Same experience here. Its very depleting, you feel helpless and frustrated.
I have seen different former Devs explain why SBMM was created in the first place for various different titles (I believe this theory whole heartedly) -
These Devs explained the reason why SBMM was created and implemented was because of cheaters. No Dev studio wants to ban their cheater base. Why? - simple, studies have shown that on average, cheaters spend more money in game than players who don't cheat. Don't take my word for it, go ahead and do your own research!
It was explain that instead of banning an entire player base (one that is growing constantly), SBMM was created to eventually force cheaters to the top of the same skill ceiling, so ultimately they would face each other - hence no need to ban them and it would keep them out of the other lobbies and away from players that don't cheat.
All good in theory however, what happens to legit players who's skill level rises? Well it eventually caps out when they reach the same ceiling cap as the cheaters, then they themselves become the fodder for the cheaters.
What makes this really bad, and impossible to combat, is when a cheater becomes frustrated facing their own kind or get banned... they simply make a new account and play through again, stomping on everyone else along their way to their cheating skill cap. Rinse and repeat.
You can bet your a*s, that at the top of the skill ceiling where the SBMM forces the cheaters to the top is running at LEAST, 60% cheater rate, and rapidly growing (again, don't take my word for it, do your own research) And well, we've seen enough top Pred players in the world nailed for cheating how many times???
There is no fixing this, when the gaming companies themselves spend more money trying to understand why people cheat, to categorize them into different groups and to figure out how they think and why; instead of spending money to defeat them and remove them permanently... this plague will never end. Clearly cheaters have hijacked the gaming industry and have more control and power than the studios and gaming companies themselves, let alone the lack of willingness to remove them and lose revenue.
Competitive online/multiplayer gaming is over! We legit players have lost this battle, long ago.
