Multiplayer Gaming - The Curse of SBMM...and How to Fix It
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- Опубликовано: 20 фев 2024
- A video essay on the impact of Skill Based Matchmaking on our modern gaming landscape. SBMM is used in the majority of our multiplayer experiences and has been for a long time. But in recent years players have begun to notice issues that many are attributing to more aggressive SBMM systems as well as engagement based systems such as Engagement Optimized Matchmaking (EOMM). This analysis will discuss these various issues and will offer solutions as well as an alternative mindset for these systems going forward.
This is an issue affecting a lot of multiplayer games such as Call of Duty, MW3, Warzone, Halo, Halo Infinite, MCC, Overwatch, Rainbow Six: Siege, Rocket League, Dead by Daylight, Apex Legends, Fortnite, and many more competitive multiplayer games.
Topics under consideration include, SBMM, Ranked vs Social modes, Casual vs Competitive design, the Skill Gap, inconsistent matchmaking, unfair lobbies, average team skill, Trueskill, developer and publisher mindsets, variance, and more.
Footage includes gameplay from COD MW3, Halo Infinite, Rocket League, R6:Siege.
Here is the video on Casual vs Competitive Design I referenced: • Modern Gaming - The Ca...
Here is the video by Mint Blitz, he has done a lot of discussions on Halo's SBMM specifically and his experiences as a high level player: • Halo's Dark Secret You...
Commentary and Video Essay is by Favyn
Edited by FoxyGrandpa: / @foxygrandpa1
Thumbnail by Chubby: www.behance.net/ChubbyCagle 
Игры
![HALO - [Fan Animation] - Remember](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/E5_ynsjwd48/mqdefault.jpg)
Favyn bi-weekly uploads is the best surprise of 2024 thus far
Ik right? Always rational and insightful.
Nice profile picture boy
@@Jimmy_Rings good tidings brother
Favyn one of few creators with a legit understanding of game design and not, “game bad me angry”
it's so refreshing to have back in this day and age, especially in the multiplayer scene where i feel like no one knows what they're talking about lol
“Game bad, me angry” is a valid stance.
No I don’t need to have an in-depth understanding of game design to know that the game was bad and made me angry.
That’s reason enough to not play
@@EggEnjoyer I wouldn’t dislike it if people weren’t so passionate about that shit. They say game bad and not I didn’t enjoy. They should say they didn’t enjoy it instead of telling their audience it’s just flat out bad.
@@the_br0wnie294 There’s no difference. “Game bad” and “I didn’t enjoy it” are the exact same thing.
People’s opinions are their truths
@@EggEnjoyer no
There’s this is my opinion
And
This is an objectively bad game
6:29 Holy shit, finally someone says it! One of the biggest pitfalls I've seen people make is that they'll want to design a PvP game with all these crazy mechanics, but they don't stop to think if the mechanic will be fun to fight against, only if the mechanic is fun to use. It's not really an issue with single player games, but in PvP, it is crucial that the tools all players have access to are both fun to use and fun to fight against. I know it's just a minor part of the video, but I'm glad to hear someone say this.
As for the rest of the video, you hit the nail on the head. SBMM these days isn't really SBMM, it's engagement-based matchmaking. I tell ya man, it's was depressing when I went onto Halo Waypoint to look at my Infinite stats, and saw that it shows you you're latest match stats vs. what the algorithm thought you'd hit, and it's damn close most of the time. Matches feel pre-determined to the point where it makes you wonder why you even try. Despite my issues with Halo Reach, I feel like it had a pretty novel addition to matchmaking where you could set preferences for what kind of players you match against. You could even change goofy stuff, like having an option based on how chatty you want the other players to be. Makes me wonder why more games didn't adopt a similar system.
thats what I noticed with halo infinite compared to halo 3. The equipment in infinite is very one sided and only benefits the user. While the equipment in halo 3 can be used to the users advantage or disadvantage which makes it fun to fight against.
When I was developing the buffed flamethrower for my halo mod. I made sure to tune its AI properties so that if the AI used they are programed to not lead their shots so its actually fun to dodge it and avoid it if a brute chieftain has one. Not tuning this makes it unfun to fight.
@@jurassicarkjordanisgreat1778Oh! What mod are you working on? That sounds dope! I felt the flamethrower was barely used
That's why personally I've never understood movement junkies for cod and other fps games. I haaaate "movement". The slide cancels, the jet packs, tap strafing, I understand that they feel good to use, but they are the absolute worst to play against and it ruins the experience. Not because it's a "skill" but because it's something that you literally HAVE to do. The games are designed competitively in such a way that unless you're learning these frame 1 inputs and silly tactics then you stand no chance against the people who do do them. Things like grenade jumps back in the day, sure it was a "movement" feature, but at no point in any lifespan of a game with a rocket jump or a grenade jump did it become something you HAD to do. It was just a feature, and it separated those who had the skill for it, and those that didn't, but those that may not have the skill or hell even put in the time for it were never at any point at a disadvantage.
This is exactly why I hate the SAW from Halo 4-5. It was literally the no fun gun. Even Rockets had counterplay (maintain high ground, or get close and force a suicide). But the SAW was just "Guess I'll die".
@@warehawk This isn't true for Apex at least. Most Apex pros play on controller yet most move tech can only be performed on MnK.
Thank you all for watching and let me know what you think!
Also i kind of front load the video with a bit of a challenge against a couple arguments I hear about this. Keep in mind I am ultimately on your side (the player). But i really want you to challenge your beliefs on this so that we can more accurately triangulate the issue.
There are some nuances that we need to consider to keep the pendelum from swinging too far the other direction. If modern devs have shown us anything, feedback is often either ignored or they go full scorched earth just so they can talk about how completely and utterly theyve annihilated a controversy for some marketing brownie points.
Also excuse the tone. I was on a bit of a roll 😅
@FavynTube What do I think?
1. "I just want to relax and have fun" is NOT an illegitimate argument. I could have agreed more if you went down the "PvP is inherently competitive" route, but instead you made a bunch of claims that just don't line up with reality and ignored multiple weaknesses to your own arguments (ex. simply not controlling who gets matched with who will result in match experiences for everyone who plays with the same bell curve that exists for player skill within the matchmaking pool). Look at the player counts for CoD vs Helldivers 2 right now... you think all those competitive PvP players moved over because they want to stomp on easy AI? No, it's because it's FUN pure and simple. There's videos everywhere of people having fun in content so difficult most are failing to win half or more of their sessions.
2. Having fun is the entire reason man makes and plays games, of any kind... it's foolish to say that fun is an illegitimate reason to play, or that hating systems that run counter to the core purpose of the activity makes one elitist, and it's disingenuous to say the only people who think this way are at the top end of capability and only because "fun" for them is stomping lesser players. I for one am a sore example of this. I've never been in the top rank of any competitive game I've played in the last 2 decades, several games I've not been in the top 2 categories or barely made it to the halfway point... I still don't have fun playing games that force me to literally sweat in every crack of my body just to get a win. Think about what you are saying... do you think lower skill players REALLY have fun in ranked play more because they can't get carried against tough opponents? My best memories of Halo 3 were me and my buddy randomly encountering a monster of a player and getting a few good plays over on him... hell we used to have LAN parties and pit our groups best players against everyone else. Your argument on this point is really just wrong to start with man.
3. I'll agree fully with you on the gameplay mechanics portion. Honestly the industry has run wild with advancing the capabilities of player control, with little caution to how difficult it is to access such power for those not STEEPED in gaming every day or even every week. Movement is just one example, but the soft skills required are significant issues too. Recently I played a battle royale with my cousins who haven't had the 20 years of FPS experience I'd had, and I was astounded to learn they didn't know basics like moving while shooting, being aware of sounds, and actually THINKING about their opponents actions... they merely reacted to everything and were helpless to take initiative. Does that mean players like this should be gatekept out of modern titles? Of course not, but the industry could do a MUCH better job of teaching players how to actually use the mechanics they've designed.
