http://dbd.game/killswitch
Games feel bad because the MMR system is too aggressive in enforcing its 40/60 win ratio.
The MMR system would be better if it aimed to force draws; as draws would mean balanced matches.
But because it's actually aiming to force a 40% or 60% win rate it's incentivized to create unfair matches. Matches that generally favor one side over the other.
When you read how the developer gloat over this system it's clear they're all in on it. In fact even in the recent release of kill rates for January-March the developer seemed to suggest that they were happy with where Freddy (69% kill rate), and Vecna (66% kill rate) and a host of other killers were at (65% kill rates) because the system in totality was perfectly balanced at 60% kill rates (implying there were other killers lower than 60% balancing out these stronger killers in the system.
However, in practice what most matches feel like is that they are either too easy, or too punishing with few matches inbetween. Killers are either getting destroyed and don't have a chance, or survivors might not get a single gen done before the game is over.
Further, the developer says the MMR system will push down on you harder and harder the more games you win. Meaning it literally punishes you for winning. There are many ways the MMR system can make games near impossible to win in solo queue and it doesn't necessarily even involve matching you with better skilled killers, but by matching you with worse teammates. This is very evidenced when playing killer because frequently you'll notice that yeah one or two of those survivors are really good, but then it's like they're playing with 2 or 3 teammates that can't survive for 5 seconds in chase; well that makes the game easy for me because I just have to tunnel out their teammates.
Years ago the game did not feel this way and it sucks when you feel like you're just in an upswing or a downswing with your matches. Like, winning 10 matches in a row against new killers with good teammates, or losing 10 matches in a row against decent killers with new teammates.
What's so bad about the idea of just having balanced matches? Because clearly we've strayed from that path in this game.
Comments
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Very well written, the MMR needs to be loosened up and it needs to allow a better decay. Why punish us for winning?
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Punishing for winning isn't the right way to look at it. In that case, the alternative would be that you get easier (?) opponents the more you win, and the game wouldn't survive if that were the case. The better players will naturally rise and congregate amongst each other and that is how it should be. The better players together and the worst players together. The majority of us though make up a massive pile in the middle, and as you've said, solo teams tend to be built up with a couple of strong players and a couple of weaker ones. I play both sides and notice it too, there's been a number of discussions on it. That tells me that solo teams are put together based around the killer, and not put together because each survivor is a perfect match for each other. Probably why so much negative feedback from the survivor side revolves around their team mate/s.
The system is in absolute need of improvements, but I dont expect much will change when it comes to upswings and downswings. As survivor, I have more losses than wins, and as killer i have more wins than losses. That's their 60/40 right there.
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Lol what this games mmr barely exists
Pro killers get noob survs all the time
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DBD MMR and aggressive aren't two terms that should be used in the same sentence, lmao.
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I disagree, the way MMR is, absolutely does punish you for winning too much. It effectively discourages you from getting better because all you get for improving is more sweaty rounds, and eventually challenges you genuinely can't handle unless you're amazing at the game. Most people aren't Ayrun or Knightlight, most people aren't even Spookyloopz or Otzdarva. Most people aren't top tier Nurse and Blight mains or 4 manning in a SWF Team Six, most people just want their games to be a fair shake and to not be totally stomped with a 4k at 5 gens or a 4 man out after 4 minutes.
And as you touch on here, the real problem with the system we have now is that the best players are absolutely not rising to the top to congregate with the other best players. They're getting completely screwed over by randoms who get lumped in with them somehow, or getting a mix of baby team followed by strong team rinse repeat. Good Survivors are not getting strong Killers that challenge them; good Killers are ONLY ever getting babies or super strong teams meaning they feel they have to play the strongest Killers in the pack all the time. Neither feels fun, both trap these players in MMR Hell - high MMR for Killers who do well, low MMR for Survivors who get shafted by their team. The fundamental issue is that MMR as given here, only cares if you 3-4k or Escape. That's it. There is no measure for how well you play as a team, or how good you are at your Killer's kit, or how well you do at gamesense. This means a good Ghostface can end up facing teams better handled by a Blight and then they cannot escape to a more suitable range for that Killer because MMR doesn't degrade, or a good Survivor could get stomped too hard by a 4-slowdown Plague or Springtrap and end up being stuck in a loop of endless worse Survivor teammates dragging them down into low ranks.
