So many people shout out for "matchmaking based on item level".

But no almost one thinks what that means.
What meta item one has in inventory?
What meta item fittings has one created?
What meta item fittings has one created but not in inventory?
What meta items one has opened up in skill tree, but not using?
What if someone has high meta items in inventory, but gotten them from salvage/bought accidentally?
What if someone has opened up some one insignificant SP tree to complex level (like a sidearm or nanohive whatever) but the rest are crap combatwise?



It's really NOT a simple thing to balance matchmaking on.

I think a much more elegant solution is for people to get a ranking based on how good they are, K/D ratio, amount of damage done, amount taken, accuracy with weapon, average rank in WP at end of match, modify these numbers for their favorite weapon, vehicle, suit types, and skill points and come up some final number that determines how "good" of a player you are.

Based on this number, matchmaking should try to assign 2 teams each with similar sums of the player's number. In other words, it's ok to have good and bad players, high and low skill point players on the battlefield as long as they're in roughly equal proportions for each team. This should keep the matches close and check pub stoming with having other people on your side that can counter them.

Additionally, pubstomping should be countered by making proto gear unaffordable to be used profitably. You should have to save up ISK in the pub matches using economical fits to be able to afford proto for important matches (or be willing to take steep losses to your wallet if you just want to have fun in the best gear in unimportant matches). Risk/reward.

AFKing also needs to be addressed for this system to work (since it will make good players appear artificially weaker than they are). This should be easy to track: how much damage to enemy players have they done? Are they looking left/right/up/down? Are they in close proximity to an objective? Are they gaining WP?

This data will look very different for a player just starting out as a sniper on the red-line with a crappy rifle, lots of sway, and not enough DPS to get kills/assists, and someone past the red-line crouch-walking into a mountain with a rubber-band on the joystick.

We already have this, it's called Planetary Conquest and Faction Warfare.

Making tiers based on gear really negates the whole point of gearing up in the first place. Matches should be fair, and by that, I mean both sides should have teams with roughly equal skill on each side. People seem to want safe pools to play in, and that goes against the entire ethos of New Eden. In EVE, a person with a billion isk ship can suicide gank the ship you've spent the first month saving up for in highsec for the LOLs, but there are major consequences (they're going to be out a lot of ISK) which deter this behavior. It should be similar in DUST. Proto suits should be 10x more expensive, and too expensive to waste in pub matches. I'd also support the idea of a 2nd tier to the academy where you'd be sheltered until you have your first 2 million SP or so. After that, all bets are off.