XDefiant's Approach To Skill-Based Matchmaking - Luke Reacts

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Luke Stephens is a Content-Creator and Streamer that co-streams on KZbin and Twitch. This channel has Live Stream clips and highlights in addition to the streams themselves. Check out Luke's main channel & other content by going to: linktr.ee/lukestephens !!
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#gaming #LukeStephens #ps5 #xbox

[@BraveInstance]

The problem with Cod since 2019 is its like a casino. You're being played from the moment you enter the door. Win a couple of games in a row? The next one will be unwinnable. Lose a couple in a row? The game will take it easy on you and put you up against lesser players. It's refreshing playing a game where this isn't the case. You could win easily or get slammed, it's completely random.

[@YukDuck]

This. It’s not SBMM, it’s EBMM

[@forhyrule8428]

Also if you buy skins in COD your next games will be much easier lmao

[@lukepauls8847]

They played us like a damn fiddle!

[@nickhard7615]

I do recall that the devs mentioned that if you play with a group, the game is going to want to match you with another group so it makes sense to me that the first thing you ran into was a 6 - man sweat squad who were ready to run a train on you like you were playing Domination on Hanoi. I wouldn't ever party up in XDefiant because every time I saw a group of rainbow clan tags in a COD lobby, I already knew what kind of game it was going to be, so I can't imagine always having to put up with that almost every game. That said, I of like this style of matchmaking tho bc it's easy to just quit and find a lobby that's more enjoyable bc I personally do not feel like conditioning the muscle memory to do all of this booty slide canceling and whatnot that you see mfs do. I do not believe that games like this and COD are worth any actual cognitive investment and so that's really on me. But like CS:GO? R6 Siege? Fighting games like Tekken or Street Fighter? Hell yeah, I'm gonna study them maps and recoil patterns like I did my med books bc those are (imo) true competitive games that require actual thought but this shit? Nah, this is what you play after smoking a 2G Stiiizy blunt and wanna play some music in the background so I just leave and find a more chill lobby if I'm not feeling it

[@nickskywalker2300]

Nobody’s talking about it, but one of the biggest reasons for skill base matchmaking being removed is because they went to connection based matchmaking, which means not only are you not gonna get sweaty lobbies every time you play but you’ll also have the best connection possible. I would prioritize connection over everything, nothing like a first person shooter with a high ping.

[@jesusblanco7657]

I feel like you haven’t played Xdefiant, connection and latency is horrendous lol

[@omegaxtrigun]

@@jesusblanco7657I feel like you havent played it. Hit detection has some issues but generally connections are good. I turned on the ping display and I regularly have 30-5ms. It’s very stable.

[@nickskywalker2300]

@@jesusblanco7657 level 45, so wrong. Also it’s not “connection issues” it’s netcode issues. The game still prioritizes close proximity connections. The actual code behind the connections are broken but being worked on.

[@jesusblanco7657]

@@nickskywalker2300 I regularly get 40 ping brother that’s not good lol

[@TheScepticalThinker1]

BS you have lots of sweats in xdefiant.

[@CZProductions]

There's no penalty for leaving matches in XDefiant for this very reason. Back out and find a new lobby. Play ranked if you want a closer to your skill level experience, just like in Apex Legends. The fun of no SBMM is that I can play with my bad friends now and sometimes we stomp and sometimes we get stomped and sometimes it's close. With SBMM none of my friends want to play with me because EVERY match is a stomping for them since they aren't at my level.

[@GameTalkEddie]

People levaing all the matches leads to unbalanced teams, wich contributes to this problem even more. There should absolutely be a penalty for leaving.

[@CZProductions]

@@GameTalkEddie Nah lobby shopping was always a thing in cod games it's fine

[@GameTalkEddie]

@@CZProductions Its fine because cod didnt punish it either? :D Allright mate.

[@BraveInstance]

@@CZProductions Nothing more annoying than loading into Wasteland and hearing a chopper gunner on the class menu. Instant back out.

[@GameTalkEddie]

@@BraveInstance Xdefiant dont have that... :D

[@OG3Maliii]

If you play in a party the game also tries to match you with another party. Which is why when you have a 6 man team you usually run into another 6 man team

[@jcraftgaming76]

soooo many new gen cod players exposing themselves. man i remember when i was like 13 black ops 2 dropped, i was so ASS…but by the end of my time on ps3 i was an amazing sniper and was even able to trickshot. “GG” or “get gud” is real. i’d rather be good FOR REAL than have sbmm protecting me

[@Krazyman5150ninja]

COD has been lying to people for the past 5 years. Alot of people thought they were good.. and they arent

[@Krazyman5150ninja]

SBMM has really spoiled gamers.

[@logan_2183]

It's so funny that the reason I don't play COD anymore is because I got sick of struggling to have an above average game every once in a while. That's what used to make COD great, was the balance of getting your shit kicked in while fighting back, and the games where you were the bully. I was nowhere near an elite COD player but that's why I'm having so much fun with XDefiant - SBMM makes every game feel the same, and I don't have that issue with XDefiant.

[@itsjoans]

Luke describing his rage quit is the funniest thing i've listened today

[@huskiek1693]

The sbmm just gets exhausting for the fringe players. The really good or really bad players cause every time you play your experience is gonna be the same

[@stephengiann1717]

I’m almost always first or second on the scoreboard, I’m a casual tho, does that make me a good player or lucky? I don’t even play fps much anymore

[@crimsonsea9985]

They could also meet in the middle and make it SBMM but make the net of players very wide. For example if in normal SBMM the game tries to find players that are +-10 levels of your level then Xdefiant can just increase that margin to +-100. It's a very wide net but it ensures that a max level end game warrior isn't curb stopping a noob, but it still retains the fun outside of a game that doesn't have SBMM.

