> Its interesting to get smashed every couple of games and have some good ones and have some bad ones.

Yes, but in most games it's not "some good and some bad ones".

If you're not very good yourself you'll just get stomper, over and over and over. It is not fun to join a lobby, enter a match and then die the first 20s in because someone with 3 times your playtime got matched against you.

There is nothing casual about getting stomped by people with a much higher skill level than you. There's no working like crazy in a casual game. I genuinely do not understand how that is so hard for you people to grasp.

>”It’s interesting to get smashed every couple of games”

Casual gamers don’t feel that way at all, it’s only people that take gaming waaaaay too seriously that complain about SBMM

I was playing on my girlfriend's overwatch account one time. She doesn't play shooters very much and I've been playing them since I was like 10 years old. The difference in skill in the lobbies I was getting was overwhelming. These were people who had trouble with basic mouse movement and controls. I was destroying the entire team by myself, they literally couldn't do anything to stop me. If every game was like that, I'd imagine a lot of people would just stop playing.

Not sure the genuine reason but if I had to guess, nobody wants a sweat goin nuclear in their lobby and stopping the more dogshit players from having fun. Imagine dropping a top ranked league player against just about any team of assorted low ranks and the game is basically decided on the spot completely ruining the fun for them, but that top rank player is having a fucking blast. Many people prefer not to bother even touch competitive either because it's well... competitive.

Kids these days can't handle being bad at a game, it's not fun if they aren't dominating the lobby. If their first game isn't good, they quit the game.

There are many millions of gamers who never had sbmm, but now the new gamers suddenly cry? Why the difference?

Yes. That wouldn't be every game, and it never was back when. Having a entry level list/mode would be ideal for this.

Ah yes. Thats fair. I guess that also helps with smurf accounts.

It's not fun to get killed over and over with no chance of coming back. And it's not fun to kill everyone easily straight away (at least it gets old fast). In theory, SBMM allows for a fun middle ground. Of course its a very complicated system so it doesn't always work, but with time I think it will get better and better

Because sbmm made things so much better, that's why every almost every fps since 2007 has incorporated it and the genre boomed, games like CoD 4 appealed to everyone instead of just hardcore players.

Good explanation. Thanks!

SBMM since 2007 made fair teams, not a full lobby of everyone with the exact same skill level.

It's CoD MW 2019 where it all went wrong and ruined gaming

Did you really just say SBMM ruined gaming?

SBMM like implemented in MW 2019 and MW2 definitely ruined it for anyone older than 14

Simplest answer is player engagement and retention.

I guess if your personality revolves around being a sweat then yeah I could see how a single feature ruined the entire medium for you

Im sorry guys but for someone that is right in the skill level between a casual player and people who do nothing but play the game SBMM is shit , it caters to the streamers who still somehow destroy pub games even with the so good sbmm and people who want to play duck hunt but with better visuals . For the people not believing me , I was plat/diamond in apex legends and got almost always cued with a full team of predators which are the best players in the world. It’s good for casual Carl and streaming Steve but for me it doesn’t work.

It's just annoying to have zero progression, zero improvement, every single game the exact same, no variation, no goal.

It gets boring pretty after a few games.

I'd prefer no sbmm in casual modes like social slayer in halo 3. I'd rather get stomped sometimes and then do the stomping instead of just going 10 - 10 every game. What I don't understand is what is the point of ranked modes if essentially everything is ranked anyway with sbmm and it's just hidden. Atleast tell me what my rank is if there is sbmm.

The only thing I have noticed is that the casuals don’t want to play with the competitive players because it throws off the fire team stats and might put them in a higher skill lobby.

Otherwise I don’t really notice. They get easier match ups when we leave their fire team.

I’ve had games in mcc that I lose 50-8 and I got the 8 kills for my team. I’ve had games that we win 50-48 and I have 25+ kills, always a toss up. But playing against a full team of try hards always sucks. Getting camped with brs is tough

But if there is no rating then it's essentially random or matched by connection quality or something so by definition it couldn't happen every game.

and this is where you don’t realize that you’re in that bracket, so you’re only going to play against other bad players.

i think they’re should be only one protected bracket, and that’s for the players you played against, but after that it’s free game.

i’ll use the base statistics to say that in a game like Call of Duty, i think everybody who has a .80 KD and below should be bracketed off and protected, but after that it is completely and entirely random, and connection based. the odds are, with the amount of average players in the game, those .90kd players aren’t even going to see way better players than them anyway because there’s way less better players queuing at the same time as them.

