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Why does the community complain about MMR and then pretend that they didn't ask for it?

So many people in the community complain about MMR being a problem, it ruining the game, every match being a sweatfest etc. and people feeling burned out of DBD because of MMR. People saying MMR is going to ruin the game and trashing BHVR for adding it as if it came out of their own heads and yet the reality is is that BHVR gave the community what they asked for.

What I don't understand is why 90% of the time these are the same people who made fun of the old matchmaking system, would talk about how useful ranks are and how matchmaking needs to be fixed so people of appropriate levels can be matched with each other etc. and you don't go against babies so often, or are paired with them. And while matchmaking isn't perfect by any means, it does its job as you can see people complaining about the increased difficulty of games. Matchmaking in DBD is really black and white, not in between. You get random pairings with really no logic or you get a partially-accurate MMR system that gives you difficult teams as your MMR gets higher.

As it's been revealed that the requirements to gain MMR is really shallow, changing it to be more complex won't do very much as it will still result in sweaty games when you get high MMR. I've seen people suggest that MMR should factor in things like time spent looping or whatever and that is not going to change a thing as you're still going to get the same sweat fests you complain about.

To the people who complained so much about the prior matchmaking and dislike MMR now: Like what did you expect? Prior matchmaking just paired everyone together and the lot of these people just requested matchmaking pair up people who are similar in skill, or at least results (whether or not you're "good" you know enough about the game to win in a way that doesn't always have to involve skill i.e. immersing). You got that, now you're complaining about it and act like it came from nowhere. It really is a black and white situation. You get random pairings or you get these sweat squads and killers when MMR are on and you progress throughout it.

P.S. I've not really got an opinion about MMR and I don't care about it either way but I find it really nutty how these people in the community are pretending that they didn't ask for MMR.

Comments

  • VaJaybles
    VaJaybles Member Posts: 659
    edited December 2021

    I remember the same, however I don't think this was the MMR system people were expecting. I don't really play games with MMR so I'm not sure what they were hoping for, but I know this ain't it Chief.

  • kyogul
    kyogul Member Posts: 491

    Didn't work in what? As I said MMR system and its requirements isn't perfect or near it but it obviously does what it was intended to do as it's giving people harder games. The entire purpose of MMR is to scale difficulty and pair people up as best as possible accordingly. People aren't complaining that MMR isn't doing that, they're complaining about the hard games they're receiving.

    And then there's the question about what is the alternative? It's a black and white situation in DBD matchmaking; you get random matchmaking or you get a system that produces more sweat squads and killers like it is now. There's no in between. People complained about the former, all suggested something like the latter, and when they got what they asked for they started to play coy.

  • Marc_123
    Marc_123 Member Posts: 3,631

    As of now it "feels" worse than the old system. In my opinion i have far less balanced matches i play.

  • kyogul
    kyogul Member Posts: 491

    It's not really simple, and you didn't answer the question either. Didn't work in what?

    Then what's your solution?

    Because people asked for the random matchmaking to scale to give them teammates of a similar skill level. MMR does that way more often than the prior system.

    The complaints about MMR are valid, but I just find it really funny how people are acting like this isn't what they asked for, but yet none of them can provide a single solution that would make the system better.

    They asked for a system to scale difficulty and match people accordingly and they got it. Now they don't like it and are pretending they didn't yap in BHVR's ear for this for years

  • StarLost
    StarLost Member Posts: 8,077

    Because an improvement is not perfection.

    It's better than ranks were, at least at my MMR - but I still get too many games that oscillate between me facing off against a group of <100 hour players and stomping and 1000 hour monster SWFs that stomp me.

    It's also frustrating for very high MMR players, because their matches will be quite sweaty.

  • Brimp
    Brimp Member Posts: 2,995

    I complain about mmr because they call is "skill-based match making" when in this game there is little amounts of skill when you can have perks do everything for you. Dont like these killers? Well, here's a boon making their power 3x as useless and you get a healing speed buff vs every other killer making it an easy escape. And since mmr is just based off kills and escapes (spent a year and a half for this btw) and not even some other factor like how long you were in chase for as survivor before going down, how quickly you ended the chase as killer, etc.

