How does the game choose PvP opponents?

Gameplay Chat (PC/Mobile)
1

I’ve been trying to build an event team every week, and when I can’t I tweak the teams I have. I got a Crimson Bat and decided to build up one of those teams. When I was bragging about traiting it to my clan, someone said something curious to me: that traiting my troops affects how the game picks PvP opponents.

It sort of clicked. Before I built this team, PvP was a good mix of many different teams. Shortly after building this team, I’m facing a plethora of The Dragon Soul teams. They’re not impossible to beat, but there’s lots of frustrating “FALLEN STARS, BEJEWELED, NEVERMORE, FALLEN STARS, FALLEN STARS, NEVERMORE, DEFEAT” games where I go from “almost full HP” to “dead” in one turn.

I thought the way the PvP matches were working was something like, “Find someone at around my level, a little above my level, and a LOT above my level”. I figured probably the game was using something analagous to TrueSkill for matchmaking. But is it really just some kind of “We look at how many troops you’ve traited?”

Because that sucks. I might be ages before I get another Legendary, but I’m stuck facing all-legendary full-traited teams because I traited one? Do I need to horde my traitstones until I have some full T1 meta team now? That’s not very exciting and actually discourages me from trying out new teams.

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You are overthinking… I dont know how the game chooses your pvp opponents and quite frankly it really doesnt matter much.

Every team can be beat. Spend the 50 gold and scout your opponent and adjust your team accordingly. This is the best argument for not hoarding traitstones or souls early on. (Except PL of course)

TDS can be a pain sure but there are plenty of ways to beat him… Fire vs. Fire jumps to mind first…

People like to say im stupid or whatnot for this team but i just keep winning with it against literally everything…

Abyssal banner
Krys
Krys
TDS
Sylvanimora

All three troops full traits helps but isnt even necessary against other dragin teams…

Rush TDS and blow up the board over and over while doing 20 AoE

Fire off shiny when he fills up… Strategically choose what color to remove

Enemy has forest troll almost full or full choose green… Both shinys are full and removing yellow for example will drop 2 purples vertically onto 2 more purples choose yellow for the extra turn and hit them with the second shiny… Thats 50+ AoE in 1 turn…

Its all about playing your enemy, not the board.

Thats the best advice i can give. Do with it as you will

Vangor

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3

There might be something to what you’re saying, but I doubt that traiting a single troop would affect your outcomes as much as you’re thinking.

My wife and I are both over level 1000 (I’m about 60 levels ahead of her), she is in a higher-ranked guild that completes all statues every week, and I am in a more casual guild that completes a couple of statues every week. I have levelled and traited more troops than her.

I was home sick on Monday and did some PVP on both of our accounts and was stunned at how many super-low level players came up for her in 1-trophy matchups. In about 10 battles, she had 4 1-trophy options below level 100 and one of them was level 9. NINE! Even early in my PVP run, I seldom get an option under level 500. The 2 and 3 trophy matchups were pretty similar in level and difficulty. I know it’s a small sample size, but I have persistently noticed a similar trend over many months now.

Since levels and traits are the one area where my wife’s account is significantly behind mine, I think it does influence PVP matchups, but I don’t think the devs have ever really explained exactly how it works (probably to make it harder to exploit).

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To use fire vs. fire I have to have fire. The only troop I have on your list is Sylvanimora. So it’s more like I have to fight fire with a hot brick.

I’m just as likely to get TDS and 2x Krystenax in the short term as I am to make it to next year without either, so it’s not a good counterpoint.

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Do you mind if I ask what level you are? It’s been observed that difficulty makes a big jump upwards when you cross level 200.

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It is a good counterpoint… I have no idea what cards you have so more info would facilitate more targeted advice that would be more likely to be helpful.

What cards you DO have and what level you are makes a difference.

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Whats your hero level? If you are under Hero level 200, goblins might be fun to play with. :slight_smile:

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I don’t believe it is anything as direct as “looking at traits”. But, having more traits does increase your team power score. Increasing troop levels, increasing kingdom stars, being in a guild that maxes out guild statues increase that team power as well.

The higher your team power, the more likely you will drown in a sea of high-powered meta monotony.

Part of the problem for some early/mid- game players is that they level up their power scores too fast before getting fast, strong troops themselves.

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9

I can’t find Sirrian’s official post on the subject, but I believe it was stated to be a combination of average invade team score, player level, and one other factor that I can’t recall at the moment (which doesn’t track from my experiences, as my low level account has been using a 4kish score team for months when I can build 7k teams but never actually use them in invade, and I frequently get 6k-9k score matches on my three trophy and 4k-6k on my one trophy). There was a collective perception that defense team score also affected matchmaking (contrary to official dev statements) which I can’t say for sure if this is the case anymore. On my low level account, I personally started seeing ridiculous options on my three trophy long before I hit the level 200 mark, but the two trophy matches have been getting worse and worse.

Heres a screenshot for what my level 232 account with only magic and attack kingdoms at level 10, guild statues around 60, no guild task completion bonus stats, barely anything traited, nothing ascended to mythic or any base mythics, and a defense team score of about 4900, and an invade team that was 4500 for literally months and only in the last two weeks boosted to 6k looks like:

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And my high account with statues in the 100s, fully unlocked guild bonuses, level 10 kingdoms, nearly 10k score defense team, average invade team score in the high 9ks:

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Of course that is just one snapshot, and both can vary wildly, but I honestly don’t know what is up with their matchmaking anymore. My favorite is when I get three clone teams, scores within 300 points of each other, same traits, same order, and of which give comparatively bad gold payouts like so:

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I do know that time of day plays a huge factor, since players don’t stay in the matchmaking pool that long. If I am playing at odd hours, I’ll frequently see the same player pop up 3 times in ten games, which, obviously, they’ll be using the same team.

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Current hero level’s 392, I started getting frustrated somewhere around 250.

I still think it’s sort of goofy that “you can level up your power scores too fast” is a thing. It seems like there’s an easier way to go about judging my relative strength, and just about every other game pulls it off:

  • Every player has a number representing their “skill”. It starts in a neutral position.
  • When I win a game, my “skill” is adjusted proportionally to the difference in our skills. Beating someone far “below” my level is worth no change, but beating someone far “above” my level is a big change.
  • When I lose a game, my “skill” is adjusted similarly to winning: losing to an “easy” opponent is a big loss, losing to a “hard” opponent is a small loss.
  • My next matches are generated to find people in positions “a bit behind”, “a bit ahead”, and “very far ahead” of my skill level.

That way, instead of “I have nothing traited but just leveled up a kingdom” doesn’t put me in a higher tier, instead “I just beat 50 different TDS teams” puts me in the “neverending Kraken” meta.

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Around 200-250 has always been a “breaking point”. It seems like somewhere around there they open it up and you can start facing the nasty, end-game, level 1000+ teams. Without the right team, it can be really rough (which requires some luck and careful management of resources).

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I remember being around 200-400… Each week getting to PvP Rank 1 was a chore because I really could only manage the 1 Trophy fight. Eventually you get some good legendaries and it all starts to become easier.

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Yep, that’s why I asked, mostly. I was curious if this was “normal” or if I could do something to alleviate it besides “keep opening chests.”

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14

Read this yesterday and have been experimenting with the double krys team in pvp. That team is a beast, thanx @Vangor! Just wiped the floor with a triple krak team. It makes the meta much more bearable.

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15

No problem! Glad to help

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