Would your team be open to using the relaxed search in EASHL to get a bigger variety of European games?

[Franky__2768]

As you (may) know the matchmaking for normal EASHL in EU games is broken.

Everybody is stuck on their own server and Central European teams can't get matched up with the Northern and Eastern teams because they are not allowed to connect on the Swedish server anymore - since NOVEMBER! This causes that Finnish and Swedish teams only get matched by themselves, which I guess doesn‘t harm them at all. Honestly, there are not enough central teams that it could even bother you…

The thing is, right now the Central and Southern European teams can't compete against the Northern/Eastern European teams, which causes an even wider skill gap as you should be able to train against better or evenly skilled teams/players and different play styles to get better. Also, I was obviously involved in lots of talks over all divisions where Northern/Eastern European teams complained about the ping and server advantage in ECL games. I mean, I really understand that it's pretty shitty if you never play on that ping and server and then have that weird feeling. We‘ve been in the same situation in the past. But we don't care, we would play on SWE server if that means we can finally play competitive games again.

So our suggestion would be, for the bigger picture of the competitive European 6vs6 scene, that we try to get a united message to EA, shared via social media and also if they want to do that, via the Game Changers. We‘ve been in contact, but there have been no real responses from EA. We know that they are aware of the problem, but otherwise They should fix the matchmaking so that we match each other again, so that that we can practice against other teams, other servers. And remember, this problem came up in November, even before the German server existed - it just doesn‘t make any sense. For example: For the past 6 months the Phantoms, ZSC Esports, Shooting Stars and all other Central teams couldn't play any Northern/Eastern Elite/Pro/Lite teams - only German, Czech, Slovak and French where the average skill of the teams is probably Neo - Lite. This isn't meant to be disrespectful to any of these squads, but those extremely one-sided games just don‘t make sense for anybody.
And yeah, we‘re aware that the servers have been an advantage in ECL this season, but what's the point if we can never play competitive games outside of the ECL. We also lost two of our better players because there is no motivation for them to demolish Neo teams every day - no disrespect again.

If this doesn't work, and EA still won't fix it or give any responses we only have one other option: Ask you to put the server location to „relaxed“ for a while when you are searching for regular EASHL games to see if that makes a difference. We got matched up with TIKI TALK once and they had that setting. Most games would probably be on the German server, but maybe teams could manage to play like 1-2 games a week on worse connection? We understand that this is a huge request and it's fair if you are going to say no, but we have to try. Some players said it wasn't that bad of a connection - guess it just depends where you live. If we would play on the Swedish server we would take that as well for sure.

So we‘ll do a poll and you guys could also share your thoughts here - would your team be open to trying that? Selecting servers would still be the best option obv., and it would create more fairness in ECL-matchups since these are 2-game-series. Also, home ice would mean something in the playoffs.

Thanks for reading
@Mannheimer1938 & @Timasy

[Claudi27]

In my opinion it's a matter of the player base just growing larger so playing in the Central/Western Europe isn't so tedious. 

Our team is Spanish. Every time we log in to play, if we search best game location, and at prime time (around 8PM), it takes a good long minute to find a game. This isn't much of an issue, there just aren't that many teams on. Instead if I play with some team from Finland or Sweden, it takes 20 seconds to find a game. I can live with this though.

However if you move out of the prime time, the average search time is 5-7 minutes I'd say and most of the time we have to settle with playing against 1 or 2 bots, or CPU goalie.

We try to search 'relaxed' to get matched against Finnish teams, but if these teams don't search Relaxed too, we end up cancelling a game because the game matched us with an american team we have connection issues with. This is frustrating and tedious.

You can't force northern europe teams to search relaxed. The difference, I have experienced, is going from 33 or so ping in best game location, to 55 or so ping playing in northern europe. Enforcing teams to play outside of their best location doesn't seem like the best idea, top teams love to play fast and ping is so crucial here, they would be mad to have to play at 40 ping instead of 10 simply because the player base in central and western europe isn't so big. It's not fair, but Northen Europe teams aren't to blame and should not pay for that with a worse ping.

So it's a problem that doesn't have an easy solution other than waiting for the player base in these regions to get bigger. The only fix I can think of is making 'relaxed' location search  less wide. It's stupid that you have so many different regions, and the option is instead a binary between 'absolute best game location or play the lottery' and this is what needs fixing, the inability to search in regions where you don't have the best connection, but it's still playable.

Edited May 22, 2020 by Claudi27

[Timasy]

some good points @Claudi27, but waiting for „our region to get more players“ is not a solution because it doesnt to anything about the skill gap.