  • kyogul
    kyogul Member Posts: 491

    The thing is though, people are primarily complaining about how sweaty DBD is and how fatiguing the sweat fest games can be, not that the games aren't hard, which them getting so many difficult games to the point of complaining (presuming high MMR) is a sign MMR is working (whenever it does work, but obviously more often than non-MMR).

    There is also the fact that adding in a more complex system isn't going to solve the problem either. The games are still going to be difficult and you're still going to get the same type of survivors. There's also the fact that optimal gameplay in this game (especially on survivor side) is not skillful at all. Predropping pallets, holding W, camping with no ed. We can use the comp scene as an example, since high MMR games are basically wannabe-comp games/pub scrims anyway. Obviously you've got way above-average players in that sort of setting, and some of the most renowned ones in terms of skill. Yet, it's why a description I heard of comp DBD is accurate: professional rank 20 gameplay. Because non-skillful gameplay is rewarded.

    This was very obvious without MMR, yet people demanded a system that paired people up in accordance to skill and/or difficulty (difficulty is a better measure for DBD). So they got what they asked for.

    Yep that's how it's going to be. High MMR games make the imbalance more obvious than it was. And this was very obvious--at least to me--pre-MMR and yet you had hoards of people basically asking for a system which is current MMR. While the requirements for MMR are obviously shallow, it doesn't matter as the end result is still there: you get more difficult games more often.

    That's a gameplay issue. I'm going to reference what I said above about how optimal gameplay in this game is basically professional rank 20 gameplay.

    A system based on skill, such as how long you survive in a game/how long you last in chase | how fast you down people, how many hooks (not hook stages) you get, etc. being things that get you points in MMR which is more reflective of skill does absolutely nothing to solve the main complaints about MMR. People are still going to get difficult games that are going to fatigue them over time.

    I reiterate again. The primary ire of MMR is not because people are complaining about not being matched with similarly-skilled players, as that's already evidenced to not be true because of the obvious increase of difficult games. The primary ire is because it's too many difficult games. What 98% of the people in the community who complain about MMR don't realise is that they're subconsciously complaining that optimal gameplay in this game doesn't involve skill. And you don't have to play the game very long to realise that, and yet pre-MMR they asked for a system to scale skill/difficulty and match people accordingly.

    They got what they asked for: more difficult games. Arguably more skillful ones (at least in game knowledge) as they can't win as often as before / have to try harder than before.

  • MrPeanutbutter
    MrPeanutbutter Member Posts: 1,586

    I feel the same way. For the amount of time it took to develop this MMR system, to come up with a product that just scores you based on escapes or kills is pretty disappointing. They could have literally just used the pip system instead and it would have given a better result

  • kyogul
    kyogul Member Posts: 491

    Anyone who has been around this community and game for even a moderate amount of time know that the balancing thing was not going to happen any time soon. Yet people complained about pre-MMR matchmaking and demanded a system to pair them with similarly-skilled survivors and heavily implying they want more difficult games.

    Yes the requirements for MMR are extremely shallow. But as I said before, adding factors that are more indicative of skill isn't going to solve the issue. People are still going to get more difficult games than they want, which is what they are primarily complaining about for MMR.

    Those sorts of changes aren't anything new, though. And I do agree, MMR makes the imbalance of the game more obvious. But the community got what they asked for.

    What people really should be complaining about is not the MMR system but how optimal gameplay in this game does not involve skill. Because whether you have this system or a more detailed-and-skill-reflecting system (whether it be called MMR or not), you will get the same amount of difficult games.

    Look, I get the complaints about MMR. A lot are valid. This isn't a thread about why complaining about MMR is bad. It's more so trying to point out that almost everyone who complaints about MMR are being airheaded and are complaining about the wrong things.

    People keep saying MMR is bad because it doesn't reflect skill and yet they don't realise optimal game play in this game doesn't reflect skill almost at all. And on top of that even if you have a system that had more factors to reflect the few things that were indicative of skill, it would still give them difficult games like they have now. And they'd complain still.

    Even with the erroneous focus the lot of the community are harping on, their suggestions aren't fruitful nor will fix their problems. Because as we can see in comp where you have even a higher saturation of people who have more experience and subsequently skill, it's the same issue. It's why an accurate description of comp is "professional rank 20 gameplay". Because playing optimally in this game is not skillful and doesn't change in almost all circumstances no matter how much experience you have.

