I hate the "High MMR" argument.
If you've played any ranked symmetrical PvP game you've undoubtedly noticed problems with its matchmaking system. Whether that be players who lacked the skill for their ranking, or that player refuses to engage with ranked play seriously.
If we use League of Legends as an example. We've all had the blind supremacist support because they oppose vision wards, the bot/mid carries who think being out of position is a career goal, or the jungler/top who think they're playing a single player game. Or players who won't pick strong champions because "I hate meta sheep" when adapting to the meta is a core component of ranked play.
In DBD these problems are extreme. The asymmetrical nature of the game means player rankings are all over the place. Factor in how there's no ranked queue so players have no incentive to play around a meta. You are allowed to play a rummage chest build and get your entire team killed because you spent 2 generators worth of time rummaging for a broken key. Now add in additional factors like players giving up or farming killers and matchmaking gets really silly really fast.
This isn't just personal experience. Go watch any streamer and the wild inconsistency in player skill. Watch a killer main barely pull out a win against good survivors and in their next match play against 3 baby survivors for a stomp and in their next match a hatch gamer who let's their team die. Then the next game a P100 survivor goes second hook stage while their team finishes the last gen so that survivor blocks the exit gate on unhook because "how dare you not unhook me" as if they don't understand the value of popping the last gen.
Yes other games with MMR systems are messy but DBD is the only one I've played that I'd describe as burnt. It's just too wildly inconsistent to say its an intentional choice. I suspect the lack of a ranked queue and the asymmetrical design combined are the biggest reasons why. But ranked queues are an entire light novel worthy discussion on their own.
But the reason I made this thread is because in the kettle of hot takes on tunneling a common argument in defense of tunneling is "but I have high mmr." And well, you don't. It's not real. You know it's not real. You know that 1 game you'll barely get that win and the next you'll tunnel out a noob who throws unsafe pallets like the Steelers throw games. MMR has no business being so prevelant in these discussions when it has this many problems.
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Agreed 100%. I think when people say high mmr they really mean "good players" that should be in high MMR.
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That to me is why the DC penalty just doesn't make sense. There is zero effort into quality control of matches, so why punish people for wanting out of matches that aren't fun for them? Either the game is serious and needs a competitive MMR/real balancing or it's not and it's just intended for casual quick matches. The current Frankensteining of casual gameplay with ultra competitive consequences makes for atrocious game design.
Last match? Clutched out a 3out in SoloQ against a Wesker. This match? Watching people get picked off gens by Pig. No quality control.
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respect
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I agree and I would extend that to skill as well. You can absolutely build up skill in DBD, but it pales in comparison to game sense in my opinion. You're better off knowing when the matchmaking has succeeded or failed and adjusting as needed than being able to loop the Killer for 5 minutes every trial.
Like any PVP game, players have optimized the fun out of DBD. But it wasn't equipped to handle that and any measure since then is too hands off to address it.
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Hight MMR should give you players with similar skill but in reality it just gives you the most broken stuff in the entire game over and over again. Is it fun? NO! Is it skillfull NO! Just most repititive gameplay you can imagine.
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I hate the "high MMR" argument as well, because no one knows their own MMR, let alone anyone else's. So why even bother bringing the topic of MMR into any discussion?
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Yeah big same about this argument. "Well your MMR must be low" as if anyone has ever had a consistent experience with this matchmaking. Will I get the p100 Blight who won't let me even look at a gen or the baby Trapper who's still setting traps as we open the gates? Will I get the most coordinated, meta-stacked SWAT team who won't let me get into a single chase without body blocks, or potatoes who run in a straight line without looking behind them? Who knows? But, if anything, it's always a surprise.
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All I care about is if this game is fun, for everyone playing to HAVE FUN.
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I completely agree with the intent of this post. But there is absolutely consitentcy. Wherever and however it is, there are evenings where I get 10 tryhard Blights/Nurses in a row. Full meta perks/addons and mori. So there must be something behind the curtains (code) that is consitent there. I just wish BHVR would show their code at this point, so we can see how it works.
Maybe it is just bad luck, but I am a 2016 veteran, I know the game inside out, so I always assume im towards the top percentage of players. (easy to dismiss I know)
That said, there are also plenty of sessions where I question reality. Lose one game, get a potato lobby and win hard > get another tryhard full meta lobby with 4x styptics and lose hard > … repeat. again for about 10 matches in a row.
