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SBMM...Sometimes I Wonder What You're Thinking.
So, actually had mostly really good games this evening. Really close, really even. Won some, lost some, even had 1 where I gave 2 people gate after someone DCed on first down and was thanked for it in postgame (the fact that this is rare speaks...volumes for the average behavior of survivor players, at least at my MMR).
Then I hit that game.
You know...that game.
Playing Demo. Ironworks (it's...always Ironworks) 2 gens pop before I even find the survivors.
Find them, start chasing and - ye gods, I just can't catch them after I injure them. Incredibly tight looping, really great vaults, drawing out every pallet drop to the max, dodging every shred perfectly - even my rudimentary mindgames do nothing. And of course clicky clicky strobe strobe so much that my photosensitive brain starts aching.
I get 4 outed with 2 hooks total and got teabagged from the gate until I chased the butts out.
I check the hours played - it's a 4man SWF (they are all on each other's friend list and playing) and the lowest number of hours played was 1,300. The highest was somewhere around 6800. 2 rocking Overcome+CoH+Shadowstep+Dead Hard, the rest DH+PTS+IW+DS. 2 Brand New Parts, 2 fancy flashlights.
Now, it's not like I've been going on multi-stomp chains or anything. If anything, I've lost more than I've won tonight.
What is it with the SBMM system and these bizarre matchups I get occasionally - SWFs with a h/p total of nearly 10,000 - when I've got maybe 270 hours as killer? Is the system just down for maintenance sometimes? Did these people smurf down their MMR? Did someone wiser than me dodge the lobby?
It's better than it was under ranks, sure - but I still don't get how this sort of game can occur if the MMR 'floors' and 'ceilings' are working correctly.
Comments
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Always skip those lobbies if you even have an iota of a clue it's an SWF.
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I somewhat know how you feel and at this point, I just need a hug and that'll make me feel better.
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The annoying thing - I've actually had some brilliant games versus SWFs recently. My favorite was 4 players all in themed outfits, around 400 hours played a piece, who gave me a 30 minute slugfest of a game, and ended up with 2 dead, two dead on hook and us all adding each other postgame. Probably the closest and most exciting game I've ever played in DbD.
But yeah...I'm just going to have to start dodging lobbies where there are already 4 players waiting - because clearly someone dodged it and for a reason.
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In my experience, SBMM has no idea how to matchmake for 4 man SWFs. I've been in SWFs where the lowest hrs are 2000 and we get a killer under 100.
It's probably a case of needing to pull killers from outside the intended MMR range to fill open slots. Like maybe once it opens up the range, it casts too wide of a net. It's a similar experience on the survivor side sometimes with teammates.
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That happens when high MMR killers stop playing...
or there is not enough of them, but I doubt that unless everyone started to lose on purpose.
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It doesn't work/bugged lmao.
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Yeah it's a tough one.
This one was a 'wat' moment though, because there is literally no way that I was the closest killer to their MMR at peak.
I've got some suspicions regarding the SBMM.
- The 'floors' and 'ceilings' do not apply when someone dodges a lobby, and it just grabs whoever is available.
- The system doesn't update correctly during some periods (I know if I go on a losing streak at night, I'll generally have a winning streak the next evening.
- People are still finding a way to smurf.
- There's a damn hack that can fiddle with your MMR.
- It has some sort of daily 'maintenance' period, where it's totally offline.
Would really appreciate some more transparency from BHVR on this stuff.
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I don't really mind dead squads. If I knew from start it is dead squad would be better tho, so I can prepare on it with, so that is more custom match thing for me.
But I hate survivors that use everything they can to stomp killer and they think it's because they are good and are just toxic shits.
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Yeah, there are two things that makes DbD a tough sell right now. Have been trying to get the wife and 4 other chaps from our Dungeons and Dragons group to try it, but I don't want to lie to them and what always puts them off is:
- The grind.
- The ingame community.
Seriously, I don't mind losing, as long as it was somewhat even. I'd honestly rather lose an even game than win a game where I got paired up against newbies.
I can even tolerate the odd sore loser in postgame. I understand.
What always gets under my skin are the smug, gloating anuses that always run stompcomps with fully stacked perks, addons and a map offering - then have the gall to be jerks after, even though you played the game out ridiculously fairly.
