The matchmaking is partly based on recent performance, so if you have a few good games in a row, it'll start matching you up against sweaties.
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Skill based matchmaking(SBMM) is one of worst things i've seen in online multiplayer(COD MW)
- Thread starter klik
- Start date
The matchmaking is partly based on recent performance, so if you have a few good games in a row, it'll start matching you up against sweaties.
I think a lot of you need to see a doctor with your sweaty problems over a videogame.
Playing it since release and I'm definitely not good at this game, but I never sweat about it. Just play the game. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Also fuck some K/D stats or whatever they bring up. Just have fun. If the game isn't fun anymore for you, move on.
Playing it since release and I'm definitely not good at this game, but I never sweat about it. Just play the game. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Also fuck some K/D stats or whatever they bring up. Just have fun. If the game isn't fun anymore for you, move on.
I didn't realize this had been implemented, but it explains a lot. I haven't played a CoD in a few years and I do appreciably worse than I used to, and I wasn't even very good before. All I ever play is some variant of TDM (objective games in CoD suck because it feels like everyone ignores the objective to pad their K/D). I used to always hover around 1.5 K/D in the long term. I just checked my stats and I am currently sitting at 1.04 at level 53. I had just been chalking it up to me getting old and slow.
It does feel like I'm tighter games more often and I prefer that to frequent blowouts.
It does feel like I'm tighter games more often and I prefer that to frequent blowouts.
This doesn't make sense to me. If you aren't very good you'll be matched with other players who aren't very good. It should be no problem.
When I see comments like this i read: I actually want to win, but I want the people I'm playing against to be much worse than me so the wins come easily.
You are the sweaty guy! Stop putting in so much effort to get the W and your problem will solve itself.
Apex Legends has the additional problem of being a battle royale game. BR games can be quite random and your success may not be based entirely on skill, but because your opponent found better gear or you didn't find your favorite gun or you had bad luck with the circle's placement.
You assume they're sweaty because you are. Maybe you're the scrub getting stomped this time?
I don't play Call of Duty, but the implemented system sounds fair. Why should new players face veterans of the game and get stomped?
If you cherry pick arguments, sure. The biggest problem with the strict SBMM in MW is that it your connection suffers and it forces you to use the meta or lose. With less strict SBMM you can get away with using off-meta loadouts, but not in MW.
If you're looking to have a relaxing match with a game then a tactical fast paced competitive shooter shouldn't be your game of choice. There are plenty of other games for that. It's not fair to other lower skilled players for you to stomp them so you get to relax for a bit.
I appreciate your points and the clear thought you put into this post. I think everything you said is valid.I think as soon as someone brings this up, people just say things like 'oh so you just want to stomp pubs'? and I think that really misses why this approach can be frustrating for some players. It's a big deal that games are pushing more and more in this direction, check any forum surrounding these games and skill based matchmaking (SBMM) is up there as one of the biggest issues the community has with the game.
I'm going to use this thread as an opportunity to talk about SBMM in a bit more detail, so that perhaps we can have a better discussion. First, I think it's important to understand why developers feel SBMM is important, and for the most part, this comes down to engagement, and flow. That is, the idea that players stay engaged for longer if they stay in the 'flow' state, which is dependent on the player being adequately challenged.
In the flow model, high difficulty scenarios for low skilled players see players exit the 'flow' state, and become more likely to disengage from the game, while low difficulty scenarios for highly skilled players see players exit the flow state as they aren't challenged by the game. For players experiencing too much difficulty, it's often expected they become frustrated, for players experiencing too little, they become bored.
So with this model in mind, SBMM makes sense because by ensuring that matches stay at an adequate level of difficulty, players are more likely to stay in the flow state, and therefore stay engaged. For a game driven by MTX, this is a big deal because helps with your long term retention benchmarks, and in turn it benefits your average revenue per user (ARPU).
But, I think there's plenty of issues that provide ample opportunity to argue against the inclusion of SBMM.
- Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's (flow) model is just one model of player immersion in games, and while it can be attributed to player engagement, there are other factors that this model neglects. Perhaps most significantly, another popular theory of motivation (self determination theory, or SDT) describes the significance of compotency. The idea that it's important for players to have a sense that they are developing their skill and getting better at the game. Skill based matchmaking makes those improvements very difficult to see, because you are always playing players of the same skill level. If the system is working well, regardless of how good you get at the the game, you're seeing a consistent level of performance. This is very distinct from a system without SBMM, which would see players performing poorly to begin with, then gradually improving over time. In that sense, I think systems without SBMM are much more analogous to real-world skill acquisition, let's say you play Tennis with a coach, and practice to get better, you have a consistent benchmark there that you can measure yourself against. It doesn't necessarily get better with you, and that helps you see your improvement and feel competent as you play.
- Matches are also just, a lot less varied with skill based matchmaking in place. If we use the card game, MTG as an example, there's some appeal in turning up to a local MTG tournament, not knowing how good everyone is, and then testing your own deck against the various strategies that emerged in your local area. Because it's not explicitely skill based the tournament will see a wide range of players and strategies, and you'll get to see how your deck works in many unusual scenarios. If we scrapped that system and only played MTG with people of the same skill level, what we'd notice is that the gameplay would follow a very solidified meta at each level of play, for players at higher levels, you'd see the same sets of successful decks repeatedly. I think that can be a lot less interesting, at the very least it's nice to have an option to play with everyone.
- Another argument against skill based matchmaking is that it almost always, already exists as a ranked mode, and what people take issue with is not the fact SBMM exists, but the fact that it's actually being duplicated into the unranked playlists. I think that this creates a weird scenario, because if you're good at the game you end up playing super sweaty matches all of the time. There's no space to relax in this system, you're effectively playing ranked in two places, only in one your rank is invisible, and in the other, it isn't.
- A final problem is that it often doesn't work, quite the way you think it does, and for games that prioritise connection speed this can be a huge problem. It's a misconception to think that all forms of SBMM are ensuring that your opponents are each, individually of equal skill to you. In many cases that's not how it works, and what the system is actually doing is simply ensuring that both teams, are equally opposed. While this may sound like a good idea on paper, because these systems often take a wide range of skill levels into each match, it can be very difficult to balance out these games. Significantly, there are far more, very bad players, than there are very good players, so instead of killing your matchmaking times the game will often put you in a lobby with many very bad players, and balance out the lobby by putting the worst players on your squad.
For instance, let's take an MMR based system that has these ratings in a lobby.80002000250030002300100010001000A skill based matchmaking system will often distribute this into two teams, as6000100015001500vs2000300025002000In this match, team 1 (top) win 4 of their matchups against the opposing players, whereas team 2 (bottom) win 9.The problem is, that these matchmatchmaking ratings are not a linear scale, so it's inappropriate to sort the data in this way. Simply put, a player with 6000 MMR is not necessarily worth 3 players of 2000 MMR. They could be worth far more or far less than that numerical distance supposes. Most commonly, this type of system tries to compensate the skill of lesser skilled players, with higher skilled players, and that can lead to very unpleasant experiences for everyone as even if the high skill player can technically win each matchup presented in that lobby each one of his team mates lose every matchup. This ends up actually creating the scenarios that SBMM in theory seeks to avoid with very one sided matches seeing new players getting steamrolled while high skilled players are somehow expected to carry them.Concluding thoughts...I just wanted to put my thoughts out there on this topic as it's very rarely discussed in much depth, and 'you just want to stomp pubs' rhetoric is a little dull. I think there are merits to skill based matchmaking systems but there are also significant disadvantages and risks. Skill based matchmaking can help create balanced matches, but that can impact a sense of skill acquisition and progression over time, and some SBMM implementations can actively create balance issues. On the whole, I'm opposed to SBMM being present across all modes of play and think that a mix of unranked and ranked modes offer a happy middleground.
i also think it's valid to tell people stop crying about facing the same competition everyone else is. Sorry you enjoy the game less now that you're paired with challenging players, but I'm glad people aren't getting obliterated every game to cater to people that don't believe they should have to try.
