Max Hobberman on the failure of Modern SBMM (Gaming)

by Schooly D, TSD Gaming Condo, TX, Sunday, November 26, 2023, 17:53 (373 days ago) @ Cody Miller

I'm going to lean on the side of this making things worse. If you advertise that it purposely put you against a better group, you'll be upset. But if you think it's fair and the team just played well, then you won't be.

You have a good point *if* each win or loss affects your "power level" equally. But can't it be ameliorated if, as I suspect, getting stomped when you're expected to get stomped wouldn't ding your level as much as losing a match you're favored to win? Advertise the stakes: "The other team is heavily favored to win this match. Big upside, small downside."

I don't think this necessitates displaying raw numbers to the player. E.g. "your team's SBMM is 7225, the other team's is 9199, you have a 13.45% chance of winning this match, if you win your team's SBMM will increase by 190..." That might just stress people out. But there is probably a way to present the underlying mechanics and expectations in an intuitive way that lessens the sting when you get rolled. It'd also enhance the players' trust that the SBMM engine is behaving as intended, and it's not that you got rolled because the MM engine screwed up or made a bad calculation.