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Why Players Blame Skill-Based Matchmaking For Losing In Call of Duty (vice.com) 210

Posted by BeauHD from the finger-pointing dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Two months ago, esports pro Seth "Scump" Abner logged into the Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War multiplayer alpha and found himself struggling. Not because of any major gameplay changes developer Treyarch had made, Cold War plays like any other Call of Duty from the past decade, but rather because of the players Abner was being put up against: They were all good. This, Abner felt, wasn't normal. He should know: he's a world champion, he spends dozens of hours every week playing against the best in the world, and dozens more streaming his "casual" play on Twitch. Why was he having to suddenly work so hard to win games? A few hours into the alpha test weekend, Abner came up with an answer: it was the skill-based matchmaking (SBMM).

Skill-based matchmaking, as you can guess, is a type of multiplayer matchmaking system in which players' are pitted against other players of similar skill level. In other words, the Black Ops Cold War alpha was purposefully matching Abner up against players with players who were just as good as him. This, he felt, was not good. "[Skill-based matchmaking] does not belong in Call of Duty. There should be a ranked playlist for people to sweat in," he tweeted as the alpha weekend was coming to a close. "I'm not trying to play Scuf wielding game fuel chugging demons with szn in their psn on Miami TDM." Abner wasn't the only esports pro to take issue with this system. With the release of Cold War last week, a number of notable streamers have echoed Abner's criticisms. Skill-based matchmaking, they argue, takes their agency away, forcing them into a purgatory of having to play their "best" every single game.

These critics point to a number of games like Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 and Halo 3 as examples games who have gotten multiplayer "right" by letting players choose between a "ranked" playlist and "unranked" playlist -- offering the freedom to decide when they want to sweat and when they want to kick back and own some noobs. Modern multiplayer developers have made a serious misstep in implementing skill-based matchmaking across the board, they argue, and they should go back to the way things used to be. This all sounds reasonable, were it not for the fact that skill-based matchmaking has been in every major multiplayer shooter since Halo 2. [...] The issue today is not that skill-based matchmaking exists, but that players are now aware of just how prevalent it is. Up until recently, one could assume that joining an "unranked" playlist meant they were being dropped into matches with the entire playerbase, and thus who they played against was purely random. Under this false assumption, it's easy to wave away bad games as flukes, while conveniently believing that any good games were the result of skill. Now that most know that they're being matched with people with similar skill levels all the time, they can't help but perceive their opponent as equals. In closing, Steve Rousseau writes via Motherboard: "The unavoidable truth about multiplayer matchmaking is that there will always be winners and losers. Someone's success always comes at the expense of someone else's failure. When players ask to be put into matches in which they can reliably chill and get 20 kills while only dying 10 times, this inevitably requires someone else to die 20 times. What they're asking for is special treatment. And that's just not fair."
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Why Players Blame Skill-Based Matchmaking For Losing In Call of Duty More

Why Players Blame Skill-Based Matchmaking For Losing In Call of Duty

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  • Rich people problems (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Tailhook ( 98486 ) on Friday December 04, 2020 @10:34PM (#60796284)

    Aww, Seth can't seal club all day long anymore. How terrible.

  • From the Noobs everywhere... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Friday December 04, 2020 @10:37PM (#60796290)

    Since I play FPS only infrequently, I feel I can speak for the noobs everywhere when I say... Suck It, Seth.

    That said I would say that as a noob it can sometimes be instructive after I die to follow along with a spectator cam someone who is really good to figure out some tips. Then agin there is always Twitch or YouTube for that...

    • Indeed, a lot of people feel that sort of thing is fun.

      The answer to that is to widen the range of potential opponents, so sometimes you get someone who is a lot better than you, and sometimes you get someone who is a lot worse than you.

      • I play fighting games online. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Friday December 04, 2020 @10:56PM (#60796334)
        and in general it's no fun for me or the other guy if we're too far apart in skill. I'm a scrub. I can do a few target combos (aka 'dial a combos') and have a vague notion of footsies. Even against somebody at twice my skill level I just get rofl stomped.

        My guess is since this guy's a streamer it looks bad for him to struggle so much in his matches. That's what he's worried about. To a causal stream watcher they don't get why he's losing. So they're likely to dismiss him as a Noob and drop his streams. At the very least that's most likely what he's worried about.

