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Lobby dodging and backfill lobbies
I never realised just how much of an impact this has until recently. I knew it happened and I knew it had some impact - but boy did I undererstimate how often it happens and how big the impact is. Frankly, I'm shocked.
The context: I usually dump all my points into one character but hardly play them. On the regular I play characters that are P5-15. Mostly because the people I play with have a strong aversion to bringing high prestige characters and I don't want to be the odd one out. Now, I just played with some other people, friends of a friend, and they didn't hesitate to bring their P100 and P80-something characters, so friend and I also brought our P70-ish characters. And for the ten or so games we played we got dodged in every lobby - multiple times. Every time at least two killers dodged - but usually it was three or four. One time we actually just re-q-ed after the fifth killer dodged. At that point it was really just a little experiment to see what would happen, otherwise we would've just gone back to low prestige characters.
And what did happen? Almost always we eventually got matched with baby killers, or at least people new to that killer - or that's how I interpret the combination of how they run tiles, use the killer's power (or don't, for that matter) and their having perks at level one or two.
This is immensly unfair and should not be a thing. - In that case, not so much for us but the killers we eventually get matched with. Ideally, this would simply not happen; when a lobby gets dodged matchmaking starts at the beginning again and doesn't just throw the first available player in. But that is apparently not part of how matchmaking is designed (otherwise I assume it would long have happened since how it is now kinda defeats the point of mmr-based matchmaking). The next best thing is to just hide Prestige in the pre-match lobby.
[On a side note; I play a lot of swf with my friends and most of them have public profiles, so killers who check profiles pretty much always know we're swf --- and on average we get dodged maybe two or three times per ten lobbies.]
Comments
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I've been preaching this on several threads for a while now, but it gets little traction. We are indeed doing it to ourselves, knowing that in an effort to avoid perceived "harder" or "unfair" matching we are likely throwing a newby killer to the wolves. Be it a protest of SWF or the prestige system or too many tool boxes or whatever, it does end up being selfish behavior in the end.
All the dodging becomes a nightmare for those killers, and worsens an already rough new player experience big time. Hiding prestiges either to post-game or even completely would help dodging for that reason, but not curb it in general. And in the past I've been guilty of dodging lobbies too, even though I cannot check profiles and such, until I realized the impact on matchmaking.
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Backfill is by practical terms unlimited, regardless if killer or survivor. It's anyone who's in queue at that moment.
I think the worst instance I ever had was when I got a lobby of survivors all in the thousands hours, one leaves, I get an instant backfill and the player had 18h total playtime.
No matter how bad queues are, they should've never been matched against me as killer, even on my lowest mmr characters.
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Yee, for me it was hard to grasp just how big the impact was. - Like I said; when swf-ing we occasionally get dodged, 3-4 times per 10-ish lobbies, and only every once in a while that leads to a complete mismatch. And I always thought when people talk about it or try to bring attention to it on the forums they were talking about numbers in that ballpark. Never had I imagined it was this extreme - and this consistent o.o
Makes me glad I never got into the habit of dodging as killer. Hiding prestige completely is something I personally wouldn't object to - but there is this "bragging rights" thing going on with which prestige got advertised when it was introduced - and post match screen is imo fine. Tbh, I sometimes feel relieved when we got kinda stomped and I see a really high prestige number on the killer. Then I go "well, that kinda makes sense".
Yes, as killer I've observed lobbies being all over the place as well - but I usually don't care what lobby I'm in and don't check (as in I'm usually tabbed out after hitting the Q button and tab back in when I hear the offerings or the match-start-sound). It's usually in the match when I realise that the default Dwight is actually a baby. And I also agree: This should never happen.
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oh so you mean killers don't like playing a 2 minute match against dedicated players? wow. never would have guessed that.
jokes aside... skill based matchmaking in a game that doesn't have a ranked or competitive mode is pointless.
just punish queue dodging like league of legends. problem solved.
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We're not doing it to ourselves, BHVR made the choice to have this appalling backfill system, it's not up to the players to work around a bad system.
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I don't think that would actually solve anything. I think killers who lobby dodge do that usually to avoid being matched with SWF bully-squads who ruin their matches, so until being in a SWF doesn't actually impact the game that much, I think people will still prefer a 5 minutes break over a match in which they are constantly being t-bagged and abused.
I consider myself to be a 50-50 survivor/killer player (as of now, 3 survivors are P3 while only 2 killers are, which I know doesn't say much because I can always play killer and spend BP on survivors), but I do prefer playing as a killer, and once in a while, after several games against sweaty SWF who make me go ape, I'll avoid lobby if I see a suspected team or stop playing.
Of course, I realise many killers defend camping and looping as their only option for playing, so I think maybe the problem is with the playerbase, not the game or the matchmaking system.
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a 5 minute break turns into a 10 minute break. then a 30 minute break. then an hour break. then a 24 hour break. i have no sympathy for lobby queue dodgers. sorry. that's just players cheesing the matchmaking for an easy game.
it's definitely the playerbase.
for some reason this community is full of crybabies and psychopaths..
i honestly feel sorry for behavior having to continue to support a game that has developed that kind of community over its lifetime.
i'm just glad they do. and i'm grateful for the few respectable members of the community that aren't unhinged.
in what reality is queue dodging ever acceptable? if you don't enjoy the game or like the mechanics then just don't play it. people shouldn't have to be forcibly removed from the queues, but i swear it's almost like people are addicted to it.
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As much as this forum likes to complain about disconnects 'ruining a match for 4 other people', lobby dodge will usually ruin a match for 5 other people.
Both usually result in a complete stomp, but dodging is a coin flip as to which side is getting the short straw.
