King_Rendal
King_Rendal
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The nerf reduced CoH self-care speed from 16 seconds to 18.23 seconds. This is completely inconsequential. CoH self-care should be around 24 seconds to balance it. That's about a 33.33% heal speed increase.
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Remove the bonus progression though.
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I'd like a better system but if it's a choice between a deeply flawed system and no system I'll take all the flaws.
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I think MMR was much better than the old rank system for about the first month of its implementation. However, I think some serious flaws with the numbers or some matchmaking logic have clogged it up and now it's basically the same as old rank- just completely random.
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Pre-MMR it ranged from 30% to 95% depending on killer, add-ons and perks. Now it's very inconsistent because MMR decides not to work often but generally average around 50% now when MMR is working.
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Nope. Didn't get any despite having a lot of time on Bubba.
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Things like unhealthy or unfun are very subjective so it's going to depend on each individual. I personally dislike NOED because it generally is just a 'free kill' perk. Regardless of how well, or how badly you happen to be doing NOED just adds an extra kill on top. There is no real counter-play except under specific conditions. If you're solo/duo it's unlikely you'll be able to co-ordinate how many totems have actually been cleansed at all and even if you're a 4 man if you're going to cleanse all totems every match you're giving the killer huge amounts of free slowdown that could cost you many games. Sure if it's a Trapper and your team is good you can spare the time to cleanse all totems but what if it's a good Blight, Spirit, Artist or Nurse? You don't have time to go cleanse all totems or you'll probably lose especially if it ends up being a waste because the killer didn't even have NOED in the first place.
As for how strong NOED actually is it depends on a few things. If we're talking average kills per game NOED is one of the best perks period. It will almost always guarantee an extra kill in close or losing matches. So purely from kill-rate it's an insanely powerful perk. In terms of ability to 3K+hatch/4K in a match it's generally not great unless used by Nurse or Spirit. So depending on your goal an the killer you're playing it can be S+ tier of like B tier.
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@zarr said:
https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/2770323#Comment_2770323
Guess I'll butt in and be the one to tell you "no" again. I believe you are wrong on pretty much every point here. Let's see:
Regardless, DBD is a 1v4, so it is a simple obvious necessity that the basis for determining who wins and who loses must be based on the format of 1v4. This complete basic assumption is what's missing from DBD's implementation.
You are not taking into account that the win condition MMR is based on looks at many matches, rather than any 1 match. As OP has pointed out repeatedly, it is difficult for us to understand this, we want to look at any 1 match and have it be absolutely balanced according to the win condition, and can't imagine that a survivor getting a "win" if they escape despite their "team" "losing" or another survivor getting a "loss" if they die despite their "team" "winning" could be sensible... but the math works over many matches and instates an appropriate matchmaking system that does continually nudge toward achieving the desired balanced win condition.
In a 1V4, what is a balanced outcome based on the kill/survive win condition? 2 survivors dying, 2 surviving; 50% kills, 50% escapes. Now, if you have a system that looks at the individual survivors' survival rates, what would that rate have to be in order for a balanced state to be achieved according to the win condition? 50%. This is precisely the survival rate that the system tries to achieve on a per-survivor basis, on average, over many matches. Let's take a series of 100 matches where all survivor players and the killer player are equally rated. What you think must be the case in this series of matches, is that every single match has 2 kills and 2 escapes happen, because that is the balanced state according to the win condition that the system applies ratings based on. What is actually the case however is that if you look at any 1 match in this series, there can be anything from 0 to 4 kills/escapes... important is only that if you take the results of all of these matches together, they will come out roughly to 50% escapes and 50% kills. This can happen if all matches are 2 kills and 2 escapes, but it can also happen if 50 matches are 4 kills and 50 are 4 escapes, or yet if 50 matches are 3 kills/1 escape and 50 3 escapes/1 kill. Or indeed with any of the many combinations of these results that add up to 200 kills/200 escapes.
Matchmaking systems work - and have to work - over many many iterations, and they cannot achieve an actual balanced outcome in any 1 match, ever. No system can actually foretell the future. They can only make predictions, good estimations, and if its mathematically calculated player ratings estimate a 50% survival rate for matches where players are similarly-rated, and you actually get around 50% survival rates over many matches in those scenarios, then it is making good estimations, and achieving on average balanced matches according to the win condition. You are wrong in your completely basic assumption that the system has to make equal matches result in 2 kills/2 escapes. It can't. No matchmaking system can. It can only do math, looking at many matches and average results.
It is theoretically possible that an MMR system that doesn't reflect the gameplay could still be accurate at measuring skill, though it would be one hell of a coincidence. But along with the examples I've already given of how the system fails by decreasing the MMR of the most skilled player consistently, and increasing the MMR of the least skilled players consistently, it is clear that this coincidence has not happened.
I don't get how you can still argue this point, which sits at the very core of the fallacy OP has now addressed multiple times and already had in very clear and simple terms in the original post.
