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The SBMM Conundrum in DBD
TLDR; There is no point in being so sweaty, caring about having high MMR, or trying to "win" every trial.
A lot of people don't like the new SBMM system. As best as I can tell, people are caught in some endless cycle of sweat. Survivors gen rush because they think the Killer will tunnel them out of the game as soon as possible. Survivors bring the strongest perks to combat this. Killers tunnel and play mercilessly because they feel like the game will immediately slip through their fingers if they don't. They bring the strongest slowdown/insurance perks to help them. People are using their strongest builds. Both sides cry that the other side is too sweaty. Both sides are right.
Here's the rub: This isn't a problem of Behavior's creation. We did this. We convinced ourselves that “efficiency” was the goal of the game. How many times have the Killer mains on this forum said that tunneling is the most efficient way to “win” a match? How many times have Survivor mains complained about their teammates “not doing gens”? What did we expect? Behavior didn't explicitly state a “win” condition, so we went about creating one. 4K or 3K and hatch as Killer. Escape at all costs as survivor. “Don't bring that perk, it isn't efficient!” we told ourselves.
With the old rank system, we had shiny badges “I'm a red rank, what rank are you bro?”. As far as I can tell, there are people who want to be told how MMR is measured simply because they need a shiny badge as validation. Tangible evidence on how good they are at this game; in some ways a symbol of superiority. But that doesn't exist anymore. (Coincidentally, I see a trend in using “hours played” as replacement for this – despite the fact that time spent doing something is not an accurate measurement of actual skill in doing said thing. While there is a correlation between how long you do something and how skilled you are at it, it's not 1:1. Some people pick things up faster. Some people plateau quicker)
So seeing as the new grade system is mainly a measure of how much time you've been playing in a month, and our MMR is hidden from us, what exactly is the motivation to sweat? What is the motivation to attain high MMR?
“I like to win. I play games to win.”
Fair enough. But if the only way you get enjoyment out of this game is winning every match (or having a high win rate), then I genuinely feel sorry for you. I don't mean that in a condescending manner at all! I feel sorry for you because it seems that the Dev don't want anyone to have a high “win” rate. They want you to average somewhere around 2k or a 50% escape rate. I imagine that must be frustrating to be told that you're only going to have your definition of fun 50% of the time – but understand that this misery is of mainly of your own creation.
Any time I'm playing killer and a SWF squad gen rushes and leaves in 5 minutes, I shrug it off and think to myself “Enjoy the games against Spirit/Nurses/Blights”. Anytime a killer tunnels me out of the game, and destroys the rest of my teammates before we've even done 2 gens, I shrug it off and think to myself “Enjoy the SWF sweat squads”.
You want to “win” every match? That's fine. Eventually you'll be put against people who feel the same way – and play in the same “efficient” manner. You can't eat your cake and have it too. If you play sweaty, or have played sweaty enough in the past to earn high MMR then this is the new reality for you. If you want to play chill, then play chill. Stop caring so much about “winning”. When you “lose” a match, you don't actually “lose” anything. There is no actual tangible reward to having high MMR!
There are a lot of things about this game that Behavior should be (and hopefully are) working on fixing. Our individual attitudes and competitive nature are not on that list.
Comments
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I think half the reason people get so frustrated in this game is because of how seriously people take it. Calm down we’re playing a glorified party game
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It really isn't that serious lol.
I'm not going to be a hypocrite and pretend like I don't ever get frustrated - but I usually try to step away and do something else.
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I don't care how people take the game, there shouldn't be so many absurdly unbalanced things in a 5 year old game.
Survivor sided maps, MDR spirit/Omega nurse/Alcompound blight, literally 60% of the killer roster being too weak against competent survivors, survivor perk stacking problems, survivor Item stacking problems, the list goes on.
Either don't have a SBMM system in such a broken game or actually balance the game along side SBMM. But this is BHVR we're talking about, who looks at 4 dead hards vs a pig and says "yeah that's balanced".
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(sorry, double posted on accident)
Post edited by Underdawg on0 -
"60% of the killer roster being too weak against competent survivors" sounds like hyperbole.
No one is saying that there aren't things that need to be fixed - but how is that an argument against SBMM? Removing SBMM wouldn't magically fix the balance issues. All that is happening (in theory) is that you're getting more matches against people that are roughly your same skill level, or at least have had the same rate of recent success/failure as you have.
Would you suggest going back to the rank system?
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100% this.
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The problem with your argument is you can apply it to literally any game/competitive environment.
"Bro, why are people trying to be so efficient at MOBAS? Who cares if I want to play support mid"
"why even balance shooters, of course there will always be a meta gun and loadout!"
"Why do people try to devise the best strategy in chess?? who even cares, it's just a game"
"Why do teams analyze their opponents plays and strategies and try to come up with counters? It's not even a big deal, let's just play"
People generally don't play bad on purpose in most mediums/games that have any sort of competitive edge to them. Sure, they might not play on the most cutting edge/meta of things but they don't go out of their way to purposefully lose.
