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Is the killer being slightly better than the survivors the healthiest way for matchmaking to work?
This discussion is inspired by Scott Junds latest video. Specifically the point he starts to make at around 6 minutes in:
https://youtu.be/ccYLse6kWnI?si=Zuz6lHpWxnfs_ANr
Before commenting I want to reiterate that flaming content creators or attacking them personally is not allowed so please don’t do this. You may not like what Scott says here, but I think he raises an interesting point about matchmaking in the game that I would like to hear genuine opinions on.
So the point of Scott’s video is that recently he has been finding his matches harder. At the start of the video he states that usually he wins all the time but in recent sessions this is no longer the case, causing him to speculate (as other content creators have been doing) that something has happened to MMR. He then makes a point later in the video that he believes that him playing regularly against survivors who are less experienced than him results in good matches because his playstyle paired with less experienced survivors= a better time for everyone involved. He doesn’t have to “use strats”, he can go for chases, he can 12 hook and everyone gets to play the game. So is this vision of DBD truly what ideal DBD looks like? Is this DBD at its most fun?
Here are my problems with his take:
- I cannot get on board with wanting to face lower skilled players. I understand his point but it just doesn’t sit right
- Is this game really fun for everyone if no survivor escapes? 12 hook 4K’s are obviously better than 4 Hook 4K’s but survivors not escaping due to always being outmatched by the killer player doesn’t seem fair
- He may play his version of “fair” but how many killer players will follow his personal DBD code? It seems very naive.
- The point he makes about winning all his matches seems odd when he then admits later on he prefers facing lower skilled players. It’s a weird combination of a flex and an insult. If you’re winning ALL the time, you should be facing harder opponents. If he doesn’t want to sweat in those games then stick with your usual playstyle take the L, and go next. Refusing to match your opponents sweat levels is a you problem.
Now here’s where I do sort of see his point:
- Optimal, sweaty DBD absolutely sucks
- The game prioritising kills over how the killer achieves those kills will always be an issue. If killers were rewarded more for playing the way Scott says he plays then the game would be much more enjoyable. And you wouldn’t need to stomp babies to do it.
- It’s a repeat of a previous point but it is true- generally 12 hook games are more fun than 4 hook games. I just think it would be nice if high hook counts could be achieved playing against skill matched opponents. However Scott seems to think that’s impossible, and that the survivors need to be slightly worse than the killer. Is this true?
I’m curious to know what you guys think about the argument he made here.
Comments
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I don’t agree with him. Yes 12 hooking is more fun than tunneling, but it still isn’t fun for the survivors playing against a killer out of you skill level where the chases don’t last long and the everyone’s dead at 5 gens.
He only wants easy games so he can talk to his chat, which I can understand, but if he just wants to talk and doesn’t actually care about the game I don’t see why losing to him is that big of a deal. Just talk to your chat and if the survivors steam roll you it doesn’t really matter.
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He's used to winning and is now upset that he's taking some losses... I can't with this community sometimes.
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The game is not designed for 12 hooks against Survivors on a similar skill level. Arguing that this is possible is an insult to the Survivors’ skill level.
Playing Killer can demand constant focus especially against a sweaty/strong team. Streamers also have to read chat and interact with viewers so having chill matches would definitely make it easier. Scott is also thinking from a content creator perspective when he talks about preferring to face lower skilled opponents. If he keeps getting matched against sweaty players and loses or ends up ignoring his chat to focus, it can bring a negative vibe to the stream.
Ironically, 12 hook matches will only exist if the Killer has a higher skill level then the survivors. Playing without strategy or counting hook states isnt reliable in winning.
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I've dug up this dev post, because I feel like the highlighted bit in particular is relevant. Maybe the matchmaking system actually wasn't working (which alot of us suspected) and now it finally will be. I thought that's what we, as a general community, wanted.
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exactly. if you don't care to put any effort in your games then you shouldn't be winning games in first place.
