Halo Infinite SBMM

Games Halo Infinite
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1

Okay, here we go again. I think the SBMM in infinite, atleast how it is curently implemented needs a serious look over. I understand the purpose of SBMM in modern fps games, I understand the side of the argument for it to be implemented, but SBMM this strong is a multiplayer killer.

A little about me, ive been playing halo ever since my dad got CE back in 01. I really picked up the game in 07 with 3 and played ever since. I love this series so much and Infinite is amazing and seems to be the only major franchise left with a soul. The game so far is in an amazing state, great visuals, fun gameplay and spot on art design. The devs have also been listening to the community, ex the very quick progression update. All of this fantastic but they need to listen to us again. SBMM will ruin this game for the hardcore fans.

SBMM caters to the lowest denominator of player, the casual, the non-skilled. THERE IS ABSOLUTLEY NOTHING WRONG WITH THIS. I very much understand there are people who cant put time into a game, or who are just naturally less skilled, and thats fine. However these are the people who will play the game for a month or two and then leave for the next hot title. The SBMM system is designed soley with them in mind and leaves the true fans and players hung out to dry.

Now alot of peoples reply is ā€œso you just want to pub stompā€. Once again no, with a weak SBMM system you get some games where you kill it, some games where its close, and some where you get killed. Its the nature of the game. For a guy like me, and im sure also many of you. Strong SBMM leads to every single game we play in a social play list to be an aboslute sweat fest. Sure I can play at this level, but having to go hard and be cracked for every single game just not to get stomped is not fun and ruins the expiernce. This is the whole point of having the ranked system, when we want to go hard and be super competetive we go there.

I also have a point for the belivers in strong SBMM. You think that this will really help those people who are not good at the game have a good experience. That is only the case if they stay at the same level of play. If youre a less skilled player, and now say you start to actually get good at the game, you wont feel like it. Instead of seeing your improvements and getting to win some good games over people in the skill level you used to be at, the game will keep pairing you with progresisivly better and better players. You will never get the satisfaction of feeling like youre good at the game. This is the stuff that leads to burnout and discouragement.

The last major point I have against strong SBMM is playing with friends. I have many friends who have been along this 20 year halo journey with me. Alot of them arent particualry good at the game, never the less they are my boys and I love playing with them. But because of how strong this SBMM feature is every time they play with me they get absolultly destroyed. Were talking 5-20 kds. Its terrible, I can no longer play with my friends who arent as good at the game with out them having a terrible time. In a ranked mode this is to be expected, but this RUINS SOCIAL PLAYLISTS. In Halo 3 and other previous titles there was a roll of the dice, a balance. You might have 1 or 2 good guys on the other team, and the best guys on our team would have to match their preformance and get the kills on them, while the other 2 players on the other team could be significantly worse, leave the worse players on our team to have to try and out do them. It wasnt perfect but it ways dynamic and fun, everyone had a role, every one was able to contribute.

I had to get this off my chest and make a post, ive seen too many games lose their core players to SBMM and I dont want this for infinite. Ranked is for competetive,. social is not. Strong SBMM will make the game unplayble for true fans of the series, and make lower skill players feel like their never getting better. I cant play with my friends because of this feature. I know the MP is still technically a beta, and things are supposed to change. But nothing will change if we dont let them know the issues. 343 please reconisider this level of SBMM - iPreezy

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I massively agree with what you are saying. I just jumped into halo infinite multiplayer and went into the non ranked quickplay playlist and the first 3 matches I got were full of really tough tryhards where I found matches almost not fun at all. Iā€™m a more casual player who plays the game for fun and not for competition. I understand that skill based matchmaking makes matches more even but sometimes it makes matches go from insanely easy to extremely competitive which to me makes it hard to enjoy a lot. If I were to make a suggestion, I would suggest either removing skill based matchmaking from the non ranked playlists or at the very least make matchmaking based more on player accuracy. Another idea could be a preference based matchmaking system for non ranked playlists where players could choose what players they want to play against. For example having a search for players based on player accuracy like I just said, score, rank or an expanded option where you can play with players regardless of score, rank or accuracy. Hope this is a good suggestion.

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Ranked feels more casual than unranked ngl

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Thank you, it really needs to be adressed. I like your ideas too, being able to change search paramters would deff be a welcome idea. At the end of the day i just think the level of competition in what is supposed to be a casual playlist is absurd.

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No but for real, at least in comp I know what im getting into. I hope they sort it out for full release

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Typically casual modes have their own hidden MMR thatā€™s separate from ranked play. That and I would like a hidden rating system based on fragging vs obj play.

But as far as my overall gameplay has been ranked/casual/BTB (I want ranked BTB Total Control HCS), the majority of my games have been tight. I donā€™t enjoy blowing out the other team or getting blown out.

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Yes im familiar with casual MMR, and I think that a comp BTB would be pretty cool. I dont mind close games but every single game back to back being so tough in a non ranked playlist gets tiresome.

Mostly I just wanna play with my friends, like last night we were on and after 2 games they wanted to get off cause of how bad they were getting smacked up. Its really bad, I just hope 343 is still tuning the matchmaking.