[@BT_7274]

Hear me out if ya getting stomped go play ranked

[@KPid10t]

Right, if you want to play against similarly skilled players there you go. If you want an easy game, maybe don’t play competitive online games. Crazy how that’s a contentious opinion.

[@RampidWarthogStudios]

Hear me out. Game isn't going to make it to the end of the year. It's a Ubisoft title

[@tek1645]

​@@RampidWarthogStudiosMeanwhile R6 has been popping off 9 years later

[@RampidWarthogStudios]

@@tek1645 r6 isn't a new ass game 😂

[@rhidiansigler6836]

What

[@jeffreystangojr]

As a bang average player, the problem I’ve had with SBMM in games like COD and Apex is that it never seems to put me in a lobby with people of equivalent skill. I’ll get completely obliterated one game and then dominate the next. It’s almost as if I’m at the top level of the “bad lobbies” but bottom level of the “good lobbies.” I’ve felt that way less with xDefiant and in fact, pretty consistently have a 1.0 K/D. Seems very fair and what it should be for an average player.

[@logan_2183]

I'm exactly in your boat here - and XDefiant is bringing back my love for FPS games.

[@SloanX]

If you play the “welcome playlist” it has SBMM and it’s not ranked.

[@OldCampos]

My friend and I play mainly Predator Hunting Grounds and then we started playing CoD, Warzone was tough, we've won duos like once and then we started playing DMZ which was less stressful. Since we've started playing Helldivers, we have not gone back to CoD and we do still play predator hunting grounds (as fireteam, we don't play as the Predator), and we find it fun, going up a good Pred player unless the other 2 fireteam members are really bad then it also becomes kind of a chore LOL

[@juggernaut6666]

This is how i feel with fighting games. Unless you are a top 5% player, every game feels like rolling a dice. Even in ranked i 2-0 my opponet without getting hit 30% of the time. 50% of the time, i get absolutely destroyed. Then 20% of the time is a good fun even match.

[@DereckLarge]

I remember in Uncharted 3 multiplayer, they had a mechanic where halfway through a match, a special objective would come up for the losing team and if they accomplished that objective, it would put them in the lead. I wish more games would experiment with that idea.

[@mrmasky9783]

Nah m8 UC2 mp> it didn't have those "double damage for the losers" 💀

[@elghost3960]

the thing is sometimes u play against a group of friends that are very skilled OR sweating really hard, but u can always just leave the match and join another one... its just RNG, plus its something u find in every single other team based pvp game not exclusive to Xdefiant or CoD the real problems in Xdefiant are those people who jump like rabbits the entire game, and most importantly that lag or glitch or whatever it is, when u fire an entire mag into someone's face n they phase through them, then kill u like u didn't even fire anything at them, and they be on full health n everything and this is an online pvp game, u cant always expect to win every single game, and maybe FPS pvp games aren't for you I enjoy playing Xdefiant, been playing it daily since launch... and one thing I love about this game u can be on top of the scoreboard by doing most support, assists, objective so it isn't just kills that count which is great! and if u are reading this Luke I love ur work man, keep it up ❣️

[@MrChase-]

I've always liked SBMM in any competitive game and regardless of game mode but I am not opposed to an unranked mode having a slightly larger gap in elo

[@misterqwuan2530]

I don’t get to play with my friends because of sbmm. I play at a much higher rank than my friends in fps games so when they play with me they get pulled into much higher skill lobbies. Without sbmm matchmaking is way more fun for my friends since they’re not in the super sweat fest matches I put up with all the time.

[@omegaxtrigun]

I hate how misused the terms “sweaty” and “tryhard” are now. People just call anyone who’s better than them “sweaty”. The reality is there’s plenty of people who’ve just been playing fps games for years and have so much experience that they play at a high level even when they’re not really trying. I still watch a few cod content creators even though i havent played it in years, and they’ll just mess around with weird gun setups, trying to get executions on the final kill, or mess around trying to put c4 on drones and other stuff just for fun and still do really well just because they’ve played for years and built that much skill. Then they get called tryhard despite the fact that if they were actually trying hard, the other team wouldnt even come close to winning a single round of snd. Ya you’re going to get stomped sometimes. That’s normal. But people are so fragile now that they can’t just take a loss or leave a match. They need the game to coddle them and protect them.

[@elghost3960]

well said

[@METALLIFY16]

Exactly. Hearing Luke complain about getting stomped by “sweaty” players was cringe. Like ya no shit you’re getting stomped, it’s because you don’t actively player multiplayer shooters. They aren’t sweaty, you just aren’t a regular FPS gamer. It’s like playing a fighting game for the first time and calling people sweaty even though they’re probably average at best lol.

[@TheProphegy]

There needs to be a threshold, like if you’re a bottom 25% player you get your own lobbies with bad and new players. Else-wise, the rest of the players match together.

[@unknownuser3000]

Gimme a quake 3 remake id it's times these kids learn what good gaming is

[@115zombies935]

Modern fps gamers wouldn’t last a day in a game like quake 3 haha, the skill floor would destroy them

[@matthewburton6360]

Y’all didn’t just go play the welcome playlist?

