I've been playing FFAs publicly for fun since the feature released, and my issue with it has always been the same, matchmaking. I am not going to say I have a perfect solution, but here is mine, and I hope at the least this brings up the idea of somehow changing the matchmaking for FFAs:
I don't think that FFA should have ELO or something, but I feel like it desperately needs matchmaking of some sort in order to make games run more smoothly, and bring players who don't sour games early with each other.
Because for anyone who has actually tried loading up into public games for Random Battles FFA or normal, either one you go with people either just don't move and get disconnected, or people forfeit when they lose one Pokemon, or other people leaving early makes other people also leave. It's so hard to get a clean match going in FFA, and while I don't think ELO is necessarily the answer, I think there should be some matchmaking for those who don't tend to forfeit with, say, 5 Pokemon left to be more likely to matchmake with others who don't forfeit early either.
How would the specifics work? I do not know, but at the minimum something for forfeiting/ just not moving even for Turn 1 would significantly help the player experience, because I cannot stress this enough, it is VERY common. If you start up 5 games of FFA in various points of the day, chances are at least 3 or 4 of those games will be soured by people just not playing.
Again, I am not suggesting ELO, as I think FFA is cool for being mostly unserious. But you can't even have unserious games if they rarely last 2 real Turns.
Keep in mind the following is not intended to flame anyone, it is for some examples of how bad of an experience public FFAs can be due to the (to my knowledge, lack of) matchmaking.
An anecdote from... today. This Showdown user, Elithesia Autem, on Turn 1 timed out in 2/2 games that I played with them, wasting everyone's time. This isn't a callout or to ban this person, but there should be a measure so that people who do not keep forfeiting/timing out do not have to keep playing players like this. It's like Unrated Random Battles, but at least with that you know pretty quickly how it's going to go, and only one person has to have the intention of actually playing the game, while for FFA you need 4 people to all commit, pretty much.
Here is an example with the player named above. Ran into them twice in a row, first time being: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9freeforall-1903141396-rrdkq8ozpcarz94xiabbxlasj5ittwgpw. In this match, Autem times out immediately and my other two opponents forfeit, and so I win! Yay! Woo! Celebration time! The very next game I played them, and they did the same thing, and then the next on the Bingo happened: One player had their Dragalge die Turn 3, and they forfeited., and it became a 1v1, but with bad sets.
Here is an example from a long time ago, showing how annoying this is: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8freeforallrandombattle-1438217671 (let me know if this does not work). While we all decided to play with only three players pretty much, it's annoying when someone loses one single Pokemon and, at least seemingly, rage forfeits immediately, especially in Random Battles, with no ELO to lose.
I could see an argument that there may not be enough players in these public ladders for there to be matchmaking of this kind, but I'd argue that's a self-fulfilling prophecy; if the experience for the average user is going to be bad, of course they are not going to play it.
Anywho, that's about all I got, I really hope some change to FFA matchmaking is considered, thank you.
I don't think that FFA should have ELO or something, but I feel like it desperately needs matchmaking of some sort in order to make games run more smoothly, and bring players who don't sour games early with each other.
Because for anyone who has actually tried loading up into public games for Random Battles FFA or normal, either one you go with people either just don't move and get disconnected, or people forfeit when they lose one Pokemon, or other people leaving early makes other people also leave. It's so hard to get a clean match going in FFA, and while I don't think ELO is necessarily the answer, I think there should be some matchmaking for those who don't tend to forfeit with, say, 5 Pokemon left to be more likely to matchmake with others who don't forfeit early either.
How would the specifics work? I do not know, but at the minimum something for forfeiting/ just not moving even for Turn 1 would significantly help the player experience, because I cannot stress this enough, it is VERY common. If you start up 5 games of FFA in various points of the day, chances are at least 3 or 4 of those games will be soured by people just not playing.
Again, I am not suggesting ELO, as I think FFA is cool for being mostly unserious. But you can't even have unserious games if they rarely last 2 real Turns.
Keep in mind the following is not intended to flame anyone, it is for some examples of how bad of an experience public FFAs can be due to the (to my knowledge, lack of) matchmaking.
An anecdote from... today. This Showdown user, Elithesia Autem, on Turn 1 timed out in 2/2 games that I played with them, wasting everyone's time. This isn't a callout or to ban this person, but there should be a measure so that people who do not keep forfeiting/timing out do not have to keep playing players like this. It's like Unrated Random Battles, but at least with that you know pretty quickly how it's going to go, and only one person has to have the intention of actually playing the game, while for FFA you need 4 people to all commit, pretty much.
Here is an example with the player named above. Ran into them twice in a row, first time being: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9freeforall-1903141396-rrdkq8ozpcarz94xiabbxlasj5ittwgpw. In this match, Autem times out immediately and my other two opponents forfeit, and so I win! Yay! Woo! Celebration time! The very next game I played them, and they did the same thing, and then the next on the Bingo happened: One player had their Dragalge die Turn 3, and they forfeited., and it became a 1v1, but with bad sets.
Here is an example from a long time ago, showing how annoying this is: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8freeforallrandombattle-1438217671 (let me know if this does not work). While we all decided to play with only three players pretty much, it's annoying when someone loses one single Pokemon and, at least seemingly, rage forfeits immediately, especially in Random Battles, with no ELO to lose.
I could see an argument that there may not be enough players in these public ladders for there to be matchmaking of this kind, but I'd argue that's a self-fulfilling prophecy; if the experience for the average user is going to be bad, of course they are not going to play it.
Anywho, that's about all I got, I really hope some change to FFA matchmaking is considered, thank you.
