Skill based matchmaking(SBMM) is one of worst things i've seen in online multiplayer(COD MW)

[klik]

As someone who hardly has more than few hours a week to play a game,new COD Modern Warfare is such an exhausting game.Matchmaking is based on skill rather than just normal pub game with skills all over the place like it has always been.Everytime players that are matched with you in lobby are same skill or better, it makes every game like a tournament sweatfest,so tiring.

The thing is i don't wanna improve, i don't care about that i just wanna start COD and play couple of matches to have FUN like most player in COD.If i want to have some serious action i would just choose ranked mode(yeah there's no ranked mode in new cod) . Putting ranked mode in actual normal casual mm lobby makes me never wanna buy COD again.I remember the times when lobby stayed together for 20+ matches unlike now lobby disbands after every match due to finding new players that are in your skill bracket. And worst thing it favourises skill over ping, so many times you're put with 100+ping just to be able to find players with same skill even if other players are on different continent.


The point is that its no fun playing online when everytime you have to be on edge of your seat, it gets tiring and annoying so quickly for most people that play just to have fun, not trying to practice for esport tournament.


I don't want to play like it's PAX finals every game.I want to have fun. I want to get an AC 130. I want to get a nuke. But I can't because of safeguards put in place by the developers to nerf above average players.


If theres 42 guns for example and the M4A1 is the meta, all of my setups would be the M4A1. Why? Because if I don't use the M4A1 ill be at a 1on1 disadvantage against someone sweating their ass off using it. I don't want to stomp, I don't want easy wins..but having to play M4A1 every single match?


So...


SBMM doesn't make any sense to put outside of ranked. There is zero reason to have it. If you want to play with people of equal level and get close matches, that is what ranked is for.
If you want just a regular game to practice, that is what regular mode is for.


SBMM also doesnt help you improve. Look at Overwatch as an example. A long time player who has been in gold will take MONTHS to get past platinum, because they are facing against similar ranked players. There's no actual improvement, because the people they face against are also moving at a similar rate.



That is what's known as ELO hell. A gold player will likely stay in gold. They can't improve because they're facing the exact same people.


I worked at the game in order to better myself for well over a decade (since CoD2) and I'm rewarded by being put in impossible lobbies? If I wanted to play competitively, I would. It's not as much about owning people and feeling superior, it's about not having to stress out every single second of time in game. Maybe I just wanna get on and chill. 🤷‍♂️ Maybe I wanna have a few drinks and fuck around? I can do that and still play well if you match me up with random players, but if you match me up with a full team of Shroud level players every single game it gets a little frustrating.



It's like you people don't understand that you're punishing players for playing your game. What's more, there's *NO* getting good at the game anymore. As soon as you get better, the game will match you with even better players. Assuming it's a perfect system (which it can't be), everyone except the very best and the very worst players in the world will have around a 1 k/d. I'm almost always around a 2-2.5k/d player on every CoD game, and suddenly I'm at 1.01 on MW.


It's just fucking dumb. If I'm guaranteed to only win 50% of my gunfights and win 50% of my games then why even play? From your perspective you'll never get better. It's similar to this new bots shit that CoDMobile and Fortnite have, where more than half your players are *actual* bots that don't even attempt to fight back. I don't want to play against an AI that is letting me win just like I don't want to play against players of my exact skill level 100% of the time. I want to play against real people and I want it to be random.

Imagine wanting to get a VTOL but because of SBMM it never gets any easier to do so since your opponents are constantly scaled to make it such. There is an incentive to get better playing in public games because as you get better, your ability to get those killstreaks increases and that is rewarding. This is a huge reason everyone loved MW2; if you played enough and got better you saw results. The game should reward people who have better movement and aim and game sense because that's the whole point of being considered "good" in the first place.

 

[Azerach]

You're a casual but somehow you're matched with sweaties? That doesn't make sense.

 

[Nugnip]

Everytime players that are matched with you in lobby are same skill or better

Click to shrink...

Well this automatically means they are matched with lower skilled players (you).