For me its hard to judge the game and how it works. Ive been playing since beta and I still don't know. I think what we can say for sure is that it isnt making ppl 'want to play' the game.
So it is rly hard to tell how exactly the MMR affects us as players. Either way I quit the game, Im not having fun anymore, haven't for a loooooong time. and its not because I got bored of the game, cause Im still here on the forums browsing, checking the games updates and craving for more…
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That said, there are also plenty of sessions where I question reality. Lose one game, get a potato lobby and win hard > get another tryhard full meta lobby with 4x styptics and lose hard > … repeat. again for about 10 matches in a row.
This is how it often goes for me. I guess you could argue it's consistent in its inconsistency. That's not ideal though. I don't want 4k steamrolls at 5gens anymore than I wan't 0k beat downs. The goal should be somewhere in between those two, yet the 2ks and 3ks are my rarest matches.
My results have more to do with time of day and whether there's an event going on. Currently, if I hop on regular mode at 2pm, it'll likely be chill, but if I play Haunted at 4am it's a sweatfest regardless of the role I play. It's almost impossible for me to not get meta parties or sweaty killers during psycho hours.
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Is MMR very flawed? Yes
Does that mean MMR means nothing and high mmr doesn't exist realistically? No
MMR can be extremely flawed and need fixing (we agree) and it still mean something. The only times I find peoples disbelief in "high mmr" is when they can't get themselves there. That's fine, but I find those times to be coping with not being able to get there themselves.
You will get lots of random bad players against you even in high mmr but you will still face lots of high mmr players that lower mmr players are not. If you watch someones matches at low or even average mmr and then someones at high mmr, the matches are very different, even with outliers existing.
The average dbd player is very bad, so the theme of "high mmr doesn't exist" is very appealing to many of those players. It validates their opinions more.
I completely understand that people using "if you played at high mmr you'd understand" is a very annoying phrase for people to hear, but it's honestly reality. There are many things that are only issues at high mmr that many will never experience if they aren't there to understand why they're a problem.
While true that we can't actually "see" our mmr's, you can assume you're high mmr with a greater than 90% winrate across hundreds and hundreds of games. There comes a point in tracking your win rates that you can guesstimate.
Post edited by Blueberry on-7 -
See this is where the "time" argument falls apart for me. Cause I play consistently during the day. As in the time you say is "chill". And I get nothing but tryhard full meta styptic genrush squads. Not many pure solo lobbies. When I do, I will instantly notice, cause I will have exagerated my playstyle and 4 ppl will be on the ground somehow…
I remember my last lobby, when I quit, cause it is exactly that lobby that made me quit cause I see these types of lobbies all the time. It was a comp team I saw for the THIRD time that same day. All playing 100% efficient, obviously on discord, cause my stealth killer made them pre run before I got anywhere near (much fun). They don't even play by comp rules, even tho they claim to be "practicing". What is the point of these matches other than to just go afk in a corner, cause the outcome will be exactly the same. And no, its not about not wanting to lose, its about having the feeling that you have a chance, as in motivating me to play that match. I couldn't care less if my KR dropped to 40% or lower, I just want to have fun again.
The one thing we can agree upon is that we NEVER see a match in between. I would sign up for a permanent 2k right here and now if I could. Of course if that means im having fun… Obviously the MMR is so flawed that it is constantly trying to compensate a 3-4K with a 0-1k. just to keep the KR where it is supposed to be.
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It's not always chill, not by a long shot, it's just more chill. The night has zero chill. I also bounce between regions and have drastically different experiences from one to the other.
I also want every match to be a 2k or 3k (and that would land you pretty much at the target 60%.) That feels even and fair to me. But it's so damn rare.
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I'd venture to say that it doesn't really exist in any way that consistently works, as they claim. (bhvr) The other day I was playing as Singularity for the very 1st time. I had just lost 4 straight playing as 2 other killers facing SWF's. I thought, well, I'll try something new, in fact so new I only leveled him to level 10 so only 3 perks, and just maybe I'll get a kind of practice type run. Not a 100% expectation to win, just not the meta swat teams I had just lost to 4 times. The result? A gen-rushing meta-squad, 2 in the 90's and 2 p-100's that were all too happy to body block, flash spam, and tea bag.