[@valentinvas6454]

I very rarely competitive FPS games but sometimes I play CS2 and I am almost always in the middle of the pack. For some reason Xdefiant got me kinda hooked and here I am almost always the worst. Sometimes by quite a large margin. I did a poll on Reddit and 31 out of 47 voters said they are veteran FPS players with a decade or more experience so. What I would like is practice rooms where you can fight bots and ramp up their difficulty after a while like back in the day in CS 1.5/1.6 etc. I guess you can also just keep playing regular matches but it's kinda hard to improve when you are against a bunch of super skilled players who keep deleting you in 0.2 seconds. And I have a 1440p 240hz monitor and I can play at a locked 240 FPS. I can't even imagine being a newbie on console with a 60hz screen.

[@Capper_Bra]

There is nothing stopping you from leaving that game and finding a new one. No sbmm brings a lot of value. Sometimes you have to to try hard and other times you dont have to try hard

[@Capper_Bra]

Also i play with a guy who some times go 5-30 in the 4v4 mode but he really enjoys playing it. The guy ALWAYS goes multi negative but enjoys the game

[@ShadowFlame420]

i dont really play these kinds of games, but i have a question: if playing against other humans is so unfun, why cant they just have NPCs with AI that learns how to play like a human, but then the players can adjust the difficulty to their desires?

[@cray986]

Yeah I am not nearly good enough to play xdefiant on unranked (i haven't tried ranked yet). I have a .4 K/D after like 30-40 games and am not sure I want to continue at this rate. All my friends are playing it right now and I am consistently holding the team back which feels real bad.

[@mr.t107]

You should only play games if you are having fun with it. If it's no fun then don't play, simple as that

[@CZProductions]

CoD would be a much worse experience for you then because if you play with friends it exclusively scales to the highest skilled player. Have a few guys like you that I play with and I can actually play with them on XDefiant whereas in CoD they won't get a single kill in any of my lobbies sadly

[@Nico78Not]

Why do you keep buying and playing these games if you know you are never going to have a good time with them? "Oh no the bees are stinging me!" Then maybe don't stick your head into the beehive?

[@aaronplays_]

Only play a game if you really want to play it, no matter what genre it is. It's the same in any game as Dark Souls -- if you enjoy it, you'll want to come back to it no matter what. I know I don't enjoy RPGs, so I didn't get The Witcher 3 GotY edition when I had the chance to get it for free. CoD never appealed to me because it only rewards getting kills and thus you get something like a UAV to get even more kills. Whereas in something like Halo, it's all about YOUR SKILLS with the weapons and equipments in the game. Each and every weapon and equipment in the game can serve as a counter for some other equipment or weapon, it's a shame that most people and Halo devs themselves have forgotten that. XDefiant abilities make it feel similar to Halo's sandbox -- you don't have to be better with the guns or the abilities, you have to be better with a combination of those, find out what suits your rhythm. If you're truly interested, then I suggest you actually read up on what the factions and abilities are capable of, it's mentioned in the game itself. You can also always watch some guides online.

[@19billy]

Why not make an unblalanced mode outside of pubs if they lose people either way. You got ranked for heavy sbmm, unbalanced for a free for all and pubs for slight sbmm to keep engagement. Also if you worry about big partys of sweats just limit party size in pubs so they play either unbalanced or ranked

[@ARAFELI]

I don't know. I can understand the hate and love of SBMM. But you started the game had 1 match and closed it.

[@DemonicLemur]

1 game is all it takes for some people to decide a game isnt fun.

[@rMjojo]

The thing is that unlike many other multiplayer games, Cod's (and now xdefient's as well) main focus is getting kills. It is not winning the game, it is not playing as a team, it is not moving the ojective somewhere else; it is just getting kills That's why many people don't want sbmm, because without it they can get 30+ kills, without it they can they the dopamine rush they desire. This people are like adicts, that's why they hate on Cod so much but still keep playing it, that's why they don't change to another game because no other game let's them have as many kills as cod lol

[@akaneki7234]

So much of the conversation around SBMM misses the point whether for or against it. The reality is that most people at most skill levels simply don’t realise they’re playing bad games with unfun mechanics. Most people say that the opponent is a sweaty tryhard instead of realising that while it’s fun to use certain game mechanics, those same mechanics aren’t fun to fight against. If playing against people of similar skill levels all the time is a stressful experience, then odds are it’s less of an SBMM problem and more of a game design problem.

[@GameQuestUK]

That's the thing with having 0 sbmm it's truly random, so you can still end up against sweaty, try hards. The old cod games had SOME sbmm but not as high as nowadays. I think sbmm has a small place, but not high levels of sbmm, high levels of it ruin the experience.

[@Mega24fun]

yah I notice when your in a full party 4+ then you get put against other full parties and those parties love to tryhard a ton.

[@jakob6below]

see i’m fine with sbmm but to an extent. i don’t want it to be super sweaty but i don’t wanna stomp all match. like it shouldn’t force everyone to be at a 1kd

[@p4p3rb4pu55y]

MurdaShow (COD streamer) said it best…. Playing Xdefiant is like taking your kids to Chuck E. Cheese on a Saturday….😂 It is the most ADHD experience I’ve had in the past 5 years…. Not because the game is bad…I’ve been playing since the beta…. But it’s mind numbing….. When people talk about going back to the “good ol days” in the FPS space…. I think the consensus is we want a 2024 shooter with a 2012 FEEL… NOT a 2012 shooter in 2024…. That’s pretty much what XD is….. For me…it’s like…If that’s your thing…cool… But I think people are always going to choose the better product…. And I personally don’t think XD has the chops to get us to the promised land…so to speak

[@squirrelthegamer8483]

Having no SBM works best with Battle Royals. Quick shooters in tight spaces? No. Because each person holds more power and makes it far more imbalanced than a big open free for all.