I think the problem there is that some people can't accept certain parts of SBMM. "But my K/D is ALWAYS above X!" and "But I'm ALWAYS near the top of the leaderboard" doesn't apply anymore. If they want to play relaxed they'll get their ass handed to them for a few matches, then end up with players giving a similar effort. But if they can't accept that fact it isn't going to be fun.
Yeah I do think it needs to use group sbmm ranks more but that'll probably not happen any time soon.
you say you don't want to pubstomp but it sounds like you do, but are fine with occasionally being Pubstomped in exchange.
a more honorable position that most SBMM whiners, but still the same position. You want to be able to give minimal effort for maximum results.
my issue, it was a big reason why destiny frustrated me back. I could play well and dominate when needed, but that takes a lot of focus and I don't always want to be "on it" at all times personally. I don't just want to dominate people all day but I didn't want every match to be super sweaty either since I play ranked and trials for that. Casual modes should be just that. I'm not sure why folks are being gits and assuming everyone just wants to pubstomp all day when it rarely plays out like that. Matchmaking isn't stopping people who actually want to do that from gaming those systems most of the time anyhow.
So when you say you don't want every match to be sweaty, how does this look in practice for you? What does the team composition look like? That you want matches that include lower tier players that you have an edge over?
Calling for casual modes is one thing but most folks are saying SBMM is intrinsically bad because they're matched against equal skill players.
Calling for casual modes is different than dating SBMM is bad.
Surely a 'sweaty' game is the ideal? A game where you feel like you're having an impact and can push for the win if you try your best. Plus, it's only sweaty if you make it so; if you don't mind a low-table result (or a loss in a team game) then you can just keep playing casually.
I think the problem is that people get super bummed-out on a mental level by a loss, even if it doesn't affect anything and will actually give them what they want as they'll be placed in games with lower-skilled players in the future.
I think the problem is that people get super bummed-out on a mental level by a loss, even if it doesn't affect anything and will actually give them what they want as they'll be placed in games with lower-skilled players in the future.
I get being concerned about connection speed not being prioritized. But this sweaty talk reeks of just wanting to stomp newbs.
As an aside, I'm shocked there is a SBMM system that works well enough to provoke this complaint.
As an aside, I'm shocked there is a SBMM system that works well enough to provoke this complaint.
I think as soon as someone brings this up, people just say things like 'oh so you just want to stomp pubs'? and I think that really misses why this approach can be frustrating for some players. It's a big deal that games are pushing more and more in this direction, check any forum surrounding these games and skill based matchmaking (SBMM) is up there as one of the biggest issues the community has with the game.
I'm going to use this thread as an opportunity to talk about SBMM in a bit more detail, so that perhaps we can have a better discussion. First, I think it's important to understand why developers feel SBMM is important, and for the most part, this comes down to engagement, and flow. That is, the idea that players stay engaged for longer if they stay in the 'flow' state, which is dependent on the player being adequately challenged.
In the flow model, high difficulty scenarios for low skilled players see players exit the 'flow' state, and become more likely to disengage from the game, while low difficulty scenarios for highly skilled players see players exit the flow state as they aren't challenged by the game. For players experiencing too much difficulty, it's often expected they become frustrated, for players experiencing too little, they become bored.
So with this model in mind, SBMM makes sense because by ensuring that matches stay at an adequate level of difficulty, players are more likely to stay in the flow state, and therefore stay engaged. For a game driven by MTX, this is a big deal because helps with your long term retention benchmarks, and in turn it benefits your average revenue per user (ARPU).
But, I think there's plenty of issues that provide ample opportunity to argue against the inclusion of SBMM.
- Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's (flow) model is just one model of player immersion in games, and while it can be attributed to player engagement, there are other factors that this model neglects. Perhaps most significantly, another popular theory of motivation (self determination theory, or SDT) describes the significance of compotency. The idea that it's important for players to have a sense that they are developing their skill and getting better at the game. Skill based matchmaking makes those improvements very difficult to see, because you are always playing players of the same skill level. If the system is working well, regardless of how good you get at the the game, you're seeing a consistent level of performance. This is very distinct from a system without SBMM, which would see players performing poorly to begin with, then gradually improving over time. In that sense, I think systems without SBMM are much more analogous to real-world skill acquisition, let's say you play Tennis with a coach, and practice to get better, you have a consistent benchmark there that you can measure yourself against. It doesn't necessarily get better with you, and that helps you see your improvement and feel competent as you play.
