Re: Lets Talk About 'Skill-Based Matchmaking'?

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@DarthVaapar wrote:

@JiboTVThis is a very good post, that I must disagree with.

You are not being punished for being good. On the contrary, you are being fairly pitted against players of similar skill. You are simply being challenged. Removing SBMM removes that challenge.

The experience you describe is the same for everyone, not just high skilled players. Everyone is playing against opponents of like skill. They are not being punished either, but fairly challenged.

The vast majority of players will never be as good as those of your skill level. Tailoring a game to a small minority’s preference would not, in fact, be good for a game sustainability. The opposite is true.

What you describe is an acute experience that can only be had by the very few, Predator level players, who represent a tiny fraction of the population. Domination of lesser skilled players in a non SBMM environment.

I apologize, but you are simply wrong.

All players are more fairly challenged now, on average. That’s a great model for a game.

SBMM has not only improved the gaming experience for the overwhelming majority of players, but it had also constructed the foundation for long term sustainability.

Masters against novices is a terrible format for any competition.

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So everyone must be content with winning 1 in 20 games?

'cos that's the natural consequence of perfectly balanced matches.

No matter how good you are; if you play at the skill level appropriate to your MMR, statistically you'll have a 5% chance of winning a match, and you'll tend towards a K/D of 1:1.

That isn't my idea of a satisfying progression system, nor a rewarding experience.

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@TheJumpingJawa wrote:

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@DarthVaapar wrote:

@JiboTVThis is a very good post, that I must disagree with.

You are not being punished for being good. On the contrary, you are being fairly pitted against players of similar skill. You are simply being challenged. Removing SBMM removes that challenge.

The experience you describe is the same for everyone, not just high skilled players. Everyone is playing against opponents of like skill. They are not being punished either, but fairly challenged.

The vast majority of players will never be as good as those of your skill level. Tailoring a game to a small minority’s preference would not, in fact, be good for a game sustainability. The opposite is true.

What you describe is an acute experience that can only be had by the very few, Predator level players, who represent a tiny fraction of the population. Domination of lesser skilled players in a non SBMM environment.

I apologize, but you are simply wrong.

All players are more fairly challenged now, on average. That’s a great model for a game.

SBMM has not only improved the gaming experience for the overwhelming majority of players, but it had also constructed the foundation for long term sustainability.

Masters against novices is a terrible format for any competition.

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So everyone must be content with winning 1 in 20 games?

'cos that's the natural consequence of perfectly balanced matches.

No matter how good you are; if you play at the skill level appropriate to your MMR, statistically you'll have a 5% chance of winning a match, and you'll tend towards a K/D of 1:1.

That isn't my idea of a satisfying progression system, nor a rewarding experience.

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Actually, most everyone was already content with your statistics, and even worse, since before SBMM, the game was basically allowing professional level players to run amok against college and high school level players. Most players, the overwhelming  vast majority of them, are in the high school and college arena. 

If you find it unrewarding to play against similarly skilled opponents, and prefer rather to play against lower levels, then yes, maybe you should seek such “rewarding” entertainment elsewhere.  There are other games that promote such disparate match making. Thankfully, this game is no longer one of them. 

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@DarthVaapar wrote:

Actually, most everyone was already content with your statistics, and even worse, since before SBMM, the game was basically allowing professional level players to run amok against college and high school level players. Most players, the overwhelming  vast majority of them, are in the high school and college arena. 

If you find it unrewarding to play against similarly skilled opponents, and prefer rather to play against lower levels, then yes, maybe you should seek such “rewarding” entertainment elsewhere.  There are other games that promote such disparate match making. Thankfully, this game is no longer one of them. 

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Simple question:

With the current casual SBMM system, by what metric can you gauge whether you're improving?

Prior to SBMM, I knew I was getting better, because my average damage increased, so too did my K/D and win rate.

Now?

Stats mean nothing; regardless of skill level, we're all tending towards the same averages.

We're nothing but mice running in a wheel.

Ranked is (as the name implies) where match making should be taking place.

Casual is (as the name implies) where players should be able to kick back and mess around, not be subjected to the exact same hyper-competitive gameplay present in ranked.

If newbies (or anyone else for that matter) want to be matched against similarly skilled opponents, then they should be playing Ranked. It's that simple.

The two game modes offered different gameplay experiences for a good reason. Now they don't, and the game is significantly worse for it.

