[2023] Can anyone explain to me the purpose behind hidden mmr?

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Would anyone be able to tell me why hidden mmr is a thing in ranked? I don't understand it at all. Last season I grinded to 210,000 LP in masters and did not receive elimination points the entire season after about 30k LP. I had over 5,000 kills in ranked last season with a 2.8 K/D and close to a 20 percent win rate off of 2100 games played (yes I have a job) and finished just short of pred last season.

This season, something very similar is happening. I'm actually getting elimination points, which is huge, but the people I'm playing with are getting substantially more points than I am even though majority of the time I have more kills and damage. I've been playing with my friend for about three hours now. When we started, I was 250 ahead of him. Now he's 500 ahead of me. He's getting "skill" points; around 150 every time we win and I haven't gotten these at all this season. My understanding is that you receive skill points for having a lower hidden sbmm and playing well.

This leads me to the conclusion that my hidden sbmm is high, given that I'm not getting any "skill" points. So, if that's the case, how does hidden sbmm NOT punish good players for performing well? Isn't rank supposed to be a reflection of skill? Me receiving less points for performing better than people makes literally zero sense to me in a RANKED setting. I missed out on elim bonus for 5k kills in ranked last season and missed the pred border by about 30k points. 30k points I may have received through elim bonus. Or maybe not. But it's definitely possible.

How am I supposed to be motivated to grind through this new ranked system when I know I could lose out on hitting predator because people who consistently don't perform as well as me (I mean this in the most non toxic way possible) are receiving more points than me for the same game. Older ranked systems were great because it showed you exactly why you were or were not receiving points, but all this "hidden" stuff doesn't have any visible benefits to me.

Sorry for making it so long but again, please, can anyone make sense of hidden sbmm???

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over 1 year ago - /u/eriddy - Direct link

hi i worked on this when i was at respawn and i worked on mmr at blizzard too.

you guys are lucky apex is putting out much more detailed behind the scenes of the data/decision making than when I was a data lead (s1-10ish).

how and along what exact specific lines your score is determined is fascinating to work on as a dev and theorycraft about as a player. But there's a risk that measurement methodology impacts the thing measured - and when I say "there's a risk", in the context of gamers that becomes a near certainty.

Tell me what gets my number higher I'm optimizing for that. And if a good % of a server is doing that you are now obligated to, in a game theory sense, otherwise you're leaving points on the table. I mean don't you want to win?

Are you very into Star Trek by chance you know sometimes a first contact happens that really ancient aliens up a civilization. It turns out knowing too much too early (via contact -> then observation) is a planet killer.

That said, if you are into the game you should have a sense of why an unfair fight results in uneven point allocation.

Last thing before I wrap my ted talk is my personal view: your rank earned should be based on match composition (how good/bad you are relative to the server) and where you place at the end of the game. The idea here is that if I tell you "all we care about is your placement" it's directly in sync with the point of a battle royale match! HOW you get to your placement is upto you. Presumably you kill more enemies and rotate better and loot faster etc etc. Placement has within it the reflections of all other skill subcomponents, assuming all players are playing to win.

hope this helps in some way. otherwise it was good typing practice for me (win win)

over 1 year ago - /u/eriddy - Direct link

Originally posted by Anonymiko

What i am able to understand from your comment is that basically there is no skill expression, and all you can do is rat and try to play the numbers game rather than playing Apex, the movement/shooter battle royale game.

Sure people want to win. But people also want to have their skill acknowledged. Which is why they play ranked: To compare their skill relative to others in their region.

Ones ability to decifer a poorly thought out point awarding system, does not directly reflect their mechanical skill and game sense.

Lastly, your comment does not provide any explanation as to why it should be a Hidden system masked by an arbitrary rank, rather than scrapping the useless ranking system and just using the MMR, or visa versa.

Personally i like the idea of the MMR pools as it has the potential to be a more accurate depiction of skill... If only it were implemented with full transparency, reasoning and not masked beneath some superficial ranking.

Fully agree on all counts! I suck at posting, shouldn't have tried, I knew I wasn't going to give you the answer but I thought maybe this time I'd land a star trek metaphor. Neeeeeop! Anyway thanks for reminding me to stop posting in here.

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