Skill-based match making is actually an AWFUL idea.

I find that the reason people think they want skill-based MM is because losing 0-15 isn't fun, and winning such a game is also not fun. They claim that skill-based match making (SBMM) would make the game 'more fair', because you always have a chance to win, and it would be more dependent on personal play. This would be true, but there's one huge problem: players intentionally playing poorly.

Let's say SBMM puts 14 average players, and one super-unicum on each team. This seems great right? Everyone is on equal playing fields, and each team has a good chance of winning. There shouldn't be any 15-0's in this scenario. But here's the problem: Two 'average' players on one side, are actually super-unicums themselves. The reason they were matched as 'average' players is because half the time they intentionally throw their tank away to get worse stats. Now suddenly it's 14 average players and 1 unicum, against 3 unicums and 12 average players. Now this is insanely lop-sided, because one team has almost no chance to win, so the SBMM did literally nothing.

If WoT has SBMM, it will have reverse stat padders. This style of play makes it incredibly easy to win games, at your choosing, because it's usually a closer fight. If even 20% of players adopt this strategy, SBMM will be rendered completely useless, and at best a seemingly invisible change. SBMM wouldn't take away those 15-0 games, and it would only benefit people who know how to abuse the system.

Take ranked mode as an example. It's very clear that as you go higher up in the divisions, everyone's play gets much better. But what would happen if half of your team wanted to throw that match, so that they could have easier matches in the future? Suddenly it's a 8 on 15 or 10 on 15. If everything else is equal, this is a total blowout. SBMM can't do anything about it, since it doesn't know if the 40% winrate player or the 60% winrate player will show up. They've just become a flat 50% win rate player, and it can't change that.

So the goal of SBMM is entirely nullified. It wouldn't prevent the blowouts and it wouldn't make the game more fair, it would make it worse. Throwing my tank away because if I do, I get better MM and thus the game is easier to play, sounds absolutely ludicrous. SBMM should not be implemented into the game.

TL;DR People could throw their tank away for worse stats and thus better MM. An extremely abusable system.

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/WorldofTanks/comments/i3l69i/skillbased_match_making_is_actually_an_awful_idea/

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