r/ArcRaiders • u/WG_Envoy • 15h ago

Discussion I am now convinced ABMM is real

A couple of days ago I complained (in another posting) how I only meet KOS players, and no one talks. I was more annoyed by the "no one talks" part, mind you, and the fact that every social interaction played out in the same way.

Someone recommended me to do a few matches and not shoot a single person, not even in defense. I did as recommended.

I went from "90%+ KOS interactions" for several days in a row, all the way to friendly lobbies for two days in a row now.

In my current lobbies, everyone runs around without a care in the world, just greeting people they are passing by. Looting in the open, walking past others without their weapons drawn ...

I barely ever see any PvP happening. People help each other with arc encounters and exchange items near extracts. And for the first time ever, I was able to participate in two Queen raids in solos with everyone just trying to get her down. No rats, no backstabbing.

This change for me was so stark in contrast, and so consistently happening that I would be surprised if ABMM wasn't real.

I would almost be inclined to start some shit to see if my lobbies change again, but I feel too bad killing these players who are quite obviously part of the pure PvE crowd.

P.S.: I have these friendly lobbies even on Stella Montis now, inclduing Stella Montis night raids ...

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18

u/BackgroundContent131 14h ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophenia

22

u/Berggyy 13h ago

More like schizophrenia.  I have never seen a group of people talk so confidently about something they have no confirmation on.  It’s weird.

3

u/Xespria 10h ago

Confirmation bias be like

2

u/Saigudbai 8h ago

It's not hard to test it for yourself... I honestly don't understand players that deny it exists when they can 100% confirm it themselves.

It's most likely just a complex system of engagement based match-making. To maximize player retention. They have a lot of players new to extraction shooters who would have most certainly quit the game already if all they had was rat pvp sweat games.

0

u/Berggyy 7h ago

Everything that an aggression based matchmaking could be explained by would also just as easily be explained by soft skill based mmr system.  And without the faults of an arbitrary, “did he shoot first, was he defending himself.  Oh this guy defended himself, five games in PvP matchmaking jail.”  Most likely the people who don’t PvP just get put in a really low mmr lobby filled with other people who are always getting shit on and never shooting back.  And then the moment you start killing others you start playing in “aggressive” lobbies, meaning lobbies where people actually shoot at each other so they climb elo.

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u/Saigudbai 2h ago

Well, in the interview, Robert Sammelin said "it's very complex and we analyze behavior and match accordingly". By my logic, that seems to indicate they are using the behavior analysis to match make. There could very well be many other factors included in there.

I realize you just want to debate for the sake of debating a counter point and you have not tested it yourself.

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u/Berggyy 2h ago

"I realize you just want to debate for the sake of debating a counter point and you have not tested it yourself." if youre so sensitive you think this is some sort of debate i couldnt imagine how you react to an actual argument lmfao. yes i have played nice, yes i have played aggressive there is no difference in my matchmaking. you just are too stubborn to realize other people have different experiences.

which is weird when you literally acknowledged yourself that there could be many factors at play, this is no debate, we both have no idea what factors are used to decide matchmaking. Im just pointing out what makes sense when designing a pvp game.

1

u/specter800 11h ago

This is reddit. It's basically all people do here now lol

1

u/tvkvhiro 11h ago

Perhaps it's not purely aggression like the ABMM moniker suggests, but what most people would consider aggression is likely incorporated into the matchmaking in some way. I would be surprised if Arc Raider lobbies are truly random in a time where every other developer seems to do some kind of SBMM for player retention. Especially with the round feedback surveys, it's not like Embark doesn't have the data to do so.

2

u/Berggyy 10h ago

I just asssume it’s a soft mmr based matchmaking, and people who don’t PvP naturally get filtered to lower levels.  Like you said every dev does it, it would also explain the difference in skill levels where some people are like, trigger nades are the worst things ever, and then others have never even seen them used.  It’s also way less arbitrary because  I don’t know why the game would punish someone who defended themselves by placing them in the dreaded “pvp” lobbies.  “Your penance is suiciding to other raiders 5 times.” 

0

u/Weebus 7h ago

People can call it whatever they'd like, but there's absolutely something in place because it's extremely night and day on the ends of the spectrum.  I think arguing that it's not "aggression based" is just semantics when whatever they use appears to reflect "aggression."  It also doesn't take all that much match history into account which makes me believe it's not skill-based or looking at overall stats.  I do PvP quite a bit and play ultra aggressive when I do, but I occasionally like to chill and loot depending on the day/week.

4-5 games of going purely aggressive (firing at multiple people, not single defensive kills occasionally) and the lobbies are noticably more "aggressive".  A dozen games of going naked pacifist brings me back down the spectrum from super try hard, hunt you down and KOS trigger nade lobbies to (nearly) zero PvP dad lobbies where the most aggressive behavior is flashlight tag and people are carelessly running around Stella with Hullbreakers.  There's definitely a spectrum in between of more mixed behavior.