        • Re:I play fighting games online. (Score:4, Insightful)

          by MtHuurne ( 602934 ) on Saturday December 05, 2020 @01:08AM (#60796536) Homepage

          My guess is since this guy's a streamer it looks bad for him to struggle so much in his matches. That's what he's worried about. To a causal stream watcher they don't get why he's losing. So they're likely to dismiss him as a Noob and drop his streams. At the very least that's most likely what he's worried about.

          Everyone else streaming the same game will have the same challenge, so it doesn't really put him at a disadvantage. I think it's more a case of not wanting to be forced to play highly focused all the time. That makes sense for a streamer, since they often stream for several hours with only minimal breaks (every break means lost viewers) and also need to interact with their chat besides playing the game.

          But matching streamers against easier opponents would be unfair and would also diminish their accomplishments in the eyes of non-casual viewers. I don't have any numbers, but seeing content creators switch their focus from making videos to live streaming for financial reasons, I think it's likely that subscriptions make a streamer more money than ads. So retaining non-casual viewers is more important than viewers that are channel hopping.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Ambvai ( 1106941 )

          It's downright terrifying how disparate matchups end up being between people at opposite ends of the skill spectrum.

          I had the opportunity to play a casual game against a Quake II world ranker a few years ago, and did a game heavily stacked the game in my favor: No health pickups, he wouldn't use any of the items, my movement speed was slightly above default, and probably a few other superficially small things that I've forgotten. Now, he was very familiar with the map and quirks of the engine, and Factorio

        • My guess is since this guy's a streamer it looks bad for him to struggle so much in his matches. That's what he's worried about. To a causal stream watcher they don't get why he's losing. So they're likely to dismiss him as a Noob and drop his streams.

          Cry me a river.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Kisai ( 213879 )

        Let's be honest and fair here. The only reason they are complaining is because they are being challenged. In various games (even gacha nonsense) that have this type of skill matching, usually people get to a point in the game, and no further.

        However this is overlooking the other side of the problem. People who are new, or unskilled at the game, being randomly grouped with people who are pro, and being chased/kicked from the game after a few "git gud" shout downs.

        There is a way to make it a little more balan

        • Yeah, I've been playing Starcraft 2 and the match making there is pretty good. I normally play against someone who is of a similar skill level to me.

          The fact these guys want easy wins is annoying and petty.

      • Indeed, a lot of people feel that sort of thing is fun. The answer to that is to widen the range of potential opponents, so sometimes you get someone who is a lot better than you, and sometimes you get someone who is a lot worse than you.

        There is a reason no army throws raw recruits at Navy Seals, it only results in thoroughly demoralised raw recruits. Plus, I can see how it would be a morale boost for newbies to get 'promoted' to a higher skill class. So, I can see how this is a sensible decision from the corporate point of view since they don't want the bar to entry to be unreasonably high. Then there is of course the bigger problem of anti social assholes in any gaming community. Skill sorting solves the problem of experienced players l

        • Exactly. If you die every three seconds, you have no chance even to learn the map. Then you find out about all the bonuses that the pro players get - oh, you've prestiged several times? We'll give you three bonuses off the start. Versus a n00b. Nah, I'm with ambvai: if these guys want to play against n00bs, they should be actively hampered. They'll still win all the matches, but at least they won't be getting sniped without visibility from across the map because the experienced player has access to a radar

      • The answer to that is to widen the range of potential opponents

        Reading these Twitter rants, I see a lot of players ask for just that: not to do away with SBMM completely, but to ease off on it a little, so you get matched against a wider range of players, making the matches a bit more varied as well.

    • Re:From the Noobs everywhere... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ranton ( 36917 ) on Saturday December 05, 2020 @02:43AM (#60796640)

      Agreed. There really is nothing to see here. No complaint worth listening to. He wants the opportunity to own noobs without considering every easy game for him is a hopeless game for someone else. It is the type of selfish thinking which isn't worth sympathy.

      He says he needs to play his best every game, but that isn't true. He can play casually whenever he wants; he will just likely lose. Just like most people who are slacking off for a leisurely game. What I guess is at stake is he wants easy wins while streaming and showing off, and that is now harder for him. He likely won't outright say that because he knows it would fall on deft ears.

  • They could ... (Score:3)

    by PPH ( 736903 ) on Friday December 04, 2020 @10:38PM (#60796294)

    ... create several pseudonyms and log in as either themselves (being matched against players of equal skills) or a n00b and get matched with less skilled players. Where they could kick some ass.

