Does MMR even work ? SoloQ player ?

solo q sucks

it is what it is

Play 2vs8 while you still can I have been escaping almost every game in soloQ. I can't believe survivors complain about the mode when it actually really balanced. I can understand they might miss pallet/flaslight saves and want more variety but it's still fun. Been winning most my games on killer too but it's more 50/50 unless I play with friend and we win almost all games with coordination.

The problem is on multiple fronts. First off early quits/DCs tank everyone's MMR, and counts all people as a loss. That deflates Survivor MMR.

Also MMR has a softcap, which means you can lose 100 times and it might only count as 10 losses, not truly reducing MMR to the 'correct' spot if you are at that softcap.

In addition, the top range of MMR is so broad, that people at the lower bracket are going to be fighting an uphill battle (Killer and Surv). A normal match pre-topcap is roughly a 60/55/45/40 set of Survs against a 50 Killer, for an average of 50vs50. The topcap might instead have 75/75/75/75 vs a 75 Killer, and this is different because the normal match has both better and worse Survivors in relation to the Killer. In this scenario, the Killer can't massage weak links for free pallet drops or use their hook for interception chases. At the same time, you can have a 75/100/100/100 vs 95 scenario, and that 75 player is dead weight no matter what. The 100 Survs will likely always win against the Killer as long as the 75 stays safe, but once it is a 3v1, they kind of are out of luck.

Yet another thing is MMR doesn't account for what I call 'tools'. A perkless M2less 4.6 Killer is more or less the baseline, and anything on top of that like perks/power/add-ons, all add to the Killer's 'tools'. Same thing for Survivors bringing juicy perks/items/add-ons. If I bring a Syringe against a Killer, that makes me win, and if I didn't have the Syringe and lost, the 'tool' bonus won me that match.

Some people crutch on 'tools', such as meta perk best add-on Nurse/Blight players, or clock SWFs with BNPs+Syringes on all of them. When someone crutches on 'tools', their MMR is often something like 70 Skill + 15 'Tools' for 85 total. When they play without their 'tools', their skill is the only thing contributing to their MMR, which is under the topcap of 75. That could cause them to lose without dropping MMR to their 'correct' rating. This can be one of us, or any of our soloq teammates. That's why I usually try to only use a brown item (or a add-onless Key or a Map) as Surv in soloq, so I know there isn't too large of a 'tool' fake MMR adjustment.

Also, the longer someone is in the queue, the wider the MMR range becomes. This applies for anyone in the matchmaker, so soloq Surv #3 could be significantly better or worse than the other Survs and Killer which are in roughly the same range with each other.

Finally, streaks of wins and losses are common in statistics, even with a perfect 50-50 coinflip. You can actually tell if a set of 100 coinflips is fake because people intuitively try to shove the results to 50-50 with very small streaks, or overcorrect and do a 100 heads/tails streak. Due to negativity bias, loss streaks stick out in our mind more than win streaks. That's why it is important to start tracking results when you start to feel like something is weird going on, because it keeps you grounded in reality instead of the emotional kneejerk reactions we all fall prey to. (Also if you are on a losing streak, it helps to take a break, to prevent going on tilt to be the root cause.)

mmr's objective seems to be to seperate the absolute newest players from everyone else. anything else doesn't seem to matter or be important.

you can find a group on discord or even the forums if solo q bothers you enough to do so.

Yeah the top cap holds the top 25% of players. That includes those sweatlords, and if only sweatlords are queueing in as one side, the other side gets stuck with them.

Warning: long explanation ahead. But it might help you. When it comes to solo queue survivor your hours and experience are kind of irrelevant. You could have thousands of hours and still be in low or mid MMR because… well, let’s get into it.

So at least starting out your killer and survivor MMR are essentially equal; that is to say, you’re at low MMR for both roles. The teammates and opponents you generally receive (not getting into how the game expands its skill pool for potential players based on how long you wait for a match; we’re going to use a very basic and common scenario) are also in that area.

As you meet the win conditions for each role, you gain MMR and rise through skill ranks. All of that is common knowledge. What isn’t, however, is the fact that the killer role has a lower skill floor (meaning starting from a blank state it’s much easier to meet killer win conditions; it requires less technical skill) while the survivor role has a higher skill floor (meaning starting from a blank state it’s much harder to meet survivor win conditions; it requires more technical skill).

Keeping in mind I’m describing the most basic nature of the DBD MMR system, what’s happening to you is because it’s harder to win as survivor, you’re less likely to experience games where you are able to meet the survivor win conditions. Because it’s easier to win as killer, you’re more likely to experience games where you are able to meet the killer win conditions—to a point (I call it the high MMR cliff but it’s an irrelevant detail right now). So the system will basically says “oh, he wins against opponents at his level as killer. I can more commonly pair him against opponents at and slightly above his level.” And as you continue to perform well at your level you will face tougher survivors opponents because the game believes you can handle them. The game doesn’t know you might have cheesed your way to that MMR because it’s easier to kill than escape; it just knows you’ve managed to consistently meet the killer win condition in your MMR bracket.

Other stuff plays into this, but it’s irrelevant to what I’m trying to illustrate. Ok. The system will also review your performance as a survivor and it’s gonna say “he doesn’t perform well as a survivor at this level; he’ll need to be placed against killers and with other survivors who are closer to his skill level.” Now remember, killer has a lower skill floor, so it’s much easier to pick that role up and win with it than survivor, so while you may be facing weaker players, they still have an inborn advantage because killer is the easier/more intuitive role to initially pick up and play with. For survivors, your strength is in numbers; the more survivors alive in the trial, the better each individual survivor’s chance at escape is. Survivors can escape when they are the lone survivor in a match, but it’s much more difficult. But if your teammates are weaker than you, they’ll be picked off until your game has become a 1v1 and no amount of survivor skill is going to beat any killer who has at least completed the tutorial in a 1v1 scenario.

Ok. So other things affect this—killers smurfing, lobby dodging, etc—but I’m just trying to offer like a basic explanation of why your survivor games feel so bad while the killer ones don’t.

So while you might actually be placed against killers at or even below your skill level as a survivor, they’ll still have a better chance at winning the game than your teammates and even you simply because killer is just the easier role for low & mid MMR players—which is why pretty much every killer (besides Nurse I think?) performs really, really well at low & mid MMR.

If you’re looking for a solution, honestly, the only real one is to find a team of experienced survivors who can basically pad your MMR. If they can take you high enough, eventually you can pair with other solo queue players who are more technically skilled at the game as well and you’ll likely find those games a little more balanced.