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Yeah, it's just when you don't camp for last kill and then they are toxic. It's like: I should have camp you so hard...
Grind is huge issue, it's not that big issue for survivors as for killers tho.
If you get full squad and teach them some basics first in KYF, community wouldn't really be any issue.
They said that they are working on grind fix, but I am really worried about how they said it. They are going to "fix" it and also prestige rework and I really hope it's not connected, but if they try to show me that you can get more BP higher prestige you have, I am gonna rage a lot. That would help veteran players, not new players...
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Kind of hard to say unless BHVR confirms one way or the other. I suspect it's just that it opens matchmaking too wide once it goes beyond initial parameters. I still get stupid easy killer games where I 4k at two or three remaining gens and survivors have a fraction of my hours, then the next game will be the correct difficulty.
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Stupid
BS
Matchmaking
Monster
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As a general rule, the matchmaking system is doing the best it can with what it has to work with. By that, I mean that the limiting factor in off-peak hours is typically the players in the queue. The system is trying to match you with somebody within a pretty tight range of skill at first, but there are times where there simply aren't any other players in the queue within that range for you to match with at the moment. When this happens, the system starts expanding the acceptable ranges over time.
The basic trade off is "I can find you a match more quickly, but it might not be as balanced". We can keep the range super tight to try to enforce extremely balanced matches, but those result in pretty crazy wait times. We could also start with the range extremely open to shorten the wait times, but now the matches are all extremely unbalanced. That said, we adjust this system on the fly from time to time and take a look at how it impacts both wait times and match outcomes overall.
So most cases of "It's not updating!" or "It seems to stop working at certain times of day" are actually cases of "There just weren't any good matches in the queue for you right now". The system has no downtime, and we have yet to see any cases of improper updates (and we do check!).
With all this in mind, we are far from calling the matchmaking system perfect or done. We're still monitoring it for bugs, exploits, hiccups, and also planning general improvements. The community is a dynamic group, the game is constantly being updated, and our matchmaking is no different! One of your suspicions above is absolutely spot on, and is something we are actively looking to address. I'm reviewing a design proposal for it later today!
Love y'all talking about matchmaking so much. <3
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@StarLost You are right about the lobby dodging causing it. The devs said this in the past. I think it was on a live stream. If the killer pulls out, the system prioritises getting them a lobby because they are supposed to be in a game already.
I don't know if it relevant but they said this before MMR, but my experiences match yours which leads me to beleive they haven't changed this.
It is annoying but fortunately these matchups don't happen often enough to put me off, and it is way less than it used to be with the awful old matchmaking system.
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Thanks!
I think I may be somewhat unique in this one - but I've definitely noticed an overall improvement in match quality. I am sympathetic to the complaints of high MMR players who seem to be struggling at the moment though.
A few questions, while I have you here (Dad to Dad :) )
- I understand the 'find you a match more quickly' but most of my crazier matchups have almost instant queues. Is this due to a 4man sitting in queue for ages and me just drawing the short straw?
- I've seen a fair few players (in their words) 'managing' their MMR, generally by suiciding at the end of the match. Are there any plans to help prevent/discourage smurfing?
- What would be the definition of a 'good match'? Because at least 1 match in 5 throws me up against either rather new players (don't worry, I generally ease off them once I notice) or against monsters who...sadly seldom ease off on me.
- I, personally, would not mind my wait times increasing by 50% to ensure closer matches. It's no fun to just roll over people or have to 'dial it back' and it's no fun to get pulverized by a nightmare squad. Isn't waiting in a longer queue and knowing that it's going to be an even-ish game better than waiting in a long queue and having no idea what I'm going up against?
- Are there any plants to make MMR/enemy MMR/gains and losses visible in postgame? This would allow us to find answers to so many hotly debated issues regarding MMR.
- Are there any plans to 'inflate' MMR when people play as a group (something of an industry standard) - for instance, applying a temporary, proportional multiplier to SWF groups - say 1.1x for a 2man, 1.3 for a 3man and 1.6 for a full SWF. This would go a long way to offsetting the enormous advantages coordination and information sharing provide, without 'punishing' folks for playing with their mates.