    • this is probably not about how the game is played and about how he looks streaming it. If he's not using his main Id on Stream he's going to take flak for rofl stomping noobs. On the other hand if he's constantly up against other pros he's in danger of being labeled a noob himself for struggling so much. It's a lose lose for him.

  • He isn't the target market. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Frobnicator ( 565869 ) on Friday December 04, 2020 @10:39PM (#60796298) Journal

    As a pro-tier player, he isn't the target market. He is an exception. The story reads like he wants an unfair game, like a chess grandmaster playing against a novice as a challenge.

    People play the games to have fun. While he may have fun winning by an overwhelming margin, for most players, a fun game means winning about half the time in a precariously balanced fight.

    Just like playing against an AI, developers could create AI that completely destroys players every time, that always makes perfect decisions, that never miss, that is 100% mathematically perfect. Instead developers focus on creating a fun AI, one that presents a challenge, one that you will lose to some of the time but still have the ability to defeat.

    I expect the vast majority of players love skill-based matchmaking. Beginners get placed with mostly other beginners where they can face equal skill, along with an occasional expert who has reset their accounts. Mid-skill players get matched with other mid-skill players. Cheaters tend to get matched with other cheaters since they have equal skill levels, and with pro-level players who can usually overcome their cheating. And pros get balanced against other pros, where they have a roughly equal chance of both winning or losing.

    • The problem is people are tuning into his stream (Score:5, Insightful)

      by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Friday December 04, 2020 @11:00PM (#60796350)
      to see him win. And he probably can't do that consistently against other pros. Or at least that would be my guess.

      • Re:The problem is people are tuning into his strea (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 05, 2020 @01:32AM (#60796570)

        The problem is people are tuning into his stream to see him win. And he probably can't do that consistently against other pros. Or at least that would be my guess.

        Minor detail, but that isn't "the problem", that is "his problem".
        It's also not the games problem or the other players problem.

        I suppose I too wish I could stream something on twitch that I'm no good at, and get paid for it. I wouldn't say no!
        I just have a more reasonable expectation than Seth does. You don't get famous when people know you suck :P

        It's also not becoming to suck, continuously claim he doesn't, and cry how unfair it is to him personally that the game matches players fairly.
        Me saying that would almost sound like an insult of those weren't his own actual words.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        I watch a guy called SuperGT on YouTube, he plays Gran Turismo Sport and rarely wins. When he does it feels like he earned it, and when he doesn't the races are entertaining and the commentary about his mistakes and bad luck is informative.

        If there wasn't a genuine struggle to win I wouldn't watch it. Same with Mario Maker players, the old 100 man game was the best because there was a clear target and a real possibility they would miss it. My favourite, The Beast (who is the least beastly guy you would ever

    • I'm not a great gamer, but I'm good enough to know the difference that being tweaked out of my mind makes in my ability to play well. To me it read like he wanted to be able to enjoy playing without getting his ass kicked and also without using the stimulants he needs for his work. And...yes, tough titty for him. People need to stop turning fun things into horrible jobs.

    • If the vast majority of players love skill-baset matchmaking, then why aren't they already choosing to play in ranked games?

      Really what I am saying is, there seems to be a large number of players who want to play in truly random matches, and a large number of players who want to play with skill-based matchmaking, and sometimes they flip back and forth based on mood.

      So, what is the harm in giving players exactly that choice? If it turns out that nearly everyone wants skill-based matchmaking all the time, th

      • from the summary:

        "The unavoidable truth about multiplayer matchmaking is that there will always be winners and losers. Someone's success always comes at the expense of someone else's failure. When players ask to be put into matches in which they can reliably chill and get 20 kills while only dying 10 times, this inevitably requires someone else to die 20 times. What they're asking for is special treatment. And that's just not fair."

        You can look at it the other way , that a relatively low skilled player is r

        • Re:He isn't the target market. (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Frobnicator ( 565869 ) on Saturday December 05, 2020 @12:29AM (#60796470) Journal

          I'm not a gamer and wasn't that into sports but I sure enjoyed rugby back in school where i managed to take down the best player a few times when no one else could stop his run and I was battered and sore as a result but boy did that feel good.

          In what you are describing there is still a chance of victory. You knew going in that the match was lopsided but accepted it. Random matchmaking is more like coaches making balanced play.

