I think it's really hard to have a conversation about SBMM these days, especially when talking to people with different skill levels. I'm a data guy, I can see numbers and understand the story they're telling, but I also know most people struggle with that. So I wanted to find a way to show what Warzone would look like with different SBMM models, along with different mixes of players. I wanted to also address the issue of bots, and how lobbies are structured when bad players quit over time. Free to mess with if you want, let me know what you think. sbmmfree-app-877zj374a3w.str…

Every time I play with Mike and I see him hit something, my face looks like @iamExpel here

I haven’t played GTA Online in… 7 or 8 years. Hopped on with some guys from work this week and the game is basically unplayable if you haven’t been playing this whole time. Every lobby, every day for 3 days straight are packs of players doing nothing but hunting players. The only option is to PvP or quit. Even trying to drive to a mission gets you hunted down and attacked by armored trucks with machine guns and attack choppers lobbing homing missiles from half the map away. All of these open world / extraction PvPvE games have the same problem and none of it matters if @TheTacticalBrit wants to just run around 3 boxing 40 year old dads with full time jobs on stream until Warzone drops. The problem is the gameplay doesn’t support long term play and absolutely kills late entries. High skill players and dedicated ones will grind through the content significantly faster than devs can publish it. When it’s done all that’s left is mindless PvP or quitting. This kills the game. With a 1k/d in Warzone being a top 20% player it’s safe to point out that the majority of players are bad, and spend most of their playtime facing high skilled players with nothing to do but hunt other players. Late players find themselves in this bucket as well, but stuck dealing with a perpetual gear disadvantage. The only real solution is to isolate PvP players from those trying to play content, but that is its own death blow to these games: eventually the content or the fun runs out and the game dies anyways. Arc raiders found a unique way to keep its players involved, but that studio quickly ran out of content and cratered anyways. FPS is deep in a rut and DMZ / Extraction shooters aren’t the solution.

Best one yet @Parabellum182

Look ranked casuals is great and all but as a working dad I don’t have time to waste playing that. We need a Ranked Tier Skip in Ranked Casuals. I might not have time to play but I do have disposable income.

SBMM is generally overtuned in games like @CallofDuty and @PlayApex. In my research I’ve found that Battle Royales have thrown the skill balancing equation on its head and given it a kick for good measure. The resurgence of BO1 and BO2 this year really hammered home the difference in experiences between two generations of games. SBMM in these games falters because player characters are fundamentally the same. Same health, same guns, same game function. Player skill is the biggest difference in combat outcome. The same cannot be said for sports title modes like @EASPORTSNHL CHEL. CHEL is a mode where playtime = in game character ability. The more you play, the faster, stronger, and overall higher skilled your player character is. User skill matters little when in game speed is a 2:1 advantage based on play time. These modes require extreme SBMM to be playable, or the base functions of the game simply aren’t accessible if you don’t log the required hours. Unfortunately CHEL has no SBMM, and after taking 2 weeks off for personal reasons and not paying an extra $40 for 10 days of early access, the game is not playable, so I’m forced to put yet another NHL title aside until next September where I might get a months worth of game time in.

Life update - Shits Crazy out there. There are actually few details I can discuss publicly due to ongoing investigations by the School, the District, and the Sheriff's Department and possible criminal or civil actions. That being said, the girls are safe, we've moved them to a new school and put some safety measures in place here at the ranch. If I come across like I've lost complete hope in California's Justice System and have no faith in humanity, that's an accurate read.

Here's your daily reminder that Sony is evil. It is now, and has been since it lost Betamax, one of the most evil anti-consumer companies on earth. Want to know WHY @PlayStation is getting rid of discs? The Blu-ray patents are expiring. Starting this year, and ending in 2031 Sony will no longer be able to hold game discs hostage for a cut of the Blu-ray manufacturing. The solution to this loss of revenue is to end the use of Blu-ray wherever possible, thereby moving distribution profits from manufacturer royalties to PlayStation Store booking fees. How much you ask? Booking a game through the Playstation Store nets Sony 30% vs 15% or less on physical sales. Discs are going away because Sony is losing the ability to make money on their manufacturing. And they think you're mentally unwell for not liking this. "Maybe it’s a mentality issue."

