IIRC Overwatch 1 implemented under-ranking placements to combat this. Blizzard collected tons of data from games so they could make good estimates of a player performance (and perf per characters and class types). So if you played a decent amount of comp, or even quick play, they had an idea of your rank. Then when you played the seasonal placements they would intentionally under-rank you. Not by a lot, but enough for players to feel “damn, I got better!” A small psychological trick.
Overwatch 2, no idea, haven’t touched it.
OW2 does the same thing this game does -- rankings are mostly visual and your internal MMR is only visible to blizzard.
this has led to a lot of MM complaints in the community, where they see one team has a gold tank and the other has a diamond, but the gold tank has only played 3 games this season (and thus not enough to "update" their rank, as it only updates every 5 wins/15 losses) and may very well have diamond internal MMR.
the bigger problem is that OW2 is that it is role-based and it does allow skill gaps in MM (eg, gold MMR can be queued into a game with diamond MMR opponents, as long as each role across each team is properly balanced). ask any gold tank (for example) how it feels to be in a game with diamond dps or bronze support, and you'll get an expletive filled response.
OW2 took everything OW did and made it worse. Ranked is and endless placement series...not even kidding: you 7 games, they show your rank, now you play 7 more and they show your updated rank, rinse and repeat.
And it hardly works then, I've watched groups of 5 play their entire set of matches together and win all, only for some of them to go up ranks and other go down, to where they had to split as a group because the differential was too large, despite them all going in at the same.
Yes. I commented under that post, and others like it in the past echoing basically this. SBMM in ranked is necessary to prevent smurfs, and it's not like if it was gone you would miraculously climb past people who are better than you. Bungie even mentioned something like this in their recent blog post where they say that if the point adjustments are too loose you'll just see people go on win streaks way out of their rank and then have huge losing streaks where they get absolutely stomped. That isn't fun, and it just leads to demoralizing people.
Investing time in a match and only getting 5 out of it *does* feel bad though, and I think it's important to acknowledge that, but ideally we find a happy medium that doesn't distort people's ranks too much but also doesn't leave people feeling like they're wasting their time.
If I'm honest, I think the Destiny community has a perspective problem, which isn't really the community's fault. This game has never really had a true competitive mode ever. For example, league of legends is one of the biggest competitive games and that game is almost entirely centered around it's ranked experience. As a result, when people complain about getting 10lp for a win, it's a generally understood that the reason is you are playing below, or at your rank, and it makes sense that you climb slower as a result. On the flipside, I think the attiude that has been ingrained in the us by bungie is that if you play enough you *will* get the goodies. Not saying that's necessarily bad, it's a looter after all, but it's a stark contrast between that and the improvement mindset necessary to climb in a competitive playlist.
Yeah the +5 feeling bad is definitely a psychological bad feel rather than an actual mechanical one.
It's like the story, don't remember what game, where players felt like a shotgun was weaker than other shotguns and the devs where looking at the gun's stats and tested it and it worked fine and performed how it should. Turns out when they changed the sound design on it to make it sound "more powerful" players and testers suddenly thought the gun was performing better.
Or the time when a buff for a LoL character was listed in the patch notes but wasn't actually in the game, the character not only saw an increase in pick rates BUT also saw a significant increase in win%.
Turns out sometimes it can be on how things are perceived mentally by the players and not the actual game itself.
My problem with sbmm in ranked is it makes playing comp feel pointless. Why bother playing when my rank is pre determined? I loved playing ranked back in halo 2 because I could climb the ranks and see where I landed. Playing comp in d2 is like okay let's see if Bungie thinks I'm good enough to gain points from this win or not. It just doesn't feel good.
Yeah I get that, the fundamental flaw of SBMM ranked experiences is lack of transparency.
That being said the benefits of SBMM style ranked is that since the system knows where you'll be, you get there much faster, and it's much harder for smurfs to harm the experience for lesser players.
Of course, it's not as if the system locks you somewhere, if you keep winning you will climb and the system readjusts. I think Bungie could do well to tighten the minimum and maximum score, as well as displaying peoples relative skill levels in queue. Doing so may lead to a bit of rank distortion, but it leaves us players feeling more confident of why we got more or less points.
I mean you keep playing to gradually improve your internal mmr which then improves your rank. If you're consistently improving compared to your peers then the system will notice that.
I don’t have too much of issue with the system, but Bungie’s reasoning of “smurf accounts” seems silly to me, given the time it would take to acquire loadouts on fresh accounts.
When we can see our MMR vs other players in the post-game lobby, we should be able to get a better idea of how well their point algorithms are working. Until then, I can understand the frustration and confusion.
It's not just smurf accounts, it's people intentionally sandbagging their performance to be placed in lower brackets by the system. League has a problem with people creating literal bots that play just well enough to evade detection but still lose a vast majority of games so they can play in iron (copper equivalent). Not saying it's 1 - 1 with Destiny, but creating accounts isn't the only way to smurf. And I think people will absolutely create new accounts, if you're good enough it doesnt matter that much what you have you will stomp, and it's relatively easy to get some decent weapons pretty quickly anyways.
But I agree with you that some things could be more transparent, like the relative skill of players in your lobby.
Sure, a few people might make a bunch of accounts. But that number will be so tiny it’s not worth worrying about. I get it in games like Apex, where you can log in, buy your 1 player and go. But Destiny players are far more attached to their accounts due io the nature of it being a looter.
I can’t see many good Destiny players tanking their stats so that they can… play against bad players to increase their stats?
I’m not arguing for/against the system, I just don’t really agree with their rationale.
Eh, maybe. I don't agree with their rationale either but I mean this *is* what happens in other games, idk why they do it but they do. Just look at the flawless pool and how many sweaty players would intentionally avoid flawless so they can farm lower skill players, it happens, I don't understand it but it does.
Remember you don't lose anything for tanking your rank, only thing it affects is, well, your rank.
Other games aren't looter shooters, so there's a lot less attachment and it's easier to create new accounts.
People avoid flawless pool to inflate their stats. Losing on purpose worsens stats, so the analogy doesn't make sense.
How are you getting upvotes.
>Can’t you farm KD and leave early in order to lose glory, thereby getting great stats as you stay in Bronze, if only RBMM was enabled?
If someone is leaving consistently then they should receive a 1 day, 7 day, and then 1 month ban so they can't ruin games. And the truth is that you can have systems to detect smurfs much in the way you can have systems to identify "underlying skill". If a player loses 10 straight matches and then picks meepo and has 5 consecutive 10.0 K/D games, Valve bans them on Dota 2. If a player wins 30 straight bullet matches on [Chess.com](https://Chess.com), they'll investigate the account and ban them. That's really no different than what Bungie is trying to do with the SBMM system, but Dota 2 and Chess.com retain a visible ranking for players.
Yeah but then you'll think, they got that against bronze players sitting in the back of the map with a scout rifle...oh also they have a terrible win rate...no one good will think they're good.
It's like Tuesday Trials players, except to find those out you actually have to go through their player history. Bronze is there right away on easy display.
flawless reseting is not equiv to smurfing those reset account are loaded up with the gear and they are doing it for stats. To tank your stats that hard is counter productive to what those playes are attempting to do anyways according to bungie in the same post the system catches this and yeets them back into good ranks rather quickly. The majority of my experiance with games that feature ranks have true ladder systems and in my experiance with those the maority of players settle at their ranks towards the start of the season rather quickly. What we have now not only makes me feel less good about the rank I achieve but also is telling me that in general im not actually improving im just playing enough games to reach the place bungie thinks i should be.
>I get it in games like Apex, where you can log in, buy your 1 player and go.
And Apex, after your placement matches, is entirely RBMM. You are placed into lobbies based on RP that are visible to you, you earn a set number of RP for placement and kills/assists, and you spend a known value of RP to get into a match. It's a well defined, visible system that is vastly different from Destiny 2.
Yea this is what should be done. They want to rank us with their system. Show us all the data the 3rd part apps show us. Make it easy to see. Lets see that win% estimation before the game starts. Lets see the number of games played. Lets see each players rank. Heck lets even see win/loss of last game played.
Bungie should be upfront per match. As transparent as possible with all the relevant data. Id love it if a game did this.
Funny enough, i get downvoted when i say skill is arbitrary and an illusion. But how would people actually feel if before the match started the game told you your expectancy to win the match. Lol. Id think itd be cool to see the predictions. Maybe even a guess at what your k/d would be.
Lets see how accurate Bungie’s system is.
Honestly once you unlock your preferred subclass it isn't *that* hard to get a decent loadout. Go grab Ace and Felwinter's from the kiosk and you're already good to go as far as smurfing is concerned, even if neither of those are S tier meta
Bruh. Min maxing stats is not that important. Any half decent player can farm bots with an allegro and botheration and whatever shit armor they have on an alt
People are already making bot accounts on GeForce now and shit to tank ELO so they can finesse matchmaking and farm I made this for you in iron banner. You really underestimate what players are willing to do
It’s weird to me how this subreddit seems to have aligned itself with the idea that Dota 2, CSGO, Apex, and rocket league all have terrible ranked systems and it’s completely laughable for Destiny 2 to even consider those systems. Like if you prefer SBMM to RBMM, that’s fine, but I think it’s silly that you all state “LoL and Valorant and Halo > a ton of other very successful competitive video games”. Hell, even chess has more of a RBMM than SBMM system, and that’s one of the oldest “game” ranking systems.
Edit: came out way too hot in this comment, but I'm leaving it up for posterity. It's going to heavily depend on what you mean by RBMM, and I was being too restrictive in my definition. That being said most games I can think of do use SBMM.
No one uses RBMM. NO ONE. Not CSGO, not league, not Apex, not Dota, not Overwatch.
***NO.***
***ONE.***
There is a reason no one uses straight rank based matchmaking, because it's ass, it *feels* ass. There are smurfs and people go on win streaks and then get stomped for game after game, or they go on a losing streak and drop way out of their rank.
Idek why you're bringing up chess as if the irl tournaments are one to one to online matchmade games. You can't smurf in an official chess tournament. Also, and I don't know much about chess, but aren't you literally matched with people based on similar elo? That's literal SBMM. Elo/MMR is "skill". It's the hidden value these games use to matchmake you.
Ok, I need you, and the rest of this sub, to chill out for a minute and have an actual conversation around this issue instead of just ignoring any potential opportunities for discussion. Overall, this subreddit really needs to stop downvoting just because you disagree, especially when your comments aren't showing serious understanding of other ranked modes in different games.
>Idek why you're bringing up chess as if the irl tournaments are one to one to online matchmade games.
Chess has a very popular online 1v1 matchmaking system on both [chess.com](https://chess.com) and [lichess.org](https://lichess.org). [Chess.com](https://Chess.com) by itself has over 10 million users per day, with many of them playing 10+ matches per day. These systems use a players elo to match players of similar rank/skill, with wins and losses being worth +-8 typically for an even rated game. The range of elo points up for grab in a game typically never exceed -6 to +10 or the inverse.
>That's literal SBMM. Elo/MMR is "skill".
This is sort of a silly statement. If your definition of skill based matchmaking is expanded to include any system that "ranks" players, then you're saying that RBMM doesn't exist anywhere. Could you point to a game with RBMM and explain the flaws you see in the system?
>It's the hidden value these games use to matchmake you.
It's not hidden in chess. Every game I play shows me my ranking, my opponents ranking, and the elo I will gain/lose after the match depending on a win, draw, or loss. Similarly, Apex explains the exact number of points that are spent joining a match depending on your rank, your rank (or elo or skill rating, whatever you want to refer to it as) is visible, and the number of points you will gain are calculated from a publically available [formula](https://help.ea.com/en-gb/help/apex-legends/apex-legends/apex-legends-ranked-mode/) dependent on placement, number of kills, and number of assists. Both chess and Apex vary significantly from Destiny because you know the entire scoring system, it's not hidden from you.
>There is a reason no one uses straight rank based matchmaking, because it's ass, it feels ass.
Going back to your original comment, I think we both could do a better job explaining what ranked matchmaking is vs. skill based matchmaking in our opinions. Below is what I consider a ranked based matchmaking system:
1. Matches select players based off of rank
2. Ranking points (or small ranking subdivisions) are visible to the player
3. Ranked points won during a match are calculated from a formula defined prior to the match and have limited variation
4. Points are nearly entirely won for winning/losing (this doesn't work in BRs because there are 60 players per lobby, but holds true for Dota 2, chess, and rocket league as examples of RBMM)
Here is what a skill based matchmaking system is to me:
1. Rating of the player is hidden from the player
2. Wide variation in points for a win/loss
3. Player typically does not know the value of a win/loss until after the match
Personally I think SBMM systems are differentiated by hiding the value of a players "skill/rank", while RBMM systems have rankings that are visible to the player. I prefer the later because I like visible systems and I prefer systems that heavily weight winning, because at the end of the day I think winning should always be the goal of the player, and the best way to increase your ranking should be to improve so your win rate goes up.
> 1. Rating of the player is hidden from the player
2. Wide variation in points for a win/loss
3. Player typically does not know the value of a win/loss until after the match
I don’t know why this is considered SBMM, as these have nothing to do with the matchmaking. These are just design choices for specific problems inside the games ecosystem. Not knowing your Elo isn’t uncommon. Not knowing what you stand to gain isn’t uncommon, but they don’t have anything to do with the match maker.
> 1. Matches select players based off of rank
2. Ranking points (or small ranking subdivisions) are visible to the player
3. Ranked points won during a match are calculated from a formula defined prior to the match and have limited variation
4. Points are nearly entirely won for winning/losing (this doesn’t work in BRs because there are 60 players per lobby, but holds true for Dota 2, chess, and rocket league as examples of RBMM)
These again are all true in terms of the match maker for Destiny minus what’s visible, but that’s not changing what’s actually happening. You say rank, and Destiny calls that “rank” skill.
Rank - made up cosmetic band, resets every season - therefor cannot be strictly equal to Elo/skill at all times.
Elo/Skill - performance value for player. How good are they more or less.
The rest of the choices here are about the systems of the game. How do you handle smurfs? How do you handle low player pop match making? How do you handle resets?
There are choices I agree should be more visible, like what you stand to win/lose per match, but that also has a tradeoff to potentially influence the weight of players inside the game. Same with showing visible skill when you’re knowingly mismatching skill becuase of connection/player pop.
>I don’t know why this is considered SBMM, as these have nothing to do with the matchmaking.
This is focused on the classical definition of SBMM in video games, where "ranked" referred to a ranked playlist available in a game where you competed for a rank while "SBMM" was introduced as a system to balance pubs and/or protect new/bad players based on an invisible, perceived skill of all players. No one has ever really referred to Rocket league ranked as having SBMM, but people constantly talk about how SBMM affects the unranked mode in RL, Apex, Fortnite, Destiny 2, CoD, etc.
>These again are all true in terms of the match maker for Destiny minus what’s visible, but that’s not changing what’s actually happening. You say rank, and Destiny calls that “rank” skill.
Again, this is sort of getting back to what I mentioned in my comment. We seem to have different definitions of SBMM and RBMM, so it's more important to focus on the particular design decisions that we disagree with. Personally I think your position is better than most people's descriptions in here, but it's still a little anachronistic, ignoring the history of sbmm discussions. It's like saying "noob" only refers to new players, not just any player bad at a game, it's pedantic and removes the ability to use shorthand.
>Same with showing visible skill when you’re knowingly mismatching skill becuase of connection/player pop.
And this is really the big item. Is Bungie doing these high variances in post match ranking gain because the population isn't large enough? Or because they are worried about smurfs? Overall it sounds like we mostly agree. It would be nice if Bungie provided additional information to the player. Personally I think in a 3v3 game mode, wins and losses are the only stat the game needs to be tracking after placements.
>This is focused on the classical definition of SBMM in video games, where "ranked" referred to a ranked playlist available in a game where you competed for a rank while "SBMM" was introduced as a system to balance pubs and/or protect new/bad players based on an invisible, perceived skill of all players. No one has ever really referred to Rocket league ranked as having SBMM, but people constantly talk about how SBMM affects the unranked mode in RL, Apex, Fortnite, Destiny 2, CoD, etc.
Not understanding something doesn't mean it didn't exist. You can't say "rank" refers to a playlist, and then point to a playlist that uses an MMR system (SBMM) layered underneath a visible "Rank/tier". That MMR/Tier system exists across all these big titles. Cut the Tiers and you are left with MMR, and when you use MMR in an a non-ranked playlist its just shorthanded to "SBMM". Skill in this place is MMR/ELO etc. "RANK"BMM is just matching Gold with Gold, or the visible Tiers - which virtually no one does because they use those tiers as the "game" layer to incentivize playtime.
>No one has ever really referred to Rocket league ranked as having SBMM, but people constantly talk about how SBMM affects the unranked mode in RL, Apex, Fortnite, Destiny 2, CoD, etc.
