SBMM works fine and so do boon totems?!!?!?
You've got to be kidding me.
A significant percentage of your player base quit playing this past fall (myself included) due to boon totems and SBMM and all the devs could say was that they don't see a problem with either issue?!?!?!
SIMPLY LOOKING AT DATA IS NOT GOING TO GIVE YOU THE ANSWERS TO PLAYER'S COMPLAINTS.
The devs REALLY give the impression that they don't play their own game when it's player base has been complaining nonstop for months just how awful these mechanics have been implemented.
There is no counterplay with boon totems. That fact alone shows us how imbalanced they are. If a survivor can cleanse a Hex totem within the first 30 seconds of a match, a survivor's precious Boon totem should not be able to be relit an infinite amount of times as there needs to be limitations as well. Nerfing CoH to 75% is not going to change anything. Like not one bit.
And SBMM. How many players is it going to take to get through to the devs that basing this system around kills and escapes is NOT AN ACCURATE DEPICTION OF ONES SKILL AND THE MAJORITY US HATE IT SO MUCH WE'RE QUITTING PLAYING THE GAME OR DROPPING KILLER INDEFINITELY AND ANYONE THATS PLAYED ANY OTHER GAME WITH MMR, KNOWS THIS IS BULLS-IT. Period. End of story. To say otherwise makes us wonder why in the world is (I promised myself I wouldn't say their name) still lead game designer for BHVR?!?!
In closing, catering to the new playerbase (to rely on them to get addicted and buy up cosmetics) instead of taking into account your OG, diehard playerbase and how much we're telling you these things are killing your game, is an awful model for your company. We, the players, understand adding new features such as the ones mentioned in this post, take A LOT of work, time, resources and money BUT if it's not working, it's not working. Swallow your pride and find another way because it's becoming clear that Dead By Daylight, a game we all love, is dying and its community is getting more toxic by the minute because of it.
I was hoping this Q&A would give promise to me picking DbD back up since quitting last fall after 4+ years, 5000+ hours and countless hundreds of dollars on DLCs and cosmetics but alas, this answered nothing promising.
R.I.P.
Comments
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So, here's the problem, right? I'd kind of agree with you on boons, I think they aren't working fully as intended and should be tweaked a little (though obviously they shouldn't be made limited use, that'd be silly), but when it comes to MMR...
Yeah, sure, a lot of people are saying that they're quitting. Maybe a lot of people are! And they're blaming MMR... but have you ever asked them to explain what they dislike about it?
Because usually, in my experience, their answers have extremely little to do with the SBMM system. Usually it's stuff about how fast gens pop, or how strong certain survivor perks are, or the feeling that they have to play "sweaty" to get anywhere... and those things aren't MMR. Those things were a problem before MMR, even. The MMR system is just a convenient scapegoat for people's generalised frustrations.
I generally believe them when they say that the MMR system itself is working well, and that the problem is that they let the matching get too lax to prioritise speed. I think a little more work should be put in regardless (and they've mentioned fixes for facecamping which is one of the most glaring issues rn), but the system clearly isn't actually broken, it just isn't working as well as it could be.
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Yeah same situation, sbmm killed my fun and i literally stopped to play killer when i was used to play 5-6h a day
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I feel like boons need to be more of a double edged sword as right now they are all bonus and no regret. i just hope they can come up with a way to do that like while healing with coh your aura is revealed to the killer or something almost like nurses calling. If not that they need to think of something otherwise killers are just too easy to play around
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That it's "working well" but is also selecting teams based on a subset of the gaming experience is probably the whole problem. You took a game where the most competitive end of the balance is really limited and tires people out fast and told all the reasonably good players "play like this all the time or eat a ton of losses in a row and hope you'll get easier games", which is a great way to lead to nobody having fun. And then, of course, the game's balancing cycle is way too slow to shift this balance.
I'm pretty sure feeding on hope is meant to be the Entity, not the game itself.
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That is definitely the other problem- WAY too many people think that they're being told to play a certain way because they hear "MMR system" and they think of a ranked ladder.
I think that's why we initially didn't know how it worked, I think BHVR kinda knew that people knowing how it worked would lead to them assuming they'd be rewarded for playing that way or punished for not playing that way, even though that's not how it works and it's just a matchmaking system. A bit naive to assume it would work out as a secret, but understandable.
