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What is Skill Matchmaking (SBMM)?
Butcher79
Skill matchmaking (SBMM) has been a major topic in the gaming community lately, but what is it, what games are using it, and why do so many players have trouble with it?
What is Matchmaking by Skill (SBMM)?
Skill matchmaking determines which players to place in your lobby. When you search for a lobby in any video game, it uses a very complex algorithm to find other players and populate your lobby - this is called matchmaking.
However, various factors can be used to determine which players will be placed in your lobby. Location and connectivity tend to be the most important factors, which means that players who are geographically close to you are more likely to be involved in your match to reduce the backlog and improve communication.
Finding skills based on skills doesn't necessarily discard factors like connection, however, but also emphasizes finding players similar to you in terms of skill level.
For example, in Call of Duty, the matchmaking algorithm is believed to take into account your statistics such as game time, points per minute, and kill-to-death ratio (KDR) and match you with players who are similar in those areas. Typically, this results in lower skill players being matched against other lower skill players and higher skill players being matched against other high skill players.
What games use skill-based matching?
In short, we don't know every game that uses skill-based matching. Many developers like to keep their matchmaking systems private for a variety of reasons.
Regardless, many of the world's most popular games have been confirmed to use some level of skill-based matchmaking. These include Fortnite, Apex Legends, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Warzone.
Why is skill-based recruitment controversial and unpopular?
There are a number of reasons why players don't like SBMM. Many argue that this penalizes highly skilled players. If a player is of higher skill, he will enter into a lobby with other talented players, preventing them from showing their skills and dominating weaker players.
Some also dispute that this prevents games from being random. If a more highly skilled player is bet by other highly skilled players, they cannot play the game casually and must invest more attention and effort. This is especially true in games that have both public and ranked modes.
Many players feel that ranked modes should have SBMM, but public matches should be more random. Fortnite, which has both ranked mode and public matches, has SBMM in both. This proved highly unpopular with a number of its most prominent players, including many streamers such as CouRageJD .
Why do developers/publishers use SBMM?
If it's unpopular with a lot of players, then why is SBMM being used by developers? There are a number of potential causes, but a couple will surface. First, it protects less skilled players from being eliminated in every game they play and eventually exiting the game. If the player is still learning the mechanics of the game, putting them in a lobby with exceptionally talented players wouldn't be much fun for them.
Plus, it keeps matches more challenging and competitive. If every team has equally experienced players, the game will become closer and, in theory, more enjoyable. Compare this to a game dominated by one team, it will be much more difficult for a member of that team to enjoy the game.
This is ultimately the stumbling block. Highly skilled players want to be able to dominate the less skilled, at least occasionally, while game studios try to protect the worst players to encourage them to keep playing. Despite the controversy, more and more games seem to be moving towards SBMM as a major part of matchmaking.
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