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MMR / Unbalance - New Player
Firstly, I have about 80 hours in this game, roughly 60 hours or so I've spent playing killer, then I started getting unfun matches against people far above my skill level so switched over to survivor.
Yesterday, I played 19 games, of those 19 games I escaped 4 times with two of those being pity hatch escapes (as I understand, hatch escapes do not affect MMR) - so, that's 15 losses and 2 wins. Today I've played 14 matches, I've escaped twice and lost 12 times.
Virtually every survivor game I've played has been against killers with over 2,000 hours, some as much as 10,000 hours.
It's incredibly frustrating, unfun and completely demoralising to have back to back games where you stand little to no chance of winning and often barely get to actually play as it seems everyone with a ridiculous amount of hours just hooks someone then stands there until you die.
At what point is the MMR system in this game going to go "you know what, maybe this guy with his 80 hours isn't quite at the same skill level as someone with 2,000 hours??" How much must I lose before I start to see remotely balanced games?
Comments
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You’ve discovered the unfortunate truth that the SBMM system simply doesn’t work. Most players don’t want to go through the stress and misery of playing killer, so most of the time there aren’t enough killers to allow the SBMM system to function well (especially true during peak times when there are more sweaty SWF squads playing together). In order to keep survivors from waiting in 20+ minute queues, as killer you’ll be matched against whatever survivor group is waiting next regardless of their MMRs. As survivor, you’ll get matched against next available killer regardless of their MMR.
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It was a lot more understandable to die 50 times in a row when there wasn't any match making.
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What exactly is the point of a skill based matchmaking system then, if it's going to completely disregard itself and throw me into matches which I obviously have no place being part of in the first place? If losing decreases my MMR, but, I'm still going to be matched with people of far higher MMR, then what's the point of it all?
I'd be far happier waiting longer in order to get more balanced games. As it is, I barely get to play and I'm outmatched in virtually every game I play. Even the few where I've escaped have really been the result of far more skilful players on my team, rather than me - which to be honest, feels just as unrewarding as the losses. This sounds absolutely ridiculous.
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Since posting this discussion I've played the game a further 26 hours or so (mostly as survivor). I read that the MMR system was altered a few days ago so figured I'd jump back in and give it a go. During my time playing over the past 2 days I've lost 27 games in a row as survivor. There seems to be no kind of "middle ground" for players like me, as though every single person playing has a ridiculous amount of hours - which just can't possibly be the case. Almost every game I've played has been against a killer player with thousands of hours and I obviously don't stand a chance and get no opportunity to actually learn anything.
Why can't BHVR add a "quick match" option for players who just want to jump into a game as fast as possible with potentially looser matchmaking criteria and give players like me (who would much rather longer queue times for a more balanced game) the option to wait for a more evenly balanced game? I don't belong in the lobbies I'm being placed into, I'm a hindrance to the survivors unfortunate enough to jump in a lobby with me and I'm not a remotely challenging opponent for the vast majority of killers I'm being put against.
I really do not understand the point of a matchmaking system that essentially ignores itself after a certain period of time and forces you into a match that you have no place being in, it's a poor situation for everyone. It seems that regardless of how much I lose it just doesn't matter as despite my MMR obviously tanking (I presume it must be) I'm still placed into matches with and against players who are high MMR, so what exactly is the point of the system??
Didn't mean to rant for so long, this game is just incredibly frustrating. There seems to be potential to have fun playing, but not when things are this ridiculously unbalanced.
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I feel you. First 200-or-so-survivor hours went pretty much exactly as you described. I was so lost. There is just too much to actually learn while playing live. (to learn effectively stuff needs to be incremental and repeated. Both of which is impossible given the sheer amount of perks, maps, killers, Items and add ons that get thrown at you all at once).
That, in my opinion, is the biggest issue with MMR for new players. Irrespective of skill or matches won/lost a human just needs a certain amount of time to familiarise themselves with core aspects and base mechanics of the game --- and they best do that with people who are also still figuring that stuff out. Like what maps there are, what main buildings and other structures there are, how to move the character effectively, where gens can be etc pp. It takes quite a while to get that down; the whole "time played doesn't reflect skill" only works well in one direction. Newbies need a newbie-q where playtime in a given role is taken into account.
After those ~200 survivor hours where i was lost and only had fun cause I had swf friends who were just as lost, I started to notice how things started to change and how I was getting to a point where I could actually play the game instead of just running around and doing things.
As is, I guess getting into dbd and not have the first few hundred hours be mostly miserable requires you to have four friends to play custom games with to make up for the fishtank-full-of-piranhas-like nature of live matches. Only switvh to live once you got a hang of things.
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Sorry man, that is really rough.
I can´t imagine how it is to start with this game today.
They seriously need to do more to fix their system as fewer people will start and keep playing.
There was this mention of "consider team result" to add. Maybe they start to realize that kills/escapes is not the best thing to determin skill.
Someone had an idea that there should be an additional extra cap at so 500 hours.
Normal MMR but only players sub 500 hours will be matches against. After that they are matched against everybody.
Could keep the beginners a bit seperated at first.
Not a bad idea i think.
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Not that long ago Otz (a very popular DBD streamer) was training new players how to play killer, and they discovered that they were being thrown into matches against survivors with thousands of hours under their belt within just 4-6 matches. When you factor in that the game doesn't even have a proper training mode, but instead throws you into the deep end and expects you to know how to swim, something like SBMM (on top of a MASSIVE grind) really makes the game a hard pill to swallow for new players.
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See this is what I don't understand, playing this game would have you believe that the only people playing at any given time are those with thousands of hours invested, yet, this cannot possibly be the case. Every single game is so unbalanced with no middle ground at all.