 

[benzopil]

So you want to be a pubstomper?

 

[pochi]

Play with bots then.

 

[TheInfinityGauntlet]

So you want to be a pubstomper?

Click to shrink...

Every complaint I've seen about SBMM boils down to this, people upset they can't relive the glory days of MW where they were shitting on new kids who got the game for Christmas or w/e

 

[yumms]

I honestly haven't felt much difference from prior CoD games...I win some I lose some, just like every single CoD game before.

 

[VN1X]

It mostly comes down to map design (too many angles and sightlines) and TTK (too inconsistent and fast). SBMM should work in your favour if you're a low skilled player.

 

[Deleted member 8784]

I haven't been playing Apex for a while, but I see the community aren't too happy with how that matchmaking has been working there either.
I don't like how it discourages friend groups of different skill levels from playing together.

I'd personally prefer purely connection based - if people REALLY want to pub stomp, skill based matchmaking is just gamed anyway by people making brand new accounts.

 

[Hero Prinny]

If you're a casual as you say you are i dont see what the issue here is. It sounds more like you just want to be in lobbies where you're just crushing new players

 

[rulerk1]

Git gud

 

[TKG]

As someone who hardly has more than few hours a week to play a game,new COD Modern Warfare is such an exhausting game.Matchmaking is based on skill rather than just normal pub game with skills all over the place like it has always been.Everytime players that are matched with you in lobby are same skill or better, it makes every game like a tournament sweatfest,so tiring.

The thing is i don't wanna improve, i don't care about that i just wanna start COD and play couple of matches to have FUN like most player in COD.If i want to have some serious action i would just choose ranked mode(yeah there's no ranked mode in new cod) . Putting ranked mode in actual normal casual mm lobby makes me never wanna buy COD again.I remember the times when lobby stayed together for 20+ matches unlike now lobby disbands after every match due to finding new players that are in your skill bracket. And worst thing it favourises skill over ping, so many times you're put with 100+ping just to be able to find players with same skill even if other players are on different continent.


The point is that its no fun playing online when everytime you have to be on edge of your seat, it gets tiring and annoying so quickly for most people that play just to have fun, not trying to practice for esport tournament.

Click to shrink...

Ground War is your game mode then. AFAIK there's no SBMM on Ground War.

 

[Conkerkid11]

There's so much more wrong with the game than not being thrown in lobbies where you absolutely stomp everybody.

 

[Friskyrum]

This is why I stopped playing MW, lets make your experience as sweaty as possible, while also putting you in laggy lobbies instead of trying to find a lobby that has a good connection! Woooooo so fun! Great experience!

On top of the other issues the game has, it's all just a messy fucking joke.

 

[Deleted member 9290]

This is not working like you thing it is.

 

[Komo]

If you don't want to be matched with sweaties then stop playing so good. Or play ground war.

So you want to be a pubstomper?

Click to shrink...

This is basically what it boils down to.

 

[Chivalry]

I play casually like a few matches a day and have no problem coming first or second in almost every match. You don't even have to be that good lol.

 

[808s & Villainy]

AKA You want to be in a games where you can crush most people

 

[metalgear89]

Did blops 3 have sbmm? Cause whatever matchmaking that had it was perfect nice balance of tough matches and ones you can chill out. I didn't play the 2 cods after that but blops 4 was terrible. Glad I didn't get MW.

 

[$10 Bagel]

Every complaint I've seen about this game is "I can't shit on new/bad players"

 

[J_Viper]

I swear folks are complaining about the dumbest shit with this game

 

[Jobbs]

But what about the new or bad players who would have more fun just playing against other new and bad players? Do you think having high skill gamers in their lobby crushing them over and over is going to make their experience better?

 

[Kalor]

If you play casually, you shouldn't be getting put into the lobbies with people who are playing a ton every day. Skill based matchmaking leads to more rewarding games than just killing a bunch of new players over and over. Especially for those new/lesser skilled players. The complaints over it from the CoD community have always been dumb but the game is better for having it.