    That ideal system that magically matches you up with people of similar experience/skill as you is still going to result in the exact result of this current MMR system and you're going to get the same type of survivors. Because no matter how skilled you are, optimal gameplay does not involve nearly as much skill.

  • kyogul
    kyogul Member Posts: 491

    That's kind of implying that the MMR system isn't working well in terms of giving people difficult games, which isn't true.

    I agree the MMR system's requirements are shallow, but people are overlooking that optimal gameplay is also shallow, so it doesn't matter. An ideal system that magically pairs you up with survivors of a similar experience, as you progress with higher MMR, is going to give the same result as now. Because the most skilled survivors in high MMR are going to play in a way that is very shallow and barely reflects skill, because this game's optimal playstyle is shallow, just like the MMR system.

    I really don't understand why people have a hard time understanding that.

  • ChurchofPig
    ChurchofPig Member Posts: 2,766

    MMR is an example of "It sounded like a good idea until it was tested."

    After it was tested a lot of people realized that it wasn't healthy and started asking the devs not to continue working on mmr, but the devs didn't listen.

  • Warcrafter4
    Warcrafter4 Member Posts: 2,917
    edited December 2021

    The issue is that people asked for a NEW Match making system.

    What we got is the game regressing to an OLD Match Making system and even dev admitted terrible system where it only cares about Kills/Escapes.

    We had this system in the past as it was one of the earliest Match Making systems which failed once already because it couldn't determine skill.

    So I have no idea why they thought bringing it back was a good idea.

  • kyogul
    kyogul Member Posts: 491

    In a system based on skill, it results to the precise same thing we have now in high MMR because the best players in the world still play in an extremely shallow way (predropping pallets, camping with no ed to get stages, holding W) because that is the optimal play. And a huge factor in why people play games in the first place is to win. On top of that the games are just going to be as difficult to win. The main ire of MMR comes from the fact that people can't win as easily and it's demotivating. So how on earth would a skill-based matchmaking system do any better than what's going on now?

    Despite this very obvious logic that was present even before MMR was officially implemented, people still requested and are still requesting for a skill-based matchmaking system but don't realise that it not only already exist but there are no impactful improvements to be made in terms of the MMR logic, because the optimal gameplay is accessible to everyone of any skill type in this game.

    It's a cycle and it's not putting focus on the actual problem which is the game balance. But yet people don't realise that and it's lowkey making people look dumb that they're complaining about the current MMR system and arguing for a skill-based matchmaking system/something similar and don't realise that you are going to get the same exact result with an MMR system with more skill-based factors (individual hooks, time spent looping + any objectives your teammates did while you looped the killer, time spent alive in a trial, how fast you end chases etc.)

    People can do what they want. I never said no one can complain or they don't have the right to. I'm pointing out that they are complaining about the precise thing that they yelled at BHVR to do for years and are pretending that they didn't request it. On top of also not realising that any popular improvements to the MMR logic will not do anything of substance, in addition to the most important part that their focus is on the wrong thing, which is the game balance.

    No matchmaking system is going to be any better than pre-MMR or current MMR until game balance is fixed. This was a very obvious fact, yet people still demanded a new matchmaking system instead of advocating more heavily for game balance first. And they're still doing the same thing.

    Basically, I'm calling out people who complain about MMR in this specific way (and a popular way at that) for being extremely dumb in their logic and also calling them out and showcasing how they are responsible for MMR being implemented in the first place. BHVR simply gave the community what they asked for and now they're trying to hide their hands under the table and play stupid and wonder where the idea of MMR came from.

    This post isn't about me advocating the MMR system is good and people shouldn't be complaining about it; there are many valid complaints, and I don't think MMR should be in the game right now.

    The focus of this post is to call attention to how people like this (and there are hoards of them, not hard to come by) who complain and complained about MMR are not only responsible for why it's in the game, but how their mythical idea of an MMR system based on skill results in the same exact thing as we have now.

    Optimal gameplay in this game involves things such as almost never looping a jungle gym and playing extremely safe while your team genrush, predropping pallets, holding W / no ed, camping to force stages, and so on, which are playstyles accessible regardless of skill. The best players in the game play this way in order to win in comp settings. A huge factor of people's enjoyment of a game is to win. Therefore as we can see, the higher you go in current MMR, you get people who play like this in high MMR and it's not reflective of skill. In a skill-based matchmaking system that pairs you with people who are actually very skilled when you're in high MMR, you get...the same exact playstyle. Because in order to win you play in a way that doesn't reflect skill.

