this post was submitted on 27 Jul 2024
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Activision secretly experimented on 50% of Call of Duty players by 'decreasing' skill-based matchmaking, and determined players like SBMM even if they don't know it (www.pcgamer.com)
submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

As a casual who didn't start playing shooter games until late, if it wasn't for SBMM I wouldn't be playing them at all.

The real evil is engagement based matchmaking. I don't want to beat players even newer than me every time I haven't won in 20 games, and I certainly don't want to be steamrolled by players who have been playing their whole lives when the same happens to them.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

Yep, neither one is fun. I run into this issue with some mobile games - the matching algo is sometimes ludicrous - like 25% of either team gone in the opening moments.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

How about dedicated servers where users can play against the same people for more than 1 or 2 matches and get better without randos smurfing and griefing?

SBMM should be an option but not the only one. Actiblizz can kick fuckin rocks.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Why do people hate sbmm? If people had the choice they would always pick the: 10 year olds with a begative k/d option.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

I personally don't hate SBMM, but I hate that it is the only option in modern competitive games. When I want to sweat, SBMM is great.

But sometimes, I want to goof off with other people. I want the option to play de_westwood pistol/shotgun only server again if I so choose.

I want a little bit of control in my gameplay experience. Nowadays, it's either ultra try hard or people not giving a shit mode, nothing in between.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Obviously, the arguments people make against it don’t even make sense

i want easy games, i don’t want people as good as me in the lobbies

then just tank

but I have to tryhard

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago

"I want a non-consensual power fantasy."

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Browsing through the PDF, I'm getting the vibe that their way of measuring "skill" is weird. They claim to use multiple methods of measuring, they list a few obvious ones that they've found to be bad, but they don't say which ones they are using because "we are constantly iterating on our performance metrics to optimize the player experience per game-mode".

Elo-like systems tend to adjust skill based on the chance of winning current match X win/loss, but they're not (just) doing that. I wonder if they have a few weird metrics that look good on paper/in the lab but don't feel good in play.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

This is why I left Overwatch, they watered down the matchmaking so hard that it’s just random MM today.