The most skilled player dying and getting a decreased rating is not what consistently happens, don't you see how absurd this line of thinking is? The player that can run the killer for 5 gens will not be the one dying in more matches than the player that can't run the killer for more than 10 seconds. Sure, there are individual matches where that can happen, since the 5-gen runner gets facecamped and the other survivors decide not to even try and save them... but this is absolutely the exception. Play 100 matches and the survivor skilled enough to potentially run a killer for 5 gens will be peacing out of those exit gates vastly more often than the Meghead or Lockerdwight. Because they can have long chases, which creates time for people to do gens, which in turn allows the exit gates to be opened through which that survivor can escape.
And the absurdness of your thinking goes even further: If the more skilled player actually did consistently die and fall in rating, they would face worse and worse killers, but yet still die? And the less skilled player consistently survives, climbs in rating, faces better and better killers, and keeps surviving?
I think the flaw in your thinking here again comes from imagining singular scenarios and not getting that the system is about the big picture. In your mind, this player runs the killer for 5 gens in every single of these 100 matches, and in every single one gets facecamped by the now-angry killer and dies. This is not the reality. In 1 match or maybe a few matches it can certainly happen that the survivor runs the killer for 5 gens, that the killer then is angry and facecamps them, and that their teammates do not try or manage to save them. But in most matches this won't happen: the player might not be facecamped, the player might get saved despite being facecamped, the player might only be chased for 4 gens, or 3, or 2, or 1, or they might not be chased at all... What matters is that this player is so good that they can potentially run the killer for 5 gens, and this will, on average, lead to them escaping more often than not. Certainly, they will survive much more often than less-skilled players would in their position in their matches, let alone the least-skilled players. Over many matches, the edge-case scenarios where the player so skilled they can potentially run the killer for 5 gens will actually run the killer for 5 gens, and then actually get facecamped, and then actually die, will matter less and less, since they will account for fewer and fewer of the matches.
Any low-skilled survivors that escaped in rare matches thanks to a 5-gen-run-into-facecamp event of another player they were lucky enough to be matched with and "lucky" enough that the killer chased them all game and then facecamped, will over many matches die much more often, since this event will not occur often and their lack of skills will have an impact on the rounds and their survival rates will decrease.
Something more to note: Over many matches, these players will be paired with different players all the time. You might be assuming a series of matches we are looking at would always have to be this group of low-skilled players with the high-skilled player from the original argument scenario (and even if that were the case there is no real reason to expect the high-skilled player to be dying more often than the low-skilled players in them), but that of course is not the case in this game, matchmaking almost never gives players the exact group twice.
Over many matches, survival/kill rates correlate very closely with the skills needed to survive and kill in this game, such as being good at chases.
To get a 1K you must only get 1 down. There is no way to prevent a Bubba with a basic competence in the game from getting at least 1 down per match.
First of all, it is absolutely possible to get games in which not a single down happens. I'm not saying it is what usually happens, but it is not objectively absolutely impossible that it can happen. If the survivors are so much better than the Bubba, they can potentially not go down until gens are done and gates opened for them to leave through. This already disproves your point that skill can never matter in this instance, but let's go on.
If a survivor runs a Bubba long enough for the facecamp to only result in that 1 kill, their chase skills are pretty good. They themselves did die in this round, but you are again failing to look at the bigger picture. In many of such rounds, this player will not always be the one getting chased first, or at all. Imagine in another such match another player is getting chased, dies earlier such that after the facecamp Bubba still has time to go for more... Now can you imagine that the chase skills of the player we were talking about earlier may allow for them to hold the chase long enough in order to be able to survive? What if prior to that the Bubba already chased and facecamped 2 other survivors? Or 3? You have to get away from your narrow viewpoint of singular rounds when discussing a system meant fundamentally to deal with many rounds, whose entire purpose and functioning indeed is only relevant when looking at many rounds.
There is nowhere on the map on any map where a rescue against a facecamping Bubba is possible. [...] There is no way to rescue against a facecamping Bubba even with perfect co-ordination.
Just like the first point, you are just factually wrong here. It is objectively absolutely possible to get a hook rescue against a facecamping Bubba. If the Bubba is bad, this is actually pretty easy for experienced survivors, by tricking Bubba into releasing his chainsaw attack with unhook baits and unhooking during cooldown. Flashlights and firecrackers/flashbangs can be used to force Bubba to look away or blind them, potentially being able to make unhooks happen during those brief moments. For another trick, I have not seldomly made saves against facecampers happen by 99-healing myself, baiting an M1 and healing up just in time. Styptics and Mettle Of Man could also do the trick.
Often it is also possible to simply unhook before the attack is charged because Bubba can't continuously keep revving since it will trigger tantrum after a while. Perks like Leader, Resilience and Desperate Measures can be of further help, since they increase unhooking speeds. If the rescuer has BT or the unhooked survivor DH, SB or DS they are usually safe. The brief invincibility frames after getting unhooked can potentially also save them without accounting for any perks, especially if the unhooked survivor uses the hit sprint well and the Bubba gets confused or smashes into the hook triggering a tantrum. The Bubba might also slug them expecting DS, allowing the unhooked survivor to get healed up or recover with the help of perks.
But even against the best facecamper Bubba in the world, you can make rescues happen: one survivor goes for the unhook, eats the chainsaw, another survivor comes in and saves during cooldown.