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Relatable. I tried Knight before unlocking him in a trial—a trial!—and had a similar experience. I get that there's a base MMR amongst all your killers but at least allow one match with potates to let people figure out the powers.
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DBD Matchmaking priority: Faster que times > fairer/quality matches. And then there's my favorite: "hockey" > skill.
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Agreed, and maybe there shouldn't be a base MMR for the killer roster we play. Probably too hard to do since they can't balance it anyway, but doing it killer by killer would make more sense.
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All that change of ranks and MMR was done because people were tired of waiting 15 minutes in a lobby for a single match. But what could we or bhvr do then? We relied on there waiting to have enough players of our level to fill the lobby. Was waiting boring? Yes, but at least that's how the game DID work. Most matches ended in draws because the game assigned you to players of your level. We all started at 20, EVERYONE, and if you wanted to get to level 1, you had to work hard and sweat, and if you wanted to stay causal, you could do so by having interesting and fun matches. Of course, you were always going to find someone who wanted to get to rank 1 at all costs, but it was a matter of luck, and not all matches were stressful and boring. Tunneling and camping were a problem, but not at the level they are today. Many killers needed an adjustment and many perks too, that's undeniable... but changing the ranks in a game that doesn't even have a balanced competitive mode was a mistake.
Usually it was kind of…
Many of us said that year (I think it was 2021) that the change in ranks was going to ruin the game because it would make people even more competitive and the casual mode would end up being affected , and it seems we weren't wrong.
This used to be a natural way to separate the casuals from the sweaty ones, but now everyone wants to be sweaty, every match is a tournament full of people wanting to be number 1.
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I remember purple rank was the sweet spot for me. I'd purposely never go into red rank. Purple was just the perfect mix of challenging yet not overbearing.
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It's a bit of a misnomer. High MMR is actually generally easy to get to. It pretty much just means players with a good amount of experience. Considering it's easy to get into high MMR (seriously, the lower threshold is fairly low), when people say high MMR, they mean players with experience ie outside of the inexperienced pool of players or otherwise who just occasionally play. With that being mind, it isn't unrealistic to expect the devs to balance around experienced levels of play as opposed to balancing around people who hardly have any experience in the game.
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League is a good comparison but not in the way you made it out. People in league are almost always playing to win, people are not trolling with their builds or game play in more than 10% of games. It's a good comparison to dbd in the way of how opposite it is. Other than that I 100% agree, statistics and mmr in this game are highly nuanced because of the community mind-set and matchmaking. People talk about 43% solo queue escape rate like it's not completely irrelevant, if you are a real solo queue player you know every other game someone on your team is destroying your chances to win and more often than not they aren't actually trying to.
There is no incentive for survivors to actually try(not because the game is SO killer sided). There needs to be a ranked queue where survivors gain or lose mmr based on team results, at least as a test. But yes the current form of dbd renders statistics hard to properly judge. I'm not even sure the devs balance around the current Kill Rate because they know survivors troll and give up like they currently do or because they think killers need to be killing that much. I hope it's not the ladder.
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MMR is an excuse for bad killers to complain.
No one can see MMR.
They just assume they are high MMR because they didn't get a 4k.
It's not an argument or a stance on an opinion.
Can't show MMR cuz the cry babies would realize they aren't that good.
Can't show MMR cuz it would make the try hards try harder.
Can't make a ranked mode for try hards to try hard.
So here we are… just can't play to have fun. Have to win regardless every round.
Make winning a reward and it becomes miserable.
Make winning pointless and it becomes pointless.
Individual tome rewards per character was better at mitigating the sweat. IMO
It forces players to try new things that are difficult.
If anything, the new quest system sucks. IMO
A more robust quest system for every character would incentivize alternate play and bring more variety. IMO
Having a legendary ladder for a character is more meaning full than just throwing bp at a character. IMO2 -
I definitely find it frustrating to be under 5 hours as a new killer and get 3 survivors p91 and two p100s other was 19. This type of mismatch is easy to solve by adjusting the parameters to include a block from higher prestige players with a 30 gap block. Then another block based on hours played in the category of k or s. Limit that to 100 - 200 hour gap. Also could add a cap in emblem seems earned. Without fixing the structure players get fed up and quit. Then you punish them for getting frustrated or a broken system. I never quit that nnot how I work. However I have taken breaks and considered moving on vs investing my time in getting frustrated by mismatches in skill level.
