In my humble opinion a significant factor in enjoyment and thus engagement in this game is due to the way the game matchmakes. Put simply: Skill based matchmaking in social modes is too strict and should be widened to the larger range where you are able to match with players approximately 40-50% better/worse than yourself, then on top of that team balancing after a match has been found needs to be improved to where instead of trying to balance csr or mmr between two teams which will put outliers with polar opposites teams should be balanced accordingly. Imagine the skill of a player is represented by a number 1 = best, 8 = worst, teams should be organised as Team 1: 1,3,5,7 & Team 2: 2,4,6,8. or as close to this as possible, this may look concerning and bias towards Team 1 but with a larger range of players to choose from the variance should increase thus in turn minimising any advantage. Destiny 2 implemented this exact change not to long ago and player enjoyment and retention was dramatically improved as a result.
Unfortunately 343 isnât listening: they just made sbmm STRICETR in btb.
Nobody was asking for it
I was one of those players who were happy about it
And watch the player count drop even more now
Like Iâm convinced they are trying to kill this game just so they can stop the servers and save a bit of money
Itâs very worrying because almost nobody was asking for it, * not even the âpro-sbmmâ guys on this forum* , not even on reddit people were asking for it, they just thought itâd be a good idea
Skill gaps are already very wide. Matches with people from onyx to gold-2 or diamond-6 to silver-4 are already happening, even during peak hours.
A bit unfair for team2 isnât it? Their #1 player is worse then team 1âs, their #2 player is worse then team 1âs, etc., etc.
This will only result in one-sided matches.
More fair would be:
1 = team A
2 = team B
3 = team B
4 = team A
5 = team A
6 = team B
7 = team B
8 = team A
It should be in ranked only, and even then. They have the other crap in ranked that punishes you for doing well so they pin you up against a team of 4 solid players and expects you to carry a platinum player your next game.
I miss 1-50. It was so simple and worked
I donât envy the job of the matchmaker.
Itâs hard enough picking two even teams on our weekly customâs nights - and we pretty much know the pros and cons of each player.
We used to play a game of FFA and then divide the players into teams for the next match on the results - âoddsâ and âevensâ. Pretty much like the OP suggested. And yes, I can confirm that it doesnât work that well. The âoddsâ usually win quite comfortably.
There is also an inherent danger with making the gap between the best and worst players on each team too big. You like to think that the lower ranked players get to spend some quality time fighting each other - but they donât. They are just picked off by the better players.
The good players become very intolerant of the poorer ones. Weâve already seen multiple threads about players having to âcarryâ the team. And even posters who quit as soon as a team-mate goes 0-3.
Isnât 1 to 50 just an arbitrary CSR scale? How does it simplify the job of the match maker?
I said in social modes bro. Ranked is a different ball park and does need reasonably strict sbmm.
So does social, because everybody wants to be able to actually play the game and not only funtion as cannon fodder.
And every halo since H2 had SBMM and it was always fairly strict. The only difference was that players didnât know that first and now they know it from the start, so now they just blame SBMM.
And the SBMM in ranked is already stricter then social, that is why people complain that social is more sweaty then ranked, since due to the weaker SBMM they either have to (heavy) carry or are in matches where they are clearly outskilled.
The problem with SBMM is that the process costs money. In order to cut the costs down they work on an average team CSR as opposed to matching each individual player in a squad to a player of equal skill.
Doing so would require way more data to be processed, which requires compute and therefore increases costs.
The system as it stands takes your party and first fills it in based on locality. Then it updates your team CSR. Your team is then put onto a list where the algorithm tries to find you a close team with similar team CSR. With matching CSR it then provides you with said match and you should be fairly evenly matched.
However. There are problems:
1/ if the team has a high variation of skill the team CSR will be in the middle.
Eg
2x onyx 1500s & 2x 900csr (plat 1) players have a team CSR of 1200. this is equivalent to a team of diamond 1s.
So 2 players have a really hard time
2 players have a really easy time.
This skew produces unfair matches.
2/ if ping or locality are the focus for matchmaking this means less focus is spent on finding players that match the team CSR. Therefore point 1/ becomes more of an issue.