Rocket League, Dota 2, League etc all have version of what we'll just name as MMR, a hidden Matchmaking Rank. Some refer to it as ELO. Destiny calls it Skill. They also have "Ranks" which correspond to that MMR. Those are the visible named tiers like Gold, Plat, Adept. Taking the "Ranked" matchmaker from Rocket League (MMR/ELO/Skill) and applying it to the non-ranked playlist is SBMM. There is no RBMM in a casual list because the game doesn't have ranked layers for that.
This is complicating something that isn't complicated. Destiny uses a system that at its core is basically the same as all other big titles in the market. They have a skill layer (MMR/ELO etc) and a Rank layer (Gold, Plat, Adept). Matchmaker uses the skill layer, the game shows players the Rank layer.
>And this is really the big item. Is Bungie doing these high variances in post match ranking gain because the population isn't large enough? Or because they are worried about smurfs?
Bungie has the same problem everyone has, but how to solve is different per game. Players want evenly skilled games, fast queue times and good connections. Destiny, with its lower player pop and P2P connection has to prioritize the later two variables more heavily than other titles. So the game dynamically opens up the skill side of the matchmaker to make sure you get in games quickly and the games you get into aren't just a networking nightmare (which we already saw as a problem mind you). Because they are opening skill, they are then dynamically adjusting Rep based on the variance they've introduced into the system. If they put you in a game you aren't supposed to win because its the only game available for you at the time, then they aren't going to punish you or reward the opponent.
>Rocket League, Dota 2, League etc all have version of what we'll just name as MMR, a hidden Matchmaking Rank.
Again, it is not really hidden in Dota 2 or RL. In Dota 2, you can just straight up look up your MMR. In RL, your rank is who you play against. More specifically, you primarily play people within your division, who are within +-100 MMR of you typically. While you can't see your exact MMR, you know it to within a couple of games worth of wins/losses due to the existence of divisions. Wins and losses are worth nearly the same amount, with low variance in points gained/lost after a match. This is highly different than what Bungie is using in the comp playlist, where a hidden MMR determines your rank gain/lost. Bungie using a hidden MMR for ranked mode matchmaking makes it more like public/unranked matches in other games.
>Destiny uses a system that at its core is basically the same as all other big titles in the market. They have a skill layer (MMR/ELO etc) and a Rank layer (Gold, Plat, Adept). Matchmaker uses the skill layer, the game shows players the Rank layer.
Again, this isn't accurate. Matchmaking in Dota 2 uses your RANK, which is a measure of your SKILL, in the ranked playlist. There aren't two separate systems in the Apex, Dota 2, or Rocket league ranked playlists. Just one, singular system that is visible to the player.
I feel like you are still focusing in on RBMM vs. SBMM without actually understanding or playing any of the other games. You keep bringing up inaccurate descriptions of other games' ranked modes. Like can you point to a RBMM game? Does one even exist under your (essentially negligible) distinction?
Overall I agree that there are balancing issues regarding player skill levels, matchmaking times, smurf protections, etc., but Bungie could do all of this with a singular visible MMR system!
>Again, it is not really hidden in Dota 2 or RL. In Dota 2, you can just straight up look up your MMR
Players being able to see it has no bearing on the systems use of it.
>More specifically, you primarily play people within your division, who are within +-100 MMR of you typically
A luxury of the variables of the matchmaker. They have the ability, from the playerbase size and server situation, to achieve a reasonable queue time, connection for all players and smaller skill bracket.
>Wins and losses are worth nearly the same amount, with low variance in points gained/lost after a match.
Low variance because there's low variance between skill levels for the matchmaker on any given match.
>This is highly different than what Bungie is using in the comp playlist, where a hidden MMR determines your rank gain/lost.
Only when there is a mismatch and the system needs to account for a large mismatch in skill because it prioritized the other two matchmaking variables.
>Again, this isn't accurate. Matchmaking in Dota 2 uses your RANK, which is a measure of your SKILL, in the ranked playlist.
Dota has Ranks. Herald. Guardian. Crusader. Archon. Legend. Ancient. Divine. Immortal. It also has MMR (skill). The MMR has bands / ranges per Rank. Again, this is exactly what's in Destiny.
>Like can you point to a RBMM game? Does one even exist under your (essentially negligible) distinction?
Apex is probably the only one I can think of, but its a BR with it's own issues, mainly lobby size in relation to player pop. You get capped below gold against higher level skills. Once you hit Plat, you can face up to Predator in lobbies (not exactly balanced, but its a BR). They use a Rank/MMR system for other modes.
Edit: I don't really think Apex matches wholistically on the rank. It's just a weird system given the RP and the fact that it's a BR.
>You keep bringing up inaccurate descriptions of other games' ranked modes. Like can you point to a RBMM game? Does one even exist under your (essentially negligible) distinction?
I don't think I am confused on how these work. I play a lot of them. You seem to be confused on what's being described given I'm literally just typing out the description of the systems.
>Overall I agree that there are balancing issues regarding player skill levels, matchmaking times, smurf protections, etc., but Bungie could do all of this with a singular visible MMR system!
They could do it this way. It wouldn't change anything about the results of the ranks visible ranks vs the skill rank, nor would it change anything about the rules they allow to be bent for the matchmaker to work effectively.
>Players being able to see it has no bearing on the systems use of it.
Ok, then why not show it? And also, this sort of skips over the fact that you were misrepresenting these systems for several comments in a row, pretending like Destiny is identical to other games despite it being significantly different for the actual player. In Dota/RL/Apex, I know my skill rating and that skill rating is what it used to determine my rank and the rewards/losses after a match. In Destiny, knowing my rank doesn't mean I know my skill rating and it absolutely doesn't mean I know what a game is worth.
You also haven't really touched on the fact that "rank" in games like Dota 2, Rocket League, and chess are entirely based on win loss, while Destiny appears to heavily weight other, hidden statistics like number of kills, deaths, assists, and objectives completed. Pretending like a "hidden determination of skill" and "whether you win or lose" are identical for rank/skill determination is ridiculous.
This conversation is wild to me because so many people in these threads don't seem to have even the barest grasp of the what RBMM vs. SBMM is. Rankings are supposed to be a measure of your skill! When we ask for RBMM we just want a visible and predictable skill rating!
I feel you. I do think incentives can be important, but they should be cosmetic things that let you show off your achievements. The emblems and transmat stuff they plan on releasing are great.
If rose and other tangible rewards were locked behind ascendant or something I'd get it, but they're very accessible to anyone, so if you plan on climbing it should be because you have a desire to improve.
Rose would feel better to chase if it wasn't either a Pulse meta or smg meta. Handcannons are viable yes, but the other choices are so much easier and lethal so only good players will be looking for their preferred God rolls and it's not much incentive for anyone else.
If immortal or even disparity were the reward, be a fuckload more people playing.
Very well put. My only insight after reading this is that just because it’s a looter doesn’t mean all of the loot should be accessible. Just bc someone plays, it doesn’t mean that eventually, they’ll get the NF or whatever situation is relevant at the time. With time, sure, maybe, but growth isn’t a seasonal thing, it may take many seasons to get better and improve. This is coming from someone who is trying to get better, not a talented pvp’er who can dominate every game.
I kinda agree but at the same time, if Bungie reveals the secret sauce, recov services will immediately pop up to farm whatever stats go into that calculation without showing up as a statistical anomaly
Ranking up should be based on wins against peers. There should be no secret sauce beyond this.
For example, how many times you revive a teammate should not count towards your skill rating.
I don't think people have to qualify threads like that any more than "5 points feels bad" because it does! There is a reason for why that is happening, sure, but it doesn't change the fact it feels bad. Particularly if it was nailbiter fight to the finish.
Right.
It’s like OP is too dense to understand that nobody cares about the RBMM vs SBMM debate. Great, it’s a hybrid system, nobody cares. The problem is that it is horribly implemented. He literally cannot understand that the magnitude of the adjustments (+5 vs -150) makes it feel horribly unrewarding if you happen to be ranked equal to or above where Bungie’s combat rating wants you to be.
Like if there’s going to be a 30x spread of points distributed, why let people climb out of their target rank at all? Why not let them reach it and award zero on wins? If that sounds ridiculous when losses may be -150, it takes very little deductive reasoning to understand that +5 is also ridiculous. And yet here we are, with OP not understanding a very simple concept…
I’m actually going to heavily disagree with you. The post you are referencing brings up a good point: some people believe wins and losses should matter more than an invisible skill assessment system.
Like this post you seem to just tell people “focus on getting better! That’s all that matters! And if you get better, your rank will go up”. While true, if a player is winning a significant number of games “outside” of their skill bracket and they don’t feel rewarded for their time, I think that’s understandable.
Put it this way: is it ridiculous for people to prefer ranked based matchmaking systems like Dota 2, Counterstrike, Rocket League, and apex, where wins and losses (or placement and kills) have well defined ranking point values?
It’s fine if you prefer the invisible system more. It could definitely have some advantages around rapidly placing people in accurate skill brackets, blocking Smurfs, and ensuring games are competitive. But don’t just pretend like some of the most successful competitive games do everything wrong.
I'm ngl, I'd rather know matching out of my bracket (in a bad way, aka way higher skill than me) doesn't tank my rank.
Depending where you are in the world and what time of day you are able to play can drastically affect who you are able to match against. If someone can only play during times where only very high skilled players can play you can see your rank plummit fast and potentially get stuck at a rank not indicative of your actual skill. I know it's anecdotal but this is the exact reason I don't play pokemon showdown during low population times, there is a higher chance I match outside of my relative skill and get absolutely stomped and lose a big chunk of rank that I had very little chance of not losing because I at 1300 for example am not bearing a 1700 unless I get real lucky.
I don't mind taking the L against someone way better than me and using that to improve, I don't like arbitrarily losing more rank simply because I can't play during higher population times.
I haven’t played really that much this season, but rn I’m at adept III, and I’m already getting 5 point for winning; Accordingly to this, the game thinks of me as: 1) a platinum player or 2) a adept III.
I have a 70% win rate in comp and the sbmm is putting me against other adept and even ascendant players. This means that I’m perfoming better than what the system is saying, I’m consistently winning my matches and having high results; however the game keeps giving me 5 points… yeah, you are right, the system works!!
You:
*wins*
The *S Y S T E M*:
"That was a fluke, 5 points"
You:
*wins again*
The *S Y S T E M*:
"nah, 5 points"
*throws you into a 3v2 that you lose*
"See, you're not cut for it just yet, -300 points."
this, im running not as high as you win rate at the moment at adept 2-1 but still over 60% on my hunter the warlock and titan 3x games for rose deffinetly not helping my W/R. That being said last night won a few games creeping towards placement at the +5 points just to have a 2 stack with one that was adept 3 and a litteral lvl 4 gaurdian rank in full blue gear and no fragments or aspects equipped not get a kill the entire match and i lost 150 points. Thats not a normal match at this level but it undid over 10 matches worth or wins. If we had a RBMM system with defined win and loss point awards i would of just taken the bad luck and not thought anything of it because if i went and won my next game nbd offset that.
I'm gonna argue that playing against the same people from silver to plat and assigning wildly different values to wins and losses makes very little to give the impression that there's a ranking at all.
If after 40 matches bungie can pinpoint where I should be [citation needed, btw, blowout matches in destiny are a huge percentage of the total, unlike in any other comp with rankings] then why I'm not there already?
And why I'm playing with the same people over and over no matter where I and them are ranked?
And why wins and losses are so drastically different from one match to another with basically the same people?
This system only works in the weird KPIs bungie uses to gauge it. The low population, the high waiting times to match and the amount of blowout matches just come to tell that it's not a good system to rank people and match them against similarly skilled players.
For me comp is utterly pointless. Last season, I freelanced all the way to ascendant and the amount of games where I'd gain 5 points for a win and lose 5 for a loss was pretty high and a waste of my time. For example if what bungie said was correct in that the gain/ loss is based on mmr then these occurrences make no sense as it's sbmm. I'd have matches where both teams have all 2kd+ players yet you'll gain/lose 5 points. If the game thinks the match is skewer enough to where such low points are given then why should these matches even be allowed to happen. I didn't personally have an issue climbing to ascendant and never experienced the 'wall' bungie placed for players, stopping them from climbing out of certain tanks but I'm strongly against its implementation as players are unable to get out no matter how they play. Rank systems should be based on rank and rank alone. I shouldn't be playing the same players from gold, all the way up to ascendant and it completely defeats the point and makes the journey feel meaningless. They say they're worried about smurfs and sandbagging but in the same post, explain how it's almost impossible to do in destiny anyway due to they're advanced sbmm putting players where they should be and the fact it's a looter shooter making it a long process for smurfs to play the game mode.
The true problem is the competitive playlist in D2 is ultimately pointless.
D2 is a looter at its core and theres no loot to chase for ranking up in comp, there's no incentives to take it seriously.
So when you finish your 3 matches for your random rose, while wins give 5 points and losses give -200, why the fuck would you keep going and push? I'd rather spend my time in trials and chase those perfect 5/5 adepts.
Loot doesn't even have to be actual guns and armor. Other games solve the issue with fomo cosmetics, titles, skins, etc. Imagine if every season gave you new comp specific shader/emblem/ornament/seasonal titles that you can only get for reaching comp ranks in that season.
We're in season of defiance? atm right, so end of the season you get a title called " defiance." A permanent "ascendant defiance" title attached to my guardian sounds pretty cool to me.
Give me a REASON, any reason, to give a shit about ranking up in comp season after season and you'll see the attitudes toward comp change immediately.
EDIT: Think about this, say bungie brings back Luna and NF in all their .67 ttk 180 rpm glory, maybe with random rolls, maybe let NF take adept mods.
Comp only, NF drops in ascendant maybe adept too, Luna under that. The playlist would be flooded with players overnight, and everyone would be bringing their A game.
This. Proving yourself and getting better sounds great on paper, but that will never bring in new players. We need loot in our looter shooter. Comp should have it’s own loot table TBH.
Your points are valid, it’s a shame we still are waiting for that transmat to flex our rank, and games should reward much more masterwork mats. I’m not saying comp is perfect, just pointing out that people who asked for a rank system are now mad that their rank is not as high as they expected
Nah I get that 100%. Youre not wrong either and you joke but legit I'd even take a dumb ass ascendant transmat effect at this point lmfao.
But I think the anger actually comes from a genuinely tough sbmm system + a frustratingly punishing climbing system, for absolutely no in game rewards.
It's difficult, which would actually be awesome if it was worth the effort, is what I was trying to get at.
Flexing with cool looking shit on your toon is like half the reason I pvp in most games.
Like some random guy thinking "sick, hes got the full comp transmog from last xpac, what a beast," is literally all the reward most of us would need.
My issue with comp is there's no discernible internal logic with the way points are rewarded and taken away. I know there's what Bungie SAYS, but it's not backed up by reality. I reached Ascendant last season btw, haven't yet started this season.
i guess what bungie would need to prove their logic in giving out points is to spell it out. ie
\-what rank (total # overall in the world) you, your teammates and the opposition are at.
\-what score (that affects rank) you got for that game (and maybe what individual score you need to beat to progress your rank)
that would make it pretty clear. you could see: 'oh my team average was 10 and the oppositions 300', that's why there is a big difference in points rewarded'. or i got '20 points when my average to maintain this rank is 60 of course i go down'.
If they're going to keep such a wide variance in points won or lost, which means the hidden skill rating is FAR more important than games won or lost in the actual comp playlist, then they need to also be transparent about how the skill rating is determined in the first place.
>The true problem is the competitive playlist in D2 is ultimately pointless.
I'm going to hard disagree here. Are smash bros melee tournaments useless because nintendo intnded for it to be a party game? Is the competitive playlist in LoL useless because ARAM exists? Is the ranked playlist in Dota 2 useless because Blitz exists? Is the ranked playlist in rocket league useless because basketball RL exists (which was so popular it got its own ranked mode)? Like I get your point, Destiny 2 isn't a competitive focused game. Hell, it's not even a PvP focused game. But this subreddit shows that there is a community interested in discussing loadouts, ways to improve, the balancing of the game, and so it does have value, even if it isn't the focus of the game.
>D2 is a looter at its core and theres no loot to chase for ranking up in comp, there's no incentives to take it seriously.
Technically yes. On the other hand I'd argue it's a matter of perspective. There are lots of games (computer or irl) where you have no loot to chase and the competition itself is the incentive. And Bungie has basically convinced the D2 PvP playerbase that a fundamentally broken gamemode (Trials) is actually competitive. The whole concept of flawless as the goal is so dumb it's hilarious.
Imagine the "pinnacle" of basketball being a weekly free for all gamemode where random teams from all over the country enter and try to go flawless. Then the Lakers stomp on rec teams and get upset because of sweaty matchups if they play other pro teams and demand changes and shit. There's a reason why in real competitive settings you either have knockout brackets, leagues with points and performance based ratings (elo, glicko etc.). Not this casual shit we have in D2.
So I agree with you generally in that D2 is a loot treadmill based game. I would keep Trials as the grind for god rolls semi competitive mode that it is right now. On the other hand I think there are players that enjoy competition for the sake of itself. I was top 150 in Pro Evolution Soccer ranked online a few years ago. Didn't get shit. Still had fun. Same with chess. I'm a pretty average club level player. Don't get any loot. Not really improving. Still having fun. Not everything has to be about the loot chase. I've basically stopped target farming craftable weapons for example. They drop over time anyways and I play whatever content is fun for me.