    Current MMR is shallow because the optimal gameplay of this game is shallow. That's not going to change by tweaking current MMR. It's going to change by addressing game balance. This mythical skill-based matchmaking system would only """work""" if it means throwing the game. An example: skilled survivors going against a good Billy not pre dropping pallets, holding W, or playing extremely safe, and doing gens extremely slowly (if at all) to allow more game time for chases. They are literally throwing the game, heavily decreasing their chances of winning, and giving him more opportunity to curve them and down them, decreasing their chances of winning. The optimal play to heavily increase your chances of winning is to to play safe, genrush, and pre drop pallets. Hence why comp is best described as professional rank 20 gameplay and furthermore how current MMR is best described as wannabe-comp/pub scrims.

    What is the community doing instead? Crying about MMR and drawing attention away from the main problem being game balance, not MMR and demanding an alternative matchmaking system that results in the same exact thing that they're complaining about.

  • RainehDaze
    RainehDaze Member Posts: 2,573

    Because I am fairly certain the nebulous concept known as the community did not ask for invisible, untrackable MMR which seemingly turns off completely if you're waiting moderately long, and was based entirely on kills/escapes, and treats the game as a set of 4 1v1's rather than a 1v4, and you're not going to gaslight anyone into believing that they did?

  • Nemmy_Wemmy
    Nemmy_Wemmy Member Posts: 800

    Yeah I'm one of those that complained about it before it was ever even tested. Bc I knew how unfun it was in every game ive played with it in it without also having a casual option. To my absolute shock it was awful when tested and they pushed it through anyways. The old system was better, should've expanded upon that instead.

  • Adjatha
    Adjatha Member Posts: 1,814

    What was asked for: 1) easier match making when playing a killer you have no experience with to give you a chance to learn their power and 2) games which aren't total cake walks but also aren't absurdly unwinnable

    What was delivered: 2) your new killers are max mmr so you have to lose a ton before you have any chance to actually learn the power and 2) matchmaking that puts newbies together with newbies and pros together with pros and throws killers anywhere at any point with no regard to their skill because filling lobbies is more important to the devs than matching killers with like-skilled survivors.

  • Laluzi
    Laluzi Member Posts: 6,223
    edited December 2021

    I was enthused about MMR because I, like many other players, assumed it'd be built on something considerably more nuanced than just escapes and kills.

    The test matches were rough at times, but they didn't have the time to settle into the absolute MMR pits that exist now for most players (with low MMR survivor and high MMR killer being soul-crushing, inescapable pits.) I liked the killer matches because they matched me with players closer to my skill level, as opposed to matching me above my skill level. But now that MMR is active for more than a day at a time - my killer MMR gets super low when I play the way I want to and act friendly after 8 hooks, so I have to play in ways I don't want to in order to keep afloat, and solo MMR throws me potato teammates as often as competent ones and the best I can do is break even. It's gotten really common for me to make it to the end of the match and then die because everyone just runs to the gates and leaves.

    And a few players noticed then what practically everyone does now. But it wasn't remotely as pronounced during the testing phases because they were all so brief.

    I was also excited about MMR because I thought it would allow for BHVR to better analyze data within different gameplay brackets, since old red ranks meant extremely little and rank 1 was too wide a net to examine. However, I haven't seen any evidence of balancing decisions made to address high-end gameplay, so that hope was also quashed.

  • BadLooperQ
    BadLooperQ Member Posts: 277

    Cause back then I didn't thought that years of work would lead to a simple mindset as: kills/escapes = Skill

  • anarchy753
    anarchy753 Member Posts: 4,212

    Two reasons.

    One, you assume the community is single-minded. Many of us never wanted an MMR system in the first place, and now that it's implemented in a really terrible way we feel justified in criticising it more than ever.

    Two, because they promised a skill-based system, then chose a method which completely disregards skill.

  • MrCalac123
    MrCalac123 Member Posts: 1,147

    What people wanted was a balanced and fair game for both sides.

    They got neither.