- Matches are also just, a lot less varied with skill based matchmaking in place. If we use the card game, MTG as an example, there's some appeal in turning up to a local MTG tournament, not knowing how good everyone is, and then testing your own deck against the various strategies that emerged in your local area. Because it's not explicitely skill based the tournament will see a wide range of players and strategies, and you'll get to see how your deck works in many unusual scenarios. If we scrapped that system and only played MTG with people of the same skill level, what we'd notice is that the gameplay would follow a very solidified meta at each level of play, for players at higher levels, you'd see the same sets of successful decks repeatedly. I think that can be a lot less interesting, at the very least it's nice to have an option to play with everyone.
- Another argument against skill based matchmaking is that it almost always, already exists as a ranked mode, and what people take issue with is not the fact SBMM exists, but the fact that it's actually being duplicated into the unranked playlists. I think that this creates a weird scenario, because if you're good at the game you end up playing super sweaty matches all of the time. There's no space to relax in this system, you're effectively playing ranked in two places, only in one your rank is invisible, and in the other, it isn't.
- A final problem is that it often doesn't work, quite the way you think it does, and for games that prioritise connection speed this can be a huge problem. It's a misconception to think that all forms of SBMM are ensuring that your opponents are each, individually of equal skill to you. In many cases that's not how it works, and what the system is actually doing is simply ensuring that both teams, are equally opposed. While this may sound like a good idea on paper, because these systems often take a wide range of skill levels into each match, it can be very difficult to balance out these games. Significantly, there are far more, very bad players, than there are very good players, so instead of killing your matchmaking times the game will often put you in a lobby with many very bad players, and balance out the lobby by putting the worst players on your squad.
For instance, let's take an MMR based system that has these ratings in a lobby.80002000250030002300100010001000A skill based matchmaking system will often distribute this into two teams, as6000100015001500vs2000300025002000In this match, team 1 (top) win 4 of their matchups against the opposing players, whereas team 2 (bottom) win 9.The problem is, that these matchmatchmaking ratings are not a linear scale, so it's inappropriate to sort the data in this way. Simply put, a player with 6000 MMR is not necessarily worth 3 players of 2000 MMR. They could be worth far more or far less than that numerical distance supposes. Most commonly, this type of system tries to compensate the skill of lesser skilled players, with higher skilled players, and that can lead to very unpleasant experiences for everyone as even if the high skill player can technically win each matchup presented in that lobby each one of his team mates lose every matchup. This ends up actually creating the scenarios that SBMM in theory seeks to avoid with very one sided matches seeing new players getting steamrolled while high skilled players are somehow expected to carry them.Concluding thoughts...I just wanted to put my thoughts out there on this topic as it's very rarely discussed in much depth, and 'you just want to stomp pubs' rhetoric is a little dull. I think there are merits to skill based matchmaking systems but there are also significant disadvantages and risks. Skill based matchmaking can help create balanced matches, but that can impact a sense of skill acquisition and progression over time, and some SBMM implementations can actively create balance issues. On the whole, I'm opposed to SBMM being present across all modes of play and think that a mix of unranked and ranked modes offer a happy middleground.
This explanation is very easy to understand, very good right up. I definitely see the merits in SBMM but your points about what it doesn't do well are real issues that need solving in my opinion.
My personal feeling is that the "getting better" feeling is the absolute most important one in the whole bunch and the one that keeps me personally engaged. That being said certain games of Overwatch that were perfectly balanced have been some of the most compelling experiences in gaming. But on the flip side sometimes I will lose so badly that I have not one idea what I could have done differently (especially in a game about hero choice and matchups) where I fret about maybe it was my character when it was really a mismatch like described in the 6000vs2000 or maybe it's not and it really was my character being the problem. But it's basically impossible to know for sure hence the problem.
Love how folks are ignoring the point about trying to play with others as well.