4. Yeah, can't disagree with any of your thoughts on "predictive systems" like Halo:Infinite and MW2-3 have. Indeed, why play a "competitive game" when you know every match is rigged either for you or against you? It's pointless and actually stunts improvement. Like you, I never feel good winning a game these days with a complete shutout, because I know it was handed to me. "EOMM" may be significantly worse than "SBMM" but again, both are solved my removal. Just stop controlling who gets matched with who based on skill, and you will always get a mixed bag of experience regardless of your skill level. Back in Halo 3, we never knew if the next game was going to be "easy", "even", or "sweaty". It was random, and I for one enjoyed the mix far more than the last 5 years of playing multiplayer shooters.
5. You can't convince me that CoD isn't micro manipulating gameplay to punish and reward players from match to match. I've played 780 shameful hours of that game with an EXCELLENT fiber internet connection and haven't experienced nearly the level of conspiratorial bullshit in any other multiplayer game from the last 20 years. Period. Streak based spawns, altering damage and hitdetection, unexplained drops in sound cues... it's all real. I've noticed it WAY too many times to chalk it up to explainable flukes. Telling me it isn't real just makes me laugh and move on with my day.
6. I'll believe that SBMM can be implemented well, when I see it actually happen. It hasn't happened yet, not one single example, and it has only evolved to worse forms like EOMM. Until I can be proven wrong with a future title, my stance will remain "SBMM is and always has been a blight on multiplayer gaming".
@@murdurmuffin7872 definitely phrased it better than I could. I'm really, really, really tired of the total lack of nuance on this issue and I'm disappointed Favyn generalized so much while talking about "nuance" - you're always either on one end of the extreme, you can't possibly be an average-skilled player just wanting to turn their brain off and have fun with oddball strategies or unusual loadouts or whatever. No, you HAVE to be a sweatlord elitist that thinks "fun" is exclusively ruining the experience of other players. Apparently.
@Moonswirly again did you listen to what I said?
That whole section was ACTUALLY about the degradation of mechanics. The "people being annoyed at playing players of equal skill" was a footnote and I even said it was a small portion of players and isn't the crux of the issue but still needs to be accounted for because it absolutely happens.
I understand my tone may have put a few people on the defensive, and thats admittedly my fault, it was a more sensitive issue than I gave it credit for.
But we literally walk through the entire spectrum of players and discuss the variance we want to experience at ALL levels.
@@FavynTube it seems like - other than the tone - there's a discrepancy between how you read your script and how it maybe comes across in those first 8 minutes, because to me - "option B" felt like the footnote, especially when you reiterate near the end that you're "addressing the arguments of people who just want to pubstomp," and it gets hijacked by another point against high skill players in the form of the argument about smurfs.
in general the first 8 minutes feels oddly disjointed, and it's hard to parse out anything other than mostly different ways to say "if you say "I just want to relax," you're a pubstomper." is there a valid argument to be had about bandaid fixing high-skill game mechanics with more low-skill game mechanics? yes, but to me it feels like it gets a bit buried, here.
@Moonswirly it was the first part I write and I think I just got better at the script as I went along.
Conceptually I'm like ok "curse of sbmm" that reads as a pretty negative pov, but then I kinda start with perhaps a point in its favor with an argument I disagree with to not sound like I'm just hating and THEN I get in to the more nuanced discussion.
But I do think I could have been more tactical and still made the same point.
Don't get me wrong, I think the rest of the video goes in to all of the legitimate stuff and I think even if you found yourself as someone who has used the "I want to relax argument" if you head the solutions and the other points I make afterwards I think most will find themselves aligned with my thought process on it.
This is by far the best analysis of modern SSBM I have ever seen.
Absolutely
That statement around 5 min is exactly how I feel playing Social Slayer in MCC and playing casual in siege
100%. I’ve never heard a better explanation from anyone on twitch or RUclips for SBMM. None of them EVER consider the experience of folks who have no idea what a ‘relaxing’ game is…
You’re 100% right on every point you’ve made here. Excellent work.
I just want to play with the exact same lobby of players until I get bored. Halo 1 on pc was my jam.
I also want to add. This video makes remember the one time I loaded into the MLG servers in Halo Reach. I only 2 kills when everyone was in the 20s. I humbled that day.
@@TheCman5015PLPro
You were probably playing with a bunch of 40s
#1 reason i just stopped playing modern multiplayer games and stuck to single player. Older halo games always felt better to begin with and I always had fun even with reach. I also don't mind if a game mechanically has some imbalances like for honor either, its the fact that the SBMM in that game just sets you to fail or have cheap wipe out wins (and everyone quits) where you still don't feel enjoyment. The social factor of these games just get sucked out when people are pitted against complete bs outcomes, everyone becomes very mad, upset, confused or unsatisfied. No point in playing stuff like that
Two main Issues with sbmm for me are that it makes it hard to play with friends with different skill levels and the fact that because I’m good at the game my connection has to suffer. If they put more priority on the connection quality rather then getting a perfect skill match I think both issues would be fixed.
the not being able to play with friends part is so annoying. I've played halo since H2 and I remember games used to be sociable and I'd link up with people and make new friends all the time. I think I've done that twice with infinite and I've clocked in a lot of hours. The first time I teamed with people the algorithm hit us with the swiftness and my teammates were like "it's crazy, when you play against them they play lights out, but the moment they're on your team they go negative and throw" (referring to me). It was a shit feeling. Teaming with other competitive people and trying to make friends is so hard because our perceptions of each other quickly change the moment the game is rigged for you to lose, which is usually the very next game. So the social aspect is just not there anymore unless your team is on the same page and don't play to win.
and it's in social, too. Ranks are kind of pointless considering every playlist, regardless of a visible rank or not, are all the same (with the exception of a consistent weapon start in Arena).
Connection is always more important.
worst thing is sbmm doesnt achieve either, good connection nor a balanced match
The forcing 50% win loss is the worst one. It WILL drag players that shouldn't be there into a game. Little Timmy with 2 hours shouldn't be in a game with players with 100x that. To drag his win loss up or their win loss down
Favyn: *Uploads new video*
Me: "Some said this day would never come. What are they to say now?"
It happened 2 weeks ago as well :)
Halo 3 I used to stomp kids on public games and occasionally I would get destroyed by some random dude on the other team. And it felt fair. I was never winning every game but I had good and bad teammates. Felt fine
The randomness in matchmaking literally feels like a warrior sim in some way.
Its like, you gain skill overtime after fighting constantly, and get to a point where you consider yourself a valued fighter, and now you wipe out armies with ease to a point where you feel like you need to look for another warrior to challenge you, and then that warrior comes and you battle to the death. It's occasional that it happens, but it feels like you found a rival and must defend your honor like some samurai
2:45 You nailed it on that one. It's entirely about the player's mindset, not the way the matchmaking works (also nailed the bit about the importance of game mechanics and skill gaps). Anyway, on the mindset, I'll go further and say that most people should probably want to mature and grow to the point that they overcome the kinds of insecurities that they would normally cope with by seeking out boosts to their ego. If you want to play "casually," then just stop worrying about wins, KD, "dominating the lobby." You might even begin to appreciate or even learn from situations of being outplayed where you're relaxed enough to more calmly process those. I've found that this mentality actually sharpens me more when I want to play "competitively." Then, I feel focused and intense about really wanting the win, really outplaying the competition. People aren't all the same, so for a particular person, maybe this just wouldn't work the same, but I suspect it would work for and benefit a lot of people who don't realize it. Also, this should also work and is perhaps even more necessary for less skilled players.
