PLEASE READ: Skill Based Matchmaking Burger Flipping Analogy

[hayhor]

@Draelth I know and that is dumb. I always laugh when people that only solo complain about dying to premades. You havent seen anything if you've only solo.

[Axs5626Sxa5001]

@DarthValtrex

I don’t think he is asking for lobbies exclusively filled with noobs. I know that’s definitely not what I want.

I am fairly confident he wants lobbies that provide VARIANCE (players of all skills) in a public match setting. Why do many skilled players want this? Because the expectation to play in tournament-level matches EVERY match for no reward is ridiculous. As a clinical psychologist specializing in “rules, rewards, and consequences” , I can tell you right now that the science suggests that when competence is under-rewarded, incentive diminishes.

And unfortunately, a gold level player exclusively playing gold level players is actually NOT the same as Pred level players exclusively playing Pred level players. As the lobby skill increases, the overall experience of Apex changes drastically. As highlighted in his post, ONE TINY mistake typically = death in lobbies full of Masters/Preds. This experience is something most people simply don’t understand because they aren’t competing in these lobbies. There is a strange belief that somehow there is a scaling effect; that high skilled vs high skilled feels like average skilled vs average skilled— it doesn’t.

The issue is compounded by the fact that many of these players are already level 500, so sweating in public lobbies is literally rewarding these players with nothing. Perhaps if the level cap were increased this wouldn’t be an issue, but the fact remains that if you are going to ask skilled players to play the most stressful version of the game, you should be compensating them appropriately.

[Axs5626Sxa5001]

@ErectRainbow

While I agree with you on most of your points, I think it would benefit you to be extra clear on what you want public matches to look like. Most of the individuals who support SBMM in pubs believe that you want to pub stomp every match. Most people who are against SBMM do a poor job of conveying just how stressful it is exclusively playing other high skilled players— for no reward.

I actually liked your initial burger post because it anchors into the important conversation of “competence and compensation”. Unfortunately, this conversation makes some people feel uncomfortable because they don’t like the idea that more competent people should probably be entitled to “more” (in this sense, more means higher rewards or a more wins or a more enjoyable experience).

As it applies to Apex, I do think skilled players do deserve “more” (see above). The question becomes, how much more do they deserve. Totally random lobbies mean that the top % would probably win 99% of their pub games— I don’t think that would be reasonable for the rest of the community. I STRONGLY believe that SBMM was actually in a very good spot back in 2019 before they introduced Duos. There was far more variance and this variance resulted in good players performing well and weak players not performing well. It allowed for players to improve their skills to win more consistently. And someone please don’t tell me that EA ramped up the SBMM because the game was dying— this argument is just inaccurate. Utilizing the old SBMM, Apex was SUPER popular and financially lucrative. The game was doing very well. The only reason they ramped the SBMM up is because they wanted to squeeze just a little bit more money out of the player base by maximizing the likelihood that a lower skilled player can obtain a win— because euphoria of winning correlates to the likelihood of a player buying content.

[Axs5626Sxa5001]

@hayhor

I agree that any system that deters and punishes players for playing with friends is a bad system. People can go back and forth on the negative implications of boosting or fair lobbies and what have you, but a game should NEVER make playing with friends a specifically bad experience. Playing with friends is arguably the most important facet of the entire multiplayer industry.

[DarthValtrex]

@ErectRainbow "I personally believe that there's nothing wrong with pubstomping. I worked hard to become a top 100 player and I deserve to run through lobbies"

All I can do is laugh at you. Your entire response shows me and the forum everything.

If you want to read an article on the topic of SBMM here is a good link. https://www.vg247.com/2020/06/03/why-apex-legends-has-sbmm/

That article goes into great detail about SBMM in Apex. Why it works and that it's not always SBMM that is causing peoples problems.

I explained that ranked is for competitive gaming, PUBS are not. Ranked is where competitive gamers go to compete. It's where people go to grind towards higher ranks.

PUBS and Ranked are two entirely different things, even in higher skill lobbies. PUBS with SBMM is more about having an area where people can mess around. Where they can play with their lower skill friends and not worry about losing rank. I already explained this..

You don't want to find common ground. You just want people to agree with you. You don't want to learn about SBMM, why it exists and so on. If you're a top 100 player then I highly doubt your stats are that bad and highly doubt the majority of your rounds are that bad. What's your KD? and average damage?.

Nope I'm not an EA employee. I simply understand that SBMM is good for the overall health of the game.