If you are and you allowed all four survivors to escape while facecamping as Bubba you made a critical error that is either a massive fluke or suggests you are at a very low level of play.
Even if that were the case and no counterplay to facecamping Bubba existed whatsoever such that the player on hook will always be the one dying, you are already disproving your own point in principle by saying rescues are possible if "you are at a very low level of play", which is literally what the rating is then also suggesting and meant to suggest.
If you're not talking about Bubba it's not relevant.
See, this is something where I would be like, if it's actually impossible to save against a Bubba (it isn't, but it's certainly less possible than against any other killer), and if that's actually a balance problem (it isn't, Bubbas struggle to 2k against good teams, and facecamps will often result in 1ks at that level if they don't get an early down, but it's certainly a problem in the average pub match), then... we should change Bubba, not design a matchmaking system that can somehow account for this outlier. Which we should anyway, and in my opinion we should even rebalance camping altogether, decreasing killer strength around hooks in general, compensated for of course by buffs to other aspects of killer play.
The "Bubba facecamps 5-gen runner" argument is flawed because it only looks at a singular, exceptional match; it is conceptually incorrect because it assumes that rescues are absolutely impossible; it is disingenuous at worst and misguided at best, because Bubba is 1 killer out of 26, with an overall occurence rate of 4.37%, of which only a portion are facecamping Bubbas, and we should not adjust an entire matchmaking system to this, rather adjust Bubba to not pose the problems that he does.
I'll leave you with this: BHVR has (in the Q&A and now in this thread again) said they will actually change the metric for the win condition from looking at survival of the individual survivors to survival of the group of survivors, so basically... little of this discussion will even be relevant anymore, since that will resolve most of these points even more easily.
The flaw I'm seeing in your reasoning here is you've fallen into circular logic. To justify considering the game a set of 4 1v1 deathmatches for the purposes of determining a win and a loss you have argued that the ideal survival rate for survivors is 50%. However, the only reason 50% would be an ideal survival rate is under the assumption that the game should be considered 4 1v1 deathmatches. If we instead consider the game a 4v1 and define some arbitrary team-based win condition it is quite likely that 50% would not be the ideal survival rate. Just as an example, if we were to say the win condition of a match for killer was to kill all four survivors such that if they do not kill all 4 survivors they lose, and if they do kill all 4 survivors they win the ideal survival rate would no longer be 50% as that would result in killers losing much more often than they win. Under this definition the survival rate ideal for balance would be closer to 33%. Now to be absolutely clear, I do not think this would be a good win condition but it does show that the ideal survival rate for a balanced game depends on the win condition we set. You cannot justify treating DBD as 4 1v1 deathmatches with the expected survival rate that would generate.
I feel like I haven't been ambiguous about my claims here. I fully acknowledge that an MMR system cannot work perfectly in every game and the most important factor is the overall performance over hundreds and thousands of games. My claim is that this implementation does not and cannot achieve that. My example cases where the higher skilled player gains MMR and the lower skilled player loses MMR are not flukes nor are they exceptions; they are the average experience. Yes an actual 5 gen run would be exceptional but it is a fact that the longer you can run a killer the more likely you are to be the survivor currently running the killer when the last gen is completed. Thusly the less time you can run a killer the more likely you are to be doing a generator when the last generator is completed. For the sake of my arguments I am assuming completely rational players playing to optimise their total kills. I'm not even considering the possibility of killers getting angry or upset at having been looped for 3 gens and just giving up to facecamp even if it is a real factor. This isn't even the only example. When a teammate is hooked the players who act quickly to save their teammates are more likely to end up dead and the survivor who hasn't even noticed anyone got hooked and simply sits on their gen is more likely to survive. The survivor who fails to take aggro from the killer to save a survivor on death hook is more likely to survive than one that does. This isn't just unnecessarily altruism they are the optimal choices to 'win' the game from a 4v1 perspective but they become actively selected against by MMR based on a 1v1 perspective. This implementation of MMR actively rewards bad gameplay decisions and lower mechanical skill and actively punishes good gameplay decisions and higher mechanical skill. And this is true as a general trend not just some niche exception.
For the Bubba issue I'm genuinely shocked this is even something people seem to want to debate me on. At the very least you accused me of failing to consider the big picture but now you want to talk about the extremely unlikely possibility of saving against a facecamping Bubba. I don't even need to engage with you on whether or not it's possible. If you are going to argue that we must look at the big picture then you cannot also bring up exceptional circumstances. In the big picture this strategy is not defeated enough to be statistically relevant. As is true for many other strategies to confirm kills. I will say that while I acknowledge you can rescue against a facecamping Bubba at low levels of play a good MMR implementation must be effective across all skill levels (as I mentioned before) not just low levels of play.
As I've explained in my previous posts Bubba is not an outlier in this regard he is simply the easiest to do it with. It requires no skill whatsoever for a Bubba to facecamp and kill you, and your individual skill is at best irrelevant and at worst actively harms you. It is the ultimate example of my point. Other similar cases have some nuance or exceptions. There is some unrealistic counterplay to STBFL camping, it's kinda possible for someone being RBT tunneled to find hatch, maybe a Plague will mess up their vomit and it's actually kinda possible for a Billy to miss their chainsaw etc. And I really don't think you can try to narrow down my point to just 'facecamping/tunneling bad' it's merely a single example of how this particular implementation of MMR fails. I can and have given other examples on how the system rewards bad play and punishes good play from the context of DBD being a 4v1 game.