Is impossible to have fun with sbmm because every match feels like a ranked, I want matches were I get killed and learn but I also want matches where I'm the one that kills and can put my skills to shine, if I want to test my skills then i go ranked, if a game has both ranked and pubs sbmm should only go on ranked, sbmm has destroyed the fun in the last 5 years of fps games
Another banger man. Really wish you would pursue some form of game design.
Another absolute banger of a video and i agree.
Hell theres no game where I think no sbmm is good.
Case in point, one gane that frustrates me with SBMM is For Honor, where it forcably tries to keep you at 50% wr no matter what (made worse that this includes bot matches so if you think you're a new player and youre playing PvAI to get better then wait till you see what happens when you load up a normal PvP match, you'll regret destroying those bot players soon) but this constant forced 50% means i get paired with bad team mates or an entire 4 stack of a perfectly optimised team, and i don't mind losing what I do mind is this feeling of being rigged and damn do I feel like shit, when i see low reps on my team and they look up to me like im some last bastion of defence and i can't win, or when i see a low rep on the enemy team it feels like im just being a butcher, so i throw out the bad, easy to react to attack and i dont try to parry as much so that they get some fun and ill drop em a little ggs afterwards hoping theyve learned how to parry a little better and how to react.
Also for honors ranked mode fucking sucks lol no reason to play it at all.
But yeah i want to actually feel good, to have a good close match where i feel like what i did mattered, how those few clutch moments in a team fight let us stop breaking and recover!
Instead its steam roll or get rolled
This! Stomping or being stomped once or twice every 5 matches is fine, but those being 4 matches out of 5 is either boring or extremely frustrating.
When stomping I also tend to goof around more, there's no point in trying too hard when winning is almost guaranteed.
"Hell theres no game where I think no sbmm is good." you are making it sounds like you dont know any game where not having sbmm is good, when what you wanted to say is the complete opposite
@ender_z4nd3r83 sorry I'm not English so I'm doing my best with what I was taught, the point I am trying to make is that there are no pvp games where it is better to have no sbmm
@@ranzu3138 exactly, wins feel unearned and cheap whilst losses feel forced and shoved in your face, and it just leads to frustration
Welp, way to make one of my old videos completely outclassed.
Good stuff, this feels like a lot of my own thoughts more refined and properly explored.
Oh Favyn I have missed your commentaries, welcome back, bringing in entertainment with knowledge.
Made me think of one of my favorite games; Mordhau, it's a first person melee game. The skill ceiling is very high, but the skill floor is nearly just as high. New players up to 400hrs of game time are still likely to be dunked on, just ask anyone who's played it, until the player reaches a threshold of moderate skill or 'Skill floor'.
Once there however it is still a 50/50 as the top really eats it all.
The game has no sbmm except the empty ranked modes, and now couldn't anyway for the playerbase has dwindled to avg-1000 players. I recognize about 1-5 players every match.
For gameplay it has 1v1 and 3v3 but the priority seems to be 24v24 or 32v32, and that is my favorite anyway so other players experiences may differ. This plays out in that there can be 48/64 players that are ranging from below average to moderate, maybe some good. But the top 5-12 players will wipe the floor. The k/d ratio is commonly used in games to represent skills, I'd wager a decent player can maybe break even (1.0 k/d), at about 150/250 hours, talking just averages.
I was lucky I had experience before playing Mordhau from other titles but the way this game crushes newbies with this poor balance has destroyed many players enjoyment and spelled the outcome of the games post-launch success, being low player retention.
The game originated with a goal to make it a competitive orientated environment, but shifted upon a successful launch and pivoted to more 'casual' design focuses, leaning into the 32v32 / 24v24 game modes while still having heavily skillful gameplay. Theres much debate in the community on each mechanic and its value, importance, utility, balance, a specific mechanic that lowers the skill ceiling, developer doing coke etc. Still fun to be had in this game, fun mods. Maybe my points / takeaways are incorrect but I feel it's accurate.
Hopefully interesting and maybe it'll be a good example for this conversation / topic on how not to do it.
11:50 just profound. From someone in science this is exactly the kind of observation that’s so easy to overlook (especially for a biased first party) but has absolutely massive implications on the results of an experiment. I think you may have uncovered literally the key foundational problem with TrueSkill 2. Massive kudos
I'm someone who often stands at the top and also often wants chill games. You hit the nail on the head for me with the, it's the games fault, section. For me most of my chill games is me not wanting to use the advanced stuff and instead do silly and unoptimal things for fun. But when playing people at my level normally i just get stomped for it. In many games lower level and high level players basically are playing two different games. Sometimes I want to play one, and sometimes the other. But on ssbm in a larger sense my biggest complaint is balancing teams with teammates who are sent in there to be a negative. Destiny 1 during the ttk had this bad in 3v3 playlists. 90% of my games ended up with my two teammates getting farmed then quitting and leaving me with a 1v3. This was the only way the game could balance teams as I found myself still winning inspite of that most of the time. What to do there idk but i had a sweat fest every game, my teammates hated it enough to RQ and the enemy team was probably facing a sense of existential dread as I ended up reverse jumping them in what they thought was an easy win. So nobody i think had much fun and i burned out and just stopped as 3v3 became all sweat no fun. (And 6v6 was getting there as well to the point rift was the only playlist that was chill.)
vanilla destiny 1 3v3s were so fun if you had two other people to play with. I'm a Halo player since H2 and vanilla destiny is up there in my top 3 FPS experiences. Those were good times, man
I tend to play halo reach customs alot and even if the game is old. I love how I can do the most unoptimizable start's and not feel bad about it. Sure I may die alot trying to drive the forklift to the enemy base. But I don't get penalized for it and once I finally achieve the goal its rewarding and funny.
@@genjidora8742 year 2 destiny 2 was also incredible i remember people playing the ranked crucible playlist trynna get the new super strong weapong from mid and max rank (luna's howl and not forgotten) pvp was so much fun that year
I was the guy at the beginning you described. I was called out and now my mind has been changed.
That's awesome to hear!
Hopefully my tone didn't bother you!
My intentions were to truly change minds but upon listening to the final version I was like "hmmm, I hope people don't feel like I'm shitting on them or anything"
Thank you for watching!
Lmao how tf did those weak ass arguments change your mind?
This is so accurately worded it's insane. Thank you so much for this absolute gem video! You nailed so many topics so on the head, keep it up!
This was such a well put together video. All of the half formed “proto- thoughts” and feelings I felt but couldn’t quite describe were so brilliantly put together I felt moved.
At the beginning you addressed the more “leachy” prospective and that made me think if I was one of those kinds of players. (Though if I was I don’t think I would be taking the time to type all this :P) All these thoughts and understandings I’ve yet to put together were all brought to the forefront of my mind. The intentional changes of my behavior, my “semi joking” paranoia about having a good match by accident, and the ever present “want to help my teammates do better” grind set 😎. I mark and give callouts while trying not to give too many, and I attempt to position myself for clean ups or other bits that might be useful.
I just knew my thoughts on sbmm weren’t exactly of high favorability- but I sure as hell knew it has significant importance. But I didn’t exactly know the full picture as well as my fractured thoughts led me to believe.
It was such a breath of fresh air having basically the entry of my grievances and thoughts spelled and spoken out loud. Thank you.
Almost every match of halo chicken wing I had felt like a crapshoot on what kind of bullshit I would complain about next. Its literal (steam sale game) priced “micro” transactions, to the depressingly frustrating and stunted implementation of social features🥲.
This video should definitely be floated to the current 343. If there’s going to be any hope for the halo ip and for a positive change in the industry, it’s got to start here, the proper implementation of sbmm.
This was an absolute banger of a video and I hope for great success. You have definitely earned my subscription👍!
Favyn is back! Loved this and your points. Great to see you posting again!
Two bangers in a row. Good to have you back chief.
Favyn could legitimately be a game director. No joke.
