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Kotaku: Fortnite is getting skill-based matchmaking and bots in non-competitive modes
- Thread starter Saucycarpdog
- Start date
I've done something like this before on games I've worked on.
Having more granular control of the onboarding process is pretty darned important for PVP games to optimize your retention funnel.
I know I had a terrible time trying to learn Fortnite and dying repeatedly to people with TTV in their names.
Having more granular control of the onboarding process is pretty darned important for PVP games to optimize your retention funnel.
I know I had a terrible time trying to learn Fortnite and dying repeatedly to people with TTV in their names.
This is going to piss off a lot of people
People dont want to match with equal skill players. They prefer a mix.
Especially in fortnite where if youre a good builder, you're going to match with other good builders which makes games exhausting because every battle will be a big build battle.
it will also lead to losing on purpose to get into lower skilled brackets
i understand why they did it, fortnite is hard af and impossible for new players to learn. The game has an insanely dedicated playerbase and Epic has always tried to lower the skill gap to a lot of backlash
People dont want to match with equal skill players. They prefer a mix.
Especially in fortnite where if youre a good builder, you're going to match with other good builders which makes games exhausting because every battle will be a big build battle.
it will also lead to losing on purpose to get into lower skilled brackets
i understand why they did it, fortnite is hard af and impossible for new players to learn. The game has an insanely dedicated playerbase and Epic has always tried to lower the skill gap to a lot of backlash
The bots things kinda raise my eyebrows a bit. But actual skill based matchmaking makes me happy. My building is trash I can't compete with kids doing 90s.
They don't make it clear if you can go backwards. Might be a thing where once you are in a certain bracket you can only go up. Or maybe it resets every season?
Why dont they keep it as is, but if you fall below a certain skill level, you get access to a playlist for lower end players?
Because they are basically doing that without you having to choose a separate playlist?
Lol right
it seems the community is actually fine with it (for now). Its hated in cod though
however, the skill gap in fortnite is absolutely insane. They needed to do something. The items they were adding to help noobs was making skilled players upset
i might actually get back into fortnite. I realy liked the game but hated losing and hated how the building went from tactical And simple to spammy and complex
you literally had no choice against Certain players in fortnite
OP
OP
Probably because Fortnite has a crazy steep learning curve that doesn't exist in CoD. Not to mention that series has always been casual oriented.
The younger players are the ones ripping us apart, we need to be separated from them!
One of the things I liked about Fortnite was NOT having skill-based matchmaking. It meant if you got better at the game you could actually win more often, as opposed to matchmaking systems that push everyone toward the same constant win rate. It sucks if you win 1% of your matches as a new player, then put in a ton of work to get better and still just win 1% of your matches as an elite player.
But I guess the skill gap between new/casual players and veterans has probably gotten much bigger since when I started.
Hopefully they still allow a fairly wide range of skill levels to play together, to recreate a similar feeling to when the game was newer.
But I guess the skill gap between new/casual players and veterans has probably gotten much bigger since when I started.
Hopefully they still allow a fairly wide range of skill levels to play together, to recreate a similar feeling to when the game was newer.
Considering their last attempt to balance the scales and allow less skilled players to win was the giant fucking missile-spamming hyper-mobile B.R.U.T.E.S, this is probably a good change. News like this is the kind of stuff that might convince me to keep playing, because I was thinking about checking out.
They just need a damned ranked mode, people dont whine about sbmm when it comes with a shiny badge and some reward.
Apex ranked is a lot of fun, needs to be tweaked but it makes it so there is something to play for.
Apex ranked is a lot of fun, needs to be tweaked but it makes it so there is something to play for.
I remember they tested it out in the competitive playlists. I'm eager to see how things turn out.
Not a fan of sbmm in BR games outside of their own playlist/mode. One of the reasons I like BR games is that it's kind of a huge clusterfuck in terms of what you're going to run into, which I like. As soon as you start introducing sbmm, ranked, or any sort of equivalent you're going to people starting to smurf, and while pubstomping isn't something you're going to want to happen every match I still like it happening sometimes. It's also weird in this case because Fortnite already has a "ranked" mode in Arenas, although that's a separate disaster with it having *only* Solos and Trios options this season (and yes Arenas is balanced slightly differently and has Siphon). And while skill IS important, BR games have an inherent luck/RNG aspect with drops, circle etc. As someone's who is pretty bad who this is probably trying to cater to (only 3 solo wins since season 3, me and a full friend squad will win maybe one match a night in Squads) this is kind of the opposite of what I want because now not only is matchmaking with friends probably going to be a shitshow since we're all pretty different skill levels, even if it's working as intended I don't want to sweat my ass off every match; if I wanted that I would already be playing Arenas.