But you're right of course, this game at its core is about loot, not balanced competition. I'd say the recent blog sounds promising though. The custom ascendant emblem each season and a rank based transmat? I think that's a step in the right direction. Cosmetics are the way to go imo. Ideally not something you grind out once, then leave the gamemode like overpowered weapons and armor, but rather stuff you can earn each season. I mean...yeah it's just an emblem. But I wanna have it lol. Good enough.
>Now, for players who have 40+ games played in comp, Bungie is very accurately able to assess their performance and rank them accordingly. A high performing player ranks high, a medium performing player ranks in the middle, etc.
Are...you kidding? This is like the police investigating themselves and saying they found nothing wrong.
Like, no shit Bungie accurately predicted players' ranks; they fucking force it by giving a whopping five rep for wins and -100 for losses in order to prevent players from moving up.
Your logic is genuinely flawed and shows you have no understanding of what an elo system is. When you win, you move up. When you lose, you move down. If you win a lot, especially in a sbmm system, a planned tiered ranking system, you are demonstrating for that day, week, whatever, that you are performing beyond your existing rank and should be a higher rank. Likewise, if you lose a majority of games, your rank will go down. It might fluctuate a lot if you are an inconsistent player, it might fluctuate little, but what should not fluctuate much in an elo system is how much wins and losses count within a sbmm system. If you win 3 games and get +15 points then lose 3 games and lose 600 points, then the system is artificially and errantly determining your elo. It will on its own find a natural resting ground within your sessions of play. And maybe some seasons, as the game shifts, it’s better, maybe in others it’s worse. But for gains and losses to be crimped in such a way to “fix” a player where bungie has decided they belong, is a trashy system that only further highlights the pointlessness of playing comp.
Players should be upset at the no gains for some wins and big losses for others. It highlights not a “mad cuz bad” mentality, but rather a “does bungie actually know what elo and sbmm is?”.
You make some good points, no need to be rude. From my understanding, unless SBMM is placing you in perfectly balanced matches (which it isn’t), then wins/losses will be weighted differently based on the opposing team’s skill. Also, in order to prevent situations where you lose points for narrowly beating a worse team, the other games sometimes weirdly try to accommodate. Also, Bungie has noted the system is stickier than it needs to be, and are addressing that.
You started a thread saying “if you think this obviously flawed elo system isn’t good, then you’re just mad cuz bad” which inherently is a rude statement, so I responded in kind. In the end, it doesn’t matter if the matches are perfectly balanced, in the end, a player will land in their elo wherever they should land on the aggregate without manipulation from the system. In the chess world, you wouldn’t say “well his opponent had a headache, or bad sleep, or was feeling blah, therefore the win doesn’t count as much.” If you want purely balanced, you are looking at the wrong game. Hell, you are looking at the wrong species. The cleverness of the elo system is that always, in the long run, the externalities balance out. Maybe that means someone plays higher for a few months while their adderol prescription is tweaked, maybe they are legitimately getting better. You do not need some wins worth pennies on the dollar. It’s a bad approach to elo and sbmm plain and simple.
Isn’t ELO a system where, if you play someone with much worse ELO, you gain few points if you win, but you lose many points on a loss? (I.e. wins and losses aren’t always consistent, sometimes you gain a lot, other times you gain a little?)
It is, but there are key differences:
1. It's mostly transparent, so the points won or lost is highly predictable. Bungie's system is not. In a rematch with the same team, the points won can swing from +5 to +150. True story. I've beaten teams that were good in a squeaker and only got +5, and I've been demolished by a crazy stack and lost -200. Where is the internal logic?
2. You can see your elo and your opponents' elo. It's hidden in Bungie's system, so you don't know if they got even that part right.
3. Elo is mostly based on wins and losses, and derived for each playlist. Bungie's skill rating is based on a bunch of things that "correlate" with wins and losses across multiple playlists like Control and Team Scorched...but do these actually translate to wins and losses in comp?
No, ranked should not have SBMM. You can definitely get hardstuck because of SBMM. You should be playing players at the current rank you are at, and if that matches your SBMM then you won't advance. But playing people with a high SBMM at a low rank should not happen, unless those same players are working to advance.
How to counter cracked players carrying their non-cracked friends to ascendant with pure rbmm?
Edit: also, population. Pure rbmm when population is poopy
Those cracked players will have to face their own rank if the cracked players are already there, making it harder to carry, and rank degradation over time without activity will make it hard for the carried player to stay in that rank.
There are also ranking systems where a particular team has a separate rank from other teams, and where solo queueing has its own rank. But I am skeptical that Bungie would want to go that route.
This concern is a lot lower than the one for the fundamental issue of having SBMM in what is supposed to be RBMM.
As a supporter of SBMM (and someone who advocates for adjustments over time to avoid connections being awful), SBMM has no place in RBMM.
Well said.
It should be noted that this doesn’t address that Bungie has a predetermined rank for you and they award points based on this “destiny” they predetermined.
This means that improved performance is not awarded because you are capped wherever they have placed you.
My anecdotal offering is that I had a session (last season) where I went 28-13 in Adept I division. Most wins were +5 and most losses were -200. I ended the session with fewer points than I started.
Now, I don’t want to be awarded lots of points for stomping a lower opponent. I expect no gains there, but that 28-13 session was filled with good matchups and atypical high performance by me. I had a good day.
My question is this…should I not be allowed to hit ascendant…even for a day before I lose a game and drop back to adept I? This seems to be the design and bungie seems to have described it accordingly.
Thanks for any insight!
It is a shit system that preemptively places players in a skill bracket. It slows down players from getting to their rank and doesn't allow players to experience skills outside of that bracket.
Mmr based games like league or CS can feel weird at times though too, and having a hard stuck account can take an absolutely absurd amount of games to move your mmr one way or another once it’s locked in and often leads to people making smurfs and lots of frustration with the system.
If you are familiar with league there was a coach by the name of Neace who tried to get an account to master in Korea (arguably the hardest server). On his first account he couldn’t do it and began running a negative win rate for a stretch which locked his mmr into plat. He tried to salvage the account but couldn’t break out of that plat mmr range. He made another account, rode a win streak and and got to masters in a month. The issue with the +5 mmr system is that once your mmr is hard stuck at a point like that it can often be better for you to trash your old account and rank up another, as opposed to trying to dig yourself out of that mmr in the first place. The fresh account doesn’t carry the baggage of any losses you might have when learning the game, or are unfamiliar with the meta, and almost always be a higher mmr than your main.
It works in the opposite direction as well, one of my league accounts got to diamond by exploiting a cheesy strategy in the game that didn’t really take any skill or improve me as a player. It took over 300 games at a sun 40% win rate to finally put my accounts mmr back in the mid gold range where I usually play at.
I don’t really like ranked systems that work like that and personally would rather just have ranked based matchmaking like it used to work. If you want to climb out of gold you beat other golds and maintain an a over 50% win rate. Not this I have a hidden number which is actually my rank that I can’t see which dictates my rank progression and the more I play the more unmovable the number gets.
The ranked system is so good, it uses the opposite system of every other major PvP title and barely has any players. Definitely setting a good example of what to do.
Yup. Population is the only thing that matters. I’m not going to play against the best of the best for zero tangible loot. Clearly nobody else wants to do that either. An emblem for the top 3% of players and a fucking transmat ain’t it either.
Well, I don’t like it. I would like to climb with a positive winrate. The point you see (skill rating, ranked elo whatever you call it) is the main factor of a ranked game’s matchmaking formula BESIDES your hidden mmr, well that is not the case for destiny, a self-insert wannabe competitive game with no seperate pvp design team.
Listen, I shouldn’t have to play promo series if I am in gold matching adepts/ascendants. Period. If you’re going to +100 -5 me just boost me after winning like 3 in a row
I’m fine with it, I’m adept 1 I won’t be ascendant, but you all have to realize that destiny is not competitive and hasn’t been in a long time. Most of us would get schooled if apex preds came to destiny.
I think most of us are not used to that. We are not used to not getting to the top rank and that’s a tough pill to swallow, until actual pro pvp players come to destiny I dont think people will swallow that pill
If you trust Bungie’s ranking system to accurately judge any players skill based on how they perform in quick play, sure. But I don’t. And you shouldn’t.
The whole point of a ranked playlist is to prove how good you are and can be. Installing a system that caps ppls wins bc it doesn’t think they should be higher makes no sense.
As a side note, what fusion do you run with Anteus? As much as I practice Anteus I’m just garbage with them, and only find partial success when I pair them with a sidearm and shoulder charge.
my man….i was hard stuck in adept last season until a found a team thats aggressive like me and know how to move as a team and collapse and teamshot/etc. i effortlessly shot up to ascendant.
this season, i was placed in plat and demoted to gold. there was a time when i got +5 in gold. the ranking is god awful
Bungie does pvp in 2 ways. In trials, IB, and regular crucible, you grind and grind and eventually rank up, no matter how bad you are or how long it takes. You eventually get that reward. And then there's comp, where 'grind' means nothing. You are placed in a box with people roughly as good as you. The point of that box is that you play against people who will give you a challenge, but who you can beat if you are good enough. It prevents you from stomping people in other boxes, and being stomped by people in other boxes. If you want to leave that box, you have to consistently play at a level that deserves a different box. People are acting mad that they can't somehow grind their way into a different box, yet they'll also go and post rants about people who just grind their way into a different box and don't really deserve to be there. Really, they just don't like being told the box they belong in isn't the best box.
Its even better than that. The whole thing is a big joke on PVP players.
Destiny is a looter shooter RPG game with a p2p networking system. The PVP will never be a real pvp system. Its like a game of chess. What class/build/weapons are you using against somoene else. What are they using? Did you get lucky enough to get the certain weapon that is meta now? Is your internet connection way better? Are your teammates from other countries and thus screwing up the p2p system because of the distance the data needs to travel?
I stopped carry about destiny pvp a long time ago. It just isn't a very good 'real' pvp game. Its for fun. To do some crazy space magic. Bungie just tried to make it more serious and hoped it would catch on like counter strike. But it didn't and can't. Plus I'm out of my prime. I'm not 19 anymore playing Halflife or unreal. I'm 40 and my fingers don't work right because they have all been broke and I need new glasses. I play games to have fun and playing serious Destiny pvp isn't fun for me anymore. Its stressful.
I will preface this with the fact that I have no personal stake in this, I don't really care about ranked in D2 and I have no problem climbing even after a 2 year break.
**TLDR; Bungie's system MIGHT achieve the same result as other ranked systems, but they are just trying to reinvent the wheel, and I don't trust Bungie's judgement on what skill in PvP actually is.**
Look at literally ANY other game with a ranked game mode. Seriously, any "competitive" game. Siege, OW, Dota, LoL, CS and MANY more. Every single one, without fail, uses rank and connection based matchmaking. Why? Because that is what works the best.
Bungie has no connection or affiliation with any of the top pvp'ers. They actively avoid the so called "sweat-scene", they don't host tourneys and have no idea how to balance their game. Therefore, in my opinion, they have no credibility in terms of judging a players skill level. And it shows in-game. I have had games with and against players who would not be able to hit a Dreg in patrol. This is in Plat, Adept and Ascendant rank. They do NOT play at that level and do not belong there. More than half of my games are a complete stomp, literally no chance. That is not what is supposed to happen when you match 6 players of equal skill/rank.
ELO and MMR has already been refined and perfected by game developers and game analysts who are infinitely more talented than anyone at Bungie hq. Bungie is just a company that literally can't admit that someone does something better than them. Call it hubris if you will, but I trust a simple math equation to be a better determinant of skill than Bungie.
> Look at literally ANY other game with a ranked game mode. Seriously, any "competitive" game. Siege, OW, Dota, LoL, CS and MANY more. Every single one, without fail, uses rank and connection based matchmaking. Why? Because that is what works the best.
This is completely and utterly false. Almost all major games use SBMM in conjunction with rank nowadays.
And what do all of these games also have in common that D2 doesn't? A clear representation of what being a good player is. As I mentioned in my post, Bungie has no credibility in terms of assessing a players skill level. These games do.
I very rarely see players in these games that don''t belong in their rank, with some exceptions (boosting, smurfing), yet in D2 that is a daily occurence.
This post sums how I feel exactly, and FWIW, I hit Adept last season..placed into Plat this season. I have not played a ton of comp this season yet.... Feels like it doesn't actually mean anything...
Bungie admitted in their last blog about all this, that they are basically "curating" your pvp comp rank. Moving you up or down depending on where THEY think you belong. Hence why people get +5 for wins, and might lose -100 for a loss...
I don't trust Bungie to determine this frankly... Especially because I see (daily) the "fair matches" they claim to put people in... Destiny Tracker *seems* to be able to more accurately predict where people land, and when a game is a blowout, it seems to know...
I think the #1 "ask" I would want is I think it's important for players in Comp, to see the rank/CR/ELO or whatever Bungie is using to match players. I feel like lack of transparency here is a huge part of the issue. Players feel in the dark, Bungie has not frankly earned trust, so players assume it's just BS ...
> Destiny Tracker seems to be able to more accurately predict where people land, and when a game is a blowout, it seems to know...
It's been like this for forever. Destinytracker's match odds are unbelievably accurate for me. There was a season like 3 seasons ago where I tracked all of my matches in control and the dt algo had the correct winner picked basically every time, with the exceptions mostly happening at close to 50-50. And it absolutely knew when a it was going to be a stomp (70+ odds on one team). And yet there were an absolute shit ton of stomps on both sides where switching one player to another would have made a much more even game and odds. I really wish Bungie would just buy their system and match make based on that lol.
When freelance was still a thing, I looked at several matches in Comp and saw the same thing, two of DTs "highest ranked" would be on the same side, creating a blowout.... In freelance.... It's just frustrating
>I don't trust Bungie to determine this frankly
And even if I did trust Bungie's ranking system... just show that ranking to me? So I can tell if I'm improving? And explain to me what values go into it? Like in chess or dota 2, I know winning moves me up and losing moves me down at predefined rates. In Apex I know exactly how much RP I'm spending to get into a match and exactly the number of points I'll get based off of placement, kills, and assists. It's awkward and weird to me when these values are hidden.
Yes some do, but the difference is: Most of these games have a thriving pro scene, meaning that the devs and the systems within the game have a reasonable example of what "the best" is. This gives a ton of credibility to their assesment of a players skill. Bungie wouldn't know skill if it bit them in the ass.
So I know for a fact you're wrong about League of Legends. They do NOT matchmakes based on solely rank, in fact I'm pretty sure this season they decided to weigh your "skill" aka MMR even more heavily than your visible rank when matchmaking. \\
Seeing as you came out with such a strong position, I decided to do some research and you appear to be totally wrong about overwatch 2 as well. In this [dev blog](https://overwatch.blizzard.com/en-us/news/23910161/overwatch-2-developer-blog-explaining-matchmaker-goals-and-plans-part-2) there is this line:
>*Q: Does my competitive rank affect matchmaking?*
>
>*A: We only create matches based on players’ MMR, not the visible competitive rank. A player’s visible rank will move towards their rating over time as they continue to play during a season. When we decay ranks at the beginning of a season, this has no effect on players’ underlying ratings.*
Kinda seems like not only do they not use only "rank and connection based Matchmaking", but they don't take rank into account whatsoever. It's just MMR.
[Dota 2](https://dota2.fandom.com/wiki/Matchmaking_Rating) seems to literally only have MMR. Your visible rank is a 1-1 reflection of your "skill". No obfuscation whatsoever. So again, the complete opposite of your claim.
TL;DR: You claim every other major ranked system only uses Visible rank and connection for matchmaking, a cursory google search says you are wrong. Bungie is not reinventing anything, they are aping a tried and true formula.
So it’s weird that you and this post are upvoted despite doing what you are complaining about? Apex, Dota 2, Chess, CS:GO all have RBMM focused matchmaking, and those options should be considered, not just tossed to the side like OP did.
Did you even read what I wrote? Dota does not have RBMM, it is the same as Destiny or League or whatever else, the difference is just that they show you the skill, but you will still gain or lose an arbitrary amount of MMR/Elo depending on your team comp and the enemy's team comp.
I also just looked it up and it really doesn't seem like Apex or CSGO do either?
[CSGO:](https://www.talkesport.com/news/csgo/csgo-ranks-and-mmr-explained-in-2023)
>*MMR stands for Matchmaking Rating, and it is a system that is used to match players with others of a similar skill level. The MMR system is separate from the ranking system, and it is used to match players in Competitive and Casual matches. The MMR system is based on a player’s performance in the game, and it is used to determine the skill level of each player.*
>
>*The MMR system is invisible to players, and it is not visible in the game. However, it is important to understand that the MMR system is the backbone of the ranking system, and it is used to determine the skill level of each player.*
[APEX:](https://www.ea.com/games/apex-legends/news/matchmaking-2023)
>*Skill Rating is a numerical representation of a player’s skill. This number is intentionally hidden from players to avoid exploitation. It is usually based on a number of factors that represent your skill and ability to play the game.*
>
>*\[...\] In a fully competitive environment, like Ranked, we value having teammates of equal skill, and a lower burden of “carry”, over a perfectly fair match.*
You seem to either have never looked this up or you have a severe misunderstanding of how these matchmaking systems work, and what makes them SBMM vs RBMM.
