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Edited by DarpUhDarp:
7/9/2020 4:13:19 PM
57
The one thing missing in most CBMM/SBMM discussions
[b][u]This is not a call to remove CBMM. I have a suggested minor tweak if you keep reading.[/u][/b]
Firstly, let's define some terms.
Casual: A game mode where the result doesn't matter.
Competitive: A game mode where the result matters.
Fair: A lobby where players are against other players of a similar skill level.
Now, let's use these terms outside of Destiny 2 as an example.
Casual: I play a game of chess with a friend for fun.
Competitive: I enter a single-elimination chess tournament.
Fair: I play against a chess player of similar skill to me.
Notice two things. Firstly, casual and competitive are mutually exclusive. Secondly, fair could be paired with both of the other game modes. You could have a casual game that is fair or a competitive game that is fair, but you could also have casual or competitive games that are not fair (pitting players of similar skills against each other).
Now, let's look at all of the Crucible playlists based on whether they are competitive or casual:
[b]Competitive:[/b]
Trials of Osiris
Surivival
Elimination
[b]Casual:[/b]
Control
Rumble
Classic Mix
Rotator Playlists
Iron Banner
Now, let's look at Crucible playlists based on whether they are fair or not. In other words, which playlists have Connection Based Match Making or Skill Based Match Making.
[b]SBMM:[/b]
Survival
Elimination
[b]CBMM:[/b]
Control
Rumble
Classic Mix
Rotator Playlists
Iron Banner
[i]*Trials has card-based match making, so it doesn't really fit any of these lists.[/i]
Do you see the problem?
[b]
All of the playlists with SBMM are also playlists where the result matters. They are sweaty game modes. There is no place for players to have a [u]casual[/u] game with SBMM.[/b]
The most common response to people saying they aren't having as much fun with the Crucible this season is "go play Survival or Elimination." But that doesn't solve the problem. [u]The bottom portion of the Crucible doesn't get to choose where to sweat anymore.[/u] If they go into Quickplay or Iron Banner, they risk getting stomped, so they have to sweat to perform well (and I am way more likely to use Mountaintop in PVP in order to prevent mercies). If they go into Elimination or Survival, it's a sweaty game mode. Sweat everywhere you go.
The top portion of the PVP community can choose where to sweat. If they go into quickplay it is a more casual experience for them but they still have an advantage because of their skill level, so it's not as sweaty for them. In SBMM, many elite PVP players complained that every match felt like a sweatfest because they were always going up against people of their skill level (and I completely understand that). They don't have that problem anymore, because they can choose between a sweaty gamemode and a casual lobby. Lower skill players don't have this luxury: they have to choose between a sweaty gamemode (Elimination or Survival) or a sweaty lobby (CBMM lobbies). Bungie announced in the 6/11 TWAB that they wanted to create a place "where players can have a more relaxed experience" in the Crucible, but for lower skill players they don't have that anymore.
So what compromise can be done to - to take Bungie's words again from that same TWAB - allow all players to "just enjoy the Destiny multiplayer sandbox"?
[u][b]Give us one SBMM playlist that isn't Elimination or Survival.[/b][/u] Give us a fair lobby with a casual game mode. Before this season, Classic Mix was a dedicated CBMM lobby, so you could do the same and make it that. Or make a dedicated Clash 4v4 playlist with SBMM. I don't care if Elimination goes or stays, I just want a SBMM playlist that isn't Elimination or Survival.
The important metric here is fun. Lower skill players (myself included) are having less fun this season. Last season, Crucible was something I could enjoy. Now, I feel like my character's progression is being held hostage by an activity I don't enjoy as much anymore. At the end of the day, this game is about fun, and Bungie should try to maximize the fun for everyone and make compromises in the Crucible in order to do that.
Note that I'm not going to address players who say things like "Just get better." It's not worth my time addressing people who are so narrow minded that they reduce problems to the effort/skill of a person and can't entertain the idea that a system they benefit from might have a problem and an opportunity to be improved.
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Fair means equal opportunity. Everyone has equal opportunity in CBMM.
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3 RepliesThere really isn't SBMM in those lists either. All they really have for the most part is lobby balancing. This like CBMM is fun for a few but most are really not playing much of a role in the game. That will slowly sink in on the players and I suspect be the end of the game. They have already honestly lost their content creator community. Soon they will be left with what they deserve their Free to Play community.
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The only thing not discussed is the fact that above average players were offered up to the top 1% while the casual community came and went, for years.
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My god cant you just say you want an sbmm mode thats 6v6 as an option? Keep it short man.