          This player isn't talking about knowingly lopsided games. He is talking about matchmaking.

          He described how he wants to always win, or win 20-1, and that is exactly the opposite of what matchmaking systems are designed to do. If he wants in a knowingly-lopsided match, that is trivially easy to do. Open up Discord, tell them "I'm Skump, a five-platinum ultra-tier player looking to join a match with one-star brass players" and he'll get invites to twenty games. He probably has friends that range from experts to noobs and can ask them for invites or join matches with them. Even though the game is built with those options, those aren't what he wants.

          But he wants the matchmaking system to pit him (the five-platinum ultra-tier player) against silvers, bronzes, and noobs. That's not going to happen, matchmaking isn't about lopsided games. Matchmaking is about making fair, balanced games. Some game matchmakers pit everybody of the same skill together: All the platinum players are together, all the golds together, all the silvers, etc. A variant that some game matchmakers do is include some of each. A team might include on platinum, one gold, one silver, one bronze, one noob, and because both teams are similarly equipped with a broad spectrum of players the games are balanced.

          But again, that's not what he wants from a matchmaker. He can get what we wants with lopsided games, but not from the matchmaker. Lopsided games can be played against bots, he can play with friends, he can play with people inviting to a match on Discord.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by sjames ( 1099 )

            That's just it, he wants to stomp noobs, but doesn't want to own up to choosing easy stomping over a fair fight. He needs an automated matchup to blame it on.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by sjames ( 1099 )

          On the other hand, 5 year old you might not appreciate being pitted against a professional team that's hopped up on fly agaric.

          I would think that ideally you would be skill matched against players along a bell curve with your skill being the center of the bell.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by N1AK ( 864906 )

          I'm not a gamer and wasn't that into sports but I sure enjoyed rugby back in school where i managed to take down the best player a few times

          And you got to play against the best rugby players in the world while playing school Rugby? Guess what, you played in a very limited pool limited by age and geography, and by some kind of league tiers if your team was remotely good/serious. The online gaming equivalent would be all Rugby teams in a global pool and sometimes you'd be playing 5 years olds who were picking

      • It's probably because too many people see the word "ranked" and find it intimidating. If you know you suck, you probably don't want to be publicly labeled as someone who sucks. Sure, it's just a game and there's no reason to be ashamed, but. . .I mean, we've all met gamers.

        Basically, the word "ranked" means that players feel that there is something at stake.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Kisai ( 213879 )

        Again, most players want to have fun, not a job/chore.

        You have roughly three modes of play, and they appeal to different players:

        a) Grouped (with friends) vs (friends)
        b) Grouped (with friends) vs randos
        c) Grouped with randos vs randos

        Some people will only do A, because this is easily the most fun way to play games when you know enough people (which can be between 2 and 100) to play with. Some will only do B, where they only have a few friends (eg 2-8)
        Some people have no friends, or only want to play in ladd

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by N1AK ( 864906 )
        Using Rocket League as an example there are "ranked" and "casual" playlists, but neither is completely random as I understand it (casual just has it's own player scoring and allows more variation). Casual exists so you can play without affecting the rank you have reached in a competitive playlist. Making an educated guess, unless you removed the casual option that includes matching, then very few players would pick casual without player matching; why would players aren't in the top echelons want to go into

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by yarbo ( 626329 )

          Rocket League casual mode still has a match making ranking (MMR). It can be displayed with BakkesMod.

          Casual mode doesn't penalize you for leaving partway through a match, can use bots to temporarily fill empty spots on a roster, and will pick people with larger MMR gaps than ranked.

          Casual also doesn't display your rank tier (bronze/silver/gold/....) at the end of a match, so you don't feel as much pressure.

          For an idea what happens if you just play anyone, play the first few days of the season when the rank

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Cederic ( 9623 )

            Yeah, I find myself up against Grand Champion ranked players.

            They.. win. With ease.

            But I can have fun against them, have a good game, enjoy it. They can experiment with different tactics, practice their aerials, relax and have fun.

            It's not always a bad thing.

      • then why aren't they already choosing to play in ranked games?
        Because they want to play a certain game, and not search for one based on match making.

        But so long as many players actually DO want random matches
        Except for the guy complaining, no one really wants that.
        But a check box or dedicated servers that support different ways of matchmaking make sense.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Tom ( 822 )

      I expect the vast majority of players love skill-based matchmaking. Beginners get placed with mostly other beginners where they can face equal skill, along with an occasional expert who has reset their accounts. Mid-skill players get matched with other mid-skill players.