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I have to sweat to keep my Freddy MMR high, which I would like to do so I can play against good players when I feel like it. Not going to lie, it is not a taste that leaves me super satisfied, but I want to have the option available to me. I will be the big bad killer that the forums cry about, defying everything in the survivor rule book like some sort of antichrist to maintain it. I am not Otz, I joined during the 5th anniversary. So I need to tunnel, proxy, face camp hook states, blah blah blah. Anything that survivor mains cry about, really. Ruin/Undying/Tinkerer. Heck, I might even start running NOED to bump my average 2k to a 3k. Who knows? I love my BBQ, but it makes me do stupid things like loop house of pain.
For the rest of my killers? We chilling. I can play super nice and prefer to. But on Freddy... 1,2 I am coming for you, and only you. 3,4, you will be bored. 5,6, I will get my fix. 7,8, never leave the hook at this rate.
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I'm not saying play bad on purpose. I'm saying people shouldn't get so upset that they are getting more difficult matches due to SBMM. If you play your hardest to "win" at DBD, how can you be upset if your opponent does the same?
Somewhere along the lines "strong killers that give me the best chance at a 4k" somehow replaced "viable killers" and "Perks that give me the most meta/efficent advantage" replaced "decent perks".
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Give em' hell. :-)
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So what do you do if you are sweating hard just to get 2 hooks and 0 kills. You'd expect SBMM to rank you down appropriately but that's not happening for me. Every game I get destroyed with all gens done after 1-3 chases and maybe 2-3 hooks.
So after 10 games of this I get 1 game where I can get 2-3k and then its another run of 10 games of getting destroyed. Its not about 4k's or "winning" its about having a good game of horror survival where the likelyhood of getting killed is high so the tension is high. You can't have 1 game in 10 where that happens and feel motivated to keep playing.
So you switch to survivor but then you sit all game on a gen and then walk out the door because the killer only interacts with part of the team spending the whole game just trying to catch that one other survivor.
DBD is now loopy sweat tag and its kinda tedious to play. I haven't had a good nail biter hook exchange game since SBMM was brought in.
Also you are exhibiting this behaviour too with the negative rationalizing of "enjoy your x killers", "enjoy your SWF seat squads". Now whatever you need to do to keep yourself in a good head space go ahead and do it, but a game shouldn't make you feel like you have to do that if its actually fun.
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I really like the way this post was formatted, it captured my thoughts on SBMM entirely. People have literally convinced themselves that they need to be competitive now, despite SBMM doing nothing but trying (though seemingly failing) to create fairer matches.
It's one of the reasons I enjoy the fact it's invisible, because removing the visibility removes the incentive to play sweatier/more competitive, and yet, people are still treating it like its imposing that. The point of the invisibility is because it isn't meant to change how you play, just the matches you get. It's a flawed system for sure, but "If you play your hardest to "win" at DBD, how can you be upset if your opponent does the same?" is exactly how I feel about it, lol.
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It definitely has something to do with attitude towards gaming. People get very competitive about it, which is fine - if they want to, then that's okay. It's the attitude to taking losses or having a bad game that some lash out at others because it's so much easier to blame the oppoments or the game design than it is to accept maybe that individual simply isn't as good as they think. In all honesty, if people were more accepting they need not be perfect and understand the need to improve what they can control then things would be easier! This isn't about trying to look good so they can appear on 4gamer to make fun of other players. That says more about a sense of "not feeling they are good enough".
Unfortunately, it stems beyond this game and becomes a.much more cultural problem. A lot of things put pressure on others to be more "perfect" or needing to stand out by looking like a reality tv star or some #########. It's this forcing people into attitudes and it's unhealthy. There's this advert in the UK for a shampoo where it basically says "Dandruff says: Don't Go Out! Don't have fun! Don't wear what you want!", whilst a group of beautiful people prance about, acting as if they are rebelling and being cool. Sorry, but dandruff says ######### all! It's a ######### shampoo! But the advert makes it more than this. It says: "Use this, or you're weak because you listen to dandruff".
It's bollocks, but this happens everywhere and this game follows the pattern: Everyone needs to be seen as Godly or the next elite player or whatever. They need to be right, otherwise they are weak. People don't need this pressure on themselves. They don't need to compete for followers or viewers or being seen as a shining example.
I know it's jumped a little into a broader spectrum, but in the end I cannot really even criticize those who play with this idea of being amazing and looking down on others, because they've felt the pressure put on them by such expectations and this is the only way they know how to beat it, because they cannot accept weakness as a trait that actually is something to learn from than just pretend isn't there.
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"This isn't a problem of BHVR's creation"
FULL STOP....They don't need us to give them excuses, they are a business, if they have excuses let them say it themselves.
Second, anything designed is designed with purpose. If they design a system that leads to a result, then they are accountable for that system. You should NEVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER need to blame the customers of a game or mmo for things in that game being broken. The playerbase of every game is reactive, developers give you the chess pieces, and then what you do with them from there is purely based on what limitations you were given. Don't be like Scott Jund and others constantly blaming their own communities for why a game is bad. Because no other game thats successful blames its community for its faults. Its a cop out, its passing the buck and its wrong.
