Yeah, matchmaking is pretty inconsistent. Sometimes I’ll get a level 1000 with fully traited mythics which gives 60 points and 1700 bonus gold and sometimes I’ll get something that gives 28 points and 700 bonus gold. There’s just too much disparity in the “hard” slot.
I’m not seeing the disparity in the hard slot nearly as much as in the easy slot, although I do see the behavior you describe a lot.
The problem for me is that a hard match with 7250 power is worth about 800 gold whereas a 4500 power easy match is worth 732. It’s much faster and more efficient to just take the easy match all the time.
Unless you want the extra trophies and to climb the leaderboards, you ar right. Sometimes I pick the easier option! Just depends if I have the time to compete for the top 100.
Though people are saying its dependant on your defense team rating.
I don’t have nearly that kind of time unfortunately. I play probably 3-4 hours a day (which is probably WAY too much) and the closest I’ve come is like rank 8000.
For me, it’s about getting to Tier 1 and then making gold for my guild, both of which are easier to accomplish with fast, easy matches.
Keep in mind the pool of opponents is based on recent activity. If few/no mid-range players have been active, there aren’t any available to fight. Conversely, those with high scores are generally likely to play more often, so more likely to be in the pool of opponents to fight.
It’s not real-time or symmetric matchmaking, so I fail to see why recent activity would factor in, other than to determine rival/revenge status. The matchmaking engine should theoretically be able to select any player in the database, regardless of when they play.
I think it is something like a 2 hour window, maybe a bit longer. But once you’ve been away for a certain amount of time you aren’t presented as a target for others.
edit: Ok, more like 5 hours. From the botter thread:
It may be a holdover from the previous PvP system, where you stole uncollected gold from other players. Inactive players would just be soft, tasty targets. Part of the rationale may still be true, in that players who haven’t played PvP in a while may not have updated their defense team. Or it may just be to prevent people who don’t care about PvP from getting annoyed by defense notifications.
