As the Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War Beta went live, Twitter fans started to notice that SBMM was trending. The acronym stands for skill-based matchmaking, and it is a popular and controversial topic among the Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War community.
Some fans weren't happy after they originally learned about SBMM implementation in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. Players took to Reddit, Twitter, and other forms of social media to explain why SBMM had to go from their favorite online shooter. Now, SBMM is in the upcoming Black Ops Cold War, causing fans to take more direct action against the system.
The main issue that upset players have with SBMM is its ability to turn a casual game into a competitive experience. SBMM uses in-game stats to balance player lobbies, so some Black Ops Cold War players decided to fight the system. Thus reverse boosting was born, as players deliberately destroyed their kill to death ratio during a match with the goal of being demoted in SBMM's system. This would place players in competitively easier lobbies, as the system attempts to matchmake everyone with equal skilled opponents.
As reverse boosting became more prominent during the Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War Alpha, fans noticed an extra feature packed into the Beta. Treyarch seems to have tweaked the game in an attempt to prevent any player from instantly killing themselves after a respawn. Several sites noticed that players have become invulnerable to damage after they spawn in, with many players reading this change as an attempt to protect the game's SBMM balance.
There are other changes reinforcing SBMM in response. The Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War Beta community noticed the disbanding lobbies after every match, triggering SBMM more often then a persistent lobby would.
So far, there has been no formal address to fans' concerns over SBMM from Treyarch. One thing fans did learn from Martin Donlon, a Treyarch Developer, is that several previous Call of Duty titles did include the same SBMM system. The only difference in each game is how the developers choose to tune the system itself.
On the bright side, Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War is rumored to be receiving a ranked playlist. This would provide a good battleground for competitive players to really test their skill, leaving the general lobbies free for more casual based playstyles.
Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War is set to release on November 13th for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
Source: Martin Donlon