Call of Duty
‘It kills the game!’: CoD MW3 fans find the already hated SBMM worse than ever
Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 relies on SBMM in multiplayer – like virtually all shooters of the last 15 years.
Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 players don’t have it easy: the story campaEsports Extrasis a lot of nonsense, but the multiplayer is pretty good – even if it almost only consists of well-known maps. But even then there is a fly in the ointment.
Skill-based matchmaking (SBMM) is causing a lot of frustration for some fans. A complaint that keeps coming back. Apparently it’s worse this time than in recent years.
The essentials in brief:
- Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 players complain about skill-based matchmaking (SBMM).
- Matchmaking causes frustration because every round feels like an eSports tournament and relaxed rounds are no longer possible.
- There are mixed opinions as to whether or not SBMM has gotten worse this year.
Modern Warfare 3 fans complain about matchmaking being too strict
What is SBMM? Skill-based matchmaking is intended to ensure that you don’t just randomly get thrown together with random players in rounds. Ideally, this prevents a few good players from dominating entire matches because they are competing against much weaker opponents.
The other side of the coin But it looks like this kind of matchmaking can make every round feel like an eSports tournament. This means: If you don’t make an effort, you won’t be able to compete against enemies that are unfairly equally strong. There are no more relaxed rounds, it feels like there are only ranked games in which everyone gives their all.
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Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 officially revealed and this is the reveal trailer
Fans have been complaining about this exact thing for years. This was the case again this year, for example here in this Reddit post:
“Something needs to be done, for the first time in years we have a CoD that has the potential to be GREAT, but SBMM is massively holding it back. […]
The team balancing is also absolutely tragic. My God, it’s never done right, but this year it seems to have gone completely off track.
It just feels impossible to have fun in the game right now.”
This is just one contribution of many. It is an example of the fact that a number of people apparently have a problem with matchmaking in Modern Warfare 3.
But the problem is of course the subjectivity: Has it really gotten worse than in recent years? Of course, this cannot easily be determined (and the appropriate technical data) by how the laps feel. While gaming, we also noticed that SBMM caused frustration more quickly than in its predecessor.
The big question also remains, what is better for the general public: If random combinations ensure that clear, crushing defeats occur again and again, it’s less fun than playing rounds with a narrow outcome. If you are the superior, things will of course look different. It’s all a question of perspective.
An exciting comment on the Reddit post above explains in detail why Activision will probably never remove the system: It obviously pays off massively to do so.
A number of studies and scientific papers are also cited that seem to support the usefulness of SBMM.
What do you think about it? Do you also feel like the SBMM is particularly pronounced this year and how does that affect your enjoyment of the game?