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I wasn't a fan of the SBMM answer. It felt like they're so stuck on escape/kill win criteria that they're ignoring players when they are saying the matchmaking from it doesn't make games feel good.
The main thing I see from people that don't like SBMM is that it doesn't feel good/fun. It's nice that the stats show it's working but does that really matter if people aren't enjoying the game because of the matchmaking?
On previous stream when asked about OoO Ethan said the stats said it was fine so no reason to make changes. Cote had to point out that even though the stats said it was fine players complaining because it didn't feel fine was a reason to look into it. OoO was then changed for the better and the complaints stopped.
Players are saying SBMM doesn't feel fine even though the stats are saying it's fine. Even players I have seen defend SBMM have said they think there should be more nuance to it - especially on the survivor side.
On the survivor side it's not fun being matched with survivors that hide and hope to be carried by the others or are waiting for everyone to die so they can get hatch. These players continue moving up and dragging down the teammates that are actually trying. It's not fun when a 4v1 is made to feel like 3/2/1v1 because your teammates aren't helping.
On killer side it's sweatier matches because survivors are now trying to finish gens as fast as possible - only escapes matter now and getting gens done is what powers the exits. Killers now facecamp more because it guarantees kills and there's no point anymore to bother trying for multiple hooks - why leave the hook if they can secure the kill with camping and then get atleast a second with NOED? With emblems you would get rewarded for hooks and punished for camping but SBMM is the opposite.
Ultimately SBMM has encouraged unfun gameplay on both sides and made matchmaking feel bad. Stats may say matchmaking is fine being based just on kills/escapes but the games don't feel good.
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I'm happy to say, unlike a previous post of mine, I can finally agree with you on something. There's too many glaring imbalances in this game that have been slept on for far too long that SBMM has done nothing but exasperate the whole experience for killer and strip it of any fun.
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I couldn't agree with you more!!!
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Bit of a sticky situation, really. You probably had a ton of people playing this sort of way anyway most of the time, but the iffy matchmaking (on all sides) would tend to give people breaks sooner or later. And when you say you're doing "skill-based" matchmaking, nobody wants to sell themselves short when it comes in and play bad.
So, you've got a ton of people stuck in a situation where they're going to have a bad time either way, and then if you do too well with less serious builds you get lobbed upwards into the kill-escape-meta-is-all death cloud (when that doesn't happen by accident anyway).
Either the balance needs to change faster, or MMR needs some more fiddliness bonked into it so at least it's vaguely in line with how people want to (or claim to want to, some people are unpleasable) play in the first place.
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Here is how Boons should of been reworked.
Boons have 3 tokens.
Everytime a player blesses a totem it uses a token. No more tokens then no more Boons, that way there is actual risk vs reward on them.
Range should be reduced from 24m ▶️ 15m. This would keep the floor penetration smaller and not as bad.
Killers break totems when snuffing or have the option to break or snuff. This can be used instead of the token system as it's still a risk vs reward.
Killers are able to see the Boon Totems aura when they are within 15-20m of it to aid in finding them.
Either remove the booming notification of blessing a totem or give us a notification of the area along with the loud noise.
Any of these ideas could be pick and used as possible changes to Boons in general but not break them as a whole. It's sad that the DEVs think they are working as intended but not actually listening to thier players.
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It's both, I think. The balance needs some looking at, and the system should probably use the emblem system as a second series of checks to see how far up or down to adjust the MMR of a player post match.
Of course, the core problem behind the people dramatically yelling about how much they hate MMR isn't really the game, it's that a lot of people are burned out. Everyone needs to stop memeing that dang Civ clip and actually listen to the advice in it, because it's always just been the correct thing to say.
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Seeing BHVR devote man hours and resources FOR TWO YEARS to a system that has, for all intents and purposes, completely failed has basically sapped any hope I had of this game getting better.
For maybe a month-ish, I almost thought MMR was working because all of my games were super sweaty on both sides. Now it just feels like old Red Ranks, a total potluck of players.
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That'd be pretty soul-destroying, if it happened!
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What?
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If they put that much manpower and resources into something that completely failed, it'd suck.
Of course, you already know I don't agree that happened, so I'm not quite sure what you expect me to say there!