[@bradykathol8806]

My problem is people saying they just want to win and pub stomp is the reason they don’t want sbmm, is like yeah why the fuck would I not want to absolutely stomp and win? It really is a case of learn the game and just get better at it

[@DemonicLemur]

I dont have the time to dedicate into one game in order to match the skill level of these players. Its very simple to get good at a game when you have all the time in the world

[@Shinjo_Ms]

It's one of the worst things about these games. I used to really enjoy Apex Legends, but even in ranked you started bumping into tryhard dudes that would maul the whole map continuously. And you can't even become better, the skill gap grows bigger and bigger and it just doesn't make any sense to login just to constantly die.

[@MechaMan2012]

I'd like to improve, sure, but my primary goal playing these games is to have fun, not climb a leader board and "be the best". The argument of "if you don't get curb stomped, you'll never learn" doesn't hold too much weight for me because I'm not looking to compete or enter tournaments. I can handle getting trounced from time to time, but I have no intention of slogging through hundreds of losses for some misguided concept of always getting better and being a top 1% of the playerbase.

[@jothuynh260]

im on a 80% win/loss with a 3KD theres a hidden MMR and a SBMM

[@JoaoPedro-hq7bs]

SBMM only benefits terrible players, because even if you are not a sweat, you'll be hopping between shit-tier lobbies where you don't even feel good for doing well and ultra sweaty lobbies that make the game a chore to play. If SBMM worked well, maybe it could be a good thing, but currently it just makes you go up and down the chain on a loop. The biggest problem with COD though, is that the game as a whole is an unfun crap, you need a phd just to understand the attachment systems and their 50 suppressors that all look and do the same.

[@GameTalkEddie]

Its not only sweats that dislike SBMM. If youre not a "bad" player, you also dont want to play against sweats or even always against the same skill level people epsecially in unbalanced games. You need to play the meta, in a casual game, just because you have some movement and aim... even if you dont sweat. I think one of the problems is, with Xdefiant that a lot of casual players are either not even playing it, because they dont know it exists, and keep playing COD, or are just in the beginner bracket, so most people that are above lvl 25 right now are the sewats, and people that were exited for the game. I think they should just focus on balancing teams better for this reason. If you have one or two sewats per team, evening themselves out, all other players can have more fun too, AND get better.

[@shinichiizumi2242]

i hate how i pretty much have to play with pc players to find a match

[@SharpShot501st]

It sounds like the complaint is that SBMM is too far a part in XDefiant. I've been in the top ranks of R6 Siege, Overwatch 1, and Apex Legends, I can tell you, I'm fucking exhausted from SBMM. I've run into the problem where the games give me low rated MMR teammates and the expectation is that I'm supposed to carry them against a team that is similarly skilled. When you're so high ranked, even in quick matches/pubs, the game drastically makes it difficult for me to even have close to a good game, because I have to put 10x more effort than my teammates do to even get close to winning. The problem with SBMM is that sometimes it's too restrictive. Other times it's not restrictive enough. Either way, I'd just like to have matches that are generally fun, and not me putting 10x the numbers of my teammates in any given game, and I don't want to exclusively play ranked. Some times I just wanna sit down and try to enjoy some quick matches since I work a lot. A bit of rant, but hearing the 'woe as me,' complaints is frustrating on both ends.

[@KPid10t]

It’s about the perception. As you say a lot, perception is reality. If sweaty players are always in sweaty games, they don’t have as much fun. Without SBMM, they can get still get sweaty games where they lose but also get “easier” lobbies to breathe and have more fun. Sweaty players took a lot of time to get to the skill level they are, aka commitment, why is it that the most committed players have to be punished the most. Bc that’s what SBMM does. Give players THE OPTION to choose SBMM or no-SBMM. If you are lower skilled and are consistently having problems with open lobbies, try ranked. If that’s still a problem, then I’m sorry, but you have to get better if you truly want to play the game that bad. The entire, core game shouldn’t be based around the lowest skilled players and their enjoyment. It still matters, of course, but there is a compromise that can be made to give everyone a shot at having a good time consistently. That’s how I look at it anyway, as someone who would probably be labeled as “sweaty” and who also at one time was terrible at fps games lol

[@TwoHandedChargedBonk]

I find it hilarious that a Ubislop dev actually found the balls to say "skill issue" in public. Even if he's out of touch, he's kind of based.

[@ferrivero6958]

trieit againg but solo, if you log in with your teammates it would be unfair if all of you fight against a team full of randoms

[@Zero-Sun]

Sooo....My question would be; why not just play ranked then? If that system works well you would not be curb stomped, but play against players of your own level....That's what it traditionally is for. SBMM in unranked just never made sense to me. It should be a mode that freely mixes all players.