      I expected an article dealing with that, not a whining pro complaining that he can't ROFLstomp noobs.

      The thing is that skill-based matchmaking does have it's disadvantages. Actual ones. To improve, you should be matched not with people of your skill, but with people just slightly above your skill. Then you should sit at that level for a while, so that you notice how you improve - a complete feedback loop.

      It has the same problem as auto-difficulty in games. If the enemies always scale to your level, then you

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by N1AK ( 864906 )

        To improve, you should be matched not with people of your skill, but with people just slightly above your skill.

        Reality check: The game can't match everyone with someone slightly better than them (by definition for everyone matched with someone better there is someone getting matched with someone worse). The best compromise is that when you play you are matched with players distributed around your skill level, and they are being matched in the same way; then you'll all get to play with a mix of players inc

  • In other words... (Score:5, Funny)

    by SilverJets ( 131916 ) on Friday December 04, 2020 @10:48PM (#60796318) Homepage

    Whaaa!! I don't get to run around and one-shot noobs anymore!!!!

  • fnk in my wok Dallas CIA (Score:5, Funny)

    by sound+vision ( 884283 ) on Friday December 04, 2020 @11:01PM (#60796352) Journal

    "Scuf wielding game fuel chugging demons with szn in their psn on Miami TDM"

    Did he have a seizure on top of his keyboard? Are these actual words?

  • It is a good thing. (Score:3)

    by 140Mandak262Jamuna ( 970587 ) on Friday December 04, 2020 @11:27PM (#60796372) Journal
    How many novice players were thrashed and defeated so overwhelming by these players? As if Sachin Tendulkar put on a fake mustache and played in a fifth division league and thrashed every bowler. (Of course Sunil Gavaskar once showed up in a match in Loyola College grounds in Chennai and kept hitting the ball over to the railway station seemingly a mile away, but I digress ...)

    Now these players get to feel how those defeated children felt. It might do them some good. Reminds me of the great sage Mandavya cursing the God of Justice Yama himself to be born as a human to know firsthand how difficult it is for humans to follow the path of righteousness to temper His justice with mercy.

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Argh. No offense but just got done trying to decipher what "Scuf wielding game fuel chugging demons with szn in their psn on Miami TDM" meant, then saw your post.

      It's going to be a long night.

  • The market has spoken (Score:4, Insightful)

    by dnaumov ( 453672 ) on Friday December 04, 2020 @11:31PM (#60796382)

    and the vast majority made it loud and clear that they want skill-based matchmaking and people who "just want to own some noobs" can go pound sand.

  • What is this shit doing here? This isn't Gizmodo, go and be a child, sorry gaymer, elsewhere.
  • Git guuder.

    • Then he would get matched agaisnt even guuder opponents.

      You can't win (consistenly) in games with auto-leveling, which is what matching making amounts to.

      Though at least in this case, i would consider the auto-leveling at least mostly good. New players could only play local games against friends otherwise.

      • Then they should git REAL gud.
        But it's a joke, anyway. It is the gold standard for a-hole responses when someone complains about dying / not winning. If you're REAL gud, you'll never lose, except to hackers, bs lag, roommate walking in front of the TV, or because you were going easy on 'em.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Cederic ( 9623 )

      he's a world champion

      Just how 'guud' do you want him to 'git'?

  • Entitled no-life (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Austerity Empowers ( 669817 ) on Saturday December 05, 2020 @12:04AM (#60796426)

    So, we're supposed to care that some entitled no-life "eSports" "pro" wants to go wreck some people and ruin the game for people who play games for fun, and instead ends up having to play against other no-life players and has to face an actual challenge? And it's bothering his twitch channel, which he's no doubt using to avoid having to get an actual job.

    Sorry, this sounds exactly like what these games need.

    • The creators of the game are favoring the majority over the skilled. This is business as usual, come to video games.

  • To paraphrase Ernest Hemingway (Score:3)

    by Linux Torvalds ( 647197 ) on Saturday December 05, 2020 @12:11AM (#60796440)

    "The difference between a sport and a game is that in a sport, you can die. Consequently, the only true sports are bullfighting and auto racing. Everything else is just a game."

