The new Call of Duty is coming in November with Modern Warfare 3. A German YouTuber had fun with the beta, but had to manipulate the matchmaking to do so.
The release of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is getting closer and closer and many shooter fans are looking forward to the upcoming title. Will we finally get a good CoD again or will we be disappointed?
The German CoD YouTuber HapticRush, who played the MW3 beta extensively, also deals with the topic. In a series of videos on his channel, he talks about what players like or dislike about MW3 based on the beta and criticizes the SBMM (Skill based Matchmaking).
One thing in particular stands out: the YouTuber really had fun with the MW3 beta – when he manipulated the shooter’s matchmaking.
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What does the YouTuber say in his videos? Probably the most important point is the criticism of the SBMM. He repeatedly emphasizes that he doesn’t want to play against the biggest “sweaters” and the best players all the time. SBMM has no place in relaxed CoD modes such as team deathmatch and confirmed kill and belongs in competitive ranked modes.
On the other hand, he praises the fast movement, some maps and the weapon selection. Even supposedly smaller changes to MW2 such as the reload cancel are well received by the YouTuber. In general, MW3 feels like a game to which the friends who turned their backs on CoD years ago return.
In the videos it quickly becomes clear: According to HapticRush, MW3 does a lot of things right, can be fun and is one of the best CoD of the past few years – only the SBMM spoils the fun.
YouTuber creates mixed lobbies with second account
How does the YouTuber trick matchmaking? He helped himself out with a Smurf account that intentionally suffered a lot of defeats and performed poorly in order to reduce the average skill of his opponents.
But instead of playing on the Smurf account and only competing against beginners, he played on a normal account and just took the Smurf with him into the lobby. This was then thrown out during a round due to inactivity because it was not being used, but automatically rejoined the group in the next match.
By mixing Smurf and the normal account of a top player, he received a mixed lobby with really good and comparatively bad players – just like before. And he really enjoyed this mix.
What is a Smurf/Smurf account? A smurf account is an additional account of a good player on which he intentionally played poorly and lost in order to then compete on this account against easier opponents – i.e. players who play below his actual level.
What is the criticism of the SBMM? Criticism of the SBMM is not new and has existed in the CoD community for years. Many players want mixed lobbies where players of all skill levels are represented – like it used to be.
It’s simply a lot less fun when you always have to give your best and play at the highest level because you’re competing against the top 5% of players. Even good players want to play in a relaxed manner after work.
In addition, HapticRush believes that the SBMM is not advantageous for worse players, as the lobbies are always the same for them and they therefore remain at their level.
And the YouTuber is not wrong. To get better, worse players should also play against better players. For example, they can learn running routes, movement tricks or meta weapons and setups from the players who dominate the scoreboard. However, if you only compete against similarly bad players, this learning effect is completely eliminated.
In general, the SBMM always comes across criticism from CoD fans. They already found ways to manipulate matchmaking in Modern Warfare in 2019.
Player shows how easy it is to manipulate matchmaking in CoD Modern Warfare