To directly quote the QnA here "However, we're looking at some improvements to the current system. An example is to take team results into account with survivors, in addition to the personal result."
BHVR said they are looking into some improvements such as a hybrid system that considers individual survival and team survival. They did not say they would replace the existing individualised system. So this discussion is still relevant because the hybrid system has not been implemented, we have no details on how it would work, even if it was implemented it would be worse than a pure team-based implementation and there is no guarantee it will ever be implemented anyway if BHVR decides they don't like it or it would be too hard after looking into it.
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@skratchh said:
If I run a killer for 5 gens and my team gets them all done. How is that NOT skillful play? That is what he said word for word. That if you ran a killer for 5 gens it was not skill. These devs do not play their own game.
Yeah you're slightly off here he did not say that directly. It's a logical conclusion from what he did say but you shouldn't refer to it as a word-for-word quote. It gives disingenuous people a chance to smugly nitpick you.
The direct quote is "If your skilled play doesn't get you the win was it really a skilled play in the first place?" the quote that is floating around about 5 gens is based on substituting 'skilled play' for an example of a skilled play. That being a 5 gen run. It's a logical implication of what was said but not a direct quote.
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@PlaysByShady said:
https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/2770096#Comment_2770096
Honestly... I wonder why I bother sometimes...
https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/2770175#Comment_2770175
"My critique of the individualised nature is that it treats the game as 4 1v1s happening simultaneously."
In what sense now? It treats them as 4 separate 1v1s in terms of determining a win/loss for each survivor. You're saying it should assign a win/loss to the team overall... so if 2 survivors escape, that's a win, even though they lost 1/2 the team escaping?
TBH, it's an idea and I see the merit in it (the survivors who died surely did contribute to the success of those who exited), but only if you're looking at games individually. When you look at games overall (i.e. a predominant trend for any player), if the player concerned is as good as they're supposed to be, they'll inherently escape more often too and their ranking will necessarily adjust to the right place, regardless of the deaths in the minority of their matches.
I don't see how it'd change things overall, and I suspect this was explored and dismissed already.
"Better players do not have answers to a facecamping Bubba."
I literally already answered this directly and you've completely ignored what I've said, whilst quoting the post I said it in. I see the problem here. Sadly it's yours to resolve.
I'm not going to propose a win condition for a match of DBD since it's not really too relevant here and you can come up with a few viable options to choose from. Regardless, DBD is a 1v4, so it is a simple obvious necessity that the basis for determining who wins and who loses must be based on the format of 1v4. This complete basic assumption is what's missing from DBD's implementation. The MMR is based on a win condition for a different game that doesn't exist. It is theoretically possible that an MMR system that doesn't reflect the gameplay could still be accurate at measuring skill, though it would be one hell of a coincidence. But along with the examples I've already given of how the system fails by decreasing the MMR of the most skilled player consistently, and increasing the MMR of the least skilled players consistently, it is clear that this coincidence has not happened.
"I literally already answered this directly and you've completely ignored what I've said, whilst quoting the post I said it in. I see the problem here. Sadly it's yours to resolve."
You can answer whatever you wish. You are simply wrong on this point, or at least, that's what I believe. When a disagreement of basic facts arises I can't really try and argue the case. Just for the sake of it I can show you what the would look like, and why it wouldn't really benefit anyone.
"Firstly, they're better in chase, so less likely to be caught." Correct but not relevant in this case. To get a 1K you must only get 1 down. There is no way to prevent a Bubba with a basic competence in the game from getting at least 1 down per match.
"They're also more map aware so if they do go down, they'll go down where a rescue is most likely to succeed." Correct but not relevant in this case. There is nowhere on the map on any map where a rescue against a facecamping Bubba is possible.
"Furthermore, better teams can co-ordinate rescues in difficult circumstances." Correct but not relevant in this case. There is no way to rescue against a facecamping Bubba even with perfect co-ordination.
"As killer, I'll camp the hook in the EGC, and I've seen many a time survivors make a successful rescue." If you're not talking about Bubba it's not relevant. If you are and you allowed all four survivors to escape while facecamping as Bubba you made a critical error that is either a massive fluke or suggests you are at a very low level of play.
Now since literally all I have done is said 'no' to everything you brought up, I don't imagine you're exactly 'convinced'. But you seemed to feel like I was ignoring you, so there you go. You can quite easily counter 'no' to my 'no' and we'll be here all day. It is common knowledge in DBD that against a facecamping Bubba you do not even attempt to save because it's impossible. That isn't much of an argument but you must know you're going against prevailing wisdom, right? You seem to think my position here is extreme when it is the mainstream view from people that play the game.
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@PlaysByShady said:
https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/2768891#Comment_2768891
Ok, here we go...