 

[Jarrod38]

This is why I stopped playing MW, lets make your experience as sweaty as possible, while also putting you in laggy lobbies instead of trying to find a lobby that has a good connection! Woooooo so fun! Great experience!

On top of the other issues the game has, it's all just a messy fucking joke.

Click to shrink...

Yep. Since I'm playing public matches it should be a sit back and relax type game not going up against sweaty players who are level 155 with all officer ranks finished and play 7 hours a day. That is why we need league play. It has nothing to do with pub stomping at all.

 

[Deleted member 5129]

Yep. Since I'm playing public matches it should be a sit back and relax type game not going up against sweaty players who are level 155 with all officer ranks finished and play 7 hours a day. That is why we need league play. It has nothing to do with pub stomping at all.

Click to shrink...

Yes it does. You want a "relax" type of game aka you want to do well without much effort. Pub stomping and shitting on new / worse players

You people need to grow up

 

[Deleted member 2752]

I kinda like that this complaint boils down to "I want to destroy other players in peace" lol
Ever thought about what those other players were thinking?

 

[SheriffMcDuck]

If you don't want to be matched with sweaties then stop playing so good. Or play ground war.


This is basically what it boils down to.

Click to shrink...

Might be the case for OP, but my complaint has more to do with friends who just got the game. The game puts your entire squad in the tier(which is invisible) of the most "skilled" player. Played a few hours last night with 2 friends who got the game for Christmas where one went 17 and 82 on Shipment and the other didn't have a kill in 6 straight S&D matches.

I'm not opposed to SBMM, it works for me, but it really really sucks for partying with friends.

 

[SheriffMcDuck]

Yes it does. You want a "relax" type of game aka you want to do well without much effort. Pub stomping and shitting on new / worse players

You people need to grow up

Click to shrink...

Or what about the people who want to play with their friends who are of a higher "skill"? Do they need to grow up too?

 

[Deleted member 1726]

Every complaint I've seen about SBMM boils down to this, people upset they can't relive the glory days of MW where they were shitting on new kids who got the game for Christmas or w/e

Click to shrink...

but it's not like that in MW at all.

 

[Alek]

I think as soon as someone brings this up, people just say things like 'oh so you just want to stomp pubs'? and I think that really misses why this approach can be frustrating for some players. It's a big deal that games are pushing more and more in this direction, check any forum surrounding these games and skill based matchmaking (SBMM) is up there as one of the biggest issues the community has with the game.

I'm going to use this thread as an opportunity to talk about SBMM in a bit more detail, so that perhaps we can have a better discussion. First, I think it's important to understand why developers feel SBMM is important, and for the most part, this comes down to engagement, and flow. That is, the idea that players stay engaged for longer if they stay in the 'flow' state, which is dependent on the player being adequately challenged.

In the flow model, high difficulty scenarios for low skilled players see players exit the 'flow' state, and become more likely to disengage from the game, while low difficulty scenarios for highly skilled players see players exit the flow state as they aren't challenged by the game. For players experiencing too much difficulty, it's often expected they become frustrated, for players experiencing too little, they become bored.

So with this model in mind, SBMM makes sense because by ensuring that matches stay at an adequate level of difficulty, players are more likely to stay in the flow state, and therefore stay engaged. For a game driven by MTX, this is a big deal because helps with your long term retention benchmarks, and in turn it benefits your average revenue per user (ARPU).

But, I think there's plenty of issues that provide ample opportunity to argue against the inclusion of SBMM.

• Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's (flow) model is just one model of player immersion in games, and while it can be attributed to player engagement, there are other factors that this model neglects. Perhaps most significantly, another popular theory of motivation (self determination theory, or SDT) describes the significance of compotency. The idea that it's important for players to have a sense that they are developing their skill and getting better at the game. Skill based matchmaking makes those improvements very difficult to see, because you are always playing players of the same skill level. If the system is working well, regardless of how good you get at the the game, you're seeing a consistent level of performance. This is very distinct from a system without SBMM, which would see players performing poorly to begin with, then gradually improving over time. In that sense, I think systems without SBMM are much more analogous to real-world skill acquisition, let's say you play Tennis with a coach, and practice to get better, you have a consistent benchmark there that you can measure yourself against. It doesn't necessarily get better with you, and that helps you see your improvement and feel competent as you play.
• Matches are also just, a lot less varied with skill based matchmaking in place. If we use the card game, MTG as an example, there's some appeal in turning up to a local MTG tournament, not knowing how good everyone is, and then testing your own deck against the various strategies that emerged in your local area. Because it's not explicitely skill based the tournament will see a wide range of players and strategies, and you'll get to see how your deck works in many unusual scenarios. If we scrapped that system and only played MTG with people of the same skill level, what we'd notice is that the gameplay would follow a very solidified meta at each level of play, for players at higher levels, you'd see the same sets of successful decks repeatedly. I think that can be a lot less interesting, at the very least it's nice to have an option to play with everyone.
• Another argument against skill based matchmaking is that it almost always, already exists as a ranked mode, and what people take issue with is not the fact SBMM exists, but the fact that it's actually being duplicated into the unranked playlists. I think that this creates a weird scenario, because if you're good at the game you end up playing super sweaty matches all of the time. There's no space to relax in this system, you're effectively playing ranked in two places, only in one your rank is invisible, and in the other, it isn't.
• A final problem is that it often doesn't work, quite the way you think it does, and for games that prioritise connection speed this can be a huge problem. It's a misconception to think that all forms of SBMM are ensuring that your opponents are each, individually of equal skill to you. In many cases that's not how it works, and what the system is actually doing is simply ensuring that both teams, are equally opposed. While this may sound like a good idea on paper, because these systems often take a wide range of skill levels into each match, it can be very difficult to balance out these games. Significantly, there are far more, very bad players, than there are very good players, so instead of killing your matchmaking times the game will often put you in a lobby with many very bad players, and balance out the lobby by putting the worst players on your squad.

For instance, let's take an MMR based system that has these ratings in a lobby.​

​

8000​

2000​

2500​

3000​

2300​

1000​

1000​

1000​

​

A skill based matchmaking system will often distribute this into two teams, as​

​

6000​

1000​

1500​

1500​

​

vs​

​

2000​

3000​

2500​

2000​

​

In this match, team 1 (top) win 4 of their matchups against the opposing players, whereas team 2 (bottom) win 9.​

​

The problem is, that these matchmatchmaking ratings are not a linear scale, so it's inappropriate to sort the data in this way. Simply put, a player with 6000 MMR is not necessarily worth 3 players of 2000 MMR. They could be worth far more or far less than that numerical distance supposes. Most commonly, this type of system tries to compensate the skill of lesser skilled players, with higher skilled players, and that can lead to very unpleasant experiences for everyone as even if the high skill player can technically win each matchup presented in that lobby each one of his team mates lose every matchup. This ends up actually creating the scenarios that SBMM in theory seeks to avoid with very one sided matches seeing new players getting steamrolled while high skilled players are somehow expected to carry them.​

​

Concluding thoughts...​

​

I just wanted to put my thoughts out there on this topic as it's very rarely discussed in much depth, and 'you just want to stomp pubs' rhetoric is a little dull. I think there are merits to skill based matchmaking systems but there are also significant disadvantages and risks. Skill based matchmaking can help create balanced matches, but that can impact a sense of skill acquisition and progression over time, and some SBMM implementations can actively create balance issues. On the whole, I'm opposed to SBMM being present across all modes of play and think that a mix of unranked and ranked modes offer a happy middleground.​

 

[Deleted member 5129]

Or what about the people who want to play with their friends who are of a higher "skill"? Do they need to grow up too?

Click to shrink...

Nope. They just need to accept the fact that this is how it works. Plenty of game modes well suited for beginners, search and destroy is not one of them. (and neither is playing on shipment)

 

[Alienous]

I agree OP.

To those saying its about "pub stomping", I don't see it that way.