Seriously, the friends I play with or little cousins or brother(14) need to just get good? I can't play with my little brother right now because it's damn near impossible for him to get through a game. I've been playing COD for at LEAST the last decade. I don't expect him to have the kind of map/cod knowledge or experience I have in the game, and for those reasons I don't complain. I honestly don't care because the stats. They mean nothing at the end of the day. No ones checking my Black Ops K/d and saying "Yoooo ur a beast" now-a-days. Also, that experience alone keeps me playing against the better players majority of the time, which is fine. God forbid I want to play with him though. He joins my party and the difficulty level spikes for him just because he's playing with me. Having to watch him go 0-30 in Domination because we're in the same party isn't exactly fun for him and because folks want that change doesn't mean they want to pubstomp.
Seriously, the friends I play with or little cousins or brother(14) need to just get good? I can't play with my little brother right now because it's damn near impossible for him to get through a game. I've been playing COD for at LEAST the last decade. I don't expect him to have the kind of map/cod knowledge or experience I have in the game, and for those reasons I don't complain. I honestly don't care because the stats. They mean nothing at the end of the day. No ones checking my Black Ops K/d and saying "Yoooo ur a beast" now-a-days. Also, that experience alone keeps me playing against the better players majority of the time, which is fine. God forbid I want to play with him though. He joins my party and the difficulty level spikes for him just because he's playing with me. Having to watch him go 0-30 in Domination because we're in the same party isn't exactly fun for him and because folks want that change doesn't mean they want to pubstomp.
What a horrible reply. Now I'm not allowed to do good? "Pubstomping" in your words apparently is doing good?
It looks like an official ranked mode and a separate casual mode that's random. Sometimes things are in my favor, sometimes they're not. No need to get any deeper than that. Either way, Some of you guys are being ridiculously obtuse. Growing up, I played basketball. There's a large difference in effort and focus between playing an official game and a street game with randoms and I don't want to put as much effort into a casual game as I did into an official game. That's all. Don't have to agree, but don't put words in my mouth or make assumptions. In the grand scheme of things I'd lie about, it wouldn't be about simply wanting to dominate bad destiny players all day. In general, some of you are overly focused on pubstomping as if each and every one of us is a pro gamer on the side.
I like Splatoon's setup. There's a ranked mode where each game mode has its own rank and there's an unranked mode where player level tells you how much somebody has played but not really how good they are. I have games where I destroy the competition and games where I'm destroyed. And then there's a League mode where you and friends play together and it ranks your team based on performance that day.
Nothing worse than skill based matchmaking in Overwatch because it also throws your overall levels into the mix. I'm not even talking about competitive I'm talking about quick play and arcade. You are thrown in as a savior to carry people on your back as smurfs throw the entire system off and basically run over the new players and old players as you try to save this clusterfuck of a match. Quick play requires more skill and effort than competitive matches.
Do you really not see the other side here? What would happen if when a highly skilled player partied with a newb, they were put into a low skill game? Pub stomp and a shitty experience for the entire enemy team.
I saw it too. I think, as a bad player,that the SBMM did good to Apex Legends. At least it doesnt pair me with Apex Predator or Platinum player that destroys me and the gunfights seems more fair now
If you use off meta and lose, shouldn't SBMM bump you back down? What is wrong with that?
Bad connection would be a legit issue but the other arguments against SBMM don't really hold up for me. I haven't played MW yet , but this argument comes up in Splatoon a lot where it gets annoying when low power X rank players get match up with high power X rank players. It's usually a high X paired with 3 low on one team, and the high player has to go all out just to be screwed on points even if they win. If they lose they get severely punished, if they win they get no points for a reward. Better to match make with similar skill levels, so win or lose it is fair for all points wise and the games generally play out better.
Splatoon is definitely not perfect once you hit X for ranked. I do like the Rank, League, Turf split though.
I will never for the life of me understand why people complain about devs trying to make a game as fair and balanced as possible, instead of mist games being a one-sided trashing where one team just stomps all over the enemy.
Worst thing being when you allow full pre-made teams to run amok over random matchmade teams (looking at you, Destiny...).
Worst thing being when you allow full pre-made teams to run amok over random matchmade teams (looking at you, Destiny...).