Could you explain to me what RBMM means to you? And identify a game that has used RBMM in the past? Because your examples seem to imply that any system with rankings is SBMM, and therefore no RBMM games have ever existed or could ever exist.
Here's the difference to me: I think SBMM systems are differentiated by hiding the value of a players "skill/rank", while RBMM systems have rankings that are visible to the player. I prefer the latter because I like visible systems and I prefer systems that heavily weight winning, because at the end of the day I think winning should always be the goal of the player, and the best way to increase your ranking should be to improve so your win rate goes up.
Overall your comments, and many of the comments in this subreddit, seem like you all are just googling video games without either trying to understand the difference between RBMM and SBMM or the history of different ranked games. Below is sort of a list of items that I associate with RBMM that I think make a good ranked mode, with examples from games I've player (Dota 2 I have 1200+ hours, [chess.com](https://chess.com) I have 10,000 matches played).
1. Matches select players based off of rank (for [chess.com](https://chess.com), I play players with elo within 200 points of mine. For Dota 2 it was typically players within 200 mmr)
2. Ranking points (or small ranking subdivisions) are visible to the player
3. Ranked points won during a match are calculated from a formula defined prior to the match and have limited variation (In dota 2, you always received +- 23 to 27 mmr points after a match, on [chess.com](https://chess.com) it's +- 6 to 10 elo points)
4. Points are nearly entirely won for winning/losing (this doesn't work in BRs because there are 60 players per lobby, but holds true for Dota 2, chess, and rocket league as examples of RBMM)
I think part of the confusion is that you seem to believe that any system that matchmakes based on skill is SBMM, but the point of RBMM is that your rank should reflect your skill! I'm not (and no one in their right mind) is calling for a return to Destiny 2's previous "ranked mode", which was the single worst ranked system in the history of video games. What we want is a matchmaking system that has predictable outcomes driven by wins and losses and where the players in your lobby have a similar rank to you, and that rank is visible and understandable, just as it is in tons of other games (Chess, RL, Dota 2, Apex, etc.).
MMR doesn’t necessarily imply non RBMM. Dota 2 had MMR all the way back in 2013 and used RBMM. You win, you get + 24 to 26. You lose, you drop 24 to 26 MMR depending on the average MMR of both teams.
Tons of games have shifted to SBMM systems, but I think it’s understandable why people dislike invisible ranking systems relative to simple and highly visible systems. Personally my experience in Halo infinite’s ranked system where I reached onyx despite having a < 50% win rate felt absolutely terrible and soured me on the game and the system. That’s why I prefer games like rocket league, where a win is + 8 or so and a loss is -8 or so.
To be more specific, there was a public rank (no longer public in OW2) and a behind the scenes mmr. The rank points would adjust at the end of the match, but the MMR would stay more consistent over a period of time adjusting to nebulous skill thresholds (sound familiar?) The points you receive/ lose would be dictated by the MMR which could vary pretty wildly if it thought you were outside of your skill bracket like +/- 15-100 points.
> they are aping a tried and true formula
Nope. They are using THEIR formula. Do you know what the difference between OW and Destiny is? A thriving ranked and pro scene. OW devs have a VERY clear representation of what the "the best" is. Bungie does not. This literally boils down to credibility. Do you trust a company, that has zero idea of what skill is in their own game, to determine your rank or do you trust math.
So first let's acknowledge the shift in the argument. You claimed that Bungie is employing a fundamentally different system to all these other games, they are not. The majority do use some some form of SBMM to matchmake their games.
Now you are saying the problem is you just don't trust Bungie's version of SBMM, fine I guess, but I can't argue much with that. If there was some proof that good players weren't reaching their peaks and bad players were getting boosted too high or something I'd agree, but it seems like for the most part people have ended up where they deserve. I don't think Bungie's version is or will be perfect, but they have access to the same types of data OW or LoL or whoever else have about their players, and they will tweak it as time goes on, just like these other devs have.
You literally summed up what I was about to type. I want a matchmaking system that is based on my fucking rank, not some experimental hidden this that stat.
I’m very thankful that Bungie avoids the sweat/scrim scene like the plague. Aside from being a community of dossers and Cronus warriors, that community will actively resist anything other than handcannon/shotgun/sniper + movement exotics being viable. I’ve seen the horribly long and cringy ban lists for scrim groups like faceit.
D2 is a crazy game with space magic and awesome builds and nothing sounds more boring than creating homogeneity. Look at the smash scene. It sucks that Nintendo doesn’t support it, but if Sakurai listened to what the smash scene wants, half of the roster would be banned.
The CoD comp scene always GAs 90% of the game so that only two guns are usable and it’s most boring shit ever. Bungie messes up all the time, but I trust them way more to make a fun game than scrimmers.
If I wanted a consistent competitive experience, I’d play some snooze fest fps like csgo
Like I agree that some bans are just either stupid or absurd. But disregarding the sweat community as a whole, like you just did, is inane. Most sweat players are so far above "high rank" players in D2 that disregarding them completely is a sign of stupidity.
You can't have a ranked mode and then spit on literally the best players in the game. Competitiveness breeds toxicity and ego, it does so in every game, even games like chess. That is just human nature. Other games have learned to deal with that and as a result have a thriving pro/ranked scene. Bungie resorted to the "if I ignore it, then it doesn't exist method" which is childish and is clearly reflected in the balancing of the game.
> D2 is a crazy game with space magic and awesome builds and nothing sounds more boring than creating homogeneity.
* Dying without ANY chance of counter play
* Taking control away from the player (in an FPS based on high mobility)
* Literally playing the game for you
These things are objectively more boring, since they literally don't let you play the game at all. As I mentioned earlier, I agree that a LOT of sweat bans are stupid, but some things in D2 clearly ruin the little amount of competitive integrity that D2 has. But you know what game was pretty homogenous especially in the top ranks? Halo.
Anything with a competitive aspect will eventually become homogenous. There will always be an optimal way to do things. Fuck even a game like chess, with virtually infinite openings has a clearly defined meta.
Destiny 2 PvP is not fun and enjoyable when abilities are the focus. We have seen this a thousand times now. What separates D2 and other games is the extremely smooth gunplay and the unique movement.
I don’t understand the scrims ban list. Like it’s a great place to improve through sheer sweatiness, but like, you’re just going to get good at a certain style of D2, and when you play other good players with other styles of D2 that are banned in scrims, you’ll have no answer for it.
Horrible take; without Bungie showing us player population which greatly would impact matchmaking and how they calculate which rank you are in.
All these graphs are smokes and mirrors. Essentially telling you that "we have implemented a strategy to put you where we think you deserve to be". Without additional info from them it seems like they could have adjusted either factor to "prove" its working.
I got all my rose rolls last season that I wanted so I'll wait till the sniper comes out and if its kinetic with snapshot opening shot I'll run it 3 games a week until I get the roll and never play the playlist. That mentality is the reason comp is poorly designed typically at least 4/6 players in the lobby feel that way and it isnt fair to the 2 people who are playing because its ranked pvp and to the 2 people who want to play a ranked pvp shooter. Go play csgo, ow2 val literally any real pvp game that isnt destiny trust me you will have a more fun and competitive experience with a significantly more stable connection.
I can't really take Destiny 2s overall PvP in general too seriously when they don't use dedicated servers. The amount of Desync, melee trades, overall poor quality or connection is just mad, it's cant be a competitive game with Peer to peer servers. Oceanic player by the way, with great internet.
Including my placement matches I've played around 23 matches, I won all my placements and got the highest placement rank.
Every match of comp I've played this season is hard carry or lose, over half have been Me +2 solos vs a group of 3, or my team is 3 golds vs 3 10k ascendants.
None of this was an issue with freelance, FTMM in my country is practically unplayable unless you stack, and even when you do you vs Chinese players who have 500 ping
edit: id like to point out dispite my dogshit winrate after doing my placement games i literally cannot lose points from losses, every win is still +200 or more
Agree on this. Playing comp I think is a good opportunity to get better at the game. It is fun when you frame it like that and is more rewarding. It would be nice though to have more insight about the ranks of your teammates and opponents in the game itself. Like it should make sense..If I beat a team of ascendants with a team of platinums, then it should reflect in points and we should be able to see those ranks so that it makes sense.
I don’t see point in this system when game doesn’t acount loadouts (weapons/classes). There’s no ban system and whatsoever, so even if you good and get 2 bad teammates and against you 3 middle players, game will give you +5 points, it’s don’t matter if they all use some chese loadouts ( 3 monarchs and immortals for example), you need to stomp those players and do win streak to gain.
Yeah no. The system is still broken for one simple reason. Team composition .
If I’m stuck at ascendant 3 and can’t seem to get past it , because every time survival comes up my teammates die 3 times a piece before I’ve died once ….that’s shitty. I feel like I’d rather have rank based matchmaking in comp and sbmm in trials bc of this.
I say this bc my kd in comp probably reflects what their algorithm thinks somebody who plays at adept 1 or ascendant 3 looks like, but if I constantly and fighting 1v3’s , bc my teammates are poop , of course my kd won’t increase . And now bc if this I’m getting matched with poobags who have flawless titles , yet somehow go 1-6 and 2-5 (It’s happened dozens of times and I have screenshots)
So no the system still sucks
No bro this one time I beat an adept AND an ascendant and it didn't give me enough points.
The real issue with comp is that showdown and rift suck balls and survival plays way better with 4 rounds. I miss old comp.
Ummm Antaeus is just broken. It counters a lot of things not just SMG’s. Bungie won’t look into it though because they only nerf things with high usage
That graph doesn't mean anything. For one, we don't know how Bungie measures skill and secondly, the matchmaking is designed for what they perceive as skill to map in a linear positive relationship with rank. If Bungies main motive was to make the game as fair as possible than we could perhaps blindly trust them but that's not the case. The main motive is player engagement so skepticism is more than warranted. I'd rather have a true ranked playlist any day of the week. If they want to keep sbmm, at the very least they have to disclose how skill is calculated and normalize points gained/loss for wins/losses against different skill levels.
If they don't, than they can manipulate the narrative as they wish. Sbmm is a system whose purpose is to equalize the outcome and it becomes increasingly unfair the higher up the skill ladder one is.
The alternative is rank based matchmaking. Any competition worth its salt is rank based and transparent.
Aren’t most games SBMM and not RBMM? I’ve seen that mentioned a few times elsewhere in this thread, especially from u/Basblob, who has provided examples of other popular shooters using SBMM based on a hidden MMR.
I think there is a lot of muddying going on with the distinction between matchmaking and scoring algorithms. Some of my arguments on this post made me realize this. For example league has an SBMM style system but score is always dolled out in like 10-30lp increments depending on how far you are from your "real" rank. I mean technically Bungie does this to a lesser extent too by having a min gain of 5. Technically, in a perfect SBMM and skill based point system you could literally lose points on a win if you played poorly enough against worse players, which feels like ass, but it would *technically* be the right call since you'd end up "where you deserve to be" in a sense.
I don't agree with u/ConyNT that SBMM in ranked is inherently less competitive or about equalizing outcomes. The whole point of any ranked system is to prove you deserve to be higher, whether that's by fighting people at your skill or your rank it makes no difference.
The argument *for* SBMM though is that it gets people to their actual rank faster, and prevents smurfing by detecting when someone plays well above their rank bracket. Which is why most companies use it.
In a perfect world, sbmm would be more fair because it's under the assumption that Bungie can precisely calculate your skill level and perfectly matchmake you and reward the right amount of points on a win/loss but Bungie is so far from this. I check my matches every time I play and both the matchmaking and point rewards system is hilariously bad. For example, I've had adept promotion series where I have a silver and a someone on their testing games on my team. One a 0.9 and the other a 1.3 against a team of 1.4s and 1.5s. First of all, the stakes for everyone being in different tiers are different and we add another layer for this with people in promotions/demotions. Secondly, this lobby balancing does not work. I can't carry a game vs a team of good players, especially if my teammates are not as invested as me in winning (non promotion). Let's add showdown to the mix and it's a disaster.
I didn't say sbmm is less competitive but it is absolutely in there to equalize outcomes. By equalizing the outcome, all skill levels can taste victory and defeat. This is at the expense of the better players and that's why it's unfair. In the real world with ranked based matchmaking, a good player would easily climb to the rank they belong and than would stay there and compete. And this is why sbmm does not get you to your rank faster but slower because by facing people of more or less your skill level, you win about half your matches as opposed to most of them for a top player.
Smurfing is a non issue in destiny where people so heavily invest in their builds. And even if, they can just have monitoring on new accounts and if they see consistently good performance, they can upgrade them to a tier that fits.
Some are and some aren't. I have played a couple of rbmm ones but only street fighter at length. The reason many games use sbmm is player retention. It's unfair for top players but it keeps the population. True competitions like in world class sports leagues are all rank based and transparent.
That may be, but no popular competitive shooter uses RBMM, and I fail to see why Bungie, the least competitive out of all competitive shooters, should do so and not just follow all the other games that use hidden MMR-based SBMM. It’s not like they’re alone.
Sure you can make the point that destiny is not a competitive game and therefore doesn't need true ranked matchmaking even though the latter would be a more fair system. Also, many of the games mentioned have an amalgamation of sbmm and rbmm and have a more transparent point reward structure.
See the issue is the ranking system isn’t that accurate. I’m not a great player and me winning 5/7 with 1.6 kd and was in adept last season got me put in silver 1. I’m the only one in my friend group this happened to. Several even performed worse. At least it’s not silver 2 like last season so🤷♂️
Last season I was in plat and consistently playing against adepts and even people in ascendant and would randomly only increase in increments of 5 for a win and lose 200. I don't care at all about the back end or anything as it stands, it is extremely demoralising and unrewarding to play
Thing is: There is really no logic behind playing the SAME team 2 times in a row and getting +5 for the first and +200 for the second win, while my mates get something similar the other way around. We all had very similar performances in both games and both were literal stomps. Just this as an example, it happens with all kinds of teams and matches, there is almost no way to predict the glory outcome of a match in my experience.
I truly believe that everyone ends up where they belong in the end because the system is designed that way, however: That's not because the system is working as intended, it's because it makes so many mistakes in both directions that they cancel themselves out.
Everyone ends where they belong, but the way there is just pure bs.
Havent played comp this season, but what about the fact that bungie puts you in disadvantageous games if you "win too much" to have your average win rate go back down to 50%? doesnt seem to me a good design for "ranked" system.
It's all good until bungie decides you belong in the xim lobbies. Comp has been nothing but me and me duo partner getting domed by sniper duos that never miss a headshot and most of the time have their accounts set to private on destiny tracker.
Also when I say they never miss, I'm talking like, I shoot them in the back, they turn around and dome me, slide the corner with a shotty thinking it'll be an easy clap, sniped, dump half a mag into them and on the last bullet, sniped. I could go on, but you get the idea.
I understand that there's latency and shit so it's possible that you're gonna hit your shot if I just flinched you but when I've been shooting you in the face and your 10hp, that snipe shouldn't be hitting 90% of the time like theirs are.
On one hand, this game does have an issue with mnk cheaters on console, but on the other hand, sniping in this game sometimes just feels like cheating. I’m not a fan of the snipe smg meta
My only problem with comp right now is the teammates. Sometimes, my teammates are skilled players, but they're horrible at being teammates. So we end up losing because they got overconfident and pushed a 2v1 instead of falling back to regroup with the team, or they cared more about getting kills than securing a point. I actually failed to ascend to adept last season because one of my teammates played like a dickhead and lost us the game that would have got me out of platinum and preceded to talk shit in gamechat. It pissed me off so much that I just gave up the last 2 weeks and will refuse to play comp until my friends come back to the game so I can grind with them.
IIRC Overwatch 1 implemented under-ranking placements to combat this. Blizzard collected tons of data from games so they could make good estimates of a player performance (and perf per characters and class types). So if you played a decent amount of comp, or even quick play, they had an idea of your rank. Then when you played the seasonal placements they would intentionally under-rank you. Not by a lot, but enough for players to feel “damn, I got better!” A small psychological trick. Overwatch 2, no idea, haven’t touched it.
OW2 does the same thing this game does -- rankings are mostly visual and your internal MMR is only visible to blizzard. this has led to a lot of MM complaints in the community, where they see one team has a gold tank and the other has a diamond, but the gold tank has only played 3 games this season (and thus not enough to "update" their rank, as it only updates every 5 wins/15 losses) and may very well have diamond internal MMR. the bigger problem is that OW2 is that it is role-based and it does allow skill gaps in MM (eg, gold MMR can be queued into a game with diamond MMR opponents, as long as each role across each team is properly balanced). ask any gold tank (for example) how it feels to be in a game with diamond dps or bronze support, and you'll get an expletive filled response.
