Hunters,

Last week we shared that we had been making adjustments to matchmaking, and today we want to talk more about what those changes were and what our plans will be moving forward.

We saw that high ping players were presenting as an issue for the community regularly, and as a result we began collecting and analyzing player data around ping during matchmaking. Our goal was to investigate potential solutions, and this data allowed us to work on identifying an ideal cutoff point for "high ping" on a per-region basis. This means that we have been able to experiment with refining the matchmaking experience to ensure fairer connections for all players.

To begin with, we investigated region locking for various servers, but we found the system too easy to circumvent using a VPN.

Two weeks ago, we tried introducing a new system that would separate any players with a ping above a certain defined threshold from the rest. Here’s how the high ping separation works:

• When matchmaking begins, teams are evaluated based on the highest ping player on the team. If that highest ping player crosses the threshold, the entire team is considered "high ping."
• High ping teams are then placed in a separate matchmaking pool, where they will be matched against other high ping teams.
• Normal ping players continue to match in the standard player pool, improving connection quality across those matches.
• If a high ping player is matchmaking solo or with randoms, they will also be sorted into the high ping pool.

What counts as "high ping" isn’t set in stone right now. We are experimenting with a starting threshold of 125 ping, but we will be testing slight shifts and variations as we gather more region-specific data. Based on what we’ve seen so far, we expect the final cutoff to sit somewhere between 100 and 150 ping, depending on the region.

Although these changes are proving effective so far, there are still improvements to be made and we plan to continue tweaking the system, monitoring results, and refining matchmaking overall. With that in mind, we have a few changes in the pipeline that we will be trialing:

• Deactivating this matchmaking separation in Russian and South American servers—we have seen that due to location, infrastructure, or other reasons, some players can’t achieve better ping, so we will try creating safe space regions for those unable to improve.
• Raising the initial high ping threshold from 125 to 140 as a pure experiment—this will help us better understand how small adjustments to the threshold impact matchmaking quality, player distribution, and queue times across different regions.

Making these improvements means you may notice changes to your matchmaking experience over the coming weeks, but rest assured that these fluctuations are intentional and with good cause.

It’s also important to keep in mind that these changes will have the most impact during periods where active player count is at its peak. Although the system may make wait times for some players slightly longer at the moment, we will see more improvements when many players return for the next Event.

Any issues that may arise as we continue to test and tweak the system will be closely monitored and resolved quickly as we fine tune performance. As always, we appreciate your patience and hope that the new high ping separation system will improve the overall Hunt experience for everyone.

Thank you,

Your Hunt: Showdown 1896 Team