Simple reasons I hate skill based matchmaking.

[Flaak]

Another sbmm thread. It truly sucks the soul out of online games. Its literally equivalent to participation trophies. Something we also should stop doing to kids. Trophies are garbage pieces of plastic for the most part..(unless its a grammy or something). But they should be given to winners..as people who are SKILLED and GOOD should be considered winners. Not just here congratulations because you showed up. All that does is teach laziness. No preparation or outside hard work..just show up.

The truth is as people who play pvp games there are two types of people. Ones who enjoy the game by getting better and more skillful and others that just wanna play and have fun. Why does sbmm exist? Because the people who just want to have fun want to "not play try hards. Now the point is sbmm does none of this why masking itself as it does. The noobs play noobs and never get better and the good players only play really good players and everytime they log in have to sit in a pool of sweat just to break even. Its a demonic toxic system.

Games should base your skill and "rank" off how well you perform as opposed to the average player. Not the average gamer but the average player of that specific games. Some games have hardcore communities for years and everyone is really good so the average is high...while new games are really low.

Because if you are good at something..you should be rewarded by higher stats and better quality play. Atleast for you..if thats what you are looking for.

So if you are the player who wants to get better daily, dont you want to play people that are good too? and not just people of the same "skill" aka sbmm

Or you are the player who likes to just play....do you want to be catered to only play horrible people? Is that fun to you too? Like if you decide to mess around and play worse,, you will play worse opponents.

What happened to the good old RANDOM lobbies. The key to matchmaking having soul. The noobs outnumber good players 20 to 1 anyway so theres always a chance with random lobbies most players will face someone at their skill or below. The good players will defo have better stats but there should be some balancing to the game so said player cannot win everytime maybe.

Random lobbies were great. Noobs can watch pros snipe people and be amazed or a bunch of noobs can have a blast or maybe two really good teams finally meet there match. With the fact 70% of playerbase is below a decent rank usually, it is totally acceptable for random lobbies. They will balance the game and even noobs will have a chance to win because the odds of good players being in every match is LOW.

The idea that sbmm in place so that "pros dont stomp noobs", believe it or not you can play 50 games and not run into people that wildly outside the skill level. Secondly instead of sbmm why not just break it up into three chunks. Top 33 mid 33 and bottom 33. Three ranks to stop pros from wrecking everyone and yet only 3 so that way its fun and random!

Last thing to say is as someone who is usually a really good player..it gets old having the same k/d and w/l as someone 10x below my skill level. Theres nothing fun about being really good at a game just to be fed someone as good as me every single time and die for every kill. There is zero reward for being good at a game then. Because someone who is way less skilled has the same exact experience if not better because when youre not that good theres MUCH more room for error. Im at the point now where on fortnite if I miss a shot ill lose every fight.

I play pvp to relax and be slightly better than most people. Thats what I enjoy. I shouldnt have to sweat every single death. Or be forced to die as much as kill.

Just like old times anyway...even when being better I would constantly get challenged by people. So being random anyway most noobs can benefit from various skilled teammates.

If you cant agree and you think I just want to stomp noobs you dont even know how random lobbies worked pre 2014. They were fun amazing and at most good players would have 1.5-2k/d which really isnt that bad. Because more noobs would take the deaths there k/d was .9-1.2 usually which is still really enjoyable for noobs.

If people are okay with being bad then take more deaths than good players. Whats the big deal if you DONT CARE? :)

And if you are really that bad you cant enjoy the game on RANDOM lobbies maybe YOU should get better.

[Flaak]

Първоначално публикувано от Morkonan:

Първоначално публикувано от Flaak:

Simple reasons I hate skill based matchmaking.

In general:

I think skill-based matchmaking is entirely necessary for progression matches. I do think games that support it should also make room for full-team-only matchmaking.

I DO think that there should be open matches, unmatched, but also that one can't que with more than, let's say, one friend. Those would be something like large pop matches, where people can enjoy the back-and-forth over a large map with a few point nodes to take, hold, and some capture-the-flag change-up and that kind of thing. Those are also good for trying on new ideas, gear, etc, for skilled and unskilled, alike.

The latter isn't just for fun and cooling off for "pros," but also so random noobs can join in and get some trigger/spell time in for practice and learning the ropes. A lot of online match games are just not noob-friendly enough.


Now... people who insist there should be no skill-based matchmaking at all... Well, that's just not fair. There are too many gamers out there who take perverse pleasure in steamrolling noobs for it to ever be fair.

To an extent you are right..but the way sbmm is setup doesnt work for anyone.

I would totally be fine if public games were RANDOM and ranked games were sbmm. That way if noobs want to be matched up with other noobs they can go to ranked. If they want to just play and experience the game for what it actually is and not your own custom experiences then public. Atleast you have common sense though..you arent wrong.

[Flaak]

Първоначално публикувано от LeviathanWon:

And the fact it doesn't work at all...

Yup

[Flaak]

Първоначално публикувано от AerSilver ♞:

It's all fun and games until you realise you're playing a forced 50% winrate ELO hell game disguised as "skill based"

Exactly..what the hells the point of logging in everyday if you are going to be forced to go 50%. Maybe one day you will be better and win more then normal but then it goes back to normal.

Literally nothing fun about the game deciding the victor beforehand with the occasional 5% chance of an upset.

