look i understand your point here. but they cannot completely filter skilled players from your casual games. sometimes i need to get challenges done in non-arena playlists. and if there’s not enough players my skill level to play in those? do i just not get to play because im better than you? or do i get put with casuals, your point but vice versa? it doesnt make sense. im not sure what you expect to be done here. everyone should be allowed in casual play. there’s a filter (sometimes) based on skill levels in ranked. it does not need to be on the open, everyone-welcome regular lobbies
The SBMM implementation is just borked in this game.
I played a bunch of ranked by myself initially, got up to low Onyx. Games felt good. Mostly matched against other Onyx 1500-1650 players. Had a lot of fun.
Then spent a few weeks playing all sorts of game modes with friends of lower skill level. Obviously this boosted my K/D, because of how the SBMM works in the game making me hard carry games to win.
However, this apparently communicated to the game that I am an unstoppable semi-professional juggernaut at the game, and now when I try to play ranked solo, I am constantly getting matched against players Onyx 1800+ and the game is so miserable that it’s unplayable.
This might be obvious or it might not, but there is a LOT of difference in skill between an Onyx 1500-1600 (me) and an Onyx 1800-2000 (who the game thinks I should be playing against).
It’s just a broken system to have a single global MMR that’s affected by everything and which is used for both social and ranked playlists, solo play and play with friends, etc.
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Just looked at Squash’s game history on halo tracker… here’s the most recent 4 ranked games where halo tracker picked up the API’s match odds:
https://halotracker.com/halo-infinite/match/c3e9cd30-338a-4311-a2c7-7213d993f3b6
https://halotracker.com/halo-infinite/match/b4671a17-522b-44c1-8c5c-eaf9c2a1fb32
https://halotracker.com/halo-infinite/match/fa6da307-a326-47fe-8a14-7697f3ca74e7
https://halotracker.com/halo-infinite/match/0ff755b5-45f5-406f-9f9d-46011c5565d9
The closest the current system was able to manage to 50/50 was 37/63
The current system does. not. work.
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“where possible”.
Depending on region, skill, party size, you aren’t always getting 50/50 games.
Removing sbmm will make it worse. If you’re in the bottom 20% of players, you aren’t winning 40% of games anymore, you’ll be extremely lucky to win 20%.
Some people will drift below 50%, some people above. Usually it won’t go too far either way and that’s thanks to sbmm.
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Yet you are happy to support a random match making service which will just feed me and even lower ranked players to these same players.
Awesome. Can’t wait.
No.
You are wrong on three counts:
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I said pure random isn’t the way to go. A system that approximates something more random is what I’d argue for. My argument is for variety of experience in social. Also, the current system already feeds bad players to good players, because it will pair three bad teammates with a highly rated one to “balance” the game.
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I have not argued against SBMM in ranked.
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I don’t care about getting stomped sometimes. The problem is when it’s every game in the playlist that’s supposed to be the most competitive and tightly controlled for player skill. I expect the ranked playlist to be capable of finding 8 players of approximately the same abilities and let them play each other. The current system is awful at that.
It is a broken system to have a single global MMR that is used to match for ranked games.
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Random matchmaking is unlikely to produce this kind of direct correlation between a player’s skill and win rate. Yes, a bottom 20% player would have a win rate less than 50%. No, it wouldn’t be 20%.
Also, why are bottom 20% players entitled to 50% win rates outside of ranked modes? That’s not obvious at all. I’d say it makes more sense to incentivise players to improve by allowing them to win more frequently as their skill increases. I don’t believe many bottom 20% players are at or near their theoretical level of ability - many of them are going to be children or new players who just need to learn and practice.
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Because you need a game to be fun for people to want to stick around. A bottom 20% player would likely win almost no games due to the chances of them playing worse players being slim, chances of worse players playing at same time even slimmer. Lots of things have to go right without sbmm for a worse player to get a moderately balanced game.
Some players will lose constantly and use that to get better. Others will be put off playing altogether. You want players to have a positive experience enough of the time they play to keep coming back for the population health.
Honestly I wish there was a game right now popular without sbmm that we could look at as an example. I suppose it would be like Chess if you played Vs random elo players. Most games would be extremely unsatisfying. Imagine you are constantly paired with master level players and above as they play most frequently. You don’t know every time you click play whether you’ll play an even game, someone you’ll crush or someone who will crush you. What makes you want to play the next game knowing there’s a decent chance you’ll be completely outclassed?
