WOW - So...Where's the Matchmaking System? : World of Warcraft General Discussions

Drysc from Blizzard gives a little comment in reply to the question, "where's the Matchmaking System?" in the battlegrounds, have a listen...

It's in there, it's just extremely laid back in how picky it is, or in other terms: it's not going to take a long time to match people up. There aren't a very large number of players participating in battlegrounds at all times, at least not enough to tighten up the settings. We don't want to tune the system so that it's matching people really well at say... prime time on an AV weekend, and then have someone wanting to play on a Wednesday night at 4AM have to wait an hour or two to find a match.

So there's really a couple contributing factors. Really first and foremost the only way we're going to be comfortable tuning the system to start forcing more specific matchups is if there's a larger number of consistent players interested in the battlegrounds. That is mostly based on the battlegrounds themselves, new battlegrounds coming, and probably ultimately how well they're incentivized. All things we're aware of, and all things that (AV changes, AFK reporting, queue changes, new battlegrounds, new rewards) we're seeing come to a solution at a single point on the horizon.

Even at some point in the future where we could potentially pull the reins in a whole lot, and attempt to force extremely specific matchups, it's never going to be perfect. I don't believe we would ever get to the point where we're going to make you wait indefinitely just so that you never see a twink again, or a premade team, or someone with better gear than yourself. At that point you wouldn't care who you're up against, you just want to get in and get your mark, or get what honor you can. Getting in and fighting in a lopsided battle IS better than not fighting at all.

It is working though, and loosely matching players up very quickly. It's one of those invisible under-the-stage mechanics though that you could easily assume does nothing at all unless it's perfect.

Thanks