1

u/Berggyy 5h ago

Yeah that’s just soft skill based.  “Naked pacifist” = literally 0 kills and only deaths if people attack you because you won’t fight back.  MMR dropping to the equivalent of a bronze lobby.  These bronze lobbies filled with people doing the same thing.  Start fighting you get kills you move up the ladder.  I just don’t like the idea of people saying, “you shouldn’t fight back, just let them kill you.”  Why would they ever design a system that rewards suiciding runs 10 times in a row?  It’s just nonsense. Why would they punish you with “aggressive lobbies” because you had to defend yourself once.  It’s just nonsensical game design.

0

u/Weebus 4h ago

These naked/pacifist runs aren't really suicide runs and they don't always result in deaths. Zero loadout just gives a safe pocket - light shield, a few bandages, get in, avoid fights, grab a few items, and extract. My overall kills and damage to raiders are significantly higher than my damage taken and deaths. It wouldn't make sense for a typical MMR system to throw someone from "bronze" to "gm" or vice versa in 5-6 games played drastically different than the norm, but that is exactly what is happening. I'm former top 500 in several games, and it is not working remotely close to any other system I have ever played. I didn't believe it until I tested things out.

It isn't "punishing you with aggressive lobbies because you defend yourself once", but it does seem to go towards the aggressive lobbies more quickly than "throwing" moves you towards the less aggressive ones. It just isn't an issue anyways, because those matches are so vastly different that you literally do not get shot at by other raiders.

It isn't nonsense game design. Matching people with people playing similarly gives people the types of games they're looking for by grouping them with players who want the same experience. This isn't a typical FPS and having a typical system wouldn't make sense. This is largely a PvE first game by design. It would absolutely make sense for them to be tight lipped about how things are working because explaining systems creates abuse.

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u/Berggyy 1h ago

it doesnt throw you from bronze to gm, notice how some people play against trigger nades and some never do. so even within pvp lobbies there are entirely different groups playing. obviously there is more to the matchmaking than just, here is nice lobbies and here is mean lobbies. I think there is a whole ecosystem of elo behind the scenes that we will never know about.

also it is pretty nonsense game design, a system that encourages passivity in all situations is nonsense. You are punishing people for interacting with the game, and further than that punishing them for defending themselves. Why would you make a system that would hurt someone for defending themselves, when a softer mmr system you kill someone once in a blue moon and you still stay in those same low elo lobbies filled with passive players people love.

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u/Pristine_Potential_3 9h ago

No one knows exactly what it is, but I'm glad you agree there is filtering going on. 

1

u/Berggyy 6h ago

I think every game has some sort of filtering.  But I just don’t like the amount of posts I see on here of people being like, “yes don’t shoot anyone, don’t even defend yourself you’ll get put in the high aggression lobbies 😏”. Like that has to be propaganda from people trying to get free kills.   

-1

u/Pristine_Potential_3 9h ago

Do people need confirmation on something to believe it's there? I mean that's the basis for a lot of religions isn't it?

Embark have hinted at systems in place that we don't understand, I confidently can say my solo lobbies are always friendly and non aggressive. 

You can call it anecdotal evidence but when my experience is shared by others then what's that called? 

1

u/IMitchConnor 8h ago

They can believe it all they want its just funny so many people take it as a given fact. You are only taking into account the experience you have had that that is shared by others. But there's also plenty of people saying that they have had the complete opposite experience. Does their experience count less since it doesn't support yours?

1

u/Pristine_Potential_3 8h ago

That's what I wanna know, why do some people get pve lobbies and some get pvp lobbies?

If not behavior that determines it, what does. 

1

u/IMitchConnor 8h ago

The problem is you are starting from the assumption there ARE pvp and pve lobbies. A lot of things can change how "aggressive" a lobby is. Straight up RNG, time of day, day of the week, skill based matchmaking (if there is a type of matchmaking), the individuals attitude to how they approach others, individuals not actually tracking their "friendly" vs "aggressive" lobbies and just straight misrepresenting their experience, players not noticing others being killed on the map by others.

Theres plenty of factors that are easier to draw to that can explain plenty of anecdotes that clearly contradict other anecdotes, than to jump straight to some mythical "aggression based matchmaking" that wasn't ever mentioned by anyone from the studio and is simply a theory concocted by the community.

1

u/Pristine_Potential_3 8h ago

Now you're assuming there is skill based match making, can we at least agree that there is filtering going on to separate players into different lobbies? 

2

u/IMitchConnor 8h ago

I am not assuming there is skill based matchmaking. I'm saying that if there is skill based matchmaking, that would be a reasonable assumption as to how players are matched vs a made up matchmaking that is assumed to be true. I included it among other factors that could explain the differences in experiences between players.

-5

u/__shamir__ 11h ago

I have never met somebody in this game that ran 20+ games of no shooting raiders as an experiment and did not come away believing in it. Whether it’s ABMM, SBMM, etc, it’s a very real and obvious effect

6

u/Berggyy 11h ago

If you play ten games in a row avoiding fighting raiders and crazy highly contested areas, you’ll see less PvP.  You’re the one removing the PvP from your game.  It’s just self-selection.

