speaking of "unbalanced" start distris. Here's another one of my qm matches of this morning. Now tell me, honestly: would you be able to win this playing the teal side - against an oppo of similar experience/skill?

https://www.warzone.com/MultiPlayer?GameID=33823948

well, thought so. I am insta quitting any match with less than decent starts. I still lose, but at least I don't waste more of my time in a frustrating game experience.

Edited 3/15/2023 14:35:51

rotewand actually made some good points. none of them defend the claim that they are actually cheating, or that that claim was really justified, but it does let us see what newbs are gonna feel. thanks rotewand. and we all know fizzer really needs to fix these.
but to be fair the crazy nooo they're cheating is absolutely ridiculous lol

OP probably looked at the history by now and realized he lost fairly.
Amazing feature, btw, to be able to dwell in games and conversations had years ago!

I guess having a qm filter for qm-rating / 1v1 winrate / player level sounds like a decent feature request.

this will have consequences for everyone's quick matches' quickness though.


@rotewand:
Yes, random distributions will lead to significant dis/advantages from time to time, though the distribution shouldn't disfavor you significantly, given a decent sample size of games.
The situation in the game you posted was indeed very unfavorable. But throwing before you even know your opponents spawns is silly.
Amass troops in Africa and check the South America border at least.

Edited 3/15/2023 14:54:06

Thats a very good point rotewand, which is also the reason why i dont play Small Earth Auto Dist anymore.

However, just because you have shitty starts, doesnt mean that your opponent has good starts. For example, in the last game you linked you could have deployed full to Africa and moved that army up to North Africa where you would have been able to break his Europe. Of course, that still doesnt guaranty you will win, but it would have allowed you to break his Europe.

Small Earth 1 Wasteland (the 2nd QM template you unlock) has manual picks, which means that you can control where you start. Of course, with manual picks its important to make enough picks, so 4/4 and not the minimum 2/4, otherwise there is a big chance you will end up in a random place. Also note that the pick order goes just like the move order in normal turns: ABBA(ABBAABBA, etc). So if you dont get your 1st pick, you will always get your 2nd and 3rd picks. You can use this to gain intel on the position of your opponents.

As a community we do recognize that this game has a very steep learning curve. We have tried to get new players more engaged with the community where they can learn the tips and tricks you need to turn a game with an unbalanced start into a solid victory. Sadly, these efforts have (on a large scale) always failed. If you have any ideas on how to improve this, please do share!

With regards to QM matchmaking without going too much into details: The system tries to match you with an available player closest to your rating. If no players are available for a while, it will broaden its definition of "close", which is how in very extreme cases, you can end up fighting players with 300 times your rating. The system is made to create games within a reasonable amount of time, and not to create games that are the best match in terms of skill.

However, this is specifically about cheating. When you look at wiki about cheating (https://www.warzone.com/wiki/Cheaters), it tells you to review the history, and points out what to check for. While we aren't hating on the claim "game is garbage" (cause we've been there, and the first 50 or so QM games you play will suck), we did trigger on the "full of cheaters" part without any support to that claim.

Anyways, this essay is already too long, so I'll stop tying now.

TL;DR: Learning curve is very steep, game hard for newbies, QM suck, ask community for help if confused.

I would suggest the following changes to qm:

* grossly unbalanced start distribution combos (in SEAD and in manual pick games - like SE1W with wasteland in AUS etc.) should be totally eliminated. irrespective of whether or not they "even out" after large number of games.

* new players: should only get to play AI for first 10 qm matches. First 5 games with "player friendly" starts. Next 5 games with regular random starts. Next 20 games player should be offered choice of "AI or real player" as oppo.

* all players: if only oppos available for qm matching with qm rating more than 30% higher, you should be offered choice to play vs. AI.

Objectives:
1. newbs should generally win most of their first 20 games. Would significantly lower drop-out rate
2. all players should have to go through much less effort and pain to win a qm for a wheel spin or an arena.

Edited 3/15/2023 15:08:11

if fizzer unable, then I am sure folks like 5Smith or any decent AI would be able to come up with a good set of "totally balanced start combos" for SEAD - giving both oppos pretty even chances to win.

We really should be able to play ON A LEVEL PLAYING FIELD, no? Even more so, when it is new players.

Edited 3/15/2023 15:11:19

I am conflicted whether this thread is a joke or not

Just in case it's not: If you are wondering where your opponent took their armies from, you can always click the "History" button after the game ends. If you don't understand where their income comes from, you click on it and it will show you the bonuses.

That one time I was accused of cheating. (open the chat)
I was level 55 then, and Sky was level 4.

https://www.warzone.com/MultiPlayer?GameID=32614690

When you don't have the experience, it's easy to default to, "you're cheating".

You gotta cut your teeth kid, as the saying goes. Climb in the saddle, play often, get good. That's what the rest of us did.

There is no shortage of help in the community. Ask around, we will help you. We want more players and participation, not discourage it.

Edited 3/15/2023 15:21:56

@rotewand except the very idea of SEAD, and automatic distribution in general, is precisely to unbalance the game so that you have a better or worse chance to win depending on where you start. I suspect that is precisely why SEAD is the first QM template you have access to - even if you are a new, bad player, sometimes you get an advantage just because you happened to roll good starting spots, and your opponent got bad ones. You could actually see this randomness as a balance mechanic to let everyone have a chance of winning sometimes. If you dislike it, you can disable it, and for instance only play small earth 1 wasteland, which has picks and is therefore more skill-dependent.

until you get SE1W games with wasteland in AUS or SA. You don't get pick #1 ... you've lost, buddy.

As to "targeted imbalance": my suggestion to give new players easier qm games / AI oppo to learn is better and far less frustrating.

SEAD is popular bc it is the only qm template that allows for a really quick game and does not require thinking about picking starts. Generally done within 10 turns or 5 minutes. Many players can spare 5 minutes during the day. As opposed to larger / more tricky templates demanding lots of strategic thought and with long turn and banked times.

So SEAD "in principle" is perfectly fine. It only suffers from unbalanced start combos and from poor matchmaking - for newbs/inexperienced/weaker players.

OP reads like my 11 year old playing fortnite the first week.

Yeah, of course SE1W still has a ton of luck involved, nevertheless, it is scaled back from SEAD in terms of randomness involved, that was my only point, not that it's a template which is solely decided by skill (lol), hence I don't think unbalanced started combos are a problem - that's simply the nature of the template, highly luck-dependent, and some people enjoy that, including people who maybe are not as good as others and can sometimes win by sheer luck. Matchmaking is an entirely different problem.