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What do you call the last few years worth of MMR tests?
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The first two I'm given to understand went poorly, I wasn't playing for those two so I'll believe it- I've heard some pretty wack things.
The third one was net neutral, not much difference.
The fourth one was actively good, which I feel like a lot of people forget? That the final test of MMR went really smoothly and everyone was pleasantly surprised?
And then the system was implemented, and... things are only very slightly better. The system is far from above criticism, there's quite a lot that can and should be improved- as the devs have said themselves, the actual matchmaking part is a little too lenient and throws people into games it knows they're unbalanced for just because it's faster- but people who claim it's made the game worse are completely wrong. Usually, they seem to blame the MMR system for the game's balance, despite it having been this way since before the system was introduced.
So, yeah, I wouldn't call that "something that, for all intents and purposes, completely failed".
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The first two were awful.
The third saw queue's (for me) ranging up to 1 hour and 45 minutes.
The final test was extremely sweaty all the time.
The Live release was really sweaty for a month, but now it's back to being a mess of random players since MMR never resets. We have literally just come full circle. Nothing was accomplished.
MMR was a waste of time.
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All sbmm did was reveal the games balance and flaws to people.
The old match making threw you with anyone thanks to the extremely slack pip requirements below red for no reason, and the huge match window allowing greens to be matched against reds. and people were blissfully unaware of the problems because they got potatoes 9.9/10 times.
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I encourage you to read bm33's response as to why SBMM has been so awful.
I'd also like to add that with all the imbalances the game already presents (ie. SWFs, the meta, the game's mechanics favouring the survivor side, etc.) all SBMM has done is exasperate the experience.
Playing killer used to be fun. The unpredictability of matches was a thrill. You didn't know if you'd get stomped, stomp on or have an equal, challenging match. SBMM however has killed all of that, it's all killed playing casual. Sure chases are fun and all but does that not just get boring after awhile? Players like to win but there's no winning at being any sort of good at killer these days. The killer base is way smaller than the survivor base so SBMM does nothing but match us killers that are somewhat decent at the game, with the best of the best survivors. If you want that dopamine hit of winning, you either have to play sweaty or extremely toxic which feel so bad. And that is the majority of why us killer mains hate SBMM.
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Yeah, exactly! When people complain about MMR, they inevitably point to how sweaty games are. That's my point.
Not to say it's working perfectly because I'm sure someone'll try that despite me already saying it multiple times. The games are more consistent, but not by that much.
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I'm not pointing to that. I don't know why you think I am.
The games aren't anymore consistent than they were under the old Rank system. If anything is even worse.
Rank Reset once a month, MMR never resets which means over time, people will work their way into 'high mmr' no matter what.
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I'm just going to have to disagree with you there. From everything I've seen, not just from my games but from anyone else's that I've been able to view or hear about, games are definitely more consistent.
Some of the time that's because of people whining about their games being harder, sometimes it's from people talking positively about their experience. Usually not from streamers, I'm given to understand they're victims of the "prioritise speed" thing a lot so they get some really wack games- but even then, some of them are definitely having a harder time.
I really do believe that the primary issue with the current inconsistency that exists is because the matchmaking wants fast, not accurate. It seems very coherent with what I've seen- that this system does have the potential for much greater consistency but needs some more tweaks. I do think things like emblem score should be factored in as a secondary weighting mechanic, but otherwise it's probably more on the "fast not accurate" thing.
To your last point, rank reset was a nightmare and it's absolutely a good thing that it's gone. I also have to assume people lose MMR faster than they'd lose rank, but to be fair, I don't know that.
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Considering it took me almost forty Nurse games before I saw any difference in quality, I'd say that you don't lose MMR very quickly.
Likewise, you are in the vast minority. 99% of players despise MMR and want it gone.
Also, when we don't have a reset, we get Red Rank Syndrome. This is where anyone with more than 200 hours in the game can get to Red Ranks, because it doesn't factor in actual skill. We see this with MMR because there are so many players at the softcap of MMR now.
This also highlights the fact that, apparently, people have been quitting the game. My Survivor queue's are 10-15 minutes but my Killer queue's have remained instant.