- Lastly, are there periods where the SBMM system is just entirely offline? I'll have patches characterized by near instant queues and absolutely bonkers matchups that really do make me wonder...
That all said, have a fantastic day and I appreciate the response.
PS: Buff Pig! (couldn't resist).
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inflating mmr on swf would just shift problem to higher elo.
SWF is just a problem itself mostly due to perk VOIP.
If all players have equal mmr, with current state of the game, its just even further away from actually being a balanced match
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I disagree.
Again, it's something of an industry standard. Most games with both solo queue and premade options facing the same opponents do this exact thing.
The advantages of communication, coordination and being able to stack specific perks and addons with a map offering are enormous, and quite difficult to quantify.
Offsetting this by pairing you with a stronger opponent seems like a fair and meaningful way to counteract this, and get at least partially rid of the 'stompcomp stomping lowbies' paradigm.
It would be an interesting experiment at least.
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I feel bad for the killers that get left with the swfs we all dodge haha
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It is still transfering problem to higher elo.
This is asymmetrical pvp game. 4 players will never be equally skilled as killer.
I wouldnt mind playing against SWFs where I can be efficient.
And I believe as most of the killers wouldnt mind either.
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"The system is trying to match you with somebody within a pretty tight range of skill at first, but there are times where there simply aren't any other players in the queue within that range for you to match with at the moment."
Can you define what "skill" comes down to?
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I'll answer what I can so we can both go back to building decks / falling asleep while watching The Big Game. I'm mostly focused on answering questions about the existing system, and not going into too much details about potential future changes.
- For those insta-queues that feel unbalanced, you're correct! Imagine the situation I was describing before where you are waiting and waiting for someone to show up in the queue that's within your range, but from the other side. A group of survivors is waiting (and to be clear, they might not be a full SWF, just that they are grouped together by the MM system), and then you pop into the queue: An opponent who is near the edge but within the boundary for their search. "Wonderful!" the MM system thinks, "I can finally give them a match. It might not be the most balanced, but hey, they're playing after a long wait!".
- We actually had a system in place to prevent smurfing / intentionally dropping your MMR before, and it ended up causing more problems than it helped. That's not to say that it's off the table forever, but rather that it's a really tricky problem to solve in a way that works across the board. it's not at the top of the list right now, as there are other issues that we can tackle with bigger payoff in terms of matchmaking improvements. Prioritization!
- I could talk for hours about defining a "good match", but I'll do my best to summarize: What the MMR system does is predict the outcome of a match before it starts. More specifically, it predicts the odds of the outcomes. With a large enough sample size, it's actually really good at this! If you look at all the games where the system says "PlayerA has a 60% chance of escaping this match", PlayerA does escape those matches about 60% of the time. Generally speaking (and I'm definitely simplifying here, so don't take this too literally) we operate under the assumption that a 50% escape chance per player is indicative of a balanced match. This holds true in most games outside of DbD, be it Chess or [Insert Popular FPS Franchise Here]. If both players are equally as skilled, then the odds of either one winning are about equal. So if you can make a match where the prediction is that the odds are equal, then you've likely got a balanced match!
- Some people are willing to wait 30+ minutes for a perfect match, and others don't want to wait more than 5 no matter what. So we have to find a decent compromise, which is extremely difficult. Remember that the MM system isn't just trying to find you good matches, it's trying to find good matches for every single player!
- I'm not going to go into long-term plans here but I will say that we have consciously decided not to show explicit MMR values for now, as doing this generally result in a lot of toxicity for other online games.
- I'm very familiar with the technique of managing group MMR, and it's something that we have also considered. For a while, I was thinking about maintaining a completely independent MMR for solo queue and group queue, which is something I have seen other games do. That said, several of them have moved away from that technique as it didn't actually provide much benefit for matchmaking, but did result in a fair bit of technical overhead. Overall, we're still open to doing something like this once we feel like we've got a good solution and that it's going to be a meaningful improvement, but there are bigger fish to fry for the moment. As it stands, we're taking the average MMR of the group and using that for matchmaking, which works fairly well at a high level. We'll likely revisit this after we've made other improvements elsewhere.
