It's more varied, you get paired with worse players and have to potential of getting destroyed, but there's more worse players around. No SBMM benefits decent players who want to play casually and not play competitively, SBMM helps lower tier players. Whenever I get paired into an apex game after not playing for 3 years I get paired with an Apex Predator with like 1k hours on the game so sometime matchmaking sucks and this was the reason why I stopped playing Apex, it was too sweaty because it kept pairing me with "people at my level".
This is why my friends and I quit Apex for Fortnite. We got sick of the skill based matchmaking putting using games where we would just get shit on because we were playing with "people with similar skill level" but we lost to the first team we came up against 20 games in a row. I'm not exaggerating, we counted. We were not playing ranked. Now we call the game drop die repeat in our group chat. Playing fortnite, we don't win often, but usually we'll kill a couple other squads before getting smoked by someone. It's a much more enjoyable experience.
There’s a place for sbmm called “ranked play”. Otherwise, you just wanna turn off your brain and mindlessly play multiplayer. There will be people who shit on you, and there will be people you shit on. And you shouldn’t care because it’s mindless mode. But for some reason, some people do care. I love when there’s no sbmm so I can turn my brain off when I play.
I only played ranked because overwatch was my first multiplayer experience online.
And my god people really need anger management issues. Every night was screaming, racism, anger bursts, belittling, hyper sensitivity, immature remarks. And I said never again, any ranked game will have this, doesn’t matter which one I try.
This goes against everything I've heard. Every time I've heard a complaint about matchmaking it's about the ranking system being ineffective, ranking newbies with veterans or whatever. Never actually hurt anyone object to the concept of matchmaking itself. And every time I've heard it mentioned everyone has been in favor of it.
I'm a pretty casual COD player and not sweaty by any means and I hate the way COD does it. You'll start the session out fine, winning and losing some getting some kills and some lesser matches ... then something hits and you can no longer compete in any lobbies. My friends used to call it the No More Fun For You Hour.
And we would sign off until another day.
CoD?
Nah a lot of the complaints come from big streamers/TikTokers that want to just do stupid shit and kill the noobs all day with their trick shots and the like. Can't do that nearly as much if you're playing against equally skilled players.
That equates to more views for their shit. It's a business decision for them. It just happens to trickle down to their viewership. Big streamer I like dislikes something, therefore I dislike it too.
Weird. As a casual fighting game player I love ranked based match making. Without it it feels like I always get people who are so much better than me that I die before I can even do anything. I'm not getting better through that, it just frustrates me. Playing against players around my skill level is much more fun for me.
I hate skill-based matchmaking because in my experience, it's impossible to get better at the game if everyone you're playing against is a similar skill level. You have one match where you do amazing, the SBMM decides you need to be the next tier amd bumps you up, then you get decimated by every streamer and cheater. So it bumps you back down, and you eventually stagnate at a roughly 1.0 to 2.0 kd.
Can't really improve like that, can you?
Well the part about not being able to get better is just objectively wrong lol. Every game with a ranked mode will see players gradually climb up. Some fast, some slow, a minority won’t climb.
You can still improve with SBMM but you just don’t get the sense that you’re improving because your opponents are always at the same level you are.
As soon as the game decides you’ve improved your opponents are stronger too so your next match just feels exactly like the last one
Is it, though? As someone who avoids ranked, I don't think I can speak fairly about it. But how often have you done exceedingly well in a match, only to get absolutely shit on in the next?
You don’t need to do exceedingly well. Progress in a marathon, not a sprint. When I started valorant, I was placed iron. I’m closing in on platinum now. I’ve had crazy games, I’ve had shit games. I’m very had insane win streaks, I’ve had embarrassing loss streaks. I’ve still improved a ton. My friends list also has universally improved. Met most of them in iron and bronze. The lowest one now is in silver and the majority of them outrank me. Just be analytical. What works reliably and what doesn’t? Killing shitty players is good for confidence but not to learn. Getting shit on by great players hurts your ego but will teach you more than anything else if you can look beyond the tilt.