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I watched the video -- I think Scott was trying to say that the game is a nicer experience for him when he plays against people who are a little bit worse. Which is very understandable -- I also have more fun when I go against people who are a little bit worse than me.
The problem with applying it to matchmaking is that it isn't really fun to be on the other side and lose constantly because you keep getting matched with people higher than you. The argument he makes in the video is that, because he plays nicely, maybe it's more fun to play against him than against a lower-ranked opponent who plays oppressively -- and, again, that might be true -- but it would be even more fun to play against someone you had a chance to beat. That argument also doesn't account for the fact that, when there is no MMR, low-rank survivors don't just match with the nice high-rank killers -- they match with the super oppressive ones, too -- and that's the worst possible experience for them.
The solution to this is the same as it's always been -- just play how you want to play and accept that, if everything's balanced, it means you'll lose half the time.
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My take (rant incoming): the DbD community sucks. How weak of a mindset does one have to have that something immediately becomes "unfun" if they have to think and try to win? It's a community-wide mentality. I swear most DbD players have never competed in anything in their lives. You're a bad sport if you think it's ok to face weaker players and win all the time without really trying. I don't choke out white belts in BJJ, because that's a crappy thing to do.
I straight up think most content creators are lying when they say DbD is unfun when matchmaking is strict. It's the same game at its core. Unless people's nerve endings are really so fried that standing next to a hook for 30 seconds sometimes is just too long and non-negotiable. Maybe I'm a boomer and time is relative.
To be clear, this isn't directed at Scott or anyone in particular. I think the DbD community is mostly weak-minded when it comes to competition. There is nothing wrong with being casual and chill about the game. But you need to be ok with losing to people who take it seriously if that's the case. The DbD community wants to have their cake and eat it too.
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"I straight up think most content creators are lying when they say DbD is unfun when matchmaking is strict"
I think it's because it affects their job at the end of the day.
Lots of content creators run popular YouTube channels. People subscribe and watch their videos because they're presented as being the best of the best and at a level that others aspire to reach. MMR being stricter means potentially less favourable content for them to share, but it also makes their gaming experience look similar to that of the average player. For example - they love their winstreak videos, those draw in lots of views. Tighter MMR means those will be harder to achieve and that popular content, which literally provides their income, may now be taken from them.
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To use an extreme and slightly absurd example, you could set up an account on a website where Magnus Carlsen plays online chess and there is absolutely zero chance the Elo system would ever match you up with him. In a functional MMR system, for the most part the best players should really be playing against the best players, right?
I've had match ups with Survivors so bad I've had to pretend to patrol gens on the other side of the map for a bit just so the team could get a couple of gens done. You can try to make the game fun for a less experienced opponent (or at least not a completely miserable time), but it only works up to a point.
I know this is a goofy silly game of spooky hide and seek in the fog. It doesn't really matter if you win or lose. But I still think players should ideally be matched with opponents of roughly equal skill. And that in all likelihood means you won't be winning every single game, but you'll still feel like you had your chances.
Would viewers stop watching their streams if they had to focus a little bit more on the game to win or had to endure the odd losing streak? I dunno about that...
Then again, I don't have to worry about an audience seeing me whiffing at air or smacking a rock half a dozen times before getting my first down at only 2 gens left. I can't imagine how bad it would feel to put yourself out there as an expert player, play really well and still find you get stomped on in every other game because you got outplayed by the other guy(s). Their loses have got to sting a little bit harder. I can't imagine there's much left for these guys to learn or improve on.
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I was excited about MMR, but reflecting back on it, I preferred the game without it. Sure, there were days where each and every match sucked, because I am not the best player out there, but there were days the matches were great, or fairly balanced, and more random silly matches.
Basically it went from casual to competitive. If you're a streamer though, I''d think you'd want competitive -- that's kind of the point I would think? I'd rather watch a streamer lose sometimes than win every match because they're facing lower skilled players every game. You're not really learning anything about the game after a while otherwise, and that leads to a fair bit of bullying from some streamers.
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Nope not at all, he even said that if he tunneled or played sweatier he would still win, but he doesn't care about winning therefore he doesn't so no, he is not upset about his losses...