- SBMM never goes offline. It sees you when you're killing, it knows when you escape. It knows when games are bad or good, so play good for goodness sake! But for real, the MM system learns by doing. When you get matched in something that feels crazy unbalanced, the system is paying attention and adjusting both your MMR and your opponent's MMR accordingly. There are situations where the system can be very unsure about where a player should fit, and so it tosses them into games to calibrate their MMR. When you do happen to end up in a game against these folks, keep in mind that your MMR is likely not being adjusted that much by the result.
I hope that helps clear a few things up. Overall, the biggest challenge of building a matchmaking system is that it has to produce thousands and thousands of matches every day, so we have to take the big picture AND the zoomed in view into account. For every discussion we have about a graph showing all games in the last month, we also dig into specific examples to see how they are panning out, too.
Thanks for taking the time to ask questions and listen! <3
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They wouldn't get left with them if they dodged them too. The devs aren't going to do anything about the massive advantages an SWF has over a killer so killers should never give another SWF a match.
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Whoa, thanks mate. I'll give this a read through.
EDIT: Let me go point by point, because this is genuinely interesting to me (as someone who has dabbled in game design).
- Yes, I'm not really sure what could be done here. On one hand it must be frustrating to wait for ages, but on the other hand it does sometimes feel like I'm being thrown as a snack to the crocodiles. If I was going to be entirely honest, a big reason for this is how often I get teabagged and gloated at after getting stomped by these groups (which does wear on you, even if you put on a brave face). This game has a...colorful community at times.
- I think you may need to consider bringing this back. I know that it sometimes occurs to me to manage my own MMR, and - especially when I start feeling outclassed - I'm tempted to just let some more people escape (I try to resist because I've seen so many games ruined by smurfing). I'm not sure what the reality of the situation is, but the common perception is that when you start learning a new killer/haven't played one for a while, it gets pegged just under the highest MMR of your killers. I...have no idea what the truth of this one is (so much information on SBMM is hearsay and recycled gossip taken as fact).
- That does sound like a balanced match - but due to the somewhat snowbally nature of DbD a lot of games feel like one sided stomps going one way or another. This isn't so much an MMR issue as a 'feel' issue though, and is beyond me to solve.
- Yeah, it's a knotty one. I know that my survivor queues are sometimes long enough to watch an entire episode of Bob's Burgers. I have no idea how to get people to play killer more. Well...I have some, but that's going to put the cat amongst the pigeons...
- I'm glad you mentioned the toxicity issue - because it's one of the two things that does make DbD something of a hard sell when I try to drag the wife and my Dungeons and Dragons crew into it (the second being the grind). It's likely outside the scope of this discussion, but I wonder if some sort of positive reinforcement via a reward tied to the 'thumbs up' postgame option (naturally only being able to apply it to your opponent) could be a partial solution.
- Thanks. I'm glad that the SWF thing is at least on the radar. The difference between going up against a group of solos and a group of coordinated survivors is staggering, even at my likely intermediate MMR. Others have suggested more robust communication solutions for solos and a corresponding balance adjustment for killers, but yeah - again, wandering off topic.
- Interesting. The only thing I don't like about this is that my MMR isn't shifting much despite me getting hammered flat. This is what sometimes (I think) creates those awful strings of games where you just start wondering if you are really bad at the game, because despite suffering a massive loss, nothing prevents you from getting that sort of group immediately after.
All this aside, I do appreciate you dialoguing with me (us) here. You've made a hell of a game and - while balance is always a moving target - I do feel somewhat optimistic for the future.
Post edited by StarLost on2 -
"Tight range of skill" about a system that works only with kills/escapes without taking any other information to determine your real skill and involvement in the trial... okay
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If you wouldn't mind me asking, how does disconnecting impact your MMR? I've had games- unfortunately, a lot of them- where players have curbstomped me (these being incredibly good players that I woulnd't have stood a chance against without playing my mains) however at the end all 4 have DC'd. Would this raise my MMR and lower theirs? Freeze everyone's?
How does it work?