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You're missing a major factor that I've tried to answer above that you've neglected to respond to after initially asking me my opinion as to why we hate SBMM so much and it's that the killer base is far smaller than the survivor base of this game. Because of this, being even somewhat good as killer is matching you with the best of the best survivors that in most cases, far out match the killer they're being paired with skill wise. Again, as I was saying above, people like to have a win and "winning" as killers these days you either have to play sweaty or extremely toxic which feels awful. It's not fun and SBMM forces you to play this way. Trying to play casual is either boring (cause you're hardly ever going to secure a kill this way if you're somewhat decent at the game and things get stale) or you're just met with survivor toxicity and ego.
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Both my major points in one post!
Most people who dislike the SBMM system base that dislike on a combination of thinking that games are "sweatier" (when they aren't really, it's just slightly less broken up by the matches with baby survivors) and that the system is in any way forcing or even encouraging them to play a specific way.
Since neither of those things are true, the only conclusion I can come to is that people say they dislike MMR when what they actually dislike is the state of the game's balance. It's the only conclusion that makes sense.
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I do not understand you.
Do you enjoy losing? Is it something you strive to do? Most people like to win and will generally try their best to do so. Few people set out to fail. That's what you are proposing.
If you don't like your MMR, just throw matches until it's better.
Likewise, I've been keeping stats on the teammates I've been seeing. I have seen FAR more brand new players than before MMR. Sub-20 hour teammates every other match.
You're just ignoring the obvious and I'm starting to think you aren't arguing in good faith, so I'm out.
Post edited by Pulsar on4 -
That's not at all true. The imbalances of the game and the SBMM system go hand in hand. The imbalances have been exasperated BECAUSE of the SBMM system and not the other way around. Fixing the imbalances is not going to fix SBMM. It's a sh-t system no matter how you try to explain it. The fact that it factors kills and escapes only as a base for one's skill, already shows how faulty it is.
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People do like to win, generally, and will generally try to do so. That's not changed since SBMM- they did it before, and they do it now. The game is not sweatier, the only change that's really happened in that regard is that certain parts of the game's balance (CoH being the biggest offender) have gotten a little worse. That's the part I think you're misunderstanding- it's sweaty now, and it was sweaty before.
My point isn't to try and say you're actually having a great time and don't know it. My point is that the reason you're not having a good time is not the MMR system because it's not made that kind of difference or that amount of difference. The MMR system has made matchmaking very slightly better, and that's it.
And yes, there is still inconsistency. As the devs said, that's something they acknowledge and are making changes to fix. I never said there wasn't, I just said it's slightly less- and in my experience it is, which is just as valid as your experience. Neither one is more important than the other.
That makes zero sense. If SBMM has exacerbated the balance issues, then of course fixing the balance issues will fix the SBMM, because the balance issues are the thing that is actually wrong here.
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I played for a month with sbmm and I haven't played since and boons especially CoH just seem insanely imbalanced
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I disagree because you're still under the impression that there's nothing wrong with SBMM. It's still matching survivors with killers that are far lower in skill. Does fixing the imbalances in the game fix this? No. It doesn't. That is an issue with the SBMM system. Not an issue with game imbalance. And yes, that is a partly why games are sweatier because killers have to work extra hard if they ever want the dopamine hit of a win because they're being matched with survivors far beyond their skill because THE SYSTEM DOESNT WORK.
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When the game matches people weird it does go both ways, you also get matched with survivors that are far lower in skill. That is an issue, it's the thing that sparked this whole conversation- it's what the devs were talking about when they said the thing that angered you so much. It's fair to separate the MMR rating itself, and the matchmaking system that sorts it, those are two separate things, and the matchmaking needs some work to better handle things like backfill.
This, also, as with everything else, happened before, and far more frequently. Rainbow ranks was a very real thing that happened almost every other game at its worst.
It also can't be why games are sweatier, because games aren't sweatier. They were sweaty before and they're sweaty now, that has not changed.
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Like Pulsar, I'm giving up this conversation with you cause you're either a white knight, a mod, a dev, a contrarian or simply trolling this post with no intention in finding reason as to why so many of us are calling out SBMM for the bs system that it is. I've been playing this game for almost 5 years, shortly after the game's release. And yes, since SBMM the matches have become more sweatier and that's a fact. To say otherwise is completely baffling and therefore I'm done in my responses with you cause you're not looking at this for what it is. It's both game imbalances and a faulty SBMM system. One doesn't negate the other. They're both a separate problem with this game. Period.