The whole idea with SBMM is that things won't be anyone's 'favor' because they now have a system to make that relatively fair with hundreds or thousands of players - not something you can do with a pickup street game of basketball with randos. With SBMM casual games - at no point is anyone forcing you to put anymore effort then you want to which is where I don't understand where you original concern comes from.
And I wasn't putting words in your mouth. Just asking questions (which you didn't touch on). Is your idea of a 'casual' mode just forcing matchmaking to cast a wider net of players of differing skill levels? Shouldn't 'casual' be players making their choice of whether they would like to play casually or not instead of forcing it onto them?
They can't accept that someone is on the other end of that 1.5 K/D routinely getting stomped by players much better than them. And they've deluded themselves into believing that this person is having a good time
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This is inevitably what I don't understand it's not ok for you to struggle to win but its perfectly ok for you to put others through that same frustration?
And we are done here. People don't understand how good they are at the game until they begin to play with people just as good as they are. This is literally every argument against SBMM.
They make that choice when they select casual from the menu, same as the rest of us. If anything, I'm a casual player. I barely get to play multiplayer anymore, so not sure why we're behaving as if it's pro players vs casual. Regarding questions I didn't touch on, nothing personal, it's simply not that serious a matter for me to think about comps in a game I played years ago while trying to get a bathroom break in before work starts and read that other topic about the knights of ren backstories lol.
I can't wrap my head around this.
How is it a problem that your opponents improve as you do, and why wouldn't you want an even playing field?
I mean, why crave the competitive nature of sports if your desire is to relax.
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I'm fine with SBMM at some level but I just think it's too strict in MW.
It's to strict. One of my friends who got the game on Christmas who has never been good at CoD joins my games just gets melted every time. They should just get rid of SBMM or take him into consideration and matches us up with people at his skill level and my as well. If they did that the game could get better.
Huh. Never even knew about this.
So this is perhaps why when I party up with my bud (who is all about this game and plays nothing else) I have a hell of a time performing even halfway decent?
It has felt very lopsided at times and I even said to him jokingly I can't compete with people who play the game for eight hours a day.
I've also done pretty well at times, too. Perhaps it's getting me to play better quicker, but there have been frustrations for sure.
Guess I should try a few matches on my own and see how it feels.
So this is perhaps why when I party up with my bud (who is all about this game and plays nothing else) I have a hell of a time performing even halfway decent?
It has felt very lopsided at times and I even said to him jokingly I can't compete with people who play the game for eight hours a day.
I've also done pretty well at times, too. Perhaps it's getting me to play better quicker, but there have been frustrations for sure.
Guess I should try a few matches on my own and see how it feels.
I've only played like 2 hours of MW cause it was garbage, but doesn't it have ranked/social playlists? Why would the ranking system be active in social playlists if so?
Tbf, every time an Infinity Ward game comes around, I have to remember to slow down my playstyle. If I try the run-and-gun shit I do in the Treyarch and Sledgehammer games, I end up getting absolutely destroyed. If I take it down a notch or two and don't go charging through rooms and around corners, I do much better. MW was no different.
On topic, if I remember correctly, SBMM has been a thing people have been complaining about since at least Advanced Warfare. Why is it suddenly coming up now as if it's new to the series?
The problem is, both high skill and low skill people would be playing a casual mode. How do you do the matchmaking then? If you pair the high skill against the low skill group, it's a bad experience for the low skill people. If you pair equal skill to equal skill, it's not very casual. The only scenario where a casual mode as you describe it makes sense is where there are people worse than you for you to clown on. Which means it will be a poor experience for those people. Matchmaking is a zero sum game.
I don't think a 'sweaty' game is the ideal.
Being able to play relaxed and still feel like the rewards of gameplay are within reach is what other Call of Duty games have achieved. You could 'sweat' your way to getting past challenges, but you would hop on the treadmill then hop off.
With Modern Warfare it feels like if I want to have access to killstreaks and doing well in a match the speed of the treadmill goes up. Then I'm also playing against other players who are using every advantage to get those gameplay rewards, because they're constantly placed at the extent of your ability.
You don't have to be on the edge of your seat every game. Feel free to have fun and try different load outs and when you do badly after a few games it'll put you into a lower skill bracket.
