Matchmaking — Notes

Functional

• Pair / group players for matches.
• Skill, latency, party size considered.
• Wait-time relaxation.
• Penalties for quits.

Non-functional

• Time-to-match < 60 s typical.
• Fair team balance.
• Region-aware to keep RTT low.

Trade-offs

• Strict skill window = fair but slow; wide = fast but mismatched.
• Solo vs party queues kept separate to avoid stomping.
• Smurf detection = quality lever.

Refs

• Microsoft TrueSkill paper.
• Riot / Blizzard / Activision engineering posts.
• ByteByteGo "Design matchmaking".