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KarlMarxr's avatar
4 years ago

Skill Based Matchmaking System Plans

I am simply writing today to inquire about future plans to fix the current state of SBMM in Apex Legends as a whole. The current state of SBMM is quite frankly horrendous and it is destroying your game; I am a level 79 and am a student full-time while juggling internships etc... and I no longer find this game fair to play at all. I am consistently matched with players who are leaps and bounds more advanced, players who are ranked apex predator or masters, have thousands upon thousands of kills, and who clearly play the game religiously. I do not have this kind of time because I do real work for a living, but used to love playing this game as an escape from the real world. Apex legends was the first and only battle royale that I ever fell in love with. All the characters, the lore, the map design, and the casual fun I used to have playing against other players my own skill level always brought me back for more. I have been playing the game since its launch almost 4 years ago. However, now in the current state of the game, I, along with literally everyone I talk to who plays the game casually, finds Apex to be fully unplayable. Every single squad that I go up against is in a totally different skill bracket compared to mine, I no longer can win games, and I can barely even seem to get over 5 kills in a game. The point of this message, outside of just ranting, is to firmly ask what the plans are for fixing the SBMM system. On reddit, youtube comment sections, and on many other forums, everyone is saying the same thing: SBMM in Apex legends is incredibly sensitive, unfair, and bars the casual player who spends money on the game and supports respawn from succeeding in game and simply having fun. What I suggest is a more robust SBMM system that matches players specifically by a range of account level. For example, I am a level 79, as mentioned earlier, so I feel like I should only be playing against players who are within 50-100 levels of my own. I should not be in gun fights with people who are max level, 100k kills, 2000000000 hours played, etc. Again, this is truly ruining the player base in the game, it's suffocating the casual player, and the negative results are starting to show; The game is nowhere near as popular as it once was and the player base is dropping like flies. I no longer have friends to play with anymore because they all grew to hate the game as it is now, which means that I am forced to solo queue. All the new skins, cosmetics, maps, and game modes are cool and all, but with an incredibly absurd and brutal SBMM system, the fun in the game itself is fully lost and the battle royale that I once loved is becoming an absolute waste of time and money. So again, to reiterate my question, what are the plans on the SBMM system. Something needs to change, the call for change is very present (just look at the forums for evidence), and the game needs to be revived in a sense. Respawn cannot just cater to only professional players; the game was founded on 100 million players early after the initial stages of launch, majority of whom were obviously just playing for fun. I truly hope something about this issue is in the works and can be implemented fast. The current state of the game will not last and it needs more attention outside of cash grabs and pointless content. Hopefully someone can help educate me more on these issues and how respawn is planning on tackling them. Thank you for the time, I would appreciate any response from a human being, and I desperately want to enjoy playing Apex again one day. I want to play that game that I once loved again. I miss it dearly and it's sad that it seems as if there isn't much hope at this point. But maybe I am wrong. Please enlighten me. 

10 Replies

  • This crud is happing in Arenas as well! Like my first 2 matches was fine. AND THEN all of a sudden im getting beemed across the map just for peeking  some times dying. these guys be landing lots of head shots for not having scopes in the first round!

  • @KarlMarxr The respawn devs have always said that "sbmm" is working as intended. There might have been some minor tweaks over the last few years but do not expect big changes (unfortunately).

    I believe the system is designed to make you play as much as possible and as long as possible. It's fairly easy to "exploit" the addictive nature of gaming. Basically, they get away with a crappy system because the vast majority of people are (slightly) addicted and keep playing.
  • @KarlMarxr Yup, it's becoming a real chore to start this thing up. At this point I play 1-2 games, if those are unfairly matched I stop playing. I mean, what's the point? Not gonna be handing out free kills to players 2x better than me.

    Also, what I would encourage people to do if they can afford the time is to record every match and keep the kill feed on at all times. I'm in the process of recording every player's name in my matches and gathering their stats via Apex tracker. I know, I know, huge task and the trackers aren't always up to date or accurate. But it would give you an idea about the rest of the lobby and how unfairly or not you are being matched. I think if people really want to stand up to this thing this is the way - the numbers don't lie.
  • Also, I forgot to mention - how is it that some players can end a season with 1000+ wins? If they are truly that good they should be in pro-tier lobbies tbh. Think about it, do you see any pro players just steam roll high tier lobbies like that where 1 team wipes out the whole lobby? NO. Good players in the same lobby can't wipe each other out like that, it only happens when high tier players are being matched with the normal folk. And looking at those numbers it means it's happening a lot for them. 

    Heck, I spectated players with 600 wins on 1 character mid season. 60 000 kills on 1 legend. Yet they play against folks like me who is nowhere near those numbers even when talking lifetime stats into account. People, although few, have spoken out and admitted on these very forums that a 1000 wins per season is nothing for them. So how do they repeatedly end up in these easy lobbies while the rest of us, God forbid has one good game and get punished for it for the next 12 games?

    I'll be fair and say it doesn't happen every match where the skill gap is this wide, but it's happening nonetheless. And for most games the skill gap is still just plain unfair. 

  • PsyhiX69's avatar
    PsyhiX69
    Seasoned Ace
    4 years ago

    This matchmaking has been created to achieve specific goals. One of the most important one is "engagement" (read "exploit addictive behaviors").

    That's why these lobbies are created not for us (regular players) but for people that put insane number of hours into the game (and this translates to spending more money).

    Read this: "EOMM: An Engagement Optimized Matchmaking Framework"

    http://web.cs.ucla.edu/~yzsun/papers/WWW17Chen_EOMM

    Quote from introduction:

    "

    In this paper, we propose an Engagement Optimized Matchmaking (EOMM) framework that maximizes overall player engagement. We prove that equal-skill based matchmaking is a special case of EOMM on a highly simplified assumption that rarely holds in reality. Our simulation on real data from a popular game made
    by Electronic Arts,Inc. (EA) supports our theoretical results, showing significant improvement in enhancing player engagement compared to existing matchmaking methods.

    "

  • @KarlMarxr I think part of the problem is a regional issue but even then I have been getting tons of diamonds and masters lately in my public lobbies as well (east usa) and I havn't really been doing over 1000 damage or 4-6 kills that often

    I was assuming it was happening on World’s Edge because it was the end of the season, there wasn’t much content, most players finished the battlepass, battlefield 2042 and other games game, etc but even then I have been put into those lobbies a few times in Season 11 when before I never got put into those lobbies unless I did a 2k+ damage game which is honestly pretty rare I’ve only done like 8-10 of those in 2000+ hrs lol
  • lotuswargod's avatar
    lotuswargod
    4 years ago

    QUATUM40 you make a good point. the twitch streamer TIMMY when he did the bronze to pred non stop stream  u saw a massive change in his game play. he went from getting 20+ kills down to getting barley 4-5 kills sometimes not even 1 kill. 

  • @lotuswargod Exactly my point. If people are regularly getting these high point games it means that the system is somehow working in their favor. It's like it's not affecting them as the rest of us.

  • @Solim66 wrote:
    @KarlMarxrThe respawn devs have always said that "sbmm" is working as intended. There might have been some minor tweaks over the last few years but do not expect big changes (unfortunately).

    I believe the system is designed to make you play as much as possible and as long as possible. It's fairly easy to "exploit" the addictive nature of gaming. Basically, they get away with a crappy system because the vast majority of people are (slightly) addicted and keep playing.

    And the thing is this for me at least literately does the exact opposite for me! I play less and less and shorter and shorter sessions alone because of the balance of this SBMM/EOMM.

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