There is a way higher percentage of lower skilled players than high skill players. With no SBMM then medium to high skill players can take advantage of the randomness to steamroll players who don't have a chance. If this is "fun" for you, go play single player.

Every time I hear people complain about SBMM now I think about that leaked DM of the YouTuber who wanted to trick terminally ill kids into playing cod with him so he could get the best clips for his YouTube channel due to them being unable to play the game properly.

For every round you annihilate 10 players, there are 10 players having a less fun game getting annihilated, and that’s even before considering losing/winning because of a teammate

Casual modes are for chilling, the target is mostly casual players/not competitive ones. Without SBMM, Someone who is in the bottom 20 would constantly lose most games as 80% of the playerbase is stronger than them.

I'm not sure exactly how it's implemented in other games, but in the newer COD games it's so strict I often feel like I'm being punished for doing well, which is why I stopped trying to do well at all.

Because player retention and played time. Statistically sbmm systems (or these days engagement optimized matchmaking systems) are designed to keep you playing as long as possible.

Everyone is approaching this from a "noob" perspective when the solution is easy. Group new players into the same matches for a couple dozen matches (varies on the game) and all the other players are in the same lobbies. It wouldn't help with smurfs, sure, but I'd say that smurfs would be less of an issue as there are more casual players than there are sweats in the lobbies. This would need some refining but it could easily work.

This would benefit everyone, because if the newbies are still really bad then they can play ranked and go against people of their own caliber, the majority of players are playing against each other at their own skill level instead of doing well in one match and getting placed in a high skill lobby, and the sweats can relax and mess around without having to compete against other sweats constantly.

Yes this is exactly what I am referring. It is hardly noticeable in games like Halo and Overwatch but when it comes to COD it is insanely unbalanced, IMO.

You just contradicted yourself tho. If most players are low skilled than having no sbmm doesn’t matter cause majority of the time they will play against other low skill players.

It's kind of annoying for someone like me. It seems to not be able to find a place for me. I'll have a few games with lower level opponents and do well, then a game or two with markedly better people and get smoked. Rinse, repeat. I can never get consistent lobbies. Either I'm a good amount better or worse than average.

Maybe I'm just in a weird skill level range. I used to play shooters for hours on end in the Halo 2 and CoD4 days. Now I mainly play RPGs and single player stuff, but have retained some level of shooter skill. I'm also 31 now with a job and fiance and life.

So maybe I'm just better than your average gamer, but not nearly as good as streamers who do nothing but play so SBMM has a hard time placing me.

I just accept my fate if I've had a few 3+ K/D games in a row knowing that some team of kids who play 8 hours a day is coming for me.

If you’re in the bottom 10% of players there’s a 90% chance you are going to get your ass handed to you without mmr.

Casual means exactly that. “Casual”.

Play casually. You will get easy lobbies and difficult lobbies. An issue I see is that many players take casual too seriously. When they’re down they switch to their sweat set up or main. They stop going for fun plays and start playing like it’s the MLG world championships because someone else is casually beating them.

Let go. If you lose, good! You get an easier lobby. If you win, good! Someone who is better than you will beat you.

If you fight to win every casual match you’re going to eventually get to the point where it feels like sloppy comp.

EXACTLY. I am right there with you. Halo 3 was my bread and butter my dude. I am now 27 with a kid, a small business, and a full time job on top of that. With the very few hours a week I get to play, I don't want to have to sweat just to NOT get my ass stomped completely. Like I said, I don't mind it every once in a bit but I don't like never being the top. If I am the top, its once a week, max, followed by endless games of destruction. Gaming, I am realizing, is only causal when you play it solo.

If your casual matches aren’t relaxing it’s because you’re taking it too seriously.

It’s okay to lose. Don’t sit up in your chair when they’re beating you. Don’t switch to your main or sweat build. Let it happen. Your mmr will drop and you’ll get into easier lobbies.

If you’re “working like crazy” you’re forcing yourself into more difficult matches. You’re playing against higher ranked players who are actually taking it casually.

That's why I don't like smaller competitive games.

Take a game like Chivlary or battlefield and it's 60ish players of all varying skill levels in the same game. That's what's fun to me.

I use to be one of them. I wanted to pub stomp in the old CODs but didn’t want to admit it. Comp (other games) gave me anxiety so I’d sweat casual playlists.

The issue is that some people don’t want to lose in casual so they fight to win every match. They end up in higher ranked players casual matches because of it.

