The Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 beta has come and gone after two weekends of playtime across PlayStation, Xbox, and PC.
Social media sentiment about the beta ranges across the gamut, but it seems most players are excited about the changes to movement, return of classic maps, fun new weapons, and overall gameplay.
But one of the main issues that CoD-heads are speaking out about in droves today now that the beta is over is one that’s been a constant in the franchise over the past several years, and likely won’t be going away any time soon.
Skill-based matchmaking was felt almost immediately by players who’ve become accustomed to it, especially since Modern Warfare 2019. The system in place, which Activision has never acknowledged publicly, aims to pit players of similar skill levels against each other.
But the result of this is that every match ends up being super-competitive and “sweaty” for even the players who are marginally decent. And the voices were heard in the replies to Sledgehammer Games’ post-beta tweet this afternoon.
“Remove SBMM,” one reply said. Another asked for changes, saying the SBMM is “far too strong.” Another player said, “remove SBMM and this will be game of the year.”
“The game feels great and is really fun,” one CoD-centric account said. “But there is one very big problem and that is the very aggressive SBMM it has. I have lost hair in many games. I can’t test weapons in those games with aggressive SBMM, I have to play with the best if I want to have a chance to do anything.”
The complaints will likely fall on deaf ears. SBMM is tuned to keep players on the game, especially those with lower skill levels because anyone is less likely to play the more they get stomped on. For higher-skill players, this just means that every other match feels like a CDL tryout.
If SBMM wasn’t working, Activision wouldn’t deploy it each year, much less refuse to acknowledge it publicly. So, that likely means the bottom line is seeing a positive effect and SBMM isn’t going anywhere.
