For some players, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is purely a multiplayer game and a serious matter. However, a too rigid focus on one’s K/D and performance can quickly ruin the game.
How do CoD players approach multiplayer? Every player approaches a game a little differently, as is the case with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare:
- There are soldiers who take a more relaxed approach in multiplayer
- but also performance-oriented, competitive players who start every game with a racing pulse.
For some players, the K/D, that is the ratio of kills to deaths, is the most important value in the game and even influences the fun of the game, which can quickly fade after a few rounds with poor results.
Multiplayer titles like CoD need to make it work with their matchmaking to reconcile personal and competitive play styles. Unfortunately, Modern Warfare currently only achieves this to a limited extent.
SBMM influences the difficulty of multiplayer
How does my performance affect the game? There are clear indications of skill-based matchmaking (SBMM) in Modern Warfare compared to a connection-based player search, SBMM focuses on skill statistics.
Examples of performance metrics in CoD:
- K/D ratio
- Points per minute
- Wins/Losses ratio
- Accuracy values
With SBMM, such values then partially determine what type of players you play with. A better performance leads to stronger teammates and thus influences the difficulty of multiplayer.
Thought experiment on balancing
How do the play styles match at SBMM? This type of matchmaking makes sense as players with a similar skill level should face each other.
However, it usually looks different in reality. A too strong focus on performance metrics can quickly turn the game from a fun experience into a serious matter.
A graphic from the Redditor “mrfoster42” contrasts the play styles “Personal” and “Competitive” with the balance of a match.
What does the curve mean? The curve is meant to illustrate the current problem with Modern Warfare’s matchmaking.
The higher the curve, the fairer the game. “mrfoster42” categorizes the matched games into 5 categories:
- Green – The players are at a similar level and have a balanced game, as it should be.
- K/D around 1.00
- Orange – You are stronger than 1.0. Now you play against soldiers who adhere to meta loadouts and play styles. A challenging game at a high level.
- K/D between 1.50 and 2.00
- Red – Here you were clearly too strong. So you face the strongest players, and everyone uses the OP weapons and meta play styles. The soldiers give it their all and are often on another level.
- K/D over 2.00
- Blue – You end up here if you are slightly weaker than average. Now you keep playing with players at a lower level and find your play style. Loadouts are chosen at will.
- K/D between 0.50 and 1.00
- Purple – Games at the lowest level. Here you face “Blind” players.
Doubts about the fairness of matchmaking
Why can matchmaking ruin the game for me? According to “mrfoster42”, these skill areas restrict matchmaking to a very small intersection of players who can play at the same level.
For you can quickly fall below the ideal K/D of 1.0 and out of the “optimal range”.
What mrfoster42 complains about: If you are too good, you deal with players who are significantly better and struggle with your fun in the game. Even at the lower level, opponents are often too easy, making the matches unfair as well.
Another problem is not fully filled lobbies, which occur due to a lack of players at high levels and poor pings when your good connection doesn’t really factor into matchmaking.
What does he want to show with this? The thought experiment aims to highlight that only a relatively small number of players enjoy balanced matches, and thus the multiplayer of CoD has a construction flaw.
A too high K/D can lead to much frustration and ruin the game for good players, but also soldiers below average level hardly have any good matches, he claims.
Developers suspiciously quiet
What do the developers think? The developers have not really made statements regarding matchmaking in Modern Warfare. The community has long requested statements about SBMM, and many are frustrated that the developers are so silent on this matter.
One of the people responsible for the previous CoD: Black Ops 4 made some statements about it on Twitter but was apparently silenced. His tweets have even been deleted now.
What do you think of the matchmaking in Modern Warfare? Do you also have problems with the difficulty of multiplayer?