"First and most important issue is I disagree strongly with viewing DBD as a 1v1 game in any capacity. This would be a critique of the base assumption that the goal/ideal for a SBMM system in DBD is to achieve a state where each individual survivor has a 50% chance to survive and the killer has a 50% chance of killing each survivor. This is so wrong because that just isn't what DBD is. DBD is a 1v4 game and any SBMM system is at the very least required to reflect this nature to be even remotely effective. While it seems there is some plan to create a hybrid system, I will repeat, considering DBD a 1v1 game ever is deeply flawed and can't work. Either all survivors win or none do."
I get what you're saying. But the problem is everyone has to be ranked individually because they come into the game as individuals. I play solo most of the time (woe is me, I have no friends), so most of my matches are with 3 randoms (and a random killer)... how on earth is any MMR system supposed to apply a ranking to reflect this particular unique grouping that may never happen again??
It can't! It's pretty much impossible (to the point where, if there were a solution, it'd require so much effort to discover, implement, and validate that it almost becomes a self-defeating exercise).
The system HAS to look at each player as individuals to give each player their own ranking, so it can match them with other players. If you know of a better way, then I'll present you the same option as everyone else... tell us what it is!
"Secondly on the subject of a facecamping Bubba you're coming at this just from the wrong perspective. Better players do not have solutions to a facecamping Bubba."
Yes they do. Firstly, they're better in chase, so less likely to be caught. They're also more map aware so if they do go down, they'll go down where a rescue is most likely to succeed. Furthermore, better teams can co-ordinate rescues in difficult circumstances. As killer, I'll camp the hook in the EGC, and I've seen many a time survivors make a successful rescue. It absolutely can be done. Your problem now is that you think you possess the sum knowledge of all possibilities, and that's clouding your judgement severely.
"They will always get at least 1 kill, potentially even 2 regardless of their skill and regardless of their opponent's skill."
So, you're saying it's completely impossible for a Bubba player to exit a trial with 0-kills? Really? That's your argument?? Oh dear.
"You speculate that pulling off a 5 gen run and dying must be a fluke, something not necessary to be accounted for by the system."
I said no such thing, and this just goes to show you didn't read what I said with intent to understand, but rather you just tried to quote mine and cherry pick points you think support your argument.
I said in that scenario, it was either a fluke chase, or something the survivor is skilled enough to repeat. If the survivor can repeat it, they will repeat it, and when you look at their games overall you'll see they escape more often and their level will rise.
Aside from not reading and not understanding, your other problem is this supposition that going up/down in MMR level is a good/bad thing. It's not. There's no kudos or reward from having a higher level. It's literally just a mechanism to match you with similarly skilled players. It's not a comment on your level of skill. The system isn't designed to stroke your ego. It's designed to match make.
You conflate an individualised rating change with individualised ratings. All team-based games with MMR implementations already have solutions for this. You cannot gain MMR in CSGO while the rest of your team loses it. My critique of the individualised nature is that it treats the game as 4 1v1s happening simultaneously. To my knowledge no other competitive team-based game does that, and it doesn't work. Can you imagine how silly it would be if a match of CSGO tried to define a single match 4 1v1s happening at the same time such that the losing team can still have a couple winners? It's ridiculous because it doesn't reflect the nature of the game being played.
Better players do not have answers to a facecamping Bubba. If you think otherwise you are familiar with only a very low level of play and fail to consider the entire skill range of DBD. A facecamping Bubba will always get at least 1 kill if they play with minimum competence. Even if they are up against the number 1 team in the world. That is the nature of DBD and there are other similar ways to achieve this guaranteed at least 1 kill regardless of skill.
You have failed to address or consider my point regarding how playing better in chase leads to a higher chance of you dying. Instead you just pointed out at best a nitpick in my phrasing of your statemens. You said it was either a fluke or something they can repeat. Well if they repeat it they will just die the same way. Better survivors who loop the killer for too long will often find themselves facecamped and killed directly because they were too good. The system actively lowers the ratings of better players and increases the ratings of worse players. This is a functional failing.
I've been very clear this isn't about MMR increasing being a good thing or losing MMR being a bad thing. I want a functional system. That's all.
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@PlaysByShady said:
The recent controversy over Patrick's comments embarrasses me; it just highlights the mob-mentality of the DBD community and I absolutely empathise over why the devs refuse to comment on matters... because too many people screech in response about things they don't understand. And right now it's MMR, like everyone has suddenly become experts in how it works and are therefore qualified to comment on it.
Sadly, this is not the case, and let me explain why.
Warning: this will be slightly complicated, because that's just the nature of how these things are. But I'll do my best to simplify.
Short background: I've been a software dev for 20+ years, been involved in some mmr systems in the past (did some collab with the original MS Trueskill researchers back in the day), and generally deal with s/w that support large amounts of concurrent users.
So... let's start at the basics.
The system is known by multiple names, the two common ones being SBMM and MMR. I'm going to use 'MMR' because the term 'Skill' in SBMM is a loaded term that can be misinterpreted. It doesn't mean skill in the way you would mean in natural use.
The purpose of the MMR is to provide Match-Making... hence the MM in the name. More importantly, it's to provide MM between parties who are considered "equal", so that matches will be "balanced". You'll notice those terms are in quotes, because they don't necessarily mean what you think they mean. They need to be defined.