Plus, it makes winning the round seem like the end all be all of the game… and not only is that not remotely true, the game isn't even designed for that level of sweat.
This is why MMR seems screwy. It never counts if you're actually good and skilled, it only cares about how much you win or lose. That, and it breaks when not enough people are online on one role. It needs to be addressed if we truly want a 60/40 split as intended.1 -
I mean, this is mostly just complaining about how MMR functions. If you win more than you lose, you get harder opponents because the system is designed that way. And, for the record, this is how the old "grades" system worked also.
Having a system that makes your games easier as you continue to win is not how MMR works at all, and isn't how any matchmaking system functions. Making games easier by winning just means the opposite is true for your opponent: that losing makes games harder. And as much as (some) people would love to never have to lose a game ever again, and don't give a ######### about anyone else, a system that does this would actually kill the game.
Your real issue is the 60% kill rate that creates the imbalance. The kill rate alone means that killers are effectively always going up against survivors who are more skilled than they are. This is why people claim they have to sweat every game, and are "forced" to play in a certain way to keep up, because the game has been skewed to make kills easier (which in turn will eventually result in making the games harder for the killer).
This is actually pretty easy to demonstrate too. If you start with 5 players who are exactly the same skill level (let's say 1000, just to put a number to it), and have them play each other, then the 60% kill rate is going to have the killer player win more often, and the survivors lose more often. So even though they're the same skill level, over time the killer will gain MMR and the survivors lose MMR. And this happens across the board.
So at some point, the killer will hit a point where the matchmaker is convinced that they are actually better than these survivors, and needs to match them with a higher ranked team. Maybe the killer has hit 1200 MMR, and the survivor team 800 now. But keep in mind, these players are still all the same skill level, just that the game is slanted toward the survivors dying more often by design. Other factors, such as gen kick meta not being addressed for a full year, can make this imbalance happen faster or to a greater degree (i.e. boosting the killer's MMR higher than it should be).
So what happens next is the matchmaker decides to match the killer with survivors who are also 1200MMR. But those survivors went through a similar process of being matched at 1400, losing more than they win, and are now 1200 for the same reason of the almighty kill rate.
And that is one of the main failures of the current system: that an "average" (1000 in this example) killer is now being matched with above average survivors (1400) because the kill rate target has forced it to happen, not because of MMR itself.
And the "solutions" people scream about to "solve" this issue will only make it worse. Many people want killer buffs or survivor nerfs, which will only (temporarily) cause killers to kill more, and as a result boost their MMR higher (deflating survivors MMR lower as well), and then we have a 1000 killer going against 1500 survivors, all of whom are considered "1250" now by the system, because "balance" has forced it that way.
That is why people think the game is sweaty, unfun, or they "hAvE tO" tunnel and camp every game. They're in over their head, and can't actually compete, and many of these people have not learned anything in the process. They think they're Max MMR gods at the game, because they're struggling every match, but in reality there are a lot of people who are simply below average killers, going up against average survivors.
Game imbalance has carried them to a point where they can't figure out how to function. And rather than learning anything, or improving in any way, many just come to the forums and demand more killer buffs or survivor nerfs because it will temporarily win them more games. But in the long run, they are just boosting their MMR higher, and getting more frustrating games in the end, and the cycle continues. Been going on for at least 3 years now, and apparently will continue to for the foreseeable future.
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I dont think you'll find anyone who disagrees with your assessment that baby killers shouldn't be getting experienced opponents, and vice versa. It's a topic that pops up frequently. That, however, is the failure of a matchmaking system that is prioritising queue times over accuracy and is further compounded by factors like lobby dodging.
However, your claim that the game punishes you for doing well contradicts what youre saying here. If the game didn't give you more difficult opponents as your wins increased, then it would have to give you less experienced opponents and we would find ourselves in the very situation that you've also complained about (survivors getting stomped at 5 gens, and killers getting 4 outted quickly) on an even more regular basis.