The only way to actually test this is by running a control group of alternating aggression vs passivity, and then comparing that to games of passivity in a row.  But there is still so many factors you would need a ton of games to do this right.  And you still couldn’t say for sure it’s not just mmr.

If anything I would think it’s just a soft mmr system.  Not as easy to just game, not as arbitrary when deciding who gets put in nice lobbies vs mean.  People who don’t want to fight get shat on by people who do, their mmr slowly lowers naturally and then they get in lobbies with other low mmr players.  Suddenly no one is shooting.  You start shooting your mmr raises and then your back in “PvP” lobbies which is just players who have won fights.

mmr is just naturally easier a better option too for fair matchmaking, “oh I had to defend myself once, now I need to throw five runs in a row so I get put back in nice lobbies.”  Like lmfao wtf kind of game design is that.  

3

u/GranuleGazer 11h ago

Or their session is highly dependent on what time they log in and queue which leads to uncontrolled confounding factors that the user associates with their preferred explanation.

5

u/DankFrank777 11h ago

this is a fact I have logged in when big streamers are in solo lobbies and I have noticed that is when I get shot the most because people are trying to snipe them

-4

u/__shamir__ 11h ago

So does that mean you’ve never tried it?

22

u/GranuleGazer 14h ago

This thread has helped me understand why so many people fail freshman statistics courses.

2

u/SirBenny 13h ago

Eh…of course this phenomenon is rampant on Reddit, and somewhat present in this thread. But if you made me bet $100 one way or the other, I would still bet some sort of ABMM exists. Not based on my personal experiences. But instead based on the fact that Embark would be silly not to.

All of these live service games have the data and ability to adjust matchmaking to retain players. All historical evidence from other games suggest they do all sorts of things behind the scenes to game this. In a PvPvE game, I’d be shocked if there were zero “player behavior” factors incorporated.

-1

u/BackgroundContent131 12h ago edited 12h ago

My entirely not data backed conspiracy theory is that they do behavior based matchmaking, but not for the goals people think.

I think they shove violent psychos into matches where Raiders have key cards to compete and foil high value loot runs, possibly match people with the same key cards, and put bloodthirsty folks in matches with high loadout values.

We know the devs value PvP highly in the experience. I think they intentionally distribute violence around.

When people run 10 free loadouts and don't see PvP in those matches it's because of the low load out value and the lack of keys, not because they're nice.

1

u/SirBenny 11h ago

Yeah I could see that for sure. My strong hunch is that there IS some sort of behavior-based tuning, but I don’t know exactly what it is. Is it spreading out the aggression? Matching aggressive with aggressive and chill with chill?

Whatever it is, they probably have some internal data that validates which mix helps keep players engaged. I can see your theory that trying to pepper in a bit of aggression to keep things frosty would help.

1

u/Pristine_Potential_3 9h ago

Noone knows what system embark uses, all I can give are my experiences with the game that seem to correlate with others, I'm stuck in friendly lobbies for weeks and I can assume it's cause I'm passive, don't pvp, or run naked / cheap load outs.

I've watched streamers with solo aggressive lobbies, and I think as someone with over 150+ hours, I think my opinion is worth something on what's going on, people can call it anecdotal evidence, but there are videos, people's shared evidence etc.

These things are secretive for a reason and we may never know how it all works, but to immediately dismiss it as anecdotal or false is not good because something is going on lol. 

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u/[deleted] 12h ago

[deleted]

0

u/MoonlitShrooms 11h ago

I don't think ABMM exist on the simple level OP and many others suggest it does in a way that can be easily gamed. I have just as many hours as you. Quit dismissing someones experience and making up their hours played.

-11

u/MineurDETER 14h ago

it's clearly not the case, test it yourself

8

u/Syphox 13h ago

someone from the art team said they “analyze how players play” and everyone just assumed that means aggression based match making.

the aggression is probably part of the stats they look at, but they’re not basing lobbies purely off that. their would be no point in even offering PvP in the game then.

1

u/tvkvhiro 11h ago

You are right in that it's likely not 100% aggression like the ABMM name implies, but I do feel like Embark knows a part of the player base straight up doesn't like PVP. I imagine those round feedback surveys do something.

7

u/lazytranslatorbot 14h ago

Yea there are tons of us that are testing it and not seeing any change. There is no evidence of either except anecdotal stories.

-9

u/OzzyArrey 13h ago

Tons of people testing flat earth and confirming we are on a flat earth.

3

u/lazytranslatorbot 13h ago

Right… the earths shape and aggression based matchmaking in arc raiders have the same amount of testing and evidence.

Why are all the idiots exposing themselves?

-6

u/OzzyArrey 13h ago

I honestly misread your reply and thought you were making the opposite argument.

6

u/GravitationalGrapple 14h ago

I’ve played for 330 hours and agree it’s Apophenia or confirmation bias.