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What are the true motives behind the current SBMM discourse?
I know a lot of people don’t follow DBD content creation, but I know a lot do and I was curious to see what other people thought on this issue.Recently there has been a lot of discussion regarding the state of the game since the implementation of SBMM- with most content creators saying it has been an overall negative for DBD. This video by CoconutRTS is the one that has gathered most traction:
Now, Coconut seems like a genuine guy. I do think he actually believes that SBMM is an issue for the playerbase as a whole, those who are casual and more serious. However I can’t help but think that for experienced, skilled players the idea that they’re burned out from having to sweat to win matches does tie in with the fact they want to have easier games when streaming and when trying to create content.
There’s no doubt SBMM makes running things like meme builds a little more tricky and it makes being able to fool around with chat a little problematic as you have to focus more. But is wanting to run a meme build, read all your chat AND still win the game the real issue here? It seems to me like there’s an attitude of “I want to play casual and still win a majority, if not all, my matches”.
On a similar note, sweating to win isn’t all down to SBMM- it’s a player choice. Admittedly you can argue that it’s a vicious circle, where SBMM reinforces the need to sweat because that’s the play style that’s gets rewarded (because wins are based on just kills and escapes). That I agree is an issue. But even then, the individual player can still dictate how they play the game. If you want to win all the time, then I’m sorry but you can’t expect to play casually.
This post isn’t to totally defend the DBD matchmaking- it definitely has issues. I think most of us have experienced sessions where it feels like it’s either stomp vs get stomped with hardly any close, interesting matches. But is the desire to do away with SBMM really for the benefit of the whole playerbase? And for the veterans out there was the time before SBMM really a matchmaking utopia for this game?
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There's no agenda. It's not like these players can't go in 50 to 100 win streaks at any time they want by just playing to win and not giving any mercy or leeway they just want variability in their games.
SBMM has been getting critised in games that want to aim for a casual audience for a while now because devs have been trying to give everyone the impression they are good at the game they are playing. Most people will leave a game or not play it if they are bad, even if the game is a casual game, so obfuscating how good or bad players are in casual games has become common practice and you can't do that with what I call "melting pot matchmaking" because it becomes easy to see that you are not that good if some player in a random lobby goes 27-5 in something like COD.
The consequence of this is casual games end up becoming more competitive over time because Mid-level players will still need to put the work in to beat other Mid-level players and the same goes for low level players against other low level players and players will never play to lose. They may play inefficiently if it's more fun It's the reason why despite how powerful Nurse she doesn't just gain an extra 20% pickrate just for being strong while in a competitive mode in a competitive game that would not be uncommon. Players however won't enjoy just throwing for hours on end the conclusion I can draw from Max Hobermans Twitter thread is that it's not a bad thing to give players a forced variety of experiences in a casual game because it keeps it fresh. While in competitive modes in competitive games people will complain about things like losers que and forced 50-50s forcing tougher and easier games on you at different times that's generally because they want to trust the MMR systems and let their skill do the talking.
The other side effect of SBMM is it has makes it significantly easier for a bigger difference to be made in the game by what items/perks/addons are used and this is what drives down the frequency of meme builds. If you are using a meme build against players significantly worse than you it can work more and on the other side of the coin if the players you played against were significantly better players than you running a meta build would be less likely to make a difference but giving an edge to people near your skill level is a much bigger deal when determining the outcome of a match so as players won't play to lose they won't give that edge so it makes the game feel very samey giving you the same experience when you log on each time. Unlike before SBMM when ranks determined who you faced if I log on today, I will likely get the same experience as yesterday. I don't really want that from DBD what I want is mabye a facecamping bubba who is terrible every 30 or so games and a death-squad every 30 so I can both see how good I really am at times and other times cool off and have a laugh but I don't get that is dbd anymore.
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I think it's a mix of "the unseen entity being held responsible for stuff a given player dislikes" — this unseen entity being sbmm/mmr — people having vastly different playstyles and objectives and a lot of frustration building up with how changes have impacted the gaming-experience.
Technically sbmm should be great because if you don't want to sweat to get a certain result then you should be matched with opponents who are either not skilled enough to win against your non-sweaty play or aren't sweating themselves. Unfortunatley that kinda only works for the killer side of things. If a good but non-sweaty survivor gets matches with just bad other survivors their odds of escaping shrink until they hit the very lowest end; a place where they could pretty much 1v1 the killer and still win. And given how the "stoppers", where you can't really drop into a lower MMR bracket anymore, work that's probably mechanically impossible, so it's just an endless circle of frustration.