With Modern Warfare pretty much every match I've had has required effort to keep my head above water in terms of K/D and match performance.

You seem to be grouped with people at your skill level, so you have to try in order to do well. Doing well seems like it just puts you in a higher bracket.

But then you're stuck on the treadmill in a constant half sprint, instead of sometimes being able to walk or jog to get decent results.

Maybe the skill groups are too small, but there doesn't seem to a wide enough variety within performance levels. It doesn't feel like I'm ever playing at the top of a 'Silver tier' group, or the bottom of a 'Gold tier'.

 

[xRaymne]

All these people in here bashing you OP are a bit harsh. And not open to anything other than their narrative. Close minded.

From a marketing perspective SBMM has been a godsend. For younger folks and people who were never good at the game it has been a godsend aswell. I applaud the game design behind it, as it is a feet to have such an advance matchmaking system. HOWEVER, people that have grown up with call of duty and "improved" from the old days on, are literally only playing their own skill level. No exceptions.

I can only speak for myself, but I do NOT want to "pubstomp". I want a healthy mix of different games. I want to do good, I want to get destroyed, I want games where I can play with a pistol only and not go 1 - 44. I want to experiment with different guns etc. Exclusively playing with people your own skill is ruining the fun for me.

Also "stop playing so good" is very hard. If you can play like a pill popping Adderall freak, you will automatically do it, if your enemies play like that aswell. Besides, purposefully not playing good can be considered reverse boosting, and I'm sure the same people making that argument are absolutely against reverse boosting

 

[EduBRK]

Great post Chronospherics!

The way the algorithm evaluates and "scores" a player is really important and will make it or break it for the matchmaking feel good.

I've always tought that 1v1 games, like Street Fighter, would be a great place to experiment with more complicated data to use for matchmaking that makes the player be in the flow, like analysing if the player is not good at staying in the ground, do not put him against a shoryuken on reaction master.

This is a reaaaally deep topic, but I think maybe is worth pursuing ways to make it work in the next iterations of games, even more in games like COD, that you have an account that spans cross games and have a large amount of data to be captured and processed.

 

[Phil me in]

If they added a ranked mode with sbmm and unranked without, you would still have pros queuing unranked just to pub stomp and have the same problem.

 

[MisterB_66]

If they added a ranked mode with sbmm and unranked without, you would still have pros queuing unranked just to pub stomp and have the same problem.

Click to shrink...

This, people would play there they win more often, especially if they get to clown on lower skilled players.

 

[Mirabai]

The problem with SBMM is, inproving is a punishment. Why would i try to get better when i already know the outcome?
There is no diversity, every game is the same. Since everyone is on the same skill level, every god damn game feels the same.

Its my frist CoDs since 5-6 years and it will be my last when the add sbmm in the next one.

 

[Zombine]

I used to be able to steal candy from babies, but now I can only steal candy from boxers and it doesn't work out the way it used to.

 

[Vic Damone Jr.]

Every complaint I've seen about SBMM boils down to this, people upset they can't relive the glory days of MW where they were shitting on new kids who got the game for Christmas or w/e

Click to shrink...

There are valid reasons besides that.

 

[Deleted member 2834]

There are valid reasons besides that.

Click to shrink...

Like what? Skill based matchmaking is clearly the best solution.

 

[Paquete_PT]

In a multiplayer game you're not suppose to play a round "every now and then" and still manage to overcome your opponents, that doesn't make much sense. It requires skill and practice. Every time I go back to COD it takes me some days-weeks to get back to form and perform at a good enough level. This COD is intense due to the general feel of the guns and sound design. Could it be that you're simply not as good as you think you are?

 

[poklane]

Like what? Skill based matchmaking is clearly the best solution.

Click to shrink...

• Worse connections and matchmaking times
• Fucks up matchmaking when playing with friends of different skill levels to the point where playing with them can make the game unplayable for the lesser skilled friend
• Makes getting better at the game unrewarding as the moment you get better so do your opponents

 

[Hentailover]

All these people in here bashing you OP are a bit harsh. And not open to anything other than their narrative. Close minded.

