I agree that the game needs a healthy population in order for it to thrive. I say thrive because, as I think we have seen, it doesn't necessarily take much for the game to keep chugging along. I think they are moving in the right direction for the most part when it comes to both PvE and PvP. Unfortunately with the game they are trying to make that means having to make some hard decisions like sunsetting and the removal of SBMM when there are 12 people playing. These are both things that should have been in the game long ago, then it wouldn't have been as big of a deal as they are now imo. As far as people not having an enjoyable experience, I really think most people will get used to it. You have people saying things like they have played 5 matches and decided they are going to quit and unfortunately most of them seem to have no real understanding of how either matchmaking system really works and what they do to the PvP as a whole. I say this with no disrespect whatsoever but being unhappy that you can't do bounties as fast should not mean that Bungie should turn PvP into a broken experience for above average people (because they were the ones that were hit the hardest by SBMM, not the absolute top tier) just so people can have a PvE-like experience in PvP. To your other point about people being assholes to each other, you won't see me telling anyone to get good or anything like that. But that stuff comes from both sides of this issue and the stereotyping and twitter type insults are just something that should be ignored. I really don't let people and their internet mindsets bother me because its blatantly obvious that some people only come on here to fight and do the social media act. If I'm wrong I'm wrong, but I really think this change will cause more people to play.

Truthfully, Bungie has never explained how their matchmaking works. They acknowledge that it uses a combination of connection and skill which can be adjusted on some sort of sliding scale to emphasis either. We also don't know how they establish a skill metric. We do know that they changed it fairly recently to reflect "true skill", but we don't know exactly what that means. It's almost certainly closer to an elo type of system than a straight k/d type. And as far as I know, we have no definitive idea about how teams factor in. We do know that they have changed the way matchmaking worked without telling us, and once "accidently" implemented a cbmm heavy mix that they let stay for a while. Or least that's the way I understand the topic. Take it for what you will.

I figure there's two reasons that they don't tell people anything whatsoever about how it works. The first one is people would try to game the system, which the SBMM system in this game is so blatantly made to discourage that that it ends up causing other problems imo. And the second one is because there are a lot of mindgames included in SBMM and in Destiny as a whole that are meant to encourage certain behavior, or as I like to say, certain forms of grazing in the players who play this game and are sometimes treated like cattle. They can't say how it works because a lot of it has nothing to do with providing a fair matchmaking experience that is in any way reflective of actual skill. As far as what they use, SBMM is an actual thing that is/was used throughout the industry that companies can tweak as they see fit. They probably don't use trueskill because that is a proprietary system owned by Microsoft. As far as I know they use something called glicko instead of elo which is similar but finds peoples' skill much faster and in the case Destiny probably more brutally. Take a gander with me if you will... https://arxiv.org/pdf/1702.06820.pdf I'm not going to pretend like I understand all of that mumbo jumbo but the thing that I found most interesting is that when compared to randomized matchmaking SBMM actually causes more people to quit playing the game. Its on page four under the findings section if you want to look. CBMM, although not totally random, is far closer to randomized matchmaking than SBMM. IMO this is one of the reasons you are going to see more PvP minded players returning and/or not dumping destiny now and in the future. As long as it stays this way or doesn't return to some other form of tomfoolery that has nothing whatsoever to do with skill even though they named it that like a politician would.

Sorry. Against my policy to open unknown files. It is called True Skill. And do you have any proof about your conspiracy theory?

It's not called true skill that was halo. SBMM wasn't even a thing back then.

https://www.reddit.com/r/DestinyTheGame/comments/eqww0r/true_skill_matchmaking/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share

Why would people on reddit be proof that they use trueskill in this game? Whether it is or isn't Bungie used to use it back in Halo so whatever their form of SBMM is now probably has something similar. They would have to pay microsoft to license it though because its definietly owned and was developed by microsoft. I've never seen anything from bungie were someone from bungie says this game uses trueskill though. None of that changes the point I was trying to make that, as it said in the thing you refuse to open, SBMM performs the worst out of the matchmaking systems that were tested in terms of player retention. People are going to keep playing as long as they have a more realistic experience where the game doesn't constantly make all the decisions about how your guns are going to work and who gets to win. It honestly doesn't matter what matchmaking they use when you have something on top of the matchmaking that actively influences the outcome of matches during the match to the extent that this game does when SBMM is turned on.

Yep. There it is. No one has ever proved a single thing about Bungie manipulating weapon physics to change outcomes. Or manipulating matchmaking to ensure a 50/50 win/loss record. That whole thing was a misinterpretation of a Bungie quote promoted by a streamer in D1. The Bungie employee stated that matchmaking was designed for players to end up with a 50/50 record. What he meant was that since you were being matched against players that matched your skill you would naturally tend to break even. Some people interpreted this differently, pulled some shit out of their ass, and all these years later, even after pvp content creaters have shown that it doesn't happen and expressed their disbelief, some fools perpetuate the myth. I'm sure Bungie would love to be able to create software that would monitor ptp networked pvp matches in progress, apply some sort of win/lose projection, and make changes to the physics engines on both player's machines in real time. If they had some one who could, he'd be working for NASA. And all this has supposed to have been happening since D1 dropped and no one has caught them at it. Anyone shown you proof or just told you stories? This, like the claim that more players like cbmm, which is another thing that is claimed by a certain segment of the player population, but never proven, is one of a group of stories passed around the low end pvp community to justify their butt hurt "woe is me" attitudes. It lives beside the complaining about the ammo economy, ohks, and "crutches". That and the cry for nerfs. And they don't want to always try. It's funny how these things don't seem to fall under the sway of "just get good". Look back into the history of Destiny and see how this has all played out. And a word to the wise. Never download and open a file whose source you don't know and trust. And if I guy tells you the Earth is flat, don't believe him.