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I think it is somewhat fair, when playing survivor it is basically better to get a killer that is slightly stronger but plays nice, first of all you get chases more which means you can try to get better and maybe even try out some new stuff whereas as killer if the survivors are slightly weaker you get the option to go for tricks more often instead of having to play it safe all the time, the problem is that by not playing efficient you decrease the time the game lasts and the amount chases/possibilities to try something out, do something skillfully gets less. Sure most people want to win, but for me it is more about chases, could I have a good chase pull off some neat trick than that's a win in my book. The problem together with matchmaking is just the maps don't play along very well sometimes... I don't get to try something because sometimes everyone just predrops and runs to the next pallet, not really much to do besides kicking the pallet... Because of the ability to chain them.
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If MMR is stricter - ie more accurate - then he should presumably settle in a bracket where he can continue to play chill and not worry about whether he wins or loses. The only difference would be that he'd be playing with people closer to his own skill level which he seemingly doesn't want. And his argument rests on the idea that killers play nice with less experienced players, but who is gonna tell these killers that they need to play nice?
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Oh no, streamers can't go for 10000 win streaks anymore, wait a minute, I need a microscope to find my violin to play for them
BTW, welcome to the world of common gamers, where you don't get ez wins against people with ten times less hours. I'm wondering how many streamers will change the perspective on the game now, when they have the same experience as everyone else.
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Oh no, Streamers complaining that they can´t do their win streaks anymore. The Horror!
Like seriously. MMR is supposed to match them with players of their skill level. Not absolute noobs that "should be grateful to get a 12 hook match".
MMR should be stricter. Thats a good thing. Streamers shouldn´t be able to have 50+ win streaks. Thats simply not realistic and draws a wrong picture of the current state of balance.
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Ok? Doesn't change the point that he does not care that much about winning to change the way he plays right?
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You do realise that there are still not enough people to get constantly match with players with 10k hours and above or comp players? The same thing will still happen, maybe not for every streamer doing win streaks, but I have no doubts that for example Knightlights Nurse streak will still not be broken, just because there are not many 4 men squads that can win against a comp nurse.
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Yeah obviously, but you seem to miss that the matchmaking did not match people acurrate because it could not find accurate matches... The problem was that people waited ages to find a game and even then didn't find one, Otz mentioned something about Dowsey looking for a match for 2 hours on Twins when it was stricter once and did not find a match. So unless for some reason there are more better players now than compared to when mmr got introduced the problem will somewhat stay, there will still be a gap between the skill of the players.
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Oh i´m not missing that point. After a certain queue time, the mmr search range should continue to widen. Just like its supposed to do.
The problem of not finding any suitable opponents is kinda self inflicted by the 50+ win streak streamers. Of course the system stuggles to find any opponents that have an equal high amount of win streaks for a fair match. Adjusting the mmr takes time. In which the streamers will have to take the pill and just wait.
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I don' think it has anything to do with winstreaks... They would not necessarily lose more just because they are not going for a winstreak... Most winstreaks even have restrictions, so they could probably go even higher. If you for exampel look at those ridiculosly high win streaks like 500+ on Nurse Blight Spirit and what not... do you really think there is something to adjust there? They should be at max mmr for like 400 + games at least... I don't think there can be better oponennts, at least not more likely now than before, unless there are more better players now.
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Ideally the game should be balanced around the killer going for hooks over kills. But that isn't the case. It's the exact opposite and worse, if you don't tunnel as a killer you not only don't get the advantage of not having someone out early, but you'll also have to bother with more survivor perks that way.
That means, that a killer has to play a lot better, if they want to be able to go for more hooks than if they were to tunnel someone out early on. The problem is, that you cannot really measure, if the killer plays better than the survivors. At least not accurately. You can make an educated guess but that's about it. Because it's impossible to tell who plays better when the skill expressions on both sides differ so majorly.
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Three things:
- Having more fun against worst players because you play nice is understandable but not applicable as a MMR rule because you can't make all killers play nice all the time.
