Activision has just released a document online titled “Matchmaking Series: The Role of Skill in Matchmaking,” which unveils SBMM, the highly controversial mechanic designed to keep players engaged in Call of Duty for as long as possible. The comprehensive and revealing document spends 25 pages breaking down the concept of “skill” within the overall 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 drastically reduced SBMM levels.
All is revealed
In the lengthy document released by Activision, one of the biggest contributors to “skill-based matchmaking” is mentioned: Skill.
The first pages of the document reveal that “competence” is calculated using three criteria:
Total number of victims in the match
Kill/death ratio
Killed / Dead by the enemy
This last point is clever, as it allows Activision to give you an accurate reading of skills, regardless of deaths by “self-destruct”. This means that players can’t “break” SBMM by repeatedly killing themselves to artificially lower their K/D. The team has been digging deep into the various tests they’ve done over the years to continually refine SBMM.
In 2024, Activision conducted a secret experiment on Modern Warfare 3, dropping SBMM’s skill metrics for thousands of players to see how it worked. The test was conducted over the course of an entire month, during which players were reportedly matched more “randomly” with competitors. In a report discussing the results of this experiment, Activision noted that with reduced skill considerations in SBMM mechanics, 90% of players suffered from a “reduced player return rate.”
Simply put, when lobbies were more random and skill was not taken into account, players quickly abandoned the game and took a long time to come back. Additionally, the team saw an increase in the “abandonment rate” at 80% of all players participating in the secret test, which is a huge number. This proves that players are becoming increasingly frustrated when SBMM is not as strong as it should be.
Activision has pointed out that the first thing the matchmaking process looks for is geolocation, matching players with other players who are close to them geographically. Next, the system takes into account skill, using a player’s percentile to match them with nearby users. Then, the players’ desired control schemes are taken into account.
The team presented an interesting scenario that shows how matchmaking works when you queue up with a skilled player:
“For example, consider a group of two players, Alice and Bob. Bob is an average player with a skill percentage of 50% and Alice is an elite player with a skill percentage of 99%. If we match them on Bob’s skills, Alice is almost guaranteed to be the best player in every lobby they join, more so than if she were playing solo. If we match them on Alice’s skills, Bob will likely be the worst player in every lobby they join. Thus, we need to match them in the middle such that the worst player has similarly skilled opponents while minimizing the inherent advantage of the best player.”
Ultimately, this is the most in-depth look we’ve ever done at how SBMM works. While it’s naturally constantly being tweaked, the fundamentals have remained the same for years. It’s simply interesting for Call of Duty fans and professional players alike.
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