  • Waa-waa! I have to work? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by mnemotronic ( 586021 ) <mnemotronic@@@gmail...com> on Saturday December 05, 2020 @12:15AM (#60796446) Homepage Journal
    Wow. This level of entitlement is normally only seen in spoiled 12 year olds or people named Trump.

  • This is why I don't play multiplayer (Score:5, Insightful)

    by tannhaus ( 152710 ) on Saturday December 05, 2020 @12:21AM (#60796460) Homepage Journal

    I'm 50. My reflexes will never again compete with someone in their teens or twenties. It just won't happen. No matter how much I practice, I will stay at a disadvantage.

    It's no fun for me to die in one second, spend 20 seconds respawning, and do that over and over again.

    Sure, it may be fun for you to kill me...but then, I don't play because we're both not enjoying the game.

    Especially on Call of Duty games, I check them out from the library or redbox, play through the campaign, then return it. I don't buy it because they're short campaigns and once I'm done with the story, I'm done. Making it skill based means I may give it a shot....and, if I end up having fun, may buy it. That's what the publishers care about...not some guy whining that he can't make the rest of us miserable.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Cederic ( 9623 )

      My reflexes will never again compete with someone in their teens or twenties.

      My reflexes are still as good as the average teen or young 20s man. They're just nowhere near as good as they were when I was that age.

      I don't really do online shooters. They all went for gimmicks instead of fun, lost the simplicity and pureness of gameplay that made something like Unreal Tournament so excellent, gave the early Battlefield games such tremendous balance.

      In Rocket League however I can compete with those hyped up super-reaction controller users with their manual dexterity and good eyesight. Th

  • The crybaby super-player is complaining because the matchmaking algo pairs him with players of similar skill level.

    Well wah, wah, wah. How did he get world-ranked without learning how to lose occasionally? gracefully?

    Hey, snowflake, go die again. It's only because the computer algo matched you with like-leveled players, and not newbs that you could just stomp on. The game was not written for you alone. Fucking cry-baby.

  • k, a number of notable streamers have echoed Abner's criticisms. Skill-based matchmaking, they argue, takes their agency away, forcing them into a purgatory of having to play their "best" every single game.

    I think that's a fair criticism. Yeah, it would suck to have to play your very best every time, especially since people aren't always at their best.

    It's also blatantly unrealistic as you don't always face similar-strength or "equally-matched" opponents in real war. Making it that way is artificial as fuc

    • He doesnâ(TM)t have to play his best every day. He can start a game, relax, chill, and get killed. Same experience that other people have who play for fun and have the bad luck to be hit by someone who has no life other than video games.

      He wants opponents who try their hardest and are still easy prey. I remember a James Bond movie with a video game that could hurt, damage or kill for real. Maybe they should introduce that at the highest game level.

  • noobs (Score:2)

    by Tom ( 822 )

    the freedom to decide when they want to sweat and when they want to kick back and own some noobs

    Oh, cry me a river. You can't own some noobs anymore. Poor sod.

    Now maybe, some of those noobs will actually enjoy the game and hang around, become better, or just have some plain old fun without being rolled over by someone who thinks that the fact he spends his life doing professionally what others do for an hour in the evening one day in a week earns him special treatment.

    When professional athletes compete against hobby players in physical sports, they do so in a special setting where everyone is not only

  • He's losing money (Score:3)

    by Sir Holo ( 531007 ) on Saturday December 05, 2020 @01:08AM (#60796534)

    The guy can't keep his audience of game-play watchers if he loses too frequently. Then, he won't be a revenue center any more. He is losing advertisers, and is blaming the game for it.

    This is all about money. Nothing more.

  • Oh WOW (Score:5, Funny)

    by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Saturday December 05, 2020 @01:17AM (#60796552)

    Never have I heard of such a brutal and shocking injustice that I cared so little about!

  • Fun requires a challenge commensurate with the reward studies/the psychology of Flow shows.

    Streamers wanting just to have a high kill count to promote their stream are not doing it for fun, they aren't doing it for the health of the game, they are doing it for self serving profit. They want the game to be secondary to paying attention to chat. That isn't the majority of players. Sure, ranked/unranked offer them the choice of being bored and boring their users by stomping on clueless players. But compell

  • "I'm not trying to play Scuf wielding game fuel chugging demons with szn in their psn on Miami TDM."

    What does this mean? Please break it down for me.