In terms of K/D as well, who care about keeping it up? Unless you're at the very top or very bottom, the game will always try to keep you around a 1.0 anyways since you're facing equally skilled players. So you really don't have e to play sweaty if you don't want to. You could play like ass and be put into a lower bracket and still be 1.0 K/D.
Messing up parties is the best reason I've heard to reduce the SBMM though.
In terms of K/D as well, who care about keeping it up? Unless you're at the very top or very bottom, the game will always try to keep you around a 1.0 anyways since you're facing equally skilled players. So you really don't have e to play sweaty if you don't want to. You could play like ass and be put into a lower bracket and still be 1.0 K/D.
Messing up parties is the best reason I've heard to reduce the SBMM though.
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For the people complaining about not being able to play with their "lower skill" brother...if the game brought you to their skill level how do you think everyone else in the game will feel when you go 50 and 5 against them? I'm sure it will feel real relaxed for them. Honestly, this has hands down been the best multiplayer COD game in a long while...rarely feels too unfair...
This was a very strong post, hopefully the narrow minded posters in this thread won't continue to glaze over it so they can keep dropping their shit posts.
I kept these two bullets as they are the most relevant to my feelings on the game. Personally, I am a competitive player and I mostly play online fps games. Accordingly, I tend to be an above average player, and I end up in the higher ranks of whatever shooters I tend to play. I enjoy a good competitive match, and I find MW's sbmm to be pretty decent in that it gives me pretty decent teams, unlike BLOPS 3 and 4 which constantly gave me team mates that would go 1-20 every match. For that reason I'd also put MW's form of sbmm over Apex's, which is so unpleasant that I've dropped the game (even though it is still my GOTY).
But the sbmm in MW completely ruins party-play. It's nearly impossible to play the game with a group of people if you have different skill levels, as the game only seems to matchmake based on the highest tiered player. One of my buddies I play with is quite good at fps games, he's only a small step down from my skill level, yet he has to deal with getting obliterated after the first 3 matches of any session we'll have. This problem only gets worse when you start adding other players in with a lower skill level, such as my other friend's younger brother who just got the game and can't play with us unless he wants to go 1-20 all night. The days where you could get all of your friends into party and have hours of fun are dead.
Now while I think the sbmm makes for a solid experience when playing solo, there just isn't a strong enough reason why we can't have a ranked playlist with a strict sbmm, and a casual playlist with a looser sbmm. Why shouldn't we have the choice for determining what kind of experience we're looking for? For example, if I play Rainbow 6 Siege I can choose between a casual playlist and a ranked playlist. If I just want to relax then maybe I'll play the casual playlist, because there people play more recklessly and I don't have to worry about being on top of absolutely everything. If I want something more serious, and I'm looking to really play the game then I choose ranked. Both playlists have sbmm, but the sbmm helps ensure that I'll have balanced matches for the different type of experience that I'm looking for.
If the goal of sbmm was to make MW a more competitive experience, the I feel like that would be better served by just implementing a CDL playlist and actually having it ready to go within a month of. The beauty of CDL is that it fosters a more balanced version of the game by banning overpowered weapons/attachments, perks, and items, choosing the most competitive maps and modes, assigning visible ranks to players, and all around making the game into a better fit for competitive play. Strict sbmm can make the game boring when you just end up in lobbies where everyone is exclusively running the god guns of the game (MP5 and M4). Personally, I think the only reason why we're not getting a CDL or visible ranks is to help fuel the microtransactions. If average players get to stick with average players then they'll probably have a decent time, and might be more tempted to drop $20 for a single outfit. If that's the reason then I suppose that's that, but if they genuinely cared about the game more competitive then they would just make a CDL playlist. Ranked modes tend to become the main playlist of whatever game has them (like R6, or Overwatch), and they also are the playlists that anyone looking to flaunt their skill play in. Streamers who play R6 or Overwatch spend their time in the ranked playlists, they don't waste their time in casual unless they're warming up. Why flaunt your K/D when you can just drop how you're the top #226 in NA on PS4? CoD can offer the same experience, but building a more competitive game just isn't the real goal.