Wow. Who would’ve thought that Call of Duty’s heavy-handed skill-based matchmaking was ruining the experience for many players?
Over the weekend, Treyarch revealed the genuinely shocking decision that it was adding a new playlist to the Black Ops 7 beta “where skill is minimally considered.” For CoD players, this is about as big an announcement as it gets. The news was met with surprise and a level of excitement I haven’t seen in the community in quite some time.
For the past five years or so, CoD players like me have been complaining about how skill-based match making (SBMM) punishes players for performing well, matching players up against unimaginably sweaty competition after having any modicum of success. In theory, this is put in place as a business decision to protect lower skill players and keep them interested in the game, and in turn, spending money. The complaints from the community have become ever louder of late, though, especially after the first few days of the beta, and so Treyarch acted.
I wasn’t working over the weekend, but I immediately jumped into the Destructoid chat channels to pass along just how big this news was. And then I tried the Open Moshpit “less SBMM” playlist myself and immediately dropped 46 kills against players of varying skill levels. Since then, I’ve been giddy to write this piece.
This is good news. In public matches, skill should not be the most determining factor, and having it toned down has changed the feel of the game completely. In several hours of playing the new playlist, I’ve had a more varied experience than I have in a long time. In some matches I get stomped, but in other matches I do the stomping, and it feels like a crap shoot each time, especially when it comes to the type of players I meet on either team. Most importantly, the connection has been great in each match, and matchmaking times are nearly instant.
This is how it should feel, compared to previous years when I would have a decent match and know immediately that my next round would be against the FaZe B-team. It’s been an exhausting few years as a CoD player and writer who has to play it for my job.
I’m not exaggerating when I say the few days of Open Moshpit are the most fun I’ve had, especially as a solo player, in the last five-plus years of CoD. It needs to stay this way. Rolling things back to the SBMM-heavy sweatfest that we’ve dealt with for years would kill all hype.
While I and most other CoD players are happy with the results of the changes, it’s very frustrating that this is how the series could have felt over the past few years. The oppressive SBMM has been the number one complaint from year to year since 2019’s Modern Warfare, and only now does Activision feel that it’s okay to tone things down.
“We are excited to see the response to today’s Open Moshpit playlist change with classic matchmaking where skill is minimally considered,” Treyarch posted on Saturday. “As a reminder, we’re always listening to our community. As many of you have noted, we continue to prioritize updates (and why we’re making them) based on player feedback. Beta is all about trying things, gathering data, and being a part of the community dialogue.”
That dialogue has been in a healthy spot since Saturday. The most vocal players have been flocking to social media to share their positive experiences, whereas in the first few days of the beta, most of what I saw online were complaints about how sweaty everyone’s matches were.
To its credit, Treyarch has been lightning-quick at deploying changes based on feedback in this beta, but I can’t help but feel like the pressure has been on to finally make the SBMM change this year specifically. It definitely feels like the Battlefield 6-sized elephant in the room, coupled with the mounting anger in the community, has forced this change.
Whatever the actual reason is, I do not care. I just know that CoD hasn’t felt this enjoyable in a long time, and it needs to stay this way. I’m scared of what these implications may mean in the grand scheme on Activision’s end that may force them to reconsider or change things.
But for now, I’m happy, and that’s a feeling that’s been scarce for me in this franchise for a while. Let’s hope this feeling stays when BO7 drops next month.
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The post All CoD needed to become fun again was fixing the exact thing we’ve been complaining about for years, and that’s infuriating appeared first on Destructoid.
