Yeah it doesn't make a lick of sense.

It's funny because there is only a handful of players left.

Giving more players more ways of playing is never a bad thing. Giving people options leads to a healthier player experience. The antagonist system itself is extremely flawed and unrewarding it makes sense for people to want and try to avoid it until it gets fixed.

Yeah it's not super active. There are only a few cats kicking around at any given time.

MMR a system so un-rewarding makes you wanna quit.

I really enjoyed reading this. You write in a very dramatic fashion.

If it's not already known I've never been a fan of MMR and pined for more standardized difficulties. Then, we could just collectively choose and get matched up with those of a similar preference. To me, MMR always seemed like complexity for complexity's sake. Just hearing it explained gave me a headache where a more straightforward approach would achieve the same goal with far less confusion. However, once we settled on fixed difficulties where an idea of what was what we could 'then' think on layering in 'additional' challenges to spice things up! Try adding in anything on top of MMR now and it's just going to further the confusion.

Currently, I'm sitting at 70ish... and honestly I spend a bit of time evaluating a match. This isn't particularly bad but when I think of the amount of effort being put into making this system relevant and valuable through so very many iterations I wonder if that time wouldn't be better spent elsewhere. Frankly, this system has had a year to gestate and it never gained much favor but was easily scapegoated for any number of issues.

I digress, I really do think you all at Mercury Steam are doing a fantastic job but I question where passion and sensibility buck heads. Regardless, I will keep playing despite my own personal frustrations because you all are very obviously pouring your hearts and souls into this Deus Ex Machina we call Spacelords! See you all out there!

I share similar sentiments to you Quan. MMR seems like a lot more trouble than it's worth. People make the argument that implementing a standard difficulty system would split the community, but right now all MMR does is inflate difficulty for the new players playing with vets. Making the new players leave because they feel difficulty balance is off. MSE said that MMR would in theory work better with a larger community, but the community really isn't growing substantially enough to merit MMR. Another argument that MSE made is that it would make matches more dynamic. Flooding the map with enemies in high MMR isn't dynamic, it's bullsh*t.

I hope it does survive, but at this pace the game is gonna keep struggling to find any real hold.