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Alright, dude, whatever you say.
I will say this: I never thought it'd get to the point where the whole "white knight" nonsense can apply to literally any disagreement on the internet. Truly, we've come so far since the old days.
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✌✌✌
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I'd say shameless dev apologist instead of white knight, but that's just me.
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It's also kind of wild that in a thread where I'm constantly critical of the devs, say the system has flaws, say it needs work, and that the main point I make is that people are misplacing their annoyance with a separate flaw with the game onto the MMR system, I'm called a dev apologist.
Do you guys actually think for half a second before applying that label, or is it just slapped onto whoever disagrees with you?
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Agreed. I realized it wasn't a necessary term I should've used but I hit send before I could edit and they responded so fast that it'd be clear I edited it after the fact but yes, a dev apologist.
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Ugh. I hate that I'm responding to you when I said I wasn't going to anymore. I could careless that you disagree with literally everyone that has chimed in on this post and any post that revolves around players dislike for the SBMM system. The reason why you're coming off as a dev apologist on this particular subject is your unwillingness to see that game imbalances and the SBMM system are two different things and think that people that are complaining about SBMM, are actually pissed off about the game imbalances. It's BOTH for two completely different reasons. You just want to be right on this issue instead of finding a middle ground and talking about the flaws with both game imbalances and SBMM and how they affect each other. You even admitted that there's flaws with the SBMM system so I don't understand why you're adamant on dying on this hill.
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So... yes, it is a term you slap onto anyone who disagrees with you on this topic?
We can drop this here, I'm only going to respond if I'm insulted again. I do appreciate the clarification, though.
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It's the way you so adamantly defend SBMM at all costs even when multiple people have explained to why it has affected their games and why we dislike it so much, that has lead to a couple of us calling you a dev apologist. You weren't trying to understand or discuss it, you just want to defend it. You asked to explain, we did but that still wasn't good enough. You think you're 100% right on this topic so there's no further discussing this with you.
And no, I don't slap that term on just anyone. It's glaringly clear you're whole position is to defend SBMM at all costs rendering this discussion useless.
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Maybe this is placebo, but my experience is that in MMR, instead of having balanced matches (2K 2 escapes), i have a balanced general outcome. Lots of matches 4ks, and lots of matches 0ks.
It feels like MMR kind of groups you based on your MMR in weird ways.
If i have to describe it, it feels like I'm stuck in between groups of MMR 900-1200 and groups of MMR 1200-1500, where every 2 wins or losses I get moved into the opposite group, and each group has opponents too weak for me or too strong.
I rarely feel like i have much of a chance against the higher MMR players, where even sweating i only sometimes get 1 kill, and it's too easy to win against the lower MMR, where even playing nice i could get a 3-4k before the last gen popped.
One match is frustrating because the opponents are significantly better, while the other is boring because even playing it is too easy.
Again, maybe it's placebo, but thats my experience.
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Relatable content:
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Boon totems are totally fair and balanced, that’s why there’s Sooooooooo many killers playing right now
/s
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😑😶🥱
Edit: Sorry, I didn't see the /s at the bottom of your comment for sarcasm.
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Gauge your hatred...embrace your rage...
Anyway...they are nerfing "Boon: Cycle of Healing". This is the problematic Boon and 90% of the people complaining talk about this. Or have you ever heard somebody complaining about "Boon: Exponential" and how broken it is? With a valid concern and not "I could not slug 4 people while bells where chiming in my ear"?
I saw more survivors complaining about me bringing that perk than Killer players having a problem with it...
As for "SBMM". Just rename that thing into "KBMM".
People have a problem with their "skill" getting measured in something like this. Okay. Lets make it like with League of Legends: Your MMR is based on kills and escapes. Your skill gets measured in another metric and you can get a cool cosmetic for your Killer if you get S+ games x times. This metric then takes hooks into account...
Not relying on kills would make camping Bubbas derank, giving them even more new or bad survivors to camp and tunnel where people can deal with this even less. Chilled players get lower MMR than tryhards...I see no problem with this.
Why put a fair playing Legion who gets 10 hooks and 2 kills against a sweaty 4 people SWF who will bully him when you can let him play against other chill players...
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