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We are doing to ourselves because we know it will happen when we dodge. They need to look into the reasons why dodging lobbies occurs in the first place, but that's a separate thread entirely.
Until their system is changed in a big way, the only other thing they could do is be ok with ten to twenty minute queues to get it right. Good luck getting everyone on board for that.
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I just switch to my p100 last second to avoid dodges, anyway prestige means nothing, only really shows what character you like
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"sorry. that's just players cheesing the matchmaking for an easy game." You mean... Like SWF?
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As I said in another thread and I think almost everyone knows this.. sometimes the queue system prioritizes FAST games OVER FAIR games.
The system sees some players taking too long for a game = find any player, no matter the skill. As long as the game gets going the system can do those things.
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I rarely dodge as a killer. I don’t care about prestige. I can get whooped by low prestige and can run over highs.
Prestige should be hidden though. It has ZERO gameplay impact on the game but very psychological. Get rid of it. What the point!?
I’ll tell you what I’m sick of: 2 man SWF , one with a flashlight, working together and when I counter them early and target the flashlight person they both DC. That leaves the other 2 survivors in a terrible place with 4-5 gens still to do.
If I could dodge THOSE people every single time, it would be great.
Sabo squads are annoying but not as bad and one reason I usually always run IG and Lightborn or Franklin’s. They usually never DC which is kinda funny.
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Same as dodging a suspected SWF looking for that sweet 4 solos.
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I think the point remains that lobby dodging, while not desirable or acceptable, is a symptom of the the game's imbalance. People like to play with SWFs because it's a way to make the game far easier, and killers like to lobby dodge because they don't have any desire to face SWFs. While punishing lobby dodgers would be a fair solution to it, it would be unfair if the game would be left unbalanced.
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i never wanted swf. the original game design made more sense. it was thematic and fulfilling. but not overtly intrusive. now it seems you're punished for playing alone.
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There's no such thing as a baby killer. This game isn't getting new players so frequently that all of you are getting matched with "baby killers" all the time.
The key to not getting lobby dodged. Get off comms, stop SWFing, and play the game the way it's balanced around being played. Leave the sweat squad stuff to CoD.
"We just want to have fun together!"
Meanwhile, you're calling out plays like you're in an E-thports league or something.
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As if you'd dodge a lobby lol. There's a few very satisfying things as killer in this game - crossmap/orbital hatchets, sweet juicy curves and snipes on Billy, a full 4hook basement as Bubba (hilarious imo) and absolutely stomping a lobby of high prestige survs with 1000's of hours each. Why would anyone want to rob themselves of that?
Sure, they can be extremely challenging, and perhaps you won't win many, but why care - thats the fun part; getting to measure yourself, push yourself to max sweat and see how you go. Each to their own i guess 🤷♂️
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I don't want to tag everyone but there seems to be a bit of a misconception. - Quite a few of the replies are about how no killer wants to play against swf. By that logic that recent experience should be my default experience. It isn't. The high prestige numbers seem to be the deciding factor --- even though they kinda don't mean anything, other than that character being that player's favourite. (Given that the prestige system is around for over half a year and with bloodwebs being cheaper it doesn't even require an excessive amount of hours over that time to have one character with high prestige by now.)
--- But even that aside and with the matchmaking prioritising fast Lobbies over accurate lobbies, there is a limit to what is acceptable. - And going against people who are on a very different skill level is not fun for anyone involved. And safe for not dodging yourself and manually re-q-ing every time a surv or killer dodges there is no way for a player to avoid this situation. As killer you might have a shot at identifying gross mismatches when you can see the hours in the profile - but as surv the first clue you get it is a level one or two perk --- or a playstyle that screams "I don't know what I'm doing" --- and by that time it's too late.
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This. It's not a sign of anyhting really but what character someone likes. If I change to my favorites, Lisa or Claire, who are both p100, my friend and I sit there for a LONG time, killers lobby dodge, people get sick of waiting and leave our lobby. It's dumb.
Prestige should be hidden until after the match. You think if people can see that they are going up against a p100 blight or nurse, which I frequently do, that people wouldn't lobby dodge?
It's not right the killers one is hidden but ours is not. It's time to change this so I can play who I like...because news flash, if I play my p3 Ada, my skill is gonna be the same as if I was on my p100 characters!
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Changing at the last second is a guarantee I won't even bother in the match.
It'd be like instantly backfilling into a game full of people egotistical enough to stick ttv in their usernames. It doesn't set expectation that it'll be any good on my end.
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I started playing DBD in October of 2022 and have been playing it semi-intensively (usually a few games of survivor or killer every day or two) since then. My highest prestige is 4. I try not to main one killer exclusively, and I don't play the strongest killers very well, so I tend towards the B-tier of the roster. I routinely get matched with or against survivors with prestiges in the 70s and above with extremely strong items and full sets of teachables. 9 times out of 10 I get destroyed either by a very capable killer or by an aggressive survivor squad with 4 Dead Hards, 4 Adrenalines and medkits strong enough to cure all known diseases. That 1 time I don't get bodied, I'm either lucky enough that the Killer didn't find me first and tunnel me out of the game or I've lost half my body weight in sweat from how deep into tryhard mode I've had to go. None of those scenarios is fun for me, and I can't imagine it's that fun for the rest either. So now I tend to dodge those lobbies, because this is a game, and it's meant to be enjoyable, and it's certainly better that those people still get a chance at a good game with someone else than a horrible game with me: it's certainly better than DCing during the match. If the MMR can't distinguish between me, a semi-competent player with maybe 500 hours in the game and people who've been playing for years, the MMR needs to be changed, or the idea that this game is competitive or skill-based needs to be dropped.
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