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@TheJumpingJawa wrote:

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@DarthVaapar wrote:

Actually, most everyone was already content with your statistics, and even worse, since before SBMM, the game was basically allowing professional level players to run amok against college and high school level players. Most players, the overwhelming  vast majority of them, are in the high school and college arena. 

If you find it unrewarding to play against similarly skilled opponents, and prefer rather to play against lower levels, then yes, maybe you should seek such “rewarding” entertainment elsewhere.  There are other games that promote such disparate match making. Thankfully, this game is no longer one of them. 

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Simple question:

With the current casual SBMM system, by what metric can you gauge whether you're improving?

Prior to SBMM, I knew I was getting better, because my average damage increased, so too did my K/D and win rate.

Now?

Stats mean nothing; regardless of skill level, we're all tending towards the same averages.

We're nothing but mice running in a wheel.

Ranked is (as the name implies) where match making should be taking place.

Casual is (as the name implies) where players should be able to kick back and mess around, not be subjected to the exact same hyper-competitive gameplay present in ranked.

If newbies (or anyone else for that matter) want to be matched against similarly skilled opponents, then they should be playing Ranked. It's that simple.

The two game modes offered different gameplay experiences for a good reason. Now they don't, and the game is significantly worse for it.

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Come on...  A quality, long term player of FPS knows when they are getting better, whether or not there are displayed metrics. 

I started getting better in Season 2. I started getting significantly better about two weeks ago. My Season 3 stats are 50% better than my overall game stats. I’m doing more damage and getting more kills on average now. I almost always try to get better, but I do slack sometime and just  play around. I work shift work and often enough I’m fatigued and my gameplay is lesser. Nevertheless I am getting better. I have more wins in Season 3 than all other wins since launch. 

What’s being described and presented as casual isn’t really casual at all for most players. Without SBMM, top tier players dominate. That is not healthy for this type of game, nor would it be healthy for solos for that matter. It would be different if this were a game like Battlefield where skill levels would be distributed between two large teams. This is a BR. A 3-man last squad standing environment. It’s F2P with monetization built around cosmetics. Without SBMM, a game like this will have no longevity when the main population has little to no chance of ever winning.

Also, most players don’t even play ranked at all, regardless of skill level. There are longer wait times, and if you’re chasing challenges you are very often a liability for your squad. You can’t just tell players what mode they should be playing. What you can do is make all the modes as fair and enjoyable as possible for everyone. That’s what they’ve done. 

If that means that top tier players don’t have a safe space to retreat to in order to dominate, then so be it, and so what. No one else does either. 

I agree that the top tier players should be listened to when it comes to balancing and tweaking concerns. There’s no question about that. But when they start calling for the removal of SBMM so that they can have an easier time of it, then no, absolutely not. That’s not about fairness or sportsmanship. There are many words I could use to describe such sentiment, but I’ll just go with ridiculous. 

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@highOctane91prem wrote:
@DarthVaaparYour original assumption is flawed.

"On the contrary, you are being fairly pitted against players of similar skill"

This is patently false. Respawn's sbmm algo is broken.

Answer me why are players with 1k kills no 2k badge being placed in lobbies with 4k 20kills badge players with 20k kills?

A player with 1.5 kdr are placed against 7kdr it's not even close.

If respawn is determined to keep sbmm at least relax the tiers it uses.p and fix their algo. Keeping pub matches random and fresh was why apex legends become so popular in Feb and March.

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Flawed assumption? Patently false?

Please....  Try again. 

Sure, it may not n the best SBMM ever created, but it’s much better than it was. All metrics overwhelmingly support that SBMM is very healthy for the sustainability of competitive games. Frankly, it’s very logical and easy to understand. No assumption necessary. 

Your next part is priceless. 

You describe, in a question to me, an example of mixed tiered matches, then complain that Respawn should relax SBMM in order to achieve mix tiered matches.

You’re a gem. 

The only time that I experience a relaxing of tiers in standard play is during off-peak hours. This is to be expected and a function of all decent SBMM systems. 

What is patently false; however, is your notion that matches being “random” and “fresh” is what made Apex popular in February and March. Nothing could be further from the truth. What made this game great was that it had great gunplay and movement mechanics in a squad based BR with hero characters having different in-game abilities. 

@BennSaunaI have no idea. I just saw a guy on another thread say that these changes were made on the advise of, and supported by, streamers.He was saying that because streamers are what keeps this game alive, and Apex pays some of them, they’re listening to them. 