As for doing away with SBMM; I think it's something similar to what a certain Mr. Churchill said about Democracy in 1947: "Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…" Now replace "Government" with "matchmaking" and "Democracy" with "sbmm" and there you are. Only difference is: We're not entering a Cold War. So maybe it is time to test another form of matchmaking.
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It feels like many of us experience a SBMM induced fatigue when it comes to playing DBD. I remember feeling that way shortly after it was implemented and then it kind of came and went every few months. By now I am mostly used to it and I don't feel like SBMM is actually so bad anymore. My matches are mostly fine and I can say for sure that not every game is super sweaty.
However, some players have reported their matches to be never ending sweat fests. I believe this comes down partially to our attitude and partially to the matchmaking itself. If a player were to go into a match, mentally preparing for a super hard game, then that is likely how they will perceive it even when the matchmaking gives them something more chill. But we also know, that SBMM does, at least to a degree, put good players against other good players. The best players in DBD are usually the ones that play very serious. They use strong loadouts and strategies that help them win. When both sides have that competitive mindset it can be draining but it's also kind of natural that this will happen because you can't win every game and expect the matchmaking to put you into chill lobbies.
These days, I see a lot of glorification to the old rank system. When back then, we complained that pretty much anyone could reach red ranks with little to no difficulty. This also meant, that anyone from casual to super competitive would be eligible to be paired up, which is of course kind of nice for the best players because they have an easier time winning most of their matches as a consequence. I reckon this is why many content creators preferred that system. When SBMM was still new Otzdarva said something among the lines of: "It's fair for SBMM to put the very best players up against each other but do you want to play against the very best players all the time?".
By now, I am mostly indifferent about SBMM. It doesn't feel as horrible to me as it used to (either thanks to the adjustments BHVR made behind the scenes or a change of attitude on my part) and I have a good variety of opponents for the most part. There are however also inexplicable things like my MMR on Bubba being WAY lower than it should (seriously, I should not be winning 20+ games in a row with no difficulty on a killer I'm not that good with simply because I'm put against beginners) or my recent string of very unenjoyable matches.
My main gripe with this whole thing is that the devs are so indicisive about how they want to move forward. Is the game competitive or casual? You cannot have both in the same queue. That doesn't work. So they either need to introduce a ranked queue with a different set of rules or make a decision and change the game according to that. We see them make difficult mechanics and remove techs that add another layer of skill expression but at the same time we have SBMM, a 60% kill rate (balance of outcome) and again the removal of techs because they also could technically grant a competitive advantage. So they try to cater to everyone while pleasing no one.
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The issue is, the old rank based allowed vetern players to hover around rank 15 and to derank when they get too high. Remember that deranking was practiced by both killers and survivors with this system. Also every 13th was a free for all for a week or so.
Content creators want to look good to their audience. Having to actually try every match hurts that image.
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I watch alot of streamers (am watching Hens right now in fact) but I know some of their ideas likely come from a place of what is best for them and their bottom line. I notice there's very few popular content creators who are willing to put their bad games up on YT. They like to put up their best games, the ones that make them look good without even trying. Those get the views. They're also fully aware of the influence they have over their viewers with these sorts of videos, so I guess the best way to get BHVR to listen to what you want is to get your viewers to parrot it often enough for you.
I'm not a veteran but I was playing pre-SBMM and I used to purposely try and stay in purple rank because those games felt the best for me. As soon as I hit gold my games became so sweaty, and of course I didn't want to go anywhere near red. So i guess I can say that at least I knew where to find consistency in my games pre-SBMM. Now it's really anyone's guess what the next game holds. So yeah, I have my own issues with SBMM but my motivations are likely very different to most content creators. Is it that they want an all encompassing change to SBMM though, or is it all an underhanded way of asking for special matchmaking treatment for content creators?
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Rhe SBMMR just didnt do anything positive at all for the game. And still nobody knows why they even implemented it besides "esports ready trollolol".
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Even when people are playing casual and not sweating I almost never see meme builds anyways.
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Emblem based matchmaking at least allowed for more "secondary" objectives for both sides: Playing hyper efficient actually hurt your chances of pipping, the goal was to play as well rounded as possible, which made the game feel more dynamic for both sides. It also made it easier to take a win from a "loss," reducing the impact of the end result and allowing players to have their own win conditions more easily (if you died but still double pipped, you know you played your ass off. Same for pips when only getting 0-2K as killer.)
The switch to SBMM, but more importantly how its incorporated in DBD, made nothing matter outside of the end result. The infamous hockey analogy got roasted for a reason, it removed all nuance from either role and forced them into outcome biased results.
