Sledgehammer Games and Activision’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 appear to have finally been ridden with recent technical glitches that added to players’ frustration. The developers took to social media platform X (formerly Twitter) to update players about the situation. Following the invasion of issues, skill-based matchmaking (SBMM) algorithms suffered and players’ progression was resent to Rank 1.
SBMM allows for fair play by matching players of almost similar ranks in a game. However, it has remained a controversial feature for CoD: Warzone. Matthew “Nadeshot” Haag, founder of esports company 100 Thieves, has called out to Treyarch on dialing back “the difficulty of lobbies” in the past, and there’s not many players that’d argue for SBMM either.
The Game Was Better Off Without SBMM
As SBMM is up and running again, players are realizing they were better off without it as it made the game a bit easier for them. A Redditor dubbed controlled-rage wrote, “With SBMM being disabled this game played so much better.” It is unclear how the experience was for the player, it seems like the user got a lot of kills in the game. Hopefully broke his records.
However, the pleasure was short-lived as he further explains, “Now today with it turned up to intergalactic levels I find myself once again playing one or two games and getting the hell outta there.” He also mentioned engagement-optimized matchmaking (EOMM) which is considered an algorithm focused on player retention. Nonetheless, the user was confused as to how it retains players if the majority of players are quitting the game.
However, it hasn’t been confirmed that Call of Duty uses the algorithm. There have been debates among the community regarding the game using it. Typically, it focuses on keeping engagement high.
A team with a losing streak may find itself against easier opponents in new matches. Sometimes a team may also get a boost to make a comeback in a losing match, just to make sure they play just one more match.
Maybe Call of Duty is Using EOMM
In a study conducted by the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) alongside Electronic Art (EA), they concluded that it solves the optimization efficiently. Researchers also found that EOMM enhances player engagement in contrast to other matchmaking algorithms including SBMM.
A Redditor called CaptainDraquony Loba supported the paper by saying that “we actually live in a state of EOMM more than SBMM.” It remains a mystery whether CoD implies EOMM or not but there surely have been instances when losing teams got a ‘boost’ which ended in the team winning the match eventually.
As far as SBMM is concerned, it remains a core element in its multiplayer without a shadow of a doubt. They even have a dedicated page for players who want to understand the nuts and bolts of the algorithm.
Which would you prefer in CoD games EOMM or SBMM? Do tell us in the comments.
