Overall, I’m not a big fan of SBMM… at least not the way it’s been implemented in Destiny and other games recently. I get the concept in theory. Different players have different skill level. As a game developer and business, you want to attract and keep the largest audience possible. However, new players, lesser-skilled players, and casual players are vulnerable to negative experiences at the hands of more experienced, skilled, hardcore players. Players who have overwhelmingly negative experiences with a game, or an aspect of a game, are unlikely to continue playing. Players leaving for any reason is not good for the game, or the business, and I wholeheartedly agree that resolutions should be considered. Skill based matchmaking, in theory I imagine, is intended to allow all players to compete against folks relatively close to their skill range. New/casual/less-skilled players get to avoid mlg pros with more consistency, and higher-skilled players get to experience more challenging competition. Great, everyone’s happy. Except it’s not that simple. A number of folks who oppose SBMM primarily express it with “I’m tired of all my games being sweaty!”. I believe the point they’re trying to make is valid, but presenting it that way just comes off really bad, and it often results in an equally flawed response - “Oh so you’re only happy stomping noobs!”. I don’t think that view is accurate of many folks who dislike SBMM, but when it’s communicated a certain way, the message gets distorted and we are a society that tends to assume the worst of people on the internet. I have 3 criticisms of SBMM, which I think are reasonable and constructive. I hope it comes off that way. Also, please understand these are the experiences of myself and my friends. I’m not trying to speak for everyone, but I do know a lot of players feel the same way. [b]1) Playing with friends of different skill levels is a problem[/b] — I play in a group of 5. Well I did. We’re all different skill levels. Due to SBMM, we barely play together. A couple of the guys in our group are a lower skill level. So, when they play by themselves, they do well, they experience less lag, and they have fun. If we play together, they more often than not don’t do well, they experience more lag, they don’t have fun and they inevitably stop playing. Back when it was CBMM in yr1, this didn’t happen. Yes, a couple guys in the group would have good games more consistently, but everyone would do well from time to time, and everyone had fun - regardless of skill level, regardless of who played together, and regardless of how many of us played together in a session (from solo up to a full fireteam). This is promoted as a social game. Players tout it as a social game. But SBMM in multiplayer, at least how it’s been implemented thus far, fosters a divide. Now you have friends who don’t have fun, specifically, when playing together. The alternative is to either play separately (which shouldn’t be an acceptable solution for a “social” game), or go find/play a different game together (which shouldn’t be an acceptable solution for any developer). I personally believe any system that actively makes it more difficult to enjoy a game when playing together with friends, due to them being different skill levels, is significantly flawed. [b]2) Increased lag[/b] — Destiny always seemed to have, for me and many others, a fair amount of lag. But, aside from some bad jumps during Iron Banner, it was mostly bearable. Once SBMM became more of a priority, it quickly and easily became the laggiest multiplayer I’ve ever personally experienced. A lot of folks haven’t dealt with this, which is great and I’m envious. But from what I’ve seen, SBMM significantly increased lag for a large amount of the player base. Taking focus away from CBMM will inherently result in worse connection/lag. Plus, the higher your skill bracket is, the more lag you’re likely to experience on a consistent basis - this has been well documented. Not to mention, I’d personally rather be confident that whatever happened in a match, win or lose, is mostly legit. [b]3) I prefer a varied gaming experience, and also the ability to choose how I want to play[/b] — Sometimes I’m in the mood for something that’s intense and highly competitive. Other times I’m in the mood for something that’s more relaxed, and maybe allows me to have fun messing around with different (non-meta) guns or do bounties. When PVP for Destiny and other games were based on CBMM, in my experience, sometimes you’d destroy people; sometimes you’d have close, “sweaty” matches; and sometimes you’d get destroyed. I don’t know if I’m alone here but that worked for me, and it was enjoyable. It gave me varying experiences with different types of players doing different things, and different matches having different, legitimate results. Granted, the better you are, the less likely you’ll play folks better than you. The worse you are, the less likely you’ll play folks worse than you. However, let me throw out a few numbers (from DestinyTracker): Percentage of Destiny players with an overall k/d of 1.35 or lower = 91% Percentage of Destiny players with an overall k/d of 1.25 or lower = 87% Percentage of Destiny players with an overall k/d of 1.15 or lower = 78% Percentage of Destiny players with an overall k/d of .99 or lower = 56% Percentage of Destiny players with an overall k/d of .85 or lower = 30% Percentage of Destiny players with an overall k/d of .75 or lower = 16% Percentage of Destiny players with an overall k/d of .61 or lower = 5% Percentage of Destiny players with an overall k/d of 1.47 or higher = 5% Five percent at 1.47 or higher. Five percent… I mean, the overwhelming percentage of folks that fall near a 1.0 is insane. Statistically speaking, with CBMM, the vast majority of players [i]should[/i] rarely face a team full of players significantly better than them. Of course there are outliers (Destiny RNG!), but it [i]should[/i] be relatively uncommon. None of these things are to say that I believe my position on SBMM is better or more important than those who disagree. However, bringing back what I said earlier, players leaving for any reason is not good for the game. Forcing higher skilled players into matchmaking that sours the game for them is no better a strategy than conversely allowing lesser skilled players to suffer in matchmaking that sours the game for them. TL;DR — I don’t believe that many games have handled matchmaking properly the last couple years. And, honestly, I don’t know the best solution, but I just don’t feel that the current landscape of SBMM is it. I watched a youtuber yesterday talking about Halo Reach when Bungie actually allowed players to choose their matchmaking priority, either connection or skill. That might be ideal. I don’t know. [b]Maybe the changes Bungie mentioned in their last update will resolve everything - with the 2 different matchmaking setups for quickplay and competitive[/b]. Here’s hoping, but I’ll probably be using a “believe it when I see it” approach. Edit: In case I didn't communicate this clearly - I'm not opposed to the goal of SBMM, I just think it should be implemented differently than it was in D1. And I'm aware that Bungie is separating the matchmaking for quickplay and competitive in D2, which sounds promising. If it's done well and makes this a moot point, great.