Great job! Being a weaker player, I was never one to villify SBMM, but even if I generally had the same basic thoughts on the subject, they were never as comprehensive or concise. Hopefully this video does well and adds some needed nuance to the debate.
i had an idea for that fringe, "best player has no one to play agaisnt" why not make it a special mode, king slayer. where its the whole lobby agaisnt them. sure their skill level is lower and cant win a 1v1 but a 1v15 would be very different. For the lower level players its a chaotic mode, i can see some immergent gameplay and teamwork as players strategize and coomunicate with each other and the high level player vs the lobby is facing a difficult challenge that allows them to demonstrate their skills. maybe we need to convert some problems into gameplay oppertunitys
you shouldn't have made this public, now some AAA dev is gonna read this, pitch the idea, and make a billion dollars and find a way to turn it into a cosmetic shop or something
So basically juggernaut
I mostly agree with the points you've made, but I do think there is a distinction worth making between wanting to have fun and defining fun as crushing every lobby in every match. Players that use the 'I don't want to sweat every match' argument aren't all implying they want to kick puppies (I've used it before, and certainly don't)-I just want competing, as every match is and will be in some way competitive, to feel fun. Using Halo Infinite as an example: just about every match I've played lately has either been decided by one or two points, or been such a slaughter that one player on the enemy team scored more than all of mine combined. Feeling as though I've had to fight tooth and nail to win (or even have a chance at doing somewhat well in) every match I play that day in a non-ranked playlist isn't really my definition of fun, especially since I'm not really earning anything for doing so. In my mind, 'casual playlist' means being able to queue up into something like BTB or Fiesta with the goal of trying to pull off dumb plays without necessarily feeling like I've outright thrown the match for the rest of my team. Hell, I've got friends that're reluctant to queue with me because my SBMM bracket is sweatier than theirs.
Again, this isn't to say I don't want to feel challenged when I play; merely that I like being able to dork around sometimes, too. Older Halo (3, Reach, etc) felt like they struck a much, much nicer balance between making sure matches weren't unfair while still giving the player breathing room to play how they want.
This is a fantastic video. Excellent breakdown of all the problems with the current system and the solution to it.
20:04 to 20:18 perfectly describes the struggle I've had with COD since 2019. Your videos are truly amazing, the way you articulate all of the thoughts and emotions I've had in my head for the last few years is incredible. I feel less crazy now
FINALLY something to kill all the misinformation on this.
THIS man you really explained the underlying issues that I couldn't quite put into words. I've been doing stuff like intentionally throwing my first game so I could have a couple fun matches after, and the player should NEVER be trying to metagame the SBMM system in a game. That's a sign something is fundamentally broken in the SBMM implementation. That swing and that sense that the system is trying to decide for you that you get to win this match, lose this match, you can FEEL it. And like you said, it makes you distrust the game.
this explains everything that i felt but didn't fully understand when I ragequit multiplayer games for good. When the game feels stacked against you it just feels no good playing anymore.
Good News! Your suggestions are already in place in many competitive AAA games! There are two major issues that are still present which you touch on here.
1) Low player count. If not enough people exist at the time you're looking for a match then it may be impossible to find you a good match. Most games slowly expand the search parameters to include higher skill variance or worse latency.
2) Team based MMR. How should you calculate the worst player of all time duo queuing with the best player ever? Should it be average then the good player dominates? Should it be weighted so the bad player is stuck playing with god gamers and potentially dragging down their team due to not being able to keep up? It's really tough to make this work while allowing friends of different skill levels to play together.
I faced this from the good player side in Halo and Overwatch where sometimes the game would give up and tell me there aren't any matches available for me. That is frustrating and made me quit playing for at least that night. Other games like SC2, Dota and Super Smash Bros Melee I've been the bad/new player who stops playing due to not enjoying being stomped by nothing but smurfs or highly competent players. There really is no good solution here where the extremes can have fast queue times, good connections and competitive matches.
Regarding the win a few -> get thrown a loss point: This is how it feels and how it *should* feel. You keep dominating until you reach the top tier of the ladder or meet your match. Sometimes the systems allow for wide swings in skill rating which can make this problem worse. The downside of keeping swings small is that smurfs can manipulate the system to stay in low skill lobbies forever.
Anyone who complains about sbmm and has low queue times is most of the time just a bad player.
I remember going 49-50 in Halo 3 with everyone contributing on both teams was the most epic shit.
there are some games like that in infinite team slayer and I don't mind them. The games feel authentic and I know I can work with my teammates on a higher level because everyone is aware of what's going on. Games where my teammates are all new players, or bots, or just smurfs intentionally throwing and getting 5 kills amongst themselves is a terrible experience for everyone. Some games just play out so weird and feel so unconventional, which wouldn't be so bad if you weren't playing a team of absolute warriors all pulling their weight and punching your body because you're not rolling over and playing dead for them so the algorithm can adjust for the win you barely squeaked out the game prior.
It's a shame that the only people who know how to make good games are not the ones actually making them. For AAA blockbusters, I mean. We'll probably never get a commonsense multiplayer experience from games with the same budget as COD or Halo ever again. Just pray for an indie dev team to make something that's better.
Also, players of a higher skill bracket or more likely to buy cosmetics, logically. This results in a higher skill bracket player dominating an entire lobby and having all the scrubs bask in the glory of all the MTX that this skilled player most likely has. This is one of the reasons this will never change. Player enjoyment is not a part of the equation for AAA games like Halo or COD.
I don't play much pvp games these days, so I don't know if many do it but I like it when they keep you in the same lobby of people after every match. It lets you get to know how everyone plays over a longer period of time, which gives you a lot more time to learn their strategies. And if the lobby sucks and you're not having fun, you just quit out and find a new one. Easy!
I've tried to explain to friends the matches in "arena/ranked" modes are easier then open matchmaking
your videos are the only ones I give thumbs up
Incredible set of points you made. Fantastic video!!
Damn just found your channel. Very high quality!
First off, old games, did not have skill based matchmaking, and any claims by devs that this was the case, is them stretching the truth, conflating one thing for another. They had lobby balancing, which isn't even consistently splitting up scores. As far as I can tell from playing OG MW2 as my very first FPS game, starting out as a bot and improving through its main lifecycle, and then continuing to play it to this day, is that its main factors in matchmaking is #1 DLC check, which makes finding lobbies with it on PS3 very hard these days, and the connection. To this day, if there's a match with that good of a connection, you could click on the playlist and be put in there almost instantly. If there is anything else being considered, it would have to be like, your literal rank, but this doesn't actually have to do with how good you are, just how long you've played and what you have unlocked, and if that is a factor, it clearly does not care very much, as on PS3, there's low levels in basically every match, as there's a bug related to psns name change update that accounts with a change or just made after 2019, that prevents their ranks and stats from saving. But getting to why sbmm is a problem, it's variety. It's the sense of where you stand based on your experience. And it's quite simply, draining to constantly have to go all out. Here's the way I see it. When you have variety, even when one or two players are much better, the rest of the average and below average players, can still do something against the other average and below average player in the lobby, the one player cannot hold the entire map by themselves. With sbmm, in a high skill players lobby, all the lines of sight will be covered almost all the time. And from my experience, it doesn't swing very much, it's consistently above a certain skill threshold where the match is always challenging. Might have something to do with my 1.56 win loss ratio on Cold war, or the fact that even games I felt were bad, where I still got 30-40 kills and went somewhat negative against some nutty players, and its probably weighing the mmrs of who that happened against. Only time I've ever felt any major drop in skill, is when I partied with friends, and when I reverse boosted on my second account(using that account to RB and play on, no smurfing) when doing that it took at least 2 maybe 3 matches of going 1-5 or 2-10, before noticing a change in players skill based on their aim and what they're doing, but took more like 5-10 to drop enough to where i knew i could hop in and pop off. And it'd be right back where it normally is after 5 games at most of actually playing. And I went through the grinder that was MW2 when I was no good, got absolutely torched all the time, I think it took me a month or so to get over 10 or 15 kills in a match, and when i did, I was probably at least 5 negative but I remember being so excited and proud of it, just the fact i and many others went through that phase, knowing that new players now, don't , that they have zero clue just how bad they actually are, it just rubs me the wrong way. To me it was an essential part of the experience. It's what made me want to improve, to keep playing.