[@wisewriting]

So much of this subject at the moment... I'm a regular COD player, I do alright in xdefiant not great but ok.. my younger daughter plays cod but isn't great at it...but in xdefiant she owns the game... make of that what you will ... but I'm seeing so many people blame sweats, cheats, netcode.. etc etc.. maybe we can't all be good at everything

[@TheSparkynuts]

The game is just as sweaty as cod, for majority of average players no SBMM feels exactly the same. Idk what the solution is other than to nerf movement so these people can't jump around 24/7 like a bunch of bunny rabbits

[@julio1148]

It looks so dumb from all POVs too

[@PetrifyingGaze931]

I'm all for a movement nerf. Maybe I'm old but I hate that kind of sweaty gameplay

[@leoanderson3035]

Yeah man, definitely feels the same to me

[@1_underthesun]

Battlefield 2 and 3 had that all figured out. Most servers had specific rules against bunny hopping, dolphin diving, etc. You're caught doing it, you're booted. Granted, Battlefield always kind of prided itself on being more realistic (or it used to anyway), so cheesing with those moves broke the immersion. But yeah, they simply banned those things on many servers so people didn't have to deal with them.

[@SpottedHares]

They originally system had several penalties on aiming and spreed for jumping, but it was removed for the second between and preseason. The developers did say they’re brining it back for the next update in some capacity.

[@Winterfellen]

Sorry Luke but this is a cold take imo. I don’t really care if you’re having a good time or not. If you’re looking for a good time go play a single player co-op game. Not a competitive online shooter. Making others lose is literally the point. And I completely disagree with you on “curb stomping noobs” I’ve played much more Xdefiant than you and can say no SBMM makes the matches really varied. Pretty normal to get stomped when you go from fighting 1-25 lvl players to 25+. After you adjust it is very random. I can win a few games in a row then get destroyed. I can see genuine progress in my play after playing somebody much better. Players who are constantly getting destroyed with no improvement ever are people who SBMM was protecting to milk money out of them. It’s not my responsibility in a competitive game to be less competitive. However it is your responsibility to pick the correct genre of game for your own enjoyment.

[@iNDyfan3]

I don't understand why this is even a discussion. They have 2 modes: one has SBMM, one doesn't. Best of both worlds. What's the big deal

[@DemonicLemur]

Because you generally dont want to play a ranked mode casually. If you are playing with friends trying to have a good time ranked is generally not where you going to go. The solution shouldnt force casual players into ranked just to have a good time

[@iNDyfan3]

@@DemonicLemur yeah I agree. That's why I said there are 2 modes. Best of both worlds

[@DemonicLemur]

@@iNDyfan3 no there should be an unranked mode with some sbmm

[@Brubrukk]

The problem is ranked is 4v4 while unranked is 6v6. They should both be 6v6. Why would anyone play against less players when they want to get killing sprees.

[@winb_]

"Democracy is for the people, by the people... but the people... are retarted", my favourite quote. This is literally the perfect example of giving your kid what they want knowing it's not really what they want just so they can learn for themselves (except gamers don't learn). It's a game, you will win some and lose some SBMM or not, get over it or go play single player games. Also can we stop calling anyone that beats you at a game a "try-hard" and whatnot, I only have 0 to 1:30h of time per day to play games but I pick things up fairly quickly sometimes, I'd find it super frustrating if I heard someone call me a try hard just because I beat them, meanwhile I'm here playing without the game's sound because I'm just watching KZbin videos on the side😂

[@ObamaBenAladdin]

thats just 1 bad game u had. I had that experience too but kept playing. If ur that inpatient, u wont even play the game long enough to buy cosmetics anyway

[@julio1148]

3:25 thats what i’ve been saying from the beginning lol People say “oh I just want to chill”, well, if YOU are chilling, then the OTHER team is getting stomped. And if you’re getting stomped, the the other team is chilling. Simple as that.

[@AlwayzFresh]

Nah, two teams can be chillin with no bunny hopping and everyone would be happy. Chillin is not stomping, its just not playing like an adhd crackhead.

[@julio1148]

@@AlwayzFresh arent even matches (according to comments I’ve seen) the definition of sweaty? At the end of the day I think its people taking multiplayer casual matches way too seriously and make loosing and winning way too big a deal, at the end of the day a game is as fun as you make it

[@xbBennySL]

1. the game have skill based team balancing 2. the second you're doing too good bullets miss footsteps sound disappeared 3. the can call the algorithms they use whatever name they want nothing here is organic or fair like cod or any other online fps game

[@user-sk4cx7me4b]

Just get good

[@lordfarquad7750]

Stop sweating over a game 😂

[@Nico78Not]

@@lordfarquad7750 Stop buying/playing competitive games under the pretense that they're not

[@dukeofnylon]

@@Nico78Not most of the people that buy game are the casuals, no casuals games dies. Saying that just dooms a game to failure.

[@TheProphegy]

I dislike SBMM but there’s a reason the most casual-friendly games are the biggest on the market, and that’s what publishers want($$$). Casuals make up 80% of a community.

[@TheProphegy]

If you run off the casuals you diminish your player base(as the publisher/dev), so SBMM is the safety net that protects the casuals, well tries to.

[@austinbutler2672]

I don’t think SBMM is the problem. Crossplay is the thing that’s ruining the gaming experience. Just hear me out I play on Xbox caped at 60 fps with a flat screen tv that only supports 60 Hz. Now compared to a computer that can run like 200 fps and a monitor with 120 -240 Hz it’s just not a fair playing field. (That’s just my opinion)

[@BraveInstance]

Kind of sounds like the game isn't for you if your first response to one bad game is to give up. It's not an easy game to master, you need to put the time in. I've never played Overwatch, but I wouldn't expect to jump on it and immediately start doing well. There's a learning curve.