My PC is better than 99% of nerds running their mouths on this thread, and @hybridheroplays is still correct. An *average* PC in 2022 had 8 or 16 gigs of DDR4 RAM. A budget-conscious consumer dealing with late-stage pandemic pricing and availability likely bought pre-built and the number of those that shipped with 8gigs shouldn't be understated. Going into 2022 the most common gaming PC looked like this: System RAM: 16 GB was the leading configuration at roughly 45% of users, followed by 8 GB at around 25%. Graphics Card (GPU): The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 (6GB) remained the most popular individual graphics card, leading the charts for much of the year. Graphics Memory (VRAM): 6 GB and 8 GB VRAM pools were the most common tiers among gamers. CPU: Intel held a slight lead over AMD in total processor share, with 6-core and 4-core processors dominating most rigs. Operating System: Windows 10 (64-bit) was overwhelmingly dominant, with Windows 7 holding a small residual share (around 5%). Display Resolution: 1920 x 1080 (Full HD) was the standard primary resolution for over half of all users. This is substandard compared to the Xbox Series S, much less the X or PS5 / PS5Pro. A 2022 PC, depending on when in the year it was bought (pre-built most commonly) likely needed a RAM upgrade early, a new GPU and likely a second upgrade to DDR5 if they wanted to stay relevant.

Bro thought he could play dead and get away 🤣 @PUBGDedNet

Facts

This is a great idea. Two concerns so far: How will this affect latency and hit detection? Are we going to be dying to invisible players because the server hasn't told our terminal that the player is there yet? As @geekypastimes posted, will this affect UAVs / block permanent UAV hacks? Also, the comments are full of people who don't know how cheats work 🤣

I poked some fun at the criticisms @Brammflakes has been hit with lately, but @KadavrGames hit a point that I think needs to be actually addressed with a bit more seriousness. Unintended consequences. At work I recently found a way where a subuser on a customer account could access information I felt they shouldn't when all permissions were set to "no", I raised that to ENG, they agreed and fixed it. 700 customers lit up Support because we broke their accounts and their employees couldn't work. Turns out, the security issue was viewed as a feature by many and a non-issue by almost all the rest, so we rolled it back and now we've got to work through all the possible permutations on how whatever permission change we make will impact our customers. Simple fix, on paper, big problem in reality. Thats why "It's just a simple fix" often isn't.

"What is the point?" Every game and mode should have a very clear, definitive answer to this question. Warzone: Be the last team standing Battlefield: Have your team score the most points in a match Arc Raiders: Scavenge valuable supplies for your underground city Tarkov: Collect valuable loot and survive Wardogs: Control the zone to win the match When DMZ launched, the devs did not know what they wanted to do with it, even including these statements in their materials: "As we look to the future, we hope to reward players for exfiltration in new ways as we work towards new uses for cash and items." "While DMZ is still in Beta, our hope is to continue getting feedback to shape future iterations of the game." DMZ launched with missions, but no clear point or goal. Looting converted everything into XP, even cash. Missions lacked a coherent story. Most missions were connected somehow, but there was no narrative driving the game. DMZ was a tech demo more than a game and launched as one of the most shallow COD experiences of all time.

Look at these guys, sitting here having *meetings* when they could be fixing their dead battlefield killer game. 🤣

Hockey fans really need to stop overusing the term "generational". There are only 8 generational talents in NHL history. Bobby Orr Mike Bossy Wayne Gretzky Macklin Celebrini Mario Lemieux Alexander Ovechkin Sidney Crosby Connor McDavid

Funny part is we are rapidly returning to this model 🤣

It’s always the couch potatoes who’ve never played any sports that show up with shit opinions like this. Imagine going through life thinking seven minutes of football is tougher than 60 minutes of hockey.