Click to shrink...

No, OP is just absolutely god awful at making his point. There are people actually meaningfully discussing this thing in this thread and their posts aren't being dismissed, cuz they are capable of presenting their point. OPs post just reads as whining that he can't get easy kills. It's not other people's job to make OPs point for him, it's his prerogative. He made it very terribly and reaping feedback accordingly.

 

[Anabolex]

The Apex Legends subreddit is having a meltdown about SBMM for weeks now. A dev claimed that SBMM is good for 90% of the playerbase and only hurts the top 10%.

 

[Bishop89]

100% agree.

It's not fun playing against tryhards nonstop.

 

[poklane]

100% agree.

It's not fun playing against tryhards nonstop.

Click to shrink...

This is basically my issue with SBMM as well. I'm not some player who jumps into CoD expecting to pub stomp everyone but jfc with SBMM I have to put on my sweatpants every single game just to not get torn a new one. It's like the game only has a Ranked Playlist.

 

[Sande]

If they added a ranked mode with sbmm and unranked without, you would still have pros queuing unranked just to pub stomp and have the same problem.

Click to shrink...

The funny thing about this is that below average players could avoid this if they just played ranked but they usually don't since it's seen as sweaty and stressful. Also, bafflingly, many games lock beginners out of ranked. Casual (without SBMM) is seen as beginner friendly and ranked is not when, in reality, it's really the opposite.

The Apex Legends subreddit is having a meltdown about SBMM for weeks now. A dev claimed that SBMM is good for 90% of the playerbase and only hurts the top 10%.

Click to shrink...

That's one of the reasons why the discussion is so one-sided on the internet. If you're on a dedicated subreddit (or any enthusiast forum for that matter), you're almost guaranteed to be good enough to be "hurt" by SBMM.

 

[Cake Boss]

It's the biggest reason I gave up on that trash game. I can only withstand so much broken shit in a gane, put sweaty matches on top of that then yeah no reason to play.

 

[SheriffMcDuck]

Nope. They just need to accept the fact that this is how it works. Plenty of game modes well suited for beginners, search and destroy is not one of them. (and neither is playing on shipment)

Click to shrink...

He's played other CoD games before, but is getting shredded in every game type he plays with us. He doesn't get shredded when playing by himself.

 

[spineduke]

I think as soon as someone brings this up, people just say things like 'oh so you just want to stomp pubs'? and I think that really misses why this approach can be frustrating for some players. It's a big deal that games are pushing more and more in this direction, check any forum surrounding these games and skill based matchmaking (SBMM) is up there as one of the biggest issues the community has with the game.

I'm going to use this thread as an opportunity to talk about SBMM in a bit more detail, so that perhaps we can have a better discussion. First, I think it's important to understand why developers feel SBMM is important, and for the most part, this comes down to engagement, and flow. That is, the idea that players stay engaged for longer if they stay in the 'flow' state, which is dependent on the player being adequately challenged.

In the flow model, high difficulty scenarios for low skilled players see players exit the 'flow' state, and become more likely to disengage from the game, while low difficulty scenarios for highly skilled players see players exit the flow state as they aren't challenged by the game. For players experiencing too much difficulty, it's often expected they become frustrated, for players experiencing too little, they become bored.

So with this model in mind, SBMM makes sense because by ensuring that matches stay at an adequate level of difficulty, players are more likely to stay in the flow state, and therefore stay engaged. For a game driven by MTX, this is a big deal because helps with your long term retention benchmarks, and in turn it benefits your average revenue per user (ARPU).

But, I think there's plenty of issues that provide ample opportunity to argue against the inclusion of SBMM.

• Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's (flow) model is just one model of player immersion in games, and while it can be attributed to player engagement, there are other factors that this model neglects. Perhaps most significantly, another popular theory of motivation (self determination theory, or SDT) describes the significance of compotency. The idea that it's important for players to have a sense that they are developing their skill and getting better at the game. Skill based matchmaking makes those improvements very difficult to see, because you are always playing players of the same skill level. If the system is working well, regardless of how good you get at the the game, you're seeing a consistent level of performance. This is very distinct from a system without SBMM, which would see players performing poorly to begin with, then gradually improving over time. In that sense, I think systems without SBMM are much more analogous to real-world skill acquisition, let's say you play Tennis with a coach, and practice to get better, you have a consistent benchmark there that you can measure yourself against. It doesn't necessarily get better with you, and that helps you see your improvement and feel competent as you play.
• Matches are also just, a lot less varied with skill based matchmaking in place. If we use the card game, MTG as an example, there's some appeal in turning up to a local MTG tournament, not knowing how good everyone is, and then testing your own deck against the various strategies that emerged in your local area. Because it's not explicitely skill based the tournament will see a wide range of players and strategies, and you'll get to see how your deck works in many unusual scenarios. If we scrapped that system and only played MTG with people of the same skill level, what we'd notice is that the gameplay would follow a very solidified meta at each level of play, for players at higher levels, you'd see the same sets of successful decks repeatedly. I think that can be a lot less interesting, at the very least it's nice to have an option to play with everyone.
• Another argument against skill based matchmaking is that it almost always, already exists as a ranked mode, and what people take issue with is not the fact SBMM exists, but the fact that it's actually being duplicated into the unranked playlists. I think that this creates a weird scenario, because if you're good at the game you end up playing super sweaty matches all of the time. There's no space to relax in this system, you're effectively playing ranked in two places, only in one your rank is invisible, and in the other, it isn't.
• A final problem is that it often doesn't work, quite the way you think it does, and for games that prioritise connection speed this can be a huge problem. It's a misconception to think that all forms of SBMM are ensuring that your opponents are each, individually of equal skill to you. In many cases that's not how it works, and what the system is actually doing is simply ensuring that both teams, are equally opposed. While this may sound like a good idea on paper, because these systems often take a wide range of skill levels into each match, it can be very difficult to balance out these games. Significantly, there are far more, very bad players, than there are very good players, so instead of killing your matchmaking times the game will often put you in a lobby with many very bad players, and balance out the lobby by putting the worst players on your squad.

For instance, let's take an MMR based system that has these ratings in a lobby.​

​

8000​

2000​

2500​

3000​

2300​

1000​

1000​

1000​

​

A skill based matchmaking system will often distribute this into two teams, as​

​

6000​

1000​

1500​

1500​

​

vs​

​

2000​

3000​

2500​

2000​

​

In this match, team 1 (top) win 4 of their matchups against the opposing players, whereas team 2 (bottom) win 9.​

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The problem is, that these matchmatchmaking ratings are not a linear scale, so it's inappropriate to sort the data in this way. Simply put, a player with 6000 MMR is not necessarily worth 3 players of 2000 MMR. They could be worth far more or far less than that numerical distance supposes. Most commonly, this type of system tries to compensate the skill of lesser skilled players, with higher skilled players, and that can lead to very unpleasant experiences for everyone as even if the high skill player can technically win each matchup presented in that lobby each one of his team mates lose every matchup. This ends up actually creating the scenarios that SBMM in theory seeks to avoid with very one sided matches seeing new players getting steamrolled while high skilled players are somehow expected to carry them.​

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Concluding thoughts...​

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I just wanted to put my thoughts out there on this topic as it's very rarely discussed in much depth, and 'you just want to stomp pubs' rhetoric is a little dull. I think there are merits to skill based matchmaking systems but there are also significant disadvantages and risks. Skill based matchmaking can help create balanced matches, but that can impact a sense of skill acquisition and progression over time, and some SBMM implementations can actively create balance issues. On the whole, I'm opposed to SBMM being present across all modes of play and think that a mix of unranked and ranked modes offer a happy middleground.​

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Thanks for sharing - i haven't had too much experience with SBMM but you raise some good points. Rocket League has this problem where returning to the game after a long hiatus in casual mode often gets you destroyed because you're all out of shape but the system doesn't account for your downtime.