Activision has just published a document online titled ‘Matchmaking Series: The Role of Skill in Matchmaking’, which blows the lid off SBMM, the much-debated mechanic that’s designed to keep players engaged in Call of Duty for as long as possible. This expansive, revealing document spends 25 pages breaking down the concept of ‘skill’ in the overarching SBMM model, with Activision’s teams confirming what skills are examined by the mechanic.
Oh, and they also revealed a secret experiment that took place to see how players performed with massively lowered levels of SBMM.
Everything is Revealed
In the sizeable document published by Activision, one of the biggest contributors to ‘Skill-Based Matchmaking’ is discussed: Skill.
The opening pages of the document revealed that ‘skill’ is calculated using three criteria:
- Match Total Kills
- Kill / Death Ratio
- Kills / Deaths by Enemy
That last one is clever, as it enables Activision to give you an accurate skill reading regardless of ‘self-killing’ deaths. That means that players can’t ‘break’ SBMM by repeatedly killing themselves to drop their K/D artificially. The team went in-depth about the various tests they’ve performed over the years to continually refine SBMM.
In 2024, Activision performed a secret experiment on Modern Warfare 3, dropping the skill metrics from SBMM for thousands of players to see how it panned out. The test was run for an entire month, during which players would have been matched more ‘randomly’ against competitors. In a report discussing the findings of this experiment, Activision noted that with reduced skill considerations in the SBMM mechanics, 90% of players suffered from a reduced ‘returning player rate’.
Put simply, when lobbies were more randomised and skill wasn’t taken into consideration, players quickly abandoned the game and took long to return. Further, the team tracked an increase in ‘quit rate’ in 80% of all players taking part in the secret test, which is a huge figure. It proves that players get increasingly frustrated when SBMM isn’t as strong as it should be.
Again, Activision pointed out that the first thing the matchmaking process looks for is geolocation, matching players with other gamers that are close to them geographically. Then, the system considers skill, using a player’s percentile rating to match them with closely aligned users. Then, the players’ desired control schemes are considered.
There was an interesting scenario outlined by the team that shows how matchmaking works when you queue with a talented player:
‘Take for instance a party of two players, Alice and Bob, Bob is an average player with 50% skill percentile and Alice is an elite player with 99% skill percentile. If we matchmake them with Bob’s skill, Alice is practically guaranteed to be the best player in every lobby they join, more so than if she played solo. If we matchmake on Alice’s skill, then Bob will likely be the worst player in every lobby they join. Thus, we must match them in the middle such that the worst player gets some opponents of equal footing while minimizing the inherent advantage of the better player.’
Ultimately, this is the deepest dive we’ve ever had into how SBMM works. While it’s understandably being tweaked all the time, the fundamentals have remained the same for years. It’s nothing short of interesting for Call of Duty fans and pro players.
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Activision is full of crap. The only ones not returning are the players that suck when up against regular non cheating players. I play with a group that’s good, but we get lobbies that are way beyond us only because the other players cheat terribly. The ricochet crap Activision uses is trash and it’s barely keeping cheaters out.
I’m curious how many cheaters were in these “tests” vs normal sbmm … Because maybe it’s the hackers and constant lag for no reason that makes ppl quit
This is lovely to have the information expressed nicely like this. Noobs seem glued to the conspiracy that sbmm makes the game sweat fest when what it does is make the matches more realistic.
The problem only comes when the game developer makes it toxic and requires one person who plays consistently very strong carry a whole team of casual players who aren’t nearly concerned about winning and just want to have fun their own way.
This is the exact problem people talk about being a sweat fest. It’s one or two people at best carrying 2-7 people on their team who are either brand new to the game (low rank and play time/xp and everything in between), and one person who is playing their first or second video game in their life and can barely navigate the controller.
I’ve been in try hard matches where I feel bad for the people on my team who are very obviously new to the game because they will tunnel vision run into the middle of the map and get shot from several directions and instadie.
Mean while I’m trying to keep track of weapon respawn timers, enemy team placements, escape routes, and setups, and my teammates are just dying so around me.
People shouldn’t have to go through such a Trainwreck. One strong player sprinkled into a team of casuals, for both teams is NOT game balancing. That is literally a 1v1 with distractions and cattle.
It’s Very sad to see new players rage quit because the best player on the enemy team killed them so hard that they have no faith in enjoying the game anymore. It’s inhumane and extremely toxic.
It might be funny sometimes. But it is never fair.
Just give me a majority team where my teammates are very closely rated in skill as I am and do the same skill level for the other team. That way the new guys get to play with like minded buddies. And the veterans can have fun playing their heart out on their favorite game. It’s not rocket science.