Would skill based match making be good for FFXIV?

[Neoyoshi]

I was curious about what SBMM even meant, so I googled, and....



Yeah, after reading that, I believe that's all the context I needed regarding the landscape of this discussion.

I don't mean to sound dismissive, but this type of system sounds and reads like it's designed for competitive wargames and eSport-driven fps games.

This game has been doing just fine for so long, why would the game need this this all of a sudden now?

[SannaR]

I was curious about what SBMM even meant, so I googled, and....



Yeah, after reading that, I believe that's all the context I needed regarding the landscape of this discussion.

I don't mean to sound dismissive, but this type of system sounds and reads like it's designed for competitive wargames and eSport-driven fps games.

This game has been doing just fine for so long, why would the game need this this all of a sudden now?

I tried to use this as the reason why it wouldn't work outside of JP. That enough of the NA/EU crowd would try and cheese it so they wouldn't feel judged. Just because someone could play at a C+ (if we were to give a skill level example) doesn't mean they'd want to deal with those who might be closer to the B- while still be in the C+ range. And therefore purposely perform worse just so they can relax. Or whatever you want to use for such behavior. While also stating that we already see this when it comes to alliance raids where people purposely lower their ilv so they only get the CT raids. Heck I'm still fairly sure we saw/still see it in the Feast. So, even though I'd be curious enough to see where such a system would put me I still don't think it would work as well as the OP thinks or hopes for.

[Artemiz]

I was curious about what SBMM even meant, so I googled, and....



Yeah, after reading that, I believe that's all the context I needed regarding the landscape of this discussion.

I don't mean to sound dismissive, but this type of system sounds and reads like it's designed for competitive wargames and eSport-driven fps games.

This game has been doing just fine for so long, why would the game need this this all of a sudden now?

To be fair I have made sure to spell it out a few times, including the title in case people don't know what SBMM means.

Its not limited to FPS games, its essential to FPS games or new players get absolutely wrecked and have a very poor experience. It is and can be used in any game that has a match making system, like the duty finder. It even gets used in games based at kids (dont remember which titles) because research shows they engage more and have more fun among more relatable peers.

I'm arguing thats not limited to children but a profound human behaviour, so we could reduce friction in group content by incorporating some mechanisms into the match making system we already have and use, to put at least a bit of weight towards matching skill levels.

[Shurrikhan]

I don't mean to sound dismissive, but this type of system sounds and reads like it's designed for competitive wargames and eSport-driven fps games.?

You're going to frame your whole understanding of a concept based on which game popped up first upon its mention?

Nevermind that this is being requested for PvE, something almost fundamentally different from competitive PvP?

[Shurrikhan]

Sounds a bit like how we can toggle joining duties in progress or not. Sounds like a good idea to be honest, I wouldn't have a problem with it as you wouldn't have to tick it if you didn't want to and the veteran player would be much less likely to throw their weight around if its 1 vs 3

I still worry about the community implications of "Prefer matches with similar players. (See the secondary "Expected Wait Time value.)" even if it somehow could be pulled off, but insofar as options go (even ones like this)... I'd generally rather have them than not.

[Artemiz]

I still worry about the community implications of "Prefer matches with similar players. (See the secondary "Expected Wait Time value.)" even if it somehow could be pulled off, but insofar as options go (even ones like this)... I'd generally rather have them than not.

I would say extended queue times are a very valid concern. What I would argue in mitigation is that SBMM system are easily tuned, right now we could have it reasonably strong as we have so many players active at all player levels so it wouldn't be too difficult to find, for example, plenty of people queuing for ARR dungeons who have yet to clear 2.0. MMO's are traditionally top heavy though so the reverse will almost always be true (lots of players doing expert roulette who have cleared 5.x) At some point there will certainly be less newer players so tuning SBMM down to reduce queue times isn't all that difficult, I'm sure SE have plenty of data regarding average queue times so they would know how the game is doing.

Again, what the system uses to categorize skill levels is open to debate but I just used MSQ progression as it was the easiest way to make my point. Tuning does seem to be reasonably easy though as the categories used don't have to change, just the importance match making gives to them.