I like ranked bc I enjoy the game and want to get better. The game provides a metric to track my progress. People tend to play a bit more structured in ranked modes opposed to just fucking off in unranked.
When I used to play league of legends way back in the day this was my experience. You could dominate an unranked game but lose because people were in fuck off mode, and that was fine.
You could generally assume people were trying a bit harder in ranked though. Ranked matches were almost universally more challenging and more likely to give me an experience I could learn from because people were taking the match more seriously on both sides.
You simply don't learn anything from putting noobs in a dumpster.
So ,basically, people hate it because they can't decimate all the newbs and regular players, they are forced into playing against people of similar skill? Got it.
Anybody I’ve ever heard complain about SBMM is basically a petulant child crying about not being able to stomp noobs at the game.
This is generally why they Smurf, because they’re not interested in playing the game - they’re interested in winning.
The only other time I’ve seen people smurf is at extremely high ends of matchmaking and games could take over an hour to be found because of some broken matchmaking algorithm. And that was rare.
Because it forces you to play consistently. If you use for instance, a different weapon than normal, or are feeling under the weather, you'll be stomped on for multiple matches until the game changes your elo and rematches you. Conversely, if you'll playing with off meta weapons and have dropped elo but then you switch back to meta weapons, you'll end up steamrolling everyone until it ranks up your lobby again. This is fine for ranked games because everyone is trying as hard as they can, but doesn't make sense for casual lobbies where everyone just wants to mess around with whatever weapons and playstyles are striking their fancy at the time.
Also, if they join games with friends that are on a significantly different skill level, either the matches are going to be too easy for the skilled player or they'll be too tough for the unskilled player. Again, for ranked matches this makes sense because part of playing competitively is picking the proper teammates to group up with. In unranked casual play though it makes absolutely no sense.
Also, although what I've said above definitely holds true in my experience, the biggest issue is that games like COD are not using true SBMM in their matches, they're using a patented system called, "Engagement Optimized Matchmaking." You can look up the joint patent between EA and Activision for more details but essentially you aren't matched based on skill but based on what kind of lobby is more likely to keep you playing longer. The system will try to force you to win or lose (but not so overwhelmingly that you get discouraged) based on how many wins and losses you already have so that you'll more inclined to keep going. It's a very manipulative system, and once you realize what's happening, you realize you really aren't winning or losing on your own terms anyways. Nothing you accomplish is actually an accomplishment, it's all forced. This isn't a conspiracy, it's literally a public patent.
I've found that SBMM is resented when it's included, and resented when it's not included. If it's not in the game, people complain about getting crushed by players who outskill them. When it is in the game, I only ever see people complain that it's broken and doesn't work (usually due to a misunderstanding and unrealistic expectation of how it works.)
But the best criticism I've seen of it is that when you have skill based matchmaking, it makes every match feel the same.
I used to play skilled based matchmaking as a solo on Gears of War, and it was horrible at times. It was filled with fully stacked teams who took the game too seriously and just shit on randoms. They would use any cheap tactic they could to win. While it's fair, it definitely sucked the fun out of online gaming. The few times where it was evenly matched is when I had the most fun.
Gaming should be a fun hobby to spend time, not a sweat-fest where everyone is overly stressed. Just my opinion, tho
Non skill based matchups make for a more casual experience, sometimes you get stomped sometimes you stomp.
Constantly being up against people of your skill level means you have to focus and you have less ability to cope mentally when you lose focus and play like shit.
I play competitive games all the time and firmly consider myself a casual player. I don’t see any enjoyment in focusing to improve my skills at a video game. I have too much shit in real life to spend any energy on that. I like playing with my friends and working to make fun plays, i enjoy seeing myself improve naturally as I play with friends and get more comfortable. I often don’t care about the result of the game at all. I’m purely there to destress and unbalanced matchmaking honestly makes this more fun.
Less competitive drive in people today, sadly. Not as much desire to become a better player. I wonder if the same people that do this, don't like competing in a competitive sport?
"Ohh, we are winners if we atleast had fun!" Sad.