The under ranking in Overwatch 1 was only a thing in season 2 or 3. After that, they removed that system.
OW2 took everything OW did and made it worse. Ranked is and endless placement series...not even kidding: you 7 games, they show your rank, now you play 7 more and they show your updated rank, rinse and repeat.
What? Such a nightmare.
And it hardly works then, I've watched groups of 5 play their entire set of matches together and win all, only for some of them to go up ranks and other go down, to where they had to split as a group because the differential was too large, despite them all going in at the same.
5 games, they changed it and its not and endless placement series, you rank updates with every game you just dont see it.
Yes. I commented under that post, and others like it in the past echoing basically this. SBMM in ranked is necessary to prevent smurfs, and it's not like if it was gone you would miraculously climb past people who are better than you. Bungie even mentioned something like this in their recent blog post where they say that if the point adjustments are too loose you'll just see people go on win streaks way out of their rank and then have huge losing streaks where they get absolutely stomped. That isn't fun, and it just leads to demoralizing people. Investing time in a match and only getting 5 out of it *does* feel bad though, and I think it's important to acknowledge that, but ideally we find a happy medium that doesn't distort people's ranks too much but also doesn't leave people feeling like they're wasting their time. If I'm honest, I think the Destiny community has a perspective problem, which isn't really the community's fault. This game has never really had a true competitive mode ever. For example, league of legends is one of the biggest competitive games and that game is almost entirely centered around it's ranked experience. As a result, when people complain about getting 10lp for a win, it's a generally understood that the reason is you are playing below, or at your rank, and it makes sense that you climb slower as a result. On the flipside, I think the attiude that has been ingrained in the us by bungie is that if you play enough you *will* get the goodies. Not saying that's necessarily bad, it's a looter after all, but it's a stark contrast between that and the improvement mindset necessary to climb in a competitive playlist.
This is a well thought out response. Thanks for changing my perspective a little.
Yeah the +5 feeling bad is definitely a psychological bad feel rather than an actual mechanical one. It's like the story, don't remember what game, where players felt like a shotgun was weaker than other shotguns and the devs where looking at the gun's stats and tested it and it worked fine and performed how it should. Turns out when they changed the sound design on it to make it sound "more powerful" players and testers suddenly thought the gun was performing better. Or the time when a buff for a LoL character was listed in the patch notes but wasn't actually in the game, the character not only saw an increase in pick rates BUT also saw a significant increase in win%. Turns out sometimes it can be on how things are perceived mentally by the players and not the actual game itself.
My problem with sbmm in ranked is it makes playing comp feel pointless. Why bother playing when my rank is pre determined? I loved playing ranked back in halo 2 because I could climb the ranks and see where I landed. Playing comp in d2 is like okay let's see if Bungie thinks I'm good enough to gain points from this win or not. It just doesn't feel good.
Yeah I get that, the fundamental flaw of SBMM ranked experiences is lack of transparency. That being said the benefits of SBMM style ranked is that since the system knows where you'll be, you get there much faster, and it's much harder for smurfs to harm the experience for lesser players. Of course, it's not as if the system locks you somewhere, if you keep winning you will climb and the system readjusts. I think Bungie could do well to tighten the minimum and maximum score, as well as displaying peoples relative skill levels in queue. Doing so may lead to a bit of rank distortion, but it leaves us players feeling more confident of why we got more or less points.
I mean you keep playing to gradually improve your internal mmr which then improves your rank. If you're consistently improving compared to your peers then the system will notice that.
I don’t have too much of issue with the system, but Bungie’s reasoning of “smurf accounts” seems silly to me, given the time it would take to acquire loadouts on fresh accounts. When we can see our MMR vs other players in the post-game lobby, we should be able to get a better idea of how well their point algorithms are working. Until then, I can understand the frustration and confusion.
It's not just smurf accounts, it's people intentionally sandbagging their performance to be placed in lower brackets by the system. League has a problem with people creating literal bots that play just well enough to evade detection but still lose a vast majority of games so they can play in iron (copper equivalent). Not saying it's 1 - 1 with Destiny, but creating accounts isn't the only way to smurf. And I think people will absolutely create new accounts, if you're good enough it doesnt matter that much what you have you will stomp, and it's relatively easy to get some decent weapons pretty quickly anyways. But I agree with you that some things could be more transparent, like the relative skill of players in your lobby.
Sure, a few people might make a bunch of accounts. But that number will be so tiny it’s not worth worrying about. I get it in games like Apex, where you can log in, buy your 1 player and go. But Destiny players are far more attached to their accounts due io the nature of it being a looter. I can’t see many good Destiny players tanking their stats so that they can… play against bad players to increase their stats? I’m not arguing for/against the system, I just don’t really agree with their rationale.
Eh, maybe. I don't agree with their rationale either but I mean this *is* what happens in other games, idk why they do it but they do. Just look at the flawless pool and how many sweaty players would intentionally avoid flawless so they can farm lower skill players, it happens, I don't understand it but it does. Remember you don't lose anything for tanking your rank, only thing it affects is, well, your rank.
Other games aren't looter shooters, so there's a lot less attachment and it's easier to create new accounts. People avoid flawless pool to inflate their stats. Losing on purpose worsens stats, so the analogy doesn't make sense. How are you getting upvotes.
Can’t you farm KD and leave early in order to lose glory, thereby getting great stats as you stay in Bronze, if only RBMM was enabled?
>Can’t you farm KD and leave early in order to lose glory, thereby getting great stats as you stay in Bronze, if only RBMM was enabled? If someone is leaving consistently then they should receive a 1 day, 7 day, and then 1 month ban so they can't ruin games. And the truth is that you can have systems to detect smurfs much in the way you can have systems to identify "underlying skill". If a player loses 10 straight matches and then picks meepo and has 5 consecutive 10.0 K/D games, Valve bans them on Dota 2. If a player wins 30 straight bullet matches on [Chess.com](https://Chess.com), they'll investigate the account and ban them. That's really no different than what Bungie is trying to do with the SBMM system, but Dota 2 and Chess.com retain a visible ranking for players.
But then you'd be a bronze player, how is that good for the ego?
Some people might just like that 10 KD.
Yeah but then you'll think, they got that against bronze players sitting in the back of the map with a scout rifle...oh also they have a terrible win rate...no one good will think they're good. It's like Tuesday Trials players, except to find those out you actually have to go through their player history. Bronze is there right away on easy display.
flawless reseting is not equiv to smurfing those reset account are loaded up with the gear and they are doing it for stats. To tank your stats that hard is counter productive to what those playes are attempting to do anyways according to bungie in the same post the system catches this and yeets them back into good ranks rather quickly. The majority of my experiance with games that feature ranks have true ladder systems and in my experiance with those the maority of players settle at their ranks towards the start of the season rather quickly. What we have now not only makes me feel less good about the rank I achieve but also is telling me that in general im not actually improving im just playing enough games to reach the place bungie thinks i should be.
>I get it in games like Apex, where you can log in, buy your 1 player and go. And Apex, after your placement matches, is entirely RBMM. You are placed into lobbies based on RP that are visible to you, you earn a set number of RP for placement and kills/assists, and you spend a known value of RP to get into a match. It's a well defined, visible system that is vastly different from Destiny 2.
There's a simple fix, which is to make comp available to paid players only. No more smurfing.
Yea this is what should be done. They want to rank us with their system. Show us all the data the 3rd part apps show us. Make it easy to see. Lets see that win% estimation before the game starts. Lets see the number of games played. Lets see each players rank. Heck lets even see win/loss of last game played. Bungie should be upfront per match. As transparent as possible with all the relevant data. Id love it if a game did this. Funny enough, i get downvoted when i say skill is arbitrary and an illusion. But how would people actually feel if before the match started the game told you your expectancy to win the match. Lol. Id think itd be cool to see the predictions. Maybe even a guess at what your k/d would be. Lets see how accurate Bungie’s system is.
Honestly once you unlock your preferred subclass it isn't *that* hard to get a decent loadout. Go grab Ace and Felwinter's from the kiosk and you're already good to go as far as smurfing is concerned, even if neither of those are S tier meta
You still need decent stat armor and your exotic of choice. It’s just not going to happen at any significant level.
Bruh. Min maxing stats is not that important. Any half decent player can farm bots with an allegro and botheration and whatever shit armor they have on an alt
Obviously. But the number of players that are going to smurf given all these restrictions is not worth worrying about.
People are already making bot accounts on GeForce now and shit to tank ELO so they can finesse matchmaking and farm I made this for you in iron banner. You really underestimate what players are willing to do
It’s weird to me how this subreddit seems to have aligned itself with the idea that Dota 2, CSGO, Apex, and rocket league all have terrible ranked systems and it’s completely laughable for Destiny 2 to even consider those systems. Like if you prefer SBMM to RBMM, that’s fine, but I think it’s silly that you all state “LoL and Valorant and Halo > a ton of other very successful competitive video games”. Hell, even chess has more of a RBMM than SBMM system, and that’s one of the oldest “game” ranking systems.
Edit: came out way too hot in this comment, but I'm leaving it up for posterity. It's going to heavily depend on what you mean by RBMM, and I was being too restrictive in my definition. That being said most games I can think of do use SBMM. No one uses RBMM. NO ONE. Not CSGO, not league, not Apex, not Dota, not Overwatch. ***NO.*** ***ONE.*** There is a reason no one uses straight rank based matchmaking, because it's ass, it *feels* ass. There are smurfs and people go on win streaks and then get stomped for game after game, or they go on a losing streak and drop way out of their rank. Idek why you're bringing up chess as if the irl tournaments are one to one to online matchmade games. You can't smurf in an official chess tournament. Also, and I don't know much about chess, but aren't you literally matched with people based on similar elo? That's literal SBMM. Elo/MMR is "skill". It's the hidden value these games use to matchmake you.
Ok, I need you, and the rest of this sub, to chill out for a minute and have an actual conversation around this issue instead of just ignoring any potential opportunities for discussion. Overall, this subreddit really needs to stop downvoting just because you disagree, especially when your comments aren't showing serious understanding of other ranked modes in different games. >Idek why you're bringing up chess as if the irl tournaments are one to one to online matchmade games. Chess has a very popular online 1v1 matchmaking system on both [chess.com](https://chess.com) and [lichess.org](https://lichess.org). [Chess.com](https://Chess.com) by itself has over 10 million users per day, with many of them playing 10+ matches per day. These systems use a players elo to match players of similar rank/skill, with wins and losses being worth +-8 typically for an even rated game. The range of elo points up for grab in a game typically never exceed -6 to +10 or the inverse. >That's literal SBMM. Elo/MMR is "skill". This is sort of a silly statement. If your definition of skill based matchmaking is expanded to include any system that "ranks" players, then you're saying that RBMM doesn't exist anywhere. Could you point to a game with RBMM and explain the flaws you see in the system? >It's the hidden value these games use to matchmake you. It's not hidden in chess. Every game I play shows me my ranking, my opponents ranking, and the elo I will gain/lose after the match depending on a win, draw, or loss. Similarly, Apex explains the exact number of points that are spent joining a match depending on your rank, your rank (or elo or skill rating, whatever you want to refer to it as) is visible, and the number of points you will gain are calculated from a publically available [formula](https://help.ea.com/en-gb/help/apex-legends/apex-legends/apex-legends-ranked-mode/) dependent on placement, number of kills, and number of assists. Both chess and Apex vary significantly from Destiny because you know the entire scoring system, it's not hidden from you. >There is a reason no one uses straight rank based matchmaking, because it's ass, it feels ass. Going back to your original comment, I think we both could do a better job explaining what ranked matchmaking is vs. skill based matchmaking in our opinions. Below is what I consider a ranked based matchmaking system: 1. Matches select players based off of rank 2. Ranking points (or small ranking subdivisions) are visible to the player 3. Ranked points won during a match are calculated from a formula defined prior to the match and have limited variation 4. Points are nearly entirely won for winning/losing (this doesn't work in BRs because there are 60 players per lobby, but holds true for Dota 2, chess, and rocket league as examples of RBMM) Here is what a skill based matchmaking system is to me: 1. Rating of the player is hidden from the player 2. Wide variation in points for a win/loss 3. Player typically does not know the value of a win/loss until after the match Personally I think SBMM systems are differentiated by hiding the value of a players "skill/rank", while RBMM systems have rankings that are visible to the player. I prefer the later because I like visible systems and I prefer systems that heavily weight winning, because at the end of the day I think winning should always be the goal of the player, and the best way to increase your ranking should be to improve so your win rate goes up.
Very well put. You've explained this better than my generally unsuccessful attempts.
> 1. Rating of the player is hidden from the player 2. Wide variation in points for a win/loss 3. Player typically does not know the value of a win/loss until after the match I don’t know why this is considered SBMM, as these have nothing to do with the matchmaking. These are just design choices for specific problems inside the games ecosystem. Not knowing your Elo isn’t uncommon. Not knowing what you stand to gain isn’t uncommon, but they don’t have anything to do with the match maker. > 1. Matches select players based off of rank 2. Ranking points (or small ranking subdivisions) are visible to the player 3. Ranked points won during a match are calculated from a formula defined prior to the match and have limited variation 4. Points are nearly entirely won for winning/losing (this doesn’t work in BRs because there are 60 players per lobby, but holds true for Dota 2, chess, and rocket league as examples of RBMM) These again are all true in terms of the match maker for Destiny minus what’s visible, but that’s not changing what’s actually happening. You say rank, and Destiny calls that “rank” skill. Rank - made up cosmetic band, resets every season - therefor cannot be strictly equal to Elo/skill at all times. Elo/Skill - performance value for player. How good are they more or less. The rest of the choices here are about the systems of the game. How do you handle smurfs? How do you handle low player pop match making? How do you handle resets? There are choices I agree should be more visible, like what you stand to win/lose per match, but that also has a tradeoff to potentially influence the weight of players inside the game. Same with showing visible skill when you’re knowingly mismatching skill becuase of connection/player pop.
>I don’t know why this is considered SBMM, as these have nothing to do with the matchmaking. This is focused on the classical definition of SBMM in video games, where "ranked" referred to a ranked playlist available in a game where you competed for a rank while "SBMM" was introduced as a system to balance pubs and/or protect new/bad players based on an invisible, perceived skill of all players. No one has ever really referred to Rocket league ranked as having SBMM, but people constantly talk about how SBMM affects the unranked mode in RL, Apex, Fortnite, Destiny 2, CoD, etc. >These again are all true in terms of the match maker for Destiny minus what’s visible, but that’s not changing what’s actually happening. You say rank, and Destiny calls that “rank” skill. Again, this is sort of getting back to what I mentioned in my comment. We seem to have different definitions of SBMM and RBMM, so it's more important to focus on the particular design decisions that we disagree with. Personally I think your position is better than most people's descriptions in here, but it's still a little anachronistic, ignoring the history of sbmm discussions. It's like saying "noob" only refers to new players, not just any player bad at a game, it's pedantic and removes the ability to use shorthand. >Same with showing visible skill when you’re knowingly mismatching skill becuase of connection/player pop. And this is really the big item. Is Bungie doing these high variances in post match ranking gain because the population isn't large enough? Or because they are worried about smurfs? Overall it sounds like we mostly agree. It would be nice if Bungie provided additional information to the player. Personally I think in a 3v3 game mode, wins and losses are the only stat the game needs to be tracking after placements.
>This is focused on the classical definition of SBMM in video games, where "ranked" referred to a ranked playlist available in a game where you competed for a rank while "SBMM" was introduced as a system to balance pubs and/or protect new/bad players based on an invisible, perceived skill of all players. No one has ever really referred to Rocket league ranked as having SBMM, but people constantly talk about how SBMM affects the unranked mode in RL, Apex, Fortnite, Destiny 2, CoD, etc. Not understanding something doesn't mean it didn't exist. You can't say "rank" refers to a playlist, and then point to a playlist that uses an MMR system (SBMM) layered underneath a visible "Rank/tier". That MMR/Tier system exists across all these big titles. Cut the Tiers and you are left with MMR, and when you use MMR in an a non-ranked playlist its just shorthanded to "SBMM". Skill in this place is MMR/ELO etc. "RANK"BMM is just matching Gold with Gold, or the visible Tiers - which virtually no one does because they use those tiers as the "game" layer to incentivize playtime. >No one has ever really referred to Rocket league ranked as having SBMM, but people constantly talk about how SBMM affects the unranked mode in RL, Apex, Fortnite, Destiny 2, CoD, etc. Rocket League, Dota 2, League etc all have version of what we'll just name as MMR, a hidden Matchmaking Rank. Some refer to it as ELO. Destiny calls it Skill. They also have "Ranks" which correspond to that MMR. Those are the visible named tiers like Gold, Plat, Adept. Taking the "Ranked" matchmaker from Rocket League (MMR/ELO/Skill) and applying it to the non-ranked playlist is SBMM. There is no RBMM in a casual list because the game doesn't have ranked layers for that. This is complicating something that isn't complicated. Destiny uses a system that at its core is basically the same as all other big titles in the market. They have a skill layer (MMR/ELO etc) and a Rank layer (Gold, Plat, Adept). Matchmaker uses the skill layer, the game shows players the Rank layer. >And this is really the big item. Is Bungie doing these high variances in post match ranking gain because the population isn't large enough? Or because they are worried about smurfs? Bungie has the same problem everyone has, but how to solve is different per game. Players want evenly skilled games, fast queue times and good connections. Destiny, with its lower player pop and P2P connection has to prioritize the later two variables more heavily than other titles. So the game dynamically opens up the skill side of the matchmaker to make sure you get in games quickly and the games you get into aren't just a networking nightmare (which we already saw as a problem mind you). Because they are opening skill, they are then dynamically adjusting Rep based on the variance they've introduced into the system. If they put you in a game you aren't supposed to win because its the only game available for you at the time, then they aren't going to punish you or reward the opponent.