- Saying you're not getting good games anymore because you don't 4K every game so you should be matched against weaker players sounds very entitled, survivors aren't bots for you to stomp, even if you're playing nice.
- Content creators facing opponents closer to their skill level is a very good thing because baby killers shouldn't think getting a 4K 19 times out of 20 games is the norm.
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And I'm saying he doesn't have to change the way he plays, so I'm not sure what your point is tbh. He can keep playing the way he plays. Stricter MMR doesn't mean he can't.
We don't even know that BHVR have actually touched the SBMM, these streamers are only theorising based on the fact that they've had a slew of difficult games, ie losses. Their response is to film these videos and tell us why they aren't happy. I'm inclined to think these apparent losses bother them a bit, but I guess agree to disagree.
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The streaks would push the mmr more, than having an occasional loss.
Which means, that the players with ridiculous streaks, should get matched against SWF teams with ridiculous streaks. Instead of stomping normal players. I really don´t see the issue here. The system is meant to give out opponents to achive a 50% win/loss. Not a 100% win for ages.
If i have to choose between streamers getting fair (hard) matches and new players getting easier matches instead of being stomped. Then the choice is really easy for me.
New players should ideally get matched against new players and not serve as cannon fooder for 5k+ hour players. Especially since the new players are more likely to just uninstall the game after some horrible matches.
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The thing is that (I was saying this for decades), equal skill survivors and killers will have a 100% escape rate, if killer play "fair".
The problem is within killers tiers. Some killers are just not designed to play "fair", if they want to have at least 3k.
With equal or higher skill survivors - killer side isn't looking that attractive.
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Then let them sit in queue for 15 minutes, that was normal for top-of-the-top players in StarCraft 2, why give DbD streamers special privileges of making MMR worse for everyone so they can pubstomp for content
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Absolutely not.
And it's hilarious to me to see that all those content creators who spent the last years on their high horse calling us bad at the game for not being able to easily 4k against a killsquad on Garden of Pain with no slowdown perks on Pig/Legion/Wraith etc are now facing competent survivor teams.
So tell me sunshine, who were these people playing against when they weren't playing against you hm? Because these people didn't just spawn from the Fog out of nowhere. If you and your 10k hour on C-D tier killers need to sweat hard to have a chance at winning then imagine the regular Joes who don't have that amount of experience under your belt and were constantly getting these folks since we don't have preferential matchmaking to make the game look good to our audience.
Glad the hypocrisy is now dragged into the light and I pray that BHVR enables strict matchmaking so the high MMR monsters stop sealclubbing casual soloq gamers.
I never understood BHVR's insistence on not making every game sweaty for the top 1%. If you are on a 100+ killstreak with Blight and Nurse, you should be strictly banned from going up against SoloQ. I'd much rather a few good players have long que times than hundreds of people feeling miserable match after match because they never even stood a chance at winning.
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That is more about mentality and playstyle than about being a streak, players that go for streaks like the challenge or wanna be comptetive or whatever, that does not change just because they are not counting the wins in a row, and even if the win loose once every 10 or so games, so what? Do you really think they will loose more mmr than they gain by winning 9? Also those guys play so many matches anyway, so sure it would go up slower, but I don't think it matters overall...
There are not too many top tier players doing 4 men escape streaks the same as there are not many top tier killers doing killer streaks, so if we take into account when they play and the server and what not, do you really think you can expect those guys to get matched with each other? I don't think that is reasonable, sure in a perfect world you would get such matches all the time, but the issue is the amount of players, you just don't have enough players on that level for this to happen frequently.