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2 RepliesA very well written exposition. There are a few things that I don't agree with but they are minor points: 1) The title. It is catchy and probably not meant to be taken literally, but I can't help it. To me, at least two more things are missing or utterly misunderstood, particularly on the CBMM side: [b]Statistics.[/b] People throw in terms like median, mean, average, bracket, bucket etc. without fully, or at all, understanding the underlying math and the nature of the phenomena it describes. As a corrolary, [b]skill.[/b] People seem to assume that skill is normally distributed, with there being zero evidence to support that argument, and numerous studies pointing to much more skewed distribution. There is also the assumption that the only way to implement SBMM is to have skill brackets. This model suffers from low population numbers in the tail ends of the distribution, as correctly pointed out by CBMM supporters. An alternative would be to have percentile-based brackets. Top 20%, above-average 20%, average 20%, below-average 20%, bottom 20% for example. This model would significantly reduce connection problems (by increasing population pools) at the tail ends without greatly exacerbating skill variance induced problems. The biggest skill variations will be in the tail-end brackets. However, the top 20% bracket is more likely populated by players who are willing to invest time to improve (as indicated by their "git gud" remarks,) and the bottom 20% are in the shallow end of the learning curve, and shouldn't have a really hard time climbing out of their bracket. Furthermore, some quote IB population numbers, but that is purely a vanity metric since it does not accurately model any meaningful business outcome. A much more reliable metric would be [b]player retention[/b] and [b]sentiment[/b]. There are numerous ways to measure the former, but for the sake of this particular argument it would suffice to measure the number of IB games played after pinnacle bounties have been completed. As for the latter, if Bungie isn't running sentiment analysis on these forums, Twitter and Reddit subs, they should really catch up with the times. [b]Psychology.[/b] The average forum poster probably doesn't have more than a rudimentary, instinctive, and quite likely incorrect understanding of psychology, further skewed by their own biases. As a corollary, they have no grasp of the mechanisms of [b]learning.[/b] Some, particularly the "git gud" crowd, obviously have no idea how learning works. Anything from dopamine response to learning curves and anything in between is trivialized to effort / time put in, with complete ignorance - willful or otherwise - of the underlying mechanisms that actually enable learning. [b]Game theory and game design.[/b] Apart from the occasional game industry insider, most people here have no clue about the underlying principles of game design and the psychology and math behind them. Granted, many seem to grasp intuitively when things like reward loops or balance are broken, and probably have good examples of those working in other games, but neither side can present more than layman arguments to defend their position. For example, how and why outcomes tend to follow a power law distribution even when opportunities seem to be equal. Speaking of outcomes, the one objection I have to your actual post is your implied definition of "result." You seem to be equating it to score or W/L outcome, whereas I would argue that in a loot-based game, the outcome is [i]gear.[/i] Since IB end-of-match drops and bounty progress for pinnacles are tied to your actual performance (which is an acceptable proxy for skill in a very simplified model) then IB is in fact a competitive mode. As such, based on your own arguments, SBMM should be enabled for IB.
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Nah it’s fair with CBMM everyone has an equal chance but if you don’t use that chance to do good that’s on you.
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I’ve never hated crucible before, but I do now. Every match is a blow out, and there’s always a group on one team that can’t be hit, always in a squad. CBMM is a joke if this lag fest is what CBMM means. It’s also totally uninteresting - I don’t want to be on either the blowing out or blown out team, I want games that are close once in a while. Stomping or getting stomped is boring, unless you’re a sadist.
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Yeah idk about that, but I do think IB should have some form of loose SBMM, it is power level enabled after all. I also think there should be some kind of protected matchmaking bracket for new/really terrible players (sub 0.4 KD just as an example, they could probably make more specific criteria).
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1 ReplyThe problem with your argument is it assumes that CBMM is always unfair and SBMM is always fair, when they're not. "Fairness" is not only determined by Relative Skill but also by other factors such as lag and hit-registration. It's not fair for two equally skilled players to shoot eachother in the exact same way and have one of them rewarded and the other punished due to lag. CBMM can result in low-skill players being match-made vs other low-skill players, or it can sometimes match make them with higher-skill players, it's Random. SBMM on the other hand may not always result in laggy games with poor hit-registration, but it does so at a higher degree than CBMM does. You can't sacrifice the "connection-based" component of "fairness" in order to satisfy the "Equal Relative Skill" component of "fairness" you defined.
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12 Replies“Fair” doesn’t mean playing players of similar skill. That makes absolutely no sense. Fair = good connections, balanced sandbox, etc. There’s absolutely nothing unfair about playing and losing to a better player. If that were the case, no game other than Destiny 2 has a fair ranked playlist because Destiny is the only title that uses SBMM in ranked. I’ve mentioned several times the idea of a “Proving Grounds” playlist with SBMM with a variety of game modes, but the SBMM crowd will still cry about not being able to play every playlist without trying. They’ll still cry about Trials not having SBMM too.
