Funny thing about that I’m someone with a awful kd and i despise strict sbmm being in casual
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Definitely not. I grab a weapon and try to kill my opponent.
Just not with the sweat inducing intensity or strategy of ranked.
It’s very easy to mix it up.
So, how do you define “laying back”.
For me it’s using weapons I don’t normally use (eg. Sniper). It’s running around the corner not having camped and waited for all my team mates to be in the perfect position. It’s getting a double kill and going for the triple even though my shields are down. It’s trying lower percentage jumps and moves (and hopefully get better at them). It’s mucking around a bit with equipment. It’s not double checking my K and D every time I’m respawning. It’s seeking out that player who tea bagged me and trying to stick them with a plasma grenade. It’s playing with friends and having a laugh.
It’s not me lamenting that we lost 49-50 and it was my fault. Or that it was the fault of any of my team mates.
It’s not me ego checking the score and my KD to see if I had fun.
Don’t ge me wrong. I try and play consistently. Are my team-mates getting my A game? No… but they are getting my B game with intent to win. And because that’s how I play Social all the time - that is all the match maker is expecting.
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Fun fact we have seen multiple people who have worked on previous halo’s ie halo 2-reach(ie the games that maintained a good playerbase for years with no new content provided by the devs) say its too strict and that the goal of casual is the social aspect and should be loosened up now compare that to one 343 employee who’s current game is bleeding players due to a multitude of issues with strict sbmm in casual being one of them
So that 12 meters of reinforced concrete is dragging the game’s lifespan ie the casual playerbase down to the ocean basically drowning it
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That’s the neat part the ranked version of slayet is less of a sweat fest and can be considered more casual when compared to the casual slayer options
Heck me and my friends went to ranked to get away from the casual modes that weren’t fiesta or big team battle like it should say something that we have to go to freaking ranked to have a casual slayer match that doesn’t have us sweat every match
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Not so much of “fact” though is it. A couple of select comments from people who are maybe not as relevant (no disrespect) as they were 15 years ago?
I don’t even know how to apply their comments. We’ve seen SBMM applied in much stricter manners than what it is now. Are their concerns still relevant? Maybe they are happy now with a wider range of ranks matched on average team MMR.
And the key is “looser”. As opposed to “abandon” is which what a lot of people are effectively pitching.
Menke may have only been one person. But he wasn’t a one man team. And a lot of his research was working with Microsoft (who are the team behind TrueSkill2).
Josh was obviously enthusiastic and presented his stuff at GDC etc. What I didn’t see was a lot of criticism for his work from other developers. Nor have we seen any other match making teams present data that disputes his findings.
I suspect most Game Developers are keen to implement SBMM to keep casual players (who are the majority / cash cows of the game) happy. And as Max Hoberman once eloquently put it - try and keep the competitive -yoink-holes in Ranked.
And this “fact” that SBMM is the cause of the population drop off. Ahead of content and desync etc. Meh. It’s 12mm of soggy cardboard.
A lot of the games MM is dictated by who you team up with, their skill, and another important factor…their location.
I honestly feel like the players whom suffer these like mind boggling frustrating experiences of MM are players in areas where the player population is thin, in a game where overall population is already thin. Mix that with friends playing together where one can be daimond to onyx and the other is gold, and the MM just becomes more chaotic.
My general rule…play and try and have a good time with friends regardless of skill differences…however…beyond this note is my perspective to how games feel depending on who you are in the lobby.
General rules of thumb for MM…
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play with higher skilled players = matches where you’re likley to feel frustrated, where in the carnage report you are more than likley to see yourself as bottom ranked of every single match, lose the most csr in losses, gain the least in wins (usually). You’ll constantly wonder why MM isn’t bringing in players at least 1 much closer to your level, while the MM from your perspective seems scaled up, to your friends is actually scaled slightly down.
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play with lower skilled players = you being top player much more often, highest ranked in most of your lobbies, usually sitting top of the leader board, but also becoming frustrated in matches where your lower skilled friends are just outmatched because you’ve went on a 5 game winning spree. Halo gods say its time to pay up your csr. You’ve drifted far enough.
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play with players around your skill = grow together, the most balanced and engaging matches for all players, and the best progress in skill and csr as all 4 players see the MM change the same way as they win or lose.
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