In short - the issue is that the matchmaking os not accurate due to the use of an average to make matches. Remove this and focus on ping only and you have people over performing or underperforming which makes the game less accessible if, for example, you are a bronze or silver calibre player. Tighten this up, and you have too many data points, an increase in cost, and longer wait times.
People can blame SBMM all they like- but they donât actually have a clue for the most part what os going on or why certain descisions are made
Personally - if you increase the player base I feel you will have more closer players, with better ping, that are closer to the team CSR. If there are enough players you can then talk about tightening up the CSR variation limit for matchmaking to balance speed of matchmaking and accuracy of CSR average deviation. You will still have teams in social that are wildly imbalanced when the player can choose who to play withâŚbut there is no way to avoid this without a cap - similar to the one introduced in ranked. Either that or to use all them extra data points, which requires more people to spend in the ecosystemâŚwhich is easier to do with a bigger player base.
So, in short again
Content is way more important at this stage than the state of SBMM. If someone doesnât like how it works either play a more populated game, or stick with a team of four, in ranked, with minimal variation from team CSR.
You hit the nail on the head with the explanation my SBMM is really high so when i join there games it actively ruins their game. Iâm expected to hard carry every game or we lose.
It wouldnât be that big of an issue if every game didnât boil down to the HCS BTB GRAND FINALS but it does. It makes my games objectively stressful with some of the rattiest player behavior iâve ever seen ever in social mode across all games ive ever made.
To your point though itâs either smurf and make everyoneâs life suck or just donât play the game. So iâve optâd to not support this game.
I was talking to my girlfriend last night about it and she asked me if the game is rigged against you why do you play it? And thatâs exactly it.
It gave me a BTB team yesterday with 900 CSR the other team had 1300 CSR, Itâs basically impossible to win so why even bother.
I think you mean MMR and not CSR (CSR is only the visible ranking you have on ranked, but MMR is the ranking the system uses), but i agree that itâs a problem it mostly looks at the average and to little on the individual aspect. That is also why itâs not that strict, because a strict SBMM would look at that.
Agreed
We agree again. That is why i would be in favour of a system that starts with a very strict MMR search and then widens it up after every x amount of seconds. I live in the EU and as average player there are more then enough players around my skill on peak times. Yet, when i search i get matches very quick (within 5 seconds mostly), but i have to carry my team and still donât come close to winning. I then rather wait 20 seconds and get a better match. So that search during peak hours could be more stricter without having to wait insanely long. If during peak hours you get in matches ranging from onyx to gold2 or from diamond 6 to silver 4, itâs out of hand on a busy region.
Ofcourse someone who lives in Australia wonât find matches if you would have the same kind of SBMM as in Europe or the US. That is why i would be in favour of a system that starts strict and becomes less strict during the search untill a match is found. That would mean the matches will everywhere be (at least theoreticly) as close as possible, while also you donât have insane waiting times. If i remember correctly, halo 3 had a system like that, so they definitely know how to do it.
I think both is important. But you definitely right that lack of content is a problem and currently the bigger problem, since SBMM could be better, but is not to bad at the moment.
I never played ranked⌠why? Because i dnt want to ruin match for a team by the high ping, i dnt want to be a clown for those 30ms players, i wonât play ranked if things ainât equalâŚ
Im playin casual and having fun
Yeah Iâm with you. I said CSR because I played ranked mostly and my understanding is this is playlist specific. MMR is very similar in how it operates, only it is across all playlists. Not sure I like this though - it really should be playlist specific
I keep seeing onyx teamed up with bronze, gold, and silver players. Its so frustrating to fight 2 or 3 onyx or high diamond and a smurf with platinum team mates.
Anyway 343 said this was fixed, so why is btb getting stricter sbmm but ranked isnt?
What is 343 doing about the balancing in casual play? Anybody know? Me and my two sons have the same issue. My sons are highly skilled, but one is really above us. Every time he joins our fireteam we lose and it is terrible play. None of us can kill the other players. It is just not fun at all. Itâs not worth it.