Top Apex Legends players are making impassioned pleas for game developer Respawn to do away will skill-based matchmaking (SBMM). From their perspectives, it’s not fair that public matches feel as competitive — if not more competitive — than ranked games. This is indeed problematic, as ranked exists specifically so top players can compete at a top-tier level. Players who play public matches shouldn’t be subject to the same level of competitive play.
The Apex Legends Reddit community even created two separate megathreads specifically addressing this topic.
But I’m sick of hearing blanket demands that Respawn get rid of SBMM.
The majority of people complaining about SBMM seem to be in the top echelon of players. Their complaints are valid. But it’s important to look at this as a mathematical challenge. The reality is that without SBMM, even middle-of-the-road casual players have an extremely high chance of being consistently matched with top players against whom they don’t stand a chance.
The Math, Simplified
The following is full of assumptions and made-up but easy-to-understand numbers. The goal is to illustrate the math driving the SMBB argument as there’s no accurate game data publicly available for these calculations.
For simplicity’s sake, let’s say Apex Legends has a player base of 1,000 players, ranging from somewhat active to very active. Ten players comprise the top 1 percent and 990 people would comprise the other 99 percent.
It’s reasonable to imagine those 10 players spend much more time playing Apex Legends than others. To give you an idea of how this might shape out, it’s worth noting that out of my 100 Xbox friends who play Apex Legends the most, one has played more than 3,050 hours. He’s the game’s overall 20th ranked player based on player level (as calculated prior to the changes made in the game’s most recent update), according to TRN’s Apex Legends Tracker. The friend with the second-most time in the game is also a strong player but has logged only 1700 hours.
On that same list, the player with the fewest in-game hours has logged only 72 hours in the Apex Legends. In fact, no one in the bottom 10 has invested more than 100 hours.
SBMM needs to exist because if the top one percent of players spend more than 300 times as much time in the game than any player in the bottom 10 percent, then in a true random system, the low-tier players will consistently be matched in lobbies with these top one percent players who play the game 300 times as much as the noobs.
One argument, then, is to give new players their own lobbies. Smurfing aside, it’s certainly a good start, given that top-tier players aren’t generally interested in fighting noobs anyway.
Based on my Xbox data, it appears the top one percent of players still put in almost double the time of even those in the 98th percentile. Theoretically, the 98th percentile has spent half as much time in the game and would therefore still not be quite as good as the top one percent.
I’m not saying top players should be forced into separate lobbies. I’m simply saying here that doing away with SBMM is a recipe to have the game dominated by a minority of very active players.
To think about it another way, the average household income sinks significantly if you take out a handful of billionaires that skew the data set. Using made-up numbers again, assume that if you include them, an “average” income across a given country is $500,000 dollars. But the vast majority of people make much less than that. Take the billionaires out, and the average income starts to look more like $50,000.
Truly random matchmaking allows so-called “pub stompers” to cannibalize less-skilled players. And, as annoying as it is for top players to constantly have to square off against other sweaty players when they’re just trying to have fun with friends, it’s also demoralizing for lower-skilled players to have to face off against pros and keep getting beaten over and over again.
Some have suggested that instead of matchmaking based on skill, lower-skilled players should grind harder and play better in order to compete with top players. First of all, not everyone has 3,000 hours a year to put into a video game. But more importantly, I’m not really sure how a person can improve when they’re getting clobbered every game. After a certain point, it probably wouldn’t matter anyway because the player would eventually find a different game that’s more fun for them.
Solving the SBMM Problem
So, what’s the solution?
This is a tough problem, and unfortunately, I’m not paid enough to solve it. But I would recommend that the game consistently adjust and re-roll lobbies based on performance in the previous games played in their recent histories. So, if a strong player plays two or three games in a row alongside other players at their skill levels, they default to easier lobbies for a while regardless of their own skill levels. Us potatoes will be fine with this as long as there are occasionally some lobbies where it’s possible for us to win as well. Regardless of how it’s implemented, if SBMM is in the game, it should still always feel as though a player is facing off against random lobbies in public games.
The reality is that current SBMM format affects only negatively impacts a minority of players, even if they’re the most active ones. Unfortunately, unbalanced matchmaking will cause less-skilled players to complain the game is “too hard” and play something else.
Respawn has done an excellent job of listening to player feedback, and while I don’t know that the changes to SBMM will be instant, I have no doubt that the team there is listening to feedback. Algorithms are extremely tough to master, especially when it comes to a software product that’s still relatively new, like Apex Legends. If I’ve had Instagram for seven years and still can’t get it to stop showing me pictures of my friends’ babies, then suffice it to say players may have to be patient while Respawn masters its SBMM mathematics.