This really feels like they are trying to chase their fabled "we want everyone to be able to win a game/feel good" mentality because they're seeing declining user numbers (not that Fortnite isn't still absolutely crushing it, but it's peak numbers probably weren't sustainable for any game). I'm very curious to see how this pans out; I'm assuming that the counter to having really bad players play against other bad players (all of whom will still complaint of sweats) is the bot thing but that just seems kind of dumb. This whole thing is weird. Like, are they starting totally fresh? Is someone who was really good in seasons 1-6 but stopped playing and comes back now going to be placed super high? How are they going to handle parties of disparate skill levels? How do they counter smurfing? How are these bad players they're trying to cater to going to feel when they get killed by a bot? I'm super interested in how this actually winds up working out in practice, but I would have much rather have seen them draw better lines between core and arena than this.
This Daequan tweet from earlier this year that has made the rounds several times in regards to the mech and multiple other unpopular changes this year continues to age well:
This really feels like they are trying to chase their fabled "we want everyone to be able to win a game/feel good" mentality because they're seeing declining user numbers (not that Fortnite isn't still absolutely crushing it, but it's peak numbers probably weren't sustainable for any game). I'm very curious to see how this pans out; I'm assuming that the counter to having really bad players play against other bad players (all of whom will still complaint of sweats) is the bot thing but that just seems kind of dumb. This whole thing is weird. Like, are they starting totally fresh? Is someone who was really good in seasons 1-6 but stopped playing and comes back now going to be placed super high? How are they going to handle parties of disparate skill levels? How do they counter smurfing? How are these bad players they're trying to cater to going to feel when they get killed by a bot? I'm super interested in how this actually winds up working out in practice, but I would have much rather have seen them draw better lines between core and arena than this.
This Daequan tweet from earlier this year that has made the rounds several times in regards to the mech and multiple other unpopular changes this year continues to age well:
I stopped playing long ago because I fell so far behind the build skill curve. If this is even somewhat successful, I'd give it another shot.
Eh. Half the appeal of BR games is the large variety of player types you can encounter. If im being put into games where everyone is super try hard its a bit less fun.
The game mode itself is its own kind of matchmaking with better players lasting longer, so this just seems like yet another attempt to give new players easier wins because wins are apparently so important.
Encountering a team of crazy players riding around in their vehicle beeping at you and then accidentally flipping their car is something that should be something that can happen regardless of how seriously you're taking it.
The game mode itself is its own kind of matchmaking with better players lasting longer, so this just seems like yet another attempt to give new players easier wins because wins are apparently so important.
Encountering a team of crazy players riding around in their vehicle beeping at you and then accidentally flipping their car is something that should be something that can happen regardless of how seriously you're taking it.
This is going to be really interesting because it will affect how people approach each game. The risks you could take running around the map when only 10% or so of any given lobby were high level players will be different if they're all streamers and gods.
Fortnite does have a ranked mode which is what they use to qualify for tournaments and is actually really fun and rewarding.
Yup, I am pretty good with shooting and stuff, but the building huge towers before I am able to blink is beyond me.
Because a lot of people just want to win all the time. They brain isn't going to think "Wow I made the top 10, that's pretty good", they think "Wow, I came 7th? I should have come first, this is lame, I'm going to play something else instead."
It's why Smurfing is a problem in multiple match-making based games.
If this truly implements SBMM (and thus players start to win the 1/100 solo games, 1/50 duo games, 1/25 squad games that you'd expect), people will go nuts and Epic will revert it within days. The bots move makes some sense, but I hope you don't see them if you're an experienced player at all.
Epic clearly feel like they have an issue onboarding new players these days.
Epic clearly feel like they have an issue onboarding new players these days.
Because it makes for less cool looking highlight reels and less opportunities to get first.
You sure? Surely now there will be games filled with people that deliberately just want to be the dumbest worst players ever and it'll then become a competition to who can off themselves the fastest so they can stay in the worst of the worst tier.
Imagine a highlight reel of people just offing themselves ingame asap, over and over again lol. I want to see that at least once.
It's unrelated but there was a video awhile back of someone trying to become the Worst Bayonetta Player in Smash Ultimate which was fun. As they had to do Bad, but not TOO BAD to trigger the games in-built system that banned players that were deliberately throwing matches and not actually engaging with the game.
I imagine some equivalent could be done for Fortnite in some form.
Nice, my casual cross-play squad that's primarily dropping in just to chat and emote might not have our goofin' around cut short as often. We're interested enough in BR to stick there and not go to Creative, which isn't for us, but we're definitely not getting sweaty.
I always think connection quality should always be the very top priority for matchmaking above all. SBMM I usually dislike, especially when it's completely in the background and we don't know our actual skill ranking. It also becomes a problem when your friends aren't in the same skill rating as you, resulting in both usually having a bad time and just not wanting play together.
Pros who stream aren't going to like this and they're going to convince their followers that it's bad.