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Is there something that could be put into place in matchmaking to prevent players from going against eachother multiple times within a certain period of time? Last week I had the same killer in 5/6 matches. I had 2 matches where I got hatch and 3 where the killer tunneled me out first meanwhile they had 3-4ks each match, our MMR should've been going in opposite directions. I stayed to watch the matches when I died to see how my teammates did. The wait to get into a lobby was quick, under a minute. I could understand if there had been a wait but this felt like we were instantly getting matched together - meanwhile I never saw the same teammates. I tried switching to killer but after 5 minutes of waiting I went and played something else. I get wanting to keep waits down but playing against the same player multiple times in a row is not fun at all.
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Thank you so much for clearing things up! Those questions were very important for us to know :)
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Thank you for asking this!
I was wondering this myself and really should have remembered to ask here.
If a survivor DCs, does that inflate my MMR/decrease theirs?
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Disclaimer: I'll avoid giving specific numbers here as an anti-exploit measure. If I say the exact values, one of you clever folks will figure out a way to ride the line and do something cute with it!
If a DC happens early enough in a match, then the result of that matchup is discarded. So if one survivor DCs right away, then that survivor's MMR is left alone, and the Killer's MMR isn't adjusted for that survivor either. It can still be adjusted based on the remaining three, depending on how the rest of the match goes (these are weighted so that if the survivors die it doesn't impact MMR as much since they were at a disadvantage).
Later in the match, though, the adjustment goes through. This is so that you can't just DC before getting hooked to "skip" the adjustment. And likewise, if the Killer DCs when the gates open, that's treated like all 4 survivors escaped in terms of MMR adjustment. Rage quitting is the most common reason to disconnect in these scenarios, so that's what we're targeting with this logic.
Part of this also to make smurfing more time consuming: You can't just join games and immediately DC to drop your MMR. You gotta hang around for a while, which makes intentionally tanking your MMR much more of a slog and generally time consuming. Forcing people to hang out in a match also makes it more likely that they'll actually end up playing it normally, too! And then you add onto all of this the DC penalties, which increase with each disconnection, and suddenly those who disconnect are spending a lot of time for very little influence over the system.
Thanks for asking a great question! DC logic is tricky business, and we're always working on new ways to improve it to handle more extreme cases, like the one you mentioned.
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Fantastic, thanks. That's a huge mystery solved.
What happens in the case of a loading screen DC (The Host Has Disconnected or something)? Is the entire match discarded?
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Why not give the players a Handicap when you know they are being matched badly just to make a queue shorter?
Why not have the option to opt out of swfs? or limit to a duo? You can play with your friends all you want in free mode. I don't want to play with your friends.
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Some people already figured out ways to game the system without DCing or playing AFK wraith though, they just play for hooks and then let everyone escape since the devs told us the criteria that raises or lowers MMR. Is that really a healthy thing?
The fact MMR only takes into account kills and escapes is something that still to this day bothers me
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It's more concerning that you can get the worst of both worlds, by design.
- Get queued into a stompy premade because they were waiting for too long.
- Not lose any MMR when you get stomped, so you get another stompy group directly after until you roll a '6'.
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This is DesignDad
He answers questions directly and fully
be more like DesignDad
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Yep, I also want to say thanks for sharing your knowledge, Mr. DesignDad, Sir.
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Playing has Killer is now só unbalanced... And has a survivor is so boring because killer just camp and nothing more... Thanks BHVR...
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Thank you so much for clarifying this!
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@DesignDad are there any plans to disable the current MMR system until it is in a better state? Right now it works very poorly and it makes the game very unfun for a lot of people.
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@DesignDad I know I'm not the one who asked, but thank you for actually taking the time to answer these kinds of questions fully and in a meaningful way! This is the kind of thing we want to see as players - more transparency.
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Couldn’t agree more.
sure they will take their time to make meaningful adjustments on balance based on this. But if the matches are actually universally as bad as people say on high MMR but not low mmr, then they will see this in their statistics (which are probably more elaborate than just pick rate and kill rate.
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The game balance is bad, and so is the MMR system. It does not even remotely measure a player's skill and only made games worse for lots of people. It needs to go.
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Thanks for chatting with us and shining some light on these concerns.
Would you be able and willing to speak a bit about primarily basing Killer MMR on kills rather than hooks/hook states?
It seems like the game ultimately wants killers to spread the attention and go for multiple hooks, but the MMR right now seems to reward camping and tunneling, interprets that as skill, and ups their MMR.
Would love to hear your thoughts. Thanks!
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