  • Pulsar
    Pulsar Member Posts: 20,783

    Don't look at me.

    I ######### called that it would be an awful decision from the start.

  • kyogul
    kyogul Member Posts: 491

    No I'm also one of the people who knew it was going to be a shite show as well but yet some bellends in this community didn't realise it and kept on asking for a new matchmaking system. And we got this. And now they think some irrelevant tweaks to "judge skill" is going to do anything different (it won't).

    Thank you lot for making the game worse by not knowing what you're asking for

    One, I've said in multiple ways that I'm talking about a specific person rather than everyone who complains and dislikes current MMR.

    Two, a skill-based system isn't a solution. Because the optimal play in this game isn't skill-based.

    A large factor of people's fun in games is to win. The optimal strategies in these game are brainless (pre-dropping pallets, holding W and almost never looping a structure while your team genrush / no ed, camping to force stages). We can use comp as an example that include some of the most renowned players in terms of skill and they all do this to win. What does that mean? Brainless, skill-less strategies are the optimal way to win.

    You can deduce that in a matchmaking system, regardless if it's more detailed or not to assess skill, the higher your MMR goes, the more you'll see this sort of playstyle because people with a decent to large amount of game knowledge know this is the best way to guarantee wins. And people do this because they want to have fun, because winning is fun to more people than not. Further meaning even in a mythical system that accurately pairs people of equal skill together, the higher your rating goes, the more you will see playstyles that do not reflect skill even by people who are very skilled at the game.

    Giving you the same product you have now.

    You lot are literally asking for a system that gives you the exact same thing now.

  • RainehDaze
    RainehDaze Member Posts: 2,573

    Even if it might end up in the same spot at the top end, prioritising more than a solo survivor's ability to survive to the end and get out, and a killer's "the number of dead people is literally the only important factor" could have important effects lower down the ladder.

  • kyogul
    kyogul Member Posts: 491

    Can you demonstrate possibilities of how that would be better though?

    Because down the ladder you have those same optimal strategies done, albeit not in the best fashions and done unintentionally due to being new and not having many perks. And at the top you have the same thing + game knowledge.

    The middle isn't going to benefit from additional factors that assess skill in MMR because it's basically a spectrum of people not knowing what you're doing to optimal game playstyles to whatever degrees, intentionally or unintentionally.

    The issue is game balance, not MMR system. There is nothing you can do to a matchmaking system, even if one is made completely new, to make it even noticeably better than current MMR. People are simply saying "skill-based matchmaking system" like robots without knowing what they're talking about or being able to talk through it even half properly

  • Veinslay
    Veinslay Member Posts: 1,959

    This system was originally sold as a benefit to killers. If you're a Pig main, you could try out Trickster and get easier survivors to learn the killer. The problem is your overall killer MMR factors in so being 1900 MMR at Huntress and then playing Pyramid Head for the first time ever has him at like 1800, getting pretty much the same survivors. It's failing at what it was originally supposed to do

  • Tsulan
    Tsulan Member Posts: 15,095

    The sbmmr just revealed how unbalanced the game is. No one can claim now, that they get non stop 4ks or that the game is killer sided.

    So it collides with certain people's agendas, and they blame the matchmaking instead of admitting that the game is unbalanced.

  • kyogul
    kyogul Member Posts: 491

    ######### finally someone who understands the god damn core issue

    I actually thought I was the only one seeing how many people in this thread literally do not see such an obvious point

  • RainehDaze
    RainehDaze Member Posts: 2,573
    edited December 2021

    Yes, it would at least reduce the odds of people endlessly complaining about camping, and selfish players, because if you budged MMR over to care more about general performance/total hooks and team play, then you're at least removing the rewards from those things.

    Now, following on from that, if you try to improve the game balance, do you want your game balance to be fixed around a 1v1-kill-vs-escape measurement of MMR? No, not really.

    I don't think it would fix any problems immediately, nor necessarily change gameplay in a big way, but it'd be a better starting point to measure and balance around.

    And I don't think anyone can honestly say it's not stupid that the work to go into escaping is a team effort, but the rewards and penalties are all solo.