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18 RepliesYour entire arguement hinges on the assumption that CBMM isn't fair, when it is. You loaded into an environment where you play against other people at random. It's the same thing if you enter a casual chess club and get paired with a random partner. Should they give you a second queen just to compensate for your lack of skill? How about if you go to the park and take turns playing basketball 1v1? Do you expect them to widen your hoop to compensate for your lack of skill there? I sure hope not. Now is it fun matching someone at ten times your level? No, but it isn't fun matching people who are only your level and lagging around either. [i]Strict[/i] SBMM is not the answer. As much as some players want it, you cannot cater to the part of the playerbase that plays the least while simultaneously damaging the experience of those that play the most. That's what [i]strict[/i] SBMM does. People say they want SBMMso they can improve. Well, as much as people want to say it does, [i]strict[/i] SBMM like we had last season doesn't help people improve either. If the search criteria is so strict the variance of skill in any one match becomes really low, any single player no longer has to improve aim, movement, awareness, etc. in order to consistently perform well within those environments. Most people measure skill by the after match results and [i]strict[/i] SBMM will show them results that indicate they don't need to improve. [i]Strict[/i] SBMM doesn't provide the desire to improve or the competition to drive someone to improve. That's just a fact. [i]Strict[/i] SBMM just has so many downsides so many people see that it just isn't worth it. Now I'm all for giving SBMM another shot if its search criteria is loose enough so that matchmaking is somewhere in between last season and this one, but all this talk of bringing back SBMM like that of last season is just ridiculous.
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6 RepliesEdited by Facelauss: 7/11/2020 1:23:23 AMProblem with your argument, fair can have different meanings. Competitive fair = same skilled players - provides the most competitive experience for the most people within every skill tier — is sbmm Causal fair = anyone can go against anyone - random people + less lag = fairer fights - provides the most causal experience for more people — is cbmm
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6 RepliesSorry you disagree with bungie they will ignore this [spoiler]you have absolutely right points i agree with but bungie simply doesn’t care its sad but luke is guiding the game and he is heading into jagged rocks[/spoiler]
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I'm with you. Since the SBMM has been removed, sure it's quicker to get into the game, but it hasn't been nearly as much fun. In fact, I feel like I've done nothing but get farmed. And that sucks. I mean, what else can I do when my bounty says get 25 kills with this or that weapon? Die. A lot. And hope. I'm not the best PvP, I will admit, not even close- but I feel the elimination of SBMM has been to appease the sweaty players, and honestly they deserve it. The problem lies in the steep curve between the casual and the competitive gamer. Now, I'm not going to cry about fair. What I am going to do is not play crucible, get bored with old content and watch my attention towards this game atrophy until something gets done, like have an option between SBMM or not, which would be a start.
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CBMM is great on PC. Every game I am playing against 1000% accuracy Sniper Rifles and Hand Cannon Users. Cant wait until they nerf autos. Actual, I am firing up the xbox right now and playing. I bet it will be much better. PS: The best is when they spam crouch shoot all game long and never miss.
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3 RepliesHere is my take on the change. Bungie has a new DLC coming out in a few months. Streamers give a lot of advertisement to the game. Somebody watching streams of the game, who have never played Destiny, or left Destiny, are much more likely to buy the game and DLC when they see somebody getting 40+ kills in crucible, and doing it easily. Jump ahead to the drop of the DLC. Bunch of new players coming in, thinking crucible is going to be a blast because its so easy to dominate. If Bungie leaves CBMM when the DLC drops, those new players get wiped out, and would never think of buying any more seasons. My prediction: Bungie will leave CBMM until the DLC drops. They will switch back to SBMM with the DLC. This will be to make crucible easier for new players, and keep their interest going so they buy additional seasons. Its my belief that the switch to CBMM is an advertisement ploy.
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Very well written. I have a suggestion. How’s about making control not track KD. That way more players would play the objective to win and mediocre players like myself will still have fun if we are just cannon fodder. Or make a non tracked KD rotating list where players may truly practice to get better and use different load outs.
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1 ReplyThis is the first reasonable (and well written) post on the debate that I think I have seen so far. As someone who hates game modes with limited lives, this is definitely needed for those that want SBMM and also hate that type of mode. Any middle ground alternative that doesn't completely revert us back to SBMM sounds good to me. Take my upvote!
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1 ReplyGood post and well worded, sweaty was used just a little too much, but this isn't a dissertation so I digress. Too bad this will get buried under the deluge of nonsensical posts that Bungie will actually acknowledge.
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this. well said.
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1 ReplyGreat post. Well put. I’m impressed nobody is saying git gud! I think they should create a truly casual playlist where winning does not matter and stats (Valor & kd) are not affected by kills or deaths, wins or losses. Truly a place to relax with nothing to loose trying out new things.
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Really well written and a great suggestion. I’m a below-average player and I can’t play anywhere without getting stomped. I used to love IB and DID WELL and that’s gone right out the window. Anyone defending the current state of crucible is either great at it or lives in it regardless. I need a fair chance to practice skills.
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Excellent read and very well put ...... agree completely!
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4 RepliesGood post, interesting subject, very emotive at the moment. I had an epiphany today playing control. If is is casual fun where the outcome doesn’t matter - leave it cbmm and remove all stat tracking and game summary. Who cares what the k/d is or who who killed most if its just fun right?