You know what killed CoD for me? It was the matchmaking. Specifically, I'm someone who, on most FPS games, tends to hover around a 0.75-1.0 KDR (depending on the shooter), and especially in MWII i was getting lobbies too often where either i was the person that had to drag my team to a W, or i was one of the weights weighing the top player down, and as someone who is a pretty mid shooter player, getting games like that as consistently as i got them absolutely destroyed any and all desire i had to play the game. I don't feel like I run into these kinds of lobbies as frequently in Halo Infinite, but every time i do it's just as, if not more so, infuriating.
my biggest problem with sbmm is that when games with sbmm starts losing players it becomes harder to find matches, a game with 5k players and no sbmm finds matches faster than a game with 50k players and sbmm
I love the way you described things, very well said. I hope this video can reach the right people
Great video, nailed the issue. Probably some script issues as a bunch of people seem to be interpreting your arguments incorrectly, but I agree with your assessment wholeheartedly.
Yea it happens. I get to most complaints but if piss someone off early they might start typing instead of seeing if I address the issue later
The servers for the OG Cod's are back online on Xbox 360, i was playing MW2 and black ops and forgot how much fun those games were.
These videos are amazing. If everyone was like you, instead of emotionally pushing an extreme, we would actually get somewhere.
The king has returned great video bro
Maybe I'm weird, but winning is a bonus for me, not the goal. I enjoy a flanking stealth playstyle, getting behind the enemy, going on a quick tear, and then repositioning to attempt it again. SBMM on top of gameplay mechanics meant to dissuade this playstyle is what really hurts my experience. I get the argument in favor of SBMM, but we can all feel how artificial the experience is, and I think we're all so in-tune with the algorithm that it's burned us all out.
Insightful video, I definitly agree with the matchmaking manipulation point you made. Interesting video idea would be to look at input based matchmaking. Is there a way of properly balanecing mnk and controller? Would looking into this issue cause to many unforseen consquences?
Hit the nail on the head! - I'm always astounded when the game gives me a match where I have over 25+ kills in a Slayer but my poor teammates are out here having no clue what's going on. It must be a horrific game experience for them and it's not fun for me either. It's even worse in OBJ modes.
What a fresh take, and I'm only halfway through!
Your point about the success in the game correlating to how fun the game is is on the money.
SBMM really only starting pissing people off when COD fully implemented it in BO2 through Advanced warfare. The only way you are having peak enjoyment in those games is destroying the enemy team. SBMM made it harder to have those awesome games because CODs simple gameplay literally couldn’t handle it. Who would want SBMM on a slot machine?
SBMM really isn’t a problem for games that have the mechanical depth to support it.
EDIT: Masterclass video Fav, once again
Yes! I just posted a comment but it has overlap with your comment and some sections of this video. The perfect SBMM game needs to be an incredibly well designed balanced game. That's how SBMM ranked matching will thrive (yes Rocket League is one such example, I've been playing RL since 2015, almost entirely I play ranked). COD however is a very unique multiplayer game, it's broken by design, countless overpowered weapons, loadouts, perks, killstreaks, camping spots on maps, etc... These skill gap shrinking design elements almost act as an in game balance via unbalance feature to allow worse players to still have a fun time and get kills. It's why COD became the cultural icon it is, and COD via massive playercounts and accessible game design didn't need its current "SBMM/EOMM" to do well, so having these systems dialed up to 10 2019 onwards has caused a lot of discontent among the veteran playerbase.
Being exposed to the entire spectrum is fun. A closely balanced sweatfest is fun until it’s the only experience the game provides. It’s nice to have a natural ebb and flow in the degree to which you need to lock in so that you can rest between competitive matches.
Verdansk, caldera, and al mazrah I felt I averaged roughly 2-8 wins for every 30 matches with about 2-4 bot lobbies and 5-8 sweat lobbies. Sometimes more or less for all those numbers, had a 3 day period I won like 15 games with a 6 game win streak. Had a period where I wouldn't get a win for 2-3 weeks. For the most part I stayed around the 1-3 win range every couple of days, and I enjoyed all of those warzones enough to play them 4-8 hours every day.
Urzikstan I've played probably a total of 180 games since it came out, I got 15 wins. Ive counted less than 10 bot lobbies with me winning about 6 or 7 of those games in those bot lobbies and getting a 17 kill 2nd place in one of them. All my other wins I had to sweat against players I would say are around my skill level and better that I won more so with my decision making and positioning winning with only 2-5 kills.
But other than that, no less than 155 of the games I've played on urzikstan every single person that kills me has 10-15 kills sometimes not 5 minutes into the match, who will get killed by another dude with no less than 12 kills and will get at least 6 more kills before he dies to a dude with almost 30 kills.
If you go to about any and every RUclips video that's a cool clip or sharing a good gun build 90% of the comments are people complaining how consistently sweaty the MW3 warzone is. I used to have well over 20 people that I could squad up with back in the day and even were down to squad up when MW3 first came out, now I know 4 people that even play the game anymore and only one of those dudes plays everyday because nobody enjoyed trying to hop on for a couple of hours to consistently get torched by 3,4,5, 6+ KD players literally every single game.
MW3 warzones sbmm system seriously has something wrong with it. Theres no reason for anyone under a 1.5kd to be in a lobby with a single 2+kd player anymore than 3 out of 10 matches they play. Theres no reason for a 1kd or lower player to be in lobbies with nothing but 2+ kd players for 2 weeks straight just cause they had a couple of 5+ kill wins in one day. Just give everyone 2 bot lobbies and 2 sweat lobbies out of 10 games, and keep the other 6 games right there within .5 higher and lower.
Last but not least keep the top 1000 or so kill and win leaders all in the same lobbies. 210% no reason some big streamer like metaphor, zlaner, swagg etc should be in any lobby at any point in time with my buddy that can only play 6 hours a whole weekend if he's lucky
It's a sad reality. That's something like this is even a problem. This is what happens when you let the businessmen make video games.
You did such a a good job explaining all this in the video. I really hope your RUclips career thrives!❤
i agree with a lot of your points, however there are a few things I would like to address. Specifically option 1
We really need to address individual player mindsets when addressing option 1 in relation to option 2. Most people who are close to the skill floor do not have the same mindset as people close to the skill ceiling. What is considered fun to them will be fundamentally different due to different ways they have put focus onto the game. I have not seen much evidence of this factor being influenced by generational influences either, since nothing has pointed towards low skill casual players or even average skill players having this idea that they seriously want to be the guy going 50 and 1 from the very beginning. Im pretty sure most can agree that when people started playing darksouls for the first time, their immediate thought was to try to speed run the game.
There is a video about a "gamer husband" introducing some common video games to his wife, who has virtually no experience with video games. To him, beating a game like super mario in under 20 minutes is an achievement because hes put so much time into games like these. To his wife, jumping onto a platform over some water calls for a full on birthday celebration.
The reason why this is important is because overtime as new and old players cycle in and out of the game, people who have generally played more will feel invalidated when their performance does not match their time played. They know and understand that there are an overwhelming majority of players who are casual players and don't really care much about their performance as older/hardcore players do. So when they see that their performance is not matching their time played, they feel like they need to put more effort into the game. For decades, especially when we talk about call of duty, and equilibrium has been reached.