[@Random_dud31]

But the opposite is true as well. What if that is your type of game, but your experience got soured because you getting destroyed before you get better.

[@BraveInstance]

@@Random_dud31 My response isn't to immediately give up on something when I don't see the results I want. I didn't realise so many people werre that weak-willed.

[@Meowtro]

@@Random_dud31 only way to get better is by playing against people that are better than you. COD remains stale because you never have to adapt your playstyle.

[@Nico78Not]

@@Random_dud31 Get good. That's the only thing you can do.

[@dukeofnylon]

@@BraveInstance The reality is most people will just leave and play something else, very few will stick around and "get gud"

[@all3skl4r]

Thank fuck, as someone who had to suffer the new MW2 lobbies this is amazing. As you said I am also not that great, barely pushing positive KD, SBMM just doesn't work, it just doesn't. You still get crazy sweaty lobbies and the worst part its not random how it used to be, but now its predetermined if you are gonna have fun or if you are gonna lose. This literally made me go knife only and 0/60 for 2 games just to get a normal lobby, you decide if this is better than ping based matchmaking. Also don't even get me started on 200 ping lobbies. COD doesn't even use SBMM, they use EOMM, which is just a more player psyche abusing system based on the SBMM model that its end goal is for you to stare at the shop tab for as long as possible. This system was patented by EA and Activision and it fucking sucks. Throughout my 15 years of playing COD and other shooters I have never sweat this much in a casual lobby, its just bad and not fun at all. After like 3 games you just don't wanna play anymore. I know you think it works but it does not, I am not having fun on 200 ping just because there are sweats that need a bad player like me in the other team to keep the engagement metrics high, same goes for game hooking myself up against literal chimpanzees that barely know how to play the game. Not fun. If something is SKILL BASED, that is what we called RANKED back in the days. Play ranked for a few games so you can get a low rank and play with other troglodytes. I have completely fallen out of COD and will never come back, xDefiant is truly a breath of fresh air.

[@Anarchyttg]

I really don't know much about SBMM, but I can definitely agree with your COD take. I get top of the leaderboard often in normal play, but even I'm not having fun like I used to. I have to get sweaty as hell and it just isn't fun. I feel like every match is a chore full of meta-gamers that force me to play in a specific way, in both my gameplay and my loadout. It's one of the reasons why I've more or less dropped the series and only play with my friends about once a month.

[@1_underthesun]

Why does it have to be either/or? For unranked, why not have 3 pools of players. Those who rank in the lower 1/3, those in the middle 1/3, and those in the top 1/3, and you're matched with players in those large bubbles. Those 3 tiers will still have a ton of disparity in them unlike normal SBMM that groups people who have nearly identical skill levels and thus K/D's. Someone who's in the 30th percentile will still have a fairly easy time if there happens to be a bunch of 5-10%ers in a given match. Same with 60%'s going up against 40%'s in the middle tier. If that's still too specific, then even 2 pools of players (bottom 50 and top 50).

[@iconicik4120]

My opinion on SBMM to be honest is that it is a needed thing. While cod i feel has poorly implemented it since the days of Advanced Warfare. Most do not know this but Cod's community is the reason why SBMM is the way it is. People used modded accounts frozen stats of a 0.01kd dropping 5 nukes a game. Free content. They have a blog post talking matchmaking and reverse boosting. This was tweaked and changed as time went. Mw19 is when they applied it to a players recents which is when everyone began to notice how bad it really was. My opinion is that Cod ruined what was fun 10 years ago. If a lobby is sweaty back out find a new lobby thats the most refreshing part of no SBMM. with Cod currently if you backed out of a lobby you would be forced that same lobby because you have a smaller player pool. People forget what made gaming fun and XDefiant is doing everything right even though they have some other issues which is desync and hit reg being the main two id say

[@Simsationxl]

You mean try hards dont always want to try hard no way. What did people think was gonna happen? Humans pick the least path of resistance, always.

[@ssensei34]

Wouldn’t new players benefit from ranked more? That way people who are also new are in their lobbies. In tekken, playing quick match or in the lounge you can play against literally any player or all ranks which would be horrible for a low rank player. But in ranked, you will only be matched with beginners

[@qmmiller99]

When i first started playing cod i got shit on because i was bad at the game if there was sbmm i never would've gotten better at fps games. Love ya Luke but sbmm ruins games.

[@azide6172]

MW2 had ways to deal with hard sweats. So people developed styles to deal with it. Camping, noob tubes, launchers, explosion spam, tactical insertions etc. It was poor game balance but it was fun and it worked.

[@theemmanuelshow2858]

Nice hair

[@cubbian]

After one game? Really?

[@loganschott4437]

What I like about the lack of sbmm is I can just leave a game and find one less sweaty and the sbmm won’t try to catch up with me like in cod.

[@Twenty1st]

you are so horribly wrong about this topic it isn’t even funny

[@DD-zh4by]

Sbmm is the worst thing to happen to video games since loot boxes. Where is it written you should never play against a person who's better than you? Insane entitled mindset.

[@DemonicLemur]

I play games for fun at the end of the day. There is no written rule; however, I dont want to get stomped everygame because others have played the game for significantly longer. If I am not having fun I am just going to put the game down. A game not being new player friendly is how a game dies really quickly.

