Can you just come out and tell us what criteria your using for your "SBMM" system? Because whatever is in place now is bad. Like "did you port this matchmaking software from the Halo 1 days?" Honestly. I don't think ya realize how bad it is. 30 minute wait time just to be booted back with no fight. Being 14 in Reapers new deal, I'm coming across nothing but already cursed crews and old arena crews. Nearly exclusively. Casuals are gone or near enough so to not matter. Congrats all, games like this need new players constantly to keep it balanced. It's losing its new and lower skilled players and all that will be left is people who will just hop over to Fortnite or CoD again when they kill this game off. And don't say try to open up to cross play with pc, because the problems are even worse over there with Steam client being so nice and hackable you can run cheats with near impunity because someone has to "catch" you on video, with audio, with names, with times.... They make reporting just convoluted enough to not bother 99% of the time. Instead of doing something simple like...... running a real anti cheat system.
Let be transparent RARE
The only thing that gets missed by both dev and supporters of the game is the low organic activity in this game, people use overall numbers to show support for the game but for years those overall numbers haven't been great indicators for how much relevant and organic activity is actually happening with content.
They were transparent mostly, they have released their side of the situation, the issue is that when they make changes it will help a bit but the overall issue is still there, low organic participation in content.
People will see a few new names for a bit, it'll still be streamer heavy it just might be a few different streamers, people may experience less wait times but the skill gap/style differences/lower quality fights will still be in the mix.
They can only work with the participation they have, this content needs a lot of people playing it and a lot of different skill levels, it doesn't have that, this isn't a new issue, lower activity levels have been an issue for keeping activity consistency within content quite a while now.
Even if their mmr system were great it still would need high organic participation for it to show great results.
I believe the video they made promoting it said it was based on wins/losses. Win a match or two, they try to find better opponents, lose and they try to find an easier one, if that's any help for you.
I think the biggest issue is just how little motivation there is to play PvP when the only reward is at 100 in a pure PvP game mode (barring the ship figureheads) in a game that really hasn't catered towards PvP in any significant way beforehand.
It's based on average win/loss ratio of your crew with a little catch.
Each server belongs to a server group. Servers in the same group allow migration and pvp mode. Meaning that a crew in the group A can only play against other crews that are in servers in the group A. When you start a battle the matchmaking starts looking for an enemy in the same server group that is close to your win rate. If it can't find one, then it increases the size of the net. If your win rate is 10% and there are no crews close to you in your server group, you are eventually gonna fight the crew with 99% win rate to give you and them battle.
Due to the above sometimes it feels like there is no skill based matchmaking.
What video are you referring to? I know this article from Rare Thief that is explaining an Elo rating system quite closely.
Sea of Thieves: Season Eight On-Demand PVP Guide - Rare Thief
The Pirate Lord and Captain Flameheart have officially rallied their forces and are now waging war on the open sea. The fight for Sea of Thieves has begun, but to whom will you pledge your allegiance? Whether you sail as a Guardian of Fortune or Servant of the Flame, your next battle is just a […]
And this one. I mean, it doesn't go into great detail so there may be "bands" of players, say 0-10% win rate, 10-20% win rate, etc... If it is based on w/l ratio alone they're going out of their way to make it look like and Elo system...
Sea of Thieves: Season Eight On-Demand PVP Guide - Rare Thief