With all that being said maybe the reason it never is fixed is because there isn't enough players still playing because they are done forever and moved on. So to get games in a timely fashion it over rides the algorithm and just matches due to lack of players. If that is the reason be up front about it so you don't keep losing more and more people.
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This is pure cope, reaching rank 1 was easy as hell, it was just as inconsistent as "high mmr". In fact deranking with this system was very easy so smurfing was very much easier than today, not only that but "everyone started at 20" is just true for brand new players or people who took a break for a long time, as rank reset only sent you back some ranks, not everyone got back to 20.
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I mean friendly killers back then got to higher ranks faster then killers that played normaly and wasnt much successful.
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The reason why is because it's the only measurement BHVR has talked about that makes sense.. in theory.
It means something, but just barely. Like, it separates ultra noobs from vets. It doesn't separate ultra sweats from experienced, because if that were the case, I would have been going against them during my streaks.
Still, that's all we have, and until BHVR has a better way of statistically displaying true skill, you will always have people that bring MMR up.
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It used to be pretty harsh, but they changed it to only set you back 10.
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Don't mind the prestige numbers as much. It is not that hard to get characters up to P100 these days (depending on events and availability of BP increasing offerings, you could easily achieve this with 300-400 hours of playtime).
But yes, the MMR system has to be a bit tighter when it comes to matchmaking, so that fresh players does not end up in lobbies with players that are several times their skill level.0 -
Funny how you mentioned only Killers and not one single word about survivors. Biased, much?
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Except the MMR is VERY relevant in balancing discussions. When matchmaking is poor for example, the trial results can be determined in the lobby. Also, the soft cap is not a myth. Most competent players will hit it, and these players discuss balancing, not the mass of casual noobs that don't engage with DBD content outside of the game.
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Yeah, I agree. Ranking barely exists in DBD, and I'd go as far as saying that during events, it doesn't exist at all in the main game. I will get amazing teammates one match, and the next, a meg crouched in a corner and a Dwight hiding in a locker 300 meters away from a killer, waiting for a headon. It's far too inconsistent to actually be called a rank.
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Doesnt help that DBD has an absolutley terribly designed MMR system.
The Killer can get their ass steamrolled for 99% of the match, but still maintain or even gain MMR if the Survivors throw the game because they got greedy/cocky.
A Survivor can do nothing for 99% of the match and still gain MMR because the rest of team carried them to endgame, or maintain MMR by just playing like a scumbag and waiting for all teammates to die so they can get hatch.A Survivor can be the team's #1 contributor to gen progress/chase time and still lose MMR because they died at the last second or sacrificed themself to save another survivor, or even multiple other suvivors!
It's overall just really bad in every way. Hopefully that MMR rework listed in the "Phase 3" of their roadmap ends up being good, but I don't have high hopes for it.
Post edited by Gibberish on3 -
Players were abusing DC’ng to the point where matches weren’t fun for those who got left behind in the match. The bots are better than nothing, but they’re dumb as bricks. People started DC’ng for one thing, then it’s another, than another, and so on and so forth. Not having fun? DC. Don’t like the killer? DC. Don’t like the map? DC. Teammates taking too long to take you off hook? DC. Found first by the killer because of Lethal Pursuer? DC. Get hooked and tagged with Hex: Plaything? DC. It was out of control. And people still DC to this day, anyway. At least now it forces most of them to go play another game instead of DC’ing in the follow up match, ruining the experience of four more players. Or even worse- being contagious and causing others to quit out of frustration cause they dont want to be handicapped by a bot.
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The concept of high MMR has NOTHING to do with the game being asymmetrical. There are plenty of games that are arguably "asymmetrical" and are able to have MMR mean something in them. Look at for example CS2. In CS one side is the defender, has different weapons available to them from the other side who is the attacker. You do swap sides, but a match can effectively be decided in the first half if one side does particularly well.
The reason that MMR is a joke in DBD is because they are measuring the wrong things. In games like LoL, or DotA, or CS2, or any other multiplayer game, the players on the TEAM win and lose as TEAM. A survivor in DBD could be really good, run the killer for 5 gens, and the other 3 escape and then die, and guess what, that survivor is considered to have "lost" and now loses MMR.
The problem is that BHVR balances this game like is a 1v4, but scores your performance based on 4 1v1s.
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