Before we do that, let's also point out some assumptions the system makes:
1) Both sides are attempting to achieve their overall objectives, i.e. killers are trying to kill, and survivors are trying to survive.
2) There is 1 killer and 4 survivors (to begin with)
3) A desirable match (i.e. what the MM should aim to produce) is one where all players have equal chance of achieving their (diametrically opposed) objectives... either the killer kills, or the survivors survive (on a 1v1 basis, i.e. per survivor... the killer either kills the survivor, or the survivor survives).
Now... you can argue with those assumptions if you like, but that'd be a separate discussion altogether
So, how is does the MMR system match people together?
IT REDUCES YOU TO A NUMBER!
That's literally it. To the MMR system, you are just a number! All your skilled plays, jukes, strategies, etc are distilled down to a single number which represents your "skill" or "level"!
That's the first thing to understand and get over. The system knows-not, and cares-not, about how you played, the incredible saves you pulled off, how you sacrificed yourself to save your team, how you did or didn't tunnel/camp, etc. It just cares about what your "level" is so that it can find suitable players to match you with for the next game. Anything else is just noise.
For those that want to argue whether it should be this way, I would invite you to please design a system... heck, even an Excel spreadsheet with basic formulas, that'd take all the data you want to count and be able to not only interpret it, but also provide some objective mechanism to determine how it should affect your level or how it affects who you're matched with (in an absolute mathematical sense, not some vague description of wants!)
What is the number you'd give to a person who had a 5-gen chase and chased, such that no-one else would get that number from escaping via other means? It can't be done! When you reduce things down to a number, it loses all of this nuance!
Software isn't magic! Computers are not people. They don't understand nuance, or intention. Everything that happens to affect any calculations has to be written/coded to accommodate that!
There's a lot more to be said on this, but for the sake of brevity and sanity, I'll leave it there for now.
So, now you're just a number. Here's another important point to understand. YOUR NUMBER DOESN'T MATTER!
Think about it. If your number was 10, 100, or 1000, what difference does it make? You might be tempted to answer "well, 100 is obviously more than 10", but lets say your peers where in the range of 9-11, or 90-110, etc, it still puts you in the same spot, i.e. smack-bang in the middle.
So I'll say it again... YOUR NUMBER DOESN'T MATTER!
What does matter is where your number stands in relation to everyone else's.
If yours is 10, but the player-base only ranges from 5-15, then you're firmly in the middle. But if the player-base averages around 100, then your number (or level) is severely below average. Your number doesn't matter... where your number fits in relation to everyone else is what matters!
The MMR system produces matches by trying to fill a lobby with players who have similar numbers, i.e. they're within a specified range of each other. That range could be determined by a number of factors, and we also know it increases the longer you're in the queue (so you'll match with more players whose level are further away from yours).
Now, here's what too many people fail to understand. In order to do any match-making... any system has to have some way to rank or equate players so that it can determine what is a good match vs a bad match. How else are you going to compare players with each other without some common comparable criteria between the two? Think about it! You need some objectively measurable indicator that you can ascribe to both survivor and killer in order to compare them with each other to match-make! Otherwise you're literally comparing apples and oranges.
So now you're in a match, and the match plays out. You either survive or die, or as a killer you get kills or not. At the end of the match, THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS IS HOW MUCH YOUR LEVEL MOVES! Remember, the MMR system doesn't care about your amazing plays, because there's no objective number it can ascribe to it. It just needs to know whether your level should be adjusted, and if so, by how much.
Remember, you and your plays are just being reduced down to a number!
Here's where there's a lot of room for confusion, misinterpretation, and a range of opinions. There are many ways to skin a cat... and there are many ways to determine what that adjustment should be.
Maybe it should take hooks into account, or how many chases won/lost? All great ideas. And I'm sure BHVR have tried these out - we've had a number of MMR tests in the past year or so. I strongly suspect that, at the end of the day, the results they produced weren't as good as what would have been desired.
Or, more likely, they discovered something else... but before I mention it, let me point out another mechanism of the system... THEY'RE DESIGNED TO WORK OVER A RANGE OF MATCHES!
There is literally NO ranking system anywhere in the world that will accurately place any player after a match or two. That's impossible. There's simply not enough data points to determine where you fit in the ranking overall, unless you play enough matches to provide as much.
And the second point... YOUR LEVEL FLUCTUATES!
No-one is the same "skill" all the time. You're either a newb, and your skill increases. Or you've been away for a while and have adapted to the new mechanics etc, and your skill decreases. See, by the time you've played enough matches for the system to know where you rank in comparison to others, bear in mind that their rankings have changed too! Perfection is a moving target, and a good working system is one that can accurate match-make based on the data it has at that time.
You will never have any system that accurately places players exactly where their rank is for all time... the system just tries to get as close to an ideal as possible given the current data!
At the end of the day, if the system produces a match with an even 50/50 result, then it's done it's job. The 4 survivors had 50/50 change of surviving or dying... 50% survived, 50% died, that's an even match! Hence BHVR mentioned back in the day that they consider 2-kills+2-escapes an even match.
