Well, maybe I was a bit unclear how much I weighted the observed trails in my assessment of the skill level of my lobbies. The trails was just a part of it, and as you can see at the now linked images, my matches looked pretty much the same, trail-wise, which was not many pred or diamond trails.
What I basically meant was that, regardless how well or badly I played in previous games, my lobbies seemed to be at quite the same overall skill level, which was considerably lower than high diamond, master, and predator lobbies. I compare with my ranked games. Last season I made it to D2 which meant pretty much only Preds masters and high diamonds, so I know how those lobbies feels.. I mean, I wouldn't have got an K/D of 1.9 over 20 games with randoms IF my lobbies had 20+ predators in it. As you now can see on my champions squad screen shots, those werent that hot either. I just dont think it would be very likely lobbies with "the majority masters and preds" that you are referring to, would have those kinds of Champs....
Hrm well assuming that its true you are getting matches with majority preds and masters just adds more information to the quest to figure out SBMM, right? That doesn't contradict my observations of very consistent lobby skill level of "very few Pros, few highly skilled and many good-to-average players". You made it sound like you were quite better than me, right? Maybe there simply is a threshold/line you passed and I have not, seeding me into "mid-to-highly" skilled players, me being among the "high" (which would explain me out damaging my teammates), whereas you get seeded into "very high-to-PRO" skilled players, you being "very high" .
Or do you play as a premade duo or trio when you get these lobbies?. That at least SHOULD be an significant variable in a matchmaking system since playing solo with randoms almost always means teammates leaving the match whenever they get killed. I wouldnt be surprised if you get seeded into harder lobbies if you play as a trio etc. Maybe thats the next step for me? Play 20 games with premades of different skill levels =)
@Balladalidila I definitely get it more often in premade but also solo.
When i don't get the mixed teams it's noticeable where i have to sit up straight and focus as it's just going to be ''one of those matches''. ie really sweaty.
I'm pred from previous series and tried solo grinding master multiple times but best i got was mid D2 too. With work and kids my effort and ability fluctuates, combining that with randoms it's just to inconsistent especially with the time constraints, for me anyway. FYI i wasn't saying i'm better or having an e-peen contest with you in anyway as it makes no difference to me.. I'm just a casual who happens to be put with competitive players often.
The champions i get are mostly premade preds more often than not and i fall down after some bad rounds into similar ones you showed, which are basically plat+ pubs so i think you're on the right track in the way you've categorised the mid to high, very high ect.
''very few Pros, few highly skilled and many good-to-average players''
Having some lobbies that aren't mixed does contradict this. It's literally the opposite to what you're saying. I'm not going by ''gut feeling'' but personal experience having witnessed it quite frequently and also many of my friends who play at that level experience the same thing. I have no need to try and figure out SBMM or post the results from my matches but i can point out to others who are doing so they're missing out key bits of information when trying to interpret their data. If something is wrong or missing then the conclusion is most likely flawed.
Curious, what's your intention in trying to figure out SBMM and what rumors are you trying to debunk?
" FYI i wasn't saying i'm better or having an e-peen contest with you in anyway as it makes no difference to me"
Well that wasn't my point at all. I brought it up because I, early in the discussion, got the impression that you said I was at a lower skill level than you and therefore my observation incorrect. All I wanted to say when speaking about "your and my skill level" was that my observations from my experiment maybe was applicable for MY skill level, but not for yours. It had nothing to do with some kind of contest between you and me..
"Having some lobbies that aren't mixed does contradict this. It's literally the opposite to what you're saying"
Yes, it would IF a claimed that my observations, and therefore also my conclusion, from my 20 games should be applied for every every player of all skills and for solos, premade duos and trios alike, which I dont.
"I'm not going by ''gut feeling'' but personal experience having witnessed it quite frequently and also many of my friends who play at that level experience the same thing"
Well, tbh that is kinda what I, somewhat jokingly, is calling "gut feeling" and that was the purpose of this experiment, i.e. to move away from what I experienced (in my gut) and actually statistically document the actual stats of matches. 99% of the discussion about SBMM is based on what someone feels about their matching, with almost no actual stats to back it up.
Curious, what's your intention in trying to figure out SBMM and what rumors are you trying to debunk?
Based on the general SBMM discussion on this forum, players at ALL skill levels seems to think that:
1) they always get teamed with low level, clueless noobs (i.e. worse than themselves)
2) they always get matched against many pros, in "stacked lobbies" of multiple predator or master squads
3) If they play well one match, they get seeded in a super stacked predator game the next
So in a nutshell, players from ALL skill levels, seems to "feel in their gut" that the SBMM generally always is unfavorable towards them, which ofc just doesn't add up.