[quote]The Bungie employee stated that matchmaking was designed for players to end up with a 50/50 record. What he meant was that since you were being matched against players that matched your skill you would naturally tend to break even. [/quote] What he meant was what you say he meant???? Interesting... PvP content creators, and people that meet certain criteria weren't held to a 50/50 win rate. Its also funny that you quote them when they agree with you but say they are wrong when almost all of them say CBMM is better for the game as a whole. You can't use the fact that people aren't proving things that you don't agree with to prove the things that you have no proof of yourself btw. There are catchup mechanics in this game and they are now less obvious because of the removal of SBMM. This game has no way of knowing whether or not someone is going to use a certain weapon that would drastically hinder their performance so it simulates what it thinks is supposed to happen to a large degree under SBMM. It is literally impossible for this game to create close matches millions of times a day. Its not that hard to understand if you think about it and dare to read things that may not agree with your viewpoint. The proof people use to show that CBMM is popular is all over this site and the internet. Highest proportion of people playing IB ever, player numbers have not dropped since they instituted it in other playlists that aren't Iron Banner and none of the excuses that people give for why these two truths are the case hold up to scrutiny. You really think they removed SBMM for streamers then? That's just not the case and hopefully they have the courage to keep it like this because PvP will finally become a PvP instead of a rigged cellphone game that anyone who knows what they are looking at can tell what its doing. Being for CBMM is a "woe is me" attitude just because it doesn't fit with your view of what the game should be but being for SBMM is not? The double standards you spew are ridiculous. Especially given that most of the woe is me is currently coming from people who want SBMM back. You don't have to open the link, but you're not going to convince me that the reason you don't want to open is because you're paranoid. Its because it doesn't fit with your viewpoint and the rest of the stuff that you have made up during this conversation so far. As far as the world is flat thing. That self-serving comment did not surprise me given the other things you have said.

Bungie explained what the comment meant. Gambit is the only game mode that included a catch up mechanic. And Bungie not only talked about it, but modified it. Don't you think your cbmm warrior streamers would jump all over something like that if it existed in the crucible. And don't you think they support cbmm because it's better for them and the 50 kill games their followers want than whether it benefits the majority of players. You've been brainwashed by people who have an agenda and derive way too much self-esteem from being good at a second rate shooter. And if you actually link a website instead of an unknown file download from an anonymous source I'll look at it. But seriously, it's not paranoid. Don't download and open unknown files. You'll get owned in a way that has nothing to do with the crucible.

High stat players did not get a 50% win rate. And you are the one quoting the streamers. I don't watch anything streamers have to say other than what is the god roll of a new gun so I don't find have to find out for myself. That would take too long. Streamers were still getting 50 kill games before the switch, they just get them slightly more often now and people who did not have the kind of stats that would cause the game to allow them to do so are getting them more often now too. This change was not made for streamers. Talk about a conspiracy theory. There are definitely catchup mechanics in PvP. Let me ask you this. Do you believe that the game drops players on purpose in order to get the outcome that it is programmed to get? If you don't then there's nothing else more that I can say because you obviously must not play the game that much. Or really pay attention to what's going on. They talked about the catchup mechanics in gambit because they were an obvious issue. They don't talk about anything in PvP let alone the things that people would go crazy about if they were to admit that they happened. Pretty much all player vs. player games use catchup mechanics and its something that's been in videogames going all the way back to racing games on the Nintendo. They are basically a necessity. Its far more logical to believe if you think about it than thinking the game is actually able to create millions of matches that have close outcomes just by placing players together that could be using millions of combinations of weapons and armor. If you would read about what SBMM actually is then you would understand. Just because its called skill based matchmaking does not mean that's all it does. The game literally has to use catchup mechanics because it would be impossible to create close matches very often if it did otherwise. The fact that they haven't commented on it lately does not mean they aren't there and they have said their games use catchup mechanics in the past. Its also just blatantly obvious. You obviously think that everyone's matches were similar to yours with SBMM which just is not the case. I have lost count of the number of times my team has been winning by quite a bit and the game starts dropping players then I go look at DT and it says the other team had the greater chance of winning. Its blatantly obvious what this game was doing to some people. If you didn't experience it, well there's your reason why you are for SBMM.

[quote]As far as people not having an enjoyable experience, I really think most people will get used to it.[/quote] If you mean shorter matches, more mercies and not caring about performance just finishing the matches for pinnacles well possibly. As for understanding how matchmaking works well IMO most actually do understand how it works. SBMM = people with similar skill CBMM = people with similar connection I have seen little or no difference in the location of the people I match with from SBMM to CBMM. I'm south coast UK and still match with French,German,Spanish and Eastern European's as I did with SBMM. However instead of having close matches most have been massive wins or losses. (I have played significantly more than 5 matches but it I really didn't need to do more than 5 to realise that PvP is no longer a fun experience it used to be. That is not to say that in SBMM I had didn't periods when I struggled but never as much as currently with CBMM. My prediction is that those who are average or above will play more but those who are below average will play less or stop playing all together.