The unfortunate truth about SBMM

It has become very clear based on personal experience and the experiences of other players here that Skill Based Matchmaking has been implemented in apex legends.

I want to begin by saying players are not upset that they can’t “pub stomp” it is not a valid argument for a lower skilled player to assume someone better than them is just salty that they can’t destroy noobs and they’re forced to play with other better players. This is not the case. This is not the issue with SBMM.

The highest skilled players in the game make up a very small percentage of the overall player base. Think top 1%-2%, diamonds and predators for the most part. A majority of the players on this game are casual, non-frequent, lower skilled players. Without using specific numbers as I don’t have the ability to knew where all 70 million players are at as far as skill, let’s say 70% would be considered the lower skill level or more casual players. 20% would be slightly above avg. and the remaining 10% would include high skill players, including the those top tier players I mentioned before.

SBMM basically puts that top 30% of players in the same lobbies while the rest of the avg. and below avg. players can play against each other and have easier game with less fear of getting destroyed by someone far above their skill level. This means just because someone is better than the avg. player(even just slightly) they are forced to play against the best of the best every single game and that’s a level that they cannot compete at. This also means the highest level plays have to compete against other high caliber players in every game which is not enjoyable. If a diamond or predator player plays ranked, they expect this, if they are playing in public matches to have fun and relax they still have to try just as hard for no reward and that sucks the fun out of the game.

Now for the unfortunate truth. Game developers don’t really care about the highest tier players because they do not make up a majority of their playerbase. The point of SBMM is to make new players and casual players keep playing the game without being pushed away by high level players that they can’t win against. If even a large portion of good players leave due to not having fun anymore, it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t even make a dent compared to the amount of casual players that will stick around. It sucks for the players that have put the time in and who have improved over the life of the game but in the developer’ eyes it keeps their playerbase large and that’s good for business. Now that it’s here, I don’t think there’s much that we can say to do anything about it.