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"I'm top mmr killer I can't play dbd it's too sweaty now"
"My survivors are potatoes I can't play dbd"
Funny how mmr works too well and is also completely pointless. Maybe we really don't know as much as we think we do.
Fact is, matchmaking has an emphasis on speed over quality to a degree. Anybody who plays SWF at night knows this to be true. So, what does MMR actually accomplish? I can't tell you, tbh. That fact makes me not have faith in the current system.
Matchmaking would just be better off being the Wild West just so I don't have to hear about mmr anymore lol.
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I don't think there's a huge agenda behind it. It's a relatively unpopular system and it has barely been tweaked in the nearly 3 years since it's been released. The complaints are only going to get louder as there continues to be nearly zero transparency and little to no changes.
For perspective, the changes we know about: the soft cap was initially too high, so they lowered it. Then they raised the soft cap again within the last 6 months. Changes to survivor MMR gains/losses were introduced that factored in team results. ….And that's it. In nearly 3 years, those are the disclosed changes.
I think players are tired of not having options regarding their experience. For players who strive to be optimal, you're stuck with terrible waste of time matches almost half the time where teammates AFK, give up, or just straight up don't match your skill level at all. If you're a more casual player, you're still going to get matched with absolute sweat lords half the time. Either way, you have zero tools to curate your experience. You have one option, and it's SBMM in this one single queue. And it has barely been iterated on in nearly 3 years.
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My favorite thing about the emblems is that I didn't have to kill anyone to get to purple or sometimes red ranks. I hate playing for kills and still do so I often play for two hooks and let people go. Now that leaves me stuck playing against newer or inexperienced players which I also hate. I've never enjoyed intentional smurfing but now I either have to play a certain way, play against lower MMR or new players, or don't play at all. I do more of the third option these days.
I also enjoyed feeling like I could do more as survivor and it mattered. Now it's either do gens or let the rest of the team down. If I escape or not I don't care but I hate feeling like the others are losing their games because I decided to do totems.
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There is always an agenda. In the case of creators their goal is views.
As for what it was like before SBMM, it sucked then, too, but for different reasons. Rank reset every 13th would mean you could be playing against anyone. In some ways this was actually a good thing, because you could learn how to play from better players. Once everyone had ranked up a bit, the players that wanted it easier after ranking up and facing sweaty opponents would depip (a disconnect would get you -2 pips but just doing badly was enough to derank) to lower their rank and then slaughter the lower ranked opponents.
Before they implemented SBMM, I suggested they balance matchmaking off of what was brought, like this. Step one, get rid of the lobby. Step two, lock in when you ready up all items, addons, offerings, killer chosen, and perks. Step three, give weight to those things, and group sweaty players that are bringing the heaviest weights with the sweaty players that are bringing the heaviest weights. They could even add a weight to 'skill' in this system. This would have been more fun, because not everyone wants to sweat every single match.
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There’s no doubt SBMM makes running things like meme builds a little more tricky and it makes being able to fool around with chat a little problematic as you have to focus more.If SBMM actually works, this shouldn't be an issue. Let's say the content creator is a hypothetical 7 on the skill level, they play meme builds that take them to a 6, and then they engage with chat which takes them to a 5 - that means they should get sorted against other 5s over time.
It seems to me like there’s an attitude of “I want to play casual and still win a majority, if not all, my matches”.I think this is a huge part of it, even if its just subconscious. Going on 50 kill win streaks or perkless runs for content was a huge part of what drew viewers in.
But is the desire to do away with SBMM really for the benefit of the whole playerbase? And for the veterans out there was the time before SBMM really a matchmaking utopia for this game?I'm not a veteran, but I did play DbD not long after it released and looked at it a few times, especially around Deathgarden, and never liked it. I get the idea and why people liked the idea of multiple, vague winning conditions that pips had, but it went too far for me.
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I'm indifferent myself. There are pros and cons to both Emblems and MMR.
MMR encourages more sweatiness, tunneling and hyperefficient strategies while discouraging off meta and meme builds. However, the matches are a lot more balanced and the data provided by matches is more useful.
Emblems would give less balanced matches than now and provide worse data but the most hyper efficient strategies would be discouraged more as they would give less pips. Off meta and meme builds would have more room to be fun.
Realistically, the issues would be better solved by reworking the game mechanics so spreading hooks becomes the best strategy but who knows if that will ever happen? In the meantime, the choice between MMR and Emblems is sort of a pick your poison situation. Both have pros and cons.
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Now, Coconut seems like a genuine guy
Yeah I don't know about that one, lol.
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