Activision is commenting on the Call of Duty matchmaking discussion for the first time and would like to speak more openly with the community about the topic in the future.
What kind of problem is this? Probably the biggest problem that many players have with modern parts of Call of Duty is called skill-based matchmaking (SBMM for short). The controversial system regularly causes frustration among players and has been the focus of a discussion that has been going on for years.
The SBMM ensures that players of approximately the same skill level come into a common lobby. So you should play with and against players who are as good as you. This sounds theoretically sensible, but players criticize that they don’t always want to play at their highest level. It’s a game and they want to have fun sometimes.
If you always play against equally good players, you can’t play in a relaxed manner, you always have to put in the effort and give it your all. A German YouTuber manipulated the matchmaking of the MW3 beta in order to finally have fun with the game – that’s how critical some players are of the SBMM.
A former Halo developer also recently stated that the SBMM of modern shooters lacks variability in matchmaking and balanced matches are the most stressful.
Trailer for Call of Duty MW 3 shows a lobby in real life
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What did the developers say now? The developers of Call of Duty commented for the first time on the SBMM and the debate surrounding the controversial system in a statement to the online magazine CharlieIntel.
The team behind the shooter writes that the experience of the games is the most important thing to them and that matchmaking is a big part of it. That’s why we’ve been trying to improve matchmaking for over 10 years.
The current approach to matchmaking combines various factors, including latency and a player’s skill, the statement says.
Finally, the developers promise to take the time in the weeks following the start of Season 1 to speak openly about the findings and improvements to matchmaking. They also want to discuss the topic with the community.
You can read the complete statement translated into German here:
We know there is a lot of interest in the matchmaking experience, particularly how skill contributes to how lobbies and matches are put together. Nothing is more important to us than the experience players have with the game, and matchmaking is an important part of that. We have been working on our matchmaking system for over ten years, and we continue to invest a lot of time and energy into improving the matchmaking process. This includes people in our Call of Duty studios, our backend services teams at Demonware, and other groups such as our Player Insights team.
It’s a big effort that we’ve been working on for many years, and our approach combines latency, search time and skill with other factors to find the best match experience for you. It can be difficult to talk about this topic in detail, and we have not yet taken the time to summarize all of our work to share with you our learnings and improvements over many years. We look forward to doing this in the coming weeks following the launch of Season 1, and we will also make it part of our ongoing discussions with the community.
The team behind Call of Duty via X.com (CharlieIntel) “We know it works, we want it to work”
How do the players react to the statement? Many players emphasize in the comments under the statement that they just want the SBMM to go away.
Others complain that the statement has no real meaning. There are also a few users who want to stick to the SBMM.
While the team behind Call of Duty is talking about the SBMM for the first time and opening up space for further discussion on the topic, they are currently preparing the upcoming Season 1 content. There is also a Christmas event:
CoD MW3: Season 1 brings a Christmas event with new modes & rewards to Warzone