Practical Game Design

Multiplayer matchmaking

Multiplayer games are at their best when played between equal opponents. This is easier said than done, but there are several criteria you can consider when pitting players against one another:

1. Inexperience: You may want to safeguard newcomers and have them play against one another until they reach a certain stage. Avoid applying it to the entire population.
2. Progression: If players get more powerful over time (for example, by gaining experience levels or building up their kingdom), you might want to calculate their power and use it to match between players who are not too far apart.
3. Past performance: This is often done by introducing an Elo rating system, which gives each player a skill rating. This rating can be ...