Please consider loosening SBMM

Games Halo Infinite
21

I’m not a fan of SBMM model they currently use, both teams are made up of similar skill base and it turns into a sweat fest 9/10 add challenges to the mix and it’s a disaster

I think team balancing is more important, a good mix of good players and bad players on both teams

Not this equality of sweat that currently exists

2 Likes
22

Translation: lower skilled people should be my personal cannon fodder and not have playable matches. Because that is what your ‘suggestion’ would mean. SBMM is meant so everybody have playable matches and is not completely outskilled all the time.

And no, the SBMM is not working correctly at the moment, there are still many stomp-matches around and the skill gaps between players are sometimes enormous. There are a couple of reasons for this:

  1. SBMM doesn’t correctly measure skill (going 10-4 while freerunning around the map is not the same as going 10-4 while camping and picking off damaged enemies)
  2. MMR between social and ranked is the same, so some ranked players are deliberately tanking their MMR in social to try to get easier matches in ranked.
  3. smurf cheaters: people who deliberately have a smurfaccount with incredably low MMR so they can join up with a friend (who is still on his main account) to get easier enemies and go on a stomping spree. (in my eyes this is a form of cheating, because you are deliberately trying to go around the system). This is obviously more of a problem in ranked (easier to rank up), but also in socials this happens, especially people who want to get some fun clips.
  4. legitimate players who play with a way way weaker friend. This ofcourse is normal, but does create problems for the players on the enemy team who face an way stronger player then. (that friend would also have problems, but he/she chose for that, the enemies didn’t)

Solutions:

  1. 343 should keep monitoring and improving the system. Unfortunately a perfect system doesn’t exist, but they should try to better it every time they see problems.
  2. Simpel: MMR in social and ranked should be separate. This would stop people from deliberately tanking their MMR in socials to get easier ranked matches. Also (probably a minority, but still important) for people who like to play more relaxed in social and thus play a little worse then in ranked it creates that opportunity.
  3. This is a form of cheating if you ask me, those players should just be banned. Problem is that it is hard to prove. For ranked there is also a better solution: simple don’t allow people to form groups with big ranked differences. It’s ranked, not social. People should only be able to join up with people their own rank or 1 rank lower/higher (so only 2 different ranks allowed per group)
  4. This is something that shouldn’t be fixed, since this is how it supposed to work (how annoying it can be for enemies). However, just like mentioned in point 3, only allow it for socials. (Tip for people who want to play with way higher/lower skilled friends: try BTB, it may be easier for the lower skilled one).
3 Likes
23

If you want a more social play through of this game, you should be requesting them to add a server browser and allow us to set up our own servers.

Removing SBMM won’t to improve a thing.

1 Like
24

Alright, then they improve SBMM and preserve it for social modes. You’re taking this way more seriously than I am.

25

I don’t think most players would enjoy social without sbmm. Especially myself, if you’re either end of the bell curve you either aren’t winning a game or aren’t losing a game for a very long time. Where’s the fun in that?

4 Likes
26

Jesus Christ SBMM is garbage in this game. You can’t play the game normally without being matched against complete sweats who never left their basements before.

1 Like
27

I leave the basement all the time. Mom says she will take away internet and my Xbox if I don’t go to job interviews so there.

3 Likes
28

Some people enjoy playing games like that. Like literally spawn camping brand new players so the playerbase never grows. They are not the kind of player that cares about fair matchmaking.

29

So a good player can’t have casual fun only sweaty games unless they play on a alt account. Smudging was huge in halo 5 it’s gonna be huge in infinite also

30

Just like everyone else. Everybody is matched based on their skill so for everybody it’s just as sweaty or casual.

The better question is: why should the best players be entitled to realy casual games, while everybody else most have the sweatiest of sweaty games? Because that is the alternative.

2 Likes
31

Yup, omg is it a sweat fest. I find myself not wanting to play at all or moving to BTB.

Dude the whole arena is dripping in sweat 24/7 in my matches. I do NOT want to deal with that every time I fire up the game. So stupid.

2 Likes
32

I sincerely believe team balancing is more crucial than SBMM having a lobby full of equal players just isn’t it, it goes one of two ways 1) a complete sweat fest or 2) one sided as some players skill is not playing an objective and just cherry picking kills.

Total team balance of a mix of good and bad on each side would probably be more beneficial in the long run. The good players can’t stomp as the other teams good players will face them and the mediocre to bad players can still enjoy the game and learn from team work with good players

Thoughts?

1 Like
33

It should be a mixture of both. It’s OK to play really tight/sweaty games occasionally just like it should be OK to stomp or get stomped occasionally. Having a system that keeps it exactly one way or the other is bad imo. And right now it seems to skew more often than not to tight/sweaty matches.

2 Likes
34

People need to think about how random selections from a normal distribution work and how that affects players on either tail of the curve.

I also have nothing else to say.

35

The problem here seems to mainly revolve around people wanting to play with friends.

And how the system lets them down. The good players are left to carry. The bad players holding on for grim death(s).

I’ve been thinking about this for a while now and I really don’t see how the system can match so that everyone has the same amount of fun. And I really don’t think random matchmaking is going to help here either. Except make it even more miserable for the lower ranked players.

We need a handicapping system for social. Based on health, shields, damage, and equipment use. Level the playing field so that everyone can compete relatively equally on the same footing and you can abandon SBMM altogether.

36

No we don’t.

People need to think about how much people hate the SBMM and how it isn’t fun, no matter whether it’s “working” the way it’s supposed to.

1 Like
37

Well, MCC currently does a much better job than Infinite. So…

1 Like
38

Sorry, I never want to be stomped. I don’t ever WANT to stomp either.

2 Likes
39

You think they want to play like it’s hcs 99.9999% of the time? Why do you think Smurf accounts exist so they can just relax and not trash their main account stats. Or play with friends at a lower level so they don’t get screwed.

40

I don’t play MCC so can’t comment too much…

But I must say the very first post that comes up on a Waypoint search of “MCC SBMM” isn’t comforting;

It is pretty much every single game is completely one-sided, with the majority of them being a 4-stack up against a team of fresh-installs, or brand new players. This sucks to play, no matter the side. I’ve had around 3 evenly balanced games, where the score went down to the wire, in the past week of playing the game. It’s absurd. People have talked about this a lot, myself included, but 343 refuse to acknowledge it in any regard.

That’s just silly.

It’s important to think and analyse about what we’re doing.

Otherwise we’re just doomed to make even more mistakes.

1 Like