So the idea to invalidate the argument of "i just wanna chill" by overgeneralizing ignores the realities of peoples perception.
Thank you for the comment.
The reason I don't think that works is because it ignores option #2 which is the ACTUAL problem with call of duty.
When you continue to play a game, you are not invalidated by having games remain close, because if the skill gap is compelling then that means you are literally just playing at a different level with different strategies and considerations.
To say you should be validated for your time playing insinuates the game itself has no growth and that it is monolithic. Imo most games that have issues with sbmm are games that fall under this category
@@FavynTube Oh I agree 100%, thanks for the response, a lot of people like to simply ignore so its great to see you take time to reply.
I just wanted to address it specifically because I feel like people get the wrong idea and believe that all people want to do is pub-stomp in casual because they just want to be cocky, because its really is much more dynamic than that. They love to use this argument to defend the algorithm we despise.
Nailed it! This video nailed it! Loved it! Spot on.
As someone who is pretty middle of the spectrum of skill where id say personally im "decent" and have good reactions and map awareness in the games i play like Halo Infinite, i feel like more rounds then not i get very new or bad teammates and get stacked high-skill players or the complete other way around and its just a slaughter and im just participating at the bottom of the LB, then i get balanced games here and there where its not an uphill/downhill battle for either side. Theres always 1 or multiple teammates/enemies that are so far from my own skill level (imo) that its never truly "balanced" when i tun solo. It feels like i have a good game or a few even then get put against demons, have to carry some noobs or bots and still get dumpstered, only for those good players to be on my team and those previous teammates on the enemy team the NEXT match... Its like my K/D or playtime doesnt matter when it comes to SBMM. Its either a pub stomp or sweat fest every other match.
Its especially worse when i play with friends, as some arent as skilled/knowledgable or are far better then myself, and they have the same experiance solo and when squaded in ever "bracket" of skill that they either want to throw a few games to have a "easy" game when it gets too hard or just get tilted and switch games because either way they will get stomped and wont have the motivation to learn how to adapt because they dont have as much playtime as others in their squad for them to even enjoy the game with its current SBMM giving them bipolar matches.
If i were to be the highest skilled player in the squad or maybe im in someone else is higher tiered in squad then it should take into consideration each of our skill levels and give a balanced enemy team with players of similair skill levels to meet the match of your squad while not having every single enemy being far better or far worse in skill compared to the lowest or highest skilled squadmate.
All in all, i hate it personally when the system has to makes predictions based on previous games/rounds, leading to mismatched games and quick games rather then focusing on each players stats/skills to effectivly give them and their team a fair games with balanced teams so new and current players can improve, learn or have a true competitive/casual regardless if solo/squaded rather then a slot machine. I dont want to gane the system because we want a good match or two where its a tug-of-war because it can lead to a pub stomp then have to bear with an unsermountable challange for everyone involved, only for the same cycle to repeat again and again. Never improving, just pulling a slot machine thats rigged depending on your last roll or cheating yourself out of an experiance to grow.
TLDR it should be constant games of Tug-of-war for every player involved and not having Timmy No-Thumbs stacked with/against a M&K Demon who has 10x his playtime and K/D every match he gets a few more kills/deaths then the game predicted.
Edit: If you red this far down, heres a cookie 🍪
Let’s gooo! New Favyn video
You killed it, fam. Great job.
Around @6:40 is a perfect explanation of the gears of war games and Their skill floor and ceiling
As a fighting game player this is odd playing equal strength opponents is where the fun is
The problem is every game is like playing the same copy of myself every single game
Imagine you and your opponent are using the same character and y’all both go for the same Dp repeatedly
I was trying to get my sister and her friends into Overwatch, but since I was Diamond with very high stats, and they had just started the game, we'd get put against Plat players. They'd get destroyed and I'd have to sweat my ass off on my main to even make the game playable, never mind winning, and usually still failed. Once they were finally ranked in bronze, we're still going up against against Gold players, and again, I'm being forced to try just as hard, if not harder than I usually do in ranked just to make the match fun. I'm not having a good time trying to 1v6, and they're not having a good time getting crapped on by Golds. Of course, removing SBMM entirely would only exacerbate the situation. Since Gold is the average rank, we'd get paired up against people from all over the spectrum, which doesn't make things any better. I'm not sure how you fix a situation like this aside from trying to put us against a party with a similar range of skill levels, but that's rarely going to be possible unless there's a very large player base, and even then. My only real option is to bite the bullet and buy a smurf, and to make sure that I don't play too well or else we'd quickly end up in the same position.
Popular shooter titles often have multiple people playing on the same account. the matchmaker is designed so the junior in highschooler can play on the same account with their 10 year old brother.
This "system" is why i even have a channel with people actively looking for ways to "rapidly improve." Being thrown into lobbies that you arent ready for is a horrible practice. Its a little league team versus a varsity team every other match....because "reasons"
Wow. what an excellent video. well said!
I'm a Warzone player. I like a good challenge. And for the most part I don't mind SBMM albeit a few issues. But I live in Japan and I have a 4KD and the game would rather put me at 180 ping high skill lobbies than 10 ping Japan lobbies all because of my skill. Ping should always be king and I shouldn't be playing at 18x my native ping just because of my skill.
My favourite example of the worse sbmm
Is halo infinite
Where playing causal effects competitive true skill
Even worse bot matches and even firefight effects your true skill
It doesn't, it was a bug at some point but it was fixed
I'm glad you brought this to people's attention. I'm certainly a person who has gotten sick of SBM. I've joked with friends that I'm so good at the game that I always get my @$$ kicked. So often, I feel like a sacrificial lamb to streamers or pros because my games can be intense for no reason. And i know im decent at least, as the games I did play competitively (like overwatch, halo, destiny, etc.) I was usually in the top 40%. With Halo, I've been gone for months, only to come back and be spawn killed for 3 games straight, and then I just quit for months again. Recently, I've had better games, but only because i finally got a friend to play with me, so our combined average skill is lower. As SBM is, i want it gone, but understanding that a tool being used poorly isn't the tool's fault is a sobering thought.
The way to beat sbmm is to just leave the match when if feels like shit, thats exactly what they don't want so thats what we should all do
In CoD it doesnt work. I tried and everytime I was losing and leaving lobby, my next lobbies would be in progress with losing my team.
I think this SBMM doesn't prioritize skill but OUTCOME
@@xCriZzZ i lobby shop, if i see more than 1 pc person i leave, they can have audio to hear you when you can't and they can cheat
You can get a geo fenced router, play with massive parties (nearly full parties), immediately rage quit bad lobbies, join off bad players from previous matches, have 2nd account, reverse boost, etc... All means to "beat SBMM", some more exploitative than others. None were needed pre 2019 though.
My theory is sbmm data is being harvested and vollected as a big set of data for future gaming that will have you face off against ai teamates and the ai will feel as real as real players based off of a players skill. The ai difficulty could get ramped up or ho down on the fly all seamless. Thats why sbmm has been in all the cods to collect data for ai. Ty for reading my theory
Do you think a matchmaking system taking a lighter sbmm system along with some data collection on how players tend to play could create more fun games? As in if you find someone who often likes to drive warthogs in halo you find people who like to run gunner to match with them on their team. (Very simple example but taken to either broad archetypes of players or more detailed for what i'm thinking)
Hmmm.
On one hand that sounds kind of cool but on the other I think the more data we use the more imprecise we get ironically.
Like if a player gets tagged as a player that likes to drive and they are constantly put with players who like to use the guns then you, over time, start pigeonholing players and it's harder for them to explore other avenues without being in conflict with teammates.
Not discarding the idea entirely but we just want to be cautious with how deep we get in to it when matching people.