And dont think that I, before this experiment, wanted to disprove them because I disagreed, I wanted to examine SBMM and maybe debunk OR confirm some of them. Before this experiment, I also "felt in my gut" that I got teamed with noobs the majority of my games. So this "gut feeling of mine" turned out to be true, i.e if you are a player at my specific skill level, you will more often than not be matched with worse teammates, both on paper (i.e banner level/high dmg badge etc) and more importantly, performance (dmg dealt)
I just wanted to clarify that was the case as some people seem to get touchy on the forum feeling it's a personal attack on them when it's not.
Guess i was looking at SBMM as a whole of system point of view as i assume it would be calculated for all of us in the same way, right? Not just the way it effected you who's in a certain skill range with a limited sample and analysis to draw conclusions from.
I honestly can't be bothered to validate what i'm saying with pics and such (not that i could if i wanted to as i'm currently temp banned) but i can tell you it's not a gut feeling.
I can also probably answer those question with reasonable accuracy without needing to experiment.
1) Those that have been playing for over a month will most likely experience this often. It's balancing the teams across the server. Say for example i'm level 500 and my team mates are 100 each. That's 700 per squad that SBMM will try and calculate throughout. Other things will be taken into consideration like que times, kdr/wlr, previous matches history (thinking along the lines of EOMM) ect..
2) Not the case. It's an inevitability that lobbies fluctuate and although those of higher tier lobbies will have to contend with this more, even those cream at the top of the milk players will get easier matches just down to que time excluding multiple other thing. If you're bottom of the barrel or a new player then everyone is pro who can climb plat/diamond or smurf with 20kill.4k badge ect.. these guys have and always will exaggerate. Like the new kid that thinks he's getting beamed by aimbot every round because he's not fluid in positioning, movement, strafing, weapons, bullet drop ect ect.. they just don't grasp it due to limited experience.
3) Pred premades after a win (champion) will still get put into plat pub lobbies and that's in large part just down to que times alone. Ranked matches, as you're aware, can take considerable time and they don't allow that in pubs to anywhere near that extent so top players feed through. For players who can't climb through plat (majority) that's a punishing experience they likely feel quite often.
4) For the reasons mentioned above, i can see why a lot people think that's the case. Perhaps it's not as bad as they make out but when one player can decimated their entire team and there's a handful of players in the match like that then it's understandable.
5) Consistently playing better will put you in tougher matches (on average) but you could be on a 10 win streak and only have sub plats queuing in your region (they throw you in servers not of your choosing to reduce que time anyway) so you'll likely have sub optimal SBMM leading to the grievances of those we touched on earlier.
I dont know if I was unclear with the purpose of this experiment. It was just ADD another approach to the SBMM discussion, which is NOT to base it on what we experience but instead look at the actual hard stats.... So you say what you say is "not gut feeling".. Well it is your gut feeling, according to my definition.. Call it experiences/thoughts then if you think gut feeling is too derogatory. We can sit and debate our experiences forever and it wont add anything to the discussion.
20 unforgiving games in a row during "prime hours", 100% transparency about me as player, champ squads, my random squads, dive trails and the squads performance. Black and white data...No "experiences" that are, like you said and which I strongly agree on, biased by our own skill. Every 0.5 k/d player will think the aim of a 2 k/d player is predator-level or even hacking. But that is exactly why this experienced based SBMM discussion is so pointless, and that we need empirical data.
@Balladalidila ''gut feeling'' An intuition or instinct, as opposed to an opinion based on a logical analysis. Even by your other definitions of thoughts/experiences, do you not think people have tested SBMM and unlike your small sample, pretty extensively?
Not just in the way you have with 20 matches and getting roughly equal results throughout by playing the same but testing just kills over 20 games, then accuracy, placement, losing a player consistently, losses/wins ect.. over hundreds of games to see how this influences it. Someone had to throw 15-20 games just to figure out you'll be placed in a bot lobby, another would go to a different regions at different times to know the algorithm wouldn't have enough players to pull from giving them easier matches for example.
Me posting just 20 games isn't going to provide the inner workings of SBMM, not even close.
Giving out key metrics in how it's determined would just lead to more people exploiting it because our findings and discussions to improve it have proven to be ignored by Respawn for various reasons which i fully understand but also disagree with. Many are happy to flaunt the fact they have a way to bypass protections for new or less skilled players which i know there is at least a handful of that are generally publicly known and noobbashing isn't something i want to see promoted as it's unhealthy for the game.