[@TheProphegy]

To me public matches(non ranked) is like pickup basketball at your local court. Anyone can pull up and play and show their skills. If a D1 potential player pulls up to dunk on you, oh well.

[@omegaxtrigun]

You really quit the game after one bad match? Really? jfc man I could understand having a bad streak and quitting, but ONE match? This is why this heavy handed level of modern sbmm is awful. People are now conditioned to just give up so quickly.

[@ChiefVince117]

If u gotta sweat for 15 kills in cod then u dont need to play pvp or play fortnite

[@cxngo8124]

If your 6 stacking you will verse other 6 stacks. I would rather play this than sbmm. Sbmm is why I quit multi-player games.

[@stevendunnuck]

Can't just play one game and base it off that.

[@ianchinsor9248]

I don't play COD a lot anymore but last time I did, SBMM worked well for my level. Most games were a close match between the teams, very few matches where one team was kurb stomping the other. So yeah, it works for the average player which is still the majority. The more average players stay to keep playing, the more stupid shit they buy in the store, so it's staying in COD. They look at the numbers and know what they are doing.

[@JanusDarke]

They should have a system that tracks the unranked K:D Ratio & have a threshold where once you cross it you get locked out of unranked until it drops below a certain threshold in Ranked (or a timer alternative).

[@omegaxtrigun]

That’s an awful idea lol.

[@ChiefVince117]

If u rage quit instead of getting vetter u need to go play animal crossing or somethin.

[@619Callaway]

So you loose one game .. and quit ? Nice.

[@x_Flick]

Unfortunately sbmm created the reliance of sbmm, i for one love having games where i get absolutely smashed and it forces me to try harder but i dont want to do that every single game.

[@ryanbentley8475]

It's difficult for me to play games like this anymore & I've tried.I tried Xdefiant won 3 games out of 4 on the robot attack & defend objective got a good amount of kills so i did pretty well but even after doing well the cod itch was scratched & had to quit after starting game 5 because i was incredibly bored.I don't know how people do it for hours at a time at least without friends to talk to.

[@METALLIFY16]

SBMM is cancer and needs to be left to ranked. The old way of connection based matchmaking is the way to go because it’s fair. Everyone you run into in non SBMM lobbies is picked at random. You can have really great players and shit players and that’s just how it should be. If you’re getting stomped, oh well, next game YOU could be the one stomping. In games with SBMM you’ll have like 2 good games and then hit a wall where you will NEVER get more than a 1k/d ratio. That’s it, you’ve hit your cap for the day of fun and now you MUST sweat every game forward. At least non SBMM games you have a chance to have fun because it’s all random.

[@aaronplays_]

This wasn't a well-informed opinion that I usually expect from you. You won't quite understand how SBMM/EOMM can affect a player who plays their favourite game everyday. SBMM itself isn't the problem, it's the intensity of the system that's causing the issue. EOMM is a whole different topic. Sample size of 1 match is a terrible metric to form your opinion on. Have you considered that the "better" or the "sweaty" people might be over 30 who used to play OG FPS games? Have you considered that players might be intentionally given good matches to make them feel good and spend more money? It's a tactic that is blatantly used in mobile games, where people who buy microtransactions are intentionally paired against newcomers to make them buy more (you should look into it, could be a great video). The best way I can explain why intense SBMM is bad is because the system wants you to plateau as fast as possible. Meaning that instead of having matches of varying intensity, it wants to put you in a bracket where you have to always play at YOUR maximum possible intensity. Imagine you're a racing driver, you know every technique and strategy to go as fast as possible on the track. But you know you can't do that the entire race, but modern SBMM wants you to use everything you know about driving fast, ALL THE TIME. If you're capable to finding spawn traps and set up the opponents to fail to advance, modern SBMM wants you to do that every game. I played a lot of Halo Infinite and I usually do better than average in that game. But as I started getting better, the SBMM started putting me in lobbies against players who're using every strategy they know, or with teammates who're incapable of getting >1 K/D ratio, or both simultaneously. It wants me to pull the weight of my teammates' poor performance, so that the overall performance of my team is as close to what the system expects it to be. It doesn't allow you to get better by gaining experience from repetition, it wants to keep you locked in the same level until you find the most optimal method of outplaying. And if you start easing off, or there's a new optimal method, you'll be pushed back down. Aside from this, the intense modern SBMM brings the issue of getting lobbies with high latency after a long time of searching. I can't get a single PvP lobby in Halo Infinite that's under 100ms, it's always >200ms lobbies after >10mins of searching. Popular KZbinr Mint Blitz gets multiple teammates who score 0 kills in a Big Team Battle game, where there's more than 10 players per team. As a result, I just quit playing PvP since they put in Firefight in Infinite.

[@Raven.Bloodrot]

If you're getting stomped, leave the match and join another.

[@dukeofnylon]

most casuals wont bother with that they will just leave the game.

[@omegaxtrigun]

@@dukeofnylonMost modern fps casuals that have been coddled by sbmm and eomm would probably do that. But anyone who’s a casual from the older cods wouldnt.

[@AdjustSZN]

@@dukeofnylonMost casuals are average skilled as skill is a bell curve. The “lesser skilled” players you are referring to a big minority of the overall population in terms of skill. Not to mention, gamers nowadays are much more technical when it comes to shooters in general. The game will be fine.