  • SBBM fragged his apparently dubious elite status. The only agency he was robbed of was the choice to play as a filthy casual.

  • Protecting the normies is the most profitable path in any game. There are 10,000 normies for every pro level player. The pro player wants to own noobs for twitch bait, and the viewers dont give a larp about how the owned newb feels.
  • This is pandering to the lower common denominator in order to have the greatest possible audience. Its the most profitable route, as in all other types of media, politics, and marketing.
  • So he's actually a sore looser. I can imagine him not liking it now he finds out there are other players just as good as he is. Skillbased matchmaking is better due to you not having to fight against people who are much MUCH better than you are, ut evens the odds for a lot of players, making it more fun for them. Now he's just a sore looser because he doesn't win as much anymore..

  • He's got a point, but the article over simplifies the issue.

    After 6 months of casually (~2 hours a day) grinding out on Warzone, I have amassed a k/d ratio of 0.8. Dedicated streamers have a 2.5 - 3.0 k/d, and I think the top folks in Warzone have a 6.0+. A vast majority of players (~25M) are in the .7-1.1 bracket.

    What does happen is that players are sorted into three groups: sub .40 k/d, .40-1.2 k/d, and then anything above a 1.2 k/d is in the top tier.

    I agree that there should be some SBMM in there, b

  • Isn't there a middle ground between either having matchplay based on skill rankings or having it based on completely random players? Why can't we have both? Why does the choice have to be limited to one type of matchplay?

    I think that most people would support skill ranking matchplay that creates a level playing field. After all, people get tired of constantly being "owned" by better players and teams. This gives both teams a fair chance at winning.

    As for complete random matching, it does provide the opp

  • One joy of being a good player is that you can show off your superiority and that is hard if you cannot play agains weaker players occasionaly. Take a top-tier boxing match for example, it looks relatively unspectacular because both opponents are ultra-careful due to their experience. Matches where one of them is low-tier are usually more spectacular because it gives the superior one more room to do tricks.

    If you play for show, like this guy does, then predictability is a must. Saying he should always have

  • perhaps they could take a less mathematical and more empirical/psychological path and instead of optimizing for similar skill levels, they should be optimizing for such things as "play session duration", or, specifically, "chance that this player will end their play session after this game". today, a combination with "mundane" rules-based methods with "arcane" machine learning algos can give you fairly decent estimates on both outcome of the game.

    and no, I'm not giving any suggestions to optimize revenues b

  • This has nothing to do with matchmaking, and just about everything to do with game modes and the game. DM, TDM and even slightly more sophisticated modes like assault, domination or KOTH are meh as it is. Play them with a regular "realistic" military combat sim makes them even more boring as they are.

    You've summed up very neatly the exact reason I never play DM or TDM. Or combat Sims.

    These modes are so one-dimensional, they're not even the same game. UT, UT2k3, UT2k3, Tribes 2 as CTF are lightyears beyond

  • I used to play Hearts a on Pogo and yoiu'd get guys who were multiple levels aboove you come in and play too build up their points. They weren't that good but beating up on lower teir players built up their points. I played at my level, and looked for games with those players. The screaming and accusations of cheating were priceless; becasue they could not accept they really were stupid enough to let me finess their ace to shoot the moon. The COD player sounds like one of tehm after they lost.
  • Im Sure if you put Zlatan in the local kiddie junior football team he will kick their butts also. So i dont really see any down side in this except for pros crying that they suddenly have to make an effort to win.

  • ERROR: Qualifier not applicable to this context.

    Next up: Why explorers blame depth of mountains to the /north/ for getting lost at the /north pole/. General dryness of the surronding waters, too.

  • Fuckin casuals in their glacial-paced granny games thinking they are pro players now. ^^

    They'd get a literal heart attack after the stress of a 30 minute warmup match we did in Q3 pro-mode / CPMA, that made us win at all the other games, back before consoles started to become confused for shooter platforms, and slo-mo pace plus aim-assist became the norm.

  • Skill-based matchmaking, they argue, takes their agency away, forcing them into a purgatory of having to play their "best" every single game.

    The alternative is to match world champions against people who end up quitting the game because they're tired of getting destroyed no matter how hard they try.

  • Am I the only one who read this and thought, "Well, of course the players are better, if I were a n00b to a multiplayer, I wouldn't jump in on the alpha..."? Why would you expect anything less than decently good players for an alpha event?

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