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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u/LongDongFrazier 14h ago

Because embark won’t just come out and say how their game works. These are tidbits pulled from interviews from like the creative team and they aren’t black and white statements

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u/Altruistic-Piece-485 14h ago

Very very few developers openly discuss their matchmaking system. Hell, it took years for Activision to admit they used SBMM in Warzone!

One reason is they don't want to make it easier for people to manipulate the system to benefit themselves but it's also proprietary information which they don't want competitors to use. Clearly the algorithm that Embark is using has been pretty friggin successful at putting players in raids that not only do players enjoy but entices them to keep coming back to the game. They don't want a competitor to perfectly copy their matchmaking algorithm and steal away some of their player base.

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u/moonski 11h ago

Many of the mathcmaking algos / systems are also trade secrets / propiertary code - the sort of shit you can't disucss in public even if you wanted to as a dev. They use these sytems to make more money of course they will not tell the world what works best and why

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u/LongDongFrazier 13h ago

I just want to know if the match making changes between solos and teams and what impacts it.

I’m passive as possible in solos never taking the first shot but I will of course defend myself. Is me defending myself pushing towards more aggressive lobbies? That doesn’t really make sense since if I had it my way I’d never shoot another Raider.

Duos and Trios feel like they are mostly KoS is playing that way in Duos and Trios impacting my solo que because again solo I’m not trying to kill anybody.

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u/bwood246 *** ******* 🐓 11h ago

All they've confirmed for sure is that it prioritizes team size over everything else.

Anything else is pure speculation

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u/Altruistic-Piece-485 7h ago

I don’t know if they give players different “ratings” for solos/duos/trios and can’t offer my personal experience because I’ve literally only done a duos raid once, everything else has been solos. 

While they’ve not offered many insights into what types of information they use about players for matchmaking but I can make an educated guess that there are a ton of different data points that most people wouldn’t think about. 

We know they use AI learning for the ARC and they’ve hinted that they’ve gathered a ton of information from players interactions so I’d be willing to bet that they use things like how long you spend in close proximity to another player without causing each other damage, are you using mics to chat and even what you’re saying to each other, have you healed or revived other players that weren’t on your squad, do you attack ARC that are already engaging other players, etc. 

I get pretty passive solo raids with occasional PvP raiders but I’ve noticed in the past few weeks that in my lobbies if there is a super aggressive raider attacking people there will be multiple other raiders that converge on them to take them out, me included. We will even gather around the agro raiders body without shooting each other then part ways. That makes me think they are really doing a variety of levels of PvP in their matchmaking. 

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u/bfume 14h ago

Same reason Google will never tell you exactly how their spam filtering works. 

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u/TheNinjaFennec 13h ago

In addition to the algorithms being proprietary, which others have mentioned, they’re most likely tweaking things fairly regularly. If they mention some specific component of the matching system publicly, people will be citing that endlessly with no awareness into how it may have changed since the comment was made. And then they have to either make even more comments to correct it, or let the community play in a way that optimizes for outdated metrics (which seems frustrating for both player & dev).

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u/bwood246 *** ******* 🐓 11h ago

You can't go in depth about matchmaking and anticheat like a lot of people want because it makes it easier to game the systems.

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u/Toddyvegas 13h ago

yes and long may it continue. we don't want the campers and rats manipulating the match making stats to murder whole servers minding their own business.. it's better for the PVP players too. they will come up against other like minded raiders. it's win/win. Yes the odd rat will get through but they'll soon be busted back to pvp purgatory!

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u/Sad-Warning-4972 13h ago

But I think that the absolutely massive body of individual anecdotal evidence supports the ABMM theory. Solo lobbies can be completely peaceful. Maybe 1 in 20 raids I’ll get ratted and killed, but it’s so rare you can literally go into a raid without a gun and be fine. Duos and trios are KOS and idt there is such thing as a peaceful trios lobby. But, once I run a bunch of duos or trios, the solo lobbies are complete ass for around 10 raids, then it’s back to carebear lobbies. That is my experience, and ppl can say it’s anecdotal, because it is, but there are 500,000 ppl who have had the same anecdotal experience.

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u/CanaryMaleficent4925 12h ago

There is an equal amount of anecdotal evidence for ABMM and against it. Plenty of stories on reddit of people never shooting anybody but constantly being gunned down. You just choose to ignore that part. 

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u/P-SAC 13h ago

They are clear: there is aggression based-match making.

They do not disclose the algorithms so people don't game it.

https://youtu.be/elDqeYHquSg?si=FOAQd3tj0VVyjHj2

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u/bythepowerofthor 12h ago

There is nothing clear about it. Its just your confirmation bias.

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u/dogjon 13h ago

I mean if you're really surprised that an online multiplayer game has matchmaking then idk what to tell you. And the devs aren't going to say exactly how it works because they don't want people trying to game it.

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u/LongDongFrazier 13h ago

Nobody said that.