If players want to get better at Halo they can often do that off the battlefield. The aim is the easiest part of getting better.
I understand that. And you know what? It is not fun when the social game modes all have exactly the same feel as the ranked modes, and it makes me not want to stick around.
At best, you guys have a utilitarian argument that says “there are more lower skill players than higher skill players, and we want to privilege the experience towards the larger group”.
From both a game design and philosophical perspective, I disagree that is a good way to go.
There is. Maybe you’ve heard of it - Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. It does not have any SBMM in its casual mode.
Take a look at its player retention…
https://steamcharts.com/app/730#All
Does counter striker use matchmaking or a lobby system players can leave and join at will? Thank you for posting a game that is now a point of interest.
The games don’t have the same feel to me, ranked and social.
CS:GO uses matchmaking in its casual mode that is based on ping.
I’m not sure what you are describing by a lobby system; there is an old school server browser that players can use but almost nobody does.
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Ah that would explain why CSGO has a reputation of notoriously high point of entry.
Maybe. CSGO also uses a ballistics model for its weapons that takes a long time to learn. It arguably has the highest skill ceiling of any FPS on the market. And it has consistently had one of the largest, if not the largest, community of active players on the market.
If a game with a higher skill ceiling than Halo can thrive without SBMM of any kind in its unranked, casual mode, I see no reason Halo needs to have this tight, obnoxious, half-broken implementation of SBMM in its unranked modes.
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Different target audience for sure.
It’s like why FromSoft games have large following appeal but also have lots of players who avoid them completely so less mass appeal than other games.
I mean, is it even true to say that FromSoft games lack mass appeal now after Elden Ring? Elden Ring had even more players on PC than CyberPunk 2077 did, and CyberPunk was definitely a mass market game.
I think FromSoft is the perfect foil to 343 (and to some extent, Bungie)… they have a singular vision for their games, and they just keep iterating on it to perfection, and eventually this has resulted in enormous success for them. Perhaps unintuitively, by not trying to chase the “broader audience”, and by chasing perfection in their own craft, they have at last acquired the “broader audience”.
In the post-Halo 3 world, Halo’s developers have taken the exact opposite approach. Bungie tried to re-invent, rather than iterate upon, the Halo formula with Reach in the form of armor abilities. 343 tried to completely re-invent Halo in two wildly differing directions with both Halo 4 and Halo 5.
And now Halo Infinite is stuck in a weird no-man’s land, where parts of it are trying to iterate on Halo 3, parts of it are trying to appease the crowds that liked Halo 4 and 5, and parts of it are trying to chase “broader audience” trends via being a live service.
The result of all this is that Halo has completely lost any hope of being a mass market game, and is resigned to a niche corner of the FPS space.
343 could learn a lot from FromSoft (and for what it’s worth I’d add Valve, who has proven this same approach in the FPS space with CS:GO as well).
If developers had spent the last 15 years iterating on the base game of Halo 3, rather than trying to change Halo to attract the people who didn’t like Halo 3, they’d be one of the biggest FPS players on the market.
I swear SBMM is even stronger in social in season 2. And it I was already bad enough. SBMM and the challenge system are the two things that make me want to stop playing
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I already have stopped playing more than usual. The SBMM is ridiculous. I love a tough match for sure, but EVERY single game? No thank you. I do not want to play like there’s a 2 million dollar grand prize on the line.
Every match the arena is drenched in sweat. I do not play the game at the same skill level every day. It also takes me a bit to warm up, and the first couple of matches I’ve gotta suffer. SBMM does have a place in the game, but only inside rank, and far looser SBMM outside ranked… No one can change my opinion on that. The much older games functioned far better, and never had a problem with getting better or maintaining a player base for those games.
No one I know personally that plays halo infinite enjoys how SBMM functions. It’s a problem outside halo as well. It’s not just halo.
Personally it isn’t an enjoyable experience for me playing, and it’s of no fault of the gameplay itself.
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The thing that gets me is the smurf accounts. Accounts specifically made up so they play lower ranked players. They are easy to spot as they have next to no gamerscore, and hardly any games logged yet they dominate in the matches.
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