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Should Bungie bring back SBMM? (Destiny)

by INSANEdrive, ಥ_ಥ | f(ಠ‿↼)z | ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ| ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, Saturday, June 27, 2020, 20:46 (1613 days ago)

(SBMM = Skill-Based Matchmaking)

Sooooo, has uh... any one here played Crucible recently? I've not played much, and the little I played was to push up my light with no build what so ever, just whatever I had in the slots at the time. I figured the reason it was taking longer to kill things (and quicker to down me) was because I was using some random blue weapon/armor combo with sub 40 stats across the board. I played a few games this evening with a far more meta Breachlight Sidearm & Gnawing Hunger Auto, as well as armors with far better stats now that I've pushed my light up to 1050 on my hunter, and... WOW.

I'm no PvP expert, but MAN are games frantic now. A real box of chocolates. On one hand, I've never had so much fun fighting for third place, on the other, Shotgun Apes Last Words Meta Meta Meta Oh my! Unless you are using similar weapons (which I tend not to do), it's frantic out there. Even then.

I know we have a fair mix of PVP Sweats & Casuals here, so; Should Bungie bring back SBMM? (Which they disabled to improve times it takes to find a match as I recall.)

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Should Bungie bring back SBMM?

by squidnh3, Sunday, June 28, 2020, 06:57 (1613 days ago) @ INSANEdrive

It's a pretty jarring difference. While I'm certainly getting a lot more kills, the strategy of a given game is almost completely gone as at least half of each team seems unlikely to have any idea as to what they should be doing to improve the team's position in the game. That makes it feel like I'm playing with bots, which is not really what I'm looking for in PvP. I guess I'll probably play more Survival or Elimination.

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Should Bungie bring back SBMM?

by cheapLEY @, Sunday, June 28, 2020, 10:40 (1613 days ago) @ INSANEdrive

I think they should. Crucible matches were much better before the change.

Every game of control I have played this season has been almost a complete blowout and filled with people quitting (I assume because of the lopsided score).

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Should Bungie bring back SBMM?

by CruelLEGACEY @, Toronto, Sunday, June 28, 2020, 13:38 (1613 days ago) @ INSANEdrive

It's tricky. Generally speaking, I haven't had a great experience with Bungie's SBMM. I'm not opposed to it in theory, but it just never seems to work well in Destiny. It's become a bit of a running joke with some of the DBOers who I play with that as soon as I join their fireteam, all our matches are about to get extra sweaty because adding just 1 player with a relatively high PvP rank suddenly throws our team against entire teams of Unbroken or Flawless PvP gods. It makes me wonder if I'm about to ruin my friends' games for the rest of the evening if I join them (I know that might come across as arrogant, but I hope you all get my meaning... my PvP rank is a bit higher than most, and I tend to get ranked against super sweaty opponents on a regular basis, regardless of who my teammates are).

So there's the problem of implementation. But beyond that, I think it would make the most sense to offer some playlists that rely on SBMM, and others that are connection based. For one thing, having PvP players from across the entire skill range compete against each other some of the time would help build more accurate skill ratings which could then be used to improve those playlists that do use SBMM. So maybe it would be best to use SBMM in the playlists where it makes the most sense, and feature CBMM in other playlists.

I might suggest something like a 6v6 "grab bag" style playlist with a mix of gametypes in the hopper that runs on CBMM. Make this playlist geared towards groups of friends or randos who just want to jump in and have fun. I'd probably stick with CBMM in Iron Banner as well, as it's a bit of an event that draws people in groups, plus winning isn't generally critical to making progress in IB related quests and bounties. If it were up to me, I'd switch Trials to CBMM as well. Whatever card-based system they have going right now, it clearly isn't working as intended (I saw a post on Reddit a while back saying that Trials matchmaking appeared to be pitting teams against each other based on how many matches into their card they were, regardless of wins or losses, but whatever).

There could then be other playlists that feature SBMM. Maybe the dedicated Control and Clash playlists. This is tricky too, as SBMM might be tougher to implement properly as team sizes get larger. I have no idea what to do with the competitive playlists (Elimination and Freelance Elimination). I think Bungie needs to decide of our comp ranking is supposed to be a tool with which to sort players and create matches between equally skilled opponents, or if it is supposed to be a ladder that we strive to climb on our way to a goal. Because right now it is kinda presented as both but doesn't really succeed in either way.

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Should Bungie bring back SBMM?

by Cody Miller @, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Sunday, June 28, 2020, 14:59 (1613 days ago) @ CruelLEGACEY

(I saw a post on Reddit a while back saying that Trials matchmaking appeared to be pitting teams against each other based on how many matches into their card they were, regardless of wins or losses, but whatever).

Man I miss beating a team and trials and getting the message that you gave them their third loss and knocked them out :-p

[image]

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Lol

by CruelLEGACEY @, Toronto, Sunday, June 28, 2020, 15:39 (1613 days ago) @ Cody Miller

- No text -

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Should Bungie bring back SBMM?

by Vortech @, A Fourth Wheel, Tuesday, June 30, 2020, 10:07 (1611 days ago) @ CruelLEGACEY

I have for sure noticed that i face tougher people when i play with you, but I never thought of it as ruining the game/night. If I preferred to play by myself I just…would. Also, it can mean that it draws from a higher score pool when filling open slots on our team too.

As for what they should do, Yeas bring back SBMM on certain hoppers and they can speed up matchmaking times by starting the search during the scoreboard display time. If people back out trunk the search you are no worse off. I don’t ;t see the downside.

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Should Bungie bring back SBMM?

by CruelLEGACEY @, Toronto, Tuesday, June 30, 2020, 16:14 (1611 days ago) @ Vortech

Yeas bring back SBMM on certain hoppers and they can speed up matchmaking times by starting the search during the scoreboard display time. If people back out trunk the search you are no worse off. I don’t ;t see the downside.

Now that is such a darn great idea, I can’t believe I haven’t seen it mentioned before. If Bungie had a crucible team, I’d implore them to implement it ;)

Should Bungie bring back SBMM?

by TheOmegaClown, Sunday, July 05, 2020, 07:49 (1606 days ago) @ INSANEdrive

I'd vote yes. This is the least fun I've had during an IB. Not sure how I'm supposed to improve my game when the skill gap between me and other players is this huge. I was never that into pvp for this reason alone, but was starting to get into it with SBMM pvp activities. Now that motivation is all but dead.

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