The waiting time is not the biggest problem, its the lack of competitive opponents for BPH and the central european Pro/Lite teams

[Claudi27]

15 minutes ago, Timasy said:

some good points @Claudi27, but waiting for „our region to get more players“ is not a solution because it doesnt to anything about the skill gap.

The waiting time is not the biggest problem, its the lack of competitive opponents for BPH and the central european Pro/Lite teams

In a way if we get more teams we can play more, compete more, and reduce the skill gap. Right now it's a heaven if you're based in North, not so much in Central/West. I guess that's the point I'm trying to make.

Edited May 22, 2020 by Claudi27

[Tromi13]

Cant agree more on what you describe here. Even if our team is not part of the « top team » it’s so frustrating to play the same team day after day...How is it possible to prepare your ECL the best way as possible when facing 1st day a northern team and playing on 50ms if you can’t practice during training session ( same thing when northern team face central team and playing on our servers)? today it’s a f**** lottery and you just have to pray playing on your servers that’s make no sense!
Is there any solution atm? Yeah. why 6’s is not using the same matchmaking as HUT where everybody can match against everybody.Why not using a ranking like they are using in « Rivals »  when matching most of the time someone around your level. There are solutions for sure but now everybody from the eashl community as to say something about the actual situation about servers issues.

Those are my points. Thx @Mannheimer1938 @Timasy for the topic

[viktors89]

No realistic solution is going to make everybody happy.

Having an option to search within whole Europe seems the fairest one but those in the northern regions (the ones that have more skilled teams atm) will probably just keep playing within their region for ping sakes, but at least we would have the option.

I know that in our team we always search for relaxed and we never have less than 40ms ping, no matter if we play on our servers or on theirs, it's a bit sad to watch streams from other teams and see 5-7ms

Edited May 22, 2020 by viktors89

[Timasy]

vor einer Stunde schrieb Claudi27:

In a way if we get more teams we can play more, compete more, and reduce the skill gap. Right now it's a heaven if you're based in North, not so much in Central/West. I guess that's the point I'm trying to make.

for sure, but the skill gap is too big for that to be a quick solution for the "better teams" - I was obvouisly referring to these.

[Kenu]

2 hours ago, Claudi27 said:

You can't force northern europe teams to search relaxed.

You made a lot of good observations in your post, but I think it's important to underline that the intent (from what I understand) in the original post is not about forcing anyone, but more of an "can we please cooperate once in a while so that more teams can get quality games".

In my opinion it's not a given that the smaller market will grow if they feel there are too many obstacles to actually compete. That's why they put talented kids to play with older age groups if they're having too much of an easy time in their own - playing close to your limits is what keeps your progress up.

[ProMinx24]

It's stupid not to have such option available in EASHL in the first place since its a 12 player lobby, not 2 and having an EA algorithm deciding for you which server you should play on (also happens when there is a 3/3 split in North/East and South/West located players) is silly; in terms of the major difference in competitiveness. Hands down, it should be a an option available to teams especially the ones based South/West of Europe and the North/East teams got nothing to loose since the games will or at least should be played on their closest server as per their choice.

[Tobago]

Yesterday we played against the Beastie Boys and fearless knights, both clubs finished the match with the bots.  You ask why no one wants to play against German clubs.  Teach them what Fairplay is ❗ Yesterday, for the first time, I saw a really angry fin, because they don't do this.  A month ago, Wolfsrudel did the same 🤷‍♂️. Sorry not all germans Clubs make do it 

[J-Foppa]

På 2020-05-22 på 21:51, Kenu säger:

You made a lot of good observations in your post, but I think it's important to underline that the intent (from what I understand) in the original post is not about forcing anyone, but more of an "can we please cooperate once in a while so that more teams can get quality games".

Perhaps start with a rule for servers in playoffs?

It would be nice as a higher seed team to play your home games on your server, instead of 7 games on the German-server

This cooperation thing seem like its just a one way street. 

[Kenu]

9 hours ago, J-Foppa said:

Perhaps start with a rule for servers in playoffs?

It would be nice as a higher seed team to play your home games on your server, instead of 7 games on the German-server

This cooperation thing seem like its just a one way street. 

I'm not sure why helping these teams find games would automatically be a one-way street. Just as well I can say that you not offering to help is a one-way street to receiving no sympathy when the tables are turned. Obviously whether you cooperate or not, some people will act like jerks. But should we all just default to being jerks, just in case we get our feelings hurt later?