Note: as a gamer, I recognise how stupid this seems, because we know that once two survivors go down, the other two have a harder job to survive... unless the deaths are occurring in end game which probably means the killer had a stressful game. I get it. It seems completely counter-intuitive. But the maths checks out... 4 survivors, each with 50/50 chance to win/lose will mean that 2 "win" and 2 "lose". It's mathematically balanced so should be a "good" game, as far as one can predict.
So, back to mechanics of how to reduce the game to an adjustment for your level... it appears BHVR have noticed that a persons average kill/escape ratio appears to correlate with other more complicated mechanics... so rather than fiddle around with the complicated mechanics, they can just take the shortcut and go with the clearer/easier kill/escape mechanic.
And herein is the misunderstood point... Patrick said that it's an indicator of skill, and when you consider that the MMR self-calibrates over a series of matches, it appears to prove an accurate one.
So let's clarify some things bearing this in mind:
A face-camping Bubba is more skillful: No, that's not what he said, nor is what he's suggesting. Firstly, ignore the term "skill", because it's confusing... the devs and players are using the same term to mean two different things. What he's saying is that if the killer is consistently getting kills - howsoever they're getting them - then they should go against "better" survivors who'll be able to resist their strategies and provide a more even match. They're not saying "wow, great plays"... they're saying "fine, we'll match you against better players, now let's see how you do!" The "skill" is in Bubba being able to catch the survivor in the first instance (and then however the rest of how the match plays out... maybe he loses 5-gens 'cos of the camp, maybe altruism gets the team killed). Either way, the Bubba will be adjusted to go against teams better suited (in theory).
Losing a 5-gen chase is low skill: Again, no! If you lost a 5-gen chase and died (which could be for a number of reasons, maybe your team just left you to be one-hooked, etc) then one of two things happened: (i) it was a completely fluke chase against a bad killer which you won't be able to repeat, and you're fine as you are... or (ii) you are that skilled that you can do it again, and over a series of matches your level will increase because you will do it again!
Again, straw-manning the point and expecting the system to produce an accurate result on a match-by-match basis is stupid. It's not going to do that. It's not designed to do that. It cannot do that, because the data fluctuates anyway!
Perfect example is Patrick's hockey example... he mentioned that for hockey players you could rank them by how many shots they take on goal... but if they're winning games (i.e. scoring more than others), then you can already presume they're taking more shots because how else are they getting the goals? You don't need to do the complicated calculations when there's a much simpler indicator that correlates closely enough. For any sport, if you look at their league tables, you can infer the teams (consistently) at the top have the best players... because how else did they get there? You don't need to know the ins and outs of each player, etc.
But of course, the DBD community are just like "waaah... hockey is not dbd, waah!" completely missing the point of what he's saying!
There is also the factor of diminishing returns to consider... the more "fine-tuned" the system is, the more effort it takes to maintain that system, and the less useful (i.e. different) data is produced. Whilst it is technically possible to build the system around hooks, or chases, etc... it requires so much more investment in time/development, the results aren't worth it because they don't produce anything that is fundamentally different from just looking at kills/escapes. So why adopt the harder method?
So... back to the adjustment at the end of the game. Adjusting your level by kills/escapes is very simple, and a reasonable indicator of where you need to be. If you're killing everyone, you need to be moved up to match against players you struggle to kill. If you're escaping every match, you need to move up to face killers that can better catch you and do something about it. And vice-versa.
Stop thinking about the MMR system as an ego-boost, the way some strimmers say they are "max-mmr"... there's no such thing. If the system matches you with players that'll give you a "balanced" match (as per how it was mathematically defined), then the system works as intended.
One other minor interesting point to note: Patrick mentioned the adjustment to a survivor's rank is also based on the order in which they died, because they recognise that a 4v1 death is different to a 3v1 death, etc, so you "lose" less if you died later (in order) rather than earlier.
The system, as a whole, is supposed to self-calibrate. It requires you to play a number of matches, and so long as you play consistently (for the most part), it'll do it's job in matching you with players that'll give you a 50/50 chance of achieving your objective. But bear in mind other player's levels are moving too, so it'll never be perfect. And there are always ways to "cheat" the system by artificially lowering your rank over a series of games (how is the system supposed to know though?)
Again, I've glossed over a lot, and simplified things a lot, to make it easier to understand... not to make it easier for people to provide strawman rebuttals. As a community, I wish we'd try to understand things properly before passing judgement/comment... and not just wildly complaining for the sake of complaining because we don't know what we're talking about.
You've probably heard these critiques before but since I don't want to read every single post on this thread I'll voice them anyway.
First and most important issue is I disagree strongly with viewing DBD as a 1v1 game in any capacity. This would be a critique of the base assumption that the goal/ideal for a SBMM system in DBD is to achieve a state where each individual survivor has a 50% chance to survive and the killer has a 50% chance of killing each survivor. This is so wrong because that just isn't what DBD is. DBD is a 1v4 game and any SBMM system is at the very least required to reflect this nature to be even remotely effective. While it seems there is some plan to create a hybrid system, I will repeat, considering DBD a 1v1 game ever is deeply flawed and can't work. Either all survivors win or none do.