The reason this (50 50 win loss) does not work here is the same reason why for example pro players in starcraft don't get 50 50 win loss in public matches, because they are just usually that much better than the guys they play against. Even there it happens very often that pro players go against Grandmaster players that are not pro players and those guys loose in 9/10 cases at least, probably even way more. And that is for the ordinary pro player someone with around 6k + mmr, if you look at the top players, like Serral, Reynor, Clem Maxpax, on the european server, those guys barely loose to other pro players, except for those before mentioned guys. So let's say the normal pro players is basically our streamer does winstreaks, he knows what he is doing, he is a really good player, and our comp players are basically those 4 top pros... And now think about it, those guys already don't really match each other too often because of different times they play, you are expecting a full on 4 men swf, which are a small minority of players, that is also reeeeeally good at the game, good enough to stand their ground against guys with 6-8k + hours, another reeeeeally small minority of players, and those guys are supposed to match the other really small minority of players constantly? This is so rare my man, for the sake of finding matches most matches are severely one sided.
Sure if that is the choice you have to make I agree it would be fair, but can it be expected? In a perfect world this is what it would be like...
Once again, same as before, new players are a really small group, would take ages to find games against other new players... So basically the same as I said for the other side of the spectrum.
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15 min would be fine, Dowsey queued for 2 h and didn't find a match, that is not fine... You do realise the difference. But yeah sure I would find that amound of queue time fine, however in the survey they BHVR did basically nobody wanted to wait longer than 8 minutes for a match... sooooo We're in the minority here.
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If all those good players that make content about the game are unable to play, because they have hourlong queue times, what do you think how long it takes until they revert it because this free advertisement does not work anymore?
People that have such huge streaks on Blight and Nurse won't care about that, those guys are that good that unless they go against a full one 4 men comp squad they still are more likely to win than to loose. But sure if you try the same on a lower tier killer you will really struggle.
Also I have no clue how the matchmaking is apparently suddenly able to find better matches... Would also be glad to know, or to get word from BHVR what changed.
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I don't really have much to add but I wholeheartedly agree with these statements
That being said, I played killer most of the weekend, and didn't really notice that much of a difference in my matches
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This too. It's so normal for expert streamers to have closer to 50% win rates in other games at the GM/top rank/whatever level. In DbD that's seen as a crime by content creators.
KnightLight still draws good viewership streaming lots of tournament content and scrims. He's just genuinely top level at DbD, so people watch him for that. People will still watch for top level play if content creators are afraid of that. But they'd have to actually put in the work.
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What you're ignoring is that BHVR did those tests over the course of a week and only on *one* of those days did some streamers have long wait times, such as Dowsey's two hour wait. That was obviously excessively restricted matchmaking. I watched Otz's stream last night to hear his concerns on the matter, and he did not have extended wait times.
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Content creators already put in the work by coming up with funny ideas or comical characters and what not, but the problem is that you cannot really try those things unless you are really good, I find it kind of sad, since some of those goofy content creators did really fun stuff, but it just does not work anymore, since the games go faster in both ways and what used to be good plays back then just does not work anymore, it just seems to be all about skill these days, which isn't a bad thing in general but those guys just don't get the attention anymore, despite being funny and entertaining...
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Obviously it was for stricter matchmaking, however the point is if you want it accurate to that amount you will get this result, that statement stays true, it is probably still not really equal in that sense, people will just have to play sweatier, but do you really want to see Otz play comp level sweaty for 50 matches in a row? That does not sound too interesting if I am being honest, there are only so many killers that are interesting to look at at this level, and I don't think a single m1 killer is one of them, so half the killers would already be boring to watch...
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So as survivor i will go to killer who is much better than me. Most likely i will lose. Then i will go to against another killer who is better than me. I will lose again. This will repeat.
So can Scott explain to us, if matchmaking was like that how he would make people play survivor?
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If you want to learn how to loop it is more beneficial to play against people betterr than yourself. Also just because the other side is slightly more skilled does not mean you will automatically loose..
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That's not the question i asked.
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Then MMR window should've been widening faster. Literally any other game with MMR manages to deal with super good players, if BHVR doesn't do that it means they don't want to.
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You asked how to make people play survivor... And I gave you a reason what might motivate people to play survivor... So it is kind of the question you asked.
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People aren't going to play survivor to get better at the game knowing they'll always be matched against killers stronger than them anyways.