[@Meowtro]

No SBMM provides more variety. I don't care what CODs player retention metrics say, it's not fun.

[@FordHoard]

"Player retention" is bullshit. Me and all my friends quit playing, and I know a lot of other people have too because of SBMM. It's just not fun.

[@ShadowFlame420]

if you don’t like skill based matchmaking, just play a single-player game

[@Siyintax]

I believe in no skill based matchmaking in a casual lobby with one exception which is outlier protection a max rank player and a bottom ranked player should never meet otherwise free for all

[@USECXJ13]

This sounds like one big ass SKILL ISSUE

[@Nico78Not]

"I don't like losing against people who are better than me" Maybe don't buy/play competitive games under the pretense that they are not competitive games? Any competition is like that : for one side to have a good time/win, the other has to suffer through a bad time/lose. It's common sense. If you can't handle the heat, get out of the kitchen.

[@DemonicLemur]

Thats exactly what he did. He stopped playing the game.

[@SpottedHares]

Moving past the bad faith arguments about casual and the kid hiding in their cardboard forts with no girls or casuals allowed written on the outside. The game dose use a performance based system to calculate skill, and any one with a bare minimum basic understand of ranking systems (so not people like Luke) know that is a terrible way of designing a ranking system. So even though it doesn’t have a “SBMM”, because they have not been measuring skill for over a decade so it’s a lie to call it that, it still has all the problems with these systems just in a per match basis rather then a game wide basis. It’s better than the current dogma of matchmaking, but it is still vastly inferior to the old SBMM system from a decade + ago. So expect the whole team balancing to be awful every match as wither or not the players on your team can actually play the mode and win will not be reflected in their skill rank. The discussion is fundamentally flawed as the quality of these systems have so vastly deteriorated in the last decade that it’s really more about who has the least intolerable systems. As of right now that winner is Xdefiant

[@leoanderson3035]

Sbmm is good. Eomm is bad. Movement exploits, cheaters, and sweats ruined fps experience completely for me. It’s also weird to me how xdefiant every game I get paired with really crappy players while opposition is pro level. Like wtf? That’s the whole reason I quit cod. Game pairs you with noobs or people who don’t play objectives. Don’t get me started on spawn killing

[@Im_helpless]

That’s sbmm 😂 the fact your team is made worse to balance out the teams, it’s the same reason I don’t enjoy cod why do I have to do everything or we lose

[@CZProductions]

There's team balancing after it has matched you with the initial people. You must be quite good if you're given awful players to balance you out

[@504Trey]

Get Gud

[@elghost3960]

I lost countless times because my teammates refused to play objective and only getting kills, the funniest part Im always the one on top of our scoreboard because I was the one with the highest objective score lol I also got 3 times in a row best player/ highest score in the entire game, even tho I was in the loser team lol Xdefiant is a fair game! dont hate the game, hate the players

[@alexramirez4110]

Get better at the game lol if you're getting stomped go play ranked to play like skilled players or keep playing public lobbies and get better its not that tough, why is this still being discussed, sweaty players are annoying but no sbmm means the lobbies wont always be sweaty players like cod

[@zephr147]

I agree with much of what you're saying about the SBMM (Skill-Based Matchmaking) debate in multiplayer shooters. The core issue is inherent to the nature of these games: if one player kills a lot, someone else must die a lot. Another point is that so-called "sweats" (highly skilled players) often aren't even trying their hardest. To less skilled players, it might feel like they're putting in maximum effort, but for experienced players, playing well becomes second nature. As an Immortal-ranked player in Valorant, I understand this dynamic. In Valorant, I genuinely have to give my best effort. However, in games like Battlefield and XDefiant, I can relax and still perform at the top of the scoreboard. The fundamentals of shooting are so ingrained in me that I don't need to focus intensely to do well. Often, I have the most kills and the fewest deaths, outplaying others who may have ten times my playtime. My main argument against SBMM is that for it to be justified, the game needs to be inherently competitive. Call of Duty, for example, doesn't meet this criterion. The necessity to unlock guns and attachments undermines its competitiveness. Furthermore, elements like map design and gunplay also detract from its competitive nature. Additionally, playing with friends becomes problematic under SBMM. It either prevents you from playing together at all or ensures that the matches are unbalanced, defeating the purpose of SBMM. In contrast, unlocking items in XDefiant feels more rewarding and fair. I don't constantly feel outmatched by opponents' weapons, which makes the game more enjoyable.

[@TimKamiG]

So because some people are actually good at the game that means they are "sweats"? What are they supposed to do, play intentionally worse? I am sure some people still get stomped even if the "sweats" were not even trying. Maybe the game just ins'nt for those people, just like I don't play fighting games because i suck at them.

[@iaqh]

This is fun, I don't care if I'm not that good, sometimes I get good teammates and we win, sometimes the other team has all the great players, but it is what it is, I'm enjoying this game more than cod.

[@CZProductions]

For real I am just good at FPS and even when I'm leveling a sniper rifle or something I'm still usually doing decent. Still get called a sweat even though I'm blaring music and just chilling talking with chat like what? 😂

[@omegaxtrigun]

This is what some people dont understand. Someone doing well doesnt mean theyre tryharding. Some people are just so experienced that they play really well even if theyre not trying. Its like you said. What are they supposed to do? Intentionally try to play worse?

[@dustinjones7700]

So why not just play ranked then?

[@DemonicLemur]

Because they just want to play for fun.