For the record he opposes SBMM and was being cynical about the motives of the new changes. 

@DarthVaaparIm far from being pro but I agree with everyone else, this game is going to die sooner or later unless changes are made regarding SBMM im no wheres close to being a pro Im lucky to get 3-5 kills and have never been over 10, but let me ask you this, Why would I want to improve if the game is only going to get harder and less enjoyable than it already is... theres no reason to improve if your going to be punished, On fortnite i honestly don’t even know what a pro is I run into a player they build some fancy fortress in front of me I just look at it like tf is this and kill them when there mid air jumping down on me lmfao idk how to describe it but on fortnite there dosnt seem to be SBMM It says im 30 ish but I killed this level 277 dude twice but it was on an event mode, anyways the weapons seem more balanced compared to apex legends, and there really dosnt seem much ‘’skill’’ unless someones great at building but on apex with all the abilitys and crouch sliding and everything else available the term ‘’skill’’ goes to another level if your against players who can do all of the above with perfect precision aim and never miss a shot, theres no enjoyment in the game just getting your butt wooped when you want to have a good time Imo Ranked should be competitive, Casual should be Casual not Ranked Casual I do agree Ive gotten more wins in season 3 but i literally am lucky to do 30 damage some games most games my squads eliminated on drop or within the first few minutes theres been games ive played for over 8 minutes and didnt do any damage because everyones hiding or people knock you with G7s before you even turn around G7 seems op af but im not crying for a nerf I kinda like it myself as a close range weapon, anyways I want casual to have that randomness that got me hooked when I first started the game some games were competitive, some were casual, one squad may have a try hard pro and the next may be a noob, sometimes you met people your skill level other times people above/below it you honestly never knew what to expect but now you can pretty much expect every fight before the game even begins everyones the same my aim is pretty crappy but like I said earlier why should I want to be better if Im going to end up punished for it like everyone else... I feel punished as it is, probally why i played fortnite all week and apex for maybe an hour or 2 to do dailys or until I was sick of it and couldn’t take it anymore

@FaIIenAngeI777Fortnite has SBMM.

We are near the same skill level. My experience is mostly just like you describe. But I have had 6-7 kill games periodically. Other than 7 kills, I has one game with 13 kills and 2800 damage. I was not only in the zone during that match, but the enemies were largely facing the other way! Lol. Fog of war and all.

I’m beginning to think that the Holo-Day Bash is disrupting SBMM. It’s very popular. You can find a game in seconds at all times. Maybe that’s leaving the standard lobby servers with having to fill with mixed tiered players. I don’t know.

All I know is since season 3 started, my kills are up, my wins are up, and my experience is better. And the holiday update hasn’t changed that for me very much. That best game above I describe was after the update. But let me be clear, I still get consecutive matches with zero kills regularly.

Ranked isn’t setup for SBMM. It’s just a basic point system with no real ELO to speak of. It’s just a side mode to chase a few extra cosmetics, particularly for top tiered players.

This game is F2P with monetization solely based on cosmetic purchases. The vast majority of the player base is at our skill level. The overwhelming majority. In order to retain this base, and continue with revenue, you can’t continually pit them against predator level guys. This is basic business logic. If they lost all predator players tomorrow, they haven’t really lost much. If they lost all the standard players, then there is no game.

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@DarthVaapar wrote:

@JiboTVThis is a very good post, that I must disagree with.

You are not being punished for being good. On the contrary, you are being fairly pitted against players of similar skill. You are simply being challenged. Removing SBMM removes that challenge.

The experience you describe is the same for everyone, not just high skilled players. Everyone is playing against opponents of like skill. They are not being punished either, but fairly challenged.

The vast majority of players will never be as good as those of your skill level. Tailoring a game to a small minority’s preference would not, in fact, be good for a game sustainability. The opposite is true.

What you describe is an acute experience that can only be had by the very few, Predator level players, who represent a tiny fraction of the population. Domination of lesser skilled players in a non SBMM environment.

I apologize, but you are simply wrong.

All players are more fairly challenged now, on average. That’s a great model for a game.

SBMM has not only improved the gaming experience for the overwhelming majority of players, but it had also constructed the foundation for long term sustainability.

Masters against novices is a terrible format for any competition.