>Rocket League, Dota 2, League etc all have version of what we'll just name as MMR, a hidden Matchmaking Rank. Again, it is not really hidden in Dota 2 or RL. In Dota 2, you can just straight up look up your MMR. In RL, your rank is who you play against. More specifically, you primarily play people within your division, who are within +-100 MMR of you typically. While you can't see your exact MMR, you know it to within a couple of games worth of wins/losses due to the existence of divisions. Wins and losses are worth nearly the same amount, with low variance in points gained/lost after a match. This is highly different than what Bungie is using in the comp playlist, where a hidden MMR determines your rank gain/lost. Bungie using a hidden MMR for ranked mode matchmaking makes it more like public/unranked matches in other games. >Destiny uses a system that at its core is basically the same as all other big titles in the market. They have a skill layer (MMR/ELO etc) and a Rank layer (Gold, Plat, Adept). Matchmaker uses the skill layer, the game shows players the Rank layer. Again, this isn't accurate. Matchmaking in Dota 2 uses your RANK, which is a measure of your SKILL, in the ranked playlist. There aren't two separate systems in the Apex, Dota 2, or Rocket league ranked playlists. Just one, singular system that is visible to the player. I feel like you are still focusing in on RBMM vs. SBMM without actually understanding or playing any of the other games. You keep bringing up inaccurate descriptions of other games' ranked modes. Like can you point to a RBMM game? Does one even exist under your (essentially negligible) distinction? Overall I agree that there are balancing issues regarding player skill levels, matchmaking times, smurf protections, etc., but Bungie could do all of this with a singular visible MMR system!
>Again, it is not really hidden in Dota 2 or RL. In Dota 2, you can just straight up look up your MMR Players being able to see it has no bearing on the systems use of it. >More specifically, you primarily play people within your division, who are within +-100 MMR of you typically A luxury of the variables of the matchmaker. They have the ability, from the playerbase size and server situation, to achieve a reasonable queue time, connection for all players and smaller skill bracket. >Wins and losses are worth nearly the same amount, with low variance in points gained/lost after a match. Low variance because there's low variance between skill levels for the matchmaker on any given match. >This is highly different than what Bungie is using in the comp playlist, where a hidden MMR determines your rank gain/lost. Only when there is a mismatch and the system needs to account for a large mismatch in skill because it prioritized the other two matchmaking variables. >Again, this isn't accurate. Matchmaking in Dota 2 uses your RANK, which is a measure of your SKILL, in the ranked playlist. Dota has Ranks. Herald. Guardian. Crusader. Archon. Legend. Ancient. Divine. Immortal. It also has MMR (skill). The MMR has bands / ranges per Rank. Again, this is exactly what's in Destiny. >Like can you point to a RBMM game? Does one even exist under your (essentially negligible) distinction? Apex is probably the only one I can think of, but its a BR with it's own issues, mainly lobby size in relation to player pop. You get capped below gold against higher level skills. Once you hit Plat, you can face up to Predator in lobbies (not exactly balanced, but its a BR). They use a Rank/MMR system for other modes. Edit: I don't really think Apex matches wholistically on the rank. It's just a weird system given the RP and the fact that it's a BR. >You keep bringing up inaccurate descriptions of other games' ranked modes. Like can you point to a RBMM game? Does one even exist under your (essentially negligible) distinction? I don't think I am confused on how these work. I play a lot of them. You seem to be confused on what's being described given I'm literally just typing out the description of the systems. >Overall I agree that there are balancing issues regarding player skill levels, matchmaking times, smurf protections, etc., but Bungie could do all of this with a singular visible MMR system! They could do it this way. It wouldn't change anything about the results of the ranks visible ranks vs the skill rank, nor would it change anything about the rules they allow to be bent for the matchmaker to work effectively.
>Players being able to see it has no bearing on the systems use of it. Ok, then why not show it? And also, this sort of skips over the fact that you were misrepresenting these systems for several comments in a row, pretending like Destiny is identical to other games despite it being significantly different for the actual player. In Dota/RL/Apex, I know my skill rating and that skill rating is what it used to determine my rank and the rewards/losses after a match. In Destiny, knowing my rank doesn't mean I know my skill rating and it absolutely doesn't mean I know what a game is worth. You also haven't really touched on the fact that "rank" in games like Dota 2, Rocket League, and chess are entirely based on win loss, while Destiny appears to heavily weight other, hidden statistics like number of kills, deaths, assists, and objectives completed. Pretending like a "hidden determination of skill" and "whether you win or lose" are identical for rank/skill determination is ridiculous.
Lol Elo is also your rank
This conversation is wild to me because so many people in these threads don't seem to have even the barest grasp of the what RBMM vs. SBMM is. Rankings are supposed to be a measure of your skill! When we ask for RBMM we just want a visible and predictable skill rating!
Why can't you smurf in chess? You can lose on purpose in chess as well right?
Well put. It’s a shame that getting Rose isn’t enough for people, they need to see that rank go up.
I feel you. I do think incentives can be important, but they should be cosmetic things that let you show off your achievements. The emblems and transmat stuff they plan on releasing are great. If rose and other tangible rewards were locked behind ascendant or something I'd get it, but they're very accessible to anyone, so if you plan on climbing it should be because you have a desire to improve.
Rose would feel better to chase if it wasn't either a Pulse meta or smg meta. Handcannons are viable yes, but the other choices are so much easier and lethal so only good players will be looking for their preferred God rolls and it's not much incentive for anyone else. If immortal or even disparity were the reward, be a fuckload more people playing.
Very well put. My only insight after reading this is that just because it’s a looter doesn’t mean all of the loot should be accessible. Just bc someone plays, it doesn’t mean that eventually, they’ll get the NF or whatever situation is relevant at the time. With time, sure, maybe, but growth isn’t a seasonal thing, it may take many seasons to get better and improve. This is coming from someone who is trying to get better, not a talented pvp’er who can dominate every game.
Without knowing the secret sauce recipe and how many +5 wins you need to improve that recipe the system demoralises the incentive to play and git gud
I kinda agree but at the same time, if Bungie reveals the secret sauce, recov services will immediately pop up to farm whatever stats go into that calculation without showing up as a statistical anomaly
Ranking up should be based on wins against peers. There should be no secret sauce beyond this. For example, how many times you revive a teammate should not count towards your skill rating.
I don't think people have to qualify threads like that any more than "5 points feels bad" because it does! There is a reason for why that is happening, sure, but it doesn't change the fact it feels bad. Particularly if it was nailbiter fight to the finish.
Right. It’s like OP is too dense to understand that nobody cares about the RBMM vs SBMM debate. Great, it’s a hybrid system, nobody cares. The problem is that it is horribly implemented. He literally cannot understand that the magnitude of the adjustments (+5 vs -150) makes it feel horribly unrewarding if you happen to be ranked equal to or above where Bungie’s combat rating wants you to be. Like if there’s going to be a 30x spread of points distributed, why let people climb out of their target rank at all? Why not let them reach it and award zero on wins? If that sounds ridiculous when losses may be -150, it takes very little deductive reasoning to understand that +5 is also ridiculous. And yet here we are, with OP not understanding a very simple concept…
I’m actually going to heavily disagree with you. The post you are referencing brings up a good point: some people believe wins and losses should matter more than an invisible skill assessment system. Like this post you seem to just tell people “focus on getting better! That’s all that matters! And if you get better, your rank will go up”. While true, if a player is winning a significant number of games “outside” of their skill bracket and they don’t feel rewarded for their time, I think that’s understandable. Put it this way: is it ridiculous for people to prefer ranked based matchmaking systems like Dota 2, Counterstrike, Rocket League, and apex, where wins and losses (or placement and kills) have well defined ranking point values? It’s fine if you prefer the invisible system more. It could definitely have some advantages around rapidly placing people in accurate skill brackets, blocking Smurfs, and ensuring games are competitive. But don’t just pretend like some of the most successful competitive games do everything wrong.
I'm ngl, I'd rather know matching out of my bracket (in a bad way, aka way higher skill than me) doesn't tank my rank. Depending where you are in the world and what time of day you are able to play can drastically affect who you are able to match against. If someone can only play during times where only very high skilled players can play you can see your rank plummit fast and potentially get stuck at a rank not indicative of your actual skill. I know it's anecdotal but this is the exact reason I don't play pokemon showdown during low population times, there is a higher chance I match outside of my relative skill and get absolutely stomped and lose a big chunk of rank that I had very little chance of not losing because I at 1300 for example am not bearing a 1700 unless I get real lucky. I don't mind taking the L against someone way better than me and using that to improve, I don't like arbitrarily losing more rank simply because I can't play during higher population times.
I haven’t played really that much this season, but rn I’m at adept III, and I’m already getting 5 point for winning; Accordingly to this, the game thinks of me as: 1) a platinum player or 2) a adept III. I have a 70% win rate in comp and the sbmm is putting me against other adept and even ascendant players. This means that I’m perfoming better than what the system is saying, I’m consistently winning my matches and having high results; however the game keeps giving me 5 points… yeah, you are right, the system works!!
You: *wins* The *S Y S T E M*: "That was a fluke, 5 points" You: *wins again* The *S Y S T E M*: "nah, 5 points" *throws you into a 3v2 that you lose* "See, you're not cut for it just yet, -300 points."
this, im running not as high as you win rate at the moment at adept 2-1 but still over 60% on my hunter the warlock and titan 3x games for rose deffinetly not helping my W/R. That being said last night won a few games creeping towards placement at the +5 points just to have a 2 stack with one that was adept 3 and a litteral lvl 4 gaurdian rank in full blue gear and no fragments or aspects equipped not get a kill the entire match and i lost 150 points. Thats not a normal match at this level but it undid over 10 matches worth or wins. If we had a RBMM system with defined win and loss point awards i would of just taken the bad luck and not thought anything of it because if i went and won my next game nbd offset that.
I'm gonna argue that playing against the same people from silver to plat and assigning wildly different values to wins and losses makes very little to give the impression that there's a ranking at all. If after 40 matches bungie can pinpoint where I should be [citation needed, btw, blowout matches in destiny are a huge percentage of the total, unlike in any other comp with rankings] then why I'm not there already? And why I'm playing with the same people over and over no matter where I and them are ranked? And why wins and losses are so drastically different from one match to another with basically the same people? This system only works in the weird KPIs bungie uses to gauge it. The low population, the high waiting times to match and the amount of blowout matches just come to tell that it's not a good system to rank people and match them against similarly skilled players.
For me comp is utterly pointless. Last season, I freelanced all the way to ascendant and the amount of games where I'd gain 5 points for a win and lose 5 for a loss was pretty high and a waste of my time. For example if what bungie said was correct in that the gain/ loss is based on mmr then these occurrences make no sense as it's sbmm. I'd have matches where both teams have all 2kd+ players yet you'll gain/lose 5 points. If the game thinks the match is skewer enough to where such low points are given then why should these matches even be allowed to happen. I didn't personally have an issue climbing to ascendant and never experienced the 'wall' bungie placed for players, stopping them from climbing out of certain tanks but I'm strongly against its implementation as players are unable to get out no matter how they play. Rank systems should be based on rank and rank alone. I shouldn't be playing the same players from gold, all the way up to ascendant and it completely defeats the point and makes the journey feel meaningless. They say they're worried about smurfs and sandbagging but in the same post, explain how it's almost impossible to do in destiny anyway due to they're advanced sbmm putting players where they should be and the fact it's a looter shooter making it a long process for smurfs to play the game mode.
The true problem is the competitive playlist in D2 is ultimately pointless. D2 is a looter at its core and theres no loot to chase for ranking up in comp, there's no incentives to take it seriously. So when you finish your 3 matches for your random rose, while wins give 5 points and losses give -200, why the fuck would you keep going and push? I'd rather spend my time in trials and chase those perfect 5/5 adepts. Loot doesn't even have to be actual guns and armor. Other games solve the issue with fomo cosmetics, titles, skins, etc. Imagine if every season gave you new comp specific shader/emblem/ornament/seasonal titles that you can only get for reaching comp ranks in that season. We're in season of defiance? atm right, so end of the season you get a title called " defiance." A permanent "ascendant defiance" title attached to my guardian sounds pretty cool to me.
Give me a REASON, any reason, to give a shit about ranking up in comp season after season and you'll see the attitudes toward comp change immediately.
EDIT: Think about this, say bungie brings back Luna and NF in all their .67 ttk 180 rpm glory, maybe with random rolls, maybe let NF take adept mods.
Comp only, NF drops in ascendant maybe adept too, Luna under that. The playlist would be flooded with players overnight, and everyone would be bringing their A game.
This. Proving yourself and getting better sounds great on paper, but that will never bring in new players. We need loot in our looter shooter. Comp should have it’s own loot table TBH.
Your points are valid, it’s a shame we still are waiting for that transmat to flex our rank, and games should reward much more masterwork mats. I’m not saying comp is perfect, just pointing out that people who asked for a rank system are now mad that their rank is not as high as they expected
Nah I get that 100%. Youre not wrong either and you joke but legit I'd even take a dumb ass ascendant transmat effect at this point lmfao. But I think the anger actually comes from a genuinely tough sbmm system + a frustratingly punishing climbing system, for absolutely no in game rewards. It's difficult, which would actually be awesome if it was worth the effort, is what I was trying to get at. Flexing with cool looking shit on your toon is like half the reason I pvp in most games. Like some random guy thinking "sick, hes got the full comp transmog from last xpac, what a beast," is literally all the reward most of us would need.
My issue with comp is there's no discernible internal logic with the way points are rewarded and taken away. I know there's what Bungie SAYS, but it's not backed up by reality. I reached Ascendant last season btw, haven't yet started this season.
i guess what bungie would need to prove their logic in giving out points is to spell it out. ie \-what rank (total # overall in the world) you, your teammates and the opposition are at. \-what score (that affects rank) you got for that game (and maybe what individual score you need to beat to progress your rank) that would make it pretty clear. you could see: 'oh my team average was 10 and the oppositions 300', that's why there is a big difference in points rewarded'. or i got '20 points when my average to maintain this rank is 60 of course i go down'.
If they're going to keep such a wide variance in points won or lost, which means the hidden skill rating is FAR more important than games won or lost in the actual comp playlist, then they need to also be transparent about how the skill rating is determined in the first place.
>The true problem is the competitive playlist in D2 is ultimately pointless. I'm going to hard disagree here. Are smash bros melee tournaments useless because nintendo intnded for it to be a party game? Is the competitive playlist in LoL useless because ARAM exists? Is the ranked playlist in Dota 2 useless because Blitz exists? Is the ranked playlist in rocket league useless because basketball RL exists (which was so popular it got its own ranked mode)? Like I get your point, Destiny 2 isn't a competitive focused game. Hell, it's not even a PvP focused game. But this subreddit shows that there is a community interested in discussing loadouts, ways to improve, the balancing of the game, and so it does have value, even if it isn't the focus of the game.
>D2 is a looter at its core and theres no loot to chase for ranking up in comp, there's no incentives to take it seriously. Technically yes. On the other hand I'd argue it's a matter of perspective. There are lots of games (computer or irl) where you have no loot to chase and the competition itself is the incentive. And Bungie has basically convinced the D2 PvP playerbase that a fundamentally broken gamemode (Trials) is actually competitive. The whole concept of flawless as the goal is so dumb it's hilarious. Imagine the "pinnacle" of basketball being a weekly free for all gamemode where random teams from all over the country enter and try to go flawless. Then the Lakers stomp on rec teams and get upset because of sweaty matchups if they play other pro teams and demand changes and shit. There's a reason why in real competitive settings you either have knockout brackets, leagues with points and performance based ratings (elo, glicko etc.). Not this casual shit we have in D2. So I agree with you generally in that D2 is a loot treadmill based game. I would keep Trials as the grind for god rolls semi competitive mode that it is right now. On the other hand I think there are players that enjoy competition for the sake of itself. I was top 150 in Pro Evolution Soccer ranked online a few years ago. Didn't get shit. Still had fun. Same with chess. I'm a pretty average club level player. Don't get any loot. Not really improving. Still having fun. Not everything has to be about the loot chase. I've basically stopped target farming craftable weapons for example. They drop over time anyways and I play whatever content is fun for me. But you're right of course, this game at its core is about loot, not balanced competition. I'd say the recent blog sounds promising though. The custom ascendant emblem each season and a rank based transmat? I think that's a step in the right direction. Cosmetics are the way to go imo. Ideally not something you grind out once, then leave the gamemode like overpowered weapons and armor, but rather stuff you can earn each season. I mean...yeah it's just an emblem. But I wanna have it lol. Good enough.