Survivors would have to sweat every game just to have a chance at winning so killers can have chill games without impacting their win rate. This idea is just not good at all.
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Does it though? Dota 2 for example has probably 50-60x the amount of players DBD has... And it still cannot manage to put people together accordingly, look at players like Wagamama or others when they try ot play with friends and look at the absurd duration the queues take and the massive amount of unbalanced games they get... It is not like other games can manage such things properly. Sure if those guys play ranked or solo then it works, but as soon as you get groups of players bigger than 2 the system basically fails.
If you widen the mmr window faster you will get more unbalanced games, basically leading to similar stuff like we had before, it just depends on how many people are online and playing whether or not it is needed.
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Some would for sure, that's like the whole reason why some people start scrimming and doing 1v1 because they wanna get better, I'm not saying it will fix it all, but it is at least some motivation, so it was the question you asked beforehand.
I never thought of looping the killer as sweating in any form, sure the macro play will be a bit more stressfull, but isn't it normally so that killer is more stressfull than survivor regardless? So I don't think it is too rough.
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Killer is more stressful by design because it's an asymmetrical game. Giving people free wins because they want to chill but still 4k is ridiculous. Don't pick the outnumbered role if you want to relax, or just don't expect to win.
Ultimately the suggestion is:
Problem: If I want to chill I'm going to lose because my opponents are playing to win and if I want to win I have to put more effort in because my opponents have the same skill level.
Solution: Make me face weaker opponents so I can chill and win at the same time, but I promise I'll play nice :)
Consequence: The other side has to put the most effort in every single game. They're fighting an uphill battle so they can't ever play chill (especially not survivors who have a team dependent on them) and even if they play to win it's unlikely they will.
I genuinely don't understand how you can consider this being a good idea when it's clearly coming from someone who forgot the other side weren't bots and would also enjoy playing chill and/or winning for a hot second.
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No it is not.
Even if you get better, you will always go to against someone who is better than you. That's what is Scott suggesting.
And my question was that, how you will make people play survivor when they lose and lose.
If you don't have actual answer , please don't mention me again.
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I kinda agree with Scott, if only because I play similarly to him.
I like to play fair, go for 12 hooks, allow everyone to get a decent BP score, probably let one or more survivors escape depending on how the game goes. But I can't do this when I'm forced to play sweaty to not lose at zero hooks.
If I'm better than the survivors, I have the freedom to adjust my playstyle and generally me being better than survivors = great game for everyone. If survivors are better than me, either I walk away with a crap score, or we all do because a 'gen rush' situation occurs (naturally, not survivors 'fault').
But, that's such a fine line to walk, it's not practical to expect it every or even most games, and probably more importantly, not all killers will play this fair. In fact I'd say the majority don't.
So in theory Scott is right, in practice, probably not.
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Scott does not care about winning though? As he said he has played the game for like 6 years, winning and the game itself just becomes not that big of a deal after all that time.
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I don't think anyone wants it restricted to that extent. I'm sure BHVR received the feedback on that loud and clear.
Anyway, I've just seen that Mandy confirmed in another thread that they raised the soft cap a few weeks back. Which is what Otz theorised happened. I don't agree with Otz on alot, but I agree with him that raising the soft cap primarily impacts those in high MMR (those who are competitive and want to win) while the impact on the casual (majority) player base will probably be negligible. You may feel it'll make for boring streams, but not everyone watches streams or cares about the experience of content creators. They just want to play and have a chance at a win once in awhile.
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In a perfect world, the ideal match would be one where 2/4 survivors are at the same skill level as the killer, while the remaining 2 are slightly below the killer's skill level. This would, hypothetically, allow for a 6 hook game where the killer walks away with a 2k and two of the survivors escape.
MMR is best when it's strict. At some point, people who play competitively have to ask themselves why they're playing. There's no proverbial carrot for them to chase. They've already proven how good they are. So, if they aren't playing for fun, what are they playing for?
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Great! Then playing with people on his own skill level will be no big deal surely
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