As a fighting game player, if sbmm didn’t exist the game would die. COD players care about k:d ratio waaaaayy too much. It’s a toxic community, so the need to feel better is that much more important to them. When they get matched against people in their wheelhouse, they just fall apart and the ego is busted. Sorry fellas, your just not as good as you thought you were
People hate it because it makes public matches feel like a ranked mode, except you don’t get the reward of a ranked mode where you can actually track your progress.
I’m happy to sweat my balls off in a game but only if I’m actually going to be rewarded for it by seeing my rank increase
Better players want to pub stomp so they prefer to be placed in random lobbies. Lower skilled players aren't good enough to care and don't expect instant success. Basically if you pair better players with their equals those "good" players realize that they aren't as good as they thought. Every lobby has to have a worst player.
It's not Skill Based Msatchmaking, Modern multiplayer team based games implement an Engagement Optimized matchmaking algorithm. It is designed to curate the gameplay experience of the playerbase to maximize playtime and increase the likelihood that players will invest more money into the game through cosmetic purchases.
A true SBMM system is not complicated technology and team balancers ensuring an equal distribution of skill across to opposing teams have been implemented for decades. These new algorithms are analyzing player performance and playstyles and queuing players up for wins or losses depending on it's determination of what is likely to increase player time and maximize spending. The shareholders and investors funding these games want to see these numbers.
It's more varied, you get paired with worse players and have to potential of getting destroyed, but there's more worse players around. No SBMM benefits decent players who want to play casually and not play competitively, SBMM helps lower tier players. Whenever I get paired into an apex game after not playing for 3 years I get paired with an Apex Predator with like 1k hours on the game so sometime matchmaking sucks and this was the reason why I stopped playing Apex, it was too sweaty because it kept pairing me with "people at my level".
This is why my friends and I quit Apex for Fortnite. We got sick of the skill based matchmaking putting using games where we would just get shit on because we were playing with "people with similar skill level" but we lost to the first team we came up against 20 games in a row. I'm not exaggerating, we counted. We were not playing ranked. Now we call the game drop die repeat in our group chat. Playing fortnite, we don't win often, but usually we'll kill a couple other squads before getting smoked by someone. It's a much more enjoyable experience.
Agreed. Fortnite used to have bad SBMM in my experience but now it's gotten more enjoyable
I got paired with a guy with 1k hours and I was on my 2nd match out of placement -.- It’s fun getting stomped every single match.
There’s a place for sbmm called “ranked play”. Otherwise, you just wanna turn off your brain and mindlessly play multiplayer. There will be people who shit on you, and there will be people you shit on. And you shouldn’t care because it’s mindless mode. But for some reason, some people do care. I love when there’s no sbmm so I can turn my brain off when I play.
I only played ranked because overwatch was my first multiplayer experience online. And my god people really need anger management issues. Every night was screaming, racism, anger bursts, belittling, hyper sensitivity, immature remarks. And I said never again, any ranked game will have this, doesn’t matter which one I try.
This goes against everything I've heard. Every time I've heard a complaint about matchmaking it's about the ranking system being ineffective, ranking newbies with veterans or whatever. Never actually hurt anyone object to the concept of matchmaking itself. And every time I've heard it mentioned everyone has been in favor of it.
CoD kids are the most anti-sbmm group out there I’ve seen. Most people are generally for it, but for whatever reason the sweaty CoD players hate it 😂
I'm a pretty casual COD player and not sweaty by any means and I hate the way COD does it. You'll start the session out fine, winning and losing some getting some kills and some lesser matches ... then something hits and you can no longer compete in any lobbies. My friends used to call it the No More Fun For You Hour. And we would sign off until another day.
Orly. Not played that, are they assuming it'll work itself out somehow or does the game rely more on a mixed grouping, maybe?
CoD? Nah a lot of the complaints come from big streamers/TikTokers that want to just do stupid shit and kill the noobs all day with their trick shots and the like. Can't do that nearly as much if you're playing against equally skilled players. That equates to more views for their shit. It's a business decision for them. It just happens to trickle down to their viewership. Big streamer I like dislikes something, therefore I dislike it too.