SBMM is a hot topic and literally everyone I've come across says it needs improvements. But no one expects you to be Otz and co, and in a proper functioning matchmaking system, the chances of you reaching their bracket is probably non-existent. You should cap out (or plateau) at a level that suits you. Hence why i said the majority of us are in the middle pile. We aren't going any higher than that. But in order to plateau youre going to cop some losses too, because if you literally never lose then your opponents are too inexperienced and the matchmaking system is failing them. It's not just about you. Every other player needs a "fair shake" as well.
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I still disagree that the game does not punish you for winning too hard, but the rest of your arguments are sound. SBMM needs an overhaul or at least a reset for people.
I'm happy the MMR is intended to cap you at a suitible level at least; if the game is played without sweating too hard it seems to do exactly that at least for Killer. I just wish DBD's actually did that for Survivor, and didn't accidentally throw us a random baby team or hardcore SWF or four slowdown Blight or perkless Trapper.0 -
I prefer Clown fiestas; if I'm not facing 13k hour teams on day 1, how am I supposed to ever learn or get good? you don't learn by playing against self caring Claudettes healing under Coulrophobia
I understand why we can't have this(killers 4 slugging to stroke egos COUGH COUGH)
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I don't know, as Killer it takes me so many games just to feel like MMR fixes itself and gives me competent survivors to play against, I had to recently force 4ks at 5 gens like a billion games in a row just to get 'normal' dbd games. It's so boring climbing out of the ######### pit just to get to play good dbd matches where I actually have to think and apply myself to win and even then somehow every other lobby i'm going against people who obviously really don't belong in the same bracket
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40/60 is not being enforce, it's the natural outcome given the state of the game as a whole.
To say its enforce implies the system is curating who wins and who loses before a match is even played.
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No, its not the "natural outcome". 40/60 is forced, if it wasn't every single game would be a 4k for the killer and survivors would never find matches once they got too good.
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I have a hard time believing their stats, overall escape rate was 42% for solo Q, 39% for 3 SWF and 41% for 4 SWF… right there something is already fishy, I know they don't count DCs/ abandons and who knows what else
nothing makes sense, they said average killrate increased to 63% for high MMR and they are happy with this, multiple killers have between 65%-70% killrates and they are ok with this, none of these stats are normal
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that's... a point of view alright. So in your opinion, an equal matching of killer and survivors the killer would always win?
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That is.. innately how the game is balanced yes. The killer is always stronger. As blatantly shown by the kill-rates currently. In the "ideal" scenario there should always be 2 people escaping, every single match should have 2 people escaping. That would prove the game is balanced in an ideal way, because 50% winrate is the objectively correct way to balance, and BHVR has made it very clear that killrate is a killers win-rate, and survivor's winrate is based on escapes. So 2 escapes in every game and 2 kills in every game means the game is balanced. Just because this is an asymmetrical game doesn't mean it is any different from every other team based pvp game.
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No, an objective outcome would not be 2 out every match. Even when flipping a coin a 50/50 isn't always the outcome. It becomes 50/50 statisically over many many coin flips. In DBD you cannot have 50/50 because the sides are not equal throughout the whole match.
The Killer role is stronger than an individule survivor. The game is balanced with a 1v4 as it's base. As the match progress that balance is offset by how close the survivors get to the exit gate. That is why getting to a 3v1 faster benefits the killer. If four survivors are left by the last gen, the odds of at least 2 or 3 getting out become much higher. It is usually due to hubris and greed that kills 4 when a 3 out were possible.
Post edited by Mr_K on-2 -
The 60% target kill rate has nothing to do with bias from BHVR - they set that rate because they know it’s the sweet spot for making killer reasonably fun to play but also giving survivors a decent chance of escaping. You clearly don’t remember what survivor queues were like a few years ago when the kill rates were lower. I remember waiting 15-20 minutes to get into a survivor match during peak evening times because nobody wanted to play killer. Now, the peak time queues for survivor are actually tolerable.
This is a horror survival game. It’s not supposed to be easy to escape. I’m glad that BHVR takes an analytical approach to their balance decisions rather than listening to entitled players that think they should be getting east escapes every single match.1