The likely outcome of your data and findings, if posted publicly.
Seems to me that you just like to complain and find ways to poke holes in my findings, only because you dont have anything better to come with tbh. Ever heard of straw man arguments?
I've said 2-3 times now that this experiment was just a new approach of exploring SBMM, which I think is a much more constructive way than the usual way people talk about SBMM on this forum. No one except you are talking about finding "the inner workings of SBMM".
It is what it is; 20 games in a row with some stats from every match documented. And you immediately goes "but its a too small sample; you have to do 100 matches with every variable defined to provide the inner workings of SBMM"..... So once again; the experiment was what it was, and this is the last time I will repeat this but you seem to forget: 20 consecutive matches when I, a player of 2.4 k/d, jumped in in public lobbies as a solo where I documented my squads banners, the champions banners, the jump trails early in the flight path, the match summery screen.
You seem to have the very childish approach "only because your methods wasnt 100% perfect to explain SBMM, then we should dismiss this method and keep to the "gut feeling" approach" (yeah I will call it gut feeling because that is what it is) . And, btw, thats how science usually work; small steps. I even stated in the summary that I didnt want to draw to many conclusion since so many other variables could not be considered, and that the only pattern I really could see was that I usually was the best player in the squad and that the visual observation of trails was pretty consistant.
I will always think my approach, i.e of empirical evidence even with a small sample as 20 games with those stats I choose to document, is a better way to discuss SBMM, compared tot how its discussed on this forum generally. You dont seem to think that so lets agree to disagree.
@Balladalidila I'll break this down as you appear to be going round in circles.
''I wanted, mostly for my own sake, see if I could debunk some of the "rumors" about SBMM''
To answer, from the horses mouth so to speak.
Based on the general SBMM discussion on this forum, players at ALL skill levels seems to think that:
1) they always get teamed with low level, clueless noobs (i.e. worse than themselves)
2) they always get matched against many pros, in "stacked lobbies" of multiple predator or master squads
3) If they play well one match, they get seeded in a super stacked predator game the next
After i explained why you won't be able to answer all those question with the results you have shown due to inadequate testing with a poor research method using such a tiny sample within a limited skill range...
I even gave you reasonable answers to these questions.
Your findings..
''I think these observations shows some kind of proof that the SKILL-based matchmaking does NOT sort 60 players of equal skill in the same lobby, but rather tries to build lobbies of a certain player skill distribtion.
This is true but not in the way you're describing it here.
''(very few Pros, few highly skilled and many good-to-average players). It also seems its trying to match "stronger" players in the same team with "weaker" players to make "even" teams''''
As i explained earlier, it will balance the team across the server (in most cases leaving the solo que of higher level or skill with 2 new or inexperienced players) but not always as some, especially those in the top bracket will get full squads at their skill level giving rise to lobbies up to 80% master/predator that you said which in your findings..
''So for those who claim they always get into lobbies with 20 preds, I dont know what you are talking about''
Now you do.
The probability of this occurring drastically increases when premade but not exclusively.
''Yes, it would IF a claimed that my observations, and therefore also my conclusion, from my 20 games should be applied for every every player of all skills and for solos, premade duos and trios alike, which I dont''
Obviously the rules will change with solo or premade but that can be clarified too and if SBMM is the same for everyone then wouldn't your findings be applicable to all?
In this case solo.
''debunk OR confirm''
You have done neither and i explained why. Except 1 (already common knowledge).
Now you're saying ''I've said 2-3 times now that this experiment was just a new approach of exploring SBMM''
Your research is like taking a baths worth of water out the sea and saying that on average in the past 20 tubs the fish are roughly the same size to contribute towards the discussion of what the average fish size/type are in the ocean with your ''empirical evidence''..
''Ever heard of straw man arguments?''
Most of your replies, failing to address the issues i'm highlighting for you.
''Seems to me that you just like to complain and find ways to poke holes in my findings, only because you dont have anything better to come with tbh.''
When people post their research and findings publicly it's up to others to pick apart, scrutinise and add criticism so how it can be changed or improved upon in future tests and research. The way you're going about this is fundamentally flawed and the way you're responding to this input/criticism is less than constructive. I think you're wasting your time and i know you're wasting mine so i wish you the best of luck.
I have forwarded this thread to someone who has a reasonably good understanding of SBMM as we're obviously not seeing eye to eye on this so maybe a third party can shed light on it, even if it's me missing something here.
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