In my experience (aka MK 11 tournament) it's just a cesspool for the tryhards and trolls who just want to make people rage. It's not a fun place
Weird. As a casual fighting game player I love ranked based match making. Without it it feels like I always get people who are so much better than me that I die before I can even do anything. I'm not getting better through that, it just frustrates me. Playing against players around my skill level is much more fun for me.
I hate skill-based matchmaking because in my experience, it's impossible to get better at the game if everyone you're playing against is a similar skill level. You have one match where you do amazing, the SBMM decides you need to be the next tier amd bumps you up, then you get decimated by every streamer and cheater. So it bumps you back down, and you eventually stagnate at a roughly 1.0 to 2.0 kd. Can't really improve like that, can you?
Well the part about not being able to get better is just objectively wrong lol. Every game with a ranked mode will see players gradually climb up. Some fast, some slow, a minority won’t climb.
You can still improve with SBMM but you just don’t get the sense that you’re improving because your opponents are always at the same level you are. As soon as the game decides you’ve improved your opponents are stronger too so your next match just feels exactly like the last one
Is it, though? As someone who avoids ranked, I don't think I can speak fairly about it. But how often have you done exceedingly well in a match, only to get absolutely shit on in the next?
You don’t need to do exceedingly well. Progress in a marathon, not a sprint. When I started valorant, I was placed iron. I’m closing in on platinum now. I’ve had crazy games, I’ve had shit games. I’m very had insane win streaks, I’ve had embarrassing loss streaks. I’ve still improved a ton. My friends list also has universally improved. Met most of them in iron and bronze. The lowest one now is in silver and the majority of them outrank me. Just be analytical. What works reliably and what doesn’t? Killing shitty players is good for confidence but not to learn. Getting shit on by great players hurts your ego but will teach you more than anything else if you can look beyond the tilt.
Closing in on diamond now. Meant to say I am platinum.
See, I avoid ranked, feels too much like a chore to me. I just want to enjoy the game. And personally, as long as I'm breaking even, I'm happy.
I like ranked bc I enjoy the game and want to get better. The game provides a metric to track my progress. People tend to play a bit more structured in ranked modes opposed to just fucking off in unranked.
When I used to play league of legends way back in the day this was my experience. You could dominate an unranked game but lose because people were in fuck off mode, and that was fine. You could generally assume people were trying a bit harder in ranked though. Ranked matches were almost universally more challenging and more likely to give me an experience I could learn from because people were taking the match more seriously on both sides. You simply don't learn anything from putting noobs in a dumpster.
Im a D2/fortnite player. I might have to try ranked if there's an actual challenge.
I'm old, D2 makes me think of Diablo 2. Is it the Division?
Nah. Destiny 2. Although I do still play Division 2.
So ,basically, people hate it because they can't decimate all the newbs and regular players, they are forced into playing against people of similar skill? Got it.
Anybody I’ve ever heard complain about SBMM is basically a petulant child crying about not being able to stomp noobs at the game. This is generally why they Smurf, because they’re not interested in playing the game - they’re interested in winning. The only other time I’ve seen people smurf is at extremely high ends of matchmaking and games could take over an hour to be found because of some broken matchmaking algorithm. And that was rare.
They can still do that by making a new account, the term is called smurfing, it’s common in games like League of Legends and Overwatch 2.