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Someone other than me might think you type well, but I don't. You haven't really said much in your response and your formatting is confusing. You fail to address many of the points I made, if not all of them, you focused on my main point and conclusion without addressing much if any of the details before or after them. I will make it clear that failing to address is not the same as failing to acknowledge them, which you sort of did. You seemingly dismissed my points as to why I make feeling punished for doing well the topic and conclusion - I also never said people are "Punished for doing good.". You seem to never clarify why and where you disagree with me. I will break down your response and provide my own, but I encourage you to read my original post and some of the responses I have made to others after. At which point you could hopefully write something a little more substantive for the discussion, whether you agree or disagree.

Man, reading your post it seems like you are just dancing around just saying "Your wrong and should suck it up. You're just being challenged. Why should we cater to such a small number of players anyway? Your feedback / perspective doesn't matter because you make up such a small percentage of the community. I think it's fair, and I think a majority of the community thinks it's fair too. You just want to dominate noobs! Wrong!", which would have been way easier to respond to, man. In fact, I have in some of my other responses. I do not plan use that boiled down summary of what you wrote to disagree with you. Not because I agree with it, in fact I very much disagree with it, but rather if I did you might think I was unfair and say "That's not what I said.". But, as of right now I will be honest and say that I feel it is a pretty fair and accurate summary of what you wrote. I figure it is better to address that skunk in the room before responding to your response as is. It is hard to have a good faith discussion if you are going to beat around the bush saying stuff like that and take up my time, I digress.

You misconstrued my point about feeling punished and proceeded to argue against a point you created when you insinuated my argument was "I am punished for being good at the game." and danced around addressing my reasoning as to why I came to my conclusion. I will add that me or others feeling punished is a reality you do not have the liberty to deny just to make your reasoning seem sound when you say "It's fair, everyone is doing it and I don't think they are being punished, just challenged!". Beyond that, to be doubly clear, what I actually said was players are punished for performing well and clarified why I came to that conclusion in that section both above and below. Your formatting is very weird, where you disagree is obscure or probably unwritten. I recommend you point exactly to what you disagree with in that section and explain how and why you disagree in a new response. Being charitable, your main point is "You are being fairly pitted against players of a similar skill level.", which is substantively untrue and addressed in my post, I would love to see how you justify it as fair and better for everyone given what I wrote. Are my friends being pitted fairly against players when they join my lobby and queue with me? Is it fair if I and two other randoms are in a filled random squad and most of my lobby is pre-made squads? They tend to answer with a "No.". You don't even try to explain what fair means or how I might see it. I want to play with my friends again. I would like to be able to make mistakes sometimes and meme around with different weapons or strategies. If I wanted to be in a match where I am held to very high standards, need the best weapons to compete, and need a filled team to communicate and strategize my best, I would click the game mode button and left click the mode that says "Ranked.". I also never thought "Mmm, time to dominate some noobs!" when clicking the casual play mode button before or after SBMM, for your information, Bub.

There are better ways to ensure worse or new players have time to bond and adjust to the game. The current SBMM model seems to infinitely go past focusing on new or worse players, which is a big reason why I believe it is an unsustainable model. Speaking a tad exaggeratedly, in order to win, fight (Equally), or kill, you will need to outperform yourself in your last game every time. Doing this does not bode well when your opponents keep scaling and creates very high standards for players as they progress. It may have some practicality for players on the bottom end - But the game will feel stagnate and require a lot more effort as people play more and get better. Fairness to the idea that new and bad players need a chance and ensuring players are happy and continue to join and play are why I made my recommendation section in my post. It is also a section you seem to have missed. Why do you think having the current SBMM apply to everyone is better than a system where it focuses on the lower end of matchmaking? Do you think that is an unreasonable recommendation? Explain why if you do. Also, I'd recommend you stop trying to say things are just "Fair." or "Wrong." or that "I disagree!" like that's an argument. I am not here to be told what to think. You need to convince me that your way of thinking makes any sense, and you have failed so far. I think there are better ways to be fair, you have not convinced me I am wrong, and I do not agree with you. You also acknowledge that predators (Or skilled players.) feel the way I described, but then you went and asserted that you know why - the 'inability to dominate players of players with less skill'. How about instead of assuming and asserting your own beliefs behind what you think I or other skilled players think, you read what I wrote, you know, instead of pretentiously dancing around my points and presuming to know how I think despite what I wrote. Have you ever thought that skilled players may not like the game because of, oh I don't know, the exact things I describe and maybe more? Maybe you'd be surprised at some of the responses from those who agree that the current SBMM needs a change. Or that my recommendation could help prevent this situation you talk about where 'novices fight masters'. Step off and drink some humble tea if you plan to be disingenuous and lie about my intent behind making this post.