Legit I wouldn't mind SBMM if I had teammates who could even fathom the idea of team fighting or playing objective or just the thought of "hey, two of us shooting one bad guy is better than vice versa" but no, 343 thinks I'm some pro tryhard carry god so they give me the worst teammates ever. Same with Activision, Ubisoft, and even EA to an extent.
Video is spot on.
While aiming to balance competition you are overlooking several key issues: it can lead to a uniform gaming experience, obscure players' sense of progression, complicate social play among friends of varying skill levels and encourage negative behaviors like smurfing/reverse boosting. It does not fully accommodate the diverse motivations and experiences of the gaming community. It's EOMM that creates a terrible gaming experience.
SBMM in generell does more bad than good, therefore it should be turned off or atleast put in a separate ranked playlist. Reason being
-If you and your friends have drastically different skilllevels you cant both enjoy the game. I got a few friends who just don’t want to play pvp with me anymore because the just get stomped.
-Connect is way more important. Nobody could ever enjoy a game if it is laggy. This happens regularly even with a healthy player base.
-The game punishes you for getting better. You start a new game and your winnrate is instantly 50/50 than you work hard and learn just so your winnrate is still 50/50? If you are a Top 80% Player you should win about 80% of your game. If you are a bad player improve and you will also get there.
My solution would be to keep new players to themselves for about 25 games than get them in regular connection based games. Than balance the players in similar skilled team. Also keep the bottom 5-10% to themselves so that disabled people (who can’t get better are protected).
The rest now has varied non laggy matches that they enjoy with their friends.
Love these video essays, they are clearly well thought out and creative. I was super anti-sbmm before I watched this, now I realize I just didn’t understand the problem right. I wish more developers could see these videos.
My God, is it not a treat to have such nice design talks for free on RUclips?
4:42 - Yeah, the entire idea is each player has a few skill levels - one where they are sleepy/tired, one where they want to relax and casually play, and one where they put in effort and try. The problem, is it's hard to know what skill level people play at and punish people who "lie" just to play against people playing worse, and crush them.
I sincerely just want to play random games. For example: There are gonna be days when I lose 15 games in a row and win 5 games after that, ofc i am pissed but still I know it might happen, the next day I lose/win 50% each and the other day I even win more than I lose and this mixed together is actually the matchmaking that should exist. COD is not our job, sweating all day long is not gonna make the people enjoy the game. Its not my fault that 80% of the community is filled with bad players or weaker players. And dont get me started with what happens in-game with the system nerfing/buffing you or suddenly bad ping which is also said that it exist but there is no actual proof. I dont want to stomp on bad players but ofc once in a while i also wanna do that after 50 sweaty matches. You got to understand we live in a society where ppl are very impatient to learn something and develop their skills, young ppl want to get what they are looking for in 2 days when they know it needs time, lots of time. You aint gonna be a pro in COD in 2 weeks, it needs hours and mothns to reach a certain level but COD is rewarding worse ppl with cheap and corny mechanics, in-game features and in-game gadgets. This guy here in this video is good with what he says, but SBMM is purely a marketing tool and profit generating machine, worse players are protected bc they are the one spending money on the games like skins and bundles. If they get stomped by better players, they are gonna leave and not continue to spend money on the game and AV wants to protect their assets at all costs
Great video, as always!
I'm curious what you think about the issue of visual rank versus MMR in terms of matchmaking.
Taking League of Legends, for example, it would be the choice between "this match should have every player be roughly Gold 3" and "this match should have every player's average MMR be [something]." League even infamously had "smurf queue" for a while, where it could detect smurfs based on skill relative to account freshness, and then would queue smurf accounts largely against each other. This made a lot of smurfs unhappy (as smurfs tend to be a recalcitrant sort, to put it kindly), and I believe that Riot has since removed the whole thing and released the angry blue villagers back into the world, to the chagrin of everyone else.
Back to the visual/MMR issue, people talk a lot in various games about being hardstuck, and I think this comes from MMR affecting how much ELO (or whatever the rank is) you gain. You can go on huge win streaks and earn very little, and then lose a game and lose an enormous amount of ELO because the game has decided that you are at your "skill level," and should not move from there.
Throw in the forced 50% winrate matchmaking, and you are essentially locked permanently into your rank, and the only way out is to make the game recognize you as being "better." For a long time (and perhaps still), Halo Infinite for example calculated MMR with kills per minute as the dominant statistic, so the player was incentivized to just only focus on kills and ignore the objective. Not that killing people isn't useful, of course, but I feel it's damaging to the game when being an excellent objective player is punished in terms of measuring skill. For the aforementioned reasons, it doesn't matter if you keep winning games by being a great ball holder, because your KPM will tank, and your wins will be reduced to granting you peanuts. Other games have similar issues, where because your winrate is forced to be around 50%, your primary means of climbing becomes forcing the system to recognize you as better, rather than trying to win. The two are obviously related, but it's an important distinction I think.
A system that heavily relies on visual rank of course allows a significantly higher variance in game result, as the odds that every single player has really reached the highest visual rank they can is very low, and over time, players that win the most will naturally bubble up the ranks. It also introduces issues with duoing/queueing with a team, and the start of a season might be a total shitshow (but that's part of the fun I feel), but I think overall a system that relies more on visual rank is better.
Would love to know if you have any thoughts! Keep up the great work.
Thanks for your comment!
Generally yes we should try our best to match up players and keep gsmes within a reasonable range, but I think we are incorporating too many metrics in that regard.
Like you said, kills per minute doesn't say anything about how good you are at a game. Especially in a game that could just as easily reward passive playstyles as well. And in objective modes, where kills are not the main point, that's a conflict.
I'll think on this some more!
Thanks for the reply!
I can't help but connect this all to the hedonic treadmill -ification of gaming, and the general idea that developers are incentivized to drag out any sort of ranked climb in the name of engagement rather than provide the most fair and fun experience. The 50/50 thing is also eerily slot machiney to me (one more pull and maybe I'll win!).
You might like the Pay To Win series by Jimmy McGee here on RUclips a lot.
Modern SBMM is why I have almost completely migrated over to co-op games when I want to play with other people online, be it friends or randoms, games like Darktide or Deep Rock for example, I can't stand knowing that if I play really well in one match, I will be miserable for the next ten, I'm looking at you Halo Infinite.
I really like this take on SBMM. Great stuff
very good analysis
This is sort of the reason why there are game modes like Casual, Standard, Unranked, and Rank. Yet the major issue is having a system that split these players who arent good/bad but also to those who play on a daily bases.
Sadly this is the hard part people usually go by muscle memory. Its hard to force those people to change up those play styles take Siege for a good example when it comes to that. Than look at the old Rank system it had that has similar issues including here.
(Edit here) I am agree everything your saying here but also im talking as if I was a Dev. These are the excuses they'll make or talk about it whenever the conversation gets brought up.
The sbmm illusion falls apart when not only you lose because the game wanted you to, but mainly when you win and can tell the game handed you a win to hook you in. At that point for me, the whole thing comes down. Winning doesn’t feel good because at this point you know the win was decided by the algorithm.
Using the rollercoaster example is great, you are there going one side to another and seeing where it takes you but with zero input.
The middle of the video where it talks about how the game suddenly swings the pendulum hard into a very high skill match selection sounds like that could be the reason skill based matchmaking is getting a bad rap. That doesn't sound like proper skill based matchmaking. I would call that bias matchmaking or weighted matchmaking. Baldur's Gate 3 had a similar system during early access for dice rolls where if you rolled too good for too long suddenly a dice roll would be very low, or vice versa if you were getting a streak of poor rolls. They had to change this mechanic and turn it into "karmic dice" where it only does the latter.
Proper skill based matchmaking would be it giving you matches of players around your perceived skill level. Then the perceived skill level would slightly increase per win and slightly decrease per loss. That is how it used to work, like explained in the video. But something happened and this nonsense "skill based matchmaking" took its place. Why did they do this? That is the main question.