[Flaak]

Първоначално публикувано от Hammer Of Evil:

Първоначално публикувано от Flaak:

Simple reasons I hate skill based matchmaking.

one reason i hate SBMM is that - in blizzard-activision's game 'overwatch 2' - the SBMM has been rigged.

there's a system in place, similar to the way the 1980's arcade rom boards were modified to force the player to spend more money.

the system basically sets your win ratio at a certain %. when its time for you to lose, it will automatically pair you up with a team that roflstomps yours.

when its your time to win, it will pair you against a team that just started playing yesterday, and you will so one-sidedly crush them you would just wonder 'whats the point'.

anyways, i think 'SBMM' is just a disingenuous way for developers to ruin the organic playing experience that has existed in most games since a matchmaker was created.

you can compare this with organic matchmakers like in counterstrike, league of legends or dota2, where the matchmaker is just there to find you a game to play, instead of rig the system.

so i'd just agree with what you've written here, and then some tbh. =p

You are totally right. Rocket league experiences the same thing. When its time to lose you get butt teammates. This is how sbmm really works. As you say its a system disguised to keep you playing in the hopes that one day you will get so good you will progress. But most of these games you need to be able to carry teammates...and being good vs being able to carry are two different things. So players who are just good and good teammates will struggle while the player whos a solo selfish person but able to do more that way will succeed.

[Morkonan]

Първоначално публикувано от Flaak:

..
Umm so why not stick the bottom 30-50 % of players in their own category and call it a day? or if you actually read the three categories. That way it isnt forcing pros to go against pros and noobs to go against noobs but a little bit of variety with nothing too outside the box.

Yeah you are right though, noobs run the game and the game caters to noobs as the good players get screwed. I would say 20% of people experience some type of aggravation from sbmm.. so majority do not care.

First, context is important. Different devs/publishers have different schemas for competitive matches and have different purposes behind their product. So, if their "competitive match-play" game is really just a front-end to an "in-game marketplace" then how are they going to structure that play? They want noobs to see all the cool skins and will track them so that they pair them up with players who have store-skins that they haven't seen, yet...

That's not the sort of game I was talking about.


Ideally, players do want what they want... So, competitive gamers greatly desire good, competitive, dramatic, match-play with meaningful rankings/points/etc.

Clans/Guilds want team play.

Noobs? They want to learn the game and don't want to be spawn camped... They do want challenging play, though. But, when they're ready for it...

Casuals? They want a smorgashboard of all sorts of things so they can find their niche. Once they get into it, they want their "favorite thing" to give them meaningful rewards for their playtime put in.


Gamers want competitive match play PVP to offer all of these things and more. If "we" want that, it's gotta be done right. And, all of that depends on attracting "noobs" and retaining them so that they're eventually no longer "noobs."

ALL players should be able to que for the experience they want. Everyone was once a "noob" and "good players" are going to realize the health of the game's community and its ability to attract and retain new players is what makes their K/D ratio have meaning.

[40000Aggro]

In pro gaming people are on par with each other, usually who is first and who is second depends on who made a mistake, or who made more, or who made them sooner, since they tend to snowball in pvp. So, the #1 and #2 spot are both going to be better than a gray parser who doesn't do ranked matches, by far, but the gap between #1 and the a gray parser is going to be vastly more than it is between #1 and #2.

The matches and how the pvpers play isn't math but how games decide who is grouped is. They have to quantify your accomplishments. A lot of pro gamers group in groups with people they know, not strangers. Depends on the game, too. Pro gamers will also use voice chat instead of text.

[Flaak]

Първоначално публикувано от HairyYitigo:

In pro gaming people are on par with each other, usually who is first and who is second depends on who made a mistake, or who made more, or who made them sooner, since they tend to snowball in pvp. So, the #1 and #2 spot are both going to be better than a gray parser who doesn't do ranked matches, by far, but the gap between #1 and the a gray parser is going to be vastly more than it is between #1 and #2.

The matches and how the pvpers play isn't math but how games decide who is grouped is. They have to quantify your accomplishments. A lot of pro gamers group in groups with people they know, not strangers. Depends on the game, too. Pro gamers will also use voice chat instead of text.

lol im sorry but you are rambling on about nothing that adds any value to this discussion.

[Xero_Daxter]

Skill match matching does make sense. What if you’re matched with pro players for 6 hours? That just ruined the mood.

[Flaak]

Първоначално публикувано от Xero_Daxter:

Skill match matching does make sense. What if you’re matched with pro players for 6 hours? That just ruined the mood.

Again pro players are top .5% so what makes you think it would even happen twice in a row?\

Now as a good player getting matched against good players constantly can you not see how it "kills my mood"

[Tonepoet]

There are flaws with the skill based participation system, but fundamentally being a mere participation trophy is one not amongst them. If anything, it is more along the lines of an everlasting tournament. You have to earn your way up the ranks in order to have the right to challenge the more competent opponents, plus on top of that you have to maintain that right by maintaining an adequate win to loss ratio against players who should be around your own skill level. Whatever rank you can maintain is the rank you deserve, unless you are intentionally throwing matches.

[$2 Hero]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuM7R76oBfA

[permanent name]

but in many matchmaking systems the ability to move between ranks depends on total gameknowledge, as each individual tier or skill grouping often depends on different metas and skill applications. a low-tier match might be able to be micro'd through with an incorrect comp, for example, but the assumption of certain kinds of skills, counters, or defenses in upper tier play makes their strategic knowledge irrelevant.

so rather than a tournament it's more like a neverending regional qualifier. you have to win a numbers and gambling game to advance, independent of skill. otherwise you could just shortcut your way through with the right knowledge, and the ranking would be meaningless.