I agree 100% with the idea of home team getting the nearer server, but without server select it's been pretty hard to achieve. Fingers crossed for NHL 21.

[J-Foppa]

13 timmar sedan, Kenu säger:

I'm not sure why helping these teams find games would automatically be a one-way street. Just as well I can say that you not offering to help is a one-way street to receiving no sympathy when the tables are turned. Obviously whether you cooperate or not, some people will act like jerks. But should we all just default to being jerks, just in case we get our feelings hurt later?

I agree 100% with the idea of home team getting the nearer server, but without server select it's been pretty hard to achieve. Fingers crossed for NHL 21.

It’s not just some people Kenu.

Im not aware of all the matchups between northern european teams and german teams in ECL but the ones I am aware of the german teams have not been willing to share servers, instead referring to the rule book that there is no rules about servers = one way street

Helping these teams is not automatically a one way street but when they are not cooperating in ECL it becomes a one way street. I’m not against searching relaxed, I just don’t feel like helping people who only cooperate when it benefits them. 
That’s not the same as being an asshole, that’s being uncooperative towards assholes

 

 

 

 

[Mikka]

5 hours ago, J-Foppa said:

Im not aware of all the matchups between northern european teams and german teams in ECL but the ones I am aware of the german teams have not been willing to share servers, instead referring to the rule book that there is no rules about servers = one way street

No one can choose the server, for some reason the only way to get a sweeede-server in a north vs central matchup seems to be bootcamping in Lapland (Enigma 👀) or with a one-in-a-million chance like Nordic Stars, —> German teams aren’t able to give up the host even if they’d agree to it. I’m pretty sure most of them would happily let the home team play on their own servers, especially if they could actually pracc against some decent opponents for change

[J-Foppa]

20 timmar sedan, Mikka säger:

No one can choose the server, for some reason the only way to get a sweeede-server in a north vs central matchup seems to be bootcamping in Lapland (Enigma 👀) or with a one-in-a-million chance like Nordic Stars, —> German teams aren’t able to give up the host even if they’d agree to it. I’m pretty sure most of them would happily let the home team play on their own servers, especially if they could actually pracc against some decent opponents for change

Not even if they change to northern europe under club settings? I wouldnt know, no one has been willing to try

[Kenu]

1 hour ago, J-Foppa said:

Not even if they change to northern europe under club settings? I wouldnt know, no one has been willing to try

According to what I have heard, not even that has helped. BRAYCE has been one of the teams that have tried to find more games against specifically Finnish and Swedish teams and they've tried pretty much everything.

On 8/1/2020 at 4:00 PM, J-Foppa said:

It’s not just some people Kenu.

Im not aware of all the matchups between northern european teams and german teams in ECL but the ones I am aware of the german teams have not been willing to share servers, instead referring to the rule book that there is no rules about servers = one way street

Helping these teams is not automatically a one way street but when they are not cooperating in ECL it becomes a one way street. I’m not against searching relaxed, I just don’t feel like helping people who only cooperate when it benefits them. 
That’s not the same as being an asshole, that’s being uncooperative towards assholes

I get what you're saying and the logic behind it. I'm just saying sometimes it's better to be the bigger person for mostly unselfish reasons and maybe have that little hint of hope that one day it will be repaid in one way or another. I believe that's the only way to change behavior and negative attitudes.

[J-Foppa]

På 2020-08-02 på 19:37, Kenu säger:

BRAYCE has been one of the teams that have tried to find more games against specifically Finnish and Swedish teams and they've tried pretty much everything

To Brayce if they are reading this I would suggest getting a Router with geo-blocking abilities for example Netgears with DumaOS. Then set your location to Sweden/Finland and limit your perimeter to that area. It should help.

[TTERO]

1 tunti sitten, J-Foppa kirjoitti:

To Brayce if they are reading this I would suggest getting a Router with geo-blocking abilities for example Netgears with DumaOS. Then set your location to Sweden/Finland and limit your perimeter to that area. It should help.

in theory yes, in practice not necessarily. EA also requires a connection to a California server. for some reason the PS4 audio group also needs connectivity to the north american side.. 

[Timasy]

Zurich tried this, doesnt work - you justget kicked from the lobbies in the matchmaking screen I think

[Haldeem]

vor 5 Stunden schrieb Timasy:

Zurich tried this, doesnt work - you justget kicked from the lobbies in the matchmaking screen I think

Correct, unfortunately 2 guys could enter the game while the rest got kicked. I still wonder how we landed on the sweden server, when we played the games against Enigma.