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I agree with the OP. SBMM/MMR currently in the SOCIAL playlist (No complaints for Ranked yet) feels EXTREMELY tight. So tight, in fact, that it seems to try to match the skill of every player on your team INDIVIDUALLY.
This really isnā€™t a problem when queuing as a solo, but when, like OP said, youā€™re trying to play with friends (the way halo was always meant to be in socials) the lower skilled in the lobby will get eaten alive by the good players on the other team. While Iā€™m still going positive, everyone else on the team may be struggling to get kills. It sends them into frustration and leaves me feeling like itā€™s my fault for bringing the SBMM hammer down on the team.

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I trying to see what the alternative is here?

Letā€™s say you are an Onyx and you are running a team with three silver mates.

Ideally the other team should be of a similar make upā€¦ to create a close match.

You certainly canā€™t be expected to take on a team of four silvers? What fun would it be for them to be pub stomped by you all game.

The teams have to be matched. If they canā€™t find an Onxyā€¦ they definitely need a couple of platinums or a few gold players to keep up. They will feed on your mates as you feed on those below you.

I donā€™t see how else you can do it.

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Honestly, the easiest ā€˜alternativeā€™ is to quit playing with my friends. And when thatā€™s the option, thatā€™s not good. Iā€™d love to know the answer, but Iā€™m open to suggestions. The current situation just is not it.

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I feel for you. When I play with some of my mates Iā€™m in the same boat as you. Iā€™m not that good - but some of them are atrocious and they get hammered.

And then when I play with my kidsā€¦ Iā€™m the lowest common denominatorā€¦ grimly holding on and hoping Iā€™m not the one who loses the game for us.

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I also feel that strict SBMM in socials takes away from playersā€™ feeling of skill progression. Itā€™s not tied to number or visible ranking, so if a player starts getting better, theyā€™re playing better opponents, leaving them feeling like theyā€™ve hit their skill wall, and theyā€™ll stop playing soonerā€¦just my opinion.

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I donā€™t think SBMM should exist in unranked game modes except insofar as it is needed to prevent teams stomping randoms.

Itā€™s a shame that quick play has such a strong SBMM implementationā€¦ Ruins the mode for players who want a more chill experience or who want to play with a friend of a much different skill level.

I canā€™t tell whatā€™s going on with SBMM in BTB yet.

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SBMM is implemented poorly by everyone. How so I know? CAUSE Iā€™M ALWAYS PUT ON THE LOSING TEAM!!. Apex Legendā€™s SBMM is so bad, they punish people for doing good in matches. If you win a match, the SBMM algorithm purposefully rigs the next match to make sure you lose the next one by pairing you up with complete, thumbless, morons who canā€™t run two brain cells together to win the match. I think Infiniteā€™s SBMM is rigged the same way.

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From my personal experience, SBMM is still super strict in BTB. I may be wrong, but every team Iā€™ve played against is playing just like itā€™s their last ranked match for Onyx. Iā€™ve had more tied games and clock runnouts in Infinite in the last week than I have in all other Halos combined in a lifetime.

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16

Exactly how I feel. To come up with a solution we have to know exactly how it currently works. When I play with my friends It feels like it actually dosent take their mmr into account and just matchmakes based off the highest in the party. I honestly think that the sbmm in social should be so loose its practically random. I just dont understand them having the setting so strong when theres already a full fledge comp mode in the game.

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I totally agree with this. Iā€™d forgotten about SBMM until last night and after a series of very tough games against sweaty players it soon became apparent to me what was happening.

The first few days of playing Halo Infinite were a breath of fresh airā€¦me and my friends from way back to the Halo CE days played together on a game for the first time in years. Iā€™ll have to admit that Iā€™m generally a much better FPS player than most of them, and after a few days of fun it would appear that the SBMM has now kicked in and they all struggled with me on their team in Quick Play arena games last nightā€¦they simply couldnā€™t handle the gun skill and team play of the teams we were getting matched up against.

Last night was the first time this has happened to be fair, so Iā€™ll have to see if itā€™s the same kind of experience tonightā€¦if it is, then I donā€™t expect my casual gamer friends to stick around on Halo Infinite for long. The alternative is that I wonā€™t be able to play with them so they can enjoy themselves being matched against players of their skillset. I can totally understand it if this was in the Ranked playlists, but this shouldnā€™t be the case in a Social playlist.

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18

Same, I was having fun all week in casual until then as well. Has SBMM only just been turned on or something? Iā€™m really, really not enjoying this new all sweat all the time ā€œā€ā€œcasualā€"" matchmaking experience. I deliberately avoid competitive playlists in games because I play purely for fun and having the competitive experience follow me into my casual play is definitely not cool.

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19

It does feel like Social is very sweaty at the moment. I think they should probably loosen SBMM a little bit, but itā€™s also important that matchmaking be bracketed to some degree. An absolute stomping needs to be as rare as possible for the health of the game. But Social Slayer somewhat regularly ending with a 50-35 or something is probably an acceptable tuning.

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Its terrible and I dont understand why every major franchise feels the need to do this to their game. Same as you the first few days I didnt notice anything but by time the first week of play ended every single game we played was so hard fought. Its not like I dont appreciate close matches, but same as you my friends were getting sick of getting stomped and hoping that I can carry to a win.

I decided to try something the day before I made this thread, and that was to go on my friends brothers account who hadnt played infinite yet. We immediatley had much more fun, I dont believe in smurfing so I took a backseat and just played support and watched as my friends who would normally go -10 started top fragging and actually enjoy themselfs. That was all the proof I needed to see how bad the sbmm is. Its insane the difference one person (my main account) makes as far as social matchmaking

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