Skill-Based Matchmaking is just not working

[Nicholas]

Hey everyone, I want to dive into a topic that's been on my mind lately and, I'm sure, on the minds of many gamers out there: Skill-Based Matchmaking, or SBMM. As much as I love gaming, I find myself increasingly frustrated with the way SBMM is implemented in certain games, and I'm curious to hear your thoughts and experiences.

Sharing Personal Frustrations:
I'll be honest – lately, my gaming sessions have felt more like an exercise in frustration than a source of enjoyment. It seems like every match I play, I'm up against players who are leagues ahead of me in skill. Whether it's getting sniped from across the map in seconds or constantly being outmaneuvered in close-quarters combat, it's hard to have fun when you feel like you're fighting a losing battle.

I know I'm not alone in feeling this way, so I want to open up the floor for discussion. Have you experienced similar frustrations with SBMM in your favorite games? Do you think SBMM is an effective way to create fair matches, or does it do more harm than good? And most importantly, what do you think developers could do to improve the situation and make gaming more enjoyable for everyone?

At the end of the day, gaming is supposed to be about having fun and enjoying yourself, and I think it's important for developers to keep that in mind when implementing systems like SBMM.

[Xyrek]

I mean in this game, apart from ranked. I don't know if there is any sbmm. Or at least no a strict sbmm. You come across terrible players and good players. As a D2 player unranked is relatively easy 90% of the time. Now and again there is another player or a team that I would consider great players and I have to put sweat mode on in unranked. I mean the harsh truth is.. get good. Its unfair to punish good players because you stomp on most other players. However, Ii understand it from your point of view. Reality is though just practice. Unranked atm is probably filled with ranked players due to the season coming to an end. You'll probably have more fun at the start of a new season. Why not play ranked? You'll end up playing with people of a similair skill level most of the time

[Myztkl©-Kev]

yeah, pretty sure there is no SBMM in casual. which IMO is how it should be. I don't want to have to sweat my ass off every single match if I want to win. Some times it's nice to steam roll noobs lol.

[morsecode]

Again, either a machine learned bot, or a human totally clueless, or actually a Nexon/Embark employee trying to manipulative public opinion by mentioning the name "SBMM" 5-times, thus to lie and manipulate, not telling that Nexon/Embark, just like all major companies since 2015, are using:

psychologically-manipulative-addiction matchmaking.
Glossed over, lyingly, haloed as "engagement matchmaking", aka EOMM.
https://web.cs.ucla.edu/~yzsun/papers/WWW17Chen_EOMM

There is the explanation why matchmaking is sh.it since the beginning.
Ranked silvers & gold players in the same lobby, first knockout round, as platinum 1 & diamonds, same as in casual game modes. Enough said,

Of course execs and people in charge are not ashamed or legally penalized,to use something like that, especially since a lot of their customers are children or juveniles , who are mentally not fully developed.

It's legal, because "money". Who cares about damaging the brain, mental state and thus life of children, juveniles and adults.

[tythespy]

Originally posted by Van Darkholme:

Nexon/Embark, just like all major companies since 2015, are using:

psychologically-manipulative-addiction matchmaking.
Glossed over, lyingly, haloed as "engagement matchmaking", aka EOMM.
https://web.cs.ucla.edu/~yzsun/papers/WWW17Chen_EOMM

There is the explanation why matchmaking is sh.it since the beginning.
Ranked silvers & gold players in the same lobby, first knockout round, as platinum 1 & diamonds, same as in casual game modes. Enough said,

The matchmaking in this game heavily favors Engagement Optimized Matchmaking (EOMM) over Skill-Based Matchmaking (SBMM), resulting in few enjoyable games in-between many sweat fest games. Its a mix of SBMM and EOMM, that's how they can use the names interchangeably. They should at least have some transparency and show the players skill based score for SBMM, which is calculated differently than rank.

Its obvious when a game is slanted towards your team winning or losing within the first 3 to 6 deaths or if its going to be a close match, that can cause some players to quit early. Look at the kill/death ratio of each team, team coordination, objective effort/success, and then the scores, the outcome becomes increasingly predictable, which can be frustrating. Additionally, less-skilled players in the match are more likely to face verbal abuse for poor performance.

Players unknowingly enhance the addictive matchmaking by providing feedback through surveys after each game, which helps refine the AI algorithm to deliver the right amount of challenging or bad games with X in it that individual player will tolerate until it should mix some good or fun games with Y in it to encourage them to keep playing. If casinos adopted a similar approach, it would raise serious ethical concerns. New laws, regulations, or a lawsuit might be our only hope.