'Segregating high skill players from the population at large, forcing long wait times on them, is a form of discrimination': former Halo multiplayer lead on the 'failure' of SBMM in modern games
'Segregating high skill players from the population at large, forcing long wait times on them, is a form of discrimination': former Halo multiplayer lead on the 'failure' of SBMM in modern games
Just how skill-based should skill-based matchmaking be?
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Chess solved this problem a long side ago, with odds - a stronger player may remove pawn(s) or piece(s) from their side of the board, to give the weaker player a winning chance (and to give themself a challenge). And it's completely transparent (well, you do see the initial board state, right?).
With some good design, plenty multiplayer games could implement the same idea - giving the more skilled player a bigger cooldown, less HP, or perhaps even restricting a few combos deemed too powerful.
This is bever gonna work. People who hate sbmm hate it because they have to play with player of their skill level, instead of just stomping bad players
People who hate sbmm hate it because they have to play with player of their skill level
I don't rule out that a lot of players simply want to stomp bad players, but that is not the only reason why people hate SBMM. The article mentions other two - long wait times and lack of variability. I believe that chess-like odds solve both.
And, sure, it wouldn't solve the "WAAAH I WANNA DESTROY NOOBZ!11 LOL LMAO" "issue", but... is it even fixable?
People who hate sbmm hate it because they have to play with player of their skill level, instead of just stomping bad players
Not entirely. While it's definitely true for some players (mostly content creators), people generally hate SBMM because they often end up in laggier lobbies. Nobody likes getting killed while you're behind cover, and CBMM directly remedies this.
For instance, I play Destiny 2, which switched from CBMM to SBMM a while back. I'm not a top player (top 48% in casual game mode according to D2Tracker), and even I hate SBMM since the games have always been of much lower quality since that switch. I'm actually playing lower-skilled players than I was in the CBMM days, because my region has a decent amount of high-skill players that I'd previously match up against. But now I'm playing lower-skilled players in higher-latency matches. That's not a good experience.
I'd rather lose to a player because they're better than me, not because their internet is trash.
CBMM should always be the default, no matter what the game is. SBMM can be used as a secondary filter, but making it the primary matchmaking factor is always going to be trouble for players of all skill levels.
Some fighting games let you filter games by connection and even connection type (wifi warriors you should be ashamed), but the primary matchmaking is skill based, and that still seems to work.
They should run proper goddamned metrics. I go to considerable effort to ensure good quality wifi.