Or just make it random bro, we all had to go through punishment and tried to understand the game in older CODs, we all started at some point, play the game and gain experience or dont play at all. But AV, EA they love to dickride their customers and shove them everything up their asses bc we live in this woke world: You dont got to earn anything, its being granted to you without effort😅
I really enjoy multiplayer shooters with emergent gameplay (The Finals, Halo BTB, BF, early R6 Siege etc). Even when you're losing in those games, you're still having fun because the core mechanics are fun. And the sandboxes allow you to just experiment and try new things.
I feel like COD can get frustrating because it feels like the gameplay doesn't really vary from match to match.
I agree with you on everything you’ve said especially on developers trying to balance out top 0.1% by giving them bad players since I’m one of the top 0.1%, my existence is a literal curse to everyone and the only way to offset it is by playing with friends who are average so i don’t ruin the experience for myself and my teammates. It’s also not surprising why a lot of bad players don’t stick around long enough to get good because the only matches they get placed into are ones with players on the top 0.1%
24:48 B R U H. I had NO freaking idea you could even do that. Holy friggin crap man. 😳
Good players can position themselves underneath the ball and if all 4 wheels can touch the ball then it's like you "landed" and you get your jump back and so if you are good enough to do that bsck and forth it can get nutty
@@FavynTube Gosh dang. :0
Player freedom is kind of like driving a car. Sure, you can drive around at your own leisure, but be prepared for bumps in the road and even traffic. What I mean is that even with complete dedication to your matches, a good result is not going to always happen. You might have bad teammates, you might not be adapting too well, and perhaps your opponents might be better than you.
What causes various amounts of skill differences isn't because of the flawed matchmaking. It's because other factors take prioritization, such as connection, platforms, input methods, and more. In other words, if the player pool isn't high enough to result in an even matchup, there's going to be a wider skill pairing system so that you can play the games more often. You can't have a reasonable game when the skill levels are almost equal, but the amount of latency is extremely high.
Continuing on with connection prioritization, that's why a lot of higher skilled players end up with lower skilled players. Since there's not enough high skilled players to match with, the game has to allow them to play regardless.
One thing about mint blitz is that his connections and team balancing are all over the place is because of his location. Mint is from Australia and he is not only the farthest from the servers, but the game that he is playing Halo Infinite doesn't have a large player pool to thoroughly support his experience.
Overall, what makes the game fun is about who you play with. If I form a squad with good friends of mine who are also skilled and cohesive, we will be nearly unstoppable. There's also relaxation considering even if we lose, we're still in our own private voice channel discussing topics and laughing.
One game I think has nailed it (in almost everything it does) is Titanfall 2
It maybe because of the low population and stratospheric skill ceiling, but in almost every single match you can have fun, even if you are bad at the game
This is specially true in the Attrition game mode (PvPvE) in wich you can have all playstyles be viable, super sweaty pros sniping you from the other side of the map while going at 300 km/h, noobs slaying grunts and reapers, slower paced battles going on in your titan, very tactical scenarios inside the buildings, etc...
And everyone can make a a meaningful contribution to the team, scoring small with grunts and getting the reapers off the titan player's back, scoring big and slaying titans and pilots left and right, or playing support from the trenches, weakening titans and counterpicking rodeoing pilots
Also, you know you are in for a show when a Gen100.49 is in the lobby, both if it's on your team of the opponent
I practically only played TDM on MW2 2022. My KD was rougly a 1.40, but my win loss percentage was a .70. I started to catch on and realize that i would consistently have the bad players on my team to ensure I lose regardless of my performance. I inevitably just started playing ranked exclusively, since I actually had a higher winning percentage in ranked. Not to mention, i just couldn't play the game with my friends since they would just get shit on.
I think I'm done with FPS games like CoD and Halo in general. I search the "social" team slayer playlist in Halo and it's so frustrating being forced to play ARs and pistols on the same three maps over and over again. I even started to not try during the ARs and pistols games because it's very taxing to have to try your absolute hardest with guns that are inconsistent and just not fun to use (for me) on large or overplayed maps like cliffhanger, isolation, highground, and chasm to win 50-49 and feel like you're training for esports.
I tell myself the algorithm will work in my favor by giving me wins (because each game is and literally feels rigged) when I finally get BR starts because of the losses I get when having ARs and pistols (which are frustratingly the majority of my games). To me, this is how I maximize fun in that game and make light of the **** experience you're forced to have by having no voting system. I've even gotten messages from people frustrated with me for not taking the game seriously, and although it's a "social" playlist and it shouldn't matter, I totally get it. This system has conditioned us all to have the most stressful experience and take it out on each other when someone isn't carrying their weight, regardless of how **** one may perceive the map and weapons. I don't even search solo ranked anymore because it's inevitable that, unless you're a professional or in the top .1%, you will be the reason your team loses, and you will get cussed out and the chat box will be your whole team taking their frustration out on you.
I can't do it anymore, it's a terrible experience.
The big gripe for me isn’t that I want to dump on noobs. I still do that all the time, the problem is my teammates are somehow even worse than the noobs I’m dumping on.
Some context. I'm an Apex player who mostly solo queues. I have about 4500hrs logged(kill me lol) On the part about game sense and understanding 17:18 some of my BEST games are with randoms where no one is on the mic at all. We're all just doing what we're supposed to be doing. Matches like that are the ideal matchmaking. We're not perfect, pub stomping and maybe won't even win. we're just doing what we should be doing. We all have a similar level of game sense. Those matches are 1 /1000 maybe.
I can't agree you more on this topic. But I have a question, if two or more players who's skill is not at the same or even closer level wants to play together (e.g. a veteran queue the game with his new player friend). What should the system do to make the experience as optimal as possible?
Exactly the problem we have here, with such a high variety of players that the COD community is providing, an SBMM, where players of equal skill should combat each other or play together, is simply impossible. You cannot guarantee fun for every player. Lower skilled players will quit faster than better players bc they dont have the dedication to stay on the game anyways. I think they should literally implement an AI that RANDOMLY generates matches. No consideration at all (skill, wins, weapons). The algorithm should just consider connection and ping thats all. If we are honest, in sports, your opponents also differ from each other. Your opponents are never the same, doesnt matter if you won the previous game or not and I also believe it should be in gaming as well. I can play with less stress if I know there is no system playing me even though I experience days where I get shit on 15 times, at least its organic and real
@@philipmarkovic544 Funny enough I think the "no SBMM" CODs pre 2019 accomplished a good workaround all things considering that resembles the ideal SBMM outcome. There was a protective bracket for new players/disabled players, and lobbies did balance themselves in between games. But looking at the bellcurve of the tens of millions of people playing COD, almost everyone is average, slightly below average, slightly above average. Most games most lobbies most often were made up of these players, and those players had a good time (add in super accessible game design with overpowered weapons, perks, etc...). Yes pub stomping occurred a lot, but it was not the norm, and there might not actually be a "perfect" solution, only fewest downsides. We don't have the traditional pubstomping like old CODs, however we do have as the video showed, horrible team balancing where 1 elite player is put together with completely garbage players. That's an unfair experience for everyone. I think an improvement on the previous COD matchmaking method is all we need (or just keep it the same). Maybe push people more so towards competitive ranked playlists with adjusted rules making the game a more solid competitive experience, maybe go full MW2 2009 with broken (but fun) multiplayer game design allowing bad players to rack up kills via one man army?
I hate hearing the "we are matching you with people your own skill base" argument. I play fortnite and I just recently started looking at my opponents as well as teammates k/ds, winrates, etc. Let me tell you...I'm starting to see the "rigging" going on. How do you justify putting a full team with 2 k/ds in matches with people with 8,9,14 k/ds?? They know that is an utterly unfair matchmaking. If they would quit trying to control outcomes they might have good games!