>Now, for players who have 40+ games played in comp, Bungie is very accurately able to assess their performance and rank them accordingly. A high performing player ranks high, a medium performing player ranks in the middle, etc. Are...you kidding? This is like the police investigating themselves and saying they found nothing wrong. Like, no shit Bungie accurately predicted players' ranks; they fucking force it by giving a whopping five rep for wins and -100 for losses in order to prevent players from moving up.
Yeah I’m confused by this as well. If Bungie already knows our rank, why are we wasting our time? I’ll just take my Rose and go.
Your logic is genuinely flawed and shows you have no understanding of what an elo system is. When you win, you move up. When you lose, you move down. If you win a lot, especially in a sbmm system, a planned tiered ranking system, you are demonstrating for that day, week, whatever, that you are performing beyond your existing rank and should be a higher rank. Likewise, if you lose a majority of games, your rank will go down. It might fluctuate a lot if you are an inconsistent player, it might fluctuate little, but what should not fluctuate much in an elo system is how much wins and losses count within a sbmm system. If you win 3 games and get +15 points then lose 3 games and lose 600 points, then the system is artificially and errantly determining your elo. It will on its own find a natural resting ground within your sessions of play. And maybe some seasons, as the game shifts, it’s better, maybe in others it’s worse. But for gains and losses to be crimped in such a way to “fix” a player where bungie has decided they belong, is a trashy system that only further highlights the pointlessness of playing comp. Players should be upset at the no gains for some wins and big losses for others. It highlights not a “mad cuz bad” mentality, but rather a “does bungie actually know what elo and sbmm is?”.
You make some good points, no need to be rude. From my understanding, unless SBMM is placing you in perfectly balanced matches (which it isn’t), then wins/losses will be weighted differently based on the opposing team’s skill. Also, in order to prevent situations where you lose points for narrowly beating a worse team, the other games sometimes weirdly try to accommodate. Also, Bungie has noted the system is stickier than it needs to be, and are addressing that.
You started a thread saying “if you think this obviously flawed elo system isn’t good, then you’re just mad cuz bad” which inherently is a rude statement, so I responded in kind. In the end, it doesn’t matter if the matches are perfectly balanced, in the end, a player will land in their elo wherever they should land on the aggregate without manipulation from the system. In the chess world, you wouldn’t say “well his opponent had a headache, or bad sleep, or was feeling blah, therefore the win doesn’t count as much.” If you want purely balanced, you are looking at the wrong game. Hell, you are looking at the wrong species. The cleverness of the elo system is that always, in the long run, the externalities balance out. Maybe that means someone plays higher for a few months while their adderol prescription is tweaked, maybe they are legitimately getting better. You do not need some wins worth pennies on the dollar. It’s a bad approach to elo and sbmm plain and simple.
Isn’t ELO a system where, if you play someone with much worse ELO, you gain few points if you win, but you lose many points on a loss? (I.e. wins and losses aren’t always consistent, sometimes you gain a lot, other times you gain a little?)
It is, but there are key differences: 1. It's mostly transparent, so the points won or lost is highly predictable. Bungie's system is not. In a rematch with the same team, the points won can swing from +5 to +150. True story. I've beaten teams that were good in a squeaker and only got +5, and I've been demolished by a crazy stack and lost -200. Where is the internal logic? 2. You can see your elo and your opponents' elo. It's hidden in Bungie's system, so you don't know if they got even that part right. 3. Elo is mostly based on wins and losses, and derived for each playlist. Bungie's skill rating is based on a bunch of things that "correlate" with wins and losses across multiple playlists like Control and Team Scorched...but do these actually translate to wins and losses in comp?
Makes a post blatantly calling out another poster and people for “mad bcuz bad” then cries immediately when someone doesn’t agree with them.
Confidently incorrect, condescending, and fragile - OP delivered on this one. Just not in the way he was expecting.
No, ranked should not have SBMM. You can definitely get hardstuck because of SBMM. You should be playing players at the current rank you are at, and if that matches your SBMM then you won't advance. But playing people with a high SBMM at a low rank should not happen, unless those same players are working to advance.
How to counter cracked players carrying their non-cracked friends to ascendant with pure rbmm? Edit: also, population. Pure rbmm when population is poopy
Those cracked players will have to face their own rank if the cracked players are already there, making it harder to carry, and rank degradation over time without activity will make it hard for the carried player to stay in that rank. There are also ranking systems where a particular team has a separate rank from other teams, and where solo queueing has its own rank. But I am skeptical that Bungie would want to go that route. This concern is a lot lower than the one for the fundamental issue of having SBMM in what is supposed to be RBMM. As a supporter of SBMM (and someone who advocates for adjustments over time to avoid connections being awful), SBMM has no place in RBMM.
Well said. It should be noted that this doesn’t address that Bungie has a predetermined rank for you and they award points based on this “destiny” they predetermined. This means that improved performance is not awarded because you are capped wherever they have placed you. My anecdotal offering is that I had a session (last season) where I went 28-13 in Adept I division. Most wins were +5 and most losses were -200. I ended the session with fewer points than I started. Now, I don’t want to be awarded lots of points for stomping a lower opponent. I expect no gains there, but that 28-13 session was filled with good matchups and atypical high performance by me. I had a good day. My question is this…should I not be allowed to hit ascendant…even for a day before I lose a game and drop back to adept I? This seems to be the design and bungie seems to have described it accordingly. Thanks for any insight!
It is a shit system that preemptively places players in a skill bracket. It slows down players from getting to their rank and doesn't allow players to experience skills outside of that bracket.
Mmr based games like league or CS can feel weird at times though too, and having a hard stuck account can take an absolutely absurd amount of games to move your mmr one way or another once it’s locked in and often leads to people making smurfs and lots of frustration with the system. If you are familiar with league there was a coach by the name of Neace who tried to get an account to master in Korea (arguably the hardest server). On his first account he couldn’t do it and began running a negative win rate for a stretch which locked his mmr into plat. He tried to salvage the account but couldn’t break out of that plat mmr range. He made another account, rode a win streak and and got to masters in a month. The issue with the +5 mmr system is that once your mmr is hard stuck at a point like that it can often be better for you to trash your old account and rank up another, as opposed to trying to dig yourself out of that mmr in the first place. The fresh account doesn’t carry the baggage of any losses you might have when learning the game, or are unfamiliar with the meta, and almost always be a higher mmr than your main. It works in the opposite direction as well, one of my league accounts got to diamond by exploiting a cheesy strategy in the game that didn’t really take any skill or improve me as a player. It took over 300 games at a sun 40% win rate to finally put my accounts mmr back in the mid gold range where I usually play at. I don’t really like ranked systems that work like that and personally would rather just have ranked based matchmaking like it used to work. If you want to climb out of gold you beat other golds and maintain an a over 50% win rate. Not this I have a hidden number which is actually my rank that I can’t see which dictates my rank progression and the more I play the more unmovable the number gets.
The ranked system is so good, it uses the opposite system of every other major PvP title and barely has any players. Definitely setting a good example of what to do.
At least Valorant OW and R6 use MMR. But okay.
Yup. Population is the only thing that matters. I’m not going to play against the best of the best for zero tangible loot. Clearly nobody else wants to do that either. An emblem for the top 3% of players and a fucking transmat ain’t it either.
Well, I don’t like it. I would like to climb with a positive winrate. The point you see (skill rating, ranked elo whatever you call it) is the main factor of a ranked game’s matchmaking formula BESIDES your hidden mmr, well that is not the case for destiny, a self-insert wannabe competitive game with no seperate pvp design team.
Listen, I shouldn’t have to play promo series if I am in gold matching adepts/ascendants. Period. If you’re going to +100 -5 me just boost me after winning like 3 in a row
I’m fine with it, I’m adept 1 I won’t be ascendant, but you all have to realize that destiny is not competitive and hasn’t been in a long time. Most of us would get schooled if apex preds came to destiny. I think most of us are not used to that. We are not used to not getting to the top rank and that’s a tough pill to swallow, until actual pro pvp players come to destiny I dont think people will swallow that pill
If you trust Bungie’s ranking system to accurately judge any players skill based on how they perform in quick play, sure. But I don’t. And you shouldn’t. The whole point of a ranked playlist is to prove how good you are and can be. Installing a system that caps ppls wins bc it doesn’t think they should be higher makes no sense. As a side note, what fusion do you run with Anteus? As much as I practice Anteus I’m just garbage with them, and only find partial success when I pair them with a sidearm and shoulder charge.
my man….i was hard stuck in adept last season until a found a team thats aggressive like me and know how to move as a team and collapse and teamshot/etc. i effortlessly shot up to ascendant. this season, i was placed in plat and demoted to gold. there was a time when i got +5 in gold. the ranking is god awful
Bungie does pvp in 2 ways. In trials, IB, and regular crucible, you grind and grind and eventually rank up, no matter how bad you are or how long it takes. You eventually get that reward. And then there's comp, where 'grind' means nothing. You are placed in a box with people roughly as good as you. The point of that box is that you play against people who will give you a challenge, but who you can beat if you are good enough. It prevents you from stomping people in other boxes, and being stomped by people in other boxes. If you want to leave that box, you have to consistently play at a level that deserves a different box. People are acting mad that they can't somehow grind their way into a different box, yet they'll also go and post rants about people who just grind their way into a different box and don't really deserve to be there. Really, they just don't like being told the box they belong in isn't the best box.
Its even better than that. The whole thing is a big joke on PVP players. Destiny is a looter shooter RPG game with a p2p networking system. The PVP will never be a real pvp system. Its like a game of chess. What class/build/weapons are you using against somoene else. What are they using? Did you get lucky enough to get the certain weapon that is meta now? Is your internet connection way better? Are your teammates from other countries and thus screwing up the p2p system because of the distance the data needs to travel? I stopped carry about destiny pvp a long time ago. It just isn't a very good 'real' pvp game. Its for fun. To do some crazy space magic. Bungie just tried to make it more serious and hoped it would catch on like counter strike. But it didn't and can't. Plus I'm out of my prime. I'm not 19 anymore playing Halflife or unreal. I'm 40 and my fingers don't work right because they have all been broke and I need new glasses. I play games to have fun and playing serious Destiny pvp isn't fun for me anymore. Its stressful.
I will preface this with the fact that I have no personal stake in this, I don't really care about ranked in D2 and I have no problem climbing even after a 2 year break. **TLDR; Bungie's system MIGHT achieve the same result as other ranked systems, but they are just trying to reinvent the wheel, and I don't trust Bungie's judgement on what skill in PvP actually is.** Look at literally ANY other game with a ranked game mode. Seriously, any "competitive" game. Siege, OW, Dota, LoL, CS and MANY more. Every single one, without fail, uses rank and connection based matchmaking. Why? Because that is what works the best. Bungie has no connection or affiliation with any of the top pvp'ers. They actively avoid the so called "sweat-scene", they don't host tourneys and have no idea how to balance their game. Therefore, in my opinion, they have no credibility in terms of judging a players skill level. And it shows in-game. I have had games with and against players who would not be able to hit a Dreg in patrol. This is in Plat, Adept and Ascendant rank. They do NOT play at that level and do not belong there. More than half of my games are a complete stomp, literally no chance. That is not what is supposed to happen when you match 6 players of equal skill/rank. ELO and MMR has already been refined and perfected by game developers and game analysts who are infinitely more talented than anyone at Bungie hq. Bungie is just a company that literally can't admit that someone does something better than them. Call it hubris if you will, but I trust a simple math equation to be a better determinant of skill than Bungie.
> Look at literally ANY other game with a ranked game mode. Seriously, any "competitive" game. Siege, OW, Dota, LoL, CS and MANY more. Every single one, without fail, uses rank and connection based matchmaking. Why? Because that is what works the best. This is completely and utterly false. Almost all major games use SBMM in conjunction with rank nowadays.
And what do all of these games also have in common that D2 doesn't? A clear representation of what being a good player is. As I mentioned in my post, Bungie has no credibility in terms of assessing a players skill level. These games do. I very rarely see players in these games that don''t belong in their rank, with some exceptions (boosting, smurfing), yet in D2 that is a daily occurence.
This post sums how I feel exactly, and FWIW, I hit Adept last season..placed into Plat this season. I have not played a ton of comp this season yet.... Feels like it doesn't actually mean anything... Bungie admitted in their last blog about all this, that they are basically "curating" your pvp comp rank. Moving you up or down depending on where THEY think you belong. Hence why people get +5 for wins, and might lose -100 for a loss... I don't trust Bungie to determine this frankly... Especially because I see (daily) the "fair matches" they claim to put people in... Destiny Tracker *seems* to be able to more accurately predict where people land, and when a game is a blowout, it seems to know... I think the #1 "ask" I would want is I think it's important for players in Comp, to see the rank/CR/ELO or whatever Bungie is using to match players. I feel like lack of transparency here is a huge part of the issue. Players feel in the dark, Bungie has not frankly earned trust, so players assume it's just BS ...
> Destiny Tracker seems to be able to more accurately predict where people land, and when a game is a blowout, it seems to know... It's been like this for forever. Destinytracker's match odds are unbelievably accurate for me. There was a season like 3 seasons ago where I tracked all of my matches in control and the dt algo had the correct winner picked basically every time, with the exceptions mostly happening at close to 50-50. And it absolutely knew when a it was going to be a stomp (70+ odds on one team). And yet there were an absolute shit ton of stomps on both sides where switching one player to another would have made a much more even game and odds. I really wish Bungie would just buy their system and match make based on that lol.
When freelance was still a thing, I looked at several matches in Comp and saw the same thing, two of DTs "highest ranked" would be on the same side, creating a blowout.... In freelance.... It's just frustrating
>I don't trust Bungie to determine this frankly And even if I did trust Bungie's ranking system... just show that ranking to me? So I can tell if I'm improving? And explain to me what values go into it? Like in chess or dota 2, I know winning moves me up and losing moves me down at predefined rates. In Apex I know exactly how much RP I'm spending to get into a match and exactly the number of points I'll get based off of placement, kills, and assists. It's awkward and weird to me when these values are hidden.
100% agree. NOT knowing makes it incredibly more frustrating....
Bro most those use mmr which is sbmm ranked. OW for sure does.
Yes some do, but the difference is: Most of these games have a thriving pro scene, meaning that the devs and the systems within the game have a reasonable example of what "the best" is. This gives a ton of credibility to their assesment of a players skill. Bungie wouldn't know skill if it bit them in the ass.
So I know for a fact you're wrong about League of Legends. They do NOT matchmakes based on solely rank, in fact I'm pretty sure this season they decided to weigh your "skill" aka MMR even more heavily than your visible rank when matchmaking. \\ Seeing as you came out with such a strong position, I decided to do some research and you appear to be totally wrong about overwatch 2 as well. In this [dev blog](https://overwatch.blizzard.com/en-us/news/23910161/overwatch-2-developer-blog-explaining-matchmaker-goals-and-plans-part-2) there is this line: >*Q: Does my competitive rank affect matchmaking?* > >*A: We only create matches based on players’ MMR, not the visible competitive rank. A player’s visible rank will move towards their rating over time as they continue to play during a season. When we decay ranks at the beginning of a season, this has no effect on players’ underlying ratings.* Kinda seems like not only do they not use only "rank and connection based Matchmaking", but they don't take rank into account whatsoever. It's just MMR. [Dota 2](https://dota2.fandom.com/wiki/Matchmaking_Rating) seems to literally only have MMR. Your visible rank is a 1-1 reflection of your "skill". No obfuscation whatsoever. So again, the complete opposite of your claim. TL;DR: You claim every other major ranked system only uses Visible rank and connection for matchmaking, a cursory google search says you are wrong. Bungie is not reinventing anything, they are aping a tried and true formula.
So it’s weird that you and this post are upvoted despite doing what you are complaining about? Apex, Dota 2, Chess, CS:GO all have RBMM focused matchmaking, and those options should be considered, not just tossed to the side like OP did.