But all it takes is 1 higher skilled player to ruin the fun for the entire lobby. His team won’t get many kills because he’s taking them all and the other team won’t stand a chance

What games do you play?

No. You just don't understand how much 1 good player can carry a multiplayer game.

Used to play MW2, now mostly Rocket League and ACC

The likelihood is low. Connection based matchmaking has always been more fun.

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You also have to ask “how SBMM is being implemented” because it’s not as straightforward as one might think

The first confirmed pop up of SBMM in CoD, for example, was in Black Ops 3, where it is described in pretty good detail how it was to be implemented on its patent.

In that game, SBMM was to be leveraged to mix high skill players who spent a lot of MTXs into low tier lobbies so younger or more impressionable people might conflate having weapon skins to high tier play.

… the end goal is to push MTXs.

For more modern shooters, the argument is that it’s to balance retention with newer models of MTXs (mostly season passes).

At the end of the day, it’s a business model that aims to maximize the profitability of a game with maybe the silver lining that lobbies have a little more parity.

Source: used to play CoD for money, I have been aware of harder SBMM implementation since like… Advanced Warfare?

>The likelihood is low.

No it isn't. You're wrong.

>Connection based matchmaking has always been more fun.

No it isn't. You're wrong.

Git gud.

I think he's right on both accounts. Ranked has a place but so does social, meaning random matchmaking. The arguement that a low skill player is gonna quit the game because they get stomped by someone much better in a random lobbey is silly because if they want to be matched against someone their skill level they can play RANKED. I just miss the halo 3 days of ranked social split where social was the wild west. You could get a game with guests on your team or the enemy team, a team of complete beginners or a team of sweats, it was fun as hell. A person who is gonna quit the game after getting stomped is not the player to cater to, trying to protect them is silly, they are not gonna sustain the game. The reality is microstransactions have curbed game design in an attempt to maximize player base.

I am good that’s why I hate sbmm. Only bad players benefit from it

>The arguement that a low skill player is gonna quit the game because they get stomped by someone much better in a random lobbey is silly because if they want to be matched against someone their skill level they can play RANKED.

This is redundant. Casual players play casual modes to avoid competitive play. You are suggesting more casual players should play more competitive modes to avoid casual games.

>hell. A person who is gonna quit the game after getting stomped is not the player to cater to, trying to protect them is silly, they are not gonna sustain the game.

This is a straw man. This isn't about retaining new players. It's about providing a consistent experience for everyone who plays it across the board in as many situations as possible.

>just miss the halo 3 days of ranked social split where social was the wild west.

Yeah this was super cool except the lobbies would have to reset and we would spend 45 seconds loading because a salty player left the game and the whole time the host could just walk around and rack up kills on everyone while the rest of the lobby was black screened. That's why myself and probably you too rarely touched social because it was toxic as hell. Everyone played ranked to avoid losers who rage quit or mic spammed. Which only adds to my point.

I loved halo as well but you're looking through rose tinted glasses.

Edit: remember, the goal is to have as many people with a 50% win rate as possible. If your wr is above 50 and you're complaining about SBMM, you're actually a fucking child.

Lol. No. You started good and can't improve. That's why as your skill rank climbs, you get worse. The players you go against at higher ranks are legit better at getting better and that's why you feel worse. Theres a reason devs ignore you guys. You are a very small minority of the community and you're just yelling at the sky because you don't understand why everyone in the game doesn't die as soon as you look at them. It's a you issue. Be introspective for fucks sake. There's coaching vids for every game under the sun where this topic is discussed in detail. But you wouldn't know because you don't care about getting better. As far as you're concerned, you're the best. And that's the issue. You're not.

Ah Halo 3 the game that first introduced SBMM into the series. Good times.

Both of those games have SBMM...

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And ranks.

No one ever complained about sbmm in gamemodes with a rank or elo, that's the whole point of a rank.

However CoD now implements it in a casual non ranked game.

Because it's universally been great for multiplayer. There's A GDC talk about how it has improved the overall performance of players across gaming in general because it forces players to adapt to remain competitive. But some people can't adapt and stay competitive. They don't know how to get good and then they throw a tantrum and tell everyone it's the games fault they got wrecked. Imagine being that immature. Must be embarrassing.

Ya the ranking was super solid.

It takes only one higher skill player(doesnt even have to be top tier) to ruin the fun for new players. If you need to go on killstreaks agaisnt players who barely know how move around, make a custom lobby with bots.