You will not change my mind if you just say that I am wrong or that you disagree. What you want to do is reason with me that I am wrong and that your views makes more sense despite our opposing views. This is a discussion.

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@TheJumpingJawa wrote:

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@DarthVaapar wrote:

Actually, most everyone was already content with your statistics, and even worse, since before SBMM, the game was basically allowing professional level players to run amok against college and high school level players. Most players, the overwhelming  vast majority of them, are in the high school and college arena. 

If you find it unrewarding to play against similarly skilled opponents, and prefer rather to play against lower levels, then yes, maybe you should seek such “rewarding” entertainment elsewhere.  There are other games that promote such disparate match making. Thankfully, this game is no longer one of them. 

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Simple question:

With the current casual SBMM system, by what metric can you gauge whether you're improving?

Prior to SBMM, I knew I was getting better, because my average damage increased, so too did my K/D and win rate.

Now?

Stats mean nothing; regardless of skill level, we're all tending towards the same averages.

We're nothing but mice running in a wheel.

Ranked is (as the name implies) where match making should be taking place.

Casual is (as the name implies) where players should be able to kick back and mess around, not be subjected to the exact same hyper-competitive gameplay present in ranked.

If newbies (or anyone else for that matter) want to be matched against similarly skilled opponents, then they should be playing Ranked. It's that simple.

The two game modes offered different gameplay experiences for a good reason. Now they don't, and the game is significantly worse for it.

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I forgot if I responded to this or not, been busy lately. Thank you for your feedback again, this response was particularly insightful. Stats mean less now than they ever have. Things feel very stagnate for most players I have met that play enough to reach their relative skill ceiling, and they describe the games quite well like mice running in a wheel. Especially those with higher rankings. Playing ranked all the time is not that fun for most players, put simply. I would love it if people could experience my gameplay to understand that the difference in our skill results in less variance for me and more variance for lower ranked games. I guess people have trouble understanding what more variance means because they have not played games like I have. 

Ranked as it exists now is totally broken in Diamond/Predator lobbies. Unlike, let's say Gold, once you enter these higher tier lobbies you will face a vast differential in skill....the predator players are often vastly superior to the Diamond players and yet they're all being awarded the same RP. I've been killed by the number 4 Predator (I'm a hard stuck D4)....how is it fair that I'm facing him (in a premade) as a bottom tier soloing Diamond? And to top things off he gets the same RP gain for killing me as I would for killing him.

Diamond lobbies need fixing, as the skill gap between Diamond and Plat is reasonable, whilst the skill gap for the grindy Preds is insane. I understand that they do this to minimise Pred queues, but there has to be some filtering to stop that huge skill difference being in the same lobby. And the worst Preds are on a whole different page to the best Preds too....

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@SunlessMeridian wrote:

Ranked as it exists now is totally broken in Diamond/Predator lobbies. Unlike, let's say Gold, once you enter these higher tier lobbies you will face a vast differential in skill....the predator players are often vastly superior to the Diamond players and yet they're all being awarded the same RP. I've been killed by the number 4 Predator (I'm a hard stuck D4)....how is it fair that I'm facing him (in a premade) as a bottom tier soloing Diamond? And to top things off he gets the same RP gain for killing me as I would for killing him.

Diamond lobbies need fixing, as the skill gap between Diamond and Plat is reasonable, whilst the skill gap for the grindy Preds is insane. I understand that they do this to minimise Pred queues, but there has to be some filtering to stop that huge skill difference being in the same lobby. And the worst Preds are on a whole different page to the best Preds too....

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We are mainly talking about the current state of SBMM in unranked inside this thread - But I'll kind of bounce off with an idea from what you said. The variance one who is gold would experience does lead to more diverse games than ones Diamond or Predator players would experience. Most players I have met that have made it to Diamond (Min.) express that their lobbies are way more stagnate and tend to lack a diverse experience - Meaning matches tend to feel or lead the same way. They also express the inability to play with lower level friends (Too hard for the friends.) and it being near impossible to compete without a full pre-made squad.