It is a game, that will be played how people want to play it. If people aren't playing it the way the devs intended or have a vision for then its not the players fault, its the devs for not setting out with the rules properly and setting up proper limitations...
If you're playing super mario, and the devs decide to just leave out any limitations to Double Jump....so that instead of going through the level normally, you can just double jump an infinite amount of times and fly past the level....whos fault is it that the game can be completed so easily? The people using double jump to quickly clear levels, or the devs for allowing infinite double jumps?
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First of all, its an infonite cycle wher eif one side starts to sweat, the other does too, qnd again and again
Second off, i think BHVR is still somewhat faulty, why? For 2 reasons:
-gameplay mechanics havent been changed at all in five years (or almost not if you prefer) so optimisation became the only thing to do for someone pmaying the game à lot
-not fixing à clear win/lose condition when the game goes around à killer wanting to kill survivors wanting to escape, objectives became simple then, killer kills, survivor escapes, no matter what and the cost
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since SBMM ive been taking the longest breaks ever 3 days, 4 days... so much better i hope i quit it eventually.
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The difference is, in those games i have access to those same things. In this game, if i'm playing killer, i can't just start using Dead hard because it is the best perk. The asymmetrical nature of the game means that one side does not have access to things the other side does. So when the game is imbalanced it is much less fair. At least in DotA for example, if Invoker is OP, i could just play Invoker next game.
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“So what do you do if you are sweating hard just to get 2 hooks and 0 kills. You'd expect SBMM to rank you down appropriately but that's not happening for me. Every game I get destroyed with all gens done after 1-3 chases and maybe 2-3 hooks. “
I'm sorry that has been your experience. I wonder if the experience has been the same for the majority of the playerbase. My experience hasn't been like that – and I definitely hope that your experience improves. I think one of the issue of these forums is that you have a very small but very vocal community expressing their experiences and then normalizing/projecting said experiences as how every player feels.
“So after 10 games of this I get 1 game where I can get 2-3k and then its another run of 10 games of getting destroyed. Its not about 4k's or "winning" its about having a good game of horror survival where the likelyhood of getting killed is high so the tension is high. You can't have 1 game in 10 where that happens and feel motivated to keep playing.
So you switch to survivor but then you sit all game on a gen and then walk out the door because the killer only interacts with part of the team spending the whole game just trying to catch that one other survivor.”
I understand. No one wants to play a game where they feel like they have no chance of success, even if they are improving. A 9% success rate definitely does little to motivate one to keep playing – and if that is how it continues for you, then you have a more than valid complaint.
I know how a 9% success rate feels. When I first started I hated rift challenges as a survivor that asked you to escape, because I almost never could. It sucked. I got tunneled out because I was often the clear weak link – and somehow I kept getting red rank killers or (what I assumed were) smurfed killers. On the killer side, I hated challenges like the one that askes you to 4k before all gens are complete. I kept going against (what I assumed were) red rank SWFs and experienced survivors who could loop me for days and teabagged at every pallet. The old rank system consistently misplaced me against opponents.
“Also you are exhibiting this behaviour too with the negative rationalizing of "enjoy your x killers", "enjoy your SWF seat squads". Now whatever you need to do to keep yourself in a good head space go ahead and do it, but a game shouldn't make you feel like you have to do that if its actually fun.”
That's a fair point. I didn't add enough context for that statement and it came off more negative than I intended. When I said “enjoy your Nurses/Spirits/Blights” and “enjoy your SWF sweat squads” it wasn't because I have any particular negative opinion towards the people who play those killers or play that style, but because the narrative is that those are currently the strongest S tier killers in the game, and SWFs have the most advantage in the game. These are the only killers that are supposedly viable at high MMR. By making high MMR one's target, by playing as efficient and meta as possible, and if streams/forum and reddit posts are to be believed, you will get to a point where the variety is extremely limited. You will be inundated with matches against those three killers or SWF teams running the most meta perks. If that doesn't sound like “fun” then maybe people should modify how they play. This is what I mean by “You can't eat your cake and have it too”.
The game isn't making us do anything. Last I checked the game has 24 killers with 84 perks and 95 survivor perks. We are choosing the most efficient and powerful play styles because people like to win. Is DBD balanced? No. And by its definition, an asymmetrical game shouldn't be balanced by the conventional definition of the term. Will there always be killer/perk tiers? Most likely. I'm with you that Behavior needs to work on game balance – but how do we achieve balance in an assymetrical game? Personally, I don't think the goal should be to eliminate killer/perk tiers but to significantly decrease the gap in power between the top tier and the bottom tier. If you want a high success rate, play the most efficient killers and use the most efficient perks/add-ons/etc – but do that with the understanding that at the top you will face people with a similar mindset. Otherwise, play whatever you want.
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I definitely agree that sbmm was a terrible idea. I was just saying that people tend to take this game too seriously when the devs themselves don’t want people to. This is why MMR is hidden so nobody knows what to strive for.
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