Today has been exactly the same experience. I've played 8 games so far and lost all of them. Not a single killer I've faced has had less than 1500 total hours played.
I don't mind losing games and I realise I have a lot to learn, but it just doesn't make sense to constantly face players who have been playing for so long. I'm not learning anything as I don't feel I'm given the chance. I have maybe 50 hours as survivor so far, I shouldn't be going against the players I'm constantly matched against, particularly if there's a "working" MMR system in place.
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What hours are you playing? If you are playing on off hours it’s entirely possible there are few new killers to go against.
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Get gud
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Varies really, I'm in EU region. I've played during early morning, afternoon, evening and night. My experience seems to be the same regardless of what time I play. I'd have assumed that playing during the weekend might improve things a little, but nope. My queue times tend to be pretty quick too, less than a minute in most cases, so it's not as if I should be just "thrown" into any available game due to long wait times.
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What a witty and original response. Did you think of that all by yourself? I'll have to remember that one!
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For reference the devs explained how matchmaking works in their blog post a couple of days ago. But basically if you’re getting paired against much more skilled opponents it’s either because
- They had been waiting in queue a long time already and the game needed to eventually put them in whatever match was available. And since your rating is also possibly an outlier on the low end, and the game had trouble filling your lobby, it had an empty spot for a backfill.
- Some killers intentionally tank their ratings to bully weak people. Those players probably have low MMRs but high hours,
- If the other survivors in your match are high rated the game is using he average of he survivor ratings as the goal rating for the killer.
Of course knowing what’s causing a mismatch doesn’t help you escape. Best advice is stick with it, you’ll get better the more you play, and eventually you’ll be good enough to escape more consistently against the killer’s you’re facing.
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That's...not what's going on.
There are sufficient killer players that my survivor queues are nearly instant outside of peak.
What's going on at peak is that there are more groups, and thus more chances to be caught in a backfill situation - which is the one thing that causes SBMM to break down. Apparently this will be fixed soonish.
Something is hinky here, because I played a good amount of survivor yesterday and something was definitely up - early morning matches were bonkers - but it seemed to be fixed by the afternoon.
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New players arent placed at the bottom of SBMM, unfortunately you will have to endure losing a bunch to find your place
You could end up in high mmr in time, and jeez is that a fun filled adventure!
All in all the SBMM sucks, sorry
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I play survivor with my very casual friend and we always get matched with the sweatiest killers despite losing the large majority of our games. One example is the 4k hour Nurse we got last night. Game went exactly how you'd expect. Either the system doesn't work or a lot of killers smurf their MMR.
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Thing is, I've lost well over 30 games in a row. I've barely won any games at all as survivor in the 50 hours or so I've played as survivor and the few times I do "win" are often due to the killer letting me go. Surely at this point my MMR should be as low as possible? It shouldn't take over 50 hours of playtime for me to "find my place", right?
10 minutes ago I played against a killer who was devotion 25 back in 2020 (I got this info from his Steam screenshots). My team had a mix of players with tier 1/2 perks. Needless to say, we got one single gen done before all were dead. This is just absurd.
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Well it depends, I have no idea how far in they place new players and if you're being mismatched you wont loose much mmr because the game knew youd lose.
The system is heavily flawed, and I'm afraid I cant offer any suggestions. Maybe try playing at a different time? The time you play can have a huge impact on people you verse etc. Its why alot of high mmr killers will play at peak time.
Also alot of people derank, but the system itself is massively flawed and all I can really suggest is a custom game or swf with other people and practice/hope for the best.
Believe it or not the mmr system was mainly done for newer players, great sign ay lol
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That used to be the case, but there is definitely a 'new player' bracket.
Got my wife to try the game recently, and her first...maybe 5 games were absolutely with other newbies.
The problem was that she had me telling her what to do as a killer, meaning she won - and suddenly she was facing meta squads.
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I haven't seen any official statement that they changed it, but that's why I mentioned playing at a different time because that definitely has a huge impact due to the increased player pool.
Let's be honest theres so many issues with the SBMM, my brother has yet to "win" a killer game and hes played about 100 odd lol. Hes definitely not near a top killer and he dont use meta but hes not bad either so I find that weird.
I hate the system, all of it. Only thing iv probably enjoyed due to SBMM is seeing the same people so often its turned into a meme and we just send messages like "ew its you" "go find your own lobby jeez" "hello there obi screenshot" etc. Lol
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No idea if/when it was changed, I'm just saying what I observed teaching a completely new killer the game.
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I'm not sure, usually killer is easy at the start especially if you have some awareness or education on the game and how its played and as you go up it swaps over.
I dont know anyone knew to killer, no one wants to play it and I stopped recommending DBD
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Yep.
At the new-new player level, killers have the advantage because their role is slightly more intuitive. I think this is the reason why, when you look at gross kill rates, most killers are above 50%.
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Are you playing solo q? If so it won’t get any better and I don’t think the devs are fixing it other than adding some form of comms, you’re better off swf, or just keep playing as killer.
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Solo. To be honest, I think I give up. My last game was against a 4,000 hour Legion who just camped me out at 5 gens - I've had enough. I appreciate all the advice in this thread, but it occurred to me that I've been doing something for over 50 hours which I'm finding thoroughly unenjoyable. The most baffling thing I've found is that the vast majority of players with over 1,000 hours seem to be angry, abusive and appear to have tossed all fun out the window in favour of "winning" at all costs, regardless of whether they themselves are actually enjoying the game. It's a shame as I genuinely think there's potential for this game to be fun, but, both "sides" seem to spoil it for each other.
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