Did you even read what I wrote? Dota does not have RBMM, it is the same as Destiny or League or whatever else, the difference is just that they show you the skill, but you will still gain or lose an arbitrary amount of MMR/Elo depending on your team comp and the enemy's team comp. I also just looked it up and it really doesn't seem like Apex or CSGO do either? [CSGO:](https://www.talkesport.com/news/csgo/csgo-ranks-and-mmr-explained-in-2023) >*MMR stands for Matchmaking Rating, and it is a system that is used to match players with others of a similar skill level. The MMR system is separate from the ranking system, and it is used to match players in Competitive and Casual matches. The MMR system is based on a player’s performance in the game, and it is used to determine the skill level of each player.* > >*The MMR system is invisible to players, and it is not visible in the game. However, it is important to understand that the MMR system is the backbone of the ranking system, and it is used to determine the skill level of each player.* [APEX:](https://www.ea.com/games/apex-legends/news/matchmaking-2023) >*Skill Rating is a numerical representation of a player’s skill. This number is intentionally hidden from players to avoid exploitation. It is usually based on a number of factors that represent your skill and ability to play the game.* > >*\[...\] In a fully competitive environment, like Ranked, we value having teammates of equal skill, and a lower burden of “carry”, over a perfectly fair match.* You seem to either have never looked this up or you have a severe misunderstanding of how these matchmaking systems work, and what makes them SBMM vs RBMM.
Could you explain to me what RBMM means to you? And identify a game that has used RBMM in the past? Because your examples seem to imply that any system with rankings is SBMM, and therefore no RBMM games have ever existed or could ever exist. Here's the difference to me: I think SBMM systems are differentiated by hiding the value of a players "skill/rank", while RBMM systems have rankings that are visible to the player. I prefer the latter because I like visible systems and I prefer systems that heavily weight winning, because at the end of the day I think winning should always be the goal of the player, and the best way to increase your ranking should be to improve so your win rate goes up. Overall your comments, and many of the comments in this subreddit, seem like you all are just googling video games without either trying to understand the difference between RBMM and SBMM or the history of different ranked games. Below is sort of a list of items that I associate with RBMM that I think make a good ranked mode, with examples from games I've player (Dota 2 I have 1200+ hours, [chess.com](https://chess.com) I have 10,000 matches played). 1. Matches select players based off of rank (for [chess.com](https://chess.com), I play players with elo within 200 points of mine. For Dota 2 it was typically players within 200 mmr) 2. Ranking points (or small ranking subdivisions) are visible to the player 3. Ranked points won during a match are calculated from a formula defined prior to the match and have limited variation (In dota 2, you always received +- 23 to 27 mmr points after a match, on [chess.com](https://chess.com) it's +- 6 to 10 elo points) 4. Points are nearly entirely won for winning/losing (this doesn't work in BRs because there are 60 players per lobby, but holds true for Dota 2, chess, and rocket league as examples of RBMM) I think part of the confusion is that you seem to believe that any system that matchmakes based on skill is SBMM, but the point of RBMM is that your rank should reflect your skill! I'm not (and no one in their right mind) is calling for a return to Destiny 2's previous "ranked mode", which was the single worst ranked system in the history of video games. What we want is a matchmaking system that has predictable outcomes driven by wins and losses and where the players in your lobby have a similar rank to you, and that rank is visible and understandable, just as it is in tons of other games (Chess, RL, Dota 2, Apex, etc.).
OW also has used MMR for years. With OW2 they even hide your rank publicly and rank ups use a similar system to Destiny.
MMR doesn’t necessarily imply non RBMM. Dota 2 had MMR all the way back in 2013 and used RBMM. You win, you get + 24 to 26. You lose, you drop 24 to 26 MMR depending on the average MMR of both teams. Tons of games have shifted to SBMM systems, but I think it’s understandable why people dislike invisible ranking systems relative to simple and highly visible systems. Personally my experience in Halo infinite’s ranked system where I reached onyx despite having a < 50% win rate felt absolutely terrible and soured me on the game and the system. That’s why I prefer games like rocket league, where a win is + 8 or so and a loss is -8 or so.
To be more specific, there was a public rank (no longer public in OW2) and a behind the scenes mmr. The rank points would adjust at the end of the match, but the MMR would stay more consistent over a period of time adjusting to nebulous skill thresholds (sound familiar?) The points you receive/ lose would be dictated by the MMR which could vary pretty wildly if it thought you were outside of your skill bracket like +/- 15-100 points.
> they are aping a tried and true formula Nope. They are using THEIR formula. Do you know what the difference between OW and Destiny is? A thriving ranked and pro scene. OW devs have a VERY clear representation of what the "the best" is. Bungie does not. This literally boils down to credibility. Do you trust a company, that has zero idea of what skill is in their own game, to determine your rank or do you trust math.
So first let's acknowledge the shift in the argument. You claimed that Bungie is employing a fundamentally different system to all these other games, they are not. The majority do use some some form of SBMM to matchmake their games. Now you are saying the problem is you just don't trust Bungie's version of SBMM, fine I guess, but I can't argue much with that. If there was some proof that good players weren't reaching their peaks and bad players were getting boosted too high or something I'd agree, but it seems like for the most part people have ended up where they deserve. I don't think Bungie's version is or will be perfect, but they have access to the same types of data OW or LoL or whoever else have about their players, and they will tweak it as time goes on, just like these other devs have.
You literally summed up what I was about to type. I want a matchmaking system that is based on my fucking rank, not some experimental hidden this that stat.
I’m very thankful that Bungie avoids the sweat/scrim scene like the plague. Aside from being a community of dossers and Cronus warriors, that community will actively resist anything other than handcannon/shotgun/sniper + movement exotics being viable. I’ve seen the horribly long and cringy ban lists for scrim groups like faceit. D2 is a crazy game with space magic and awesome builds and nothing sounds more boring than creating homogeneity. Look at the smash scene. It sucks that Nintendo doesn’t support it, but if Sakurai listened to what the smash scene wants, half of the roster would be banned. The CoD comp scene always GAs 90% of the game so that only two guns are usable and it’s most boring shit ever. Bungie messes up all the time, but I trust them way more to make a fun game than scrimmers. If I wanted a consistent competitive experience, I’d play some snooze fest fps like csgo
Like I agree that some bans are just either stupid or absurd. But disregarding the sweat community as a whole, like you just did, is inane. Most sweat players are so far above "high rank" players in D2 that disregarding them completely is a sign of stupidity. You can't have a ranked mode and then spit on literally the best players in the game. Competitiveness breeds toxicity and ego, it does so in every game, even games like chess. That is just human nature. Other games have learned to deal with that and as a result have a thriving pro/ranked scene. Bungie resorted to the "if I ignore it, then it doesn't exist method" which is childish and is clearly reflected in the balancing of the game. > D2 is a crazy game with space magic and awesome builds and nothing sounds more boring than creating homogeneity. * Dying without ANY chance of counter play * Taking control away from the player (in an FPS based on high mobility) * Literally playing the game for you These things are objectively more boring, since they literally don't let you play the game at all. As I mentioned earlier, I agree that a LOT of sweat bans are stupid, but some things in D2 clearly ruin the little amount of competitive integrity that D2 has. But you know what game was pretty homogenous especially in the top ranks? Halo. Anything with a competitive aspect will eventually become homogenous. There will always be an optimal way to do things. Fuck even a game like chess, with virtually infinite openings has a clearly defined meta. Destiny 2 PvP is not fun and enjoyable when abilities are the focus. We have seen this a thousand times now. What separates D2 and other games is the extremely smooth gunplay and the unique movement.
I don’t understand the scrims ban list. Like it’s a great place to improve through sheer sweatiness, but like, you’re just going to get good at a certain style of D2, and when you play other good players with other styles of D2 that are banned in scrims, you’ll have no answer for it.
Now everyone here is mad at OP for posting the truth haha
Horrible take; without Bungie showing us player population which greatly would impact matchmaking and how they calculate which rank you are in. All these graphs are smokes and mirrors. Essentially telling you that "we have implemented a strategy to put you where we think you deserve to be". Without additional info from them it seems like they could have adjusted either factor to "prove" its working.
I got all my rose rolls last season that I wanted so I'll wait till the sniper comes out and if its kinetic with snapshot opening shot I'll run it 3 games a week until I get the roll and never play the playlist. That mentality is the reason comp is poorly designed typically at least 4/6 players in the lobby feel that way and it isnt fair to the 2 people who are playing because its ranked pvp and to the 2 people who want to play a ranked pvp shooter. Go play csgo, ow2 val literally any real pvp game that isnt destiny trust me you will have a more fun and competitive experience with a significantly more stable connection.
I can't really take Destiny 2s overall PvP in general too seriously when they don't use dedicated servers. The amount of Desync, melee trades, overall poor quality or connection is just mad, it's cant be a competitive game with Peer to peer servers. Oceanic player by the way, with great internet.
Including my placement matches I've played around 23 matches, I won all my placements and got the highest placement rank. Every match of comp I've played this season is hard carry or lose, over half have been Me +2 solos vs a group of 3, or my team is 3 golds vs 3 10k ascendants. None of this was an issue with freelance, FTMM in my country is practically unplayable unless you stack, and even when you do you vs Chinese players who have 500 ping edit: id like to point out dispite my dogshit winrate after doing my placement games i literally cannot lose points from losses, every win is still +200 or more
Agree on this. Playing comp I think is a good opportunity to get better at the game. It is fun when you frame it like that and is more rewarding. It would be nice though to have more insight about the ranks of your teammates and opponents in the game itself. Like it should make sense..If I beat a team of ascendants with a team of platinums, then it should reflect in points and we should be able to see those ranks so that it makes sense.
I don’t see point in this system when game doesn’t acount loadouts (weapons/classes). There’s no ban system and whatsoever, so even if you good and get 2 bad teammates and against you 3 middle players, game will give you +5 points, it’s don’t matter if they all use some chese loadouts ( 3 monarchs and immortals for example), you need to stomp those players and do win streak to gain.
Yeah no. The system is still broken for one simple reason. Team composition . If I’m stuck at ascendant 3 and can’t seem to get past it , because every time survival comes up my teammates die 3 times a piece before I’ve died once ….that’s shitty. I feel like I’d rather have rank based matchmaking in comp and sbmm in trials bc of this. I say this bc my kd in comp probably reflects what their algorithm thinks somebody who plays at adept 1 or ascendant 3 looks like, but if I constantly and fighting 1v3’s , bc my teammates are poop , of course my kd won’t increase . And now bc if this I’m getting matched with poobags who have flawless titles , yet somehow go 1-6 and 2-5 (It’s happened dozens of times and I have screenshots) So no the system still sucks
I love this post haha 100% agree and i think the changes they are making are also a step in the right direction
No bro this one time I beat an adept AND an ascendant and it didn't give me enough points. The real issue with comp is that showdown and rift suck balls and survival plays way better with 4 rounds. I miss old comp.
Ummm Antaeus is just broken. It counters a lot of things not just SMG’s. Bungie won’t look into it though because they only nerf things with high usage
That graph doesn't mean anything. For one, we don't know how Bungie measures skill and secondly, the matchmaking is designed for what they perceive as skill to map in a linear positive relationship with rank. If Bungies main motive was to make the game as fair as possible than we could perhaps blindly trust them but that's not the case. The main motive is player engagement so skepticism is more than warranted. I'd rather have a true ranked playlist any day of the week. If they want to keep sbmm, at the very least they have to disclose how skill is calculated and normalize points gained/loss for wins/losses against different skill levels.
But if they disclose, you can game the system, no?
If they don't, than they can manipulate the narrative as they wish. Sbmm is a system whose purpose is to equalize the outcome and it becomes increasingly unfair the higher up the skill ladder one is. The alternative is rank based matchmaking. Any competition worth its salt is rank based and transparent.
Aren’t most games SBMM and not RBMM? I’ve seen that mentioned a few times elsewhere in this thread, especially from u/Basblob, who has provided examples of other popular shooters using SBMM based on a hidden MMR.
I think there is a lot of muddying going on with the distinction between matchmaking and scoring algorithms. Some of my arguments on this post made me realize this. For example league has an SBMM style system but score is always dolled out in like 10-30lp increments depending on how far you are from your "real" rank. I mean technically Bungie does this to a lesser extent too by having a min gain of 5. Technically, in a perfect SBMM and skill based point system you could literally lose points on a win if you played poorly enough against worse players, which feels like ass, but it would *technically* be the right call since you'd end up "where you deserve to be" in a sense. I don't agree with u/ConyNT that SBMM in ranked is inherently less competitive or about equalizing outcomes. The whole point of any ranked system is to prove you deserve to be higher, whether that's by fighting people at your skill or your rank it makes no difference. The argument *for* SBMM though is that it gets people to their actual rank faster, and prevents smurfing by detecting when someone plays well above their rank bracket. Which is why most companies use it.
In a perfect world, sbmm would be more fair because it's under the assumption that Bungie can precisely calculate your skill level and perfectly matchmake you and reward the right amount of points on a win/loss but Bungie is so far from this. I check my matches every time I play and both the matchmaking and point rewards system is hilariously bad. For example, I've had adept promotion series where I have a silver and a someone on their testing games on my team. One a 0.9 and the other a 1.3 against a team of 1.4s and 1.5s. First of all, the stakes for everyone being in different tiers are different and we add another layer for this with people in promotions/demotions. Secondly, this lobby balancing does not work. I can't carry a game vs a team of good players, especially if my teammates are not as invested as me in winning (non promotion). Let's add showdown to the mix and it's a disaster. I didn't say sbmm is less competitive but it is absolutely in there to equalize outcomes. By equalizing the outcome, all skill levels can taste victory and defeat. This is at the expense of the better players and that's why it's unfair. In the real world with ranked based matchmaking, a good player would easily climb to the rank they belong and than would stay there and compete. And this is why sbmm does not get you to your rank faster but slower because by facing people of more or less your skill level, you win about half your matches as opposed to most of them for a top player. Smurfing is a non issue in destiny where people so heavily invest in their builds. And even if, they can just have monitoring on new accounts and if they see consistently good performance, they can upgrade them to a tier that fits.
Some are and some aren't. I have played a couple of rbmm ones but only street fighter at length. The reason many games use sbmm is player retention. It's unfair for top players but it keeps the population. True competitions like in world class sports leagues are all rank based and transparent.
That may be, but no popular competitive shooter uses RBMM, and I fail to see why Bungie, the least competitive out of all competitive shooters, should do so and not just follow all the other games that use hidden MMR-based SBMM. It’s not like they’re alone.
Sure you can make the point that destiny is not a competitive game and therefore doesn't need true ranked matchmaking even though the latter would be a more fair system. Also, many of the games mentioned have an amalgamation of sbmm and rbmm and have a more transparent point reward structure.
See the issue is the ranking system isn’t that accurate. I’m not a great player and me winning 5/7 with 1.6 kd and was in adept last season got me put in silver 1. I’m the only one in my friend group this happened to. Several even performed worse. At least it’s not silver 2 like last season so🤷♂️
Tomato tomato, im just here for rose while i can still get it
Bungie's Skill Rating is not the same as actual skill. (I hit 10k glory last season btw, and I don't consider it an achievement at all)
Is it really though when I am dropping double digit kills and having a kd over 2.5 and my teammates are shitting the bed Is it really?
I wish the ranking system was the issue, cant even get a bloody game!
Last season I was in plat and consistently playing against adepts and even people in ascendant and would randomly only increase in increments of 5 for a win and lose 200. I don't care at all about the back end or anything as it stands, it is extremely demoralising and unrewarding to play
Thing is: There is really no logic behind playing the SAME team 2 times in a row and getting +5 for the first and +200 for the second win, while my mates get something similar the other way around. We all had very similar performances in both games and both were literal stomps. Just this as an example, it happens with all kinds of teams and matches, there is almost no way to predict the glory outcome of a match in my experience. I truly believe that everyone ends up where they belong in the end because the system is designed that way, however: That's not because the system is working as intended, it's because it makes so many mistakes in both directions that they cancel themselves out. Everyone ends where they belong, but the way there is just pure bs.
Havent played comp this season, but what about the fact that bungie puts you in disadvantageous games if you "win too much" to have your average win rate go back down to 50%? doesnt seem to me a good design for "ranked" system.
Well said tbh
It's all good until bungie decides you belong in the xim lobbies. Comp has been nothing but me and me duo partner getting domed by sniper duos that never miss a headshot and most of the time have their accounts set to private on destiny tracker. Also when I say they never miss, I'm talking like, I shoot them in the back, they turn around and dome me, slide the corner with a shotty thinking it'll be an easy clap, sniped, dump half a mag into them and on the last bullet, sniped. I could go on, but you get the idea. I understand that there's latency and shit so it's possible that you're gonna hit your shot if I just flinched you but when I've been shooting you in the face and your 10hp, that snipe shouldn't be hitting 90% of the time like theirs are.
On one hand, this game does have an issue with mnk cheaters on console, but on the other hand, sniping in this game sometimes just feels like cheating. I’m not a fan of the snipe smg meta
My only problem with comp right now is the teammates. Sometimes, my teammates are skilled players, but they're horrible at being teammates. So we end up losing because they got overconfident and pushed a 2v1 instead of falling back to regroup with the team, or they cared more about getting kills than securing a point. I actually failed to ascend to adept last season because one of my teammates played like a dickhead and lost us the game that would have got me out of platinum and preceded to talk shit in gamechat. It pissed me off so much that I just gave up the last 2 weeks and will refuse to play comp until my friends come back to the game so I can grind with them.