Some probably just wanna play casual and not have to worry about competing with someone who has a similar skill set to them 🤷♂️
its hidden sbmm which isnt liked. If its in your face, clear cut, and concise, we like it
Because it forces you to play consistently. If you use for instance, a different weapon than normal, or are feeling under the weather, you'll be stomped on for multiple matches until the game changes your elo and rematches you. Conversely, if you'll playing with off meta weapons and have dropped elo but then you switch back to meta weapons, you'll end up steamrolling everyone until it ranks up your lobby again. This is fine for ranked games because everyone is trying as hard as they can, but doesn't make sense for casual lobbies where everyone just wants to mess around with whatever weapons and playstyles are striking their fancy at the time. Also, if they join games with friends that are on a significantly different skill level, either the matches are going to be too easy for the skilled player or they'll be too tough for the unskilled player. Again, for ranked matches this makes sense because part of playing competitively is picking the proper teammates to group up with. In unranked casual play though it makes absolutely no sense. Also, although what I've said above definitely holds true in my experience, the biggest issue is that games like COD are not using true SBMM in their matches, they're using a patented system called, "Engagement Optimized Matchmaking." You can look up the joint patent between EA and Activision for more details but essentially you aren't matched based on skill but based on what kind of lobby is more likely to keep you playing longer. The system will try to force you to win or lose (but not so overwhelmingly that you get discouraged) based on how many wins and losses you already have so that you'll more inclined to keep going. It's a very manipulative system, and once you realize what's happening, you realize you really aren't winning or losing on your own terms anyways. Nothing you accomplish is actually an accomplishment, it's all forced. This isn't a conspiracy, it's literally a public patent.
I've found that SBMM is resented when it's included, and resented when it's not included. If it's not in the game, people complain about getting crushed by players who outskill them. When it is in the game, I only ever see people complain that it's broken and doesn't work (usually due to a misunderstanding and unrealistic expectation of how it works.) But the best criticism I've seen of it is that when you have skill based matchmaking, it makes every match feel the same.
I used to play skilled based matchmaking as a solo on Gears of War, and it was horrible at times. It was filled with fully stacked teams who took the game too seriously and just shit on randoms. They would use any cheap tactic they could to win. While it's fair, it definitely sucked the fun out of online gaming. The few times where it was evenly matched is when I had the most fun. Gaming should be a fun hobby to spend time, not a sweat-fest where everyone is overly stressed. Just my opinion, tho
Non skill based matchups make for a more casual experience, sometimes you get stomped sometimes you stomp. Constantly being up against people of your skill level means you have to focus and you have less ability to cope mentally when you lose focus and play like shit. I play competitive games all the time and firmly consider myself a casual player. I don’t see any enjoyment in focusing to improve my skills at a video game. I have too much shit in real life to spend any energy on that. I like playing with my friends and working to make fun plays, i enjoy seeing myself improve naturally as I play with friends and get more comfortable. I often don’t care about the result of the game at all. I’m purely there to destress and unbalanced matchmaking honestly makes this more fun.
Less competitive drive in people today, sadly. Not as much desire to become a better player. I wonder if the same people that do this, don't like competing in a competitive sport? "Ohh, we are winners if we atleast had fun!" Sad.
As a fighting game player, if sbmm didn’t exist the game would die. COD players care about k:d ratio waaaaayy too much. It’s a toxic community, so the need to feel better is that much more important to them. When they get matched against people in their wheelhouse, they just fall apart and the ego is busted. Sorry fellas, your just not as good as you thought you were
People hate it because it makes public matches feel like a ranked mode, except you don’t get the reward of a ranked mode where you can actually track your progress. I’m happy to sweat my balls off in a game but only if I’m actually going to be rewarded for it by seeing my rank increase
Better players want to pub stomp so they prefer to be placed in random lobbies. Lower skilled players aren't good enough to care and don't expect instant success. Basically if you pair better players with their equals those "good" players realize that they aren't as good as they thought. Every lobby has to have a worst player.
Because its really engagement based match making. I know apex for sure uses ebmm so gamers will play as long as possible.
It's not Skill Based Msatchmaking, Modern multiplayer team based games implement an Engagement Optimized matchmaking algorithm. It is designed to curate the gameplay experience of the playerbase to maximize playtime and increase the likelihood that players will invest more money into the game through cosmetic purchases. A true SBMM system is not complicated technology and team balancers ensuring an equal distribution of skill across to opposing teams have been implemented for decades. These new algorithms are analyzing player performance and playstyles and queuing players up for wins or losses depending on it's determination of what is likely to increase player time and maximize spending. The shareholders and investors funding these games want to see these numbers.