Secondly on the subject of a facecamping Bubba you're coming at this just from the wrong perspective. Better players do not have solutions to a facecamping Bubba. While you're trying to distinguish this event from player skill you are already assuming player skill to be at issue here. It is functionally impossible even for the literal best teams in comp to do anything about a Bubba that intends to facecamp. They will always get at least 1 kill, potentially even 2 regardless of their skill and regardless of their opponent's skill. This isn't even the only version of this strategy, several killers can guarantee at least 1 kill per match regardless of their opponent's skill. And even those that can't guarantee it can make it vastly more likely by giving up on 'winning' to instead earn as many kills as possible. A SBMM system that uses individual kills/escapes fails to capture these basic gameplay facts.
Very similar to the previous critique, in fact this even comes naturally as a result of the previous critique, but a survivor that does a 5 gen run and dies losing MMR is a very significant problem. You speculate that pulling off a 5 gen run and dying must be a fluke, something not necessary to be accounted for by the system. That is wrong. If you 5 gen run the killer they have quite literally no better choice than to try and confirm their kill on you. If you had allowed yourself to go down earlier the killer would have had alternative options than to camp you. The system is actually consistent in this. Being better at running the killer will increase your odds of dying in a match. Now this doesn't apply when all 4 survivors are very good but more likely than not an above average player will be matched with players a bit lower than them. The players worse than them get hooked after short chases and the killer moves on. But when they get to a higher skilled player, the chase takes much longer. So long all the gens get finished and the killer is left with no real viable option other than to try and confirm their kill. This is not a fluke it is the standard way the game works. The system not only fails to capture skill but it can actually rate a player negatively because they were just too good. There is no greater failing for a SBMM system than to consistently lower the MMR of the best player in the match but that is what this system does.
You seem to have a very deep understanding of the statistics and algorithms used for this but if you don't understand the emergent metagame in DBD you will apply your statistics incorrectly. And that's what I believe I've seen from your post. It's also quite likely why we've ended up with this system in the first place. The MMR works perfectly for some game that doesn't actually exist but it absolutely fails DBD.
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As someone that posted about DMS' changes potentially making the perk unfair, unfun or overpowered I just thought I should note I'm pretty much exclusively a killer main anyway. I also hate the wiggle change. Only reason I didn't post about that is it's not as problematic but yeah it's an awful change all the same.
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@Dino7281 said:
You know that using DMS means that you don't have to deal with pop, right? Ruin also doesn't work while DMS is active.
It's just a good alternative slow-down now. What's your problem with that?
The problem with the way DMS will function is basically it's just way over-tuned here. The impact of 45 seconds where no gens can realistically be worked on cannot be overstated and it's repeatable for every hook you get. You can imagine a good Artist player that gets a down every minute or so is going to be using this effect very often leading to a very significant percentage of the match where survivors just can't do gens at all.
Beyond that there are still other issues. Like how this promotes camping and throwing out crows to simultaneously deny the unhook/force a trade and still block gens. Or that unlike other regression perks like Pop and Ruin the killer doesn't actually have to go to the gen and pressure it, they get to just fire crows and it gets passively pressured for them. This of course feels pretty unfair since the killer isn't actively doing anything but still being rewarded.
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@Zolfo16 said:
https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/2731675#Comment_2731675
https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/2730654#Comment_2730654
I already explained how you should behave:
You know you are against an artist and you see the artist downing a surv and picking him up.
You go and hide in a locker BEFORE the surv is hooked.
You stay in the locker counting till 5 after the surv is hooked, you will avoid BBQ and probably the crows. She must have other perks in order to know you are there for sure!
You go back to the gen, if the artist still not sent the first murder of crows wait some more seconds, then start working the gen again.
The second murder of crows may arrive, you have to endure it. But only if the artist is sure or seriously worried someone is working there.
You should finish the gen before the third murder of crows.
If the gen cannot be finished in the time between the first and the third murder, well maybe you should go elsewhere if you see is target of crows. Even thou i dunno why, we have a gen where noone is working and not so close to be finished.
Nothing really stops her from periodically sending crows to gens she's already sent them to before. It doesn't cost anything and as the gens that are being worked on get blocked she will have fewer to send crows to.
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@Zolfo16 said:
https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/2730789#Comment_2730789
You can if you move from the gen BEFORE the guy is hooked. Like you already do with BBQ. You can't dodge the second.
And you have to finish the gen between the first and the third.
Not sure if I'm missing something here but if Artist hooks someone and then fires a crow there is no opportunity to avoid a hit before the hook. I'm not sure if it'd be a good idea to actually fire a crow to get someone off a gen and then hook, though that's an interesting strategy I think it's more reliable to hook first then fire your crows. They then either have to let go or suffer the effect which further leads to a damaging hit. If a gen is close to being finished you can just do it through the damage sure but that's kinda conditional on a lot of factors. If Artist runs say Tinkerer or something they would know when a gen is close enough to power through the Crows and fire single Crows at that gen in particular. That leads to a very short cooldown and makes it extremely hard to finish the gen through the crows.