  • humanbeing1704
    humanbeing1704 Member Posts: 8,999

    I personally had no issue with the old system besides the frequently pairing me with noobs

  • kyogul
    kyogul Member Posts: 491

    What you're advocating for isn't skill-based matchmaking, it's more so balancing-matchmaking to encourage particular behaviours for fairness but not skill. Camping in the right decisions is skill as there is a time and place for it and it can turn the game over, and the skill in that aspect comes from just having decent to good game knowledge, although there's really no execution skill involved in it. Co-operativeness also isn't necessarily the best either; people split up on gens and barely interact with each other when they're going hard in the paint trying to get out as survivors as an optimal strategy to apply pressure on their end as much as possible. While I do agree individual hooks is more reflective than kills, as it tells you how many chases you won, it's still not optimal and subsequently not very much reflecting the totality of skill in this game, which is founded upon doing things that produce winning.

  • RainehDaze
    RainehDaze Member Posts: 2,573

    Ah, but I didn't call for SBMM. I think it's a fool's errand to chase the idea of matching people on skill, since in the end you're only left with proxies. But we do have a lot of proxy variables that the game counts already, they do point to particular tactics, and they do show whether someone is playing selfishly (whatever that means for each side).

    You could, from that, fairly easily pick out when a Survivor has a habit of just leaving other people to die on hook so that they can get out, or a killer's camping from the first hook for whatever reason. If you based your MMR off number of hooks and had survivors gain/lose MMR as a team, it might at least alleviate some of the complaints--facecamping from first hook doesn't gib the person with a bad streak, you can't have a single survivor feed to loose MMR (of all thigns), said facecampers will stop hovering at an MMR where they feel obliged to do such things (and people will, possibly, learn to not feed and even the hookees will get moved away from this point once that happens).

    Though my real opinion on MMR is that you shouldn't make it invisible. People can't trust if it's actually working or see when it wasn't.

  • Phasmamain
    Phasmamain Member Posts: 11,531

    I speak from my experience when I say I’d be much happier with MMR if it actually did what it was supposed to do and take my skill into account

  • Munqaxus
    Munqaxus Member Posts: 2,752

    Survivors complained about the previous matchmaking because they were getting slaughtered.

    Killers loved the old matchmaking system because it was easy 4ks, without effort. Remember the 100 4k videos Otz did for every single killer in the game.

    Now that the game is mostly even, with Killers still being slightly ahead, Killers hate it because they lost a lot of power.

  • ThatOneDemoPlayer
    ThatOneDemoPlayer Member Posts: 5,623

    I've never asked for SBMM, I wanted a good ranking system. The old ranking system was better than this, games were still fun, not sweat fests

  • WretchedElk
    WretchedElk Member Posts: 311

    For me the problem seems to be queue times. After people have been waiting for x period of time MMR seems to be ignored and people are paired with anyone.

    Whenever I get a lobby with a five second queue, particularly as killer, I know I’m not in my MMR anymore.

  • Mister_xD
    Mister_xD Member Posts: 7,669

    i complain about it frequently, but i also never asked for it.

    in fact, ive been opposed to the very idea of an MMR system for this game from pretty much the getgo.


    my argumentation is very simple:

    the most basic requirement for a functional MMR system is a balanced game - which DbD is not and will never be. Therefore an MMR system does nothing but consistently drive off whoever ends at the upper spectrum of it and is trying to play the underpowered side.

    its just not a compatible matchmaking system with DbD.

  • SomberNokk
    SomberNokk Member Posts: 732

    Well I did NOT ask for MMR never once >:(

  • Mr_K
    Mr_K Member Posts: 9,224

    I'm more interested in why the same people that said killer was easy are now crying about mmr.

  • tesla
    tesla Member Posts: 446

    Well, compiling kills vs escapes and ignoring killer's tiers, maps, SWFs, items, perks, offerings and 80% of what happens in matches isn't exactly the best way to implement a SBMM in an asymmetric game.

  • danielmaster87
    danielmaster87 Member Posts: 9,431

    We wanted MMR, but basing it off of just kills and escapes is stupid.

  • Marigoria
    Marigoria Member Posts: 6,090

    Agreed.

    A facecamping Bubba can get a 2k or even a 3/4k. Is that out of skill? No. While another killer can 2 hook everyone and be seen as "less skillful".

    Same for survivor. Someone can do chases, saves and gens but dies, not skillful. Someone does nothing all game but gets to the gate and escape, skillful.