I don't think going to a strict SBMM is the best idea. What you need to have is the top 25% NEVER facing the bottom 50%. You can not expect top players to only go against top players, because there just are not enough of them. It would just be a lag fest. But if you want to keep the population healthy, you just can't have the bottom and average facing top players. You get the game trying to balance teams where many times it expects one person to carry a team, which is not fun for that person, or those they try to carry. Matchmaking needs to just keep average and below from facing the top 25% or thereabouts.

This is what the supposed player base wanted easy matchmaking and constant piss poor games. I love how everything went to -blam!- after sbmm was removed yet people will say as much as they can to say otherwise.

I just want some new maps that aren't all catered to handcannons/shotguns. Like I'm just so tired of playing the same 8 maps.

Between crossplay desync where PlayStation players simply won’t take damage, melees don’t register, grenade damage won’t register, shots don’t register, and lobby balancing, crucible is in a terrible state. Lost 12 games in a row going 2-3 kda where rest of my team goes negative. My teammates seem to have absolutely no game sense whatsoever and no concept of map control. They go straight to the worst zone on the map and get us spawn trapped. At least 2 teammates are afk and eventually get booted or quit out. Which leaves us down players. The game rarely fills the lobby back up anymore. So then the options are to get farmed for the rest of the game or quit. To top it off the game routinely matches me with players on the other side of the world which leads to high ping games and lag.

I am against SBMM for reasons I’m tired of arguing about(I’m not a 1% player btw). The atrocious Lobby balancing, or lack Thereof(depending on who you talk to) is a stand in for SBMM, forcing a 50/50 win loss for the community by way of rigged matches. One team always destroys the other, in damn near every competitive aspect of the game. Everyone gets a good match, everyone gets at least one game where they “become legend” and experience one of those “hero moments” in the context of of PVP. Likewise, the average to above average player also experiences matches where they feel helpless to do anything, despite having slayed out in a previous match. The average to above average player happens to make up the bulk of players engaging enthusiastically with the crucible. In contrast, A small minority of highly skilled players, along with another small minority of below average players resentfully engaging with crucible to obtain their pinnacle or complete a quest, are unaffected by matchmaking in any form. This binary pandering to the extreme spectrums of skill(as well as the loudest and most vocal), resulted in a massive exodus of average, to above average players, moving to games that reward time played, and skill obtained(instead of stomp or be stomped, rigged matches). What’s left of the crucible, is literally one or two people in the lobby with an insane amount of kills with the enemy team barely breaking positive. It’s a toxic, terrible environment that I absolutely refuse to subject myself too. It’s the worst Matchmaking I’ve ever seen, it’s unacceptable, and regardless of my previous statements on SBMM, I would gladly take it over the -blam!- show we have now, but even that’s problematic because of laggy crossplay and low population… I just don’t see any answer to the problems that Bungie and the community is facing. That’s why I’ve dropped the crucible, and moved on to Halo infinite, I would bet that a lot of other players, tired of being disrespected have as well.

Yup and its getting worst and worst because there's nothing to stop the PvP sweats stomping random lobby to boost their ego

Their lobby balancing is totally -blam!- up. Destiny tracker has been showing large discrepancies in team balance, where the winning team had between 60 and 90% chance to win, and the elo's to prove why. It looks bugged to me, but there's no one to even look at it there. They're too busy with "other" stuff.... mostly lawsuits I guess

Population dropping rapidly for a number of reasons. 1. Stomp fest and skill creep as more lower tier players leave. 2. Lack of new maps or game modes. 3. Lack of incentive to play long term, even in trials. 4. Lack of dedicated servers, causing substantial lag, despite matchmaking settings being cbmm 5. Toxicity increasing 6. Cheaters starting to rise in game again. 7. Recoveries (comp and trials based problem) 8. Weapon balance 9. Recent ability changes causing a sizable chunk of players to leave pvp. I personally don’t mind this, because I feel I’m bad at pvp anyway whether I have more abilities or not, regardless of my current stats. 10. Stacks vs solos debate 11. New lights getting bad experiences early on, therefore turning them immediately away from pvp. 12. Killer and bounty hunter mentality in objective based game modes (not playing the objective as a result). 13. Weapon balance changes dictating the meta. Meta dictates the entirety of the crucible more or less. 14. People tired of certain weapon types (shotguns, hand cannons) and exotics (chaperone, stompies, stag, etc) being overused in the crucible. 15. Mindless grinding for ranks, with little reward in return in many cases. 16. It’s far into the season, which always has a sharp drop of willing participants as it gets closer to the end. This is just a number of reasons to why the crucible is failing right now to retain a stable playerbase, and therefore it’s becoming SO DIFFICULT to play. A low population causes pvp to become massively difficult as more and more players of the lower skill tiers leave.

Just started in crucible since the update and so far, in about 7 odd games: Can’t get into a game without cross play on, never had a problem before. 1st game was 3v6. 2nd game was 6v1 3rd game was 6v1 Another game was spawned into a match underway at 45 to 5 against 5 stack clan all with same emblem etc Last game against a 6 stack team. Before the update, I rarely ever encountered this.

I think that D2 PvP should play like this. Every player starts the match with 2 bullets of Special ammo. Defeating a player with special ammo does not drop special ammo but the player defeated spawns with 1 special bullet (not affected by Scavenger perks) • Defeating a guardian with Primary Ammo drops a special Brick 1 bullet, +1 for each scavenger perk • Defeating a guardian with Primary Ammo has that Guardian spawn with no Special Ammo. Ability or Supers kills drops 1 special ammo brick. Increased by 1 with scavenger. All drops are visible to all players, and can be picked up by anyone. Including shoot to loot.

QP needs a "friends mode" for guys that like to team up and team fire ALL game and did Bungie even think about supers in regard to games in progress???

Agreed. Got 50k kills this season and ive come to the realisation that the matchmaking is horrific. The lobby balancing mechanic is so bad for good and bad players. Moving to halo for pvp until its fixed because i aint trying to carry 4 people a game every game