You might not see anything wrong with PUB stomping and if that's true, I feel bad for you. You might want to read a book or two on self esteem, self worth and self confidence. But every single study on SBMM and/or EOMM (it depends on the game as to what is used) has shown that it's good for the game. That it provides a better gaming experience for everyone.

[DarthValtrex]

@Axs5626Sxa5001 I get the point your making and I don't disagree. Ranked vs PUBS are two entirely different games for me. So I understand that point completely.

But the game does need some type of SBMM. So I'm platinum IV in ranked and basically stuck there trying to solo queue my way up to diamond. That said, I was playing with a Pred and another high skill player yesterday. We were definitely in the harder lobbies. I still found it enjoyable, challenging but enjoyable. So they might be able to tweak the SBMM on PUBS down slightly. I really don't know how they make up matches for PUBS so it's hard to judge.

I'd think that the top 25% or so could be mixed together, the next 25% mixed together and so on. With some type of sampling of their last 5-10 games.. this way if players are having a difficult night, they can eventually find lobbies that are good for them.

If you read this article, you will find out that it's not always SBMM https://www.vg247.com/2020/06/03/why-apex-legends-has-sbmm/

If you're playing at odd times with there are few people online. SBMM becomes less of a priority and putting together a match becomes more of a priority. So you can end up on servers in which your ping sky rockets and you're going to have latency issues. In those cases it's not SBMM, it's the fact that your playing at odd times.

[Axs5626Sxa5001]

@DarthValtrex

I’m glad that you get to experience those top lobbies when you queue with your Pred friends. I’m also glad you find them enjoyable. They absolutely can be enjoyable— in doses. Being locked into these lobbies as a norm gets ridiculous. This comes back to my earlier point (which you didn’t disagree with) regarding variance.

You have the option to essentially “turn off” these lobbies by virtue of not partying up with your pred friend. Where is my option, lol? As I have shared with you before, it takes me losing approximately 130-140 games with under 200 damage to see a reduction of pred/master trails (I have tested this on 3-4 occasions), and that reduction is minimal.

I refuse to make a smurf account to pick on lobbies which exclusively consistent of weak opponents— that’s just wrong and boring. All I’m looking for is for them to revert the SBMM back to what it was in 2019. In its current form, its outright disadvantageous to be a skilled player (regarding overall online experience).

[DarthValtrex]

@Axs5626Sxa5001 Smurfing is kind of pointless you get bumped up so quickly, 2-3 rounds of me posting 1500-2k damage and I end up in lobbies with multiple pred trails coming out the drop ship.

I think if they add a No SBMM lobby you'll see people avoid it...

[hayhor]

@Axs5626Sxa5001 Unfortunately every team based game does it now. Battlefeont 2, released in 2017 does it horribly now. I've been told by friends the new COD ramps it extreme game to game.

[apostolateofDOOM]

Only skimmed OP and comments.. Another SBMM thread. 

@DarthValtrex I would take that article with a pinch of salt. They also said they don't want to milk every dime out of players but we've all seen how they've tweaked the store since to do just that. If they want to increase engagement for an enjoyable experience for most players or cater to casuals to increase revenue, i know which they'll focus on and defend with the data to back it up.

FPS games are competitive in nature anyway and what do we consider SBMM to be? Protecting new players or matching of equivalent skill because in their own words it's the former (which is good) with ranked being the latter, but what's the point of improving if both game modes end up with the same resulting experience for regular players? Just stay bad and win more and have more fun, right? Absolutely no incentive to improve. You know as i have spoken out and even created multiple threads about bypassing protections and how i disagree with smurfing or noob bashing but when SBMM is to harsh people will find a way around it as it's common knowledge ultimately leading to the breakdown of SBMM and those protections for newcomers anyway. One guy on the forum was fairly recently saying how he has 10+ accounts and will continue to create more. Most streamers have minimum 5+ like Diego/lulu ect.. that will obliterate entire lobbies but if it's content creation then that's fine apparently as it's ''just a game''.. Some example these influencers set.. 

''This game has killed friendships of mine just because I've gotten better at the game and I literally cannot play with those people anymore because we're just not competitive as a trio''

I can relate to this (wouldn't say it killed the friendships but we don't play as often as we would like) as i have a few IRL friends and a little brother that don't join up with me often because they only played a few hours total here and there and can''t keep up so i'm forced to play with people who have a fair amount of time or similar rank.

End of the day it isn't going to change.. Best solution out of hundreds of threads is giving players the choice of having SBMM on/off and to encourage players by adding rewards to compete in those matches. Maybe 10/50/100 wins and you get an evo skin?  Incentive is there and newcomers into those servers get brown trousers when they see that flaming ball of DOOM coming.